CHAP. xxi. CONCLUSION. 379 



pleasures and aesthetic enjoyments, we have yet so sin- 

 fully mismanaged our social economy as to give unprec- 

 edented and injurious luxury to the few, while millions 

 are compelled to suffer a lifelong deficiency of the barest 

 necessaries for a healthy existence. Instead of devot- 

 ing the highest powers of our greatest men to remedy 

 these evils, we see the governments of the most advanced 

 nations arming their people to the teeth, and expending 

 much of their wealth and all the resources of their 

 science, in preparation for tlie destruction of life, of 

 property, and of happiness. 



With ample knowledge of the sources of health, we 

 allow, and even compel, the bulk of our population to 

 live and work under conditions which greatly shorten 

 life; while every year we see from 50,000 to 100,000 in- 

 fants done to death by our criminal neglect. 



In our mad race for wealth, we have made gold more 

 sacred than human life; we have made life so hard for 

 the many that suicide and insanity and crime are alike 

 increasing. With all our labor-saving machinery and 

 all our command over the forces of nature, the struggle 

 for existence has become more fierce than ever before; 

 and year by year an ever-increasing proportion of our 

 people sink into paupers' graves. 



Even more degrading, and more terrible in its conse- 

 quences, is the unblushing selfishness of the greatest 

 civilized nations. While boasting of their military 

 power, and loudly proclaiming their Christianity, not 

 one of them has raised a finger to save a Christian people, 

 the remnant of an ancient civilization, from the most 

 barbarous persecution, torture, and wholesale massacre. 

 A hundred thousand Armenians murdered or starved to 



