for they never were the Siamese twins that Coin Harvey would have the country believe. Any political party that thrives on hard times, calamities, droughts, famines, pestilences, or any unforeseen or unavoidable calamity is not a party to be entrusted with the reins of government, for it resembles too closely the parasite. It makes friends as Absalom did by standing where he could sympathize with the unfortunate for his own selfish ends.

The markets must dominate in the production of gold and silver, the same as in oats and iron, and the only advantage that silver could possibly have gained from the attempt to use it as a unit of measure in place of gold was in the increased use of it as a medium of exchange. The report of Hon. James Bryce, M.P., on the closing of the India mint is a finality as to England's attitude on bimetallism. He clearly showed that a double standard or an arbitrary fixity of values, except as the credit of the government was inserted as the variable, was unscientific and absurd. When the National treasury held only $40,000,000 of gold, and the bankers of New York stood ready to drain it of even that by presenting at the front door gold certificates, and then loaning it back to the government for bonds bought at a big profit, the people had some reason to view with alarm the gold and silver question. But now over $200,000,000 is in the treasury, mortgages are being paid off, the country is again becoming prosperous, and the silver question is fast ceasing to be a live issue.

RESPONSIBILITY OF NATIONAL GREATNESS.

Z. S. H.

ONE of the most marked effects of the war for the liberation of Cuba has been an immeasurable increase of the intensity of America's consciousness of her great mission in the world. The abolition of slavery during the Civil War prepared the way for a perfect national unification which has now become real. Northern soldiers and Southern soldiers have fought shoulder to shoulder; Confederate generals have joined with Union generals in directing the same great military operations. Regiments of negro soldiers have won lasting renown in the eyes of the white regiments who were facing death beside them. The rapid organization of an army of more than two hundred thousand volunteers, with the readiness of many times that number to swell the ranks, has demonstrated anew the strength of the National patriotism. The marvelous discipline and effectiveness of the navy has fairly startled the world; while the high character of the personnel both of the officers and of the men in all departments of our miltary service ushers in a new era in modern warfare. To a remarkable extent the officers both of the navy and the army are men of positive Christian character; while the recruits have come from the most intelligent and prosperous classes, representing in an unusual degree the colleges, the high schools, the Sabbath-schools, and the Christian Endeavor Societies of the country.

It cannot be denied, also, that the purposes of the war have been in the highest degree philanthropic and Christian. The heart of the nation was touched by the wide-spread evils, both moral and physical, which had become chronic under Spanish dominion in Cuba. McKinley voiced the heart of the nation when he announced that the continued existence of such evils in close proximity to our shores had become "intolerable." Nor can there be little doubt that the conviction of the people, that these evils were without remedy under Spanish rule, was correct. The people of Cuba were bearing the burdens of centuries of misrule incident to the ideas of the Middle Ages. An enormous debt was saddled upon all the industries of the island, with the prospect of an indefinite increase upon the resubjugation of the insurgents. The taxes were largely for the benefit of foreign adventurers, and not for the development of the resources of the country, or for the promotion of the well-being of the people; while the means of remedying this condition of things were carefully kept beyond the reach of the native population. The contrast between a people thus situated and the people of the United States, with their carefully guarded political rights, is inexpressibly great.

In vain did the advocates of peace at any price maintain that we were not responsible for the ills of Cuba, and that the deliverance of her people was none of our business. With the present extension of the means of public knowledge, and the recent quickening of public sympathy for all classes of sufferers, it was impossible, and would have been unchristian, to repress the rising interest in the deliverance of these unfortunate people. It was noticeable that the collections which poured in for the physical relief of the Cubans before the declaration of war came largely from the poor people of the country. A few months ago I was permitted to look in upon some hundreds of girls, in humble circumstances, engaged in a most monotonous department of work in a factory, and receiving very moderate wages. I was surprised, soon after, to learn that, in the contributions in that city taken for Cuban relief, these girls furnished one of the most considerable sums. This was perhaps partly explained by the fact that they were of Dutch descent, and belonged to families in which the traditions of Spain's horrible efforts to suppress the freedom of their native land were still a power that must be reckoned with. The past efforts of Spain to repress the liberties of Holland are indeed now but her misfortune, but the continuance of similar efforts over other people at the present time is a crime which cannot be condoned. By resist ing the ideas of the nineteenth century, and turning a deaf ear to the cry of the masses for proper recognition, Spain is sinning away her day of grace.

With all their faults, the institutions of America are the hope of the world. The experiment is here being successfully tried of a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." The present war is strikingly illustrating the advantages of such a government. Never be

war.

own.

fore in the history of the world has there been manifest such an ardent desire, upon the part of all classes of a nation, to maintain its honor, and give efficiency to its administration, as was apparent in the United States in the Spanish war. Almost immediately after having passed through one of the bitterest of all political controversies over a presidential election, the nation has shown itself a unit in the conduct of a foreign Immense sums of money have been voted without a dissenting voice. The responsibility of universal suffrage has really given the dignity of rulership to every unit of the republic. In no figurative sense each voter in the United States is a royal personage, and in defending his nation's honor he has an instinctive feeling that he is defending his The "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" is not only not to perish from the earth, but is too good to be limited to any one nation. A century's experience in free schools, free churches, free speech, and free suffrage, has demonstrated the superior value of the political institutions that rest upon them and protect them. The time had come when the nation most fully incorporating these principles of liberty should have its due weight in the world. It was impossible in the nature of things that we should much longer stand aloof from the affairs of the world and live an isolated national life. It was not only humiliating, bnt a criminal evasion of responsibility, that the foreign ambassadors of the United States should be so lacking in influence as they have been in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. It does not accord with the fitness of things that the representative of the United States, with her seventy millions of loyal people, should be snubbed and utterly disregarded when he has requested the unspeakable Turk to regard the treaty rights of our citizens who have been plundered while in pursuance of their lawful and peaceable avocations in Turkish territory. A nation as great as the United States should make the weight of her influence felt throughout the world, all the more because her aims are so high and her institutions so worthy of imitation. The manner in which, among other things, our missionaries in the Caroline Islands were plundered by Spanish authorities, and all restitution neglected, is not only aggravating, but a blot upon the honor of the nation that permits it, and a rank injustice that ought not to be endured.

