speak more accurately, Europe is Christianity transforming paganism; what is distinctive in European civilization is Christianity. Christianity is the great historical fact, or faith in the great historical fact, that a Deliverer has appeared on the earth, who has come to overthrow oppression, to emancipate the enslaved, to educate the ignorant, to take away sin, to unite all men to God their Father, and so every man to every other man as his brother. It is not merely a new system of ethics, though a new system of ethics has grown out of it; not merely a new system of theology, though a new conception of God and man's relation to God has grown out of it. It is a new and divine life in the world, which has revolutionized all old forms of organization because imparting to those that believe in it a new spirit which could not live in the old forms, and which was vital enough and strong enough to dissolve them and create new forms for its habitation. The inspiration of this life has been faith that Jesus Christ is the world's Deliverer and the world's Master, and that his power to deliver and his authority to rule are attested by his life, his teachings, his death, and his resurrection.

Growing out of this faith and the secret of this life is a new experience. It cannot be defined in a sentence; indeed, it transcends all definitions. Its expressions are to be found in the sermons of the Church rather than in its creeds, and in the songs of the Church rather than in its sermons. It is a new experience toward God, an experience of friendship, companionship, fellowship, founded on mutuality of love, in lieu of a pagan experience of awe founded on fear. It is a new experience toward men as brethren, a new sense of the solidarity of the race as something transcending all solidarities. dependent upon blood or intellectual agreement or spiritual congeniality, a new experience of sympathy, pity, mercy, out of which have grown asylums, hospitals, schools, churches-all various forms of curative and alleviative institutions and work. It is a new experience of aspiration and ambition, of hope and desire, an experience which, on the one hand, cannot be satisfied by life, nor, on the other hand, quenched by death. It is a new sense of immortality, a new appreciation of the

use of life as a means of service, of the value of life as an opportunity for development, of the power of life as victorious over death.

This threefold experience of the soul's relation to God, of the soul's relation to other souls, and of the soul's relation to life itself, is all derived from and dependent on a perception of the divine in Jesus Christ, of the human in Jesus Christ, of the abundance of unquenchable life in Jesus Christ. This experience is not, indeed, absolutely unique; something like it may be found in the experiences of the Old Testament saints, and of the purest and best of the pagan moralists; but it is so enhanced in power as manifested in Christianity as to be essentially and effectually new.

as spring is new, which brings new manifestations of lovely life out of loveless seeds; as youth is new, which develops new powers out of faculties which were unperceived, except by a fond hope, in the babe. As the earth is the same earth and the sun is the same sun in June as in March, so man is the same man and God the same God in pagan as in Christian communities. But in Christianity God and man approach each other, and a new life issues from a humanity which was before not really lifeless but was winterwrapped.

Out of this experience has grown the Christian creed. In its simplest form that creed is that God is good and loves his children, and desires their holiness and happiness, and will help them to be holy and happy if they will but let him do so. In its fuller form it is that this goodness of God has been realized by ancient prophets and declared by them; that it has been realized in the great Deliverer and has been manifested in him; and that in this manifestation of God in his goodness God draws near to humanity, as the sun draws near the earth, and so the world of man approaches its summer solstice and finds therein the secret of a blossoming and a fruitful life. All Christian doctrines of Revelation, Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, Sacrifice, Regeneration, are attempts to state in philosophic forms this vital faith, that God has come into the world in Jesus Christ, that man can come unto God through Jesus Christ, and that in this mutual coming man finds the

experience of a new faith, the inspiration of a new hope, and the creation of a new love. All Christian creeds are expressions of the faith more simply expressed by John in the sentence: "To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God."

Christianity is more than a new humanity, though a new humanity is begotten. by it; more than a new philosophy of religion, though a new philosophy of the religious life has grown out of it; more than a new experience, though its summer warmth has inspired in human lives experiences of love and joy and peace before unknown; more than a new his tory, though a new history began with the new faith which Christ's resurrection gave to mankind. Christianity is a new power in the world, or so new a manifestation of the power ever in the world as to have all the effect of newness, creating a new world-history because creating a new life in the individuals whose combined biography makes human history.

