DR. HORTON ON PROGRESS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1210, 19 August 1911, Page 9

DR. HORTON ON PROGRESS.

THIRTY-ONE YEAKS AT HAMP. ; I • STEAD. . (■ !On Sunday evening, /jily 2,-Dr. Horton, i at; Lyiidhurst Road Church, Hampstead, ' said it was thirty-one years since ho gave Ihh first or bin monthly lectures to work- .' Ini; nion, and such an anniversary natur- - ally suggested that one should look bock j over tho tinio that had passed, and ask ;' whether they, the world, and human ' uffaiia were progressing, and whether they ■ were all assured that there was a forward' movement in the affairs of man. This, at least, Christianity had dono for them. It convinced the world (hat they jvere evolving, growing better, and moving towards a rohl, Chrisr (tare to the world aud to humanity i;lie forward lonk..' It became an axiom that progress wns tho principle of the world. Ho" held ' that (hero was a constant forward move- , mcnt towards tho unity of mankind, and ■ Ihcre was a further progress towards liberty, tho value of the individual, and' tho significance of human culture as ap-'. plied to Ihri individual as well as to tho race. Tho modern mind recognised-at onco that it could not undertake to sit in. judgment upon the opinions, especially the religious opinions, of other penplo. ; If they looked at the modern attitude, towards crime—the patience of investigation, tho complete absence of the spirit of t'otiiliiition or retribution, tho readiness to bclievo that tho criminal was an unfortunate sufferer rather than specially guilty, tho purpose to mako tho punishment itself a form* of α-cdcmption nnd reclamation, the appeal that was possible from the worst prisoner to the authorities tho right.!! maintained even in the prisons against (he.oppression of the warders ami 'governors—if they contrasted, say, tho conditions of 1830 with the conditions of 1911 in tho treatment, of criminals and unfortunates, their hearts began to sing with joy. After reference to the .modern concern for tho child, and other evidences of progress, Dr.. .Hortoa urgod that progress was tending not to- I wards irreligion and away from tho .spiritual, but men were \recoguising, in tho light of the long past, aud the slow growth of time, that the spiritual was tho ossontial and the real, that tin; whole lil'n of man was literally the extension of the spiritual, and that it was from tho first to the Inst governed not by natural but by spiritual lines.