he must be heard with respect when he intimates in your April number that we are faultier and more foolish still. But there is perhaps more excuse than he would admit for the present confusion in political thinking, the grafting of Jeffersonian principle on Hamiltonian practice. From past history Jefferson deduced that the poor were trustworthy; Hamilton, that the rich were on the whole less untrustworthy. Surely it is not too much to say that to the notion of our time both these doctrines have been completely exploded. If any lesson can be learned from history, post-Jeffersonian and pre-Jeffersonian as well, it is that no class, rich or poor, small or numerous, will prefer the general interest to its own. So we find ourselves enjoying a condition without a theory; we are living a conclusion (Hamiltonian, as it happens) which is justified by no major premise at all. What then are we to do? Well, the English have managed to get along tolerably well without a major premise, but they are a utilitarian race, devoid of our lofty idealism! Your true American can no more live without a major premise than without a car of this year's model; and those who seek a starting point for political thinking may find guidance in other departments of thought. The major premise of contemporary American theology and economics is that whatever is comfortable, and agreeable to the contemplation, must be true. God is, because we need Him; prosperity will endure forever because we should not know what to do if it did not. Our political thinkers thus follow respectable precedent in taking over the Jeffersonian major premise; for surely it is more agreeable to believe that all men can be trusted than to reserve confidence for a few. It is true, as Mr. Adams says, that our principle is Jeffersonian, our practice Hamiltonian; and that this antinomy may make trouble for America in the future. But surely the cardinal dogmas of Americanism are that principle need not square with practice, and that we can leave the future to Divine Providence. In your March issue there is a statement which implies that you believe Methodists to be opposed to the scientific hypothesis of evolution. I am at a loss to account for such an impression. I have been a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church for thirty-three years. In that time there has not been a single official pronounce ment against evolution, and during all of this time in the conference courses of study and in the curricula of our theological seminaries the theory has been accepted and the interpretation of our Christian doctrines has been based thereon. It may be that you had in mind the Dayton, Tennessee, three-ring circus. In all likelihood, most of the laity and many of the ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church South stand against the teaching of evolution. South of the Mason-Dixon line thought seems to advance very slowly. In both the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church South the Fundamentalists have not been able to muster a sufficient following to make any impression whatever on the two General Conferences. I was a member of our General Conference which met in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1924. Of the eight hundred and fifty delegates, lay and clerical, from all parts of the world, I am certainly safe in saying that not more than one hundred and fifty could have been induced to vote for any proposition which would restrict freedom of speech on any point. The Methodist Episcopal Church is almost the only evangelical denomination which has not recently been torn and rent by the Modernist-Fundamentalist controversy. These questions were settled long ago by us in official declaration. The General Conference of 1872 declared against the verbal inspiration of Holy Scripture. The General Conference of 1884, twenty-five years after Darwin's Origin of The advantages of American citizenship have seldom been more genuinely expressed than in the copy of this letter forwarded by a friendly reader. 'It was transcribed,' he explains, 'directly from one written in a cramped hand by an uneducated Lithuanian who, after many wanderings, came to the United States and is now employed as a mechanic in one of our shops. It has been my privilege to be of some assistance to this man, who is bringing up a large family, with an abiding respect for the United States and what its institutions have made possible for them. His letter is in acknowledgment of one of advice which I sent him.' EAST MOLINE, ILLINOIS HIGHLY ESTEEMED DEAR MR. -: Accept my sincere thanks for your kindly, generous answer, advice, suggestions of 8th inst. Need not to say, I am complying with your wise advise, am writing to my niece all about it - in fact, I am enclosing to her your wonderful letter, with instruction to study blessed English or ask somebody that speaks that great, grand language to explain to her. I am sorry I am bothering you, dear Mr. great, good man, with such unsurmountable problems. Your wisdomful answer is of inestimable. It says, almost: 'Impossible to do it.' And yet in my life happened what seemed absolutely impossible. Too many to write here, it would take a volume. I was denied schools or anything that my children take for granted here, such like printed matter. One can pick here all he wants to for nothing. And yet, in addition, I had many setbacks, such like aiding others, compulsory army, five years services, etc., and succeeded in that I liked to study, to act, to investigate, and, most of all, to be honest, truthful, industrious. It is true what prophet in Old Testament wrote and in New was confirmed: "The rock that masons threw away as good for nothing and yet became corner stone of the temple.' And another truth: 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.' I am not Bible bug. My popular writer probably is most unpopular - Dante