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because he has private and personal matters which perplex and oppress him. Public and private duties are not only indissolubly bound together, so that no brave and conscientious man can separate them, but, where they are met seriously and intelligently, they disclose unsuspected points of contact; and the doing of one set of duties equips a man for the doing of another set. If we waited until our work was done and our lives brought into final harmony before assuming new responsibilities, we should not only turn cowards, but we should miss the best education which life offers us.

There is now a clear alternative before us either we must take up our share of the responsibilities of keeping the modern world in order, or we must cease to profit by what other nations are doing in this direction. We cannot honorably any longer take the profits and refuse to pay our share of the expenses. We cannot share in the gain of a great partnership and evade its risks. We must either call our ships home, refuse to permit American capital and American energy to assist in the development of undeveloped countries, send for our missionaries and close our churches and schools in semi-civilized or barbarous countries, refuse to allow our books to be translated into Chinese, and rigidly limit ourselves to our own territory in trade, religion, science, art, education, and philanthropy; or we must accept our share of the responsibility of living in the world and dealing freely with the race in the great fellowship of humanity.

To take our share of the work of the world and bear our share of its burdens will involve dangers and entail expense; but when did a decent man or a respectable people ever settle a question of duty by a nice calculation of expense, or decide the question of accepting a new responsibility by a consideration of the risks involved? Brave men do not barter with duty nor trade with responsibilities. This country has a work to do in the modern world which it cannot escape, and ought to rejoice in accepting as its service to humanity. The perils which may face. it through greater intimacy with the older nations are small compared with the perils of detachment and isolation which have been steadily growing during the last two decades. Nothing could be more disas

trous for the higher civilization in this country in the long run than the feeling that we have no common cause with the older nations; that we are committed to permanent antagonism to the other peoples who make up our race; that the history of the past has no lessons in government or finance for us to learn; that we are powerful enough to set the laws of trade at defiance; that we can, at our will, make all things new. This provincial feeling, this fostering of old antagonisms which can survive only in a soil of ignorance, this self-sufficient exploitation of our achievements and character, this rank growth of a feeling of superiority to other peoples, this continual declamation about liberty while the country is stained from end to end with lawlessness-these are signs of the partial development, the unhealthy egotism, the indifference to larger relationships, which grow readily in isolation and detachment.

We are members of the great family of nations, to all of which we are deeply indebted for knowledge, truth, political experience, and service of many kinds; we have been more fortunate in our conditions than many of these older peoples, but we are not a whit better; and we have still much to do before we can claim equality with them in magnitude and quality of service to the spiritual development of the race. We need their help and they need ours. We are commanded by our opportunities-which are the voice of God-to take up new burdens and enter upon a newer and a greater life. Those who hold back and cry out that the "ways of the fathers" are being forsaken see neither their own time nor the times of the fathers. The fathers saw the open door in their own day and passed through it, breaking with the past as they did so and facing all manner of peril and incurring every kind of cost. They were accused by good and well-meaning contemporaries of being revolutionists and demagogues: "popular demagogues," wrote one of the critics of the men in Massachusetts who urged independence on the American colonies, "always call themselves the people;' ... he that would excite a rebellion, whatever professions of philanthropy he may make when he is insinuating and worming himself into the good graces of the people,

is at heart as great a tyrant as ever wielded the iron rod of oppression." The fathers who gave the American State a chance to be did not stop because of perils and costs, and their children cannot afford to be less brave. The fathers were not seeking for power and self-aggrandizement; their children are not "imperialists" bent on conquest and slaughter. They recognize that a new age has dawned, and, in the American spirit and in absolute loyalty to American principles, they propose to meet its duties and responsibilities with the courage of those who believe that America ought to live with the world and not remain shut up in her own private grounds, however spacious; that she has before her a great opportunity for which she has been preparing herself, and that her supreme sin now would be the "unlit lamp and the ungirt loin."

