classes at the various American colleges, as they are annually published in the newspapers. The few extravagant students are able to do so much more effective work at their end than the great body of the students can do at theirs, that the "average" goes up to a figure which is quite misleading. Meantime, in the teeth of all the averages, the great body of the students go on as their fathers did, and, even at those colleges which are selected as the most expensive of all, there is always a smaller body of students who are working their way through college and showing that the "average" has no real relation to the question. There is not a college in America from which poverty alone need debar a student; there is not one from which he may not graduate, provided he has that amount of ability which will make a college education a benefit, and provided, also, he is willing to work before and through his course, and deny himself, as was the custom in our fathers' days. It is this last custom which is going out of existence; and that is enough to show that the root of the evil does not lie in the college, but in the home. The very parents who speak so bitterly of the encouragement given to young men's extravagance by the modern college life have carefully trained their sons for just the life which they have found. Usually men in moderate circumstances, they have never compelled their sons to earn a dollar in their lives, or to know the cost or value of money, or to deny themselves anything within their reach, or to do anything except spend money when a favorable opportunity offered. The sons, passing for the first time beyond the father's eye, and able to plead circumstances which parents cannot deny from personal knowledge, are in a fair position to deplete the paternal pocket-book, and have never been trained to refrain from improving such an opportunity. It is not for his own selfish gratification that the son joins this or that college society, or takes all the college papers, or "goes with the nine" to watch an intercollegiate game in another college town, or does any of the other things for which his father has to pay,- not at all; it is only because he would be ostracized in college if he refrained from such indulgences. Such are the statements which accompany the periodical petitions for checks; and the father, finding it easier to curse college extravagance than to take the trouble of ascertaining the true state of the case, continues his mistraining of the boy by paying his bills until, at the end of the college course, the son is turned loose upon the world, to find at last what a dollar really means. In nine cases out of ten, the student's self-control, if it led to a refusal to be enticed into unnecessary expenditures, would be simply ignored by the other students of his college. There are always cliques which would ignore himself as well; and, to this extent, the dreaded "taboo" might be endured. But this difficulty is purely subjective; it is in the student himself, and its roots are in his home-training. If he has come to college to cultivate or value the society of such cliques, the penalty has an effective force; if he has been trained to undervalue or ignore the pen alty, it has no power over him. When he yields to it and writes home that he "must have" money for this, that, or the other purpose, the father who supplies this demand is cultivating further the son's vanity, and further preparing vexation of spirit for himself. For him to pay the money and thus increase the evil, while he considers it the unperformed duty of the college authorities to suppress all the societies, expel the editors of all the college papers, and abolish the intercollegiate games, is merely another example of the decadence of American home-life and discipline. The father expects the college to do for the son what the home no longer does for him; he sends the college flabby material, and expects the material to be turned into such strong, self-poised, self-controlled manhood as the American home once furnished to the college. If the children's teeth are set on edge, it is largely because the fathers have eaten sour grapes. There can be little doubt that two-thirds of the material now sent to college would be bettered by being put into a workshop of some kind for two years between the ages of twelve and sixteen. The spread of comfort among the people has been steadily increasing the number of those who can spare their sons the necessity of work even through their years of early manhood; and we have not yet come to understand the full measure of the injury which is thus done to the character of the boy. At the same time, the colleges have been developing in a direction which gives greater and still greater freedom to the student, and thus brings into constantly greater prominence the evils resulting from the modern American system of home-training. To check the college in its natural course of development, to demand that it shall cease its proper work and attend to wrapping the student in cotton-wool and keeping him from the temptations incident to every really manly life, would be merely to make permanent and irreparable the damage which is being done to young American manhood. Things must be worse before they can be better. American parents must learn that education is not an affair of books alone; that it is not complete when so many books have been finished and so many term-bills paid; that a true education