it bears and hopes and forgets, and so is like God's own love. Early love is intense but it is without knowledge, but that of age is calm and broad because it is wise. Especially does the grace of charity belong to full years. The old are more merciful than the young; they judge more kind y and forgive more readily. Hence they are poor disciplinarians, but their fault is rather their virtue; they are not called to that duty. This changing and expanding form of the supreme principle of our nature has great significance in the question before us. At no time are we let from under its power; at first an instinct, then a conscious passion for one, but blind; then a down-reaching tenderness for children, wiser and more patient; then an out-reaching to humanity, moved by conscience and guided by knowledge; and at last a pitiful, universal sympathy that allies itself to the Eternal Love. Here is a gain that is simply immeasurable, spanning the breadth between the unconscious instinct of the child and the method of God's own heart.

There is also in advanced years a mingling and merging of the faculties, one in another. Thought has more faith in it and faith more thought; reason more feeling and feeling more reason; logic and sentiment melt into each other; courage is tempered with prudence, and prudence gets strength and courage from wisdom; joys have in them more sorrow and sorrows more joy; if it has less zest it touches the mind at more points, while sorrows lose their keenness by falling under the whole range of faculties. An old man does not feel the same rapture before a landscape as one younger, but he sees it with more eyes, so to speak; his whole nature sees it, while the youth regards it with only the one eye of beauty. This united action of the mind, this co-operation of all the faculties, is something far higher than the disjointed experiences of early life. It is like the action of the Divine Mind in which every faculty interpenetrates every other, making God one and perfect. And in man, it is an intimation that he is approaching the Divine Mind, and getting ready, as it were, for the company of God.

[April 26.]

Life is a fire, yet not to blast and reduce to ashes, but to fuse. It takes a vast assemblage of qualities and faculties most unlike

and often discordant, and reduces them first to harmony and then to oneness. Consider how man is made up; under a simple bond of self-consciousness a set of qualities not otherwise related, warring against eac other; good and evil passions, selfishness and love, pride and humility, prudence and folly, mental faculties so unlike at first as to antagonize each other; the logical faculty opposed to imagination, reason to sentiment, the senses demanding one verdict and the conscience another,such a world is man at the outset. Life is the reconciliation of these diversities and antagonisms; the process may be attended by apparent loss, but only apparent. The law of the conservation of forces holds here as in the physical world. In the fire of life, the form is melted away from each quality, but only that their forces may flow together and be fused into one general force that shall set toward the Eternal Righteousness. Thus there comes on that process and condition of life which is called a mellowing. When the growth is normal and is unhindered by gross or deep-seated sin, a change or development takes place in nearly all that is well described by this word. The man ripens, his heart grows soft, he speaks more kindly. A rich autumnal tint overspreads his thoughts and acts. He looks into the faces of little children with a brooding tenderness. He finds it hard to distinguish between the faults and the vices of the young. He hates no longer any thing except a lie, and that because it contradicts the order into which he has come. He draws no sharp, condemnatory lines about conduct, but says to all offenders, "Go and sin no more." His pride dies away; he no longer cherishes distinctions, but talks freely with the humble and has no awe before the great; he forgets his old notions of dignity, and is a companion with his gardener or with the president. This state is sometimes regarded as weakness, and as though it sprang from dulled faculties, but it is simply the moral qualities come into preponderance, or rather the equilibrium of all the forces. Life has ripened its fruits, and the man begins to feel and act like God. Something of the divine patience and charity and wisdom begin to show in him, and we now see why God made him in His own image, and gave him his life to live. If life can start at the point of mere existence, and thence grow up into likeness to God, it is worth living. And if life

reaches so far, we may be sure it will go on. If it gets to the point of laying hold of God, and begins to feel and act like God, it will never relax its hold, it will never cease from action so essentially and eternally valuable. There is the same reason for the continued existence of such a being as of God Himself; that which is like the Best must, for that very reason, live on with the Best. We can no more conceive of God suffering such an one to go out of existence than that a good father would put to death his child most like himself because of the likeness.

This line of thought has force only in the degree in which life is normal, but the fact that it is not wholly such does not break up or foil the divine intention wrought into it. For there is a provision in humanity against its own failures. Life of itself may not reach its proper fullness, but One is in humanity who is redeeming it from its failures and filling its cup even to overflow. Nor is the sadness of age an indication of real loss; it may have another meaning:

The clouds that gather round the setting sun,
Do take a sober coloring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.

