ligious system known as Mormonism. For the warfare has never been directed against any tenet which could in fairness be called religious. The Mormon has as much constitutional right as any other American citizen to found his faith on Mormon, Moroni, Lehi, and the rest of the tribe, to look with reverence to the hill of Cumora, and to govern his practice by the revelations of any leader who pleases him. The American Government has never attempted or desired to interfere with this right. But, when the practice inculcated by the revelations is criminal by the laws of the land, equal-handed justice to the non-Mormon citizen demands that the Mormon be compelled to obey the laws, as others are compelled to obey them, or to find another land which will allow him superior privileges. Such a government is responsible to God, to history, to international public opinion, and to the opinion of those who make the laws, but not to the Mormon, any more than to any other law-breaker. The influences which admittedly control the Government's action may produce a modification or repeal of the law; but, so long as the law exists, the Mormon must obey the law of the land in which he condescends to live.

It has thus been necessary, not for religious but for political reasons, that the Government should wage active warfare upon action which Mormons have claimed to be an article of faith and practice. And as the mass of the Mormons reside in a Territory, which is under supreme control of the Congress of the United States, the penal laws have been stringent and severe. It has been possible, and in the judgment of Congress necessary, to disfranchise the whole body of Mormons, as well as to punish any detected case of bigamy or polygamy. Such a course, involving the refusal of selfgovernment to so large a community, and the retention of Utah as a Territory instead of a State, for an indefinite time to come, is abhorrent to every political instinct of the American people; and many of them have been inclined to doubt the wisdom of the whole policy. To such, it must be reassuring to note the symptoms of yielding which mark the attempt to put Utah before the coming Congress as an applicant for admission as a State.

On the first day of July last, a constitutional convention met at Salt Lake City. The official representatives of the two national political parties in the Territory unite in declaring that the convention represented only the Mormon Church, and their assertion has never been denied. The presiding officer of the convention admitted, with general agreement, that "previous obstacles to the admission of Utah must be faced frankly"; and this is the "frank" manner in which the Mormon Church proposes to face them. Provision for the punishment of bigamy and polygamy, even without State legislation, is made a part of the State constitution, and the repeal of this provision is forever forbidden, without the present assent of Congress. This, in brief, is the Mormon solution of all the difficulties which lie in the way of the admission of Utah as a State.

The solution is not altogether novel, nor was the success of it in its most prominent application such as to give very hopeful anticipations for the present proposition. After it had been decided, by the Compromise of 1820, that Missouri should be admitted as a State, an examination of her proposed constitution showed

that she refused to free negroes the rights given to them in other States. All the excitement which the Compromise had allayed was renewed; and it was with the greatest difficulty that another Compromise was adopted, admitting Missouri, on the fundamental condition that the inchoate State should pass just such a "public and irrevocable Act "as Utah proposes, agreeing never to construe or to execute these provisions of the State constitution so as to bar free negroes from the right of entrance to the State. In June, 1821, the legislature assembled and passed the Act required, with a preamble long afterward stated by Senator Douglas as follows:

"Whereas, Congress has prescribed these terms as the only condition on which the State of Missouri can be admitted to the Union on an equal footing with the original States; and Whereas, the said terms are in palpable violation of the Constitution of the United States, and grossly insulting to the people of this State, and such as Congress had no right to pass and as the people of this State ought not to accede to; and Whereas, the people of Missouri do not intend to respect or be bound by the said conditions, or to acknowledge the right of Congress to impose them; but inasmuch as we cannot obtain our constitutional rights in any other mode than by giving our assent to the same, with the protest that we shall not respect them: Therefore, be it known that we, the people of Missouri, do declare by this fundamental and irrevocable Act," etc., etc.

The State was declared admitted, by President Monroe's proclamation of August 10th, 1821, but, remarks Douglas, the President took good care not to publish the terms of the "public and irrevocable Act" of Missouri.

