e in its prohibition and are
disposed to pessimism may be utterly discouraged.

Truth must eventually prevail. Any custom or system built upon
falsehood must sooner or later yield. The house built upon the sand
must in time fall. It may be undermined by years of instruction and so
gradually give way that the date of its overthrow can hardly be
determined, or it may in its strength be taken in a storm and fall.
The whole commercial credit system built on this monstrous falsehood
must either crumble or tumble.

The prophet Isaiah was hopeful and happy in the midst of the most
unfavorable conditions of corruption and alienation from the truth,
for he was able with his prophetic eye to catch a glimpse of the good
time coming, when righteousness should completely triumph. "He shall
teach us of His ways and we shall walk in His steps." "With
righteousness shall He judge the poor." "Righteousness shall be the
girdle of His loins."

No prophet has fixed a date for the suppression of usury, yet no
intelligent man of faith, familiar with the reforms of the past, when
as thoroughly entrenched and as giant evils were attacked and
overthrown, need be in despair.

We were enslaved by superstitions. Haunted houses were numerous and
the bewitching of people was frequent. Two hundred arrests for
witchcraft were made in a single year, 1692, and twenty of these
persons were put to death. These persecutions were urged and defended
by Cotton Mather, a representative of the highest intelligence and
culture of the times. His mother was a daughter of John Cotton, and
his father the President of Harvard College. Now black cats and
epilepsy inspire no fear, and ghost stories do not now terrify and
unnerve our children.

Duelling prevailed among men of honor. Public opinion made it
compulsory that personal differences between gentlemen should be
settled in this way. Persons were branded as cowards who would not put
their lives in jeopardy. Few had the courage to resist. Duels were
common among the political leaders at Washington. Many a shot rang out
at sunrise in the little valley at Bladensburg, the noted duelling
ground. Jackson and Benton and Clay and De Witt Clinton were
duellists. After the killing of Alexander Hamilton by Aaron Burr, in
1804, the whole country was aroused and an agitation began against the
custom, but it yielded slowly. In 1838 and 1841 there were duels
between distinguished congressmen. But now public opinion is so