posed to American thinkers and students. They remind us of the plain, direct language of Isaiah: "The nation and kingdom which will not serve thee shall perish," and they constrain us to consider whether those words be not deserving of a larger and a more modern application than we have been wont to give them.

But this inquiry also brings us face to face with another grave question. If we should be led, eventually, to admit that Christianity is a necessary factor in the settlement of our labor troubles, in the solution of the most perplexing problems which now present themselves in sociology and even in public politics, how is it possible to bring this factor into effective action, so long as Christianity presents itself to the public embodied only in a number of wholly distinct and at least supposedly antagonistic sects and churches? Even were the community to be persuaded of the necessity of taking counsel, in its extremity, of the church of Christ,who shall or who can decide for the community, from which one of all these several Christian bodies, each claiming to be at least the nearest approximation to the ideal of that church and most faithfully to teach Christian doctrine? - society is to ask and receive instruction in the oracles of God. Even were the business community ready to accept a new Christian social economy or the nation to conform its public policy to Christian principles, is not Christian reunion a condition precedent of the power of the Church to give such guidance or to teach such principles ?

National Christianity, where it still exists, has come down from a period which antedates these divisions among Christians. In a pure monarchy, so long as the ruling family—in an aristocracy, so long as the ruling class, continues to be identified with one organic form of Christianity, so long can that national Christianity be maintained, even after Christian unity, among the people, had been broken up. But, in proportion, as the actual power of government passes into the hands of those who are themselves divided on organic religious issues, in that proportion must such divisions prove fatal to anything like a national Christianity. The exclusion of Christianity from all but purely personal and private interests is, therefore, the inevitable corollary of Christian divisions in a democracy.

Conversely, then, among us, must the restoration of such a lost Christian unity precede all hope of anything like a real social or economic or national recognition of Christianity; and any one who honestly believes that a non-Christian social economy and a non-Christian political philosophy have been failures; every one who is convinced that the great issues which have been raised by the conflicting interests of labor and capital can only be adjusted stably on Christian principles; every one who is now ready to confess that a public-school system, in accordance with which the intellect only is educated, while the conscience is left undisciplined, is worse than a failure; every one who believes that the attempt to ignore the laws of Christ in national politics is fatal to all national prosperity and stability; all these must, of necessity, therefore, whatever their personal or private religious convictions or character, sooner or later seek the restoration of some effective Christian unity.

That the social disturbances of these times and the present state of party politics have brought many to VOL. XXXIV.—131.

consider these questions as never before, is not to be denied. That they will awaken and stimulate discussion, in the drawing-room and at the table, in the religious press, the magazine and the review, on the platform and in the pulpit, is equally beyond a doubt. In the presence of such considerations and questions the wide distinction, heretofore so generally accepted and so steadily maintained on both sides,- between the domain of public interests and duties and that of private and personal Christianity,- fades away and utterly disappears. The Christian finds himself called upon to consider his relations, as such, to every social question and to every political issue of his times. The economist, the publicist, and the statesman find themselves equally called upon to ask what Christianity has to say upon the question in hand, and what modifications are introduced into the problems of the hour, by that which, at all events potentially, if not in actuality, is the overruling factor- the law of Christ. Wm. Chauncy Langdon.

ST. JAMES' RECTORY, BEDFORD, Pa.

Secret Societies in College.

THE time has arrived again when the classes are gathering in our various institutions of learning over the land, and many young men are just beginning the new and strange life embraced within those eventful four years which mold and in a great measure fix their after career among scholars and professional associates in the real world outside.

I should like to say a few words about one matter concerning the societies which have place, rightly or wrongly, in most colleges. The process of what used to be called "electioneering" commences almost at once when the freshmen come on. The secret and the anti-secret associations alike select their members; and so most of the new students are compelled to take sides on a question which grows more and more intricate as they advance in years, and are able to mark the workings of an experience thoroughly unique and prodigiously influential, upon themselves and upon others. The least that can be said at the beginning, and the least that can be urged to the end, is that men should be conscientious at the beginning and consistent to the end of their course.

Let me tell an old true story: When I was in college, it was an admitted custom for the secret-society students to attend at pleasure the regular meetings of the anti-secret association, then called there the Social Fraternity. On one occasion the news went around that the delegates of a number of affiliated institutions had assembled in some central city during the vacation, and formed a quasi national consociation, embracing all the local ones, which hereafter were to be understood to have become auxiliaries. Curiosity was at its height, and the assembly convened to accept the report was visited by a large number of outsiders also, and the small chapel was nearly full. Even the "neutrals" doffed their dignity in order to witness the novelty.

The committee proceeded to read their preamble and constitution for a formal adoption. It was in the regular form. It began by saying that the name of the new organization should be the "Anti-Secret Society

of the United States." It then rehearsed the purposes, the aims, and the hopes of the members in thus banding themselves together. The officers were fixed, their duties prescribed, and all that. By and by an article was reached which specified and described, somewhat particularly, the way in which it should be known. Of course I am not going even to try to quote anything more than the substance of the language. It was like this: "The badge of this Society shall consist of a bosom-pin about six-tenths of an inch in diameter, circular, a black disk of jet surrounded by a wreath of gold, bearing in the center the initials of the Society's name in raised letters of gold in the enamel."

