The

two European powers have agreed to refer their differences to this new court, and it sets a precedent which is a matter of great importance. Hague Tribunal looms larger and larger. It is not at all pleasant to be compelled to see Great Britain turning to France for the first arbitration treaty of the kind, after our own Senate had rejected a general arbitration treaty with Great Britain. Encouraged by what France has done, we hope to see our Department of State once more present a similar treaty, which no one-third of our Senate will dare to reject."

RUSSIA IN MANCHURIA.

Our map shows the tremendous hold that Russia has gained upon Manchuria and the way it threatens the interests of Japan. The Japanese regard Corea, a large and thinly peopled

country, as the necessary sphere for the overflow of their already densely peopled and mountainous homeland. Russia is equally anxious to secure it because it severs her two Pacinc ports, Vladivostok and Port Arthur, and prevents any concerted action between her separated fleets. Russia, despite her solemn promises to evacuate Manchuria, holds on with keenest tenacity, is hurrying troops, munitions of war, and hospital stores to the Far East. If Japan can only succeed in waking the sleeping giant, China, to some effort for self-preservation, she may yet circumvent the plots of the Slavic despotism.

The Russian liberal review, "Osvobozhdenie," says that Russia has made, and is making, "enormous and senseless expenditures of men and money in order to create an accursed Yellow Russia," which has no real value for the Russian people. The

Russian cost of the Chinese war was, in round numbers, 105,000,000 rubles (about $210,000,000). Together with the strengthening of the navy and the construction of the Eastern-Chinese Railway, the Government has spent in the Far East more than three times that amount. The significance to the Russian people of the Government's expenditure of 600,000,000 or 700,000,000 rubles in Manchuria will become apparent when we state that for half that sum it would be possible to give a good primary education to the whole illiterate population of the empire. Consider it, people of Russia! not this a crime against which every patriotic citizen should protest?

Is

The American Review of Reviews urged the idea that the United States should encourage the secession of Panama from Colombia. The Philadelphia Ledger, however, declares : "It would be hard to find in our history a more perfidious proposition made from a reputable source. Its adoption would mark the apostasy of the American people, our abandonment among the place of honourable nations. The suggestion of the thing is monstrous." Yet this very thing is what seems to have come to pass. It is the story of Naboth's vineyard over again.

Mr. Chamberlain is making remarkable progress in his protectionist cam

paign. The people dearly love a good fighter, and that "pushful Joe" has ever been. Only a general election can tell how widespread and deep may be the revolt against the fiscal policy of fifty years. The fight waxes warm. The British workingman, in our judgment, is more handicapped by his enormous expenditure in drink and in sport, in betting and in the music-halls, than he is by the alleged superior intellihis gence of German compatriots. Were he as thrifty as the German he could distance him in the race.

The best houses find it to their interest to employ our advertising pages to reach a very desirable class of persons. This is especially true of the book trade. Few family magazines reach so many preachers and teachers and households of culture as does this. The book trade in Canada has become a very important industry. Printing and publishing in Toronto absorb more capital than any other branch of trade. Our own Publishing House has grown enormously, so have others. The George N. Morang Company issue a splendid catalogue of highclass books, the most notable book of the year, or of many years, being Morley's "Life of Gladstone," of which they are the Canadian publishers. The Copp, Clark Company, the Gage Company, and others, also publish a large number of high-class works. The Fleming Revell Company devotes its attention specially to books of religious and missionary and devotional character, of which they have a splendid catalogue, some of which are noticed elsewhere.

THE METHODIST WOMAN'S MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

It always warms our hearts to receive the annual visit of our Woman's Missionary Society. Special anniversary services were held in Sherbourne Street Methodist Church this year, and the church was thronged with delegates and friends.

In

The reports show that the Society at present has seventy-eight missionaries and associates in the field, forty of these being in active work. Japan it has sixteen missionaries on duty; three schools, attended by 391 pupils, 135 of whom are baptized; two orphanages, containing twentyfour children, and three day-schools for the poor, with thirty-eight pupils. A strong appeal for more workers was made. May the call not fall upon deaf ears! Much interest was added to the meetings by the presence of Miss Hattie Jost, Miss Ida Sifton, and Miss Lizzie Hart, missionaries on furlough from Japan. All spoke of the increasing interest of the Japanese in Christian teaching, and the great need of more workers. Three candidates for mission work were received, and officially recognized by the Society. They are Miss Dumfries, of Winnipeg; Miss Humber, and Miss De Wolf, now at the Deaconess Training Home. The first named will be assigned to their respective stations in the spring. Miss De Wolf will go to Japan, where she will be employed in kindergarten work.

The missionaries to the Galicians are to be appointed later in the season.

A cheering feature of the convention was the report of the Publication Committees and the Literary Department, showing that the spread of missionary literature is decidedly on the increase. The Outlook has received many new subscribers, and its receipts exceed those of last year by $333. The Palm Branch, the mission paper for the Maritime Provinces, also shows a surplus, and a goodly addition to its list of subscribers.

AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS.

