the Sermon on the Mount. Discussions about heaven and hell, purgatory and second probation, interest it less than discussions about child labor, tenement-house life, civic corruption, divorce and the causes which lead to it. It regards life less as a preparation for a celestial kingdom of God; it works more for a terrestrial kingdom of God as the true consummation of earthly life. It pays less attention to individual salvation than the fathers did; it pays a great deal more to social redemption. It loses something in regard for the spiritual life of the individual; it gains much in regard for the moral renovation of the community.

With this faith in a present God-in nature, history, the ancient prophets, the individual soul, human society, is faith in a Christ who is the " human life of God." Mark tells us of an occasion when Jesus went before his disciples and they followed after him afraid and amazed; John tells us of a time when they sat in intimate communion with him about the supper table, and John himself reclined with his head on the Master's bosom. Sometimes the Church has followed the Divine Christ, their prevalent feeling one of awe; the New Experience sits with the Human Christ in intimate communion, its prevalent feeling one of fellowship. These changes in mood are perhaps necessary, certainly they are natural. Yet it would not be just to say that the reverence of the second mood is less real, or the loyalty less absolute. Perhaps neither mood can fully understand the other. Certainly the more familiar approach to the Son of the Carpenter is leading many to know and to honor him whose acquaintance we may well hope will grow to love, whose honor to worship.

In life the contrasts here intimated are not clearly defined. Antitheses are always sharper in literary expression than in actual experience. Nor is what we call the New Experience really new; expressions of it may be found in the religious biography of all periods. It is new only as a general tendency. So the New Theology is not really new; Professor A. V. G. Allen has shown, it is a revival of Græco-Christian philosophy. What is new is the increasing acceptance of it. Nor have we here attempted any thing like a comprehensive and complete

as

account of the New Experience. We have only indicated certain of its more obvious elements. Nor do we undertake to determine accurately the relation of gain and loss in the change from the one mood to the other. Doubtless there is some loss, doubtless some gain. We only seek to point out the fact that the change is one in religious experience as well as in theology, and that it is not all loss. No one need conclude either for himself or for the race that religious life is dying out because not merely the philosophy about the life, but the manifestations and expressions of the life, are undergoing subtle and half-perceived but real and even radical changes.

In Defense of the Poor

"They ought to leave tenement-house reform alone," said a young workingman the other day, "but they won't. What difference does it make what the tenants think about it? There's too much money behind the attack on good tenementhouses. A woman in the house where my mother lives complained to a builder's agent about a break in the drain-pipe, and he swore at her and told her, The Health Department and the TenementHouse Department can't touch us.' That's the way of it; they have the money. The poor people have no show."

How helpless these tenement-house dwellers feel, not only in making efforts for cleanliness and health, but also in effort for moral decency, when their interests clash with those of the owners, is illustrated by the statement of a charity worker, quoted in the Report of the Tenement House Commission of New York, that she had heard women bemoaning the birth of a daughter for fear of the dangers to her chastity that would threaten her under the conditions that prevailed in the tenements where they lived.

It is true that only a minority of tenement-house dwellers recognize in this manner how greatly their health and lives and character depend upon the form of house in which they live. It is true that thousands of tenement house dwellers naturally surround themselves with dirt and disease and vice. One needs only

to stroll through some of the newer tene ments to see the bathtub used as a receptacle for rubbish. This is only saying in concrete form that it is impossible to make people cleanly, healthy, and virtuous by law.

But this, at least, it is possible to accomplish by law to abolish and prevent conditions which compel people to live in surroundings of dirt, disease, and vice.

Such surroundings are forced upon thousands of families who live in ill-constructed tenement-houses. To select out of a large number only three features of such buildings-the inadequate air-shafts and courts, the dark rooms and hallways, and the outrageously misnamed sanitary accommodations-what more efficient means could be devised for creating wretched surroundings from which the undefended poor find it impossible to escape?

