To those of us who are most advanced to-day, a little child is a little animal; few are left who, in its presence, think of sacredness any more than in the presence of a little pig. There is the utmost alertness in meeting its physical needs; there is, if possible, a trained nurse to bring scientific knowledge to its requirements, to keep loving fingers away; but the ideas that encircle it concern for the most part its body. Meanwhile, the most progressive thought of the age is busy with the question whether its standard cannot be raised to that of choice animal stock; whether the infant human being may not be bred, as colt or calf of approved ancestry is bred, by choice of the physically fit. This represents the furthest vision of the future; this is the goal against which the imagination of the present dreams. III IT is an era of the flesh and its needs, its possibilities,--of unawareness, for the most part, of any aspects deeper than the physical. Many of us can remember the day when we were taught that we had immortal souls, to whose safeguarding thought and care and profound endeavor must go. The chief question was, “Is it right or wrong?” The chief question to-day is, “Is it sterilized?” Life, which used to be a brave flight between heaven and hell, has come to be a long and anxious tip-toeing between the microbe and the antiseptic. It is not that I object to antiseptics, but that I object to the amount of good brain-space they have come to occupy, to the exclusion of more important matters. The modern world has a new and elaborate dogma of the body, but conviction (if it exist) in regard to the soul is tentative and wary. For many a past year the faith has been taught, the belief has been growing, that physically fit of necessity means mentally fit, that physical power is the measure of a man’s efficiency. The one glory of our college life lies in its sports, and education of mind is more and more giving way to education of muscle. The only ideal of perfection now in evidence is an ideal of physical perfection; for this no sacrifice is too great, no case too onerous. Images of perfect bodily development are kept before the young,--the Apollo, with beauty of sinew and muscle; but the face of the Christ is growing ever more and more dim before their eyes, and is more and more apologetically presented, if presented at all. Yet this worship of the body, with its elaborate ritual of observances, its priests, its solemn rites; its great festivals wherein spellbound spectators, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand strong, in huge amphitheatres witness contests of physical strength; this monotheistic devotion, made up of fears for the flesh, and hope for the flesh, lacks much of a true religion.