with his 'Inferno.' I shall confess, last summer, after forty-seven years, or since 1881, absence from that unfortunate Lithuania, for curiosity's sake, I made a trip there. Now, who likes to have a picnic in a cemetery, or rest with the dentist, or wealth in jail, or conversation advice from insane maniac, only that would read my 'Inferno' about Lithuania. So, dear Mr. to spare torment, I will refrain to write what is there. Seeing those foreigners here disobeying laws, degrading themselves by gambling, drinking, bad company, etc., I believe not only what Abraham said to the Lazar's brother, but also if Abraham had lifted him to heaven he would in few days or weeks forgotten all about his experience and made his worst to make the heaven into hell. True we have here some unemployment, even some poverty, hard labor, cheap wages, etc. But nothing could be in slighter degree compared to what I saw there. I often go to the shores of the Mississippi River, and on that shores piles upon piles of driftwood, excellent fuel for cooking food or warming shanty, take all you want to free. Even railroads with proper arrangement would give away old rotten ties. Even in big cities factories and wrecking companies are giving away free wood. Land companies and others are giving empty lots to those who desire to spade and have a real good garden of vegetables. Even unemployment: Any man, woman, girl or boy who would work hard ten hours a day for only lodging and meals, and perhaps few cents, always would have that job. Nothing like that in Lithuania. Why? It is not so overpopulated like China or India. True, there are no mines or factories, but I saw other lands with no mines, or factories, and yet people not so poor, nor impoverished to great extent. I was also in Belgium and Czecho-Slovakia, and yet there not so bad. It is because while agricultural implements are ancient, primitive, neglected by the government, politicians and clergy are modern. Not having good roads, they buy expensive automobiles with public money. Not having own gasoline or oil or any metal, yet they buy military airships, guns, cannon. Have no own textiles, and yet uniforms of soldiers, police, and clergy are much more imposing and brighter than English or American. Taxation on everything, and high; while population have no bread and go hungry, yet government, for government revenue, does encourage whiskey drinking, cigarettes smoking and, third and worst evil IDLENESS. Then, politicians, clergy, and officials treat people without any charity or mercy. For the smallest business one has to go to few officials and each one official, to show his authority or expecting a bribe, makes one to waste day or two and come again and again, etc., etc. Dear Mr. —, seems like writing drifted to my 'Inferno.' Forgive me kindly for much writing and much bothering your noble mind. Very respectfully thanking you much, I beg to remain, Your humble and obedient servant, *** P. J. R. 'People of Refuge' might be an apt shingle for the Country Lawyer as described by Mr. F. Lyman Windolph in the April Atlantic. CHARLOTTE, N. C. DEAR ATLANTIC, If Lyman Windolph, attorney, feels that by such men and women as his farmer-client he, and his like, are saved hourly, one wonders with what 'celestial light' was not he appareled to the farmer. Would the farmer have 'passed the time of day' in his lawyer's office unless he had felt sure that here he might bring his weariness, or his trifles, for consideration? A. S. M. Hutchinson has spoken about such People of Refuge. The aching thing in life is not to have where to take your weariness. Let who will receive your triumphs; to whom a man can take his heartache, that man walks near the Godhead! No. The farmer did not save the lawyer. Like all blessed redeemers, Lyman Windolph saves his universe and himself - merely by being in it, so great is his charity. -- And one may be sure that there is an unpassing glory about him and the world that he lives in. When his client went out of his office and touched April soil again, there had not passed away a glory from 'meadow, grove, and stream' because there was not the same steady satisfaction in his friend. No 'beauty of human relationship' is at all possible where there is not a great charity in the heart of him, or her, who sits at the desk, be he lawyer, banker, doctor, or whonot. The writer recalls with deep gratitude the swiftness and concern with which a young trust officer pushed her into a private office: he was going to spare her the ignominy of weeping in public. 'It's the set of the sail,' as the old saying goes, that determines the course of the ship. Likewise, the profession has less to do with the character of any relation than the temper of soul in the persons involved. A colleague of mine insists that there's no difference between a dentist and a barber. And yet I have remembered for years various quiet conversations with my dentist yes, actually — who has great art, certainly, bu a greater charity. The late Dr. Root of Oberlin College told m of a colored man who walked into his library and asked for a book on architecture. Instead of showing him the card catalogue, or being indifferent to his request, Dr. Root asked him what phase of architecture he was interested in Cathedrals, or public buildings? Imagine the shock he had when the man stammered that be wanted to build a henhouse! Yet the wonderful Dr. Root did not guffaw; instead he brought him a book on poultry. If, when all things apparently have worked together for evil and one is suffering from the arrows of a particularly outrageous fortune, be has where to take his problem-real or imaginary (it's very real to him) — then things again make sense. Consultation about a plough, a tooth, or an investment may be sacrament, To remember for years, and who shall say how far either person is from Yours very truly, Tolstoy and death. DEAR ATLANTIC, RENA