e savage and
the civilized man is the difference in morality. It follows that
morality has played no conspicuous part in the process of selection;
that the extermination of others does little or nothing to improve the
character of those who survived; and finally, since Japan has put on
European civilization as easily as a Japanese can put on a suit of
English clothes, that civilization is a varnish, spread over the
material beneath. That this is the real belief of nearly every one of
us, and has always been so, our judgment of the conduct of individuals
proves. Do we go about the streets giving prizes to octogenarians, or
put down to wickedness the early death of a child? Why then, should we
otherwise regard long life in a whole people? Do we applaud the superior
strength or cunning of Cain, or pretend that the discovery of gun-powder
strengthened the arm of the _good_? No, neither loyalty, nor victory is
the true test;--it is by their fruits that God will know them.

Let us, then, throw away this narrow, self-justifying doctrine of the
survival of the fittest, and follow instead the noble counsel of
Milton:--

Nor love thy life, nor hate, but what thou liv'st, live well.
How long or short permit to heaven.

Let us find our model less in the conquering Saxon and more in the dying
Saviour. Christ died that we may live; and for the same purpose all
created life has passed away. Let us so live that when the last man goes
from the earth, he will, no matter what his race or color, owe a part of
the good there is in him, of the hope there is for him, to our
influence. Our life cannot be too brief for this influence to be
exerted; and when God shall look over his flocks to praise the worthy,
it is the witness of His Son that his first loving welcome will be for
the least and lowliest.

But we have so little faith to-day, that I hardly doubt that there is
chiming in the ears of many in this audience the refrain:--"This is all
sentiment and doesn't help us to deal with hard facts." We ought,
however, to hesitate, I think, before consigning this view to the
babies' limbs. It may be after all that the Sermon on the Mount was not
pure eccentricity, nor Christ a Don Quixote. Of the two counsels, 'Get
religion,' and 'Get money,' there is yet something to be said in support
of the former. Carlyle fairly exculpates the nobility of Scotland for
their cold treatment of the poet, Burns. "Had they not," he asks, "their
game to pre