Part 17 (2/2)

The sooner moral actions and the necessity of clean, helpful, and charitable living are put upon a basis more solid and permanent than theology the better will it be for civilization; and if this chapter shall, by its light style, attract the attention of those who are too busy, or are disinclined for any reason whatsoever, to collect from more profound works the facts here given, I shall be satisfied with the result, because I shall have done something toward the triumph of fact over fiction.

We cannot repeat too often nor emphasize too strongly this one simple fact, that we need all our energy and time to make _this_ world fit to live in; to make _homes_ where mothers are happy and children are glad--homes where fathers hasten when their work is done, and are welcomed with a shout of joy.

The toilers who wend up the hillside, The toilers below in the mill Alike are the victims of priestcraft, They ”do but the _Master's_ will.”

The _Master's_ will! ah the cunning, The bitterly cruel device, To wring from the lowly and burdened Submission at any price!

Submission to tyrants in Russia-- Submission to tyrants in Rome; The throne and the altar have ever Combined to despoil the home,

But the home is the heaven to live for, And Love is the G.o.d sublime Who paints in tints of glory, Upon the wings of Time

This legend, grand and simple, And true as eternal Right-- ”No Justice e'er came from Jury, Whose verdict was based on might!”

As high above earth as is heaven; As high as the stars above The Church, the chapel, the altar; Is the home whose G.o.d is Love.

APPENDIX

Appendix A.

1. ”For a species increases or decreases in numbers, widens or contracts its habitat, migrates or remains stationary, _continues an old mode of life or falls into a new one_, under the combined influence of its intrinsic nature _and the environing_ actions, inorganic and organic.

”Beginning with the extrinsic factors, we see that from the outset several kinds of them are variously operative. They need but barely ennumerating. We have climate, hot, cold, or temperate, moist or dry, constant or variable. We have surface, much or little of which is available, and the available part of which is fertile in greater or less degree; and we have configuration of surface, as uniform or multiform.... _On these sets of conditions, inorganic and organic, characterizing the environment, primarily depends the possibility of social evolution_.”--Spencer, ”Principles of Sociology,” vol. 1, p. 10.

2. ”These considerations clearly prove that of the _two primary causes of civilization, the fertility of the soil_ is the one which in the ancient world exercised most influence. But in European civilization, _the other great cause_, that is to say, _climate_, has been the most powerful.

”Owing to circ.u.mstances which I shall presently state, the only progress which is really effective depends, not upon the bounty of nature, but upon the _energy of man_. Therefore it is, that the civilization of Europe, which, in its earliest stage, was governed by _climate_, has shown a capacity of development unknown to those civilizations which were originated by _soil_.”--Buckle, ”History of Civilization,” vol. 1, p. 36--37.*

* I wish to state here that I had never read the above from Buckle, nor had I seen anywhere a statement so like my own, at the time mine was written. I read this for the first time while reading the proofs of this chapter. So much for what may appear plagiarism.--H. H. Q,

Appendix B.

1. ”Napoleon himself was indifferent to Christianity, but he saw that the clergy were friends of despotism.”--Buckle.

2. ”Thus it is that a careful survey of history will prove that the Reformation made the most progress not in those countries where the people were most enlightened, but in those countries where, from political causes, the clergy were least able to withstand the people.”--Buckle.

3. ”Christian civilization in the twentieth century of its existence, degrades its women to labor fit only for beasts of the field; harnessing them with dogs to do the most menial labors; it drags them below even this, holding their womanhood up to sale, _putting both Church and State sanction_ upon their moral death; which, in some places, as in the city of Berlin, so far recognizes the sale of women's bodies for the vilest purposes _as part of the Christian religion, that license for this life is refused until they have partaken of the Sacrament_; and demands of the '10,000 licensed women of the town' of the city of Hamburg, certificates showing that they regularly attend church and also partake of the sacrament.”--Gage.

Even a lower depth than this is reached in England, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, and nearly every country of Europe, says the same writer, ”a system of morality which declares 'the necessity' of woman's degradation, and annually sends tens of thousands down to a death from which society grants no resurrection.”--Gage.

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