When we consider the number of new products for whose existence we are indebted to electricity, and the number of old products that have heretofore existed experimentally, in the laboratory of the chemist only, that have now been brought into play as useful agents in the various arts and industries, we begin to realize that this is truly an electrical age and the dawning of a new era. How many, many things there are, familiar to the children of to-day, that were not even imagined by the children of twenty-five to fifty years ago. Fifty years ago the only useful purpose to which electricity was put was that of transmitting news from city to city by the Morse telegraphic code. It will be fifty-seven years the first of April, 1901, since the first telegraph-line was thrown open to the public. Less than thirty years ago but little advance had been made in the use of electrical appliances beyond the perfection of certain private-line instruments, and a means for multiple transmission. About twenty years ago there were evidences of the beginning of a new era in electrical development. At no time in the history of the world has wonder succeeded wonder with such rapidity, producing such astounding results that have revolutionized all our modes of doing business and all of the operations of commercial and domestic life, as during the last two decades. We set our watches by time furnished by electricity from one central point of observation. We read the tape from hour to hour, upon which is recorded the commercial pulse of the world, as it throbs in the marts of trade, by means of this same speedy messenger. We enter a street-car that is lighted and heated, and at the same time propelled by the same wonderful agent. In our homes and on our streets night is turned into day by a light that outrivals all other illuminants.

When we wish to speak to a friend who may be a mile or a thousand miles away we step to the end of a wire that comes within the walls of our dwelling and we talk to him as though face to face, and means are at hand by which we may write a letter to that same friend and deliver it to him in our own handwriting and over our own signatures, so quickly that it will appear before him in full form and completeness as soon as the last period is made at the end of the last line.

One sees, and hears, and lives more in a single day in this age of electricity and steam than he did in twelve months sixty years ago. And yet there are those who cry out against modern inventions and modern civilization, and are constantly quoting the days of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers when "life was simple" and there was "time to rest." "Why are we tormented with this thought-stimulating age?" they say. "Why are our emotions called into action by modern music and modern art? Why are we called upon to help the downtrodden and oppressed, and to help to elevate mankind to a higher level? Why cannot we be left alone in peace and quiet, to live in the easiest way?"

If this be good philosophy, then the swine, if he were a reasoning being, ought to be ranked among the greatest of philosophers—when he seeks a wallow in the sunshine and sleeps away his useless existence. If he is useful it is because some other being of a higher order uses him to help along his own existence. The man in these days who does not "keep up with the procession" is soon trodden under foot and some other man uses him as a stepping-stone to elevate himself.

Yet this is a selfish motive, after all. The world is now rapidly advancing in light, in knowledge, in power to use the infinite gifts that the Creator has hidden in nature; but hidden only to stimulate and reward our seeking. Every man can help in this grand progress,—if not by research and positive thought-power, at least by grateful acceptance and realization of what is gained. Look forward! As Emerson puts it: "To make habitually a new estimate—that is elevation."