prejudices by the commercial and political representatives of Western nations, especially the former. There is no ground for the affirmation that "the missionaries are to be held largely, if not entively, responsible for the present disturbances of the Middle Kingdom," a statement which, if made by one Christian sect of another Christian sect, would be put down wholly to sectarian prejudices. The Buddhist Representatives "submit two proposals to the propagators of religion in the world." The first is that the missionaries should avoid any act calculated to create a suspicion "as to the existence of their secret connection with the foreign policy of their own countries"—a vague phrase, the value of which depends upon the interpretation to be accorded to it; and that they also refrain from claiming compensation for damages incurred, we judge from the acts of mobs, or perhaps even of the government itself a moderation which we are inclined to think would be commendable if the claim involved for its exaction military force. The second proposition asks that the missionaries be withheld "from all forms of procedure which might possibly be regarded as disturbing the social institutions of China." The value of this, again, depends upon its interpretation. If it be true, as the Representatives affirm, that "the Chinese civilization is as yet rudimentary, and improvements may in many respects be necessary in the customs and manners of the people," then certainly the representatives of a higher civilization cannot do otherwise than disturb the social institutions of China. Christianity has always disturbed the social institutions of paganism, ever since the early days when it overthrew slavery, put an end to unlimited freedom of divorce, and restored the integrity of the family. That this necessary disturbance is to be accomplished with tact, with consideration, by indirect and constructive measures rather than by direct criticism, is true. Do the Representatives of the Great Buddhist Union mean anything more than this? We are not quite sure. The circular has throughout a Buddhistic vagueness. On the whole, we do not think this circular, though its spirit is excellent, adds much either to our knowledge of the Chinese problem or our understanding of the best means of dealing with it.

Chicago's Juvenile Court

The Illinois statute of 1898 providing a special court to try the cases of dependent and delinquent children seems to have proven a successful experiment. Prior to the passage of this act there were nearly always from forty to fifty boys in jail in Chicago awaiting trial in the criminal courts. "It was not uncommon," says a correspondent of The Outlook, "for the Grand Jury to report that children of nine years of age were suffering confinement in the county jail awaiting trial, although the laws of Illinois recognized no capacity for criminality in children of that age.' By the new statute the commitment of any child under the age of twelve to jail is expressly forbidden, and only thirty-seven older children were committed to jail during the last twelve months. The essential aim of the new law was, as expressed in the act itself, "that the care, custody, and discipline of a child shall approximate as much as may be to that which is given by its parents, and that, in all cases where it can properly be done, the child should be placed in an approved family home, and become a member of the family by adoption or otherwise." It thus aimed, not only to keep the better part of the children out of penal institutions, but also, so far as possible, out of philanthropic institutions which would separate them from the ordinary life of self-supporting people. The method by which the act seeks to secure this end is the employment of probation officers to keep track of the children, who are paroled and put in charge of private families instead of being sent to public institutions. Out of thirteen hundred delinquent boys brought before the court during the last year, eleven hundred were paroled. In many cases the children are returned on parole to their parents, and the influence of the probation officers is said to be a help to the parents in maintaining authority over unruly children, and also a help to the children in cases where the parents have sent them out to beg instead of keeping them in school or securing them selfrespecting work. As with all experiments, a good many difficulties have had to be met, and only through the co-operation of several private charities and women's clubs have the friends of the law succeeded in securing a sufficient force of probation

The

In 1895 there were only Japanese in America two Japanese consulates in the United States; at present there are consulates at Honolulu, San Francisco, Seattle (with a branch at Tacoma), Chicago, and New York City, while honorary consulates have been established at Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Galveston. Since the annexation of Hawaii there are from thirty thousand to fifty thousand Japanese under our flag. The Japan ese in America are chiefly merchants, students, and butlers or domestics. report of Mr. Sadatsuchi Uchida, the Consul at New York City, shows about eleven hundred Japanese residents in Greater New York alone. The question arises, What is being done for the Japanese in America by Christians? In the United States and Hawaii there are sixteen Methodist churches where Japanese worship in their own tongue. The Rev. Dr. Harris, who has long worked for Japanese in Japan and the United States, is the Presiding Elder for the Pacific Coast and Hawaii, and stands at the head of a school for Japanese in San Francisco. Baptists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians also have churches and missions in Seattle, Tacoma, Salinas, and San Francisco. In New York City, through the energy of Dr. A. C. Dixon, two "Japanese Christian Homes" have been established, where daily devotional exercises are enjoyed, mid-week prayer-meetings well attended, and Sunday-schools and Sunday evening preaching services conducted with success. Though helped most by Baptists, these Homes do a thoroughly interdenominational work. Japanese who have regular employment secure a room and board in either Home for the nominal sum of four dollars per week. The farewell meetings when any of their number are about to leave the city are models of good fellow

