Ruth answered: “There is progress of individuals, not of the world. Certain men saw the truth as clearly in old times as they could now.”
“I do not believe so,” I answered her. “I think the whole must evolve and bud forth, and that it does. Now you all admit that Moses was a prophet who saw the truth?”
They said “Yes.”
“But he felt enmities. Jesus was a greater prophet than Moses. In what was he greater?”
“In his realization not only of the unity of God, but of the unity and divinity and love of man.”
“If Moses were here to-day,” I asked, “in what might he be greater than he was in his own time?”
Florence said: “He would have all the advantages of culture since then.”
“That would not make him greater.”
Marian answered: “You mean the democracy of to-day, the realization of the brotherhood of all men.”
“Yes,” I said, “that is just what I mean. When I look at history, I can see no progress but this. Automobiles, electricity, scientific knowledge, these are not progress except as they lead to that other progress. We do understand our fellowmen better than we ever did. We can—some of us—call every savage our brother. That is the clear progress throughout history.”