There are four lines that contain a solemn and impressive adjuration:

By all ye will or whisper,

By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples

Shall weigh your God and you."

And how often in the history of our colonizations has this judgment of the unfortunate natives fallen upon our God and us because of the unrighteous things we have conceived, attempted, and done!

It is to be regretted that the poem was not written a little differently. Very slight need the change be to make it a true poem. Suppose the author had not projected the theory of force,- for he must know that force, violence, and conquest have always been attended by rapacity and wrong-doing on the part of many who ally themselves with the conquerors, and who cannot be watched or restrained. Suppose he had exhorted us to a campaign of justice, where "open speech and simple" should be reënforced by gentleness and the golden rule. What a response there would have been! Quite likely the commercial critics, and the journals whose opinions are formed for them by the combinations which will profit by the adoption of the force policy, would not so zealously commend the poem; but the hearts of the common people would have been glad, and the poem would live longer to the renown of its author. Especially ought we to remember that in very few instances has the dominant white man done justice to a native people, and in those few instances the practice of justice has been reciprocated heartily. When we have dealt righteously and practiced our Christian sentiments "the white man's burden" has been a light one and there were no "savage wars of peace." The trouble came always when we departed from the rule of right.

Mr. Kipling was not in his best poetic mood when he wrote "The White Man's Burden." It is regrettable that he did not wait till the mood came; for the versification is good and the language is picturesque and strong. Then, too, he has a rare power for crowding thoughts into small space. Others dilute and expand;

Kipling condenses and masses his ideas. It is therefore with a feeling of relief that we revert to his melodious "Recessional." What reverence and awe pervade the first stanza. Religion is dominant throughout. Modesty and self-depreciation contrast with the thinly-veiled contempt and arrogance of the other poem. How grand, yet how simple, is the utterance of this spiritual truth:

"The tumult and the shouting dies;

The captains and the kings depart:
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart."

Evanescent is all the glory of war and of pageantry, but eternal is that of the simple heart regretful of the wrongs it

has done.

One stanza of the "Recessional" is particularly impressive in these times, when certain nations seem to think it is a great achievement "to plant the flag" in new lands, and when the demagogic cry is raised, "Who will pull down the flag?"

"If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not thee in awe,-
Such boasting as the Gentiles use,

Or lesser breeds without the Law,-
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!"

The "Recessional" stands for the Divine ideal of manhood and of nationality. It would attain the welfare of man by planting him squarely on the principles of Divine omnipotence, justice, righteousness, and mercy. It is worthy of a place in the future's literary record.

ALBERT R. ALEXANDER.

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A

LL the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." How familiar the quotation, yet how narrow the meaning of this beautiful metaphor to the classical scholar and the literary student! But how much it means to the scientist toiling day after day, year after year, patiently endeavoring to add new evidence to the historical theories of the earth's creatures. To

him a geological age is but one scene in the drama of life. The seasons are merely minutes in which the tragedy, death, is taking place; thousands are falling on this great stage at every stroke of the pendulum, yet each plant and animal adds something to the beauty of struggling nature while in the fight for existence. At the present time nations are the chief actors in these great duels;

formerly man was contending against man for supremacy, family against family, tribe against tribe, till at the present time nations are the opponents.

But what of the former acts? have nations, tribes, families, individuals always been the actors? The scientist says "No." They are but one set.of characters in this beautiful drama and soon must give way to a higher actor. There is a more powerful hand ever changing the scenes. Why, then, assume that man is the origin of this plot of nature, a plot which has as its motive the ideal character ? How can we assume that man, governed by "unfinished" moral law, can control this stage without knowing the previous plot? Certainly he could not do it intelligently, for there would be many contradictions. must, then, yield to this greater hand, and, yielding to it, seek to know our own history by inference from facts about us, from facts present on this stage of our own human life.

We

Let us look about us and ask nature what man's part is in this tragedy. Has the scene been constant, or has a curtain been drawn to reveal man? And what of the many other forms of plant and animal life: have they always been visible? Have they always remained stationary in the scene? The geologist says "No." Each form of life had a separate entrance, and the curtain has risen many times; but what is the origin of these many actors? We cannot assume that each spontaneously arose at his own entrance. That the drama could be carried out, each one must have had some knowledge of his part, and he could gain this knowledge only by deriving it from those who have acted before. Who were the first actors? What was the origin of life?

Many experiments have been performed, since Darwin and Huxley developed the theory of evolution, to prove that life in the lowest forms of animals is spontaneously generated. The method employed in these experiments was to seal in airtight flasks certain infusions which to all appearance had not the slightest trace of life. Various kinds of meat were heated to a high temperature in a flask with water, and after all the air was driven out the flask was hermetically sealed and remained so for several months, after which the flasks were broken on a high mountain where the air was rare, and the Imeat was examined for traces of life.

