sistent with the ultimate adoption of a system of complete arbitration) is as follows:

"1. England and the United States, which have already settled by arbitration a most important international dispute which might otherwise have led to war, jointly to invite all other civilised countries to send representatives to an international tribunal.

"2. Such tribunal to consist of the representatives of those countries which may accept the invitation.

"3. The tribunal to judge of the merits of all matters of contention which may arise between any two countries represented in the tribunal, all the countries represented undertaking to submit all disputes for the opinion of the tribunal before declaring war, without, however, binding themselves to abide by the opinion when expressed.

"4. Each country to be at liberty to send one or two delegates, as it may prefer.

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5. The tribunal to meet, in the first instance, in London, and afterwards at such places as it may select.

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6. The tribunal to appoint an executive committee, whose office it shall be to convene meetings of the tribunal, and to perform such other duties as the tribunal shall delegate to it.

7. The chief duty of the tribunal to be to endeavour to effect reconciliation between contending countries, a duty analogous to that thrown upon the Juge de Paix in France and the corresponding officer in Italy, before whom contending parties are bound to submit all civil disputes for conciliation, as a condition precedent to their right to a contentious hearing in a court of justice.

"Yours truly,

"FREDERICK HILL."

REAL DOGS OF WAR.

"IN the German Army," said an officer of the French manof-war Minerve now in the harbour, "they are training dogs to perform a novel but important service as scouts to accompany advanced posts and sentinels who are detached from the main body of troops. The species employed is the Pomeranian wolf-dog, selected on account of its great fidelity and its intelligence, and it is said that nothing can seduce one of them from its duty. They are taught to recognise the uniform worn by their friends, and in this and other ways to discriminate between them and the enemy. Every advanced post has a number of the dogs, and when a sentinel is sent forward a dog goes with him as a scout. At the approach of any one the dog advances stealthily, and in some process of reasoning, finds out whether it is a friend or foe. He immediately returns to the sentinel, and makes known by his actions and his bark whether there is danger or not. Each dog wears around his neck a light iron collar, to which is attached suitably a dispatch book, and by this means the sentinel sends back to his post, if necessary, a written message of information. The training of these dogs was being done very quietly, but a Parisian artist by the name of Kauffman discovered it and brought the news to Paris. Now the French are talking of training their Caniche, or sheep-dog, not only to do what the wolf-dog of the Germans is doing, but also to recognise, attack and kill the latter wherever found."-Philadelphia Press.

BRITISH MILITARY VICE AND SILENT CHURCHES

A WRITER in the Echo observes :-"There are about thirtyfive British societies engaged in missionary enterprise. In the presence of the agents of these societies, we find that drunkenness is increasing in India to a frightful extent among the lower orders; in some districts, men, women, and children, availing themselves of the facilities offered by the Government. In Malta, the lower class of female population are now harried into prostitution, and are licensed, as are also their resorts, by English authorities. Our entanglements in Egypt were justified from the pulpits here in England as beneficial to Christianity, yet within twenty-four hours of our troops' entrance into Cairo an order was given to the sheiks of the outlying districts to provide women for the use of the Army. Can we wonder

that the Bishop of Lincoln, in his last pastoral, regrets that nearly one thousand millions of people have no reverence for the Saviour's name? Mr. W. S. Caine, M.P., reported from personal knowledge that in Cairo there were no less than 400 grog-shops and brothels, the direct consequence of the presence of the English Army. So demoralised had Tommy Atkins and his officers become during the Egyptian war that not only were prostitutes centralised at various points, but military police were detailed for duty to direct the soldiers to the houses of medically inspected women. The life of Europeans in hot climates affords Satan ample scope to find employment for idle hands; thus his advent among dusky races has not proved an unmixed blessing.

"We are surprised that Christianity has not done more for Britain, the majority of its professors still lacking the morality to practise their faith; but what has been accomplished through its agency in Eastern and remote parts of the world must assuredly make the angels weep. Canon Liddon said, 'Christ requires men to conquer and renounce a great deal.' The practice of the Christian Briton appears to be to conquer and then to renounce all moral obligation so soon as he journeys beyond the range of newspapers and civilisation. On the Congo, Christianity is represented by a trade in bad gunpowder, plastered cotton goods, fire-water, and women, the price for native girls being twenty-seven shillings per head.

