understanding of truth which then prevailed. To do that
which they deemed right, no sacrifice was too great, no labor too
arduous, no suffering too severe. The deep, abiding, earnest,
controlling spirit of the time, shone bright and glorious through all
its ignorance, degradation, and superstition, a warning to our later and
more cultured age, that the triumphs of the intellect are not all that
is requisite for the final achievements of civilization.

The influence of the individualizing tendency is no more perceptible on
the page of history, in political and religious affairs, than in the
relations of social life. The gradual advance in political ideas, as
relating to the liberty of the people, modified the oppressive
trade-caste systems of the older nations, and wholly abolished them in
the more advanced. Competitive industry introduced intelligence and
self-reliance among the people. The doctrine of the equality of men
elevated the spirit of the laborer, and dispersed, to a greater or less
extent, as the doctrine made itself felt, that servile veneration which
the lower classes paid to the higher; the essential dignity of labor is
becoming acknowledged. To all these benefits, there have been,
nevertheless, corresponding losses. Competitive industry has developed
the mental faculties of the people; but has also left the ignorant and
the weak still under the feet of the intelligent and the rich, while the
recognition of the doctrine of social and political equality has
eliminated from the community those distinctive classes who formerly
constituted themselves the supervisors and patrons of the indigent, and
the providers for their material wants. It is for this reason that the
lowest orders of modern society exhibit relatively a condition of
physical misery unknown to the poor of former times. So, while the
inherent and native dignity of manhood has cropped out, under the
impulse of this same idea of the equality of man, reverence for things
to which reverence is due, respect for sanctities of whatever kind,
deference to superior worth in any sphere--these and other virtues which
belong on that side of truth which consists of the recognition of the
inherent _inequality_ of man in mental, moral, and spiritual
characteristics, are rapidly disappearing, giving place to that spirit
of dead-levelism so peculiarly illustrative of the prevalent sentiment
in this country, and so aptly denominated 'Young America.'

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