DUKE UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 The Glenn Negley Collection 
 of Utopian Literature 
 
-*f--. 
 
^ -^ -i, Of. S' 
 
 «l^ 
 
A DREAM 
 
 OF 
 
 A MODEST PROPHET. 
 
 BY 
 
 M. D. LEGGETT. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 1890. 
 
Copyright, 1890, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 
 
 '^■^iSS^aSS-^ 
 
 ^ 
 

 A DREAM 
 
 OP 
 
 A MODEST PROPHET, 
 
 PRELUDE. 
 
 It is now generally conceded by all well- 
 informed people that our Solar System had a 
 nebular genesis, — that our system of worlds, 
 consistino; of the Sun and the surrounding 
 planets, was at one time in the progress of crea- 
 tion or evolution a great nebulous mass of sub- 
 limated matter, in form of vapor or gas. This 
 idea was first dimly suggested, perhaps by 
 Plato, about four hundred years before Christ, 
 but more fully developed by Laplace, about 
 the beginning of the present century, and very 
 nearly or quite demonstrated by later scientists. 
 The theory, briefly stated, is that long anterior to 
 the measure of time on eartli, many millions of 
 yeai*s before, the whole Solar System was a gase- 
 ous mass, without form and void. The force of 
 gravitation, acting upon this mass, caused the 
 
 3 
 
4 A DEE AM OF 
 
 particles to be attracted towards its centre. The 
 various currents natural to the fluid or gaseous- 
 mass of matter would finally be overcome by 
 the strongest current, and this was evidently 
 from the west to the east, so that the whole 
 mass partook of this motion, which gave it a 
 revolution in that direction on a common axis. 
 This motion caused a flattening at the poles and 
 a bulging on the equatorial line. As this mass 
 continued to contract, the velocity of rotation 
 would increase, which would lead to separation 
 of rings from the equator, where the centrif- 
 ugal force was greatest. These rings would 
 break into fragments, some larger and some 
 smaller. As these fragments would all be 
 moving in the same path in space, the largest 
 would gradually, by its superior attraction, ac- 
 celerate the motion of the fragments behind 
 it, and retard that of those before it, so that 
 in time they would come together, forming a 
 planet. It is supposed that in this way all the 
 planets, moons, Saturn's rings, etc., were formed. 
 After the separation of these rings, and the col- 
 lection of their material into one body, such 
 material was still nebular, and acted upon by 
 the same laws as the original mass, and the 
 process of solidification continued. 
 
 If Neptune is our outer planet, or the one 
 furthest from the Sun, then by this theory it is 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 5 
 
 the oldest planet, — the first-born of the Solar 
 family. Umnus is next, then Saturn, Jupiter, 
 the Asteroids, Mai's, Earth, Venus, and the 
 youngest, Mercury. 
 
 The length of time intervening between these 
 successive separations, or planetary births, is, 
 of course, all a matter of speculation. We 
 simply know these periods must have been very 
 long. 
 
 If this theory of the creation of the heavens 
 and the earth be correct, then we must conclude 
 that in substance the planets are all the same as 
 the earth, and much like it, and subject to the 
 same natural laws. But the further the planet 
 is from the Sun the rarer will be its substance, 
 and the less heat will it get from the Sun. 
 Hence it is doubtful whether the density and 
 temjierature of the outer planets render them 
 inhabitable for man. 
 
 But Mars being so near the Earth, its con- 
 ditions cannot be greatly different, and it is 
 reasonably certain that it is inhabited by beings 
 much like ourselves, for the same evolutionary 
 laws have operated there as here, and have had 
 like material to work upon. And as Mars is 
 probably many millions of years older than the 
 Earth, it has, undoubtedly, been inhabited much 
 longer. Being further from the Sun, it solidi- 
 fied more slowly than the Earth did, yet it is 
 1* 
 
6 A DREAM OF 
 
 reasonable to suppose that it was inhabited by 
 rational beings thousands of years before the 
 Earth was. 
 
 The people of Mars are our nearest older 
 neio;hboi"S. What is their condition? Have 
 they advanced beyond us in civilization ? They 
 have lived on their planet much longer than 
 we have on ours. If they are equally teach- 
 able, they must have learned more. If they 
 had the means of doing so, and the disposition, 
 I wonder if they could not, from their experi- 
 ence, greatly enlighten our statesmen and our 
 students of sociology on questions now vexing, 
 us. Possibly they have already been able to 
 construct telescopes of sufficient power to enable 
 them to see us and know much that we are 
 doing. If we had telescopes of equal power, 
 communication might be had by way of signals, 
 out of which would spring a language intelli- 
 gible to both ; then we could exchange thoughts, 
 experiences, and histories. From such an ex- 
 change we, of course, would be the gainers, 
 provided their progress, from the beginning, 
 has been as rapid as ours, because the race there 
 has existed longer. Perhaps in their past, at 
 some time, they were where we are now. If 
 so, and if we could gain access to their libraries 
 and in their ancient histories find the present 
 status of our civilization, how prophetic their 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 7 
 
 subsequent history would be of what lies before 
 us ! In the light of such subsequent history, 
 how clearly we might read our way out of many 
 serious questions that now confront us in our 
 march of civilization, and thus, profiting by 
 their experience, we might progress in a few 
 hundred years over what required thousands of 
 years with them. They might quickly convey 
 to us what they have slowly learned, and thus 
 we might attain with a bound what has cost 
 them long cycles of blunderings and suft'erings 
 in the slow progress of learning by experience. 
 
A DREAM OF 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The preceding ^vas written with no definite 
 object in view, except to follow a habit, long 
 since established, of putting on paper any novel 
 trains of thought, afterwards to be worked into 
 an essay or thrown into the trash-basket, as 
 mood might suggest. The act of writing puts 
 a thought into expressible form, and tends to 
 fix it in the mind. After writing, I found my 
 mind in a thoughtful and somewhat speculative 
 mood, and possessed of an uncontrollable desire 
 to know more of the people of Mars. This 
 feeling finally became so strong as to suspend 
 consciousness of my surroundings. I awoke 
 to consciousness on the planet Mars. How 
 j)T when I got there I do not know ; but my 
 heart's desire was realized, — I was there. I 
 was astonished and bewildered by all I saw. 
 
 Mars is much smaller than the Earth, but its 
 population is so dense that it has about twice as 
 many people. Its days have about the same 
 length as ours, but its seasons are much longer, 
 the year being six hundred and eighty-seven 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 9 
 
 days. Its surface is composed of land and 
 water in about the same proportion as the Earth. 
 What most impressed me at first, and all the 
 time, was the people, even before I had learned 
 their language, so as to hold any conversation 
 with them. Almost every one I saw seemed to 
 be in robust health and in a happy and contented 
 state of mind. The entire absence of large 
 cities was very noticeable. The people seemed 
 to be quite evenly distributed over the land sur- 
 face of the planet, the density of population 
 being affected only by the comparative fertility 
 of the soil or desirable mineral deposits. Edu- 
 cational institutions seemed plentiful every- 
 where, and to be w^ell patronized, while penal 
 institutions and almshouses were very few. All 
 seemed ambitious and industrious, yet there was 
 none of the hurry and scramble to which I had 
 so long been accustomed. Their manners were 
 easy and graceful, gentility was universal, salu- 
 tations were universally exchanged when peoi)le 
 met, whether acquainted or not, and they ad- 
 dressed each other in language of deference and 
 respect, but entirely without regard to rank. 
 
 At first the ladies did not impress me as pos- 
 sessed of much beauty. The frail, delicate, 
 wasp-like forms to which we are so accustomed 
 here, where nature's forms are compressed out 
 of shape to conform to artificial standards of 
 
10 A DREAM OF 
 
 aesthetics, are not to be found there. I very- 
 soon, however, became not only reconciled to, 
 but a great admirer of, their style of beauty, 
 and almost every woman was really beautiful. 
 No one looked coarse or gross. Their wonder- 
 ful temperance in eating and drinking, and the 
 absence of excessive excitement of every kind, 
 make health universal. Obesity is not known, 
 neither is excessive leanness. All are robust 
 and healthy. The blood is pure, the complex- 
 ion wonderfully clear and roseate. Their happy 
 and contented life for many generations past 
 has left its hereditary impress on the features 
 in lines of beauty on the faces of both women 
 and men. The laws of health seem to be well 
 understood and religiously observed. Such has 
 been the case for more than a thousand years ; 
 hence there are no blood-taints, no transmitted 
 diseases. Every one inherits a good constitu- 
 tion, physical, intellectual, and moral ; and from 
 earliest infancy they are trained to habits of 
 strict obedience to the laws of health of these 
 three elements of their natures. 
 
 Another thing that attracted my special at- 
 tention was the fact that there was but one lan- 
 guage spoken on the planet. Whatever part 
 of the planet the people came from, they readily 
 conversed with and understood each other, and 
 the same appearance and habits seemed to pre- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. H 
 
 vail everywhere. All seemed well informed, 
 and all were religious. Their relis-ion did not 
 seem to be so much a doctrine as a life. 
 
 They professed little, but practised much. 
 Their religion controlled them in all they did. 
 It seemed to be born in them, and had a con- 
 trolling influence from the beginning of life. 
 There appeared to be no sectarian strife what- 
 ever; in fact, I saw no indication of there 
 being any sects. They had places and societies 
 for worship, but I saw nothing to indicate any 
 divisions on doctrinal lines. Places of worship 
 were so distributed and located as to best accom- 
 modate the worshippers. I do not mean that 
 they all thought just alike on religious ques- 
 tions, for evidently they did not. On what 
 constituted a proper religious life there were no 
 differences, so that persons entertaining different 
 views on matters having no bearing on practical 
 life worshipped together, and yet all could en- 
 gage in a friendly discussion of non-essentials. 
 Their places of worship were neat, convenient, 
 and comfortable, but never gaudy or expensive. 
 Their forms of worship were very simple and 
 direct. They appeared to have but little use 
 for priests or potentates. Their religion was a 
 personal religion. Each individual recognized 
 his personal and direct responsibility to God 
 for what he was and what he did. There 
 
12 A DREAM OF 
 
 seemed to be no effort or desire to enforce uni- 
 formity of belief or ritual. The individual is 
 acknowledged as the unit of society, and indi- 
 vidualism is encouraged and taught everywhere. 
 Their whole system of religion and education 
 seems to aim to make each individual strong 
 in himself, self-reliant, self-controlled, conscious 
 of personal independence, and acknowledging 
 his personal responsibility only to God and to 
 the laws and regulations necessary in a well- 
 ordered state. 
 
 Courts of justice seemed to have but little to 
 do. It was rarely in the lifetime of a judge 
 that he would have a single criminal case be- 
 fore him. And the civil cases were remarkable 
 for the entire absence of acrimony and unkind 
 feelings exhibited in them. Parties came into 
 court when there was an honest, conscientious 
 difference of opinion, which both desired should 
 be adjusted aud settled. I saw no implements 
 of war, no war- vessels, and no military fortifi- 
 cations or other defences, yet in some places I 
 saw evidences of these having existed in the 
 distant past. Large cities with protective walls 
 and fortified positions there had been, but all 
 had gone to decay, and their material had been 
 converted to other uses, — " beaten into plough- 
 shares and pruning-hooks." 
 
 Property was much more evenly distributed 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 13 
 
 than here. There seemed to be no very rich 
 and no very poor people, but all seemed to have 
 enough, and therewith to be content. Very 
 few were dependent on others for support, but 
 each endeavored, by honest labor, to produce 
 the full equivalent of what he or she consumed. 
 Their dress and their simple food and drink 
 were so inexpensive that ordinary industry was 
 sufficient to supply abundantly all necessary 
 wants, and there appeared no disposition to 
 increase these wants by any luxurious or expen- 
 sive habits. In fact, any tendencies towards 
 such habits met with universal disapproval and 
 were very unpopular. There was nothing like 
 communism anywhere perceptible. Property, 
 beyond what was necessary for plain, healthful 
 living, was not desirable, for it gave no more 
 influence and no better social position, and con- 
 sequently would only increase one's cares and 
 responsibilities, with no increased advantages. 
 Social position was won only by intelligence 
 and usefulness, while the possession of un needed 
 wealth so distracted the attention as to hinder 
 one in attaining these desirable ends. The in- 
 vention of labor-saving machinery was much 
 encouraged, and the inventors of such were 
 greatly honored. Useful and practical inven- 
 tions had been carried to far greater perfection 
 than with us. Nearly all fatiguing labor was 
 ' 2 
 
14 A DREAM OF 
 
 done with machinery, — so that persons only 
 needed to supervise the machines, — and thereby 
 the hours of labor were much reduced, and the 
 people were hopefully looking forward to the 
 time when machines would be so perfected as to 
 allow the operators to supervise them with but 
 little interruption of reading and study. They 
 have nothing corresponding to our saloons, or 
 gambling-houses, or club-halls, etc. Relief 
 from labor is sought only for the purpose of 
 having more time for personal improvement. 
 But the sense of justice is too strong to permit 
 one to get this time by employing others to do 
 his individual work. 
 
 In dress they had a simple, inexpensive, but 
 neat and graceful costume, common to all the 
 people everywhere. These costumes for the 
 men and women differed but slightlv, suffi- 
 ciently, however, easily to distinguish the sexes. 
 
 These costumes being universal, there was no 
 chasing or studying of fashion, and no remodel- 
 ling of garments ; consequently all could and 
 did dress well. A garment was in fashion 
 until worn out. So, while there was no lack 
 of comfort as to food and clothing, and no 
 lack of neatness or even of elegance, yet the 
 expense of living seemed to be reduced to the 
 minimum. 
 
 They were all scrupulously clean. Cleanli- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 15 
 
 ness was nearer than " next to godliness :" it 
 seemed to be a part of it. The daily bath was 
 universal, so that the disease, with us known 
 as " a cold/' was almost unknown. " A cold," 
 we understand here, fits the system for nearly 
 all other fonns of disease ; consequently most 
 of our diseases begin with colds. On Mars 
 their simple and regular habits of eating and 
 drinking, and dressing, and bathing, protect 
 them fully from " colds." Sickness is scarcely 
 known. Their longevity is remarkable, for 
 men are in the full vigor of manhood at the 
 ase of one hundred. 
 
 Of course, when I found myself on ]Mars, I 
 was very awkwardly situated. I was trans- 
 ported to that strange land, how and when .1 do 
 not know. I had made no preparations for 
 the trip. I had " neither purse nor scrip," and 
 no " letter of credit." I was a stranger, and a 
 strange stranger, in a strange land. I could 
 not understand a word of their language, nor 
 they a word of mine. Yet into the first house 
 I entered I was most heartily welcomed. By 
 turning my pockets inside out and shaking 
 them, I made them understand my poverty. 
 The inmates of the house seemed at once to 
 com]>rehend the situation. Though filled with 
 wondering astonishment at my strange appear- 
 ance, they, by kindly attention and appropriate 
 
16 A DREAM OF 
 
 gestures, made me feel that their home was my 
 home and their possessions were mine. Every- 
 where on the planet I received the same cordial 
 treatment. 
 
 I began to doubt my senses, my identity, 
 and doubt as to where I really was. I began 
 to think I had died on earth and, by some un- 
 deserved favor, had gone to heaven, for I had 
 never dreamed of such people out of heaven. 
 I could see no " great white throne," nor did I 
 discover that all the people were singing psalms, 
 nor did I hear the clangor of horns about which 
 I had heard so much, and of which I had some 
 dread. I was never fond of too much music, 
 an(J it never took a great deal to be too much. 
 But the people seemed good enougli, pure 
 enough, and happy enough to be the inhabitants 
 of heaven. They were heavenly in disposition, 
 and heavenly in conduct. But I saw that I had 
 my earthly body and my earthly garments, and 
 I was sure that neither " body nor boots" go 
 to heaven. So I concluded that I was with 
 people like myself, except that they were al- 
 most infinitely nearer perfection. 
 
 Whenever I went out from the home where 
 I first stopped, they would give me a card on 
 which they would write, in substance, "He is 
 from Earth. Show him kindness and attention." 
 Such I later found to be the true translation of 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 17 
 
 this card. It served well its purpose, for the 
 people seemed to vie with each other in their 
 efforts to do me favors. 
 
 When I commenced studying their language, 
 I could not readily see how I was to pay 
 teachers, buy necessary books, etc. But here 
 again every want was more than supplied, 
 without money and without price. The in- 
 scription on my card was made to read, " He is 
 from Earth, studying our language. Help him." 
 This card made every man, woman, and child 
 I met my teacher, — and such dclighful teachers 
 as they were ! They thoroughly understand 
 what they want to teach, and they know ex- 
 actly how to teach it. I afterwards Jearned that 
 every child is carefully instructed in the art of 
 teaching, and parents practise this art, w^isely 
 and well, in the training of their own children. 
 I had become somewhat familiar with the Eng- 
 lish, French, and German languages, and in 
 my younger days knew something of Latin 
 and Greek, and I had heard many other lan- 
 guages spoken ; but the language of INIars was 
 radically different from any I had ever read or 
 heard. I was therefore expecting great diffi- 
 culty in learning to speak and read this new and 
 singular language. The reader may judge of 
 my happy surprise when I found it very easy 
 to acquire. In the short space of three months 
 b 2* 
 
18 A DREAM OF 
 
 (our time) I could speak it with considerable 
 fluency, and within six months I could read 
 and write it with great satisfaction. Their 
 written and printed language is entirely pho- 
 netic ; so I had only to learn the elementary 
 sounds, and the characters or letters represent- 
 ing those sounds, when I could read easily any 
 of their printed books. 
 
 Before learning their language I could acquire 
 knowledge only through my eyes, and, for want 
 of explanations, I only understood a small 
 fraction of what I saw. Now my ears were 
 opened, and my tongue was loosened, and I 
 rapidly gained a knowledge of my surroundings. 
 I had all along been exceedingly anxious to 
 learn to read, so as to look into their libraries, 
 hoping that there I might discover the route by 
 which these people had reached their high civili- 
 zation and almost perfect manhood and woman- 
 hood. So I labored hard, in season and out of 
 season, and had freely all the help I could pos- 
 sibly use. In every house there was a good 
 library, and in every neighborhood a large 
 public library of books for consultation and 
 reference, but these were not allowed to be taken 
 from the library buildings. The studious habits 
 and the intelligence of the people may be judged 
 by their use of these great libraries. Almost 
 the whole population, excepting young children, 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 19 
 
 will be found in them during some portions of 
 nearly every day. 
 
 Their language is peculiar in other respects 
 besides being phonetic. They use fewer words 
 to express the same idea than we do. Their 
 style is peculiarly direct and pungent. Many 
 of their words express what would require a 
 clause or sentence with us. 
 
 They have another peculiarity. When I first 
 began to read their books, particularly those 
 of a philosophical character, their style seemed 
 veiy dogmatic. Their assertions seemed to be 
 without the support of any legitimate process 
 of reasoning, but, as I extended my studies, I 
 found this was true only in appearance, as the 
 reasoning could always be read between the 
 lines. To avoid multiplying words and lumber- 
 ing sentences, they seem to have cultivated the 
 habit of stating the results of their reasonings 
 in such direct and logical order as to make the 
 process at once inferable and apparent. 
 
20 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 These libraries contained very interesting 
 revelations to me. The laws of evolution had 
 operated there as here. Man has gone through 
 the same stages of development there as here. 
 The history of our race here up to the present 
 time is described more perfectly in their books 
 than in any we have. About three thousand 
 years ago the people of Mars were in the same 
 condition our people are in to-day, and had 
 the same unsolved problems confronting thera. 
 They had many nations and many tongues. 
 Their governments differed widely from each 
 other, and their interests, as they then consid- 
 ered them, conflicted with each other. Hence 
 there were strifes, and bloodshed, and wars of 
 one nation against another. 
 
 In religious sentiments they were much more 
 divided than on political questions. Their 
 religion consisted more in codes of belief, in 
 creeds, than in life and practice. I found that 
 in the early historic age of the church they had 
 an organization exactly resembling our ancient 
 Jewish church, with its teachers and prophets, 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 21 
 
 its priests and doctors, its temples and altars 
 and sacrifices. Their Egypt and Greece and 
 Rome and Constantinople had existed, had had 
 their day, left their impress, and passed into 
 oblivion. 
 
 When the times were ripe, a Christ had ap- 
 peared there as here, and took to them the same 
 message from the Father, the same gospel that 
 our Christ brought to us. He found there, as 
 our Christ found here, the people buried in 
 corruption ever^nivhere. Even in the Jewish 
 church all practical religion was lost in forms, 
 and ceremonies, and burnt-offerings, and blood- 
 sacrifices. Religion was objective, and never 
 subjective. It consisted in the practice of rites 
 and ceremonies, and not in personal character. 
 The teachings of their Christ, as of ours, con- 
 sisted in a subjective religion, — a religion of 
 the heart, the source of thought and action ; a 
 religion of love, that reached out to strangers 
 and even to enemies, that returned good for 
 evil, that recognized all men as brethren ; a 
 religion of justice, that metes out to every one 
 his own, and that leads one to do unto others 
 as he would that others should do unto him. 
 He taught that God was not merely the pei-soni- 
 fication of justice, power, and authority, heard 
 only in thunders and lightnings, in earthquakes 
 and tornadoes, in famines and pestilences ; but 
 
22 A DREAM OF 
 
 that he was also a Father, possessed in an in- 
 finite degree of all the attributes of a father, 
 endowed with infinite love and mercy and com- 
 passion, with an ear open to penitence, and wait- 
 ing in mercv to foryive. 
 
 Their Christ, like ours, was crucified, dead, 
 and buried. His disciples, like the disciples 
 of our Christ, only partially understood their 
 Master, only partially comprehended his char- 
 acter and mission. They were of the people 
 we call Jews, had been reared and educated in 
 the Jewish church, and could not fully rid them- 
 selves of certain Jewish teachings which were 
 in conflict with the whole spirit of Christ's 
 teachings, and, consequently, they carried over 
 much of this early education into the Christian 
 church, and for two thousand years Christianity 
 was made to suffer by being loaded down by Ju- 
 daism to an extent not justified by the teachings 
 of Christ. Yet, for a little over three hundred 
 years, Christianity was a life-principle, a heart- 
 religion, and, its votaries being persecuted by 
 the civil and military powers, it was maintained 
 in its purity, substantially as taught by Christ. 
 But a little over three hundred years after the 
 crucifixion of Christ, a ruler, answering exactly 
 to our Emperor Constantino, adopted Christian- 
 ity as the state religion. Then, at once, perse- 
 cution ceased, and priests and bishops of the 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 23 
 
 Christian church began to fawn on power, and 
 in return obtained authority to enforce their 
 ecclesiastical decrees. This power soon cor- 
 rupted the lives of church officials, and conse- 
 quently their religion. They began to add to 
 the teachings of Christ, and what they added 
 was not always in accord with what Christ 
 taught. They also began to omit much that 
 was essential in Christianity, as promulgated 
 by Christ. Their Christian church, for the 
 first nineteen hundred years of its existence, 
 was almost literally the same as ours up to this 
 time. They passed the point where we now 
 are somewhat more than three thousand years 
 ago. 
 
 The adoption of Christianity as the state 
 religion opened their courts of state to the 
 Christian bishops and priests; but this does 
 not mean that members of the court practised 
 any Christian self-denial, or abstained from any 
 of the then court pleasures. The priesthood 
 lowered its standard of Christian life to adapt 
 it to court life. To maintain such lives and 
 still remain Christian required that the standard 
 of Christianity must also be lowered. The 
 Christian religion must become more pliable 
 and indulgent, so the doctrine of substitution 
 was devised and added to Christian doctrine. 
 This doctrine meant that pereonal character had 
 
24 A DREAM OF 
 
 but little to do with salvation, — that when man 
 had lived as perfectly as he knew how, and to 
 the fullest extent in his power followed in the 
 footsteps of his Saviour, still he fell far short 
 of what was demanded. To meet this demand 
 they held that the righteousness of Christ must 
 be set to man's credit, so that man was to be 
 saved, not because he had any merit, but be- 
 cause of the merit of Christ. If man believed 
 in Christ, and had faith that Christ's merit 
 would at last be placed to his credit, without 
 regard to his own personal character, such faith 
 would secure him everlasting life. 
 
 This doctrine took the heart and vitality 
 of Christ's teachings out of Christianity, and 
 thereby left a Christless Christianity, well fitted 
 for a court religion. The state was not Chris- 
 tianized so much as Christianity was secular- 
 ized. 
 
 The common people in the Christian church 
 were slow to adopt this innovation, but the 
 priesthood, having free access to court, rapidly 
 gained civil as well as ecclesiastical power. 
 Synods were called, wherein were assembled 
 the priests and bishops of nearly all the Chris- 
 tian churclies, by the quasi-autliority of the 
 state. These synods fully adopted this and 
 other innovations, and declared their non-ac- 
 ceptance heresy. 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 25 
 
 There was a series of rulers there, known as 
 the Christian emperors, but their modern his- 
 torians give these emperors little credit for their 
 Christianity. They charge them with nomi- 
 nally adopting Christianity merely to strengthen 
 their hold upon the government among the peo- 
 ple and to get the benefit of Christian enthu- 
 siasm in their armies. They tried, as far as 
 possible, to harmonize Christianity with the 
 surrounding paganism, and thus, by the aid 
 of a corrupted, power-seeking priesthood, they 
 did much more to paganize Christianity than 
 to Christianize paganism. 
 
 All idol-worshipping tribes there, as here, in 
 olden times, and also their people corresponding 
 to our Jews, had for many ages been familiar 
 with the idea of placating the wrath of their 
 gods by sacrifices. In early historic times 
 parents sacrificed their children, and in times 
 of public calamities the rulers levied upon the 
 adult populations for public sacrifice. The 
 shedding of human blood, and the taking of 
 human life on their consecrated altars, was 
 common on Mars in early historic days. 
 
 They have a Bible, as we have, a Bible of 
 Old and New Testament Scriptures. While 
 the verbal expressions often differ from ours, 
 yet in substance their Bible is like ours. 
 
 The idea that God's displeasure could be 
 B 3 
 
26 A DREAM OF 
 
 placated, and his punishments bought off by 
 blood-sacrifices, remained a prominent feature 
 in their Jewish church until long after the 
 coming of Christ. The same idea, in the form 
 of self-inflicted sufferings as penance, was prac- 
 tised in their so-called Christian churches for 
 many centuries thereafter. 
 
 In one of their libraries I found an interest- 
 ing old book, published about three thousand 
 years ago, when their civilization corresponded 
 with ours at the present time. In this book 
 I was greatly interested. It treated at length 
 of their Jewish sacrificial system and its effect 
 on Christianity. I will quote a few sentences 
 from it : 
 
 " Language is never quite ready adequately 
 to express new ideas, or, rather, the thoughts 
 of new systems, either in matters of science or 
 religion. So at first the new must be expressed 
 in the language of the old. This fact often 
 causes too much of the old to be carried over 
 into the new, and causes more or less ambiguity 
 and confusion. The old ideas, are prone to 
 stick to the language, even when the language 
 is used to express the new ideas. Later on, 
 every science or system gets a nomenclature 
 and phraseology of its own, when its defi- 
 nitions and lines of distinction can be more 
 shai'ply drawn, and there can then be more 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 27 
 
 accuracy of expression and less liability of 
 misleading or being misled. 
 
 "To avoid this danger in the introduction 
 of a new science or a new religion requires a 
 master-mind, one that is master of both thought 
 and expression. Christ had this ability to an 
 unequalled degree. By the use of known ex- 
 periences, parables, recognized figures, etc., he 
 was able at once in his discourses to distinguish 
 between the new and the old, — between the old 
 objective religion and the new subjective. He 
 at once arraigns not the outward wrongful act 
 alone, but the inward motive, — the state of the 
 heart which leads to the act. And how vividly 
 he draws the line ! how clearly he defines the 
 difference ! ' Ye have heard tliat it hath been 
 said. Thou shalt not commit adultery : but I 
 say unto you. That whosoever looketh on a 
 woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery 
 with her already in his heart.' How clearly 
 and vividly this brings the heart-religion into 
 view ! Also, ' Ye shall know the tree by its 
 fruit, the fountain by its water, the quality of 
 the heart by the life that flows from it.' But 
 the disciples and apostles were not equally 
 happy in possessing this ability. Christ in his 
 teachings nowhere teaches that blood-sacrifice 
 has any part or place in his religion, but dis- 
 tinctly teaches that the Father will not have 
 
28 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 sacrifice, other than a contrite heart, a broken 
 spirit. 
 
 "Yet Christ had scarcely left Mars at the 
 hands of the murderous Jews before the Juda- 
 ism of the disciples and the paganism of the 
 Gentile Christians began to work up the cru- 
 cifixion of Christ as a blood-sacrifice, in the 
 oifering of which Christ's murderers were dig- 
 nified as God's officiating priests. This sacri- 
 fice was to atone for the sins of all men in all 
 time who accept Clirist and believe in him. 
 Suc^h a doctrine finds no foundation in the 
 teachings of Christ, none in the nature of man, 
 and none in the character of God as portrayed 
 by Christ. During the reign of the so-called 
 Christian emperors, when Christianity had been 
 alloyed and begun to deteriorate under state 
 patronage, and the resultant corruption of the 
 priesthood, an attempt was made to lay a basis 
 for this sacrificial theory, by begetting a trinity 
 of persons in the Godhead. So this was also 
 added to the articles of faith, and to call it in 
 question was heresy." 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 29 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 As I have before said, the people of Mars 
 are about three thousand years in advance of 
 where we are, or, at least, their books indicate 
 that three thousand years ago everything re- 
 lating to humanity coincided with our present 
 condition. By years I mean our years, not 
 theirs. The year on Mars is equal to almost 
 two years on the earth. So, to avoid confu- 
 sion, we will indicate time there by our own 
 measurements. 
 
