securing 150 out of the 207 seats. M. Tricoupis himself has lost his seat, and he proposes to withdraw from public life. It is just twenty years since he first became prime minister. The other general election was in Denmark, where the Radical Socialists have returned a majority of the Folkething. For nine years, from 1885 to 1894, there has been a struggle between the King and the Folkething, which was terminated in April last year by an agreement which ended the long-standing dispute practically on lines laid down by the Ministers. It was this agreement which was submitted to the electors at the dissolution, when it was hoped it would be approved. Instead of this, it has been scouted.

From political overturns to real earthEarthquakes quakes the transition is not very wide. In in Central Europe. April Central Europe was shaken by a series of shocks which centred round Laibach, the capital of Carinthia. For about eight hours the ground trembled, no fewer than thirty-one distinct shocks being felt. Every house is said to have been damaged, and the churches have suffered severely. The earthquake, which centred in Laibach, spread southward as far as Verona, northward to Vienna and eastward to Agram. The shock was distinctly felt at Venice, Trieste and Padua. The trains rocked on the rails, church bells rang in the reeling steeples, and the population suffered the usual panic which people feel when the earth moves under them. On May 19 an earthquake of much violence alarmed the people of Florence and vicinity, and caused much damage to property.

POPE LEO XIII.

The Pope to the

In April the Pope published his letter addressed to the English people,-a fact English People of which the majority of the English people took no notice, but which, nevertheless, to all watchers on the mountain tops is one of those unmistakable rifts of light in a cloudy eastern sky which foretell the coming day. Practically, for the moment, nothing has come of it or will come of it in the shape of incidents to be chronicled in the daily papers; but none the less it remains on record as a great and worthy effort to bring together two great empires. The appeal, which is addressed, not to the Roman hierarchy in England, but directly to the English people, marks a great advance. The Pope has acquitted himself well, which is more than can be said of some of the journalistic mouthpieces of the race to whom his letter is addressed.

The Times, almost alone among the The Significance of the newspapers, published the letter in Pope's Encyclical. full; the other papers for the most part summarized it imperfectly or ignored it, and thus the keepers of the ears of King Demos have for the moment largely thwarted the attempt of Leo XIII to put himself into harmonious human relations with the great nation which for three hundred years has definitely repudiated him and his. The letter intrinsically well deserved a better fate. The tribute which the Roman Pontiff pays to the nation that has grown and prospered generation after generation, notwithstanding its defiant antagonism to the whole Roman creed and Roman system, is a homage of which the English people might well have been proud. Even from the narrow standpoint of the sectarian, so frank a recognition of the gifts and graces which flourish outside the pale of the Roman communion deserved a more generous welcome. From the wider point of view of a humanitarian Christian, the Pope's letter is admirable indeed. With the exception of a few paragraphs toward the end, which can easily be forgotten or ignored, the whole letter might well be reprinted by the Religious Tract Society or the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, and circulated as an eloquent tract on the virtue and beauty of intercessory prayer. "Pray without ceasing" is the keynote of the Pope's address; and the most unyielding Protestant cannot deny that nine-tenths of what the Pope says is worthily conceived and pitched in the keynote of evangelical Christianity. Long after all the hubbub and babel of voices raised about the ephemeral topics of the day is over, this letter will be remembered as one of the best expressions of Christian sentiment at the close of the nineteenth century.

In our character sketch of Chicago newsThe Obituary papers and their makers will be found due Record. mention of the late James W. Scott, whose sudden and greatly lamented death was recorded in our obituary columns last month. Few men connected with the American press have ever been more widely known or more highly esteemed

than Mr. Scott. In the whole country, as well as in New England, there will be sincere regret for the loss of Dr. Julius H. Seelye, who was one of the grandest specimens of exalted American manhood that our generation has known. He was a great and inspiring pulpit orator; a teacher who left an indelible impress upon the minds of many pupils who have since attained distinction; a president of Amherst College whose administration was brilliantly successful; a member of Congress whose statesmanlike talents and high spirit of patriotism were of genuine value to the nation. In every walk of life, whether public or private, he was trusted, admired and loved. From Iowa comes the intelligence of the death of the Hon. James F. Wilson. Mr. Wilson had been identified with the political life of Iowa ever since its admission into the Union. He was a member of the State Constitutional Convention of 1856, after which he served for some time in the Legislature. Subsequently he sat in the popular branch of Congress for four terms, and in 1883 was elected to the United States Senate. He had

just completed his full twelve years as a member of that body. He was an orator of considerable power, and a public man of usefulness, who had enjoyed the confidence of the great Republican leaders of the war period. Hon. Augustus Frank, of Warsaw, N. Y., whose name also finds place in our obituary record this month, was a member of Congress for several terms in and after the war period, and was one of the trusted and zealous promoters of Lincoln's views and policies. He was a delegate at large to the last two State Constitutional Conventions, and a citizen who had held many positions of honor and trust with success and fidelity.

THE LATE DR. JULIUS H. SEELYE.

of munificence is not surprising to those who have observed the public spirit of the man. If the great fortunes of the country were generally in such hands as his there would be little jealousy of the rich on the part of working men. Everybody in New York was heartily glad that Peter Cooper possessed wealth, and there is precisely the same feeling toward Seth Low. Better than his gifts of money, however, are President Low's unfailing, tactful, courageous services to the community as a model citizen. Let it be remembered that while there are many men whose names the politicians are weighing as candidates for the national presidency, there are citizens trained in the newer school of civil service reform and of good government whose availability for present day tasks must surely be recognized by the people, even though overlooked by the party leaders. The Hon. Seth Low would make an ideal people's candidate for the chief magistracy. He is the foremost citizen of the "Greater New York."