Let us, then, consider this matter for a little as we look over the
face of human life as it is manifested to us at the present time. I
suppose hardly a week passes that, either by letter or in conversation,
I do not come face to face with this same old problem, showing that
only partially and here and there have men and women even to-day come
to comprehend the real method after which this universe of ours is
governed. For example, let me give you a few illustrations.
I have a friend in Boston, one of the noblest men I ever knew, sweet,
gentle, true: he came to me one day, and said: "Mr. Savage, I have
tried all my life to be an honest man. I do not own an ill-gotten
dollar. I have tried to be kind and helpful to people in need, in
trouble; and yet," and then it began to dawn on him that he was not on
a very logical track, for he smiled, "and yet I have not got on very
well in the world; I have not made a great deal of money; I have not
been specially prosperous in business." And the implication was that
here, next door or in another street, was a man who had a good many
ill-gotten dollars, and who had not been generous or kindly or humane
or tender, but who had prospered and become rich, as he had not. And he
raised this as a serious objection against the justice of the
government of the world.
I have had mothers; I presume a thousand times, say to me: "I have
tried to take the best possible care of my child. I loved my child, I
watched over it night and day, I have money enough to give it a good
education, I could train it into fitness for life; and yet my child is
taken away.
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