LXVIII.
The World Moves.
As we pass along through life, we must learn to
adapt ourselves to the changes which are
always occurring in the world.
The world will not adapt itself to us, no matter
how important we may feel ourselves to be, and if
we remain stationary in our ideas we will become
useless fossils.
Religious forms, social conventions, political and
domestic matters are always undergoing changes.
Principles are endearing, but habits and manners
are as variable as the fashions in dress; and the
people who insist on one unvarying form of wor-
ship or one unalterable method of recreation, and
decry all others as wicked or indecent, are making
themselves as ridiculous as those who keep to the
cut of skirt or trouser worn by our grandparents.
There are always a surprising number of inhab-
itants in every village or town who set themselves
against the march of progress. The railroad, the
telegraph, the cable--all were met by a protest from
the people.
In spite of the fact that they were invariably over-
ruled, the same protest arose, and yet arises, against
the trolley, the cable car, and the bicycle.
Had the fossil mind ruled the world, we would
still travel by the stage-coach and the sailing vessel.
Originality of thought would be smothered at
birth, and the vehicle of reform would be wrecked
in the ruts of prejudice, could these people dom-
inate circumstances.
But fortunately the world moves with restless
force. The march of progress is onward. Nothing
and no one can stay it. Science and seership unite
to broaden religion and free it from the narrow bor-
ders of orthodoxy. The human mind dares think
for itself, dares discover new truths, and to make
them known.
Invention lifts the burdens of labor and broadens
the avenues of pleasure.
The man who will not adapt himself to all these
changes must expect to be left like a stranded boat,
high and dry on the shores of time, while the great
ships come and go and the tides rise and fall.
He will be even of less use in the world than the
shrunken boat, for he cannot serve as driftwood nor
as a picturesque wreck.
About the most unattractive being on earth is the
aging man or woman, battling against the resistless
tide of change which is forever shaping new condi-
tions, as the waters of the sea forever shape new
shores.
Every-day thoughts in prose and verse. by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Chicago: W. B. Conkey Company, 1901.
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