Theatres in 1999 were extensively patronized, but so rigid were the laws against immoral displays that none ventured to violate. The cause of morality generally had made strides of progress in the 20th century. The world grew brighter and better and became more humane. Vice and immorality were suppressed, not so much by operation and fear of the law but by Christianizing methods. As the world grew older it became more manifest that crime and immorality must make way for purity and honesty. Theatrical performances in 1999 were more chaste, more attractive and entertaining. The exhibitions of nudity, so No Seeley Dinners in 1999. common in 1899, became unknown to the stage in 1999. Electricity was very successfully employed in all scenic stage effects. Some spectacular performances were beautiful visions of fairyland. Public entertainments carefully suppressed all that appealed to the baser passions. In 1899 our churches and theatres were still apart, but in 1999 so marked was the purity of the stage and so lofty its ideals, that church members were not afraid to acknowledge that they attended the theatres.
Churches, on the other hand, became more Christianized in 1999. The envy, wrath and jealousy which existed between the denominations and religions lost much of their acrimony in the 20th century. The hatred and contempt that the Mohammedan An Era of Fraternal Love. entertained for the Christian, had greatly softened. The Roman Catholic, the Greek and Protestant Churches, followers of the same Saviour, regarded each other with more fraternal feelings and became more tolerant. As education became more generally diffused, humanity broadened the heart. Children in 1999 could not comprehend the infamy of a nation that could perpetrate the horrors of the Inquisition under a pretext of serving the cause of a gentle Christ. Their minds could not understand how in the 17th century both Protestants and Catholics burned, pillaged and destroyed one another’s property; burned men, women and children at the stake and committed nameless horrors, all under a sacrilegious pretext of serving a Divine Master. These persecutions and the unfriendly feelings between opposing religions almost disappeared toward the close of the 20th century. The acrimony of the past was buried to a very large extent.
In 1899 the leading religions of the world, in point of numbers, were Buddhism, and the followers of Confucius, who in that year numbered 485,000,000 followers. Next in force of numbers at the close of the nineteenth century ranked the Christians, who numbered 454,729,151. The Mohammedans numbered in 1899 about 170,000,000, Brahmanists 139,000,000, and Pagans or Heathens 220,000,000.
Christians were by far the most enlightened, most powerful and progressive religious Christianity the Light of the World. element at the close of the nineteenth century and were firm believers in the cause of education. Through their influence in the twentieth century education became widely diffused. Turkey felt the force of the movement, and the dense ignorance of its population became more enlightened and less cruel. In 1999 the Christians of Armenia were no longer held in bondage. The horrible massacres of 1894 which so deeply stirred the hearts of all nations were memories of the past. The Sublime Porte had ordered that education be made compulsory between the ages of ten and fifteen years. Through English influence the cause of education was also generally diffused throughout Africa. Where education gained a foothold superstition was uprooted.
Christianity made rapid advance in the world in 1999, and Christians outnumbered all other religious beliefs. The sublime gospel of the Cross dominated the human family in that year, inspiring more love and gentleness among men. The vital force of Christianity, perhaps little understood in the nineteenth century, became a mighty lever for good in the following century. At the close of the twentieth century indications pointed to a general christianizing of all peoples of the globe. The three leading powers of the world, the United States of the Americas, Great Britain and Russia, and in fact the whole of Europe, except Spain, which country was obliterated in 1930, as already described, exerted a mighty moral force upon the other nations. Even Japan was rapidly coming under the banner of the Cross.
In 1940 the ancient city of Jerusalem was delivered over into the keeping of a Christian power. All the territory about that ancient city, including the seaport of Jaffa, Bethlehem, the Mt. of Olives, and other localities made sacred by the Mantle of our glorious Saviour while on earth, were transferred by the Ottoman government into the safe keeping of the German people.
The Jews never returned to Jerusalem to rule again in that city. Centuries of persecution had driven them into every corner of the globe and under the protection of every flag. They had no use for Jerusalem in the twentieth century and nothing was farther from their minds than the re-establishment of the Jewish hierarchy. Their business had long been established all over the world and under no consideration could they be induced to return to the land of their forefathers, merely on a point of sentiment. Should the Messiah ever again return to earth, they argued, it mattered little whether they were huddled together in Jerusalem or scattered over the globe.