have led
millions of their Maker's feet, were poor both in youth and age. Bear it
then, in mind, that all honorable endeavors to ease the yoke of life are
good; that all repinings whatsoever are totally ridiculous, and mostly
dishonorable.

FACTS ABOUT PROGRESS.

Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.

Tennyson.

One of the pillars upon which the atheists and social
iconoclasts and demolishers base their erroneous philosophy is a seeming
belief that the men of to-day work harder for a living than the men of
olden times. Now I will lay hold of this pillar, and, although I be not
Samson, I may yet hope to rend an ill-constructed edifice. With the aid
of a few figures and a little history the mind may possibly discern,
through the centuries behind us, some evidence of that progress which
Victor Hugo has called "the stride of God."

It is reasonable to suppose that the poor man, during the period of his
veritable history, has always, when not suffering severe privation,
eaten nearly the same amount of food in any given number of hours. We
may, I think, judge of the amount of work cast to his lot if we can find
the ruling values of several of the articles of food which have
contributed to sustain his life. I have chosen the earlier civilization
of England in my examples, not because the Book of Exodus, the Pyramids,
and the temples of Baalbec and Karnac fail to betray the needed
evidences of almost super human toil, but because the authorities at my
disposal touching upon earlier times fail to furnish me

THE SATISFACTORY COMMERCIAL DATA

also needed as a parallel. Let us, then, put our laborer in England in
the year 1350. He had at that time so far progressed that, under certain
very restricted circumstances, his life was preserved, and he was
allowed to earn wages for his labor. He worked fourteen hours for a
legal day's work in winter and fifteen hours in summer, but I have
everywhere in the following statements computed his hours as fourteen.
If he were a common laborer he received one penny. If he were

A SKILLED FIELD HAND,

he could earn three times as much money. The English penny is to-day a
very large copper coin, being worth two cents, but in those times it
weighed three times as much as to-day, as did all current coins. In
addition to this great weight, money was very scarce, and fully six or
seven tim