 Mars, like the earth, has an eastern and a 
 western continent, separated by navigable seas. 
 As here, the eastern was first inhabited. The 
 western was settled by emigration from the 
 eastern. The first settlers went west, either to 
 avoid religious persecution, or with the hope 
 of accumulating wealth more rapidly. Both 
 classes, too, carried with them courage and 
 industry. Both classes exhibited as ruling 
 characteristics personal courage, intensity of 
 thought, strong will, and economy,^ust the 
 elements to make a grand population, when so 
 adjusted as to work harmoniously. But the 
 3* 
 
30 A DREAM OF 
 
 two classes were not congenial for many years. 
 One class was in quest of riches, the other of 
 religious liberty. Their early settlements be- 
 came colonies of the governments of the Eastern 
 World, but they were too widely separated from 
 the parent governments, both by distance and 
 by sentiment, to render these relations enduring. 
 So in process of time, after a bloody struggle 
 lasting several years, these colonies severed 
 their colonial relations with eastern govern- 
 ments, and, by uniting together, formed a strong 
 government of their own, wherein the ultimate 
 political power remained in the people at large. 
 
 The Old World prophesied that the new 
 government was essentially weak in its princi- 
 ples and plan, and would soon go to pieces. 
 They watched and waited, only to see it con- 
 stantly growing in strength and in the confi- 
 dence not of its own people alone, but of the 
 common people all over the planet. The 
 thought of self-government was enchanting 
 to liberty-loving people everywhere, — so they 
 flocked from the Old World into the New in 
 vast numbers, and it rapidly became peopled 
 by all tongues, and all grades of intelligence 
 and civilization, and all shades of religious 
 sentiments. 
 
 The government being under the control of 
 the people, it was early recognized that the peo- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 3I 
 
 pie should be intelligent ; so education was 
 popularized, and common schools were every- 
 where established, and gradually made as free 
 as the air and water to all. In the early his- 
 tory of this educational movement, each na- 
 tionality desired to have its own language 
 taught in these schools, and, when any con- 
 siderable number from any one nation were 
 represented in one school, their language was 
 allowed to be taught. But the influence of 
 this was in time discovered to be bad, as it 
 fostered the building up of separate clans of 
 the different nationalities, and stood in the way 
 of that entire unification of the people essen- 
 tial to strength and extended influence. Finally 
 only the language prevailing at the time of es- 
 tablishing this new government was permitted 
 to be taught in the public schools. In this way 
 they became a great people of one language, 
 with their kindred scattered among all nations 
 over all the world. 
 
 These western people were filled with enter- 
 prise, and, as they increased in wealth, became 
 great travellers. In visiting the homes of their 
 ancestors, in the Old World, speaking only the 
 language of the Xew "World, the cars of the 
 Old World speedily became accustomed to the 
 language of the New. Thus the way was 
 rapidly prepared for tlic adoption of the lau- 
 
32 A DREAM OF 
 
 guage of this Western ^yorld as the sole lan- 
 guage of the whole planet. To prepare it for 
 being thus adopted, the written language was 
 improved by making it purely phonetic. 
 
 In that age Mars had many large cities. 
 Idle people seeking employment, and idle peo- 
 ple who desired to live without employment, 
 flocked to these, and everywhere the cities were 
 the gardens for the cultivaton of vice and crime. 
 Large wealth was accumulated in the hands of 
 the few all over the planet, and poverty and 
 want belonged to the many. The few lived in 
 luxury, the many in want, and neither class 
 were serving the high end of their being. 
 Inequality and unhappiness everywhere pre- 
 vailed. Severe laws w^ere enacted for the pro- 
 tection of persons and property. Prisons and 
 almshouses were everywhere and always filled. 
 Courts of justice were numerous, and were 
 busily engaged in punishing crimes and settling 
 property disputes. There was everywhere a 
 struggle to get property without earning it. 
 Swindling schemes were constantly being de- 
 vised, and conspiracies formed to get possession 
 of property without rendering an equivalent 
 therefor. If schemers succeeded and gained 
 riches by their conspiracies, they were lauded 
 as men of great ability, and immediately took 
 rank in so-called good society. If they failed 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 33 
 
 they were outcasts, and punished as criminals. 
 Wealth was the one great desideratum every- 
 where, all the time ; and all else— honor, hon- 
 esty, justice, friendship, and even religion— was 
 sacrificed on the altar of Mammon. Social 
 position depended on wealth. Coarse, uncul- 
 tured vulgarity, if backed by large possessions, 
 was received and welcomed into the, so-called, 
 best society ; while refined, educated culture, 
 if poor, was excluded. This made the struggle 
 so intense as to foster and half approve the 
 great volume of crime which then existed. 
 The rich struggled to get richer, and this strug- 
 gle made the poor poorer. The rich vied with 
 each other in Inxurious equipages, dress, and 
 living. The extravagant luxury of the rich 
 was a constant temptation to those having 
 smaller yet comfortable incomes to live beyond 
 their means, and often to be guilty of pecula- 
 tions, breaches of trust, and forgeries. In this 
 way vast numbers of young men of great 
 promise were ruined. 
 
 For many years after the independence of 
 the Western World, individuals erected small 
 manufacturing establishments wherever they 
 could find cheap power and sufficient popula- 
 tion, but before the new government was a 
 century old manufacturing concentrated in 
 cities, and small capitalists combined together 
 
34 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 aud organized ou the general plan of onr cor- 
 porations, and erected immense establishments, 
 employing vast numbei's of workmen. This 
 tended to the rapid growth of such cities, and 
 the employees of these large establishments were 
 crowded together, having inadequate accommo- 
 dations, and sacrificing the health, comfort, and 
 often the virtue of their families in consequence. 
 New impetus was thus given to vice-and crime. 
 As soon as such large numbers of laborers 
 were thrown so closely together, they began to 
 organize for mutual improvement. This led 
 in process of time, as employers became more 
 avaricious, to organizations having for their 
 object the resistance of real and imaginary 
 encroachments upon their rights by their em- 
 ployers. These organizations accomplished 
 much good and much harm to hand -la borers. 
 Good, by showing to their employers that they 
 had rights that must be respected. Harm, (1) 
 by tending to establish in their minds the idea 
 that manual laborers were a caste, into which 
 one was born, and the boundaries of which few 
 could ever hope to pass ; (2) by severing the 
 cords of sympathy between the laborers and 
 their employers, thereby rendering it more dif- 
 ficult to take an employee into the proprietor- 
 ship and have him become a co-employer ; (3) 
 by establishing uniform prices for labor, — thus 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 35 
 
 taxing the mau whose diL'gence, intelligence, 
 and skill made his services worth much more 
 than the average, to support the one whose 
 ignorance, indolence, and awdavardness made 
 his services worth much less than the average, 
 thereby handicapping diligent skill to reward 
 indolent awkwardness, and lessening the motive 
 to attain excellence in one's calling ; (4) but the 
 worst effect of these associations, and the one 
 which at one time seems to have threatened to 
 turn the wheels of progress backward, was 
 their tendency to destroy that independence of 
 their members so necessary in a government 
 by the people. There was nothing that so 
 rapidly developed the self-governing principles 
 in these Western people as did the free conflict 
 of mind with mind in their direct intercourse 
 in business transactions. Even if a man had 
 nothing to sell but his labor, he was made a 
 stronger and more self-reliant man by himself 
 looking up and bargaining with the man who 
 would pay the most for it ; but in these associa- 
 tions, at one time, they had executive committees, 
 who relieved the individual members from this 
 duty, and determined for them when they should 
 or should not work, and settled the price to be 
 paid for their labor. Under such management 
 the manual laborers became more and more de- 
 pendent, and were rapidly losing the spirit of 
 
36 A DREAM OF 
 
 self-control and self-reliance that made them 
 good citizens of a free government. Tlicse 
 associations about the end of the nineteenth 
 century had forced nearly the entire laboring 
 population to join them. This they did by 
 combining against non-association labor, and 
 applying disgraceful names and obnoxious 
 epithets, and often by cruel personal abuse. 
 Leaders of the associations would harangue 
 the members with demagogical efforts bitterly 
 to prejudice their minds against all M'ho pos- 
 sessed property, and thereby aided in building 
 up a communistic spirit in the land, which 
 largely destroyed respect for property rights. 
 The result was a society filled with thieves, 
 l^ickpockets, burglars, highway-robbers, and 
 even with anarchists who would destroy all 
 government, legislative laws, and society regu- 
 lations. 
 
 Destructive associations were not confined to 
 manual-laboring classes, but men of property, 
 capitalists, also combined in large corporations 
 for manufacturing and transportation purposes. 
 These associations would devise new means to 
 oppress manual laborers, by lessening wages 
 and extending the hours of labor, often dis- 
 regarding the need of a day of rest, and com- 
 pelling their employees to labor the whole 
 seven days of the week. These corporations 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 37 
 
 would compete with each other in the reduc- 
 tion of the price of their wares, in order to 
 command the trade. This was often carried 
 to such an extent as to result in over-produc- 
 tion, and the consequent reduction of prices to 
 such a point that it was impossible to pay the 
 laborers sufficient wages for the adequate sup- 
 port of themselves and their families. Finally 
 these large corporations, to prevent destructive 
 competition, combined in immensely larger cor- 
 porations, resembling our pools and trusts. 
 These trusts operated by curtailing production, 
 often entirely closing the works of a large cor- 
 poration, and throwing out of employment vast 
 numbers of people. They took good care to 
 protect their own profits, but showed no regard 
 for the laborers. Prices of products would be 
 increased, but the discharged manual laborers 
 were left without means to buy. In tliis way 
 the breach between labor and capital grew 
 wider and wider, while the real interest of all 
 demanded that no breach should exist. 
 
 Capital did other great wrongs. It bought 
 itself into office, throttled the will of the peo- 
 ple, bri.bed legislatux-es, corrupted judges, and 
 was guilty of many other evils, which could 
 only be brought about by the wrongful use of 
 money. 
 
 Another source of hinderance to a rapid 
 4 
 
38 A DREAM OF 
 
 advance of civilization iu the Western World 
 was found in the condition of what was termed 
 " domestic service." The scramble for position 
 in the so-called highest social circles, and the 
 effort to keep such circles exclusive, had bred 
 in people of wealth more or less contempt for 
 labor or laborers. The nearer the laborer was 
 brought to the eiiiployer, the more intense the 
 contempt seemed to be. The women of wealthy- 
 families disdained manual labor more than did 
 the men. The result was that women of char- 
 acter were driven out of domestic service, and 
 took places as clerks in offices and shops, where 
 they were exposal to greater temptations, and 
 driven to less healthful but more respectable 
 service. Their places in domestic service were 
 largely filled by a lower class, often unchaste 
 and in many ways dishonest. The children in 
 these families were necessarily brought in con- 
 tact with these defiled women, and their minds 
 were debauched and made familiar with the 
 worst forms of vice, often before they were old 
 enough to know the meaning of what they saw 
 or heard. Such were the homes of many pro- 
 fessing Christian families. The heads of these 
 families contributed large sums to scud Chris- 
 tian teachers to foreign heathen, while employ- 
 ino; the worst kind of heathen teachers for their 
 own children, in the back part of their own 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 39 
 
 dwellings. These domestics were rarely invited 
 to attend church or join in family worship with 
 their employers, and, if invited, were not ex- 
 pected to accept the invitation. 
 
 The effect of all these things, and of what grew 
 out of them, on the Christian civilization of 
 the planet, especially on the people of the free 
 AVesteru World, is represented as fearful, and 
 as threatening to turn society back to origi- 
 nal barbarism. The nineteenth century closed, 
 leaving everything out of joint and apparently 
 tending to chaos. Even the Christian church 
 seemed almost to have entirely lost its function 
 of character-buildino;. The largest branch of 
 this church would condone all sins except re- 
 fusal to obey the mandates of tlic priesthood, 
 and in almost all the other branches heresy, or 
 disbelief in their particular tenets, was the 
 greatest offence, and exposed one to their bit- 
 terest anathemas. 
 
 The world was filled with great activity and 
 enterprise, but very largely it was the enter- 
 prise of greed, — greed for riches or for personal 
 aggrandizement. These riches were generally 
 sought by preying upon each other, rather than 
 by efforts to seize the laws of nature and or- 
 ganize them for the advantage of mankind, in 
 converting idle and raw material to beneficent 
 use. 
 
40 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 The only hopeful outlook at that time was 
 the growing spirit of investigation, of broader 
 and more accurate thought. The general dif- 
 fusion of education and the gro^vth of intelli- 
 gence were rapidly making men more scientific, 
 logical, and philosophical. People were begin- 
 ning to recognize the fact that society was dis- 
 jointed and working at cross-purposes, and 
 many were looking for the destructive element, 
 with the view of extirpating it. Many theories 
 for so doing were being advanced, and many 
 books on this subject were published about the 
 close of the nineteenth and beginning of the 
 twentieth centuries. Some of the theories were 
 plausible, but would not bear the test of close 
 anal}'sis ; many were entirely Utopian ; others 
 had elements of good, but lacked the support 
 of sound foundations. Many of these theories 
 were interesting and made charming reading, 
 but we have neither time nor space for them 
 here. This spirit of inquiry extended well 
 into the twentieth century, and deepened and 
 broadened as it extended. All of the wiser 
 and more thoughtful of these writers early dis- 
 covered and agreed that the sense of justice, the 
 sense of what was right and wrong between 
 man and man, whether or not it had ever been 
 any stronger, had been debauched for so many 
 generations past that it had become too feeble 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 41 
 
 generally to assert itself in human transactions ; 
 hence the almost universal scramble to over- 
 reach and out-wit one another. These writers 
 recognized that any plan or system of reforma- 
 tion, that failed to elevate or restore the sense 
 of justice to its proper controlling influence in 
 the dealings between man and man, must prove 
 a failure. They also recognized the fact that 
 this sense could only be reached by a quickened 
 conscience, and that the conscience of the masses 
 was most effectually reached through the church, 
 — that conscience was so closely allied to the 
 religious sense as to be quickest and most effect- 
 ually reached through that sense. 
 
 It was decided, therefore, by the most ad- 
 vanced and able thinkers that the reform must 
 be reached through the Cliristian church. But 
 to fit it for this reform work the church itself 
 must be reformed. The Christian church seemed 
 to have strayed far from Christ's teachings. 
 Christ brought his gospel to the poor. When 
 their forerunner of Christ, their St. John, sent 
 his followers to Christ to inquire of him whether 
 he was the real Christ, or whether they should 
 look for another, Christ answered by calling 
 attention to his works, and said, " Go tell 
 John," and, after enumerating several things, 
 added as a climax, "and the poor have the 
 gospel preached unto them." At the beginning 
 4* 
 
42 A DREAM OF 
 
 of the twentieth century, on Mars, the gospel 
 was not being very etTcctually preached to the 
 poor generally. The churches, especially in 
 the cities, where reform was most needed, 
 preached the gospel to the rich, and only very 
 sparingly to the poor; and with shame it is 
 said that in preaching the gospel to the rich it 
 was largely shorn of its life-giving principles. 
 It was fitted for the palates of the rich, and 
 care was pretty generally taken not to offend 
 those palates by anything distasteful. 
 
 Most of the churches were costly edifices, 
 finished in gorgeous style, making large expen- 
 ditures necessary to support and maintain them, 
 — far beyond the ability of the poor to con- 
 tribute. The rich parcelled among themselves 
 all the desirable seats. Even where a few cor- 
 ners were reserved for those unable to pay pew- 
 rent, the occupants were constantly made to feel 
 their poverty, when contrasting their accom- 
 modations with those of people who were able 
 to pay for their sittings. In short, the poor were 
 generally made to feel they were not wanted, 
 even in the churches. The clergy courted the 
 wealthy and those holding high social positions, 
 and took care not to condemn such wrong- 
 doing as was peculiar to those classes. 
 
 The churches generally at that time were 
 wedded to certain creeds, formulated hundreds 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 43 
 
 of years before, at a time when they were pecu- 
 liarly exposed to false theories and mistaken 
 views. Many adhered to doctrines antagonistic 
 to needed reforms. 
 
 Early in the twentieth century many leading 
 clergymen began to urge upon their brother 
 ministers the absolute necessity of the churches 
 making restatements of their doctrines. Pre- 
 paratory to such restatement, many volumes 
 were written and published, in which were 
 critically examined the distinctive doctrines of 
 Christianity with the desire to get back to them 
 as a church foundation. The further this ex- 
 tended, the more evident it appeared tliat true 
 Christianity was the panacea of all the evils 
 that afflicted governments and society, as well 
 as individuals. 
 
 During the nineteenth century, especially the 
 latter half of it, the study of science on Mars 
 had made wonderful strides, and had opened 
 up many valuable mines of thought, and, what 
 was of most value, had developed better methods 
 of investigation, so that it was far easier to dis- 
 tinguish between the true aud the false. In- 
 vestigators were lx?coming more honest, and 
 approaclied questions without preconceived no- 
 tions and tlieories to maintain, or, at least, with 
 the ability to lay them aside, if they had them, 
 and look onlv for truth. 
 
44 A DREAM OF 
 
 Science had, on Mars, up to near tlie close of 
 the nineteenth century, been confined exclu- 
 sively to the material world and to theories re- 
 lating thereto. Yet many of these well-settled 
 theories ran athwart well-settled religious opin- 
 ions. For instance, theologians had believed 
 that the planet and substantially all upon it 
 had been created out of nothing by a fiat, in 
 six literal days. But scientists demonstrated 
 by the planet itself that such was not the case, 
 but that many thousand and probably many 
 million years were occupied in the work of 
 creation. Again, they had believed that after 
 the planet was created God made, by fiats, full- 
 grown animals, as we now see them, to inhabit 
 the waters, the air, and the land. Also that 
 man was created, from the dust of the ground, 
 in the same way. Scientists conceded that all 
 were made from the dust of the ground, but 
 not by a fiat in their mature form. They dis- 
 covered that, early in the work of creation, 
 animal life had been brought into existence in 
 a very low and imperfect form, — imperfect as 
 compared with animal life now, but probably 
 ])erfcetly adapted to the state of creation then 
 existing. The air was then thick with un- 
 absorbed nebulous matter which could not have 
 been breathed by animals of to-day. The 
 waters were in tlie same condition, — thick and 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 45 
 
 turbid, — so tlie early stages of vegetable and 
 animal life were adapted to this condition of 
 things. Scientists had also discovered that God 
 had established certain laws of selection and 
 survival, under the regular operation of Mhich 
 he had evolved what we now see, even material 
 man. 
 
 There were men on Mars, at the time of 
 which w'e speak, known as materialists, not 
 very numerous, but very loud and demonstra- 
 tive. They denied spiritual existence, because, 
 by making a chemical analysis of man, they 
 could find no spirit. They denied the existence 
 of a personal God, and held that with man, 
 as with the lower animals, death ended all. 
 
 These men were not scientists, but a sort of 
 science-scavengers, akin to what, in an army, 
 are known as camp-followers, living upon what 
 the soldiers throw away. In the same way, they 
 hung upon the skirts of scientists. Many of 
 them were men of culture, of keen wit, bitter 
 sarcasm, and burning oratory, but never scien- 
 tific, and rarely logical. They had much of 
 the phraseology and the nomenclature of mod- 
 ern thought, but none of its power or methods 
 of analysis, or its spirit of candor. However, 
 their brilliancy gave them a following. Their 
 methods were purely destructive. They tore 
 down, but never built up. They took away a 
 
46 A DREAM OF 
 
 man's faith, but gave him nothing in return. 
 Their aim seemed to be the utter destruction of 
 the religious sense in man. Of course they did 
 much evil, but, unintentionally, they also did 
 much good. In centuries of benighted igno- 
 rance, with a corrupt, sensual priesthood, en- 
 dowed with great power over the minds and 
 bodies and property of the laity, Christianity 
 had become handicapped with false doctrines 
 and practices, until it seemed to be staggering 
 under a load of falsehood. These errors, like 
 ugly warts on the otherwise beautiful face, 
 seemed to invite the ridicule and sarcasm of 
 these enemies of all religion, and thus the more 
 thoughtful and earnest Christian scholars and 
 ministers had their attention called to these 
 errors, and began to devise ways and means to 
 eradicate them. They soon discovered that 
 these errors, or false doctrines, were breeding 
 much scepticism within the church. The pews 
 were beginning to think, as well as the pulpits. 
 Many would quickly recognize a false doctrine 
 when pointed out to them, who had not been 
 sufficiently trained in logical analysis to enable 
 them to distinguish clearly between the true 
 and the false, and so rejected all, — threw away 
 their Christianity because error had become 
 attached to it, — in pulling up the tares, they 
 destroyed the wheat also. 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 47 
 
 This state of things greatly alarmed real 
 Christians everywhere, especially the more in- 
 telligent. Those having the requisite scholar- 
 ship commenced a vigorous examination of 
 their creeds, determined to find the errors if 
 they existed and devise means for eradicating 
 them. 
 
 When their nineteenth century went out and 
 the twentieth came in, this movement was just 
 getting a strong hold of the Christian mind, 
 and the publications and discussions which 
 emanated from the press in the first half of the 
 twentieth century Avere interesting beyond my 
 power to describe. It is, of course, impossible 
 for me to reproduce here any considerable por- 
 tion of those publications ; so I must content 
 myself by quoting a part only of such as are 
 said to have been most potent in bringing about 
 the present advanced state of civilization and 
 the religious and social unity that now prevail 
 on Mars. 
 
 Since the adoption of a universal language 
 on Mars, all the old books of merit, of all the 
 languao-es formerlv used, have been translated 
 into their present tongue and are accessible to 
 all. 
 
48 A DREAM OF 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 At that period of thorough re-examination 
 of their platforms and creeds, the theolo- 
 gians and philosophers of Mars went back to 
 first principles in their investigations. They 
 seem first to have grappled the question, 
 " What is the nature of man, and what are his 
 wants?" 
 
 It was exceedingly cheering to notice how 
 honestly they seem to have gone at their work. 
 Approaching from all directions and from all 
 shades of belief and disbelief, they seem to 
 have laid aside all preconceptions, and to have 
 searched diligently for the truth, wdthout appar- 
 ent care as to whether the truth sustained or 
 contradicted their former ideas. Various were 
 the early opinions expressed in these examina- 
 tions, but, after several years of earnest and 
 knowledge-seeking discussion, and the publica- 
 tion of manv volumes of rich thought, the lead- 
 ing minds both in and out of the church began 
 to converge, and find common ground on which 
 they could stand. They came together in a 
 common finding, best expressed In a somewhat 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 49 
 
 elaborate work, published about the middle of 
 the twentieth century. 
 
 I have before said that their language is 
 spelled phonetically, and is much more con- 
 densed than ours : their thoughts require fewer 
 words for expression. One can read their books 
 almost as rapidly as he can think. This facili- 
 tates holding the attention to the subject-matter 
 and makes the reading an easy task. I made 
 copious extracts in short-hand from these pub- 
 lications, and will translate portions of them 
 into English as well as I can. Their Scriptures 
 differ from ours in many respects, yet I cannot 
 do better than to adopt ours as the translation 
 of corresponding passages in theirs. 
 
 The author says : " When treating of the 
 conditions of man in relation to immortality, 
 I propose to accept the Mosaic account of his 
 origin and fall, as the same has been commonly 
 interpreted, because, for all practical purposes, 
 that will serve my purpose as well as any other ; 
 but in so doing I do not wish to commit my- 
 self for or against that interpretation. 
 
 " ' In the day that thou eatest thereof thou 
 shalt surely die.' Did this mean that Adam 
 should suffer natural death as the penalty of 
 disobedience ? Did it refer to the death of the 
 natural body ? Adam did eat of the forbidden 
 fruit, but he lived many years thereafter. His 
 
50 -4 DREAM OF 
 
 body was akin to all around liini. It was of 
 the earth, earthy ; the very construction of his 
 body, wonderful though it was, all prophesied 
 of decay and death. The very permission, 
 'Of every tree thou mayest freely eat,' etc., 
 was an announcement that the bodies of Adam 
 and Eve were subject to the laws of organic 
 matter, of growth and decay, of wear and tear, 
 — in short, of death. 
 
 " God said, * In the day that thou eatest 
 thereof thou shalt surely die.' The serpent 
 said, ' Ye shall not surely die.' If the death 
 referred to meant the death of the body, the 
 serpent would seem to have spoken the truth, 
 for ' in the day' could not have meant hundreds 
 of years thereafter, for in the natural course of 
 events death would then occur anyhow. 
 
 "Adam was endowed with a life in addition 
 to that given to the beasts of the field. After 
 being made, as were the other animals, "we are 
 told that God * breathed into his nostrils the 
 breath of life, and man became a living soul.' 
 This life, so distinctively mentioned and thereby 
 so emphasized, meant something more than 
 natural life, something more than was bestowed 
 on the other animals. 
 
 " Modern science has made great progress in 
 discovering the processes of evolution, demon- 
 strating that much of what exists is the result 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 51 
 
 of what is called natural law. Scientists gen- 
 erally, however, substantially confess that they 
 meet with chasms which this natural law can- 
 not leaj), and which apparently could have been 
 bridged only by creative power. They discover 
 no law of inorganic matter that could evolve 
 the organic. Dead, earthy matter seems utterly 
 incapable, of itself, of assuming vitality or of 
 evolving it. It is dead, and no law or func- 
 tion of dead matter has been discovered that 
 will empower it to beget or assume life. It 
 may be vitalized, but by nothing within itself. 
 The most that can be said of it in this con- 
 nection is, it is susceptible of vitalization. 
 
 " The most persistent efforts have been made, 
 with every conceivable form of analysis and 
 synthesis, to discover in inorganic matter an 
 ability to evolve the organic, but without avail. 
 The chemist may decompose the apple or the 
 potato and determine, he says, its elements, and 
 may carefully weigh each element and find that 
 the sum of these weights is equal to the weight 
 of the whole, thereby showing, to his satisfac- 
 tion, that he has lost nothing ; yet he is unable 
 to combine these self-same elements in their 
 original form. He failed in his analysis to 
 save the life with the other elements. 
 
 " Life was a creation. The organic called 
 for the fiat of Creative Power. After this 
 
62 A DREAM OF 
 
 creation the herb is able to overcome the inertia 
 of dead matter and set its particles in motion, 
 and lifts them up in opposition to gravitation, 
 and causes them to assume new forms, enter 
 into new relations, and jicrform new functions. 
 
 " Another chasm, perhaps not so broad, lay 
 between the animal and vegetable worlds ; but 
 between the animal and the spiritual lay an 
 abyss broader and deeper than that between the 
 organic and the inorganic, — a chasm that noth- 
 ing below the spiritual could bridge. 
 
 " As the vegetable life must reach down into 
 the mineral world and lift up its dead particles 
 and endow them with new functions, and as 
 animal life must reach down into the vegetable 
 kingdom and lift up its elements into new and 
 higher forms and offices : so the spiritual life 
 must reach down and seize upon the animal and 
 endow it with new and loftier powers. 
 
 "When man became 'a living soul,' the 
 chasm between the animal and the spiritual 
 world was bridged. Man walked the planet 
 as other animals did, and in addition he trod 
 the spiritual world. He had two lives, — the 
 animal and the spiritual. Through the animal 
 he was akin to all below him, and through the 
 spiritual, to all above him. 
 
 " The loss of life is death. Scientists define 
 life to be ' the continuous adjustment of internal 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 53 
 
 ^/ force to external relations.' This means, in 
 part, that no finite thing, whether vegetable or 
 animal or spiritual, can live within itself To 
 live, ' it must keep its internal organs and func- 
 tions adjusted to the appropriate outside coun- 
 terpart of its existence, that the one may draw 
 its necessary support from the other.' 
 
 " Death, then, would be the severance of 
 these relations, or, in other words, a failure 
 continuously to keep properly adjusted the 
 relations of the internal to the external. 
 
 " By analogy w^e may reasonably infer that 
 exactly the same is true of spiritual life. When 
 man partook of the forbidden fruit, when he 
 sinned, he did nothing to disturb the continuity 
 of the internal to the external bodily relations ; 
 hence his bodily life was not lost. There was 
 nothing to cause bodily death, but he did at 
 once, instantly, sever the adjustment of the in- 
 ternal to the external spiritual relations. He 
 cut himself off from his source of spiritual 
 nourishment, and, as a natural, necessary result, 
 he became spiritually dead. 
 
 " To sustain his natural life, man must main- 
 tain a continuous adjustment of his internal 
 organs to their external source of supply, such 
 as the stomach to food, the skin to proper tem- 
 perature, the lungs to air, etc. If the continu- 
 ous adjustment of the lungs to the air be de- 
 6* 
 
64 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 stroyed, death is the immediate result, or, in the 
 language of modern science, ' Man lives while 
 his bodily organs are in correspondence M'ith 
 their environment, and dies when that corre- 
 spondence is broken,' — or, in plain, old-fash- 
 ioned language, he dies when the support of 
 life is cut off, whether from the lack of the ex- 
 ternal supply, or the inability of the internal 
 organs to appropriate such supply. If he cuts 
 off this supply by his own act, he is guilty of 
 suicide. 
 
