tical departments. The music of the orchestra is one in its general harmony while varied by instruments and voice, by tune and tone.

In the church of God, likewise, there is one animating spirit, the sense of allegiance to a common Lord, such as is consistent with every variety of temperament and natural taste, resulting in kaleidoscopic experiences and multitudinous activities. There are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit; differences of administration under the same Lord; varied opera. tions in the same economy In the body of Christ we find not one member, but many members working by variety of method to a higher harmony. In the diversity, not less than in the unity, is found the true glory of the church of Christ. The unity of Christendom is vital-so vital that genuine Christianity cannot exist without it. It is not something attached to religion, it is an essential part of religion itself. It is not something to be attained by and by; wherever there is true Christianity this unity already exists.

But, important as is the unity of spirit in the bonds of peace, the uniformity for which some so frequently and earnestly contend is not indispensable. Many are saved in dissent, often by means of dissent. Uniformity not seldom crushes out unity; the form wars against the spirit. The Kingdom of Christ is not form, but spiritual life. In a world like ours forms must needs be; they need not be uni-forms. Conformity to the outward may be treason to what is more precious within. Not seldom has conformity repressed the best experiences, giving us the husk rather than the kernel inclosed in it. Henry VIII and Elizabeth and Loud tried to enforce conformity; but they tried in vain. To their failure is the Christian world to-day indebted for whatever is most significant and precious in current Christianity. The measures they opposed are the very measures which have brought in the modern church, with its popular modes of address and work, in revivals, Sunday schools and young people's organizations. The plea for uniformity in rites, ceremonies and forms of worship, is a false scent. The oneness for which Christ prayed was not formal, but spiritual—-a unity of heart, the bond of love, the law of kindness.-Zion's Herald (Methodist).

THE PAPAL DECREE AGAINST SECRET SOCIETIES. ONE of those tactical blunders of which it is quite capable has just been made by the Roman Propaganda It has decided that it is forbidden to Roman Catholics in America to join not merely the Masonic order, but also the Odd Fellows, the Sons of Temperance and the Knights of Pythias. The question has been long in discussion in the Catholic Church, both in the United States and in Canada. The stricter bishops have declared that the prohibition of long standing against joining the Masons and kindred secret societies in Europe applied not only to the Masons here, but also to all other secret societies, while other bishops interpreted the rule with laxity, and allowed their members to join, on condition that they should withdraw if the decision of Rome went against the disputed orders. That decision from Rome has appeared; the strict constructionists have won the day, and there is nothing for Catholic members of these three societies to do but to withdraw or suffer

excommunication.

We are no advocates of any of these secret societies; yet we must say that we see no justice or right in making membership even of the Masonic order a reason for excommunication. We put no faith in the horrible stories told in Catholic papers of the profane rites practiced in European Masonic lodges, the travesties on the Christian sacraments and the worship of Satan, told as veritable fact by the Catholic Review in a late series of articles. It may be that the order is atheistic in Italy; we do not know; but we accept the statement of its members here that it acknowledges the Supreme God. Our complaint against it would rather be that those who are most devoted to it are in danger of thinking it something so good that the Christian Church becomes unnecessary. Yet we do not question that men may be members of our Masonic order and be quite worthy Christians, as good Christians as the average Catholic or Protestant communicant, and that it would be wrong to forbid them to be members of that order on pain of exclusion from the Church. Much more is this the case with orders like the Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, or the Sons of Temperance, whose purpose is evidently good-to promote sociability and to provide for each other in case of sickness or death.

Nobody can pretend that its purpose is to hide immorality or to inculcate infidelity or treason. The members are decent, moral people, perhaps half of them communicants in Christian churches. They do help each other in trouble, assist the unemployed to get work, aid their poor, provide for their widows and orphans, and do not a little which our

churches might do to their own advantage. The fact that the churches do not do it is the reason for their strength. We say this in simple justice, and from general knowledge and common report; for we believe not one of the corps of active editors of the Independent is a member of any one of these secret societies. We say that if we are not utterly mistaken as to the character of these three societies the Roman Propaganda has made one of its mistakes in this decision. We see no reason for wantonly setting decent people against the Church. There are doubtless some thousands of Catholic members of these societies. If, as we suppose, they know that these societies are not profane, atheistic or irreligious, that they attempt to promote temperance, good morals and innocent sociability, that they provide a sort of insurance in case of sickness or death for their members. then these thousands of Catholics know that it is not evidently wrong to be a member. These secret societies may be useful, or they may be quite superfluous; but it is necessary in these days that people, free people, have the religious freedom to decide such things for themselves. The Church that undertakes to decide such things for them discredits and weakens itself. Those are the wisest counselors in the Roman Catholic Church who are trying to enlarge its freedom and make its methods consistent with the liberty of this closing century and this age of self-government.-New York Independent (Evangelical).

