I once knew an old lady who was a fervent Baptist. She devoutly believed the Baptist creed to be the only Scriptural one in existence. One day a friend said to her, "Sister J., what is your opinion about foreordination?" The good woman was nonplussed for a moment; then she answered, brightly, "You go and ask Bro. W. [her pastor] about that. I think just like he does about it." In like manner is based the political faith of most men in their party leaders.

But this state of things is rapidly changing, thanks to the great modern renascence. People are becoming less and less subservient to the dominant influence of party and clique, custom and creed. This is a result of their greater freedom and independence of thought, about matters of State as well as of theology and therapeutics. There is more independent voting than ever before. The voter begins to ask, "Who is he?" instead of "To what party does he belong?" before favoring a candidate with his vote.

And, as to principles: The wealth-producers are formulating ideas that were never written into any political platform nor uttered by a stump speaker. And they are daring to talk these ideas out aloud, regardless of charges of infidelity to the party creed.

As this new thought-infiltration spreads and increases in power, the old lines will give way. Old wine-skins will not hold new wine. The common people will eventually have their personal rights vindicated at the polls and in the halls of legislation.

At a municipal election in one of our large cities a year ago we were greatly refreshed to witness an uprising of the people

-a wholesome, quiet expression of the popular will at the polls, without regard to previous partizan alliance. The mayor incumbent was seeking election for a second term. During his first term he had rendered himself particularly obnoxious to the big corporations and trusts, and their henchmen in office, by bravely contending against odds in the city council

for the rights of the citizen at home. So they combined to "down him." Every newspaper in the city, with a single exception, was procured to oppose him. They fought him bitterly, slandered him outrageously, and money was used by the barrel to beat the man who had forced the wealthy combines to pay their just proportion of taxes.

But it all failed. When election day came, the people, who had said little but thought much, went quietly to the polls and elected their man by an overwhelming majority. The heads of the defeated corruptionists have not yet gotten over the daze it caused them. They are yet trying to ascertain "where they are at." And in this city the ratio of New Thought people is greater, I believe, than in any other city in the world.

One of these bright days there will be a popular uprising all over the nation, and the intelligent will of the yeomanry of industry shall be asserted, regardless of old party affiliations. As people grow into a larger conception of the rights of the whole and the birthright privileges of the individual, they become more and more self-assertive and free in the expression of their inborn convictions. The New Thought certainly means this.

As I go out among men every day, I am saying to them, "The land, the surface of the earth, ought to be as free as the air and sunshine, every man, woman and child being secure in the possession of only as much as can be used for a living-it must yet be so;" or, "All public utilities must be owned by the people. It is the only solution to the trust question and the strike troubles;" or, "Coöperation must take the place of competition in all business relations among men." And I do not find one person in ten who disagrees with me on these subjects. I am convinced that if one or all of these propositions were submitted to an open, fair, free vote of the people of the United States to-day-the women being allowed to vote, too (why should they not?), my sentiments as herein expressed would carry by a much greater than two-thirds majority.

Then why not have it so? Why not let the people vote on it and have their will carried out? As yet the "bosses" will not permit it. The people cannot have their way about what they know to be best for them. These subjects cannot now get before the denizens of labor and founders of our homes, whom Jesus called "the salt of the earth," for a decision upon their merits. The land barons and holders of the circulating medium will not permit it. They know too well that the verdict would be against the present system, which is so favorable to their greed.

But it will not always be so. I see the handwriting of public opinion upon the wall of the prison-house of oppression: "Weighed in the balance of Justice and found wanting."

If the old system of things is not best for the multitude, in the end it is not best for the few; although they may fatten and flourish for a time under the régime of oppression, it cannot continue so.

The New Thought movement breathes silently upon the brain and hearts of men, awakening as never before the spirit of liberty and individualism. The sons of God are becoming less and less gregarious and sectarian, and the yoke of feudal authority and ignorant selfishness galls the neck of the nominally free man more and more. He will one day throw it off, in the light of the new intelligence, quietly, peacefully, majestically.

For the new teaching holds the man to be divine, not depraved; powerful, not a weakling dependent upon the grace of an absent deity; free, not a servile cringer under the lash of authority; a sovereign inheritor of the earth, not a sinleproused beggar at the gate of Dives having his sores dressed by dogs. He does not wish to win a place in Abraham's bosom in that way. He will take a part of the good things of this world, if you please.

This ideal of manhood grows and spreads rapidly. We see its outcroppings even among those who oppose the New

Thought. It is in the air, and no one who lives at all can avoid breathing it. It bubbles up in the sermons of the churches, glows in the prayers of the members, flashes forth in the oratory of public lecturers, sweetens the spirit of social relations and awakens the consciousness of divine sonship and warms the heart of true brotherhood in all.

It will erase old sectarian lines in both politics and religion, formed in prejudice and selfishness for the elevation and enrichment of the few, and draw up a new code of principles for the good of all. It is a process of education that will ultimately reform all abuses and lift up the fallen among men, as the old rules of fear, obedience to commandments, and hope of postmortem rewards never did and never could do. It is a code of conduct and character founded upon unfoldment of the within through the inspiration of Truth-not secured by the repression of fear or the mercenary quest for harps and crowns in a city with gold-brick pavement.

It will surely purify the ballot and render its operation intelligent and untrammeled. Until this is done there can be no true reform of this vaunted "bulwark of our liberty." The salvation of both the nation and the race is in education,—the drawing out of the powers of the within,—and not in armies and navies, nor in the pledges of reformatory, fear-enforced resolutions. These are all based in terror and must fail.

The New Thought dispels fear, ennobles manhood and womanhood, exalts trueness to Truth, and reforms the depraved in conduct by unfolding the real powers of the spiritual self.

In this direction, therefore, may we look confidently for political revolution out of corruption and oppression into a form of government really and truly by the people and for the people. Subservience to unreasoning authority dwarfs men's souls and brain; intelligent thinking and self-government render them in reality lords of creation and arbiters of their own destiny.

A. P. BARTON: A BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH.

BY CHARLES BRODIE PATTERSON.

The subject of our sketch this month was born in Platte Co., Mo. He is of Scotch, English, and German descent, and there is also a tinge of Cherokee blood in his veins. When a boy, Mr. Barton spent the greater part of his time on a farm. He was educated in the common schools, and finally in the University of Missouri. He is the recipient of two diplomas from that institution and also of the Master's degree.

For seven years Mr. Barton was principal of a western high school. He is a fine Latin and German scholar, and has a fair knowledge of Greek, Hebrew, and French. From 1882 to 1896 he practised law in Kansas City.

For the last ten years Mr. Barton has devoted most of his time to editorial work. His metaphysical journal, Life, which is issued monthly, first appeared in April, 1894. It has a large circulation.

Mr. Barton has written and published several books. They are as follows: "The Bible," a historical and critical study; "The A B C of Truth," a lesson book; "The Bible and Eternal Punishment;" "Faith's Fruition," and "Why Are We Here?" He is also a lecturer, and teaches classes at home and abroad in the Science of Life.

Mr. Barton is a clear, vigorous writer. He knows what he wants to say and how it should be said. He is frank and fearless. His position regarding materia medica is perhaps best summed up in a quotation from an article in a late number of Life, entitled "The Passing of Materia Medica." It reads as follows:

"How does the doctor cool a fever? By having the patient swallow a poison that renders the heart too weak to beat so fast, and, of course, the