body of the Boers, but General Hunter arrived in time to raise the siege; the Boers who attacked Ladybrand are estimated at two thousand men, while the garrison consisted of only a hundred and fifty British troops. The effect of the apparent end of the war in South Africa upon the approaching election is now being discussed vigorously in English papers; it is thought probable that the elections will take place in November, and that one main issue made by the Liberal-Unionists will be the necessity of a thorough reorganization of the British army.

A New "Farthest North"

It will be remembered by readers of Nansen's thrilling record of his Polar expedition that the point nearest to the North Pole reached by him and his single companion in their over-ice journey after leaving the ice-bound Fram was latitude 86° 14′. Now an Italian expedition has slightly overpassed this mark on the way to the Pole. There is only a difference of about twenty miles between the two records, as the point reached by the Abruzzi explorers was 86° 33'; but, for the present at least, Italy holds the honor of having penetrated farthest into the great rough ice-pack which occupies the space years ago allotted by geographers to a mythical "open Polar sea." The head of this expedition, which left Christiania in June, 1899, was the Duke of Abruzzi, son of the Duke of Aosta and nephew of the late King Humbert. His ship was called the Stella Polaris; she seems not to have been as stout as the Fram, which was built on Nansen's own plans and theories and amply justified them, for one side of the Stella was crushed by the ice, and she was saved with difficulty from sinking. The vessel was driven upon the land, and thence a party under Captain Cagni undertook a sledge journey north, reached the point named above, and returned to the ship after one hundred and four days' absence. Three deaths are reported, and some suffering from scarcity of food, but, on the whole, the crew seems to have stood the privations of the far north cheerfully. The Duke of Abruzzi's plan did not include Nansen's idea of drifting in his ship with a supposed regular current northward; the

Italians hoped rather to conquer the difficulties of ice-travel by the superiority of their equipment with newly devised and very light sledges. In point of fact, the Stella Polaris drifted as far north as 82°, so that the Italian ice journey was about one hundred and thirty-five miles longer than Nansen's. The Duke himself was severely frostbitten, and was unable to accompany the sledge expedition. In view of this Italian achievement Americans will await with keen interest the reports from Lieutenant Peary's expedition, which may soon be here.

Missionary Martyrs

There is little if any ground for doubt that a heavy blow has fallen upon the missions of the American Board in northern China. The fact that the report comes through the State Department from so careful an informant as our Consul-General at Shanghai, Mr. Goodnow, a post in whose office is occupied by Dr. Hykes, the Superintendent of the American Bible Society in China, gives it an authority which some highly colored and untrustworthy accounts of atrocities have lacked. The statement is that four missionaries and their three children, while traveling to the coast under a Chinese escort from their station at Fenchofu, two weeks' journey southwest from Peking, were murdered, about the last of July; also that six missionaries stationed at Taiku, in the same province of Shansi, were slain there about the same time. To this sad list must be added three other victims at Paotingfu, eighty miles southwest from Peking, hope for whose escape has now been given up. At Paotingfu the Presbyterian Board now accounts five missionaries and three children as having also perished. The names thus added to the roll of Christian martyrs are the following: From Fenchofu, the Rev. E. R. Atwater (sent out in 1892), Mrs. Atwater (1898), and two children; the Rev. C. W. Price and Mrs. Price (1899), with one child; in their company were Mr. and Mrs. Lundgren, Danes, and Miss Eldredge, British, who perished likewise. From Taiku, the Rev. D. H. Clapp and Mrs. Clapp (1884), the Rev. F. W. Davis (1889), the Rev. G. L. Williams (1891), Miss Rowena Bird and Miss Mary L. Partridge (1893). From

Paotingfu, the Rev. H. T. Pitkin (1896), Miss Annie A. Gould (1893), Miss Mary S. Merrill. All these were under the direction of the American Board, representing the Congregational churches. The death-list of the Presbyterian Board includes the following at Paotingfu: Dr. G. Y. Taylor (1882), the Rev. F. E. Simcox and Mrs. Simcox (1893), with their three children, and, according to an authentic cablegram last Saturday, "probably" Dr. C. V. Hodge and Mrs. Hodge (1889). These last were till recently supposed to be at Peking. The wives of two of the slain are in this country-Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Pitkin. The missions of American Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, not being in the storm-center, seem thus far to have escaped. An official statement of the Church Missionary Society (England), quoted in a cable letter to the New York "Evening Post," reckons the total loss of the Protestant missionary force in China at from fifty to sixty men, women, and children, together with "a terrible list of murdered native Christians." The heaviest part of this loss is said to have fallen on the China Inland Mission and the old Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. It is not unlikely, and it would be altogether fitting, that some general commemoration of this costly sacrifice for the evangelization of China should be made by the American churches who have suffered in the loss of these eighteen missionaries and six children the saddest bereavement in their history.

