war with Spain, said "Hands off!" to the powers that wished to
interfere, there has been a great increase of friendly feeling. But
there has been little or no flattery passing back and forth. We have
sent ambassador after ambassador to England who were almost more
American than the Americans. Phelps and Lowell and Hay and Choate and
Reid were all American in name, in tradition, in their successes, and
in their way of looking at life. By their learning, their wit, and
their criticisms, by their writing and speaking, by their presentation
of the claims to greatness of our great men, by their unhesitating
avowal in public and in private of their allegiance to the ideals of
the republic they served, they have made clear the American point of
view. Above all, they have shown their pride in their own country by
acknowledging and praising the great qualities of England and the
English. There has been no fulsome flattery, no bowing the knee to
foreign idols, and what has been the result? The American ambassador
for years has been the most popular diplomatic figure in Great
Britain. An increasing number of Englishmen even, nowadays, know who
Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln were, and our understanding of
one another has grown rapidly out of this frank and manly attitude. We
were jealous and suspicious a hundred years ago, as are England and
Germany to-day, but we have changed all that by our attitude of
good-humored independence, and by eliminating altogether from our
intercourse the tainted delicacy of compliment, and the canting
endearments of the diplomatic cocotte. We have emphasized our
differences to the great benefit of the fine qualities that we have
and cherish in common.

The individual Protestant does not dislike the individual Papist, half
so much as he dislikes his neighbor in the next pew, who refuses
Sunday after Sunday to repeat the service and the creed at the same
pace as the others, and hence to "descend into Hell" with the rest of
the congregation. The Sioux chief was far more annoyed by his neighbor
of the same tribe in the next-door reservation than he was by me. The
pugilist scorned "Tug" Wilson, a brother fisticuffs sovereign, but had
no feeling against his parish priest. Theological protagonists are
notoriously bitter against one another, but we have all found many of
them amiable companions ourselves. It is the fellow next door, who
wears purple socks, or who parts his hair in the middle, or who we