There is not only a false, but a true, national glory, which is of the highest value to all concerned. The glory of a nation, like the glory of God, is not a thing to be lightly esteemed. The glory of God is the true expression of all his attributes. To be fully appreciated, and properly influential with his creatures, God must be adequately known. The glory of God is thus, while not an ultimate good, the highest proximate good in the universe. The full-orbed revelation of the ineffable attributes of the Creator is the most effective means of promoting all the highest forms of sentient good. It is thus of the highest importance that the soldiers and sailors of our army and navy by the alacrity with which

they have enlisted, by the promptness with which they have submitted to discipline, by the fearlessness with which they have faced death upon the battle-field, have revealed to the world the beneficent effects of our mild home rule and the irresistible power of a free and intelligent people. Henceforth, when our ambassador speaks, the Turk will listen, and the Spaniard will give attention. The reproach that our civil and religious liberty have destroyed true patriotism, and reduced the people of the nation to the level of money-getters and pleasure-seekers, will no longer be heard. It was high time that the corrupt governments of Europe were taught to respect our great Republic. Else they might soon have attempted to carve up America as they have already carved up Africa, and are attempting to divide among them for plunder the three hundred million ignorant and unpatriotic citizens of the Chinese Empire. But this new consciousness of power developed to such intensity during the past few months brings with it added responsibilities. As never before, the Christian citizens of the nation need to be alert in their efforts to purge our form of government from the parasitic evils which thrive upon the very virtues of our system. Freedom must not be confounded with license; personal liberty must not be interpreted as giving to the powerful liberty to plunder the weak. A nation cannot rise higher than the sum of its individuals; therefore all those agencies which have been so effectually employed in the past to enlighten the minds and regenerate the hearts of the people must be employed with redoubled diligence. Our nation has been made great, not by any single outside agency, but by the coöperation of innumerable individual forces. With us has been illustrated, as never before, the assertion of the Saviour that the kingdom of heaven is like the leaven hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened. The results already visible are calculated to inspire hope, and to encourage renewed efforts along all the lines of Christian activity which are open to every man in a republican form of government.

It is beyond our purpose, at the present time, to discuss the details of administration through which the objects of the war are to be attained. The duties devolving upon the United States are essentially new. To meet the requirements of the new conditions, the wisdom of our statesmen and the integrity of our administrative officers will be taxed to the utmost. No greater calamity to all parties could occur than for the United States to come into control of colonial possessions which should be exploited by adventurers for the profit that could be obtained from them. This was the curse of the Roman Empire at the time of its greatest expansion, and is the root of the specific evils from which we are endeavoring to free neighboring Spanish colonies. The history of our own Indian policy shows that we are not free from the danger of similar temptations. No doubt the pressure to reimburse ourselves in some way for the great expenses of the war will be strong; but nothing could be more

VOL. LV. No. 220. II

unfortunate than that this war should end in the mere shifting of administrations having the same objects in view. America attempting to exact tribute from Cuba or Porto Rico or the Philippine Islands would be a poor substitute for Spain in the same position. The moral elements of the nation which defined the original objects of the war will need to be called into redoubled activity to keep these high principles before the country, and to remind our administrative officers of the solemn pledges made to the world upon engaging in the contest.

THE WAR AND MISSIONARY WORK.

G. F. W.

THAT the war with Spain had its origin in an enlightened public conscience that was awakened to wrath by the sight of the suffering of an oppressed people, and aroused to indignation by the cruelty, injustice, and treachery of Spain, no intelligent citizen will deny. Territorial acquisition was not a motive of action, nor was the lust for power or money a moving force with the American people. Hence the war has awakened the public conscience, not seared it; the highest national ideals have not been lowered by the conquest, but stand out in clearer light, and the true American spirit and characteristics of courage, sincerity, loyalty to just and humane principles, and magnanimity to a fallen and humiliated foe are recognized as never before by all foreign nations. Not only have the American warships destroyed the Spanish navy, but the ideals and motives that for two hundred years have characterized Spanish statecraft have received some severe shocks.

The result is a profound and healthy respect not alone for American seamen and soldiers, but for American ideas of liberty and the right use of power in the hands of a Christian nation. This must result in a warmer welcome to American missionaries in all parts of the world, and the dissipating of prejudices that have been keenly felt by many a worker in foreign fields. Gunpowder that is expended in a righteous cause may be, therefore, a divine forerunner of missionary work. We venture the opinion that even in Spain the American missionary will speak with more authority and to a more appreciative audience than ever before. If this shall be one of the beneficent results from a righteous war that was not for conquest, the cost of it is unimportant.

VITAL QUESTIONS.

Z. S. H.

SOCIAL reformers and the students of social questions have lost, temporarily, some of their interest in sociology as the art of social control, owing to the all-absorbing interest in the war with Spain. Like the silver question, it is temporarily obscured.

If it was necessary, from a humane point of view, to wage war against a foreign nation in behalf of a suffering people, as soon as the issues of the war have all been settled amicably, it will be necessary for the Amer