Now while there are those men in the van of society, who aspire at more, chiding and taxing mankind with idleness, cowardice, and even sin, there are yet those others who loiter on the way, from weakness or wilfulness, refusing to advance--idlers, cowards, sinners. If born in the rear, afar from civilization, they are left to die--the savages, the inferior races, the perishing classes of the world. If born in the centre of civilization, for a while they impede the march by actively hindering others, by standing in their way, or by plundering the rest--the dangerous classes of society. They too are slain and trodden under foot of men, and likewise perish. In most large families there is a bad boy, a black sheep in the flock, an Ishmael whom Abraham will drive out into the wilderness, to meet an angel if he can find one. That story of Hagar and her son is very old, but verified anew each year in families and nations. So in society there are criminals who do not keep up with the moral advance of the mass, stragglers from the march, whom society treats as Abraham his base-born boy, but sending them off with no loaf or skin of water, not even a blessing, but a curse; sending them off as Cain went, with a bad name and a mark on their forehead! So in the world there are inferior nations, savage, barbarous, half-civilized; some are inferior in nature, some perhaps only behind us in development; on a lower form in the great school of Providence--Negroes, Indians, Mexicans, Irish, and the like, whom the world treats as Ishmael and the Gibeonites got treated: now their land is stolen from them in war; their children, or their persons, are annexed to the strong as slaves. The civilized continually preys on the savage, reannexing their territory and stealing their persons--owning them or claiming their work. Esau is rough and hungry, Jacob smooth and well fed. The smooth man overreaches the rough; buys his birthright for a mess of pottage; takes the ground from underneath his feet, thereby supplanting his brother. So the elder serves the younger, and the fresh civilization, strong, and sometimes it may be wicked also, overmasters the ruder age that is contented to stop. The young man now a barbarian will come up one day and take all our places, making us seem ridiculous, nothing but timid conservatives!