tention of these gatherings. The evils of Intemperance have been plainly depicted, and the beauty, practicability and necessity of the Total Abstinence principle have been clearly and repeatedly affirmed here. Moral Suasion, Legal Suasion, Substitution, and every new scheme for dealing with the Drink Evil have been considered here by the ablest advocates, and the most loyal devotees of the movement whose presence could from time to time be secured. The Barbarism of War and the Beauty of Peace is a theme which has always been precious to the frequenters of Longwood. Even in the very presence of armed conflict, for a cause so noble that Sumner could speak, and Whittier sing for it, the ideal of Peace never ceased to be cherished in this place, and International Arbitration has been a summit of attainment toward which we have longed to see the nations climb. The growing thought of Education, which beginning with treating the human mind as the store-house for a few facts, has evolved to the conception of placing the individual in the best possible working possession of all his faculties, has been reflected here. We have heard about the claims of Children, Children's Literature, the Kindergarten, Manual Training, the Claims of the Public School, Imagination in Education, and many another phase of progressive thought, from time to time, from those who have given of their best efforts to make the work of fitting the children and the young people for life all that it ought to be. When as the problem of Slave labor was nearing solution, it was seen that all labor was subject to conditions essentially unjust, here and there pioneers began to talk with great earnestness of the relations of Capital and Labor. They began to see, as a few dreamers had seen before them, that the distribution of the proceeds of toil was not equitable. Naturally, inevitably, the time came when that issue stalked into these meetings, and you have had discussed here the proposition that extreme wealth and extreme poverty are undemocratic and unAmerican, that the masses of mankind should have larger opportunities than they do have; and not a project for bringing about this result but has been heard here from the lips of some of its most noted advocates. The Func tion of Strikes, the Philosophy of More Leisure, the Single Tax, Financial Reform,-you have heard about all these and more, from those who had that right to speak which comes of earnest study, and exalted purpose. I might go on cataloging the great themes which have been considered during the last forty-six years within these walls. The Cause and Prevention of Crime, Prison Reform, Wrongs of the Indians, Capital Punishment, the Use of Tobacco, Sanitary Reform, Public and Private Charity, Dress Reform, Heredity, Free Trade, Simplicity of Living, and even then I should not dare close the list. Emerson has said somewhere that the greatest compliment man ever receives from Heaven is when it sends him its disguised and discredited angels. This has been a Tribune for unpopular truth, for the affirmation of unrecognized but eternal verities. Well-nigh half a century of such service means something. It is no common place in which we are met, no ordinary atmosphere which we breathe; it is a place where the heroic in life has been constantly present, where moral principles have been clearly discerned, where high ideals have been loved and worshipped. We may well come here to-day in a reverent mood, sure that if high thinking and noble feeling can sanctify any spot, this must be holy ground. Such is Longwood, forty-six years old, at this, the last meeting but one which it will hold in the nineteenth century! Such is Longwood in whose ears in imagination we can already hear ringing the summons of the Twentieth Century ! WHAT IS THE WORK TO WHICH THIS TWENTIETH CENTURY WILL INVITE? I forsee that it will bring us issues to meet, problems to solve, new and enlarged meanings of life to grasp, such as no previous hundred years have brought. I do not forget the mighty significance in history of the century soon to close. I do not forget that when this century dawned men were depending entirely upon the wind for marine navigation, and upon horse power for land navigation. I do not forget that the telegraph, telephone and electric light were then unknown. I do not forget that prison reform was only just beginning the work which has made the names of John Howard and Elizabeth Frye forever illustrious. Changes in political conditions have almost blinded us to what existed in forms of serfdom and slavery when 1800 dawned. Changes in religious conditions have almost drawn the curtain between us and the dark, well-nigh starless night of despair which then seemed hanging over the human race. The philosophy of evolution has come to us since the birth of this century. Darwin and Spencer belong to this century. Nearing its end, greatest and best of all its achievements, the thought of unity is ours. One God behind all, through all, in all. "Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, All thinking things, all objects of all thought, One law based on the unerring, ceaseless operation of cause and effect, governing the courses of the planets and the sparrow's flight and fall, covering the earth with flowers and studding the sky with stars, the