ners of the colonies to be planted, which in turn were to lead to a protectorate from the home country, if not annexation. Missionaries from England, Germany and France have been open to these charges, and thereby their influence has been greatly narrowed and their efforts misinterpreted, while our own missionaries have been entirely unhampered.

I think I state what would be most generally received by the officers and members of our own board when I say we should be most loth to ask the extension of the American protectorate over any non-Christian country on the ground that thus our missionaries. would be more free to carry on their work We believe that it would be most disastrous to our work to have this step taken, for it would be impossible to separate in the minds of the people missionary enterprise from government interference. It would give the appearance of the propagation of Christianity and the establishment of Christian institutions through government aid.

We do not believe in this, and want to avoid any such appearance, both before the people to whom we are attempting to carry our best American Christian civilization, and before the world, which is quick to criticise missionary effort and sometimes eager to misinterpret missionary motives.

ADDRESS TO THE CONVENTION OF THE EPISCOPAL·

IAN DIOCESE.

By Right REV. HENRY C. POTTER, D.D., BISHOP OF NEW YORK.

There could not be a more complete or more perilous inversion of the whole moral, social, political situation! The nation has had much, during the past few months, to blind and to intoxicate it. It has won

an easy victory over an effete and decrepit adversary, in which no splendors of individual heroism, no triumphs of naval skill-and in these we may indulge a just pride-ought to blind our eyes to the fact that we have had a very easy task against a very feeble foe. And now, with unexpected fruits of victory in our hands, what, men are asking, are we going to do with them?

Nay, rather, the solemn question is, What are they going to do with us? Upon what wild course of socalled imperialism are they going to launch a people, many of whom are dizzy already with the dream of colonial gains, and who expect to repeat in distant islands some such history as our conquered enemy wrote long ago in blood and plunder in her colonies here and in South America? We have our Congress to direct this race for empire, and our gaunt and physically wrecked sons and brothers by tens of thousands. at home to show us how they will do it.

At such a time, as never before, the Church of God is called upon, in the pulpit and by every agency at her command, to speak the words of truth and soberness, and to reason of righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come-a judgment for nations as well as individuals—till impetuosity is sobered and chastened; and until a people in peril of being wrecked upon an untried sea can be made to pause and think. The things that this community and this nation alike supremely need are not more territory, more avenues of trade, more places for place-hunters, more pensions for idlers, more subject races to prey upon, but a dawning consciousness of what, in individual and in national life, are a people's indispensable moral foundations-those great spiritual forces on which alone men and nations are built.

THE QUESTION OF THE PHILIPPINES.

BY PROF. GEORGE P. FISHER, YALE COLLEGE, CONGREGATIONALIST.

The discussion respecting the Philippines may be simplified by distinctly considering, in the first place, whether the permanent possession of these islands by the United States is, or is not, in itself, desirable. That is to say, would it be an advantage to this country to incorporate in its political system and govern these remote islands, with their many millions of nonCaucasian inhabitants? Had this question been proposed before the war with Spain began, who doubts that a negative answer would have been rendered by our people by common consent? If this annexation was undesirable then, so far as the well-being of this country is concerned, no reason can be given why it is not just as undesirable now. Evidently it is felt to be an evil by the advocates of "expansion" generally, for they constantly fell back for the defense of their position on the alleged call of humanity, and the alleged cruelty of leaving the Filipinos in the lurch. In other words, the common argument heard of late is that there is nothing that we can do except to embark in this new policy of "colonialism" or "imperialism," or whatever else it may be called. It is difficult to avoid seeing its incongruity with the principles, the true spirit, and the whole history of our national polity. It is plain that the extension of our boundaries, in the past, to include territories adjacent, sparsely inhabited, and destined to be settled by people of our own race—territories judged capable of being developed into states homogeneous with the previously existing states of the Union-furnishes no analogy to the astounding project of establishing an empire peopled by

aliens in blood, at best half-civilized, on the other side of the globe. Who professes to expect that the Philippines will ever be fit to become mates of the states of the republic, and as such to send their Senators and Representatives to the National Legislature? Yet one of the greatest perils connected with the scheme of expansion is, that if it be carried out, and if these. communities of Malays and savages should be raised some inches above their present grade of intelligence and character, the exigencies of party will prove strong enough to secure their reception into the family of states. We have already had instances of the premature admission of states, in obedience to an assumed political necessity, which justify such an apprehension.

Well, if the Philippines are not to be evolved into states, they must be subject to our sovereignty, a foreign sovereignty, with methods of government the opposite of those to which we are accustomed under our republican institutions. It is hardly conceivable that the exercise of those methods, and the resulting familiarity with them, should not react disastrously upon the spirit and methods of free, constitutional administration at home. The subjection of the Filipinos, if they are not to become our political equals, must be in reality, for an indefinite period, their subjection to foreign masters. We ought not to hide from ourselves the danger that commercial greed, or other impulses, perhaps worse, may kindle among us an ambition for further conquests. Political complications and contests with European powers are likely to spring up in the exercise of government by deputies in that distant region, considering the character of the motley tribes that inhabit these islands. But we hear on every hand the question, What shall we do with

them? The first thing to do is unequivocally to acknowledge that the prolonged exercise of a sovereignty of this nature on our part is in the highest degree undesirable-that it is something fraught with evils and dangers. It is very often, if not always, true that "Where there is a will, there is a way." The course that we are pledged to take in reference to Cuba shows that another method of procedure, besides that of the advocates of "expansion" and "colonialism," is possible. What is wanted is that the country should set its face openly and resolutely against that avowed reversal of American policy which is popularly termed "imperialism"-the acquisition and government of dependencies, not states in embryo. There are welcome. signs that the national restlessness in which this new movement has its principal source, is now abating. With its disappearance, we shall probably no longer hear protests against "isolation," by which is meant the habit of the nation in the past to mind its own business, in pursuance of the wise and statesmanlike counsels of the founders of the republic. Their advice was to set free the wings of commerce, but to shun political entanglements. To the observance of this advice our national prosperity has been largely due. It would be a great pity to let even a well meant but mistaken philanthropy seduce us to forsake this path.

NO IMPERIALISM SHOULD BE RECOGNIZED.

by rev. DR. THOMAS J. CONATY,

RECTOR OF CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D. C.

It was never intended in our scheme of government that we should become imperialists for territory, and