A SUCCESSFUL LIFE?

The oldest citizen of a neighboring town died a week ago at the age of 90. He was a bachelor and had amassed a fortune of $150,000. The leading paper of the town devoted a whole column to the task of honoring and extolling his exemplary life. Among other things it was stated to his credit that when the Confederate war came on this man "with singular foresight" converted all that he had into gold, and thus when the war closed he had means in his hands with which to make his fortune.

We make no attack upon the dead. It would have been strange if the old man had not been endowed with some private virtue which it would be pleasant for somebody to remember. But such a life as the facts mentioned clearly indicate, can be pronounced a success only from the stand-point of him who lived it. Viewed from any other standpoint it is a life devoted entirely to self-a life in which the actuating principle is greed and of which the loftiest ideal is gold,-and therefore so far as regards the country and the world such a life is a miserable failure, if not a positive evil.

In the dark days of the war when the noblest men of the South were pouring out their life-blood like water on the altar of patriotism and casting their money and everything that could be converted into money, into their country's treasury-when the women in a sublime spirit of sacrifice brought

their jewelry to be run into coin, and even the churches of a holy God freely gave their bells to be moulded into cannon-then there were creatures bearing the name and form of men in every town and almost every neighborhood, who with "singular foresight" were providing only for themselves. They were dead to every call of patriotism and humanity, they dodged the conscript officers, preyed like hungry sharks on the needy and the helpless, and did more towards dragging their country down to defeat and humiliation than the mightiest Northern armies that were brought into the field.

And these were the men, who at the close of the war were full-handed and ready from a "singular foresight," to build their private fortunes on the ruins of their country. And these were the rich men after the war, who were elevated to a social and political prominence from which they looked down with patronizing complacency or half-concealed disdain upon other men who had staked all and lost all in a cause that appealed to the noblest instincts that ever dwelt in the human breast.

Such men have always existed in every country and every clime and they have always had their flatterers, their parasites, their servile worshipers, who like silly moths are attracted by the outward glare of the flame that consumes all within it.

When such men become aware that the shadows of eternal night are beginning to gather around

them and realize that in that approaching night gold has no luster and stocks and bonds bear no interest, then they usually, but not always begin to look around for some opportunity to cheat the grinning fates out of their lawful prey and to make some feeble efforts to become charitable and benevolent. They give an unappreciable part of their hoarded gains to the poor and needy and leave the great bulk to their nearest kin, only because they can not take it with them. A large portion of their wealth has by their "singular foresight" been wrested from its rightful owners, hoarded and worshiped through a few changing years, and in the end abandoned to those who never labored to acquire or to deserve it.

Such is a brief outline of a life that men call successful and newspapers hold up as an example for imitation and emulation.

PROGRESS OR RETROGRESSION?

In neither the material nor the moral world is there any such thing as absolute rest. The earth with all it contains whirls around its axis with a surface velocity of over a thousand miles an hour, and at the same time flies along her orbit with a velocity more than six times as great. The sun himself with his retinue of worlds is on a grand sweep through the limitless regions of space, and

every star that quivers in the firmament is plumed for rapid flight.

On our earth there is nothing still. Change follows change; generations of men come and go; the seasons run their rounds; the rivers flow forever; the ocean heaves and roars; the years come and glide away; and epochs and eras sweep onward towards the abysmal depths, or fade away backward into the past eternity.

Stop this universal motion, and you inaugurate a reign of universal death; for the thing that can't move must die, the life that can't develop and grow must shrink and decay. This is the law both of the physical and the spiritual world.

It becomes a wise people then occasionally to take their bearings and see whither they are tending on this strange and rapid journey-whether they are progressing or retrograding, growing or dying. In this generation, is this nation advancing towards the culmination of a nobler and grander destiny than the nations of the past ever reached, or are the signs delusive and the evidences without a solid foundation? Who can tell? To all appearances, our own country is rapidly advancing in material wealth and intellectual achievements. The standard of domestic life is continually being elevated, and the unattainable luxuries of the past are the prime necessities of the present, Colossal fortunes which the greatest kings of history would

have envied, are accumulated by men coming from the obscure walks of life; and steam, sound, electricity-almost all the secret and terrible powers of nature have bowed in respectful deference to the supremacy of mind and become the tame and willing servants of men. But who knows but that these very triumphs of mind and muscle contain in them the seeds of decadence and decay? Rome was never so weak nor so near her fall as when her citizens were rolling in wealth and luxury, and her capital was rich with the trophies of war and resplendent with the trimphs of art. So, it may be that behind all the display of wealth and power by this mighty nation there are forces at work in darkness, which, like worms preying upon the heart of the spreading oak and ere long blighting its branch anr sapping its life, will rise to the surface and spread blight and mildew over all this scene of progress and glory.

If the moral and spiritual virtue of our country do not grow with the increase of wealth and population, then progress is one-sided; and when the balance is struck, retrogression may occupy the credit column of the account. With all our boasted progress it is doubtful if individual character in this day comes up to the sturdy virtues of our forefathers. It is doubtful if the Christian religion is the power in the world today that it has been in the past. It is doubtful if patriotism holds the place in