If the establishment of bigamy or polygamy, as a legal relation, depended upon the positive action of a State legislature, one might see some force in the proposed "public and irrevocable Act" of Utah; but, even then, the preamble of the Missouri Act should be added to it in order to reach its full significance. But, in the Utah case, no positive action is needed; the State authorities need only take a negative position, and do nothing, in order to give the Mormon Church all that it wants; and no State constitution can bind State authorities to do anything which the mass of their constituency support them in refusing to do. It is evident, then, that the plan of a fundamental condition, worthless as it has proved in practice, would be a mere farce in the case of Utah.

But what more can Utah do? This proposition is not only the last hope of the Mormon; it is our last hope of getting anything from him, for he can do no more at present. It is true that he may repent and do works meet for repentance; but are we to keep this miniature Ireland on our hands until we are satisfied of his repentance? How many years can we afford to wait? And after all, when we become satisfied as to his repentance and admit Utah as a State, what are we to do if we find that his repentance was feigned, and he is still really unregenerate! He will then in his legislature have complete control of the subjects of marriage and divorce, and of all offenses connected therewith.

The fact is that every new development only adds force to the belief that the only solution of the question is in making bigamy and polygamy Federal, not State, offenses. When this subject of marriage is transferred to Congress, then, and not until then, will it be safe to admit Utah as a State. Until then, the Federal Gov

ernment cannot solve the problem, and must keep Utah under tutelage as a Territory; until then, the Mormon himself can give us no assurances which a man of ordinary prudence would be justified in accepting. From the latter point of view, this proposition of the Mormon Convention, encouraging as it is in its indications of weakness, is even more important in its warnings of the future. The crisis of our battle has come, and it finds both parties stalemated; the successful line cannot win the battle, and it is just as impossible for the conquered to lose it. We have now come to the end of discussion, under present conditions.*

The Jury System.

SCARCELY any other wheel of our political system is in such constant motion as the jury system. From the little country court-room, where a petty jury sits to decide a matter of debt or ownership of property, to the crowded city building, where a jury sits to decide on the facts in the prosecution of a great criminal for murder or fraud, or on the existence of a great corporation, juries, in all degrees of importance, are at work on every calendar day of the year. Remove this one wheel suddenly from our system, and every other wheel would run whirring to a stand-still. Even though an entire removal of it be impossible, any influence or set of influences, which tend to sap the power of the jury system, is evidently at work on all the rest of the system, and may bring with it results which are quite impossible to measure.

The English jury has gone through many and fundamental changes from its original form until the present day. Originating in the Teutonic notion that all disputes between man and man were to be decided by the popular meeting, before which each disputant brought his "suit," his following of friends and supporters, the deciding body, was gradually reduced to a definite number, selected from the citizens who made up the popular body. But this "jury" was carefully taken from the " vicinage," from the immediate neighborhood of the seat of the dispute, and was composed of men who were presumed to have complete knowledge of the circumstances, and to decide the dispute from antecedent knowledge. When this condition had become an evident failure, outside persons, the modern "witnesses," were added, with the power of imparting their knowledge to the jury, but not of taking any part in the ultimate decision. As this new feature became more firmly established the antecedent knowledge of the jury became antagonistic to the general system, and the law was slowly settled that the juror who had antecedent knowledge could only use it as a witness. This was diametrically opposite to the original notion, though the forms and purpose of the jury were generally preserved. But, from that time, whatever the law may say, the fact of antecedent knowledge has been an objection to a juror: he who knows anything of the facts of a case in advance may be a good juror, but the prejudice is against him. Counsel for one side or the other, or for both sides, regard his appearance as an intrusion if not a gross injustice; and the court is sometimes driven to bring in its whole force in order to secure as a juror a man who has knowledge and an

*See Topics of the Time, THE CENTURY for September and October, 1886.

intelligent opinion, but can nevertheless give a verdict on the weight of evidence.