In the first place, these surroundings produce and accumulate filth. The air-shaft, so called, is often no more than a sort of chimney from which windows in inner rooms open. It is frequently closed at the top with a skylight, or, worse, mere slats, shutting out light and air. It is an inviting place for the disposal of garbage and waste; it gathers and retains the foul air of all the flats; it rarely can be and even more rarely is cleaned. The dark hallways not only make even the worst filth inconspicuous, but, by exclusion of pure air, which is the most effectual disinfectant, render it most noxious. The inner rooms, also, which have no opening to the outer air, of which there are over 200,000 in Manhattan alone, hide the dirt and vitiate the air. The vaults that open directly into the sewers, and are usually situated in the crowded courts or yards, but sometimes even in the damp, un wholesome cellars, create a condition of filth that cannot here be described. When it is remembered that such filth must be daily endured by women and children, that it is to be found often in close proximity to the family washing, and that often it is spread, by an almost inevitable process, from the courtyard to the roof itself, it can be understood why a Tenement-House Inspector the other day remarked, as he started on his tour, "Well, I must go now and see a smell." What must it mean, not to inspect that sort of

thing periodically, but to live in its presence continuously? And it is the women and children, not the men who are off at work, who have to live so.

In the second place, these wretched features of old tenements propagate disease.

Uncleanliness is the great medium for disease. Those air-shafts have well been termed "culture-tubes," by a metaphor referring to the tubes in which pathologists cultivate disease germs. The dark hallways and rooms and the pestilential vaults bear their share in undermining the health and wasting away the lives of the poor. Tuberculosis, which thrives best on bodies thus environed by filth, is an epidemic in New York. This is the expression that is used by medical authority. Every unventilated air-shaft, room, hall, and vault in these tenements is a nest for the bacilli of this insidious disease.

In the third place, these wretched features of tenement buildings promote the worst moral and social evils. The narrow air-shaft, with windows opening opposite one another, denies to the dwellers that privacy which is the great defense of personal virtue. The dark public hallways afford lurking-places for many kinds of corruption. And the communal vauits are in some respects the worst of all. What protection have the poor here?

A year ago in New York State there was passed a law which abolished these features from all new tenements, and required their amelioration in all tenements then constructed. The enactment was jubilantly welcomed by lovers of humanity. The Outlook then took occasion to say that the fight for decency was by no means ended. For as long as there are men who for the sake of dividends will risk the lives of passengers on land and sea, will endanger health by adulteration of drugs and food, and will make big profits from fuel when people are suffering from cold and exposure, there will be men who will endeavor to increase the herding together of humanity because it is" commercially profitable." It ought to surprise no one, therefore, that some builders in Brooklyn and the Bronx who wish to build new houses at less expense than the provisions of the present law require, and that some builders in Manhattan who do not wish to incur the expense involved in

such mild requirements as putting glass panels in doors, cutting larger windows in dark rooms, and substituting for scan. dalously filthy vaults measurably adequate sanitary accommodations, should combine to undo a large part of the work not only of last year but of a generation past. The offense is the worse because the present law has been proved practicable. Tenement-building was never so active in Manhattan as it is to-day. The old tenements that have already been improved in accordance with the law have commanded immediate profitable sale and have been easily rented. And the smaller tenements, such as are typical in Brooklyn, are not only being found acceptable in that borough, but have been successfully tested by very similar conditions in Buffalo, where for years they were erected under the provisions of a local ordinance.

The State Senator who introduced the most drastic of the repealing bills at Albany has shown the good sense to announce that he will be the sponsor of it no longer; though the bills them

selves are not yet withdrawn. Governor Odell, whose recommendations in the message to the Legislature encouraged the greed of the builders, has already put himself on record as in sympathy with enlightened methods of tenement legisla tion and supervision. Such facts should nerve the arms of all who are fighting the battle of the tenement-dwellers against the men who would traffic in their health, life, and character. Especially should those who have comfortable homes and access to God's free air and light utter their emphatic nay against the proposal to deprive others of the air and light that are theirs by the same token. This does not concern New York City alone, or New York State alone; it concerns all in city and country throughout the broad territory of this Republic who care enough for democratic institutions to insist by word and deed that, in spite of the power of wealth, it shall not be true that the poor people, those poor in intelligence or education as well as those poor in material possessions, "have no show."

H

April 18.

ISTORICAL associations, extraordinary beauty of natural scenery, and exciting adventure have combined to make the last three days spent in the Crimea and its vicinity the climax in interest of our trip thus far. Events have followed each other so rapidly that this is my first opportunity, now that we are back on the Prinzessin again, to make any record in my diary.

