clean out infected areas, to quarantine the State, and, according to the recommendation of the forestry experts, to prevent the shipments of pine seedlings and of currant and gooseberry stock.

In view of all this, Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack, President of the American Forestry Association, is issuing a timely call to the Governors of all the States in the white pine belt and to the Government of Canada to send delegates to attend the annual meeting of the Association at Washington on January 18 and 19, 1917, to discuss plans for fighting the disease. Such a fight should, of course, be conducted in co-operation with the American Forestry Association, which has already begun a National campaign.

But the campaign needs the assistance of the Federal Government and of other States than those already affected. The campaign, as outlined by Mr. Pack, will aim to secure a Federal appropriation of about a quarter of a million dollars, if possible, to provide for investigation, scouting for the disease, and co-operation with the various States in efforts to suppress it. This campaign deserves quick recognition by Congress.

THE OLDEST CHURCH IN

NEW YORK CITY AND ITS WORK

"Changing New York" is an expression frequently heard nowadays.

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But one public building, the oldest in the city, St. Paul's Chapel, does not change. When it was built, its site, a wheat-field in an out-of-the-way spot, was ridiculed. The structure, accommodating a tenth of the population of New York City, was declared to be a sinful waste of money, as the town would never extend its limits far enough to insure a large and steady attendance." At the first service the Governor, Sir Henry Moore, was present, and introduced his band of music. The most prominent people of the city, in their quaint eighteenth-century costumes, sat in the prim, oblong pews, with their servants thronging the galleries. 1776, when Washington was in command of the American army in New York, the rector, a stanch Royalist, closed the church when forbidden to read the prayers for the King. In 1789 the President and both houses of Congress went in procession from the inauguration in Wall Street to St. Paul's for a thanksgiving service. As long as he lived in New York City Washington attended church here, writing in his diary as regularly as

In

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Sunday came round, "Went to St. Paul's chapel in the forenoon." His square pew, marked by an old wall painting of the arms of the United States, is still shown. The altar-piece is also linked with history; it is a monument to General Richard Montgomery, who lost his life in the attack on Quebec at the beginning of the Revolution. Years later Canada returned his body and it was interred here. This monument was designed by L'Enfant, the French city planner of Washington.

Gradually New York changed. People moved uptown and business moved in, changing the homes of prominent citizens into lofts and offices and tenements. And St. Paul's community to-day represents business men, clerks and stenographers, charwomen, all sorts and conditions of folk, of many races and creeds. The work of St. Paul's is changed too. It is planned directly for these busy people. The church activities, filled with the zeal and fire of Paul, are endowed with his missionary spirit. At noon the churchyard, with its curious old tombstones, is a lunch-room, a reading-room, a restroom, for the many young women employed in the high buildings that look down on St. Paul's colonial tower. This hospitality is

not abused, for both church and yard have an atmosphere impressing every visitor. The possible danger of no congregation, feared a hundred and fifty years ago, will never be realized as long as St. Paul's, unchanged, ministers to its changing neighbors.

HELPING THE PUBLIC TO POLICE ITSELF

Under the Commissionership of Arthur Woods the Police Department of New York City has distinctly taken the leadership among the police departments of the country in the application of science to the solution of police problems. The administration of Commissioner Woods has been especially active in the development of the preventive side of police work. Some people think of the function of the policeman as solely that of catching criminals. But just as a doctor who prevents disease is more valuable to society than one who only cures it, so a police official who prevents crime is more valuable than one who only catches criminals.

The New York police authorities have been particularly foresighted in teaching the public to protect itself. As the latest move in a campaign to reduce disease, street accidents,

and the activities of pickpockets and burglars, the Police Department has obtained the cooperation of the Advertising Club of New York in arousing the public by publicity methods.

About fifty thousand posters, three hundred thousand booklets, and one thousand picture slides have been distributed throughout the city. Storekeepers have been asked to display these posters in their windows, and the proprietors of moving-picture houses. flash on the screen the warnings of the police against pickpockets between reels of the latest film sensations.

To reduce the present high average of street accidents in New York City, which results in the death of one person every fourteen hours and the injury of one person every twenty-three minutes, the Police Commissioner has issued the following sensible and sententious warnings, among others :

To pedestrians:

Don't run across streets through heavy traffic. The busiest man I know wastes at least thirty minutes a day; why risk your life to save five seconds crossing the street?

