One more consideration on this point. The proposed fortifications of nine of our principal ports can not be claimed as an insurance against foreign enemies. We cannot foresee the place of invasion. No enemy would need to sail up to our hundred ton guns and torpedoes when there are thousands of miles of seacoast and frontier to which the scene of war could be transferred. In case of war an enemy would seek our unguarded points, and we should be obliged to meet them, with new resources, provided for and adapted to the occasion. Our costly seaboard defences would be only so much buried power which an enemy would simply pass by on the other side.

And now we come to the question, "What then shall be our National defenses?" To answer this let us first ask what are our greatest National dangers against which we need defence. Foreign invasion? No. Conquest and annexation, or territorial aggrandizement, chief cause of wars, is rendered altogether improbable in our case. The Nations of Europe, separated from one another by no natural barrier, and holding as many of them do, disputed territory, over which wars have. been fought and jealousies still survive, are no example for

us.

Our geographical situation is a better protection for us than all the standing armies of Europe would be. We talk about" Seacoast Defenses," but our seacoast is itself a defense scarcely to be improved by frowning guns pointed towards our neighbors away on the other side. We are reasonably safe from any sudden intrusion; and in these days of rapid inter communication and close diplomatic relations it is scarcely supposable that any sudden danger from abroad can arise and seriously threaten us without due notice. They who assume that it may, talk as though men were all savages, and National life a kind of guerilla warfare engaged in without cause and followed without conscience. Not so. War may be a remote possibility but wise men do not give their chief attention to remote possibilities. The indifference and procrastination of Congress on this subject, so much com

plained of by these warrior writers, is to be commended rather than censured. For nearly seventy-five years we have had no foreign war, no use for elaborate seacoast defenses, and there is no more reason why we should hasten to build them now than at any time during that period.

The truth is we have other dangers greater than foreign invasion, and other defenses are more needed than these Military establishments. Our greatest danger is from the ignorant, disloyal and vicious masses within our own borders. We are far more likely to suffer from internal discord than from outward assault. And logically whatever will lessen ignorance, avert disloyalty and diminish vice is our best defence.

Our civil war was a costly affair; but since the war the one vice of intemperance has cost the people more than six times the whole National debt. The Civil war it is said sacrificed half a million lives, but since the war closed, intemperance has destroyed at least twice that number. Now we are not writing a temperance lecture. But from the standpoint of political economy we insist that any wise statesman will see in these evils a greater danger to public welfare and National prosperity than from foreign hostility, and a danger demanding more immediate attention.

We do not stop to point out all the dangers of internal discussion which threaten us, growing out of the strife between labor and capital, out of grasping monopoly, out of close legislation, out of corrupt politics, out of race prejudices, culminating in riot and outrage. Our danger here is a hundred fold greater than from foreign foes. Our greatest enemies are within, not without. If we must have a military force, let it be sent to Idaho, and Oregon, and California to protect the Chinamen from outrage and injustice, and maintain obedience to our laws within our borders. The hoodlums who commit these outrages are doing more to endanger our foreign relations than all that the Chinese Empire has ever done. Mr. Wells says, "We invite attack by our weakness." is not true of us if indeed it ever was true of any people. What Quaker ever "invited attack" by his unarmed non

That

combative policy? People who mind their own business and behave rightly toward others do not get into trouble. It is the "noted bruiser" who has frequent quarrels. Mr. Wells knows that it is the hostile attitude that invites attack, and that carrying deadly weapons increases fatal encounters.

The same is true of nations. Great Military establishments. excite distrust, suspicion and fear instead of good will and fellowship. If, as is said, Europe be over a slumbering volcano, that volcano is its Military spirit and attitude, its armed peace. Sweep away all the standing armies and war navies of Europe to-day and a cloud of oppressive fear would pass from the minds of the people, and the world would breathe easier at once.

The masses of the people in Europe engaged in peaceful arts and industries, do not want to fight. It is the standing armies trained and equipped for war that are a constant menace to the peace of Europe, and impose the heaviest burdens of taxation upon the people. And to increase our Military establishments, to multiply means of destruction, and train men for war is to cultivate a fighting disposition, and with all the certainty of Fate to make easier the chances of a conflict with some foreign power.