How is this feeling to be reconciled with the existence and characteristics of the modern newspaper? The reconciliation might be possible if a criminal could be caught, the legal machinery set in motion, and a jury empaneled, within twenty minutes after a crime had been committed. But, in the natural course of events, the newspaper is weeks, months, even years ahead of the law. It spreads before all the world the facts, colored and uncolored, which are to be in dispute in the coming trial. The citizen who desires to be exempted from the troublesome jury service has only to read the newspapers with assiduity, to form an opinion and to express it in good set terms when summoned as a juror, and his object accomplishes itself. Thus the system, instead of a school of instruction, has become a corrupter of citizenship. It might be made a means of teaching the citizen a lesson which would be of the highest service to the State in all his relations to it and to his fellow-citizens, the lesson that an intelligent and reasonable man may and should hear statements of fact, and still be able to hold his final judgment so far in abeyance as to take into the balance any new evidence which may be offered. This is to be not only a good juror, but a good citizen, a good politician, and a good member of society in all its relations. The man who, when examined as a juror, states with regret that he has read the newspaper accounts of the case, and has formed an opinion which is too strong to be overcome by evidence, ought to receive a public rebuke from the court, and be sent from the court-room to read, in his newspapers of the following day, the record of this rebuke. If exemption on this ground must come, let it come in this shape, and it will be the less longed for.

But the more serious danger is in the administration of our cities. It has come to pass that more than a fourth of the American people dwell in cities; and the percentage is increasing. Inefficient, slovenly, or fraudulent methods in the preparation of the lists of citizens from which jurors are to be chosen come in with bad city administration, and they constitute an influence which, acting directly on the jury system, acts indirectly on the whole political and social system of the United States. Even a tolerably good administration in other respects could never keep pace with the increasing dangers which city life tends to array against the jury system. The conditions are no longer the same as those under which the jury was born and bred; the locality is no longer one in which everybody knows his neighbor, and can tell whether the person summoned as a juror is lying or speaking the truth; the nearest neighbors in a city may know nothing of one another, and the statement of opinion on the examination of possible jurors has been very much released from the control of public or social opinion. Under these circumstances, that part of city administration which deals with the enrollment of citizens liable to jury duty can no longer be simply tolerable: it must be the best, the most intelligent, and the cleanest feature of the city government. How far this department of American city governments answers these requisites may be learned from any city lawyer in active practice.

Lawyers, however, do not like to say anything on the subject. The lawyer who has lost a case by reason

of a jury's incompetence or faithlessness, would not wish to bear the additional odium of seeming to throw the responsibility upon the jury: it is better to say nothing. It is not safe, moreover, for one man in active practice to get the ill-will of a debased system, and he will prefer to take his chances another time. The judges alone are in a position to do the state this service. When they speak, the public listens; the news. papers direct public opinion to the exact point of the evil; and the whole system feels the influence. It is hardly possible to overestimate the weight with which the sharp words of a competent and respected judge come to the public intelligence and conscience, or the service which he thus does for the whole political system. If these conclusions are correct, the judiciary is the key to the whole difficulty. The judge can hold the citizen to his duty as a juryman, can hold the city authority to its duty as an enrolling power, and can direct public opinion in the punishment of any dereliction on either side. The dangers which surround the jury system in this country, then, are another lesson to impress us with the necessity of obtaining good judges. Whether they be appointed or elected, the citizen who feels that their character is no concern of his, that he never expects to go to law and has no interest in the selection of judges, and that he may allow the political prostitution of the judiciary to pass without a protest, may as well understand that he is aiding to corrupt the very springs of our social and political system. For the influence of the judges on the selection of juries is vital to more than this one feature of our governments; the distinct failure of our jury system would indicate a political degeneracy of which no man could see the end.

Shall Immigration be Restricted?

HARDLY any other change of feeling and expression in the American people is more significant of the entrance of a new political era than the rising and already very general demand for some restriction of immigration. From the beginning of English colonization in North America until now, the feeling has been diametrically opposite; the material gains from immigration have been paraded in books and speeches; the more sentimental influence of the country's almost unique position, as the natural refuge of the downtrodden and the oppressed of every clime, has come in to reënforce the material arguments; and the occasional outbursts of Know-nothingism have served mainly as a background, to set off and bring more plainly into view the general and fixed popular aversion to any restriction upon the right of immigration.

