SYNTHESIS OF THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL 



The pathless forest is now a land of highways. The Indian 

 clusters of wigwams have given place to fair cities, some of 

 which begin to rival, and will, ere long,, equal the leading 

 cities of the world. Our waterfalls are no longer allowed 

 to merely indulge in their titanic sport of roaring over the 

 cliff and plunging into the abyss beneath ; they are com- 

 pelled, by the cunning power in the breast of this being 

 who appears a lilliputian beside them, to put their 

 shoulders to the wheels of progress, and thus to send cours- 

 ing through the land the electricity which is to light our 

 cities, waJm our homes, and do all manner of useful work. 

 Thus to know what we have done to shape a new order out 

 of the order found by the early settler, we have but to 

 look around. But to know what we are going to do, we 

 must take counsel of our dreams. We have the vision of a 

 fleet of fast ships which are to bring us in touch of all 

 ports. We see, also, fore-gleams of a time when the 

 racial and creedal divisions of our people will no longer 

 prevent them from feeling that they are of a common 

 origin, hving a common life, and the heirs of a common 

 destiny. We see coming, too, a social order firmly knit 

 with the puritan muscles of sobriety, integrity and 

 reverence ; while at the same time it exults in the joy of 

 exhistence. We live in these supernatural dreams, or, if 

 you will, they live in us, inspiring us to bring them down 

 out of the timeless and set them in the order of time. And 

 I believe it is only sober truth to say no man can, as yet, 

 imagine either the vastness or beneficence of their achieve- 

 ments. 



And the light of this transcendent dream of a new 

 order of society shines not only in the soul of our people, 

 but of mankind, and having absorbed those rays, mankind 

 can never be as it was before. A significant sign of this is 

 found in the Hague Peace Conference. I know it has 

 been laughed at, and it may be true that among its mem- 

 bers there have been representatives of nations who were 