The Only Refuge

The opportunities for action are so many in these days, and the calls for service so pressing, that the most devout and devoted men are sometimes drained of their spiritual fervor, and are in danger of becoming mere mechanical doers of good deeds rather than deep and rich springs of spiritual power. In mediæval times too great emphasis was laid on meditation and prayer, on solitude and silence; in modern times the tendency in the opposite direction has been so excessive that the fountains of spiritual life sometimes seem to be perceptibly lowered by the incessant endeavor to cover the entire surface of modern life with a network of religious activities.

These activities are of immense importance, and the great emphasis which modern men put upon works as an evidence of faith is wholesome; but in the religious life, as in every other department of life, there must be balance and proportion. An institutional church needs a very deep and rich life of the spirit behind it if it is to be kept fresh in feeling, creative in method, and sound in aim. The greater and more complicated the machinery, the greater the need of an increase of motive power. It is one of the inspiring signs of our times that the circumstances of the less fortunate in society rest so heavily

on the hearts of those who are blessed with abundance, and that so many men and women of the best sort are giving themselves up body and soul in an eager endeavor to create better and happier conditions for the poor in great cities, to secure justice and fairness to labor under the law, and to bring a society which calls itself Christian nearer the model of a Christian society.

It is almost impossible to overestimate the importance of this noble movement in the Church and out of it which is making to-day for the betterment of the world. But it must not be forgotten that, when reformers have carried through all reforms, the help of God will still be supremely necessary; for the issues of life are not in conditions, but in men; and if the time ever comes in which all men shall be physically comfortable, the final questions will still remain to be solved by every man. Just laws, wholesome homes, free education, and universal helpfulness will help mightily to bring in the kingdom of God; but human nature will still be what it always has been, and the grace of God will be as necessary for the man in the model tenement, with the model school at the corner, as it is to-day for the man in the slums. We are helped by conditions, but we are not saved by them; after all our devices, laws, remedies, and reforms, God must still be our refuge; for in Him, not in conditions, we live and move and have our being.

The saints and teachers of the medieval ages have much to teach us in this busy modern age, with its vast activities and its faith in works. They missed many things which we possess, and their view of life was partial and distorted; but they knew where the springs of strength were. They found peace in quiet communion with the Spirit of the Lord; for they were convinced that man's only real refuge and peace are in God.

"Happy is the soul which, being afflicted in this world, is comforted of God," wrote good Thomas à Kempis; "which, being unknown to men, is known to the holy angels; neglected by the wicked, but sought after by the good; despised by the proud, but loved by the humble; separated from the children of the world, but united to the servants of God; scorned by the great, but honored

by the little one; dead to the world, but alive unto God; afflicted in the flesh, but rejoicing in spirit; weak in health, but strong in mind; downcast in countenance, but upright in conscience; burthened by toil, but strengthened in prayer; bent under the weight of infirmities, but raised up again by interior consolations; and prisoned in this world by the bonds of the flesh, but in spirit rapt to heaven, and joined with Christ."

The Spectator

The Spectator is not unduly timorous, but he confesses that in these days of haste he often gets a little nervous in the city streets lest something may happen to somebody. And of a truth something is always happening, though the Spectator does not personally see many of the serious accidents incident to the effort to have

rapid transit in the metropolis without adequate means. Indeed, there is no way to learn how many street accidents there are in New York in any given time, for only those that prove fatal are permanently recorded. A sprained ankle, a crushed hand, a blackened eye-any of these is serious enough to the victim, but no records are kept of such happenings. The Spectator read in a magazine the other day the statement that the decreased death-rate in New York was due in large measure to the decrease in the deaths by accidents incident to street traffic since we introduced the cable-cars and the buzzing electrics. That writer had not taken the trouble to investigate the records. The number of The number of deaths from street accidents is too small seriously to affect the death-rate in a great city. And, besides, not only are there more deaths than formerly from street accidents, but the number has increased in ten years fifty-one per cent., while the population has increased only twenty-eight per cent. Our magazine writer did not know very exactly what he was talking about. It is not impossible that his article was not less interesting on account of his picturesque inaccuracy. There be many who shy at exact statements, who will swallow a glittering generality, true or false, with great relish. That is one reason for the popularity of that journalism which wer call yellow.

