from a high stand near by, an eager voice rang out-clear, challenging.

"People run down the Catholic faith because they don't understand it! Everything that goes wrong, in England or abroad, is put down to us Catholics. It's desperately unfair. Portugal, now-I've just come from Portugal -let me tell you the truth about that business. . . ."

His tall hat was pushed back, his black eyes were afire; leaning forward, breathing hard, he flung out both arms above the crowd, clenching and unclenching his fingers, as though, by sheer effort, he could chain those listless minds.

"We've been despised!" he shouted, "but we're coming to our own! . . ." No one gainsaid him, no one assented. Near by, under a green and red banner, enlivened by the portrait of a singularly attenuated cat, horrors lay thick.

A girl elbowed her way out of the crowd; a man began to whistle. The speaker's quick eyes were on them both; he passed his tongue over his lips, and wiped his gleaming forehead.

"Ah! you don't like even to hear of such things, but they go on in this city every day every day.

He proceeded to arraign members of the medical profession, even as his neighbor, the Freethinker, arraigned the "cloth," while, close by, a gentleman of exquisite neatness spoke indolently upon Unity. His linen was spotless, his tie well chosen, neatly matched in color by an amethyst pin; one noted, also, leaning against the

Thus, one section of the Marble Arch orators revolutionists, insurgents against the powers that be in Church and State, they aired their views unchecked, while lights from Oxford Street flared reddish to the sky, and wind moaned across the blackness of Hyde Park. There remained another section orthodox - Missioners and Church-Army men, wrestling ceaselessly among these heretics for the souls of London heathen. Valiantly they struggled, and never acknowledged a defeat! pale-faced men, blackuniformed, with eager, wistful eyes. At intervals, during their ministrations, a sheet was fixed between two poles, and on it a hymn flamed out, black letters vivid on white background. Women's voices rose quaveringly:Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were an offering far too small, Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all!

A shade less apathetic, perhaps, the crowd gathering round these black-uniformed apostles-some subtle influence pervaded it, over which the Cockney preacher had no control, nor demure women who sang from sad-colored books; perhaps there was a tonic in the lines of those old hymns.

A broad-shouldered man stood on the

outskirts of this Church-Army throng; his light overcoat, falling open, showed dress clothes. He stared past the hymn sheet, past the leader's twitching face-away to the depths of the Park, until the singing ended, and the leader sprang to the platform, flinging out ardent hands above the waiting crowd. "Ah, my dear brethren, we sing these words so often-do we realize their meaning?"-his eager words tripped over one another-"do we realize that Jesus Christ is waiting, yearning .. waiting for you-and you -and you!"

The man in evening dress moved Away; the eyes of the preacher followed him, curiously intuitive. He raised his voice.

"One more verse, brothers and sisters! One more!" The roller was jerked; another hymn flared out upon the white sheet. Again they sang; the man in evening dress moved back, and, listening, stared across the shadowed Park.

Stand up stand up for Jesus!
Ye soldiers of the Cross.

trembled the thin voices, while, close by, boomed a man high on a red baize platform. "Christianity-it's played

out, obsolete! Show me a Christian today, and you show me a man who either can't, or won't, or dare not think . . ."

Whene'er you meet with evil,

Within you or without,
Charge for the God of Battles,

And put the foe to rout.

The tremulous voices died away; the leader sprang to the platform, and his eyes sought the man behind the crowd.

"If there is any soul here to-night," he said beseechingly, "weary of sin, an' sick of unbelief, let 'im come-let 'im come to Jesus! Jesus won't turn 'im away, however black those sins may be; Jesus won't point the finger of

scorn

He stared beyond the ring of faces, yearning in his eyes-a fisher of men, indeed, but with over-coarse a line, for the man in evening dress turned up his coat collar, threaded his way through the crowd, and disappeared over the grass; from beneath a leafless plane tree a woman's figure rose to join him. They were lost in the shades of the Park.

On the path, not far from the ChurchArmy preacher, one man turned and spoke to another.

"Queer study, Marble Arch," said he, "and this"-waving towards the hymn sheet, "is the queerest part of it all. You know, these religious fellows will last out all the rest-another hundred years, and they'll still be singing the same old hymns, whatever else has gone to the wall. And people will still be listening to them-that's more. Queer, ain't it? Goo'night." He sauntered away, waiting for no answer.

