The age-herald., 1900-01-04
NTNETY>NINE YEARS
 AND A LOOK AHEAD
lrom the PhIladelphia rlmes.

looks back over the era that is closing and forward to tlhe one that is soon to begin.
 Things and conditions that were existent January l. 1890, do indeed strike strange on our senses now;
 John Adams, president of the United States-head of five million people, inhab- iting country bounded by the Atlantic on the east, Florida on the south, the Mis- sissippi on the west and the British pos sessions on the north, with a budget of national receipts and expenditures amount fns to oae-tenth of that of the present city Of New York
 His Majesty, George mI., king of Great Britain. France and Ireland. Defender of the Faith" and ruler of the northern part of North America, of a few factories 'lae west coast of Africa, of a fringe of coast in Iadia. of some scattered settle ments in Australia, and of an assortment of islands in various parts of the world.
 Napoleon Boneparte, First Consul of Lhe French Republic One and Indivisible. pre- earious,y balancing between ruin and om- impotence, and preparing to establish ? s fortunes by ene lightning stroke of Ma rengo.
 Francis IT., Emperor of the Romans. semper Augustus last occupant of tse throne of the Caesars. pitifully awaiting not merely the end of the century. but the end of the most ancient institution of Eu- rope.
 Frederick William H., King of Prussia, feebly holding the deeaying seeptre of Frederick the Great.
 Paul, Emperor of Russia the haif-fnsane master of a country not yet recognized IS the greatest European power but stl pos sessed of a mass of contiguous terr.sory that overshadowed every other land of tha old world.
 Charles ", king of Spain, the helpless lord of the vastest empire on earth, ruler of a dominion stretching without u break from the territories of the Huas5n's Bay company to the Straits of Magellan. mon arch of the entire Gircula of the Gulf of Mexico, sovereign of Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines, and servant of his wife's lover.
 Maria l., queen Of Portugal the crazy mistress of Brazil of great stretches of African coast and domains in India, tot tering on the verge of ruin she could not understand
 These were the powers that divided the
 
 the people?
 Well, the people hundred years ago were in most of the essentials of civiliza. tion contemporaries of Julius Caesar. Their means of transportation were more primi- tive than in Caealrs time. They were just beginning to learn some Of the chemical ard physical properties Of matter, but they knew nothing of the great jaw of evolu- tipr, tl.tat 41.. ture. They still read by uaflle light and most of the work of the world was done by the muscles of men and horses instead of by mechanical power In politics there were no free governments of consequence except those of the United States and Eng land.
 In hundred years the world has made more material progress than in all the thir- ty centuries before since Homer We can travel at seventy miles an hour now in- stead of six. In 1S0O a man in Boston who wanted an interview with one in Philadel- phla would have had to go himself, and the journey would have uaken a month Now he dispatches the business over the telephone in five minutes
 The nineteenth century has given us the railroad, the steamship, the telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, the perfecting press, the photograph the sewing machine the reaper and mower, the perfected fac tory system, the armored warship, the high-powered gun, the torpedo, the elec- tric transmission of power the trolley car, the electric light, the compulsory military systems of Europe and the trust Imag- inc the society of today deprived of these things, and try to picture what would be left.
 The twentieth century will probably wit ness the end of war. It will see all the bar barous races of the world civilized. It will know all about the poles, and such other corners of the earth as still remain unex- plored. It may see all current languages reduced to two-English and Russian-and possibly to one, the English. Every vil- lage on the globe will be in instantaneous telephonic communication with every oth- CT. The powers of the wind, the sea, the rivers and the sun will be cheated so that the air will no longer be found with smoke, for which men have worn out their lives in coal mines The deserts will be the seats of vast manufacturing enterprises carried on by electric power developed directly from solar heat With the world for an audience and every grown-up human being reader, popuar authors will be the pluto crats of the time.
 And with their mastery of nature the men of the twentieth century will learn how to master themselves. They will solve the social problem They will bring the organization of society, inherited from an age of hand labor and individual produc- ton, into harmony with system of con- centrated production based on natural forces. They will secure that fair relation between services and earnings for which the transitional nineteenth century has been blindly striving.
 It is something to have lived in the strenuous age that is passing away. but we turn from it gladly to welcome the golden time that is coming.
 THE WORD OF GOD By Edwin Markham