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He left it and entered into a wood and lived there. Here so wrapped up did he become in his idea of realization that he forgot to partake of food, it being put into his mouth by a relative who watched over him.

Every one thought him at this time out of his mind. At length a Hindu woman, a Sannyâsinî who had given up all to devote herself to spiritual things, came to see him. She exclaimed upon seeing him: “My son, blessed is the man upon whom such madness comes. The whole of this universe is mad: some for wealth, some for pleasure, some for fame, some for a hundred other things. Blessed is the man who is mad after God. Such men are very few." This woman remained near the boy for years, teaching him the forms of the religions of India; he had had no previous education from books. Later a Sannyâsin, one of the beggar-friars of India, taught him the philosophy of the Vedas, finally initiating him into the order of Sannyâsins. His relatives, aiming to cure his madness, married him at the age of eighteen to a little girl of five. The girl had heard that her husband had become a religious enthusiast, and she sought him out. When she stood before him and realized how he wished to sever all earthly ties, she sympathized with his aspirations and declared that all she desired was to remain near him, to serve him, and to learn of him.

Of his desire to know the truth about the various religions, and of his experience in the search for this knowledge, the narrator says:

"He found a Mohammedan saint and went to live with him; he underwent the disciplines prescribed by him, and to his astonishment found that, when faithfully carried out, these devotional methods led him to the same goal he had already attained. He gathered similar experience from following the true religion of Jesus Christ. He went to the various sects existing in our country that were available to him, and whatever he took up he went into it with his whole heart. He did exactly as he was toid and in every instance arrived at the same result."

There came now to this extraordinary man the conviction that to be perfect the sex-idea must go, because soul has no sex. He dressed as a woman, gave up the occupations of man, and lived among the women of his own family, imitating them in speech and manner. After years of this discipline he entirely forgot the idea of sex; the whole view of life became changed to him. He worshiped women in the sense that every woman's face was that of the "Blissful Mother" and nothing but that. "I myself," his disciple records, “have seen this man standing before those women whom society would not touch, and falling at their feet bathed in tears, saying: 'Mother, in one form Thou art in the street, and in another form Thou art the universe. I salute Thee, Mother, I salute Thee."

He now began as a teacher. A teacher in India is a most highly venerated person, regarded as God Himself. People came by the thousands to listen to him. The Swami Vivekananda gives us a few of his teachings as follows:

"His principle was, first form character, first earn spirituality, and results will come of themselves."

"Religion can not live in sects and societies. It is a relation between the soul and God; how can it be made into a society? It would then degenerate into a business, and wherever there is business, or business principles in religion, spirituality dies."

"The second idea that I learned from my Master, and which is perhaps the most vital, is the wonderful truth that the relig ions of the world are not contradictory, nor antagonistic; they are but various phases of one Eternal Religion."

"The first part of my Master's life was spent in acquiring spirituality, and the remaining years in distributing it. Men came in crowds to hear him and he would talk twenty hours in the twenty-four, and that not for one day, but for months and months, until at last the body broke down under the pressure of this tremendous strain."

A vital throat disorder developed, yet he insisted on answer

ing all questions put to him. Once a man asked him: "Sir, you are a great Yogi, why do you not put your mind a little on your body and cure your disease?" He gently answered: "My friend, I have thought you were a sage, but you talk like other men of the world. This mind has been given to the Lord. Do you mean to say that I should take it back and put it upon the body, which is but a mere cage of the soul?"

The news spreading that the holy man was to go from them soon, the people began to flock to him in greater crowds than ever. He went on teaching without the least regard for his health. "One day he told them that he would lay down the body that day, and, repeating the most sacred word of the Vedas, he entered into Samâdhi and so passed away."

As an addenda to the sketch of Ramakrishna's life the author appends an article written by Protop Chundar Mazoomdar, a Christian, who says in part:

"This Hindu is a Brahman by caste, he is well formed in body naturally, but the dreadful austerities through which his character has developed appear to have disordered his system. Yet in the midst of this emaciation his face retains a fulness, a childlike tenderness, a profound visible humbleness, an unspeakable sweetness of expression, and a smile that I have seen on no other face that I can remember.