If any reader says that this definition of Christianity is inadequate, we agree with him; we also think it is inadequate. Who will assume to give an adequate answer to the question, What is Christianity? Who can do more than give to it a partial and fragmentary answer?

The Spectator

Hot weather, being a time of disinclination to activity, is convenient for meditation. The Spectator, being a suburbanite of Gotham, sees things that excite his wonder, and he would like to propound a few hot-weather queries.

When the great ferryboats disgorge their multitudes upon the city streets, a very large proportion of each boat-load rush frantically ashore and make swift course for the first car. No matter if it be overcrowded with people packed into unpleasant proximity with each other, no matter if another car of the same line will start out in one minute and a half, or less, that first car is the all-important thing. One might expect this of men or women on the way to their daily toil, but these crowders are quite as likely

to be ladies out for shopping, who, their district once gained, will be very likely to dally in doubt for half an hour between two shades of a ribbon, or sundry cheap. patterns of lace or insertion or whatever it may be. Therefore the puzzled Spectator wonders why that haste for the first

car.

On Broadway or the avenues the vast majority of people who wish to ride scramble for the so-called "open car ”— which is pretty nearly sure to be sardinated (if one might so say) with five passengers on each seat, and sundry others standing in the narrow space between the knees of the seated row and the back of the next seat. Yet in usually less than two or three minutes will come sliding along a so-called "closed car," with windows and doors all open, and a delightful thorough-draft sending its cool stream of air between the widely separated sideseats, not one-third filled with people. Why this insensate rush for an "open car," which is closed to all comfort, and neglect of a "closed car," open to pleasantness and peace? Is it all a matter of label? Probably; since in politics, relig ion, medicine, and all the rest, the average man or woman is more anxious to have the right label than to have the genuine thing in the bottle. Yet that does not altogether answer the question, Why?

Of course one is tempted to ask the reason for the feminine persistence in stepping off a car at right angles or backward, instead of facing forward, in natural position to take the one or two steps needed to preserve one's balance before overcoming the momentum one has as a part of the moving vehicle. But seeing by the papers a few days since that another person had been thrown to the ground, and, with cracked skull, been actually killed by the carelessness, the Spectator concludes that the custom is a ruling passion and beyond reason. Perhaps the lower hold on the rear brace, attached to the dash-board of the car, is the allurement, since many women may be seen to change an armful of bundles from one hand to the other, both getting on and getting of, in order to be able to take that dangerous hold, rather than to seize

the forward brace, on the car itself, in front of the step. But, whatever the cause, it is evidently inaccessible to suggestion, and there is no use asking, Why?

It has been said that only two classes in this country are free from the weakness of living beyond their income millionaires and tramps, our "leisure classes." That is a wholesomely chastening topic for meditation in hot weather, since the most of us belong to neither class. One result might be that the thirsty-throat owner would pause before wasting divers series of five or ten cent investments in vain attempts to win more than an instant's relief in fizzing water or other liquids. That attempt, indeed, is more than mere money-dropping; it is the purchase of, say, fifteen seconds of a tickled palate with the endurance of at least fifteen minutes of positive discomfort through the consequent rush of blood to the surface and the increased activity of all the sudatory glands and pores "heat and humidity" multiplied. Some speculative individual reckoned that, at ten cents each for at least two "soft drinks apiece for 2,000,000 out of the 3,500,000 people in New York, there must have been an average of $200,000 a day spent during the heated term in that one great city, not to mention the wine and spirit drinking. And the most of the money was wasted, so far as concerns any real gain in physical comfort or relief from the distresses of the heat. Why are people so reckless in these small expenditures (this, of course, being but one illustration of it)? Why, indeed, are they willing to pay a very considerable increase of discomfort for the very brief indulgence in the cooling stream as it gurgles down the throat-but, alas! almost immediately rushes to the surface of face and body, carrying renewed heats and perspiratory discomforts? Why?

