University College, Gower Street, London, W. C. From the last named I have a cordial letter inviting the co-operation of Americans. I will gladly receive subscriptions, acknowledge them, and forward the same to London. An official receipt will be duly sent to all donors. As pioneer in promoting an American interest in Egyptian exploration, nearly a quarter century ago, as a successful laborer in the cause for nearly twenty years, and still anxious that such splendid work as Petrie has done may continue, I do heartily commend to our public this new organization and its good purposes. I append an extract from the circular. "In view of recent changes it is now intended that the Research Account should not only assist students, but should step into the wider field of providing also for the excavations of Prof. Flinders Petrie. The means of support for his studies in Egypt, during the last few years, having lately been diverted to other work, the continuance of his researches will now depend entirely upon the contributions to the Research Account. His excavations have led to the discoveries of the Prehistoric age of Egypt, and the systematic knowledge of its development, the history and civilization of the early dynasties, the scientific accuracy of the great pyramids,—the Semitic worship in Sinai, the earliest monumental record of the Israelites, and their later connection with Tahpanhes; beside opening up the main sources of papyri in the Fayum and Oxyrhynkhos, and the series of Græco-Roman portraits. The rise of civilization in the Mediterranean has also been revealed, each age in advance of the results of explorations in Greek lands, with which they have afterwards been linked. Naukratis and Daphnae, the Mykenaean art at Tell el Amarna, the Kamares pottery of the XIIth dynasty, the earliest painted Greek pottery of the Ist dynasty, and the Western pottery of the prehistoric period, are the framework which has made possible a scheme of European history before the classical times. To carry on this course of discoveries, which have become the basis of our present view of early history, and to continue to train students in such historical research is the purpose of the present movement." 525 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. WILLIAM COPLEY WINSLOW. FRANCE AND RUSSIA. On account both of political and financial reasons France is deeply interested in the establishment of a solid and liberal government in Russia. We give below two or three examples of this,-letters of three leading Frenchmen which were written for a Moscow paper. M. Passy is the distinguished French peace apostle, the first recipient of the Nobel Prize. M. Mézières is a Senator and member of the French Academy. M. Marcel Prévost is the brilliant novelist. I cannot but deplore the blindness which, refusing to make the necessary concessions when they would have been effective, has now brought things to the present acute and violent stage; and I feel a deep pity for the many victims on which ever side they may be. I trust that a little tardy wisdom and moderation will finally make it possible to find in a régime of legal liberty the outcome of this revolution due, like all revolutions, to the faults of those who might have prevented it. But at what a cost this wisdom and moderation will have been attained! FREDERIC PASSY. Events in Russia naturally cause most painful feelings here in France. The more intimately we are attached to "the friendly and allied nation," the more we suffer from the violent crisis through whihc Russia is passing. Perhaps, however, this trial has been necessary that the grand Russian empire may advance in the direction of liberty. If a liberal government, a representative régime, can be finally set up there, it will be a great blessing for which all Frenchmen, to say nothing of the suffering Russians and the rest of the pitying world, will be devoutly thankful.. ALFRED MÉZIÈRES. To at last see Russia associated with free Europe is an event of an importance not equaled since the French Revolution. All our sympathy goes out to the New Russia, which henceforth will be attached to France not only by international diplomatic ties, but also by the bonds of similar political customs and civilized aspirations. MARCEL PRÉVOST. DISCONTENT IN CUBA. It is a deplorable fact that the boasted glory of Cuba Libre has not proved all that those who fought to establish it could have wished. The present administration is severely criticised, and if the complaints of the Liberal press are well founded, we can see in them ample justification for the Philippine policy of the United States. In La Lucha of October 19 there is an open letter from Salvador Cisneros, the Marquis of Santa Lucia and a veteran or the Cuban war for national independence. This letter is an account of the violation of the constitution by the president of the republic. "The administration of Sr. Estrada Palma has been characterized throughout by a determined persistence to violate the fundamental code of the nation and will practically result in annulling the action of the legislative and judicial powers." Among other details Sr. Cisneros enumerates nearly twenty specific instances of the violation of the constitution. We are in receipt of a letter from a patriotic Cuban and a University man who thinks that the United States should again interfere in Cuba with a restraining hand. We print this letter in full: "I think it a duty to make known to the readers of this periodical that the grand work of freeing Cuba, which was