know them chiefly as affable gentlemen, or
as present help when they get into trouble
with the landlord or the police, but this,
though often the most vexatious part of a
consul's duty, is not the chief one, nor
is it the granting of consular certificates
to exporters or to emigrants. The consul
is, or at least might and ought to be, the
nation's commercial agent, well-informed
both of the economic needs and produc-
tions of his district, and able through his
consular reports to assist in developing
both the import and the export trade of
his own country. To perform this func-
tion adequately he needs training, and the
greater his experience the better he will
perform it. Realizing this, Secretary Root
caused a bill to be prepared for consular
reform, which has just been reported to
the Senate by its Committee on Foreign
Relations, so changed as to be quite per-
verted. Consular appointments have been
too often in the past political rewards.
Secretary Root wished to take the service
out of politics altogether; to select consuls
for their fitness, to promote them for their
efficiency. To further this plan he pro-
posed to classify them and to increase
their salaries. The inequitable fee system
would be abolished. The Senate commit

tee has no objection to increasing salaries,
but insists that consuls should be named,
transferred and promoted "as at present";
that is, as everybody knows, by way of
patronage. It has been suggested that the
President would be quite within his rights
in ignoring the Senate altogether in this Russia.
reform of a branch of the State Department has decided to deprive the Douma of
ment. In doing so he would certainly
any constitutional power such
have the support of the commercial in- granted in the Tsar's recent proclamation.
terests of the country.
Count Witte, is said by the semi-official
Slovo, to have declared for the unimpaired

as was

maintenance of autocracy. What the
Tsar had granted, he said, might at any
time be taken away, and if the Douma
tried to assume the powers of a constitu-
ent assembly it would be dispersed as a
revolutionary meeting. Count Witte's po-
sit is undeniably critical. Such a
policy as suggested by the Slovo would
undoubtedly lead to a renewal of revolu-
tionary outbreaks, probably more wide-
spread and of greater violence than have
yet been witnessed. The financial situa-
tion meantime continues acute. Russia
has borrowed for temporary needs at
rates amounting, with commissions, to
over 7 per cent., but the gold reserve is
being rapidly depleted to meet foreign
commercial bills. Leading bankers are
said to doubt if specie payments can be
maintained.

French
Separation
Justified.

that it has in America. Those Churchmen
who desire a free Church in a free State
are so sure of this that they are giving
organized expression to their conviction.
The same disposition to organize law-
lessness appeared at the conference of
French cardinals held about New Year,
though it seems that the weight of opinion
and probably of numbers is in favor of
frank acceptance of the law, and it has
been marked as significant that Cardinal
Mathieu, once Archbishop of Toulouse,
and supposed to be in close touch with
the Fope through his residence at Rome,
strongly favors this course. Only unan-
imity could give any prospect of success
to resistance, and of this, as we said last
week, there is no prospect.

An immediate cause of conflict has
arisen over the inventories of Church or-
naments, such as were taken in England
under Edward VI. Cardinal Richard has
addressed a circular letter to the priests
of Paris, instructing them on no account
to exhibit sacred vessels contained in the
tabernacles to the civil agents, and many
other bishops have given similar instruc-
tions. The order to make these in-
ventories is regarded by most as a tactical
mistake, and by some as the beginning of

a conflict a outrance.

The French Government

in arranging for the sep-
aration of Church and
State held it a counsel

Failure of the Radicals,
lack of cohesion among
the Liberals, has been

the opportunity of the Reactionaries in

It would seem that the Govern

Russian
Reaction.

