in this country. It is an abomination to honest men in both cases. We have possibly been a little hasty in our conclusion that we could cleanse our politics by simply lifting the lesser offices out of the pit into which they have fallen as the spoils of party conflicts. It is to be remembered that parties are a necessity to politics, and "workers are a necessity to parties. It is easier for some of us to preach civil service reform than it is to practice it by doing work on campaign committees, carrying banners in political processions, and challenging voters at the polls. Nevertheless this is not work which, at this distance from the millennium, does itself. It doth not yet appear how it is to be done when the many minor offices which are now its inspiration are filled, as they surely ought to be, on the tenure of efficiency and good behavior.

Meanwhile, with the humiliating quadrennial scramble for spoils again upon us; with the certainty that whichever side wins we shall see the offices once more parceled out as the reward of political services, those who have been hoping and working for better things are not by any means reduced to the necessity of sitting still and biting their finger-nails. They can say to the party managers, and it is full time they should say it, "Henceforth we vote for the best man, whichever ticket we find his name on; we support the best measure, whatever party label it bears. We will no longer be cajoled or dragooned into voting drunkards or incompetents into local offices because of the imagined or the real necessities of the congressional ticket. We will not help you in the State election, no matter what the effect may be on the next Presidential canvass, unless you give us the privilege of standing on a better platform and voting for better candidates than the other party offers. Gentlemen, you can have our votes at retail only, and only on these terms."

The exigency in public interests is never half so critical, the defeat of any ticket never proves half a hundredth so disastrous to them as the party drill-masters would have the voter believe. The life-long Republican needs to divest himself of the feeling that voting the Democratic ticket for county officers is necessarily a fall from grace. The life-long Democrat ought to realize that casting a ballot for a Republican prosecuting attorney is not presumptively the unpardonable sin. The balance of power in politics to-day is really held -if they only knew it-by the honest and intelligent men who care a great deal for good government and very little for mere party success. They may not be able to secure a radical and permanent reform in the civil service just yet. But they can do more than they have begun to believe in dictating that offices shall be filled by good men. They need not strike any attitudes nor beat any drums about it either. They need

not organize a league, nor even "stand up and be counted." But if each man who wants to see our politics purified, will, without regard to party names, lay his modest and quiet flake of a ballot in the right place every time, the snow-drifts thus formed will quickly command the wholesome respect of the men who hold the party reins.

Some men

TAKING BULLS BY THE HORNS. THERE are diversities of gifts. have the knack of taking the side of reform, voting the right ticket, supporting useful measures, without much friction. They do not lose customers. They keep on amiable terms with the other side. Nobody poisons their dog nor starts scandalous stories about them. When the contest waxes very warm they may not make themselves conspicuous in the front of the fight, to be sure, but they give steadiness and strength, as far as in them lies, to the troops that are in reserve.

In the multiplied matters of social husbandryto change the figure-their skill and taste lies in mulching new measures and quietly stirring the soil around the roots of schemes that are not making good growth. They are respected, and influential, and useful-no doubt of that. They are not shirks, nor time-servers. Theirs, simply, is not the gift of taking the bull by the horns. Their usefulness is enhanced, as it seems to them, by following the path on the other side of the fence. But it often happens that the way of duty in a community lies where a pawing bull stands which somebody must take by the horns. Mulching and mowing are not all of farm work. There are rocks that must be broken with drill and dynamite, knots that must be opened with maul and wedge. There is a great deal of work in the church and community in which somebody who would like well enough to get along smoothly and trust to mulching methods must consent to be the maul-giving and taking hard knocks. Saloons cannot always, nor generally, be closed by neighborly exhortations or resolutions offered in temperance meetings. Somebody must work up evidence, swear out complaints and invoke the strong arm of the law. It is disagreeable, difficult work; work for which harnesses are cut to pieces and fruit trees girdled in retaliation. But some one must do such work neverthelessdo it, probably, with the half-accusing feeling that, if he were wiser and better, more men would speak well of him.

