A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE MARINER'S

COMPASS.

S "true as the needle to the pole" is a trite comparison, but the scientific world understands well that it means very little. The needle, in the first place, does not seek the geographical pole at all, nor does it point steadily toward any one region, but varies in its direction with place and time. Besides this, far from being true, the needle's affection is easily distracted—a chance bit of magnetic iron, close by, will draw it more powerfully than the concentrated pull of the earth's magnetism. In these days of iron ships the deviation of the compass has become increasingly hard to compute. And even when the sailor knows theoretically how much his needle is to be expected to swerve from the meridian in any part of the voyage, the magnetic characteristics of the ship change with locality, and the navigator is constantly passing into regions of different intensity of the earth's magnetic attraction. The usefulness of the original computation is thus constantly impaired by distance in time or place. Navigators who have been casting about for some substitute for this capricious instrument, or for some standard by which its accuracy may be checked or tested from time to time, have been experimenting with a swiftly rotating fly-wheel, using the principle that such a body tends to place itself with its axis always in the same direction in space. A correspondent of The Evening Post (New York, September 8) writing from Washington, D. C., on this subject, tells us that it is proposed to maintain in rotation, by means of an electric motor, a heavy-rimmed wheel, mounted in gimbals. He says:

"When the rate of speed amounts to three thousand revolutions per minute, or thereabouts, the plane in which the ring revolves will maintain itself constantly in one direction. If the navigator starting from the port of New York were to set the wheel of the gyroscope revolving in the plane of the meridian, it would continue to revolve in that plane with great regularity. An ordinary compass could be compared at intervals with the fixed direction marked out by the wheel of the gyroscope, and so the error of the compass could be checked up' from time to time. This is the conservative prediction, making the gyroscope useful as an auxiliary, to secure greater accuracy. Some observers go further and predict that it will displace the compass altogether. The greater probability, as in so many other things, is that a compromise result would follow, each method having its own field.

"At the port of New York, for example, the gyroscope could be set by astronomical instruments of the greatest refinement so as to point to the north pole with absolute accuracy. As the ship advanced this device would not point to the north pole from new positions, but it would always give a line showing the direction between New York and the north pole, which, with a knowledge of the convergence of the meridians, would allow of its use for direct comparison with the compass in any other place, and would thus everywhere afford the navigator a fixed direction with which to work. This device would be mounted on gimbals, and a card like a compass-card placed by its side, on which zero, instead of being the magnetic north, would be this fixed line established at the port of departure."

This is not merely a theoretical proposal. Tests have been undertaken at the instance of the German naval authorities on board the war-ship Undine lasting two days, and made with a view to determining with what accuracy the gyroscope shows alterations in the ship's course, and how well it would stand violent concussion. To quote again :

"On the first day the ship described a large number of curves to ascertain whether the instrument would deviate from its original position, and whether it would accurately show the angles of alteration in direction. With the assistance of carefully placed controlling buoys, no error was detected. On the contrary, several small errors in the position of the buoys were discovered by means of the gyroscope. A number of maneuvers were then executed with the machinery and big guns to ascertain the effect of concussion and vibration. These movements consisted of sailing at forced draft and then suddenly reversing the engines, and of

firing shots from the heaviest guns and in such a position that the gyroscope received the heaviest shock, so that the severest possible concussions were brought to bear upon the instrument. The greatest vibration and concussion that could occur on a vessel of the Undine type were proved to have no effect whatever on the apparatus.

"The gyroscope was then carefully set with the assistance of a series of buoys, and for four hours the most eccentric course was followed. By means of intermediate buoys and a set destination it was proposed to discover any possible errors in the indications of the apparatus during the time of trial. At the end of this trial no error could be discovered. It is therefore presumable that, under less favorable circumstances and in a longer period, say eight hours, no appreciable error could occur which would render the apparatus unreliable. A comparison of the gyroscope with the amplitude compass was then made. Upon comparison with an accurate deviation table, errors up to 1.5 degrees were discovered, apparently attributable to the gyroscope. The test which was immediately applied showed, however, that this was not the case, but that the coefficients of deviation had altered, presumably on account of the previous severe vibration and concussion. It was possible, by means of the gyroscope, to discover errors in the compass.

