Reading the history of the primitive ages, we cannot but notice the fact, that the characteristic which elevated a man above his fellows was simply physical strength combined with physical courage. The man of strongest muscle was known as a hero. Hercules with his club was the type of the period.
Advancing a step in the history of our race and we find some attention being turned toward the intellect. The man of sagacity, forethought, prudence, who made his ideas practical, stood as the man most revered. Then, with the progress of civilization, followed a higher development. Inventors, writers, orators, statesmen, men great in any sphere of intellectual activity, became our foremost men. We are now in the midst of such a period. No nation in the world has yet risen above this plane of thought. But what now is needed? It is this. It is character. Up to the present time there has been the worship of the intellect simply, for the power and the success it brought with it.
The time is rapidly approaching however when the highest honor is to be bestowed upon those who possess the moral and spiritual attributes which lift man into his true kinship with his Maker. The intellect alone then will not be held as of transcendent importance, but will be made subordinate to an exalted grandeur of character which recognizes intellectual qualities as only instruments, or promoting man's good.
Some minds are prophetic. Said Henry Ward Beecher, at a recent lecture, "I believe that there will succeed to these disseminations of the truth of natural science an era of moral science." The signs of the times indicate this coming era. Amidst the various schools of so-called philosophy, where at present can be found a system of principles so fresh, so novel, so grand and inspiring as the principles of Christian Science? That science will be found foremost in the field of coming activity. And that which will give to it its greatest impetus will be its practical side whereby the world will be taught the surest and quickest method of eradicating sin and sickness.
Let every follower of this science march on with enthusiastic purpose to conquer every obstacle which ignorance, error or sin may throw in the pathway of progress.
