kind. What can avail for freemen fastened in these degrading toils but the governing wisdom of the power above them? Nothing.

But here we face a difficulty. Under the prevalent competitive strife for distinction in wealth, and other like aggrandizements, intelligence and wealth, as ruling powers, are so largely carried in this inhuman self-service that, comparatively, little thought or means are given to public service—to a service of all, in all, for all.

But there remains a remedy, even if selfishness still inclines to be absorbed in its greedy pursuit. For that mighty undertow of neglected human power-hitherto mostly surging in subterranean depths- begins to show on the surface in fearful breakers. And, if these controlling powers remain fixed in narrow devotion to selfish aims, instead of giving heed to social law and ruling to fraternal ends-ends that comprehend all interests and provide for all-then will they come to be played upon and ravished by those under-currents of lust and passion that were suffered to drift recklessly onward and augment in characteristic force, when they should have been taken in hand and truly directed. Communal desolation is the remedy-but a painful remedy. Far wiser were it to listen to the monitions of social science, and thereby rightly dispose the elements otherwise sure to flay us. Remedies by inversion and empirical endeavor are always painful and tedious, and only successful at last by compelling resort to methods of science in commanding law. The distress of our late communal throes will prove thus remedial when it prompts the ruling powers to instigate a radical search, in the light of civic science, and thence to institute remedies accordingly. And it cannot be too forcibly and constantly urged that this demands a public conduct strictly consonant with the terms of social law; a conduct, consequently, that shall proceed from a wisdom comprehensive of the needs of the whole people, and a power sufficient to execute the demands of that wisdom.

We cannot, in our appeals, get direct access to the ears of the various communal grades; nor would it effect any desirable

result if we could. They can ravage and destroy; or, by forbearance, can adjourn the evils of competition between capital and labor, but they can do nothing directly to inaugurate right methods, nor even to avert, finally, the fearful violence of uncultured and exasperated human power pressed and stung beyond endurance. Our only hope is in an appeal through manifest science—to the ears of those few who do and will, at present, rule the nation — either for the good of all or the ruin of all.

If the competitive system is perpetuated, strength and superior craft will continue to despoil the weak and less crafty. This will continue to breed reckless and desperate feeling and habits. Human nature will react against whatever presses and galls it. In such reaction it will resort to means proportioned to its conditions. It will be unreasonable, vindictive, and cruel in proportion as it is uncultured and gross. Hence the governing powers have an interest to provide methods of culture for all who are uncultured, and to compel a use of these methods. Free culture will provide for all the powers of man physical, as well as the intellectual, and higher still. Especially does it demand the institution of industrial methods of every kind; not only to train in industrial power, but to produce proper supplies for all. To this end all must be protected and assured in a just share of the goods they create. At no point may the weaker and more dependent be despoiled with impunity, else they will come to prey upon, and despoil in return, with a ferocity that knows no bounds.

So completely has Providence put this nation under the diction of social law, which regards unity of power and the fruits of power in a positive commonwealth, that no violation of that law can rule continuously without disaster or ruin.

United and happy peoples in a united and happy race is the ultimate purpose of Divine Wisdom. Hence all petty schemes that violate the laws of universal brotherhood must be fraught with evil, especially to the votaries of such schemes. Do we need more tuition under this head than that which has come to us in communal outbreaks and destruction? If so, we will get it by extending the reign of strife and competition in behalf

of self-aggrandizement. On the contrary, if we will organize the principle of fraternal good-will, inherent in the national system, peace will at once begin to exert her benign sway.

There are those who say that this competition is essential to business enterprise- that business would flag, and general stagnation take the place of present business energy, if the motive to outshine and excel others in these superior shows of wealth and power, that practically cripple and destroy the brother, were displaced. But it is a shocking reflection upon the creative wisdom to suppose it limited to an economy that bases energy and enterprise in a system that is fatal to the existence of that orderly society which itself has appointed as the acme of human greatness. It is impossible. The thought is as absurd as it is dishonorable to the divine name. The emulative spirit is a beneficent and mighty power; its true expression is accordant with, and productive of, fraternal order and peace, rather than of discord and warfare, amongst men. Excellence and superiority in all social power and worth; in productive genius, and every kindly ministry to all human needs; in mastery of every obstacle to the welfare of all— these, and their like in social significance and tendency, will be found ample ministries to the emulative spirit in man. They are honorable to both creator and creature, and will inspire human energy and enterprise immensely beyond the base, cut-throat methods of our present competitive strife.

