PERILS. — INTEMPERANCE. 123 



and practical. '' Multum in parvo '' is its maxim. 

 Immense results brought about in a few days, or even 

 minutes, hurry the mind through a wide range of experi- 

 ence, and compress, it may be, years into hours. I am 

 not at all sure that Abraham Lincoln did not live longer 

 than Methuselah. In point of experience, results, acquisi- 

 tions, enjoyment and sorrow— in all that makes up Hfe, 

 save the mere factor of time— I am not at all sure that the 

 antediluvians were not the children, and the men of this 

 generation the aged patriarchs. And life is fuller and 

 more intense, activity is more eager and restless here in 

 the United States than anywhere else in the world. We 

 work more days in a year, more hours in a day, and do 

 more work in an hour than the most active people of 

 Europe.^ 



If we were quite unacquainted with the results of this 

 feverish activity of modern civilization, and especially of 

 American civilization, reason would enable us to antici- 

 pate those results. Such excitements, such restless 

 energy, such continued stress of the nerves, must, in 

 course of a few generations, decidedly change the ner- 

 vous organization of men We know that the progress of 

 civilization has refined temperaments, has rendered 

 men more susceptible and sensitive. A tragedy that is a 

 nine days' horror with us would hardly have attracted 

 more than a passing glance in old Rome, whose gentle 

 matrons made a holiday by attending gladiatorial shows, 

 and seeing men kill each other for Roman sport at the 

 rate of 10,000 in a single reign. And when brothers met 

 in the arena, and lacked the nerve to strike each other 

 down, red-hot irons were pressed against their naked, 

 quivering flesh to goad them on, while these same 

 mothers shouted, "Kill!" We complain sometimes 

 that modern life has become too largely one of feeling. 

 It is true the many live lives of impulse, rather than of 



» These statements could be abundantly confirmed, but it is presumed 

 they will not be doubted. The point will be further developed in a later 

 chapter. 