 " When God said, ' In the day that thou 
 eatest thereof thou shalt surely die/ he did not 
 thereby proclaim an arbitrary penalty for sin, 
 in the sense in which penalties are inflicted by 
 outside authority for commission of crime, but 
 he simply informed Adam of the necessary, 
 natural law of cause and effect, and gave warn- 
 ing that such act would be spiritual suicide. 
 When man deliberately disobeyed God, his 
 spiritual death was just as inevitable, and just 
 as natural, as would be the death of the body 
 when a man hangs himself and thereby shuts 
 the air from his lungs. 
 
 *•' The continuity of the internal to the ex- 
 ternal relations, or the correspondence of the 
 internal organs to their external environment, 
 being once broken, can be re-established only 
 by creative power. With this view of man, 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 55 
 
 how vivid and full of meaning are the words 
 of Christ in his illustrative figure, ' I am the 
 vine, and ye are the branches ; if a man abide 
 not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is 
 withered (dies), and men gather them and cast 
 them into the fire and they are burned.' 
 
 " If the spiritual life is the only source and 
 promise of immortality, then, if man died 
 spiritually, why did he not become as he would 
 have been if God had not ' breathed into his 
 nostrils the breath of life' ? Such death must 
 have reduced him to a mere intellectual animal, 
 — spiritually extinct, — leaving no call or use 
 for an eternal hell, no necessity for an infinite 
 sacrifice, no place in the universe for an orthodox 
 atonement or an orthodox trinity. There would 
 seem to be no more necessity that the Son of 
 God should submit to become the victim of the 
 heathenish idea of a blood-sacrifice for man 
 than for the ox or the ass or the monkey. 
 
 " Man, as a mere intellectual animal, is capa- 
 ble of wonderfid culture and development, and 
 also of a high degree of morality. As a mere in- 
 tellectual animal he may seek his own interests 
 in the interests of others. He may conclude 
 that to be strictly just and honest and honorable 
 in his intercourse with others will best conduce 
 to his own interests. He may, for the same 
 reason, adopt the Golden Rule as the rule of 
 
56 A DREAM OF 
 
 his life, and yet have no spirituality and no 
 part or lot in the future state. This alone is 
 not s])iritual life, and is no certain evidence of 
 such life. Mere animal selfishness may lead an 
 intelligent man to do justice and equity. 
 
 " The mere universal dream of immortality, 
 the mere universal desire for it, the lougiug 
 hope for it, are no proofs that the one who 
 dreams and desires and hopes is immortal. So 
 far as this state of mind indicates anything, it 
 tends in the direction of proof that there is 
 something above and beyond our present state, 
 a spiritual kingdom, a source of spiritual life 
 and light, and, perhaps, of the possibility of 
 man becoming fitted to be a recipient of that 
 light and life. 
 
 " The worshipping instinct that has seemed 
 to pervade all tribes and nations in all ages of 
 the world is of the same character, — a sort of 
 half-recognized prophecy of man's adaptation 
 to become more than an animal : it is a God- 
 implanted yearning, designed to make man 
 search for the source of the spiritual, and, if 
 possible, to find the strait and narrow way, 
 — the single door through which he may enter 
 its portals and become its recipient. 
 
 " We may safely go a little further, and infer 
 that, in his natural state, man may have an in- 
 born spiritual ovule or seed, which, if impreg- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 57 
 
 nated, — fructified by the spirit of God, — may 
 become a ' living soul/ — ' a second birth.' "With 
 this view, the ' second birth' ceases to be a figure 
 of speech, and becomes a literal fact, a real birth, 
 the beg-etting of a new existence. If this ovule 
 is neglected, if God is shut away from it, it 
 ultimately dries up, dies, and becomes as if it 
 had never been. If the germ dies, there is 
 nothing to develop into a living soul, — no 
 second birth can take place, — ' the day of grace 
 is sinned away.' For this idea we liave no 
 direct ' thus saith the Lord,' yet it makes many 
 dark places luminous. The ' unpardonable sin' 
 is then explained on a rational basis. When 
 a man is once ' born again,' — this ovule once 
 vitalized, — and afterwards dies spiritually, there 
 can be no further hope ; for, having but one 
 spiritual germ, and that being lost, all hope 
 dies with it. So if a man, once spiritualized, 
 deliberately sins so as to sever his spiritual re- 
 lations with the sustaining spirit of the Father, 
 he has committed spiritual suicide. 
 
 " The Old Testatment Scriptures are not veiy 
 clear in their direct teachings of immortality, 
 but they clearly teach the mortality of the 
 finally impenitent. The New Testament, how- 
 ever, is full and rich in its teachings on both 
 these points. A hereafter is distinctly and 
 
58 A DREAM OF 
 
 positively annouucecl over and over again ; 
 also, the doctrine that man, on specified condi- 
 tions, may continue to live in that hereafter ; 
 yet a most careful and critical examination 
 will find little, if anything, in the New Testa- 
 ment to sustain the doctrine that natural man 
 is immortal. There are a few passages which, 
 taken from the contexts, and unexplained, 
 might seem to indicate a continued existence 
 of the wicked beyond the grave. 
 
 " On the other hand, science, reason, the gen- 
 eral tone of the Sacred Scriptures, what we 
 know of God as revealed to us in the Bible, 
 in nature, in his providence, and in the person 
 of Jesus Christ, accord far better with the doc- 
 trine that man, in his natural state, is mortal, 
 and devoid of that kind of life which is lighted 
 not to be extinguished. 
 
 " The Scriptures speak of natural man as 
 'dead' in his relation to the spiritual kingdom. 
 ' To be carnally minded is death,' * She that 
 liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth,' ' To 
 you hath he given life, which were dead in tres- 
 passes and sins,' 'He that hath not the Son 
 hath not life,' or is dead. ' Good Master, what 
 shall I do to inherit eternal life?' — recognizing 
 the fact that he is without such life. ' They 
 have eyes, but they see not, ears have they, but 
 they hear not.' They have no spiritual eyes or 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 59 
 
 ears, because they are spiritually dead. ' The 
 natural man rcceiveth not the things of the 
 spirit of God, for they are foolishness to hira, 
 neither can he know them, because they are 
 spiritually discerned.' This extract is full of 
 meaning. It not only announces a fact, but 
 gives a philosophical, scientific reason for the 
 fact. One would as soon expect a dumb brute 
 to comprehend a proposition in geometry as for 
 natural man to comprehend what can only be 
 spiritually discerned. He is devoid of the 
 organ that corresponds to the external spiritual 
 relation. He has no spiritual organ in corre- 
 spondence with a spiritual environment. To 
 promulgate spiritual truths to such a person is 
 simply casting pearls before swine. ' Every 
 tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn 
 down and cast into the fire.' Fire is the most 
 destructive agent in nature. It reduces to its 
 ultimate elements what it acts upon. The de- 
 struction by fire is a final destruction ; hence it 
 is so often referred to as the figurative agent in 
 the destruction of the wicked, — an utter de- 
 struction. 'Sin reigned unto death,' 'Death 
 reigned from Adam unto IMoses, even over 
 them that had not sinned after the similitude 
 of Adam's transgression,' 'The wages of sin 
 is death,' ' The motions of sin did work in our 
 members to bring forth fruit unto death/ ' Sin 
 
go ^ DREAM OF 
 
 revived and I died/ ' Sin slew me/ ' Sin, when 
 finished, bringeth forth death,' ' There is a sin 
 unto death.' Many other quotations from the 
 New Testament might be cited to the same 
 efiFect. 
 
 "The Old Testament is full of the same 
 teaching. ' The soul that sinneth, it shall die,' 
 
 * The wicked are overwhelmed, and they are 
 not/ ' The name of the wicked shall rot,' ' Thou 
 hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out 
 their name forever,' ' Yet a little while, and the 
 wicked shall not be.' 
 
 "It is not necessary to extend these quota- 
 tions further. Whoever will critically read the 
 Bible from the beginning to the end, searching 
 this doctrine, will wonder how he ever believed 
 that the wicked have an eternal existence. 
 
 " It is unaccountable, that the prevailing doc- 
 trine in the church should so long have been 
 that ' death,' in all these quotations, does not 
 mean death at all, but a miserable, suffering 
 immortality. Destmction, we have believed, 
 did not mean being destroyed, but that ever- 
 lasting death meant everlasting miserable life. 
 
 * Where the fire is not quenched' we have be- 
 lieved meant an everlasting roasting of con- 
 scious beings. 
 
 " It is much more rational to be more literal 
 in translations. ' Everlastinsr destruction' means 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. Ql 
 
 a destruction that has no end, an everlasting 
 separating of the elements, with no chance of 
 recomposition, no resurrection. ' The fire is 
 not quenched' in the sense that it forever keeps 
 the destruction complete. 'Where the worm 
 dieth not' has exactly the same meaning. After 
 devouring the wicked, the worm never dies, but 
 stands vigil forever, to see that there shall be 
 no resuscitation, no resurrection." 
 
62 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 The author from whom I heave quoted so 
 largely, and will continue to quote, was edu- 
 cated in the church which corresponds to what 
 are here called the orthodox churches, and, it 
 seems, was a regular church attendant. He 
 evidently was a devout Christian man, and by 
 persistent and honest investigation seems to 
 have worked himself to near the lead of the 
 reform thought of his age. His writings, evi- 
 dently, had a profound influence in producing 
 the enviable state of society now existing in 
 Mars. 
 
 After making further quotations from both 
 the Old and New Testaments in support of 
 the doctrine that death ends all with the unre- 
 pentant wicked, he proceeds : " The acceptance 
 of the doctrine that there is no hereafter for the 
 finally impenitent and wicked — no hereafter for 
 any except the subjects of the * new birth,' — 
 those who are begotten of the Father unto a 
 new life — was, with me, the key that unlocked 
 the kingdom. It is the broom that has swept 
 from the theological heavens the cobwebs and 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 63 
 
 foffs and mysteries which were the debris of 
 centuries of a Christless priesthood and enthu- 
 siastic superstition. It brought broad, open 
 davlight where before was darkness with only an 
 occasional glimmer or flash of light, just enough 
 to conyince inquirers that there was light some- 
 where, and to encourage them to persevere and 
 search for it. 
 
 " This doctrine alone relieves Christianity of 
 very much of that which is odious and unchris- 
 tian. It relieves God of the blasphemous 
 charges which his own professed ministers have 
 heaped upon him. There can be no eternal 
 hell of torments, no sacrifice of the Son to 
 appease the oifended wrath of the Father. It 
 at once makes the Father as lovable as the Son, 
 — infinitely lovable. It takes away many of 
 the stumblincj-blocks which have needlessly and 
 wickedly been thrown in the pathway of the 
 earnest seeker after the truth both in and out 
 of the church ; it has removed one of the prin- 
 cipal sources of infidelity. 
 
 " Punishment, with a view to reform, is con- 
 sistent with goodness. Retributive punishment 
 may be just, in the sense that it is deserved or 
 merited, but can hardly be denominated good. 
 Eternal punishment must be simply vindictive, 
 and cannot be reconciled with infinite goodness. 
 ' An eye for an eye,' ' a tooth for a tooth,' ' a 
 
64 A DREAM OF 
 
 blow for a blow/ were condemned by Christ ; 
 yet the church idea of hell ascribes to God 
 himself the disposition to return incomputable 
 billions of blows for one. Thousands upon 
 thousands are driven to the denial of Chris- 
 tianity, simply because thoy have been led to 
 believe that this hellish doctrine is a necessary 
 element of Christian faith. The attempt of 
 some to obviate the hardness of this doctrine 
 by making the Atonement save all, without 
 regard to character, is repulsive, for the reason 
 that it offers no reward for virtue, but destroys 
 the very foundation of religion, by putting the 
 highest virtue on the same footing with the 
 lowest vice. The theological twaddle about a 
 new trial in the next world is too insipid to 
 entitle it to thoughtful consideration, as it has 
 neither common sense nor Scripture behind it. 
 
 " Some may say that the doctrine that death 
 ends all with the wicked is annihilation, and 
 that anniliilation is more cruel than an eternal 
 hell of torments. Not so. There is no cruelty 
 in annihilation. It causes no suffering except 
 in anticipation, and this anticipation is a mercy 
 if it leads to an earnest search for the new life. 
 It is no more annihilation than is suffered by 
 all other animals. Death is often a mercy to 
 relieve from pain, and trouble, and decrepitude. 
 The choice of life is open to all, and, if final 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 65 
 
 and absolute death is a terror, it should induce 
 the choice of life. ' The survival of the fittest' 
 seems to be God's law in creation, and is appli- 
 cable in distinguishing between those who have 
 been born of the spirit and those who have 
 not. 
 
 "Seekers after truth have heretofore been 
 told that, to be intelligent Christians, they must 
 believe, — 
 
 " 1st. That God the Father is omnipotent 
 and omnipresent, — sees all things, knows all 
 things, and is the source of all power. 
 
 " 2d. That God the Father will forgive no 
 one, however penitent, until the penalty of his 
 sins has been fully suflercd. 
 
 " 3d. That God the Father will accept the 
 suffering of such penalty at the hands of one 
 who never sinned. 
 
 " 4th. That God the Father will punish with 
 the pains of eternal torments every man and 
 woman (and why not child?) who does not 
 voluntarily accept this innocent sufferer as 
 having suffered for him or her, vicariously. 
 
 " Any who will intelligently study these last 
 three propositions, and get their real meaning, 
 will agree in defying any man, however learned 
 he may be, to define the orthodox 'devil' in 
 terms more odious and fiendish than these propo- 
 sitions make God the Father. Their bare state- 
 e 6* 
 
QQ A DREAM OF 
 
 ment were almost blasphemy ; yet they have 
 long been taught from the Christian pulpit. 
 Strange it is that there are not a thousand 
 scoffino; infidels where there is one. But we 
 are told that the Godhead is an impenetrable 
 mystery in our present state, that the relations 
 of the Father and the Son to mankind are suffi- 
 ciently revealed for the purposes of salvation, 
 and that we have no right to ask more. This 
 might be satisfactory if the church had not por- 
 trayed God the Father as a being so unlike a 
 father, — so cold and merciless, and so merci- 
 lessly exacting, — and then bid poor human 
 nature to call him Father, and to make him 
 the object of love and worship, — a Father who 
 forgives nothing, but demands in kind the utter- 
 most farthing of indebtedness. 
 
 " How different is the Father revealed to us 
 by Jesus Christ ! Christ taught us to pray 
 directly to the Father : not through Christ as our 
 intercessor or solicitor, not through the merits 
 of his sinless character, set to our credit, not 
 because of his vicarious suiferings for us, not 
 because he had paid our debt in full ; but be- 
 cause God was our Father we were taught .to 
 go directly to him, pleading only our own char- 
 acter and penitence for transgressions, — ' Our 
 Father which art in heaven/ ' forgive us our 
 trespasses as we forgive those who trespass 
 
A modijST prophet. 67 
 
 against us.'' Christ taught us to love our enemies, 
 to bless them that curse us, to do good to them 
 that hate us, to pray for them that despitefully 
 use us and persecute us. Why ? ' So that ye 
 may be the children of your Father which is in 
 heaven ; for he raaketh his sun to rise on the 
 evil and the good, and sendeth rain upon the 
 just and the unjust. Be ye therefore merciful, 
 as your Father in heaven is merciful.' How 
 wonderfully near to us Christ brings the Father ! 
 How like a real father he makes him ! But 
 the Father of the orthodox creed — how cold, 
 and distant, and merciless, and exacting ! He 
 demands the pound of flesh from nearest the 
 vitals of Christ, — an infinite Shylock ; he denies 
 the direct access of man to him. In his best 
 estate, in his most penitent and contrite mood, 
 when actuated by his noblest and purest and 
 most loyal impulses and purposes, man is alto- 
 gether corrupt and unfit to say ' Our Father ;' 
 but must plead not his own penitence, not his 
 own pure motives, not his own unselfish loyalty, 
 but the merits of Christ set to his credit, and 
 begs to be saved from the torments of hell, not 
 because he is fit or can be fitted for heaven, not 
 because the Father can forgive, but because 
 Christ went to hell in his place, and suffered 
 the whole penalty, paid the whole debt ! Oh, 
 what a God ! Oh, what a worship ! "Whence 
 
68 A DREAM OF 
 
 came this God ? Certainly not from the teach- 
 ings of Christ. Not a vestige of such a God 
 can be found in his gospels. Whence this wor- 
 ship? Not in the example, not in the teachings 
 of Christ : both are directly the reverse. 
 
 " Profane history gives the ' whence' of both. 
 This God and this worship had their origin in 
 two sources : first, the desire of power by those 
 who professed to be the vicegerents of Christ 
 on the planet ; and, second, the desire to prom- 
 ise final salvation without demanding purity of 
 life. In this worship personal character counts 
 for nothing. 'Before God all alike are im- 
 pure :' so of what use ifi purity, if impurity 
 will furnish more pleasure ? For all alike 
 must at last rely upon the merits of Christ. 
 Under this religion the old church may sell 
 indulgences for a consideration, and the new 
 church may take indulgencas without paying 
 for them. 
 
 "Is it strange that under such teachings 
 there is so little that is distinctive in Christian 
 character, — that in practical life there is so little 
 difference between the Christian and the infidel ? 
 Is it strange that you must go to the church 
 register to distinguish between saints and sin- 
 ners ? Christians may practise some forms and 
 ceremonies that the worldings do not. They 
 may go up to the Temple every seventh day, 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 69 
 
 and go through some heartless ceremonies, and 
 listen to the learned essays, in which the author 
 tries to appear as learned as possible and yet 
 say as little as possible ; but in the real life — 
 in the state of the heart, from which are the 
 ' issues of life' for the whole seven days of the 
 week, and for twenty-four hours of each day 
 — this doctrine of substitution, this putting the 
 righteousness of Christ for our unrighteousness, 
 furnishes nothing but excuses and apologies for 
 every pet sin of our natures. 
 
 " The doctrine of imputed merit, substituted 
 righteousne&s, is the bane of current Christian- 
 ity, and does a thousand times more to drag 
 down Christ and his holy religion than does all 
 the infidelity in the world. It makes right- 
 eousness not a thing of the heart or of the life, 
 but something to be put on like a garment, a 
 covering, but not in any sense a part of the 
 real self or character. 
 
 " The poor publican's prayer, which Christ 
 approved and commended, "God be merciful 
 to me a sinner,' is a full, complete, logical, an- 
 nihilating answer to this church idea of the 
 Father, of the vicarious atonement, and of 
 imputed or substituted merit. In this simple 
 but forcible prayer Christ taught two great les- 
 sons, both lying at the very foundation of 
 human salvation : the one, that God is a merci- 
 
70 A DREAM OF 
 
 ful being, with an ear quickly responsive to 
 penitence ; and the other, that the penitent 
 man may go directly to God, with no mediator, 
 no attorney or solicitor to plead his cause, no 
 intervening priest or potentate, but directly, 
 pleading only his own penitence. The ortho- 
 dox church doctrine practically amounts to 
 taking the position and teaching that Christ 
 came, liv'ed, suffered, and died that man might 
 safely live in selfishness, indulgences, and sin. 
 In the old church (Romish) which embraces a 
 large proportion of the professing Christians 
 of the world, Christianity consists mostly in 
 loyalty to the church and its functionaries, 
 and has little to do with purity of life and char- 
 acter. The new church (Protestant) of the 
 orthodox faith might take the same view, and 
 still be entirely consistent with its ideas of God 
 and the functions of Christ. 
 • "It is not meant to assert, or suggest, that 
 real, genuine Christians are not found in the 
 church. There are very many who read and 
 imbibe the real spirit of the teachings of Christ, 
 without thinking or caring for the doctrines of 
 the doctors. They are genuine Christians, in 
 spite of the creeds. Comj^laint is made only 
 of the absurd doctrines with which Christian- 
 ity is unfairly and wickedly handicapped, and 
 of the natural effect of these doctrines upon 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 71 
 
 thoughtful minds, — of their influence to impede 
 the progress of true Christianity in an age like 
 this, when everything must submit to the cru- 
 cial test of logic and science. 
 
 " Of course science cannot develop and pro- 
 mulgate a saving religion, yet it is equally true 
 that religious truth will not and cannot deny 
 the truths of science. What is real science is 
 real truth. What is not real truth is unscien- 
 tific. Science is just as properly exercised in 
 its legitimate field when used to test the ac- 
 curacy of alleged facts in theology as in chem- 
 istry or geology. In its present state science 
 can do but little in the realm of faith or in the 
 field of religious experience. If the things of 
 the spirit can be only spiritually discerned, then 
 many scientists are shut out from this field of 
 observation. But when we talk of the Trinity, 
 of God the Father practising a ruse before the 
 universe, in putting on a show of being so 
 mercilessly exacting of his creatures, yet him- 
 self furnishing a blood-sacrifice to himself that 
 may atone for all the wrong outside of himself, 
 we are using a jargon of words and ideas which, 
 if they mean anything, are in violation of all 
 correct thought and thinking. When we talk 
 of substituting the penal sufferings of the inno- 
 cent for those deserved by the guilty, we again 
 state an impossibility, — a proposition antag- 
 
72 A DREAM OF 
 
 onistic to all forms of logic, common sense, and 
 justice. 
 
 " Logically, sucli a sacrifice and such a sub- 
 stitution could be possible only on the hypoth- 
 esis that a devil, equal or superior to God in 
 power, has the right by conquest of the posses- 
 sion of the human race, and that his occupation 
 is to torment eternally his possessions. Now, 
 God, being good, filled with love and mercy, 
 enters into negotiations with the devil, result- 
 ing finally in a stipulation to turn over the Son 
 of God into the bauds of the devil for three 
 days, as a ransom for all such as wish to escape 
 the devil's dominion. Now, if there be such a 
 division of the universe, and if God the Father 
 is God of but one corner of it, then the stand- 
 ard church doctrine relating to the Father and 
 the Son may have a show of harmony with 
 logic and reason. On any other possible hy- 
 pothesis these doctrines are contradictory in 
 themselves, they fly into the face and eyes of 
 all logic and reason, and are repulsive to our 
 sense of justice and to all the better feelings of 
 our natures. 
 
 "Science may not yet be able to explain all 
 that is true in Christianity, but nothing that 
 is true in Christianity will contradict science. 
 The world of science and the world of religion 
 are the same world with God, and what is true 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 73 
 
 in one cannot be false in the other. In matters 
 of the spirit science can affirm nothing. It can 
 only deny, and its denial amounts to but little, 
 for it cannot prove its negations. It can only 
 say that science fails to find spirit, and there- 
 fore denies spirituality. But such denial is 
 illogical. Science has really no more logical 
 basis from which to deny than it has to affirm. 
 All that it can do logically is to say, ' I do not 
 know.' Yet science has established methods of 
 thought and investigation which are very useful 
 in our studies of spiritual matters, especially in 
 studying doctrmes and creeds. The processes 
 of logic are the same everywhere, whether in 
 the spiritual or the material world. So, when 
 the doctor of divinity begins to reason, he is 
 bound by the same laws of logic as the pro- 
 fessor of physics, and is open to the same criti- 
 cisms when he reaches absurd conclusions. 
 
 " It is not meant to affirm that natural man 
 cannot recognize a God. Even science seeks 
 and worships a first cause. This is the God of 
 science. The scientist may call it law, or ruling 
 principle, or first cause, or whatever name his 
 fancy may give it ; but still it is his God, and 
 may receive his homage, — a God recognized 
 by the intellect as a rule of action. But what 
 a God ! ^Yhat a worship ! This God is deaf 
 and blind and frigid, and the worship is mere 
 
74 A DREAM OF 
 
 soulless, intellectual awe and wonder and ad- 
 miration. 
 
 "But more than this, in natural man there 
 may be a recognition of an intelligent, personal 
 Ruler of the universe, and a more or less con- 
 scious feeling of responsibility to that Ruler ; 
 and the sense of fear may force him into the 
 forms of worship and many religious observ- 
 ances. He may obtain an intellectual percep- 
 tion of immortality, and entertain a hope that 
 in some way he may attain it. The Jewish 
 worship was and is largely of this kind, and 
 much of modern Christianity must be classed 
 under the same head, — a kind of intellectual 
 religion which fails to embrace the heart and 
 character, and yet practises the forms of relig- 
 ion. Then, again, there is much religion that 
 is neither of the head nor of the heart, but a 
 mere form of worship, practised by parents and 
 continued by children, with no special thought 
 or feeling. In many ways we may recognize 
 the existence of a God, and a Christ, and of 
 personal responsibility, without the remotest 
 taste or touch of spirituality. 
 
 " There is a way provided for the particles 
 of dead matter to be infused with life, by being 
 taken up into the vegetable world ; but it is a 
 narrow way, and comparatively few particles 
 find it. So there is a way for man to become 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 75 
 
 infused with spiritual life by being taken up 
 into the spiritual world ; but ' strait' is the gate 
 and narrow the 'way/ and few there be that 
 find it, while ' wide is the gate and broad is the 
 way that leadeth to destruction, and many there 
 be that go in thereat.' The parallel between 
 dead matter and natural man, however, runs 
 but a short distance. The life must come from 
 the kingdom immediately above in both cases. 
 Dead, inorganic matter has no faculty to hear 
 the invitation to come up higher, and no free- 
 dom of choice whether it will accept such invi- 
 tation ; but natural man has both, 
 
 " God in his wisdom has made man free, in 
 the sense that man is conscious of a power best 
 expressed in ' I will' and ' I will not ;' and he 
 has placed before all men, everywhere, life and 
 death, and left them free to choose one or the 
 other. Even natural man has a 'law unto him- 
 self,' in the light of which he can distinguish 
 between good and bad, between purity and im- 
 purity, between selfishness and unselfishness ; 
 and, if he makes the best use of even that dim 
 light, and feels contrition when conscious of 
 liaving done wrong, that contrition is accepted 
 as the equivalent of ' God be merciful to me a 
 sinner,' oven if he has never heard of the true 
 God nor of the Christ. ^yhen he has thus 
 placed himself in line with GoJ, the spirit of 
 
76 A DREAM OF 
 
 God will breathe into him the breath of spirit- 
 ual life, and he will become a living soul. In 
 no other way can the beautiful characters which 
 are sometimes developed among the most be- 
 nighted heathen be accounted for. Paul recog- 
 nized this when speaking of those ' without the 
 law.' 
 
 "Leading scientists everywhere, after the 
 most exhaustive search, are substantially agreed 
 that there is not an iota of trustworthy proof 
 that life has ever, anywhere, appeared inde- 
 pendently of antecedent life. No life, then, is 
 spontaneous ; and we may go further, and say 
 that no life can beget other life than that of its 
 own kind. Natural man has only his natural 
 life. So natui-al man cannot beget spiritual 
 life of himself. ' That which is born of the 
 flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the 
 spirit is spirit.' 
 
 " Christ clearly taught that spiritual life came 
 with the new birth : ' Except a man be born 
 affam he cannot see the kiuwlom of God.' Ex- 
 actly what this ' new birth' is, or what the con- 
 stitutional or structural change or formation 
 may be, is of course all speculation. The theory 
 already advanced seems most rational, most in 
 accord with known laws of evolution, — viz., that 
 man has, as a part of his natural manhood, a 
 seed or spiritual ovule or a germinal principle 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 77 
 
 which, when impregnated by the Holy Spirit, 
 springs forth into spiritual life, a spiritual 
 being, — a literal begetting, a literal regenera- 
 tion, a literal birth, a new being comes into ex- 
 istence. This, of course, is only speculation, 
 and as such it is offered. It is pleasing to find 
 a natural law which protrudes, if only a little 
 way, into the spiritual world. 
 
 "One thing is certain, this 'new life' is of 
 the spirit, spiritual. It is a restoration to the 
 recipient of what Adam lost when he fell. It 
 is the restoration of the dual life. It brings 
 the impress of God's image, for this new 
 being is God's child, it is an immaculate con- 
 ception, and has a right, in addressing God, to 
 say 'Our Father.' It has the brand of im- 
 mortality. ' Blessed be the God and Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his 
 abundant mercy hath begotten us .... to an 
 inheritance incorruptible and undefiledand that 
 fadcth not away, reserved in heaven.' 
 
 " When a man is ' born again,' he is conscious 
 of a new power at the helm. His aims and 
 purposes are changed. A new direction is taken. 
 A new star has appeared in his heaven, towards 
 which he feels himself being guided. With 
 more or less rapidity, his understanding is en- 
 larged, his reasoning powers brightened and 
 strengthened, his eyes and ears are quickened ; 
 7* 
 
78 A DREAM OF 
 
 he sees more, he hears more, he feels more, he 
 understands better, he knows more. His new 
 life soon begins to assume control of his old 
 life, and the natural man is gradually being 
 brought under the control of the spiritual man. 
 The appetites and passions, one after another, 
 are bridled and held with taut reins ; the dis- 
 position is sweetened, hatred and revenge give 
 place to love and forgiveness, aud the desire 
 that others shall experience the same regenera- 
 tive influence, or new birth, takes possession of 
 the heart, q-nd leads to sacrificial devotion to the 
 redemption of pjankind. All this is fruit of 
 the new birth, and the fruit brought forth is the 
 only evidence of such birth. This fruit is what 
 should be sought by examining elders, and not 
 questions of doctrines, in determining a candi- 
 date's fitness for admission to the church. If 
 the candidate is reg-ularlv bearing Christian 
 fruit, it can como only from a Christian heart; 
 and, however sound one may be in doctrine, if 
 fruit cannot be produced as evidence, he has 
 nothing to recommend him. The person who 
 has been brought thoroughly under the in- 
 fluence of spiritual life is not only upright, 
 just, and honest, but much more. The highest 
 standard of human conduct outside of Chris- 
 tianity is the Golden Rule, ' Whatsoever ye 
 would that men should do to you, do ye even 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 79 
 
 SO to them.' This is judicially just, but it makes 
 self the standard. Natural man may, un- 
 doubtedly, live up to this rule. The same idea 
 is expressed in uglier form by ' Honesty is the 
 best policy.' The standard for spiritual man 
 is the one given by Christ to his disciples, — 
 ' Love ye one another ; as I have loved you so 
 love ye one another.' The standard of this love 
 was not self, but ' as I loved you.' He forgot 
 self for others. He became poor that others 
 might become rich. As the mountain permits 
 itself to become impoverished to enrich the 
 valley below, so Christ gave of comfort and 
 rest, of labor and self-denial, of home and kin- 
 dred, of pleasure and life itself, for those below 
 and about him. His love was a sacrificial love, 
 from the cradle to the grave, from the grave to 
 the resurrection, from the resurrection to the 
 ascension. It was the love that loves to ' Do 
 good and lend, hoping for nothing again.' This 
 love is distinctively Christian. It was revealed 
 to the world by Ciirist, in his teachings, in his 
 life, in his death. This love must regenerate 
 the world. 
 