"The result of these tests, our consul reports, was the acknowledgment by disinterested parties that no inaccuracy arises in the instrument on account of the earth's rotation, that the angles of changes of course are shown with the greatest exactitude, and that shocks or vibration which would render a compass inaccurate or even useless have no effect upon it."

AMERICAN SCIENCE THROUGH GERMAN

ONE

EYES.

NE of the foreign delegates to the International Congress of Arts and Science held in connection with last year's exposition at St. Louis has just been giving his countrymen his impressions of our position and progress in science and his ideas of the relations that should obtain between scientific men here and abroad. This delegate, Professor Waldeyer, of Berlin University, has had, we are told by Lewellys F. Barker in an article contributed to Science (New York, September 8), “more than most foreigners, opportunities for familiarizing himself with American science and American thought," having visited this country several times, being familiar with our literature, and knowing us "by personal observation, by correspondence, by reading, and by multiple contact with educated Americans." Waldeyer's impressions were given in an address before the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, which is summarized and discussed in Mr. Barker's article. Says the writer:

"Waldeyer admits that in Germany the false opinion that the American turns predominantly toward material interests and that he has but little inclination for purely scientific things is still widespread. Those who hold it, he says, forget America's great universities-Harvard, nearly 300 years old, with its 5,000 students per year; Yale, more than 200 years old; Princeton; Brown; the University of Pennsylvania, contemporaneous in foundation with Göttingen; Columbia, established seven decades ago; and young institutions, like Johns Hopkins, Cornell, the University of Chicago, and the University of California, already grown to powerful positions in the country. If Germany bore in mind the great public libraries which exist in America, with their magnificent equipment, their easy access, and their prodigious use by all classes, including the working people, such a wrong impression could not prevail. The American's recognition of the fact that culture brings freedom with it, and his realization that, in a country where every one has the choice of sinking or swimming, a good education is a necessity for him who will hold himself above water in the fierce struggle, have led to the expenditure of great sums for public schools, for advanced education of all sorts, for museums, collections, laboratories, and the like, with results as good or better than those attained in Germany. Waldeyer, impressed with American progress in this regard formerly, confesses himself surprised at the advances made in the last decade. They surpass, he says, all expectations. One needs no special prophetic gift to

predict that in fifty years the United States will, as regards good arrangement, ease of use, and wealth of what is offered, far outdo Germany.""

But what have we done with these opportunities? Before answering this question, Professor Waldeyer reminds his hearers that climatic influences bear a large part in mental development and that over wide areas these are the same in the United States and in Europe. Says Mr. Barker:

66

The type of man is the same, indeed the whole of Europe has sent, in large part, of its best to contribute to the population of the United States. The means of culture are the same; in many respects America has the advantage, especially as regards ease of use and multiplicity of institutions. There can be no doubt, then, that in America effective men and women must develop in all spheres."

That we have so developed, Professor Waldeyer thinks can not be denied. He enumerates and praises our scientific institutions one by one, and finally, dwelling particularly on our advance in the biological sciences, of which, as his own specialty, he is best able to judge, he says:

'I find that over there they stand equal to us in all essential points-in the kind and method of scientific work, in the value of the same, in the equipment and arrangement of laboratories, in materials for instruction, and in the form and mode of imparting knowledge. Visit the great workshop of Alexander Agassiz in Cambridge; the anatomical institutes of Huntington in New York, at Columbia University, and of Mall in Baltimore; the Peabody Museum, so brilliantly filled by Marsh, at Yale; the anthropological museum in New York, etc., and you will say that I am right.. J. Orth has recently made a similar statement. In a few years the new buildings of the medical school at Harvard will be ready; it may be prophesied that in them we shall have the best to be seen anywhere."