But the vicious element in the community is not the only one that wears horns, and shakes them-horns which are firmly set in the socket, too! Many otherwise good people are shortsighted, thin-skinned, self-seeking or pig-headed. A petty regard for personal profit warps their view of public interests. They set family advantages across the track of neighborhood benefits.

But the well-being of the community must not, therefore, be left in the lurch. Some one must dare ill-will and stand up for it. The interests of the village school require the retention of a teacher whose place these good people wish to give to some one else. Your opposition, in the school board, to the change is not to be withheld because you know it will be looked on as a personal affront, and because you are sure to run across the tracks of their displeasure in the most unexpected places long afterwards. A well-meaning man wants an important office which he is not qualified to fill. He pushes his own case; joins forces with other place-seekers. It is not a matter which can be met by putting another rail on the fence. Some one must march right up and take that bull by the horns, no matter how disagreeable the tussle may be.

It is not pleasant to antagonize people, and especially those who are at heart, as poor human nature goes, good people. It takes not a little of the flavor out of the comfort you have a right to when walking in the path of duty, to know that the slurs of those whom you have vexed are flying around your good name, and stinging it whenever they find an opportunity; or to see that coldness has crept into the hearts of old friends. It is especially hard to know that the good cause which you support is more likely to be opposed by some because you are its supporter. It remains for you to be thrice careful that you do not pick up the maul oftener, or swing it harder, than necessary; that you do not come to have something of a relish for a "scrimmage." Poultices are better than the knife, when poultices will answer the purpose. Happy is the man who, in all these intricate social cross-purposes, has the unerring judgment which tells him just where he may yield even the better way, and just where he must stand, through thick and thin, for the ground that ought not to be surrendered. And having done all it remains to let patience have her perfect work. One may surely get good out of such experiences that he could not find anywhere else. That is the blessedness of every prickly or stony path in which the wise and loving Father sets our feet.

THE CONCLUSIVE MIRACLE. "Yes, if I could see some of these things as you do I would be a Christian myself. But then its of no use. Miracles, for instance, are one of the corner-stones of your faith, I suppose. But I can't believe in miracles. I don't see how you can, when you really stop to consider how inexorable are the laws that govern matter-and mind too, for all of that."

This brief confession of faith would be recognized without the quotation marks. Every one has heard it, with trifling variations of phrase

ology; parroted sometimes perhaps, but often uttered in careless good faith, and occasionally spoken, doubtless, with sincere regret. Of course the books furnish the arguments to meet it; as other books probably furnished it in the first place, and the logic for it. But playing these arguments against each other is generally very much like an artillery duel at long range; it makes a noise and raises a dust but it doesn't dislodge the enemy. So instead of making an attack in front, where this objecting friend is probably so carefully fortified, suppose you slip around on the flank and answer him after this fashion:

"Very well, what if you can't build on this corner-stone quite yet? I find no difficulty, myself, with the New Testament miracles. Their testimony to the divine character and mission of Jesus of Nazareth is worth a great deal to me. As I look at it Christ came with these credentials for those who could read them. But they are not by any means the only credentials he offers. Indeed, it is very easy for me to believe that he might have brought the dead to life when I think of the more wonderful things he did when he walked among men on earth; has been doing for eighteen hundred years; does to-day. That Lazarus was brought again to life after lying dead in the grave three or four days, that one blind from birth was made to see in a moment and without a touch, seems to you quite incredible. But, after all, nothing that Christ ever claimed the power to do with the bodies of men is so marvelous as the changes which he certainly has wrought in the characters of men.

"Take Simon Peter, for instance. One day he is a cowardly disciple, scared by the chatter of some idle servant girls into the repeated denial of his Master and bracing the craven lie with shameful cursings. A few days after he is the lionhearted apostle, standing in the same temple and accusing to their face the rulers who had put that Master to death. Had they known it, the change wrought in him was a more marvelous thing than that which he wrought in the lame men before their astonished eyes. There was Saul of Tarsus, too. What miracle could be more wonderful than the sudden change that so completely transformed that man, through and through, and forever!

