During the past year the deplorable conflict. in Uganda led us to address the British Government and the Anti-Slavery Bureau at Brussels, inquiring what steps had been taken under the Brussels General Act of 1890. provisions restrict the importation of firearms into territories infested by the slave trade ; and it appeared to us to be highly necessary that the public should be informed as to what steps had been taken by the several Powers which had signed the Act. After much correspondence, we have received information from our Foreign Office that a report on this subject may be shortly expected.

The Committee feel great satisfaction in having, by means of a small guarantee fund, raised among its friends, facilitated the publication of an English translation of the Baroness von Suttner's remarkable work, "Die Waffen Nieder "("Lay Down Your Arms"). They are especially happy that the English public will be enabled to know and appreciate this work, through the admirable translation made by their esteemed Vice-Chairman, Mr. T. Holmes, F.R.C.S. The Committee felt that it was hardly creditable that a book which had appeared in three other languages, and had produced so great an impression on the Continent, should not be known in England. Its appearance has really constituted an event in the history of the movement, and may have a far-reaching influence in bringing about the great reform for which we are labouring.

Friends, Such has been part of the work done during the last twelve months, and there has been only one drawback to the satisfaction which our Committee have felt in rendering these services-we refer to the anxiety in which, as usual, they have been placed as to the means of meeting the very moderate expenses of the Association. We leave it to you to consider whether you will not do your best to relieve those who are engaged in so great a task from embarrassment on this score. They often have before them proposals of much value, to which they dare not give effect, in consequence of inability to incur even moderate additional outlay. Should this be so?-Yours faithfully, A WORKER.

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THAT keen critic, but also wise mentor, Emerson, remarked-now well-nigh forty years ago "The doctrine of the Old Testament is the religion of England; the first leaf of the New Testament it does not open." We would fain believe that the moral standard of our nation has advanced since that period; and especially in the direction of greater willingness to do to other nations what we desire them to do to us. In several of the

sermons and other addresses delivered at Christmas and New Year's time some such expansion of moral sentiment and sense of obligation to look on others' good as well as our own was abundantly evident. And it is not too much to say that the large portion of the Bishop of Durham's charge to the clergy of his diocese dealing with the question of International Peace (quoted in our last issue) may be cited to mark a distinct advance in the tide of practical Christian ethics. For. after all, the only real test is what we do or are willing to do or endure, and not what we say or profess. As the revered teacher said: "The question of international peace. . . . is a searching test of the scope and vitality of our own faith"; also "the development of moral ideas (that is, their being translated into national action) encourages us not less than the progress of society to look for the extinction of war." And seeing it is now, under most fitting auspices, thus acknowledged that "the National Church has a message to the nation," bidding it seek peace by quite other means than by bloated armaments and fruitless war, those few public teachers outside that conventional pale who have long held such convictions may be encouraged to come into line on behalf of a cause that is beyond all party or sectarian divisions, and the claims of which are as wide as humanity itself.

As the soundness of the doctrine will have to stand the rough test of practical application, we will make an essay in that direction by citing one citing one or two passages from a religious teacher who may be regarded as almost at the opposite pale to that of orthodox ecclesiastics. We refer to Mr. Frederic Harrison's New Year's Day address to the Positivist "Church"; and, if any of our readers query "how religious?" our answer is ready to hand. Mr. Harrison spoke of having just then received a letter "from the most eminent of living philosophers," who remarked therein that "much of what was called religion is ethics." Just so; but as faith without works is dead, so also are philosophic ethics but a dream until applied to the practical difficulties and international struggles of the work-day world. Let us then see if fruitful hints in this direction may be gained from passages in Mr. Harrison's address. It will be for our readers to apply his remarks more closely than he could do at the time: and we have no responsibility for his special allusions. After a graceful reference to Tennyson "who had left no successor," he proceeded to remark on" the military burdens under which Europe is staggering" thus:

"All this overshadowing of the Continent by the sinister genius of war had been the standing condition of Europe since Germany, in the pride of victory, had chosen to clutch an integral, he would say an insepar