It may be a wise provision for attenuating the thread that holds us to this world. The main feature of life is not its sorrow or its joy, nor even its right or wrong doing. Its main feature is that, starting at the bare point of existence, it grows with such stride and rapidity that it yields first a person, and then reaches up to God, into whose affinities

and likeness it enters as a partaker. The space between the infant and a mind walking in conscious oneness with God marks a gain so immense, so rich and wonderful, that we cannot measure it. It is from such a stand-point that the value of life is to be estimated, and not from the amount of sorrow and happiness, nor from any failure through evil. What is evil when there is a soul of goodness in all things? What is sin when it is redeemable? What is a little more or a little less of suffering when such gain is possible? What are toils and what are storms, when such a port is to be reached? The plan seems almost indifferent to happiness and to evil, utilizing one and contending against the other, while it presses steadily toward this gigantic gain, the growth of a soul from simple consciousness into God-likeness.

It is somewhat the fashion now to derogate from the dignity and glory of life. There is doubt that it leads to any thing besides its own end; a weakened sense of God suggests a poor and low estimate of it. "Let us eat ment that hovers in the air. There is no way and drink, for to-morrow we die," is a sentito prevent it from becoming the watchword of society, but by a fresh incoming of faith in God as the Father of men and the Ordainer of life with its laws and ends,-facts not left to the waywardness of our human reason, but revealed in a true Son of God who incarnated the full glory and perfection of life, and makes it abundant for every other child of God.-Abridged from "The Freedom of Faith," by Theodore T. Munger.

T

"Democracy means a popular government, from the Greek demos, the people, and the verb kratein, to be strong, to command. Demos properly meant a 'countrydistrict,' from the root da, to divide; demos was the allotment of public land given to a part of the people, and demos also was called the people who enjoyed the prop erty of that allotment. This is a significant word, as it helps us to see into the condition of the property of land in very remote times, where all history is silent." -F. Garlanda.

when, under a representative government, the people empower legislators to make laws and select executives to carry out such laws, they temporarily surrender the sovereignty and are ruled by their representatives. A democracy is government by the majority. A representative government is rule by a succession of oligarchies.*

In the United States, the people are hardly aware of this distinction; hence most of their political confusion. In Switzerland, the distinction is clear to the citizens, and acting

*See foot note on page 581 of THE CHAUTAUQUAN for February.

The political divisions are numerous. There are twenty-two cantons (states). There are 2,706 communes (townships). Moreover, the people are cut off from each other by differences of language. About 2,000,000 speak German, 600,000 French, 162,000 Italian, and 38,000 Romansch.* Our vast area and enormous population offer perhaps no greater diversities and complications than those the Swiss have encountered in adopting the Referendum.

Briefly, the Referendum is the reference of proposed laws to the people for their veto or approval.

The Referendum as now practiced in Switzerland had its origin in two sources:

(1) In a few of the communes the system has prevailed in one form or other from time immemorial. In the German forest cantonsGlarus, Uri, Schwyz, Appenzell, and Unterwald-the adult male inhabitants of nearly every commune yet meet on stated occasions in the town market-place, or in the open air on a mountain plain, and carry out their functions as citizens. As did their ancestors, they there debate proposed laws, name officers, and discuss affairs of a general nature. Every citizen is a legislator, his voice and vote influencing every question discussed. The right of initiative belongs to each, he who conceives a measure having the opportunity of presenting it and explaining it. Decision is made by show of hands. A purely democratic assemblage of this kind is called a Landsgemeinde.†

(2) The ancient Swiss cantons conferred by sending delegates to a Diet. But the deputies could undertake no affair except on condition of referring it-ad referendum-to the cantonal councils. To this liberal tradition Switzerland is still true. So late as 1834,

*[Ro-mansch'.) The language spoken by the inhabitants of Grisons, the most eastern and largest of the Swiss cantons; it is a corruption of the Latin.

t[Länds'ghe-mine'de].

The fundamental principles of the Referendum are personal freedom and home rule. That a Swiss should be a free man is proverbial. That his neighborhood should be independent seems to him natural. The ancient Swiss commune was quite autonomous+; as nearly as consists with cantonal and federal rights, so also is the modern. Its citizens regard it as their smaller state. It is jealous of interference by the greater state. It has its own property to look after. Until the interests of the canton or the federation manifestly replace those of the immediate locality, it declines to part with the administration of its lands, forests, police, roads, schools, churches, or asylums.

