r.

He who opened _an Arena_ must keep it open, and like "the God of
battles" wait for the best cause to win.

Suppose it be found, as we propose to begin to show here and now, that
Nationalism, under the laws of Sociology, is not the murder, but in
fact and theory, the only condition of liberty, and the only way out
from social suicide,--what then? Would it not have been better for THE
ARENA to have been kept open, as if by the aforesaid Deity, with a
level head and a stiff and silent upper lip?

For the Reverend and exultant Mr. Savage his exasperating situation is
his excuse. For, with the inbred and lethal instinct of a Theolog he
was put upon the trail of a brother Theolog to bring in his scalp. To
return without _some_ scalp would be a disgrace. But on coming up with
his reverend brother Bellamy, instead of finding him ready for fight
or "treed, like Capt. Scott's coon," he finds him already down and
explaining in the blandest style: That, whereas, "this difficulty" was
a secular one, not at all theological, but quite within the bounds of
"the Knowable," there was really no necessity for one brother to scalp
the other, although both were clergymen. He even proposed ways by
which the manifest benefit of both, and of all, could be secured if
they should hunt together, being sure to go no further than such
benefit justified. But an accommodation was just what the Reverend
Savage was not out to find. Shaking his war feathers, he says, "You
are too fair,--I must kill you, _or something_, though it may be
'cruelty to animals.' Stop,--I sniff 'paternalism'! It must be you or
yours!" And without waiting for an answer he bangs away at that old
skunk which hasn't a friend on this side of the world. Then, inflamed
by smell of powder, blood, or something worse, he goes it wild,
mistakes even the good social domestic animals for wild beasts, and
his reverend friend as their protector. His slaughter of these purely
imaginary enemies is accompanied by a self-approving wit, which only
exhales when, as Mephisto says, the Parson and Comedian are happily
combined, and inspire each other. But, alas! neither prayers nor
laughter can settle the industrial and political difficulties of our
day. They may do, and are doing, much to prevent such settlement,
which must come from people who do not live in another world, and
therefore are not free to ignore or to make a joke of this. There is
hope, therefore, when our reverend friend "ties