rn religion
'may for the moment win a Pyrrhic victory ... but they are at the same
time undermining the religious spirit, the ardent faith, the
unquestioning devotion which have been the crown and glory of India
for ages.' The wisdom and enlightened morality of these warnings are
incontestable. But at such questions we can only glance, although from
one point of view they may be said to have an important bearing upon
the main subject of this article.

In conclusion, we may observe that the frontiers of European dominion
in Asia are the battleground upon which the forces of archaic and
modern societies meet in arms for decisive conflict. In the ancient
world the contest was only ethnical and political; the rude tribes
were coerced into amalgamation with an expanding State, far superior
in power and usually more humane. 'The nations of the empire[40]
insensibly melted away into the Roman name and people.' But the
antique polytheism had no fanatical element; the deities of the
victorious Romans were often acknowledged and accepted by the
conquered population. Whereas in these latter days the Russians in the
Caucasus and the English on the Afghan border have discovered that in
the passionate religious animosity between Islam and Christendom lies
the mainspring of the stubborn energy and fierce hatred that so long
held their armies in check, and that still prevents the establishment
of even a pacific _modus vivendi_ on the most important frontier of
India.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] (1) _The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus._ By John F. Baddeley.
London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1908. (2) _Among the Wild Tribes of
the Afghan Frontier._ By J. L. Pennell, M.D., F.R.C.S. London, Seeley
and Co., 1909.--_Edinburgh Review_, July 1909.

[39] _Border Raids and Reivers_, by Robert Borland, Minister of Yarrow
(1898). This valuable work, founded entirely on the study of original
documents, may be heartily commended to all who are interested in the
political and social life, the customs and traditions, of the old
Border.

[40] Gibbon.

L'EMPIRE LIBERAL[41]

The fourteenth volume of _L'Empire Liberal_, issued in 1909, carries
M. Emile Ollivier's very interesting reminiscences of that eventful
period up to the outbreak of the Franco-German War in July 1870. It
contains many curious particulars of the incidents and transactions
culminating in the rupture with Prussia that brought about the
downfall of his ministry and the ruin of