e! when there is no peace!' The fact is, gentlemen, I cannot help
thinking that St. James referred to these very times, when he said in
the fifth chapter of his epistle: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl
for the miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and
your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the
rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as
it were fire. Ye have heaped up treasure together for the last days.
Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which
is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them who have
reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbaoth." See James,
5-4. I cannot, in the light of these prophecies, see that the world is
growing essentially better rapidly, if at all."

"But, Doctor," said Will, "you cannot deny that the children of these
times are incomparably better clothed, have more and better books, live
in more comfortable homes, and are enjoying privileges never known to
children of former generations."

"While I must assent to what you have said, yet all these advantages are
not unmixed blessings. In my experience as a physician, I have seen very
many precious lives go out, simply because they could not endure the
high pressure system of our modern educators. I feel so strongly upon
this subject that I would prefer that a child of mine should live and
die absolutely illiterate, than that he should sacrifice one particle of
health for any conceivable amount of mere book-learning. I once had an
uncle who was a man of wonderful learning. He was a collegian, a master
of half a dozen or more languages, and for all this he paid the price of
his good health. All his life, he suffered the pangs of an outraged
stomach and nervous system. He could never make any use of his
splendidly cultivated brain, and was a miserable, unhappy burden to
himself and friends to the end of his life. His end was sad, tinged with
the element of ridiculousness. He was sitting in a field one day,
resting during a short walk, when a great vicious hog attacked him,
tossed him about, rooted him here and there, and would have certainly
killed him outright if his cries had not brought assistance. He never
recovered from the effects of the injuries received on that occasion.
Suppose poor old uncle could at that time have traded all his dead and
modern languages for a pair of good stout legs, would it n