2. Never attempt to cross a street with a bundle or umbrella over your head or reading a newspaper. Either hides oncoming vehicles from your view.

3. Stand still if you get caught in a traffic jam. It may save your life.

To drivers:

1. Your responsibility does not end with the honking of the horn when others are in your path.

2. Your automobile may be under control, but how about the other fellow's? He may be a crazy man. You don't know.

Here are some precautions against burglars and pickpockets:

1. When you leave your house, don't advertise the fact by pulling down the shades or by leaving a note in the letter-box saying that you will be back at such and such a time. Sneak thieves profit by such advice. It is an invitation for them to enter.

2. Don't be too eager to pull out your watch and give the time of day to everybody who asks you for it. That's a good opportunity for somebody to grab it and run.

3. Don't carry your handbag suspended by a strap from your wrist. Hold it tightly in your hand. This prevents thieves from opening the bag or pocketbook and extracting your money or valuables from it.

Miscellaneous advice:

1. Respect your neighbor as much as yourself. Don't beat your rugs or stir up ashes so

that your dirt will be blown into his apartment to fall on his food or be breathed by him.

2. Buy by standard weight or measure, not by basket or prepared package.

3. When you see a crime committed, or observe a suspicious person or condition, notify the police at once. The more you co-operate with the police, the more the police can accomplish for you.

3. Regard the policeman as your best friend. You are paying him to keep your street safe and orderly. He is entitled to your help.

Doubtless even in this short list there are some subjects which the policemen of some cities feel are not within their province at all. But the New York policeman is learning to feel that nothing which protects society is out of his field. And the New York public is learning that the policeman is a friend, and is learning that as much depends on the public in the enforcement of law as on the policeman.

PROGRESSIVISM AND
NATIONALISM

If the letters. The Outlook is receiving from its readers are trustworthy evidence, there is still a widespread and keen interest in the meaning of the recent Presidential election.

It is plain. from these letters that this continued interest is not due to any tendency to look back. On the contrary, with scarcely an exception, our readers who have favored us with their opinions on this subject are looking forward. In this they are characteristically American. They have in mind the future of the country. They write with a desire to apply the lessons of the election in the coming years.

Some of these letters we shall print in an early issue-probably next week. Here, in the same spirit in which our readers have written to us, we shall consider one phase of the election as it bears upon American prog

ress.

During the campaign the voters of the country apparently felt themselves confronted with the choice between what may be called Nationalism and Progressivism.

Every nation has duties that are represented by these two words. One is the duty of fulfilling its obligation as a member of the family of nations, as an upholder of the rights of its citizens wherever they may be, the duty of preserving its own self-respect

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and preserving the respect of other nations in its dealings with them, the duty of maintaining the fabric of international law, of promoting justice between nation and nation, of withstanding those acts of injustice which concern it directly or indirectly, and preserving from outside attack its own cherished institutions on which its life is based. Nationalism may be said to constitute those policies which are designed to fulfill this duty. On the other hand, there is the duty of the nation to adapt its laws to the growing life of its own people, to make readier and more accessible the instruments of justice, to provide a fairer apportionment of the rewards of labor, to prevent the exploitation of the weak, to utilize for the public good the resources of the country, to direct to right ends the strength of the strong, to make the tools of industry serve people rather than things, to develop not merely the material but also the moral wealth of its people. Those policies which are designed to enable the nation to fulfill this duty we have come to group in this country under the general title Progressivism.

It is very rare to find in any party or in any conspicuous leader of any country an appreciation of both these duties. Most parties in every country emphasize the one at the expense of the other. What has been called a strong foreign policy (and that does not always mean an aggressive foreign policy) has usually been a characteristic of the party regarded as conservative, while the liberal party in almost every country concentrates its attention on domestic problems of development to the neglect of the nation's duties in its relation to other nations.

Conspicuous examples of this occur readily to the mind. Gladstone, the great Liberal leader, for instance, failed when it was England's duty to protect Gordon; and against Gladstone's services for Home Rule is to be placed his record in South Africa. The few men who combine Nationalism and Progressivism have had few imitators. Italy produced such a man in Cavour. In our day we find Greece producing such a man in Venizelos, and England in Viscount Grey. It is perhaps the chief distinction of Theodore Roosevelt as a political leader that he has identified his name with both a nationalistic movement that made the United States respected throughout the world, and a progressive movement so powerful as to produce a party that rose in a brief space of time to a posi

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tion of the second place in the Nation. One may disagree politically with such leaders as these, but it cannot be well denied that they are exceptions in a world which seems to regard Nationalism and Progressivism as ordinarily mutually incompatible.

