"Your abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone.” In tragedy the interest depends as much upon the management of the plot as upon the portrayal of character. In studying the plot of this play I have used the formula given by Freytag in his Technique des Dramas. The beginning of the emotional action, where the hero by his decision brings about the events of the first of the play, is called the incentive moment; this is the beginning of the complication that leads to the climax. The climax is connected with the unravelling of the plot by the tragic moment, when the hero makes his last decision, commits his tragic error for which he suffers death. Following the unravelling, or fall of the action, is the moment of suspense, in which the threatening power is seen and the mind of the audience prepared for the final catastrophe.

The introduction in Coriolanus shows the dissatisfaction of the plebeians by the conversation of the citizens in the opening scene; Menenius' attempt to appease them and his tale of the members of the body; and Marcius' haughty disposition. The incentive moment is when the news comes that war with the Volscians is inevitable, and Caius Marcius is appointed one of the leaders. The action of the first half of the drama depends on that. The development, or complication of the plot is the battle between Anfidius and Marcius, the honoring of Marcius by the surname of Coriolanus, and the return in triumph to Rome. The climax is reached when Coriolanus is appointed to the consulship. It includes not only his solicitation of votes in the market-place, his nomination by the senate; but also his opposition and challenge from the tribunes, and his appearance with the patricians in the market-place to ask the people to withdraw their opposition to his nomination. The tragic moment is when he, intending to pacify the people, allows their taunts to arouse his pride and anger, and tells the tribune that he lies. The tribune has accused him of wishing "to wind himself into a power tyrannical" and called him a traitor. He does not meet the charge with the calmness of innocence. It seems as if his own better nature condemned him for his haughtiness towards the people, and his condemned false pride is irritated by the fact that the charge came from so despicable a source. Where patriotism should have made him patient, personal revenge makes him unreasonable.

The error of losing his temper does not alone constitute the tragic moment, an indication of the result should appear also -the result in this case is his banishment. This makes a double tragic moment. This is the basis of the action of the last part of the drama, as the incentive moment was of the first. The result of his banishment is that he joins the Volscians and leads them against Rome. This, the unravelling of the plot, culminates in the scene between Coriolanus and his mother, when his wife and mother come to beg him spare Rome. His decision saves Rome, and paves the way for his own death. His nobler pride-patriotism-is saved, and his selfish priderevenge is lost. But since the tragic moment he has so bound up his fortunes with his revenge that its destruction foretells his own.

Following this is the moment of suspense, when the Roman matrons return, and Coriolanus' fate is unknown. The catastrophe follows close upon this. Again it was the word 'traitor' that aroused his fury, and brought down upon him the swords of the Volscians. That word was the red flag that incited him to his most fatal actions. In each case he had an uncomfortable sense of deserving the term; he was not in sympathy with the plebeians, and had not treated them as he ought to have treated a part of his own countrymen; he had in spirit, if not in letter, proven false to the Volscians, because he joined them for an interested and personal motive.

Although Coriolanus has in comparison with other of Shakespeare's heroes a greater simplicity of character, he has not perfect classic singleness. His pride is not in opposition to an external fate, but in conflict with his own nobler nature. This notion of a conflict within the soul is decidedly post-Christian and gives a complexity to the creation.

Menenius is more an Englishman than a Roman, and a more subtile philosophy and statescraft creeps into the play by him, as a mouthpiece, than a classic dramatist would have, perhaps, introduced. Shakespeare has attempted to see classic unity, but his glasses were not purely achromatic and his vision was tinted with some of the Elizabethan variety of hue.

IDA M. STREET.

ARTICLE IV.-THE CHRISTIAN EVOLUTION OF A SECULAR STATE.

OURS is a secular nation. The separation of Church and State, once declared impossible, and in fact elsewhere untried, has been accomplished in the United States. The constitution guarantees religious liberty. The fact is recognized that this is no more a Protestant than it is a Roman Catholic government. No form of Christianity can ever become a part of our common law. However true may be the statement that "only those laws are righteous that agree with God's word," the Bible is not so much a book of rules as of principles. If Christ is "the Ruler of our Nation," He condescends to realize His kingdom through the collective reason of our democratic body politic.