"In the intensity of that burning love of God which is in his simple heart, the devotee's form and features suddenly grow stiff and motionless, unconsciousness overtakes him, his eyes lose their sight, and tears trickle down his fixed, pale, but smiling face. There is a transcendent sense and meaning in that unconsciousness. What he perceives and enjoys in his soul when he is lost to all outward perception, who can say? Who will fathom the depth of that insensibility which the love of God produces? But that he sees something, hears, and enjoys when he is dead to all the world, there is no doubt."

NEW LIGHT ON OLD-TESTAMENT MIRACLES.

L

AST week we reproduced an account of recent researches made in Central Asia by Prof. G. Frederick Wright, of Oberlin, for geological records of the Flood. Professor Wright, who was formerly an assistant geologist of the United States Survey, is now editor of Bibliotheca Sacra, whose conservative tendencies are well known. In the latest number (April) of his quarterly he gives us the results of his recent studies in Palestine in their bearing upon three other miracles recorded in the Old Testament, namely, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the dividing of the waters of the Jordan, and the falling of the walls of Jericho. The Professor is at no loss, in the light of his discoveries, for a rational explanation of all these events in harmony at once with science and the Bible. His attitude is indicated in the following paragraph:

"The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the parting of the waters of the Jordan, and the falling of the walls of Jericho are three notable miracles upon which the physical history of Palestine sheds interesting light. These were, doubtless, what are styled 'mediate miracles.' That is, they are miracles in which the secondary agencies used by the divine Will are clearly traceable. This, however, does not in any degree detract from the divine power displayed in them. They may be compared to the explosion of a mine which has been prepared for a particular emergency, such as occurs when an enemy is directly over it. Since its explosion is not left to chance, but is brought about at a particular time to accomplish a particular purpose, it is lifted out of the category of the established order of nature, and made to conform to the definition of the immediate acts of a free will. In these cases the accomplishments are also so clearly superhuman that they are indubitably miraculous."

The geological formation of Palestine, which forms the basis of his explanations, is thus described by Professor Wright: "The 'great fault of the Jordan Valley' was pronounced by

Humboldt the most remarkable geological feature anywhere to be found in the world'; while Karl Ritter, in his elaborate geographical publications, ever returned to this cleft in the earth's surface as the most significant fact in the natural history of the globe. This fault,' or crack in the crust of the earth, extends from Antioch on the Orontes River, in Syria, to the south end of the Gulf of Akaba, on the east side of the Sinaitic peninsula, a distance of about one thousand miles. The Lebanon Mountains, Western Palestine, and the Desert of Sinai are on one side of it. The Anti-Lebanon Range and the elevated plains of Moab and Northern Arabia are on the other side. Along the whole dividing line the rocky strata were fractured, and the eastern edge of the western portion slipped down, while the western edge of the eastern mass was elevated.

"The depression is most pronounced in the valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. Lake Huleh and the marshy plain extending north to Cæsarea Philippi are almost exactly at sealevel; but Lake Galilee is more than 600 feet, and the Dead Sea 1,292 feet, below the level of the Mediterranean. In its deepest place the bottom of the Dead Sea is 2,600 feet below ocean-level, and since the heights of Moab and those near Hebron are more than 3,000 feet above the Mediterranean, it follows that the bottom of the Dead Sea is depressed nearly 6,000 feet below the general land-level."

A "cross-fault," we are told, extends from the Jordan a little south of Lake Galilee to the Mediterranean at the north end of Mount Carmel. This is occupied by the plain of Esdraelon, a depression that affords the natural line of communication between the shores of the Mediterranean and the country east of the Jordan. This world's natural highway, however, is so walled in on each side that there is little temptation for an armed force to interfere with peaceable people on either. In these facts, Professor Wright finds evidences of divine purpose in preparing the home of the “peculiar people."

Examination of the banks of the Jordan near the Pilgrims' Bathing-Place, above the Dead Sea, discloses the following succession of geological events:

"First there had been an elevation of about fifteen feet, during which erosion had proceeded to that extent. Then there had been a return of the water to the higher level and a resedimentation up to the old limit. This was followed by a rechanneling of the whole, during which the river had cut through both the later and upper sediment, and also for fifteen feet lower down.