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ESSENTIALS IN JUDAISM.

In an historic faith there must be the letter as well as the spirit, institutions which preserve the ideas and ideals of that religion and without which they would not endure in their purity and effectiveness. Jewish essentials comprise both the letter and the spirit. Neither can be insisted upon as alone vital. Both must be regarded as necessary complements of each other. The root-idea of Judaism is primarily Unitarianism, but a mere bald belief in God's unity would not differentiate the Hebrew. He can hardly cut away the historic basis of his religion and part company with the entire record of its religious life and development. It is true, we recognize successive eras in the history of the Jew, his traditions, his Bible, his ritual code, his philosophy. Thus Mosaism may be regarded as one stage, prophetism as another; rabbinism in its early and its later periods, with such outgrowths as Karaism and Chassidism, as a further development. Modern Judaism from Mendelssohn's day, with its variations and phases, conservative and radical according to the point of view, represents the continuous progress of our old religion.

We call essentials, not the prevalent custom or philosophy, which may differ with age and clime and environment, but such fundamental observances which have been universal among Jews, such institutions as have ever maintained the Jew's vitality. We deem the Sabbath of Sinai, not the Sunday of Calvary, the first Jewish essential. As to how it is to be observed, how long and how short are to be our devotions, what shall be the limitations of our activity on that day-these points are left to each individual's conscience and are largely matters of training and surround. ings. We deem the national religious holidays essential in Judaism. The manner of observance may differ, but they are to be observed for all that. We deem the Jewish home essential-such a home where due regard, not superstitious exaggeration, is paid to the dietary enactments, and where the young are taught to revere the faith and history of their religion and instructed in the literature and traditions of Israel.

We deem the synagogue an essential, the association of our brethren for worship and instruction at stated times. As to the synagogue's by-laws, architecture, the program of services, the size of the prayerbook, these are secondary matters and have always varied. Holding to these essentials, as representing the letter of Judaism, its institutional character, there is wide room for the culture of the spirit, for education in the graces and refinements of life, for the fullest exercise of the lofty ethical virtues of Judaism and humanity. Without such balance wheels, however, we fear that the Jew loses his raison d'etre and is practically superfluous, as Jew, on the world's stage.-Jewish Messenger.

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RELIGIOUS NOTES.

The Brotherhoood of Andrew and Philip, now more than six years old, numbers 227 chapters, and has a membership of over 5,600, representing twelve denominations.

As a nation, Japan is a child of the nineteenth century. The progress of Christianity in Japan is one of the marvels of modern church history. The first five years of faithful Christian struggle produced one convert. In 1872 was organized the first Evangelical Church of eleven members. Now there are 365 churches with a membership of 35,534,—The Interior.

The appropriations of the Methodist Episcopal Church for Foreign Missions for the coming year are $592,940, and for Home $478,205. For the debt last year $175,764, and miscellaneous $119,000, making a total of $1,365,909.

When we pray for any virtue we should cultivate it as well. Let the petition which you voice before God be a charge which you address to yourself. By turning requests into precepts, and the offering up of our desires into self-applied injunctions, we best understand what is meant by acceptable prayer. By what we ask of God we see what it is that he requires of us. Thus we prove the sincerity of our words and gauge the measure of answered prayers.-Mid-Continent.

The Episcopal Year Book for 1895, just published, shows that in the Church there are 68 institutions, not including 4 celibate orders for men, 5 schools for deaconesses, and 20 sisterhoods. One hundred and fifty-six ministers have been ordained during the year; 2 new bishops have been consecrated; 58 ministers and 3 bishops have died; 20 ministers have been deposed. In New York City there are 86 churches and chapels. The whole number of parishes and missions in the United States is 4,870; the number of ministers, 4,323; the number of communicants, 580,507; during the year there were 42,385 confirmations and 60,317 baptisms.

Jew refers to the religion which the Jews profess. Hebrew refers to a language which they no longer speak, and has consequently no meaning at the present time. Israelite refers to a nation which they at one time formed, and it has at present no signification except when reference is made to the ancient nation. The Jews are a religious community, and that is all that separates them, or rather distinguishes them, from their fellow citizens. The Jews do not call themselves Hebrews. A few who do not know any better may call themselves so, but they are wrong. Those who know what is right call themselves Jews, and that is the only correct name.-Jewish Tidings.

The Year Book for 1895 of the Lutheran Synod of Ohio shows the remarkable growth of the denɔmination during the past year. The full figures for the Lutheran branches in this country are now 5,514 pastors, 2,830 parochial school teachers, 9,457 congregations, and 1,462,217 communicants or confirmed members. The official United States statistics for 1890 credited the Lutherans with 8,595 organizations and 1,231,072 communicants. The sixty synods in this country are divided into 12 independent bodies, with 281,608 members, and four general bod、 ies, namely: The Synodical Conference, with 514,236; the General Council, with 436,418; the General Synod, with 170,911, and the United Synod of the South, with 39,044.

