ante-election pledge in favor of city home rule, responsibility to the people, good schools, clean streets, the extension of the city's ownership of public works, rapid transit, police reform. His promise of a nonpartisan administration was fulfilled by his non-partisan appointments; they included men of all party affiliations-Republican, Democratic, and Independent. Not the least service rendered during his administration were the early steps taken in the development of the present admirable rapid transit system, which brings all parts of Greater New York within easy reach of all its citi

zens.

Although in public affairs Mr. Low's personality could not be called magnetic in the sense in which that term is used for such characters as Henry Clay or James G. Blaine, his personality was influential over those with whom he came into personal contact. An occasion that had a tragic aspect afforded an illustration of this quiet and effective influence. He was with a party of educational experts in the South when the special train on which they were traveling was wrecked. Four of the railway employees were killed and several of the passengers were seriously injured. The accident was depressing in its effect upon all aboard the train. When every service imaginable had been rendered to the injured, Mr. Low began quietly to restore the spirits of his companions. And there are many who remember with gratitude the effect his influence had in restoring the more nervous and sensitive of the group to a state of poise and self-control.

Beyond the service which Mr. Low rendered to the city which was his home is the example which he set to men of wealth, in showing them what incalculable service can be rendered by members of the leisure class if they are willing to devote their energies to the promotion of the public welfare. In particular, he devoted a large part of his time during the later years of his life to the cause of co-operation between capital and labor. Without gifts as a popular orator, Mr. Low was an effective speaker; without great scholarship, he wrought a great achievement. as a college president; without the power to enkindle enthusiasm among masses of men, he won warm affection from the few friends who knew him best, and from the whole community a respect which no attacks of political opponents were ever able to diminish.

HERE AND NOW

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An army of men and women are looking for "chances," to use a word commonly taken to mean opportunities. They are eager to be something worth while and to do something that will count in the world. To many of them the search seems to be fruitless; in spite of passionate appeals the heavens are brass over their heads.

And there are some men and women against whom the doors seem to be barred, but they are few; the trouble with the vast majority is that they do not understand the meaning of two very inconspicuous monosyllables-here and now. A teacher who has the gift of diverting her pupils from looking for things outside themselves by showing them how to find unexpected things inside themselves insists that they shall form the habit of looking through things instead of looking at things. Reclamation, which is one of the key words of the time, is chiefly finding the uses of things that have been overlooked or neglected; and fortunes are being made to-day by the utilization of things that were thrown away a generation ago. The byproducts of one period become the staple products of the next period. People with brains have looked through them instead of at them.

"

Most people fail of the success they long for because they do not look through things; they rest in appearances, and are deluded and, so to speak, tricked by the outward show of things. It is a mistake to look for chances at a distance; for chances, like charity, begin at home. They are not even next door; they are in the house. Like Emerson's Hypocritic Days," they are meanly attired, and those who judge by appearances think them of no account and give them no hospitality; when they have gone beyond recall, they shine like princesses with priceless gifts in their hands. They stop at the doors of many who are not at home because they are abroad looking for chances. The tragedy of failure is far oftener in absence from home when the chance comes than in the fruitless search for it.

The chance lies chiefly in us, and we invite success, not by sending invitations abroad, but by making ourselves ready to entertain the chance when it comes. Mr. Nicholson has recently said that one reason why so many second-class men are prominent in American politics is the fact that so many first-class men would rather be President

of the Pennsylvania Railroad than of the United States. However that may be, the man at the head of that great transportation enterprise did not start out and look for that position; he did the work that fell to him day by day with such fidelity and skill that the obscure path he climbed led straight on to the top of the hill.

The young physician who means to become an authority does not waste the days when he is waiting for patients; he makes himself ready by the hardest kind of study. The young lawyer of ability, waiting for clients, does not

fill his apprenticeship with impatient wishes for their coming; he qualifies himself for the time when he will be mercilessly tested by his opportunities. The romance of real success is the story of obscure years of faithful preparation for the chance which at last opens the door. Waiting for a chance does not mean sitting at home and letting the world go by; it means putting into the present hours the most faithful kind of preparation, and dealing with the task in hand as if it were the work on which all the future depends— as very likely it is.

REFLECTIONS OF A RECRUITING OFFICER ON Α STALWART PASSER-BY IN TIME OF WAR Your country badly needs you, young sir; you've a fine physique. It is just such young strength that we want. You don't care to go? You have need of your own strength to help you rise in the world, to get rich and enjoy yourself?

You are quite within your rights, sir. Our glorious traditions sustain you. Why should any man fight if he doesn't want to? Why should he protect the country that protects him if he doesn't care to?

But if all felt, or rather acted, as you do (for I dare say all want their manhood for themselves), the country would soon be at the enemy's mercy, and then where would be your wealth and your pleasures?

That day

To be sure, you judge rightly. will never come. There will always be found enough courageous, patriotic Americans to protect you. Of course we ignore, in theory, the time when we were forced to conscription after our best had been killed off. After all, it is a wonderful liberty that allows a man to take his all from his country and give in return only what he chooses.

