Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1902-01-13

the twentieth century-has been
"a record breaker in many d.
rections.
It has witnessed the expansion OF
American commerce TO point beyond
that reached by any other nation IN the
world. The history of mankind shows
no such enormous trading and stupen-
dous accommodating of wealth by any
people since the world began. our
bank clearings are nothing short OF the
fabulous and other indices of CONNER
cial activity and national prosperity
are equally amazing.
The year records also the completion
of the great Siberian railway and the
inauguration of other great enterprises
for international transportation ana
communication which will work
nightly for the progress and enlight-
eminent of the race. All the pulsations
of human brotherhood must be quick
ened by these instruments which tend
to make the whole world feel akin
But If the year had shown an In
creasing material prosperity only, the
record would have beeen an exhibit or
very doubtful profit. Men and nations
may easily become the slaves of their
own accommodations. One may see any
day he looks for them numbers Of men
their business than they are owners OF
it.. They are mustered by mammon.
Such a condition is always an evidence
of moral decay. which foreshadows
material decline as well; for material
prosperity can not long survive IL 1t
spring not from a rich moERl life. So
true Is IL that man shall not live by
bread alone nature has decreed that
the men and nations who forget the
higher things IN becoming mere bread
winners shall not have even bread.
The area of greatest human prosperity
is always exactly confined to the map
of greatest human enlightenment and
morality.
If, therefore, the people of the United
States had done nothing but get gains
during the year just closed. we should
have little for which to rejoice and
much to make US apprehensive for the
future. But more than any former
year in our national history the
twelve month just closed has been
characterized by great benevolence.
Gifts to maintain every sort of scheme
to ameliorate human suffering and
remedy human sin have been poured
forth. every day
Gifts to higher education have ex-
ceeded anything of the kind in any
other land or age. The Chicago Tri-
bune. which makes a speciality OF
keeping a record of great gifts to edu-
cation. saws that during the present
wear l49 institutions of learning have
been given sums ranging from 5000 to
millions" and that 1.-THE total to date
foots up $S1. 415, 220!'
Mrs. Leland Stanford gave recently
SsOG00, 600 to the Leland Stanford uni
versity. making in a state, which six
ty years ago was almost uninhabited,
the richest institution of learning in
the United States. II not the richest in
the world
About the same time Mr.. Carnegie
offered $4,000 600 to found at Washing
ton a great university which is not to
compete with other colleges and uni
versities, but is to be post-gradu-
ate institution. where men who have
already completed the courses that
other colleges have to offer can go TO
pursue original investigation.
These great gifts have been called
'princely gifts TO education" but the
word "princely' is wholly inadequate
to describe them. If any prince has
ever done anything so great he has
been marvelously successful in keep
ing the record of his deed out OF his
tory. Because such giving is unprece-
dented men have no word to describe
It, and the bare record of 1t must be
highest praise.
But these great gifts do not stand
alone. Since 1860 there has been in the
United States an unbroken succession
of gifts to higher education that con-
stitute an educational era absolutely
without parallel in the annals of men.
1t is an epoch not yet closed, and there
Is every reason to believe its brightest
chapters are yet TO be written. The
golden deeds of Mrs. Stanford and Mr..
Carnegie are not the best we shall see,
great as they are. Some may doubt
the correctness of this prediction, but
it is made deliberately and with per-
feet confidence.
Is it accidental that this marvellous
outburst of benevolence is simultan-
eous with the construction Of the
world-embracing, planet-compacting
highways by land and sea? Or Is
there working over all these things
and through them all great over
shadowing and over-mastering Per-
sonality, having before him a great
plan of which these gifts and nigh
ways are but parts and bringing near
that divine event to which the whole
creation moves?'' He who believes in
Providence cannot doubt that these
mighty forces are ordered by divine
intelligence and a divine benevolence,
and that as regiments and divisions or
one great army they are advancing
under a common impulse, mutually
supporting each other, and they Will
eventually unite in the noblest victory
ever achieved on earth.
If the multiplied millions by tnterna-
tional highways that inhabit pagan
lands were brought near TO and then
projected upon the comparatively small
numbers in Christian lands in advance
of the most perfect equipment OF the
institutions OF learning and religion In
Christendom. we should have repeated
a period like the dark ages. and worse.
when me forces of barbarism over
powered the influences of Roman civ
ilization with it's paraIytic Christianity,
coniunctions were brought to pass
which put all Europe in eclipse for
centuries The Christian world dare
not try a similar experiment on
worldwide scale. The Eruption of the
Chinese alone if not met by lights too
lofty and too firmly fixed to be extin-
guished would be sufficient to plunge
the world into darkness in which the
fiercest conflicts would arise, and under
cover OF which nations would resort