One other orator, a slight, blackbearded man, almost Spanish in swarthiness, had chosen his stand apart from Freethinker and Missioner both; he leaned against railings that shone silvery with raindrops-a couple of shop-boys, who perched alongside and eyed him quizzically, his sole audience.

"Ah, my friends," said he, in a curiously sing-song voice, "it's not the love o' money, and not the love o' love, that brings a man peace at the last. I've been rich an' thought wealth was all I needed-for a year. That went. An' then, I reckoned to reach Heaven wi' love of a woman. That went. An' hell came after. My dear souls, 'tis black darkness for us, now an' always, without the love o' Christ. There's nothing else will lead us home-along." He raised his face to the flare of the gas, and it was lit by strange emotion.

That went, too.

"Ah, don't we all want to be homealong? One an' all of us wants that.

all want to be home-along, whether 'tis north or south. An' if we feel so about an earthly home, my friends.

His voice had grown loud, ringing, and yet was sing-song still. A spectre detached itself from the neighboring crowd, and crept towards the silvered railings, hovering there, drawn as surely by the West-country intonation as by chains of steel. Exile faced the exile; this spectre, lean and evil, stared wistfully through darkness at the man from "down-along." Irresolute, it hovered for awhile, then shuffled away between the trees, while the Cornishman preached on to that scanty, giggling audience as unconcernedly as he might have preached in his own white-washed chapel on a barren moor some three hundred miles away.

Thus and thus-the shepherds. What of these sheep that gather each Sunday night, year in, year out, on the open space near Marble Arch? Force of habit, curiosity, an hour or so to while away-thus or thus they come. Α Frenchman, sauntering near Marble Arch, summed up this-our national debating society, safety valve, call it what you will-with a shrug of his shoulders.

The Nation.

No

"Ah," said he, "they are like jelly. these Londoners of yours-they cannot even laugh well! Invertebrate! one can rouse them-Catholic, Free thinker, Socialist, it is all one. If the good God Himself came to Marble Arch. ..." He raised eloquent shoulders once more.

But is it, after all, so easy to classify the crowd at Marble Arch? Are these restless spirits, coming phantomlike out of the dusk, to be lost in shadow again, made after one pattern only? Are not some moved, perhaps. by touch of the Wanderlust, yearning for a dim ideal? Dreary stragglers on the outskirts of Truth-seeking what they know not, not knowing even that they seek-backwards and forwards they wander, and on their white faces the gas-light flares, intensifying each weak or evil line.

Shepherdless sheep, they wander, listlessly seeking some new thing, listlessly rejecting it when found; yet, perhaps, if some day a high priest worthy of the name should come to Marble Arch, he might touch them to undreamed-of heights.

Meanwhile, the lights from Oxford Street flared reddish to the sky, while Hyde Park lay black beneath the gathering night. Booming of the voices died down; one by one the shepherds moved away, and the sheep as well were scattered.

Esser Smith.

wishes were complied with almost before they were uttered. To-day this is changed. Japan's will is now taken into careful consideration by the Chinese, while Russia is not merely coldshouldered but snubbed. That is the story told by her diplomatists. Treaties are interpreted in the sense least

favorable to Russia, the self-denying ordinance of Portsmouth whereby she renounced all privileges in Manchuria is being constantly appealed to by the wily followers of Confucius, and the great Slav nation feels not only slighted but injured in trade and commerce, and set back in the race for political influence.

For three years the relations of the two Governments have been strained thus painfully. And the period of tension might have lasted indefinitely. So long as the Mikado was a likely antagonist of the Tsar China was warmed by both of them, and had no grounds for complaint. But the Russo-Japanese Treaty wrought an end to that advantageous state of things. Japan is now hand in glove with the Tsardom, and Russia's hands are free. The United States, whose Government came forward somewhat rashly more than once as China's inspirer and backer, only to retreat again, has since discovered that Sunday-school maxims and bluff are poor weapons for attack or defence in that part of the globe. And now China and Russia are face to face, the one with a fierce scowl, and the other with the smile that is childlike and bland. From the banks of the Neva issued the first invitation to the dance of friendship. But China's reply was chilling: "No more of that, Ivan!" The Russian Government grumbled a little and put forth fresh efforts, but they blossomed out in flowery compliments barren of fruit. now Russia is making ready to drive where she failed to draw.