"Nor will it do to say that these are Bible stories, half fact and half legend. This same wonder has been wrought every day for eighteen hundred years, in all lands and before all men's eyes. Here is a young man-you have seen such a one-who is full of mischief even to riot; an idler and tippler and rake; the grief and shame of his family and the contempt even of those who are most like him. But the grace of God in Jesus Christ lays hold of him and makes a new man of him. You see the change in a day-it modulates the very tones of his voice and illuminates the very

lineaments of his face. Henceforth he loathes the pleasures that he most loved before. In its sympathies, its manly purpose, its self-mastery, his life is at once and forever as different from the old life as light is from darkness. Another man is, underneath his pretenses to good citizenship, a miserable skinflint. He begrudges his children books and his wife sufficient help in the kitchen. He dodges his taxes and hates the contribution box. He clutches and keeps every dollar he can lay hands on. All at once this divine change is wrought in his heart. With it there comes a complete revolution of aspiration and endeavor. He makes the interests of others his own. He puts his name to a subscription paper with pleasure. No one is more public-spirited, no one is a better neighbor. He lives a consecrated life.

"By a similar transformation we see the man of ungovernable passion becoming patient under any provocation, the butterfly of social pleasure finding her chief joy in humble service for others, the proud woman putting on the childlike spirit, the man in whom selfish ambition had been as a consuming fire hungering and thirsting after righteousness.

"If we were not used to such things we should publish them in the papers, and stand in reverent awe before such supernatural manifestations. Under the stimulus of love or the inspiration of patriotism men and women often wake up to a larger and a better life. But this complete regeneration of the corrupt heart, this utter change in the very fiber of character, stands by itself in human experience as the riddle of all human philosophy, the wonder of wonders. Its reality cannot be gainsaid. It cannot be explained away. It is more marvelous than the bringing of the dead to life. It is conclusive testimony to the genuineness of the Christian religion. Standing convinced before its reality you need not stumble at any other miracle."

TWO MISTAKES THAT MEN MAKE. THE stars in their courses see few sadder sights on the face of our trouble-furrowed earth, than the family from which death has taken the breadwinner, while it has laid on a penniless mother, unskilled in remunerative labor, the burden not only of the entire care but the entire support of her little children. And they look down, alas! on such sights every night, in every village, and every city street. It is not quite but it is almost as hard a fate when the mother is left with a little property, to be shadowed daily by a dread of the suffering its loss would involve, and to be worried day and night-because of her inexperience and ignorance in business matters-by its

care. This trouble comes to many and is the harder to bear that it gets little sympathy. "She is left in comfortable circumstances," friends say, and give the matter no more thought.

Two great mistakes, mistakes that almost every parent makes, are the antecedent of such trials. No girl has such fair prospects that her father can excuse himself for not giving her, as a supplement to her learning and accomplishments, the skillful training in some form of work that will insure her a livelihood if misfortunes fling her upon the unaided resources of her own head and hand. It is a grave indictment against the pretensions of our civilization that the fathers who wish thus to train their daughters are so perplexed to find suitable occupations, outside of sewing, teaching and household service. We are still in the semi-civilized stage of society as regards the multiplied opportunities for work that ought to stand open to women. The case is bad enough for the woman who has not the gift for teaching or the strength for house-work, but who is free to go to the work she has the training to do, if haply she can find it by the hunting. But it is most cruel that there is so little choice of work, and oftentimes so little work, beyond unskilled and unpaid drudgery, for the woman who is anchored at home by the children for whom she must earn a living. Social science and philanthropy surely have not done their best in this direction.