Yet it is sad to see all the bravest going to face death while the selfish cowards stay home to play or get rich. All civilized nations but the Anglo-Saxon make all men do their part and take their chances. Shot and shell are no respecters of persons; cowards

REFLECTIONS OF A TAX-COLLECTOR ON A WEALTHY PASSER-BY IN TIME OF PEACE

Your country badly needs a bit of your wealth, good sir. You've accumulated a fine fortune. It is a portion of such fortunes that we need. You don't care to give? You have need of all your money for comforts and luxuries?

You are quite within your rights, sir. Our glorious law that rights the patent inconsistency and injustice of our old fiscal policy, that blot on Anglo-Saxon liberty for so many dark centuries, sustains you. Why should any man pay taxes if he doesn't want to? Why should he support the country that supports him if he does not care to? It was an outrageous infringement on personal liberty.

But if all felt, or rather acted, as you do (for I dare say all want their wealth for themselves), the country would soon go to pieces -no roads, no schools, no police; and then where would be your comfort and safety?

Are you sure that enough generous, patriotic Americans will always be found to give these things to you? After all, it is a wonderful liberty that allows a man to take his all from his country and give in return only what he chooses.

We are sorely in need of many things, sir, and your fortune is large, but never for a minute would I seem to detract from the beauty of our wonderful voluntary contribu

1916

are as likely to be killed as brave men. Science tells us that nature goes so far as to let the unfit die, only the fit to survive to produce more fit. We, transcending nature with our man-made laws, send our noblest to death while we allow our worst to stay home.

All-glorious liberty, heritage of the AngloSaxon and the Chinaman! Yet, now I come to think of it, it was not so in old AngloSaxon times, nor for centuries later-ecrl, thegn, and ceorl each had his place in the army of freemen, as did each rank in the feudal system.

When I speak of the crime of Germany, I do not refer to her acknowledged support of Austria when the latter hurled that savage ultimatum at Servia which inevitably meant a general war.

That was indeed a crime-a

crime against Europe as a whole; but it was not Germany's great crime. Nor do I allude to Germany's confessed violation of her treaty with Belgium, nor her brutal treatment of that nation after violating it. These also are great crimes, which will blot the pages of Germany's history for centuries to come. Nor do I refer to the sinking of the Lusitania with more than eleven hundred innocent victims, or that of the Arabic or the Sussex; nor do I mean the failure to stop her obedient ally, the Turk, when engaged in the murder of one million innocent Armenians while she passively looked on. All

179

tion system by appearing to over-urge you. Better that the country be reduced to penury than that we return to that unjust system of extortion by which every man paid taxes according to his wealth, without ever being consulted as to whether he cared to pay or not. Unbearable as it seems, even in the otherwise enlightened twentieth century men were forced to pay for things in which they had no personal interest. The Quaker helped pay for the standing professional army, the mountaineer for the dredging of valley rivers, the man of the prairie for the coast lighthouses. How entirely inconsistent with our ever-glorious ideal of a voluntary army! Why should a man be forced to support his country when he is not forced to protect her in her hour of danger? You are

quite within your rights, sir. How wonderful is our motherland, always right, always just!

How glorious is freedom!

OF GERMANY

these must be charged to her criminal account, but they are only offshoots of a still greater crime. Neither do I refer to her barbarous methods of warfare, her cowardly use of hostages, the dropping of bombs on non-combatants, her poisonous gases and other infernal inventions-all features in her diabolical campaign of frightfulness. Nor do I allude to her dastardly spy work throughout the world, which made criminals of her very representatives, whom she now honors with decorations for their underhand stabs at neutral countries. Nor do I mean Germany's systematic policy of transparent lying, as when she charged Belgium with unneutrality or France with attacking Nuremberg, or charged that the Lusitania was armed, or that it sank rapidly because the cargo exploded, or that the ship torpedoed at the very hour when the Sussex went down and at the same place was not the Sussex. These false statements served their purposes at the moment. But what must be said of a nation that sacrifices honor and truth whenever convenient!

No, Germany's list of crimes is long and heavy and can never be wholly expiated; but behind all these is a greater and more fundamental crime-the parent of all those enumerated above. It is a long-drawn-out crime. It has taken forty years to plan it and to

develop it; but it was well planned and ably developed-witness its malign results. I allude to the Prussianized system of education in Germany.

For thousands of years the human race has been slowly and steadily emerging from barbarism. This progress has been based on the principles of truth and justice, which have more and more come to control the relations of individuals and of states. Dazed and staggered by German propaganda, many are now asking whether civilization has been advancing throughout these ages along the right track; as if truth, justice, and mercy were unstable sands instead of the rocks on which society must ever build or come to grief. The commandment to love God and one's fellow-man still holds and always will. The ideal of the brotherhood of man-the Christian principle-remains sound. Charity worketh no ill.

Now, under the German system, absolutely controlled by an autocratic government, her children of almost two generations have been taught a religion, a philosophy, and a Kultur devised by that Government, and all directly opposed to the highest principles of civilization. They have been taught that the state of Germany is paramount, that God is Unser Gott, belonging to Germany first, and that the Hohenzollerns are his divine prophets. They have been taught that might, not justice and truth, makes right. They have been taught obedience to the iron will of the war lords, and they have each and all been taught the very last word in the art of slaughter. They have been given inflated ideas of the power and mission of Germany in the world. They have received false impressions of the attitude of the rest of mankind. Individuality has been sunk, freedom of speech prohibited. As a German writer puts it, "The whole nation is one mass of bronze in which no golden streak of individual character is allowed to glimmer."

