future almost certainly contain oriental also. For the races of India, Japan, and even China, are no farther from us to-day than the ancestors of many of our occidental fellow-citizens were a century ago. Racial prejudices, however strong, weaken rapidly through intercourse and better acquaintance. One of the grandest and least perceived results of missionary work is the preparation for this great fusion.

Many races will undoubtedly go down before the advance of civilization and have no share in the future. Progress seems to be limited to the inhabitants of temperate zones; and even here the weaker may be crowded out before the stronger rather than absorbed by them. But many whom we now despise may have a larger inheritance in the future than we. God is clearly showing us that we should not count any man, much less any nation, common or unclean. And the laws of evolution give us a firm confidence that no good attained by any race or civilization will fail to be preserved in the future.

The forms which seem to us at any one time the highest are as a rule not the ancestors of the race of the future. These highest forms are too much specialized, and thus fitted to a narrow range of space, time, and general conditions; when these change they pass away. Specialization is doubly dangerous when it follows a wrong line. But whenever it is carried far enough to lead to a one-sided development, it narrows the possibility of future advance; for it neglects or crowds out or prevents the development of other powers essential to life. The mollusk neglected nerve and muscle. But the scholar may, and often does, cultivate the brain at the expense of the rest of the body

until he and his descendants suffer, and the family becomes extinct.

The young men of the nobility of wealth, birth, and fashion usually marry heiresses, if they can. But only in families of enormous wealth can there be more than one or two heiresses in the same generation. She has very probably inherited a portion of her wealth from one or more extinct branches of the family. Moreover, not to speak of other factors, the labor and anxiety which have been essential to the accumulation and preservation of these great fortunes, or the mode of life which has accompanied their use or abuse, tend to diminish the number of children. Heiresses to very large fortunes usually therefore belong to families which are tending to sterility. And this has very probably been no unimportant factor in the extinction of "noble " families.

A sound body contains many organs, all of which must be sound. And in a sound mind there is an even greater number of faculties, all of which must be kept at a high grade of efficiency. Man is a marvellously complex being, and more in danger of a narrow and one-sided development than any lower animal. And it is very easy for a certain grade or class of society, or for a whole race, to become so specialized, by the cultivation of only one set of faculties as to altogether prevent its giving birth to a complete humanity. Along certain broad lines the Greeks and Romans attained results never since equalled. But their neglect of other, even more important, powers and attainments, especially the moral and religious, doomed them to a speedy decay. The rude northern races were on the whole better and nobler, and became heirs

to Greek art and letters, and to Roman law. And this is another illustration of the advantage or necessity of the fusion of races.

To answer the question, "Which stratum or class in the community or world at large is heir to the future?" we must seek the one which is still to a large extent generalized. It must be maintaining, in a sound body, a steady, even if slow, advance of all the mental powers. It will not be remarkable for the high development or lack of any quality or power; it must have a fair amount of all of them well correlated. It must be well balanced, "good all around," as we say. And this class is evidently neither the highest nor the lowest in the community, but the "common people, whom God must have loved, because he made so many of them.”

They have, as a rule, fair-sized or large families. Their bodies are kept sound and vigorous by manual labor. They are compelled to think on all sorts of questions and to solve them as best they can. They have a healthy balance of mental faculties, even if they are not very learned or artistic. They are kept temperate because they cannot afford many luxuries. Their healthy life prevents an undue craving for them. They help one another and cultivate unselfishness. The good old word, neighbor, means something to them. They have a sturdy morality, and you can always rely upon them in great moral crises. They are patriotic and public-spirited; they have not so many, or so enslaving, selfish interests. They have always been trained to self-sacrifice and the endurance of hardship; and heroism is natural to them. They have a strong will, cultivated by the battle of daily life. And among them religion never loses its hold.

But what of our tendencies to specialization in education and business? Are these wrong and injurious? Specialization, like great wealth, is a great danger and a fearful test of character. It tends to narrowness. If you will know everything about something, you must make a great effort to know something about, and have some interest in, everything. The great scholar is often anything but the large-minded, whole-souled man which he might have become. has allowed himself to become absorbed in, and fettered by, his specialty until he can see and enjoy nothing outside of it. There is no selfishness like that of learning.

He

We can accomplish nothing unless we concentrate our efforts upon a comparatively narrow line of work. But this does not necessitate that our views should be

narrow or our aims low. Teufelsdröckh may live on a narrow lane; but his thoughts, starting along the narrow lane, lead him over the whole world. The narrowness of our horizon is due to our near-sightedness.

But the only absolutely safe specialization is the highest possible development of our moral and religious powers. For their cultivation only enlarges and strengthens all the other powers of body and mind. "But," you will object, "does religion always broaden?" Yes. That which narrows is the base alloy of superstition. But a religion which finds its goal and end in conformity to environment, character, and godlikeness can only broaden.

But there is the so-called "breadth" of the shallow mind which attempts to find room at the same time for things which are mutually exclusive. God and Baal, right and wrong, honesty and lying, selfishness and

love, these are mutually exclusive. You cannot find room in your mind for both members of the pair at the same time. You must choose. And, when you have chosen, abide by your choice. A ladleful of thin dough fallen on the floor is very broad. But its breadth is due to lack of consistency. Better narrowness than such breadth.

But while individual specialization may be safe for the individual, and beneficial to the race, the race which is to inherit the future must remain unspecialized. It must not sacrifice future possibilities to present rapidity of advance. And the common people are advancing safely, slowly, but surely. Wealth and learning become of permanent prospective and real value only when they are invested in the masses. They are the final depositaries of all wealth-material, intellectual, moral, and religious. Whatever, and only that which, becomes a part of their life becomes thereby endowed with immortality. Will we invest freely or will we wait to have that which we call our own wrested from us? If we refuse it to our own kin and nation, it will surely fall to foreigners. "God made

great men to help little ones."

The city of God on earth is being slowly "builded by the hands of selfish men." But the builders are becoming continually more unselfish and righteous, and as they become better and purer its walls rise the more rapidly.