Mr. Moody's Work

Going on

A fitting sequel to the Bible Conference at Northfield in August, which so signally evinced the staying and growing power of Mr. Moody's work, will be the "Christian Workers' Convention" in September, at the Moody Bible Institute, Chicago. Eight days, September 19-26, are to be given to prayer, Bible study, and conference, for a kindling of energy and a shaping of plans for revival work during the year. Evangelists, pastors, church officers, Sunday-school teachers, and others, disregarding denominational differences, are invited to join in these meetings for the promotion of true fellowship and co-operation in the conversion of men. The larger meetings of the

week will be in the Chicago Avenue Church (Mr. Moody's). Many special addresses are announced. The Rev. R. A. Torrey will preside. Further information will be furnished by the Rev. H. W. Pope, Secretary, 80 Institute Place, Chicago. Simultaneously with this we have the announcement of a six months' Bible course for men and women, September 27 to March 28, at the Northfield TrainingSchool, the new President of which is the Rev. C. I. Scofield, D.D. In line with Mr. Moody's cherished purpose, this School endeavors to work out the practical problem of communicating the best Christian influences to those rural communities whose ability to sustain Christian institutions has been impaired. With the training given to students in the school course is combined the practical discipline of field service in holding meetings and making visits throughout the districts adjacent to Northfield. "Every opportunity is grasped to show these isolated people that the power of God is in the commandment, ment, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'" Besides courses more or less advanced in Bible study, the School offers various courses in music, childstudy, hygiene, and domestic science, preparatory to effective service in Sundayschool work and parish visiting. For further information address Miss L. S. Halsey, East Northfield, Mass.

A Conference

The annual Conference between the International Committee of the Young Men's Christian Association and its Secretaries was held last week at Sea Girt, N. J. The attendance was about seventy-five. The reports and discussions covered the work of the world, and proved unusually interesting and encouraging. The most remote point having a personal representative was Nanking, China, whence came Secretary Hwang, a member of the Faculty of the University of that city, and one of the corresponding secretaries of the Committee. The most interesting information was that in every European country the American type of Association work and methods has been accepted as the most desirable and most effective. In most of these countries American secretaries have been and still are in constant

conference with men of influence, both in civil and public life, as to plans and purposes. This seems especially true of the work of the Association with and for students, railway men, and the army and navy. It appears that the American army methods were closely and successfully followed by English workers in the Transvaal campaign, largely because the first work was done by and in connection with the Canadian contingent, under the direction of the International Committee, and following the plans which were so successful in the Spanish-American war. Very interesting reports were made of the work now in hand with our own troops in China. The development of Association work, both at home and abroad, has been far greater than most people understand. In this country the greatest advance seems to have been made along the line of railroad work. Nearly every important railway corporation in the United States is now making systematic inspection of its terminal points, and is making liberal grants for the erection and equipment of buildings and for the maintenance of Association work. Among the students the special advance has been in Bible study. Thousands of college and university students are now engaged in this work, under systematic and competent guidance and instruction, with specially prepared textbooks and with regular examinations at the close of each course. This work has come into existence practically within four years. The building movement is keeping pace with the development of the work in other directions. The whole tone of the Conference was excellent, marked by sanity, wholesomeness, and good sense.

The town council of First Porto Rican Bayamon, Porto Rico, Orphanage offered to the Christian Woman's Board of Missions (Disciples) the use of the old Municipal Building for orphanage purposes. This they have accepted upon the recommendation of the Rev. B. L. Smith, Secretary of the American Christian Missionary Society, whom they sent to Porto Rico as a special commissioner to investigate the conditions of the proposition. Mr. Smith called upon the Mayor, Governor Allen, and other influential citizens, all of whom he found

favorable to the proposed charity. The Woman's Board has appropriated a sum of money to repair the buildings, appointed Mrs. S. P. Fullen as matron, and is planning to cultivate the seven-acre garden plot belonging to the property. In accepting the property, the Christian Woman's Board of Missions agrees to maintain at least twenty-five orphans, and the management is to be left entirely in their hands. It is its purpose to ask that individuals and auxiliary mission boards adopt orphans and support them in the orphanage. One child can be supported and educated in the institution for $30 per year. Bayamon Orphanage is the first to be opened on Porto Rican soil. A boys' charity school exists at San Juan, and an orphanage is talked of at Areciabo, but it has not been established as yet.