 " Christ did not announce the Golden Rule 
 as his contribution. In citing it, he says, 
 * Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that 
 men should do to you, do ye even so to them ; 
 for this is the law and the prophets,' and uoth- 
 
80 A DREAM OF 
 
 iug more. It was Jewish justice. It was 
 manly dealing, cold and bloodless rectitude, but 
 did not necessai'ily iuvolv^e any heart. It did 
 not necessarily mean any more than ' Honesty 
 is the best policy.' It was legal justice ; simply 
 'the law and the prophets.' 'The law Avas 
 given by Moses, but grace and truth came by 
 Jesus Christ.' That broad foundation of love, 
 a love that reaches beyond self, and home, and 
 kindred, bevond neig-hbors and friends, even to 
 our enemies, to those who hate and despitefully 
 use us and persecute us, is an untold degree 
 above and beyond that upon which the Golden 
 Rule is based. Christ's life and teachings were 
 the first announcement to men of such a doc- 
 trine ; and when, on the cross, he prayed for 
 his murderers, ' Father forgive them, for they 
 know not what they do,' he sublimely com- 
 pleted a rev^elation never before made to the 
 world, — a revelation which, if it could become 
 the basis of society, would right all wrongs, 
 for it embraces everything that can be efficacious 
 and redemptive in lifting man from earth to 
 heaven. This love comes with the ' new birth,' 
 — comes with the spiritual, — is born of the 
 spirit. This love is the kingdom of heaven, — 
 the grain which, when sowed in the heart, springs 
 up into a great tree, — the leaven which, hid- 
 den in the heart, leavens the whole lump, sends 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. gl 
 
 out its revivifying influence through our whole 
 nature, correcting all that is wrong, sweetening 
 all that is bitter. ' He that soweth the good seed 
 (hideth the leaven) is the Son of man.' Christ 
 first promulgated the doctrine of such love, — 
 redeeming love, cleansing love, purifying love, 
 love that includes enemies, universal love, — a 
 love which, if universally accepted and pmc- 
 tised, would abolish all crime and wickedness, 
 all poverty, all sinful love of money, and would 
 convert our planet to a heaven. 
 
 " This is not a love to be possessed only by 
 Christ, and by him to be spread over us as a 
 protecting mantle, or shield, to ward oiF the 
 wrath of God ; but a love born in us, planted 
 in the very core of the heart, and thence grow- 
 ing outward and upward and forcing the bad 
 out of our natures, and rendering us fit for the 
 kingdom. This is Christianit}'. This portrays 
 the great mission of Christ ; and how infinitely 
 superior, and more dignified and Godlike, than 
 the religion which apologizes for man's sins, 
 and substitutes the righteousness of another to 
 save him ! In God's army every individual 
 stands or falls for himself: no substitutes are 
 accepted. 
 
 " This religion, wlien possessed, easily dis- 
 tinguishes the Christian from the worldling, 
 without examininfj the church register. The 
 
 / 
 
82 ^1 DREAM OF 
 
 religion of Christ is not a rig-hteousness to be 
 loaned to ns, quantum sujficit, to balance the ac- 
 count against us; but a righteousness the seeds 
 of which must be planted in our own hearts, 
 to renovate our own beings, to purify our own 
 lives, and thereby redeem from the thraldom 
 of sin and death our miserable, passion-blind 
 natures, and fit us for the higher, grander, and 
 better lives here, and for the inheritance of a 
 sublime immortality hereafter, — in other words, 
 save us not in our sins but//-om them. 
 
 " The humility demanded on entering spirit- 
 ual life is not the humility of self-abnegating 
 servility, it is not a surrender of judgment and 
 reason to the extent of renouncing either the 
 existence or use of these faculties. God no- 
 Avhere requires this. Christianity addresses 
 itself to these faculties. The humility de- 
 manded is only to the extent of making us 
 teachable. It only requires that we take our 
 intellectual faculties with us to the feet of 
 Christ, our great teacher in spiritual things, — 
 take them there free from prejudgment, free 
 from pride of opinion, free from hostility to 
 the truth for which we seek, free as we would 
 take our judgment and reason to an acknowl- 
 edged authority in science Avhon seeking in- 
 formation concerning material things, thus 
 humbling; ourselves in the sense of coufessiucr 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 83 
 
 our ignorance and becoming receptive, — in this 
 respect becoming as little children. All that 
 the teachings of Christ demand is the correct, 
 the best use of our faculties, — the putting and 
 keeping of them in the best possible condition 
 to comprehend and utilize the message he 
 brought. 
 
 " It is clearly the policy of God's moral gov- 
 ernment to respect man's intellect and will in 
 his dealings with man. On no other theory 
 can we understand why he permits man to be 
 sinful, corrupt, and miserable. 
 
 " We are told that God made man in his own 
 image, — that is, gave him an independent ex- 
 istence, so far as concerned his power of choice, 
 — created him with a power of will of his own, 
 and a power to use that will as suits him best. 
 He is free to choose life and the things that 
 sustain and develop life, or he may choose death 
 and the things that lead thereto. Why God 
 has thus made man, and thus left him, we may 
 not fully understand. It is perhaps enough 
 for us to know that such is the fact. That such 
 is the fact, universal consciousness most posi- 
 tively testifies. That we are absolutely free to 
 will to do, or not to do, we know absolutely. 
 We may not be always able to do as we will, 
 but we are able to will. As I have said, we 
 may not fully understand why this is so, yet 
 
84 A DREAM OF 
 
 we may see that true happiness is based on true 
 virtue, and that true virtue can exist only with 
 freedom of choice. In a mere machine we can- 
 not predicate virtue. There is in it neither 
 merit nor demerit : it can be neither blame- 
 wortliy nor praiseworthy. Without free choice 
 man would be the veriest machine, — capable of 
 neither loving nor being loved, honoring nor 
 being honored, — and immortality to such a 
 creature could be neither useful nor desirable. 
 
 " Hence, in all of God's dealings with man, — 
 whether in his creation, in the status He has 
 given him, in the manner in which He has 
 addressed him, through the prophets or through 
 Jesus Christ, — He has always and fully re- 
 spected this independent will-power. He in- 
 vites. He urges, He reasons, He persuades. He 
 threatens, but He nowhere forces. He eveiy- 
 where addresses us as rational, independent 
 creatures, capable of reasoning and judging 
 and determining for ourselves, whether we will 
 or will not. The consequence of our choice is 
 placed clearly before us, but we are left freely 
 to choose the good or the bad, — everlasting life 
 or everlasting death. 
 
 " Christianity does not profess to convince 
 the self-opinionated, the headstrong, the per- 
 verse, the profane, the self-satisfied. It exer- 
 cises no direct, controlling influence or power 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 85 
 
 over such. When mau becomes dissatisfied 
 with his coudition aud prospects, and inquires 
 for a remedy, then Christianity has for him an 
 important message, and one which, if he care- 
 fully listens, he will find is addressed to both 
 his understandino; and his heart." 
 
86 -4 DREAM OF 
 
 CHAPTER yi. 
 
 The publication from which I have quoted 
 continues : 
 
 " The blessed gospel of Jesus has been nom- 
 inally preached for more than nineteen hundred 
 years, with a result that must be unsatisfactory 
 to every thoughtful believer. That this gospel 
 contains a panacea for every personal, social, 
 and political evil, few serious and thinking 
 people entertain an honest doubt. It aims to 
 reach every wrong through personal character, 
 to purify the whole by the regeneration of the 
 individuals, to reach the mass through the ele- 
 ments of the mass. The individual is the in- 
 teger of society, the unit which being multi- 
 plied makes society and the state. Society is 
 intelligent, is good or bad, as these integers are 
 intelligent, good or bad. The gospel of Jesus 
 is wonderfully adapted to perfecting these in- 
 tegers, to improving the capacities and char- 
 acters of these individuals. 
 
 " Why is it that this gospel has taken hold 
 of the public mind so slowly? Why have 
 nineteen hundred years of its preaching pro- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 87 
 
 diiced such meagre results ? A large portion 
 of the population of Mars have never heard 
 of this gospel. But a fraction of those who 
 have heard of it have been brought into our 
 churches. And but a fraction of those brought 
 into tlie churches give any evidence of having 
 been brouo-ht under the direct and regenerative 
 influence of this gospel. Why is this ? 
 
 " Chemistry is only a little more than a cen- 
 tury old, and what strides it has made ! The 
 knowledge of it is eagerly sought all over the 
 planet, and its books have been translated into 
 almost every written language by the people 
 speaking the languages, themselves, without the 
 aid of missionaries or foreign teachers. All 
 our advances and discoveries in science are pro- 
 mulgated in all languages, as rapidly as trans- 
 lations can be made. The people everywhere 
 and always display an eagerness for such knowl- 
 edge as may be interesting or useful ; yet the 
 gospel of Jesus, embracing the choicest instruc- 
 tion, and grandly interesting in all its phases, 
 does not advance except by tremendous push- 
 ing, — by great human effort and expenditure. 
 Why this difference ? ' Oh,' answers Ortho- 
 doxy, ' it is because of the natural depravity 
 of tlie human heart. The natural heart instinc- 
 tively and persistently rejects a knowledge of 
 God and of self, while it eagerly seeks every 
 
88 '1 DREAM OF 
 
 other knowledge.' This answer cannot be true, 
 because all science, all knowledge is of God. 
 His word is written in the rocks, the earths, 
 and the waters, in the clouds and the skies, as 
 truly as in the Bible. Some reason other than 
 natural depravity must be found. Have we 
 not diluted this gospel in our teaching ? Nay, 
 worse, have we not injected into it that which 
 is unwholesome and distasteful? All people 
 want bread, and seek and accept it gladly. 
 Suppose all bread, before kneading, should be 
 mixed with water in which quassia, or bitter- 
 wood, had been steeped, would it be so eagerly 
 and so universlly sought and used ? It prob- 
 ably would not deteriorate the wholesomeness 
 of the bread, yet all the doctors and bakers and 
 millers and grain-raisers on the planet could not 
 make it an acceptable article of food. Now 
 and then one might be induced to take it, with 
 a wry face, as a medicine, but very few would 
 ever choose it for the love of it. 
 
 " Now, is it certain that the spirit of evil did 
 not, through the corrupted priesthood in the 
 early ages of the church, inject the extract of a 
 spiritual quassia into our Christianity ? Is there 
 not still in our preaching and teaching some of 
 this bitter foreign substance, so distasteful as to 
 cause the whole loaf to be rejected by very many 
 people ?" 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 89 
 
 The author then goes on to illustrate by dis- 
 cussing the doctrine of eternal punishment and 
 the doctrine of substitution, to the same eifcct 
 as set forth in the last two preceding chapters. 
 He then proceeds to discuss the doctrine of 
 natural depravity, something in this way : 
 
 " The church has long taught that, because 
 of a taint received away back, at or near the 
 origin of our race, all men are of necessity 
 born in sin and iniquity, with a natural pro- 
 clivity to evil, and that all this is because of 
 the fall of our first parents. In other words, 
 that in Adam the whole race fell, seminally, 
 and that, as a consequence, all the following 
 generations were contaminated at the very core 
 of their moral beings. The scriptural founda- 
 tion for this doctrine is very slight. There is 
 abundant scriptural evidence of the spiritual 
 death of our first parents, and also of the fact 
 that natural man comes into the world spirit- 
 tually dead. He is born an animal, and only 
 an animal. He is by nature just what Adam 
 was before God breathed into him spiritual life. 
 He is an animal capable of almost unlimited 
 intellectual culture, and is so constituted that 
 God may breathe into him the breath of life, 
 and lie become a living soul, as Adam did, and 
 become capable of unlimited spiritual culture. 
 But all this gives no reason why by nature 
 8* 
 
90 A DREAM OF 
 
 man should be any more set for sin than 
 against it. 
 
 " If we will turn our attention to the natural 
 laws of heredity, as discovered and unfolded by 
 scientists, Ave shall learn all there is of natural 
 depravity, and may learn a valuable lesson as 
 to how we may change its current. 
 
 " This doctrine of natural depravity, as 
 preached and taught, is a lion in the way of the 
 radical improvement of our race. It discour- 
 ages and kills effort at the very point where 
 effort is most effective, and it furnishes an 
 excuse for all the wickedness arising from 
 neglected childhood. It is one of the great 
 obstacles to the complete work of the gospel 
 of Jesus, almost closing the gate to the king- 
 dom. It leaves childhood, the most impressible 
 period of human life, practically, perhaps not 
 theoretically, out of consideration, and waits 
 for what is called the age of intellectual dis- 
 cretion, when the character is already largely 
 formed, and comparatively few can be reached 
 with regenerative influences. 
 
 " There are very few scholars to-day, in or 
 out of the pulpit, in or out of the church, who 
 do not accept tlie general doctrine of evolution 
 as the explanation of God's metliod of creation. 
 They may differ as to how often it may have 
 been necessary for God to step in and, by his 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 91 
 
 creative energy, bridge chasms which his pre-es- 
 tablished Jaws are supposed to have been unable 
 to leap ; and yet that God has evolved the world 
 substantially as it is out of chaotic and sublimated 
 matter, by the regular operation of established 
 laws, nearly all agree. This is now practically 
 demonstrated by science, and is so admitted. 
 
 " Again, nearly all agree that the labors and 
 throes of nature, from the beginning, have been 
 its efforts to produce man ; that every step of 
 the process, from the formation of the land, the 
 air, and the water, and the fii*st crude forms of 
 vegetable and animal life that inhabited them, 
 was a step towards, a prophecy of, and an ele- 
 ment in the creation of man. In other words, 
 man was from the beginning the foreseen end 
 of creation. In making man, God made ever}^- 
 thino; else. Not that God was oblig-ed to ' cut 
 and try,' to experiment, and to throw away 
 failures, until he finally reached man, by a long 
 series of such experiments. God peopled and 
 occupied the planet, in its slow process of forma- 
 tion, with animals and vegetables suited to its 
 condition at the time. God worked then as he 
 does now, by means ; God might make full ears 
 of corn, but he does not. He once created a 
 self-perj:)etuating corn-germ, and allowed that 
 germ to bring forth the full ear, by a proper 
 juxtaposition and co-operation with soil, moist- 
 
92 A DREAM OF 
 
 ure, heat, air, and light, and the patient waiting 
 for a requisite lapse of time. 
 
 " Mlieu we say that man was from the be- 
 ginning the foreseen, the foreordained end of 
 creation, the ultima thide of God's creative work, 
 we do not mean man as we now see him, not 
 man as he now is, not man with his strong 
 controlling passions and appetites, not man 
 under control of the brute elements of his 
 nature; but mau in his ultimate possibilities, 
 man of whom the best living specimens are 
 only faint and indistinct prophecies. To the 
 production of this mau, God has directed his 
 creative energies through the myriads of yeai*s 
 past, and it is l>elieved will through long years 
 to come, until this man shall stand forth in his 
 perfection, the fitting climax of creation, the 
 worthy product of the love and wisdom of the 
 infinite God. 
 
 " This climax is to be reached not by the 
 creation of a higher genus or species of man, 
 but by an improvement and perfection of the 
 present race. This we argue from the fact that 
 in mankind now there is a longing for, an ex- 
 pectation of, and a deep inner consciousness of 
 an ability to attain a degree of perfection never 
 yet reached. Probably no man lives without a 
 consciousness of ability to be a larger and better 
 man than he now is. This consciousness is not 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 93 
 
 merely a prophecy, but an almost absolute 
 proof that the perfect man is to be found in 
 the highest development of the present race of 
 men. How? When? Where? 
 
 " Our civilization, even what we call our 
 Christian civilization, in many cases does not 
 so much expose and remove the elements of 
 barbarism as it hides and covers up. Well- 
 made and well-fitting clothing, and a knowl- 
 edge of a few conventional rules and cultivated 
 manners, may, and often do, cover up and hide 
 from the casual observer the veriest savage in 
 the world: To others a man may seem refined 
 and cultured, he may sit in church and look 
 demure and solemn, and be prompt and loud 
 in reading his prayers, and yet in heart be a 
 brutish savage. In all his inner sympathies 
 he may yet be on all fours with the prowling 
 wolf and rooting swine, a mere animal filled 
 with brutish lusts and passions. 
 
 " jVIan, having by evolution come up through 
 the brute creation, has legitimately inherited 
 much of the brute nature, and with it the self- 
 indulgence, narrowness, and selfishness befitting 
 such a nature. God has planted the ovule, the 
 germ, of an immortal spirituality, which begets 
 within him a yearning, sometimes very feeble, 
 for purity and uprightness and charity and 
 peace and goodness. 
 
94 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 "Thus, man has a twofold nature, each 
 struggling for the supremacy, and each suc- 
 ccediug according to its proportionate strength. 
 If the brute is the stronger, the spiritual is 
 subordinate and made to serve the brute, and 
 in this way man is capable of becoming more 
 brutal than any brute can be. When the divine 
 element in man is mustered into the service of 
 the brute element, man sinks to his lowest depth, 
 and when the brute element is made to serve 
 the divine element, he rises to his highest estate. 
 
 " AVhat we call instinct in the lower animals 
 is largely transmitted education, transmitted 
 through so many generations as to have become 
 fixed and typical, and capable of reproducing 
 its kind. 
 
 " It has been found in the brute world that 
 an animal's character may be radically changed 
 by a few generations of careful and persistent 
 education and training, so that a new type, pro- 
 ducing after its kind, may be developed, and 
 thus the results of the training and education 
 are transmitted to subsequent generations, gov- 
 erned by the well-established laws of heredity. 
 What are known as coach-dogs and the differ- 
 ent species of hunting-dogs are all well-known 
 examples of the o})eration of the laws of hered- 
 ity. A few generations ago (dog generations) 
 none of the peculiar characteristics presented by 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 95 
 
 these dogs had an existence. It required sev- 
 eral such generations of persistent training to 
 establish in them what is now natural and is 
 now called instinct. These dogs will now per- 
 form without training the duties which were 
 with laborious patience and difficulty taught 
 their ancestors. 
 
 " From these illustrations we may infer two 
 important truths : (1) that much of that which 
 we call instinct and natural tendency is only 
 transmitted education ; (2) that the original 
 nature and character may be radically changed 
 by a few generations of persistent education 
 and training. 
 
 " These truths are pretty well understood by 
 teachers of domestic animals, and much prac- 
 tical use is made of them. This transmission 
 by heredity reaches also to dispositions and 
 temjjcrs, to moral character, so far as dumb 
 animals have such character. Hence kindness 
 and gentleness are carefully sought in breeding 
 family horses, cows, etc. 
 
 " Is it presumption to assert that the same 
 laws of heredity act with full and equal force 
 in the human family ? They seem to be laws 
 of the animal kingdom, and reaching to all 
 parts of it, from the least to the greatest. 
 Every one knows by observation that the pro- 
 nounced traits of parents are reproduced in 
 
96 A DREAM OF 
 
 their children. Go into any family of several 
 children where the parents are strikingly dis- 
 similar in their ruling characteristics, and we 
 will find some like the father, others like the 
 mother, and some perhaps a cross between the 
 two, and sometimes unhappy because of the 
 possession of conflicting temperaments. Occa- 
 sionally we will find a child strikingly unlike 
 either father or mother, but, if we trace back 
 the lines of descent a few generations, we are 
 certain to find its prototype. 
 
 " Character consists in one's habits of feel- 
 ing, thinking, and acting. It is formed, or 
 built up, in the formative stage of human life, 
 and that means early life, — infancy, childhood, 
 and youth. This character is a part of the 
 person ; we may say it is the person, the indi- 
 viduality, and, when once formed, is almost as 
 fixed and permanent as the color of the eyes. 
 True, it is possible for this character to be 
 changed in after-life, but such change cannot 
 be counted on. ' Can the Ethiopian change 
 his skin, or the leopard his spots ? Then may 
 ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil.' 
 
 " Even when a change occurs in after-life, it 
 rarely, if ever, reaches the foundation, the base 
 of character, but acts more like the grafted tree, 
 — it improves and sweetens the fruit of the 
 branches, while the sprouts springing from the 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 97 
 
 roots are from the old stock. It is also a 
 curious and iustructive fact that the seed-germ 
 of the most luscious apple or peach grown upon 
 a grafted tree produces not after the kind of 
 the graft, but after the kind of the natural tree. 
 
 " This brings us to another important, and by 
 far the most important, law of heredity, — viz., 
 it is a law of animal reproduction, as well as 
 vegetable, to breed fi'om primal character, the 
 character estabhshed at the threshold of life. 
 Stock-breeders are beginning to understand this 
 law, and are applying it practically. Stock 
 designed for breeding purposes are trained in 
 infancy for the special purpose for which their 
 progeny are expected to be adapted. In a few 
 generations such training always shows marked 
 and satisfactory results. Horses trained to a 
 square trot or a pace or single-foot before they 
 are a year old will transmit the results of such 
 training to their descendants, but such results 
 cannot be expected if the training is deferred 
 until the hoi*se is six or eight vears of age. The 
 same is true of any habits formed before maturity. 
 
 "The conclusion therefore is that, if children 
 are properly taught and trained and the for- 
 mation of their habits properly cared for from 
 birth to maturity for a few generations, their 
 natural proclivities may be changed from evil 
 to good. Children are what they are at birth 
 K ^r 9 
 
98 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 because of the character — primal character — of 
 their immediate or not very remote ancestors. 
 
 "lu the human family hereditary traits do 
 not reach through as many generations — or, 
 rather, need not — as in the brute families, for 
 two reasons : 
 
 " 1. Human infancy is more teachable than 
 brute infancy. 
 
 " 2. Human infancy is much longer than brute 
 infancy. 
 
 " The more teachable, and the longer the in- 
 fancy, the more can be done to change a nature 
 in a single generation. It would take a much 
 less number of generations to change the habits 
 of a dog than of an oyster, simply because a 
 doo; has more brains and is more teachable. 
 The human has the longest infancy of any of 
 God's creatures, and is the most teachable, 
 thereby affording facility for a comparatively 
 rapid perfection of mankind. 
 
 " If the millennial days, of which we hear 
 much, are ever to come, they must be looked 
 for through the proper utilization of this pro- 
 longed human infancy. 
 
 " If the time ever comes when * There shall 
 be none to say. Know ye the Lord, but all shall 
 know him, from the least to the greatest,' it will 
 be after the lessons of heredity are well learned 
 and conscientiously practised. 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 99 
 
 " Probably more can be done to arrest and 
 change hereditary traits in one human genera- 
 tion than in ten dog generations. Yet, when 
 we see how much has been done by the teaching 
 and training of dogs and other animals, — how 
 by these means new types and new species with 
 new tastes and habits have been created, — is it 
 not astonishing that no systematic, practical 
 method has been blazed out by which children 
 may be so trained and taught as more effectually 
 to eliminate from them the brute element of 
 their natures, or at least to enable them more 
 successfully to subordinate the lower to the 
 higher elements ? 
 
 " If the passions and the appetites and all the 
 natural inclinations of our children are simply 
 inherited characteristics, transmitted habits of 
 thought, feeling, and action, — as undoubtedly 
 they are, — then, counter or accelerating educa- 
 tion having so long to operate upon infaucy, 
 the course of the hereditary current may be 
 greatly strengthened if right, or radically 
 changed if wrong, in a single generation, so 
 that the benefit will be reaped in the next gen- 
 eration by a clearer sky at dawn. 
 
 " By the term ' education,' in this connection, 
 is meant not merely set lessons, but the Avhole 
 atmosphere and surroundings of a child that 
 exert any influence whatever upon its nature 
 
100 A DREAM OF 
 
 and developmcut. All the environments of a 
 child are more or less educational and go to 
 make character. His teachers are found not 
 only in his parents and employed instructors, 
 but in brothers and sisters and mates, in ser- 
 vant-girls, nurses, coachmen, and even in the dog 
 and cat. This education begins during the first 
 hour of a child's life. At birth a human in- 
 fant is a mere animal, and the most helpless of 
 all animal infants. Its first want is food. The 
 demands of the stomach are the first to have 
 attention, and indiscretion in supplying these de- 
 mands often gives a wrong tendency to a whole 
 life. A calf or a pig is fed as its health or 
 growth demands, without regard to its crying 
 for food between times of feeding, and thereby 
 it soon learns to bide its time in patience, or, in 
 other words, brings its appetite under control 
 of the will. But the child is generally caught 
 up and fed every time it cries or worries, with 
 no regard to its health or actual want, and 
 thereby a majority of children are made glut- 
 tons before they are a month old, or, in other 
 words, the will is brought under control of the 
 appetite. Many parents recognize and admit 
 this in the subsequent government of their 
 children, and reward good behavior by sweet- 
 meats, and punish misdemeanors by denying 
 something the appetite crave? ; and yet they 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. IQl 
 
 will charge to natural depravity a son's glut- 
 tony or drunkenness, when in fact it is the im- 
 mediate result of parental training. The boy 
 who is at the beoinniuo- of life taujrht well the 
 lessons of self-denial and self-control, so taught 
 that the lessons become habits, will never be a 
 glutton or drunkard. If parents Mould exer- 
 cise as much judgment and sense in the care of 
 their children as of their dumb animals, there 
 would be little occasion to invoke natural de- 
 pravity as a scape-goat for their own blun- 
 derings. Nature does not deprave childhood 
 a thousandth part as much as bad education 
 docs. 
 
 " If these views are correct, what a field is 
 here opened for parents, and teachers, and 
 preachers of the gospel ! It is the practical 
 channel, and the only one, open for the redemp- 
 tion of our race. Our Saviour said, 'Suffer 
 little children to come unto me, and forbid them 
 not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' 
 That is, the kingdom of heaven is made of 
 little children, — not children merely, but little 
 children. If we would build up the kingdom 
 of heaven, little children must constitute our 
 material, our brick and mortar, for so doing. 
 Christianity must be worked into character as 
 its proper foundation, its Avarp and woof, — not 
 dogmatic Christianity, but practical Christian- 
 
102 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 ity, — truthfulness, honesty, faithfulness, sin- 
 cerity, self-control, self-denial, perseverance, 
 patience, cheerfulness, sweetness of temper and 
 disposition, sacrificial love, etc. Training in 
 these should begin with the first breath of life, 
 and never be relaxed until thoroughly inwrought 
 into character. Such training reaches to gen- 
 erations unborn, and those who administer it 
 may feel that they are teaching the ages to 
 come. 
 
 "A few generations of such training and 
 teachino;, and the world will hear no more of 
 natural depravity as a religious dogma. 
 
 " When the Christian ministry, the public 
 teachers, the heads and hearts of Christian 
 parents, are made fully to comprehend the 
 power of heredity, and the influence of educa- 
 tion and training upon it, then will begin the 
 dawn of the day when 'all shall know the 
 Lord.' Not that children will then come into 
 the world Christians ; but they will come with 
 a natural adaptiveness for spirituality, and will 
 take to Christianity as children now do to dev- 
 iltry, and we may rely upon it, that the spirit 
 will be born into every heart that is prepared 
 for it. God will inhabit every temple fitted 
 for his habitation. 
 
 " The idea tliat reading, writing, and arith- 
 metic constitute education is very properly 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 103 
 
 ridiculed, yet little more is aimed at in any of 
 our systems of education, at home or at school. 
 
 " In our higher institutions, our colleges and 
 seminaries, the sciences are added to the rudi- 
 ments ; yet it is on the same line, in the same 
 direction, as reading, writing, and arithmetic, — 
 all looking simply to intellectual attainments. 
 
 " Every one is conscious that body and intel- 
 lect are not the whole of a man, — that there is 
 something more, — and we are also conscious 
 that that * something more' is of greater impor- 
 tance than body and intellect, and that it is 
 likewise susceptible of education and develop- 
 ment. This 'something more' has not had in 
 our educational work sufficient attention even 
 to ffive it and its elements a nomenclature. 
 Our language is poverty-stricken for words 
 with which to point out the means of educating 
 this third and most important element in man. 
 
 " In olden times that portion of our natures 
 not purely animal was divided into head and 
 heart. Some liave divided our immateriality 
 into mind and soul, but, for many reasons, this 
 is indefinite and unsatisfactory. Others have 
 given us the threefold division of intellect, sen- 
 sibilities, and tcill, but many treat icill as a 
 function rather than an attribute. 
 
 "But, whatever may be the classification, 
 this 'sometliins: more' is the divine element in 
 
104 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 US, — the spirit-germ, — that attribute of the soul 
 which, if properly directed, loves, and from 
 which flow sympathy, generosity, magnanimity, 
 gratitude, forgiveness, charity, and all the good 
 feelings, or, if neglected or misdirected, gives 
 rise to hate, revenge, animosity, cruelty, and all 
 the bad feelino-s and desires. In short, it is the 
 source of all our thoughts, desires, and actions 
 which have moral character, and is the seat of 
 our emotional nature. It is the attribute of 
 our nature which makes us social beings, and 
 binds us together in families, communities, and 
 states. Yet, of all the faculties, while of infi- 
 nitely greatest importance, it is most neglected 
 in the trainino; and education of the voung. 
 