Thereupon there was an instant explosion of laughter from one of the visitors - the unfortunate writer of this article. He meant no derision, and indeed was as innocent in his indiscretion as he was mortified by such a disclosure of it. The usual shout, with all its precipitation of student-wrath, was started for his comfort: "Put him out!" He replied with the usual Greek: "Strike, but hear!" Then the ordinary amount of intellect was invoked to perceive that really there was some incongruity in such noble and scholarly men wearing on their bosoms the great golden letters "ASS" before all the college. Anger gave place to fun; and ultimately the convention did their work better by changing the name of the society to Anti-Secret Confederation; and through the rest of our course members were labeled "AS C."

Such a discomfiture would have been fatal in most cases, and inevitably would have given a most unphilosophical advantage to the other side of the question. But the fact was, those men were the chiefs of the college. They had among them some of the maturest and best the classes loved to honor. They managed the rest of the meeting skillfully. Before we retired, they forced in a splendid chance for an appeal to all that was decent and generous in our minds; they stood up in the power of real manhood, and told us the meanness of cliques and the injustice of exclusiveness, and the wickedness of oaths. Some of the Social Fraternity men of that year have done magnificent work in this old world since then; and I speak simple justice when I own they shook many of us that night with their arguments and their truths.

For one, I like conscience when I see it; I always did; and more than that, I like outspoken words for what is right and good and true. But I like consis

tency also; and now I must tell the rest of my story. On the day we graduated, sobered and thoughtful, gentle and pensive in the backward look and the forward dread, a new secret society, running through all the four classes, "swung out" before the eyes of us all in complete organization. Among the men who spoke their commencement orations in our class were three or four wearing the badge of that association. They were the men who argued and pleaded two years previous to that day in the small chapel. They repudiated their principles and defied their former record, when it was too late for an apology or for an explanation. The Social Fraternity was wounded and betrayed by its leaders in the whole four classes; the secret-society men were not inclined to feel complimented; and the conversation was worried and perplexed, when the young fellows asked and wondered what it meant. Some said that these men had always been shamming because they had not for themselves been taken, and so were spiteful instead of conscientious.

Simply and earnestly I say again, as I close the tale, let those who take ground on this unsettled question of secret societies in college put conscience and consistency together. If any one changes his mind, because of fresh convictions, let him own it frankly, and take a clear stand early enough to retain the respect of those who have loved and trusted him in the days gone by. For I soberly declare that it is my pain to this day to recall how my confidence was broken then.

Charles S. Robinson.

Henry Clay, the Slashes, and Ashland again. HENRY CLAY was born within three miles of Hanover Court House, south, and some four or five miles eastward of the present pretty little summer town of Ashland. His birthplace was known locally as "The old Clay place," or "The place where Henry Clay was born," and as long ago as 1832, and many years earlier, I believe, had passed into other hands.

The first name of the railway station where Ashland stands was called, in 1836, "Tayler's Sawmill"; then the name was appropriately changed to "Slash Cottage," being in the heart of the Slashes of Hanover. That name held till after 1850, when Mr. Edwin Robinson, of Richmond City, conceived the project of building a town at " Slash Cottage," and formally christened it "Ashland," after Mr. Clay's residence in Kentucky.

959

Aphorisms from the Quarter.

WHEN Some folks start out preachin', 'tis sort o' like playin' a hymn on de banjer.

DE water-milion vine need a taller fence dan de rose-bush.

DE man in de moon don't git much 'tention on 'lection day.

DE runnin' vine in de grass kin fling you harder 'n de stump in de open road.

MULE keeps his 'ligion in his front en'.

RACCOON couldn't take his tracks off wid him.

DE sto'-keeper's long pra'rs ain't no sign of a long yard-stick.

When de pea-vine git too proud to lean on a stick, 'tain't much service in de garden.

ONE rascal talkin' 'bout 'nuther one is like a deef man thumpin' a water-milion.

"TAIN'T fa'r to medjer de dep' ob a snow by de drifts in de fence-corner.

CLAPPER in de cow-bell shine in de dark.
DE apple in de rabbit-trap is rank pisen.

J. A. Macon.

An Old-fashioned Girl.

OLD-FASHIONED? Yes, I must confess
The antique pattern of her dress,
The ancient frills and furbelows,
The faded ribbons and the bows.

Why she should show those shrunken charms,
That wrinkled neck, those tawny arms,

I cannot guess; her russet gown

Round her spare form hangs loosely down;
Her voice is thin and cracked; her eye
And smile have lost their witchery.
By those faint jests, that flagging wit,
By each attenuated curl,
She surely is, I must admit,

An odd, old-fashioned girl.

'Tis long, long since she had a beau,
And now with those who sit a-row
Along the wall she takes her place,
With something of the old-time grace.
She yearns to join the mazy waltz,
And slyly sniffs her smelling-salts.
Ah, many an angel in disguise
May walk before our human eyes!
Where'er the fever-smitten lie
In grimy haunts of poverty,
Along the dark and squalid street,

'Mid drunken jests of boor and churl, She goes with swift and pitying feet,This same old-fashioned girl.

Esther B. Tiffany.

Winifred Howells.