From these circumstances spring the separate applications of the Referendum-to communal, cantonal, and national affairs.

The communal Referendum is chiefly practiced in those communes in which landforest land or farming land-is held in common, and where periodical re-apportionment of holdings is necessary. In the other communes, the few local officials are responsible to public opinion. A Referendum in ceaseless play is the comment of the little neighborhood. On the average, the Swiss commune contains, as the Swiss put it, about "two hundred hearths."

The Cantonal Referendum is in constant practice in all the cantons except Freiburg. Its forms, however, are diverse. In some cantons it is applicable only to financial measures; in others it is optional with the people, who sometimes demand it, but oftener do not; in still others it is obligatory in connection with the passage of every law. In the canton of Vaud, a mere pseudoreferendary right exists, under which the

fixed, and facere, to make. From these two separate words come the English rate and fact, which statement will throw light on the meaning of ratification, the act of sanctioning or giving validity to something done by another; confirmation.

* A compound originating in the Latin word ratus,

[Au-ton'o-mous.] Greek autos, self, and nemein, to rule-nomos, law. Having the power of self-government.

Grand Council (the legislature) may, if it so decides, propose a reference to the citizens. Valais takes a popular vote only on such propositions as involve a one and a half per cent increase in taxation or a total expenditure of 60,000 francs. With increasing confidence in the people, Lucerne, Zug, Basel City, Schaffhausen, St. Gall, Ticino, and Geneva refer a proposed law to the voters when a certain proportion, usually one-sixth to one-fourth, demand it by formal petition. This form is called the optional Referendum. Employed to its utmost in Zurich, Schwyz, Berne, Soleure, Neuchâtel, Basel Land, Aargau, Thurgau, and the Grisons, the Referendum permits no law to be passed or expenditure beyond a stipulated sum to be made in these cantons without a vote by the people. This is known as the obligatory form. Glarus, Uri, the half cantons of Niwald and Obwald (Unterwald), and those of Rhodes Exterior and Rhodes Interior (Appenzell), as cantons, still practice the pure democracy-the Landsgemeinde.

The Federal Referendum is optional. The demand for it must be made by 30,000 citizens or by eight cantons. The petition for a vote under it must be made within ninety days after the publication of the proposed law. It is operative with respect either to a statute or a decree of the executive power.

As corollaries* of the Referendum there have arisen the right of the initiative, of the peremptory† recall of representatives, and of the revision of the constitutions. The popular initiative-the proposal of a law by some of the citizens to all of the citizens— exists in fourteen of the twenty-two cantons. In Zug, for example, 1,000 voters may introduce a cantonal measure; in Zurich, 5,000. As yet, the retirement of representatives is a right practiced in only a few of the more radical cantons; but the revision of a constitution through the Referendum is common. Since 1814, there have been sixty revisions by the people of cantonal constitutions alone.

*[Cor'ol-la-ries.] Latin corolla, a garland, a coronet, whence Latin corollarium, a present of a garland, a gratu'ty, an additional gift; then an additional inference. The last has come to be the especial meaning of the English word; something which follows over and above the demonstration of a proposition; a deduction.

[Per'emp-to ry.] Per, through (thoroughly), and emere, Old Latin for to take; the compound peremere meaning to take entirely away, to destroy. Hence the fitness of making the English word a synonym for dog

matic, authoritative.

By law, Geneva asks its people every fifteen years if they wish to revise their organic law, thus practically twice in a generation determining whether or not they are in this respect content. The Federal constitution may be revised at any time. Fifty thousand voters petitioning for it, or the Federal Assembly (congress) demanding it, the question is submitted to the country. If the vote is in the affirmative, the Council of States (the senate) and the National Council (the house) are both dissolved. A new election of these bodies takes place at once, revision is made by the Congress fresh from the people, and the revised constitution is then submitted to the country. To stand, it must be supported by a majority of the people and a majority of the cantons.

As to results: With such opportunities for creating change, are the Swiss continually demanding something new? Do they write laws one day and wipe them out the next? Are they ever in a ferment over absurd or radical propositions? Is there consequently a reactionary party in Switzerland? other words, can the people, or, rather, the Swiss people, be trusted-entirely?