The conclusions reached by the conference held by the Pope with Monsignor Youssef, the Melchite Patriarch, Mon ignor Benni, the Syriac Patriarch, and Cardinals Rampolla, Galimberti, Ledochowski, Vincenzo, Vannutelli and Langenieux, are: The Pope should send out to the whole world a letter of appeal to recommend the work of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, thus to bring into existence the funds for the realization of the union; that an autonomous commission of Cardinals distinct from the Propaganda should be established to deal with the Eastern questions, with a return to unity as its object; that schools should be established in the East by placing at the disposal of the Patriarch the sums necessary for their new needs, and that a special encyclical should be sent to the Eastern churches to invite them to come back to the rule of Peter and to assure them of respect by Rome for their ancient privileges and rites. The Holy Father offers to accept the churches with their rich diversity, their disciplines, their rituals, their customs, on condition that they accept the primacy of Peter, once proclaimed by the doctors of the Orient.-Catholic Review.

AT first, everything went well. At the exhibitions, the pictures of Hunt and Millais were favorably hung. Their realism shocked no one, the Times was gracious, the professors of the Royal Academy moderate in their criticisms. No one had seen the mysterious letters, P. R. B., which were the signs of conspiracy. The pictures even found purchasers. But rendered rash by their success, the Pre-Raphaelites founded a little review, the Germ, in which they aired their theories and explained the significance of the three letters. This was a revelation. The idea that the Pre-Raphaelites wanted to change anything in the aesthetic constitution of the country horrified the very ones who had been, in no wise, shocked by their paintings. Pre-Raphaelitism was declared a menace to the safety of Great Britain. The entire press of the country was aroused. Even Dickens entered the arena and wrote a furious diatribe against Hunt.

Then it was that the young man who watched and worked at Penmark Hill hastened to their defense. In two letters to the Times John Ruskin scored the official critic roughly. This furious charge against the

See our issues of December 6 and 13, 1894.

Academy disconcerted public opinion. The lines of the enemy wavered. The sensation which followed decided an amateur of Belfast to purchase the "Valentine and Sylvia" of Hunt without having seen it. PreRaphaelitism was saved. In 1846 a man seeking to create a new art had still his army to gather. In 1857, each of the recruits returned to his own specialty. Pre-Raphaelitism was a victor.

But a victor over what? For Pre-Raphaelitism is a term more mysterious than explanatory. Things most contradictory had been features of the struggle. There was contempt for Raphael, while Hunt, in his memoirs, tells us that Raphael had been the great admiration of his youth. The harsh and rigorous style of the Primitives had been inculcated when a single glance at the sensuous mouths of the women of Rossetti brought to mind all the splendor of the Renaissance. It had taught cold realism, uncompromising truth, without the slightest mixture of the imaginative element, but it is exactly this element which holds the gaze in the great works of the school, in Hunt's "Light of the World," in Rossetti's "Dream of Dante." Since then a transcendent idealism has sprung from it, a branch of the great Gothic and religious Renaissance, which has been styled the "Oxford Movement," and which has made the Rossettists zealous and faithful collaborators, although unconscious ones, of Kemble, Newman and Pusey. But the meaning of Pre-Raphaelitism is still unsatisfactory, for to say that a picture is inspired by the Oxford movement would be the same thing as to attempt to explain the system of a locksmith by describing his political opinions. Then, if the attempt is made to reduce Pre-Raphaelitism to one or two methods of study, such as the search for infinitesimal minutiæ of detail and the substitution of the living model for the manikin, with the liberty of choosing a model for a Virgin, a Jesus, or a hero, which seemed the best suited to express the idea, but with the obligation, the model once chosen, of holding to it entirely and copying it scrupulously, without mixing with it the characters of any other figure, or of idealizing it by any remembrance, this would exclude Maddox, Brown and Rossetti. To make Pre-Raphaelites of the Meissoniers, the entomologists of painting, would characterize the first works of Millais and Hunt, but would leave out those of Rossetti. Finally the definitions of certain critics who mount to general considerations, and consider the PreRaphaelite movement as one of the waves of the great current of reaction, of protestation and rebellion which has raised our century above all artificial authority," result in making one lose sight of a school of art, so that a picture belonging to it could not be recognized. Too narrow, if restricted to the striving after detail, it becomes too broad when it is extended to a new philosophy.

