II. THE FEDERAL BALANCE.

On the deck of a westward-bound Atlantic steamer, one breezy September day, some years ago, I was asked by a distinguished gentleman, who had indeed been an English cabinet minister, to recommend some book from which he might get a rudimentary knowledge of the system of government in the United States. "For," said he, "we don't understand you. We cannot see why your vast size does not lessen cohesion and make you fall apart; nor do we understand why you will not go to pieces in the dangerous process of electing a chief magistrate." Of course I pointed out to him the fact that the President had neither the power nor the responsibility of an English primeminister, and, in short, that ours was not a parliamentary government. This surprised him, and he replied with frankness: "Ah! we do not understand you.'

But on thinking over the words of this right honorable and very intelligent gentleman, I have to confess that one of the dangers that he pointed out was a real one. So long as a hope of party advantage prevents the legislature of the country from agreeing upon some authoritative board of arbitration in case of a difference regarding an electoral count between the two Houses of Congress, the national peace will be threatened when ever we have to pass the ordeal of electing a chief ruler. Against the danger from incohesion I urged the good fortune of our Federal system - that the central government was relieved of severe strain by the localization of a great part of our legislative work. Massachusetts, with her Puritan history, regulates all matters pertaining to morals and manners—all matters that have to do with the degree and character of civilization - by her local legislature. Louisiana, with her French antecedents, is allowed to respect her traditions and those sentiments that are the slow growth of generations, and to evolve a civilization on her own soil, in her own way. The danger which this English statesman saw in the vast extent of our country and the heterogeneity of its people would be a real one, if it were possible for a body of Pennsylvania Presbyterians and Massachusetts Puritans to organize a party to make Sunday laws for New Orleans. It would be real if reformers could not pass a law regulating the liquor traffic in Maine without consulting the representatives from Nevada, Arkansas, and the Bourbon district of Kentucky.

This notion of a lack of stability in the American government from the heterogeneousness of its people is an old one with Englishmen. In 1759, not to mention any earlier example, there came to this country the Rev. Andrew Burnaby, afterward Archdeacon of Leicester, who entered the colonies by way of York River and journeyed to the northward as far as the

schemes for taxing the colonies had raised the whirlwind, he published in 1773 his "Travels Through the Middle Settlements in North America." In this he ventures to make some forecasts. He does not think that the colonies can ever be voluntarily associated in one government, "for fire and water," says he, "are not more heterogeneous than the different colonies in North America. Nothing can exceed the jealousy and emulation which they possess in regard to each other." "Indeed," he says in another place, "it appears to me a doubtful point, even supposing all the colonies of America were to be united under one head, whether it would be possible to keep in due order and government so wide and extended an empire."

The trouble with Burnaby's forecast is a trouble with all such predictions. It is impossible to take into ac count beforehand all the elements of a complex problem. Among a good many elements here which he did not foresee is the Federal system, which is more the offspring of fortunate accident than of wise statesmanship. The centrifugal jealousy of the sev eral colonies, with their separate histories, local sentiments, and particular interests, offered resistance to the centralizing theories of statesmen; the result was not a perfect balance between central and local governments, but an adjustment that has proved itself to be most useful and truly conservative. Railroads, newspapers, telegraphs, and the abolition of slavery have made us much more homogeneous than we were. But differences of climate and productions, of inland and sea-coast location, of mountain and plain, of local history, derivation, and traditional sentiment, will happily intervene to prevent our falling into a flat uniformity of character. And society will advance more rapidly and more safely if each State is allowed to work out its own destiny by the attrition of the forces that make up its life. Among these forces history and tra dition are everywhere of the strongest. To all time New England will show traces of the town-community, independent-church, and common-land systems of her infancy; Virginia must on the other hand grow by counties, for there every county has its traditions of the ancestors who administered justice on the bench of magistrates in the county court, and who now and then maintained the old notions of gentlemanliness by notifying royal governors of their unwillingness to sit with a man, no matter how high in court favor, who was of doubtful integrity. Louisiana again will cast her history into the mold of a territory checkered off into parishes, as that of Delaware is into hundreds.

