148 The Lesson of History 



as Mr. Kidd has it ? The only explanation which is at 

 the same time logical and consistent with the facts of 

 history is that in all men there is an element to which 

 the Divine appeals ; that this appeal, although felt now 

 and then dimly, was only realised in its full intensity 

 with the advent of Christian altruism, and that now 

 this element is gaining the ascendancy in the thoughts 

 and actions of men, and will ultimately influence all 

 things more and more in accordance with the Will of 

 the Eternal, and moulded by the " sweet reasonable- 

 ness " of the teachings of Jesus. 



Man has evolved by slow but sure steps from a very 

 dim and distant past. Morrison has given expression 

 to this idea in his poem on " the Evolution of Man " : 



" With never a spark in the empty dark 

 To hint at a life to come. 



There came a time in the last of life 

 When over the nursing sod 

 The shadows broke, and the soul awoke 

 To the strange sweet dream of God." 



And Mr. W. Herbert Carruth gives us a similar thought : 



" And caves where the cave men dwell. 

 Then a sense of law and beauty 

 And a face turned from the clod — 

 Some call it evolution, 

 And others call it God. 



" A picket frozen on duty, 

 A mother starved for her brood, 

 Socrates drinking the hemlock, 

 And Jesus on the rood ; 

 And millions who, humble and nameless, 

 The straight hard pathway trod — 

 Some call it consecration, 

 And others call it God." 



We are entitled to believe that physically and in- 

 tellectually he has attained to the acme of his capacity 