We hear much at times of the Nonconformist conscience in England and the Puritan conscience in New England. Noble elements, both of them, in spite of Macaulay's witty suggestion of their objection to bull-baiting, not because it hurt the animal but that it gave pleasure to

the onlookers. Yet it is just along that line of unamiability that the conscientious Puritan needs to watch himself. The New England stories of Mary Wilkins and Alice Brown offer numerous examples of men and women who, in their conscientious reserve of expression, are very careful not to cheapen kindliness by too frequent or too free disclosure. One might perhaps understand that characteristic were it thoroughly consistent; but why should these "reserved" people be so sensitive about expressions of affection, while they are prompt and keen to express disapprobation, discontent, and critical comment? Why should the reserve be exercised exclusively in repressing the pleasant side of life, and free course be given to the unamiable feelings? Of course in hot weather it seems easier to be cross than serene; yet, in fact, it requires more physical nerve-action and mental effort to display one's critical sense than good-naturedly to acquiesce in the rulings of Providence even as registered in the foolish acts of one's friends. science is a fine regulator of one's own conduct; but when it comes to others, why not try good nature and simple kindliness? The ancient fables are always in vogue, with their "morals "—the wind and the sun, vinegar and honey, frowns and smiles. Who needs the application of this sermonette?

Con

Perhaps it would be hard for most of us to take the position of the valet of an English nobleman in whose household the prayers of the Church were daily read. This individual came to his master and said that he must leave his lordship's service at once. "Your lordship will have us say every morning, 'We have done those things which we ought not to have done and we have left undone those things which we ought to have done.' Now, I have often done things I ought not, your lordship, but that I have left undone things that I should have done I deny, flatly; and I will not say it, nor stay here to listen to it." May all of our consciences be as "void of offense" as that, and especially in the matter of doing the little deeds and saying the little words of kindness that make the world a friendlier and a lovelier place!

T

HE murder of Humbert I., King of Italy, on July 29, 1900, the anniversary of which was last week made the occasion of public rejoicings and addresses by Anarchists in Paterson, was the fourth of a series of Anarchist assassinations of the rulers of nations which have startled the world during the last four years. In all four cases the assassins were Italians. President Carnot, of France; Canovas, Prime Minister of Spain, and Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, all perished at the hands of men who were subjects of the King who was himself the last of Anarchy's victims.

Gaetano Bresci, Humbert's assassin, who recently took his own life in his cell in San Stefano prison, came from Paterson, N. J., where his American wife sur vives him. Since Bresci's suicide foreign despatches tell of frustrated plots by Italian Anarchists to kill the Kaiser of Germany and the King of Spain. The start ing point of both murderers was said to be the United States. This country is without doubt the center and headquarters of the Italian latter-day Anarchy, which is far more dangerous than any of the forms which have preceded.

In theory it has progressed not a particle beyond the universal system of government destruction which was founded by Bakunin, but both in spirit and application it is different. The Italian Anarchist does not cherish that blind personal hatred of individuals and institutions that characterized the cart-tail oratory preceding the Haymarket riot in Chicago. He has little to say about his own hard lot or starvation wages. Almost without exception the Italian Anarchists are regularly employed in some trade at fair pay. Some have comfortable savings-bank accounts.

To understand them we must understand the Italian character and its capabilities for devotion to a purely theoretical liberty. These Italian Anarchists have the spirit which found utterance in the liberty fervor of Mazzini in '48, whose contagion started revolutions.

On Mazzini's banner were the four

words, "God and the People." For the Italian Anarchist the first obligation is of course eliminated, but the second is an altar on which he considers his life a small sacrifice, and for him the voice of his people says only, "Kill."

Latter-day Anarchists seldom preach or agitate for their faith. Publicly they seldom speak of it. By individual persuasion they try to make proselytes to their cause, but never in the open. They labor with a prospective convert as a missionary might with one whose soul he was trying to save. They are sure that he enrolls under the red flag with his eyes open, and that he realizes the hatred, persecution, and possibly even death that awaits his devotion to anarchy. They are more like a sect of political heretics apart, studying to perfect themselves in their life religion. None of the four great recent Anarchist assassinations has been accomplished by any of the melodramatic scenery or effects that one is apt to expect of an Anarchist maneuver.