 " This element, like the intellectual, is at first 
 only germinal, and is developed by educational 
 influences. These influences, in general, are 
 such as chance throws around a child, while 
 order and selection are exercised in the devel- 
 opment of the intellect. If the intellect was 
 treated as the sensibilities are, children would 
 all be idiots. If no education reaches the in- 
 tellectual germ, the child grows up an idiot. 
 If no education reached the moral germ, the 
 child would grow up a moral idiot. But, as 
 I have already said, all the environments of 
 a child constitute educational influences. So, 
 with no systematic or designed teaching, these 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 105 
 
 germinal elements, under the stimuli and de- 
 mands of our animal natures, will grow, and 
 become more or less strong, only in a direction 
 at antipodes with the perfect man, — strong, 
 with the God-element harnessed in the service 
 of the brute-element. The demands of the 
 animal nature are the demands first proclaimed, 
 and they are loudly and persistently proclaimed, 
 and, if thoughtlessly or carelessly indulged, 
 will rapidly grow in number and persistency 
 until they become overpowering. 
 
 " The protection of the spirit-germ by merely 
 shutting the child away from bad influences is 
 not good education, and does not necessarily 
 conduce to healthful spiritual development. It 
 may conduce to innocence, but mere innocence 
 is spiritual idiocy. The moral nature of a 
 child can be properly developed only in contact 
 with the world in which it is to live. It must 
 cultivate the power of choice, and form the 
 habit of choosing the right, and, above all, it 
 must cultivate the power and habit of resisting 
 and overcoming the wrong. The perfection of 
 our race can never be reached through the nun- 
 nery and monastery. 
 
 " Even the intellect, for its best development, 
 must rely largely upon the illuminating and 
 guiding power of this God-clement. Our 
 purposes, and the strength and vigor of our 
 
106 A DREAM OF 
 
 purposes, and consequently the power of our 
 wills, are from this clement. How many very 
 learned men are mere intellectual drones in 
 society, simply because they lack purpose and 
 will-power. 
 
 "Man's character is just what the develop- 
 ment and general tendency of his moral nature 
 has made it, yet character-education plays a 
 minor part in all our systems of education. 
 
 " This is made conspicuous in the anxiety of 
 almost every mother when her son is away at 
 college. She knows his intellect is being well 
 cared for, and she also knows his heart is being 
 neglected. Character-education is always pro- 
 gressing with every boy and girl, either under 
 intelligent and wise direction, or under the hap- 
 hazard neglect of chance, and in a majority of 
 cases the students are matriculated in Prof. 
 Chance's classes. Occasionally an instructor is 
 so well informed about these matters, and is so 
 thoroughly imbued with the love of the pure 
 and the good, and so wise in his iuliuence and 
 counsel, as to i-each the high level of a genuine 
 character-educator, and every student uncon- 
 sciously becomes a better man, and leads a 
 better and more successful life, because of 
 having been under his guidance and influence. 
 
 " How to accomplish the end here suggested 
 is and should be a great question. In educa- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 107 
 
 tion, as in everything else, iu a government of 
 the people, it is very difficult to get much in 
 advance of the demand. At present the scram- 
 ble for wealth is so great that all our people 
 call for is reading, writing, and arithmetic, — 
 simply the education of the intellect and the 
 hands. They are afraid of too much integrity 
 and conscience, as these functions are liable to 
 awaken too many scruples as to the methods in 
 business affairs. They would rather trust to 
 luck for character. Character is of so little ac- 
 count that even many of our nominally Chris- 
 tian parents turn the formative years of their 
 children over to nurses and servants who are not 
 capable of teaching even reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic, and who have no more interest or 
 care for the character of their charge than if 
 the children were so many puppies. Character- 
 education is not appreciated. Its importance is 
 not valued even by our Christian people, nor by 
 our Christian pulpit. There is little demand 
 for it. All reliance is placed on ' conversion.' 
 The children are educated for the devil, and 
 then their conversion is sought through the 
 Sabbath-school and the pulpit, forgetting the 
 inspired interrogatory, 'Can the Ethiopian 
 change his skin, or the leopard his spots ?' 
 This Scripture interrogatory is brimful of real 
 life and sound philosophy. It ought to be 
 
108 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 burned into the palm of the right hand of 
 every father and mother and teacher and 
 preacher, so as at all times to be before the 
 eyes of every person responsible for the habits, 
 thoughts, and feelings of children. 
 
 " Of course God can change the skin of the 
 Ethiopian. He can change the spots of the 
 leopard. Pie can make water run up hill. 
 But we cannot reasonably expect him to do 
 either. It would be just as rational in us to 
 erect a water-wheel on top of a hill to drive 
 machinery, and then get upon our knees and 
 devoutly pray that God would make the water 
 run up the hill and over our water-wheel, as 
 to turn our children over to ignorant nurses, 
 corrupt servants, and thoughtless and giddy 
 teachers, and then hope to save them by prayers. 
 
 " The voice of pulpit eloquence in thunder 
 tones must ring in Christian ears, on the crime 
 and wickedness of this gross neglect of child- 
 hood. Good people who appreciate this matter 
 must everywhere write and talk and teach until 
 people are awake, and Christians renovate their 
 homes and direct their thoughts and their hearts 
 more to their children. Then we may expect 
 the demand for a higher, deeper, purer educa- 
 tion, and none but such as are masters of this 
 truer, better education will find places as in- 
 structors in our schools and colleges. 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 109 
 
 "To teach a child to become master of 
 arithmetic is important and useful, but to teach 
 him to become master of his appetites and pas- 
 sions, to become honest and trustworthy, gentle 
 and generous, forbearing and forgiving, mer- 
 ciful, kind, and just, persevering and zealous, 
 is of infinitely greater importance. If this is 
 done, beginning at the dawn of life, it is done 
 not only for life but for generations yet unborn. 
 When these principles are understood, appre- 
 ciated, and practised, there will be no doctrine 
 of natural depravity, and man will begin with 
 his face towards the Lord and his heart aglow 
 with love towards all mankind. The animal- 
 element of his nature will be sul)ordinate to the 
 God-element, and he will begin to cut loose 
 from his brute inheritance, and shake off the 
 dust from the ground which now adheres with 
 so much tenacity. Even in this world, man 
 will yet be of heaven, heavenly. 
 
 " Does the reader ask when this will be ? 
 Who can tell ! ' The mills of the gods grind 
 slowly,' but they keep grinding. With evolu- 
 tion a thousand years are but as a day when 
 they are past." 
 
 This publication further discusses the doc- 
 trine of natural dejjravity, and supports the 
 view that the ordinary laws of heredity com- 
 mon to all animals, human and brute, account 
 10 
 
110 A DREAM OF 
 
 for all the natural depravity found in man, and 
 insists that it results from false training and 
 neglect. Chapters are presented in Avhieh these 
 views are reconciled with those passages of 
 Scripture on which theologians relied to sustain 
 the doctrine of natural depravity, as taught in 
 the orthodox churches. 
 
 The most evident single cause of the wretched 
 condition of society at the time the works I 
 quote from were written, was the very feeble 
 condition of the sense of justice in mankind. 
 I will quote a few more paragraphs on this 
 matter : 
 
 " The sufierings and the alarming discontent 
 pervading society everywhere seem to arise 
 largely from an almost entire absence of the 
 sense of justice in human transactions. Men 
 in dealing with each other rarely ask themselves 
 the question, Is it just? is it equitable? but 
 simply, Is it legal ? Can I do it and not render 
 myself amenable to the law ? In this way men 
 — even professing Christian men — will falsely 
 represent what they have to sell to obtain more 
 than it is worth, and will depreciate w4iat they 
 wish to buy so as to get it for less tlian its real 
 value. This they will do to the full extent 
 that the laws will permit. They will take ad- 
 vantage of a man's necessity, compelling him 
 to sell his labor or his goods at less than they 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. m 
 
 are worth, simply because they can do so. The 
 exaggerated vahie attached to wealth, and tlie 
 long practice of obtaining it without thought 
 of rendering a full equivalent therefor, have so 
 benumbed and paralyzed the sense of justice 
 that it rarely asserts itself in transactions be- 
 tween men. Those possessing wealth are gen- 
 erally in a position to dictate terms to those 
 without it, and they usually dictate hard terms. 
 This breeds a spirit of discontent with the poor, 
 and threatens the stability of society. It leads 
 to the discussion of remedies, and develops ex- 
 treme communistic ideas. Many advocate that 
 the state should take possession of all property, 
 thereby reducing all men to the same property 
 level, and then all be evenly compensated for 
 what they do, and thereby break up property 
 distinctions. The advocates of these schemes 
 forget that the whole can be no better than the 
 sum of good found in the individuals. And in 
 estimating the sum we can count only the ex- 
 cess of the good over the bad in the individuals. 
 As men now are, the sum total of the good in 
 business management in society, after the de- 
 ductions mentioned, would not be a large sum. 
 The fallacy is in supposing that society caft be 
 better than the individuals composing it. The 
 fact is, society can be improved only by im- 
 proving its members. It will be better when 
 
112 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 the individuals composing it are better, and not 
 until then. A corporation, morally, is an em- 
 bodiment and agent of the morality of the 
 stockholders and directors. If we would make 
 the corporation just, we must develop the sense 
 of justice in its stockholders and managers. If 
 we would have society and government just, we 
 must develop the sense of justice in the majori- 
 ties. The stream will not rise higher than its 
 source. The sense of justice must be made 
 strong in early childhood. Children must form 
 the habit early and strongly of being just and 
 equitable in all they do. ' Quid pro quo' 
 should be their motto reduced to practice. A 
 few generations of such teachings will banish 
 many of the wrongs of society, and fairness 
 and equity will become the rule in the dealings 
 between man and man. Until then society will 
 not stand on a solid foundation. The work of 
 beginning this education must not be delayed, 
 for society cannot long continue in its present 
 discontented and complaining condition." 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 113 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 The doctrines quoted in the preceding chap- 
 ters correctly exhibit the general trend of the 
 intelligent sentiment of the first lialf of the 
 twentieth century on Mars. About the middle 
 of that century scientists, and more advanced 
 and scholarly theologians of all denominations, 
 were substantially together in their recognition 
 of certain facts, — viz. : 
 
 1. That there must be secured some srreat 
 social changes, or society would lapse into a 
 semi-chaotic state, with an increase in all forms 
 of crime. 
 
 2. That the needed social change consisted 
 largely in a demand for the better development 
 of some of the attributes of man's moral nature, 
 which had been so little used as to become ener- 
 vated, enfeebled, and almost extinct, such as the 
 sense of justice, the sense of right and wrong, 
 the sense of brotherhood of all mankind, etc. 
 
 3. That these principles were so nearly allied 
 to the religious sense that their revival and 
 building up must be looked for through the 
 Christian church. 
 
 h 10* 
 
114 A DREAM OF 
 
 4. That, before the church could be equipped 
 for this great work, itself must be reformed, by 
 removino; needless stumbling-blocks that had 
 become incorporated in its creeds, and were 
 being venerated, not for their origin, but for 
 their age. 
 
 5. That the churches should, in view of the 
 light kindled by modern thought, revise their 
 creeds and make a restatement of their doc- 
 trines. 
 
 The united opinions of advanced thinkers 
 had great influence on the general public, and 
 especially upon well-informed and tiiinking 
 people. The pulpits were gradually opened to 
 the spirit of modern thought, and particularly 
 to that feature of modern thought which was a 
 revival of the direct teachings of Christ. The 
 demand of the more intelligent of the clergy 
 for a restatement of the church doctrines was 
 awakening great interest, and obtaining a quite 
 general assent, even among those incompetent 
 to investigate for themselves. 
 
 General assemblies and general conferences 
 of the various denominations were beginning 
 to ap})()int committees to examine and report 
 the changes that should be made in their creeds. 
 These committees investigated and discussed 
 the subject in all its pliases, and, while all 
 seemed to recognize its propriety and the ueces- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 1]5 
 
 sity of such a restatement, yet no two com- 
 mittees, and rarely any two individuals of the 
 same committee, could agree upon one creed. 
 This discussion and these efforts continued for 
 several years. New committees were often se- 
 lected by the various denominations, but with 
 no better success, — they could get no neai'cr to 
 an agreement. At first it had been hoped that 
 in the readjustments many denominational lines 
 would disappear, but as they progressed there 
 was a danger that not only all the old lines of 
 separation would be continued, but many new 
 ones established. It was often found, when 
 men began to think and investigate, that in the 
 same denomination, and even in the same church, 
 there were often wide divergencies on doctrinal 
 points. 
 
 In God's providence the right man always 
 comes forward when needed, and the times 
 are ripe for him. Mars needed a wise, far- 
 seeing man at the time at Avhich we are writino;. 
 The church needed more than a prophet. It 
 seemed as if the church was in danger of go- 
 ing to pieces, so rapidly were dissensions and 
 divisions springing up. 
 
 The needed one came. He brought out a 
 little volume of less than one hundred pages, 
 the reading of which settled the whole question 
 and brought order out of chaos. It not only 
 
116 A DREAM OF 
 
 prevented further divisions, but also planted 
 the seed that resulted ultimately in blottiug out 
 all denominational linos and made the church a 
 unity. I will quote a few pages from it : 
 
 " The unhappy condition of the church at 
 this time presents a great lesson for Christian 
 people. We have all had our creeds and codes. 
 Each denomination has had a creed of its own, 
 and the people have gone to this church or that 
 according as the creeds corresponded with what 
 they supposed they believed. Very many be- 
 lieved, not as a result of their own investiga- 
 tion, but because of the beliefs of those with 
 whom they were associated. Our creeds have 
 been our foundations. It was supposed that 
 these creeds clearly expressed the religious faith 
 and opinions of those who subscribed to them. 
 But the events of the last few years demon- 
 strate the contrary. Oin' creeds have not been 
 our bonds of union. It has been our igno- 
 rance of these creeds tliat has held us together. 
 As soon as it ceased to be heresy to question 
 the truthfulness and propriety of these creeds, 
 and we were invited to turn upon them tlie 
 broad and penetrating liglit of the middle of 
 the twentieth century, we find that they cease 
 to be bonds to hold us together, but, on the con- 
 trary, are sources of discord and disunion. As 
 soon as these creeds are examined with the view 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. HJ 
 
 of restating our doctrines in forms more in 
 keeping with the genernl advance of intelli- 
 gence, we are astonished to find that they ex- 
 press the real belief of no one. When we make 
 efforts to frame codes of doctrines, we find it 
 impossible for any denomination to agree on 
 any creed that will actually express the beliefs 
 of any two persons, to say nothing of a congre- 
 gation or a great denomination. The truth is 
 we have never believed our own creeds. We 
 have simply accepted them as our bonds of 
 union, without stopping to think whether they 
 do or do not express our real sentiments. Many 
 of us are in this or that church, more on ac- 
 count of social influences than because of any 
 particular creed. As soon as we turn the light 
 upon many of these creeds, they dissolve into 
 thin air ; thus our bond of union is gone, and 
 chaos prevails. Such must, from the very na- 
 ture of things, be the case. It is difficult to 
 find two thoughtful investigators who will or 
 can ever exactly agree on any statement of 
 beliefs, on any subject, outside of mathematics. 
 A code of doctrinal beliefs can never be a com- 
 promise among honest men. For we must be- 
 lieve, or not believe. It is not in our power to 
 believe this and disbelieve that to accommodate 
 a friend, or because he is willing to do a like 
 thing for us. Consequently no considerable 
 
118 A DREAM OF 
 
 number will ever agree on one code, unless they 
 perjure themselves, or shut their eyes and ears 
 and accept it without examination. For at 
 least two generations past, the great body of 
 church-members have subscribed to creeds por- 
 tions of which they could not believe. Yet, 
 to become members they were required to affirm 
 that they did believe. I do not mean to assert 
 that they affirmed their belief in that which they 
 disbelieved. It was non-belief rather than 
 disbelief. At the present time the j)eople in 
 the pews are becoming too intelligent thus to 
 accept and commit themselves to anything. So 
 the day has passed when creeds can be made the 
 basis of church organization. Such a basis was 
 applicable only to times when the pulpit mo- 
 nopolized the thinking and dictated doctrines. 
 Now we must elsewhere seek a basis on which 
 to organize. 
 
 " While no considerable number of intelli- 
 gent Christian men can agree upon a code of 
 doctrinal beliefs, yet all will substantially agree 
 as to what constitutes a Christian character and 
 life, because in Christ we always have the 
 model before us. 
 
 " Why not, then, drop the whole discussion 
 of doctrines, and cease to rely upon imiformity 
 of beliefs as a basis of church union? Why 
 not make Christian character the test of church 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. HQ 
 
 membership? Would not this tend to develop- 
 ing more of heart instead of head religion? 
 If the heart is rio-ht and the life tlowino- there- 
 from pure and charitable, what matter about 
 the beliefs of the head ? If the head be right 
 and accept the whole creed, while the heart, the 
 life, and the personal character are all wrong, 
 why should such become church-members and 
 assume the name of Christian ? We can agree 
 on what constitutes Christian life and character, 
 and we cannot hope to agree on anything better. 
 Let Christian character, then, be the standard, 
 the yard-stick by which to measure applicants 
 for church-membership, and we cannot go far 
 astray. Let the violation of such a standard 
 be proper matter for reproof and discipline. 
 
 "Such a standard will tend to direct the at- 
 tention of all more to the heart and life. With 
 such a standard in place of our creeds, we shall 
 hear and see much less of materialism, infi- 
 delity, free-thinking, heresy, etc. The line of 
 separation then will be between the pure and the 
 impure, the honest and the dishonest, the just 
 and the unjust, the benevolent and the malevo- 
 lent, the chaste and the unchaste, the forgiving 
 and the revengeful, the kind and the unkind, 
 the loving and the hatinti;, tlie charitable and 
 the selfish, the true and the false, the God-like 
 and the brute-like. 
 
120 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 "Is not this exactly the line marked out in 
 the teachings of Christ ? Can there be any otiier 
 line of division having Christ for its authority ? 
 Would not such a standard induce very large 
 numbers to take sides with the church who are 
 now arrayed against or indifferent towards it ? 
 
 "Such a standard for church unity would 
 be a broad basis for all individual and social 
 reforms. Injustice would be proper matter for 
 church reproof and discipline. This fact alone 
 would tend to awaken the sense of justice in 
 men, a sense so dormant as to have ahnost 
 entirely dropped out of business transactions. 
 Such a standard would make the church what 
 it always should have been, a great character- 
 builder. It would make it the great institute 
 of reform ; its shoulder would always be at the 
 wheels of civilization, rolling them forward ; 
 it would be the evolutionary instrument, in the 
 hands of God, for lifting humanity to its high- 
 est altitude, the altitude of the longed-for per- 
 fect man. 
 
 " Such a church standard would renovate our 
 families and awaken our fathers and mothers 
 to their responsibilities. It would put a new 
 spirit into our public and private schools and 
 all our educational institutions. They would 
 have their attention more earnestly turned to 
 character-education, to true life. With such a 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 121 
 
 standard, God would be found in our school- 
 books and literature and in the curricula of our 
 colleges. The belief in an overrulino- God 
 would become universal. It probably is nearly 
 or quite so now. Men deny our definitions of 
 God, — they deny the character we assign to 
 God, and make themselves think they do not 
 believe in God ; and we stigmatize them atheists. 
 Our creeds have made infidels. Our creeds have 
 filled society and the church with unbelievers." 
 The publications of that period show that 
 these suggestions came at just the right time, 
 and were very soon adopted by the various 
 denominations, so that soon after the middle of 
 the twentieth centuiy denominationalism had 
 almost disappeared from the Western World, 
 and in the Eastern World the work was mak- 
 ing good progress in the same direction. As 
 denominationalism died out, doctrinal sermons 
 were much less frequent, and brotherly love 
 much more abounded. As character was the 
 test for church-membership, the influence of the 
 church was almost wholly directed towards 
 character-building, and soon became immensely 
 powerful in its ability to correct and direct the 
 lives of men. Christian parents began to recog- 
 nize the fact that, if they would save their 
 children, they must begin the work of salvation 
 with the beginning of life. The habits of chil- 
 F 11 
 
122 A DREAM OF 
 
 dren were watched with the greatest solicitude. 
 To neglect childhood was an oifence against 
 Christianity, and subjected parents to censure 
 and church discii^line; consequently a much 
 larger proportion of children embraced spiritual 
 life and became church-members than under the 
 old creed arrangement. In fact, within two or 
 three generations after the adoption of the new 
 plan, almost all the children of Christian 
 parents became Christian. The missionaries 
 carried the heathen a new gospel, the real gos- 
 pel of Christ, as proclaimed by him when in 
 the flesh, — love to God as Father and love to 
 man as brother. This gospel was gladly re- 
 ceived all over the planet. There was no waste 
 of either time or money by different denomi- 
 nations contending for precedence in the same 
 missionary field. 
 
 The plea for a Christian character and a pure 
 life was a plea that met no opposition. It left 
 room for no infidelity and no heresy. There 
 was no ground on which to stand to oppose the 
 work of the church ; so Christianity abounded 
 everywhere. The publications of that period 
 show that by the close of the twentieth century 
 the public mind was largely cast in the Chris- 
 tian mould. Men were esteemed and took social 
 position according to their real worth, regardless 
 of the amount of their possessions. 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 123 
 
 To strengthen the motive, to cultivate per- 
 sonal integrity, and to cancel to some extent the 
 great advantage given to wealth, the various 
 governments began to repeal all laws for the 
 collection of debts, so that by the middle of the 
 last half of the twentieth century no such laws 
 were left among their States. This made per- 
 sonal integrity a man's stock in trade. When a 
 man wanted credit, no inquiries w^ere made as 
 to the amount of his wealth. On the other 
 hand, the inquiries were. Is he honest ? Is he 
 honorable ? Does he do exactly as he agrees ? 
 This stimulated parents to a watchful guardian- 
 ship of the character and habits of their chil- 
 dren. It greatly aided the church in its office 
 of character-building. Truthfulness and relia- 
 bility were placed at a high premium, while, in 
 the same ratio, deception, falsehood, and trick- 
 ery were rendered more odious and disgraceful. 
 Wealth began rapidly to lose its charm. Its 
 great power was gone. The sense of justice was 
 becoming comparatively strong, and the habit of 
 rendering an equivalent for what one obtained 
 was pervading all departments of society. 
 
 The cultivation of habits of temperance, 
 frugality, and industry among the poor and 
 laboring people was rapidly driving poverty 
 from the face of Mars. Labor became respect- 
 able, while idleness and indolence, whether in 
 
124 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 rich or poor, male or female, was rapidly be- 
 coming disreputable. The discontent and the 
 danger arising from it, which had formerly so 
 threatened the very existence of society and 
 good government, had nearly disappeared, and 
 almost all were contented and happy. Labor 
 obtained its equitable share of profits, and 
 thereby friendly relations were established be- 
 tween labor and capital. Capitalists and labor- 
 ers discovered that their necessary relations to 
 each other were such that mutual good feeling 
 between them was essential to the success and 
 happiness of either. Neither could suffer with- 
 out the suffering being shared by both. As soon 
 as capital became unjust, labor became disloyal, 
 and disloyal labor could never profit the em- 
 ployer. It was only when each worked for the 
 interest of the other that both flourished. 
 
 As money began to lose its power to secure 
 social position to its possessor, it began to lose 
 its hold upon the hearts of men. AVheu integ- 
 rity and intelligence gave better position and 
 more power to their possessor than money 
 did, money slu'ank in value in the eyes of 
 men, and integrity and intelligence became of 
 greatly increased importance. AVcalth was not 
 within the reach of all, so while wealth was 
 the desideratum of life many were of necessity 
 poor ; but integrity and intelligence were within 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 125 
 
 the grasp of all. They differed from wealth, 
 also, in that they could not be monopolized. 
 However much of them any one took, the sui> 
 ply was not diminished, and all might drink 
 long and deep at their wells. 
 
 The schools rapidly took high ground as char- 
 acter-educators. They recognized the wide dif- 
 ference between building and growing. Build- 
 ing is adding to the outside, while growth is 
 from within. The old method of making 
 character was the building process. The out- 
 side was somewhat reshaped ; it was smoothed 
 off and polished, so as to look pleasing to the 
 world. It was filled up a little here, and rasped 
 down a little there, so as to conform to the con- 
 ventionalities of society, but all inside the sur- 
 face was neo;lected. Sometimes this neo;lect was 
 from gross indifference, sometimes because of 
 ignorance, and often because of the prevalent 
 doctrine of natural depravity, which led even 
 good people to the conclusion that nothing 
 radical could be accomplished in the way of 
 improving a child's character until it reached 
 years of discretion, when " conversion" might 
 be hoped for. 
 
 But when the laws of heredity came to be 
 understood, the old doctrine of natural deprav- 
 ity gave way to a more reasonable explanation 
 of the evil tendencies of children, and then a 
 11* 
 
126 A DREAM OF 
 
 more rational method of training childhood 
 commenced. Instead of merely polishing the 
 exterior, to conform to the demands of polished 
 society, the new method sought to develop the 
 right kind of feelings and motives and senti- 
 ments and dispositions, leaving the outside to 
 conform itself to these qualities. This was 
 making character by growth, and, after a few 
 generations of training, it became a natural 
 growth. The bad tendencies were suppressed 
 at the beginning and not allowed to become 
 controlling. The absence of foolish indulgence, 
 the absence of all stimulants in both food and 
 drink, and the entire discontinuance of the once 
 prevalent habit of controlling children through 
 the appetites by denying what the appetite 
 craved as punishment, and satisfying its craving 
 as reward, and the early development of self- 
 control and self-denial in children, had after a 
 few generations produced almost a different race 
 of beings. 
 
 Before the close of the twenty-first century, 
 crime had almost disappeared. Intoxicating 
 liquors were no longer made or sold, as there 
 was no demand for them. Education by jmr- 
 ents and teachers and preachers had fully done 
 what the philanthropists of many generations 
 had failed to accomplish by legislation and 
 courts. The courts bad but little to do, and 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 127 
 
 every year their work was becoming less and less. 
 Legislative bodies also did ranch less. It had 
 been well learned that reforms conld not be snc- 
 cessf ully worked through legislation. The time 
 had been when any one who got in mind some 
 great good that society needed would appeal to 
 the legislature and secure the enactment of a 
 law to enforce his ideas upon others. The 
 most of these laws then became dead letters 
 upon their statute-books, because of the indis- 
 position or unwillingness of the people to enforce 
 them. Often these reforms were desirable, but 
 the reformers began at the wrong place. They 
 attempted to build what could be secured only 
 by growth. They had not been students of 
 evolution. They had failed to discover that 
 God's law of evolution was development, that 
 it worked from within outward. It is true, 
 however, that outside influences, surrounding 
 circumstances, environment, had much to do 
 in evolving the desirable and suppressing the 
 undesirable. They finally learned that the 
 survival of the fittest was as applicable to the 
 dispositions and appetites and other traits of 
 character as it was elsewhere in God's provi- 
 dence. 
 
 It was only when mankind had discovered 
 and recognized these laws that the progress of 
 true reforms was anything commensurate \vith 
 
128 A DREAM OF 
 
 the efforts expended. It was only when it was 
 discov^crcd and understood that society as a 
 whole can never be much better than the aver- 
 age of the individuals of which it is composed 
 that attention was sharply turned to individuals. 
 All proper effort in this direction was followed 
 by good effects, and finally culminated in better 
 and more lasting results than had ever been 
 expected or hoped for by legislation and judi- 
 cature. 
 
 When in the work of creation God reached 
 man and gave him a free will, a power of free 
 choice, and an intellect capable of unlimited 
 cultivation, he left him with such equipments 
 to evolve the perfection of his race, to work 
 out his own salvation in the light of such 
 revelations as he might make. 
 
 It was evidently not a part of God's plan to 
 reveal in tangible form to mankind what man 
 in his natural state is capable of finding out by 
 the proper development and exercise of his own 
 faculties. God might have revealed to us the 
 constituent elements of matter, all the formulas 
 of chemistry, and thereby have put physical 
 nature far more completely at the service of 
 man, and thus added greatly to human support, 
 ease, comfort, and luxury. He might have 
 revealed all the laws and combinations of 
 mechanics, and thus have put it within the 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 129 
 
 ability of all men to relieve themselves from 
 excessive toil and drudgery. He might have 
 revealed to ns the constitution and elements of 
 our own bodies, their functions, and the exact 
 laws of health and physical life, the causes of 
 disease, and the true remedy for each and every 
 physical ailment. He might have revealed to 
 us the best form of civil government, the true 
 science of sociology, and thus have freed the 
 world from poverty and tyranny and all the 
 distress arising out of bad government. A 
 thousand other things about which man now 
 knows but very little or nothing might have 
 been brought to light, and made subservient to 
 the use of mankind, by a direct revelation from 
 him who knows all things. But, as before 
 stated, it seems not to have been a part of 
 God's plan to reveal directly to man what he 
 can learn by the proper exercise of his natural 
 faculties when developed as they may be. In 
 his wisdom God left labor, and want, and dis- 
 tress, and starvation, and pestilence, and in- 
 equality, and tumult, and wars, and usurpations, 
 and tyranny, and the thousand other ills to 
 which human nature was exposed, to goad us 
 on in our efforts to learn what good things 
 God has placed in the natural world, and within 
 reach of our natural faculties. He has estab- 
 lished in the natural world a svstem of natural 
 
130 A DREAM OF 
 
 laws, within the reach and scope of the natural 
 intellect, and, by a compensatory system of 
 natural rewards and punishments, has placed 
 before man to entice him, and behind to goad 
 him, every inducement to study and learn. 
 This studying and learning constitute the nat- 
 ural food for the intellectual growth and devel- 
 opment of the race. To give all this by direct 
 revelation from the source of all knowledge 
 Avould take away the very ailment on w4iich 
 intellect grows, and would leave mankind a 
 race of pygmies, unable to understand or ap- 
 preciate a revelation, while God would have 
 them intellectual and moral giants. We may 
 reasonably conclude, therefore, that God has 
 not revealed and will not reveal in language or 
 life what man can find out by the proper ex- 
 ercise of his natural faculties. We need not, 
 therefore, look in the Divine revelation nor in 
 the life of Christ for the solution of questions 
 of science or of sociology, nor for systems of 
 government, whether of church or state, nor 
 for organizations for charity or for commercial 
 intercourse and relations ; for all these things 
 are within the reach of the human intellect 
 w^ien properly applied and directed. 
 