of self-preservation to retain some meas-
ure of control over the newly created Asso-
ciations. How amply justified they were
in this precaution has been promptly at
tested. The ultramontane leader and
aristocratic demagogue, Comte de Mun,
himself a member of the French Senate, in
an address to the Congress of the Popular
Liberal Movement, a Roman Catholic wage-
earners' organization, on Dec. 19, said,
according to what purports to be a textual
report of his speech in the New York Free-
man's Journal, that he was resolved to
subordinate all political questions to what
he considered defence of the faith; de-
clared the policy of the Government to be
criminal, and the present act more
odious than the Civil Constitution of the
clergy decreed by the first republic. "The
latter," he said, "aimed at creating
schism.
Prisoners.
The former aims at bringing
about apostasy. The motive of both is the
enslavement of the Church." He, for one,
would never consent "to give this deadly
experiment a fair trial," and he assured
his hearers that the Pope would never de
mand that; though "whether he orders us
to ignore the law, as I dare hope he will,
or whether he enjoins upon us to submit
to it, the moment he speaks he will be
obeyed." These words are said to have
been received with prolonged applause.
They are a declaration that if an Italian
orders a French citizen to break the law
of his land, he ought to break it, and will
break it. Persons who proclaim such
opinions certainly should not be surprised
if they are subjected to restraint and re-
garded as possible traitors. Comte de
Mun's speech is a justification of the de-
nunciation of the Concordat, and
justification of the very clauses in the
Separation Act that arouse his rebellious
anger. The Roman Church has only to ab-
stain from politics to obtain in France the
same benevolent toleration from the State

a

The organ of the Greek Church in Japan, Seikyo Shimpo, pays a warm tribute to the courtesy and kindliness with which the Buddhist priests treated the prisoners lodged in their temples, and expresses its

tude for the repeated interest ex pressed in the welfare of those unfortunates. It cannot recall a single case where there has been any unpleasantness be tweeen the Buddhists and their Christian guests-all has been peace and harmony. This, as the Seikyo continues, is very creditable to the professors of Buddhism, which the Greek Bishop Nicolai may well regard after this experience as "a religion well adapted to prepare the way for Christianity. Of all the many surprises that this war has furnished, the attitude of Buddhism to our Christian prisoners is in many respects most remarkable, and it cannot but have made a deep impression on the men who were the recipients of Buddhist hospitality."

Buddhist Priests
and Russian

William Rainey Harper, president of the University of Chicago, of which he was the founder in a sense more real

Death of Pres-
ident Harper.

than he whose name is borne upon the
university shield, died on Jan. 10. Re-
garded by many as the first Semitic schol-
ar in America, he gained hardly less dis-
tinction as an educational organizer and
the efficient financial manager of great
corporation interests. He died at his
home on the University Campus in har-
ness, after a life of intense activity, in his
forty-ninth year. One of the most pre-
cocious of American scholars, graduating
from an interior college at fourteen, he
had at nineteen won his doctorate at
Yale, and at twenty-three was Professor of
Hebrew in a Baptist theological seminary.
Seven years later he took the chair of
Semitics at Yale, having already made
himself felt in vitalizing the study of He-
brew throughout the country. When Mr.
Rockefeller wished to erect a monument
to himself by regenerating the moribund
Chicago University, with the unerring in-
stinct that had guided him in the choice
of agents in commercial fields, he turned
to Dr. Harper and made him first presi-
dent of the new University of Chicago,
which is in a very real sense Dr. Harper's
creation. Mr. Rockefeller and others have
given great sums to the institution, Dr.
Harper has given the best of his life,

while finding, in ways that even to his in-
timates were inscrutable, time to produce
many Hebraic studies that yielded noth-
ing in scholarship to those of others' aca-
demic leisure. President Butler, of Co-
lumbia, who knew him well, has said that
"his genius for friendship formed
small part of his success in life." Noth-
ing in his life became him better, or is
more calculated to win universal sympa-
thy for one whose educational methods

no

had sometimes roused criticism, than the
indomitable courage with which during
the past year he has submitted to opera-
tion after operation for a disease that
proved incurable but could not conquer
his spirit.

Sixteen years' experience
of disestablishment in
Brazil might well add
hopefulness to the cour-
age with which the most enlightened
Roman Catholics view the situation in
France. The Missionary, a Roman Catho-
lic journal, after admitting that Brazil
had but a poor reputation for religious
zeal, says: "Things are changed there
since 1889, when the State gave freedom
to the Church. Up to that date the
Church had been enslaved to the Govern-
ment, with the usual consequences of evil.
Then came the proclamation of the repub-
lic, which, by a simple decree, cut loose
the Church from all State support, and
also from all State control. The Catho-
lics met the perils of poverty with cour-
age. Parochial associations were founded,
money for every good cause continued to
flow in, and now the Church is stronger,
religiously and financially, than at any
time in the past. She has excellent
schools, and colleges for higher educa-
tion; the clergy are better trained and in-
structed; the religious orders from
Europe have given new life to the faith; a
good Catholic newspaper press is grow-
ing; and the public spirit is active and
zealous among the faithful. Only recent-
ly the Parliament tried to introduce di
vorce into Brazilian legislation, but the
Catholics and their deputies raised such
an outcry that the bill was rejected. The
Church in Brazil has begun a fresh career,
and presents one more proof of the ad-
vantage of keeping religion free from the
golden chains of servitude to the interests

The
and schemes of tricky politicians.
faith finds its best support on the sacra-
There
ments; they will keep it alive."
never would have been establishments if
the Church had not desired them, and yet
by them she is always the loser.

