--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Tanner, Joseph M. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 21 number: 8 published: 1918-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Tanner, Joseph M., "Problems of the Age—XIX–XXI," *Improvement Era* 21, no. 8 (June 1918): 700–709.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2108unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2108unse start_page: 700 end_page: 709 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2108unse publication_year: 1918 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Problems of the Age—XIX–XXI Problems of the Age Dealing with Religious, Social and Economic Questions and their Solution. A Study for the Quorums and Classes of the Melchizedek Priesthood By Dr. Joseph M. Tanner XIX.— The Home — Abandonment. Of all the old fashioned homes of the past generation it would be interesting to know what percentage is left, homes devoted to domestic industry and child life. Even the difference would not be so startling as the present movement to vacate home life. Word comes to us through public print, which is confirmed by individual observation, that in the great cities of the world the beautiful homes of the well-to-do along charming boulevards are empty because their inmates have abandoned them for hotel life. They were already devoid of child life, whose pleasures would have made them interesting as well as habitable. The Latter-day Saints, whose religious duty makes home life an obligation as well as a joy, little realize what the abandonment of the home means to the world at large. They hardly sense the change of this part of our social structure. World temptations will come to them with such striking force that many of them may find them quite overpowering. Against this and other insidious changes that the new age is bringing, they must brace themselves as if for a conflict in which they may lose. Too many will not believe the dangers till the jolt of a breakdown jars them by its destruction to their senses. — God Speaks. A great struggle is on in the world, and our troubles will not end with the war. There are more terrible dangers ahead of us. Why do we not proclaim these dangers from the house tops? Why do we not tell the people at home what it all means? Do we not instinctively feel by the spirit that has instilled itself into our lives for nearly a century that the day of which God hath spoken is near. Why do we not speak aloud, and not move in silence in the presence of such catastrophes as are threatening the whole world? It is because we feel that God has the platform, that it becomes us to remain silent in the midst of his great judgments which the world has insisted on bringing upon itself. In the din of social uproar and confusion the world could not, would not, stop to listen, would not heed his voice when he had spoken. "Let the sin be upon us and our children" were the sentiments of those who defied God and crucified the Savior. We need not feel surprised that in the raging conflict of social destruction one of the earliest of God ordained institutions for the perpetuation — of life and happiness the home — should be threatened with annihilation in the great upheavals of the age. Is it all pessimism and despair when we draw in such dark coloring a world threatened and going to ruin? History and life teach us that only an infinitesimal part of sin is revealed to the public eye. If what we see is full of evil, what must be the secret, hidden conditions of life. If what we see annoys us, how would we feel if God permitted us to see it all. We are wholly incompetent to judge, but we may — PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 701 listenand speak of the things which God has declared. We have eyes to see and ears to hear the things that are flagrant. One of the great dangers to the home is the deterioration of the body. What is the evidence of competent witnesses in the courts of public opinion? Listen to the evidence of one of America's greatest physicians, Dr. Howard: "Worn n don't take care of themselves in regard to the changes of weather. They don't get proper food. They overeat, and nowadays more and more of them overdrink and over smoke." Some one has said that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but this is much more true of women. The box of candy is one of the most acceptable strategies of courtship. — Effects of Home Abandonment. Take any of the big restaurants; who fillthem? They are crowded with women at the lunch hour. Crowded with the same sex at 4 p. m. for tea and sweetmeats. At the dinner hour and again after the theatre the restaurants are crowded again. There are now men with the women. We compare what is eaten in these places of mixed patronage with what is eaten in places exclusively patronized by men, and we'll find proof of the contention that it is the women who overeat, and overeat heavy, indigestible food. "This over indulgence, I believe, is one of the grave evils of the day, at any rate, here in America. It is bad for the present generation, and bad for the coming generation. We molly-coddle our women too much. We have let them live too long in a steam heated atmosphere. "Some may object that I am putting undue emphasis upon the physical. But these objectors must remember that mental and moral man gets his strength and efficiency only from the physical man. Nature has no use for sickness. And remember that the greatest struggle for existence that the world has ever seen is going to begin when Verdun has passed into history. 