SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 231 



Again, there are those who believe that the study of nature and nature's 

 laws, as embodied in the physical universe has accomplished the most in the 

 development of culture. To them, comfort has been almost the synonym of 

 culture. The man who made a tool to dig the soil, to fell the tree and shape 

 it, to forge the iron, to build the home, and to make other tools for use and 

 defense, was a greater benefactor than Homer or Phidias, or the long line of 

 poets, artists, orators or logicians. A man with a comfortable home and cloth- 

 ing and certain and abundant food, has, in the estimation of these philosophers, 

 made greater strides toward civilization than from all other causes combined. 

 There is much force in the claim, for a song is but poor satisfaction to a hun- 

 gry stomach, and there can be but little room for culture in a life devoted to a 

 perpetual struggle against famine and cold. The highest culture can come 

 only to those independent of the elements, to those who have the leisure which 

 follows resources temporal and intellectual. 



Again, the claim is made that the chief source of the world's civilization is 

 in commerce, and by this is meant not only the exchange of commodities but 

 the mingling of men in the many relations of society, the attrition of mind 

 with mind, the comparison and satisfaction of wants, the desire for social 

 intercourse, the necessary adjustment of conflicting interests, from which are 

 expended laws, customs and good Older. This claim is founded largely upon 

 the fact that culture, as understood by the publicists generally, is rarely found 

 in sparsely settled or isolated communities; that it is most highly developed in 

 the cities rather than in the country, and in those nations only as are largely 

 the sources of, or are on the highway of the world's traffic. The man who has 

 wants seeks the man who can satisfy them. The mutual relation is of advan- 

 tage to both. Each is the debtor of the other and each seeks to conciliate and 

 accommodate the other. This dependence upon one another ameliorates the 

 condition and character of both. A bargain is a long step in advance of 

 rapine. A contract is the seed wheat of civilized society. It implies good 

 faith, honesty, ability to perform, and industry and exertion to fill the obliga- 

 tion. Out of it grow credit, public and private enterprise, fixed purpose, and a 

 staple condition of affairs. Confidence fills the sails of every sea and runs the 

 busy wheels of the world's industries. This is in truth good soil for culture. 



Another source of the highest culture is in the religious sentiment. It is 

 the pastime of some publicists to fling their sarcasms at the church and to 

 charge many of the ills of society upon the false conceptions of religious 

 thought. He is a narrow minded man who ignores the powerful influence for 

 good that has been swayed by the ministers of Divine faith and by the restraints 

 and the promptings and the hopes of religious belief. 



There is a wide distinction to be drawn between the wrongs perpetrated in 

 the name of religion and the influence of religion itself. What fearful wrongs 

 have been committed in the name of liberty! Would it be wise to stifle its 

 aspirations because anarchy has stolen the banner which has led the hosts of 

 men in so many contests for freedom? Demagogues and fanatics never grow in 

 sterile soil. Like weeds and tares they riot the most where the good grows the 

 best. Underlying all and dominating all the most permanent advance man 

 has made has been when in the line of religious sentiment, the most stable 

 because anchored to the throne of the Almighty, the most refining because it 

 walks in the way of Divine love, the most free because it is in the bonds of 

 personal responsibility. 



Culture and good taste are companions. How incongruous many things in 