All the finest traditions of America are on the side of Nationalism. Pride and self-sacrifice combined to produce in the American colonies a group of National leaders such as we believe no other nation has produced. When the Algerian pirates cowed the Powers of Europe, it was the Nationalist spirit of America that reinforced the public law of nations. Nationalism was put to the test of the sword in 1861, and emerged stronger than ever. Made up of many peoples, drawing on the traditions of many lands, busy with the task of conquering first a wilderness and then a frontier, the American people have never yet wrought out a completed Nation; but they have never lacked the National spirit.

During the past twelve years there has been developing in this country a progressive movement of vast proportions. It is so recent in its growth as not to require description in detail. It has pervaded all parties. Circumstances gave it definite organized form in the Republican party. Leaders, or rather party managers, who happened to be in power, resisted it in that party, and as a consequence a new party was born, which demonstrated by the obvious process of votegetting the irresistible character of that movement. With the accession to power of the Democratic party under the leadership of Woodrow Wilson, that progressive movement was by no means moderated. Rather, it was diverted to a new channel. President Wilson's political sagacity enabled him to make use of this great progressive movement for the strengthening of his own party. He has been responsive to the temper of the American people and has forced his party to be also.

If it had not been for the blindness of a comparatively small group of Republican managers, the progressive movement which originated in the Republican party might have become identified with the party of Nationalism; but, because of their blindness, the progressive sentiment of the country was alienated.

Then arose a European war, and there were thrust upon this country opportunities for the performance of international duties

unexampled in history. If Democratic leadership had been as sagacious in understanding these opportunities as it had been in understanding the drift toward Progressivism, the triumph of the Democratic party would. have been overwhelming. But it was not. If the Republican party had made clear and plain that it had learned its lesson, that it was vigorously and unqualifiedly progressive as well as Nationalistic, the Republican party would have been overwhelmingly triumphant. But as Democratic leadership had failed to understand its duty toward Nationalism, so Republican leadership failed to recognize its opportunity toward the duty of Progressivism.

So it happened that in the Presidential campaign Nationalism seemed to be arrayed against Progressivism.

The country has been both Nationalistic and Progressive, and, we believe, is both Nationalistic and Progressive to-day.

In the East the voters, more familiar with Mr. Hughes's record than their fellow-countrymen of the West, regarded him as essentially a progressive, and therefore regarded the issue as presenting to them a choice between Progressivism with Nationalism and Progressivism without Nationalism; and they chose the former.

The people in the West, less concerned with the new questions of Nationalism that had been presented by the war, though responsive to every appeal to Nationalism when put plainly to them, were by no means convinced that the Republican party under Mr. Hughes's leadership was soundly progressive. And to them the choice presented itself as being between a Nationalistic Republican party with a very questionable progressive record, and a progressive Democratic party with a very questionable record on Nationalism.

To them it was a question whether the Nationalistic traditions of the country were in greater danger than the progressive achieve ments of the last four years, and they made up their minds that the Democratic party was not as likely to endanger American Nationalism as the Republican party was to endanger the progressive movement.

With the aid of the South, which under all circumstances is Democratic apart from any question of Nationalism or Progressivism or anything else, the West decided the issue.

The lesson is plain.

To the Democratic party it is a lesson to heed the Nationalist traditions of America. So far as the country votes as it thinks, the

country was overwhelmingly Nationalist in this past election. No party that uniformly and continually sacrifices National traditions can long survive.

To the Republican party the lesson is even more impressive. Reactionary politics, even those attached to Nationalist sentiment, cannot control the American people. The only chance there is for the continuance of the existence of the Republican party lies in the ability of that party to create for itself leaders who are to the core progressive.

THE MEANING OF THE

REFORMATION

The celebration by Protestants of the four hundredth anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation furnishes an appropriate occasion for restating the significance of that great world

movement.

The words "Protestant " and "Reformation" do not adequately represent the great religious movement which in the sixteenth century revolutionized one-half of Christendom. That movement was more than a protest against certain beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church; it was more than a reformation of the beliefs, ritual, and ecclesiastical organization of that Church; it was a great awakening of man to his personal responsibility to God.

