PROCESSIONAL. (A Contribution to the Coming Jubilee. C. A. L. Totten.) The sounds of war and tumult rise, Nor reck the fate of Jezreel's doom; In mercy, Lord, incline thine ear, Thy righteousness we suffer yet, Be with us through these coming years For sin our little strength was spent, But now, O Lord, thy land restore, While Gentile empires pass away- Let now, O Lord, thy kingdom come And in this "Amen" may the guarantee of our restored confidence in Jehovah be accepted for Advance instead of the deserved retreat! As the Fifth Empire is at hand it pertains to Israel-but not without the Jews! Come thou then with us, O Judah, and with God's help we will do thee good. THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY. I. BETWEEN THE "LINES." IN every age the drama of human existence has been haunted by a dim shadow of cyclopean proportions, whose many-phased identity has hitherto so mystified the plot that, with a depth of interest akin to what Ahasuerus might enlist should he appear in modern streets, the audience, seated upon the arena of the years, has never failed to hush, with strained expectancy, so soon as it appeared. Silent, in the background, shrouded, and obscure, this figure has trodden the boards with grand majestic mien; and though every actor on the stage of history has paid deference to its presence, it has never even intimated why or whence it came, nor whither it was going. Almost as though impersonating Providence, it has been often seen to write, or act, between the lines; but ere its riddle has been solved the vision has faded out, only, however, to reappear anon, new-draped, to suit some passing scene. Still the same proportions, but with visage ever deeply 66 veiled, it has always played the rôle of a Nation, but of one diverse from all the rest." Indeed it has never been reckoned in the cast, for this has moved along without it. And yet, as though a play within a play, its own story has been vividly consecutive, and to its fortunes those of all the rest have seemed most strangely joined. The curtain is now rising on a closing scene of one of history's great acts, and again this form appears. With varied interest man has followed, step by step, this grand spectaculum, and, as its scenes unfolded, has concluded now one thing, now another, until the very intensity of this double drama has wrapped him in its riddle. But a genuine surprise at last awaits the audience, for its mysterious hero approaches the footlights and seems about to speak, to tell the secret of his rôle. Indeed, before he speaks the simple loosing of his garment has disclosed far more than words can ever briefly tell. He is identified at last! Not only must we now acknowledge him, as he stands before us in the long-familiar character of the AngloSaxon Race, for he it is who has thus masqueraded in our midst, but the intellect of humanity is well-nigh staggered at the crowding possibilities also involved in his now fully proclaimed right to an origin we least anticipated! Strange and unlooked-for is the disclosure which thus dawns upon us, so that with awe we well may ask: "What, indeed, hereafter, may we not expect?" As the quickened thought speeds backward over former passages in the drama, the past is understood. And as it shapes itself, the present, too, assumes new magnitude. For underneath his modern plaid a "coat LINES. of many colors" identifies him with a part played centuries ago by one whose dreams begot for him but exile, and for those who sold him, plenty in the days of famine. There is blood-relationship and lineal genealogy involved in the revelations dawning on us. They link us to a mighty Race, and pledge to us a grander destiny! The curtain has not fully rolled away-the huge proportions of the modern stage require a large one; so as it rises let us study what we see before us, for the drama will soon begin again and sweep us onward with but little time for retrospection. It is upon the final decade of the current century that our curtain lifts. Its scenery is panoramic; the world itself lies spread upon the stage; for the first time all the actors stand arranged together, not one is missing, and OUR RACE is central to the group. It seems, indeed, as though the coming scene were in reality to be the final one of all. When Bishop Whipple, in his opening address at the late Episcopal Convention, closed with the impressive words "We are living in the eventide of the world, when all things point towards the second coming of our King," he voiced a conviction that is simply worldwide. For in protean form we find this sentiment responsively echoed among all kindreds, tongues, and peoples. Not, perhaps, world-wide in the sense of individually believed, everywhere, and by all, but universal, rather, in that those, among all peoples, who are faithful, severally, to their own traditions, have, separately, light enough, in the darkest places, to point unto a dawn believed to be already far advanced into the twilight stage. In the opening paragraph of that powerful volume, "Our Country," which has lately swept the land with |