PREFATORY WORD 



"Now, as ever, to the nation and the race 

 as to the individual, Nature, the unrelent- 

 ing task-mistress of the centuries, holds 

 out in one hand her horn of plenty and in 

 the other her scourge. This country has 

 brought itself within reach of the thong 

 while grasping at the satisfaction of present 

 appetite and forgetting the primal relation 

 between man and the earth. The path to 

 prosperity is still open. The divinity of the 

 earthly life is at heart kind. Under her 

 rule there is work and abundant reward for 

 all, but these must be won in her designated 

 way and in none other. Her pointing 

 finger, that has never varied since man 

 came upon the earth, shows the old and only 

 way to safety and honor. Upon the readi- 

 ness with which this is understood, the 

 sober dignity with which a whole nation 

 rises to the winning of its broad and perma- 

 vii 



