persecuted,
but is simply left to itself to manage its own affairs and to do its
work. Such an experiment had never been made when we became an
independent people, and its success is of world-wide import, because
this is the modern tendency and the position toward the Church which all
the nations will sooner or later assume; just as they all will be forced
finally to accept popular rule. The great underlying principle of
democracy,--that men are brothers and have equal rights, and that God
clothes the soul with freedom,--is a truth taught by Christ, is a truth
proclaimed by the Church; and the faith of Christians in this principle,
in spite of hesitations and misgivings, of oppositions and obstacles and
inconceivable difficulties, has finally given to it its modern vigor and
beneficent power. The spirit of love and mercy, which is the spirit of
Christ, breathes like a heavenly zephyr through the whole earth, and
under its influence the age is moved to attempt greater things than
hitherto have seemed possible. Never before has sympathy among men been
so widespread; never has the desire to come to the relief of all who
suffer pain or wrong been so general or so intelligent. To feed the
hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick, seems now comparatively
a little thing. Our purpose is to create a social condition in which
none shall lack food or clothing or shelter; following the divine
command: "O Israel, thou shalt not suffer that there be a beggar or a
pauper within thy borders." Kindness to slaves ceased to be a virtue for
us when we abolished slavery; and we look forward to the day when nor
man nor woman nor child shall work and still be condemned to a life of
misery. That great blot upon the page of history, woman's fate, has
partly been erased, and we are drawing near to the time when in the
world as in Christ there shall be made no distinction between slave and
freeman, between man and woman. If we compare modern with ancient and
medieval epochs, wars have become less frequent, and in war men have
become more humane and merciful.

Increasing knowledge of human life as it is found in the savage, in the
barbarian, and in the civilized man, fixes us more unalterably in our
belief in the worth of progress. The savage and the barbarian are
hopelessly ignorant, and therefore weak and wretched, since ignorance is
the chief source of man's misery. "My people," says the prophet, "are
destroyed for lack of knowledge." Fro