PROGRESS
Faith in divine progress is exprest in these verses by John Philo Trowbridge:
The eternal truth of God moves on
In undisputed sway,
While all the narrow creeds of men
Decline and pass away.
The eternal light of God shines on
Beneath an eternal sky,
Tho human luminations cease,
And human watch-fires die.
But faith still mounts the endless years,
And truth grows lovelier still,
And light shines in upon the soul
From some immortal hill.
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Professor Guyot, of Princeton, says that progress in the world is like the development of plant life. It has three periods of growth. The first is that in the soil—growth by the root. The second is more accelerated—growth by the stem. The third is the most rapid of all—growth by the blossom and fruit. The world has been growing by the root, obscurely, lingeringly, slowly. It is growing by the stem now, very much faster. It is beginning to break into the blossom and fruit, when progress will be wonderful compared with our past experience in all other periods.—Henry Ward Beecher.
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Modern ministers, while they should not be stagnantly conservative, are sometimes apt to make too little allowance for the inveterate habits in old saints of clinging to the past. These old saints in many cases can not easily get into line with the word "go." They are not prepared for new eras of thought or the inauguration of new epochs. Hume destroyed the faith of his mother and made it a wreck. Arterial sclerosis is a hardening of the walls of the arteries, so that they become unable to bear the pressure of the blood when impelled by the heart under excitement. A similar process of hardening of the avenues of mental operations characterizes many excellent folk in old age.
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See Improvement.
Progress, a Sign of—See Surgery, Improvement
in.
PROGRESS BY DISPLACEMENT
It is estimated that more than 20,000 families,
aggregating 100,000 persons, have been
driven from their homes by the steady transformation
of New York City which is now
near completion. The destruction of homes
has not been confined to one locality, nor
has it come as the result of one event.
Every large undertaking has contributed its
quota of persons whose homes literally have
been pulled down about their heads.
This transformation is most conspicuous at the approaches to the new bridges across the East River, in the erection of new and stupendous railroad terminals, the encroachment of modern business buildings upon residence property, and the widening of streets.
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It is the law of progress that the old shall be displaced by the new and better.
Progress by Ideals—See Ideals and Progress.
Progress by Necessity—See Necessity
and Progress.
Progress by Struggle—See Struggle.
Progress, Keeping Pace with—See
Modernity.
Progress, Lack of—See Motion Without
Progress.
PROGRESS, MODERN
The late Professor Dolbear, of Tuft's College, summed up the progress of the nineteenth century as follows:
The nineteenth century received from its
predecessor the horse; we bequeath the locomotive,
the bicycle, and the automotor. We
received the scythe; we bequeathed the
mowing-machine. We received the painter's
brush; we bequeathed lithography, the
camera, and color photography. We received
twenty-three chemical elements; we
bequeathed eighty. We received the sailing
ship; we bequeathed the magnificent steamships
which are the glory of Belfast and of
Ireland. We received the beacon signal-fire;
we bequeathed the telephone and wireless
telegraphy. Best of all, we received unalleviable
pain, and we bequeathed aseptics,
chloroform, ether, and cocaine. We received
an average duration of life for thirty
years; we bequeathed forty years. (Text.)
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