"The thing that has been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun" (Eccles. 1:9). These words were written by the great king, who possessed a wisdom which was proverbial in his days and centuries after. King Solomon three thousand years ago discovered the law of recurrence. He realized its operation in nature. "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to its circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return." So it is in human existence, "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh." All history is governed by this law of recurrence. "History repeats itself" is a fact which cannot be questioned. What has been will happen again; what was done hundreds of times is being done again. Civilizations come and go. Empires arise and pass away. One age is succeeded by another. History records these cycles from its beginning. It tells us also of the struggles of the race, the battles for existence, the attempts to liberate itself from the bondage of misery. It records the quest for happiness, to reach some Utopia, the realization of the dream of a "golden age." Alas! failure is stamped upon it all. Each civilization and each age reaches a zenith; and then? What came to pass in former ages and civilizations happens again. A process of deterioration sets in. The age begins to die, a slowly, lingering death. A brief recovery may set in, only to be followed by one relapse after another. The deathbed of the age or civilization is reached and an age funeral takes place.

Some scholar should establish by research the causes of the decline of every age and civilization—the past Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Jewish, Greek and Roman civilizations—and he would discover that they are alike. The elements at work in the downfall of these past civilizations are at work now in our fast dying age. Such is history!

In view of these historical facts the question arises: Is there any progress at all? If human progress is followed by retrogression, why speak of progress? Here we come face to face with the popular and much lauded theory of evolution. This theory demands progress; no progress spells no evolution. Disprove progress and you disprove evolution. Evolution teaches the physical development and progress of humanity from an atom, or something else, passing through stages of protoplasm, all kinds of amphibious creatures and higher forms of animals, till finally in this progressive way moral and intellectual beings came into existence. But this theory of physical progress and with it the denial of a direct Creatorship is still an unproved assumption, nor will it ever be proved in the future, for what does not exist cannot be scientifically proved.

But evolution does not confine itself to physical progress but claims that the race is also progressing in every other way intellectually and morally. But this is likewise a mere assumption.

Almost fifty years ago a German scholar wrote on this question. We quote him: "Whether progress or retrogression or standstill rules the destinies of humanity, who shall decide? To be sure the apostles of progress are clamoring more loudly every day that we are greater, wiser and more enlightened than all our fathers, and thus they persuade multitudes of those who know next to nothing of the past, and are therefore unable to judge correctly. But ever since men lived on the earth each succeeding century has boasted thus, as a result of the mental perspective by which the near object appears great, the remote small." Then he speaks of the rise of youthful criminals in Germany. It was written years before the world war, yet he predicted the following: "In the century of humanitarianism we are inventing more cruel and deadly weapons, and experts predict that in the next inevitable world war not hundreds of thousands but millions will rush to the slaughter. . . . The whole question finally resolves itself into this—Has humanity become more happy than formerly? For increase in happiness is true progress. . . . And to this question there is but one answer— No, our so-called progress has not brought happiness! Not only the unthinking masses declare this, who, dissatisfied with their lot, would overthrow the present order of things, but they, also, who present the intellectual side of humanity. The whole modern philosophy is pessimistic."

That there has been progress in physical things in our civilization, in inventions and discoveries, we freely admit. What a wonderful achievement to sit before an insignificant little box, turn a little knob, and there float into the room the peals of a magnificent organ, and a little later human voices are heard in sacred song. The announcer tells us that we are listening to a church service in London, some two thousand three hundred or more miles away. We turn the knob again and some strange music is heard and after a while we hear it comes some six thousand miles away from New York, from the Hawaiian Islands.

What a wonderful achievement to step into a flying machine on a late afternoon on the Atlantic Coast, and, if nothing happens, the next morning to land in Los Angeles on the Pacific Coast. It used to take the covered wagon many months to make that trip. And how much more could we say about other wonderful things in the world of transmission and transportation, astronomy and chemistry! Yes, there are great triumphs in material progress. Former civilizations, especially the most ancient Egyptian, also recorded progress, inventions and discoveries.

But does human existence mean only physical progress and material improvements, the attempts to make life more liveable and more pleasant? A curse rests upon man, and the world in which he lives. Can man remove that curse? Can civilization with its physical progress of inventions and discoveries fill the deeper need which man has and which man feels?

It is an undeniable fact that all our physical progress has not made the world of man more righteous, more peaceful, more loving and more moral. It has not brought the true happiness which the human heart craves. There has never been so much unhappiness and discontent as now, nearing the middle of the great twentieth century.

The pages which follow contain an historical tracing of world conditions and their developments since bells and chimes announced the birth of the new century. In every way, politically, morally, economically, spiritually, our pages prove, there has been retrogression, and in the year 1985 the whole world faces an almost hopeless chaos. War with all its horrors, looms up once more; poverty and unemployment are with us as never before; lawlessness threatens to overthrow every government of law and order; crimes of every description threaten humanity, and nowhere more than in the United States. Infidelity is no longer confined, as it used to be, to the blabbering atheists, mostly immoral men, but it has invaded Christendom, and baptized infidels have joined the destructive forces of evil. As a result there has come a moral slump, which baffles description.

The first part of this volume shows the present hopelessness which man faces. Yet there is Hope. What that Hope, yea, the only Hope is, the reader will find developed in the second part of our work.