x fiery steeds, or even
eight, but he descends from his coach to find that his own passions
are steeds of the sun that run away with him, bringing wreckage and
ruin. Man has skill for turning poisons into medicines. He changes
deadly acids into balms, but he has no skill for taking envy's poisons
out of the tongue, or sheathing the keen sword of hatred. As to
physical nature, man seems rapidly approaching the time when all the
forces of land and sea and sky will yield themselves as willing and
obedient servants to do his will. But, having made himself monarch in
every other realm, man breaks down utterly in attempting the task of
living peaceably with his friends and neighbors. Sublime in his
integrity and strength, he is most pitiable in the way he wrecks his
own happiness, and ruins the happiness of others. Pestilence in the
city, tornado in the country, the fire in the forest--these are but
feeble types of man as a destroyer. One science is as yet unmastered
by man--the science of right living and the art of getting along
smoothly with himself and his fellows.

To-day the new science explains the difficulty of right living, by the
largeness of man's endowment. There are few failures in the animal or
vegetable world. Instinct guides the beast, while the shrub attains
its end by automatic processes. No vine was ever troubled to decide
whether it should produce grapes or thorns. No fig tree ever had to
go to school to learn how to avoid bearing thistles. The humming bird,
flying from shrub to shrub, hears the inner voice called instinct.
These instincts serve as guide books. The animal creation that moves
through the air or water or the forests experiences but little
difficulty in finding out the appointed pathway. But the problem of
rose, lark or lion is very simple and easy, compared with the problem
of man. If the oak must needs bear acorns, man is like a vine that can
at will bring forth any one of a hundred fruits. He is like an animal
that can at its option walk or fly, swim or run. The pathway opened
before the brute world is narrow and its task therefore is very
simple, while the vast number of pathways possible to man often
embarrasses his judgment and sometimes works bewilderment.

After thousands of years man is still ignorant whether it is best for
him to eat flesh or confine himself only to fruit; whether the juice
of the grape is helpful or harmful; whether the finest culture comes
from confining one's s