Now  it  is  not  worth  while  to  ask  whether  there  is  exag-
geration in  this.     We  know  there  is  truth  enough  and  to


I


UNITARIAN   AND   OTHER   CHRISTIAN   CHURCHES         203

spare.  The  question  is  whether  the  evil  is  incurable.  Is  it
an  organic  malady  in  American  life,  or  is  it  only  a  fever
which  will  run  its  course  and  disappear  ?  I  believe  it  is  a
nineteenth-century  fever  which  will  pass  while  the  twentieth
century  is  still  young.  Consider  the  history  of  our  people
as  a  whole.  Materialism  we  have  had  among  us  always,  as
all  human  communities  have  had;  but,  judging  the  Amer-
ican people  as  a  whole,  measuring  them  by  and  large,  the
world  never  saw  a  fairer  example  of  freedom  from  material-
ism, a  fairer  example  of  plain  living  and  high  thinking,  than
was  given  by  the  people  of  this  country  from  the  first  set-
tlement of  the  Atlantic  coast  down  to  the  beginning  of  the
nineteenth  century.  There  was  no  worship  of  wealth  in
those  days.  There  was  little  wealth  to  worship.  The
American  mind  gave  itself,  not  to  business,  but  to  theology
and  politics ;  and  theology  and  politics  were  then  both  intel-
lectual pursuits.
