One of the “decisive battles” to be fought by and in behalf of the colored people of the South is on the field of intemperance. Slavery made this vice impossible. Emancipation, with all its manifold blessings, opened the gates to its entrance, and these once opened, it now pours in like a flood.
The cannonading has already begun in some of the Southern States in regard to prohibition, local option and other legal safeguards; but in this, as in other battles, small arms and the hand-to-hand fight must win the victory. Man by man, must the victims of this vice be warned and rescued, and especially must the young, individual by individual, be instructed, warned, pledged to personal abstinence, and enlisted in the work of saving others. The schools of the American Missionary Association are the very citadels of drill and equipment in this warfare. Their students must be the vanguard in the onset, and the “old guard” that “never surrenders” in the hottest fight.
We rejoice to know that our schools and their students are alert and active in their duties in this respect. Temperance literature and the prayers of God’s people are invoked in their behalf.
The first man is named by sacred history. Scientific prophecy ventures to tell us who the last man is to be.
Prof. Alphonse de Candolle, son and successor of the great naturalist, wrote, a few years since, some interesting speculations on the probable future of the human race. This paper was deemed of sufficient value to be republished in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, for the year 1875. In the course of his discussion the eminent writer shows reason for believing that the last man is to be, not one man, but three. The future history of mankind, leaving out of the account any possible catastrophe that might suddenly extinguish the race, will be, in his view, somewhat as follows.
For an extended period the population of the globe, favored by improved methods of agriculture, by migration to unoccupied lands, by general prevalence of peace consequent upon higher morality, will increase until the world is stocked with inhabitants to its fullest capacity. Then, after a period, will begin a process of depopulation. The conditions of life in the colder regions will be greatly changed by growing scarcity of the fuel supply; the world’s stock of minerals will be gradually exhausted by rust and wear, which will bring an end of ships, railroads and commerce, and thus increase the difficulty of maintaining life; and the incessant action of water, ice and air will constantly diminish the land area of the globe, until only mountains will remain as islands above the surface of the sea. Under the combined action of these agencies, the principles of natural selection and survival of the fittest will come into play with decisive effect, and in the struggle for life the weaker races will one by one succumb and disappear. Three races, however, exhibit qualities which fit them to survive beyond all others.