The most natural interpretation of this succession is, that after the channel had been cut down the first fifteen feet, there was an elevation, through subterranean forces, of the bed of the stream a mile or two below. This would dam up the water temporarily, and afford a dry crossing-place for a few hours, or even longer, and make the waters seem to pile up above, as described in Josh. iii. 16. When, however, at length, the water began to run over the obstacle to its progress, there would be opportunity to refill with sediment a part of its bed above; so that, on later reerosion to its present level, it would present the phenomena now to be observed."

A similar subsidence or elevation of the land would account for the falling of the walls of Jericho. As for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah Professor Wright has this to say:

"The probable secondary causes employed in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah have been so well described by Sir J. W. Dawson in his Egypt and Syria' (pp. 127-131) that a few additional remarks are all that is necessary. The Upper Cretaceous strata which, in the great Jordan fault, have been thrown down below the level of the Dead Sea, contain much bituminous limestone, such as naturally gives rise to pools of petroleum and inflammable gas. Familiarity with the gas and oil regions of the United States, and a recent visit to the still more remarkable oilfields at Baku, on the Caspian Sea, make the description of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah seem exceedingly natural and lifelike. . . . The region of the Dead Sea is a somewhat similar gas- and oil-field, over a deep fissure in the earth leading far down toward its central fires. The description of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah reads almost exactly like that of some of the scenes known to have accompanied the burning of various

petroleum wells and of the stores of inflammable substances surrounding them."

The fate of Lot's wife is accounted for, Professor Wright thinks, by the fact that "eruptions of gas and oil are often accompanied with eruptions of salt slime such as presumably enveloped her as she lingered behind." And salt is an abundant constituent of the rocks around the Dead Sea.

THE

WHAT THE MORMONS BELIEVE.

HE Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, popularly known as Mormons (from the title of their sacred writings in the Book of Mormon), are eliciting more than usual attention by reason of their missionary zeal. It is reported that the church has secured a land grant of 100,000 acres in the Sierra Madre country, Mexico, where a colony of Mormons has for a year been thriving, and where they are already beginning to make large shipments of cattle to the United States. In the upper part of New York City (Bronx Borough) missionaries have been making a house-to-house canvass, and emboldened, it is said, by their success, have been attending week-day meetings of various Protestant churches and taking advantage of the liberty of speech accorded therein to advance their own doctrines. The president and the secretary (both ladies) of a Christian Endeavor society have lately professed the Mormon faith, and a Mormon temple in New York is said to be under serious consideration for the near future. The president of the Eastern States Mission of the church, John S. McQuarrie, in an interview with a New York Herald representative, claimed one thousand converts in this vicinity, and is reported to have said :

"We are not sending proselytes to Utah and the adjoining States by the trainload, as reported in some newspapers. It is the policy of the Mormon Church to-day to discourage centralization. The Latter-Day Saints intend to spread their doctrine broadcast. The propaganda will be made universal. To facilitate the work it is planned to localize our communities. Wherever the number of converts warrant it we shall establish churches or places of worship."

What seems to be a fairly complete statement of the doctrinal views of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was recently made before the Denver Philosophical Society by Dr. James E. Talmage, of the University of Utah. The address is published in full in the April and May numbers of The Improvement Era (Salt Lake City). Mr. Talmage lays stress on the claim that the creed of his church is "preeminently Christian in theory, precept, and practise," and that "it refuses to wear a name indicative of distinctive or peculiar doctrines." As one characteristic feature of the church is belief in continuous revelation, the church is not limited to any formal statement of beliefs made in the past, not even to the thirteen articles promulgated by Joseph Smith and published over half a century ago. Nothing antagonistic to these articles has, however, been promulgated since. The more distinctive beliefs are set forth by Mr. Talmage as follows (no reference to the question of polygamy appearing in his discourse) :

"Mormonism' rejects what it regards as a heresy, the false doctrine of predestination, as an absolute compulsion or even as an irresistible tendency forced upon the individual toward right or wrong-as a pre-appointment to eventual exaltation or condemnation; yet it affirms that the infinite wisdom and foreknowledge of God make plain to him the end from the beginning; and that he can read in the natures and dispositions of his children their destiny.

