Back to Nature or Back to the Land
"Back to Nature" is one thing; "back to the land" is another. In "back to nature" some mean back to all the tendencies of the unregenerate human heart wherever it may lead, and that means degradation, bestiality, vice in its lowest forms. "Back to the land," out of the cities into the country, is quite another thing. There one can be less with men; more with God. There is a solitude and aloofness from men which is demanded in the best building up of human character. The whole tendency of the city is away from this. The tendency of the country is to favor it. "The Western Watchman" of July 7 says, editorially, "In the United States the Protestant women of the land are a unit against child-bearing." It is a gross slander, and the Watchman ought to know it. France for this very reason, the same article tells us, "is a decadent nation." But there is one hope—"There is no remedy for this plague but the Catholic religion. . . . If the world would continue to live, it must become Catholic again." But before the world takes that step, it is well to consider, France was once Roman Catholic. Out of it came her awful infidelity. The United States Government has discarded thirty-six naval vessels. These cost the Government $9,803,495.90. Thirty-two of them have been sold at auction, bringing $266,779.41; leaving a net loss to the Government of more than $9,536,000. The World of July 25 prints the names of the vessels sold, when they were built, what they cost, and what was realized from their sale. Some of them were built as short time ago as 1894. It will only be a little time before all the navies of the world will be in the junk heap. The prisons of the United States contain 12,000 persons afflicted with tuberculosis, according to a recent bulletin of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis. There are only 80,000 prisoners in all the penal institutions of the United States. Hence the annual army of released men is a grave danger to the country. Only twenty-one prisons have facilities for the treatment of tuberculous patients. A campaign for the prevention of tuberculosis in prisons has been inaugurated. The New York Sunday "World" of July 31 has an article on "The Undefeated Champion of All Ages, the Demon Rum;" in which that demon boasts of the great ones in military, literary, as well as pugilistic annals who have fallen before him. Sad that it is so. Sad that men will in the light of all the past, enslave themselves to alcohol; and every reasonable man in the world ought to count him as a deadly enemy, and abolish him forever. From different cities of the East comes the news of infantile paralysis, a contagious and infectious disease that takes hold of the little ones and is extremely fatal. It is difficult to understand and hard to control. Men are seeking earnestly for some remedy. It is hoped that a serum from monkeys may through vaccination prevent the disease from developing; but the scientists have given no decision as yet. Mr. Joyson, late president of the National Educational Association, said in a speech before this body, that "love, justice, mercy, recognition of the rights of others," must dominate the hearts of men before there can be international equanimity. National peace is dependent upon individual peace. After July 4, 1911, the official flag of the United States will contain in its field of blue six rows of stars with eight in each row. It will take another state to make a perfect square.