No palaces were undermined with dynamite. No bombs were thrown into royal processions. In every case the Anarchist killed his victim with a simple weapon as calmly and as stoically as a premeditated suicide might walk off a Battery Park pier with a policeman looking on.

In nearly all the Continental nations to be even suspected of being an Anarchist is equivalent to being a criminal punishable with imprisonment or exile. For a man who has been known to actually advocate law-destruction there is really but one escape, and that is America. The consequence is that the men and women Anarchists who have come to this country during the last seven or eight years have all been graduates of Anarchist antecedents in Italy. The era of doubt and questioning with them is over. They have reached a point where they are outand-out Anarchists, else they would not have been obliged to leave their native land. The Italian Anarchist in America is a veteran, not a cadet. Ninety per

cent. of the Anarchists in Italy are found in the northern provinces of Lombardy and Piedmont, the section of the country where education is most general. Silk weaving in the mills is one of the chief industries of that part of the country. When the first of the present Italian group came to the United States they naturally drifted to Paterson, N. J., whose enormous silk industry afforded them an opportunity of continuing the trade they had learned in Italy. For the others who followed there was the additional inducement of living with their fellow-townsmen who had preceded them. The result is that Paterson has come to be the center of what is probably the most important Anarchist group in the world. Once regularly employed in Paterson, and realizing American free speech, the Anarchist makes no secret of his political faith. To be sure, he does not shout it from the housetops or bore every one he meets by talking about it, for that is not his way; but if asked for a sincere expression he never hesitates to tell you that he believes the greatest immediate benefit that could be conferred upon humanity would be the destruction of all its rulers.

The Anarchists had little in common with the rest of the Italian population in Paterson. Their favorite meeting-places were each other's tenement-house rooms, where, in the evenings, after the day's last yard of silk had been run off the bobbins, they met and studied and discussed. Paterson does not contain all the latter-day Anarchists of America. There is a very large colony of them in West Hoboken, N. J., many live in Macdougal and Houston Street tene ments in New York City, while others are scattered from the Atlantic to the Pacific; but, wherever they are, they constantly are in touch with the group in Paterson, whom they recognize as the center of Anarchist activity in the Western hemisphere. It was in the midst of this group that Enrico Malatesta appeared in 1898.

To say that Malatesta ever arrives at a place is almost a misapplication of terms. No one, not even the Anarchists them selves, knows the reasons which cause his advent anywhere. For almost twenty years he has appeared among men of his creed in almost every large city of the

world. His visits are sometimes short and sometimes prolonged into months and even years. After his purpose, whatever it may be, is accomplished he disappears again, perhaps not to be heard from for a long while, and he may then turn up in some distant corner of the globe.

Enrico Malatesta is, without doubt, the most important figure in the Anarchy of these latter days. He cannot correctly be called either an agitator or a prophet, because he never appeals publicly for his cause. Silent, cold, and plotting, he is, rather, the living, working genius of Anarchy itself. With these men whose lives are devoted to the destruction of all authority Malatesta's word is law. When he advises or suggests any ambitious member of an Anarchist group throughout the world for some act of assassination, the man selected feels honored at the choice, and becomes the object of his companions' envy. For him to weaken or show the slightest degree of hesitation would make him a coward to his own conscience and bring upon himself the death by secret assassination by which Anarchists punish traitors. Malatesta is now about fifty years old. He is one of the very few Anarchists who originated in southern Italy. He belongs to an old family whose natural legacy to him would have been wealth and social position, but Malatesta turned his back on the allurements that would have appealed to the ambition of most men.

After graduating with honor from an Italian university, he became an Anarchist.

His family disowned him and the Government hunted him. He was driven into exile and began the mysterious nomadic wanderings which he has continued ever since. As his power and influence grew among Anarchists all over the world, he became dreaded and feared as much in other countries as in Italy. With the exception of England the appearance of Malatesta in any nation in Europe would at once be the signal for his immediate arrest and close imprisonment. Yet there is no doubt that, incognito, he has lived for long periods in the capitals where he is dreaded as an evil spirit. He is known to have been a resident during the last five years of both France and Spain. His residence anywhere is said by European detectives to be always fol