beauty, for the delight they give, not for their obligation; and that is their priceless good to men, that they charm and uplift, not that they are imposed.

It has not yet its first hymn. But, that every line and word may be coals of true fire, ages must roll, ere these casual widefalling cinders can be gathered into broad and steady altar-flame.

It does not yet appear what forms the religious feeling will take. It prepares to rise out of all forms to an absolute justice and healthy perception. Here is now a new feeling of humanity infused into public action. Here is contribution of money on a more extended and systematic scale than ever before to repair public disasters at a distance, and of political support to oppressed parties. Then there are the new conventions of social science, before which the questions of the rights of women, the laws of trade, the treatment of crime, regulation of labor. If these are tokens of the steady currents of thought and will in these directions, one might well anticipate a new nation.

I know how delicate this principle is-how difficult of adaptation to practical and social arrangements. It cannot be profaned; it cannot be forced; to draw it out of its natural current is to lose at once all its power. Such experiments as we recall are those in which some sect or dogma made the tie, and that was an artificial element, which chilled and checked the union. But is it quite impossible to believe that men should be drawn to each other by the simple respect which each man feels for another in whom he discovers absolute honesty; the respect he feels for one who thinks life is quite too coarse and frivolous, and that he should like to lift it a little, should like to be the friend of some man's virtue; for another who, underneath his compliances with artificial society, would dearly like to serve somebody,—to test his own reality by making himself useful and indispensable?

Man does not live by bread alone, but by faith, by admiration, by sympathy. 'Tis very shallow to say that cotton, or iron, or silver and gold, are kings of the world; there are rulers that will at any moment make these forgotten. Fear will. Love will. Character will. Men live by their credence. Governments stand by it-by the faith that the people share-whether it comes from the religion in which they were bred, or from an

original conscience in themselves, which the popular religion echoes. If government could only stand by force, if the instinct of the people was to resist the government, it is plain the government must be two to one, in order to be secure, and then it would not be safe from desperate individuals. But no; the old commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," holds down New York, and London, and Paris, and not a police, or horse-guards.

The credence of men it is that moulds them, and creates at will one or another surface. The mind as it opens transfers very fast its choice from the circumstance to the cause; from courtesy to love, from inventions to science, from London or Washington law, or public opinion, to the self-revealing idea; from all that talent executes to the sentiment that fills the heart and dictates the future of nations.

The commanding fact which I never do not see, is the sufficiency of the moral sentiment. We buttress it up, in shallow hours or ages, with legends, traditions, and forms, each good for the one moment in which it was a happy type or symbol of the Power, but the Power sends in the next moment a new lesson, which we lose while our eyes are reverted and striving to perpetuate the old.

America shall introduce a pure religion. Ethics are thought not to satisfy affection. But all the religion we have is the ethics of one or another holy person; as soon as character appears, be sure love will, and veneration, and anecdotes, and fables about him, and delight of good men and women in him. And what deeps of grandeur and beauty are known to us in ethical truth, what divination or insight belongs to it! For innocence is a wonderful electuary for purging the eyes to search the nature of those souls that pass before it. What armor it is to protect the good from outward or inward harm, and with what power it converts evil accidents into benefits; the power of its countenance; the power of its presence! To it alone comes true friendship; to it come grandeur of situation and poetic perception, enriching all it deals with.

Once men thought Spirit divine, and Matter diabolic: one Ormuzd, the other Ahriman. Now science and philosophy recognize the parallelism, the approximation, the unity of the two: how each reflects the other as face answers to face in a glass: nay,

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how the laws of both are one, or how one is the realization. We are learning not to fear truth.

The man of this age must be matriculated in the university of sciences and tendencies flowing from all past periods. He must not be one who can be surprised and shipwrecked by every bold or subtile word which malignant and acute men may utter in his hearing, but should be taught all skepticisms and unbeliefs, and made the destroyer of all card-houses and paper walls, and the sifter of all opinions, by being put face to face from his infancy with Reality.

A man who has accustomed himself to look at all his circumstances as very mutable, to carry his possessions, his relations to persons, and even his opinions, in his hand, and in all these to pierce to the principle and moral law, and everywhere to find that, has put himself out of the reach of all skepticism; and it seems as if whatever is most affecting and sublime in our intercourse, in our happiness, and in our losses, tended steadily to uplift us to a life so extraordinary, and, one might say, superhuman. R. W. EMERSON.

III.

COMMERCIAL RELATIONS WITH FRANCE.

It is generally admitted that, in order to revive our commerce and industry, it is absolutely necessary to have a more extended foreign trade.

It is further admitted that, while the agricultural products of the United States share a more than fair competition with the raw cotton of India, Egypt, and Brazil, and with the cereals of Russia and Germany, in the markets of the world, yet the export of our surplus manufactures can hardly compare in value to the two towns of Sheffield and Bradford. In fact, our whole export of manufactured goods in 1877 was about $70,000,000, while our production of manufactures exceeded, no doubt, $3,000,000,000 in value.

It is therefore of the greatest importance to the industry of the country to understand our commercial relations with the several great countries in the world. I intend in this article to explain our commercial relations with France. Our total trade with that country, exports and imports, is the second in importance on the list.

The total imports from France in 1877 amounted to $50,355,540, and our total exports to France in 1877 amounted to $46,233,793: the grand total being $96,589,333. The imports and exports of bullion comprised in the above figures were: Imports of bullion from France, $2,799,248; exports of bullion to France, $2,135,450 showing an increase of imports in bullion over exports of $663,798: yet the actual balance of trade was against us to the amount of $4,121,747. This circumstance in itself is by no means a very serious feature, as it has been proved over and over again that a country can be, and, as an example, during the last few years the United States has been, in commercial and industrial distress, with the balance of trade in the aggregate in her

favor. But when we analyze the nature of our trade with France we find the result far from satisfactory. Of our $46,233,793 exports to France, twelve items represent no less than $44,336,013, as follows:

Leaving barely $2,000,000 of exports for all manufactured goods. As it will be observed that the above items represent the crudest agricultural products, breadstuffs, petroleum, ingot-copper, tallow, etc., the question now arises, "Why do we not export more of our manufactures to France?"

As a comparison of our exports of the same manufactured goods to England, Germany, and France, respectively, the following table, of but a few items, will give the reader a better idea in how far we are cut off from the French market with our manufactures:

It would be useless to follow up the list of smaller items, but the above gives a fair idea that we are precluded from selling our manufactured goods in the French market. And, what is still more melancholy, is the fact that this is not owing to our inability to compete, seeing that we do compete, both with England