 But the province of the natural intellect, as 
 now evolved, is bounded by the natural world. 
 The natural intellect has no eye to see beyond 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. I3I 
 
 the natural world, and no ear to hear from 
 beyond. It may have a dreamy longing for 
 something, but it sees it not, it hears it not, it 
 feels it not, and it knows it not. It may an- 
 alyze and decompose and study elements. With 
 the microscope it may go down among the ulti- 
 mate atoms, but it finds no beyond there. It 
 may study the planets and stars, and with the 
 telescope may peer into the immensity of space 
 and discover myriads of new worlds, but they 
 are all substantially like our own, and the be- 
 yond is still not found. It may, by the natural 
 laws of the natural world, trace cause and effect 
 back and back, even to what it may call the 
 great first cause, which it may name God ; but 
 it is a deaf and blind and heartless God, merely 
 an all-pervading principle, controlled by neces- 
 sity, having no volition, no personality. In 
 this great first cause the natural intellect finds 
 no conscious existence, no power to think, or 
 feel, or love, or will, or consciously to act. In 
 short, no amount of research by the natural 
 intellect, so far as now developed, can discover 
 a personal God, or learn anything of his dis- 
 position towards men. 
 
 Again, no amount of scientific study, with 
 any data now at the command of science, could 
 ever discover spirit, spiritual existence, spiritual 
 life, nor the laws or conditions of such life. 
 
132 A DREAM OF 
 
 Science may decompose the human body, — it 
 may most minutely examine all its tissues, all 
 its solids and liquids, its brains and nerves, its 
 heart, its blood, its everything ; but it can find 
 no spirit, and no trace of spirit having been 
 there. God and spirit therefore are, for the 
 present at least, beyond the ken of natural 
 science. 
 
 The axioms, principles, and corollaries of nat- 
 ural science, as now developed, do not form a 
 basis broad enough on which to erect a tower of 
 sufficient height to give us even a glimpse of 
 spirit or of a personal God. This knowledge 
 is objective ; it must come from without, — from 
 beyond the natural world. 
 
 Natural man has no means of bridging the 
 abyss between the kingdom of nature and the 
 kingdom whence comes the knowledge of God 
 and spirit. If God would have us possessed 
 of this knowledge, he alone can bridge the abyss 
 and bring it to us on this side of the awful 
 chasm. 
 
 We must therefore, I think, conclude a reve- 
 lation to be necessary : 
 
 1. To bring to us a knowledge of the ex- 
 istence of a personal God. 
 
 2. To tell us what is needful for us to know 
 of the character of that personal God, and of 
 his disposition towards us. 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 133 
 
 3. To give us a knowledge of the existence 
 of spiritual life outside of and beyond natural 
 life. 
 
 4. To bring to us a knowledge of the fact 
 that man may possess this spiritual life, and its 
 attribute, immortality. 
 
 5. To explain to us how and on what condi- 
 tions man may become possessed of spiritual life, 
 and become heir to immortality. 
 
 If God reveals to us things not discoverable 
 by the exercise of our natural faculties, he does 
 it as an act of mercy for our benefit. To be 
 beneficial, it must find a lodgement in our un- 
 derstanding or in our conscious sensibilities, or 
 in both. It must be brought within our com- 
 prehension, or to us it is not a revelation. An 
 alleged revelation of something contradictory to 
 our reason, or to our innate sense of justice and 
 right, is not a revelation to our intellects or 
 sensibilities, and consequently is to us no reve- 
 lation. God in his infinity is beyond the scope 
 of our comprehension. But God's personality, 
 his feelings and designs towards us, and our 
 relations to him, may be brought within our 
 comprehension, and this is about all that we 
 need know from the beyond, and this much we 
 
 may expect if we have a right to expect auy- 
 thinsr. 
 
134 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Although most of the preceding chapter i 
 not quoted, yet it expresses a fair consensus of 
 the best literature on the subjects treated, at a 
 date a little after the middle of the twentieth 
 century. The best authors sought to impress 
 the public mind, and especially parents and 
 teachers and Christian ministers, with the im- 
 portance of clearly understanding what man 
 must do for himself, and what God may be ex- 
 pected to do for him. The greatest importance 
 was then attached to the education of the chil- 
 dren, and such has been the case ever since on 
 Mars. 
 
 This great reform work commenced in the 
 Western World, but it rapidly spread over all 
 parts of the planet. 
 
 Creeds largely disappeared, and the improve- 
 ment of personal character was recognized as 
 the great work of the Christian church. What- 
 ever pertained to this great work commanded 
 the attention of all. 
 
 The masses of people had begun to believe 
 there was more for them in their then present 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. I35 
 
 life tiian they had ever been able to grasp, and 
 they eagerly sought a clearer understanding of 
 the conditions necessary to the full enjoyment 
 of that better and more complete life. 
 
 We must have an appetite for food if we 
 would properly digest it and have its elements 
 assimilated and converted into blood, flesh, and 
 bones. So a boy must have an appetite for 
 knowledge if his studies are to be assimilated 
 and enter into the composition and gro\\i;h of 
 his mind. In the same way, it was only when 
 the people of Mars began to hunger and thirst 
 for the better life that they began to grapple 
 with its problems in such a way as to insure 
 their solution and contribute to the healthful 
 growth of society. 
 
 As intelligence in this direction increased, a 
 certain kind of selfishness seems to have rapidly 
 decreased. Parents who before had sacrificed 
 their children upon the altars of indolence and 
 fashion and luxury, who, to promote their own 
 selfish ends, had been in the habit of turnino; 
 their little ones over to ignorant and often cor- 
 rupt nurs&s and governesses, now began to un- 
 derstand and appreciate that " as the twig is 
 bent the tree is inclined," that if the best and 
 most was to be obtained from life the prepara- 
 tion for its duties and enjoyments must begin 
 where and when life begins. 
 
136 A DREAM OF 
 
 Their attention, very early in this awakening, 
 was of coui'se turned to their public and other 
 schools. When so turned, it was discovered 
 that God had been turned out of nearly all 
 these schools. Infidelity and sectarianism had 
 run so high as to excite the jealous fears that 
 one branch of the church would get the ad- 
 vantage of another in its influence over the 
 minds and hearts of the children, and thus bias 
 them in their opinions. This discussion, aided 
 by those opposed to all religions, had resulted 
 in dismissing the Bible from the public schools, 
 and with it all semblance of Christian worship. 
 All religious matter was excluded from the 
 school-books, and even the name of God was 
 not permitted to appear in any such connection 
 as would suggest any accountability to him. In 
 short, the public schools of Mars were godless, 
 and were sending forth swarms of children 
 hardened in profanity, deceit, falsehood, and 
 worse vices. Yet it was to these schools that 
 parents had been invited to look for co-opera- 
 tion in the great work of developing proper 
 character in their children. 
 
 The schools seemed to have no regard or care 
 for any part of the child except its intellect, 
 and even this was improperly cared for. The 
 public schools, especially in the Western World, 
 where political equality prevailed, became very 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. J 37 
 
 popular, and substantially supplanted all other 
 schools for primary instruction. This made 
 the number of children attending these schools 
 so large as to require the raising by taxation of 
 large sums of money to defray the expense of 
 building school-houses, paying teachers, etc. 
 To restrict this expense to as small an amount 
 as possible, the schools were graded and classi- 
 fied, placing under one teacher a large number 
 of pupils whose attainments were of a similar 
 grade. These children were taught only in 
 classes, and class recitations occupied all the 
 school-hours. This system had its errors, and 
 very great errors, far-reaching in their evil in- 
 fluence, often entirely thwarting the object of 
 the schools. The design was intellectual de- 
 velopment and culture, while often the result 
 was to convert a bright, smart, intellectual child 
 into a stupid, thoughtless dolt, and that too 
 by the natural, normal working of the system. 
 The text-books had so systematized the matters 
 of which they treated as to present the subjects 
 in natural order, and in such a manner as to 
 require the mastery and understanding of each 
 step in the order presented, before being able to 
 comprehend the next. Children ignorant or 
 thoughtless of what was before them could not 
 appreciate the importance of fully understand- 
 ing these separate steps, each of which was an 
 12* 
 
138 A DREAM OF 
 
 important factor in what was to follow. The 
 class was alwavs movino; on, regardless of those 
 detained from school from sickness or other 
 causes, regardless also of careless, indolent, or 
 indifferent pupils; and all these, having failed 
 to master the successive steps, could not under- 
 stand the lessons beino; taug-ht. AVheu a child 
 was unable to understand his lesson, he would 
 always try to prepare for recitations by memo- 
 rizing processes, definitions, etc., but in a short 
 time memory failed to serve a student suffi- 
 ciently to enable him to make creditable recita- 
 tions. He then fell behind and became dis- 
 couraged. The system made no provision for 
 him. There was no opportunity for him to 
 have any individual instruction, to bridge him 
 over his troubles. 
 
 In a class of thirty or more pupils, grading 
 the same at the beginning of a term, one would 
 be very bright and intellectual, capable of doing 
 all and much more than required ; another, 
 naturally dull and stupid, was incapable of 
 doing half what was expected of the class. 
 The balance of the class would range at various 
 points between these two. The extent of the 
 lessons was determined by the average capabili- 
 ties of the class. The class system compelled 
 holding back the more brilliant, and dragging 
 along too rapidly the duller of even the ma- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 139 
 
 jority, while the foot of the class was soon 
 dropped back to a lower grade or out of the 
 school. The wings of real genius Avere con- 
 stantly being clipped, while wings were at- 
 tempted to be forced upon those not sufficiently 
 developed to begin to fly. At best, the class 
 instruction could only keep its eye on the mid- 
 dle of the class, holding back the head, and 
 whipping up or dropping off the rear. Society 
 could not aiford to lose the real geniuses of its 
 rising generation, nor could it afford to lose 
 the intellectual culture and training of those less 
 brilliant than the medium. In other words, 
 society could not afford to support schools to es- 
 tablish by education a mediocrity, by cutting off 
 those too long and stretching out those too short. 
 
 Another evil of the class system was one not 
 easy to avoid. Children would soon form the 
 habit of looking upon the recitation and ex- 
 amination as the sole end and aim of study. 
 They did not study so much to know, as they 
 did to recite creditably. This led to a habit 
 of cramming and forcing, which was morally 
 hurtful, and not conducive to proper intellect- 
 ual culture. The exclusively class system was 
 a failure, and it became a serious question 
 whether it was not doing more harm than good. 
 
 Another evil of the schools had been the 
 effort to teach too much. The people at one 
 
140 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 time seem to have thought that chiklren must 
 learn iu tlie schools all tlicy would need to know 
 in after-life. Often children were required to 
 carry along five or six studies at the same time. 
 They attempted so much that few could be 
 thorough in anything. This practice of learn- 
 ing a little about a great many things was at 
 one time very fashionable. A little of the no- 
 menclature of the science would often enable 
 one to talk about it, and to make a show of 
 knowledge which he did not possess. Such 
 pei*sons often had indistinct ideas about many 
 things, but really knew nothing. The mind was 
 found incapable of taking a large number of 
 studies at the same time and really mastering 
 any of them. They found that two studies, 
 thoroughly mastered and understood, did much 
 more to properly develop and cultivate the in- 
 tellect than many studies only partially under- 
 stood. The habit of being contented with only 
 a smattering was belittling and demoralizing to 
 the intellect and the character. 
 
 They discovered another defect in their edu- 
 cational system. The benefits of their school 
 instruction were limited to childhood and youth. 
 This limitation caused the effort to force upon 
 pupils more knowledge of science than they 
 could possibly comprehend, and so occupied 
 their time and energies as to leave them no 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 141 
 
 oppoi-tunity or inclination to learn any indus- 
 trial pursuits, — no opportunity to discover and 
 cultivate in themselves any adaptiveness for any 
 special business or calling. Many were grad- 
 uated from these schools as they arrived at 
 the age of manhood and womauhood with no 
 knowledge whatever that fitted them for self- 
 support, and generally with a distaste for such 
 knowledge. They were not educated for the 
 duties of life, — but, on the contrary, their edu- 
 cation destroyed their taste for such duties. 
 
 The people of Mars finally gained a better 
 idea of education and of the proper use to make 
 of the schools. The child was possessed of 
 certain natural intellectual faculties. It was 
 the office of the school to train the child to the 
 proper control of these faculties. Studentship 
 came to be regarded as a kind of apprentice- 
 ship, and the school-room the workshop where 
 the child was to learn how to use his mind, — 
 how to control and direct it in the acquisition 
 of knowledge and the solution of subtle prob- 
 lems, not of science only, but of society and 
 life. Accuracy and thoroughness were essential 
 in every step of such apprenticeship, if one was 
 to become an accepted workman. They learned 
 that accurate thinking begat an appetite for 
 learning, — that when one had the intellectual 
 ability to investigate and understand the propo- 
 
142 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 sitions of science, religion, civil polity, sociology, 
 etc., and to solve the problems arising therein, 
 such ability always begat an insatiable desire 
 for knowledge of facts and data on which to act, 
 and its possessor was certain to become learned. 
 
 The schools and colleges then began to as- 
 sume their true place in social economy. They 
 began to understand that their office was to 
 make the mind, not merely to disseminate 
 intelligence farther than they could use the in- 
 telligence as an instrument in mind-making. 
 When they reached this point, and began to 
 regard the work of the school as done when the 
 student had learned to control and direct his 
 own faculties and had obtained an appetite for 
 learning, they reached the acme of their useful- 
 ness. They discovered that when a student 
 had found and been put fully in possession of 
 himself, the schools had done their full duty to 
 him. The balance of the work of becoming 
 learned he could do for himself better than the 
 schools could do it for him. 
 
 When men had thus learned how to control 
 and direct their own faculties, and possessed a 
 healthy taste for learning, then better methods 
 of thinking and investigation came into com- 
 mon use, and men became more logical aud 
 philosophical. Under such education pedantry 
 could find no place to stand. Pretence and 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. I43 
 
 show became transparent and shrank ont of 
 sight, and thoughfuluess and thoroughness be- 
 came almost uuiv^ersal, and pervaded all the 
 walks and occupations of life. 
 
 In this way the school greatly contributed to 
 the wonderful civilization now existing on Mars. 
 By many generations of such teaching, the in- 
 tellectual faculties have become more orderly 
 and more under self-control. Children there 
 now possess by heredity such control of their 
 faculties as formerly required a full college 
 course to attain. 
 
 The power of attention now possessed by the 
 people of Mars is something astonishing. They 
 seem to possess the ability to direct the mind 
 to the investigation of a subject, and abso- 
 lutely to dismiss from it, for the time being, 
 everything else. The attention seems to be 
 completely under control of the will. Conse- 
 quently, all seem to be capable of solving for 
 themselves almost any question that comes up 
 before them. Even with us, we know that the 
 diiference in the intellectual power of different 
 minds consists very largely in the difference in 
 power to control the attention. One can hold 
 his mind steadily and continuously on a sub- 
 ject, while another cannot. Almost any mind 
 is powerful when concentrated and held upon 
 one thing. If a powerful sun-glass is focussed 
 
144 A DREAM OF 
 
 on almost any object and held there, the object 
 must dissolve before it ; but if the glass is con- 
 stantly moving, so that the focus is constantly 
 changed, the object \vill scarcely be warmed. 
 So with the mind : if it can be focussed on a 
 problem and held there, few problems can long 
 resist solution ; but, if the mental focus is al- 
 lowed to vibrate about the question, it will long 
 remain unanswered. Mental conclusions are 
 rarely satisfactory unless they are the result of 
 concentrated thought. 
 
 As denominationalism began to disappear, 
 the school-room doors began to open to religious 
 influence, and God began to be recognized in the 
 schools as the source of authority and good gov- 
 ernment. God and Christian literature came 
 back into the school-books, and a better moral 
 tone and influence came from the school-rooms. 
 
 In time people tired of exclusive class in- 
 struction in gi-aded schools. While class in- 
 struction was continued, much as before, yet 
 every school-room was provided with an ad- 
 ditional teacher, whose sole duty was to give 
 individual instruction. The very best teachers 
 were employed in these positions. If a pupil 
 was falling behind his class, losing his interest, 
 or, in the exjjressive language of slang, " losing 
 his grip," his teacher would invite him into a 
 room separate for that purpose, and by skilful 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 145 
 
 questioning and examination would discover 
 the real cause of trouble, and would generally 
 find it to be a failure to understand some pre- 
 vious link or step in the subject of study. But, 
 whatever the cause, the individual teacher would 
 be almost certain to discover it, and then render 
 such aid as would supply the lost links and 
 reinstate the pupil in his own confidence and 
 to his place in the class. 
 
 If the more brilliant pupil of the class was 
 being discouraged or injured by being held back 
 by the slow progress of the class, the individual 
 teacher would aid him in bridging the distance 
 between him and the next higher class, when 
 he would be transferred and given adequate 
 opportunity for the full use of his faculties. 
 
 It will be readily understood that none but 
 the most skilful teachers could fill these places. 
 None other would be likely to find the true 
 cause of trouble with pupils, and, having found 
 it, none other would be able to remove it. 
 
 They also discovered that there was no good 
 reason for limiting the benefits of school in- 
 struction to childhood and youth. On the con- 
 trary, it came to be well understood that less 
 study and more manual labor should be urged 
 upon youth, and less manual labor and more 
 study upon manhood. The intellectual faculties 
 of the people of Mars do not decay in old age, 
 G A- 13 
 
146 A DREAM OF 
 
 but grow stronger and clearer up to death. 
 The reason for this is found in the fact that all 
 are students during their whole lives, and most 
 of them receive school instruction. The hours 
 of instruction are so arranged that people may 
 attend them with very little interference wnth 
 hours of labor and business, and when any one 
 thinks that he has mastered any one subject in 
 the arts or sciences, he may be examined and 
 take a certificate or diploma indicating his pro- 
 ficiency ; and thus much valuable time is spent 
 in study that was formerly spent in idleness, 
 gossiping clubs, saloons, gambling-halls, and so 
 forth. 
 
 Thus improved the schools became and still 
 are great aids in the march of mankind towards 
 a perfect manhood. 
 
 Their books indicate that, about the middle 
 of the twentieth century, their more advanced 
 thinkers in the field of educational thought and 
 training hit upon another important idea. 
 Mankind there, as here, are imitative beings. 
 They always build after models, real or ideal, 
 — perhaps always ideal. A landscape-painter 
 attempts to copy a real landscape, but really 
 copies his ideal of it. So an artisan, when 
 building a house or machine, first builds it in 
 his mind. If his mental conception, his ideal, 
 is imperfect, his work must be imperfect when 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. I47 
 
 finished. So in character and life : if a child 
 has a false conception of true character, true life, 
 it cannot be expected that he will have a well- 
 proportioned and well-rounded character, nor 
 the most useful and happy life. No one will 
 build better than his ideal. 
 
 Parents and teachers on Mars lay great stress 
 on this matter. No feature of a child's educa- 
 tion is dwelt upon with more care and perse- 
 verance. Every possible effort is made to aid 
 children in getting perfect ideals. The imagina- 
 tion, the ideal-forming faculty, or the inventive 
 faculty, is most carefully and systematically cul- 
 tured. They have found that, if this faculty is 
 early and persistently trained and brought under 
 the control of the will, impure and corrupting 
 as well as imperfect ideals may be excluded from 
 the mind. They hold that in determining the 
 destiny of a person no faculty of the mind has 
 more to do than the imagination. They have but 
 little hope for a person who has not been trained 
 to hold the imagination under control of the will. 
 
 The success of this kind of care and educa- 
 tion for many ages past is now seen in the per- 
 fection of all their work, and in the beautiful 
 and pure characters met everywhere and in 
 almost every person. 
 
 Another subject which I'eceived much atten- 
 tion in the education of children was their 
 
148 -^ DREAM OF 
 
 emotional natures. Early in the educational 
 reforms, after the abolition of sectarianism, 
 tliinkino; men came to see the dano-ers and evils 
 of uneducated and untrained emotions. A sys- 
 tematic effort was made by parents and teachers 
 (principally ])y parents) so to discipline the 
 emotional faculties as to bring them under con- 
 trol of the will, and, after several generations 
 of persistent training and education in that 
 direction, success crowned their efforts. Un- 
 controlled emotions were regarded as hurtful to 
 the health of the body and mind, as well as of 
 the moral and spiritual natures. Emotional 
 excesses, even of joy, were injurious in their 
 direct, and still more so in their reactionary, 
 effects. When uncontrolled, they made all the 
 actions of the mind uncertain and unreliable. 
 They saw that uncontrolled emotions controlled 
 the will, and that a mind controlled and driven 
 by the emotions had a crazy guide, more unsta- 
 ble than the wind. They also saw that the 
 emotions, when disciplined and under control of 
 the will, warmed everything they touched, and 
 added zeal and earnestness and sincerity to all 
 that one thought or did. To this absolute sub- 
 jection of the emotions to a well-trained will 
 is largely due the evenness of temper and the 
 entire self-control of the people of Mars. They 
 are never excitable, yet never stoical. 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. ]49 
 
 The educationists also made a thorough study 
 of the will, to learu how to subject it to coutrol. 
 The will, being the executive of the mind, needs 
 itself to be trained and disciplined and educated 
 for its work. 
 
 I was much interested to know how the peo- 
 ple of Mars educated the Avill, — to know how 
 they succeeded in securing such habits of per- 
 sistent perseverance in whatever was undertaken, 
 such absolute control of all their appetites and 
 passions, and yet with so little conflict, so little 
 interference with their pleasant relations in their 
 social and personal intercourse with each other, 
 and be so ready to compromise any and all real 
 differences. I had been in the habit of reo;ard- 
 ing j)ersons of strong will-power as too dicta- 
 torial and domineering to be agreeable, — too 
 prone to be officious, to be insinuating their 
 advice or direction where it was not sought or 
 wanted. But on JNIars persons of the greatest 
 amount of determination, of apparently the 
 most indomitable wills, would always listen to 
 reason with a seeming entire willingness and 
 desire that the better judgment should rule. 
 There seemed to be no disposition to force the 
 will of one upon another. They would seek 
 to convince the judgment of each other by all 
 proper and legitimate arguments, and they 
 would argue and listen with the sole desire of 
 13' 
 
150 A DREAM OF 
 
 learning the exact truth. But each was left 
 entirely free, with no ill will or displeasure, to 
 form his own judgment and act in accordance 
 therewith. 
 
 Freedom of thought and action — hence free- 
 dom of the will — was as nearly absolute as pos- 
 sible in organized society, — free to think and 
 act just as one pleased, so long as such think- 
 ing; and acting; did not violate the like right 
 of others. 
 
 I was soon satisfied that wills so docile and 
 orderly, and at the same time so positive and 
 determined, did not come from mere chance and 
 good luck, but must be the result of design 
 and plan. I therefore examined their educa- 
 tional publications in search for their theory of 
 will-education. These books are published for 
 parents and nurses and governesses as well as 
 teachers, and several such volumes were found 
 in every family library. Every such work has 
 a chapter on the education of the will, and there 
 seems to be no radical diiference between the 
 methods presented by the diiferent authors. 
 One work seemed to be more popular than the 
 others, as in all the libraries it bore evidence of 
 being most consulted. From this work I make 
 the following extract : 
 
 " The will differs from the other faculties of 
 the mind in that it cannot be much educated 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 151 
 
 by the study of science, history, language, etc. 
 JNIany have regarded the will as a function of 
 the various mental faculties, rather than as 
 itself a faculty, and there is much reason for 
 this opinion. It is not important, howev^er, to 
 discuss this question now, as for our present 
 purpose it matters not whether the will is a 
 mental faculty or whether it is a function of 
 all the faculties. 
 
 " The word ' education,' in its ordinary sig- 
 nification, is hardly applicable to the schooling 
 of the will. The words ' train,' ' discipline,' 
 etc., are the better words to use. A child's 
 will may be trained to act in the light of judg- 
 ment and conscience, rather than by impulse 
 derived from the emotional nature. Or, if the 
 impulse comes from the emotional nature, the 
 will may be trained to refuse to put the impulse 
 into action until approved by judgment and 
 conscience. What is secured by training, to be 
 worked into the character, must be made a habit. 
 If we would have the child grow up in posses- 
 sion of a strong, determined will, and yet one 
 not oifensive to others or difficult for others to 
 associate and work with, it involves so many 
 of the mental faculties and so much of the 
 habits of these faculties that the training must 
 begin when these faculties are very young, — in 
 fact, when they are first budding into existence. 
 
152 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 The child must form the habit in childhood of 
 doing just what ought to be done and as it 
 oujjht to be done. Tlie child cannot do until 
 it wills, and, by careful guarding, it can be 
 guided to will to do what is right and best, 
 and then be encouraged and directed in carrying 
 it to completion, without change or hesitation. 
 At first, of course, the mother or the nurse 
 must supply both judgment and will for the 
 child, yet the habit is being formed. If the 
 mother is faithful and conscientious, she will be 
 careful that judgment and conscience are well 
 consulted in whatever she does for the child, 
 and everything she causes the child to do, re- 
 membering that every day adds to the habits 
 of the child, — habits wliich will go far to put 
 the will under control of the appetites and 
 passions, or of the judgment and conscience. 
 ]\Iany children first awaken to self-conscious- 
 ness to find their wills already enslaved to ap- 
 petites and the emotions, to find their passions 
 turbulent and uncontrolled, and disorder reign- 
 ing supreme through their whole nature. 
 
 " Up to the time the child awakens to con- 
 sciousness, the will and judgment and conscience 
 of the parent must supply the place of these 
 faculties in the child. If they are properly 
 exercised by the parent, the child comes to con- 
 sciousness with its faculties developing and 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. I53 
 
 trained in an orderly manner, each performing 
 its own functions in the proper and best way 
 and at the proper time. 
 
 " Formerly no systematic effort at education 
 and training was attempted until after the 
 child reached self-consciousness. Up to that 
 age less care was bestowed upon the habits of 
 children than upon puppies and kittens. The 
 child was either neglected or over-attended, 
 indulged or denied, with no reference whatever 
 to the future character of the child, but sim- 
 ply to comply with the state of feelings or 
 whims for the time being of the mother or 
 nurse. The mother knew that if the puppy 
 was to have good habits it must never form 
 bad ones, but she failed to recognize the fact 
 that the same was true of her children. 
 
 " It is difficult to account for such indiffer- 
 ence of parents as to the earliest habits of their 
 children. Those who, by design or good luck, 
 were fed as, and at such times as, good health 
 demanded, those who were neither rewarded 
 nor punished through the appetite, those who 
 early, very early, learned to submit to whole- 
 some parental authority properly exercised, 
 reached the period of consciousness with well- 
 ordered faculties, ready to begin responsible life 
 even-handed, having the emotional nature sub- 
 ordinated to the will, and the will advised and 
 
154 A DREAM OF 
 
 directed by the judgment and understanding 
 and conscience. Those children who fell into 
 the hands of parents who neglected their early 
 infancy, pampered their appetites, stuffed their 
 stomachs to produce drowsiness and sleep, then 
 allayed irritability by cramming with cordials 
 and sedatives, until the appetite ceased to be an 
 index of any natural or real want, — making 
 cheerful submission to parental authority almost 
 an impossibility, causing a constant and irri- 
 tating conflict between parents and child, leav- 
 ing observers to wonder which was first in 
 authority, — such children reached the period of 
 self-consciousness with all their faculties dis- 
 ordered, the judgment and understanding and 
 conscience exercising no supervision or control, 
 the passions turbulent and dictatorial, the ap- 
 petites strong and in full control of the will, 
 ready to begin responsible life loaded down 
 with a crushing weight of evil tendencies, and 
 with all the mental faculties enervated or strong 
 only for evil. 
 
 " The culture of the will, therefore, embraces 
 almost every other culture. Every faculty of 
 the mind must be tutored in relation to the 
 will, or to willing, and the habits of having 
 tlie will advised and directed by the higher 
 mental faculties must be formed very early, 
 even while these faculties in the parent are 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. I55 
 
 acting for the child, and before the child is old 
 enougli to recognize and voluntarily assert its 
 own existence. The old idea that the cliild 
 must rule the household, and be a tyrannical 
 ruler at that, is all wrong. Before a child is 
 old enough to assert, even by action, its temper 
 and demands, it is old enough to learn to sub- 
 mit to wholesome authority, and must be made 
 to do so if it is to become a useful member of 
 organized society. 
 
