Professor JACOB COOPER, D.D, LL.D., Rutgers College, New Brunswick, Burrell's The Singular Death of Christ, 657; Alexander's The Son of Man, 660; Royce's Conception of Immortality, 662; Burroughs's The Light of Day, 664; Starbuck's The Psychology of Religion, 667; The Prose of Ed- ward Rowland Sill, 669; McCarthy's Reminiscences, 672; Kropotkin's Me- moirs of a Revolutionist, 674; Innes's Cranmer and the Reformation in Professor J. R. TAYLOR, M.A., Boston University, Boston Mass. Professor W. E. SMYSER, Ph.D., Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, O. Professor I. T. HEADLAND, M.A., Peking University, Peking, China. Growth of Missions during the Century, 977; Some Affairs in Africa, 978; The Shinto Religion, 979; Misrepresentations of Mission Work, 980. Coe's The Spiritual Life, 989; Nash's The History of the Higher Criti- cism of the New Testament, 992; Connor's Black Rock, and The Sky Pilot, 994; Barnes's The People's Bible Encyclopedia, 996; Winchester's Some Principles of Literary Criticism, 998; Hyde's The Art of Optimism, 1001; Candee's How Women May Earn a Living, 1004; Allen's The Reign of Law, 1005; Hurst's History of the Christian Church, 1007; West's Recol- 1017 METHODIST REVIEW. JANUARY, 1900. ART. I.-EXPANSION A POLITICAL AND MORAL OPPORTUNITY. THERE is little doubt that the majority of the American people are in favor of expansion. So far as the West Indies are concerned the argument against expansion has so little force that a proposition from the Cubans for annexation would, we believe, find ready acceptance. These islands are close to our shores, have a large commerce with us, and we could do more for them than any other power, and they are worth more to us. The great distance of the Philippines, the character of their population and civilization, and the variety of languages they speak raise different questions. But whatever questions are raised that of imperialism is not really at issue. This is a more formidable and forbidding word than expansion, and does not mean the same thing. It has too strong a foreign flavor for our simple democratic palates. It is intended to discredit the idea to which it is applied, and induce Americans, because of their natural antipathy to what it represents, to take firm ground against expansion. If expansion means that in order to govern our distant possessions our government must be clothed with imperial powers and prerogatives we want none of it. But it does not mean that; the word has been coined to strengthen an argument that has manifest weaknesses. Expansion is not associated in our minds with any bad idea. It is not considered an evil that a child's mind should expand in the school room, nor that it should continue to expand through the college course. We apprehend no danger unless the process be too rapid and expansion becomes inflation. Inflation is apt to lead to explosion, and explosion must end in collapse. We recognize in normal expansion a healthy process of growth. Growth implies life, and the natural course of life is increase or expansion. That which has vitality must expand, or die of paralysis. Nations are not seriously troubled when population expands. Danger signals have been raised in countries where population remains stationary or shows signs of decline, as in France. But nobody ever sounded a note of alarm over the large increases in our millions declared by successive decennial censuses. Expansion is universally recognized as the law governing a healthy, prosperous, normal national life. In the business world it is an axiom that you cannot maintain your volume of trade in a stationary condition. You must labor for expansion, or submit to contraction. The firm which has so extended its business that the returns for the year are twice as large as those for the previous year does not get into a panic of alarm. The aggregation of capital in the form of trusts is viewed with serious concern by some; but whether expansion in this direction is good or bad depends, not on the extent of the expansion, but upon the methods and motives by which it is accomplished. is accomplished. If aggregation of capital results in lessening the cost of production, and therefore cheapening the products to the millions of consumers, why is it not beneficial? It simply obeys those laws which compel adaptation to natural conditions. So long as expansion does not destroy competition, or deprive others of natural rights, it can hardly be condemned. If that man who induces two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before is a benefactor to his race, what is he who enables the poor man to buy two pounds of sugar or two loaves of bread for the price formerly paid for one? But there are things which are susceptible of expansion and things which are not. Plants and trees, all animal bodies, the mind and the ideas which the mind originates, expand in obedience to the laws governing life and increase. Rock does not expand. Try to expand it, and you blow it to pieces. You cannot expand a cast-iron shell; you only explode it in the attempt. You can grow a log, but not a steel rail. What is the Constitution of the United States? Is it of |