THE HUMANE SPIRIT IN MODERN

CIVILIZATION.

By L. F. DIMMITT, of De Pauw University.

BIOGRAPHICAL.

Lewis Fred Dimmitt was born in Griggsville, Illinois, May 8, 1866. After spending several years on a farm in southwestern Missouri, he entered the Collegiate Institute at Marionville, Missouri, to fit himself for college. He graduated from this institution with the highest honors, in 1886. The next year was spent in teaching school at Ferris, Texas, and in October, 1887, he entered the Dakota Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, being stationed at Mellette, Dak. In the fall of 1888 Mr. Dimmitt was enrolled in the freshman class at De Pauw University, Greencastle, Indiana. During his sophomore year he won second honors in the local oratorical contest. In January, 1891, Mr. Dimmitt left college to accept a call as pastor of the Madison Avenue M. E. Church of Indianapolis, where he served with much success three years, finally resigning his charge to reënter De Pauw. He at once took first rank among the students as a speaker, and in the local contest of 1894 was ranked first by four of the six judges. This was followed by the State contest, where he was graded first by five of the six judges, and finally was but two points below the first-prize orator in the Inter-State contest at Indianapolis. Mr. Dimmitt graduated from De Pauw University an A. B. in June, 1894, when he at once resumed pastoral work in the Indiana M. E. Conference, being stationed at Martinsville until the fall of 1895, when he was appointed pastor of the Broadway Church, in Indianapolis, serving there three years. Since October, 1898, he has been the pastor of the first M. E. Church at Connersville, one of the best churches in Indiana, having nearly 1000 members, financially very strong, and in every way prosperous. Mr. Dimmitt is a member of the Delta Upsilon and Phi Beta Kappa fraternities.

THE ORATION.

Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical contest at Indianapolis, Indiana, May 10, 1894, taking second prize. Judges: Rev. H. A.

CLEVELAND, D. D., Pres. J. B. ANGELL, Prof. ORMONDE, Ex-Gov. MARMADUKE, Rev. Dr. HAYNES, and Judge WOODS.

Civilization is the concrete expression of a whole people's ethical perception and life. The thoughts, choices and intentions of men determine their manners and institutions. Mankind is greater than any man. Here and there the individual may rise above the masses and become conspicuous by his genius; but it is the thought, the faith and the morals of the common people that determine the quality and temper of any prevailing civilization. Neither genius nor heroism, unaided by the will of the multitude, can build empires or weave commonwealths. All great and permanent institutions must be founded upon and administered by the intelligence, the will and the moral culture of the masses.

This vital relation of the common people to civilization is today recognized as it was not in olden times. There is now an invisible, democratic, ethical force prevailing among enlightened peoples, moulding the thought and shaping the opinions of all. Were there nothing in modern civilization except its railroads, steamships, electrical appliances, and palatial residences, its spirit would remain not essentially different from that of bygone civilizations, nor could we hope for it a more enduring longevity. But nineteenth-century civilization is distinguished by a spirit of common brotherhood binding men into a social unity more fraternal and compact than any the

past ever knew. From a deeper and broader study of human rights and duties, men have come to a new, to a more profound and practical recognition of the great principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Liberty and equality may be regarded as the consummation of those ethical suggestions and yearnings, native to the human heart, that have always led the aspiring and hopeful thought of man. But fraternity is the distinctive product of Christianity. It was Christ who proclaimed, with authority, the universal brotherhood of man. From the new and larger perception of the meaning and obligation of liberty, equality and fraternity have come into modern life and institutions an ever-operative, potent force, which we may call "the humane spirit”—a spirit which is really the mainspring of our peculiar progress.

This humane spirit touches every relation that man sustains to man. The age is under its influence. The whole race is feeling its power. In the religious world it has broadened and deepened the general estimate of religion itself until the substance of Christianity is no longer believed to lie in any narrow creed or tribal shibboleth; until religious wars have ceased throughout the world, and the days of the Inquisition have ended; until common altars stand, and peace and goodwill are proclaimed where once the chain clanked and the fagot burned. This spirit is bringing religious worshippers into closer fellowship, and is

making that ancient text, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism," to be a common creed and a living experience. It is making the Church feel that its mission is to universal man,-and to his body as well as to his soul, that its work in the world is not merely to denounce evil, but, with positive good, to improve human conditions, social as well as individual, lest ignorance and poverty breed crime and pestilence, and propagate disease and incapacity of soul. So today, millions of helping hands all round the world are by the Church extended to the poor, the ignorant, the suffering, and the oppressed. By thousands of agencies and charities,—in homes for the friendless, in retreats for the aged, in hospitals, asylums, reformatories, and schools,-influenced by this humane spirit the Church of the Christ is turning the feet of weary men into the open ways of peace and hope, and everywhere is lifting their thoughts and hearts into a better life.

In the political world this humane spirit has worked the greatest of changes. It has convinced the leading statesmen of the world that civil governments must not be based upon self-interest, but to be true and enduring, they must be "of the people, by the people, for the people." Why, in the noontide of their splendor, did there fall upon the governments along the classic shores of the Mediterranean the gloom of a night that gave no promise of a dawn? Those ancient states, though in their day the highest manifestation