Speech 45
MATERIAL WELFARE AND THE SPIRITUAL LIFE
FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, IN WASHINGTON, D.  C., MARCH 12, 1905

IT is, of course, unnecessary to say that the things of the body must be cared for; that the first duty of any man, especially of the man who has others dependent upon him, is to take care of them, and to take care of himself.  Nobody can help others if he begins by being a burden upon others.  Each man must be able to pull his own weight, to carry his own weight; and, therefore, each man must show the capacity to earn for himself and his family enough to secure a certain amount of material well being.  That must be the foundation.  But on that foundation he must build as a superstructure the spiritual life.

One of the best things done by this society, and by kindred religious and benevolent societies, is supplying in our American life of today the proper ideals.  It is a good thing to have had the extraordinary material prosperity which has followed so largely on the extraordinary scientific discoveries alluded to by Justice Brewer, if we use this material prosperity aright.  It is not a good thing, it is a bad thing, if we treat it as the be all and end all of our life.  If we make it the only ideal before this Nation, if we permit the people of this Republic to get before their minds the view that material well being carried to an ever higher degree is the one and only thing to be striven for, we are laying up for ourselves not merely trouble but ruin.  I, too, feel the faith and hope that have been expressed here today by the vice president and the secretary of the society; but I so feel because I believe that we shall not permit mere material well being to become the only ideal in this Nation, because I believe that more and more we shall accustom ourselves to looking at the great fortunes accumulated by certain men as being nothing in themselves, either to admire, to envy or to deplore, save as they are used well or ill.  If the great fortune is used well, if the man who has accumulated it has the strength necessary to resist the temptations either to use it wrongfully, or what is nearly as bad, not to use it aright — for negation may be almost as harmful as positive wrongdoing — then he is entitled to the praise due to whoever employs great powers for the common good.  If the man who accumulates that great fortune uses it ill or does not use it well, then so far from being an object of envy, still less an object of admiration, he should take his place among those whom we condemn and pity — for usually, if we have the root of the matter in us, we will pity those we condemn.
Wonderful changes have come in the last half century.  It may well be as Mr.  Justice Brewer has said, that we tremble on the verge of still greater changes in the future.  The railway, the telegraph, the telephone, steam, electricity, all the marvelous mechanical inventions of these last five decades, have changed much in the superficial aspect of the world, and have, therefore, produced certain great changes in the world itself.  But after all, in glorying over and wondering at this extraordinary development, I think that we sometimes forget that compared to the deeper things it is indeed only superficial in its effect.  The qualities that count most in man and woman now are the qualities that counted most two thousand years ago; and as a Nation we shall achieve success or merit failure accordingly as we do or do not display those qualities.  Among the members of this congregation is a man who, in his prime, served as the fleet engineer of Farragut when Farragut went into Mobile Bay.  That was forty one years ago.  The ships and the guns with which Farragut did that mighty feat are now almost as obsolete as the galleys that fought for the mastery of the Aegean Sea when Athens waged war on Sparta.  They could no more stand against a modern ship than could the ships that fought against the Invincible Armada in 1588.  But if the need ever comes for this Nation to call on its sons to face a foreign foe, the call will or will not be made in vain just exactly according to whether we do or do not still retain the spirit which drove Farragut and the men under him onward to victory.  The gun changes, the ship changes; but the qualities needed in the man behind the gun, in the man who handles the ship, are just the same as they ever were.  So it is in our whole material civilization of today.  The railroad, the telegraph, all these wonderful inventions, produces new problems, confer new benefits, and bring about new dangers.  Cities are built up to enormous size, and, of course, with the upbuilding of the cities comes the growth of the terrible problems which confront all of us who have to do with city life.  Outward circumstances change.  New dangers spring up and old dangers vanish.  But the spirit necessary to meet the new dangers, the spirit necessary to ensure the triumph that we must and shall win, is the same now that it has always been.  This is the spirit which lies behind this society, and all kindred societies; and we owe to this society all the help we can afford to give; for it is itself giving to our people a service beyond price, a service of love, a service which no money could buy.