There must then have been something more durable than the mere theory of the Pre-Raphaelites. There must have been some idea which united the innovations and guided them for so long a time. In order to find these, both their theory and practice must be examined, not only in the collections of the journals of the P. R. B., but in the museums and galleries. No matter before what work or master one may stand, two characteristics will be discovered: originality of pose and vividness of coloring. Hunt and Millais sought this originality of pose by the scrupulous observation of nature, while Rossetti, on the contrary, obtained it by forcing his imagination. The vigorous tones given by Millais and Hunt to the Surrey landscapes seen and copied in the open air, were obtained by Rossetti by bold experiments in the studio, by improvised juxtapositions. The usual way, about 1850, was to cover the canvas with asphalt and warm tones; then, on this foundation, which never dried, they placed fresh tones, and thus obtained at the first stroke a convenient transparency. But later this beauty passed away; the tones obtained by the mixtures became insipid; the models, not being sustained by the strength of the colors, faded into the canvas, and the asphalt, which never lasts, formed under the dry colors like water under ice, and, subjected to changes of temperature, made the picture crack. While Hunt and Millais sought a remedy by painting on the white canvas, Watts decided to employ only solid colors. And, finally, instead of painting with a mixture of colors which produced disastrous chemical combinations, Watts placed his colors beside, instead of on, each other. And this process, which our pointillists celebrate as a great discovery, connected Watts with the school of the Pre-Raphaelites. Originality of gesture, clearness of coloring, then, formed the soul of their work. The Pre-Raphaelites, in adopting a canvas, and for their system of lights, the sunlight, exaggerated greatly, but they saved English painting. The name of their review, the Germ, was well chosen, for it contained in the germ entire contemporary English painting -Translated for PUBLIC OPINION from the French of Robert de la Sizeranne in the Paris Revue des Deux Mondes.

LITERARY

HISTORIANS AND THEIR METHODS.

THE advocates of the artistic treatment of history seem to imagine that the past has nothing to show but a portrait-gallery of men and women. I would admit at once that the biographical element in history is the most generally stimulating, instructive and important element; that its interest is mainly, though not entirely, psychological; and that it is essentially suited to picturesque and dramatic treatment. And I would agree with Lucian when he says that a man stands in need of some poetry when he comes to describe stirring events, such as martial arrays and battles, and sea-fights, for that he will want a wind from Helicon "to waft the boats along and to carry the ship over the crests of the wave."

But I deny that history is all of this texture, or that all parts of it lend themselves to such glowing treatment. The growth of laws and institu tions, the history of finance, of military and naval organization, of art and letters and science, are all portions of the history of man, and are capable of being portrayed both accurately and vividly on lines independent of biographical interest. Macaulay believed that the greatness of England was due to the patriotism and enlightenment of one party in the State, and he set himself down to write the history of that party; Taine, listening as an invalid to the speeches of the Revolution contained in Buchez and Roux, divined the intellectual inferiority of the Jacobins, and projected an inquiry into the causes which had raised them into promi

nence.

protest

Carlyle wrote a prose epic; Froude an impassioned against the Papacy and the High Church movement; Guizot an analysis of the growth of civilization; the Bishop of Oxford an encyclopædic blue-book on Constitutional Antiquities. Every method of approaching the past is justifiable so long as it does not land you in misrepresentation, and every method of writing history is capable of being combined with exact and conscientious work.

There is room for doubt whether history is as good an educational instrument as philosophy, or language, or physical science; but there can be no doubt whatever, that, if history is to be studied at all, it must be scientific history, studied scientifically. A subject proposed for study in one of our universities must aim at ripening the judgment, not at inflaming the passions. Rhetorical and partisan histories have their uses, however inaccurate they may be; they stimulate interest, they provoke opposition, they send men to the original sources. But if the work is not to evaporate in declamation, the predominant tone, both of the teachers who teach, and of the writings from which they teach, must be critical. To learn to weigh evidence, and to arrive at a just judgment is the one lesson which a properly devised course of history can hope to instill. It is more important than the acquisition of all the ready-made facts and readymade views in all the histories in the world. There is another consideration which should recommend minute and critical study, at any rate at the universities. The long majestic histories are already written, the "great outlines" are already known. If the interest in history is to keep fresh and green, new material must be explored and new lines of investigation opened out. It cannot, of course, be supposed that these special histories will appeal to so large a public as the great literary histories of the past; but they will each have their own public, and that public will be more interested in everything which they have to tell, than it can be interested in everything which the majestic historian has to tell. And it is from these special histories of economics, of diplomacy, of law, of special reigns and periods that the majestic historian of the future will fill bis sails when the appointed time has arisen. A university cannot hope to manufacture Gibbons; but it can hope to turn out men to whom the Gibbon of the future may fling a word of gratitude in a footnote. And if any other argument for the scientific study of history be required, it may be justified by national pride. We are allowing the foreigner to do the work which we ought to do ourselves.