I do not discuss the Federal system with any appre hension of danger that in any proximate time a serious attempt will be made to change the skeleton of the government. Any arguments for or against a radical change in our system can have only an academic interest. It is hard to abolish organized history by enactment. Political vis inertia is too great. Even among an idealistic people like the French, so great a change could be wrought only by the devastations of some great social upheaval. Our danger is of a different sort. The Federal system offers a barrier to many respectable movements for social reform, where reforms seek the aid of law, and there is always a temptation to take a short cut by appealing to Congress. There are temperance reformers, for example, who think that if they can

prohibit the making of spirits by a clause in the Constitution of the United States they will dry up the fountains of evil. There are labor-reformers, anti-monopolists, and anti-divorce reformers who believe that the easiest way to achieve their ends is to get sweeping enactment by Congress. Even so cautious a paper as the New York "Evening Post " has advocated the passage of a uniform marriage law. Reformers are prone to forget the impotence of law when it is not reënforced by public sentiment. Nor is it to be expected that a special reformer, consecrated to one cause the importance of which is naturally magnified in his own eyes, should be publicist enough to understand that every load of this sort put upon the Federal government is a disturb ance of adjustment in a system that is strong enough to hold a great and growing empire only so long as its balance is maintained. Civilizing work must in the main be done locally. A short leverage is highly advantageous in the distribution of funds.

A better illustration of the necessity for cherishing the independence of local communities can hardly be found than the evil harvest reaped by all attempts to govern the city of New York at Albany. City bills are oil-wells for the local legislator, who knows that constituencies on the lakes will hardly ever inquire why the streets of the metropolis are voted to corporations, and its funds wasted on fruitless jobs.

Pennsylvania, in making laws for capital and labor, keeps her eyes on the multitudinous miners and toilers in car-shops, blast-furnaces, and rolling-mills, with their trades-unions, sometimes their Molly Maguires. The conditions are very different in South Carolina, where the planter often hires a negro laborer at a stipulated price "with board," which board means a peck of meal and a definite ration of bacon for each week, to be cooked and eaten at the pleasure of the working man, who also is content to add to this allowance any "luxuries at his own expense. All such questions, in so vast a country, ought to be handled on the ground in the light of local customs; any attempt to regulate them from Washington would produce an unheard-of crop of demagogism and corruption. How poorly the central government of a republic can administer local affairs is shown in the abuses of the reconstruction period and in the calami ties of the District of Columbia.

The Federal arrangement which came to us by the good fortune of the diversity of interest and character of the thirteen colonies, is now in process of application with deliberate purpose to the British Empire, which will have its American and its Australian confederation. One day it will have, perhaps, an East Indian system of a similar sort. The hold of Great Britain on her colonies has not been weakened but visibly strengthened by the gift of local autonomy to remote provinces. The laws for Scotland are virtually made by the Scotch members before they are finally adopted by the British Parliament. And the only apparent solution to the Irish difficulty will be in some similar division of power between the local and the imperial authority.

The moral for us on this side is that we must keep the imperial government of the United States for imperial purposes, that it may be strong and free to deal with the collective interests of a vast empire, liable some day to become yet greater by the force of gravitation and absorption; and that we ought to resist the best reVOL. XXXIV.- 109.

form in the world if its ends can only be achieved by reducing the liberty of the States to deal with questions of manners, morals, minor commerce, and local interests. Edward Eggleston.

Pundita Ramabai Sarasvati.*

THIS distinguished high-caste Brahmin woman is the daughter of a Marathi priest who suffered persecution for educating the women of his family. But, retiring to the seclusion of the Ganga-mûl, their studies were continued amid the sublimities of nature, which have left their impress on Ramabai's mind. At the age of sixteen years Ramabai was left an orphan, and three years later, fully convinced of the importance of woman's education, she traveled under the protection of her brother across India, urging in all places the emancipation and education of women. Arrived at Calcutta, the older pundits paid her homage, and the title of Sarasvati was conferred upon her. The simplicity of her manners and her earnest, eloquent arguments won distinction at home and commanded attention abroad. In her travels Ramabai had mingled freely with the people, disregardful of caste, not electing to be the leader of a new sect, but everywhere seeking truth for truth's own sake and inspiring others with the same wholesome ambition. After a short illness her brother died, and six months later she married a Bengalese gentleman- -a Sanscrit scholar and a pleader-at-law, the man of her own choice. His death in less than two years after marriage left her at twentyfour years of age to face the future as a Hindu widow. Again she sought the rostrum. Two particular measures now filled her mind, the introduction of women physicians and the preparation of widows for teachers in girls' schools. The plans now taking shape in India for the establishment of hospitals and the investure of women physicians are believed to have had their origin in the faithful labors of Ramabai. The fruitage of her efforts for girls' schools has also appeared. In the city of Poona, Ramabai formed a society of the leading Brahmin ladies, called Arya Mâhila Somaj, for the encouragement of the education of women, with branch societies in the cities she visited. Poona now has not only primary schools for girls, but also two high schools; Bombay has two or three high schools, and Calcutta has the Victoria school, from which women may enter the university.