"We have had no combined and persistent protests from the Bishops or the Societies, who remain passively cognisant of these reproaches. The remonstrance and exposure of the system of hounding and entrapping native women into vice by Europeans in Hong Kong, made by the Governor, Sir John Pope Hennessey, instead of securing relief, resulted in his own recall. Mrs. Leavatt has directed the attention of the public to the traffic in American girls for the pleasure of European sensualists at Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Calcutta. Can we wonder at the Hindoos preferring their own teachers to ours. At the annual missionary meetings held throughout the country no allusion is ever made to the evils I have but faintly indicated. Instead of seeking to incite public resentment, emotionalism is stirred up by exaggerated accounts of heathen de. pravity and superstition. No denunciation is uttered from the pulpit against those who, having possessed the full advantages of Christianity from their youth, as Government officials and as traders, combine to undermine the manhood and womanhood of the subject races. Only a few noble minds, like Canon Taylor, have dared to tell the truth, although Consular reports teem with complaints of the immorality, lawless ruffianism, and drunken violence of British soldiers and seamen in distant ports. Dr. E. Blackwell has stated, 'Wherever the British Government plants its flag, it enslaves the female population to vice.''

ENGLISH IDOLATRY OF PHYSICAL POWER.

THE reception given Sullivan in England is another illustration of the immense popularity of "sport" of every description in that country, and especially of everything of an amusing or entertaining kind that comes from America. The reception given to "Buffalo Bill" would hardly have been possible anywhere else. Sullivan's will probably not equal it, because he looks rather too much of a brute to be taken up by the ladies; but if he enjoys the hospitality of the Prince of Wales, as he is said to have done, or be about to do, there is no knowing what may happen. Fordham, the jockey, who recently died, had almost as fine a funeral as Fred Archer, the other jockey, who died a year ago, and was in as comfortable circumstances. Both of them had as much space given to their mourning in the newspapers and public gossip, as any statesman, except perhaps Gladstone or Bright, would have. This tendency to the worship of the physical, or carnal, if any one likes the term better, is a very curious sign of the times. A recent writer in the Saturday Review treated it as a distinct indication of moral decay, and it certainly would be if other tendencies of a very different kind were not also very marked. The sneers often heaped upon moral reforms by people to whom Buffalo Bill and Sullivan are honoured guests is, however, a very curious phenomenon.-New York Nation.'

AND

THE PEACE LOVING MENNONITES. AMID the fertile meadows of Friesland, in East Holland, near the town of Bolsward, there stood, for many centuries, a flourishing Abbey, bearing the name of the Oldeclooster. In 1535 it was the scene of a terrible conflict. A party of 300 excited Anabaptists, headed by one Peter Holtsagher, and accompanied by many women and children, marched upon the Abbey, took the monks by surprise, and expelled them from their comfortable dwelling. The Abbot appealed to the Governor of Friesland for help, and a regiment of soldiers, with artillery, soon appeared upon The Anabaptists, refusing to surrender, were subjected to a siege of several days; but at length they were overpowered, and the victors took cruel vengeance upon them. A gallows was erected outside the Abbey, on which twenty-four of the Anabaptists were at once hanged, fifteen more were beheaded, and the rest of the men were slaughtered in various ways. The women and girls were taken to Leeuwarden, and drowned in the canal, close to the old Guard-house, which is still to be seen by the visitor to that city,

the scene.

Amongst the victims of this massacre, was an Anabaptist named Simonsz, whose brother Menno, then a Roman Catholic priest, witnessed his death. This scene made a profound impression upon Menno. It gave him a lifelong horror of war and of every form of either offensive or defensive fighting. He admired the zeal and fervour of the Anabaptists so much that he became convinced of the truth of some of their leading principles, and, leaving the Roman Church, joined their body. But he would have nothing to do with arms thenceforth. After what he had witnessed, his whole soul shrunk with detestation from every kind of resort to the sword. He saw that both the Anabaptists and the German Reformers generally had made a great mistake in resorting to force for the propagation and defence of their religious tenets. Menno, therefore, advocated a policy of non-resistance and of absolute reliance on the Divine protection, and on the convincing power of truth in itself. But most of his contemporaries were unprepared for such a doctrine as this. The Anabaptists, like the Cromwellian Puritans of the following century, were active partisans of Jewish and Old Testament modes of dealing with their enemies; so Menno had to withdraw from his new friends. On the other hand, the German Reformers treated him with even more decided contempt, so that speedily poor Menno found himself, like his Divine Master, "despised and rejected of men." A price was set upon his head, and for a long period he was literally a fugitive and a wanderer upon the earth.