'If women could acquire the physical strength and could be disciplined — (make note of that) and could be disciplined they would dominate the earth. I believe it would be easier for them to acquire the necessary strength than for them to subject themselves to the necessary discipline." From such an indictment it is easy to believe that women are in not much better position to maintain a salutary home life than men. From almost every angle at which we look at home life there are to be seen serious symptoms of its decay. Nowadays so many children are born out of the home, and left en- element of mental life is constantly tirely to the care of mothers, that the decreasing. The unmarried mother is not a disturbing factor here, as it is in many European countries. However, there is a growing disinclination everywhere to hold girls to the same accountability as there was a few years back. Today the unmarried mother is becoming more and more a pioblem to society. From the Chicago ~Sunday Herald of August 26, 1917. I quote the following: "The unmarried mother can scarcely be said to have won the approval of the modern world, but at least she is not greeted with the fury accorded her predecessors." — Illegitimacy. Dr. Werner of Columbia University recalls the fact that before the present war there were born in.. Germany 177,000 illegitimate children annually; in France, 80,000; in England, 38,000; in Sweden, 18,000; in little Norway, 5,000. In American cities the illegitimate birthrate is said to be about 3 percent of the total, but this is counterbalanced by the high divorce rate of one divorce to every twelve marriages. "Illegitimacy is now not only widespread, but a general effort is being made to eliminate the disgrace which attaches to the unmarried mother and to her child." 702 IMPROVEMENT ERA "The Norwegian law of 1915, which aimed at giving every legit- imate child two legal parents, inspired the recent Illinois attempt to deal with the situation. During 1913 France repealed the hard Na- poleonic edict, which forbade all investigation into the paternity of children born out of wedlock. "The same social feeling itself in the abolition of the Austrian law, through which illegitimate children were excluded from family and relationship rights. The Muttershutz movement in Germany, and in Scandinavia, attempted in various legal ways to accomplish a similar end. The modern world is intent upon lessening the hardships which unmarried mothers so long endured." The cruelties which aroused the protests of the men who saw the American revolution were, however, but a heritage of a more terrible time. Simple decapitation was considered a merciful punishment. Unmarried mothers were sometimes condemned to die on a bed of thorns. If the mother killed her child she was buried alive or drowned in a sack. If the child lived she had to undergo a humiliating church penance. Finally the world was aroused, and gradually the most savage forms of punishment were relinquished. The old laws were repealed, and toward the beginning of the nineteenth century homes of refuge and maternity houses began to appear in Europe testifying to the gradual approach of what we hope is a humane civilization. In parts of Europe today the government provides by law for the limitation of children by what is called a homeless process. Austria was not mentioned in the table above given, but it is said by public journalists that fully forty percent of its children are illegitimate. New York has recently been wrestling with the question of child birth control. A prominent woman was sent to prison because of her propaganda on that subject. The doctors had the question before them for discussion and were divided on it. In modern cities the movement from homes to apartment houses has increased very rapidly within the past decade. Restaurants have greatly multiplied because of the increasing number of women to whom housekeeping has become an unbearable drudgery. Domestic science taught in our schools is not able to stay the movement '"away from the home." All these conditions are merely symptoms of a disease which is consuming home life. The situation is becoming so serious that thoughtful men are beginning to ask, "Is the home doomed?" Dangers Outside the Home. —The sex instinct is a dominating force in all social life. does not decrease and there is positive evidence that it is It growing stronger. Will its legitimate exercise be confined as it properly should be to the home? If the home should go how shall this instinct be regulated? Will it be regulated at all? Will its exercise go on while men and women occupy separate homes? It begins to look as if illegitimate childbirth would not only be protected but encouraged as an effort to save the race. Would it be a less serious evil than race suicide? Approach the subject from any side and its perplexities increase. It seems idle to talk of any other form of marriage than monogamy. How could men be induced to marry more than one woman when they refuse the responsibility