GROWTH OF AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 19 



future, while resolving to do as our fathers did, to uphold the 

 right at all hazards, and to overcome the evil with the good. 



While contemplating the higher aspects of our civilization, 

 the grandeur of our achievements, the might of our power, 

 and the splendor of our wealth, we must be careful not to 

 take too narrow a view. We must accord in some sort to 

 others, that which we claim for ourselves. We must recog- 

 nize the fact, that this hundred years, which has done so much 

 for us, has been, likewise, to the nations of Europe, a cycle 

 of unprecedented expansion. The whole civilized world has 

 partaken of the impulse imparted by the invention of steam. 

 There has been a general improvement, a general advance- 

 ment, a general amelioration. We are called upon to recog- 

 nize a universal benefit, to rejoice in an almost universal joy. 

 "Commerce," as John Stuart Mill has nobly said, "first 

 taught nations to see with good-will the wealth and prosper- 

 ity of one another. Before, the patriot — unless sufficiently 

 advanced in culture to feel the world his country — wished all 

 countries weak, and poor, and ill-governed, but his own. But 

 commerce has changed all that, and is leading up to a general 

 recognition of that generous doctrine of the solidarity, the 

 fellowship, the common brotherhood of man." The Christian 

 Church claims this doctrine as its own. But it is one thing to 

 have an elevating theory, it is another to live in accordance 

 with it, to pray for it, and, better still, to labor for it ; because 

 actual striving towards a good thing is the better part of 

 prayer. The physical world, when properly interpreted, 

 reacts healthfully upon the moral world. A healthy material 

 progress leads to better living and better doing. Commerce 

 becomes the handmaid of conduct when she knits peoples 

 together by the bonds of common interest. Nations, brought 

 into closer relations, are learning slowly, perhaps, but still 

 surely, to sympathize with one another's sufferings and dis- 

 tress. They also partake of one another's prosperity, and are 

 co-workers in the task of diffusing comfort and happiness 

 among men. Learning, as we are learning in this age, to 

 entertain a broad and generous sympathy ; rejoicing, as we 

 are learning to rejoice, in the general prosperity of all, we 

 are yet confronted by the fact that some races do not progress ; 

 that some never advance beyond the condition of savages ; 



