isfactory facts were numerous, the most crying needs being for a reformatory for youthful misdemeanants, for a children's court, for probation agents, and for work for all classes of offenders. There seems to have been a reversal of custom. In old times a man was condemned to prison with hard labor, and the insane person was sent to the idle quiet of an asylum. Now the report reads that in one of the largest State prisons the men average but one hour a day at work, while in the State hospital for the insane eighty per cent. are happily and usefully employed. The convict may well envy the harmless lunatic this boon of busy hands. This first State Conference of Charities and Correction has not only collected a large array of facts relating to all the subjects that come within its ken, but it has interwoven the interests and sympathies of the men and women who attended it as nothing else could do. About four hundred accepted the invitation to take part in the gathering, and the full sessions, held in the beautiful Senate Chamber, testified to the earnestness of the officers, trustees, managers, matrons, superintendents, and physicians who had come from all over the State to study these subjects together. It was a happy union of practical men and women with those who are more familiar with the academic side-lawyers, judges, college professors, and clergy. The New York State Conference of Religion The first public meeting held by this recently organized body justified the hopes of its promoters. The large attendance at each of its seven sessions in this city, November 20-22, has encouraged its General Committee to announce another such meeting here in 1902. For 1901 the Executive Committee is authorized to arrange a meeting in any other city in the State where a sufficient desire for it may be expressed. This Conference of Religion (not "Religions," as many miscall it) is characterized by the practical aims in which it seeks to unite men of a religious spirit. Its basis in the unity of the religious spirit was illustrated by its specially prepared "Book of Common Worship." The venerable Dr. Gottheil, recently minister of Temple Emanu-El, joining in worship with Christian brethren in the chancel of the Church of the Holy Communion, and Dr. Harris, minister of Temple Israel, conducting religious service from the Presbyterian pulpit of the Brick Church, evinced that common worship is the natural product of the one spirit of religion. In commenting upon the omission of the Christian formula ("for Christ's sake," or the like) from some of the collects in the book, Dr. Newton pointed out that this was no surrender, but a return to primitive Christian practice as exhibited in the early liturgies. "We pray in Jesus' name or spirit," said he, "when, in looking around on all other worshipers, we agree with Jesus: 'Whosoever doeth the will of God, the same is my brother.'" Quoting the same passage, Dr. Josiah Strong, in expressing the " Message of the Conference to the Churches," said: "You can make no broader basis of religious fellowship, and I dare not make any narrower." On the other hand, Dr. Berkowitz, of Philadelphia, speaking from a Jewish point of view, showed amid applause that not communism but community was the ideal. Variety has rights as well as unity. Differences are not to be obliterated. We have to pray apart as well as together, so as to give full utterance to our individuality. In an address of great beauty and depth of thought and feeling. the Rev. W. C. Gannett, of Rochester, author of so many spiritual hymns, exhibited the immanence of God as meaning the consubstantiality of God and man, and the incarnation as the humanizing of the one Divine Life. Among the "Unorganized Religious Forces," the Rev. C. F. Dole, of Boston, found some inside the churches, as well as outside, clinging to an individualistic religion, unconscious that all members of the church must be its ministers. This narrow conception of the religious life, as reflected in Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," Dr. Strong pronounced "radically unchristian." A touching testimony to the ethical and spiritual uplift of the Conference was borne in the remark at its end of one minister to another: "I feel that I must begin my life anew." Ta After Te against the "truncated history" which the schools teach about the Cæsars, Alexanders, and Napoleons, leaving out the Christs and the Buddhas. The Rev. C. F. Dole showed that the schools teach much religion, unlabeled as such, in the best reading-books, but Professor Schmidt would not have religion come in only "at the back door." Dr. Whiton pointed out that every coin which bears the legend, "In God We Trust," required an explanation to children of the meaning of those words as well as of the "E Pluribus Unum," the thirteen stars, and the eagle bearing arrows and olive branch. Judge Baldwin, of Yale, believed that social righteousness on the basis of Christ's teaching may be a leading Sunday-school subject in the twentieth century. the New Testament, he relied for ethical teaching on biography first, with poetry as a close second. President Taylor, of Vassar, held that the iron lost out of the blood of this "ungirt generation" must be restored by insisting on the majesty of duty, respect for law as law, and the single standard in morals, which brands the man who steals a State as a thief, the same as him who steals a pocketbook. Economics