ified by this unworthy motive. We mean not to include those
individuals who, with loftier motives and a true appreciation of man's
spiritual capabilities, are prominent among us, battling earnestly in
the cause of true progress; we are speaking of the mass of our
population. Those few are the goodly leaven who are yet to prove the
regeneration of our race. Bad as is the state of affairs in this
respect, it will, if left to itself, become infinitely worse as each
succeeding year rolls around, for the spirit of greed is progressive in
its nature, growing fatter and fatter upon its success.

Yet, in another point of view, this same strife for wealth is one great
secret of American prosperity and progress. It is the motive power to
that energy which has peopled the wilderness, erected as if by magic a
mighty republic among the savage wilds, and, above all, spread American
ideas, and with them the germ of human liberty, over the whole broad
earth. To this spirit of greed upon our shores the Old World owes much
of its advancement and most of those useful inventions which are fast
revolutionizing humanity itself. But we are not considering it in this
light; we are viewing it in its moral aspect, that respect in which it
most strongly affects true civilization, which must soon fall away and
lapse into the condition of the ages long past, if it be not sustained
by an enduring moral and religious element. The moral advancement must
keep pace with the intellectual, else the latter will some day reach
that point where extremes meet, and have its weary journey to commence
again.

It is to be hoped that this evil is already on the wane. It is to be
hoped that the present stirring up of our society from its uttermost
depths, with its consequent exploding of worn-out theories, which have
hitherto held their places only through our national lethargy--with its
sweeping away of old-time prejudices, and mingling together of elements
which have hitherto existed distinct and aloof from each other, will
result in bringing true merit to the surface, in awakening our people to
a loftier appreciation of the good and the true, thereby establishing a
higher moral standard among us; that purer motives will henceforth
actuate our society. The fears which are entertained by some that the
present war will prove a severe shock to our civilization, are not
sustained by the facts which are everywhere appearing around us. The
frequent demands upon the ge