C. HARRELL Robert Keable may have been reading Tolstoy! In chapter twelve of his Confession occur the following words: "Then I looked at myself, at what was going on within me, and I recalled those deaths and revivals which had taken place within me hundreds of times. I remembered that I lived only when I believed in God. As it had been before, so it was even now: I needed only to know about God and I lived: I needed to forget and not believe in him, and I died. "What, then, are these revivals and deaths? Certainly I do not live when I lose my faith in the existence of God; I should have killed myself long ago, if I had not had the dim hope of finding him. "So what else am I looking for?" a voice called out within me. "Here he is. He is that without which one cannot live. To know God and live is one and the same thing. God is life."' Very truly yours, IRVING HARRIS 'laced in your hand so that you can't miss it Henry Seidel Canby -that new book which you are so anxious to read! F you are the average person, you I' fail to read many of the outstanding new books. You miss them because you are either too busy or too neglectful to go out and buy them. "I certainly want to read that book!" you say to yourself, when you read a favorable review or hear a book praised highly. But, more frequently than not, you never get around to it." The Book-of-the-Month Club takes cognizance of his procrastination that forever causes you to miss he best books; when you decide you want a certain book, it is handed to you by the postman, so that you can't werlook getting it; and you have a "guarantee of satisfaction" that it will please you, or you need not keep it. How do you decide whether or not you want a certain book? The plan is simplicity itself. 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If one of the other books reported upon appeals you more strongly, you specify that that one be sent. to Christopher And if none of them appeal to you in Moreover, if you decide to let any book come to you and then find you are disappointed, you may exchange it for any other book you prefer. Over 50,000 of the most notable people in this country-in every line of endeavor-now guard themselves, by means of this service, against missing the new books they want to read. Why don't you try it? The cost of this unique and convenient service is -nothing!There are no fees, no dues, no extra charges of any kind. You pay only for the books you keep, and for them you pay the same price as if you got them from the publisher himself by mail! Is it possible to give book readers a more complete and valuable service? If you are interested, mail the coupon below for complete information as to how this service operates. Your request for information will involve you in no obligation. William Allen 4-A BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB, Inc. service. Name... Address. City. State.. Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters. Youth, 1856-1890; Princeton, 1890-1910, by Ray Stannard Baker. Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co. 1927. 2 vols. 8vo. xxxiv+325, x+357 pp. Illus. $10.00. THE reading of this book recalls a frequent experience of war time. Again and again some of us would read in the morning paper a public utterance of Woodrow Wilson, and exclaim inwardly, 'That is wise and true and perfectly expressed.' Then, later in the day, perhaps at the lunch table, a friend, or a whole company of friends, accustomed to look upon everything from the President through eyes that did not see with ours, would take the very words that had seemed so impressive a few hours before and hold them up to scorn for their exhibition of folly, insincerity, and general worthlessness. There was never a more striking illustration of the possible divergence of opinion upon a clear and concrete point among persons of supposedly equal intelligence and candor. If we were right, our friends were all wrong, and vice versa. If we were content to wait for time to vindicate our attitude of mind, so, forsooth, were they. Now a decade, more or less, has passed, and it is probably still too early for readers of these two volumes to divest themselves of preconceptions. The narrative which Mr. Baker is distilling from literally five tons of material carries Wilson only through his presidency of Princeton. The number of volumes that will be required to complete the biography has not been vouchsafed, but, if the scale of the first two be maintained, it can hardly be less than five or six. The two now issued follow upon many books that may fairly be called preliminary - the Page and House, the Lane and Houston volumes, and a shelf of others approaching the finally central figure of the war period from a variety of angles. Even these two volumes of Mr. Baker's must be counted preliminary to that ampler revelation of Wilson which must await the publication of his own more intimate records of his later years. Yet here is quite enough to set the scene. and to whet the appetite. It must be said at once that Mr. Baker is performing his gigantic task with a masterly hand, displaying in general a just sense of proportion, an abundant knowledge of social and academic backgrounds, and an essential, though not a blinded, sympathy with his subject. The figure that emerges is that of an eager, sensitive, high-minded, ambitious man, blending fun with earnestness, recognizing in himself ar Ith tart of a poet.' 1 THIS is a remarkable book, written by a remarkable man one who is at once a merchant, a scholar, and a collector; and in reading him it is sometimes difficult to remember which man is addressing you. What other business man would take you so freely into his confidence? What other scholar would dare enter the markets of the world to hold his own against all comers? And finally, what other collector, knowing the game as Dr. Rosenbach does, would take so pleasantly |