en following the
lead of the renowned Simon Suggs, who, having in true camp meeting style
acquired "the grace of God," turned loose as an exhorter shouting "Step
up to the mourner's bench, my brethering, step up lively, and be saved!
I come in on na 'er par, an' see what I draw'd! Religion's the only game
whar you can't lose. Him that trusts the Lord holds fo' aces!"

The Billy Sunday game has made Billy Sunday rich. Having exhausted
Hell-fire-and-brimstone, the evangel turns to the Demon Rum. Satan, with
hide and horns, has had his day. Prohibition is now the trick card.

The fanatic is never either very discriminating or very particular. As
a rule, for him any taking "ism" will suffice. To-day, it happens to be
"whisky." To-morrow it will be tobacco. Finally, having established the
spy system and made house-to-house espionage a rule of conventicle, it
will become a misdemeanor for a man to kiss his wife.

From fakers who have cards up their sleeves, not to mention snakes in
their boots, we hear a great deal about "the people," pronounced by them
as if it were spelled "pee-pul." It is the unfailing recourse of the
professional politician in quest of place. Yet scarcely any reference,
or referee, were faultier.

The people en masse constitute what we call the mob. Mobs have rarely
been right--never except when capably led. It was the mob of Jerusalem
that did the unoffending Jesus of Nazareth to death. It was the mob in
Paris that made the Reign of Terror. Mobs have seldom been tempted, even
had a chance to go wrong, that they have not gone wrong.

The "people" is a fetish. It was the people, misled, who precipitated
the South into the madness of secession and the ruin of a hopelessly
unequal war of sections. It was the people backing if not compelling
the Kaiser, who committed hari-kari for themselves and their empire in
Germany. It is the people leaderless who are making havoc in Russia.
Throughout the length and breadth of Christendom, in all lands and ages,
the people, when turned loose, have raised every inch of hell to the
square foot they were able to raise, often upon the slightest pretext,
or no pretext at all.

This is merely to note the mortal fallibility of man, most fallible when
herded in groups and prone to do in the aggregate what he would hesitate
to do when left to himself and his individual accountability.

Under a wise dispensation of power, despotism, we are told embodies
the best of all gove