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Show The World's Slow Redemption T' HE cholera is raging in Russia; no one knows how many victims have fallen under it, but IH i T they are numbered by thousands. It has jK pushed its way out and has reached Italy. In . some oil the districts it is very severe, but we suspect its intensity is concealed in the newspa-I newspa-I pers, for the tourist season has been more pro-1 pro-1 fltable this year than for three years past, and 1 all those countries are interested in doing noth-I noth-I ing to drive guests away. Every scourge of cholera or influenza or M plague has started in Asia and until ships were K so plenty and traveling so general, the course of W every epidemic has been to the west. They are U every one the progeny of filth, and poverty; they m rise like birds of prey from their loathesome food and on black wings take up their sinister flight. They do not cause so much terror as for- merly, for they are better understood, and their cause and how to fight them is vastly better un- derstood then ever before. Since science accept- ed the germ theory as a cause of illness, and has pioved the theory to be true, not only is the dis- ease itself better understood, but so are the means to close the gates against its approach. That cleanliness is next to Godliness has received L new emphasis and new significance from the p ' new exploratic of science in the past thirty PP" years. Because of the knowledge the cause of typhoid ty-phoid and a multitude of other ills have been chased to their lairs and are growing less and less. The enemies visible and invisible of human hu-man life, in the air are being overcome, in no field has science won more triumphs during a generation gen-eration past than in searching out and stamping out disease. Most of the diseases known to men, have, like men, moved from east to west. Now there is a return wave. Railroads starting from the-Mediterranean are extending east, Russia has pushed her railroad across the whole stretch of her vast empire, even to the ocean's shore. With the railroads rail-roads civilization will, likewise, retrace her steps, reconstruct her shattered altars, and preach her sermons, where they were first preached. The work of redemption will be more Blow and difficult dif-ficult than it would be among savage tribes that had never seen the counterfeit reflection of her light. But it will hold its way and reconquer its lost kingdoms. Among other things she will teach ! those people the necessity of perfect sanitation, and when that is perfectly understood, and practiced, prac-ticed, then no more epidemics will rise from there on invisible wings to scourge the earth. There is yet work for all the inhabitants of -the world to subdue its rough places, to open its mines, to cultivate its fields; but there is a vastly greater work in redeeming its people and fitting them to live and to die. Steam has come to help; so has electricity; so has the power press; and all these physical agents are doing their part. I But science is doing a loftier work still in carrying to the wretched and despairing healing for their bodies, the light of knowledge to their minds, the certain proof that life is worth living liv-ing and that the cleaner the body, the cleaner will bo the soul and that it was not a myth thtt the ancients taught, that this life was but a preparation prepara-tion for a higher life to follow. The peace congress con-gress is working out the problem of how wars may be averted; the perfecting press is filling the world with books; the magnetic and wireless telegraph are seeking stations in all the world's fir"' r r-x - - - fastnesses and working their miracles to give all men object lessons, to prove that man, in his intelligence in-telligence stands only a little lower than the angels, and science in her laboratories Is every day working out new splendors and bringing new mercies to men. The redemption of the world is a mighty task, but it is being carried on. |