rhythmic music to which the whole creation moves. One humanity, a plural unit knit together by the ties of a common origin, a common nature, a common destiny, a brotherhood of mind, heart, conscience, soul, peopling and subduing and encircling the globe. All these different phases of the idea of unity are visions which the nineteenth century has brought to mankind. I do not forget all these things and many more like them, the growth of the germ theory of disease, the advance of modern language, the triumphs of modern science. and the extension of the scientific method into all branches of thought. The taking down of theological fences, the tendency to minimize sectarian distinctions, the dawning acquaintance with other systems of religion than our own, seem coming now as the century's crowning benediction. And yet after we have said it all, it does not require a prophet to forsee that the problems which this hundred years have solved have only led the way to pro blems which are of even deeper significance to humanity. 1900 is coming to us in a time of great changes, great unrest, great out-reachings and up-reachings in the political, the industrial, the social, the religious world. Think of the conditions in "THE POLITICAL WORLD" to-day. On the one hand, the nations preparing themselves on a larger and more effective scale than ever before, for the trial by battle. The methods of warfare made more deadly than ever before. The appeal to physical force still holding a place in the actual conduct of international affairs such as shocks the thoughtful mind, and appals the sensitive heart. On the other hand, a growing sentiment in favor of the appeal to reason so strong that even the despotic powers of the world hear it; a growth of the finer instincts so steady and so sure as to indicate at least that the supremacy of the war-god is to be questioned,and if possible,his power curbed as never before. On the one hand,in our own country, a growth of the one-man power, and the usurpation of the rights of the people until the Democratic principle itself is threatened. The spectacle in our own State of the subordination and sacrifice of the gravest public interests to the political fortunes of one man; the growth of a spirit of indifference and political infidelity among the people themselves which makes the attempt at local government in our large centres of population, for the time being, a failure; the spread of the party spirit against which Washington so wisely warned, in every state of the union and in the national capitol until it becomes impossible to correct abuses, and the whole atmosphere of public life, from the highest to the lowest official, is tainted with doubt and distrust, if not with shame and disgrace. On the other hand, the affirmation by an ever increasing number, of the old and vital doctrine that this is a government of the people, for the people, by the people; that its administration must be honest, and clean, and pure; that public offices are a public trust, and must not be used for the payment of private debts; that at whatever cost to parties or to individuals, the corruption of the ballot, and the demorali zation of the great branches of government service by political trading and trickery shall forever cease. There is no reconciliation possible between these two views. It is knavery on the one side, it is patriotism on the other. It is treason to the Democratic ideal, on the one side; it is loyalty to the Democratic ideal on the other. And the permanence of Democracy pure, progressive, a beacon to the world, is involved in the issue. Think of the conditions in "THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD" to-day. The immense aggregations of wealth which really stand behind much that is most dangerous in our political life, and which taken together with the dark fact of extreme poverty, are an indication that we live under an industrial feudalism, instead of an industrial Democracy, are not sudden, mushroom growths, they are inevitable results of tendencies inherent in this age of the world. When we talk about the danger of trusts; when we see what money is made to do in legislative halls, and at the polls; when we see what dangers to the general weal exist in poverty, and the ills which accompany poverty; when we behold the contrasts between the House of Have and the House of Want, we can but feel the profound character of what is known as the Labor Problem. There has been nothing like it so far as we know in the history of the world. There have been problems that affected one or two classes, this affects all classes. There have been evils so bald, so concrete as to be easily defined, and easily handled, this is subtle, extends in innumerable ways into realms of sentiment, and has none of the clear cut limitations which make definite action easy. It involves a vision of equity, and an application of the Golden Rule such as have existed only in the brightest dreams of the most poetic minds. The growing discontent of the laboring classes, the growing conviction among thoughtful people that every high consideration of religion and humanity demands a more equal distribution of the privileges and opportunities of life, seem to indicate that the time is approaching when an industrial democracy is to be recognized as the |