e cannot hope to do away with evil speaking, with verbal quarrelling,
with mean grasping of benefits from less fortunate brethren. Alas, the
reign of brotherhood will be long in eradicating the primeval combative
instinct; but, when we compare the quiet urbanity of a modern gathering
with the loud and senseless brawling which so often resulted from social
assemblies even at the beginning of this century we may take some heart
and hope on for the best. Our Lord had a clear vision of a time when
bitterness and evil-doing should cease, and His words are more than a
shadowy prediction. The fact is that, in striving gradually to introduce
the third of the conditions of life craved by the poor feather-witted
Frenchmen, the nations have a comparatively easy task. We cannot have
equality, physical conditions having too much to do with giving the
powers and accomplishments of men; we can only claim liberty under the
supreme guidance of our Creator; but fraternity is quite a possible
consummation. Our greatest hero held it as the Englishman's first duty
to hate a Frenchman as he hated the Devil; now that mad and cankered
feeling has passed away, and why should not the spread of common sense,
common honesty, bring us at last to see that our fellow-man is better
when regarded as a brother than as a possible assassin or thief?

Our corporate life and progress as nations, or even as a race of God's
creatures, is much like the life and progress of the individual. The
children of men stumble often, fall often, despair often, and yet the
great universal movement goes on, and even the degeneracy which must
always go on side by side with progress does not appreciably stay our
advance. The individual man cannot walk even twenty steps without
actually saving himself by a balancing movement from twenty falls. Every
step tends to become an ignominious tumble, and yet our poor body may
very easily move at the rate of four miles per hour, and we gain our
destinations daily. The human race, in spite of many slips, will go on
progressing towards good--that is, towards kindness--that is, towards
fraternity--that is, towards the gospel, which at present seems so
wildly and criminally neglected. The mild and innocent Anarcharsis
Clootz, who made his way over the continent of Europe, and who came to
our little island, in his day always believed that the time for the
federation of mankind would come. Poor fellow--he died under the
murderous knife of th