not a host of friends to look after. These cities of ours are corrupt, as corrupt as can be, almost, for the lack of interest in them of our noblest and best men. If a sufficient number of men in New York,- men who are abundantly wealthy, over and over and over again rich,- if enough of them would stop simply piling up more money, and turn their attention to public affairs, we could have a clean New York, one to be proud of. Is not this something worth living for rather than to be rated as having another extra million? This kind of labor is anything but a blessing. I have said that fortunate are those who have something to do. There is another class of rich people in all our great cities who have attained at the top of society the distinction of the idlers that I referred to a moment ago as at the bottom of society. They have reached a point at which they do not wish to do anything except amuse themselves. The man, I think,- and I ask you to consider whether I am unduly severe,- who simply amuses himself, who takes out of the reserve of society the means for existence, and does nothing for the world, the man who does this, I think, is a thief. I think he is more immoral than the immoral people who are arrested on the streets. All his tremendous power, the power of his inherited position, intelligence, opportunity, wealth,- all this in the face of the world's great appalling needs used simply for amusement ! Do you know that the world has accumulated so little that it is almost on the edge of starvation all the time? If we should stop production, the world would be empty of life in five years, perhaps in three. And yet some men think they have the right to take all they desire, and add not one single grain to the world's accumulation. Work, true work, work consecrated to the happiness, the intelligence, the uplifting of man, this is, indeed, noble. No man, whatever he may be doing, if he is filling his place, is doing something that needs to be done, ought to be con sidered as dishonored by his labor. The man who wields a spade or a pick or a crow-bar is unspeakably more worthy than the idler, in whatever class of society he may be; and the man who does this, if it is his share in making the world healthy and beautiful and good, is a gentleman in possibility, if he chooses to be a gentleman. And the men of the past, - in the boasted days of chivalry,- those who have looked down on toil, these are barbaric in comparison. I have been living in this age of chivalry during the summer. I have visited fifteen or twenty of the famous old French châteaux where the kings used to hold their courts before Louis XIV. built Versailles in the neighborhood of Paris. I have resurrected, by reading, the life of those times; and they were simply horrible. Any man who looks back with a sigh, and thinks that the poetry and glamour of romance are all in the past, and are not with the toilers, the users of the pick, the managers of steam-engines, those who delve in the mines,- these, it seems to me, have most pitifully reversed their estimate of what is noble and true. The best poetry is not in the past. Kipling is beginning to teach us and other writers are following him that the poetry of the world is in the midst of the world's work and achievement; that these are of the real chivalry, living lives of high romance, who, as the sons and the daughters of God, are making the world over, and transforming it into the likeness of the kingdom of heaven. Father, we thank Thee that we are permitted to have some little share in Thy work of making this world an Eden, and of building here in the hearts and lives of men Thy perfect kingdom. Let us consecrate ourselves to this toil, and rejoice in it. Amen. Life Beyond Death Being a Review of the World's Beliefs on the Subject, a Consideration of Present Conditions of Thought and Feeling, leading to the Question as to whether it can be demonstrated as a Fact. To which is added an Appendix containing Some Hints as to Personal Experiences and Opinions. By MINOT J. SAVAGE, D.D. 8°, cloth, 342 pages $1.50 After a review of the beliefs held in the past concerning life beyond death, Dr. Savage takes up the present conditions of belief, and considers the agnostic reaction from the extreme "otherworldliness" which it replaced, which was in turn followed by the spiritualistic reaction against agnosticism. He points out the doubts concerning the doctrine of immortality held by the churches and the weakness of the traditional creeds and the loosening of their hold upon people. He then considers the probabilities of a future life,― probabilities which, as he admits, fall short of demonstration. The volume includes a consideration of the work of the Society for Psychical Research and also an appendix giving some of the author's own personal experiences in this line. Dr. Savage holds, as a provisional hypothesis, that continued existence is demonstrated, and that there have been at least some well-authenticated communications from persons in the other life. The chief contents of the volume are as follows: CONTENTS: Primitive Ideas-Ethnic Beliefs-The Old Testament and Immortality-Paul's Doctrine of Death and the Other LifeJesus and Immortality - The Other World and the Middle AgesProtestant Belief concerning Death and the Life Beyond - The Agnostic Reaction - The Spiritualistic Reaction-The World's Condition and Needs as to Belief in Immortality - Probabilities which fall Short of Demonstration - The Society for Psychical Research and the Immortal Life - Possible Conditions of Another Life-Some Hints as to Personal Experiences and Opinions. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 27 & 29 West 23d St., N.Y. |