of the Creator, and the decisions of the Tammany judges proceed direct from heaven! Could folly go further?

But, surely, no argument will be needed to prove that, if mankind is thus denied a natural and God-given right, permanent order and general prosperity are impossible without its restoration. This is unquestionably the main reason why humanity groans, and all creation is in travail. This is why all the governments of the past have gone down in blood. This is the reason for the awful misery that encompasses the world. Now, as anciently, the cry of justice, of right, and of God is, as in Pharaoh's day, "Let my people go!" And because Pharaoh "hardened his heart," he and his people were afflicted and destroyed.

Nature always triumphs. If her laws are broken, suffering must ensue. The penalty must be paid. To the unthinking the forces of nature seem easily thwarted. Water is a mobile fluid, easily obtained, underfoot everywhere. But confine it, deprive it of freedom and subject it to cold, and it rends all bonds with ease. Vegetable growth in its ultimate fibres is surprisingly insignificant; but allow even these to penetrate a crevice, give them lodgment and support, and the power of God is behind them, and in time they rend and destroy the proudest constructive efforts of man.

Each and every man has within his breast a spark from the Infinite Light, insignificant though it may appear to the beclouded eye. It must be free. God commands it, and nature enjoins it. Confine it if you dare! Subject it to cold and hunger, either mental or physical; deny its rights, and the strongest fabric of human government will sooner or later prove but a spider's web in strength when swept by the storms of human passion.

Blackstone tells us, in his principles of law, that all valid law is based upon that natural and instinctive apprehension of justice which finds universal lodgment in the heart of man. Indeed, he says, in hyperbolical language, "Law hath her seat in the bosom of God." And this is true of just law; but men nowadays are aware that the law with which we have to do has its "seat" in the pocket of the richest suitor. "All men have not the data of science, but all have the data

of ethics"; and woe to that nation where men feel that injustice overpowers them.

To deny the equal right of all men to sit at the well-spread board of a common Father is to deny the brotherhood of man. This is the sin which nature has never failed to punish, and her revenges are always sure, though often long delayed. Deprived of access to nature's bounties, man, in the mass, always degenerates. The city, that plague-spot upon civilization, must be constantly reinforced from the country. "Crowd-poison" is not purely a physical, it is also a mental, effect. Degeneration is always communicated to the remot est fibre, and thus society becomes unnatural, hideous in its injustice and deformity, and is prepared for the destruction of God.

But that this brotherhood does exist seems susceptible of the clearest proof from physical sources. Each man has two parents, and each of these has two, one's ancestry thus increasing at each remove by geometrical progression until at the end of thirty or forty generations a man might trace direct relationship to a greater number of people than at present exist upon the globe. A single thousand years are sufficient for this, and yet our scientific men place two hundred thousand years as the shortest possible time which the testimony of the rocks gives as the measure of man's occupancy of the earth. Many place it at millions of years. In the profound depths of the almost illimitable past, all nations and all races must be found inextricably commingled. "God hath made of one blood all the children of men."

But there is another proof: a divine sympathy with sorrow and suffering exists in every well-ordered mind. Even the rough crowd upon the street will not see a weakling abused at the hands of a stronger. Sorrow and suffering, steadily shown and thoroughly exposed, finally have their remedy coming from that responsive chord which proclaims the brother. Mind, soul, spirit, call it what you will, must be reckoned with. And to-day this is being aroused as never before. The impious reply of Cain to the demand of God regarding the welfare of his brother: "I know not; am I my brother's keeper?" will no longer suffice. Conscious exist

ence is not material. It belongs to another realm. Thought is from an exterior source, and varies in power as related to that great Over-Soul that is all and in all. This is the founThis is why the

dation and origin of the divinity of man. brotherhood of man is true, and this is why the curse of Almighty Power will follow the man or the nation that refuses to acknowledge the duties of relationship.

The first and greatest demand of man's nature is to be free; the second is, opportunity to better his condition. Freedom and opportunity make possible the enlightened pursuit of happiness. And happiness is, after all, the aim and object of all men. One may seek it in one direction, and another in another, but the end sought is the same. The thief steals in the belief that he can in that way add to the sum of his enjoyment; the enlightened philanthropist spends his life in the endeavor to assist and befriend, for the reason, chiefly, that otherwise he would be unhappy. Between these two may be found every shade of opinion and manner of life; and yet the motive of all is, in essence, the same. To state this proposition is to prove it to the reflective mind. Man must seek happiness. It is the demand of his nature, and thus the command of God.

If this be true-and no man can deny it. the essential requisites to an enlightened and reasonable pursuit must also be found ready to every man's hand. God asks no man to do an impossible thing, and wherever nature commands, she has made the way of obedience clear. With freedom and opportunity men are able to work out their own salvation; that is, they are able to follow out the law of being, which is the law of advance. In this, both revelation and evolution agree. Without freedom and opportunity man is made miserable and rendered incapable of following this law; he can no longer advance; the enlightened pursuit of happiness is impossible. In slavery or under despotism men are degraded. In freedom alone is there opportunity for that general improvement which is the manifest design of nature. Thus, it must be clear, all men have from nature from God- an absolute natural right to freedom and opportunity. Freedom necessitates the absence of galling and injurious control; it

establishes among men an equality of natural right to the gifts of a common Father. And by the law of freedom, whatever gifts of external nature have been provided for the use of man, descend, like the rain and sunshine, upon all alike. To hold the contrary is to contend that some are brought into the world beholden to their brothers for the right to live.

The right to the soil is man's first and greatest opportunity. But there is another like it and necessary to it. Discussion of this must be left for a future article.

OLYMPIA, WASH.

"THE CASE AGAINST BIMETALLISM."

MR

BY JUDGE GEORGE H. SMITH.

R. GIFFEN'S work, under the above title, has had the good fortune to commend itself both to monometallists and bimetallists, to the former as the production of one of their most distinguished champions, to the latter for its honest statement of the facts and of some of the fundamental principles involved in the currency question.

In this respect, it may be observed, English monometallists present a very refreshing contrast to our own. For while -after the manner of the conservative kind- the former piously regard false logic, or fallacy, as a legitimate weapon placed in their hands, as it were, by Providence, for the defence of existing interests, they yet seem to have an oldfashioned British prejudice against deliberate falsification of facts, which, to say the least, is not common with our own monometallists, who, in general, hesitate at no denial or assertion which they think necessary to their case, and by which their hearers can be imposed upon.

Bimetallists, of course, are not bound by his admissions; but for the purpose of fairly presenting the questions involved we may provisionally accept Mr. Giffen as a competent authority as to the facts involved in the controversy, though it is not contended that these are not open to further investigation.

I propose, therefore, in order to facilitate access to the work itself, to review briefly the facts and fundamental principles furnished us by the author, and his argument against bimetallism, as based upon them. For this purpose, the work may be likened to a case at law where the facts are agreed or found, and the only questions remaining are as to their effect. In this aspect, to those who desire to understand both sides of the question, it cannot be too highly recommended.

It will be understood that, throughout the discussion, the term bimetallism, or, as it may be more appropriately called,