The cartoonists find ample opportunity for their pencils in the disgraceful life insurance revelations. In the sweatbox of investigation the officers are having an unpleasant time, but not nearly so unpleasant as their unfortunate victims, whose hard-earned savings are squandered by those potentates of frenzied finance. If some of these high-toned criminals should land in prison, as indicated in one of our cartoons, it would be only what they deserve. The whole system of life insurance, however, must not be discredited on account of the frauds of a few. It is a great and beneficent system -a staunch ship that will weather many a storm if only the barnacles of speculation are scraped from its keel.

The tour of President Roosevelt through the Southern States has been a triumphal march. Everywhere he was received with enthusiasm. His visit and manly words have done much to cement the North and South as they never were before. Yet he bated not a jot of his sturdy independence. He reasserted his purpose to give every man, so far as he might, whether white or black, a square deal, an equal chance. Although he knew it was distasteful to many of the southern whites, he paid a visit to his old friend, Booker Washington, at Tuskegee, and he strongly denounced the barbaric crime of lynching, which he declared degraded its participants below the level of their victim.

The most shameless fraud and corruption have been flagrantly committed at the recent civic elections in New York. A recount is demanded. Thousands of ballot-boxes are guarded in the armories, and the New Year may see two rival mayors claiming the civic chair, as the rival popes of the Middle Ages claimed the chair of St. Peter. These things are a sign of greatest peril. Of what avail to rejoice over the emancipation of Russia, of Poland, of Finland, if bossism and an autocracy of villany be allowed to defy the will of the people and filch revenues greater than those of many a European kingdom? This is but to tolerate a despotism under the empty form of a republic.

THE BATTLE FOR BREAD.

A writer in the Outlook draws attention to the fearful carnage in the ranks of industry. Every year there are in the United States between 64,000 and 80,000 persons killed, and 1,600,000 seriously wounded in the various industries. It will surprise many of our readers to know that some of the bloodiest conflicts in the history of warfare do not furnish as large a death-roll as the accident list of the modern labor market.

The factories are believed to furnish the greater part of this list of killed and wounded. For the railroads and trolleys there is an approximate basis in their yearly reports, though a notoriously incomplete one. Adding up the list of

37

killed and wounded from these sources, the writer has a total of 12,299 dead, and 137,916 wounded, to contrast with the records of losses in three of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War-Chancellorsville, Chickamauga and Gettysburg, with 12,857 killed in battle and 69,408 wounded.

The interstate roads alone, in the year ending June 30th, 1904, killed 9,984 persons, and wounded 78,247, while in the battle of Gettysburg, which plunged every section of the United States into mourning, both armies, after a three days' conflict, suffered a loss of but 5,662 killed in battle, and 21,203 wounded.

What is worse, it is said that fourfifths of the casualties result from preventable causes, as boiler explosions, unguarded machinery, defective coupling on cars. The Outlook points out that the old-time slave-owners and feudal barons had an interest in protecting the laborer. He was of value to them. Not so the capitalist of to-day. The laborer is but "a hand." Does he stumble off the stage into eternity? Another is ready to fill the gap in the rank. But in the name of humanity, ought these things so to be? Not even great charities can cover up the sacrifice of flesh and blood.

LIFE

SPECULATION

REMOVING THE BARNACLES ISN'T GOING TO HURT THE SHIP.

-Pioneer Press, St. Paul.

THE FOUNDER OF THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION.

SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS.

Another great and good man has gone to his reward who belongs not merely to the homeland, but to all lands. Wherever the English speech is known, and in many lands where it is an alien tongue, the name of the late Sir George Williams is honored and revered as the father and founder of that world-wide institution, the Young Men's Christian Association. Throughout the world the flags hung at half-mast in his memory, and this city draper was knighted by his sovereign and buried in St. Paul's with the nation's mighty dead. He had reached the good old age of eighty-four. As a draper's lad he gave his heart to God and met with others of like mind for prayer and Bible study. At 72 St. Paul's Churchyard, on June 6th, 1844, the Y. M. C. A. was born. Its line is gone out through all the earth, and its words to the end of the world. It has now 8,425 branches in 49 countries, with 699,213

members and 893 buildings $36,000,000.

valued at

In December, 1851, the first Y. M. C. A. in America was established at Montreal, and the same month in Boston. Through the organization of the Christian Commission during the Civil War its scope was greatly widened. All the world knows the history of its labors, which gleams like a golden embroidery on the ensanguined robe of war. Its agents carried at once the bread that perisheth and the Bread of Life, and healed the wounds both of the body and of the soul. The "Christian artillery' of the battlefield, the coffee-waggons and supply trains of the Commission, succored many a wounded soldier amid the horrors of war. These plumeless heroes of Christian chivalry exhibited a valor as dauntless as his who led the victorious charge or covered the disastrous retreat. This Commission disbursed for the benefit of the soldiers over six million dollars, employed 4,859 agents working without recompense, an aggregate of 185,562 days. It gave away over sixty million Bibles and other religious books, magazines and tracts.