consists even more largely in the training of the character and of the will than in book-knowledge. When American homes send to American colleges boys who have been trained to discriminate between the accidents of life and its essentials, the complaints of college extravagance will disappear, and a good many other evils will go with them. The Metropolitan Spirit. THE current year has been remarkable for its conspicuous proofs that matters æsthetic and scholarly are taking a wider and deeper hold upon the people of the leading American city. New York is becoming metropolitan not merely in intention, but in fact. The metropolitan spirit is abroad in society, and the year 1887 will be memorable for the long step then taken in advancing our gigantic community in the right direction. The city has never been behind in religious and charitable exertion; of late years its politics have been not a little improved, and the work of purification was never more active than now, nor ever was urged more strongly and directly toward fundamental reforms. But the artistic revival of a dozen or fifteen years ago has had a sudden fruition within the last year or two that goes along with a revival in all æsthetic matters and should be especially noted for and the Tilden bequest to the same general purpose, encouragement and example. are a part of the new movement. The recent celebration of the centennial of an important date in the history of Columbia College has drawn public attention to an institution which shows abundant signs of rejuvenation. The college is still a college in name, but its tendency toward a genuine university establishment is emphasized in many ways; notably in the conduct of its library, which, in its printed treasures and in its lecture courses, is a college in itself, the benefits of which are wisely and generously extended with few restrictions to the entire community. The dinner to James Russell Lowell, Charles Waldstein, and the trustees of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, was an event in line with the general movement; and it is evident that the proper endowment of this school is sure to follow soon. The Metropolitan Museum has shared in the æsthetic generosities of the time, and has received some splendid legacies and gifts. There is already the surety, also, of the generous endowment of a new and highly important scheme for the direct advancement of American art, in all its branches. Along with these signs of the times have come annual exhibitions of special interest exhibitions which proclaim that the new generation of painters and sculptors have something in them beside suggestion and promise. It is evident that New York is yearly becoming a better city to live in. The Lincoln History. THE current installment of the Life of Lincoln and History of his times reaches and includes an account of the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Although Lincoln had for years been opposed to Douglas in political discussions, the great struggle between these giants of debate did not occur till in 1858 they simultaneously appealed to the people of Illinois for elec tion to the United States Senate. The readers of the Life will fully appreciate the necessity felt by the authors to record amply and clearly the occurrences in Kansas, in Congress, and in the Supreme Court which led up to the political situation of 1858 and the celebrated canvass of that year in Illinois. This momentous debate, which sent Douglas to the Senate and Lincoln to the White House, cannot be fully understood, in all its subtleties of argument and allusion, by those who are unfamiliar with the political events of immediately preceding years. The Life, which will certainly lose nothing in interest as it approaches more nearly the war period, will deal in August with Lincoln's Ohio speeches and the Cooper Institute speech, and in September with Lin The prosperous and growing Free Library scheme, coln's nomination and election. I Labor and Capital. A CONNECTICUT EXPERIMENT. OPEN LETTERS. F Mr. Walter Besant wishes to see a working model of the "Palace of Delight" so movingly described by him in that "impossible story" of his which bears the preposterous title, "All Sorts and Conditions of Men," let him cross the ocean and visit the thrifty Connecticut town of Bridgeport. The novelist's notion is that the chief trouble with the working people is their lack of pleasure; and that pleasure enough is within their reach, cheap and wholesome, if they only knew where and how to find it. His theory is, therefore, that the philanthropist who can show the poor how to enjoy themselves is a better friend than the one who can increase their income; that he who can make one innocent pleasure grow where there was none before is a greater benefactor than he who puts two dimes into a purse where there was one before. Therefore he would turn the efforts of those who seek to improve the condition of the people in our cities toward the problem of brightening their lives by providing them with social amusements, or, better, toward the task of teaching them how to amuse themselves. That this kind of philanthropy, like every other, will cost something, his fable teaches; but his contention is that money and effort expended along this line will produce the best results. What Mr. Besant would see, if he came to Bridgeport, is a beautiful building, nearly ready for occupation, somewhat less magnificent than the airy