The best political history of England in the Middle Ages comes from Germany; the best account of the English Navy from America; the best

monograph on Simon de Montfort from France; the best study on Euglish Villeinage from Russia. The Anglo-Saxon laws have been almost monopolized by Germans and Americans; English Commercial History has been left to a German. The best books on the Elizabethan novel, on "Piers Ploughman," on English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages, have come from the pen of a talented and scholarly Frenchman. The English Record Office is far better known in Paris than it is in London. Until Professor Maitland began his masterly researches, the materials for the history of English law had scarcely been worked upon, and perhaps the best work that had been done had come from Professor Bigelow, of Massachusetts, and Dr. Schmid, of Berne. Compared with the enormous volume of learned ink which France and Germany have poured out upon municipal institutions, our contribution to the subject appears infinitesimal. We have no one monograph on any reign in our mediæval history which can compare for scholarship and erudition with such a book, for instance, as Langlois's Philippe le Hardi," or with any volume of the Jahrbücher you may choose to take down from the shelves. And we are leaving the bibliography of our history to an American who received his training at Göttingen.-Herbert A. L. Fisher, in the Fortnightly Review for December.

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THE WELSH LANGUAGE.

THE pure Cymric has been well called the most extraordinary monument of antiquity extant. Both in its structure and affinities it evidences a most remote origin, and is undoubtedly one of the oldest living languages in Europe, while its literature carries us further backward than any modern tongue except the Gaelic. Its unique system of versification —which will be more fully spoken of further on-is found in manuscripts five hundred years old, and had attained its highest degree of perfection when every European tongue that we now know of was in "the dark womb of barbarity." A stately speech it is, a trifle stilted at times.

The Welsh always having been a literary people, imaginative rather than practical, their speech has naturally been more or less controlled by literary standards, and has retained its poetic form and flavor. It presents some curiously opposite traits. That it is essentially the most jawbreaking of tongues must be named an impolite fiction for which apology is owing. No tongue is beautiful in the mouths of all its speakers; the "sweet bastard Latin " may be vulgarized into a frightful hiss, and in our Southwest I have heard Spanish which sounded like the crackling of thorns under a pot.

Cymric well spoken is not unlike the Greek; in fact, the first time I listened to an address in it I was strongly reminded of the latter language, so rhythmical was it, so velvety smooth, then again so full of resonant, big-mouth words. Yet it has at least one poetical composition that is known as "the shibboleth of sobriety," because no man who is drunk can possibly repeat it. In music itself discord may be piled on discord, until both ear and soul are rent asunder; and it is the unlimited capacity of the Welsh language for producing musical combinations of sounds that also gives it its extraordinary power of cacophony. A synthetic and highly inflected tongue, rich in compounds which have the sudden, direct and telling quality of the Greek compounds, it is capable at the same time of great conciseness and of an almost indefinite expansion and elaborateness of phrase. In its numberless inflected forms it shows, of course, a lack of full development, but much of its fluidity and beauty is owing to these inflections, which enable the writer of Welsh poetry to perform capers in versification quite beyond the reach of the versifiers of any other nationality.

Not the least remarkable thing about this remarkable language is the love lavished upon it by those to whom it belongs. The sound of his mother-tongue is truly dear to every one, especially when he is away from his country and hearing unknown accents. But this sentiment is apt to be a mere instinctive one, expressed in some superficial way, as, "How good to hear the old home words again!" It is something entirely different from the appreciative, critical admiration which the Welshman bestows upon his dear Cymraeg. The language is a cult with him; he not only loves, he reverences and adores it—not just because it is his own, but for itself. He thinks it the most beautiful thing in the world; he rolls out its mellifluous and resounding words, and asks, “Did you ever hear anything so glorious?" Perhaps it is not too much to say that he would die for it.-Edith Brower, in the Atlantic Monthly for January.

BOOK REVIEWS.

THE SOUTHERN STATES AND THE UNION.*

Mr. Curry starts out with the statement that his book is "not controversial," and then in the next sentence declares that "its aim is to reconstruct ideas and opinions adverse to the South, in so far as they are founded on ignorance and prejudice." True, one may controvert adverse opinions by relating bald facts, but Mr. Curry does not confine himself to this course. Like all such efforts undertaken for the purpose of righting wrongs, this book bears in every chapter the marks of personal sym. pathy and oftentimes of special pleading. It is the style of an advocate rather than of a judge, of a Froude rather than of a Freeman. The book presents the American Constitution, its origins and its character, from the Southern standpoint. Such a presentation, however, is by no means an unwholesome one for Northern readers, more especially because Mr. Curry is not a mere declaimer, but brings facts and documents and authorities to the support of his conclusions. The smaller, popular histories, both narrative and constitutional, from which Northern people have been accustomed to take their opinions, have been written for the most part from the Northern standpoint. The correct view, the true perspective and proportions, are, of course, to be gained by taking one's position neither upon the apex of the Northern nor upon that of the Southern sectional political structure, but upon the apex of the American Union, high above all sectional prejudice and jealousy.