The results of these experiments seemed to be of opposite natures. Those in favor of spontaneous generation stoutly maintained that life was really found, while others, who deny that spontaneous generation exists, maintained with the same degree of stubbornness that no life was generated in the meat. The experiments have taken place under conditions very unlike those which existed millions of years ago, and if a few have, as they think, absolutely proved that matter devoid of all life has spontaneously developed, under the laws. of physical and chemical forces, that which we call life, Huxley has absolutely disproved their theory. It has been found that the experiments were not sufficiently well carried out; there was not enough precaution taken in excluding the minute traces of life. Minute larvæ exist almost everywhere, and it was hardly possible, before the days of the microscope, to tell whether or not life existed in the infusions employed. After careful experimentation Huxley has shown that at the present time spontaneous generation cannot exist.

Before proceeding further let us try to develop two theories which endeavor to explain the phenomenon of life, and if one of these contradictory theories can be proven, we will have a sufficient explanation of what life is. One the vitalistic theory-may be dismissed with a few words, as its nature does not permit of an explanation at all, at least as a logical explanation to the scientist. We will admit on a priori grounds and from the study of chemistry and physiology that the activi ties of all organisms can be explained by chemical and physical laws; but this is not the question at issue. In order to explain life we need to discover what the conditions are which regulate these processes, to decide why it is that a living body can induce within its parts changes impossible in the dead body. The vitalistic theory assumed the existence of a vital force which is a complete entity in itself. They assume that the difference between a living body and a dead body is not simply a matter of physical properties, but of the vital force in the living body which at death changes into another form. They assume that the consciousness of the individual is one manifestation of this hidden force. Another manifestation is the control of one's self by moral and ethical laws. It is true that these forces are

peculiar, and that they act to some extent upon the bodily organism of man; but what of the many organisms which do not have these? Surely the attributes of life have been given them, and we must seek to know their origin, not by reference to man, but to the organisms themselves. What power has the lowest form of life by virtue of which we call it alive? The followers of the vitalistic theory argue that life was a special force given to particles of matter by or at a special creation, and that this special force gave life to the individual. This vital force, they assume, has been handed down from generation to generation. Vitality, therefore, is considered something apart from the physical universe, but as something which acts upon the physical body as the one great controlling force. According to this view spontaneous generation at any time would have been an impossibility, for this vital force is assumed not to have been derived from any force in existence previous to its special creation. We can explain no physical force, much less can we explain a force which has been especially created. Inasmuch as we cannot explain this especially created force, if such it is, we give it the name "vitality" and dismiss the theory.

The second of these theories in the attempt to explain life is the mechanical theory. This assumes that there has been no specially created force to produce life, but that life made its appearance upon the earth as a result of a combination of physical and chemical forces. It is readily seen that this theory is not contradictory to the former entirely, but questions whether the vitalistic theory is necessary. It has been more and more the tendency of science within the past twenty years to deduce all phenomena of life to merely the results of chemical and physical forces. As the theory of evolution has been developed, all sciences have received a great impetus, as a result of which people have become more and more impressed that chemistry and physics are the least developed of the sciences. The mechanical theory is, in brief, an attempt to reduce all properties of matter, whether or not they possess the property of life, to merely chemical and physical properties.

It is easily shown that the properties of compounds increase more and more in complexity with the increase of the complexity of the compounds; that as the

molecule becomes more complex, the more diversified are the properties of the molecule. Starting with the simplest elements, the chemist has succeeded in nearly reaching the point at which it is assumed life would make its appearance, and though they may go still higher in building up the molecules they will never reach the desired point. No one will ever succeed in making a molecular machine, and without this molecular machine — protoplasm-life cannot exist. Furthermore, science has developed so rapidly within two or three years that the biologist is farther away from the subject than he previously thought himself to be. For it has now been found that protoplasm as such is not the simplest basis of life, but that certain parts in the mechanical protoplasm are the essentials. Protoplasm has been studied with the highest power of the microscope, and minute bodies have been found in it which are the real basis of all living activity. We cannot absolutely prove, therefore, that the mechanical theory of life is sufficient for its explanation; and while it is along with the thought of the present age, there is little hope of our getting at the origin of life. How then can we explain it?

We are necessarily brought back to our first discussion. Having reached no conclusion as to what life really is, let us go back to the previous statement concerning spontaneous generation and see if we can get some light which will lead us out of this perplexing question. What life really is at the present day, and what hidden force there is which makes the plant and animal assimilate, grow, and reproduce their kind, we are not able to show. Let us go back to the fundamental question, What is the origin of life? Many theories have been brought forward to explain how life originated upon the earth. Of these I will mention but two. The first assumes that a bit of living matter was brought to the earth by a meteor; this, however, has no significance, and we are just as far away from the question as heretofore. The other assumes that at one time in the period of the earth's history life was spontaneously generated from a bit of non-living matter. As has been said before, this theory has been entirely disproven by Huxley; but this does not prevent us from theorizing upon the question.