nothing of his creation, and bearing the less ambitious desig nation of "Seaside Institute." It stands near Seaside Park, in the western suburb of the city, directly across the street from the factory of the Warner Brothers, by the side of which it has grown as the honeysuckle grows upon the cornfield wall,- the flower drawing its beauty and its fragrance from the same kindly soil that nourishes and ripens the grain. The Warner Brothers are manufacturers of corsets, and they employ about one thousand women of various sorts and conditions, most of them young and unmarried. A bright, comely, wholesome-looking company of young women they are; four or five hundred of them might be picked out who, judging their intelligence by their faces, would not look out of place in the chapel at Smith, Wellesley, or Vassar. The average weekly wage of this thousand is about seven dollars each,-a larger amount than women in such callings generally earn,— which indicates that the dealings of the firm with its employees are not wholly regulated by competition. For a long time these employers have been study. ing the problem of the working-girl, and trying to find out how they could best improve her condition. They knew that a large share of the earnings of these girls must go for board and room-rent; that it was possible for few of them to afford any but narrow, ill-lighted, ill-ventilated, unwarmed lodgings, and that no cheerful and comfortable place was open to them in which they might spend their leisure hours. They knew that the presence of so many of these girls in the skatingrinks and on the streets in the evening was due, in large part, to the fact that they had nowhere else to go. They knew, moreover, that the kind of food furnished in such boarding-houses as they must patronize was in many cases inferior and unwholesome. Under such conditions it is not strange that the working-girls of the cities often develop abnormal appetites, and vicious tastes, and rude manners; the wonder is that so many of them keep their health unbroken and their characters unsullied. And these men of good-will, studying with what seems to be a sincere philanthropy the welfare of the thousand women by whose labor they are accumulating their fortune, determined to build for them, if not a " Palace of Delight," at least a Hall of Comfort, in which shelter and care and companionship and opportunities of wholesome diversion and of mental cultivation should be freely furnished them. This "Seaside Institute" will cost the builders about forty thousand dollars. It is a shapely building externally - no -no mere barracks, but a well-proportioned and winning structure, seventy-five feet square and three stories in height, proclaiming in its very form the presence of other than "economical" motives. In the basement is a large refectory, with kitchen attached, in which the best of plain food will be furnished at cost. Those who wish will be permitted to order by the card; a glass of milk for a cent, or a cup of coffee at the same price, indicate the scale of the charges. An experienced and popular caterer tells me that the actual cost of the food is not more than this—that the project is feasible from this point of view. Those girls who wish may obtain regular board at this refectory, at prices not to exceed two dollars and a half a week. It is hoped that the charge may be less than this. "The food will be prepared," say the proprietors, "by experienced cooks, and served in the best manner.' The value of this provision for the comfort and health of the girls can be estimated only by those who have tested the cooking of the average cheap boardinghouse. To be permitted to sit down in a bright and airy room, at a clean and prettily furnished table, to a well-cooked meal, will seem to many of these young women a foretaste of Paradise. In the determination to make this part of their plan serviceable to their employees, the proprietors will not haggle about the cost. If the refectory should not quite pay expenses, the bill of fare will not be cheapened, but the deficiency will be provided for. The floor above is entered from the street by a wide porch which opens into a generous hall, on the left of which is a reception and conversation room, connecting by sliding doors with a music-room in the rear. Back of this is an ample lavatory with numerous bath-rooms- -a most sumptuous provision for the comfort of the girls, and one which they are sure to appreciate. On the right of the hall is the great readingroom or common-room, a spacious and beautiful apartment, and in the rear of this, and communicating with it, the library, surrounded by low cases whose shelves will be filled with books for the use of the girls. Here, too, will be found numerous writingtables and full supplies of writing-materials. An easy stairway leads to the second floor. The first apartment on the right of the hall is a room to be furnished with sewing-machines, where the girls will be able to do their own sewing. Farther on are two or three class-rooms, in which evening classes will be taught in any branches which the young women may VOL. XXXIV.