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But he steadfastly adhered to his pacific convictions, and gradually his gentle, loving spirit and his fidelity, at any price, to non-resistance principles, attracted to him the love and respect of a few friends, who entreated him to become their minister and teacher. The number of these adherents increased, in spite of persecution. Amongst their bitter opponents was Martin Luther; but another German, a warrior nobleman, of Holstein, Count Ahlefeld, was so struck with admiration of the meek but brave heroism of Menno, that he offered him an asylum, on his own estate, near Hamburg. There, sheltered from all foes, whether Catholic or Protestant, Menno spent the last few years of his life, and there, at the age of sixty-three, he peacefully died, in 1559 (just after the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the English throne).

He had become the founder of a Church of many thousand adherents, who became known by the name of Mennonites, and, as such, retain an organised existence to the present day. They have chiefly inhabited Friesland, North Germany, and the Vosges mountains, west of the Rhine; but under the stress of occasional interference with their scruples, many of them have emigrated, in the first place, to South Russia, and more recently to the United States and Manitoba.

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Menno's views strikingly resembled and anticipated those of the Society of Friends, who came into existence nearly one hundred years after his decease. Some of his followers subsequently joined that body, and amongst them was William Sewell, the Quaker historian. Like that body, Menno not only taught non-resistance principles, but also advocated great simplicity of life. held that a college training was not necessary as a preparation for the ministry, and also insisted that the ministers amongst his people should render their services gratuitously. He established a strict but loving Church discipline, under the administration chiefly of officers named "Elders." When members of a Mennonite congregation moved from one locality to another, they were expected to bring with them "certificates" of good character from their former brethren and elders. One of the primary rules of their body was as follows:

"In respect to the wearing of arms, the Elders cannot deem it allowable that any member should so far comply with the ordinary fashion, as to carry a rapier, or even a staff; out all participation in warfare, even at the command of the Government, is quite forbidden by the Elders, except in regard to the servants of members."

Towards the authorities everywhere, both in Holland and Germany, the Mennonites, acting on their Founder's

example and precept, manifested a most loyal and respect ful submission. Their special devotion to commerce and industry, together with their harmless and virtuous behaviour, won for them the high appreciation of the most warlike monarchs. And it is a very important and noteworthy historic fact, that these gentle, consistently nonresistant people have obtained and enjoyed, during nearly three centuries, more practical regard to their conscientious scruples, and more executive indulgence from demands of military service, than any of the other Protestant denominations on the Continent.

They have contributed so largely to local and civic prosperity, in various districts, that even German Emperors and Russian Czars have invited them to settle in their dominions, on the express condition that they should, amongst other privileges, enjoy absolute exemption. from military service. And it is further noteworthy that only when some of the Mennonites themselves manifested a disposition to relax their ancient fidelity to pacifle principle, did the military Governments attempt to deprive them of the exemptions won and maintained by them during ages of surrounding violence.

But, as is the case with some other people, long prosperity relaxed the pristine fervour of the Mennonites in various ways. They gradually abandoned some of their original simplicity; they desired a more learned ministry, and set up training colleges for their pastors. young people were not brought up to the old hatred of warfare; and so, gradually, at least in Germany and Holland, they have lost their hard won and long cherished privilege of exemption from military service.

Their

The Prussian King, in 1847, manifested some disposition to curtail their privileges, but at length, in 1867, Bismarck and the present Emperor took the decisive step of withdrawing from the German Mennonites their exemption from the conscription and from military obligations. But in recognition of their past services to the State, certain alleviations of this rigorous order were permitted. In a few instances, hospital or other unarmed public service was allowed in lieu of joining the army; and in other cases, faithfully conscientious members of the sect were permitted special facilities for emigration to America or elsewhere. But the young Mennonites, in general, have, since 1867, been placed on the same footing, as to the conscription, with other Germans.