Whatever may be said of Single-Tax Nonconformists the single-taxers, they cer

tainly have a faith and are willing to suffer for it. Recently one of their leaders in St. Louis, a real estate agent named John J. McGann, accepted imprisonment for six months rather than pay a tax of twenty-five dollars levied upon him for the privilege of carrying on his business. Mr. McGann took the ground that the right to labor was antecedent to the formation of the State, and that the State had no moral right to tax its exercise. Inasmuch as the business of a real estate dealer is not one requiring to be restricted for purposes of public policy, the injustice of the Missouri "occupation" tax imposed upon Mr. McGann is conceded by thousands of people who do not admit the single-tax premises. In fact, many of our Northern State Constitutions practically forbid such taxes by stipulating that all citizens shall be taxed in proportion to their property. Perhaps because of the obvious injustice of the "occupation" tax, Mr. McGann's protest against its payment awakened a vast amount of popular sympathy in St. Louis, and since his imprisonment he has been able to agitate against the tax far more effectively than ever before. The St. Louis "PostDispatch," which has opened its columns to the protests of Mr. McGann's champions, gives Mr. McGann a large part of

the credit for the recent agitation to require the street railway companies of St. Louis to pay taxes upon the market value of their franchises. This agitation has already added several million dollars to the property on the city's tax duplicate, and may perhaps add millions more before the property of the railroads is as heavily taxed as the homes of most of its citizens. Because of this conspicuous service which Mr. McGann has rendered to the city, many citizens are in favor of releasing him from his imprisonment, but Mr. McGann himself is apparently making no effort to secure his release.

இ

America in the World

The emergence of China from her old seclusion into the general movement of the modern world has been advanced so rapidly by recent events that it has deeply impressed the imagination of men of every race, who are not slow to recognize that it is a pivotal event in history, and marks the opening of a new era in the development of humanity. There is another event, however, not yet so clearly recognized but even more significant of movement and change: the emergence of the United States from its seclusion into the world-wide movement of modern life. For, in a certain sense, this country has been as much detached and isolated as China. There has been no material wall about our territory; the country has been open to the whole world; there has been the freest exchange of books, ideas, knowledge; Europe has influenced us deeply and we have influenced Europe deeply; and yet we have gathered our skirts about us, and, sharing the profits of world-wide civilization, have refused to bear its burdens or accept its responsibilities. have preached the brotherhood of nations and gotten gain out of it, but we have declined to pay for it. We have sent our commerce into the most remote oceans and carried on traffic with the farthest East, but we let other countries bear the burden of establishing and maintaining the order of which we have freely taken advantage. We have treated Europe as if it were consumed with greed of territory and lusting for power, and at the same time we have made the most of the

We

opportunities which Europe has created for travel and trade.

This seclusion was necessary for our growth as a Nation; for we have not been a Nation until within the last two decades. It was necessary for the settlement of a new continent, the organization of a new society, and the clear and definite realization, by the people at large, of the principles for which we stand and the deep and vital tendencies which, in a true sense, are making our destiny. For destiny is not, as some critics of recent movements have tried to make us believe, a passive acceptance of external conditions as the determining elements in national life; it is the shaping of events and the setting in motion of tidal influences by the working out of racial character. The only "manifest destiny" for the American people is to be found in the energy, the inventiveness, the faith in man, and the confidence in his ability to better his condition, which lie deep in the character of the American people. We have passed into an era of expansion, not because we have been driven on by blind fate, but because we have been driven on by an inward force the force which has made men of our race discoverers, explorers, settlers, organizers, leaders, administrators, reformers, and artists for many centuries. The victory at Manila was not a cause; it was an occasion. It did not abruptly and blindly open a new chapter in our history; it threw a sudden light on a situation for which we had been long preparing, but which we had not clearly recognized. Nations, like men, depend on events for opportunities of showing what is in them; but events are of importance, not for what they create, but for what they reveal.

Our seclusion on this side the globe and our long absorption in our own affairs furnished the conditions which our education as a nation required; but that process has now ended; we shall not cease to learn, but we have entered a higher school. Our period of apprenticeship is over; we are now called upon to show of what stuff we are made, and how far we have mastered the science of government, of social order, and of national development. It matters not that we have a hundred problems of our own still unsolved; a man does not keep out of public affairs