-65. desire to study. The plan is to permit them to organize these classes for themselves, in any branch in which they may desire instruction, singing, penmanship, book-keeping, type-writing, stenography, fancy needlework, or whatever they wish; for all classes so organized, containing a certain number, teachers will be provided. The other side of this story is occupied by a large assembly-room, seating five or six hundred, with stage and anterooms, in which lectures, concerts, and entertainments of all kinds may be given to the inmates. It is hoped that they will take Mr. Besant's hint with respect to the use of this room, and learn how to furnish with these facilities a large part of their own diversion. Several pianos will be located in different parts of the building, on which students of music will be permitted to practice. A competent matron will be put in charge of the Institute, to whose wisdom the general management will be largely intrusted. The whole building is warmed by steam and lighted by electricity. The design is to furnish an attractive and delightful home for these young women during all the hours when they are not at work or asleep. The question about lodgings has been considered by the Messrs. Warner, but they have not been satisfied of the wisdom of furnishing these. It is possible that they may yet need lodging-houses in the neighborhood of the Seaside Institute; but at present they are not convinced that it may not be better for their women to keep their rooms in private families. The proprietors have found by in. vestigation that half of their employees live within half a mile of the factory, so that the Institute will be easily accessible to most of them. Several rooms in the third story will be furnished as lodgings into which any of the women who are ill, or temporarily without homes, may be received, under the matron's care. "All of the benefits afforded by the establishment," say the proprietors, "will be substantially free, except food, which will be furnished at or below cost. All the women who are in the employ of Warner Brothers will be entitled to any of the educational, literary, musical, and social privileges that may be furnished." There has been a question whether a small fee, say one dollar a year, might not secure a more general and freer use of the privileges of the Institute; whether the girls would not more readily avail themselves of a provision which was not entirely gratuitous. If any such charge should be made, it would be nominal, and only for the purpose of extending the benefits of the Institute. Another feature of the institution is thus described by one of the proprietors: "We shall have connected with the building a savings bank, in order to encourage our hands to save some portion of their earnings. I have long since learned that what one earns has little to do with what he saves. One with an income of ten thousand dollars is no more likely to lay aside a portion of his earnings than one with an income of one thousand. The principle of saving is either inherited, or it must be cultivated, and it is to encourage this principle that this branch of the institution will be established. This privilege will be extended to all our help, male and female." Every employee who deposits two dollars a month is also promised that a half-dollar will be added to the deposit by the employers; and interest will be paid on all deposits, besides the bonus allowed. It is evident that a considerable amount will be re quired to pay the operating expenses of this institution, and although this will be taken, at present, from the profits of the business, it is not to be left unprovided for in the event of a change in the proprietorship; for a sum of money is being set apart as a permanent fund for the endowment of the Institute, that it may go on doing its beneficent work after its proprietors have passed to their reward. In these days, when the hearts of the compassionate are torn by so many harrowing tales of man's inhumanity to working-women, it is pleasant to be able to set forth the good deeds of these two chivalrous employers. Under the law of competition, which always pushes the weakest to the wall, women are the slaves of the labor market. They have not learned to combine; they have no power to resist the oppression of conscienceless capital; the price of their labor is therefore fixed by the most rapacious employers. Against them "the iron law of wages," in its bitterest sense, is continually being enforced. By a logic which is as inexorable as the grave, their compensation tends to starvation-point, nor does any merely "economical" force appear for their deliverance. The less they receive, the less they are able to earn; the labor-force in them is weakened by their impoverishment. The pictures that Helen Campbell has been showing us of the " Prisoners of Poverty" in New York exhibit the natural result of unrestrained competition. If the women who work are to be rescued from their wretchedness, it must be done by the appearance on their behalf of such knightly employers as these, who decline to build their fortunes upon the woes of women, and who determine to share their gains with those who have helped to gather them. Of course all this is done in sheer despite of the economical maxims. In the thought of such employers," business is business," and something more: it is opportunity; it is stewardship; it is the high calling of God. Not being omniscient I cannot pretend to discern all the motives of these employers, nor have they shown in my presence any disposition to make any parade of their philanthopy; but I visited their manufactory, by the side of which is planted this fair flower of their charity, and I have seen with my eyes what they are trying to do, and the thing which appears is this: that these two men are working as studiously, as resolutely, as patiently to improve the condition of their employees as they are to enlarge their fortunes. I believe that the one purpose lies as near their hearts as the other. Are they alone in this? By no means. The number of those employers who find the vocation of the captain of industry to be a humane and a benign vocation is steadily growing. It was never growing so fast as it is to-day. The past two years, with all their strifes and turmoils, have wrought wonders in this realm. It begins to be evident enough that no organization of industry is stable and productive which does not bring in good will as one of the working forces. It is just as true of industry as of art, that "He that shuts Love out, in turn shall be devoting to this institution. I do not think so. They are giving their employees more than the market rate of wages for such service; and this institution will be worth far more to these women than the money which it costs would be if it were divided among them. The aggregate amount of comfort, of enjoyment, of health, and of welfare which this institution will produce will be indefinitely greater than they could purchase for themselves with the same sum. This is due, in part, to economical causes; for comfort is a commodity that like most other commodities can be far more cheaply produced on the large scale. The benefits of cooperative housekeeping, after which a generation of burdened housekeepers have struggled in vain, are secured for these employees by the good providence of their employer. There are moral reasons, also, for preferring this method of distribution; for many of these beneficiaries would not, in their present state of mind, be likely to receive any real benefit from an increase of wages; a little more candy, a few more ribbons, an additional number of evenings in the skating-rink or the cheap theater would tell the story of their added income. They need, most of all, higher tastes, simpler enjoyments, and habits of frugality; and the Seaside Institute is intended to lead them gently toward these higher things. When they have found this kingdom, many things can be added unto them. Washington Gladden. Christian Union. FROM THE BAPTIST POINT OF VIEW. THE recent articles in THE CENTURY on the general subject of Christian union have been in a high degree interesting and instructive. He must be a very blind observer of "the signs of the times" who does not discover strong tendencies toward a closer union among all denominations of Christians. At the New York State Baptist Pastors' Conference held last fall at Poughkeepsie, a unanimous resolution was passed expressing this desire in explicit and emphatic terms. No body of Christians is more earnest than is the great Baptist denomination numbering in the United States its millions-in offering the prayer of our Lord: “That they all may be one." By no formal appointment do I represent the denomination in this "Open Letter"; but I am quite sure that I do not misrepresent its spirit and efforts. Three facts seem very plain to many at this time. First. The great denominations are drawing nearer together in their forms of service. Churches which have not a liturgy, in the technical sense of that term, are adopting more elaborate forms of worship than they formerly used. On the other hand, some churches, which come into the category of liturgical churches. are omitting, in some of their services, some of their usual forms. In some of the revival or "mission" services everything which once distinguished liturgical churches is wanting. One might think in attending these services that he was at one of Mr. Moody's meetings. The age of the soulless money-maker is passing; the These "missions" are themselves an illustration of new nobility is coming to its own. It may be asked whether a higher justice, if not a true charity, would not require these employers to distribute directly in wages the money which they are the tendency here named. They are simply" revivals,” as the term has been used for generations among the more fervent Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists. The Roman church adopted them in forms adapted to their other methods of work; and some Episcopal churches have now come into the line of work long followed by other bodies. The same unifying tendency is seen in services in connection with the reception of new members and in preparation for the observance of the Lord's Supper. This two-fold modification of services indicates progress along the line of union; it is prophetic of greater progress soon to be made. It is greatly wise in every way. The oldest forms of creed, prayer, litany, chant, and hymn are the property of no one denomination. To claim a monopoly in their use is to manifest hopeless ignorance and unpardonable bigotry. As well might one claim a monopoly of the sunshine or the evening breeze. Second. The different denominations to-day have essential union. At present organic union is undesirable. It is possible only by making dangerous compromises. A union which is possible only to those who believe anything or nothing to secure it, is bought at too dear a price. Honest convictions must be respected. Better that men differ honestly than agree by being indifferent to all creeds. Essential union is possible and actual to-day among the great majority of our Protestant churches. There are to-day wider differences among some of the branches