My impressions of the Crimean War are derived partly from vague recollections, partly from the reports of a fellowpassenger who was in the Crimea as a boy and saw the charge of the Light Brigade; he had with him on the Prinzessin General Wolseley's "History of the Crimean War," which he was studying as a preparation to his visit. Accordingly he was the ship's expert on the subject. What I record here is a combination of my recollections and his own information as he gave it to us in fragmentary conversation in the smoking-room and in more

continuous form in an informal lecture in the Social Hall one evening.

Once upon a time, say 185-, Russia, on some excuse, I know not what, opened an attack on Turkey, her unconcealed object being to obtain possession of Constantinople, and with it the passage to the Mediterranean. She offered undisputed possession of Egypt to England if England would acquiesce in her purpose. Perhaps England thought she could get undisputed possession of Egypt without Russia's help, as she has since done. At all events, she did not acquiesce; on the contrary, with France, she came to Turkey's aid. The Crimea is a Russian peninsula, running out into the Black Sea, with two natural ports-one Balaclava, a Lilliputian harbor, the other Sevastopol-pronounced in Russian with the accent on the third syllable, Sevastópol-a harbor of considerable size, well protected by nature. The Crimea was Russia's point of departure and base of supplies. If this could be taken from Russia, her proposed attack on

Constantinople would be rendered impossible. The Crimean War was a war waged by France, England, and Turkey to get military control of the Crimea, and especially Sevastopol, and so prevent Russia from advancing on Constantinople. The English took possession of the tiny landlocked harbor of Balaclava on one side of the peninsula, perhaps ten miles from Sevastopol by road and twenty by sea, without opposition. The harbor is quite inadequate for vessels of any considerable size; indeed, what England could do with it except use it as a landing-place for provisions, I do not know. She made no attempt to fortify it, and, so far as I can see, Russia has made no attempt to fortify it even now. She landed her troops, also without opposition, on the Sevastopol side of the peninsula about thirty miles from Sevastopol, and advanced upon the city. At the crossing of the river Alma, about twenty miles from Sevastopol, the battle of Alma took place; the Russians were defeated, and the allies advanced upon Sevastopol. It was ill defended and might easily have been taken by assault, but caution was deemed the better part of valor, and the allies made a circle about Sevastopol and connected their forces with the harbor at Balaclava, in and near which their fleet, such as it was, was lying. Here the Russians attacked; here took place the famous Charge of the Light Brigade; here again the Russians were defeated; and again the allies advanced. Midway between Balaclava and Sevastopol took place the third battle, that of Inkerman; again the Russians were defeated, and the road lay open to Sevastopol. But the Russians had used well their time in preparing fortifications, and these made at siege necessary. After a protracted siege an assault was ordered, the English storming one fortification known as the Redan, the French another known as the Malakoff. The defeat of the Russians in the fourth battle necessitated the surrender of Sevastopol and the abandonment of the attempt on Constantinople by Russia, and so ended the Crimean War. England and France should have occupied the Crimea and so prevented Russia's future realiza tion of her purpose. But France was tired of the war, England could not or would not carry it on alone, and so it ended, leaving Russia checked but not check

mated in her march to the Mediterranean, and practically free to disregard her promises to make certain specified ports in the Black Sea free, and I believe also to leave Sevastopol unfortified.

The

Our Crimean shore experiences, as promised, were to include three days: (1) a visit to the fortifications of Sevastopol and to the harbor of Balaclava; (2) a drive across the peninsula and along its northeastern shore to Yalta; (3) a visit to the summer gardens and summer palace of the Czar near Yalta. We were off the boat and on the dock by nine o'clock on Wednesday morning, April 16. square was full of carriages, and the passengers were rushing to and fro to get in. We took the one into which we were put by Cook, and thereby learned a lesson. The next morning the Student picked out our carriage horses and driver, and we got far better accommodations. Through some lack of direction or failure by the coachman to understand them, the installment of carriages, eight in number, to which we belonged did not drive to the fortifications, but direct to the village and harbor of Balaclava. Cook's agent endeavored to rectify the blunder by proposing that we take the fortifications on our return, and even went with us to insure success; but the sun was getting down, the air was getting cold, and we were getting weary, so we gave them up, getting a quasi bird's-eye view from the distance. I think it was no loss to the ladies and no great loss to me, although I had anticipated seeing with interest th fortifications of a siege and an assault in one of the great wars of contemporaneous history, in which at the time I took no little interest. It was, in a small way, like being within a few miles of the battlefield of Gettysburg and failing to see it. But it really did not matter; for the whole topography I could see and understand from a distance.