But in the making of great scientific discoveries and the formation of theories which have opened up new domains of knowledge Europe is still, Waldeyer declares, ahead of America. Mr. Barker quotes him as saying:

"To Europe belongs the credit of a surprisingly large number of new chemical elements, spectral analysis, and, with it, astrophysics, the great discoveries in the chemistry of dyes and sugars, the physical chemistry of solutions, the liquefaction and condensation of gases, especially liquid air, the Roentgen and Becquerel rays, radium and its rays, color-photography, the dynamo-machine, electric light, indeed most of the investigations and applications of electricity as a source of power, the electric furnace and its fruitful application; in the field of biology almost the whole doctrines of the protozoa and bacteria with their explanations of epidemics, the toxins and antitoxins, the working-out of the doctrine of immunity, the discovery of the finer processes of fertilization and of karyokinesis, the doctrine of descent and Darwinism, and, above all, crowning all, the conception and foundation of the great idea of the conservation of energy. These he lists as the discoveries and theories of European investigators during the past fifty years; many of them belong to the immediate past. It would be possible to enumerate a series of men and researches in the domain of the historical and philosophical sciences also, which would easily demonstrate that, in them, too, the main weight of achievement still rests in Europe."

Professor Waldeyer is an earnest believer in the exchange of both teachers and students between Germany and America. It would do no harm, he thinks, if every year a number of German students came to America to widen their horizon. In this and in other matters Germans should act toward America, he believes, as Americans do toward Germany; they should try to form a correct judgment of the scientific work of Americans by personal knowledge, and instruct themselves by visiting the country itself. That this course would tend to widen German culture he is certain, and he urges that this scientific intercourse between person and person, university and university, academy and academy should be favored in every way possible. He concludes:

tion of those who seek knowledge, in offering to them all that they need. Let their published researches be found in our libraries also, at least in the great Royal Library of the capital of the empire. Let us show them in all things that on coming to Germany they come to a people of intellectual affinity, under whose political and social institutions even they, with their free views, may have a feeling of well-being. That they do the same for us can be said, to their praise, by all who have been their guests."

through, and graphein, to write), is represented in the accompanying photograph reproduced from Cosmos (Paris) and is also described in that journal by Mr. Émile Guarini, who believes that it is destined to render great service to medical science in facilitating the diagnosis of disease. Mr. Guarini writes:

"The Roentgen rays have been playing an important part in medicine ever since their discovery. They are, if not a sovereign cure, at least a useful aid in diagnosis. Still, they have not yielded all the results that might have been expected, and the information that they give must be received with caution. The reason for this is that these rays are given off from a very limited surface, namely, the anticathode of the Roentgen bulb. They are emitted in all directions. The image that they form on the screen or the photographic plate is a silhouette whose contours correspond to the points where the rays that graze the body or the organ meet the screen. The image is not only more or less enlarged, but also more or less distorted.

"If the Roentgen rays were parallel and struck the screen at right angles, this inconvenience would evidently disappear, and the services rendered to diagnostics would be infinitely more impor

tant.

"The device named the orthodiagraph, recently invented. . . in Berlin, answers this purpose. The subject is placed between a system of levers forming a rigid connection between the bulb and a pencil fixed in the middle of the screen. The bulb is so disposed that it is always in the line of the pencil; thus, the cathodic rays meet the screen exactly at the pencil-point. Movements in all directions may be made by the system, which is movable about

two parallel axes. The drawing-board is placed under the screen and parallel to it at about the distance of one centimeter. It is furnished with a sheet of Bristol-board on which the pencil-tracings are made. The screen is displaced above the Bristol-board, followed in its motion by the bulb and the pencil; these last are always in the same line. The bulb thus sends its rays centrally to the point of the tracer. By moving the latter along the contours of the organs projected on the movable disk, there are obtained on the Bristol-board the exact form and size of the organ examined. The apparatus may be placed in any position. The subject may stand or lie down. If so desired, the drawing may be made directly on the skin by means of a dermatographic crayon. Physicians will appreciate the value of this new process; they know by experience how difficult it is to tell by percussion the exact limits of certain organs and the importance that attaches to such determination."-Translation made for THE LITERARY Digest.