Ours is a Christian nation. This is true, not in the sense that the word "Christ" is or should be inserted in the constitution; but in the profounder sense that we are actually moving forward, in accordance with secular methods no doubt, toward the complete realization of the fundamental Christian idea so far as it relates to government.

Our nation is Christian, not so much in external form, as in its inner meaning and purpose or tendency. To show how the progress of the common life of our people illustrates the development of the germinal idea of Christianity and its gradual fulfillment, in various ways (without any attempt toward completeness), is the object of the present Article.

I. The basal or seminal principle of our government is liberty. No doubt we received it from the "bosom of the monarchy of the house of Tudor." No doubt it was earlier realized to some extent (long before the reformation) in Germany as well as in Greece, if not even in China. But it is fundamental to the very existence of our State, as such, that the true idea of liberty is no mere theory too visionary to become a vital part of the common law of the land and of the constitution of our government.

II. This fundamental idea of our nation is also the essential principle of the New Testament.

Freedom from Judaic bondage is the type of all real freedom. The epistle to the Galatians is the particular example which treats of the subject most directly. Galatians v. 13 is an example of the genius and spirit of the entire New Testament. Liberty does not mean individualism, selfishness, anarchy, tyranny. Love is the only liberty. Not in so-called liberty as an occasion to the flesh-a contradiction in terms, but by the service of one another in love (Gal. v. 13), is real freedom realized. In the New Testament we have the first formal announcement of the law that government should exist for the good of the governed. Not merely in the statement of St. Paul. (Rom. xiii. 4.) "He is a minister of God to thee for good," but "explicitly set forth by Christ himself as the principle of a new and Christian civilization." "Ye know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Not so shall it be among you: but whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant." (Matt xx. 25.)

III. Christ introduced this principle into the world.

A leading orthodox theologian cites no less than thirteen of the ancients who taught, to some extent, the doctrine of the Golden Rule. But tyranny was still the dominant idea until Christ came and made the principle effective and universal. Even in Greece the freemen were few and all the rest of the world were barbarians. It was the worst period, morally, in all European history (Fisher's Beg. of Christ., Chapt. 6) when Christ set forth the example and proclaimed the doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man. About the common table of the Lord there was neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, for all were one in Christ Jesus. "A mighty transforming principle had entered the world." The stoic dream of a cosmopolitan State was realized in the kingdom of God. The statute of Moses, "Ye shall have one law as well for the stranger as for one of your own country" was applied to all classes. The hated Samaritan became a neighbor. The Master washed the disciples' feet. And this law of the kingdom is

made universal. "Ye also ought to wash one another's feet" illustrates the law of the spiritual kingdom.

IV. From Christ as the source and example the principle has been handed down to us.

At the advent of Christ the state of morals was at the lowest point. The old civilization decayed. But Christianity gave a literature to the Germans. Their oldest writings are parts of the Bible translated by Ulfilas. Anglo-Saxon literature and English civilization is a result of the labors of Augustine and other missionaries. The ancient literature was preserved in Christian monasteries, and the universities of Europe arose from schools founded by British missionaries. (See Fisher's Christian Religion.) The Rennaissance owes much to Christianity. Luther's Reformation was in a special sense an outgrowth of the Epistle to the Galatians. Calvin laid down the principle that ecclesiastical societies should be organized on the republican basis of the congregation. Men soon began to apply the principle in civil government. Among the results we have the Puritans in England and the Pilgrim Fathers in America. Being accustomed to self-government in the church our fathers applied the same principle to the State. Hence arose the town system which De Tocqueville recognized as the germ of American freedom. The point remains-if we give greater prominence to the influence of the Churchmen in Virginia or the Catholics in Maryland-that English civilization is a result of Christianity, and our government was founded on the principle of Christian liberty, however imperfectly realized.

V. It is a historic fact that Christianity is a part of the common law of the land.

And this has been recognized by the Supreme Court as consistent with religious liberty. As recorded in Sergeant and Rawle, vol. ii., 394, the court decided, in substance, as follows: The assertion is once more made, though it has often been exploded, that Christianity never was received as a part of the common law of our land; that it was virtually repealed by the Constitution. General Christianity is, and always has been, a part of the common law of Pennsylvania. Of the first legislators who established reli