of one wife? It is a characteristic of the age to shirk responsibility. Men laugh at the thought of "a duty to marry." In the eastern cities marriage by men before they have reached the age of 40 or 50 is very unpopular. We are told that men often marry late as a last resort. Such marriages too often mean childless homes. Women resent the charge that they are responsible for race suicide. They stoutly affirm that motherhood is after all the dearest thing to a woman's heart. Against the dangers here described the Latter- PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 703 I day Saints are employing every means. Something must be done to save mankind from its own destruction. The destruction of 12,000,000 men to Europe in the war, compared with the destruction of the race through avoidable disease and prevention of life, is not so startling. When the two p ocesses are combined it is not difficult to forecast the doom of the home. The evils of present conditions are not so menacing to the present generation ab they will be to the succeeding ones. However, the world will experience in the immediate future a crisis of world sorrows and losses that will bring home to it universal calamities. There is too much of a French king's consolation that things "will last our day." Today we are confronted with the most wicked indifference to future generations. We seem to care absolutely nothing about the future. The sense of duty is being lost to the human race. How can the world hope to escape punishment for the sins of its own age? — Home a Burden. Complaint is often made through public print that there is a growing calousness on the part of parents toward their children. They appear too often willing to part with them rather than with social pleasures with which children interfere. I pick up, as I write, the Chicago Sunday Tribune of August 26, 1917: "The Miller family wants to get rid of their baby," says the paper. "Two weeks ago the parents applied to the court for leave to place their child for adoption, giving as a reason that they were unable to care for him, and also wanted to go to their home in Wausau, Wis. Mr. Miller said he is the son of a dentist in Wausau. He is employed in the wholesale establishment of Marshall Field & Co., at $12.00 a week." They were severely reprimanded and decided to keep their child. Such conduct is a question of pleasure versus the home. What is the love for home life? The testimony is quite general that it is vanishing. XX.— Woman's World — Alarming Changes. There is in rapid progress the creation of a new world for women. It has not been brought entirely by the war. Her grievances date back many years, for she has long felt certain inequalities with men which she has been striving for decades to overcome. The war has helped her into a wider circle of employment, but she heretofore has been extending her activities in new fields, and the farther she has gone the greater demands she has made for improved opportunties. The position she plans for the future will not be won without strong resistance. In political life she sees a means to a higher aim than office. It is in the industrial world where she feels an unjust discrimination and a wrong. Politics might help her, but it will not remove the evil she seeks to cure. Political opportunities do not furnish a world at all large enough for her activities. They may help her, that is all. There are two chief obstructions to her industrial progress. One is public sentiment; the other her own sex. For centuries there has been thrown about her an exclusiveness which confined her services mostly to the home. In European countries, where she is employed more in outdoor life she is confined to the family circle. Gradually, in the nineteenth century she began factory life, then store life, separating herself more and more from domestic pursuits. In each industrial step she has been met by the objection that she was out of her sphere. In each step, too, she has met temptations that have undoubtedly told against her moral well-being. Public sentiment would balk today at women street car conductors, motormen, hotel porters and all forms of employment that bring her into indiscriminate contact with men. The law might not prohibit her, but she would lack the support of the public sentiment which would assist her in claiming the same remuneration as men. Then there are pa- 704 IMPROVEMENT ERA rental objections, and disfavor of friends and relatives. Public pressure has been too great for her, however willing she may be. A fundamental power in all our social institutions is public sentiment. Many things might be done, and some would perhaps be done, were it not for social disfavor. Such prejudice has been built up for centuries and it is not easily thrown down, even when all reason for its continuation ceases to exist. Such sentiment has of course its good and bad sides. It is more powerful than law, indeed, it is often the principal source of law. It may also be more severe than law, and somtimes it is cruel, but always more or less a tyrant. It is against this sentiment that women are battling today. To their aid a great war has come, and one of the things it will do is t:- turn topsy-turvy a great mass of public opinion. "We shall change our minds about things" is one