SEVE

THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF PRAYER.

EVERAL years ago Prof. William James, of Harvard, declared in a magazine article that the man who prays for help to do his daily work will so compose his own mind thereby and free his thought from care and worry that he will actually do his work better, irrespective of any supernatural aid that may be sent in answer to his petition. Now another scientist, Dr. Theodore B. Hyslop, superintendent of Bethlem Royal Hospital, in London, comes forward with the declaration that prayer is the best remedy for mental distresses of all sorts. He said at the recent annual meeting of the British Medical Association :

As an alienist and one whose whole life has been concerned with the sufferings of the mind, I would state that of all hygienic measures to counteract disturbed sleep, depressed spirits, and all the miserable sequels of a distressed mind, I would undoubtedly give the first place to the simple habit of prayer. . . . Let there but be a habit of nightly communion, not as a mendicant or repeater of words more adapted to the tongue of a sage, but as a humble individual who submerges or asserts his individuality as an integral part of a greater whole. Such a habit does more to clean the spirit and strengthen the soul to overcome mere incidental emotionalism than any other therapeutic agent known to me." Either "religious intemperance" or "indifference," Dr. Hyslop thinks, is hostile to mental health, and he says that we should "subscribe as best we may to that form of religious belief, so far as we can find it practically embodied or effective, which believes in 'the larger hope,' tho it condemns unreservedly the demonstrable superstition and sentimentality which impede its progress."

The Outlook remarks, in comment on this new view of prayer: "Medieval superstition, connecting medical art with magic supposed to be learned from evil spirits, used the proverb, Ubi duo medici, tres athei.' In some quarters this stigma is not yet entirely effaced, and medical men are perhaps not fully free of responsibility for whatever of it lingers. On the background of such a history Dr. Hyslop's testimony before an audience of specialists is highly significant of the trend of scientific thought away from materialistic conceptions of mind and of religion.

"Not many years ago Professor Tyndall's challenge of the religious world to try a prayer-test on a selected number of hospital patients was deemed by many, upon its being declined, to have refuted the claim of a healing power in prayer. As a physicist, Tyndall was, on this subject, not within his own province, as Hyslop, a psychologist, is. Religious men, to be sure, have made extravagant claims, and scientific men also have shot beyond the mark. But Dr. Hyslop's competence to speak in the name of science is unquestionable, and what he affirms as a discovery of medical science is identical with the immemorial faith of religion, that there is a place for prayer in the very nature of things. Not only does he find this place to be foremost among restorative agents: of the religious enthusiasm which the nature of prayer is to feed and sustain he affirms that it embodies the most healthy and preservative development of our social forces.' Among the many notable utterances in which science is now evincing herself to be the handmaid of religion, these, the most recent, are as memorable as any."

THAT

THE TAMING OF FISH.

`HAT fish may be tamed like animals or birds has recently been shown by a Swiss physician who contributes to a recent number of the Appenzeller Zeitung an interesting and curious narrative reprinted in the Illustrirte Zeitung (Leipsic). He says:

"I have never yet heard nor read that any one has tried to tame fish in water; and I was therefore desiring not a little to test the eventual possibility of doing so, when a very favorable opportunity was offered me. I was taking baths for my health in a private bathing-house on the Lake of Lugano. At the north and south sides of the building there live in a heap of stones a family of loaches (Cavedini), consisting of about six different spawnings— altogether perhaps 100 or 150 fishes. The loaches (the largest of which might be about as long as a full-grown brook-trout) used often to swim over into the bath-house, but would flee when I entered the water. I then sat down (at the time when the warmth of the water permitted doing so) a whole hour, up to my neck in the water, supporting my hands on my knees and holding in each a piece of bread as big as my fist, so that it was thoroughly soaked in the water. A like procedure I repeated in the evening and so on the following days, each forenoon and each evening.

