of social problems. He is very popular as a lecturer and has made many tours in the South and West. Mr. Crosby was married in 1881 and has a son and a daughter.

The time is not yet ripe for a thorough public appreciation of Mr. Crosby's splendid work. The path of the reformer is not strewn with roses, for men criticize and find fault at one stage with any innovation that would make for the betterment of humanity. Nevertheless, sooner or later, we come at last. to see and appreciate the reformer at his true worth.

Mr. Crosby is a worthy son of a worthy father, and the courage and enthusiasm of the one seem to have been transmitted to the other. If the world had more men like him it would be correspondingly better off.

The writer, with every well-wisher for the good of mankind, will hope for every success for Mr. Crosby along the lines he has laid down for his life work.

Mr. Crosby's earliest work is entitled: "Plain Talk in Psalm and Parable." In it he expresses many vital truths. In a straightforward, manly way he goes to the heart of things. The following quotation will give you a little idea of the numerous good things to be found in the book:

"This is a mad world.

The great church is crowded.

The ancient torn battle-flags are hung high on the walls, where the dusty red and yellow rays from the stained windows strike them.

The monuments of generals who died fighting look down at the multitude, among whom we see here and there uniformed soldiers from the garrison.

And the priest drones: 'But I say unto you, Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you; and whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.'

Yet no one smiles-but the devil.

"This is a mad world.

In the congregation are great land-owners and millionaires, states-
men and magistrates.

They sit content, and the rest admire them and would be as they are.
And now the organ peals forth, and the choir sings gloriously: 'He hath

put down, He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and the
rich, the rich, He hath sent empty away.'

And once more the priest reads: 'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God;' and again, 'Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them, but it shall not be so among you.'

Yet no one smiles-but the devil."

Count Tolstoy says: "I like the book very much. Some of the pieces-the choice is difficult because all are very goodI will have translated into Russian and published."

Edwin Markham says: "Plain Talk in Psalm and Parable' is one of the significant books of the time."

We could quote from what many others have said concerning the book, all commending it in the highest terms.

In a later work entitled "Captain Jinks, Hero," which is a satire on the military spirit of the time, Mr. Crosby has achieved a pronounced success.

Walter Crane has this to say concerning the book: "It ('Captain Jinks, Hero') is a very telling satire upon military life and military ideals, and it should be most valuable at the present time as a counterblast to the imperialist and military fever, which, fostered by the expansion of capital in seeking new fields for employment, has seized upon both the English and American people like a disease. Mr. Crosby uses that most powerful weapon, ridicule, and he throws the cold searchlight of sense and common humanity upon the false and inflated aspects of so-called military glory. One feels, too, there is a kind of natural history in the development of his hero and the incidents of his career, while the author, thinly veiling actual events and personages, gets in many a homethrust, which shall bring him the sympathy and applause of all lovers of peace, justice, and human progress, on both sides of the Atlantic."

We quote rather from the opinions of others than from the book itself as our limited space forbids acceptable quotations, but one more quotation from Edgar Fawcett is worthy of attention in this sketch.

"Mr. Crosby's work will do a very great deal of good. There are times when ridicule alone can deal the coup de grace to a dying wrong. And war is a dying wrong, whatever shortsighted people may say to the contrary. Slavery, a friend of equal horror, took many a decade to die in. Mr. Crosby, with all his fine antagonism, may not be in at the finish, but he is one of the few spacious-minded thinkers who deserve to be."

Mr. Crosby's latest work is entitled "Swords and Plowshares." In this book without doubt he makes his most vigorous protests against war and the spirit of conquest. I have no recollection of any book that has been written in recent times, or, for that matter, at any time, wherein all the glamour and chivalry of war is so mercilessly stripped off and you see things as they are in reality. In this book Mr. Crosby unmasks the deceit and hypocrisy of professing Christians who violate everything that Christ himself held sacred. Jesus either had a gospel of peace and good will toward all men or he had not. He was too sincere to have a gospel to suit peace in times of peace and to suit war in times of war as some of his latter day disciples have done. Note in the following verses Mr. Crosby's position in relationship to Christianity and war.

Talk, if you will, of hero deed,

Of clash of arms and battle wonders;

But prate not of your Christian creed

Preached by the cannon's murderous thunders.

Be what you will, entire and free,

Christian or warrior-each can please us;

But not the rank hypocrisy

Of warlike followers of Jesus.

Mr. Crosby is particularly happy in the following verses entitled: "Love's Patriot."

I saw a lad, a beautiful lad,

With a far off look in his eye,
Who smiled not on the battle-flag

When the cavalry troop marched by.

Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot

Of heart or hope; but still bear up, and steer
Right onward.-Milton.

Why troublest thou thy soul with thoughts of what befell
Ere thou wert born? Or why mistrust what shall befall again,
When life is at an end? It may be that in other worlds-
Worlds long since vanished-thou didst weep, as now,
Pondering the mysteries that lay beyond thy knowledge.
Who can say? And yet, vague recollections do haunt my memory,
Fainter than dreams; and the touch of unseen lips,
Soothes me with a sense of bliss unknown to mortal life.
In ages long gone by, oh soul, did griefs o'erwhelm thee?
A future life awaits. Rest thou in hope.

J. H. ROCKWELL.

My ambition to live in the present so that in the future I may look back upon and feel proud of the past.-W. S. Maverick.

KARMA, THE MYSTERY OF JUSTICE.

BY AXEL EMIL GIBSON.

"The Buddhist theory of Karma or "action" which controls the destiny of all sentient beings, not by judicial reward and punishment, but by the inflexible result of cause into effect, wherein the present is ever determined by the past in an unbroken chain of causation, is, indeed, one of the world's most remarkable developments of ethical speculation."*E. B. Taylor in his Prim. Culture, II., I.

If Emerson's statement be true that "the soul contains in itself the event that shall presently befall it-the event being the mere actualization of its thoughts," it follows that every act, word or thought of the individual is a new link in the chain of ethical and physical causation which binds him to the objects of his interest. Freedom in a larger sense would, therefore, be possible only when the Ego or soul ceases to act, and from being an actor becomes an instrument or channel for impersonal and universal force-currents.

"Man is great because of the powers that stand behind him." Porous to the Light, his thoughts and words become light-bearers; attuning his personal life to the grand universal life, his actions become levers for the uplifting of humanity.

Life in its impersonal, universal aspect constitutes an ocean of potential energy, moving in silent waves from shore to shore of ever-present being. To strike a poise in this tidal sweep of life and allow it to carry us through the vicissitudes of personal existence means harmony and uninterrupted, frictionless progress. But if a contrary attitude is assumed, and the individual makes attempts to force his way through existence in opposition to the laws of universal life, he will find himself placed under the grindstone of a relentless destiny, and reduced by the unceasing action of opposing tides to a mental *Cited by the "Century Dictionary" under the head "Karma."