undertaken by the American government and for which so much American blood was shed and American money expended, is at the point of failure if it has not already failed. If I mistake not, the treaty of Paris made the United States government responsible for the preservation not only of material, but also of moral peace in Cuba; otherwise the constitution framed under the protection of its strong arm did not mean what it said, and was a sarcasm signed and proclaimed. a simple mockery! Why did the United States government give up its control if it was not to secure political liberty to the Cubans? "The democratic constitution of Cuba was framed in 1900, signed on February 21, 1901, and the following year the United States government withdrew from Cuba when the newly elected president, Sr. Estrada Palma, had taken his official oath to respect the constitution. From the beginning, Mr. Palma has constantly violated the constitution (violations brought to light recently by one of the best Cubans, Mr. Salvador Cisneros) and the greatest infringement was the one committed on the third of this last September with respect to the primaries for the next presidential election of December. All lovers of genuine liberty have been suffering since that fatal day, when political liberty died and a system of despotic dictatorial rule was implanted in its stead, the judiciary and army hand in hand to suppress the rights of the citizens. Imaginary plots were contrived and disclosed for the purpose of menacing and terrorizing timid folks-and this on the very day of the election! Crimes were committed and blood shed, as, for instance, that of the great Villuendas in Cienfuegos whose family is trying to bring to light the truth in regard to his cowardly murder. The candidate of the Liberal party was forced to resign, since his own life and the lives of his friends were in danger. The mayors of all liberal cities were obliged to let the government guard the balloting, and do as it pleased. Accordingly, we are no longer governed by the constitution framed under the protection of Columbia, but by the personal power of a Central American tyrant! Even a foreigner, the Italian Pennino, has been persecuted and expelled from the country contrary to the constitution. Could not Congress pass a joint resolution to investigate political matters in Cuba? "I believe that the Treaty of Paris is as much in force now as before the withdrawal of the United States from the island, and therefore that it is possible to bring matters back to their original status, since under the present conditions, the peace of the Cubans is no peace, but like that of Warsaw, the door for future revolutions." THE BOER HOME INDUSTRIES AND AID SOCIETY. We have received a pamphlet entitled Report and Work Done by the Boer Home Industries and Aid Society, January to August, 1905. This consists of extracts from letters sent to European friends by Miss Emily Hobhouse reporting from time to time the progress and needs of her work of which mention was made in the September Open Court. Beginning with very few spinning-wheels and looms, she and one or two helpers have established an industrial nucleus where the Boer girls are taught to utilize the wool of the country and to make marketable products. These pupils teach others and when they leave the school return to their homes where they are able to continue the work when they can obtain either wheels or looms. There are many home-made spinning wheels in use and the local carpenters have copied the looms as far as possible. There seems to be plenty of raw material though it is of rather uneven quality and the teachers have needed to experiment in order to discover how to make it of the greatest possible use; and there is sufficient market for the finished product The needs are mostly for machines and teachers for the numbers who are eager to learn. The school specializes in rugs, carpets and mats, but has untertaken also some very fine work with silk, and Miss Hobhouse refers to a silk wedding dress for which they had undertaken to furnish material. To people interested in the spread of industrial education where it is seriously needed, this pamphlet will be of real interest. It can be obtained on application to the following persons who have Miss Hobhouse's cause very much at heart and will also be glad to receive and forward to her any donations that may be sent. Address Countess Evelyn Asinelli, 8 Grand Pré, Geneva, Switzerland, or Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, 3 Park St., Boston, Mass. CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN. The Japan Times gives the translation of an article that appeared some weeks ago in the Kirisuto-kyo Sekai in regard to the problem of Christian missions under existing conditions in Japan. As it deals especially with the relation of the foreign missionaries and their boards with the native church and its workers, it becomes of general interest in its bearing on the subject of future progressive policy of mission boards, although the sudden and rapid development of Japan along lines of Western education and civilization makes it a fitting leader in the movement. The article is written from the point of view of the native Kumi-ai churches which comprise a membership of 12,000, and its plea is for their independence of and co-operation with the churches of the missionaries. The writer claims that the results of mission work are large only in proportion as the natives are entrusted with active work, and on the analogy of the