hopeful sign, and who look forward to the day when government will seize upon all the great lines of industry and forever break the power of private enterprise; hut few intelligent persons in this country are of this turn of mind. We would therefore say to those who wish to preserve upon this continent a society alive in all its parts and full of individual initiative and resource, to beware how they give heed to the seductive doctrine that government should undertake whatever it can do "better" than private individuals. We might pay too dear for having our garden-walks rolled by government rollers, and too dear in many other ways for the alleged benefits of official rule.
BEECHER ON EVOLUTION.
The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher has worthily crowned his splendid career as a liberal religious reformer by announcing and entering upon a series of discourses to his congregation in exposition and defense of the doctrine of evolution in its religious aspects and hearings. The taking of this noble stand in a formal way at the present time is undoubtedly the most momentous act of his intellectual and professional life. At a time when most men are worn out and ready to retire, when enthusiasm is usually chilled and opinions become hardened and unadaptive, Mr, Beecher strikes into a new field with the fire of youth, and takes the leadership in a movement of religious reform of quite incalculable moment. He commits himself boldly and broadly to the most comprehensive, far-reaching, and revolutionary truth yet established by science, and which carries with it a total reconstruction of the relations of science and religion; and this he does in opposition to the narrow-mindedness and dull indifference of the community, and more especially to the organized ignorance, the sacred traditions, the inveterate prejudices, the bigotry and the intolerance of the theological world. We confess to unaffected admiration for the sagacity, the independence, the courage, the loyalty to conscience and to truth, that have prompted Mr. Beecher to take this brave and significant step.
Undoubtedly he has undertaken a very difficult task, and he is aware that he has not much child's play before him. But there are important advantages in his position; and the first of these is, his independence of religious organizations: he has to reckon only with his congregation. In various respects, no doubt, his audience is but poorly equipped to appreciate the value of facts and the force of reasoning on the subject of evolution. For it must be remembered that the proof of that great principle is not of a kind to be given to an uninstructed person at a sitting. It is the diversity, and wide concurrence, and cumulative confirmation of the evidences that give the overwhelming force of demonstration to the theory. It must be assumed that Mr. Beecher's congregation has not been very well prepared in the philosophy of evidence, any more than they are familiar with the sciences from which the proofs are derived. It consists of bright, intelligent people, whose mental cultivation has been chiefly in literature, politics, and theology; while in proportion to their proficiency in these will they rank low in science knowing little of its facts and less of its spirit and method.
Nevertheless, Mr. Beecher's congregation has had a very valuable and important preparation, which will be pretty sure to carry them with him in the present movement. Evolution is by no means a thing of yesterday with Mr. Beecher; he has long been on the road to it. The doctrine of progress has been one of the favorite and most powerful elements of his preaching for a quarter of a century. It has been the key to his theological philosophy,
