not continued. In these ways history is human, but always with a partly secreted and godlike faculty awaiting demand. "Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." The greatest man that ever lived taught this. And whatever he was, or was not, he knew more than any other man.

This article is by no means intended to suggest that the will of God need not be considered in the study of history. When it is proved that human privacy is impossible, and that any ordinary person's soul may be made to see us at all times, then we may be quite sure that the Giver of these faculties to man possesses them himself and that we are watched both personally and nationally. But the article is intended to suggest that man has progressed and has been great when the exercise of his willpower, or the concentrated desire of prayer, has forced his interior faculties, perhaps through their correspondences, to help him through enlightenment. We find ourselves placed on this planet in total ignorance as to why we came or where we go, but there seems to be one continuous purpose through all that man shall improve. It may be that high intelligence, combined with experience in all grades of life, is required somewhere else. It may be that in order to gain such experience it must be lived through. There would certainly be no striving if everything came to us as an unearned gift. The disasters resulting from one man's action are a warning to the next venturer; and if experience is not, or cannot be, sent into a soul as an unearned gift, then the higher wisdom may be non-interference.

The estimate of man's personal agency in history is necessarily raised when the faculties he has utilized in gaining his ends are inquired into. Such a study seems to lead toward an alteration in the accepted idea of divine control in matters of history when it suggests this intention—that the divinity of a right control shall be shown through man.. Such a study shows that he is sufficiently endowed with a spiritual nature, not only for this purpose, but for any other; and it suggests that, as his faculties bring him into direct connection with some All-knowledge from which every kind of intelligence may be drawn, he is expected to use his opportunities; also that the natural consequences of mistakes will not be rectified except through the intelligence supplied to further demand.

PLAZA OF THE POETS.

THE NEW WOMAN.1

BY MILES MENANDER DAWSON.

She stands beside her mate, companion-wise,
Erect, self-poised, with clear, straightforward eyes.
For what she knows he is she holds him dear,
And not for what she fancies him

- with fear.

Brave spirit! Disillusionized, she lifts

What blinder women bear as heaven's ill gifts.
She asks but, ere she reproduce a man,

He truly be one, so a woman can.

She gives not for the asking, nor as one

Who does unpleasant things that must be done.
Nay, he who half-unwilling love receives
Knows not the full-orbed joy she freely gives.

Emancipated, on firm feet she stands,
And all that man exacts of her demands;
The new morality, the art of life,
And not obedience, holds her as wife.

Hail, the new woman! By her choices she
Determines wisely what mankind shall be.
She will not with eyes open be beguiled
To choose a tainted father for her child.

O stars! as the flakes of a snowstorm
How ye fly and fall and drift!

Swift snowing of suns out of darkness,

Whirled by winds of force and whiffed!

1 From advance sheets of "Poems of the New Time," by Miles Menander Dawson,

The Humboldt Library, Publishers: New York. Cloth, 12mo, $1.00.

Calm still though in every sparkle
Motions like the thunderbolt,
Wide whirlings of worlds in their sunlight,
Planet's wheel and comet's volt,
All hang, as it were, in a dewdrop
Frozen to a steadfast gleam;

Time, place, dwindled down to a glitter,
Whimseys of an instant's dream.

Drift! drift! all the universe drifting
Round some sun too vast for thought!
On! on! awful maelstrom of matter
Whirling in a gulf of naught!

Whirl! wheel! and my soul like a seabird
Flies across and dips and flees

Wild wings of my soul, like the seabird's,
Tossed and lost upon the seas!

THE CRY OF THE VALLEY.

BY CHARLES MELVIN WILKINSON.

Too long, too long on the mountain's brow
You linger, O storm-cloud! Know you not

I, the suffering lowland, need you now
Where the scorching sun glares hot?

You deluge the barren cliffs of chalk

While wither the grass and the fruitful grain, And the red rose, shrivelling, dies on its stalk With a smothered cry for rain.

You lavish your wealth on the lordly height
That knows not a miser's need therefor,-
With a smile I must take what is mine by right
As the gift true souls abhor.

But the rain that is mine by the love of God,
By the grace of the mountain a gift to me,
Of what avail to the parching sod,

Since it runneth down to the sea?

O cloud, I charge you to right my wrongs!
Be just with the bounty of God's own hand,
And scatter the rain where the rain belongs,
On the hot and thirsty land.

I charge you, cloud, by the love of God,
That you pour His gift on the humble plain
Till the myriad mouths of the parching sod
Drink deep of the blessèd rain.

A RADICAL.

BY ROBERT F. GIBSON.

I am a Radical, and this my faith:
The aim and hope of all true citizens
Are justice and real happiness for all.

Some are content-I know not why-to sit
Among the sleepy worshippers who fill

The gilded temple of conservatism,

And sitting, awestruck, there they think they serve.

I am too busy for idolatry.

I carry in my hand a naked sword,

And pity, roused for one, stays not my hand

When prompt, sure blows mean freedom for a score.

That is my faith, and I am not afraid

To face my Maker when my name is called.

THE EDITOR'S EVENING.

Our Totem.

ARLYLE has remarked upon the significance of symbol

CAR

ism. All nations seek a sign. The sign becomes the visible expression of the highest thought. It is made into an emblem around which the given people march by day and encamp by night. Thus have come all the totems which mankind have lifted up, from the brazen snake in the desert to the Stars and Stripes on the mountain.

Symbolism has its beauty and also its ugliness. In some cases the symbol is happily conceived. It is benign; it expresses hope, truth, fidelity, aspiration, even immortality. Behold the egg of the Egyptians and their circle expressive of undying life and eternity. Note the owl of the Athenians. Note the sweet lily of ancient Provence, adopted by France as the emblem of purity and national peace. Note the Irish shamrock-that delicate green trifolium which has signified so much of union and hope to an enthusiastic and failing race. On the other hand, note the serpent of the Aztecs, the crawling reptiles of Malaysia and India, the savage beasts and carnivorous birds adopted as the symbols of race-life and purpose by the coarse barbarians of northern Europe, and preserved on the flags and banners of their descendants to the present day.

Russia is a bear. Germany is a black eagle. France also, in her Bonaparte mood, is an eagle. Imperial Rome was an eagle from the days of the Cæsars. Great Britain is a lion, and Prussia is a leopard, and Siam is an elephant, and Mexico is still a snake. As for Great Britain, not satisfied with one lion, she repeats him seven times, rampant or couchant, on the royal standard. She also preserves on her coat-of-arms and coins the unicorn, that fabulous, one-horned monster of a horrid dream.

The American Republic seems to have accepted the eagle for its totem. We might have taken a bear or a caribou, but the eagle has pleased our mythologists more and so, instead of belonging to the tribe of the Turkey, the tribe of the Dog,