ship and friendship, and their prayers and songs and earnest faces impress the visitor deeply. There have been many conversions in Greater New York during the past five years, the greatest spiritual awakening coming through the zealous labors of the Rev. K. Okajima, a Japanese evangelist, who has just returned to Japan. He is succeeded by the Rev. Mr. Namae and Mr. Matsuno. Further information may be obtained by applying to the Rev. C. M. Severance, 116 Hicks Street, Brooklyn. Mr. Severance was formerly a missionary of the American Board in Japan.

A Practical Politician

The aversion to putting a practical politician in public office is a curious anomaly. No one would regard it as a conclusive objection to a man's elevation to the presidency of a railroad corporation that he was a practical railroad man, or to the presidency of a bank that he was a practical banker, or to the head of a great newspaper that he was a practical editor; it is only when the people are to deter mine who shall be the executive head of the Nation or of the State that the objection is made to the practical politician. But the practical politician ought to be the very one to understand the problems presented by the conditions in the State, and to know how to deal with them effectually, and how to employ the kind of instruments which he has to work with. Of this truth Mr. Odell, the newly elected Governor of the State of New York, affords a striking illustration.

To modify the Scripture counsel, It is not well to praise him that putteth on the armor as him that taketh it off. Mr. Odell's administration must be judged at its close, not at its beginning; but it may be said with confidence that his first message shows one of the advantages of putting a practical politician at the head of affairs in a State. What is necessary is not that the Governor should be inexperienced in politics, but that he should care more about the well-being of the State than about the success of his party, and more about the success of his party than about his own political advancement. The moral qualities of Mr. Odell in these two respects are yet to be proved, but his

message has proved at least this, that he is familiar with the questions which concern the State, and that he brings to bear to their solution a practical business judgment due to familiarity with the business details of the State such as no man who was not a practical politician could acquire in the interval between his election and his inauguration. The gist of this message we repeat elsewhere; here it must suffice to remark on three features.

The proposals for economy are radical, but they are in the main practical. Whether or not they are all wise we do not undertake to determine. But they are definite, they seem calculated to promote both economy and efficiency, and they are so full of promise as practical propositions that the burden of proof is clearly put upon their opponents, if they have any, to show that they are impracticable.

The proposal for police reform in New York City has the same quality; it is both radical and practical. It is the kind of proposition for a practical politician to make. It proposes to abolish the superfluous chief of police, to make one police commissioner whose power over the force shall be autocratic, who shall be appointed by the Mayor, but who shall be removable by either the Mayor or the Governor. We are not sure that the Mayor should share with the Governor the power of removal; this double power might lead to a deadlock under certain circumstances; but in general the proposition

there shall be a conflict between the rights now possessed by private corporations and those desired by the municipality. In this also is seen the practical politician. He proposes to guard the rights of private corporations while making them subordinate to those of the municipality. But he does not go far enough. It is rot merely the rights and interests of the city of New York which are involved; those of the entire State are equally involved; and those of the entire State should be protected. No private corporation should be permitted to rove through the State and take possession of water powers and water supplies anywhere and everywhere, as the Ramapo corporation may under the present law. Nothing less should satisfy the people of the State than the repeal of

these powers. If the Legislature adopts

the recommendation of the Merchants'

Association, and repeals the law absolutely,, we do not think that the practical politician, who sits in the Governor's chair will ob-. ject. If there is any question of the right: of the Legislature to take away powers. which it never ought to have granted, that question may well be left to be decided by the Court of Appeals, if the Ramapo. Company should elect to raise it.