This great Missionary Society has now twenty missions scattered throughout many countries. The

diverse nature of the work is shown by its twenty-eight hospitals and forty-two dispensaries, treating a quarter of a million patients last year; by its thirteen colleges, with five thousand students; and its industrial schools. The various mission presses produce about 100,000 pages daily. The system of self-support is encouraged, as far as possible, among the churches. Last year the churches in the various fields contributed $170,000 to the support of the work, and had six thousand members added to them. The report for the past year shows no debt, but the growth of the work has been restricted by lack of means to enter open doors.

NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS.

"

The excavations at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, says The Independent, have produced another fragment of a Greek papyrus containing some new "logia which seem to be as important as those discovered in 1897 at the same place. The new papyrus is very imperfectly preserved, but contains six sayings, each of them introduced, as in the document earlier found, by the words "Jesus saith," and the whole is introduced as 66 the words which Jesus, the living Lord, spake " to two of his disciples. Two of the sayings are to be found in the Gospel as we have it. These are : "The Kingdom of God is within you," and "Many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first." Part of one of the others, "He that wanders shall reign and he that reigns shall rest," is quoted by Clement of Alexandria as from the Gospel according to the Hebrews.

A practical example of religious fraternity lies before us. It is The Outlook, the official organ of the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches of New Zealand. It contains many articles of interest to both of these denominations. We remember the time when a state of very active polemics existed between these Churches. That time happily has gone. The great essential verities on which we are all agreed are those which are emphasized in this paper, which will cultivate earnestly the things which make for peace, good-will, and brotherhood.

THE SALE OF COLLEGE DEGREES.

An amusing case in the English Courts has been the charge of libel against The Christian World by the Rev. Charles Garnett. Mr. Garnett is a London Congregational minister

who has been flourishing the degrees of B.A., M.A., B.D., D.D., which he received from the University of Harriman, Tenn., pro merito, not pro honoris, to quote the Latin of that institution. The officers of the Congregational Union declined to insert his name in the Year Book with these letters affixed. The Christian World described these degrees as contemptible and worthless." Mr. Garnett forthwith entered suit for libel against that paper.

In the trial of the case it was brought out that Dr. Garnett had paid $80 in all for his four degrees. He admitted that he had never visited Harriman University, but had simply passed an oral examination conducted by a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Harriman University in no way corresponded with the descriptions given in its circulars. Professor Henry Davies, of Yale, had visited Harriman, and testified that he could find only five of the forty professors named in the Faculty; one, the professor of astronomy, is a practising dentist; another a manufacturer of homoeopathic remedies; a third, the director of the School of Domestic Science, is a Mrs. Dr. Crow, caretaker of one of the buildings, in which there are no students, but which is occupied by the family of an agent of the Standard Oil Company. Mr. Garnett's suit was practically laughed out of court.

Harriman University, it appears, is authorized by the laws of Tennessee to confer degrees, for which its usual charge is $10. Mr. Garnett was authorized to examine candidates in England. It is to be greatly regretted that degrees that were meant to be expressive of honour should thus be made a subject of laughter and derision. It is still more to be regretted that ministers of the Gospel should thus seek unmerited honours.

The next General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church is to be honoured with the presence of a number of women delegates. Elections have already taken place in several of the Conferences, and from most of them a lady delegate is being sent.

Compared with the total membership, the percentage of ladies will, however, be small.

EMINENT DEAD.

Mr. Lecky was the first English historian to give an adequate recognition and treatment of the phenomena of Methodism as a factor in the national life. A generous proportion of his history is devoted to a sympathetic study of the great revival of the eighteenth century, all the more noteworthy in that Mr. Lecky was himself rationalistic in his views, as is shown by his "History of Rationalism in Europe" and his "History of European Morals." As a man he was almost ascetic in character, a kind-hearted Irish landlord, and a hard-working member of the British House of Commons. In our Bicentenary number of this magazine we quoted largely from Mr. Lecky's treatment of Methodism.

Dr. Mommsen was a typical German scholar, a man of profound classical erudition, and like the late Dr. McCaul, of Toronto University, one of the ablest epigraphists in the world. He had reached the venerable age of eighty-six. He was the son of a Lutheran pastor, and his life was divided between the rather inconsistent occupations of politics and literature. He took an active part in the revolution of 1848, and lost his German professorship, but was soon recalled to Breslau, and in 1858 to Berlin. In 1882 he was tried on the charge of traducing Prince Bismarck, but was vindicated by the Imperial High Court of Appeals. He took a strong stand against the anti-Semitic movement which disgraced the character of many of his countrymen. He was exceedingly bitter against Britain during the Boer war, but shortly before his death expressed great admiration for that country and desire for German alliance. His greatest work was his "History of Rome," the rival in learning and comprehension of Gibbon's immortal" Decline and Fall." It has been translated into many languages. He is regarded by the Ger mans as their greatest historical writer. The list of his works occupies more than sixty pages. Unlike most literary men, he was the father of a very large family of sixteen children. He was exceedingly venerable