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Once a New York Congressman was charged by a member from Texas with belonging to a delegation which did not fairly represent the intelligence of the metropolis. The New Yorker made reply: "There may be something in what the honorable gentleman from Texas says. We may not be as smart as some others at home, for let me tell the gentleman from Texas that it takes more sense to go across the street safely in New York than successfully to run for Congress in Texas." And the Spectator does not believe that the streets are any safer now than they were ten and twenty years ago. There is no way in the world to get at the minor accidents. Even the cases that go to the hospital for treatment are not reported unless they are serious. To be sure, records are kept in each hospital, but the statistics are not assembled. The young surgeons and the hospital staff members know about these things, however, and you cannot get any of these to speak slightingly of the dangers of the New

York streets. He jests at scars who never dressed a wound. The railroad company officials could tell more than any others, but on such subjects these officials preserve a reticence that is really amazing. They have even been known to deny that there are many accidents, and to charge that the seriousness of every accident is exaggerated a hundredfold. But the officials are tremendously ready to settle for any damage that is done, provided the settlement can be made quickly and without going to court.

A friend of the Spectator was not long ago tumbled off a cable-car, rolled in the mud, and very considerably bruised. The car stopped, and the conductor picked him up. In the car the now tramplikelooking passenger took the conductor's number and gave his card in exchange, saying that he should secure satisfaction. It was two days before he could get out to his business. Meantime he took stock of damages. His hat and overcoat both were ruined, his trousers were torn, and his umbrella broken. Besides this he had abrasions, contusions, and bruises from head to foot. He wrote a good-humored letter to the President of the company, saying that he would charge nothing for the hurts to his body, as they would get well, but he would trouble him to pay for the ruined clothes, which would never improve. He valued them as follows: hat, $8; overcoat, $75; trousers, $10; umbrella, $7. Total, $100. A few days afterwards the Spectator's friend was visited by an agent of the company, who said that he had been sent to offer $25 in

full settlement. "Not a cent less than $100," said the Spectator's friend. Three days later the one hundred dollars was paid, and the railroad got off cheaply. And so did the Spectator's friend, for he had not lost his life, he had not hired a lawyer, and he had not got into the courts.

These crowded cars in New York are fine fields in which to study the genus humanus porcus. When a man hustles for a car which promises to be crowded, he appears to throw away all his stock of gentility and decency before he starts; and when he achieves a seat, he more frequently than not becomes a very hog. All the

cars are very much alike to him, but when he happens to be all hog and also very fat, the open cars, with seats crossways, afford him his most cherished opportunity for the exhibition of his porcine capacities. He always manages to get the seat next the step, so that every one entering and every one leaving must climb over him. If he had an intelligent appreciation of comfort, he would move to the other side of the car, where no one would disturb him; but it takes the reasoning faculty to think of that. It is not possible that he thinks at all; he merely acts without consideration of others, or even of himself.

There is one class to which the Spectator would like to pay tribute-the conductors. Theirs is certainly a very hard job. The Spectator is very sure that he could not hold such a place successfully for a week. The strain seems to be incessant, and, besides, these conductors are in contact pretty nearly all day with men and women not in the best of humor, some of them downright angry. It is a cheerful soul indeed who preserves good nature when physically uncomfortable. That is what the majority of those who use the New York cars are all the time that they are in them. But the conductors must keep their tempers and be civil. That is required of them by their superiors. And it must be said that they do this pretty well. To be sure, they are not Chesterfields in grace and urbanity; but they do not try to be offensive. They mean no offense when they shout, "Step lively, lady, step lively !" Not a bit of it. They are merely trying to contribute something to the rapidity of movement which the modern urban demands as a right. It seems to the Spectator that a conductor, say on Broadway or Madison Avenue, has his hands and his head full all the time.