Meanwhile we repeat that Mr. Odell's: message indicates that a practical politician has by his nature and training some admirable qualifications for a great execu-tive.

stabulary or a metropolitan police force under the power of the Governor, and the equally fatal objections to the present double-headed arrangement which prevents the people from holding any individual or even any party responsible for maladministration. The Bureau of Elections Governor Odell recommends should be bi-partisan and separated from the Police Department.

His recommendation as to the Ramapo legislation is as follows:

It should, therefore, be your first aim to eorrect and repeal such provisions of the law as interfere with the free and full exercise of

such powers of the city of New York, and then to place it upon an equality with the other cities of the State. I ask the speedy enactment of such laws, and the repeal of all conflicting laws. In this legislation due regard should be given all rights involved, reserving the preference, however, for the city wherever

The advocates of a ship subsidy bill ask of the opponents of that bill to propose a better method for promoting American commerce. "Once," they say, "American ships sailed all seas and were to be seen in all harbors. Now American commerce is carried in foreign ships. Except for our coasting trade and our lake trade there are no American ships. We propose a subsidy in order to revive American commerce. You object; what do you propose?"

This is a fair question, and The Outlook is ready with its answer.

I. We propose to protect American property on sea as we do on land, without asking when or where or how it was produced, but only, To whom does it belong? When buildings are destroyed in China

or in America, we do not inquire whether they were built by American workingmen or out of American lumber. The American and his property are protected wherever he goes, provided he has a right to go there. The American flag is over him, and it is his guarantee against unjust assault-unless he is on the sea, and his property is a ship; then he has no right to the protection of the American flag, unless his ship is an American-built ship. /A Turk builds an American's house, and it is protected if the American owns it; an Englishman builds an American's ship, and it is not protected although the American owns it.

What sense is there in this distinction? 'There is no sense. It is neither rational nor just. We would give to the American ship-owner the protection we accord to every other owner. We would ask concerning a ship, as we ask concerning at house, not, Who built it? but, Who owns it? Every ship owned by an American, or by a corporation organized on American soil and under the authority of American law, should have a right to fly the American flag, and a right to all the protection which that flag guarantees. That would be our first step toward the development of an American commerce.

We

II. We would encourage American ship-building, not by paying a bonus to ship-builders, but by removing the obstacles to their trade now imposed by law. In general terms, we would take the duty off those articles which most largely enter into modern ship construction. would not compel the ship builder to pay a bonus to the iron-mill and the steel manufacturer, nor to the lumber-dealer and the wood-worker, nor to any other of the trades that furnish the material out of which ships are built in our time. All the ship-owner needs in order to induce him to own and sail American ships is the same protection that America gives to all other owners. All the ship-builder needs in order to induce him to build American ships is permission to buy his stock where he can buy it most cheaply. In fact, he would continue to buy it of his American neighbor, for the simple reason that America can produce the materials which enter into American ships at as reasonable a price as his foreign .competitor. We are selling locomotives

to Russia, and iron and steel bridges to England. What sense is there in the claim that we cannot make ships for ourselves? No sense. All the ship-owner needs is protection; all the ship-builder needs is an open market. Take off all restriction on ship-building and give protection to all ship-owners for five years and see what happens. If the experiment fails, it will then be time enough to talk about ship subsidies.

We hope that the opponents of ship subsidies will continue the debate in Congress. The longer the debate continues and the more thoroughly the scheme is discussed, the less probability that it will finally succeed.

Church or Sect?

