y marauders. In reviewing the history of Venice Ruskin was
so impressed with this principle of the moral harvest that he affirms
that the history of palace and cathedral, of fleets and navies, is
simply the story, written by a pen dipped in fire and blood, of how the
children reaped what the fathers had sown.

For many months past the statesmen of England have been sending forth
discussions reviewing the career of their country. In the light of the
Eastern problem one of these authors reflects that whenever England has
sown injustice to a weaker nation she has reaped injustice and
retribution for herself. He notes that in the last century the
governors of England--for example, Lord Hastings--went through the land
robbing rajahs, despoiling the people by false weights and measures,
until they had turned the whole country into one vast desert. The hour
came when before the House of Commons Burke impeached Hastings for high
crimes and misdemeanors, as the enemy of India and England and all men.
But England was content to impose a trifling fine upon her wicked
official. How could she give up the treasure she had filched for
herself? Years passed and an injured people brooded upon its wrongs,
and the time came when what England had sown in tears she reaped in
blood. One day the Indian soldiers mutinied. The next day the wells
were filled with the bodies of English officers, their wives and
children; then merchants and missionaries and travelers were
slaughtered. For weeks the strife went on. If once the English
soldier had pillaged the Indian villages, now, in turn, the English
quarters were pillaged. "Blind of eye and hard of heart," said the
sage statesman. "Retribution hath been visited upon us," said the
great leader. "Our jealousy and greed hath ended with that sword being
sharpened against ourselves." The note of conviction is in the voice
of this statesman, but what saith be save this: "What a man soweth,
that also shall he reap!"

All young hearts may well remember that it is safe to do right, but
dangerous to sow wrong! No matter how smooth, how soft and sweet, seem
the paths of sin, know that beneath every flower there lurks a spider,
beneath every silken couch of indulgence there broods a nest of
serpents, and the scene that begins with flowers shall end midst thorns
and thickets. For the moment, indeed, the judge may seem unobservant
and the watchman may seem asleep; but he who yields to any defl