***Mormonism' claims an actual and literal relationship of parent and child between the Creator and man-not in the figurative sense in which the engine may be called the child of its builder; not the relationship of a thing mechanically made to the maker thereof; but the connection between father and offspring.

In short, it is bold enough to declare that man's spirit being the offspring of Deity, and man's body though of earthy components yet being in the very image and likeness of God, man even in his present degraded-aye, fallen-condition still possesses, if only in a latent state, inherited traits, tendencies, and powers that tell of his more than royal descent; and that these may be developed so as to make him, even while mortal, in a measure godlike.

"But 'Mormonism' is bolder yet. It asserts that in accordance with the inviolable law of organic nature-that like shall beget like, and that multiplication of numbers and perpetuation of species shall be in compliance with the condition 'each after his kind the child may achieve the former status of the parent, and that in his mortal condition man is a God in embryo. However far in the future it may be, what ages may elapse, what eternities may pass before any individual now a mortal being may attain the rank and sanctity of godship, nevertheless man carries in his soul the possibilities of such achievement; even as the crawling caterpillar or the corpse-like chrysalis holds the latent possibility, nay, barring destruction in an earlier stage, the certainty indeed, of the winged image in all the glory of maturity.

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Mormonism' claims that all nature, both on earth and in heaven, operates on a plan of advancement; that the very Eternal Father is a progressive Being; that His perfection, while so complete as to be incomprehensible by man, possesses this essential quality of true perfection-the capacity of eternal increase. That therefore, in the far future, beyond the horizon of eternities perchance, man may attain the status of a god. Yet this does not mean that he shall be then the equal of the Deity we worship, nor that he shall ever overtake those intelligences that are already beyond him in advancement; for to assert such would be to argue that there is no progression beyond a certain stage of attainment, and that advancement is a characteristic of low organization and inferior purpose alone. We believe that there was more than the sounding of brass or the tinkling of wordy cymbals in the fervent admonition of the Christ to His followers Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.'"

"Mormonism' accepts the doctrine of the Fall and the account of the transgression in Eden, as set forth in Genesis; but it af firms that none but Adam shall ever have to account for Adam's disobedience; that mankind in general are absolutely absolved from the responsibility for that 'original sin,' and that each shall answer for his own transgressions alone."

Next to polygamy, which the "Mormons" profess now to discard, in practise tho not in theory, the most characteristic feature of the church is probably the belief in progressive revelation and the importance which that belief assumes in the conduct of the church. Says Mr. Talmage:

"The church must be in direct communication with the heav enly kingdom, of which the earthly kingdom when established shall be a part. Of such a nature was the church in so far as it existed before the time of Christ's earthly ministry; for the Biblical record is replete with instances of direct communication between the prophets and their God. The Scriptures are silent as to a single dispensation in which the spiritual leaders of the people depended upon the records of earlier times and bygone ages for their guidance; but, on the contrary, the evidence is complete that in every stage of the church's history the God of heaven communicated His mind and will unto His earthly representatives. . . . Mormonism' claims the same necessity to exist to-day. It holds that it is no more possible now than it was in the days of the ancient prophets or in the apostolic age for the Church of Christ to exist without direct and continuous revelation from God. This necessitates the existence and authorized ministrations of prophets, apostles, high priests, seventies, elders, bishops, priests, teachers, and deacons, now as ancientlynot men selected by men without authority, clothed by human ceremonial alone, not men with the empty names of these and analogous offices, but men who bear the title because they possess the authority, having been called of God."

Other features of the “Mormon" belief are that there was a falling away of the true Church of Christ dating from the time immediately following the apostolic period, and that it has only

been restored through Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, under the hands of John the Baptist, who visited them as a resurrected being. It believes in the second probation for all who have not had opportunity in this life to comply with the requirements of salvation. Not only must the Gospel be carried to every living creature, but the great missionary labor of the church must be extended to the realm of the dead.