In the processes of social regeneration all forms of industry and art will become duly honored; dullness will be encouraged, prompted, and educated into becoming energy; shirking, dishonored and disciplined; idleness, treated as a species of disgraceful stealth, and its votary trained accordingly; till, finally, all come into the spirit and power of true social order.

True, with a large development and application of mechanical powers to production, and the more general interest and application of human power, productive results would be vastly augmented, but there would be no danger of a surfeit or glut; for consumption would keep pace with production. Being relieved from the stress of monopoly and exclusive

hoarding by being assured in a just share of the proceeds of best conditions of production, the masses would become generous consumers, as well as producers; becoming relieved from the pinching conditions that now drive them to madness and the rudeness of communal outrage. So, perpetual enterprise and thrift would take the place of revulsions and painful stagnation.

At present we have almost no means of stimulating human powers and directing their orderly play. We throw around each individual the pressure of legal and moral restraints, and expect conformity and order in the life of each, while yet we have given them scarcely a particle of social culture and support. How absurd to suppose the pressure of the lower degrees can apply to regulate the conditions of the higher, and produce the coveted order!

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When men scorn and deride these barriers and levers they are sure to do under the quenchless cravings of their social instincts we apply the vindictive screws of justice, as we call it, till they are broken into order or crushed out. So we have increasing rebellion and disorder, and multiplied thumb-screws of justice. And, strange to say, few seem to distrust prevailing ideas of social economy, or question the wisdom of a public conduct bearing fruits of pillage and distress on every hand. Rebellious human nature all unhelped and unwashed as it is-seems alone at fault, while we, the righteous commanders, feel ourselves justified, and even obligated, to lash, scourge, and destroy. If, instead, we would come to a due sense of social obligations, and concentrate the commanding intelligence and power upon means of general helpfulness, organizing ways and means for the development and proper play of all human power, there would be an immediate lull to the raging currents of lust and passion, and, in good time, perfect equilibrium and peace.

He whose rule is supreme and cannot be supplanted admonishes us in a thousand stinging providences that this is an era of social forces and laws, and that social conduits must be provided for the accumulating fluids if we would not be rent and torn by their furious rage. He is daily showing us the impo

tence of designed restraints that imprison, chain, strangle, and shoot down the unkempt brotherhood, by rearing up bristling hordes to fill the ranks thus decimated. And He will continue thus to do until we heed His calls to social law and duty, and proceed to construct systems of social sewerage and general reform-to provide that filthiness shall be washed away; the hungry fed; the wayward and vile recovered to usefulness and decency; the weak made strong; the infirm, of every kind, firm and upright. Not by alms-giving and almsdoing, that tend to weaken and debauch, but by scientific recuperative methods that develop and rightly employ the native forces before going to waste.

Under the diction of mere sense-with its rule of arbitrary force one may attend mainly to one's own; and under the diction of human reason, even-with its moral barriers and stimulants-one comes to little of the sublime breadth and liberation of true human poise; but, under the diction of wisdom-with the social barriers and stimulants of universal brotherhood-one comes to see clearly that we dwell, constantly, "each in all and all in each;" that, consequently, there can be no full rest and peace for a single soul, short of rest and peace for all. So, the genius and power of previous culture, that were before absorbed in every lust and scheme of self-service, as opposed to common service, come here into the broad and genial light of the universal, and devote themselves accordingly mostly to public service. Not, indeed, sacrificing and depleting self by so doing, for this social law is so broad and economic that what serves the public best likewise best serves the individual, and vice versa.

Minus the rule of this principle here, in this nation of its own nominal home, and the reign, instead, of every species of self-service, the most voracious and inhuman strife were inevitable. As a consequence, social aggressions, repulsions, and explosions are rife on every hand. Volumes would not suffice to enumerate the various convulsions thereupon experienced. Little can be done here more than to cite in general terms, and point out the relation of, commanding laws; that thereby specific explications and remedial applications may be prompted.