In this feeling, also, the future historian will probably find an explanation of a large part of the process which led up to our civil war. Immigration affected the North and West almost exclusively. There were Macs and O's, Vons and Des, both North and South, and in both armies; but there was this great difference: in the North and West they were the product of a comparatively recent immigration, while in the South they were the really native product of two centuries of a far slower immigration. Even in 1880, excluding Florida and Texas, the South had a foreign population of only about two per cent., and that, too, after slavery had ceased for fifteen years to oppose its silent but almost impregnable barrier to immigration. Between 1847

and 1861, the North and West had received an influx of foreign-born population amounting to nearly half the aggregate population of the seceding States. Whatever feeling this new Northern and Western population had was for " America": it had neither comprehension of nor sympathy with the intense loyalty to a State begotten by decades of common trials and the traditional reverence for the State's supreme power; and the influence of this new element could not but affect popular opinion and the action of public men at almost every critical point in the history of those pregnant years. The Carolinian of 1780 and 1860 were very much the same; the New Yorker of 1860 and 1780 were very different beings. The North and West were constantly changing and developing, while the South was standing still; and the result could hardly have been anything but a rupture in the end, even though it had not been forced in 1860–61.

But now it is from the North and West that this cry for restriction of immigration is coming; the South is neutral or indifferent, for it has little interest in the matter. Sectarian differences have little to do with this new phase of the demand. The very immigrants of 1847-61 are now the leaders in urging that the bars be put up, at least for a time; and the restrictions on Chinese immigration stand as a precedent and a tempting suggestion. The Protectionist, who has taken the "protection of American labor" as a conclusive argument, begins to think that "a tariff on Castle Garden" is a necessary corollary to the argument. His natural opponents, more intent on securing individual freedom than protection for the workman, see with disgust that the individual workman is subjected to a tyranny of selfish imported stupidity. The sober, work-a-day citizen, compelled to stop his work and listen to the ravings of an imported mob, whose natural platform is Drink, Dirt, and Disorder, begins to wonder whether he has really been given the providential mission of bearing with this scum. And the tax-payer begins to feel some concern when he finds his country regarded as a preordained poorhouse by every local board of magistrates from Ireland to Hungary. Protestants of every sect hurried forward to resist the tide of Native Americanism when sectarian passion was its moving force. But where are we to look for a voice which will be raised against the coming attempts to restrict immigration, impelled by the notorious happenings of the past two or three years? The system of unrestricted immigration, which was so lately the standing refuge of every Fourth of July orator of the North and West, waits only for the first shock of attack, and there will be few to do it reverence as it falls.

The restriction, when it comes, can hardly take any other shape than the requirement of a consular certificate as a prerequisite for passage to the United States, leaving the consuls to the guidance of instructions from the State Department in the performance of their duties. To the returning tourist or business man, to him whose record of previous American citizenship is clear, or to the bona fide farmer or workingman, whose immigration is as clear a gain to the republic as ever, the consular certificate would be almost a matter of form. To him who cannot read the consu lar certificate, or sign his name to the affidavit on which it is granted; to him who is merely leaving his own country for his country's good; to him who comes

not as an intending American citizen, but as a reënforcement to a hierarchy which the United States Government has proclaimed to be its enemy; to him who is the known and irreconcilable enemy of society itself,to all such, the law may easily be so framed as to make the necessity of a consular certificate, under the instructions given to consuls, a very serious impediment to immigration. It would be impossible, no doubt, for such a filter to catch all the objectionable elements which might assail it; but the result would be at least somewhat clearer water than we have been receiving from the old continent for years past.

The desire for such a purification of immigration is no mere product of a sentimental admiration of cleanliness. Our" dangerous classes" have been increased, of late years, by the addition of a still more dangerous class, one which is amenable to none of the influences by which society has hitherto dealt with the others. Its numbers are no larger than those of our bears or panthers or other wild beasts. But it has human intelligence, superimposed upon the instincts of the wild beast; its members have the power and will to work destruction to which the mere brute is incompetent; and yet their human lineaments prevent society from dealing with them in their proper capacity until after they have wrought their evil work. They are in, though not of, the country; and their presence has only added to the responsibility of those men to whom the preservation of the public peace is intrusted. But why should their base of operations be left unattacked?

