I hope there may be more articles akin to "A Modern in Search of Truth." Such vision and tolerance should be welcomed in religious discussions.

Long have I felt that religion both as a way of life, and as an intellectual adjustment to the "why" of things, is an unique, personal experience; and therefore that the regimentation of religionists within creeds and formulas may cramp and distort the spirit much as bandages cramp and distort the feet of Chinese ladies. I wish I had the power that the author seems to possess to preserve a feeling of brotherhood for those zealous ones who feel such a tremendous duty to save our souls by converting us to the One True Faith.

It happens that Swedenborg gives me the most satisfactory map I have seen of spiritual geography. It would be sheer impertinence however for me to make a nuisance of myself insisting that others, on penalty of being lost, must share my faith and its satisfactions. I do not believe that the Divine resources have such limitations.

In the case of Swedenborg, he spent some twentyfive years writing in Latin his works relating to the spiritual world. He published them at his own expense and deposited them unobtrusively in the libraries of Europe. He founded no sect and made no effort to proselyte. He was content to stand at the door and knock. He has supplied strength and

nourishment for those who, hearing his knock, invited him to enter. But I am sure that he himself I would have been the last to claim that he has a monopoly on spiritual nourishment.

Despite my admiration for this attitude, I have no disposition to disparage the work of such eminent practitioners as Aimee Semple McPherson and the Rev. Billy Sunday. If they bring peace to stricken souls their mission is justified regardless of whether or not it be fruitful financially. But I do hope they will not practise on me. Yours cordially,

Los Angeles, California.

My dear Editor,

GEORGE A. BRIGGS

I have read with much interest Ann de Leeuw's article in the March number of THE CENTURY MAGAZINE entitled "For-But Also By-The People." To me as one who knows what war means, coming of Revolutionary forefathers, myself serving in the Civil War, and for forty years thereafter connected with the schools of New York helping to educate the very youth that was sacrificed in the World War-often has presented itself the question, what is it that can assure us of Peace. This is a timely message to everybody, it seems to me, and I wish it could be read by all thinking people, for it presents a line of thought which if pursued would appear to lead to the solution of the knot that is indeed tying the hearts and lives of individuals and nations to-day. I congratulate the author on her able presentation of it, and thank you.

Very truly yours, T. A. HYNES

developments along which the progress of mankind expresses itself. The palm for having inaugurated a fundamentally new conception for a worldwide study of cultural developments belongs to my friend Professor Leo Frobenius, who explores dark continents and obscure biological problems, with equal intrepidity. He has charted culture's uncharted sea.

We are at the beginning of a new science. Even the beginning reveals its immense possibilities. It does not seem improbable to me that we shall eventually arrive at findings that will enable us to determine the general lines along which racial and national developments must progress. This will make it possible for us to avoid evolution in the wrong direction. It will also endow us with the facility to distinguish between homogeneous cultural elements that can be easily assimilated and heterogeneous elements that must remain forever at odds. This subject is of interest to all nations. It is of special importance to the United States.

Nations are, as it were, subject to definite cultural laws. Similar conditions produce similar results in their lives. We can never predicate the future from the past with absolute exactitude, but we can foretell certain developments with a measure of certainty. The climatic and geographical environment of a race determines its character and its characteristics. Barring other unexpected influences, the present is likely to be the reflection of the past. The future is sure to develop along analogous lines. This applies not only to physical characteristics, but to philosophical concepts. Insular

and seafaring nations necessarily develop other characteristics and other concepts of life than nations dwelling in continental seclusion.

Naturally Nordic woodlands and mountains create a different people and engender a different conception. of the Supreme Being, than the everlastingly blue skies of the south, the treeless steppes, the highlands, or seemingly interminable plains and deserts. Under specific climacteric conditions certain physical and psychical energies tend to relax. This is true especially of peoples dwelling in the valleys of great rivers. This softening of certain characteristics produces a feminine culture. Nations with feminine cultures usually possess decided creative gifts, but they are frequently lacking in warlike spirit.

Frobenius holds that the study of bygone, now closed, periods of ancient history serves to illustrate the meaning of this fact. He says:

"The races peopling the valleys of the Indus, Nile, Mesopotamia little by little succumbed to relaxing habits, thus becoming an easy prey to the highland or desert tribes who invaded these valleys and, after easily conquering their inhabitants, established their rule over them. These tribes composed of people accustomed to live amid the hardships of barren highlands and sandy deserts, were of course racially of much stronger and tougher stuff than the inhabitants of the fertile well cultivated valleys. As a rule they imposed their language on the conquered race.

"Hence the very remarkable fact that the great groups of languages of the world correspond each to a great

desert country, being idioms spoken by the hardy desert races, who transferred them from their original homes to the newly conquered valleys.

