ccompanying influences of travel, and a world market for the products
of the earth, all tend to level the barriers of nationality and to
develop universal citizenship. The prophets of our day talk of the
coming world state, which is not likely to appear so long as the
barriers of sea and mountain remain; yet each year witnesses a closer
blending of the commercial, industrial, and political interests of all
nations. Thus we see how governments have been evolved and national
life expanded in accordance {46} with slowly developing civilization.
Although good government and a high state of civilization are not
wholly in the relation of cause and effect, they always accompany each
other, and the progress of man may be readily estimated from the
standpoint of the development of political institutions and political
life.

_Religion Important in Civilization_.--It is not easy to trace the
development of man by a consideration of the various religious beliefs
entertained at different periods of his existence. Yet there is
unmistakably a line of constant development to be observed in religion,
and as a rule its progress is an index of the improvement of the race.
No one can contrast the religion of the ancient nations with the modern
Christian religion without being impressed with the vast difference in
conception and in practice existing between them. In the early period
of barbarism, and even of savagery, religious belief was an important
factor in the development of human society.

It is no less important to-day, and he who recounts civilization
without giving it a prominent place has failed to obtain a
comprehensive view of the philosophy of human development. From the
family altar of the Greeks to the state religion; from the rude altar
of Abraham in the wilderness to the magnificent temple of Solomon at
Jerusalem; from the harsh and cruel tenets of the Oriental religions to
the spiritual conception and ethical practice of the Christian
religion, one observes a marked progress. We need only go to the crude
unorganized superstition of the savage or to the church of the Middle
Ages to learn that the power and influence of religion is great in
human society building.

_The Progress Through Moral Evolution_.--The moral development of the
race, although more difficult to determine than the intellectual, may
prove an index to the progress of man. The first formal expression of
moral practice is the so-called race moralit