Religious
Liberty in
Brazil.

with the Christian ideal. So deep an impression did his words make that it has been decided to print the sermon complete as a tract. To us his demands would seem simple, elementary; to the Chinese they are radical. The value of such men as Mr. Whang in the present crisis in Chinese political and social life is inestimable, and China owes them wholly to the Christian mission.

Sunday-school librarians and superintendents who supervise are often perplexed to know just what books it is best to buy with the usually slender means at their disposal. For such, as a quiet counsellor, the Church Library Association at Cambridge, Mass., has once more prepared "A List of Books Recommended for Sun

day-school and Parish Libraries," supplementary to its first catalogue of 1900, its second catalogue of 1904, and its list published a year ago at Advent. These two catalógues and two lists contain together a complete summary of all the books the Association has recommended since 1881, carefully classified and with occasional brief notes to show the character of the books listed. Persons who desire to make use of these catalogues are invited to send their names to the secretary of the Church Library Association, Cambridge, Mass. No charge is made, this being regarded in the nature of work for the Church. Of course voluntary contributions help to assure the continuance of the work.

Commendable

Books.

English Church
News.

That the general election would be fought on the fiscal issue has seemed increasingly evident to the secular press. Not so to The Guardian, which is "certain that for Churchmen the primary question is not Free Trade or

:

The Guardian on the General Election.

it will-be. With the present Government Nonconformist
Mr. Lloyd George gave
in power, as well as in office, we shall
the assurance that he
Opinion.
have to deal with a vital crisis not dis-
would not rob the
similar from that which only threatened Church of anything that "legitimately”
in 1885. . . . Short of actual departure belonged to her, but the word is very
from principle, Churchmen must use
variously interpreted. In the last Fort-
every weapon in the political armory to nightly Review, for instance, it is argued:
preserve that real religious equality which "At least five-eighths of the cost of ex-
is their barest right. If they fail in.this isting schools has been found by the tax-
elementary duty they will have only them- payers in general; the remainder by
selves to blame for consequences which benevolent persons long since dead. The
cannot be other than disastrous in the priests
of to-day, whether Anglican,
extreme."
Roman, Wesleyan, or other, have found
no part of the cost, nor have their dis-
ciples. In a good many cases endow.
ments have been lost, embezzled, or di-
verted. The State, which is now defray-
ing the whole cost of education, ought to
enter into possession of the schools."
The British Weekly says that all
Liberals
George in demanding public control and
are agreed with Mr. Lloyd
the abolition of tests. It anticipates that
the Government policy will be "to remit

ligious teaching," that is, we suppose, to
to the localities the decision of the re-
institute a sort of local option. Meantime
it urges now, more than ever, passive
resistance.
yond expectation.”
Success so far "has been be-
on the way to victory all may yet be lost
"Still, while we are
if there is the least quailing in the last
decisive hour.”

Church of England was robbed of the control of those which she has built for the express purpose of teaching her own faith to her own children. The country will stand even that, unless Churchmen make their power felt. For weal or woe, we are ruled by majorities; and if we are so supine as to place it in the power of any political party to do this ill deed, done

The Record thinks that "there is not now th smallest doubt but that the ministry is a disestablishment ministry," nor should any one "indulge the debilitating thought" that the Lords will avert a catastrophe. Thus it interprets Mr. Lloyd George's declaration in favor of "religious equality." The educational programme is interpreted by The Record to mean "no denominational instruction, and, in fact, one type only of public elementary schools" with "complete popular control."

The Record and The Church Times.

