But the evolving ages have changed the ideals of the world, and liberty and justice are no longer a dream; but "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war." The time is near at hand when the ideals of men will be so exalted and their consciences so alive to the demands of love and justice that no man of wealth can sleep in his luxurious home or feast on choice viands and know of any human creature or dumb animal suffering from cold and want without first ministering to their needs. This is the law of love written in every enlightened heart, as it is written in the books of the New Testament.
Men are beginning to learn that the greatest thing in this world is not wealth, with its pomp and pride, though it may bring a thousand comforts. It is not religion, with its glorious dreams crowned with the promised beatitudes of heaven, though martyred saints and prophets have given their lives to confirm its faith and hopes. It is not literature, with its gems of thought and flowers of divine fancy, which have charmed and inspired mankind from the days of Homer to those of Shakespeare and Tennyson. It is not science, with "learning's ample page," though she has transformed the earth, and produced a Gallileo and a Newton. It is not the wonders of mechanical genius, though we stand in awe before their marvels of grandeur and utility. It is not the beauty of inspiring art that lifts us to the altitudes of aesthetic joy. These are but the ideals and manifestations of that which is higher and greater, which is written in the soul of man as in a book.
Man is the greatest thing in this world—ah! in the universe next to Deity. He is the offspring of Omnipotence, the Child of the Sun, the inheritor of the universe. All suns and worlds, all life and space are the playgrounds of his activities. He shall dwell in the home of Deity, stroll in the garden of the gods, bask in the radiance of central suns, recline on the daffodil meadows and wander in the elysian fields of paradise. He is at home in the measureless expanse of all ether and space.
Wherever an atom vibrates or an electric current thrills, there he is the monarch of spiritual power, and can command the electric force that tosses suns upon their course and plays football with the stars. Man is no worm of the dust, he is the darling of the skies, the ruler of suns, the cherubim of celestial destiny clad in terrestrial ether and winged with the spiritual power of Omnipotence.
Who nobly does must nobly think,
The soul that soars can never sink,
And man's a strange connecting link
Between frail dust and Deity.