Is the World Growing Better

There is a kind of optimism among men that arises out of an eagerness for what they call "progress." In times of peace and supposed prosperity men largely ignore facts as they really exist. We by no means shut our eyes to the good that is in the world, but in this volume we are thinking and writing of the tremendous drift toward evil, and what we believe means a crisis in world history. We can find our observations, however, largely to these United States. There is a strange poor tend in the atmosphere, a kind of suspense. Philosophers and statesmen hardly dared to prognosticate what the near future holds. There is a very general conviction among thoughtful people that present conditions cannot exist for long; there must be a turning back to practical living, to economy, to the fear of God and then altruistic attitude toward mankind, or a fearful crash of modern civilization. - Preface.