of the common expressions of conversation and of public journals. How and where will it let women work? Will it let her don male attire and doff her own? The women of ancient Israel were taught that it was an abomination for women to dress as men, and the world ever since has said to that doctrine, Amen! Great changes are taking place in Europe with respect to employment and dress. These changes will find their way across the ocean to our own country; but public opinion here will be more stubborn than it is there. Another thing which will change sentiment in this country will be the franchise of women. Their battle is on now with such a determination that its long resistance seems unlikely. Their political influence will reach all industrial life in such a manner as to sweep away distinction hitherto existing in wages and in all kinds of employment for women. Competition of a violent character is sure to arise between men and women. Men with families will be at a disadvantage. They cannot work on a scale of wages that women will accept if they need to do so in order to win places occupied — by men. Then we may expect a new thing in the world sex hatred. Indeed, its appearance is already manifest in parts of Europe today. What a serious world we are coming to! Maybe the curious thing after all is that we ourselves cannot be attuned to the new life. At any rate the present transformation of things is interesting. But the changes may come along slow enough for us to adjust ourselves to them as time goes on. We are in a period of reconstruction when the new is taking the place of the old. It wonderful. We can hardly believe ourselves in the contemplation that is all the new order is forcing upon us. — Sex Competition. A second obstacle to the demands of woman is the opposition that her own sex will force upon her. Women must stand by their husbands and oppose their sisters in a movement calculated to rob husbands of their employment. Equal pay for equal work has the ring of eternal justice. But what is justice? Child life is needed, it must be encouraged if the nation is to exist. Men and women must have some assistance if they are to be the greatest of all benefactors to their country. They cannot compete with the childless. Will the state take over the expenses of child life? Children must be reared in homes. A parental love demands that, and the theory of some socialists that state institutions should be established for the support of children is idle in the face of one of the strongest instincts of nature. There is an ever widening chasm between the present and the past generation. The older looks askance at the liberty and forwardness of the younger. The younger is working a revolution in the propriety and fitness of things. The women of this generation are looking at life from a new angle. New ambitions have come to them, and they are talking "careers." They mean to break away from the old order of things and set new standards of life. Will these standards be for the better or for the worse? We all shake our heads at times. The old fashioned mother in the home, the mother whose ambition was in the home, is still our ideal. We scarcely PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 705 stop to think that the home may become a thing of the past, is indeed in an ever widening circle becoming so now. The unmarried and the childless have no homes as we have known them. Those of limited families are drifting from home life. They must think as men think, and live as men live. Will the new freedom to them mean a license to do what men do? Will the double standard pass away, and the moral plane of woman fall to that of man? Can th# two sexes be alike in so many respects and not be in danger of being alike in all respects? In the past responsibility for immoral conduct has rested more heavily upon woman. She is learning to evade what was o^ce the insignia of her shame. Remove from her fear of consequences, and will not the dangers for her be as great as they are for man? — Intellectual Ascendency. The intellectual differences between the present generation of women and the past can perhaps never be abridged. Will the moral and physical difference in time break down? Is the intellect in the ascendency? If so, what will be its power over the other attributes of woman? Harriet Orne, in the Independent of September 1, 1917, writes: "My emotions belong to the world of my mother, but my mind lives in a new world which she has never entered, perhaps would not enter if she could. It is the world which my experience has made for me, an intellectual world where those ideas rule which have had the most force in the world during my life time and have been a part of my education. Between my mother's intellectual world and my own a gulf is fixed, and we look across wistfully at one another and strive tactfully to protect each other from our own opinions. "I believe that the gap between the thinking of the women of my mother's generation, and the thinking of the women of my own gen- eration is a greater gap than has existed between any two other gener- ations of women in the history that we know." What will the competition of women mean to men? At present they are equipping themselves intellectually better than men. They are more steadfast as students