The Church Times commends Mr. Lloyd George's attitude as fair, though objecting to his conception of religious equality. For local option would exclude the religious beliefs of a minority from representation in provided schools, while, it contends, the only reasonable alternative to secularism is equal facilities for all. Referring to the proposal of Mr. Birrell, the new Minister of Education, "to afford facilities for the dogmatic religious teaching expressly desired by parents, not as part of the school curriculum but on school premises after school hours," the Church Times refuses to say "Thank you," believing that the ultimate result will be the exclusion of dogmatic teaching altogether. It demands facilities during school hours and by properly attested teachers as "the only equivalent for the admission of popular control into our schools." Any such proposal as that of Canon Beeching to teach fundamental Christianity through some such device as the Jamaica catechism it finds equally unsatisfactory. "We do not consider it possible, or desirable," it says, "to join with Dissenters in any system of religious teaching."

Protection, but the safety of the schools and the preservation of the English

Church as an organic whole." It sometimes wonders "whether the bulk of Churchmen realize all that these issues mean to them and to the future of religion in this country. Yet immeasurably grave as the question of Disestablishment must necessarily be, it is less urgent and less pressing than that of Education. We know

with absolute certainty that if Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman obtains any sort of a majority in the country we shall, eight or ten weeks hence, be faced with an Education Bill every line of which it will be the duty not only of Churchmen, but of Roman Catholics and Jews, to fight in the most determined manner, unless (which is perfectly possible) those minorities are offered special terms. If it comes to bargaining, the Church will have to insist fhat no denomination shall be better treated than herself. Unless the Liberals obtain a crushing majority, they will be compelled, despite Mr. Redmond's recent attempt to repudiate the name of 'Catholic' for his party, to conciliate the Nationalists. It is idle to argue that the country would not stand so gross an injustice as the granting of favorable terms to the Roman Catholic schools while the tinguish between those who are in deadly to remove felled timber, and that oxen,

"Our position," says The
Tablet, "is clear. The es-
sential thing is that we
should have Catholic

teachers for Catholic schools-Catholic
teachers 'first, last, and all the time'
with liberty to give religious instruction
at fixed times in school hours to those
children whose parents wish them to re-
ceive it. That end may be secured in this
or in that way, but secured it has got to
be. And if the Catholic body is true to it-
self we have not the smallest fear for the
result, whatever surprises the polls may
have in store for us. . . . We certainly
have never tried to secure separate treat-
ment for the Catholic schools, or lent
countenance to the policy which would try
to bargain for the safety of our own
schools by sacrificing the general cause of
denominational education throughout the
country. At the same time, it is hardly
surprising if politicians are quick to dis-

The Roman Catholic Position.

The Spectator in a long editorial considers whether it may not be possible to agree upon some system of religious teaching that shall embody "fundamental Christianity, the simple and elementary foundation upon which the various creeds are based," and so be acceptable both to the established and the free Churches, though satisfying neither. Amendment of the present Education Act The Spectator considers an absolute necessity, and it thinks there is real danger of secularization unless the leaders of the various churches agree. Secularization would, it thinks, be a national calamity of the first order. "A sound nation cannot be built up if we are publicly to proclaim the idea that the State is indifferent whether the children of the people

have or have not any religious teaching.” It thinks denominational teaching would prove impracticable, though it might efficiently supplement such an arrangement as is proposed.. If such men as Archbishop Davidson, Bishop Gore, Dr. Clifford and Dr. Hodgkin would draw up a catechism on the lines of the Jamaica

Catechism, The Spectator believes that "religious-minded laymen throughout the

Nation would view the result with intense relief and feel that at last a firm bulwark had been raised against the secularization of the schools."

earnest and those who are only lukewarm.
If the eighty votes of the Irish party are
a decisive factor in determining the policy
of the Government, what does that signi-
fy? It means that as Catholics, or as the
representatives of Catholics, they care su-
premely for the cause of religious educa-
tion. But are there not eighty Anglicans
in the Liberal party?"

The Spectator's
Plan.

Mr. Stanley Austin, owner of Glastonbury Abbey, invites the American Church press to copy a letter that he has written to The Guardian, taking issue with some statements in Mr. Ralph Adams Cram's "Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain." The letter has not the amenity or the suavity that would invite its reprinting.