And

that regulate the intercourse of the two peoples, and the conclusion of a new one which shall do away with the friction of late years by uprooting its causes. The relations of Russia and China would then be placed on a basis worthy of two neighbors whose Empires are coterminous for a vast distance, and whose interests are not only not mutually incompatible, but are in many cases identical. Russia's frontiers with China are not always satisfactorily delimited. Nothing could be better from the standpoint of peace than to have some natural feature of the landscape serving as a frontier, such as a river, a mountain, or a desert. In a word, the scheme of Russia's future dealings with China, supremely different from those of any other two countries, ought to be fixed in a diplomatic framework, preservative of the best fruits of their secular friendship, which was interrupted by the Manchurian campaign. Russia, therefore, is anxious to negotiate with China, but with the China of the late Empress, with the China of the Bogdykhan, who is owner of the land and master of the people.

Out

China's standpoint, on the other hand, has undergone a change. wardly, indeed, things and persons seem as they were. The diplomatists of Pekin are still the sophists, the temporizers, the slippery bargain-drivers they always were. They ask blandly wherein they have sinned, and when the Russian Minister at Pekin points out that, contrary to express stipulations, they have penalized the sale of tea by Russian merchants in certain parts of the Empire, the Chinamen appeal to another treaty clause from which, to their thinking, they derive that right. When Russia relies upon her commercial privileges in Manchuria the solemn Celestial pleads her express renunciation of all privileges in that province which is recorded in the

Treaty of Portsmouth. The resulting situation may be described as a deadset.

In the year 1871 Russia occupied the Ili district of China, and ten years later restored it to the Emperor of China. At the same time a treaty was signed by plenipotentiaries of the two Powers at St. Petersburg, which dealt with the Russo-Chinese frontiers, the appointment of Russian Consuls to various parts of the Celestial Empire, the conditions on which trade might be carried on along the Russo-Chinese land borders, the navigation of the frontier rivers, and other matters. This treaty, at first concluded for ten years, was to remain in force unless denounced by one of the two contracting parties at the close of each decennial period. It expires again in August this year. For a time each side discharged its obligations, and all went well. Since the Russian disaster in Manchuria, we are told, the terms of this treaty have been systematically disregarded by the Chinese, to the detriment of Russia, and to diplomatic representations on the subject not the slightest heed is paid.

The Russian Press now holds that the observance of that treaty which is thus methodically violated by the Chinese was indissolubly bound up with the evacuation of the Ili district by Russia in a way which bodes ill for the peace of the Far East. And the Novoye Vremya writes: "Once China ceases to acknowledge its validity, Russia ought to restore the status which obtained before the treaty was signed and occupy Kuldja anew. Judging by the declarations of the semi-official organ of the Government, the Russian Government is at last resolved, in defence of Russian rights, to pass from empty words to acts. Whether this be good or bad, the fact remains that we have no other issue." 1

"Novoye Vremya," 16th February, 1911.

1

Over against these allegations, which the Chinese deny, they set others which they maintain are of a far graver character. They affirm that Russia has herself flagrantly violated the most important diplomatic agreement that was ever yet concluded between the two Empires-the treaty of 1896. They further say that the Government of the United States is in possession of all the facts relating to this aspect of the dispute, and that China is willing and ready to publish the secret documents relating to it, and also to submit the entire question to an international tribunal, as is now the wont of the Powers of Europe and Asia. This seems a case of arbitration if ever there was one: an accusation on one side of a breach of treaty obligations against the other side, which retorts by traversing the statement and alleging a worse breach of treaty obligations on the other. Far more serious differences have of late years been compromised by Great Britain and France, France and Russia, Russia and Japan. And one hopes that China and Russia will settle their dispute in a similar peaceful way.

It may, however, be surmised and Russia doubtless entertains no illusions on this score, that the negotiations will be carried on by the Eastern plenipotentiaries in a spirit different from that to which the Russians have been accustomed since the eighties of last century. Nor would it be fair to attribute this change to the issue of the Manchurian campaign and to the altered opinion which China holds of her powerful neighbor. It has most of its roots in the rapid growth of China's self-consciousness. Her international political development has been as sudden as that of Turkey, whose transformed psyche we all profess to understand.

The position of the Tsar's Government is briefly this: The treaty of