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Show How the Age AfTttti l. j All agree that this is a wonderful age. Vi:hout having a very clear and definite idea as to its wonderfuiness, most people il-el that the world is going on at a rapid rate, and that life is crowded with excitements. They see enough to satisfy themselves that many get rich rapidly, that many go to ruin post-ha-te, and that every tody is living at a much higher temperatnre than formerly. The thoughtful iew look deeper into the heart of things, and, with conflicting feelings, stand perplexed before the growing anomalies anoma-lies of the times. New forces strike their imagination. On every side energies ener-gies well-nigh superhuman are rushing J into forms and shapes that defy ealcu- j lation as to futuie results. To all such the problem of good and evil is more i than ever beyond human solution. The inspiration, whatever be its source, is certainly intense. Men are battling with nature, with circumstances, circum-stances, with chance and fortune, as they never battled before; and verily their prowess grows mightier with the strife. And as to the degree and extent ex-tent of the inspiration, its amount of excitable and diffusive force, we may truthfully sneak of it as sudden and startling. The air is full of exhilarating exhilarat-ing wine, whereof they that breathe in unrestrained eagerness are frenzied in blood and brain. Men are intolerant of time; days must do the work oi years. Steadiness, patience, endurance have gone off the stage as superannuated superannu-ated virtues. Men inoek at old-fashioned old-fashioned excellence as the mark of imbecility. The romantic has fled from the ancient enthusiasms of the race, and admiration is held in reserve for the successful gambler in gold and the other fortune-builders of an hour. Talk as we may of the progress of education and enlightenment, men are bursting through all old restraints. Neither opinion nor law has haif the power it had ten years ago. Neither morality nor religion has any thing like the sanctity that touched to daily reverence and worship the hearts of onr fathers. Frivolity, presumption reckless daring, refined vulgarity, and polished barbarism are struggling for the mastery. Never within late years has there been so much impious confi dence in human reason, and so little in sentiment aud affection. If one word could express it all, that word would be distrust. Men are afraid of their brethren. Envy, jealousy, foul suspicions sus-picions destroy the tenderness and strength of mutual regard; while sar-cusm, sar-cusm, bitter irony, and angry invective usurp the language r.f the day. Tha secret of it ail is, that the world lias become to much for us. Its power over the senses has been vastly increased; in-creased; so that every kind of selfishness, selfish-ness, from the fierce dogmatism of the intellect to the licentious tyranny of the animal passions, has been frightfully fright-fully enhanced. No doubt such evils are to some extent ex-tent inseparable from the sudden and immense enlargement of outward civii-zation civii-zation that our times have witnessed. The balance between moral influences on the one side and external agencies on the other has been violently disturbed. dis-turbed. Men have been hurried unawares un-awares into hurtful excesses. Taken by themselves, these unloosed impulses might be brought under check. But the sad sign of the age is, that its higher and better mind is forgetting forget-ting its Tocation, is faithless to iw trust, and is ministering, either directly or indirectly, to laxity of belief and uorals. Leaders of thought are helping help-ing this carnal outburst. Literature, art, science are combining with trade and commrce to weaken moral ties and feed the lying vanities of the day; and, to the auiaietuent of all sober-minded sober-minded people, we are having a philosophy philos-ophy of wiekednsss, a poetry of shame and guilt, and a creed of sensual world-liness, world-liness, that give the sanctions of levie and argument to every s Tt of debauchery. debauch-ery. Harper's Bazaar. |