We find that about one thousand nine
hundred years ago a polished gentleman like Julius Caesar gravely
congratulates himself on the fact that his troops destroyed in cold
blood forty thousand people--men, women, and children. No man in the
civilized world dare do such a deed now, even if he had the mind for the
carnage. The feeling with which we read Caesar's frigid recital measures
the arc of improvement through which we have passed. May the improvement
go on! We can continue to progress only through knowledge; if our
people--our women especially--are wantonly warlike, then our action will
be wantonly warlike; knowledge alone can save us from the guilt of
blood, and that knowledge I have tried to set forth briefly. By wondrous
ways does our Master work out His ends. Let us pray that He may hasten
the time when nation shall not rise up against nation, neither shall
they draw the sword any more.
_December, 1886._
_DRINK_.
I have no intention of imitating those intemperate advocates of
temperance who frighten people by their thunderous and extravagant
denunciations; I leave high moral considerations on one side for the
present, and our discussion will be purely practical, and, if possible,
helpful.
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