Why should they be left to draw reënforcements from abroad ad libitum? Such a restriction on immigration as has been suggested would cut off at least a percentage of their reënforcements; and every chief of police in the United States would feel that, difficult as his task in dealing with this class might still be, it would no longer be an absolutely hopeless one daylight might be indefinitely in advance, but it would be daylight at least.

The hardships of the proposition lie mainly in the visions, which the imagination unconsciously conjures up, of United States marshals lining the shores of the great republic, ready to treat as criminal the desire of any immigrant to enter her jurisdiction. But the reality would be far from correspondent with any such spectacle. There would be a few cases of stowaways, whom the steamships or sailing-vessels which brought them would be compelled to carry back at their own expense; and then the mere fact of the known restriction would obtain all the good that can ever be hoped from it. Nor is there any constitutional objection to the power of Congress to enact such a restriction. The section of the Constitution, forbidding Congress to interfere with the "migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit " until the year 1808, carries with it a complete power to interfere in later years. The importation of negro slaves, of Chinese, and of contract labor has already been forbidden; are there not other classes of immigration which yearn for restriction?

sential 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 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," etc.

Now, all the world knows that, in these matters, other Christians hold, and Presbyterians, among others, plainly declare, just what this Baptist represents as the great faith of his denomination,- namely, "That Christ alone can make laws for his church; and that the Bible is the only rule of faith and practice." Therefore, if they differ from Baptists, why? This writer says: They "refuse to accept the plain teaching of God's word," etc. To "refuse to accept the plain teaching of God's word," they must know that teaching. And if, as this writer charges, they believe that God's word does not teach what they practice, as to the mode and subjects of baptism, then they are all hypocrites, acting in opposition to "conviction and conscience." To brand them all the more deeply and darkly, as living in the impeni

tent practice of known sin, he says of God's word: More explicit are its utterances on these subjects than regarding the divinity of Christ, or any article

Believer's baptism" and immersion -to the exclusion of all other modes and subjects are more explicitly taught in God's word, than is the divinity of Christ, or any other doctrine! Is this true or not? All other Evangelical denominations accept the divinity of Christ as a teaching of God's word, and hold that it is heresy not to accept it. So clear is the teaching of the Bible on this subject. Now, as this writer says, the baptism of believers only, and immersion as the mode, are more explicitly taught in God's word, than this essential doctrine of the common acceptance and faith, we do utterly and emphatically deny the statement. We affirm that there is not one verse in the Bible proving immersion as the only mode of baptism or the only baptism, and not one verse in the Bible proving that only believers are to be baptized, and not one verse in the Bible proving beyond doubt or controversy - that is, in express words — that any one was ever immersed in being baptized.

But this writer claims that "all men, always and in all places, accept immersion as baptism; not to accept it, is not to accept baptism."

And we ask: Why is it recognized as baptism? (We do not say it is accepted,- for that would not be true.) Simply because, thereby we wish to recognize Baptists as an Evangelical denomination, and be

cause we wish to respect every brother's conscience in all things doubtful, or not essential. This, God's word commands.

Good and wise men differ as to the Bible-teachings touching the mode and subjects of baptism. Since these differences are not about "things essential," ought we not to show Christian charity? If it be said that we are disobedient to a plain command of Christ's own giving, we must deny it. We believe that baptism is commanded; and we believe we obey the command in our mode and subjects. We believe this more firmly than we believe that the "Baptists "are right! And, certainly, in the Presbyterian Church (South, at least, if not North also) we do not accept nor practice immersion. Some cases of immersion there were, formerly; but, because of our great doubt as to the Scripturalness of this mode, it is now disapproved among us, in practice. Notwithstanding all that this Baptist writer says, we do not "agree on immersion as baptism" for ourselves; and we cannot be immersed "without doing violence either to conviction or conscience."