There is a better way to preserve peace in our borders than by preparing for war. Let our statesman use all their influence to remove the causes of war, and they will do the Nation a vastly better service than by voting large appropriations for harbor defenses. Instead of lines of warships let the money be used to establish and aid lines of commerce. Instead of "obstructing" our harbors with torpedoes, lay more ocean cables, and put easy communication and cheap transportation within reach of the masses. While we do not say it is advisable, yet we believe that one free steamer run at Government expense by which the poor people who have come from other lands could visit again the home of their birth, would do more to preserve friendly relations abroad than all our iron-clads.

Instead of" barriers" let us build more life saving stations and seek to lessen the perils of travel by land and water.

The whole nation would appreciate this and rejoice in it. Instead of forts let us build in our important seaport cities Immigrant Homes where strangers coming to our shores may be sheltered, protected from imposition, instructed in our language, customs, laws and Institutions and aided in establishing themselves honorably. Instead of great guns frowning defiance let us send messengers of peace to all nations, carrying the arts and sciences of our civilization to less favored lands. And above all let our statesmen apply all their energies to maintaining law and order and see that justice is done to all men of every color, creed or condition, that human rights are respected and iniquities suppressed. Our greatest danger is in doing wrong, and National righteousness our best defence.

The money which it is proposed to expend in Military defenses would be much more profitably employed in the moral, intellectual and industrial education of our people. Even in case of future war such a training would be the best. A hundred thousand educated men from private life. would be a stronger force than a hundred thousand ignorant military. In this age, when mind not force rules the world the genius of an Edison would be worth more than an army in determining the fortunes of war. And as it is impossible to foresee from what direction any danger may arise, or what shape it may assume, we repeat it is unwise to place our reliance in costly appliances of war, which in case of future conflict may have become obsolete, and in case of prolonged peace will certainly be useless. On the other hand let us use the money to spread intelligence morality and righteousness among the people, and faithfully remove the causes of war which may appear within our own border, and assume an attitude of peace and good will toward all the world, then shall we be the best protected nation on the face of the earth. Rev. L. H. Squires.

Dr. Curry and the Second Coming of Christ.

The Methodist Review for September, informed its readers that the Rev. Dr. Daniel Curry, its able and scholarly editor, died at his home in New York, after a brief but severe illness, on Wednesday 17th. August, in the 78th year of his age. Dr. Curry, it will be remembered, succeeded Rev. Dr. Whedon, as editor of the Review, on the death of the latter, in June, 1885. He came to a difficult task, as Dr. Whedon was an editor of large experience and great excellence, scholarly and impartial in his discussion of all themes on which he wrote, and kind and Christian in his treatment of all from whom he differed in opinion. But Dr. Curry evidently did his editorial work to the satisfaction of the Church whose highest organ he conducted, and was just and generous in his treatment of contemporaries. In the QUARTERLY for April, 1887, we referred to and quoted liberally from an Article by Dr. Curry, on "The Second Coming" of Christ; and criticised as unsound and contradictory of utterances made in the same connection, his assertion that the question of the disciples in Matt. xxiv. 3. concerning the "end of the world," referred to the consummation of "the gospel dispensation." On the 6th. of that month he wrote us as follows:

αιών

"My Dear Sir, Your Review of April, came to hand just now, i. e. within a few days, and my attention was called to your note on my article in the January number of the Methodist Review. The objection you offer to the parenthetical clause, making the aor in Matt. xxiv. 3. refer to "the Gospel dispensation" is well taken, My further examination leads me to think, that the Mosaic and not the Gospel dispensation was intended. But it is manifest that the disciples had only a confused and inadequate conception of that about which they asked. They believed that Christ was about to set up his kingdom as an earthly ruler, and that his kingdom would supersede the Mosaic theocracy, - and the date of that transition was to them a matter of the greatest interest.

In his note on Matt. xxiv, 3. Olshausen writes; It is remarkable that we never find the expression συντέλεια του κόσμου : the word aior indicates the time of the world, which passes away, whilst the world itself remains.'

"I thank you for the manner and spirit of your remarks, NEW SERIES. VOL. XXIV

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but do