ates. If anybody had suggested to him that there were
nations which no treaty could bind, he would have answered, in the
style of the prayer-meeting exhorter, "Ah! I have a higher faith in
human nature." So he worked busily, building himself his niche in the
temple of fame, and meanwhile the greatest war in history broke out.

With such a mind as has been described, it is evident that this event
could not shake Mr. Bryan's confidence in himself or his remedies. To
him it was obvious that the war came because the nations involved had
not signed his treaty; if they had, Germany would have abided by it;
would not have dreamed of treating it as a scrap of paper; would have
waited the prescribed year, and Austria would have given Serbia the
same time to reply to her ultimatum. The mischief was done, but he set
about heroically to repair it; he sought to have the United States
intervene as a peacemaker; he sought to prevent the United States
from protecting its citizens on the high seas, since that seemed
likely to lead to war; and at last, finding his efforts of no avail,
he resigned.

No one who had seen him in his unequal fights for his principles on
less momentous occasions could doubt that he would fight for them to
the end on this greatest one. There is no parallel to his action in
American history. So far as its political aspects are concerned, the
nearest thing to it is Blaine's resignation from Harrison's Cabinet in
1892; but that only faintly resembles it. Blaine did not resign
because of any difference in principles, but because he wanted to
fight the Administration; and the superficial resemblance lies only in
the similarity of the relations of the two Presidents to their
Secretaries of State.

Bryan leaves the Cabinet saddened, but not disillusioned. When he had
been Secretary of State two months he said that he would not have
taken office "if I thought there was to be a war during my tenure." "I
believe," he added, "there will be no war while I am Secretary of
State, and I believe there will be no war so long as I live." It has
not come out that way; it might have so easily come out that way if
only Germany had signed that treaty of his! But he is not
disillusioned; nothing can disillusion him; his ideal is still only a
day or two ahead of him, and he resigns to fight for it, since fight
for it in the Cabinet he cannot any longer.

In the Name of Peace.

By LAVINIA V. WHITNEY.

(After Kipling.)