Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/312

 dress-displays ever excite compassion by the obvious modesty of the wearer. Many a poor toiling parent, as he reluctantly yields to the irrepressible entreaties of modest and diffident daughters, for the protection of more and yet more magnificent dress and jewelry, exclaims in despair that the very strength of the family virtues is to be his ruin.

But Red peculiarities were decidedly more serious than all this, inasmuch as they affected morals and religion. The religious views of our Red friends are, in substance, to this effect—that the future life is an exact reversal, or corrective, of the usually gross inequalities of the present; plenty and happiness here, resulting in want and misery there; and vice versâ. Consequently the great object is to avoid or escape any great happiness in this life, in view of the inevitable Nemesis it brings in the life to come. The Eed clergy are, in this way, laudably zealous and constant in their denunciations and warnings, and they ever find in the varying circumstances around them, a grand field for their eloquence. This religion is fittingly named "The Nemesis of the Grave;" and the zealous activity of its adherents has long since established it over the entire of the particular planet I am now dealing with in the Red system. Many a man there, who, by his industry and intelligence, has been successful in his world, attaining perhaps to high consideration and public respect for his qualities, or who, by a well-balanced mind, has enjoyed far more happiness than falls to most other peojole, has at last to face the terrible Nemesis that is to follow inevitable death. Then, at least, if not before, is the faithful pastor's opportunity, as he duti-