and civics came to the front in addresses by Drs. Wines, of Washington, Gates, of Iowa College, Raymond, of Wesleyan University, Mr. Ernest H. Crosby. Professor Thomas C. Hall, of Union Seminary, Mr. Edwin Markham, of Brooklyn, and Dr. Gladden, whose paper was read in his absence. They held that our democracy is imperiled by plutocracy; that the most dangerous men are not those known in law as criminals, but those business men whose intelligence is prostituted to greed, perpetrators of corporate crimes not yet taken hold of by law, buyers and sellers of franchises. Against the practical atheism apparent in political theory and practice the Church must rouse the public conscience to acknowledging a divine moral order as the basis of the State. The spirit of fraternity is the condition of stable liberty, but monopoly is the denial of fraternity. "The water in watered stock," said Mr. Crosby, "is the sweat of a brother's brow." The test of our economic theories, said Professor Hall, is their congruity with the spirit of holy brotherhood, on which is conditioned our seeing the kingdom of God. Plain speaking was not stinted. "How can the moral consciousness be roused?" said President Raymond. "Take a concrete case, and appeal to the people. Here is the Standard Oil Company, with $100,000,000 capital, $48,000,000 dividends, and raising the price of oil." "The Unused Power of the Churches in Politics," the leading subject of the closing session, was presented by Comptroller Coler, of New York, who urged the wellto-do to get together with the poorer in a practically helpful, neighborly way, and by the Rev. A. W. Wishart, of Trenton, who presented the purification of political life as the political aspect of human redemption, demanding a more social conception of the Gospel, in which "one former is equal to a thousand reformers." Since the stirring anti-slavery days no more inspiring Conference has been held in New York. Its proceedings, of which only the scantiest outline can be given here, will be published in full, probably by January. For these, and for the Book of Common Worship, application may be made to the General Secretary, the Rev. Leighton Williams, 312 West Fifty-fourth Street. Most of our readers will remember, at least vaguely, the theological difficulties in which, a few years ago, Andover Theological Seminary found itself involved. It had an antiquated creed in which, literally interpreted, very few theologians of our time believe-probably none in the Congregational denomination; but every professor was required to subscribe to this creed every five years; and a Board of Visitors was appointed whose duty it was, among other things, to secure this subscription. When, a few years ago, certain men in the Congregational denomination initiated a prosecution of five of the professors because their teaching did not conform to this creed, the trouble began. Professor Thayer declined to renew his subscription and resigned. The prosecution came to nothing; but the fact that a party in the denomination insisted that the subscription was to be taken seriously, not to say literally, made not only subscription in Andover Theological Seminary creasingly difficult, but the incongruity between the old creed and the modern teaching increasingly apparent. This moral incongruity injured the reputation of the Seminary; as older professors died or resigned, it was more difficult to find men to take their places; pupils also fell off, until at length the possibility of continuing the Seminary on the ancient foundation was seriously questioned. The Trustees and Visitors have at length cut the Gordian knot. The Trustees presented a memorial to the Visitors stating the difficulties involved in subscription, and raising the question whether the provisions requiring subscription are not "in their nature directory merely, as distinguished from a requisite necessary to the validity of the tenure of the office held by a professor upon said foundation," and whether, therefore, subscription might not be dispensed with, provided the Visitors approved the professor. The Visitors accepted this view of the case, and have decided that "the provision in the Statutes as to the repetition of the creed at every successive period of five years by a professor is directory, and not essential, provided the professor continues to approve himself a man of sound orthodox principles agreeably to said creed as in said Statutes provided." This does not in terms apply to a professor newly elected; but it does apply in principle, and we may assume would be applied in such case. If it is asked why this distinction between the directory and the essential was not earlier discovered, the answer may well be that if the attempt had been made to apply it at the time of the heated theological controversy, the attempt would have been resisted and the tangle only increased. Now probably all parties in the Congregational Church will be glad that a way has been found to sever the bonds which threatened not only the liberty but the life of the Seminary. It will now be, not for the professor, but for the Visitors, to determine what construction is to be given to the creed as a symbol of orthodoxy, and it may be assumed that they will give to it a free, not a literal, construction. Under this ruling Professor Hincks was reappointed last week, without creed subscription, to the chair of Biblical Theology which he has