Year: 1879

There are many good people who,
when they have nothing else in particu-
ular to worry over or to groan about,
spend their surplus energy in bowling
that the world is growing worse. Some
times they compare the world of to-day
with what it was when they were chill
dren. Sometimes they go step further
back and draw the comparison with the
good old days of their fathers or grand
fathers. Now, the fact is, that the
world is at least as good as it has ever
been, and perhaps better. There is more
life, more enlightenment, more sound
morality and more real religion. AS to
education, we are far in advance of the
attainments of our forefathers. Admit
ting that a great deal of Tho en4e-->-:~>-
Of to-day is favored with badness, we
still have enough that is both enterpris-
ing and commendable to place US far
above past generations. We might be
bette, than we are. We might have
fewer crimes to report. 1t would be
delightful if every newspaper column
devoted to the chronicling of crime,
were occupied with the story of some
good deed. We have not vet reached
that happy state of affairs. If the his
tory of the day is more largely made up
of tales Of wickedness than we would
like to have it, we may console ourselves
by reference to the history of past ages,
which was nearly all made up of narra-
tions of crime and casualty, and we
must remember that in former days,
owing to the exceedingly meagre facili-
ties for reporting and publishing, the
public were made acquainted with only
small proportion of the crimes which
were committed. Had newspapers been
published in the days of Cain or MINI
rod, or Nebuchadnezzar, or Julius Caesar,
or Nero, or Henry the Will, their
police report" department would have
crowded out all the editorials and most
of the advertisements. Referring to the
groaners over evil times, the "Christian
Union" says: "There is not a new crime
in the calendar; politicians have not
recently become dishonest, nor private
integrity spotted. Fifty years back
bring us to the most bitter denunciations
of all this, and the most doleful compar-
isons with the good old times. This
may only prove that we are lower than
we were then but may it not prove, in
stead, that lamentation was mistaken
ehen 'es-- - . n, th~-Atha~ hand
if it is urged that the world is growing
worse now, that is venturing into proph-
ecy. The temporary effect of tremen-
dous and aceumulating changes in the
last forty years must not be overlooked
They have transformed the geographical
distribution the business methods, the
domestic life, and nearly all the condi


tions of civilized existence. We are moi
even born the same men and women a;
those of 1910; even nature IS changed
in her relations to US, and only her visi


BILE aspect is as then. So we develop tot
rapidly and crudely; by over haste w
trip into commercial crises we squande


material resources, sink capital aud sub
ject every party of our natures to un
wonted stains. Turn over a fat ston,
in the field and insects scatter in dis
turbance; if, in the providence of God
our intenser life and our discoveries o
science and invention have let in ligh


so fast as to dazzle our eyes, what won
der that We are temporarily confused ant
stumble into moral by-paths +? In tim


these new conditions will adjust them


selves. The comparative faults of to


day. And, even if we cannot see tha


the world is growing better, reason unit


ed with faith is denying this fact to b


proof that it is growing worse