With this war in view the calculating war lords had much preparation to make. First and foremost, they had to kill the germ of human sympathy in the breasts of the people. They had to train men" to iron hearts from pity freed." They began with the children. who are now full-grown men and women. You cannot take away ideas without giving others in return. For the religion of humanity they substituted the religion of race, for the God of all mankind they created the

god of Germany—a god of war.

The ideals of right and justice gave way to those of might and expediency. The idea of co-operation between nations was replaced with the gilded vision of Germany über Alles.

The talent was not wanting. Bismarck had furnished the organization. The Nietzsches, Treitschkes, and Bernhardis were there. Numberless well-groomed professors and advocates of the system took part. The work before them was both positive and negative. The positive side included training in efficiency and in absolute obedience, the utilization of all departments of effort, the inculcation of a restricted aim, namely, that selfish goal of Germany which she called "her place in the sun." It included preparation in every branch down to the meanest detail of the spy system. On the negative side it included restrictions on free speech, a muzzled press, and a control of all teaching in gymnasium and university. No professor was allowed to retain his chair if his views were not approved by the Government. All original work was subject to supervision, and all criticism of the authorities was suppressed.

And so to-day Germany is peopled by a type, all cast in the same mold, all doomed to think and act in accordance with the only light which has been given them--an artificial light-which has so colored their view that they no longer distinguish right from wrong or good from evil. Their originality and their taste have been destroyed. They rejoice in giant monuments-monstrositieswhich they have been told are works of art. They believe the lie which has been dinned into them for years, that all the neighboring races are banded together for the destruction of Germany. They have been carefully trained to believe that any war precipitated by them will be a war of defense. The charge brought by the whole world, that Germany deliberately planned, prepared, availed of opportunity, and finally brought about the war, makes no impression on Germany, for the charge is not allowed to cross her border. All has been accomplished by her perfect system of Prussianized education. This is Germany's great crime.

Will Germany succeed? Can she divert the course of true progress? Can she build her throne on the wreckage of the civilization which she seeks to destroy?

HOWARD RUSSELL BUTLER. Princeton, New Jersey.

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH IS MORE ROMAN AND GREEK THAN

M

PROTESTANT

Y attention has been called to an article in your issue of August 30 on "The Episcopal Church and Social Problems " by the Rev. E. C. Chorley. This article contains some interesting statements, and, as its writer honors me by using my name for the purposes of his arguments, I venture to ask the courtesy of space in your pages for a few comments upon some of the positions which he takes.

1. The surprising statement is made that those in the Episcopal Church who objected to official participation in the recent Panama Congress did so because they were opposed to "conference with other Christian churches."" It might as well be urged that because one objects to the passage of a law conceding, without consideration, the demands of certain labor unions he is therefore opposed to the method of arbitration for settling differences between employers and employed. Careful and open-minded consideration of the points at issue between our Communion and others, conference with other Christian churches, is the very thing that we do believe in. What we insist upon is that, unless there is to be sacrifice of principle, conference must precede religious co-operation. As a member of the Commission appointed to bring about a World Conference for the consideration of questions of Faith and Order, I have had the privilege, for a number of years, of laboring with others for the distinct purpose of promoting conference among the various Christian Communions.

The point of our objection to participation in the Panama Congress was, and is, that this involved a great deal more than conference, that it meant immediate religious cooperation which would compromise our principles and would be contrary to our standards; and our contentions in this re

gard have been fully justified by subsequent

events.

2. It is stated in this article that "many High Churchmen now feel that the agitation against the Conference was a tactical blunder." Who these High Churchmen are I do not, know. Those whom I meet are of quite a different opinion. I do, however, know a great many churchmen-high, low, and broad -who feel that the action of our Board of Missions in forcing this issue upon the Church, in the face of serious and widespread protest, was a serious tactical blunder.

3. Speaking of those whose views he is opposing, the writer says: "But they are in a hopeless minority. For more than forty years they have agitated for the change of name, and are farther from their goal than ever." There are worse evils than being in a minority. But is the above statement a correct one? I am writing away from records for verification, but I believe it was at the General Convention of 1877 that only one diocese voted "aye" in the clerical order, in a vote for the change of name, and among the laity not a single vote was cast for the change. In Cincinnati, in 1910, a majority of the whole number of dioceses voted in the clerical order for change, and the vote of one more layman in any one of those dioceses whose vote was divided would have given a majority for the change in the lay order. And at the last General Convention in New York, in 1913, those who favored a change of name themselves introduced legislation intended to make such a change impossible until it should secure the support of an overwhelming majority, with the declared belief that in due time it will win such support, and with entire willingness to wait until it does so. In the face of these wellknown facts it is quite startling to find it stated that in forty years the movement for the change of name has made no progress.

4. The statement is made, somewhat plain