ably filled for seventeen years. It is to be hoped that the next step in the development of the Seminary may be accomplished as quietly and successfully-its removal from Andover Hill to Cambridge, where its students can have the advantages of a great university while they are pursuing their theological studies. in China The comment upon Missionary Enterprise missions in China in the just-published volume by Dr. Pott is illuminative. Dr. Pott is President of St. John's (Episcopal) College, Shanghai. He points out that though to us religion is supremely important, it is not so in China; that the Chinese are not a religious people; that while they respect Confucius's teachings, they condemn image-worship, as do Christians. But though missionaries cannot be accused of intentionally attacking the Confucian code of ethics, Christianity antagonizes the Chinese ancestral worship, a practice which keeps the people turned toward the past, while Christianity turns the thoughts from the past toward the future. In this respect the influence of Christianity is revolutionary in China, as it is also in calling upon its converts to exalt God's will above that of the Emperor. But Dr. Pott is convinced that unless there had been other more active causes, the recent massacre of Christians would not have occurred. Indeed, says he, among many non-Christian Chinamen Christianity is regarded with favor. At least, they appreciate the benefits derived from the schools, hospitals, and other charitable institutions established by missionaries. To a second charge, namely, that Christianity is unpopular in China because it depends upon the secular arm, Dr. Pott admits that Roman Catholic missionaries, at least, must plead guilty. They have urged officials to decide all cases of litigation in favor of their converts; hence, many Chinamen have been attracted to Roman Catholicism, hoping to obtain assistance in lawsuits. Nor, adds Dr. Pott, have Protestants been guiltless of such meddling, but in their case "the interference has been attempted only when they be lieved that the cause was a just one, and has been sometimes justified by the palpable injustice of the Chinese courts." In the opinion of The Outlook, the Roman Catholics would also say this. Dr. Pott repels the insinuation that missionaries ing of his opportunity and his knowledge clamor for a gunboat on slight provoca- of the proper functions of a university tion, and says that it has been only after that the Johns Hopkins so rapidly rose to violent outrages. "They take up their a first place among the institutions for residence in the interior of China, relying higher learning in the United States. Dr. upon treaty rights. When massacres take Gilman did not begin by making a large place, it is the duty of the missionary to investment in buildings; the University ask for reparation." To a third charge, was very modestly housed. He began by namely, that the missionary arrogates to collecting a group of scholars and teachers himself the prerogatives of the Chinese of the first rank, by creating a system of officials, Dr. Pott again admits that, as fellowships which served the twofold purregards Roman Catholics, the charge is pose of enabling picked students to bejust. The idea of being a society pos- come investigators, and of diffusing through sessed of temporal power has always the University, by the presence of such a been cherished by the Roman Church." body of students, a spirit of serious and The missionary would probably willingly thorough work. By reason of its teaching plead guilty, says Dr. Pott, to the fourth force, its publications, the fruitfulness of charge, that he disseminates teachings the research of its professors, and the leading to rebellion. "He is proud to great promise and early achievement of be a leader in the great movement of its students, the Johns Hopkins University enlightening the Chinese. He establishes rapidly became known to the whole eduschools and colleges, and teaches in them cational world—far better known in Europe what constitutes true civilization." If the than most American institutions. Through missionary has been the founder of reform many difficulties and under many limitain China, must he now desist from his ef- tions Dr. Gilman has steadily pushed on forts? He ought to receive, not adverse crit- the work which he undertook in a spirit icism, but gratitude from the whole human of devotion to the highest interests of edurace. In the last analysis, however, Dr. cation. It is too early to estimate his Pott declares that missionaries have been work, but not too early to recognize the attacked not so much because they were fact that it has been of the highest and propagators of the Christian religion as most enduring character-a contribution because they were foreigners. Therefore to the development of the higher life of missionary enterprise cannot, he says, be the country which will not soon be forheld responsible for the recent troubles. gotten. The announcement of Dr. Gilman's purpose to resign the presidency of the Johns Hopkins University at the end of the current academic year brings to attention once more one of the most fruitful educational careers in the history of the country. Through no fault of his own, Dr. Gilman has had to work under great disadvantages during the past few years, owing to the shrinkage of the financial resources of the University, but he has set his mark permanently