 " The habits that go to make up the man are 
 what constitute his character. Correct willing, 
 industry, application, zeal, persistence, perse- 
 verance, etc., are all subjects of habit. If the 
 man is to possess these sterling and necessary 
 elements of a successful life, the boy must cul- 
 tivate them as habits, so that they will assert 
 themselves without effort and become command- 
 ing and controlling in all he docs," 
 
 It is clearly apparent that the people of Mars 
 long ago recognized the fact that " the boy is 
 the father of the man" and " the girl is the 
 mother of the woman ;" so their great reforms 
 began with the boys and girls, and have ever 
 since continued there. 
 
156 A DREAM OF 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The ideas advanced in the preceding chap- 
 ters took root first on the "Western Continent 
 of Mars, and grew most rapidly there. The 
 Eastern Continent was divided up into many 
 small governments, with no natural boundaries. 
 Each one was ambitious to extend its bound- 
 aries and increase its relative strength by de- 
 creasing the size of its neighbors. This policy, 
 which held sway for more than twenty cen- 
 turies, demanded large standing armies, and 
 immense expenditures for fortifications and ar- 
 mament. These armies, even in times of peace, 
 required the service of every able-bodied man 
 for a considerable portion of his mature life. 
 Thus was the attention of the governments 
 and the people distracted from any plans or 
 efforts for ameliorating the condition of the 
 common people. The able-bodied men beiug 
 in the armies, and substantially without recom- 
 pense except food and clothing, the support of 
 the fiimily at home fell almost entirely upon 
 the mothers aud daughters. They tilled the 
 soil and gathered the crops, and even worked 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. ] 57 
 
 at the forge and in the machine-shops and 
 other shops and factories. The children were, 
 of necessity, left without mental or moral cul- 
 ture, except what they got at the schools after 
 arriving at school age. That period of the 
 child's life when the best and worst habits were 
 formed was almost entirely left to luck and 
 chance. After the men had spent from five 
 to eight years in the armies in times of peace, 
 most of the time in the idleness of camp life, 
 they had contracted habits of indifference and 
 indolence, rarely afterwards overcome. Hence 
 there prevailed such a want of enterprise and 
 manly spirit as kept them content with their 
 degraded and miserable condition, and made 
 it possible for the few to absorb all the good 
 things of life and to rule the men with rods 
 of iron. 
 
 AVhat little inventive genius had developed 
 under these adverse circumstances was almost 
 entirely directed to creating and improving 
 engines of war. Implements for destroying 
 property and human life were brought to great 
 perfection. Explosives of tremendous power 
 for destruction were invented. Towns and 
 cities could be destroyed from a distance of ten 
 miles away. Torpedo-boats were constructed 
 which could be sent under water a distance of 
 eight or ten miles, and unerringly plant the 
 14 
 
158 A DREAM OF 
 
 torpedoes charged with such explosives under 
 the sides of the largest vessels, causing instant 
 destruction of vessels and crews. Machine- 
 guns were invented, with which two brave and 
 skilful men could hold a position against a 
 charging column of many thousands. 
 
 These and many other terrible engines of 
 destruction led the people of ]Mars, about the 
 beginning of the twentieth century, to consider, 
 more earnestly than they had ever done before, 
 the question of settling international disputes 
 without wars. It was found that it mattered 
 not how ingenious or efficient were the means 
 of attack, skilful means of defence were im- 
 mediately invented to meet them, so that what 
 was the best one year was abandoned as worth- 
 less .the next. JS^ew naval vessels, new fortifi- 
 cations and armaments, were constantly being 
 devised and constructed, making taxation and 
 expenditures absolutely crushing, even in the 
 richest nations. 
 
 The governments in the Western World more 
 generally had natural boundaries, and were 
 much less ambitious to extend them. They 
 felt abundantly able to defend their soil against 
 foreign encroachments. They possessed much 
 more inventive genius than the Eastern World, 
 and their artisans were more rapid in con- 
 structing work put into their hands ; conse- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. I59 
 
 quently they made no serious attempt to keep 
 abreast of the Eastern World in implements 
 of war, preferring to trust to the genius 
 and skill of their inventors and artisans to 
 provide means of assault and defence, should 
 occasion require. Hence, without fear of being 
 charged with cowardice, they could and did 
 first propose measures for settling international 
 disputes without resort to arms. These meas- 
 ures were discussed by the people of all the 
 civilized and semi-civilized nations of the 
 planet, and generally with so much favor as 
 to result, after a few years, in the calling of a 
 convention of two commissioners from each and 
 every nation that might desire to be represented 
 therein. 
 
 Almost all the civilized nations sent repre- 
 sentatives to this convocation. The convention 
 was in session nearly two years, and finally 
 resulted in an agreement upon a kind of inter- 
 national constitution, to be binding upon such 
 nations as might subscribe to the same. This 
 constitution had many excellent provisions. 
 Among them were the following, in substance : 
 
 1. That an international congress should be 
 organized, in which each nation signing the 
 constitution should be entitled to two members, 
 the members holding their positions subject to 
 the will of the nations sending them, exQcpt 
 
160 A DREAM OF 
 
 that, for unparliamentary conduct, or conduct 
 calculated to bring the congress into disrepute, 
 any member miglit be expelled by a two-thirds 
 vote of the congress ; and any person once ex- 
 pelled could never again become a member, ex- 
 cept by the consent of the congress expressed 
 by a like vote. 
 
 2. That the congress should be in perpetual 
 session. To make this practicable, it was pro- 
 vided that on all questions before the congress 
 each nation should be entitled to but one vote. 
 If its two delegates were present and could not 
 agree, then the vote should be cast by the one 
 oldest in commission. To provide for this, the 
 commissions of no two delegates from the same 
 nation should bear the same date. This ar- 
 rangement admitted of one-half the delegates 
 being absent without interrupting the proceed- 
 ings. So the members could have all necessary 
 vacations, with no vacation in the sessions of 
 the congress. 
 
 3. That all matters of international dispute 
 which could not otherwise be amicably settled 
 should be submitted to this congress, where the 
 same should be fully considered, upon such evi- 
 dence as the disputing nations might see fit to 
 present. This testimony could be submitted to a 
 committee or to the congress in regular session, 
 as the congress might decide. Each disputant 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 161 
 
 should be allowed to appear before the congress 
 by attorney, if it so desired, when the matter 
 should be fully considered and decided by a 
 majority vote. All questions thus decided be- 
 came irrevocable decrees, binding upon both 
 and upon all nations concerned. 
 
 4. That the constitution should be considered 
 in the nature of a treaty, offensive and defen- 
 sive, between all the nations which were parties 
 to it. 
 
 5. That, if any nation whose cause of com- 
 plaint had been submitted to and decided by 
 the congress should refuse to abide by and obey 
 such decision or decree, then such nation should 
 cease to be represented in the congr(?ss, and all 
 the other nations represented should withdraw 
 their diplomatic representatives from, and cease 
 all communications Avith, such refractory nation 
 and its people, and all the commercial relations 
 with its people should cease until such time as 
 said nation should set itself right before the 
 nations, and make the proper amende honorable, 
 after which its delegates might again become 
 members of the congress. 
 
 6. In case any outside nation shoidd declare 
 war against any member of the compact, unless 
 such member should by the congress be con- 
 sidered clearly wrong, and as having given just 
 cause for such declaration, in the light of inter- 
 
 l 14* 
 
162 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 natioual law, such outside nation should be con- 
 sidered as an outlaw by all nations belonging 
 to the compact, and be treated as pirates, and 
 it should be considered as proper cause for dis- 
 missal from the compact for any of its members 
 to render any aid to such piratical nation. 
 
 It was also provided that, in case of any dis- 
 pute between any member of the compact and 
 any other nation not a member, the member 
 might submit its cause ex j^cirte to the congress 
 for its judgment and advice, and, if such mem- 
 ber followed the judgment of the congress, it 
 should have the aid and sympathy of all the 
 other members. 
 
 7. That the constitution might be amended, 
 by embodying the desired amendment in a reso- 
 lution, which should receive a majority vote of 
 the congress, after which it should lie over for 
 one year, and be submitted to all the nations 
 belonging to the compact, allowing such nations 
 opportunity to instruct their representatives. 
 After the expiration of one year, the amend- 
 ment could become a part of the constitution 
 by a two-thirds vote of the congress. 
 
 8. That no nation belonging to the compact 
 should go to war with any other nation, whether 
 a member or not, without consent of the con- 
 gress. 
 
 9. That every nation belonging to the com- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. Ig3 
 
 pact should use its influence to promote peace 
 and dispel the war-spirit all over the planet. 
 
 10. That the constitution should go into 
 force when five nations should sign the same 
 and commission their representatives to the 
 congress. 
 
 Nearly all the leading governments approved 
 this constitution at once, and commissioned 
 their representatives. The weaker governments 
 soon followed, so that, when the congress as- 
 sembled, every civilized government was fully 
 represented. The half-civilized soon followed. 
 Delegates also appeared from all tribes and 
 peoples that had made any considerable progress 
 towards civilization. The applications of all 
 were duly considered, and, if it was found they 
 represented any real government, whether con- 
 sidered civilized or not, they were admitted. 
 
 Questions submitted to the congress were so 
 justly and so wisely considered and decided, 
 that the congress became very popular as a 
 court of supreme judicature for all nations, on 
 all international questions. The best and ablest 
 men in each nation were selected, as each felt a 
 national pride in being ably represented in a 
 body of such dignity and influence. 
 
 Its discussions and decisions were published 
 in all languages, and read in their own tongue 
 by all that could read. The people began very 
 
164 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 soon to see and understand what trivial matters 
 had caused great wars, and how easily they 
 could be settled without war. A proper apol- 
 ogy, if it was a matter of indignity or personal 
 aifront, and restitution,, if a matter of property, 
 saved a great waste of time and treasure and 
 blood and life. But, after all, the great loss 
 of treasure and blood and life was not the 
 greatest evil of wars. Wars took the minds 
 of the governing classes away from the internal 
 affairs of the nation, and these affairs, and 
 largely of all classes, — such as agriculture, com- 
 merce, manufacturing, education, morality, re- 
 ligion, etc., — were left to struggle without the 
 aid and guidance of the best minds. It was 
 in this way that wars were most effective in 
 retarding the progress of civilization. 
 
 The governments continued their armaments 
 on laud and sea until they became satisfied that 
 their high international court of judicature had 
 come to stay ; then, by common consent, in 
 compliance with a resolution of advice of the 
 international congress, they began the process 
 of disarming, and all the armies and navies of 
 the world were reduced to the number needed 
 as an internal police, to enforce local laMS and 
 maintain peace and security at home. Their 
 cannon were moulded into ploughs, and their 
 swords literally beaten into pruning-hooks, and 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 165 
 
 men turned their attention to useful employ- 
 ments. 
 
 Not until universal peace was established, 
 and further wars were no longer apprehended, 
 did the people of the nations realize the real 
 and greatest evil of Mars. They had for many 
 centuries concentrated the best talent upon erect- 
 ing barriers to civilization, obstacles to the best 
 good of mankind. All the spirit and energy 
 and courage and enterprise of the nations had 
 been exhausted in efforts at human destruction. 
 Now that international wars were forever at an 
 end, people of heart and brains turned their 
 attention more to economics and sociology, — 
 to real statesmanship. As they did so, they 
 quickly discovered tlie spirit of injustice as 
 reigning supreme everywhere. They saw that 
 the few were reaping the products of the labor 
 of the many ; that the masses had for many 
 ages, with comparative willingness, consented 
 to be the hewers of wood and the carriers of 
 water for the privileged few ; tliat the few 
 amassed great fortunes and lived in opulent 
 luxury, while all around them were poverty 
 and hunger and distress. The observing and 
 thoughtful could easily see that this condition 
 of things must continually breed discontent, 
 turbulence, and civil wars. An international 
 congress could adjust and settle international 
 
166 -4 DREAM OF 
 
 disputes, but it could not adjust social aud in- 
 dividual MTougs. But the success of the inter- 
 tioual cono-ress in abolishino; international wars 
 was a great stimulus to the nations to prevent 
 by peaceable means internal discords, and to 
 remove all causes and dangers of civil wars. 
 Hence all national plans for ameliorating the 
 condition of the common people, and for ridding 
 society of poverty, received respectful and can- 
 did consideration. 
 
 It was quickly discovered that a very large 
 proportion of the poverty and distress was the 
 result of bad habits, of indulgence, indolence, 
 and wastefulness, and could not be permanently 
 relieved except by a change of these habits. 
 But habits, once formed, are not easily changed. 
 So these statesmen were soon ready to agree 
 with the educationists, that the place to begin 
 was with childhood. 
 
 The influence of this congress did not end 
 with the extinction of war. It brought the 
 lowest grades of civilization in contact with 
 the highest, in such way as to lead the unciv- 
 ilized and half-civilized people to see what they 
 were losing, and induce them to accept the 
 measures best adapted for their improvement. 
 Even as a missionary enterprise the interna- 
 tional congress far excelled all that had ever 
 before been done. It was quickly recognized 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 1(57 
 
 that the Christian nations were much in ad- 
 vance of all the others in everything that con- 
 tributed to human happiness, and other forms 
 of religion began to give way to Christianity. 
 The nations which manifested the spirit of 
 Christ in securing religious liberty to their 
 people, equality of political rights, and justice 
 between man and man, were most popular and 
 influential in the cono-ress and among the na- 
 tions, and their institutions and laws and cus- 
 toms and language were most copied by the 
 various people of the planet. 
 
 National prejudices began to crumble, and 
 the fraternal spirit began to grow and extend, 
 so that the long-talked-of universal brother- 
 hood of man, which has since been reached on 
 Mars, was distinctly foreshadowed. The con- 
 gress was a kind of open door through which 
 the nations could see each other more closely 
 than ever before, — could see what to copy and 
 what to avoid. 
 
 The men of the Eastern World, being re- 
 lieved from army life, began to assume the 
 support of their families, and to abandon their 
 habits of indolence and indifference and the 
 vices springing therefrom. The wives and 
 mothers, being relieved from farm and shoji 
 service, turned their attention more to their 
 homes and the care and culture of their chil- 
 
168 A DREAM OF 
 
 dren. The men soon began to recognize the 
 fact that a large proportion of the product of 
 their labor and genius belonged to themselves, 
 and they became more industrious, ambitious, 
 and spirited. In a few generations men began 
 to be esteemed and respected for their real worth 
 in genius, skill, and character, rather than for 
 the accident of birth or the possession of riches. 
 
 After these ideas and influences became prev- 
 alent, it was not long before the people ceased 
 being born to rank and position. Rank and 
 position went to those who earned them, thereby 
 putting a premium on industry, culture, and 
 character. 
 
 The abolition of laws for the collection of 
 debts placed a premium upon integrity and 
 character. Integrity and common honesty be- 
 tween man and man were more brought into 
 business transactions, and frauds and breaches 
 of trust greatly diminished. This was a great 
 stimulus to parents and teachers in the training 
 of childhood and the building of character. 
 
 These laws constituted the first serious legal 
 steps towards making character, instead of 
 wealth, the ticket of admission to social posi- 
 tion. Dishonesty, deception, false representa- 
 tions in business, intemperance, extravagance, 
 and profligacy in all its forms, became more 
 hateful and disgraceful than ever before. Idle 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 169 
 
 luxury was disreputable, and lost caste in society. 
 Living in idle luxury upon hoarded wealth 
 was looked upon as a species of dishonesty, 
 and became unpopular. The poor began to 
 understand that much of their poverty and 
 distress was because of idleness, or wasteful- 
 ness, or intemperance, or other bad habits, or 
 Avant of skill ; and these habits became dis- 
 graceful, and want arising from them lost the 
 sympathy and help of better people. This 
 stimulated them to correct their own habits 
 and look much more closely to the habits of 
 their children. 
 
 Through the international congress and the 
 publications incident to it, these ideas spread 
 rapidly over the world, and soon began to take 
 root everywhere. 
 
 16 
 
170 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 In the twentieth century a decided reform 
 was inaugurated, ending in changing and greatly 
 improving the rights of property in lands. In 
 most of the eastern countries the land was par- 
 celled out in large tracts to a favored few, who 
 held the same in perpetuity, passing the titles 
 from father to oldest son through the genera- 
 tion. These landlords would divide up their 
 possessions into small holdings, to be occupied, 
 improved, and cultivated by tenants. The 
 greed of landlords would allow little or nothing 
 for necessary improvements, but always de- 
 manded a large share of the products of these 
 holdings as rentals, which, together with the 
 government taxes, always kept the tenants in a 
 condition of dependence, and made them sup- 
 pliants at the feet of their masters, the land- 
 lords. In this Avay the landlords throttled the 
 common people, and choked out of them their 
 personal independence, their manly spirit, their 
 ambition and enterprise. This land-system had 
 for centuries been a barrier to any high state of 
 civilization, and ultimately became a cause of 
 great discontent, leading to turmoil and insur- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 
 
 171 
 
 rections, and greatly threatened the stability of 
 governments. 
 
 In the Western World the cultivated land 
 was generally owned by those who occupied and 
 cultivated it. The unoccupied land mostly be- 
 longed to the governments, and was sold, with 
 few restrictions, in parcels to suit purchasers, at 
 little more than nominal prices. As the popula- 
 tion increased, and the public lands were beino- 
 rapidly absorbed, a greed seems to have been de- 
 veloped among capitalists to acquire large tracts 
 of these lands, with intent to hold them until 
 the arable public lands should all be sold, when 
 they could command greatly advanced prices. 
 This anxiety for large lauded possessions be- 
 came common all over the country. Wealthy 
 farmers would enlarge their fanus by buying 
 out and dispossessing their neighbors, often en- 
 larging them far beyond their ability to culti- 
 vate, so that it Avas common to see large fields, 
 that had been under high cultivation, neglected 
 and lapsing again to a wild state. 
 
 Early in the twentieth century the dissatis- 
 faction with the various systems of land-tenure 
 was almost universal all over the planet. It 
 was argued by very many that every one born 
 into the world had a right to standing-room, 
 Avorking-room, and living-room, and that this 
 right was not compatible with the rights of a 
 
172 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 few to monopolize and appropriate to their own 
 use the whole surface of the planet. 
 
 The remedies presented to the public for the 
 real and apprehended evils of systems of land- 
 ownership were numerous. Some urged, with 
 many plausible arguments, that the government 
 should confiscate all the land and hold it for 
 the common use, claiming that every one born 
 into the world had the same right to the free 
 use of the land as he had of the air and water, 
 and that no man should be permitted to fence 
 in a portion of it and call it his own and trans- 
 mit it to his children and his children's children. 
 
 The more thoughtful, however, while recog- 
 nizing the evil of landlordism, could see no 
 rational remedy in the doctrine of confiscation. 
 They then began to devise means to make it 
 unprofitable for a man to own more land than 
 he could profitably cultivate. Various ways 
 for doing this were advocated. Some urged 
 very persistently that all taxes, of whatever 
 kind, should be levied upon and collected from 
 the land. This, it was thought, would deter 
 many from holding uncultivated lands, and 
 would lead to better land-distribution. Others 
 saw that this would be oppressive to small 
 farmers. It was putting the whole burden of 
 the government upon the producers of the 
 necessaries of life. 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. I73 
 
 Finally laws were enacted taxing most heavily 
 unoccupied lands, thereby making it unprofit- 
 able and undesirable to hold lands to secure the 
 advance in prices caused by surrounding oc- 
 cupancy and culture. This was followed by 
 making it illegal for any one person to hold 
 more than a prescribed amount of land. A 
 certain amount could be held by or for each 
 person who might desire to occupy and culti- 
 vate it. The head of a family might buy and 
 occupy this amount for each and all of its 
 members, provided he properly cultivated it. 
 
 In this way, by gradual advances, the land was 
 ultimately divided up into comparatively small 
 lots, and no injustice was done to anybody. 
 The lots were sufficient in size, if properly cul- 
 tivated, to furnish adequate support for the 
 occupants. As population increased, the inven- 
 tive faculties of the people were stimulated to 
 devise new methods of increasing the fertility 
 of the soil, and improving the quality as well 
 as the quantity of production. From time to 
 time, as population became more and more 
 dense, the amount of land-holding j)er capita 
 was diminished, yet leaving enough for all de- 
 siring to till the soil. Down to the present 
 time, increased fertility of the soil, and im- 
 proved metliods of culture, have caused the 
 increased production of the soil to keep pace 
 15* 
 
174 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 fully with the increase of population, and there 
 is no fear felt of a population beyond the ca- 
 pacity of the planet to house, clothe, and feed. 
 The people have full faith that man's inventive 
 faculties will continue to meet all demands and 
 emergencies. 
 
 To reach this condition of land-distribution 
 required centuries of trial and struggle, and 
 much turmoil and bloodshed. It was not, in 
 fact, reached imtil considerable advance was 
 made in the classification of society ; not until 
 the possession of riches ceased to be the card 
 of admission to social standing ; not until char- 
 acter, real personal worth, became the measure 
 of a man's personal influence and the index 
 of his social position. At this time the selfish 
 grasp of unneeded property began to relax its 
 hold, and a sense of justice, of what was right 
 between man and man, began to prevail. When 
 this sense began to sway and rule men's actions, 
 each one recognized the existence of a natural 
 law of brotherhood, — that the highest good of 
 each depended largely upon the highest good 
 of all, and "live and let live" became an ac- 
 cepted law. It was recognized that in one 
 sense society was unitary, — that, as in the 
 human body no portion of it could suifer with- 
 out affecting the whole body, so in society, in 
 the great body-politic, no portion of it could 
 
A MODEST PROFHET. 175 
 
 be in distress without every other portion of it 
 being injured by that distress. The degrading 
 influences of poverty, and the debauching in- 
 fluences of luxury, were alike destructive to the 
 highest aspirations of all. When these truths 
 were clearly discerned, and the good of each 
 was sought in promoting the good of all, then 
 social wrongs were rapidly righted. 
 
 It was found that everything depended on 
 the restoration of the sense of justice to its 
 umpirage in human transactions. 
 
176 ^' DREAM OF 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 One of the most interesting things that at- 
 tracted my attention on Mars was what, to me, 
 was a new power, which all seemed to possess, 
 but in different degrees. What this power was, 
 or how obtained, I was unable fully to under- 
 stand. Persons seemed to exercise it on things 
 beyond reach, without any perceptible medium. 
 It seemed to be a power of the human will, by 
 means of which the will moved and controlled 
 things external to the person, with almost the 
 same facility that it moved the hand, the tongue, 
 or the foot. It was a power constantly used in 
 all kinds of labor, and seemed almost entirely 
 to relieve the people from the fatigue of labor. 
 The only fatigue seemed to arise from the close, 
 intense attention that was demanded for the best 
 effects. Very many mechanical devices had been 
 invented to utilize to the best advantage this 
 wonderful power, and new inventions are con- 
 stantly being made for a like purpose. To a 
 very great extent it was used in place of manual, 
 horse, and steam power. Some seemed to be 
 much more skilled in its use than others. Oc- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 177 
 
 casionally one was met who was almost entirely 
 destitute of it. I was assured that in some 
 rare instances persons had lost this power who 
 once possessed it in a high degree. 
 
 This j)ower seemed to be a purely psychic force, 
 but to me it was occult, and its exercise miracu- 
 lous. I had before witnessed some inexplicable 
 exhibitions of what was called mesmerism. 
 But these exhibitions had been crude and un- 
 satisfactory. While the mesmerists seemed able 
 to exhibit a new force, yet the force was erratic 
 and unreliable, subject to no known laws. But 
 on Mars the psychic force was an ordinary will- 
 power, subject to the same laws and control as 
 other actions of the will. The people there 
 protested that there was nothing miraculous 
 or supernatural about it. They cited the first 
 commandment in their Bible, "Thou shalt 
 multiply and replenish the planet and subdue 
 it." They said that "to subdue it" meant to 
 master the principles of nature, discover its laws, 
 and harness them into the service of man. This 
 to a considerable extent they claimed to have 
 done already, and they are constantly making 
 new discoveries, and securing from nature addi- 
 tional services because of such discoveries. 
 
 On ]\Iars, as on the Earth, scholarly men are 
 unfriendly to the idea that an omniscient and 
 omnipotent God would need, under any cir- 
 
178 A DREAM OF 
 
 curastaaces, to interrupt the natural workings 
 of his own laws or to work through those laws 
 irregularly. To such persons a mii-acle, as com- 
 monly understood, is repulsive, tending to be- 
 little one's idea of God. The people of Mars 
 believe that Christ did no miracles, in the com- 
 mon signification of the word " miracle." They 
 admit and believe that Christ did what the Gos- 
 pels say he did, but claim that there was noth- 
 ing supernatural about these works. They 
 believe that Christ, being from his nature thor- 
 oughly conversant with all the principles and 
 laws of nature, and having perfect control of 
 this psychic force, did, by the application of 
 this force to the principles and laws of nature, 
 perform his wonderful works. 
 
 This, they claim, does not subtract from the 
 dignity or power of Christ, but rather adds 
 thereto. 
 
 On Mars it is believed that man will yet be 
 able to do all the wonderful works that Christ 
 did. Christ, when among men, said, " Verily, 
 verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, 
 the works that I do shall he do also, — and 
 greater works shall he do." It is believed that, 
 as man increases his wisdom and virtue, as he 
 cultivates more and more the spirit of Christ, 
 and studies more and more deeply into the laws 
 of physical nature and into the mental and moral 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 179 
 
 nature of man, he will greatly increase his 
 power over nature, and will be able easily and 
 daily to accomplish what in earlier times were 
 regarded as miracles. 
 
 This psychic force is applied everywhere 
 where force is needed. When many join to- 
 gether, and exert their wills in the same direc- 
 tion, the force developed becomes enormous, 
 and is used for many practical purposes. They 
 even feel confident that, by aid of this force, 
 and a further knowledge of the laws relating 
 to meteorology, which they are now carefully 
 investigating, they will be able to control the 
 winds and produce dry weather and rains at 
 pleasure. I learned that only those who were 
 entirely free from any taint of disease of either 
 body or mind, acquired or inherited, and whose 
 intellectual, emotional, and spiritual natures were 
 evenly developed, so as to be entirely under tlie 
 control of the conscience and judgment, pos- 
 sessed control of this psychic force in a high 
 degree, and that they may lose it by a loss of 
 purity and integrity. 
 
 In their scientific and philosophic studies and 
 investigations they have gone far beyond us in 
 every department of knowledge. Much that is 
 speculation and hypothesis with us, is fixed 
 science with them. Their inherited intellectual 
 and moral strength and development are such 
 
180 -4 DREAM OF 
 
 that they grapple questions with a vigor and 
 strength unknown to us. Our strongest and 
 clearest intellects here are only a prophecy of 
 what is common there. Their great unity of 
 doctrine and pmctice is the result of their ac- 
 curate knowledge. Here it is understood that 
 differences of opinion arise either from preju- 
 dice or imperfect knowledge, and that honest 
 study must diminish such differences. The 
 more men think and study, in an honest search 
 for truth, the nearer will their opinions co- 
 incide. There they hav^e advanced so far in 
 honest research that all are agreed on many 
 questions that now greatly divide us. Yet 
 with them knowledge has its boundaries, and 
 on the outskirts, where their knowledge is im- 
 perfect, differences of opinion exist. But they 
 have long since learned to exercise in this great 
 charity and liberality, knowing that further 
 research will bring all together. So, between 
 science and religion there are no feuds. The- 
 ology no longer opposes itself to science, and 
 science does not arrogate to itself the right to 
 question the truths of theology. Men are left 
 free and encouraged to seek truth in every field 
 of knowledge, with no fears whatever that these 
 truths when discovered will be unfriendly to 
 each other. The intellect and the moral nature, 
 science and theology, the material and the spirit- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 181 
 
 ual, are all recognized as God's books, and the 
 truths of all these books are God's truths and 
 cannot conflict with each other. All apparent 
 contradictions are only exhibitions of imper- 
 fect knowledge, and will disappear as the 
 knowledge becomes clear and perfect. When 
 truths are fully seen and understood, they 
 must always coincide and harmonize with one 
 another. 
 
 Another very noticeable thing among the 
 people of Mars was their wonderful power of 
 insight into each other, especially between in- 
 timate friends. Those who lived in confiden- 
 tial relations seemed to be almost trauspai'ent 
 to each other. This was so noticeable as to 
 excite in me great wonder, and lead me to sus- 
 pect that here was another power which I had 
 not before known, but I was assured that such 
 was not the case. As an explanation of this 
 power, I was cited to a paragraph in an old 
 book, written several centuries ago. It reads 
 as follows : " It is well known how readily two 
 persons, of generous, confiding natures, will 
 blend together when brouo:ht for a considerable 
 time into intimate relations with each other. 
 Each seems to be an open book to the other. 
 They can read each other's thoughts and feel- 
 ings with almost unerring certainty. But let 
 either g-ot even a suspicion that the other is 
 
182 A DREAM OF 
 
 insincere, and seeking to use him for selfish 
 purposes, and how quickly they draw out from 
 each other ! Close the books, and to each other 
 they become opaque. Selfishness separates peo- 
 ple and makes them mysteries to each other. 
 Selfishness is always insincere, and always shuts 
 one up within himself. It closes all avenues 
 of confidential relationship between man and 
 man, and is incompatible with the highest and 
 truest friendship. It makes each seek to hide 
 his real self from the other. If men could 
 become unselfish, a generous confidence would 
 become universal, and mind and mind, and 
 heart and heart, would so blend together as to 
 enable each to read the other as if an open 
 book. While selfishness is so universal, men 
 are opaque to each other and unreadable. Be- 
 fore mankind can rise to their highest estate, even 
 as mankind, men must be able to affiliate in 
 such a way as easily to understand each other, 
 and with ability so to read each other as to 
 make deception next to impossible. This con- 
 dition of social intercourse can come only when 
 man seeks his happiness in promoting the 
 happiness of others ; when he ceases trying 
 to build himself up by tearing others down, — 
 ceases becoming rich by making others poor ; 
 when the sense of justice becomes strong and 
 controlling : then associated eiforts in any good 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 183 
 
 cause will become a powerful, almost an irre- 
 sistible effort." 
 
