But that any thoughtful person could really think life a game is an impossibility. No man with a mind to reason and a soul to feel can contemplate the awful suffering that has always existed in the world, and think life a mere game. No man can think life a mere game, who with an eye to see and an imagination to conceive, gazes upon the infinite sea of stars visible to his unaided vision, realizes how many thousands upon thousands of stars there are besides, that the photographic camera records, and realizes also that, though light travels even through air at a rate exceeding 186,000 miles per second, yet that some stars are so distant that the light now reaching us from them started ages before the dawn of history. And no man who is able to follow the teachings of science, even superficially, can note the enormous development of civilization during the last few thousand years, and realize that a development similar though infinitely grander, must have been going on in all the universe for countless centuries, without realizing also that "through the ages an increasing purpose runs." He may even note a likeness between it and the development on an infinitely smaller scale, of the conception of a merely human inventor. Possibly, his fancy may even soar still higher: possibly he may even wonder if all this great creation may not be in effect a great invention, and God its Great Creator, because its Great Inventor. So, whether we fix our thought on what the scientists tell us of the probable course of development of the universe during the countless ages of the past, or consider merely the development of man since the dawn of recorded history, we seem to find as the initiating cause of both--invention. Let us therefore utilize all means possible to develop this Godgiven faculty, the chiefest of the talents committed to our keeping. That way lie progress, prosperity and happiness. How far and how high it may lead us, God only knows; for the resources of invention are infinite. The End. INDEX A Abel, 240 Acetylene gas, 219 Acheson, 312 Ægeans, 55, 56 Aerial Age, 326 Age of Bronze, 15 Age of Copper, 15 Age of Iron, 19 Age of Steam, 179 _et seq_ Air-brake, 278 Air-pump, 142, 143 Airships, 326 Alchemy, 208 Alexander, 69 to 97 Alexandria, 77 Alphabet, 58 Aluminum, 213, 302 Ampère, 198, 199 Analine dyes, 265 Antipyrene, 298 Antiseptic surgery, 274 Antitoxin, 328 Appleby, 292 Application of hot air to furnaces, 213 Arago, 198 Arc-light, 183, 235 Archimedes, 78, 79, 149, 176 Aristotle, 139 Arithmetic, 35 Arkwright, 172 Artificial limbs, 239 Artificial silk, 304 Assur, 38 Assyria, 39, 40 Astrology, 31 Astronomy, 24, 29 Atlantic cable, 266 Atomic Theory, 210 Atwood's machine, 163 Automatic arc-light, 235 Automatic car-coupler, 285 Automatic grain-binder, 273, 292 Automatic piano, 221 Autoplate, 318 B