Descendants of King David in Russia.-That there are certain families among the Jews who claim to be the lineal descendants of King David is a well-known fact. Concerning the most pronounced claimants to this honor, Ueber Land und Meer (No. 13) gives the following details:

The recent death of Prince Alexander Konstantinowitz Imeretinsky, in Russia, who was governor-general of Warsaw, brings into public prominence again the interesting genealogical tradition that in this family are to be found the most thoroughly accredited descendants of King David. The Imeretinskys are a branch of the princely family of the Bagratian, which claims that it can trace its ancestry up to the great Jewish ruler. Among others, the Byzantine Emperor Constantin Porphyrogeneta, in his annals, has recognized the claim of this family to a Davidic descent. It is noteworthy that the book which in Russia occupies the position held by the "Almanach de Gotha" in Central Europe, namely the "Annuaire de la Noblesse de Russie contenant les Princes de l'Empire," and printed by the Imperial Publication House in St. Petersburg, gives a most complete account of the Jewish origin and descent of the princes of the houses of Bagratian and Imeretinsky, and emphasizes the fact that not a single sovereign dynasty in Europe can trace its line further back than they. It is a fact that in the genealogy of this family the name of David often occurs, David I. having died in 881. The members of this family in the “Annuaire ” acknowledge that originally they were of Jewish origin, but that generations ago the persecutions of the times had compelled their ancestors to embrace the Christian religion. It is further known that members of this princely family as early as the fifteenth century were monks.—Translation made for THE LITERary Digest.

RELIGIOUS NOTES.

THE threatened depopulation of Ireland, indicated by the decrease just reported in the latest census, is regarded as having a serious religious as well as secular bearing. The religious census gives 3,310,028 Roman Catholics, a decrease of 6.7 per cent.; 579,285 members of the Anglican Church of Ireland, a decrease of 3.5 per cent.; 443,494 Presbyterians, a decrease of 0.3 per cent.; and 61,255 Methodists, an increase of 10.4 per cent. If that tendency should continue, it is evidently only a question of time when Ireland shall become a Protestant country. The decrease among Roman Catholics is attributed almost wholly to emigration; while much of the Protestant increase is traced, by some of the Dublin papers, to the fact that the overwhelming bulk of Methodists and Presbyterians are to be found in the industrial centers, where they are not under such obligations to emigrate as are the peasant population.

SOME of the ministers in Buffalo are still trying to induce the directors of the Pan-American Exposition to rescind their recent decision to open the fair on Sundays, and are advising reprisals, altho a part of the clergy are in favor of Sunday opening. One of the bitterest denouncers of the directors is the Rev. S. S. Mitchell, of the First Congregational Church, who, according to the Buffalo Express (April 29), even counsels such a rebuff of the fair as shall render it a failure. He is reported to have said: "I can but sincerely hope that from Maine to Texas a spirit will be aroused which at whatever expense will again teach the lesson that an Ishmaelitist Ingersoll is not the American nation; that a sporadic Conway is not the American nation; that the Sunday excursion is not the American nation; but that the great republic on these western shores is a Christian nation, one of whose oldest legacies and one of whose most cherished institutions is the American Sunday." On the other hand, in a matter of similar public interest, the London Christian World publishes with apparent approval the following letter from Lord Balfour defending his decision to open the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art on Sunday afternoons: "In point of principle I am unable to agree that a visit to a museum is a contravention of any divine law. If a citizen of Edinburgh may not go to a museum, by what right does any one of us enjoy a walk in our own or somebody else's garden? In deciding the practical question, I think we must keep in view the extent of the innocent gratification as well as improvement offered to those whose opportunities for both are otherwise limited. I believe that in these respects the advantages will be very great as compared with the amount of labor involved."

FOREIGN TOPICS.

EUROPEAN COMMENT ON THE SUPREME COURT'S DECISION.

