n slow and accompanied by tremendous losses.
At the beginning strength prevailed and weakness went to the wall; the
bird with the swiftest wing first reached the fountain, the deer with
the swiftest foot reached the place of shelter, the ox with the
strongest thrust reached the richest fodder. Pushed back, weakness
perished, while strength prevailed and propagated.

This law of violence received its first check through the parental
instinct. Parenthood built a fortress with walls and bulwarks about
the babe. Love of offspring caused a weakness to survive. At last an
era dawned when many parents united to construct a shield for weak
children indeed, but also for weak adults. The state lifted the shield
between weakness and its oppressor. The widow and the orphan were
permitted to glean after the harvesters. The traveler, passing through
the field, might pluck a handful of corn or pull a bunch of figs. The
creditor must not take the blanket or coat from the laborer nor the
boat from the poor fisherman, nor the plane or saw from the poor
carpenter. Stimulated by Christ's example and teachings, society began
to multiply the bulwarks against tyranny and selfishness. Looking
toward the child, for the protection of weakness and unripeness, the
state built these shields called the school and library, looking toward
the unfortunate and those weak in body or mind, the state built
bulwarks called asylum and hospital. Looking toward the chimney-sweep,
the factory boys and girls, the state began to soften pain and mitigate
the distress of labor. Looking toward the serf and the slave and the
prisoner, the novelist and poet constructed song and story as shields
for the protection of the weak and the oppressed.

One hundred years ago a man was as a beast of the field, and the
slaughter of men in Italy, by the tyrant who ruled over them, stirred
no more thought in England than the news of the slaughter of so many
beasts. But fifty years ago the state had become so gentle toward the
weak that when Mr. Gladstone made a protest against the savagery and
infuriated cruelty wrought upon the inmates of the dungeons of Italy,
then the heart of Europe turned toward Rome, the throne trembled upon
its foundations. Formerly when any foreign government wished to
colonize Africa, they sent out a regiment of soldiers, cut off a slice
of the country and annexed it. Now public sentiment forbids such
tyranny. The only way the aggressive