and this is
probably owing to the fact that every seminary of higher knowledge is
under the control of a branch of the Christian Church, whose influence is
predominant in the faculty, and which regards the college as a filial
institution, with traditions intertwined with its own. However skeptical
or indifferent students may be to religion, they cannot fail to imbibe at
least an esteem for the doctrines of the Saviour from the teachers who
impart to them secular lessons. The impressions thus received by the
plastic mind of youth are not likely to be ever wholly effaced. The man
or the divinity we venerate at nineteen we instinctively bow to at forty.

* * *

The progress of the past thirty years has no doubt been due in an eminent
degree to a sound and uniform currency. In the coming national election
it will be decided whether that currency is to remain as it is--at the
world's highest standard--or whether the mints of the United States are
to be opened freely to the coinage of silver. Major William McKinley, one
of the bravest soldiers of the Union army, and a statesman of recognized
integrity and ability, is the candidate of the existing standard; the
Hon. William J. Bryan, a brilliant young orator, is the candidate of free
silver. The contest now opening is likely to be one of the most exciting
the country has ever witnessed. Nothing could be more deplorable than for
that contest to assume a sectional aspect, with West arrayed against East
and East against West.

Come weal, come woe, this should and will remain a united country. The
American nation is one people, and will remain one people. The destiny of
one section is the destiny of all. North, East, West and South are
traveling along a common highway toward a common future. Be that future
one of prosperity or of calamity, all will share in it. Whatever the seed
sown, whether of good or evil, all will reap the harvest, and it remains
for all, therefore, to consider, as citizens of a common country, what
shall the harvest be?

The American People.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

No Classes Here--All Are Workers--Enormous Growth of Cities--Immigration
--Civic Misgovernment--The Farming Population--Individuality and
Self-reliance--Isolation Even in the Grave--The West--The South--The
Negro--Little Reason to Fear for Our Country--American Reverence for
Established Institutions.

In the Old World meaning of the term the