ONTINENTAL European comment on the decision of the

CON

Supreme Court with reference to our "new possessions" is chiefly along the line of warning to the United States that it must now accept the responsibilities as well as the privileges of an empire. Europe, says the Temps (Paris), has always regarded the American Supreme Court as superior in authority and dignity to Congress and the President. Its power to determine the supreme law of the land makes it unique among judicial tribunals the world over. But the recent decision has severely tried this journal's faith. "What a situation!" it remarks. "President McKinley, the school of 'manifest destiny,' the lovers of 'spread-eagleism,' and the advocates of a standing army have

(London) observes that the decision clears the air and does away with "much bunkum about freedom, rights of citizenship, one man as good as another, and everybody 'boss.'" This journal remarks further:

"The black population of the United States are only modified citizens, as anybody who is not blinded by mere words can see from the most superficial observation. The distinction strikes the visitor to the States full in the face. And so, in fact, the ruling element of the United States is proceeding in the old ways of pride of race and love of power, controlled, it may be, by ideas of essential justice, but domineering and imperial as the nation from which it is its chief boast to have sprung."- Translations made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

CAN THE OPPOSITION IN ENGLAND BE

UNITED?

triumphed. The liberal souls, the friends of peace and prog- ALTHO the presentation of the British budget, showing not

ress, social and economic reforms, the good citizens who have remained faithful to the ideals of Washington, of Jefferson, of Lincoln, all are oppressed by apprehension and regret." The Temps thinks that the United States has certainly not helped to increase the peace prospects of the twentieth century. M. Alcide Ebray, writing in the Journal des Débats (Paris), says the decision was to have been expected. He writes:

"No doubt, when the war with Spain broke out the Americans were animated by the most generous of sentiments. But very soon cold reason inspired them with other feelings and ideas. They could not resist being possessed by the conception and convic tion that, tho they might permit the new lands to have all the inconveniences of home government, they could not possibly accord to them equal rights with themselves. It was no more a matter of chivalry, but of economics and politics. In the first place, American industry and commerce feared the competition of the territories and thought they could see salvation only in a customs tariff. From the point of view of politics, Washington statesmen dreaded the introduction of the mixed peoples of the islands into their Anglo-Saxon stock in the Union."

Accordingly, concludes this writer, the practical, material Anglo-Saxon idea triumphed and a new empire was created.

The Kreuz-Zeitung (Berlin) thinks that the division in the Supreme Court was significant as showing the division of opinion among the American people. The Court, it says, finds itself in the same dilemma as the politics of the United States. The Americans want over-sea possessions, but have no legal apparatus to govern them and no homogeneous public sentiment in favor of holding them. The Frankfurter Zeitung says that the decision was awaited by all the world with more interest than any decision since the days of slavery. The direct result, it continues, will be to consolidate and strengthen the expansionists and jingoes:

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only the enormous cost of the Transvaal war, but also the increase in ordinary expenditure under the Conservative government, seemed to crystallize and unite, to a certain degree, the opposition in England, the attempts of the British Liberals to get together still seem doomed to failure. The principal line of cleavage is, of course, between those who favor and those who oppose the further prosecution of the war. The recent banquet of the National Reform Union (at which the division in Liberal

pel of expansion has been written by the Supreme Court of the republic. The voice of a President can never have the same moral effect as the pronunciamento of the great supreme legal tribunal. From their youth upward the masses of the American people have had it preached to them that the Supreme Court of the United States is the most eminent tribunal of the whole world, that its decisions rise above parties and, without respect to politics, consider only the best interests of the entire country. From now on, in every town, in every hamlet, on every farm of the backwoods, where perhaps the propaganda of the expansionists has hitherto found no support, a gradual but sure change to sentiment will begin. The decision of the Supreme Court has set the seal and stamp of authority on the policy of expansion."

The general tone of British comment was indicated by our symposium in THE LITERARY DIGEST of June 22. The Outlook

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ranks was plainly shown), the return of Lord Milner from South Africa, and several noteworthy speeches by prominent Liberal leaders have furnished the theme for considerable newspaper discussion as to the prospects of a united opposition to the present government.