If one were to depend, then, upon Mr. Curry's book alone for knowledge of American Constitutional history, one would get but an imperfect, at any rate an incomplete, presentation, not so much because of what the author says about the South as because of what he does not say about the North. But it must be admitted that in his account of the growth of the idea of union in the Colonial era, the mutual relations of the Colonies as co-ordinate political branches of the common English trunk, the absolute independence and sovereignty which each Colony and State claimed and exercised after the separation from Great Britain and before the adoption of the Constitution of 1787, Mr. Curry presents the case for the South much more fairly, as far as the facts are concerned and barring the question of proportion, than it has usually been presented in the North. He argues very forcibly that the Constitution was and is a thing of compromises; that its very Preamble, declaring it to be ordained by the people of the United States, has been generally interpreted in the North in a false sense-the sense that the Constitution was adopted by the people of the country as a whole, when in fact it was adopted by the people of the several States voting as citizens of those States; and that it was adopted rather as an experiment, and a very doubtful experiment at that, than as the embodiment of the deliberate, mature, clearly formed and well seasoned convictions of the American people as to the form of government which would best suit their needs and under which they were resolved to maintain a perpetual Union of the States. In this aspect Mr. Curry's book, as far as it has any influence on popular feeling, will tend to check what is known as Constitution worship."

While it is well to study the Constitution in its historical aspect, it is necessary above all things to recognize that the main question to-day is not whether the original States or any of them could or did reserve the right to secede, or whether the doctrine of secession as a shield against Federal usurpation was more prevalent at the North or at the South dur ing the first half century of the Union. The practical question of to-day is, what rights should the States now have, and what changes in the Constitution or in its application and interpretation are demanded by the changes in the political, social and economic conditions of the American people during the past century. The Constitution remains to-day sub. stantially what it was made a hundred years ago, not because the States then adopted it for no generation can bind succeeding generations-but because the logic of self-interest, the instinct of self-preservation, the growth of the forces of cohesion as opposed to those of disintegration, have held the States together and cemented them into a strong and, it is hoped, a permanent Union. It is the spirit of Union, not the written instrument of Union, that has bound the American people together.

What could be more grotesquely inconsistent to-day in a government based avowedly upon the idea of majority rule than the spectacle of the "rotten-borough" Senate, one of the three co-ordinate branches of the Government, wherein fifty or a hundred thousand people of one part of the country are granted as great a representation, as potent a voice, as *The Southern States of the American Union. Considered in their relations to the Constitution of the United States and to the resulting union. By J. L. M. Curry. Cloth, 248 pages, $1.25. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

is accorded to several millions of people in another part of the country. Whatever claims the original thirteen States have to retain such representation-and they have no sufficient claim-nothing whatever can be said in justification of the admission of a dozen new and sparsely settled States, creatures instead of creators of the Union, to such undeserved and dangerous power. Nor does either the principle of Federal representation or that of local self-government afford the least sanction to the idea that the lines of division between the States must remain forever as they happened to be fixed by the vague provisions of certain royal charters two centuries ago, when the continent was a wilderness. Is it reasonable to suppose that the people of small States like Rhode Island and Delaware will forever insist upon bearing the burden of taxation involved in the maintainance of separate State governments?

Fortunate it was for the American people that in the hour of attempted disruption of the Union they had a leader who could read, and who dared obey, the spirit of the Constitution where the letter of it was ambiguous. E. E. R.

THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES.* We have Macaulay's authority for the presumption that a biographer is usually a literary vassal, bound by the immemorial law of his tenure to render homage and to allow the customary services to his lord, but while the estimates made by the different biographers in the book before us may in some instances be open to criticism as being founded on excessive admiration of the subject to the exclusion of carefully exercised judgment, as a rule there is a gratifying absence of undiscriminating panegyric. Such writers as Bancroft, Fiske, Schurz, Gilman and Winthrop -so well equipped by nature and education for their tasks-are unlikely to commit gross errors in this direction. The purpose for which much of the matter was prepared-for Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography-necessarily imposed economy of space, condensation of details of action and entire absence of anecdote. Consequently that sort of interest which is aroused by minute personal description and picturesque elaboration will not be excited by a perusal of this volume.

But the instruction to be derived from twenty-three papers, the work of nineteen writers, the names of whom are familiar from connection with historical researches, is invaluable. If no history can give us the whole truth, surely the lives of the twenty-three Presidents of the United States by so many hands, approaches very nearly to an accurate, connected and complete narrative of the events of the past hundred years, for of them they were a part. A few instances of apparent partisan inaccuracy occur to us, but usually a disposition to weigh evidence carefully and to set down conclusions fairly is obvious. The biographers of General Harrison and Mr. Cleveland-well as they have done their work -are unavoidably weighed down by the consciousness that they are writing of men who are still with us. It seems to be-it must of necessity be-that no biography of a living person can have proper weight, for there is a certain degreee of dispassion which is supposed to be unattainable by the author if he is on familiar terms with him of whom he writes, and over-estimation is usually apparent in the result of his labors. On the other hand if it be the work of one who has no personal acquaintance with the subject of his story, he commonly errs through lack of proper material.

