Page:Life in a thousand worlds.djvu/222

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A WORLD OF LOW LIFE.
217

rejoiced when celebrating their victories in the wild scalp dances.

Thus the dark shadows fell on this huge world. The captured educated classes made a heroic effort to continue their cultured manners and religious life, but the prejudice against them and their ways was so great that they were compelled to live in the lower strata or suffer the pain of death. In process of time, the wild woods flourished where once the temples of science and pure religion reared their imposing pillars.

What can we expect of such a race of people who have drifted from the light of civilization for so long a period? As I looked at their customs and their ways, I was reminded of a garden that has run wild. Here and there I could see traces of the once thrifty life now almost choked out by the overpowering crop of weeds.

Gradually the people became worse and worse. Sin played havoc and built carnal fires around which these children of men gathered. Sensuality became the ruling passion and, in less than five hundred years of our time, the last family observance had died