cannot find in the language a sublimer picture of how a good man ought to leave the earth than is given in the lines which tell how Hiawatha, when his work was finished, sailed his canoe along the path of light into the gates of the sunset. The sentiment must have been inspired by the Scripture which declares, "The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day."

In "The Courtship of Miles Standish " the poet immortalizes the simple, self-sacrificing life of those sturdy Pilgrims to whom the nation and the world owe so much. There is some

thing grandly noble in the character of the stern old captain of Plymouth, and we feel that he is a representative of his race. In John Alden we have the gentler type of New England manhood, and in Priscilla a noble example of innocence, devotion, and love. The story may be read a hundred times, and thus in a sense becomes old, while in reality it remains ever new and beautiful.

The last of the three poems named is perhaps the best known and most read of all Longfellow's works. "Evangeline" was his own favorite. The plot of the story was furnished him by his old classmate, Hawthorne, and is too well known to need description in detail. Much in the first part of the poem speaks of joy and happiness. Beautiful is the picture of home life in the old village of Grand-Pré. Full of love were the homes of the peasants, and happy the hearts of the people, until the coming of the fleet of the great king which bore them away from the land of their childhood and scattered them as exiles in the country of strangers. Sad flows the current of the song when the poet pictures the death of Evangeline's father on the lonely shore, her separation from Gabriel, and the burning of Grand-Pré; and, sadder still, as he sings of her long years of wandering to find again her beloved. At last, giving up the search, and settling down to live and die among the Quakers in the country of Penn, when a pestilence fell upon the city, in the chambers of death she found upon a pallet the form of an old man who wore the face of her Gabriel. When she whispered his name he saw in dreams once more the scenes of his native land and Evangeline walking by his side beneath the trees in the woodland. It was

no dream, for Evangeline knelt by his bedside, kissed his
dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom, while the light
of his eyes suddenly sank into darkness,

As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement.

But in the midst of the sadness there shine the stars of faith; for,

As she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom,

Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, "Father, I thank thee."

The whole poem is the story of a life in which joy and sorrow
are intermingled; for, while the current flows toward the sea
of sorrow, upon the banks of the stream rare and beautiful
flowers are forever blooming. As we read our sympathies are
broadened, our love deepened, and our faith strengthened; for
we come in contact with Evangeline's devotion and find that
she trusts God in the darkness and thanks him at the end.
Some critics have said that it is not a great poem, but it is
at least supremely good. One cannot read it thoughtfully
without finding in it an incentive to patient trust, self-sacri-
ficing love, and holy faith, even in the midst of life's sorrows.

What has been said of the spirit and influence of the
poems considered may be said of all of Longfellow's works.
Has he not, therefore, well earned the title, "the favorite
of the English race?" His influence is as wide as it is holy,
for his verses are on every table, in every schoolbook; and,
what is better, they live in the hearts of the people, and as
long as human hearts feel sorrow so long will his words
urge to a nobler life on earth and a sweeter hope of heaven,
We may say to him as he said of Chibiabos:

ART. IV.—A BATTLE BETWEEN THE PIGMIES AND THE GIANT.

WE are fond of thinking of man as the lord of creation, and in a sense he merits this title. Certain it is that all his noble enemies have fled before him like chaff before the wind. The fierce lion and the tiger, the gigantic rhinoceros and elephant, have long since yielded to his sway. Inanimate nature, too, he has subdued and harnessed to his uses. But, having mastered nature and all its larger beings, it is only to find that a new host of enemies is confronting him which threaten almost to baffle him because of their inferiority and minuteness. When a battle in which physical strength is a factor is waged with the lower orders of nature, man with his intelligence is unquestionably invincible. But when a contest arises between strength and intelligence on the one hand, and minuteness accompanied by an extraordinary reproductive power on the other hand, the problem is a more serious one. Man has not yet won the battle he is waging with the insect world, and almost every year shows us new and more threatening phases in this struggle with insect life for our food plants. It is somewhat humiliating for the being who has conquered his more noble enemies to be baffled by the gypsy moth or the Rocky Mountain locust, or to yield to insects whose strength lies simply in an exceptional power of reproduction. But thus far in human history we must recognize that these battles have not yet all been won.

