The university professors and other doctrinaires who made up the first Duma were naïve enough to imagine that events in Russia must necessarily shape themselves after the manner of the French and other national revolutions. Says Mr. Slonimski on this point:

Russian parliamentarians have not by nature and experience the equipment of western legislators, he continues. On the other hand, the imperial family and court officials do not understand what they would have gained by conceding real representative gov

ernment.

It is now known that the court camarilla had decided, shortly before the opening of the first Duma, that just as soon as its members declared in favor of compulsory land expropriation the body should be dissolved. The Goremykin ministry carried out this idea. As soon as the forbidden subject was reached in discussion preparations were made for dissolution, which was eventually carried out. Moreover, says Mr. Slonimski, should the new Duma show the same temper of opposition the very manifesto of October 30 would be endangered. The entire constitution would be simply abolished and the corrupt autocratic bureaucracy re-established, according to the ideas and aims of a small and noisy circle, which is called by its members the League of

ARE the recent political changes in Spain preliminary to an actual separation of church and state in that country?

The concordat which binds Spain to Rome is that of 1851. This instrument has been modified in some ways by the various national constitutions, but, as far as the consent of Rome goes, is still binding upon them in its entirety.

In an article in a recent number of España Moderna, Señor D. Jeronimo Becker, in relating the conditions which brought about the signing of the concordat, makes it easier to understand the present state of affairs. Just before his death Ferdinand VII., this writer reminds us, annulled the old Salic law which restricted the succession to the male line, so leaving the throne to his daughter Isabel. Don Carlos, who would otherwise have been king, disputed her right to the throne, and by gaining the Clericals to his side left the only hope of the young Queen in the Liberals.

For a long time the Pope would not recognize Isabel II. as queen, because, as the papal Secretary of State wrote to the Spanish Ambassador, ereign, did not wish to decide between the claims "His Holiness, in recognizing any existing sovof pretending parties." He, therefore, postponed his recognition until the other powers should have declared their positions. From this_time on the strain in the relations between the Spanish Government and the Holy See became steadily greater. One part of Spanish liberalism took on a character frankly anti-clerical, and the weakness of the authorities made possible the burning of convents and the assassination of monks in Barcelona, Madrid, and other places. Finally, on account of certain actions of the government, for instance, the passing of a law for decreasing the debt, which contained arrangements for applying to this end all the goods belonging to sion throughout the kingdom of the order of the the ecclesiastical corporations, and the suppresJesuits,-the Papal Nuncio left Madrid, and relations with the Vatican were broken off. These and even more radical measures under a new the Spanish representative was requested to ministry aggravated the situation, so that in 1836 withdraw from the Vatican. In 1843, after the overthrow of the regency of Espartero, the Mod

erates came again into power, seemingly bent on re-establishing at all costs relations with Rome, and for this purpose started out to frame a concordat. The death of Pope Gregory XVI., the election to the papacy of Pius IX., and the recognition of Isabel II. by Austria put a new face on affairs; Spain and the Vatican again exchanged ambassadors, and arrangements were made for confirming a new concordat. The immediate completion of this project was prevented by the conflict raging in Italy at this time, in which Spanish Catholic enthusiasm expressed itself by sending an expedition of 4000 men to Italy to look after the personal safety of the Pontiff.

Finally, in 1851, a concordat was confirmed which resolved for the time being a great part of the religious question.

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The first article of the concordat stated that the Roman Catholic should be the only religion of Spain. Without consulting the Vatican at all this was modified in the constitution of 1869; so that liberty of worship. under certain conditions was conceded to dissenting Spaniards as well as to foreigners. Articles 3 and 4 provide for the exercise of episcopal authority, conceding full liberty of action to the high dignitaries of the church, whom one shall molest under any pretense.' It provides for the restoration to the church of all the confiscated property which had not been sold, and declared the church's right to acquire and possess property. After the revolution of 1854 had brought the anti-clerical party into power, disregarding the concordat, and without consulting the Pope, a new law was passed to sell some of the church property, which again broke off the relations between Spain and the Vatican. Soon, however, the Pope was conciliated on terms

favorable to the clergy.

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The concordat put education and the censorship of the press under the oversight of the bishops. At the present day the press is free, and there are a few lay schools, especially at Barcelona, which are accused of teaching positive principles of atheism and anarchy. This, however, is hotly denied by their sup

porters.

Up to the eighteenth century the Spanish school system was not at all inferior to that of the other nations of Europe, but since that time, during all the disastrous civil and colonial wars, in which the flower of Spanish manhood was wasted, education suffered a great deal. Since 1881, under the improving prosperity of the country, it has made great advances. Even yet, though, only a third of the people can read and write. The concordat provides for a tax to be used to pay for the support of the church, and fixes the salaries of the higher clergy. the greatest amount being about $6500. In general it may be said that the clergy are very poorly paid in deed. There are thousands of rural curas

with priests as Spain is; there are many more than the Spaniards know what to do with.

The underpaid condition of the secular clergy accounts perhaps for the rivalry which exists between them and the monastic orders, the latter of which are permitted to engage in trade without being taxed, like their secular brethren. This privilege is one that has called out a great deal of resentment from the commercial class, especially in Barcelona and Valencia, prosperous trading centers.