To acquaint herself with better methods of advancing her work, Ramabai went to England. Another book in native language to speak in her absence was her parting gift to India. In England, whither her fame had preceded her, Ramabai was warmly received. Professor Max Müller and other Oxford professors approved her scholarship, and she was appointed to the chair of Sanscrit in the Woman's College at Cheltenham. Here she remained until February, 1886, when her cousin, Dr. Joshee, also a Hindu Brahmin lady of high caste, took the degree of doctor of medicine at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, and the Pundita extended her travels to "this holy land of America." That a Hindu woman should leave her country and journey alone beyond the seas, could not be without a tinge of romance

with an introduction by Dean Rachel L. Bodley, of Woman's *See also "The High-caste Hindu Woman," by Ramabai, Medical College, Philadelphia.

or a spirit of lofty courage and consecration. In this instance it was the latter, and even the heart of this resolute woman, who had twice crossed the kingdom of India, would have quailed had she not trusted in him who led Abraham forth to find riches, honor, and power. The conversion of Ramabai to Christianity illustrates her sincerity of soul and her love of truth. Having renounced Brahminism and not yet accepted Christianity, her marriage ceremony was performed by a civil magistrate. With other progressive Hindus Ramabai accepted Theism as an advance on Hinduism, and, without becoming identified, was closely associated, with the Bramo-Somaj. The progressive Hindus accepted Ramabai's leadership and hoped through her philos ophy "to regenerate society and establish a pure Theistic religion." But Theism vanished with a clear conception of Christianity. Ramabai says of her brother, "His great thought during his illness was for me, what would become of me left alone in the world. To relieve his anxiety, I answered, 'There is no one but God to care for you and me.' 'Ah,' he replied, "if God cares for us, I am afraid of nothing.'" Ramabai's soul was gradually unfolding to divine truth, and she and her daughter Manorama (Heart's desire) were baptized, after their arrival in England, into the church universal, and accepted the Bible and the Apostles' Creed. Ramabai believes in the unity of the world and the unity of the Church.

In writing of Ramabai there is no apprehension that she will be offended or flattered, for she entirely ignores everything in print concerning herself. Her work is to her of paramount importance, and the silken cord of love which binds her to her suffering sisters will be a precious legacy to the future women of India, and to the American women an example worthy of emulation.

Emily J. Bryant.

A Ministry of Welcome.

IN Dr. Edward E. Hale's paper on “Church Union," in the June CENTURY, he says: "And if the Christians maintain at Castle Garden a ministry of welcome, such of a dozen different communions choose to unite, to

as the Mormon Church alone does choose to maintain

there," etc. Will you permit me to say that the Mormon Church is not alone in maintaining such "a min

istry of welcome"? More than a score of years ago the Evangelical Lutheran Church placed a missionary at Castle Garden to welcome, direct, and assist emigrants from Germany. This work was subsequently enlarged, this there came, in time, two large buildings, opposite to embrace those coming from Scandinavia. Out of Castle Garden, in which the spiritual and material interests of immigrants are cared for. These institutions are in correspondence with similar institutions in the old world, so that emigrants leave the old world with letters to the "ministry of welcome " in the new.

Transformation.

TF it be true that Time doth change Each fiber, nerve, and bone,

That in a seven years' circling range
New out of old hath grown,

Time's a magician who hath made
A mystery passing strange :-
No outward symbol is displayed
To hint the subtle change.

Whate'er the magic he hath wrought
Within his seven years' span,
Your life is yet with beauty fraught
As when the charm began.

The rounded form of other years
Still keeps its crowning grace;
And June, for April's earlier tears,
Plants roses on your face.

But your great beauty touches me Now, in no other way

Than doth the splendor of the sea, The glory of the day.

I dreamed I loved you in past years,― Ah! that was long ago.

How far the time-blown love-vane veers This rhyme may serve to show.

The shifting seasons soon enough
Beheld the bright dream fade:
I learned to know the fragile stuff
Of which some dreams are made.

We meet now, with a kid-gloved touch,-
Mere courtesy, each to each;
That earlier hand-clasp overmuch
Outvies our later speech.

Uncle Esek's Wisdom.

IF a man has made up his mind to be a hypocrite, let him be a big one; I know of nothing meaner or more wicked than a third-rate one.

WHENEVER I read a pompous and abstruse sentence, I find the idea in it weak; it is always safe to trust a strong thought to simple language.

You can restrain the bold, guide the impetuous, and encourage the timid, but for the weak there is no help; you might as well undertake to stand a wet string up on end.

THERE are lots of things in the world that are like molasses candy in one respect,-half of a stick is sweeter than the whole.

FASHION makes fools of some, cowards of many,

Uncle Esek.