From what we have said as to the necessary exercise of the art of compression, it may be inferred that the book is a mere mass of dates, figures and facts put together as compactly as possible. On the contrary it makes most interesting reading, not to the historical student alone, but to the intelligent non-specialist reader also, and if narrative is sometimes manipulated into conformity with a purely partisan point of view, these are but spots upon the sun. If the worse is sometimes made to appear the better cause, we must place it to the account of poor, weak human nature and be grateful that we at least are above the passions and weaknesses that flesh and spirit are heir to. On page 265 General Pierce is said to have sailed from Newport March 27 and arrived at Vera Cruz June 28, a voyage of three months. Hawthorne says he sailed May 27. The volume is a handsome one of 526 pages, neatly printed and bound tastefully. The illustrations are numerous and good-the twenty-three steel portraits are unexceptionable.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.+

The series of "American Men of Letters" is its own best recommendation and needs no outside indorsement. This latest volume gives a very

The Presidents of the United States. Edited by James Grant Wilson. $3.50. New York: D. Appleton & Co. +George William Curtis. By Edward Cary. $1.25. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

readable story of an unusually successful and happy life, consecrated to noble ends. We have brought before us Mr. Curtis as traveler, author, lecturer, editor and political reformer, and in all these relations he was prominently before the public for a series of years in the most critical period of the Nation's history. This book is, therefore, almost a history of the Civil War, and likewise of the struggle for Civil Service Reform, in which he was perhaps the foremost leader. It is well for this generation to be reminded how much the Nation owes to him for its present and ever advancing (even this week) progress in this direction. Few people now remember that he was mobbed in Philadelphia, in 1856, while delivering an anti-slavery lecture. His opposition to slavery and to the spoils system in politics was based on the great law of right, and his success was the triumph of righteousness. This life of his should be read by every young American. J. W. C.

O

FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC.*

In 1842, Sir James Ross on his return from his voyage of discovery in the Antarctic region, reported a plentiful supply of Balama mysticetus, the Greenland or right whale. So in 1892 an enterprising Scotch firm, in view of the exorbitant price of whalebone—that from a single whale being worth $10 to $15,000-and the value of whale oil, determined to send four ships properly equipped to those regions, with subsidiary steam power, in the hope of realizing large profits. These hopes were not realized, as not one of these whales was seen, so they were compelled to load up with sealskins. But the story of the trip, lasting some eight months, including the voyage out and back, the visit to the Falkland Isles, and the cruising round for weeks amid icebergs and polar snows, is very entertainingly told by the artist attached to the expedition as one of the scientific corps. In place of the turreted and pinnacled bergs of the Arctic region, they found huge flat-topped masses of ice 150 feet high, and from 1 to 30 miles in length. The land in sight was almost entirely snow-clad. The story is told in entertaining style, and the illustrations are abundant, quaint and helpful. It is a trip much pleasanter to read about than to undertake. J. W. C.

BRIEFER NOTICES.

"Pipe and Pouch; the Smoker's Own Book of Poetry." Compiled by Joseph Knight. (Boston: Joseph Knight Co. $1.25.) In this little volume are contained many admirable verses and the smoker will enjoy them as the clouds from his pipe or cigar rise upward, carrying with them sighs of content.

It

The fourth volume of the "History of the Jews" by Prof. H. Graetz ($3.00. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America), covering the period from the rise of the Kabbala, 1270 A. D., to the permanent settlement of the Marranos in Holland in 1618 A. D., is at hand. is an invaluable work and intensely interesting in matter and style. 'Chambers's Concise Gazetteer of the World: Topographical, Statistical, Historical." (Philadelphia: W. &. R. Chambers, Limited. $2.50.) This work is worth many times the price. The information contained in it is invaluable. The size of the book, the excellent type and its general appearance commend it. It should have a place upon the table of every professional man, as well as of every general reader. It cannot be too strongly commended.

"Children of Circumstance." By Iota. (New York: D. Appleton & Co.) Many men doubtless fall in love with women other than their wives, but it strikes us the unpleasant situation and unruly passion phase of life is being depicted ad nauseam. A good moral motive may be the praiseworthy object of this style of romance but sugar-coated realistic fiction is growing trite. As an improvement on the author's previous work, "A Yellow Aster," this book is a marked success.