He must collect fares with reasonable accuracy and give transfer tickets; he must notice when a passenger wishes to alight and when also that passenger is safely on terra firma; he must signal for each start when the incoming passengers get aboard; he must answer the questions of strangers and others; he must take care of the maimed, the halt, and the blind, and he must be watchful lest those who have drunk unwisely deep come to harm.

I

By Charles Wagner

Author of "Jeunesse," "Justice," etc., etc.

NTELLIGENT readers sometimes try to decipher in handwriting the traits of human character; and nothing is more natural than thus to seek information about our individuality in an operation into which pass the least vibrations of our being, in which our lightest emotions make their mark. Nevertheless, handwriting is not the only action in which our inmost nature appears; a great number of other manifestations combine to reveal, if not to betray, us. In fact, every form of activity is a revelation. A man's work is the image of his soul, whatever care he may take to conceal it. This general conclusion has struck me in my thoughtful strolls through the Exposition of 1900. Therein our age shows forth its soul in its works, as I will try to make clear.

First of all, it is hardly necessary to say, no one could suspect that so colossal a manifestation was designedly combined to produce a particular impression. Despite all the care and effort that each concerned has put into his part, the total result differs from that which was expected. From all the elements of detail minutely calculated in advance come forth results totally unforeseen. Looked at from one point of view, this exposition in which the intention to shine and to show one's self in a favorable light animates the entire body of the expositors, collective or individual, is not the less a work of truth. Despite themselves, all these collaborators, who try, each on his own account, to throw dust in our eyes, still in the mass bring out a truthful likeness: thus from the fluttering of the leaves and from the twisted mass of branches and trees is brought out on the horizon the peaceful outline of the forest.

44

The first article in this series was published in The Outlook for September 8. It dealt with the Industrial Side of the Exposition, and was written by Robert Donald, editor of the London Municipal Journal." Other articles will be: The Social Economics Exhibition (illustrated), by Dr. W. H. Tolman, Secretary of the League for Social Service; Educational Aspects, by Howard J. Rogers, Director of Education for the Commissioner-General of the United States to the Exposition; The Historical Element, by the Rev. W. E. Griffis, D.D., author of "The Mikado's Empire," etc., etc.; Woman's Part in the Exposition, by Madame Blanc

(Th. Bentzon); and The Pictorial Side of the Exposition, by Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith, illustrated by the author.

In the moral outline-portrait of our time, looked at from this point of view, that which is most striking is the mutual contradiction of the single features-the sad contrast between the several chief characteristics. The first of these contrasts is that between the serious and the frivolous elements.

At certain hours and in certain parts of the Exposition one might think one's self at a fair, with this sole difference-that the booths bear the names of nations instead of bearing the names of showmen. Every part of the world has sent here samples of its amusements. I cannot say whether the choice has been a happy one, but, judged by the total effect, these attractions are rather frivolous than gay. They furnish by their very variety, by the attitude and actions of those who look at them, proof that there is no place on earth where joy can be purchased for money, that there exists no artificial means of producing it. The things conventionally entitled " amusements" have in all the countries of the world a certain stamp of essential emptiness and sadness upon them.

In them men joylessly make grimaces; they wish to be thought gay, try to appear happy, and attempt to communicate to the lookers-on that which they do not possess themselves. Priests and priestesses without faith, divinities dead for themselves, these unfortunates, with their enticements of dress, their efforts to call forth laughter, remind me of religious shrines where words without life are poured forth in order to galvanize souls without spirit. One broken cistern recalls another, and one might well say, "Sad as a priest; profane as a sacristan.” The people engaged in these amusements, moreover, have other reasons than those inherent in their slave's task for not being gay. The amusements are not prospering; many of them have already failed financially; they are called commonly palaces of disillusion. And as each of those connected with these enterprises, down to the last singer or acrobat who exhibits himself, has for pretext the amuse

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