imitation. On this question we must always remember that their exalted era of modern literature followed that of Greece, Rome, Italy and England. That all these nations had their golden periods of greatest attainment, while the Germans still slept in their quiet, commonplace life, that even France, her near neighbor, was filled with poetry, art and literature of a high order, and largely was indebted to her for what little thought life there was in Germany. That in the earlier stages of her national life there was no special promise of great attainments in this direction; and that one of the strongest elements of their character, is the power of reflection, of reasoning and the happy use of theories and principles already suggested or established.

That they were in the crusades, mingling with oriental life, and beauty, power and culture; that they had the advantage of the discovery of Greek literature and art in the Renaissance, and all of the achievements of the golden era of Italian, English and even French literature and arts. The world's library was open for their study for vast periods of time before their modern era commenced. It would be strange, indeed, if under these circumstances they could not equal if not surpass their predecessors in the same lines of investigation and culture. Not to do this would mark the nation as inferior, or attribute to their contemporaries and predecessors a perfection in attainment that could not be surpassed; neither conclusion is satisfactory; and only the students of fifty or a hundred years hence can accurately determine which of the present leading nations possesses sufficient native genius, creative power and preserving effort, to give them the pre-eminent position in the world's literature of that era.

XVI.

MEDIEVAL REPUBLICS.

To-day the most interesting question before all civilized nations is that of the government of the people. The most interesting and important, because the most fundamental, and that upon which rests all that is desirable in Christianity, civilization, commerce, education and the happiness and prosperity of the nations.

The forms and functions of government in modern civilized countries are constantly undergoing changes, demanded by the altered conditions of the people, and the varying drift of the national thought, as to what the forms should be, and how and by whom their functions should be exercised. The two poles of thought have been, and perhaps now are, that government is organized power for the purpose of controlling the people on the one hand, and organized power to serve the people on the other hand, and that all forms and functions of systems of governments constantly vibrate between these two extremes. That the acceptance of one or the other is often but a question of military force, a strike of laborers against capitalists, the unexpected use of dynamite, the accident of a battle and occasionally of environments and deliberate and reasonable choice of those concerned.

The kingdom, or monarchy, with all their absolutism, and claiming to rule by Divine right, or hereditary power, and the doctrine that might makes right, is the legitimate result of the first. For if the powers in the government are for the purpose of controlling the people, they will be administered in the interests of the controlling powers. But if they are to be administered only in the interests of the people, these powers being of the people will always be in quick sympathy with their source. The one results in the kingdom or absolute monarchy, and the other in the free republic; and all forms of government that have had a historical existence have been these or modifications of them,

The first, or the kingdom, which prevailed among the earlier historic nations and exists even now, as a relic of the earlier barbaric conditions of some powerful nations that have become civilized in spite of the tremendous incubus that such forms have continually imposed upon the progress of their people, was deemed in the dark shadows of ignorance and superstition to be of Divine origin, and hence to be unquestionably accepted and its every behest obeyed. While to elevate the people and make them superior to their rulers and the laws under which they lived, as the source of both was a terribly heresy, the dethroning of the Almighty and reversal of all the laws of nature.

For the supremacy of these ideas the nations have ever contended, making the fairest portions of the world a continuous battlefield and the earth crimson with the blood of her noblest sons and daughters. Till within a comparatively short time, and perhaps even now, a large majority of the race favored, or tamely acquiesced in the monarchial or strong form of government, as it is generally termed. And unquestionably this is true in all semi-civilized and barbarous nations.

This form is always the more acceptable the denser the ignorance and superstition of the people, while the republic can only exist among an enlightened and patriotic people. The foundation principles of the one is slavery of thought, fear and ignorance of the people, of the other cultured powers, the courage of convictions and an enlightened patriotism. If we view the past the one presents the ever-gorgeous paraphernalia of the royal court, the splendors of concentrated wealth and unlimited power with all their attendant blessings and fearful vices, and a depraved and ignorant people doomed to perpetual mental, moral and physical slavery, while the other, the republics, fills the world with its noblest lessons, of culture, religion, commerce, freedom of thought and the highest types of human attainment. The one robs divinity of all that is Godlike in the poor imitations of the ruling imposters, the other makes gods of the people by developing and calling into action all that is Godlike and ennobling in them.

