have conducted the Review, admitting or rejecting articles, and ourself writing or not writing, as it could be promoted.

Specifically, also, and with some tenacity of purpose, the Review has investigated the great sociological questions of the day, including temperance, the Sabbath, the relations of capital and labor, the rights of man, and the duty of the Church toward the poor and the laboring classes.

We have also sought, in a distinct department, to indicate the progress of civilization, not in detail, but in the discussion of its underlying and manifold principles.

The literary spirit has had encouragement both in contributed articles, embracing biography, philosophy, and from our own view-point a study of some of the great literatures.

Over the whole has been cast, and into the very texture of the periodical has been woven, so far as our personal relation to it was available for the purpose, the ethical spirit and the religious aims of the New Testament, so far as we understood them, giving it that moral tone and influence which are compatible with the kingdom of God and the spread of truth.

Having failed to attain some ends, but certain that some things have been accomplished, our sensitiveness at the recollection of misjudgment and mistake is somewhat lessened by the joy that on the whole the work has not been useless or without results. In confessing to some errors of management and some mistakes of method, which a later experience has, we trust, sufficed to correct, we may observe that such eccentricities should be anticipated in every new editor, as they are inevitable; and as the oldest editors, religious and secular, may not boast of exemption from lapses into unwisdom, the alleged misdoings of inexperienced editors should be visited with a charity that in most instances would placate the sting of criticism.

Moreover, we exercise the freedom to say, that though regarding some criticisms that have overtaken us as ungenerous and unnecessary, other criticisms have been appreciated at their true worth, and served as stepping-stones to loftier conceptions of duty and responsibility. For these we have been more grateful than may have been apparent.

And now, looking over the years with their responsibilities, perplexities and ever-varying labors, having been guided, as we believe, by that Providence that deserts only when deserted, and remembering that not a day was employed in any interest or work incompatible with the honorable trust committed to our keeping, we write our last editorial line for the quadrennium, serene in the confidence that the General Conference from which we received our responsibility will determine wisely and justly as to the value and the degree of sufficiency with which our legal duties have been performed.

BENJAMIN ST. JAMES FRY.

THE removal of Dr. Fry from the editorship of the Central Christian Advocate, which he had so ably and acceptably conducted for nearly twenty years, was not the result of summary action on the part of the Book Committee, or of a decree of the General Conference, or of his voluntary resignation of the position, but in obedience to that solemn order of Providence that in succession requires all men to transfer from one world to another. We are quite sure, that though anticipating the summons as a certainty, it came to him on February 5, 1892, as a genuine surprise; and we are equally sure, that though the Church recognized his age and long service, it was unprepared for the event that separated him from earthly relations. But without surmises or conjectures either respecting himself or the Church, the fact of his departure is acknowledged with that reverent submission that becomes a people who believe in a future life. Dr. Fry still lives, and in a conscious state, with faculties disenthralled, himself free of encumbrances, or Christianity is a misrepresentation. Gazing inquiringly toward the heavens, as did the men of Galilee when the Master ascended, infidelity turns our vision backward; agnosticism but dims the tearful sight; and scientific argument simply bids us pause and think. Only in revealed truth do we see, and yet as through a glass, darkly; but we see. As the Bible is true in its teachings respecting our immortality, so our faith in conscious existence after death is strong and abides even in the shadows. Living, Dr. Fry suggested the past and the present; dead, he suggests the future. Formerly interested in his lifework, made up of business, teaching, authorship, and editorship covering many years, we are now interested in his new life, the occupation of which, even to our faith, is a mystery, but the glory of which partakes of the radiance of the Eternal. As living, he becomes a reminiscence; as dead, he is the subject of our inquiries and the proof of our teachings. It is one of the compensations of the death-catastrophe that it awakens profound questions, arouses into recognized energy the immortal instinct, shakes off for the moment the inertia of matter, stills our reveries of time, and abjures us to consider eternal realities. It is scarcely in the possibility of our human life, either gradually or precipitately, to bring us into close contact with the supernatural world or to lift us above the level of mortal conditions. Death for the departed completely breaks the mortal spell; and for those who remain it points to "gates ajar," and offers visions that upon those who believe never lose their power. In life, Dr. Fry taught us lessons of life; in death, he impresses us that we are immortal; and so by his last act teaches more, inspires more, comforts more, than by the aggregated toils and sacrifices of sixty-eight years. Friend, brother, farewell until the break of the morning!

PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION.

THE MUNICIPALITY is the national life in miniature. In its racial differences, its varied industries, its refinements, its philanthropies, and its worship one may easily find the photograph of the general government of which it is a part. There was an early time when rural life was the rule. The new race had not yet built its busy towns or crowded into the compact associations of metropolitan life. Plowing and sheep-keeping were the employments that men followed under the open sky. But with the too-frequent adoption of these occupations by the servant classes, and the gathering of the multitudes into the teeming cities of the world, the conditions of government have radically changed. London, Vienna, Calcutta, New York, and San Francisco have become key-stones in the structure of human life. Their degeneration means the ruin of humanity; their prosperity the salvation of the race. The attention now being given to the re-adjustment of municipal affairs is therefore in keeping with the immense importance of the interests involved. Both by legislative enactments and by the reforms of philanthropists should corporate municipality be lifted to its highest possibilities in industry, culture, and morality. Aught less is recreancy to corporate interests. Yet it is not to be forgotten that the obstacles in the way of ideal municipal government are exceeding great. Even the development of the material interests of a great city demand skilled leadership and unwearied application on the part of local officials. The responsibilities of grading, paving, building, and police regulation-the direction of manufacturing and other industries-the constant regard for the sanitary conditions of a crowded city, with the instant suppression of contagious diseases that may arise— are burdens under which the wisest of men would stagger, and which the ordinary official cannot successfully carry. The science of municipal government, even in these material respects, is not yet learned; while the case is further complicated by the frequent change in office which is particularly a feature of American life. Added to these considerations, the regulation of the morals of a crowded city is, besides, an immeasurable difficulty in municipal administration. The worst, as well as the best, in human life flourishes in rankness at the great centers of population. Virtue sometimes sleeps; vice is sleepless. Virtue is often circumscribed in resources; vice is always fertile in expedients. Virtue is conscientious; vice is untrammeled by questions of casuistry in its purposes of evil. It would almost seem a matter of wonder that the great cities of the world are so well governed. The saloon with its maddening influence, the brothel working its bestial consequences, and the gambling den with its tendency to desperation, are all established institutions in the best regulated cities of the globe. The power of the civil law seems no obstacle to their continuance; and even with such a mighty ally as the Christian Church at hand, their restriction seems increasingly difficult from the

stand-point of practical affairs. Nor in justice may these hinderances be overlooked, in considering the problems of municipal government.

The need of the best officials for metropolitan management, as a consequence, is a growing conviction. In the calendars of every great municipality is perhaps registered the name of some lord mayor or judge whose genius for government and whose consecration to the public interests are traditional and inspiring. The experiment must be repeated. If, in many cases, the worst of men in moral quality and in intellectual equipment have been promoted to the head of affairs, the condition cannot be permanent. Good men must consent to lead an indignant public in the relegation of spoilsmen to private life, and in the fuller initiation of impartial, beneficent, Christian government. The fact that one quarter of the whole American population resides in our cities makes imperative the needs herein set forth, and exalts the municipality to primary importance.