Its points are that sheep are not grazed on the abbey grounds by hundreds, but only a dozen or two at a time; that horses are not admitted to the abbey grounds, except

Mr. Cram at
Glastonbury.

cows or calves have not been seen by Mr. Austin there. He says he has more than once been publicly complimented and thanked for the care he has bestowed on the ruins, and claims that injustice has been done him by the charge of neglect. As Mr. Cram's article appeared originally in this journal it is right that Mr. Austin's letter should not pass unnoticed here.

Sin and Modern Thought."

has done for us? These and a hundred other questions spring up at once, and Christian dogmas are nothing more nor less than the answers to such questions.

It is quite true that "the important thing is to follow Christ, even though one cannot adequately define Him." But it is also true that we have a greater incentive to follow Him if we have reached the higher conception of His Person. And it is equally evident that one who is intensely alive to the meaning of Christ's life for his own soul cannot rest satisfied until he has learned all that can be known about the Master what were His relations to the Father whom He came to reveal; on what His authority is grounded; why He may demand our allegiance and our love; whether or not He is an infallible guide. We must not think that Christian faith is simply the ability to declare our conviction that Jesus is divine; we are not merely to name His Name, we are to do His will, walk in His steps, commit our souls to His keeping. Yet, if we are to do this, it is inevitable that we ask, "Why must I do it? Who is this Master?" And the kind of obedience we render, and the character of our imitation of His life, will depend on how we answer those questions. Second, this being the fact, the more we know of the doctrines of the Church the more shall we know of Christ, and receiving in its fulness the truth about Him, we shall receive that which will make our life richer and stronger and fuller. If we were to teach doctrine as a mere shibboleth, excluding all who cannot frame to pronounce some test word aright, men could not condemn us too strongly; dogma divorced from life would be useless -worse than useless.

Stop to think of it a moment, and it will be plain that every doctrine of the Creed has its influence on conduct. Our whole thought of the purpose of life depends on our grasp of these spiritual realities. The conception of God as a moral governor is that which gives us a moral standard of action. The conception of a Future Life gives us support in all our perplexities, for by it we are led to believe that we see only a fragment of a vast scheme, and that injustice, oppression, pain, and sorrow will be remedied in the world that is to come. The conception of the Incarnation teaches us to recognize a new and ineffaceable relation between man and man, for if Christ took upon Him our human nature, every man, white or black, good or bad, saint or sinner, has in him some likeness to Christ and is not to be neglected or despised. The conception of the Trinity tells us that subordination is consistent with equality, and that it is the glory of the Triune God to be one "by a moral living for and in each other, in a mutual devotion such as serves as an example for men." The conception of the Atonement declares to us the conquest of evil through suffering, tells us of a Christ crucified through weakness but living through the power of God, and therefore shows us the need of self-sacrifice, the moral beauty of a life given for others. The conception of the Resurrection makes every part of life important; teaching, as it does, the resurrection of the flesh, it impresses on us the sacredness of our bodies as well as of our souls.

So patient investigation will show that no doctrine-if it be rightly maintained-is without a bearing on conduct. False and imperfect doctrines will and must result in lives faulty and maimed, which might have been noble and complete. The full Church doctrine produces a full moral life. It is, if it be translated into action, an inexhaustible spring of strength, though if it be held merely as an intellectual notion it will bring a complete paralysis of moral force.

One Hundred Deacons.

By the Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D..

What sort of men are entering the ministry of the Church? Are the parishes of our Church sending men into the ministry, or are we depending upon the spiritual fruitage of other denominations? Are we getting an educated ministry, or, yielding to the demand for more clergy, are we letting down the bars? Do not the candi

Of the last 105 men ordained deacons in Massachusetts 5 were of middle age, having come from other denominations. In order to get more reliable averages I have omitted them and, these excepted, have made a study of the last 100 men whom I have ordained to the diaconate.

dates receive too much financial aid, and
are not inefficient men thus tempted to
ward Holy Orders? Do the men when or
dained get to work and stick to it?