It is true that life at the present day is

not spontaneously generated, but that living matter has a power of simple division which gives rise to the new individual. We are not to assume, however, that life has always been in existence. The nebular hypothesis tells us that the earth was once heated to a temperature beyond that which any individual could stand. During the process of cooling, the carbon dioxide, ammonia, and water were taken from the atmosphere and absorbed in part by the earth. Part of them, it is assumed, if we are to explain spontaneous generation, formed into exceedingly complex molecules, and these complex molecules formed crystals of their own kind. One of the many bodies thus formed had a property different from all the others. This property has been developed to an extraordinary extent throughout the millions of years of the earth's history, and its highest development now appears in the mind of man. As it now makes itself known it is a force of extraordinary complexity, se complex, indeed, that though we possess it we know not what it is, and cover up our ignorance by calling it vitality.

We are not to assume that life did make its appearance spontaneously, but that the simplest activity was merely a following out of the laws of chemical affinity. These laws were followed by physical laws, and the physical laws by some extraordinary power which built up the molecule of pro

toplasm. Nature was then on the high road to a new condition of things. At this point it seems almost necessary to assume that a new creative force came into play. Up to this time we must assume that merely chemical and physical forces were employed. Now the Deity shows its power. From this time on, the complex machine, protoplasm, receives an impetus in the form of an especially created force, and at this time life made its appearance. During all the succeeding years there has been a constant tendency upward, and when, at last, man appeared, life came to its highest development. This theory seems to be a compromise between the vitalistic and the mechanical theory as to the origin of life, and though it is a very simple and easy explanation there are many difficulties yet to be answered. The most important of these is the especially created force which gave to the molecular machine its most essential property. However, as we have seen before, we cannot explain any physical force, much less can we explain any especially created force. We trust that soon there may be some means of getting at these physical forces; that at some time the chemist, physicist, and psychologist will go hand in hand and develop some means of connecting man's mind, the highest property of life, with the forces acting every day in the physical and chemical world.

M

ACKINAC ISLAND, though not the largest, is the most interesting and important of the hundreds of islands in the straits of that name. Lying between Lakes Huron and Michigan, and guarding the entrance to Lake Superior, it has an unquestioned strategic value. Owing to this commanding position it has received the titles of "Key of the West" and "Gibraltar of the Lakes," while for its unique beauty it has been termed "Queen of Isles" and "Rock-girt Fairy Land."

This portion of our country has an eventful and entertaining past; each island, bay, and stream has its tradition or mystery, its tale of heroism, or legend of war and romance. Each geographical point bears an Indian name, usually self-defining in its appropriateness, though changed to a

semblance of French, as is the case with Mackinac. The original Indian name for this island was Mishi-min-auk-in-ong,"the place of the great dancing spirits," but it was called by the French Michilimackinac, a name that the little island threw for two centuries over a vast territory.

Mackinac Island is three miles in length by two in breadth, with a circumference of about nine miles; it is higher than the adjacent islands or shores, rising in the centre to an elevation of three hundred and fifty feet. It is girded with limestone battlements that rise abruptly from the water, the same formation cropping out here and there in "erratics;" one, a steep pinnacle on a height in the interior, is known as Sugar Loaf, and towers high

above the forest trees that cover the island.

This mass of calcareous rock was once a portion of the bed of the Great Lakes, whose united waters covered our land, isolated during the glacial period and the floods that followed. This rocky foundation is covered with a rough but generous soil, from which springs a great variety of timber. From a distance the appearance of the island is striking; the white cliffs are in pleasing contrast with the rich foliage that partially conceals them, their bases bathed by the deep blue waters of Lake Huron, while a fortress of historic fame crowns a mid-height in position long ago likened to Gibraltar.

To the French belongs the credit of acquiring the first knowledge of the upper lake region; it was in 1634 that Jean Nicolet, an interpreter under orders from Champlain, journeyed to the northwest "to learn from the men of the sea about their country and the Great Water." was doubtless the first white man to set foot upon the soil which for a century was known as the Northwest Territory, now six important midland States.

He

During the seventeenth century the missionary spirit was exceedingly active in the Roman Catholic Church; in the northwest, as in the earlier advance into Canada, the priest came with the explorer, the trader, and the soldier, building a shrine in every settlement, using his influence to secure the profits of the fur trade for the motherland while bringing the savages into the church fold.

In 1642 the Jesuit fathers Jogues and Raymbault were laboring among the Indians at Sault Ste. Marie, and within the next twenty years that Order had lighted the torch of Catholicism at the council fires of twoscore tribes and controlled large and prosperous missions in the region of Michilimackinac. These pioneers of Christianity made their way by tortuous rivers, tedious portages, and savage forests to this vast wilderness, there to lay down their lives on the altar of their faith. Others, undeterred by the sufferings and deaths of the first martyrs, took the vacant places, raising the symbol of their Christian hope at intervals from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, from Louisiana to the dark river of the Saguenay.