I do not know. It might create serious complications to remove the priority claim of the selected few who now claim the natural wealth of the world. The present state and condition of the social world and the industrial world may be exactly as God wishes it to be. Every one must answer this question for himself; for while it is true that God created man, every individual creature has a peculiar way of forming the character and attributes of his God. Men still quote scripture to prove that God believed in human slavery. If this is true, then God surely allowed little innocent babes to be born into slavery, and to be driven by the lash from the cradle to the grave. If this is true, then child labor in our mills and factories for wages, is not nearly so horrible as chattel slavery, and God must look with approbation at the little consumptive boy or girl dying by inches while watching the shuttles fly back and forth in the loom, of which they are part of the machinery. These questions each one must settle for himself; but doesn’t it seem more natural and human to decide in favor of the children? When you look into the innocent eyes of the child sitting in its mother’s arms, can you consign that child to the slavery of the factories and mills, and then wash your conscience clean with the wet sponge of tearful prayer? Sit right up straight in your chair at this very minute and decide the case between yourself and the children and your God—did God, or did he not send these helpless and dependent children into the world to become mere slaves, and to live landless and homeless until he calls them hence? Yes? Within the eyes of each trusting child That look straight into mine, There is a plea, so meek and mild, So humble and supine— A plea for mercy and human love, For justice and for right, For a share in the earth and the God above, And all the blessings in sight. Perhaps it was God who planted there This plea, ere they were born; This innate plea for an equal share Of all the meat and corn, How can men rob them of their right? And hear their loud demands, When they see the wealth of the world in sight, And their father’s empty hands. I know the sigh of each full grown breast For a home and an acre of soil; A vine and a fig tree; to sit and rest, When weary of work and toil. Did the God of Nature plant that sigh In the babe, long ere it smiled? And this plea, like a rainbow, in the eye Of the trusting, yearning child? May the God of heaven pity us all! But pity the children now! Let us kiss the spot hurt in each fall And smooth the troubled brow; For how shall we, as a little child, Win back a place in heaven, If the child is robbed, long ere it smiled Of the part Great God has given? THOUGHTS ON IMMORTALITY