A New Atmosphere

It is a history book. Avitiated atmosphere is fatal to healthy development. One may be ever so wise, learned, rich, and beautiful, but if the air he breathes is saturated with fever, pestilence, or any noxious vapor, nothing will avail him. The subtile malaria creeps into his inmost frame, looks out from his languid eye, settles in his sallow cheek, droops in his tottering step, and laughs to scorn all his learning and gold and grandeur. He must rid himself of the malaria, or the malaria will rid itself of him. There are many evils in the world, deep-seated and deleterious. I rejoice to see noble men and women working at the overthrow of these old Dagons; but the processes are many and long. Grievances are suffered which can be redressed only by the repeal of old and the enactment of new laws. Health suffers from ignorance which scientific discoveries, patient observation, and correct reasoning must dispel. Religion suffers from a narrowness and shallowness which broader and deeper culture must remove. Heaven send the laws, the science, and the culture, for these ills are indeed sore and of long continuance; but we need not wait upon the slow steps of law and science. Every man and woman can begin at this moment a renovation. Behind all law and all literature, the very air we breathe, the moral atmosphere not of books and benches only, but of kitchen and keeping-room, is impure and unwholesome. The interests of humanity demand a purification.