mastery of the mind over the forces of nature seems almost complete, so
far do we surpass the ancients in harnessing the water, the wind and the
lightning.

For ages, the rivers plunged down the mountainsides and exhausted their
energies without any appreciable contribution to man's service; now they
are estimated as so many units of horse-power, and we find that their
fretting and foaming was merely a language which they employed to tell
us of their strength and of their willingness to work for us. And, while
falling water is becoming each a day a larger factor in burden-bearing,
water, rising in the form of steam, is revolutionizing the
transportation methods of the world.

The wind, that first whispered its secret of strength to the flapping
sail, is now turning the wheel at the well, and our flying machines have
taken possession of the air.

Lightning, the red demon that, from the dawn of Creation, has been
rushing down its zigzag path through the clouds, as if intent only
upon spreading death, metamorphosed into an errand-boy, brings us
illumination from the sun and carries our messages around the globe.

Inventive genius has multiplied the power of a human arm and supplied
the masses with comforts of which the rich did not dare to dream a few
centuries ago. Science is ferreting out the hidden causes of disease and
teaching us how to prolong life. In every line, except in the line of
character-building, the world seems to have been made over, but these
marvellous changes only emphasize the fact that man, too, must be born
again, while they show how impotent are material things to touch the
soul of man and transform him into a spiritual being. Wherever the moral