The number of monastic orders was limited by the concordat to three, and the nuns were reity. After the restoration of the Bourbons in stricted to orders engaged in teaching and charthe person of Alfonso XII., the orders multiplied beyond the legal limit. In 1901 a futile attempt was made to get rid of them. They are still permitted to exist, although the ministry could legally dissolve them without appealing to the Cortes.

the "Law of Associations," which was proOne cause of the present crisis in Spain is posed to prevent the immigration of the orders which have lately been driven from France, and also to do away with a large number of the Spanish orders already existing. Among other things, it forbids the existence of orders whose members are foreigners, limits the amount of property which orders may possess, grants to the authorities the right at any time to enter monasteries without ecclesiastical sanction, declares that those engaged in trade or industry shall pay the regular taxes, and provides that the state shall support any members of religious orders who may wish to renounce their vows. The Law of Civil Marriages, which is equally the cause of strife, permits persons who have contracted only civil marriages to be buried in consecrated cemeteries, which the bishops have not hitherto permitted.

of the secularization of education are genThese proposed laws and the discussion erally interpreted as indicating a tendency toward the separation of church and state, which Señor Maura, the leader of the Spanish Conservative party, declares is "sheer madness."

got used to it, and seldom noticed it after the first few times we met, but strangers would ask us now and then about the man. Every young fellow of us had, in his school days, been instructed by parents and teachers to avoid the gentleman, ostracize him, hold him in abhorrence, as an enemy of the common good. It all grew out of a quarrel long years ago. He was rich and somewhat of an aristocrat, a large employer of labor. Any inquiry only called forth the answer, "Oh, that scar on his face? That is the Lincoln mark."

To go back a little, the bales of cotton arriving at Liverpool became fewer every day. The great mills were put on short time; then they began to close out entirely; then, one after another they announced suspension.

Savings-banks and co-operative societies, the redeemers of latter-day poverty, were in their infancy then. The wages of these factory workers averaged only $4.10 a week per adult for an eleven and one-half hour day. Working at these starvation wages, what preparation could they make for the coming storm? Many firms crippled themselves trying to keep their hands at work as long as possible. Soon hundreds of half-famished men and women were walking the hard-paved streets, wondering where to-morrow's dinner was coming from. It is an interesting study to follow the attitude of the leaders of the Lancashire people at that time. Mr. Gladstone, without looking too closely at the American trouble, had committed himself to a policy and course which he was man enough to condemn in himself in after life. He was a Lancashire man, from Liverpool. John Bright, the Quaker of Rochdale, was a cotton merchant himself, but his nature and religion revolted against slavery, and with voice and pen he urged the people of his country to stand by the Northern cause, though it meant long-drawn-out starvation. He mortgaged his mill to the last cent for relief work. Some say the family never recovered it. The sacrifices that were made by Richard Cobden, another leader, will never be known. Since I have known America and the closer history of that war, together with some of the men who were up near the "colors and the music," I still doubt whether any greater sacrifice, personal and real, was made in contribution to the cause of union and freedom than was made by that plain but wonderful tribune of the Lancaster people. Cobden got Henry Ward Beecher to his Free Trade Hall in Manchester and you who have read the story of Beecher's experience will recall the vast difference, the revulsion, that came to him as he looked into the faces of seven thousands of starving cotton weavers, in contrast to his experience amongst the aristocrats in Exeter Hall, London.

maturely old-looking children on the street, was, "Has Lee surrendered yet?" Who Lee was they knew not, nor cared, but they knew that their lives, their daily bread, depended on raw cotton, which somehow did not come. My acquaintance of the Exchange was a manager of one of the cotton mills, and was at that time seeking to gain the good graces of his employer's daughter. Most of the manufacturers were in favor of the South, for they argued that the North could not possibly help us in furnishing cotton. This young man, one of the people, the workers, either from conviction, or, as his one whose sympathies should have been with people believed, from "love's blind policy," took up the side of the manufacturer, the government and the aristocracy. At a meeting in the cattle market, after several strong speeches from the advocates of union and freedom, the foolish fellow essayed to argue the matter with the speakers on the platform. He claimed that the weavers were standing in their own light and that the wealthy would help them to work and food if they were not so rabid in their denunciation of the cause of slavery. He went on to hope "that the time would speedily come when all fool politicians from the backwoods would be taught a lesson, and that Lincoln and all his tribe would be knocked into cocked hats." Before he could turn his head, a missile hit him in the face, and he will bear "the Lincoln mark” to his grave.

In conclusion, Mr. Holden speaks of the reverence in which Lincoln's name is held throughout Lancashire. He says:

The name of the great liberator is to be seen on the top of the Cheops Pyramid in Egypt, writ there by some homesick American globe-trotter. Within ten miles of the city of Florence, Italy, is an old couple who have three children in Minnesota, and having got a chromo picture of the first American from their son, are under the impression that the great man must be the patron saint of the great west land, and so every morning prayer is offered for the Minnesotans in the name of St. Abraham Lincoln. But it is amongst the dwarfed, eager, hungry-looking and yet sharp, shrewd cotton workers of the county of Lancaster, England, that one is impressed with the influence and history of Lincoln's far-flung battle line." The Lancaster school has a personality all its own. Lincoln's proclamation of liberty is the best-known document outside the weary list of " our kings and queens." In my own day, next to the Almighty, the government inspector of schools was the terror of our lives. But we found his limitations once, and that relieved the pressure. He desired to make a few remarks to the school, ending with the question, "Who is the greatest man in British history?" Without a waver, sharp as the crack of a whip, came the universal answer, Abraham Lincoln." He hesitated, and then turning to the master, asked, “Who in the world is Abraham Lincoln?" The master quietly suggested that this was a Lancashire school, as if that were the explanation needed. Need I tell you that every fiber of American cotton, and it is the best, weaves into this people the lesson of liberty

Hopeless-starvation meetings were held during the cotton panic, as it was called, in the towns and villages of Lancashire, and thousands would gather because they had nothing else to do.

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