Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/353

Rh on account of the terms in which the numbering of Israel is spoken of in the Old Testament. Religious scruples on similar grounds have also been avowed against so beneficial a thing as life insurance.

Apparently unimportant as these manifestations are, they indicate a wide-spread tendency in the application of scriptural declarations to matters of social economy which has not yet ceased, though it is fast fading away.

Worthy of especial study, too, would be the evolution of the better modern methods of raising and bettering the condition of the poor; the evolution, especially, of the idea that men are to be helped to help themselves, in opposition to the old theories of indiscriminate giving, which, taking root in some of the most beautiful utterances of our sacred books, grew in the warm atmosphere of mediæval devotion into great systems for the pauperizing of the laboring classes. Here, too, scientific modes of thought in social science have given a new and nobler fruitage to the whole growth of Christian benevolence.

paper in the American Association, on the Use of Micro-organisms as Insecticides, has a tone of warning. While much may be anticipated from the new form of application, it is important to avoid exaggerated statements. There is a tendency in the public mind to take as proved what has not yet passed beyond the stage of possibility. In theory, the idea of doing battle against injurious insects by means of invisible germs is very tempting; but it has unfortunately been most dwelt upon by those who were essentially closet workers, and had but a faint realization of the practical necessities of the case.