MILLENNIARISM is again at the front declaring its belief in the nearness of "another dispensational day." The subject is of perennial interest. To say that it has ever lost its charm for reverent lovers of the Scripture or its attraction for scientific students, since its earnest consideration in the beginnings of the Christian Church, would be a falsification of history. No review of the long agitation is adequate which omits the mention of such early literature as the Sibylline Books, or the views of Justin Martyr and Irenæus, bearing upon the millennial coming, or which forgets the succession of prognosticators and sky-gazers that have waited for centuries the appearance of the Son of man. But the faith of the earlier zealots is now re-enforced by the arguments of enthusiastic thinkers for a speedy dispensational change. As if the close of a century were especially opportune for this order of prophecies, they are perhaps increasingly frequent; and to the extent that men are solemnized by the thought of transition into a new century are the predictions awe-inspiring and influential. We cannot, however, declare ourselves as in fullest sympathy with these zealous teachers of a near-approaching change in mundane conditions. Although their evident sincerity of belief should protect them from the thrusts of heartless ridicule, yet the inadequacy of their logic seems plain. As to the line of biblical argument which is followed to establish their case, it is not clear that any thing new has been added to the Scripture exegesis of other years and centuries. The errancy of the past in the interpretation of the prophetic passages of the word has been one of the grotesque features of Bible comment. Nor is it apparent that the present students of eschatological affairs are proceeding upon more philosophical methods of interpretation, or are liable to reach more exact conclusions as to the end of the dispensation. The "time, times, and a half” of Daniel are likely to remain an enigma baffling all human solution. The mysticisms of Revelation will not soon find an infallible interpreter. To make the close of a dispensation turn upon an arithmetical calculation whose basis is in the significance of Daniel's prophecy or John's Apocalypse, is unsatisfactory. If the wiser scholarship of the past has smiled at the

non-fulfillment of the millennarial predictions that have filled the centuries, the incredulous of the present will not withhold their laughter at the endeavor of the later prophets to overthrow the stability of mundane things. But it would seem that the scientific, rather than the scriptural method of argument, is now the favorite resort of millennarians. Professor Totten perhaps stands in the front rank of this order of reasoners. With his zeal in eschatological inquiry, his semi-prominence in educational circles, and his seeming facility in the interpretation of the occult, he has given a wide circulation to his predictions of the coming dispensational change. His published utterances would also seem to have kindled a new interest in the theory among a certain class of scientific inquirers, with the promise of a growing literature on the subject. Some of the features of the millennial expectation, from the stand-point of science, are in this connection worthy of notice. We are thus treated to the claim that the millennium is to have a climate radically different from that now known; that the products of the soil are to be changed; that human longevity is to be "greatly increased, perhaps to antediluvian proportions; " that atmospheric conditions will be greatly altered; and that direct sunlight, "with its powerful chemical activity, producing decay, fermentation, alterations of temperature, storms, fluctuations of the barometer," and other results, will be to a large extent cut off. But it is not strange if the unscientific reader listens with distrust to such an unusual prophecy. The province of true science is not primarily the explanation of matters of eschatology, but rather the interpretation of the present environments of human life. That an undue inquiry into the mysteries of millenniarism is also injurious, experience would seem to show. To dwell overmuch upon the latter-day mysteries is to unfit the soul for personal and pressing duties with which the present is too crowded.

THE GERMAN crisis needs no interpreter. Its lessons, on the contrary, are so plainly written that he who runs may read and understand. While incendiary words and seditious gatherings are an occasional feature of every national existence, and are particularly a mark of the German life, yet the late agitations at Dantzig and Berlin have possessed a meaning that is particularly ominous. Wherever the story of the insurrectionary movements has gone no careful observer of affairs has failed to see therein the constant struggle that is going on for human equality; nor should any nation intent upon prosperity overlook the salient fact involved that in the weal of the multitude is its strength. The inalienable rights of the common people to the ordinary advantages of life, and the procurement of these benefits at any cost, is, in other words, one of the fundamental lessons of the Germanic agitation. The constituency of every government thus have a claim upon the central authorities for food supplies. An analysis of the Berlin episode shows that it was not a melodramatic display of popular feeling without basis for discontent, but, on the contrary, the uprising of hungry men who demanded bread. It is clear that the "pinch of poverty" is not on the decrease in the German empire. With the constant draft