and have fewer evil habits that sap the physical and mental life of man. What of the physical differences between them? The women of this generation in the activities of the home show more persistency and endurance than men. Here is a testimonial from Pierre Hamp on the work of French women in the munition factories: "Between the sewing machine or the typewriter key and the me- chanic's lathe there is no very great distance; there is more fatigue in making clothes on a sewing machine for troops than in turning a 75 mm. gun on a lathe one meter long. To pass the inside border of the hem exactly under the needle requires about the same attention as to follow with one's eye the working of the tool while calibrating the weapon. "Woman could easily pass directly from her previous tasks to this treatment of steel in the workshops, for she had been spending herself before in more exhausting work. No great effort is required of her in metal turning. She has soon come to excel at it, and is as efficient as man and often more so. In a workshop for making shell cases one woman succeeded in a fortnight in attaining the average rate of pro- duction at piece work rates. She asked if she would be paid for all she made, irrespective of their number. This privilege was given, and in six weeks she reached a scale of production twice as great as that of men. "It was formerly thought that woman's care could not be trusted when very exact measurements had to be made, but the eyes of an embroiderer are sharper than those of a man, and machines for mak- ing light artillery presented few difficulties for her." 706 IMPROVEMENT ERA Women and War.—What about woman as a fighter? Biologists say, "The female of the species is deadlier than the male." Now that women squads in Great Britain are undergoing intense military training, and many of the women of this country are so given to military excitement, one is compelled to ask what may not yet be done by women if the war continues much longer. In Prussia a woman's battalion has been formed and has seen active service. The famous New York physician, Dr. Hammond, in a recent interview in the Times has this to say about woman and war: "At present there is no question that woman represents the undis- ciplined sex. That is particularly so in this country. Women have been allowed too much ease and luxury and pleasure without any of the sobering responsibility that goes with world making." "Don't you, Doctor, consider the task of child bearing and rearing as great and sobering a responsibility as any borne by the average male?" "I certainly do. Aside from the contribution to the State, it is the best thing a woman can do for her own well-being, both moral and physical. A woman is not fully a woman until she has borne a child. But child-bearing is going out of fashion, especially here in America. And it is with an acceptation of this condition that I speak." "Where women have acquired economic strength, financial inde- pendence, there is undoubtedly a disposition to break away from the discipline of established decencies. It may be that women are innately anarchistic, and that they must be held in leash by eco- nomic dependence, and possess a physical strength less than that of the dominant male; but I would like to see the experiment made of subjecting them to the iron discipline of military life. "Of course, there could be no segregation of regiments according to sex. Women, if they are to be any real use to their country as soldiers, and if they are to get any real benefit themselves from the training, would have to play their part shoulder to shoulder with the men. I have no doubt this would result in colossal license for a time; but there is no doubt that the problem would work out its own solu- tion. I have no doubt of the enduring morality of the world. All change means disruption and chaos for a time; and then the true equilibrium is found. I, for one, would be perfectly willing to put the — — world's morality to the test, crucial, I admit of sending mixed regi- ments of men and women." These are truly grave problems of life in woman's world. The steps sometimes from the suggestive to the possible, from the possible to the probable, and probable to the reality, are not only short but rapid. Who does not venture a prediction? Remedy. —What will happen after the breakdown of marriage in our social life? A period of reconstruction will follow. Marriage must of course be reinstated. Without it there can be for us no heaven or no earth. An awful punishment is already at hand because the world has thrown off the responsibility to such an extent of this divine requirement. Read Sec. 49:15,16,17, Doc. and Cov. XXI — Dependent Mothers — A Serious Problem. One of the big economic problems of the future will be the fostering care of widows with children to care for. In our own country thirty states have made provision by law for the support of children PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 707 whose mothers were not able to care for them. These enactments were passed without regard to the war. "When it is over, it is easy to imagine the great burden which such unsupported children will cast upon the nations of the earth. I may include in those mentioned the great numbers who are and will be born out of