In

The reply can be framed in a sentence: The records show, first, the frequency with which, whenever they have had the opportunity, the people have had recourse to the Referendum, and, second, the tenacity with which they have clung to the conservative customs of the republic.

Regular and constant, in ancient and modern times, has been the resort to the Referendum wherever it has been practiced. In the fifty-five years from 1469 to 1524, the citizens of Berne took sixty referendary votes. Of 113 Federal laws and decrees subject to the Referendum passed up to the close of 1886 under the constitution of 1874, nineteen were challenged by the necessary 30,000 petitioners, thirteen being rejected and six accepted.

As to the conservativeness of the Swiss voter, the evidence is emphatic. In 1862 and again in 1878, the canton of Geneva rejected proposed changes in its constitution, on the latter occasion by a majority of 6,000 in a vote of 11,000. Twice since 1847 the same canton has voted against an increase of official salaries, and lately it has declined to reduce the number of its Executive Councilors from seven to five. The experience of the Federation has been similar. Between 1874

and 1880 five measures recommended by the Federal Executive and passed by the Federal Assembly were vetoed by a national vote. In 1880 a proposed change in the issue of bank notes was rejected by a majority of 134,000. The two French cantons of Geneva and Neuchâtel, entering the Federation in the present century, have adopted the Referendum on the avowed ground of its efficiency as a check to hasty and inconsiderate legislation.

The nation, however, shows no stupid aversion to change. In 1872 a constitutional revision was rejected by a majority of 6,000. But the present constitution was adopted two years later by a majority of 142,000. Nor does the popular vote point to local selfishness. Especially was this shown in 1878 in the vote taken on the St. Gothard subsidy. The appropriation, besides putting a heavy strain on national resources, threatened the interests of several of the mountain cantons. But on a stormy day in midwinter half a million voters went to the polls, and twothirds of them wanted the tunnel, the affirmative vote in the imperiled cantons being quite up to the average.

Of late years the movement has been steady toward the general adoption of the Referendum. In 1860 but 34 per cent of the Swiss possessed it in cantonal affairs, 66 per cent delegating their sovereign rights to representatives. In 1870 the referendariship had risen to 71 per cent, but 29 submitting to law-making officials. The proportions are now about 90 per cent to 10.

The movement is not only toward the Referendum, but to its obligatory form. The practice of the optional form has revealed defects in it which are inherent.

Geneva's management of the optional Cantonal Referendum is typical. The constitution provides that, with certain exceptions, the people, after petition, may sanction or reject not only the laws passed by the Grand Council, but the decrees issued by the legislative and executive powers. The exceptions are "measures of urgence" and the items of the annual budget excepting such as establish a new tax, increase one in force, or necessitate an issue of bonds. The Referendum cannot be exercised against the budget as a whole, the Grand Council indicating the sections which are to go to the public vote. In case of opposition to any measure, a petition for the Referendum is put in circulation. It

The power of declaring measures to be "of urgence" lies with the Grand Council, the body passing the measures. Small wonder, then, that many bills are, in its eyes, of too much and too immediate importance to go to the people. "The habit," protested Grand Councilor M. Putet, on one occasion, "tends more and more to introduce itself here of decreeing urgence unnecessarily, thus taking away from the Referendum expenses which have nothing of urgence. This is contrary to the spirit of the constitutional law. Public necessity alone can authorize the Grand Council to take away any of its acts from the public control."

Another defect in the optional Referendum is that it can be transformed into a partisan weapon-in Switzerland, as elsewhere, there being politicians ready to take advantage of the law for party purposes. For instance, a minority party in the Geneva Grand Council seeking some concession from a majority which have just passed a bill, will threaten, if the concession demanded is not granted, to agitate for the Referendum on the bill; this although perhaps the minority favor the measure, some of them, indeed, perhaps, having voted for it. As the majority may not be certain of the outcome of a struggle at the polls, they will be inclined to deliver what the minority demand.

But the most serious objections to the optional form arise in connection with the petitioning. Easy enough for a rich and strong party to bear the expense of printing, mailing, and circulating the blank lists; in case of opposition coming from the poorer classes the cost may prove an insurmountable obstacle. Especially is it difficult to get up a petition after several successive appeals coming close together, the constant agitation growing tiresome as well as financially burdensome. Hence, measures sometimes have become law simply because the people have not had time to recover from the prolonged agitation in connection with preceding propositions. And each measure submitted to the optional Referendum brings with it two