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THE HESPERIAN.
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outing. Sunday afternoon we had many visttors. The Has
tings boys did not bring the young ladies out to visit the
camp, oh, no, they wrc dead; but the ladles were there, nev
ertheless, and were quite interested in the camp. The re
mainder ol the time passed quite pleasantly. Monday morn
ing everybody in Hastings in whom the battalion had any
Interest was at the depot to sec us depart. A button col
lecting craze took possession of the ladies and now the boys
wear four buttons in front instead of five; It is also a popular
fad to wear only one or even none upon the sleeve. As the
train finally pulled out from the depot the last tribute of the
battalion ' to Hastings anil her people was three groans for
the board of trade, and three cheers for the ladies "Tiger!"
NOTKS.
'We came, we saw, we conquered."
The ladies' band is all right; at least a few of the members
of our band seemed to think so.
The following is Reese's order for supper Friday, after the
ball game: "One umpire Raw!"
The Hastings boys played dead while the battalion was at
camp, but Tuesday was resurrection day.
This, ladies, is the quartermaster's hcadquartcis"
within, a wild, desperate leap toward oblivion.
It was really amusing to sec Pollard lead her kid brother
by one hand while he held her parasol with the other.
The board of trade was right; there was plenty of water
in the park. It came down in daily installments.
Yes, it was real army life. No one could cat a meal at
that rcsturant without thinking of the loved ones at home
and wishing they had sent him a box.
The young ladies of Hastings are enterprising, they are
our kind of people, they wear a smile lor their military
friends. The Hastings boys wear, or should wear, yellow
roses.
The ball was a grand success. One hundred cadets, dis
gusted with Hastings and her dcceitfulncss, attended the
dance and returned to camp thoroughly convinced that a
comer in hades haa busted" in Hastings.
THE LIFE OF THE TWbNTIETH CENTURY.
As we take a rapid survey of history wc seem to discover a
certain regularity in the recurrences of social restlessness.
The progress ot society resembles the flowing of a river.
Here the current (lows calmly and majestically. The bright
ncssof heaven is reflected from its surface. All the slime and
dirt arc hidden in its depths. Yonder as it flows over half
submerged rocks it seethes and boils. All its placidity is
tamed to tumult and all the baser elements come to view.
This is a period of turmoil. The lower strata of society have
appeared at the surface. The erics of ' corporations," mo
nopolies," railroads" mingled with the explosions of anar
chist bombs and the clamor of rioting strikers are the roar
rising from the social rapids.
That there is much misery and wretchedness among the
laboring classes of the east; that considerable tyranny is exer
cised by the rich over the poor; I admit. That there is much
injustice in the picscnt social relations, I deny. The laboring
man, no less than any other man, is in the end responsible to
himself only for his condition. You who so enthusiastically
favor certain plausible plans for the regeneration of mankind,
who are so desirous of elevating the laboring classes, forget,
in your zeal, several important facts. It is impossible to
cure any disease by treating the symptoms. It is impossible
to reform the world by any artificial arrangements of condl
tion. The condition of society at any period of the world's
progress Is as good as the rate of progress will permit. Last
and most important of all considerations, no one can reform
the world until he has first reformed himself.
The fragmentary statues that remain from the departed
glory of Greece show the grandeur of the physical develop
ment of man. The intellectual achievements of the last and
the present century, the Printifui A'atutwlis, the Critique of
Pure AVr.wz, the Origin of Species show the grandeur of the
intellectual development of man. It remains then for the
twentieth century to sec the third and last phase In this course
of evolution, the grandeur of the spiritual development of
man. The present social disturbances arc but the symptoms
of a general disease. That disease is the lack of a higher
spiritual life in our age. The intellect has already passed the
perihelion of its influence. Men are beginning to see that
progress, that social harmony, that civilization arc the results,
not of intellectual, but of spiritual activity. The world Is
waiting for the time, so faintly foreshadowed by the closing
years of the nineteenth century, when the allegiance of hu"
inanity shall be transferred from the brain to the heart, for
the time mankind shall reserve its brightest laurels for the
man that feels most deeply for the time when the life of the
world shall become a life lived in ihe spirit.
The progress of the individual soul in its effort to reach
perfection is an epitome of the future development of the hu
man race. The highest development of the spiritual life as
manifested best perhaps in him who has been called the Son
of God is characterized "by an infinite love and sympathy for
men as they arc. This is pure realism. Realism in-art and in
literature will one be day parallelled by realism in society and
in politics. When this social and political realism shall have
been wrought out in the general soul of the race, the regener
ation of man will be accomplished. From fastidiousness
through impatient dissatisfaction to the quietude of realism is
the path that humanity must travel. The path is ever the
same, but the times of travel arc many. You who so earnestly
desire the elevation of the human race reflect a little upon the
eternal fitness of nature and of life. Of what avail arc the pro
cesses devised by human intellect in a lifetime, when placed
against the processes devised by nature in an eternity? The
world cannot be regenerated in a day. The laws of human
development were established before the foundations of the
earth. Think you that humanity raised suddenly from the sel
fishness and vanity of common life to an ideal spiritual exis
tence would survive the change? Remember that the mount
ain top above the clouds and in the glory of the sunshine is
baricn. Remember that from the protozoon to man are sev
eral eternities.
The spiritual life of the twentieth century will mean the
appreciation of the sacredness of every living thing. It will
mean the complete submission of mankind to established
truths. Through past centuries the spiritual has lain hidden
beneath the intellectual and the physical; yet, though men
knew it not, their life was ruled and their destiny moulded by
this weak spiritual force. In spite of their best efforts, in spite
of cross and stake and inquisition, the spiritual life, working in
secret like the forces of nature, has wrought out the destiny of
the human race. To-day in spite of the denials of colleges
and churches the spiritual life is the true life of man. Against
this spiritual life the intellect avails nothing. The charac
ter of man is moulded more by his feelings than by his
thoughts. In every conflict between the intellectual and the
spiritual, the spiritual ultimately triumphs. To live in the
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