At first the loaches would have absolutely nothing to do with the toothsome morsel placed at their disposal, but anxiously avoided the living statue in the water, which probably was not quite as immovable as the marble ones in the museums. Soon, however, several members of the youngest spawning ventured, with the most extreme caution, to take a nibble at the bread, quickly starting back if my hands moved even a millimeter. Gradually came representatives also of the second youngest generation, and so by degrees from day to day ever older and larger specimens, till finally all alike became tame and whirred and circled round me as soon as I stepped into the water. With true curiosity the whole company would make a dash at the bread that I brought with me. I could move my body and hands as I pleased, could lift both hands with bread and fishes like a shot out of water, and plunge them in again; all this did not disturb them. They would come into my hands, glide through my fingers, and let me stroke them on the head, the back and the sides, the big ones as well as those of medium size and the little ones.

"When one day I had myself photographed with my protégés, it was found that the color of the fishes differed too little from that of the water for a sharp picture to be given. We therefore brought two large white sheets to spread on the bottom of the lake. Our fear that the fishes might be frightened away by the operation proved groundless. They romped so around the white sheets that we had much trouble to lay them down and weight them with stones, without pressing to death some of the fishes. Four different instantaneous views then succeeded admirably. I am glad to have proved by my experiments that even fish in water are tamable.”—Translation made for The Literary Digest.

The Sun's Lifting Power.-Much has been said of late of the repulsive force exerted by light, especially by the sun's rays. Flammarion, the French astronomer, noted recently in the Astronomical Society of Paris some interesting facts illustrating that the solar light may have also an attractive influence, real or apparent. This, however, is of interest to botanists rather than to astronomers, as it relates only to the vegetable world. Apparently Mr. Flammarion refers to what is known to botanists as "heliotropism" and its allied phenomena, of which a familiar instance is the turning of the sunflower toward the sun. Says the writer of a note on the subject in Cosmos (Paris):

"He [Flammarion] has made numerous experiments on this point, establishing the fact that this force is able to act with great power on the direction of leaves and flowers, and even of branches and whole trees. Thus, in the grounds of the Juvisy observatory a tree was once raised to an upright position by the action of the sun alone. It was a chestnut that the wind had overturned against a wall. The roots penetrated anew into the soil and became firmly fixed there. The sun righted the tree little by little. It was possible to note, year after year, the progress of the raising, due solely to the attractive force of the solar rays. It may be remarked that

it has always been noticed that plants and trees seek the lightnot only the sun, but any place of maximum light; this is a general phenomenon that may be seen in any forest; but sylviculturists attribute it only very indirectly to an attractive force emanating from the sun. They think that the tissues develop less rapidly on the side of the light than in the shadow, where there is greater moisture; hence a curvature of the wood toward the illuminated side. In the second place the leaves, needing light to assimilate carbon, move toward the lighted side, just as, under the soil, the root seeks the point where it may find the proper nutritive elements for the plant."-Translation made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

AN

FRESH AIR FOR FIRE-FIGHTERS.

N ingenious respiratory apparatus for the use of firemen, the invention of Charles E. Chapin, a mechanical draftsman of Berkeley, Cal., is described in The Scientific American (New York, September 16) by Arthur Innersley. It consists, he tells us, of a hood lined with oiled silk, and an air-cylinder, strapped on the back, carrying under pressure enough air to last an hour. The air is conducted by a rubber tube to the head-piece, the exhaled air passing out through a valve before the mouth. To quote Mr. Innersley :

"The fireman can get enough air to fill his lungs comfortably but can not expend the supply in a short time, as he might be tempted to do if he became frightened. The main supply of air comes from the outer cylinders, the middle one being smaller and to be drawn upon only after the other two are exhausted. The apparatus can be adjusted on the back in half a minute, and, as it weighs only 23 pounds, it does not impede the fireman in his work.

