Page:Meda - a tale of the future.djvu/161

Rh merchants and middlemen, who lived by barter, began to see that their trade was going. If people could exist, they said, on one-fourth of the food that was ordinarily required, then they could do with less than one-fourth of the merchants and middlemen. Strong opposition was started in the cities to this body that was doing so much good, consequently, in the cities the new sect made but small progress, except amongst the higher and educated classes. But in the country districts of America, Britain, and the Colonies, the teaching of this new order was taking a great hold on the people, and combined with the progress of higher education, greatly improved their social condition. As for the cities, from what I have read, it is evident that they did not advance much. There was something so entirely antagonistic to the purity of nature in the city life of the ancients that it seemed almost impossible to elevate the inhabitants. The herding of so many human beings together in such confined spaces, and in ill-ventilated houses, away from the elevating