A VIEW IN PERSPECTIVE. I 57 



expansion and produce a new race of beings we can- 

 not tell, but the era of animal life ended when that 

 of man began. 



It was not to be expected, of course, that this law 

 as announced by Christ would be at first understood. 

 The human race in his day had hardly entered into 

 the conception of the beauty of love in its narrower 

 sense of love to one's neighbor, and it was certainly 

 not ready to accept the definition of neighbor as in- 

 cluding one's enemies. It is not our purpose here to 

 enter into a consideration of the history of the slow 

 growth of this new law. Even yet we fail to accept 

 it, for the successful general receives our highest 

 honors, and the soldier is our greatest hero. We even 

 fail to understand the law. The larger our nations 

 grow, the more comprehensive become our obliga- 

 tions, but we do not yet believe that the time will 

 come when the Chinaman, the African, and the Cauca- 

 sian will actually unite into a common brotherhood. 



All this lies beyond our present purpose. The 

 relation of the new law to the history of life, how- 

 ever, is very important for us to understand. This 

 law, as soon as it is applied to human life, produces 

 no longer divergence of character but convergence. 

 We have seen that the essence of divergence is sep- 

 aration and isolation of groups of individuals. The 

 races of mankind which we find to-day have been 

 produced by such a lack of intercourse among the 

 tribes of men and by the constant enmity and war- 

 fare of early nations which have tended to keep up a 

 constant isolation. But with the broadening of 

 man's application of his obligation to love his neigh- 