The opposition journals criticize the Government for extravagance and blame Lord Salisbury and Secretary Chamberlain for the initiation and long continuation of the war. The ministerial organs reply by pointing out the difficulties to be encountered in prosecuting the war against the Boers and by taunting the opposition, first with a lack of patriotism, and second with the lack of any settled policy. The Times (London), which supports the Government, believes that the "howling of the opposition against the war taxes has been greatly overdone." "The obligation," it says, "should be met cheerfully, as it is "for the defense of principles, institutions, and policies which are essential to the maintenance of the imperial power." It asserts that the "congeries of politicians calling themselves Liberals can never unite on a great and grave issue," and will not, for a long time, unite on this one. Anti-Chamberlainism, says The Spectator, seems to be the only basis the opposition has for a creed. But

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if the Colonial Secretary is so valuable as the nexus of the Liberal Party, it is injudicious if not suicidal for Liberals to clamor for his removal. The Spectator quotes, in this connection, a paragraph from the Bibliothèque Universelle (Paris) giving the comment of a Russian editor on the death of ex-King Milan, of Servia. This editor (M. Dorochevitch) laments the death of Milan, as the latter was the only personage Russian journalists could discuss freely. Warned off the forbidden ground of home politics, they could always fall back on the latest scandal about King Milan. "Who is left us now?" continues M. Dorochevitch. "Chamberlain! Yes, happily we still have Chamberlain. Of him also I can say anything that comes into my head. But if Chamberlain were to take it into his head to die? Only think of it: May heaven preserve him! For if Chamberlain were to die, there would be nothing left for the Russian press but to repair collectively to his tomb and commit suicide." For "Russian" read "Radical," comments The Spectator, and the saying holds equally good. "Take away Mr. Chamberlain and Othello's oc

JOHN BULL: "Has not blood enough been spilled in South Africa?"
CHAMBERLAIN: "No! Now you yourself must bleed."
-Humoristische Blätter, Vienna.

cupation's gone." The Standard also comments sarcastically on Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's injunction to the opposition to "close ranks." It says:

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"This counsel is rather more difficult to follow than the others. No regiment can 'dress' with accuracy when half the files are facing one way and half the other. Nor can an advance be smoothly executed when those behind, like the Volscians in Macaulay's ballad, cry Forward!' and those in the front cry Back!' Sir Henry, in his genial way, puts the matter quite pleasantly. Liberals, he says, are a party of active-minded politicians with many shades of view.' Exactly. And the difficulty is with regard to those very shades of view."

The country is entitled to demand from the Opposition a clear expression of its views, says The Daily Telegraph, but none is yet forthcoming. The heavy cost of the campaign in South Africa, says the Yorkshire Herald, will not do for an anti-governmental rallying-point. It continues:

"The price of our victory is so large that it will stiffen the

British people in their determination to see the ugly business through. Business men do not ordinarily expend large sums of money upon the development of a market and then withdraw at the moment when they may expect a reasonable profit upon their enterprise; and even if prestige were altogether eliminated from the South African question the electors of this country would capsize any administration. Unionist or Radical, that endeavored to evade its responsibilities by retiring from the recently annexed territory."

The great objects of the Liberal Party, declares The Speaker (Liberal), now are "to stanch the bleeding wounds of South Africa, to stop the week

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ly waste of a million and a half, to reintroduce sanity into foreign and colonial policy, and to set back the 'normal' expenditure upon the army from thirty millions to eighteen-where it stood in the days of the last Liberal administration." The immediate duty of the Opposition is to enlighten England: "To give their countrymen full and true knowledge about the war, its causes, its conduct, and its results, that is the first elementary duty of Liberal men and women. Knowledge will bring repentance, and repentance salvation."

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HITTING THE TRAIL.

JOHN BULL: "De Wet's crazy, h'is 'e? Well, there'll be two h'of h'us if Hi don't soon get me blooming 'ands on 'im." -Toronto Telegram.

Liberals, declares The Westminster Gazette (generally Liberal in its views, tho "imperialistic" with regard to the Boer war), agree in wishing to see a Liberal colonial policy in South Africa, and "they are warned by the attitude of ministers and of a strong party in South Africa that unless there is a united body of Liberal opinion in this country [England] the reconstitution of South Africa is likely to be fixed on lines which postpone indefinitely the realization of colonial self-government."

The Gazette criticizes the Government because, it says, from the beginning of diplomacy to the present stage of the war, they have "pinned their faith to strong language, electioneering speeches, and popular excitement, and they are still of opinion that if anything has gone wrong, it is because a small minority have held aloof from the general excitement." There may be other justification, but there is not and never could be any busi

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