310 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
his disposal thrown in. On the rcailroad in Chicigro, about the same number of people are crushed each year. And the owners of the railroads, quite naturally, do not adopt appliances which would prevent these people from being crushed, for they have calculated that the annual pajonents to the injured and to their families come to less than the interest on the cost of such appliances.
Very possibly these men who ruin human lives for their own profit may be sliamed by public opinion, or otherwise compelled, to provide the appliances. But as long as men are not religious, and do their deeds to be seen of men and not as in the sight of God, they will, after providing appliances in one place to secure people's lives, in other matters again treat human lives as the best material out of which to make a profit.
It is easy to conquer Nature, and to build railways, steamers, museums, and so fortli, if one does not spare human lives. Tlie Egyptian Pharaohs were proud of their pyramids, and we are delighted with them, for- getting the millions of slaves' lives that were sacrificed for their erection. And in the same way we are de- lighted with our exhibition -palaces, ironclads, and transoceanic cables — forgetting with what we pay for these things. We should not feel proud of all this, till it is all done by free men, and not by slaves.
Christian nations have conquered and subdued the American Indians, Hindus, and Africans, and are now conquering and subduing the Chinese, and are proud of doing so. But, really, these conquests and subjugations do not result from the Christian nations being spiritually superior to those conquered, but, contrariwise, from their being spiritually far inferior to them. Leaving the Hindus and Chinese out of account, even among the Zulus there were, and still are, some sort of obligatory religious rules, prescribing certain actions and forbidding others ; but among our Christian nations there are none at all. Rome conquered the world just when Rome had freed itself from every religion. Tlie same, only in a greater degree, is the
