256 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 
below them, the literature of their time becomes 
nearly impossible to read. Fielding and Smollett and 
Stern. helped to build up the English novel, but the 
stories they tell speak of the grossness of their time 
in language that is unmistakable. We are by no 
means clean to-day. A fair proportion of our novels 
leave much to be desired. The stage is the scene of 
much we could wish to see cleaner. Above all this 
grossness there towers a sweetness and beauty of 
thought, and an earnestness of purpose, a sincerity 
of effort, which makes the present time fuller of 
moral purpose, fuller of the desire to be clean and 
to help others to be clean, than graced any previous 
period in the history of either England or America. 
Under the change from country to city life man 
has suffered. Here too evolution is necessary. City 
life tells hard on the second generation and nearly 
destroys the third; but we have come to understand 
the difficulty and are fast remedying it. It is more 
than possible that the next generation will see such 
changes in the life of the worker in the great center, 
as shall effectively stop the physical deterioration 
that has come to the city dweller. God grant that 
modern civilization has had teaching enough and 
learned its lesson well enough. God grant further 
that we may give over slaughtering our most am- 
bitious and vigorous young men in battle to settle 