And it must be confessed that these Mennonite youths have, in most instances, shown that they had not been trained to prize the convictions of their forefathers; their peace principles had already been widely relaxed. In 1870, hundreds of them willingly took up arms against France. This circumstance is recorded by a modern Mennonite historian, Mr. Max Schön, with gratification. And he adds, that he, like his brothers of the sect, was proud to take a part in what he terms "that glorious war against the hereditary enemy of the German nation."

But some of the Mennonites, elswhere, have been faithful to their earlier convictions. Especially in South Russia, where also the modern Government has withdrawn the former privileges of exemption from military service, many hundreds of the sect have quietly refused to comply, and, in consequence, have emigrated to America, chiefly to Manitoba, where they have carried their great skill in the cultivation of hemp, which, whilst they lived in Russia, had been so profitable to the resources of that Empire. But now their Manitoban hemp trade is becoming a formidable rival to the Russian commerce in the same material. It

was a very foolish policy, on the part of the Russian Government, thus to drive away such profitable subjects.

Many Mennonites still remain in Holland, especially in Friesland, where they retain much of the religious earnestness of their forefathers. But it is to be desired that both they and their German brethren had more consistently and lovingly adhered to the pacific and Christ-like doctrine and practice of their brave but gentle founder, Menno Simonsz. The declension of the Continental Mennonites from their former detestation of militarism, conveys an instructive reminder to the friends of Peace everywhere, of the importance of a frequent recurrence to the example of the Saviour Himself.

THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD.

THE Christian World remarks:-"We do not wish to play the part of alarmist; but it is possible to speak too late as well as too early, and the position of affairs on the Continent justifies us, we think, in addressing an earnest word of warning to all who regard war as a crime and a curse. A large number of our readers are more interested in the affairs of the Church than in those of the world, and in ordinary times they possibly do not think it necessary to take any active interest in politics. But crises do occasionally arise in which an active interest in politics becomes a sacred duty. The extension of the Franchise has made all householders more or less responsible, not only for the welfare of their country, but for the Christian character of its statesmanship. If, through our abstinence from politics, we should allow rash or misguided statesmen to commit our country to the madness of war, it would be no excuse for us at the judgment-bar of God that we have not been accustomed to take any part in politics. If we assume a serious tone, it is not because the danger is immediate, but because it is very real; and when it becomes immediate it will be too late to speak at all. No one hopes that peace can be for long preserved on the Continent of Europe. It may be a question of a year or two, or it may be a question of months; but it is almost inconceivable that the armies glowering at each other across frontier lines in the south-east of Europe, can long maintain their present strained attitude. Either there must be disarmament, or there must be war; and the former alternative is treated by the dynasties and their henchmen as ridiculous. Let any one take a map of Europe and let him stick six or seven pins along the external curve of the Gallician frontier of Austria. These pins will represent so many bodies of Russian troops which have been gradually and perseveringly, in spite of all remonstrance, gravitating into their present position. The menace involved in such a crescent of steel will show how impossible it is for Austria to view these preparations with equanimity. We fully admit the probability that Russia bas no design of wantonly attacking Austria; but she has a very firm determination not to allow the Bulgarian question to be settled contrary to her wishes. On the other hand, according to the code of dynastic ambition and pride, Austria cannot allow Russia to interfere in the further disintegration of the Turkish Empire, without taking ample guarantees that Austrian interests shall not be neglected. It is possible at any moment that Russia may take a step in Bulgaria which Austria would regard as fatal to her own designs. Then would come the moment at which Russia would find the advantage of having her troops massed around the Gallician frontier.

"But it may be asked, What is this to us? What, indeed! we might echo. If national politics were ordinarily conducted on principles of common sense, it would, except for our sympathies, be nothing to us. It would, under any circumstances, be a grief to see professedly Christian nations massing their citizens together for mutual slaughter, the only outcome of which will be the increase of the arrogance of one dynasty and the humiliation of another. But apart from the human sympathies which all such spectacles of folly and wickedness must evoke, there is no real reason whatever why this madness of princes need affect us. But unfortunately that is not the view