The other mistake is that which the husband makes who not only keeps his wife in ignorance of his business affairs but is content to have her remain ignorant of business methods generally. He comforts himself, perhaps, with the thought that if he dies he will leave his family "enough to do with." He strangely forgets how unfitted his wife would be in such a case to take good care of property; how liable she would be to loss from unwise investments; how dependent she would be on advisers who might take advantage of her. Our girls, in getting an education nowadays, range through all sciences and 'ologies. There are classes in cookery, nursing, and making courtesies. But many a woman sees the time when she could well afford to be ignorant of several sciences and arts in exchange for a little practical knowledge on the principles governing safe investments, the risks in different sorts of securities, the precautions to be taken and the snags to be shunned in making contracts, the commoner maxims of law involved in credits, mortgages, leases, discounts, usury, conveyances, etc. If she learned nothing of such things before her marriage it is her husband's unpardonable mistake if she does not acquire some elementary knowledge of them afterwards.

mons.

was directed to politics, he suddenly appeared as a candidate for the House of ComWith "sentiments which were Tory, and presentiments which were Radical," he boldly contested the borough of High Wycombe with no less an antagonist than a brother of Earl Grey, then Prime Minister of England. Defeated here, a few months later he again appeared in the field, only to suffer, first at Marylebone, and then at Taunton, two more discomfitures. Not a whit daunted, he made a further struggle to win a seat in Parliament, and this time, aided by powerful friends, he at last succeeded, being chosen, in 1837, a member by the borough of Maidstone. Soon after this triumph, he was introduced to Lord Melbourne, who had now become Prime Minister. Lord Melbourne looked at the gorgeously-attired young legislator, with his glistening curls and his large, bright black eye, with a feeling of mingled amusement and curiosity. "What do you wish to be?" he asked him. "Prime Minister of England, my lord," was the startling and audacious reply. Lord Melbourne thought the answer an epigram. Disraeli expressed in it the whole volume of his political ambition.

It is not at all my purpose to follow Benjamin Disraeli through that brilliant and energetic career, each step of which, as now appears, brought him nearer the lofty goal upon which his eyes were ever fixed. His first ignominious failure, when he rose to address his maiden speech to the House; his patient waiting to recover from its effect; his oratorical triumph on the occasion of his second attempt; his quarrel with Sir Robert Peel, in which he exhausted every resource of the bitterest invective to overwhelm the Tory leader with humiliation; his passagesat-arms with O'Connell; his audacity in seizing upon the Tory leadership; the surprise with which England rubbed her eyes and stared to see him her Chancellor of the Exchequer; his long-continued and magnificent forensic combats with Gladstone; his ascent to the Premiership in 1868, and his courageous gift of household suffrage to the people; his later triumphs as Premier; his promotion to the House of Lords as Earl of Beaconsfield, and his assumption of the envied insignia

of Knight of the Garter; these are history, and oft-repeated history, a tale told, especially of late, with copious iteration, and with every degree of friendly panegyric and of hostile irony.

But such a man, with a career so strange, an origin so alien and despised, and triumphs so entirely without parallel in English political annals, must always be an extremely interesting study. It is safe to say that no English statesman, remote or modern, has been the subject of so many diverse surmises and theories, has been so difficult to read and interpret, or has given rise to so many utterly contradictory estimates, both as to moral and intellectual qualities, as Benjamin Disraeli. He is scarcely less of a riddle now, when he has been in the full blaze of public notoriety for forty years, than he was the day that he entered the House, dangling his watch chain and tripping foppishly across its historic floor. There are many thousands of people in England to whom he is the great figure of the age; who trust him, admire him with unbounded enthusiasm, unquestioningly follow him in paths however mysterious, and believe alike in his statesmanship and in his sincerity. There are other thousands to whom he is as utterly odious; who look upon him as a political Mephistopheles, a theatric poser in statesmanship, a charlatan, absolutely selfish and devoid of moral feeling, who would with untroubled heart sacrifice England and Englishmen to triumph in a policy and to retain a hold on power.

The first time that I saw Benjamin Disraeli, now Earl of Beaconsfield and Knight of the Garter, was in the House of Commons, in the early Summer of 1863. It was a period when the relations between England and the United States were, to say the least, somewhat strained. The Peterhoff matter had well nigh brought the two countries to an actual rupture. A week before I had been at Oxford, and one night, in one of the many cozy inns of the ancient university city, I had heard college proctors talking excitedly about a speech that Palmerston had just made, foreshadowing war with America. Palmerston was then Prime Minister; Gladstone was his Chancellor of the Exchequer;