Athens.

This is the prevailing spirit in the churches of America to-day. Our
religion is humanitarian, not theological.

A like evolution has come about in medicine. The materia medica of
twenty-five years ago is now obsolete. No good doctor now treats
symptoms--he neither gives you something to relieve your headache nor to
settle your stomach. These are but timely ting-a-lings--Nature's
warnings--look out! And the doctor tells you so, and charges you a fee
sufficient to impress you with the fact that he is no fool, but that
you are.

The lawyer who now gets the largest fees is never seen in a court-room.
Litigation is now largely given over to damage suits--carried on by
clients who want something for nothing, and little lawyers, shark-like
and hungry, who work on contingent fees. Three-fourths of the time of
all superior and supreme courts is taken up by His Effluvia, who brings
suit thru His Bacteria, with His Crabship as chief witness, for damages
not due, either in justice or fact.

How to get rid of this burden, brought upon us by men who have nothing
to lose, is a question too big for the average legislator. It can only
be solved by heroic measures, carried out by lawyers who are out of
politics and have a complete indifference for cheap popularity. Here is
opportunity for men of courage and ability. But the point is this, wise
business men keep out of court. They arbitrate their differences
--compromise--they cannot afford to quit their work for the
sake of getting even. As for making money, they know a better way.

In theology we are waiving distinctions and devoting ourselves to the
divine spirit only as it manifests itself in humanity--we are talking
less and less about another world and taking more notice of the one we
inhabit. Of course we occasionally have heresy trials, and pictures of
the offender and the Fat Bishop adorn the first page, but heresy trials
not accompanied by the scaffold or the faggots are innocuous and
exceedingly tame.

In medicine we have more faith in ourselves and less in prescriptions.

In pedagogy we are teaching more and more by the natural
method--learning by doing--and less and less by means of injunction
and precept.

In penology we seek to educate and reform, not to suppress, repress and
punish.

That is to say, the gods are on high Olympus--let them stay there.
Athens is here.

The Grammarian

The best way to learn to write is to write.

Herbert Spencer