'A test of the apparatus has been made in the presence of the

fire chief of San Francisco. A man equipped with the apparatus entered a room filled with the fumes of burning sulfur and worked there for a full hour, coming out with his throat and lungs perfectly free. The fire commissioners of San Francisco will have a practical demonstration of the apparatus, which is simple and not likely to get out of order. If on further test it proves satisfactory, it will be adopted by the San Francisco Fire Department and, doubtless, by the fire commissioners of other cities and towns."

SCIENCE BREVITIES.

"THERE are two money-saving possibilities for a printing telegraph system," says The Scientific American Supplement. "It may increase the carrying capacity of the telegraph lines, and it may increase the output of the telegraph operators. That is to say, a printing telegraph may save telegraph wires, and it may save labor. In new countries, and especially big new countries like Russia, America, South Africa, and Australia, the saving of wire is the most important consideration. In fact, a telegraph line 1,000 to 2,000 miles long is so expensive that it pays to waste labor at each end if the carrying capacity of the line can be increased. It is for this reason that the Wheatstone automatic system, which is very wasteful of labor, is being increasingly employed on very long lines in Russia, South Africa, India and other countries."

"When, in 1890, Germany bartered away Zanzibar in exchange for Heligoland, great was the rejoicing," says Shipping Illustrated (New York, September 2). "Much concern is now being manifested in Germany, owing to the relentless attack of the sea, which has already reduced the island's area nearly 25 per cent. since it came under the German flag. At this rate the little island will, in another half-century, have melted entirely away. The North Sea has been from time immemorial an avaricious land-grabber. The Dogger Bank once reared its head above the surface, a fact proved by the bones of animals occasionally brought up in the fishermen's nets. The eastern coast of England has suffered severely from its insatiable appetite. Dunwich, an important seaport during the Middle Ages, is now a part of the sea-bottom, and fishes and other marine denizens occupy the one-time habitations of men. Visitors to Felixstowe, once a Roman colony and now a modern seaside resort, opposite Harwich, have pointed out to them a rock, a mile out to sea, on which the old church formerly stood. The Kaiser is still a young man, and may yet live to see his cherished possession torn from his grasp by a much more formidable power than any forming the European Concert."

THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

A GREAT CONFERENCE FOR RELIGIOUS
COOPERATION.

MORE than seventeen million church-members, belonging to

twenty-six different communions, we are told, will be represented at the great gathering in New York city, beginning November 15, to discuss and plan for church federation. Cooperation in service is said to be the goal the conference will have in view, and no organic union of denominations

will be attempted. Even so, the Brooklyn Eagle thinks, a split is quite as likely to come about as a federation," but The Eagle seems to be practically alone in this opinion. The idea of federation represented by this conference, believes the Chicago Tribune, is practicable "because it makes possible union without fusion," and the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle regards the approaching conference as "the natural product of the more tolerant Christian spirit of our times," and surmises that its resulting organization "may become one of the great moral, social, and religious factors of the coming age.' The coming conference has been planned and promoted by the National Federation of Churches and Christian Organizations, which came into being in 1900. From the letter sent out by the National Federation suggesting the interdenominational conference we quote the following sentences as indicating more definitely the purpose of that conference:

The future historian, he says, will find the origin of these influences "in the spirit and teaching of the Church's Founder," and their illustration "in the formative decades of the early Church"; and "he will get glimpses of them in the medieval period." We read further:

"The reaction into independency which characterized the new individualistic life of the Reformation period, with its tremendous emphasis upon the right of private judgment and its tendency to identify opinion with conscience, for a time seemed to remove from