"The Mongolian tongue originated in the Gobi desert, the Indo-Germanic tongue comes from the Persian desert, the Semitic tongue has its origin in the Arabian desert, the Hamitic tongue comes from the Sahara."

In contrast to feminine culture are the more primitive masculine traditions, developed by peoples of the desert and of the mountains.

While nations belonging to the sphere of feminine culture eventually succumb to the greater strength of the nations embraced in the masculine circle, imbued with an inherent urge to press forward and conquer, once the conquerors obtain the upper hand, they often accept certain cultural elements of the vanquished.

Feminine France and Masculine Germany A predominant example of feminine culture is France. A chief exponent of masculine culture is Germany. I am indebted for my argument primarily to the researches of Professor Frobenius. I draw no invidious comparisons. I merely make a scientific distinction. Naturally I prefer the type of culture of my own country. This is hardly surprising in a German Emperor.

Every woman endowed with natural and strongly marked feelings, is gifted by nature with the power to form instinctive judgment. She possesses what we call intuition. Man, on the other hand, normally acquires his faculty of judgment from reflection and education. He is not

born with these faculties. He conquers them in the struggle to prepare himself for his career. He owes his attainments primarily to reason. The line of demarcation is not always discernible with absolute precision. Men may possess intuition. Women may conduct their affairs by ratiocination.

The distinction existing between men and women exists also in a larger sense between feminine and masculine nations. Feminine cultures and countries are governed to a large extent by instinctive general opinions swaying the masses. Where masculine culture prevails the leader takes the place of the masses. Here single personalities assume control.

French history gives us a clear conception of this theory. French culture within clearly defined bounds, is governed by centripetal tendencies, directed toward Paris, at once the brain and the heart of France. German history, on the other hand, reveals the development of clearly marked centrifugal tendencies. This development logically leads to the federation of a great number of individual states, with innumerable separate communal entities.

France is a single community. Its spirit and its cravings blossom forth in Paris. Germany has produced numberless smaller nucleuses, each possessing a marked individuality. This holds true everywhere, from the great cities, where reigning princes resided, such as Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Stuttgart, to the tiniest town of Kraehwinkel or Katzenellenbogen.

The Frenchman ordinarily is reluctant to leave France. This illustrates the centripetal character of

glory had departed, but which lately had produced a prodigy; a deserted capital which still faintly echoed of old revelry, and now began to resound to a crescent roar. To our fathers it had been indeed a great and magnificent city, and it was still a good place for sick people and doctors; but why on earth should a healthy man visit Baltimore, when the expresses would carry him straight through to New York? It had been a good town, but was it not now as dead as Charleston itself? Mr. Mencken, unquestionably, was very much alive, but was he not something in the nature of a sole survivor? The South, once the great satrapy of Baltimore, would unquestionably answer these questions in the affirmative. Baltimore no longer dominates the South. Her suzerainty has gone north, and as far as the imaginations of Southerners are concerned, there is only one important stop on the line to New York, namely, Washington. Baltimore has become as dim and difficult to descry as Philadelphia, or Wilmington, Delaware, or Newark, New Jersey. One passes through all these places on the road to New York; but who ever thought of getting off at any of them? The Eighth City, and even the Third City, are left darkling in the effulgence shed abroad by the First City.

Yet if size counted for anything the tale would be different. Eighth city in the United States, Baltimore is bigger than Boston, bigger than San Francisco, bigger than Los Angeles in 1920, and far bigger than Washington. It is a great steelmanufacturing town. Its harbor receives from or despatches to a foreign

port a ship for almost every hour of the day, not counting coastwise and bay traffic. It is one of the world's greatest coal-exporting ports. In population, in wealth, in industrial power, it is a very much greater city to-day than it ever was before.

But they don't sing about it below the Potomac any more. Soldiers don't sing about it as they go to war. Turpentine hands and cotton choppers, steel-drivin' men and tobacco. curers do not embody its name in their chanteys. Small boys once dreamed of it as Whittington dreamed of London, but not now. New York has swallowed Baltimore as it has swallowed every other city along the Atlantic seaboard. New York has drained it of color, of glamour, of romance. New York has left it dry and dull.

That at least is the impression of most people of my acquaintance who do not know the city. To some extent it is shared by Baltimoreans, also. It grows steadily more difficult for any city in eastern America to retain its individuality against the influence of the monstrous congeries of cities around the mouth of the Hudson. We are in danger of developing a genuine metropolis in the territory east of the Appalachians. Already as regards the arts, the sciences, social intercourse, habits of speech and habits of thought, the other cities are satellites of New York. The danger is that presently they may cease to be planets, with a life of their own, and become unchanging, windless moons.