After a drive of about two hours across an undulating country, we approached over a gentle eminence what appeared like a fresh-water pond-it might, at a guess, be a mile or a little less long, and a quarter or possibly half a mile wide-but I am not good at estimating distances, and I made no attempt to estimate the size then, The shore of this pond was lined by what looked like the

edifices of a summer resort, and it was not until we had fairly drawn up at the door of the inn where we were to lunch, that we assured ourselves that this was Balaclava. The entrance to this landlocked pond was so narrow and winding, and the hills which walled it on either side were so high, that we could discern no exit from it, nor easily convince ourselves that it was really a harbor. I do not think that even a moderately large steamer could have gotten in; I am sure it could not have turned round in the harbor unless it had twin screws. Indeed, while we were there an American steam yacht, the Wanderer, entered the harbor. She was not a large boat, and she had to use her twin screw to get round the sharp corner in entering the harbor. This har bor was the scene of one of the tragedies of the Crimean War. Some transports lay inside. Fearing lest the Russians should get command of the neighboring heights and shell them, the boats were ordered into the open sea outside, and, a storm coming up, one of the transports was driven on shore and several hundred soldiers perished.

In one respect we were fortunate in not having gone to the fortifications of Sevastopol. We had a choice of seats at lunch, and so had not to take our meal, as some did, in an unprotected position outside, where we should certainly have been uncomfortable in the wind and dust. A walk up on to the hill above the town for some of us, a row in the harbor for others, a drive home, taking in a Greek monastery most romantically situated on a shelf of rock overhanging the sea, and including an ancient chapel in a cave which nature and art had combined to fashion in the cliff, where a devout old soul was droning out a prayer or a Scripture lesson in the sing-song tone which for some inexplicable reason is supposed to be the especial vehicle of piety, finished the first day.

Thursday involved a trifle of a drivefifty-three miles-from Sevastopol to Yalta, in carriages each with three horses har nessed abreast. We started from the dock at about half past eight, some hundred and fifty passengers in a long procession, or succession of processions, for each boatload of passengers started as soon as they had found their places in the waiting

carriages. We drove out of the city, over a well-macadamized road through a rolling country, but approaching a range of hills of considerable elevation. We passed a monument which marked the Battle of Balaclava, guessed as well as we could just where was the charge of the Light Brigade, then descended a long slope, watered our horses, and ascended a long hill, descending it on the other side into a fertile valley only to enter on another long climb, and so down another long descent and into another fertile valley, in the heart of which was a curious Tartar village of one-storied houses, made, I judged, of sun-dried brick, with roofs some of thatch, others of tile. Once we passed what, judging from the children gathered about it, was a school, where, with some dirty and unkempt urchins, were some others well dressed, for whom a coachman was evidently waiting-a, to us, unexpectedly democratic incident in so aristocratic a country. Once we passed the forlornestlooking graveyard I ever saw, so covered with stones that not a blade of grass could grow, and with graves marked by ill-set boards for monuments or not marked at all. At one point some ragged boys ran by the side of our carriages calling for bakhsheesh in the most cheerful tones of voice and with laughing faces, as though beggary were a great joke. As we left this Tartar village we began to climb a third hill, longer and steeper than any which had preceded. The road, though not very wide, was very skillfully engineered and as smooth as a floor; but it was the only sign of twentieth-century civilization which we saw. At length, after we had driven for four hours, now ascending, now descending, now looking off for miles from the vantage-ground of some eminence, now dipping into a cultivated valley or shut in by impenetrable woods on either side, but with the general trend of our road upward and every descent less than the ascent which had preceded, we found ourselves approaching simultaneously our luncheon hour and what I suspected, from the character of the rocks and the scanty vegetation, was what the farmers in New England call "the height o' land." At a turn of the road we found the carriages of our predecessor's emptied of their passengers and without their horses. Our driver made signs to us to