most successful business enterprises urges that the entire evangelistic work of Japan be put under the direction of the Kumi-ai churches, with salaries suited to the labors and position of each worker. He appeals to the native membership to undertake to tax themselves to the amount which the Boards are now spending for current expenses in Japan, and on the other hand begs the missionaries to dissolve the mission and join the native church and missionary society in each center, as active co-workers in the same rank as the native members. The result would be that the American Board would consult with the native boards about any further missionary business within their district. This disposition on the part of the native Christians would seem to be the culmination of the purpose with which the missions were inaugurated. The article has the ring of zeal and sincerity, and testifies to the strength with which the Christian religion has taken root among the intelligent Japanese, quite beyond our realization. But the inference throughout is clear, that the missionaries maintain a dictatorship in church matters which results in establishing a competition against the native church rather than a helpful support and alliance. If in their contact with other religions they must insist that outside of their own faith, truth does not exist, should they not at least allow their converts equal privileges in the light of that truth? Conditions such as this article implies seem to be due to ignorance of the change of conditions on the part of the governing Boards, and failure on the part of those in the field to grasp the full significance of these changes and to justly interpret them. "THE PHILOSOPHY OF PAIN." SOME REMARKS IN PLACE OF A REPLY. Pain is certainly a great teacher and discontent drives man to effort, makes him work, strive and travail to gain his heart's content, but it is not so true that grim "necessity's impelling pain is the motive of advance in every line"; nor that anguish and keen distress are necessary in every case to make one willing to work and undergo great hardships and privations; nor that, under all conditions pain and suffering are productive of psychical growth. What compelling necessity, for instance, forces a millionaire to strain his mental faculties to heap millions upon millions? What anguish and distress forces a sportsman to drag his weary legs all day long over wet and weedy fields, through swamps and underbrush that tears his clothes? What psychical development can result from the sufferings of a coarse and callous shipwrecked sailor in a boat on the vast expanse of the ocean, who has probably never spent an hour on philosophical or religious meditation, and whose every thought is centered in the mad desire to be rescued by a passing vessel till, from exhaustion, he sinks into delirium and death, perhaps cursing his fate with his last breath? Does any one think that there are not hundreds already racking their brains to devise means to make disasters at sea and on the railroad track less frequent? A large part of all psychical progress is due to noble passions, to love and to the keen desire to excel in some respectable calling or praiseworthy public untertaking, to become respected and beloved near and far. If we look upon the world as the great perpetuum mobile which can not lose one particle of its matter and its energy and readjusts itself without the especial aid of an intelligent governor, we can train ourselves to bear afflictions resignedly, bravely, even serenely as natural consequences of known or unknown causes and without blaming nature for them, which standing under the iron rule of causality produces nothing but what it can and must produce. So everything that is, is right. But if we consider pain and suffering as the means precisely designed by an all-powerful personal God, to educate the human race for a yet more strenuous future psychical existence, they assume the appearance of wanton, willful cruelty. We poor human beings are sometimes not able to save our children from displeasure and distress for their own good, and cruelties inflicted on comparatively few are to some extent excusable if no other possibility is left to human agency to secure welfare and happiness to a vast majority, yet an all-powerful Being can not be supposed to be restricted to only one expedient to accomplish His ends. Whoever says, "How are God's ways past finding out?" contradicts himself if, because afflictions sometimes have a beneficial influence on man's character, he pretends to know that a just, kind and loving God inflicts sufferings of mind and body to promote psychical growth in man. That "more and more grows the conviction" of personal immortality does not correspond with my experience of more than fifty years. On the contrary I daily notice that the sincere belief in a future state fades away in proportion to progress made in biology and kindred sciences, to dissemination of knowledge and enlighten ment. In my younger days it has always been odious and repugnant to me to have to hold an all holy Being especially responsible for undeserved and unavoidable afflictions, such as inherited, painful, and incurable sickness, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, conflagrations caused by strokes of lightning, etc. How much more easy and reconciliating is it to submit to such evils as to the mandate of the all prevailing world-law of causality than to especial dispensations of intelligent providence! Whoever has attained to that state of |