and doing ecclesiastical chores, it is not to be expected that they will worship God in spirit and in truth; that is, that they will set themselves with singleness of purpose to the task of rectifying their lives and orienting their purposes in all the relations in which they are or should be involved. Accordingly we have millions of good Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Mormons, and what not, but of good Christians only too few, while outside the pale of church and creed a disproportionately growing multitude scoff or grieve, and within an increasing number of the pseudo-pious cloak their predatory careers. There is no vestige of hope for unity in sectarianism, and so no hope in it for society. It does good by retail and harm by wholesale. Until some powerful unifying principle is at work in our society there can be no prevalence of really democratic institutions. It is not to be supposed that the inadequacy of the prevailing religious bodies to the great tasks of civilization is hidden from all religious leaders. In his book, "Applied Christianity," Rev. Washington Gladden says: “Even in these days it is a mistake to identify Christianity with the various ecclesiastical machines; the church often happens to be the very thing that needs Christianizing"; and the Rev. Charles Ferguson, in his Religion of Democracy," declares with greater emphasis: The Church as it stands to-day is not merely at cumberer of the ground; it is an obstacle to faith and a preventer of goodness." If it is true that among the religious sects the "régime of self-aggrandizement leads to enmity, strife, wounds, and disappointment, while the fruits of mutualism are peace, health, and life," then the enormous expenditure of money, work, and devotion bestowed upon their maintenance is contributed not toward social salvation, as is fondly believed, but rather toward social disintegration. That there is some softening of the asperities of sectarian strife, more marked in city than in country, and a reasonable expectation that this tendency will

Prof. Ross: "Social Control," p. 297.

slowly ameliorate the religious situation, constitutes a ground for hope.

In this sketch of some characteristic features of our political, industrial, and social organization which are held to be incompatible with real democracy, nothing even remotely approximating completeness has been attempted, scarcely more than a suggestive but broken outline. Many matters of grave importance, rich in illustrations of the theme, such for instance as the race problem, imperialism, extravagant and ostentatious living, tax dodging, the public-opinion trust, the venal press, have been left untouched.

It is a task of great magnitude and difficulty to attain a comprehensive and accurate view of that vast complexity which constitutes American society, of that enormous seething cauldron in which a nation is still brewing from a congeries of more or less repellant elements of population, and into which is constantly being injected raw and perverse material.

If one could get a complete view of the social situation, there would remain the still more perplexing task of detecting and interpreting obscure social tendencies. Sociological vaticination is notably difficult and is likely to become mere "wild and whirling words." The way is yet open for some competent student of social phenomena to write an illuminating descriptive sociology of the United States, having first bound himself by an awful vow not to lose himself and his reader in the vagarious labyrinth of a fantastic terminology.

Throughout this paper, it will be observed, the word democracy has had imported into it a meaning in excess of that usually attributed to it, which is "a form of government in which the power resides ultimately in the whole people." It has indeed been regarded rather as a spirit than a form. be considered a fairly adequate definition of what has been intended, to say that democracy is the concurrence of all (above the level of moral or intellectual imbecility) to the ends of justice

It may

and social welfare. In a society to which such a definition would apply each must seek not merely his own but his neighbor's welfare. Each will believe, with Marcus Aurelius, and live his belief, that "That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee." There will be that true balance of the altruistic and the self-regarding impulses, what has been described as mutualism. Such a society will be no mere protoplasmic mush of benevolence, but an aggregation of men holding first themselves and then their fellows to a strict discharge of all their duties. It will be no congenial medium for parasites or plunderers. It will be every man's pleasure as it will be his duty to give to society and its members a full equivalent for what they give him, in so far as such reciprocity is possible to the individual. The something-for-nothing craving which is the fruitful parent of many present day ills must subside, giving place to that even exchange of benefits which proverbially is no robbery. Such a society will have the abundant health necessary to slough off its dead and decaying members, and give free play to that evolutionary development toward a far-away and ever receding perfection whose absolute attainment is as undesirable. as it is impossible.

Is a social state guided by and expressing the principles indicated a possibility? Can the work of the world get done on any other than a purely selfish basis, by a fierce and unscrupulous competition of individuals or groups varied as we see it to-day by more or less complete monopolies, having not the public welfare but their own selfish advantage at heart? Is this a bad world which will remain bad; or the best of possible worlds; or a world mingled of evil and good, in which the good has a slowly-progressive leavening power, however lumpish the bad may be? Our society appears to fall into three somewhat vaguely defined classes. At the top, many men of good will in whom a sense of duty is quite as keen as a sense of rights; next, a vast mass of the morally indifferent who are in the main held

by the various and complicated restraints of social control within the bounds of decent conduct, but who have no rooted objection to being bad and make more or less frequent excursions into immorality; and last, a smaller mass of the evil-disposed and predatory, unrestrained except in small measure even by the more violent forms of control, and constituting a standing menace to social permanence and a chief obstacle to progress. This classification traverses others made on the basis of birth, wealth, or intelligence. Possibly the most dangerous of the predacious. class are the idle degenerates of the demoralized rich who spend their resources and ingenuity in debauchery. The view that one takes of the future must depend on one's convictions as to the relation and mutual influence of these classes and of the part that State Socialism is likely to play in tempering the future of democracy. If the future belongs to the third class then society is bound for the pit! If the second class is to predominate in influence as it does in numbers, it is difficult to foresee progress save the slowest and most precarious, and one may as rationally look for retrogression in institutions permeated by moral mediocrity. If, however, the first class can join unto itself enough of the second to get its convictions expressed in our political, industrial, and social organization, then our journey, however slow and laborious, is toward an earthly paradise.

My own conviction justifies a hope of at least very slow and possibly fitful improvement of society, in all its relations, through a broadening and purifying of the democratic spirit and a consequent gradual conversion of our people from class animosities, partizanship, and sectarianism to the practice of Christian ethics.

No evolutionist hopes for perfection or the cessation of struggle for survival, but he may hope that the struggle in human society shall cease to be one of beasts and become one of generous rivals for noble ends. To use the words of Mr. Kidd in his "Western Civilization": "It is by no broad pathway through Elysian fields of ordered ease that the peoples to whom the

future of the world belongs are advancing to the goal which is before them. It is through conditions more strenuous than have ever prevailed in the world before.”

One may hope for betterment in the long run-a run so long that we and our contemporaries shall be permanently out of breath before the goal is in sight. Fortunately it is a relay race and when we drop out exhausted vigorous runners will stand alert to take up the contest.

William Fuller, '79

FOOTPRINTS ON CAPE COD

Whether the old Norseman, Thor-Finn, visited Cape Cod in 1007, thus anticipating Thor-eau, one of the same family, by seven hundred and forty-two years, is conjecture. But to Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, in 1602, is due the honor of really discovering the Cape, and to him we are indebted for the homely but now honored title of Cape Cod. A rhymester, who has left his footprints but not his name on the sands of time, has considered the christening of Cape Cod a theme exalted enough for verse. The old captain, in this classic, fishing-line in hand, promises his men that he will name the sandy promontory from the first fish he takes. The fish, too, hear his words, but Neptune, driving away sculpin and squid and other meaner fish that would gladly sacrifice life for undying fame, places a mammoth cod on the mariner's hook.

Quick Gosnold hauled.

"Cape-Cape-Cape-Cod!"

Cape Cod," the crew cried louder;

"Here steward! take the fish along,

And give the boys a chowder.”

Then eighteen years passed before other men came.

On

November 11, 1620, the Mayflower, freighted with destiny,