on American education. He came to Baltimore from California, with a considerable academic experience behind him, and a clear knowledge of the responsibilities and opportunities of the President of an American university. The shaping of the new institution at Baltimore was placed largely in his hands; and it is due to his clear read Dr. Gilman's Resignation The Death of Sir Arthur Sullivan, who died in London on Thursday of last week, was probably the most widely known and most popular English-speaking musical composer of the time. He was born in London in 1842, and was the son of an Irish military bandmaster. He showed at an early age a marked talent for music, and before he was ten years of age it is said he had learned to play with creditable skill every wind instrument in his father's band. He became a choir boy, studying harmony and composition during his term of service. He afterwards studied in Ger many, but was never reconciled to or much influenced by the spirit of the modern German school of music. One of his fellow-students at Leipsic was the Nor wegian Edward Grieg a far greater genius than Sullivan. Grieg's songs will last beyond the time when Sir Arthur's "Lost Chord " is forgotten; but the "Lost Chord" has doubtless been sung twentyfive times while Grieg's "The Old Mother" or his "Young Birch-Tree" has been sung once. Sir Arthur Sullivan has written many popular songs, and some church music that has been widely sung-such as his setting of the hymn "Onward, Christian Soldiers;" but his fame and popularity rest upon his operettas, of which he brought out successfully more than a dozen. Of these, “ Pinafore," which ran for seven hundred nights in England at its first production, had an enormous popular success twenty years ago, and "Patience" and "The Mikado " were almost equally as well liked by the play-going public. "The Yeomen of the Guard" is undoubtedly his best work musically, as it was the most serious dramatic work of his famous colleague, W. S. Gilbert; it is said to have been the composer's own favorite among his operettas. Oxford and Cambridge both conferred on him the degree of Mus. Doc., and he was undoubtedly the most eminent and most highly honored musician in England. This may fairly be said, without any disparagement of his great gifts, to be an indication of the fact, often noted by students of music, that the AngloSaxon has so far developed little genius for the creation of the higher forms of music. Certainly in Germany, and perhaps in France, Russia, and Italy, Sir Arthur, while achieving great popular reputation, would have been ranked by the cognoscenti as a minor composer. Music The season of 1900-1 bids fair to be a profitable one to lovers of music. In the metropolis there are four principal announcements. Attracting most attention is the announcement of the opera, which is to be presented in Italian, French, and German, under Mr. Maurice Grau's direction. The season will begin December 18 and last fifteen consecutive weeks, during which sixty performances will be given at the Metropolitan Opera-House. There will be no supplementary season. The new works to be presented are "La Bohême,” "La Tosca," "Salammbo," "Hérodiade," and "Le Cid." Oratorio is a less popular form of vocal music than opera, but its influence not only in the world of art but also in that of religion is immeasurable. Nearly thirty years ago the Oratorio Society of New York was founded by Dr. Leopold Damrosch. It is now conducted by his distinguished son, Mr. Frank Damrosch. On Saturday night of last week the Society gave Bach's Mass in B minor. We are glad to note that in December there will be two performances of Handel's immortal" Messiah," and that in April Dvorák's “ Requiem Mass" will be presented. In the domain of instrumental music there are two societies which have done much to develop taste and appreciation. The Philharmonic Society of New York City is now over half a century old. Its performances are conducted by Mr. Emil Paur, and this winter they will be sixteen in number, including the public rehearsals. Among 66 Mr. new works to be given are Josef Suk's Symphony in E, Richard Strauss's "Hero's Life," Weingartner's "Symphony in G Major," and Taneïew's "Overture de l'Orestie." The Boston Symphony Orchestra is now twenty years old. Wilhelm Gericke is again its conductor. Its concerts are given, not only in Boston, but also in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Hartford, Providence, Fall River, and Cambridge. It is fortunate that many people in many places have a chance to hear such music as was presented at the first concerts in New York, when the programmes included works by Beethoven, Berlioz, Weber, Wagner, Raff, Massenet, Goldmark, Dvorák, and Dohnányi. The performances given by the three societies above mentioned take place at Carnegie Hall. Last week the first The Peary Expedition direct news was received from Lieutanant Peary, the Arctic explorer, that has reached this country for about two years. The letter to Mrs. Peary, just received, is dated on March 31 of the present year, and was written at Fort Conger, Lady Franklin Bay. Mr. Peary at that date was well, and in better condition for exploration than he had been for years. He was to go at once up the northeastern Greenland coast, and, if that expedition was as successful as he hoped, intended to come south and meet the ship which is now awaiting him at Etah on the |