 The people of Mars, through their many 
 centuries of careful training and education, 
 have attained the condition suggested in the 
 foregoing paragraph. No one seems to think 
 of finding happiness amid surrounding misery ; 
 so the energies of all are directed to promoting 
 the good of all, and mutual trust and confi- 
 dence seem to be universal. Every one seems 
 to aim at lightening the burdens of his neigh- 
 bor. The sick and unfortunate are kindly 
 cared for, without intermediate societies or 
 almshouses. They are cared for without being 
 made to feel that they are paupers. Aid, when 
 necessary, is bestowed without destroying the 
 self-respect of the recipient. 
 
 The persistent culture of many centuries has 
 fully developed the sense of justice which had 
 only an embryotic existence before. Now no 
 trait of character is stronger or more universal. 
 Each measures out to the other all that is justly 
 and honorably due in every deal. There are 
 no attempts to overreach each other by the use 
 of any kind of deception. " It is naught, it is 
 nauglit, saith the buyer ; but when he is gone 
 his way, he boasteth," is no longer a proverb 
 applicable on Mars. No one there exaggerates 
 the value of a thing because it is his own ; no 
 
184 A DREAM OF 
 
 one depreciates its value because it belongs to 
 another. 
 
 They have publications there corresponding 
 to our newspapers, but they are remarkable for 
 the absence of flaraino; and extollino; advertise- 
 meuts. Very little advertising is done. The 
 full extent of it is to notify the public of a 
 trader's name, location, and business. These 
 advertisements have no display, and rarely oc- 
 cupy more than one or two lines. The fences, 
 rocks, and sides of buildings are never disfigured 
 with posters and lithographs. Some old files 
 of newspapers found in their public libraries 
 show that many centuries ago they advertised 
 as we do here ; but experience taught them 
 that it was better to abstain from much ad- 
 vertising, and deduct the cost thereof from the 
 selling price of their goods. The people finally 
 discovered that the purchasers, and not the 
 sellers, were paying the cost of advertising. So 
 there was a popular demand for its abolition. 
 
 The advertisements now seen there never 
 extol the advertiser's wares, never compare the 
 price or quality of his goods with those of his 
 neighbor's, but always leave their customers to 
 judge for themselves. 
 
 It is taken for granted that people know 
 their own wants, and so no one is urged to buy 
 anything. Goods in the shops are so exposed 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 185 
 
 as to be readily seen by customers, yet there 
 are no magnificent displays, no expensive ar- 
 rangements merely for the display of goods 
 and wares. In this, as in other things, inex- 
 pensive simplicity is the rule of practice, thereby 
 reducing the cost of wares to customers. 
 
 Their fully-evolved sense of justice entirely 
 prevents ruinous competition, and the same 
 sense prevents ruinous prices in the absence 
 of competition. Nothing so quickly loses cus- 
 tomers to a tradesman as the discovery that he 
 is wanting in this sense. 
 
 Another noticeable feature of their news- 
 papers was the absence of all sensational read- 
 ing-matter. The papers were not printed for 
 depraved appetites and idlers. They were 
 filled with useful news and information. New 
 discoveries in the practical and fine arts were 
 early heralded all over the planet, and fully 
 described. The newspapers were used, largely, 
 by persons of advanced thought, and they were 
 the medium for the dissemination of new and 
 useful knowledge, and even for discussing ques- 
 tions of speculative philosophy. A highly 
 moral and deeply religious sentiment pervaded 
 all articles published in their newspapers as 
 well as in their books. In fact, the religion of 
 Christ v.'as immanent everywhere and in every- 
 thing on Mars. In their laws, in the execution 
 
 1G» 
 
186 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 of their laws, in their labor-system, in their 
 manufacturing, in their division of profits be- 
 tween capital and labor, in their bartering and 
 trading, in their banking, in their systems for 
 transportation, in their every-day dealings with 
 each other, in their writings, in their discus- 
 sions, in their politics, in their schools, in their 
 churches, in their social intercourse, in every- 
 thing and everywhere, the spirit and the teach- 
 ings of Christ are always recognized and heeded. 
 This was especially noticeable in their news- 
 papers, where all met on common ground and 
 discussed all questions that could in any degree 
 benefit anybody. The newspapers were all pub- 
 lished in a form to facilitate preservation, and 
 they were carefully kept for future reference. 
 
 In the publication offices the type were all 
 set and distributed by machinery. This machin- 
 ery was so simple and efficient that a boy or girl 
 sixteen years of age could easily do the work of 
 eight or ten good type-setters by the old method, 
 and that, too, with no more labor or fatigue 
 than is required to run one of our type-writing 
 machines, — simply by fingering the letters upon 
 an ordinary key-board : consequently, the print- 
 ing of newspapers was accomplished at so little 
 cost that, even without a large income from 
 advertising, good papers could be published 
 and sold at a price within the means of all. 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. Igy 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Government, among the people of Mars, 
 is a very simple, inexpensive aifair. Such a 
 people need but little governing. Yet school- 
 houses must be built and schools maintained ; 
 their great libraries must be cared for ; high- 
 ways must be constructed and kept in repair ; 
 necessary taxes must be levied, collected, and 
 disbursed ; and many other things, strictly for 
 the public good and convenience, call for the 
 machinery of government, even among a peo- 
 ple so nearly perfect. They have executive, 
 legislative, and judicial departments, in gov- 
 ernments, yet each is more simple in its struc- 
 ture, as tlie demands for the interference of the 
 government in the affairs of men are small 
 compared to what they are here. 
 
 The executive is more like a patriarch than 
 a governor. He watches to see that no dis- 
 turbing causes spring up to molest the peace of 
 society in any part of the commonwealth, and 
 to see that the public burdens are evenly and 
 equitably distributed and borne by the people. 
 He instructs public functionaries as to their 
 
138 A DREAM OF 
 
 duties, and, in general, watches all the public 
 interests of the jieople. 
 
 The legislative department has but little to 
 do. The statutory laws are very few, and most 
 of them very old. Excessive legislation long 
 ago ceased to be the folly of the people of 
 Mars. Reforms were secured by correcting 
 public opinion, rather than by legislation. The 
 statutes are so few, and have been so long 
 maintained without change, that all know and 
 obey them. The time has been there, as here, 
 when statutory laws Avere very numerous, oc- 
 cupying many large volumes, and a new vol- 
 ume was added every year. Laws then were 
 constantly being made, amended, repealed, re- 
 enacted, etc., so that no one could know them. 
 Many of these laws were ambiguous, and their 
 meaning was quite uncertain until the judicial 
 department had given them a construction. 
 IMuch of the vast amount of litigation that 
 afflicted the people of those times grew out of 
 excessive legislation and the uncertainty as to 
 what the law was. As men grew better and 
 wiser they repealed more laws than they made, 
 so that the volumes of statutory laws gradually 
 diminished until they reached their present 
 simple condition. When men took no con- 
 science into their business, but felt they could 
 riffhtfullv take anv advantage of their fellow- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 189 
 
 men that statutory law would permit, there was 
 a coustant temptation to put the laws into such 
 shape as would facilitate conscienceless schemes. 
 
 The judicial department of government on 
 ISIars is almost entirely relieved from the dis- 
 agreeable features of the courts of olden times. 
 There is now very little litigation, and no acri- 
 mony or bitterness accompanies it. Men come 
 into court, with or without attorneys, as they 
 please, when an honest difference exists between 
 them as to their relative rights. All they 
 desire is what is just and proper, whether 
 technically legal or not. So, often the court 
 becomes more of an arbiter between friends 
 than a strictly judicial tribunal. It is the 
 business of courts and attorneys to prevent 
 disputes and differences, rather than to court 
 and cultivate them. Attorneys are popular in 
 proportion as they keep disputants out of the 
 courts, and cultivate friendship between them. 
 Hence trial dockets are short, and litigation 
 occupies very little time of the courts. 
 
 The courts are institutions that have come 
 down from olden times, having less and less to 
 do, as civilization has advanced, and men have 
 approached nearer and nearer the status of the 
 perfect man. The sense of justice has been so 
 highly evolved in the hearts of the people, 
 there is very little cause for litigation, there 
 
190 A DREAM OF 
 
 being so little inclination among men to reach 
 after or attempt to hold what belongs to others. 
 Fair and honest dealing is so nearly universal as 
 to make public indignation a sufficient punish- 
 ment to one who would seek to violate the rule. 
 
 It would seem that the courts might be en- 
 tirely abolished with but little danger to peace 
 and justice. They would long since have ceased 
 to exist, but for the fear that their absence 
 might possibly, at some time, give rise to self- 
 constituted courts, with their accompanying 
 irregularities and peace-destroying tendencies. 
 
 In the earlier ages, when education was al- 
 most monopolized by the priesthood and other 
 favored few, public opinion was artificially 
 created by appeals to the superstitions and 
 brutality of ignorance and heaitlessness. Pub- 
 lic opinion was then a tyrant, always ready to 
 cry out, "Crucify him, crucify him !" against 
 any one who dared to think or act in opposition 
 to the privileged classes or the dogmas of the 
 priesthood. In later times, when education 
 had freed the intellect, and men became able 
 and willing to do their own thinking, and each 
 was willing to concede to all others the rights 
 and privileges he claimed for himself, public 
 opinion became more humane and just, and 
 frowned only upon such as abused their privi- 
 leges by using their liberties to the injury of 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. IQl 
 
 others. This public opinion was strong enougli 
 in ahnost all cases to hold in check any he- 
 reditary tendency of olden-time selfishness that 
 might occasionally crop out, so that courts were 
 rarely called upon to correct such tendencies. 
 
 The aim of all departments of government 
 is to interfere just as little as possible with the 
 affairs of tlie people. Men have cultivated the 
 habit of self-control to such extent as to require 
 but little aid of organized governments. 
 
 The governments on Mars are all based on 
 republican principles, and through the inter- 
 national congress they are so closely allied as 
 almost to constitute a single government. Each 
 is composed of several states, similar to our 
 United States. These separate states, often 
 located in different climates, having different 
 products, and the people different employmejits, 
 called for the exercise of considerable genius and 
 statesmanship to secure such unity of interest as 
 was necessary to maintain a unity of states. 
 
 Their history shows that long ago the nations 
 of Mars passed through a civil-service reform 
 epoch similar to the one through which we are 
 being whirled and shuffled to-day. 
 
 At the seats of government large numbers 
 of clerks were always employed in the several 
 departments, to transact the public business. 
 The spirit of reform made a strenuous effort to 
 
192 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 place these clerical and gwasi-official positions 
 outside of partisan control. Examining com- 
 mittees were organized, and standards of quali- 
 fication established, and candidates for position 
 were examined, and professedly appointed, be- 
 cause of certain qualifications, without regard 
 to their party affiliations. These appointees 
 could not be removed except for sufficient cause. 
 But this plan was not successful for several 
 reasons : (1) It was rarely carried out in good 
 faith. (2) If a dozen or more w^ere appointed 
 at a given time, it was found that at least one- 
 half of them would have sufficient spirit and 
 enterprise to find some other occupation more 
 profitable and congenial than that of a mere 
 clerk ; so after a year or t\vo they would resign 
 and leave the places vacant, to be filled in the 
 same way, and a like proportion would again 
 become vacant. Those without spirit and en- 
 terjjrise would content themselves as mere clerks, 
 with no ambition to become anything more. 
 They would be careful to discharge their rou- 
 tine duties just well enough not to give cause for 
 dismissal. In this way it took only a few years 
 to fill all the departments with appointees who 
 had not the ambition and manhood to earn a 
 livelihood anywhere else, and consequently were 
 not desirable even as clerks. (3) The plan 
 tended to build up a class of government de- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 193 
 
 pendents. In their sycophantic efforts to be 
 non-partisan, they unmanned themselves, and 
 became little more than nonentities. 
 
 The civil-service reform theory presumed 
 that the longer a man held a position the more 
 valuable his service became, but this proved not 
 to be true. In fact, just the reverse Avas true. 
 The clerks who were content to remain clerks 
 were of the kind to fall into business ruts and 
 become "red-tape winders," and thus were 
 really obstructionists to all business men having 
 anything to do with the departments. It was 
 found that a new clerk, fresh from the busy 
 world outside, would accomplish more in one 
 day than an old clerk would in two, and do it 
 better. 
 
 After many changes in the plans and systems 
 of civil service, and much discussion of the sub- 
 ject, they finally adopted the one now in opera- 
 tion, which has for centuries proved eminently 
 satisfactory. 
 
 At the seat of every national government 
 there is a great national university, of high 
 order and wide scope. The whole country em- 
 braced by a government is divided into districts, 
 corresponding to our congressional districts, 
 divided upon the basis of population. The 
 appointments to clerical and other semi-official 
 positions are equitably apportioned among these 
 I n 17 
 
194 A DREAM OF 
 
 districts, and are given only to such as wish 
 to become students in the national university. 
 Applicants are examined for admission to this 
 institution, and they enter the university and 
 the civil service simultaneously. The hours 
 of study and recitation are adapted to the de- 
 mands of the civil service, and the time to 
 complete a university course is sufficiently ex- 
 tended to enable diligent students properly to 
 fill the twofold office of student and clerk. The 
 salaries of clerks are barely sufficient to defray 
 their necessary expenses as students. Dismissal 
 from the university is also a dismissal from the 
 clerical position, and a dismissal from a clerical 
 position is also a dismissal from all gratuitous 
 privileges of the university. 
 
 This system works admirably. As the stu- 
 dent-clerks are appointed from examinations 
 conducted under the auspices of the universities, 
 party affiliations have no consideration. It is 
 presumed that all applicants are desirous of 
 obtaining an education at the universities, and 
 this desire stimulates to efficiency as clerks and 
 to diligence and good conduct as students, for 
 the loss of one position is the loss of both. It 
 has been found, too, that a student makes a 
 better clerk than one who is not a student. 
 The student's mind is active, and his percep- 
 tions are quick and clear, and his comprehen- 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. I95 
 
 siou is more reliable ; while the mere clerk is 
 almost certain to become comparatively dull, 
 slow, and stupid. 
 
 This plan of civil service in the departments 
 at the seats of government has now been in suc- 
 cessful operation several centuries, and the good 
 results are seen in all directions. Chronic 
 place-holders are no longer seen in the depart- 
 ments, and the national capitols no longer 
 swarm with government mendicants. Gov- 
 ernment employment is no longer destructive 
 of genuine manhood, but, on the contrary, is 
 elevating, and fits employees for the best call- 
 ings in life. A new supply of clerks comes into 
 the departments every year, fresh from the peo- 
 ple in all parts of the country, and new supplies 
 of university graduates are sent to all parts. 
 These graduates go home thoroughly familiar 
 with the management and inner working of the 
 government, and disseminate this accurate in- 
 formation among the people. They also by 
 several years' residence at the capital obtain a 
 more accurate knowledge of public men and 
 measures than is possible except by such resi- 
 dence. On returning home, these graduates 
 become authorities on matters of public meas- 
 ures and men, and political tricks are far less 
 possible, — even if there was any disposition 
 among the people to pi'actise thcra. 
 
196 A DREAM OF 
 
 Another great benefit derived from the plan 
 is that it proves a strong tie to bind the diflfer- 
 ent sections of a government together. How- 
 ever diverse may he the material products of 
 the different sections of the country, and how- 
 ever different may be the employments of the 
 people, yet their minds and their hearts were 
 moulded together in the same great university, 
 — they worked together, studied together, and 
 matured together, — and thus the university and 
 the civil service bind the sections together with 
 a stronger cord than is found in any other in- 
 fluence. They have built national and inter- 
 national brotherhoods all over the planet, that 
 are great conservators of peace, and good will, 
 and o-ood "-overnment. 
 
 Minor officers scattered through the country 
 are appointed for a specified term, and very 
 rarely reappointed. Thus great care is taken 
 not to build up an office-holding class, or a 
 class of government dependents. On Mars 
 government is in no sense a lazar-house or 
 infirmary. 
 
 As character, personal worth, intelligence, 
 and Christian morality became the tickets of 
 admission to the best society and to positions 
 of great personal influence, wealth became less 
 desirable, and beyond what was needed for 
 comfortable support was not sought. As the 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. I97 
 
 desire for riches dimiuisbed, there was no longer 
 any object in concentrating great wealth ; so 
 large corporations and trusts began to crumble 
 into pieces, and wealth and population drew 
 out of cities, and sought more quiet and con- 
 genial homes where population was less dense. 
 This tendency was much encouraged by phi- 
 lanthropists and true reformers. It had long 
 been known that the most potent agency to 
 restrain and reform the evil-inclined was public 
 opinion. But large cities afforded such facili- 
 ties to escape the public eye, that young people 
 would often progress so far on a downward 
 road as to lose self-respect and get beyond the 
 influence of public opinion before it could be 
 brought to bear upon them. Dens, and places 
 calculated to undermine and debaucli character, 
 could hide themselves from public gaze in 
 large cities as they could not in places more 
 sparsely populated. The young were often en- 
 ticed into these places and ruined, before their 
 friends and neighbors knew that such places 
 existed. 
 
 In all ages there has been a laudable desire, 
 in almost all, to occupy positions of influence 
 and trust. When riches constituted the high- 
 way to such positions, all scrambled to become 
 rich. Large cities in many ways afforded the 
 best facilities for the accumulation of M'ealth, 
 17* 
 
198 A DREAM OF 
 
 especially when the few were to become wealthy 
 by out-witting: the many. So dense popula- 
 tions were built up into large cities. Bat later 
 in the advance of Christian civilization, it be- 
 came well understood that wealth did not bring 
 the best men on top, — that the species of talent 
 which rapidly accumulated money was not the 
 kind to be most enjoyed, nor to exert the best 
 influence in society, yet it was the kind to be 
 almost certainly thrown on top in large cities, 
 and thereby created bad standards for the aims 
 and ambitions of young men. 
 
 The advance of the race finally reached the 
 point where society demanded for its leaders 
 men distinguished for their intelligence, purity, 
 integrity, and disinterested usefulness, — quali- 
 ties in the possession of which all could be- 
 come rich who so desired, and no ambition 
 need be disappointed. Large cities did not 
 facilitate the accumulation of this kind of 
 wealth. It called for no intrigues or scheming. 
 It was not the kind of wealth which made one 
 poorer to enrich another. Converged capital 
 was not needed as its battle-ground. So those 
 who had the means left the cities from choice, 
 and those without means left from necessity, 
 and the leading schools of vice and crime were 
 closed for want of patrons. In this way the 
 large cities gradually disappeared from the face 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. I99 
 
 of Mars, and the civilization of the planet was 
 greatly advanced thereby. 
 
 In reading the literature of past ages on 
 Mars, I found that matrimony had been a 
 matter of extensive discussion, reaching through 
 many generations. A great many theories had 
 been advanced, thoroughly discussed, and then 
 dropped out of sight. Mobile others assumed, 
 under examination, modified forms, and still 
 exert controlling influence. The time was 
 when young people contracted marriage with 
 less thoughtful consideration than they would 
 give to a business transaction involving only a 
 few hundred dollars. They would dress their 
 bodies so as to cover up all the defects and ex- 
 hibit all the charms possible. They would do 
 the same as to their minds and hearts, — would 
 be careful to cloak their ignorance and all the 
 faults of disposition and character, and bring 
 to the front only those qualities of mind and 
 soul which they believed would deceive and 
 charm. This was the art of courtship, and the 
 time was when it was practised as a fine art. 
 Books and pamphlets were published instruct- 
 ing young people how to beguile and deceive 
 the opposite sex, and thereby make matrimonial 
 conquests. Mothers instructed their sons and 
 daughters in the art, and rendered them all 
 
200 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 possible aid in practising it. The sacred insti- 
 tution of matrimony, as well as all other good 
 things, was prostituted to the love of money. 
 Parents were anxious for their sons and daugh- 
 ters to marry riches at all events, whatever else 
 they might get or fail to get. The results of 
 marriage contracted under such circumstances 
 and influences can easily be imagined and need 
 not be described. 
 
 Young people often imagined they loved each 
 other when there was nothing akin to love be- 
 tween them. They liked each other's society, 
 and mistook this for love. 
 
 In an old book I found, in a chapter on 
 love, a definition that impressed me favorably, 
 reading as follows : 
 
 " Love is that relation between persons in 
 which the personality of the one is very nearly 
 lost in the other, in which each esteems the 
 other better than himself, and all selfishness 
 disappears. Liking is not loving. Admira- 
 tion is not love, yet generally accompanies it. 
 Lust is not love, yet, in matrimonial engage- 
 ments, it is too often mistaken for it. Love 
 must have a solid foundation in character. It 
 cannot build on outside appearances. There 
 can, therefore, be no such thing as 'love at first 
 sight.' Such love is mere fancy or lust, and 
 not at all akin to love. The object of it may 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 201 
 
 afterwards become the subject of real love, but 
 is more likely to become the object of disgust 
 wheu lust has been satisfied. A sympathetic 
 nature is very liable to mistake pity for love. 
 Love can spring up only from a thorough 
 knowledge of character, and hearty approval 
 of the inner workings of life and causes of 
 action. A selfish nature is incapable of loving 
 or being loved. The same may be said of an 
 impure nature. Hence our methods of court- 
 ship and of matrimonial engagements are all 
 wrong, and lead only to unhappiness. It is 
 only by chance that parties occasionally happen 
 to be properly and happily mated." 
 
 Later in the civilization of Mars, when the 
 laws of heredity came to be well understood 
 and properly appreciated by the more intelli- 
 gent, parents strenuously objected to their sons 
 and daughters marrying into families ignorant 
 or unobservant of these laws. They were un- 
 willing that their descendants should be tainted 
 with the physical, mental, or moral diseases of 
 those who had deliberately or negligently dis- 
 regarded the higher laws of life. 
 
 AVhen money ceased to give social rank and 
 influence, one of the many incentives to im- 
 proper marriages was removed, and conscience, 
 justice, and good judgment began to exert sway 
 in this class of contracts. 
 
202 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 The present system of courting is quite a 
 sensible admixture of business and sentiment, 
 and interested me very much. If a gentleman 
 desires to make the acquaintance of a lady with 
 a view to a match^ he addresses her with a 
 request that she will make due inquiries and 
 investigation as to his ancestry, his character, 
 habits, disposition, etc., and asks the privilege 
 of doing the same in relation to her, with a view 
 to an ultimate contract of marriage, if, on bet- 
 ter acquaintance, it shall be thought wise and 
 best. If she declines this invitation, that ends 
 the matter, and by both parties what has been 
 said is considered strictly confidential. If she 
 assents, then both parties go to work in ear- 
 nest to ascertain the exact truth in relation to 
 each other. In this iuvestigatit)n it is under- 
 stood that the immediate friends of each may 
 render all proper assistance. At the end of the 
 investigation, if either party reports to the other 
 that the result is unsatisfactory, the whole mat- 
 ter is at an end. But if both report satisfac- 
 tion with the result, then the l)usiness portion 
 of the courtship closes and the sentimental part 
 begins. This is an honest, candid effort upon 
 the part of each to ascertain whether their 
 tastes, dispositions, and aims in life are such as 
 readily to affiliate in such manner that each may 
 supplement the other so that both may be made 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 203 
 
 stronger and better fitted for the duties and 
 proper eujoyraents of life. If all is found well, 
 reciprocal admiration and confidence become 
 the basis of a true love, and they wed. 
 
 On Mars nearly all marry, and unhappy 
 marriages are extremely few. Public opinion 
 is such as to ostracize from society any person 
 who will disregard the laws of heredity in se- 
 lecting a life-companion. There is a fixed de- 
 termination, almost universal, that disease and 
 deformity of either body or mind shall not per- 
 petuate themselves. The people believe in the 
 survival of the fit only, and they encourage 
 only the fittest. This makes another powerful 
 motive to good conduct and the proper training 
 and education of children, for none are willing 
 that their descendants shall be ostracized from 
 good society. 
 
 As stated elsewhere, the people of Mars are 
 eminently religious, and they are a merry, cheer- 
 ful, happy people. There is no infidelity, no 
 atheism, no scoffing at religion there. All these 
 things went out of existence when Dogmatic 
 Theology went out. The various forms of dis- 
 belief grew up when Christianity was a creed, 
 a code of doctrines, — when men were Christians 
 if they believed as the doctors taught, and in- 
 fidels if they did not. But, as the people in- 
 
204 ^ DREAM OF 
 
 creased in intelligence, they became dissatisfied 
 with a religion of belief. They learned that 
 devils believed and trembled, but were devils 
 still. Believing did not necessarily make men 
 any better. Sucli a religion did not meet human 
 need, and was unsatisfactory. They felt that a 
 true religion ought to improve a man's morals, 
 while one consisting; of assenting; to certain doc- 
 trines did not necessarily do so, but it was certain 
 to make infidels of all who dissented. 
 
 The most intelligent people, in and out of 
 the church, therefore commenced mining down 
 through the accumulated theological debris of 
 past ages, in search of what man needed, and 
 found it in the pristine, unadulterated teachings 
 of Jesus of Nazareth. They found it in a form 
 so clear and simple as to need no theological 
 schools, no doctors of divinity, to make it under- 
 stood by the most simple-minded. They found 
 a religion which begins with " God be merciful 
 to me a sinner," and proceeds in a pure life 
 along the line of the Golden Rule, and uni- 
 versal love to mankind, and ends with life im- 
 mortal. Tliis religion met no rational opposi- 
 tion. All approved of penitence for wrong ; 
 all approved of one's doing as he would bo done 
 by ; all approved of loving and doing good 
 to all men ; all approved of and desired eternal 
 life : so there were none left to object or obstruct. 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 205 
 
 This simple religion is the religion of Mars, 
 and has been for many centuries ; and who will 
 say it is not the religion of Jesus Christ, — pure 
 Christianity? There men feel that they are 
 glorifying God when they labor to perfect them- 
 selves and their race. 
 
 There, as here, they had an old catechism 
 which asks the question, " What is the chief 
 end of man ?" The old answer of the theolo- 
 gians was, " To glorify God and enjoy him for- 
 ever." They have also a more modern cate- 
 chism, in which the same question is asked, but 
 the answer is, " To perfect himself, and thereby 
 glorify God and enjoy him forever." They 
 think that Christianity teaches that man's heart 
 must be cleansed and kept clean, and his moral 
 and spiritual powers developed and made strong, 
 so as to be a fit temple in which the spirit of 
 God may abide, and thereby be enjoyed and 
 glorified. It teaches that if the heart is right 
 the life will be right, — that whether one eats, 
 or drinks, or whatsoever he does, all will be to 
 the glory of God. They believe that God is 
 not glorified so much in words as in works. 
 
 Formerly, on Mars, there was a distinction 
 between religious and secular employments. 
 By the fictions of human conceptions, what was 
 called the Christian world, in olden times, 
 maintained a divorce between religion and the 
 18 
 
206 A DREAM OF 
 
 common duties of everv-tlay life. Mankind 
 were occupied nearly all the time with eating 
 and drinking, buying and selling, cheating and 
 being cheatal, making and losing, devising 
 amusements and being amused, and with other 
 and various business avocations. These things 
 were called secular, and occupied fully nineteen- 
 twentieths of all the waking hours, and many 
 that should have been sleeping hours. During 
 the other twentieth of the time, a part of the 
 people devoted themselves to what they re- 
 garded as religious duties, which consisted 
 mostly in listening to prayers, Scripture read- 
 ings, music, and sermons. This curious map- 
 ping off of life into two distinct parts, denom- 
 inated respectively secular and religious, was 
 then the Christian civilization. Christianity 
 was then embraced for its supposed efficacy in 
 bridging the abyss between earth and heaven 
 at time of death, but was ignored in the or- 
 dinary occupations of life. It was thought 
 necessary to die by, but inconvenient and not 
 needed to live by. But all these ideas have 
 passed away. Now Christianity is the basis of 
 all organizations, and is present supervising all 
 the occupations of life. It permeates all busi- 
 ness of all kinds, and goes and abides with men 
 w'herever they go. It supplies the balance-scale 
 and the yardstick in all trading and trafficking 
 
A MODEST PROPHET. 207 
 
 among men. It inspires the employer with 
 a sense of humanity and justice, and the em- 
 ployed with loyalty, integrity, and industry. 
 It purifies the home, the school, and the work- 
 shop. It sweetens the amusements of adults 
 and the sports of childhood. It enlivens and 
 clarifies social circles. It warms the logic of the 
 scientists, and adds spirit and life where before 
 they could find only inert matter. It chastens 
 literature, and adds melody to music. In brief, 
 Christianity is immanent everywhere, all the 
 time, and in everything. It knows no holidays : 
 it has no special times, or seasons, or places. 
 It is as much at home on the farm, in the par- 
 lor, the kitchen, the factory, the shop, the office, 
 in the court-room, and the legislative hall, as 
 in the church or cathedral. It controls men's 
 actions on Saturdays and Mondays as much as 
 on Sundays. 
 
 God hasten the time when such a Christianity, 
 with such results, may cover the face of the 
 earth ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRtNTSO BY J. B. LiPPINCOTT COMPANY, PhILADCLPHU.