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Show MODEHN PROGRESS. All lovers of mankind canrjot but rejoice re-joice whenever they thoughtfully take time to reflect upon the many and the constantly multiplying evidences of the improved conditions of human society. so-ciety. We say this in the full consciousness; con-sciousness; of the broad truthfulness of the statement, and after bavin? fairly measured all the detracting utterances which adverse critics have made and are continually making. To our judgment the most signal instance in-stance of the distinctively humanizing Influence of modern ideas is afforded by the action of the United States government gov-ernment after the close of the great civil war. A war of unexampled magnitude, mag-nitude, costing thousands and thou-Bande thou-Bande of lives, and many millions of money, and was fought throughout with unexampled determination. The vanquished had begun the war, and in view of the victors were rebels, but not a single hair of their heads was touched after the contest was over, not a single political prisoner was brought to trial. Jeff Davis was not hanged on a sour apple tree, and the leading generals and politicians on either side for the most part returned quietly to civil occupations. What will an historian writing a century hence think of this magnificently human hu-man record, aa contrasted with Euro pean wars? If the spirit of the age be really skeptical and democratic, as all admit and many deplore, then skepticism and democracy are deserving praise. For it is not in war only that milder manners man-ners and a nore human and charitable Bpirit have accompanied, if they have ? not been created, by the development of these two great principles of modern mod-ern Bociety. The very atmosphere of '". these modern times is full of projects, visionary or otherwise, which are all based on the spirit, if not on the letter of Christianity, the spiiit that seeks to relieye tnt for and suffering and that labors for the svieetening of the general gen-eral conditions of life. Bismark and the German emperor adopt large schemes of state socialism, and aim at universal insurance of workmen against poverty and old age. Labor ! unions, provident societies and sav ings banks do the same on an ever-widening ever-widening scale throughout the English En-glish speaking communities on both continents. The old harsh principles of English law, which formerly were too apt to side with the strong against the week, with man against woman, with landlord against tenant, with capital againEt labor, have in these modern times steadily broken down in all directions. The too cold and too rigid conclusions of political economy are no longer accepted as universal uni-versal axioms. The duties of property so very long ignored, are steadily but Burely coming into better relations w ith its rightB. These and many more of the ad- Ivancing and ameliorating forces are working their way into all the departments depart-ments of modern iife. To every careful observer there is a manifest growth andj progress towards a more lasting basis of what may becalled the religion of humanity. The world has had more than enough of the high and dry creedal religion. Traditional dogmas have utterly failed to save the world, and now hae come and is more and more coming the grand Christly spirit of practical helpfulness and love. Tue skepticism of the age, ie not a skepticism so much against the Christly spirit of our enabling faith, but rather an earnest and eearching criticism that seeks to separate the chaff from the wheat. Theologies and isms of religious religi-ous controversy have alienated the ! masses ot the people on both contin ents from the old creeds, but not, as we think, from the Bpint of the great master mas-ter and teacher of human happiness. Healthy, rational and honest critic , ism can but purify and stengthen whatever is good and noble, and the eooner we can get rid of what is either irrational or superstitious the better for mankind in general. Some twenty years ago, Lord Bea-consfield Bea-consfield wrote a letter to the Duke of Marlborough, in which 1. 3 ,l . ue pieuicteu me iouowing in sub-Btance; sub-Btance; i Bee the rise and beginning of a mighty tidal wave of democracy that in a few years will cover the whole of Europe for good or for evil. Now why could that great statesman see bo clearly that great wave, yea, and j hear the very sound of the "vox populi," at so great a distance? For the reason that he himself was essentially and really a democrat, and worked on the best lines of democratic principles, not party democracy, but the democ- vara- rr .ulTVi . ram - ' Ma&nrtomGB racy that gains its inspiration from the all commanding interests of the people of every state and kingdom in the world, and that spends its life energies en-ergies in promoting those interests, in science, In art and literature, and in every other department both of the individual in-dividual and of the national life. Did space permit, we might easily demonstrate from all these great fields of human thought and industry that there is indeed a substantial advancement advance-ment both of moral and material interests in-terests in the age in which we live. Notwithstanding the serious pressure pres-sure in present finance, the general trend is toward better conditions. Progress is inscribed on the banners of the greatest nations and peoples. |