Nineteen hundred years ago there appeared in the world a man who introduced an entirely new system of thought and living. He came to a world which at that time in the principal civilized portions was in much the same situation as our present civilization. It had attained its zenith; it had engendered a similar lust for wealth and power, resulting in a like abuse of it, with profligacy, love of luxury, immorality and degeneracy abounding everywhere in high places and in equal proportion among the middle classes; until it was plain to be seen that civilization was fast on the downward grade, and that something must be done to stop it or disaster was inevitable.

At that period there were no machines, everything was accomplished by the use of manpower, and manpower was very cheap, by reason of the slave system, resulting from the many wars of conquest with neighboring peoples, “barbarians” as they were called, in contradistinction to the Roman civilization centered around the Eastern half of the Mediterranean Sea, and which now ruled all the conquered territories forming the Roman Empire, at that time extending from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, and from the Rhine and Danube to the deserts of Africa. All these conquered peoples became the subjects and were literally the slaves of their Roman conquerors, and were compelled to do their will. Vast hordes of the common people were thus used to labor and slave for their Roman masters, who in the fashion of the day were generally tyrants; even as employers of labor of the present day have become, in their subserviency to the profit system.