"We believe that the great Christian bodies in our country should stand together and lead in the discussion of, and give an impulse to, all great movements that make for righteousness.' We believe that questions like that of the saloon, marriage and divorce, Sabbath-desecration, the social evil, child-labor, the relation of labor to capital, the bettering of the conditions of the laboring classes, the moral and religious training of the young, the problem created by foreign immigration, and international arbitration-indeed, all great questions in which the voice of the churches should be heard-concern Christians of every name, and demand their united and concerted action if the Church is to lead effectively in the conquest of the world for Christ. It is our conviction that there should be a closer union of the forces and a most effective use of the resources of the Christian churches in the different cities and towns, and, when feasible, in other communities and fields, with a view to an increase of power and of results in all Christian work."

"When the impulses which have been moving, it may be for years or for centuries, within the mobile, restless mass of the Church come to some moment of crystallization," writes the Rev. Dr. Frank Mason North in The Methodist Review (New York), even Christian stolidity-and how much more Christian faithbecomes alert, and, as it watches thought concreting itself in expression and perceives a great event assuming definite outline, takes courage in the new realization of an ideal, in a new formation which at once records and predicts the progress of the kingdom." Such realization, record, prediction, he urges, are being discerned in the essential principle of this conference. Should the present promise of its import be realized," he claims, "there should be an influence in its utterance and its action so powerful as to create a new epoch in the progress of Christ's kingdom in our land—and, one may dare to say, in all lands." Dr. North further points out that the Interchurch Conference on Federation is the culmination not only of immediate but of remote influences.

the convictions of Christendom the claims of a common inheritance, and blinded men's eyes. to the need of mutuality in service. But the tides from the deeper life soon began to lift. Resistance to a common foe awakened the latent faculty for fellowship. Even through the long period from John Robinson to John Wesley, when dogma was indeed dogmatic and intolerance was at its worst, he reads but a part of the story who does not find that the use of the common resources of learning and discovery inevitably brought into play the influences of convergence. It was not alone the founder of Methodism who was ready for the league offensive and defensive with every soldier of Jesus Christ.' And when, in the tidal sweep of the revival of the eighteenth century and the missionary renaissance of the beginning of the nineteenth, opinion yielded place to conscience, and zeal centered not upon doctrinal controversy but the conversion of the world, that era of service began. of which cooperation is a logical result."

He goes on to cite, as strong agencies as well as significant demonstrations of the spirit of Christian cooperation, the great interdenominational societies, such as the American Bible Society, the American Tract Society, the American Sunday-school Union, and the Young Men's Christian Association. "It is, however, in the Evangelical Alliance of the United States of America that the historian will find the organized influence which has most strongly emphasized the principles underlying federation."

THE CHILD'S CAPACITY FOR RELIGION.

PROF.

"

GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD of Yale University, who contributes to a symposium on "The Child and Religion," published in "The Crown Theological Library," likens the child's capacity for religion to that displayed by the race in its childhood, and the development of this capacity, he asserts, follows a certain natural psychological order. He is inclined to set little store by the recent psychological investigations that have made use of discoveries in the field of the "subliminal," or those that have pointed out " the influence of stirrings of a sexual sort." Briefly described, he says, the child's capacity for religion "is that of forming an image of the divine Being, and of taking toward that image, regarded as representative of reality, a fitting attitude of intellect, feeling, and will." He admits that the child's conception of God must be one of a God "imaged and known in terms of its own faculties," a conception which agnosticism attacks as "invalid and even deceptive." To this objection Dr. Ladd retorts that "this making of the image of God by the child after the patern of its own image is considered, from the point of view of the believer in the central tenets of Christianity, God's making, by a course of progressive evolution, of the child into the divine image. And the denial of the possibility of this, and of the obtaining of a true knowledge of God in this way, when carried out to its logical result, issues in the denial of the possibility for man of any species of truth, such as will seem to put