It is the antagonism of the dogmatic world, and the apathy of the rest, that is the cause of the mental progress of the world's not keeping pace with the material progress.

Better still, the universal application of the material progress has been far in advance of the universal acceptance of mental achievement. The automobile, the gigantic ocean liner, the talking machine, the electric fan, the elevator, the telephone and the other marvelous achievements of man are being used by the greater portion of the people, whose mental status belongs to the wheelbarrow, the simple chair, the ox cart and the tallow candle.

Slight is the realization by the users and beneficiaries of science's modern methods, of the heroic struggles and battles that the great men and women of the past suffered to make possible these accomplishments.

Oh, how many suffered torture and death at the hands of the very people they were striving to benefit!

This same fate has been met by all the brave and courageous, during the past, who have made any attempt to broaden the life and to ease the pain of the troubled heart of humanity.

The unselfish endeavors of man have made it possible to take the dumb matter of earth and mold it so the voices of the present can be heard by the ears of the future; so that several generations may hear and know, with a touch of human affection, the traits, features and characteristics of their ancestors. Language gives us their thoughts, the camera gives us their natural, life-like features and the phonograph their actual, living voices!

Nature never did so much. As far as Nature is concerned, bastardy may rule the world!

One of the comforts of life is that we live again in actions and scenes, which, although they are apart from our own lives, really belong to the past or future races. But Nature sees to it that the births and deaths, the knowledge and acquaintance of each and every generation, are so closely allied that none of us is allowed to escape the suffering of the world and the agony of life and death. No person can avoid the pain and the terrible fear that all must endure.

No one person can live, move about and possess the varied improvements of the earth's materials all by himself. He is indebted to others for their accomplishments, and they in turn are indebted to him for the improvements he renders. In short, we are all so closely allied with the actions and lives of one another that there should be a mutual appreciation and a common understanding among all.

The farmer may know nothing about manufacturing; the manufacturer may know nothing about farming; the artist, the explorer, the thinker, the inventor and the scientist may know nothing about any field of endeavor other than his own, yet all are inter-dependent.

With such a condition existing, and with the uncertainty of life forever staring us in the face, and no one exempt from its terrible enactment, it is a marvelous wonder to me why there exist so tenaciously in the human heart all the petty and aggravating tempers, prejudices and jealousies.

What man has done with the forces of Nature are inspiring deeds. What progress has been made in opposing the forces of Nature is marvelous. What man will accomplish in the future with the arrogant forces of Nature stimulates our hearts with the sweet satisfaction of a victory of the first magnitude.

But in the final analysis, what does it avail us?

Geologists tell us that the greater portion of the materials that we have taken from the field of Nature consists of the buried bones and bodies of our ancient ancestors, who passed through greater periods of agony, torment, disease and death than we are finally and eventually to meet!

What sort of crust in the earth's formation are we to make? What will be the product of the future living forces that will utilize the materials that our bodies will make? What will be the future living forces?

It is fearfully sad to contemplate that life must continue and be subject to the miserable laws that now govern it.

Insect man, with his almost tireless industry, makes clothes to cover his ugly and awkward body; builds houses to shelter him from the winds and the torrents of Nature; fashions glittering palaces of amusement to cheer his troubled heart; compounds anÆsthetics to ease his pain; carves wood to replace his broken limbs; molds metal to take the place of those things that Nature has made inadequate for his use. In short, man has improved upon Nature to uphold his frail body, to strengthen his weak bones, and to soothe his tender heart.

That man, fighting the forces of Nature, has been able to accomplish so much is simply glorious, and this progress is an achievement of such wonderful magnitude that we are thrilled at the thought, and bow in grateful recognition for the benefits derived and the relief enjoyed.

But why did not God institute all the benefits for the immediate use of man, so they could be enjoyed upon the first manifestation of his understanding?

Why was it necessary to go through the fearful period of past history and gain, only after a most gigantic struggle, the few things that we now use for our comfort?

That these things could have been done is proved by the fact that man has done them. Fundamentally they always existed. Man has only discovered and applied them. And these things that we have gained to-day, from the struggles of the past, would have been equally enjoyed by those who lived before us, with the same degree of benefit, just as the future will find, use and enjoy those things that we do not possess, and without which we shall be pinched, and pained, through the helter-skelter of this troublesome life.

I brand as brutal tyranny this scheme of life, that forces us to be a link in a long series of lives to produce something for the benefit of the far-distant future, that we, ourselves, imperatively need but shall not possess.

I cry and denounce and plead, in behalf of future humanity, to circumvent and to defeat this "sorry scheme of life," that uses us as an instrument to produce something that we cannot use, do not know about and have not the understanding to comprehend.

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