of the Roman church than between some of the different churches in our great Protestant host. There are churches in this city, not Roman, of the same name, which differ more widely in spirit and life than do certain other churches bearing different denominational names. Rationalism and Romanism, in many of their distinctive features, may be found under the same church name and authority. Here is organic but not essential union. When churches of different names work along the line of their honest convictions of the teachings of God's word, they have essential union; coming near to their common Lord, and coming near to lost men, they come genuinely near to one another. Such union is worth much. An organic union, secured by concessions, compromises, and concealments of honest convictions, is a positive damage to all concerned. Third. Christian union, both essential and organic, is greatly retarded because many Christians refuse to accept the plain teaching of God's word, and the conclusions of the highest scholarship regarding the subjects and the act of baptism. Baptists hold that Christ alone can make laws for his church; and that the Bible is the only rule of faith and practice. They believe that this word teaches with unmistakable clearness that believers are the only subjects of baptism, and that baptism is the immersion of believers into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. If the Bible does not clearly teach these truths, what truths does it clearly teach? More explicit are its utterances on these subjects than regarding the divinity of Christ, or any article in the orthodox creeds. As a matter of fact, there are in this country to-day millions who cannot accept sprinkling or pouring as baptism. But all men, always and in all places, accept immersion as baptism; not to accept it, is not to accept baptism. If ever there is organic union it will be at the baptistery. Baptists care little for the mode of baptism. The person to be bap tized may kneel in the water, and be baptized forward; or he may stoop until the water flows over his head; or he may be baptized backward. But Baptists insist upon baptism. They cannot accept a substitute for the act honored by the audible or visible presence of each Person in the Trinity when Jesus was baptized; honored in this respect as was no other act of obedience in our Lord's life. The so-called “Teaching of the Apostles " does not call anything baptism but immersion. It gives directions for baptism, and then, when the conditions of baptism are wanting, although we find them always possible, it gives permission for something else, not called baptism. This “teaching” Baptists alone live up to; it is especially their document. Their views the highest scholarship indorses. Lexicographers such as Donnegan, Schleusner, Greenfield, Stourdza, Liddell and Scott, Robinson, Wahl, Grimm, Wilke, and many more distinctly and emphatically affirm that baptize, which is properly a Greek word, means to dip, to immerse, to plunge. Such religious teachers as Calvin, Luther, Melanchthon, Archbishop Leighton, Wesley, Conybeare, and Dean Stanley say that immersion was the original mode. Such commentators as Chalmers, Zwingle, Ewald, De Wette, Meyer, Godot, Alford, Plumptre, Bishop Ellicott, and many more, representing various churches and countries, say in substance that same thing. Such historians of our Lord's ministry and of the apostolic church as Mosheim, Neander, G. A. Jacobs, Geikie, Pressensé, Conybeare and Howson, Lewin, Dean Stanley, Edersheim, Farrar, Weiss, Hagenbach, and Dollinger, and such recent learned theologians as Luthardt, Van Oosterzee, Schmidt, Dorner, and Rothe, agree substantially with the learned Dr. Schaff when he says, " Immersion, and not sprinkling, was unquestionably the original form." Luther, Dr. Wall, Neander, Olshausen, and Professor Lange agree with Dr. Hanna when he says, " Scripture knows nothing of the baptism of infants." If scholarship can prove anything, it has established the Baptist position regarding the subjects and the act of baptism. The point I make is this: All are agreed on immersion as baptism; all cannot agree on anything else. All can be baptized without doing violence either to conviction or to conscience. High Roman, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Methodist and other authorities can be cited—and their exact words given to prove all these statements regarding the teaching of the highest scholarship; and the plain teaching of the Bible to the unlearned is in harmony with the conclusions of the highest scholarship. Baptists have no option but to be separate so long as others refuse to follow Christ in baptism. If a pastor in any of the churches not Baptist were to teach and practice our views, he would be driven out. What then could he do but be separate from his former brethren? If others than Baptists will not do what conviction and conscience permit them to do, it is certain that they do not much desire union. Surely in such a case the charge of bigotry and schism does not lie at the door of Baptists. We shall continue to pray, "that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me,. that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.' R. S. MacArthur. CALVARY BAPTIST CHURCH, New York. American Students in Germany. Now that multitudes of American college graduates annually migrate to Berlin, Leipzig, Göttingen, and Strasburg, it may not be out of place to call attention |