"In every country the nation is in the cottage, and if the light of your legislation does not shine in there your statesmanship is a failure and your system is a mistake."- Canon Farrar.

I

T will not be necessary to prove that a very general appre

hension of coming change occupies the public mind. All things show the present to be a time of transition, and most people are ready not only to believe it, but to assist in the change. The growth of invention, the progress of luxury, and the spread of intelligence by means of public education have created conditions unlike those existing in any previous age of the world; and these conditions not only vitally affect, but absolutely control, the lives of men. It is seen that change must come, for man is the creature of his surroundings and of his thoughts. No deed without a thought as its father, and in his thoughts the most ignorant animal-like man lives and moves and has his being. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," is as true to-day as in the days of Solomon; and this is accentuated and emphasized when multiplied by numbers. If one man in a community is profoundly impressed by a thought, as a rule only his life is affected by it; but let ten be infected by him, let the base of his thought be a new truth, and it will go hard with that community if all in it be not somewhat diverted from previous lines of thought and action. Let the whole community be moved in like manner, and even though that community be moderate in its extent and numbers a new school is the result, which to a greater or less extent finally profoundly affects all other schools and modes of thought and action.

But let this go farther in its spread, let the people of a nation be generally convinced of the truth of a new proposition, an epoch in history is the result, and straightway the thing previously only imagined has come to pass. Up to the time of action this had been held by the so-called wise ones of earth to be impracticable, visionary, and as the idle imaginings of a dreamer. And yet, strange to say, when the time of action is come, suddenly and as if by magic the people come to see that the previously derided thought is true! Thenceforward the power of the Living God is behind it, and naught can bar its progress.

Examples of this, nature's mode of progress, are not wanting upon every page of history. Our nation came into being upon precisely these lines, and black slavery was doomed when ten men had been gathered into the first society for the propagation of abolitionistic thought and opinion. So, today, that change will come is clear, for all demand it. There are no conservatives. Even the beneficiaries of present wrongs are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to protect their illgotten gains under a stronger government. They are very much ill at ease. They fear the fury of the mob when it shall discover the depth of the wrong practised upon it. As yet the people refuse to believe the story of their thraldom. They are now exploring the cage constructed for them by their masters. No loophole of escape as yet appears. Of this they are convinced. But hope springs eternal in the human breast; they do not yet believe, they cannot be brought to think, that the conditions which surround and hedge them in were specially prepared and constructed for the express purpose of depriving them of that freedom of action and opportunity outlined in the Declaration of Independence. But when in the near future this shall have been made plain, when they shall have been convinced by dire experience that the cage of legal circumstance against which they beat their heads in vain has been constructed for them, and that it does actually and positively prevent freedom of opportunity and action, and that without remedy, then, indeed, a time of trial will come.

And for this time of trial the enemies of freedom are

preparing with might and main. It is their intention to secure aid and assistance from our hereditary enemies, the English. Indeed, we are already told that, as English money has been heavily invested in this country, it is but natural that English guns should protect it if threatened by what its owners may term "repudiation," either in whole or in part. The new bondage is to be enforced by a bondocracy having its headquarters in London. It is to be world-wide in extent and world-compelling in its power. In many respects it is the most formidable conspiracy against human liberty ever formed in the history of the world. The population of England is relatively small; with a globe under tribute this small population can always be controlled. From London, as a centre and base of operations, the world is to be governed through control of money, the medium of exchange which all must use. It is thought to be impregnable from outside attack. With the wealth of the world at his command, and secure in his tight little isle, the moneylender is to rule the world. This is the scheme. Shylock is to be king over all the earth! And we have Americans who wish us to follow English lead in these matters! That bonds mean eventual bondage is now very generally understood, and yet we have Americans who have defended in the past, and will attempt to defend in the future, the further issue of bonds in aid of this scheme to place our country under bondage to the money power of the world! Modern slavery is enforced by the exaction of tribute for the use of money. But the end of bondage approaches. The oppressed shall go free.

Some one has illustrated the difference between monarchy and a republic by saying that a monarchy is like a wellappointed ship which may founder and go down in midocean, while a republic is like a timber raft. The men upon it are often uncomfortable, their feet are always in the water, and conflict with the waves is continual. But the raft remains afloat. Our republic will not go down, but progress is slow, and error requires much time for its extinguishment. A generation passes in mental conflict for the establishment of a truth. After thirty years of anti-slavery agitation, which until near its close was frowned upon and deprecated by all

so-called "substantial citizens," Abraham Lincoln, in his famous debates with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858, said it was idle to disguise the truth, this nation could not longer continue half slave and half free. The next year William H. Seward, in his well-remembered Rochester speech, said substantially the same: It is folly, said he, longer to talk of compromise; "there is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces." And these men were right. There was a conflict, and the country did not continue half slave and half free. They were the patriots of that time. Like wise men they foresaw the evil and endeavored to prepare their countrymen to withstand it. They did not deceive them with false cries of peace, peace, when there was no peace possible except at the price of submission to the mandates of those responsible for "the sum of all villanies.'

So, to-day a new conflict appears. Wise and determined action will prevent all appeal to arms; while the cry of submission to English money lords, heard from our modern tories, if acquiesced in, will surely bring a bloody struggle whenever the people fully comprehend the fact that in this way freedom and its opportunities have been bartered away.

The conflict between manhood and mammon, which, although as old as history, took on a more pronounced phase in 1873, has now in its present form been before the people of this country for near a quarter of a century. The time of decisive action approaches, and everybody knows it. Either the people are to regain the old freedom of opportunity enjoyed in the earlier years of the republic, or they are to sink lower and lower in the social scale. The struggle is one of moral right and moral worth against the power of money. It has been aptly described as the fight of the Almighty Dollar against Almighty God. This is the truth. Cowards and timeservers will deny it, but they cannot prevent it. Nothing can prevent it. And the ultimate outcome is not doubtful. The right will triumph.

While all intelligent men will agree that a crisis approaches, there is no agreement regarding the principles involved or the ground properly occupied by the champions of freedom. This is the great want of the time. Concert of