The most surprising and extraordinary quality of mind manifested by man is his ready power of adaptation to whatever may become a part of his earthly experiences. It, alone, assures his continual progress upon all lines of growth connected not only with his earthly but also his immortal career. Great inventions, unexpected discoveries, and astounding revelations may stagger him for a moment; but the facility with which he finally absorbs all the hitherto unknown outworkings of science and natural law, and assimilates them to his inner sense of the fitness of things, changing all his relationship to his material life, and forcing himself to a readjustment not only of his mental perceptions, but also of his external existence gives proof sufficient of his being not only favored of the gods, but also of his near kinship with them. The marvels of mechanics, the divinely beautiful representations of art, and the exalted inspirations of literature were never so sought after, or so appreciated by large portions of the race as at the present time. The peasant's cot today is made comfortable and beautified by accessories which within our historical knowledge could not be commanded by kings and princes possessed of great riches.

The spiritual origin of the splendid architecture of the great "white city" and later of the southern expositions is perfectly apparent to the eye of the mystic and the seer, and these vast, concentrated exhibits of the world's work are object lessons of which the influence can never be outlived even by the careless and unobserving. Today the great leaders of men, led by inspiring thoughts which would have appalled their forefathers, perfect schemes for overcoming the obstacles inhering in the vast forces of nature, and harness them into subservience to the growing needs of the race.

What devil-worshippers those old chaps were! To him they ascribed all power over things animate and inanimate, and the effrontery of the man who should have even mentioned the possibility of talking over a wire, thousands of miles, or of utilizing the forces of Niagara, or of hundreds of inventions now in use in the most commonplace surroundings would have been met with condign punishment. Our inventors would be in dungeons instead of their comfortable laboratories, and our great engineers would long ago have lost their heads. What a time we have had getting the devil out of our mechanical life! Now he can only rule in the immaterial world, in the crude imaginations of the ignorant and superstitious.