Such questions are floating in the minds
of laymen as well as the clergy. We all
have answers, gathered from impressions
or a few isolated facts; unreliable answers
of course. May it not be worth the while
of the Church to take up the study of
these questions a little more seriously and
try to get at the real facts? Figures may
be made to lie and conclusions drawn
from statistics are not always correct.
Nevertheless, a study from figures has its
value, and if from different parts of the their own; of the rest, I have never given
country we could get some reliable statis- a dollar to aid one. Very few have re-
tics, we might gain more intelligent an-
ceived aid from societies. A number have
swers to these questions. With this in through merit obtained scholarships in
view, I have made a brief study of the last college and the seminary. Some have
100 men ordained in Massachusetts: been released from the $50 tuition fee at
too small a number for broad conclu- the Cambridge School, and the free tu
sions. The results of the study are in- tion at the other schools is an aid. No
teresting. Each part of the country has doubt friends, pastors, and the authorities
its own local conditions and if others will, of the theological schools gave help to
from their experience, continue the study some. I can safely say, however, that ex-
we may learn something.
cept those who had their own incomes,
there was not one who in college or the
theological school, or both, had not
worked, saved and earned a part, most of
them a large part, of his support during
the seven years of his higher education.
A number of them had been in business,
or taught school for one, two or more
years in order to pay their way.

As we recall these figures the question must arise, How is it that over half of the Massachusetts candidates come from outside the State and from so many religious associations? It is due largely, I think, to the fact that the colleges of Massachusetts attract young men from all parts of the country and from various religious associations. With the opening of such young man's mind to culture and with the breaking of his home associations he drifts from Church to Church, and in the Episcopal Church he finds something that meets his spiritual and intellectual needs. It appeals to his historic sense. He finds

a.

that the attitude of this Church is not

that of walled barriers, but of open doors. His theological ideas are crude, his conceptions of the Church embryonic, his intellectual doubts many, but his spiritual tone is firm. Instead of entering the ministry of his parents' Church, as he had intended, he turns of his own accord to the ministry of this Church. To enter it is his strong desire, if he can. When he finds that his advisers are appreciative of his intellectual doubts, sympathetic with his philosophical attitude, and more thoughtful of his character than of his theology, he finds his spiritual home and grows into the Church's life. Such men may, in the early years of their minstry. trouble some of their elders with what seem to be heretical opinions and dangerous convictions. Most of them, however, have the right stuff in them, and make the most loyal supporters of the Church.

There is, however, danger in this. If we receive too large a proportion of men into the ministry who have not been brought up in the Church, we are liable to have those who inherit the sect idea and

The first fact of interest is that of these 100 only 47 were really Massachusetts men: the other 53 did not come to this State until their early manhood: of these 53, New York furnished 11, Pennsylvania 7, the Middle West 12, and the remainder came from various states and countries. From what religious associations have they come? Of the 47 Massachusetts bred men 20 were the legitimate outcome of the Episcopal Church in this diocese, the remainder received their spiritual culture in other denominations. It is of course impossible in such a subject as spiritual associations to speak with exactness. It may be safely said, however, that of the

10, 42 had their spiritual home during

boyhood in the Church. Of the remainder
some 17 were orthodox Congregational-
ists, 14 Methodists, 6 Presbyterians, 4 Uni-
tarians, 4 Baptists, and the rest were from

various denominations.

Were they men of liberal education?
Of the 100, 83 held degrees in arts or the
equivalent, 15 had some collegiate train
ing, and 2 had a high school education.
(These two by the way are now rectors of
important city parishes.) Thirty-three
universities and colleges were repre-
sented: 36 men coming from Harvard, 10
from Yale. Every man, except 2, there-
fore, had come into touch with college

life, and the 18 who had no degrees were
required to pass such examinations as
would show that they were educated men.
As to their theological education: 89
men graduated from theological schools,
and the other 11 did substantial work in

these schools. The Episcopal Theological.
School, Cambridge, sent out 83, the Gen-
eral Theological Seminary 9, Alexandria
and Yale 2 each, Philadelphia, Berkeley,
Andover and Union 1 each. It is the duty

of the bishop to advise with his candidates on all important subjects relating to their preparation, including their selection of their place of study. That done, I leave the candidate free to go where he thinks best. If a man is not intelligent and mature enough for that decision I will not have him as a candidate. Be

sides their examinations at the theological

schools all the men, before ordination, passed canonical examinations, written and oral, in seventeen subjects, lasting three days: for in this diocese we have demanded an educated order of deacons, and have not ordained men to that office until they have passed all the canonical examinations required for the priesthood. The average age of these men at the time of their ordination was twenty.eight years and eight months.

It is not so easy to arrive at the facts as to financial aid. These points are clear, however: Some had sufficient incomes of