? But, whatever your answer,
society fortunately is not made up of hypocrites or rascals of any
kind. With all the weakness of human nature found in every
society, the growing success of the rule of the people throughout
the world proves that fundamentally men and women are honest and
true. Generally common human nature is for the right. Almost
universally, if a mooted question touching morals can be put simply
and squarely before the people, they will see and choose the right.

Fortunate it is for the world that the lessons taught by the early
Hebrew writers regarding the survival of the moral and upright are
true, and that good sense and religion both agree that in the long
run, honor and virtue and righteousness not only pay the
individual, but are essential to the prosperity of a nation.

_Questions for Further Consideration_.

Had most primitive peoples a tradition regarding the flood? How do
you explain the striking points of similarity between the flood
stories of peoples far removed from each other?

Is there geological evidence that the earth, during human history,
has been completely inundated?

What do you mean by a calamity? Is it a mere accident, or an
essential factor in the realization of the divine purpose in human
history?

Are appalling calamities, like floods and earthquakes, the result
of the working out of natural laws? Are they unmitigated evils?
Were the floods in China and the plagues in India, which destroyed
millions of lives, seemingly essential to the welfare of the
surviving inhabitants of those overpopulated lands?

What were the effects of the Chicago fire and the San Francisco
earthquake upon these cities? How far was the development of the
modern commission form of city government one of the direct results
of the Galveston flood?

To what extent is the modern progress in sanitation due to natural
calamities? What calamities?

Is a great calamity often necessary to arouse the inhabitants of a
city or nation to the development of their resources and to the
realisation of their highest possibilities? What illustrations can
you cite?

How do changes in the environment of men affect the moral quality
of their acts? How do circumstances affect the kind of act that
will be successful? During the Chinese revolution of 1912 in
Peking and Nanking, looting leaders of mobs and plundering soldiers
when captured were promptly decapitated without trial. Was such an
act right