The late Governor Wolcott, of Massachusetts, not only filled a large place in the public life of his State and gave promise of filling a larger one in the public life of the country, but was a man of stainless character and of the highest dignity of life; one of those public men who personify the life of a people in bearing, in habit, and in nature. Like many other New Englanders of distinction, Governor Wolcott was a Unitarian, and when he died the funeral services were arranged to be held in King's Chapel, Boston-a historic structure which has for many years been devoted to the purpose of Unitarian worship, and of which the Rev. Howard N. Brown is pastor. King's Chapel, however, as every one familiar with Boston knows, is a small building, and its inadequacy to contain one-tenth part of the men and women who wished to do honor to Governor Wolcott was immediately recognized. Thereupon the Rev. Dr. E. Winchester Donald, rector of Trinity Church of that city, the noble church so long associated with the noble ministry of Phillips Brooks, true to his own instincts and to the traditions of the church, offered the use of Trinity for the funeral service, as a tribute to Governor Wolcott and as an expression of Christian courtesy and hospitality. The offer was accepted; the service was held under the direction of Mr. Brown, and the public at large instinctively felt that another evidence of the growing kindness between

different bodies of Christians had been afforded.

There is, however, in Boston, as in other places, a small body of Episcopal clergymen who are doing what they can to make that Church a sect by limiting the free play of a true catholicity. The honesty, the zeal, and the devotion of these men are above question; many of them are living lives conspicuous for piety and charity; their limitation is not moral, but intellectual. It is the blindness of a certain type of priest which, from the beginning of history, has made him dangerous and obstructive in exact proportion to his sincerity and zeal. One of these clergymen, commenting in the pulpit of St. John's Church in Boston upon the opening of Trinity Church for a Unitarian funeral service, said:

The Church has fallen upon evil times in Massachusetts. To some it may seem as if history were repeating itself and the days of Arius might come back, if, indeed, they have not come already. It was with shame and sorrow that Catholic Christians heard that on last Monday, in the largest church in Boston, dedicated to the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ, one who denies the Lord was permitted to hold a religious service in the church, because the priest who was in charge of it was not faithful to his trust. However great the occasion of those present might be, it was an act of profanation. It is of no use shutting our eyes to it. With sorrow, indignation, and righteous anger, and with shame that such a thing should be possible, we have to admit it. There is little use in going to the public papers about it, but as Christians we may pray. And the one thing needed most now is that many of the clergy may be converted to the faith, and that those who hold the faith may not fall

away.

What the canonical law in the diocese of Massachusetts may be we do not know; there is evidently a difference of opinion among well-informed clergymen as to whether there was a violation of that law. In that aspect of the case the public at large is not greatly interested. Canon Canon law, like every other law, has great and just claims and may not be broken with impunity, although it may be violated for a good and great cause. What con cerns the public is the spirit in which this act has been interpreted by a certain group of Churchmen. That spirit is by no means confined to the Episcopal Church; it is found in churches of every name and nature. It is always the same in essence, though there are wide differ

ences in its expression. Dr. Donald opened Trinity Church for a Unitarian service precisely as many a Unitarian church, and, for that matter, many a Roman Catholic church, has been opened to Episcopal worship in times of sudden crisis. The Unitarian clergyman who officiated in Trinity Church did not attempt to administer any sacrament or to discharge any priestly function; he simply made use of a structure which had been offered to him in a spirit of Christian brotherliness. The church was not and could not be compromised by such a serv ice in commemoration of such a man, under the direction of a minister of a body of Christians especially conspicuous for purity of life, for intelligence, and for influence, nor could the church in any way be compromised in its creed or its ecclesiastical standing.

If the Episcopal Church were so weak that it could not be hospitable, it could never strengthen itself by isolation. There is but one opinion of the man who cannot afford to know people unless acquaintance with them strengthens his own social position; that opinion is that his own social position is still to be made. A family which has to draw social lines in order to keep its position is not a family which has struck deep roots into the social life of the community. The Episcopal Church has too long a history and too great a one to fear to extend hospitality to another body of Christians, even if they are as far apart from its historic faith as the Unitarians. Dr. Donald's expression of Christian courtesy did not open the flood-gates to Arianism, but the protest against it, if it were really representative, would do more to set back the progress of the Episcopal Church in this country and to weaken its hold than any assault upon its doctrine or its polity. Churches are tried to-day by their loyalty to the spirit of their Master, and it is quite inconceivable that the Master revealed in the New Testament could for a moment be otherwise than cruelly misrepresented by the spirit of the men who criticised Dr. Donald's action. There is, fortunately for the Episcopal Church, a larger mind in it than that which has found expression in the action of this small group of clergymen. It is not irreverent to call that larger mind the