One effect of these Associations is to give a nobler tone to business-to prove that it is not a mere selfish game of grab. The reproach of the age, whether deserved or not, is its intense dollar worship; its passionate greed of gain; the eager race for riches, in which all classes of society engage. The spirit of rash speculation and of reckless extravagance fostered by the gold boom and stock exchange are morally antipodal to religious feeling. But business, when ennobled and dignified by a lofty Christian principle, will become a high and holy calling. This desirable consummation will vastly increase the resources of the Church, and will unseal fountains of liberality which will water the earth with the streams of an almost boundless beneficence.

A special development of the Y. M. C. A. in recent years has been in connection with the colleges and universities of the world. Many admirable buildings have been erected and incalculable good has been done by these and by the visitations of Mr. Mott to the student world and enlisting them in missionary movements.

OUT OF WORK.

Referring to a recent statement in The World's Work that there were a large number of men unable to find employment in the United States, Mr. Leroy Scott, who has been investigating the case, claims the problem is not to find work for the unemployed, but to find men who will work. One great trouble he finds is that the men drop their jobs after pay-day and go off on a spree. He studied 118 men, who found refuge in the municipal lodging-houses, the men all saying that they were looking for work. Employment was secured for 31 of the 118. Eleven soon threw up their jobs, and only six stuck to their work. Fortyfive men, when they learned that an effort was being made to find work for them, suddenly disappeared. He at one time dressed himself in old clothes and set out to test the truth of the reports that there was no work to be had. At the end of the day he had sixteen jobs on which to begin work next morning. He urged several men to take these positions, but they refused.

To be sure, unemployed working men are not all of this class. In justice to the working man one must admit that there is another side to the story. Often there is work waiting for the man without his having the intelligence to find it. Often the work he does find he is incompetent to do through no fault of his own. Sometimes he is physically unequal to the herculean tasks set before him. Reared sometimes in the shut-in districts of cities, on insufficient fare, and in the worst of sanitary conditions, it is not to be wondered at if he lacks the spur to work. It is easy for the man of culture to talk of what he could or would do if he were a laboring man. But it is well to remember that in putting himself in the laboring man's place he must also accept the laboring man's ancestry, environment, and limitations. The Church of God has an important problem in dealing with this class of people, especially in the line of temperance work.

While these pages go to press there is assembling in Carnegie Hall, New York City, November 15 to 21, one of the most notable conferences ever held on this continent. Its work is thus summarized in The Western Christian Advocate. We will give prominence in our next number to the result of this remarkable gathering. Some twenty-seven

church bodies, each comprising in some cases groups of churches, are represented. The programme brings together the most distinguished religious leaders of the country. There will be discussions on the general movement towards closer fellowship and on the unity of faith in God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Scriptures. Besides these presentations there will be practical addresses on the most intimate co-operation possible between the churches in such vital matters as religious education, the social order (war and peace, citizenship, family life), home and foreign missions, evangelization (in cities, among Germans, among colored populations), and national life.

MORE MARTYRS IN CHINA.

A dreadful tragedy has befallen the Presbyterian Mission at Lienchau whereby five of its missionaries were massacred and their buildings destroyed. This is said to be a fanatical outbreak in consequence of the American treatment of the Chinese. "These five men and women," says The Independent, were murdered by our American Congress." We have ourselves seen Chinese hunted through the streets of San Francisco till they had to leap into the water to escape assault. Now the whole of China is boycotting America. Even little children run through the streets crying, 'We have no more American goods.'" "We are ashamed for our country in this matter," continues The Independent; we have not been Christians; it is we, not alien hands, that have slain our own citizens." Have we not a lesson to learn in Canada of our treatment of the yellow strange within our gates ?

Two distinguished citizens of Toronto have, during the month, passed awaythe Rev. Dr. Blackstock and the Honorable Christopher Robinson. Of our revered and honored friend we have written at length in The Guardian, and can only here refer to his noble life, crowned with a happy death. He was a frequent contributor to these pages. Through a long life he served his generation by the will of God, and has entered into his endless rest and reward.

Mr. Robinson was the son of a distinguished father, the first Chief Justice of Upper Canada, who served his country as a boy at Queenston Heights in 1812.

His distinguished son lived and died in the old historic home in Toronto of which we give a picture, next to the Grange probably the oldest residence in Toronto. Many have been the gatherings of the great and wise and good at its hospitable table, and it sheltered three generations of a distinguished family. The late jurist maintained the high traditions of the Canadian bar and bench in a manner worthy of his distinguished ancestry.

Another saint of God has passed away. Mrs. Thompson, the mother of the Temperance Crusade, died at her home in Hillsboro', Ohio, in her ninetieth year. We recently told in these pages of the story of that heroic movement in which these weak women confronted the powers of darkness by the might of faith and prayer, and won a glorious triumph. Out of this grew the great Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the most potent propaganda of temperance and every moral reform by legislation and education.

Our Magazine for 1906.

Most of the subscriptions to this Magazine terminate with the present volume. We hope our patrons will promptly renew for themselves, and seek to send also the subscription of some neighbor or friend. If we can secure a further circulation of one thousand we will surprise our friends with the improvement in this periodical. We hope the ministers, who are our special agents, and all our friends will make an earnest effort to give us that increase. Please mention it, and The Guardian, from the pulpit and at your week-night service. Now is the best time to push the canvass. The November and December numbers will be given free to new subscribers.

Kindly intimate your desire to have the Magazine continued.

Toronto William Briggs, Publisher.