wedlock. Children are a great asset to the world, but aside from economic considerations, there will be involved the question of humanity. When the war broke out there was a wave of immorality that resulted in many thousands of so-called war babies. The untold number of children dependent on the state for support may well approximate many million. It was a great step the world took when it was decided that children were entitled to an education by the state. The question of the value of an education to the state is subordinate to the question of life itself to the state. The burden will be enormous, and it is likely through divorce and illegitimacy, to grow beyond our wildest imagination. What we know of taxation will be incomparable with what we have yet to learn. It may reach the breaking point, and result in great social disorder. It is so serious already that thoughtful men are preparing our minds for what is certain to be a crucial ordeal. For years there will be no escape from the load we shall have to carry. It is of course easy to imagine that attempts will be made to avoid it by the practice of race suicide. But could the world deliberately destroy itself? The spirit of self-destruction is rife in war. Is there no remedy? We are in a slate of intolerable darkness. It is easier to wonder than it is to know what the world will do. There has always been in the past some redeeming power against universal destruction. A world practically without religion is on trial. — A Fatherless Home. A new world problem also arises. How can children be reared without father? Is the father a necessary factor in the bome, independent of the material support he gives? Judge Niel of Chicago, who is now in London in the interest of his propaganda for the state support of fatherless children, and who for years past has been the leading advocate of this doctrine in the United States, has this to say, according to the New York Sunday Sun of September 9, 1917: "Where the mother is trained in mothercraft, as in some states, and given sufficient support so that she can buy food, clothes and shelter, and keep her children in health, a far smaller number of youngsters get into the juvenile courts than in the case where a father of inferior grade is around. The presence of a father is not necessary to the successful rearing of a child. The disadvantages of fathers probably are the result principally of the low wage system, but as things are, fathers usually fuss and make general nuisances of themselves about the house. "Careful study has shown that homes under the mothers' pen- sion system, in which no father appears at all, are better than those in which low wage fathers are present daily. "This tends toward the natural condition, because most women would rather be respectably married mothers rearing children than unmarried operatives in a factory or employes of an office. If nor- mal women are given the opportunity of being wives and independent mothers, this will decrease also the prostitution problem, for, speak- ing generally, there never is a prostitution problem in the psychology of any woman till her mother instincts have been outraged. That is something worthy of much thought. The world is now confronted with the problem of raising great masses of children without the supervision of fathers. It is entirely new, but on the success of its solution will depend the race in Europe and perhaps in America twenty years from now, If the state sees that mothers have an 708 IMPROVEMENT ERA opportunity of properly rearing their own children, the killing off of the men which has occurred during this war will be comparatively of slight importance, for twenty years from now the nation will be made up of the children of today, not of the men who would have lived in peace, but instead died in war." State pensions for all mothers under the changed conditions will certainly give encouragement for an unnumbered mass of illegitimate children. Will men who must bear the major portion of this load consent to it? Will they set up a distinction between the unmarried mother and the mother who has been through a divorcement; between the mother whose husband has died and the mother who has deliberately sought motherhood in response to the maternal instinct with which she is endowed? Will the fathers of the children of these unmarried mothers be dragged into the court and forced by law to support their children? It might be easier and cheaper for the state to support the children than to multiply the courts and other agencies to enforce their support. The whole thing is a whirligig, which ever way we look at it. Before legislatures consent to such a wholesale draft upon the public treasury, they may yield, for economic reasons, to a growing demand for education in the art of birth control. Birth control would claim the best of arguments. Our moral intuitions and religious standards are breaking down from the sheer weight of economic necessity. It's all a labyrinth. God no doubt has a way out for his children, but they are at sea. — Illegitimate Children. Illegitimate children are multiplying, so are the children of divorces. Is there a great difference between those who see an easy way out and those who get in wrong? The great encouragement for the birth of all classes will be the need of an increased population. Judge Niel further says: "Germany is caring for all illegitimate children and looking after the mothers as well as during and after birth. An official statement says that three million such children now are being cared for by the state. Neither in the case of legitimate or in that of illegitimiate are the mothers allowed to work for a considerable period before and after the birth of a child. "In Australia every mother, married or unmarried, who gives birth to a living child gets £5, or about twenty-five dollars; whether she be married or unmarried, rich or poor. Manitoba has just passed a mothers' pension law. "To me these millions of children who must be reared without financial aid from fathers obviously present the biggest problem that the world has ever seen. Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Germany, Aus- tria, and perhaps America will find themselves unable to continue by the old methods and still survive as nations. If the widows and orphans of this war are permitted to struggle unaided through their lives and to be degenerated by inevitable poverty, decades of progress will be lost thereby." The computation of the present load upon the state is not the end of the solution. Myriads of widows and unmarried mothers will go on having children. The mother instinct will grow by what it feeds upon. The dimensions are beyond calculation. It means chaos. Order will have to be evolved from it. Sane methods and correct principles will have to be seriously worked out. The Religious Side. — Another danger arises in the midst of it all. Will men marry? Why assume a responsibility they can let the state carry? ; PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 709 What will become of the whole marriage system? The undertaking will have serious dangers for the state. The state argument breaks down. The whole question is not political; it is not economic fundamentally. It is religious. Is the world ready for religion? There are numerous examples in history of religious break-downs. The sorrowful thing of it all is that the restoration of religion is one of the last phases of regeneration. Think of what we have yet to pass through between the fall of the old and the birth of the new! The world must certainly travail in pain. — The World's Burden. The situation is not improved by the lightminded manner in which the subject is treated by those who make a jest of it all. It is not a passing world mood. It will grow into the fulness of a world calamity. Its weight will repress every part of our physical, moral, and intellectual natures. No class will escape it. The rich will stare at bankruptcy and the poor will groan. Wounded men by the millions will also become a load upon the state. The world has never seen anything like it. There will be great masses of children who have neither father nor mother. War brings diseases, and the severe strain of mothers now in munition plants and in other works requiring the most strenuous life will break down from the excessive strain put upon them. Women's nerves will give way till hundreds of thousands of them will die. The nations will have a heavy load to carry in the support of children who have neither father nor mother. Then there will arise another problem, the question of employment. Before children are ready to assume the independent status of manhood, there will be a long period when their labors must be under some sort of guidance and control. Who will employ them? The state? Can private enterprise be depended upon to absorb such labor? Much of the labor nowadays is transient, a few weeks or months here, and a few months there. It would be dangerous to turn out so many thousands into what really represents tramp life. — Indifference. "We should solve these things when we come to them," the indifferent may say. But there are many things we ought not to come to. Britain left the matter of war till she came to it. It resulted in wholesale slaughter of human life. Sometimes the "leaving of things" is the worst phase of the difficulty. It is all confusion madly confounded. Neither may men in such an age be indifferent to impending calamities. A message has been revealed, and great effort put forth to deliver it. It has been scantily received. If this miscellaneous child life is thrown helpless and uncared for upon the world, what physical and moral dangers must come to it! If demoralization comes to it, it will impregnate all child life. The state will suffer, and society deteriorate. "Where is wisdom?" asked a noble ancient. Human wisdom is in the scales. Will it be found wanting? There was once a handwriting on the wall. There is again, and its interpretation has already been given. Revelation. —"And the time cometh speedily that great things are to be shown forth unto the children of men "But without faith shall not anything be shown forth except desolation upon Babylon, the same which has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. "And there are none that doeth good, except those who are ready to receive the fulness of my gospel which I have sent forth unto this generation. "Wherefore, I have called upon the weak things of the world, those who are unlearned and despised, to thresh the nations by the power of my Spirit" (Doc. and Cov. 35:11-13).