While there is in modern times a decrease in emotional religion, there is an immense increase in practical morality. There is a decrease of the martial type found among savages and the people of the Middle Ages, except as it still survives in the slums of great cities; but there remains a martial type infinitely more efficient than any that preceded it. There are great branches of industry which call forth in those that follow them more hardihood, manliness, and courage than any industry of ancient times. The immense masses of men connected with the railroads are continually called upon to exercise qualities of mind and body such as in antiquity no trade and no handicraft demanded. There are, it is true, influences at work to shake the vitality, courage, and manliness of the race; but there are other influences which tell in exactly the opposite direction; and, whatever may come in the future, hitherto the last set of influences have been strongest. As yet, while men are more gentle and more honest than before, it cannot be said that they are less brave; and they are certainly more efficient as fighters. If our population decreases; if we lose the virile, manly qualities, and sink into a nation of mere hucksters, putting gain above national honor, and subordinating everything to mere ease of life; then we shall indeed reach a condition worse than that of the ancient civilizations in the years of their decay. But at present no comparison could be less apt than that of Byzantium, or Rome in its later years, with a great modern state where the thronging millions who make up the bulk of the population are wage-earners, who themselves decide their own destinies; a state which is able in time of need to put into the field armies, composed exclusively of its own citizens, more numerous than any which the world has ever before seen, and with a record of fighting in the immediate past with which there is nothing in the annals of antiquity to compare. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [23] The _Forum_, January, 1897. [Illustration] XVI REFORM THROUGH SOCIAL WORK--SOME FORCES THAT TELL FOR DECENCY IN NEW YORK CITY[24]