pect that he would find it far less tole world as it is, with all its imperfectio For it is upon the unreasoning atta habits, and weaknesses, and prejudice tions which make the web of life wha only the sweetness of life, but also its pendent. It is highly stimulating to t dividualist to try to tear the web as does not pause to consider the want of would be in the emptiness that would

There have been, within a short time, two very striking cases of testifying by works, not words, against the acceptance of "tainted money." One of these occurred several weeks ago, when the professor of astronomy at Smith College, a woman, resigned her post on account of the College having accepted an addition to its endowment from Mr. Rockefeller. The news of the other comes in today's dispatches. While the first was a matter affecting the position of only one individual, the second is concerned with a great sum of money, and concerns a large philanthropic enterprise. Nothing similar to the rejection of an offer of $5,000,000 for the establishment of the work of a "National Juvenile Improvement Association" has yet been recorded in the course of the tained money agitation. What makes it more remarkable is that this was not done as the result of the judgment of one man, or of one particular body, but was brought about by the peremptory refusal of the various individual workers who were to give the movement its start to go on with the work if it was to receive its financial foundation at the hands of the Standard Oil magnate.

On this whole subject there is room for a great deal of difference of opinion. It constitutes one of the most delicate and puzzling questions of applied ethics that have claimed the interest of the public

in our time. There are many persons who dismiss the position of the objectors as nonsensical. If you are doing a good work, they say, what sense is there in refusing help for it? Are not Rockefeller's dollars just as valuable, will they not do just as much good, as any other dollars? And again, if you reject his money, where are you going to draw the line? Have you any assurance that other rich givers are any better than Rockefeller? The only logical position, say these critics of the squeamish, is either to take all money that is offered for a good cause and "no questions asked," or to refuse all money unless it is proved that it was honestly and honorably come by; and this last is of course a reductio ad absurdum.

But the matter is not so simple as all this. The question is not as to some ideal taint that attaches to the money, but as to the actual moral effect that may be expected to flow from its acceptance. To appreciate this phase of the matter, it is necessary to turn back a few months, or a year, in our thoughts. The change that has recently taken place in public sentiment toward the great men of the financial world has been so startling that it is difficult to realize the condition of the moral atmosphere in this regard when the "tainted money" agitation was started, short as is the time that has passed since. What gave importance to the protest of Mr. Washington Gladden and the other Congregationalist ministers who objected to the acceptance of Mr. Rockefeller's money for mission work was the fact that Rockefeller was one of the great figures of the land. The unscrupulous practices, the

remorseless rapacity, upon which the success of the Standard Oil Company had been built up were well known; but they were apt to be thought of in very much the way in which an operation of Nature-an earthquake, or a flood, or a cyclone -is thought of; as a tremendous and more or less appalling phenomenon, but as a thing to which moral considerations are not practically applicable. Now, the objection of the Congregational ministers was a solemn and indignant protest against this attitude. It was a declaration to all the world that those at least in whose custody is placed the cause of religion would not regard with indifference the question of how cruel or lawless may have been the methods by which the greatest fortune in the world had been amassed. Whatever may have been actually in the minds of Dr. Gladden and his associates, the effect upon the world was that of a pronunciamento that between these representatives of religious ideals and a fortune built up as Mr. Rockefeller's had been there could be no association.

So great is the change that has taken place in the atmosphere since that quite recent day, that to reject Mr. Rockefeller's money now actually has an air of hitting a man when he is down. We no longer hear pæans of praise for our "captains of industry "; the whole caste of which Mr. Rockefeller has been one of the most remarkable members is, for the time being, thrust down into a very low place before the people. But no one can say that this mood of the national mind is to be permanent. A succession of buffets has knocked down

question whether they shall found 1 upon millions given by Rockefeller, their own exertions to raise the n They decide upon the sterner and course, and their decision is based, 1 the feeling that they cannot go am and ignorant young people and insp right ideals of life if they labor under ness that the means to which they bility of their work were supplied by colossal material success was due to ideals which are to them, and which everybody, utterly abhorrent. In ( have done, they may possibly be ma of judgment; but who shall say tha of idealism in conduct which they a not be worth many times what the fi lars might have accomplished?