So much has been written about the New England colonist that it is but fitting that his Southern contemporary should be commemorated. "The Colonial Cavalier" by Maud Wilder Goodwin, while it modestly disclaims being a history, is an interesting compendium from many authorities-published and unpublished-of his mode of life in Virginia and Maryland. His amusements, dress and education, his home and his church are described in pleasant fashion and show what manner of man he was. The author has put her material into good shape and made not only a readable book, but a creditable addition to colonial literature. (New York: Lovell, Coryell & Co.)

*From Edinburgh to the Antare ic. An Artist's Notes and Sketches during the Dundee Antarctic Expedition of 1892-93. By W. G. Burn Murdoch. $5.00. New York: Longmans, Green & Co.

"Pictures of Swedish Life; or, Svea and Her Children." By Mrs. Woods Baker. (New York: A. D. F. Randolph & Co. $3.75.) As a history of Swedish home-life and a chronicle of the deeds of many of Sweden's sons, as well as a description of the habits and customs of the people, this book stands without a rival. It is deeply interesting, delightfully written and beautifully illustrated. The pen-pictures are admirable; the illustrations vie with them in excellence. The entire book is wellnigh faultless and deserves unstinted praise.

"6,000 Tons of Gold" is a novel, the contents of which are hinted at in the title. All this wealth is found in South America and brought to New York only to prove a white elephant on the owner's hands. His strange dilemma is a study in political economy and the final disposal of the gold can hardly be guessed at by the hardiest fiction reader. The plot is novel and well managed, and the possibilities described are not only interesting reading but curious lessons in finance. H. R. Chamberlain is the author and Flood & Vincent, of Meadville, Pa.-who have done their part very attractively-the publishers. ($1.25.)

From Joseph Knight Co. we have "Child Life in Art" ($2.00), by Estelle M. Hurll, a beautifully conceived work, well executed. It has 25 good half-tones with a range of subjects from the Sistine Madonna to J. G. Brown's Castles in Spain, but all with childhood in varying form for their theme. Necessarily the text is slight in construction, but it is well done. The same firm sends us Little Journeys Abroad," by Mary Bowers Warren ($2.00), a handful of travel sketches, unpretentious in style, in good taste and an ornate binding. In their Cosy Corner Series we have Oscar Wilde's "The Young King, the Star Child," with illustrations sufficiently recondite. (50 cents.)

"Woman in Epigram." By Frederick W. Morton. ($1.00. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co.) Authors of all epochs and every clime have voiced some kind of a sentiment in regard to the good and bad qualities of women, and these various opinions have been compiled into a most interesting miscellany. Pungent wit and keen satire follow inordinate praise and gross calumny. Be the reader an enthusiastic worshiper of the sex or a woman-hater of the most pronounced type he will here find some literary oracle who has aptly expressed his view. Epigrammatic, crisp and highly amusing, with occasional crumbs of real wisdom, the little book will doubtless find many friends.

"The Lost Army." By Thomas W. Knox. ($1.50. The Merriam Co., Philadelphia.) This is a very well-told story of two boys under sixteen, who, living in Iowa at the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion, desired to enlist, but being too young for that, were allowed to connect themselves with the transportation department. Being bright boys they soon rendered themselves useful, and were recognized as scouts. In this capacity they did good work in General Curtis's army, and had a variety of thrilling experiences, just such as boys will like to read. The book also gives a history of the campaign through Missouri and into Arkansas, which was so long continued that the army came to be spoken of by the name which gives the title to the book.

"Saint Paul and His Missions." By the Abbe Constant Fouard. ($2.00. Longmans, Green & Co., New York.) This is quite a remarkable book, both in its design and execution. It bears the assent of the Censor, and the imprimatur of the Roman Archbishop of New York. It tells the story of the life and labors of the Great Apostle, in clear and attractive style, is learned and scholarly without being pedantic or dogmatic, and discusses the various questions that arise in the course of the narrative, with ability and candor. The sketches of people and places, and the life of those days are graphic and full of interest, and the author's analysis of the apostle's character, work and lasting influence in keen, thoughtful, and abundantly commends itself to the reader. "The Lilac Sunbonnet," by S. R. Crockett, is a charming story, as original in treatment as it is unhackneyed in plot. Indeed, in one respect it is almost unique. This is in the perfect balance maintained between all of its parts. The heroine is as bright as she is lovable, as high-bred as unconventional; the hero as gentle as he is manly. The minor characters are just as stern, faithful, treacherous, stupid, or witty as may be necessary to carry on the narrative. The descriptions are vivid without being too prominent, and the story progresses in a leisurely manner, which gives the reader time to appreciate every point: to smile now and then broadly at the humorous passages; to be impressed with the feeling of the evening twilight or the dawn; to see, with the characters, the gleaming stars or the red sunset; and to feel just as much anxiety about the fate of the lovers as is pleasureable, no more. In addition to its literary value, the book is thoroughly wholesome. (Cloth, $1.50. New York: D. Appleton & Co.)