As to the " highest scholarship," etc., we have good reason to know and say that when writers and others are fairly and fully represented or quoted, their "Concessions "" to Baptists are worthless, and in many cases merely imaginary. But were it otherwise, we cannot depart from our law, "that Christ alone can make laws for his church; and that the Bible is the only rule of faith and practice." The baptism given in the example of Christ is found in Acts ii. It is the only case in the Bible where mode cannot be argued at all. It came from above, was "poured" (v. 18) upon the heads of those receiving it. Not one case of immersion is mentioned in all the Book! This is not the place to argue the meaning of the original word, as used before Christ adopted it. Suffice it to say that neither classic Greek, nor any other, justifies immersion as the one mode; and the Bible does not justify it at all, in our view!

We must not conclude without remarking upon the very strange assertion that "the so-called 'Teaching of the Apostles' does not call anything baptism but immersion"; that "it gives directions for baptism, and then, when the conditions for baptism are wanting,... it gives permission for something else, not called baptism." In the directions about baptism in that document, immersion is not once mentioned, nor even hinted at! Two kinds of water are mentioned; "Living," that is, fresh, or running water, is preferred. "But if thou hast not both (kinds), pour water (the kind thou hast) upon the head," etc. And this is called baptism, afterwards! "po de rov Barrisμatoç." No one can read that document, then say truly, "Baptists alone live up to it."

His further claim that "all are agreed on immersion as baptism . . . All can be baptized (immersed) with out doing violence either to conviction or conscience," we object to, most emphatically. We have explained why we recognize immersion. But for ourselves we cannot conscientiously accept it, nor administer it to others.

Herbert H. Hawes, Pastor of the Second Presbyterian

Church, Staunton, Va.

Christian Union and Pending Public Questions.

THE discussion which has been maintained of late, in THE CENTURY and elsewhere, on the subject of Christian Union, has thus far established at least these three propositions:

First. That there is a strong and a growing desire for such union- -a desire discovering itself among some of the leading ministers of several distinct denominations.

Second. That the Christian union so desired is not only nearer and more harmonious relations between different and still separate churches, but, certainly by some, an effective organic unity; not the general absorption of all others by any one, but reunion based on reconciliation of differences or on the discovery of mutually satisfactory terms upon which those distinctive differences can be coördinated.

But, Third, that in none of the churches is there felt, as yet, any great motive power pressing them on with sufficient force to overcome either the general inertia or the many and serious practical difficulties and obstacles which arrest actual progress in that direction.

In other words, while many Christian thinkers greatly desire, the churches clearly do not, as yet, feel the necessity of Christian unity.

Meanwhile, however, it is evident that a question is beginning to present itself, as perhaps worthy of serious consideration, which is nearly allied to this, and which must practically involve this very issue of Christian unity.

From no principle of English social and political life did the revolution separate our fathers more effectively and more thoroughly than from that which recognized an established religion of the State. That the new nation should have, as such, no religion, was assumed to be one of the corner-stone principles on which rested the guaranty of our liberties. So far has this assumption been carried, so widely and continuously has it entered, ever since, into all our writing, speaking, and thinking upon matters of public interest, that it has come to be accepted as a virtual axiom of American social and political philosophy, that religion is concerned only with a personal and private life of the individual; and that it has no natural, much less necessary, relation with social problems and political issues.

This experiment of relegating Christianity to the individual and to private life,— the attempt to conduct business, to develop social interests, to work out an American economic science, and, above all, to administer the affairs of the nation without reference to Christian laws or to Christian principles,— on the ground, that is, that these laws and principles do not apply to the affairs of this life, has, in consequence been tried thoroughly; and there are not a few who are now beginning to look around them, to consider the utter disorganization of our accepted economic system; to analyze and search for the causes of the labor troubles and of the inchoate anarchy of the last few years, of the confessed moral failure of our boasted public-school system, and of the corruption of our politics,—and to ask how far these are the outcome of that experiment.

Without attempting to anticipate the results of such inquiries, it may, at least, be said that they open up be fore us some of the most serious questions ever pro