There are two views of man's relation to God, which may be briefly, if somewhat crudely, stated thus: One view regards the Church as the representative of God upon the earth; from this Church man is to receive the divine commandments; to this Church man is responsible for his beliefs and his conduct. If he accepts the teachings of the Church and obeys the commands of the Church, the responsibility for his beliefs and his conduct is shifted from him to the Church. So, in the battlefields of France, the British Empire is represented by the generals in command. From these generals the private soldiers receive their orders; to these generals they are responsible, and their whole responsibility is fulfilled by this obedience. The generals are in turn responsible to the superior authority at Westminster.

The other view regards God as personally present in the world, not only with and in his Church, but with all his children, speaking to them in their consciences, their aspira

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tions, and their spiritual hopes. From this ever-present God every man receives his orders; to this ever-present God man is responsible for his beliefs and his actions; to his fellow-men he is responsible only as his conduct directly affects their interests and their rights. The Church is valuable because it helps the individual to interpret aright this voice of God in the soul of man; but it is not a substitute for that voice.

Not all members of either the Roman Catholic or the Protestant communion hold its fundamental faith with entire consistency. But whenever a Roman Catholic recognizes the authority of his conscience as superior to the authority of the Church on any ethical or spiritual subject, there is in that recognition the germ of a possible Protestant; and whenever a Protestant sets aside his own conscience or his own reason in obedience to the dictates of the church to which he belongs, there is in that self-abnegation the relic of a past Romanism.

The consciousness of individual responsibility to God is the basis of democracy. No people can long retain at the same time and in the same community submission to ecclesiastical authority and independence of political authority. No people can long maintain at the same time and in the same community that the authority of the priests comes from God through the Church and the authority of the State comes from God through the people. The doctrine that the priests are sovereign and the people are subjects and the doctrine that the people are sovereign and the rulers are subjects cannot permanently abide together in the same mind. The foundation for democracy is the faith that God dwells with men and that to God all men are directly responsible. The religious reformation preceded and prepared for the democratic uprising. The democratic uprising would have been impossible but for the religious reformation.

The peril to democracy in our time lies not in a possible restoration of autocracy either in Church or State. There is little danger that the victories won for the people by William of Orange, and Cromwell, and Wash ington and his compatriots will be lost and a Philip II, a Charles I, or a George III will be enthroned on American soil. Nor is there any danger that the victories won by Wycliffe, Huss, and Luther will be lost and Leo X will establish a Vatican for America. The danger lies in quite the opposite direction. All

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righteous laws come from God, but from the God interpreted to us by our reason and our conscience. We have not to go back to the first chapter of Genesis to learn how the world was made. God has written the record of creation in what Hugh Miller well called "The Testimony of the Rocks ;" and we are to search for the truth of nature in nature herself. We have not to go back to the Ten Commandments for the laws of righteous conduct. Those Commandments are an admirable summary of divine law, but they are copies. The original is written in the hearts and consciences of men, and in the hearts and consciences of men we are to look both for the law and for its just application to the conditions of our modern life. The lesson of the Reformation was not a merely negative lesson; its teaching is not exhausted in the declaration that neither the authority of priests nor of kings is final. Its teaching was affirmative: the truth that the final authority is the voice of God, speaking to man and in

man.

If government of the people, by the people, and for the people perishes from the earth, it will be because we have substituted selfwill for the divine will, the infallibility of majorities for the infallibility of the Church, private interests for the public welfare, and the notion that might makes right for the eternal truth that right makes might.

"Despotism may govern without faith," says de Tocqueville, "but liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the Republic which they [the atheistic Republicans] set forth in glowing colors than in the monarchy which they attack; it is more needed in democratic republics than in any others. How is it possible that societies should escape destruction if the moral tie be not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they be not submissive to the deity?"

This is the political lesson of the Reformation which America needs to learn, which on this anniversary journalists should reaffirm, statesmen should heed, ministers should urge, and all Americans should ponder. The Protestant who shares in the fundamental faith of the Reformers, and believes with de Tocqueville that the greatest peril to the Republic comes from confusing uncontrolled self-will with liberty, will co-operate with the Roman Catholic in maintaining the responsibility of every soul to God, although the Roman Catholic thinks that responsi