A foe even yet more dangerous is now coming into view among organisms still lower in nature and still more minuteorganisms whose strength, again, lies only in a most extraor dinary power of reproduction. Far down below the limits of human vision exists the world of bacteria. So minute are these beings that only high powers of the microscope reveal them, and they had been known for a couple of centuries to exist before there was any suspicion of their relation to our health. Only the last thirty years have disclosed that with this world of microscopic life mankind is waging a constant warfare and one not yet brought to a victorious close. It has

now, however, been abundantly demonstrated that many of our most serious diseases are produced by the invasion into the body of these microscopic hosts, and by their multiplication there. Their numbers are beyond conception, and their powers of reproduction are scarcely credible; so great, indeed, are the latter that in many cases a single individual may produce sixteen million offspring in twenty-four hours. As we look over the history of the world we see that plagues and epidemics have repeatedly swept over the nations, progressing almost unchecked in spite of all attempts to stop them. These socalled "visitations of providence" have been due simply to the extraordinary multiplication and the rapid distribution of some of these microscopic foes of man. The devastation produced by them is almost inconceivable. In the battle that has been carried on, the destruction of human life has been far greater than that produced by man's struggle with any other of the lower orders of nature, greater even than the devastation caused by man's struggle with man. In the history of the world a vast majority of mankind have been killed by bacteria. With this host of minute enemies mankind has ever been giving battle. In the past this conflict has been carried on wholly without man's consciousness. To-day, since we have learned of the existence and habits of these microscopic enemies, we are beginning to direct our intelligence to the conflict, and even among the masses of men who know nothing whatever of their existence the conflict never ends. It is indeed a battle of pigmies with a giant, a battle between superior strength and superior reproductive power, a battle in which great numbers contend against great size, a battle between the very lowest of nature's creatures and the very highest, a battle which must finally result in the extermination of one or the other of the contending forces.

During the thirty years which have been occupied in the study of the germ diseases a great change has come over the notion of scientists in regard to the relation of mankind to these microscopic foes. When it was first recognized that bacteria possess the power of invading the human body, multiplying in it, and there producing wild devastation, it threw open to our imagination an entirely new set of possibilities.

At first it seemed as if man were almost entirely at their mercy, and it was hard to understand why he had not long since been exterminated by the ravages of these microscopic foes. They are everywhere around us, and it seems almost impossible, from a priori grounds, that any individual could avoid becoming infected with bacteria. But, evidently, we are not so helpless, after all. Mankind still continues to exist in increasing numbers, and, we fondly believe, with increasing rather than decreasing vigor. The conflict is raging, not only when an individual is actually suffering from disease, but long before any symptoms of the disease have made their appearance. Evidently there must be some factors, in the relation of man and his microscopic foes, which give him power in many cases to meet their attacks and successfully repel them. It is our purpose in the present article to inquire as to the nature of these factors of resistance.

It

may not be uninstructive to picture this conflict as that of an army of pigmies attacking a giant in his castle. In an assault upon such a fortified castle the first step must plainly be to bring the attacking army within striking distance of the castle. So, too, must our bacterial foes find means of reaching the individual to be attacked. But bacteria have no powers of locomotion sufficient for this purpose. It is true that some of them have active locomotive organs, and when in liquids can distribute themselves far and wide. Their powers of active motion are, however, confined to liquids. They have no power of motion in air or on the land; and, inasmuch as mankind lives in the air and on the land, these foes have no active means by which they can bring themselves into contact with the individual they are to attack. Hence they must depend upon passive means of distribution, bringing to their aid, unconsciously, various moving objects as means of their own distribution. In most cases the source of the disease bacteria is an individual who is suffering from some special disease. If a man has typhoid fever, or tuberculosis, or diphtheria, or any other of the so-called germ diseases, he becomes at once a source from which countless myriads of these specific microorganisms are eliminated and from which they may be distributed. But for such distribution the micro-organisms must