The modification of these extreme forms has unquestionably been the secret of the perpetuity of some nations, contributing to their strength by combining the wisdom of a

cultured aristocracy, skilled in political science, in history and the patriotism of the people in a strong civilized system, not extremely burdensome in the taxes to support its royalty and yet sufficiently centralized to afford at all times speedily the necessary protection of the people.

The trend of experience for the last half century has been strongly in this direction, combining the disintegrating forces of the republic, that are always incident to frequent changes in the laws, and in the administration of them, and yet utilizing the strongest elements of power in the people, their patriotic instinct, by granting sufficient liberties and participation in the minor functions of the government to continually enlist the support of a majority of the people for the system.

But the two theories are radically at variance, and the people are constantly demanding greater powers, and encroaching upon the assumed prerogatives of the royal powers. Under the marvelous progress made in living, in culture and refinement, in art, science, civilization, commerce and Christianity in the last fifty years, and especially in the real or imagined superiority of our republic, since its life was saved by the patriotism and heroic ability of the people in the greatest civil war of any age, and the fact that under all the environments the people of any civilized nation are able to present as capable rulers as the crowned heads of royalty, the people are becoming fully convinced that they had better make the laws by which their interests are to be served and to provide from their own numbers for their administration.

In Germany and England, the strongest royal governments, this struggle must culminate in a short time in favor of the people, in all probability, as there is too much self-reliance, courage, culture and patriotism among these nations long to submit to the tremendous burdens of taxation to support their standing armies and luxuries of a royal government. Even poor Italy, the home of the pope, the enemy of every republic and every principle necessary to their existence, may at any time become a republic. It is not a strain upon the spirit of modern prophecy to predict that the English people are now living under their last royal ruler, and in fact the present ruler is only the shadow of the former substance, and really reigns only in name. That great nation

does not now, nor ever has long lived on shadows and will not long be content to be ruled by them. The strength of the kingdom lies in its constant preparation for emergencies and its power to utilize its forces at a moment's warning; whereas in the republic the assembled people and their representatives must be consulted and convinced before its force can be prepared and utilized for its defense, often occasioning loss of time and opportunity very injurious if not fatal. The strength of the republic is its intelligence and patriotism. The arbitrations of our government and others at the close of our last war-the war of 1861-and its effects, and the fact that large bodies of men in idleness or on strikes for barely living wages are as well handled in our republic as under other systems, and the intelligence, the courageous manhood, moral heroism and self-control of the various labor organizations in the country in their present contest with the oppressions of combined capital, has been the admiration of all thinking men. With organized numbers sufficient at a moment's notice to overcome local, and probably for a time even State authorities, their great self-control in the midst of losses of wages that cost great suffering, and all within the forms of law, tends greatly to establish the view that the republic is in fact the strongest form of government. The cause and value of standing armies and fully equipped navies have long since been fully estimated; but how to govern municipalities and harmoniously control unlimited organized capital and millions of uneducated laborers is the problem of the republics to-day. And it is an absolutely new problem in the service of governments. For educated labor, having an equal voice in the voting power with the capitalist, is not known in the kingdom, and is the product of modern republican theories which have dignified the laborer from slavery to manhood and citizenship. Thus far these educated laborers have shown themselves worthy of this new-born power, and the republics have so far solved this new problem as to demonstrate their strength and promise an ultimate satisfactory conclusion to the fierce conflicts of capital and labor through arbitration, co-operation or the profit sharing system. Solomon was mistaken when he said there was nothing new under the sun. In all ancient and medieval republics the powers were based upon a limited suffrage; but in this republic it is unrestrained as to the