sometimes quarreling in the nursery, on whose troubled life the strong mother looks without dread, knowing that out of even the apparent evil there will issue, if the children be but rightly guided, a better, braver, clearer-thoughted, stronger-willed manhood, so we in this little nursery of ours play our child games, and fight our child battles, and suffer our child sorrows, while the strong God looks down on us with infinite tenderness, but with infinite peace. It is well sometimes for us to flee from the nursery strife, stand for a moment at the divine Mother's side, look up into Her calm face, and receive the quiet benediction of Her presence. This it is to "acquaint thyself with God, and be at peace."

Calvinism has its beatific side. The sovereignty of force is terrible; the sovereignty of law may be dreadful; but who can be in terror of the sovereignty of love? "I am the Lord, and there is none else; I form the light and create the darkness; I make peace and create calamity; I the Lord do all these things." Substitute love for I, and reread this declaration, and life becomes luminous. Lovesent calamity becomes a blessing. As when the green sod sees the plow coming straight toward it, and knows that in a few moments it will be torn up by the roots, and all its glorious verdure will be bruised, and yet can rejoice if it can foresee that this burial of spring prepares for the resurrection of a harvest, so the soul that knows the good God and what glory he brings out of deso lations and devastations, fears not the destruction that wastes at noonday. Love holds the plow-handles and makes the furrows;

"And all is right that seems most wrong,

If it be His dear will."

When in the apocalyptic vision the book of human destiny was brought out, John wept much because no one was found able to open it. Then the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the strong Son of God, the lover of mankind, strong in his love and strong in his hope, because he could see the end from the beginning, and could in his strong love share the sufferings which were to redeem the race, came forward and took the book and broke its seals. And when He did so, forth from the book came war and famine and pestilence and persecution. It is self-sacrificing love alone which dares open the book of human destiny and let free the awful woes that are hidden in it. For tears are seeds of joy, and sorrow is the travail-pain of a new life. And all the tumults and strifes are but the dust and confusion of the factory whose finished product is man, made in God's image, and satisfied only when after life's troubled dreams he awakes in God's likeness.

What a tumultuous rapid is that which flows from the foot of Niagara Falls to its peaceful resting-place in Lake Ontario! Two drops take this tempestuous and seemingly perilous journey together, both tossed hither and yon in the foaming current, both flung now into the air by interposing rocks, now forced backwards by recalcitrant eddies, but both making their way steadily to the lake below. One, perplexed, distraught, terrified, despairing, cries out to itself, What is all this for? Why was I taken from my quiet repose in Lake Erie? The other knows that God has cleft this passage for the river through the rocks, and not in vain, and that all thwarting obstacles and jutting stones cannot hinder his purpose nor block the pathway of the tiny drop whose roadway has been hewn out for it, whose peaceful harbor is waiting for it. So in the midst of the swirls and eddies and currents of this tumultuous life, the soul that knows God moves on serenely to the issue his Maker has prepared and predetermined; kept in perfect peace because his mind is stayed on God.

perfectly feasible, that the worst is now already behind us, and that the agencies, public and private, already at work along the lines of improvement will ultimately stamp out all the worst plague-spots.

Towards this great end of the cleansing of the slums, one of the most imperative needs is the creation of a considerable series of small parks and playgrounds scattered through the very heart of the congested tenement districts. A beginning is he difficult step in measures of this kind; and, fortunately, the first victories for small parks in New York have been won. The Legislature and the municipal authorities are definitely committed to the policy. Moderate appropriations have been made. A block of the worst tenement-houses in New York, known as Mulberry Bend,

was demolished last year to make way for one of these much-needed little parks. The policy moves, with a somewhat discouraging tardiness, but public opinion will in the end sustain the small-parks movement and make it effective. Its great champion is Mr. Jacob A. Riis, a journalist whose daily work has given him an unequaled knowledge of social conditions in the tenement districts of New York, and whose books, articles, and personal efforts have availed, more than the work of any other one man, to acquaint the prosperous half of New York with the rights, needs, and possibilities of the working masses.

One of the great needs of New York has been public baths and wash-houses, lavatories, and similar conveniences. Here again the great difficulty was in getting a tangible start. That start has been made. To one of the sub-committees of the Chamber of Commerce's famous "Committee of Seventy" on municipal reform was assigned the subject of public baths. Mr. W. H. Tolman, Ph.D., formerly Secretary of Dr. Parkhurst's City Vigilance League, and now Superintendent of the work of the Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor, acted as secretary of this sub-committee; and Mayor Strong, when his administration began, retained the committee as a Mayor's advisory group for the initiation of the policy. A practical result is the appropriation of $150,000 for the construction, in a crowded tenement district, of a well-appointed model public bath on the best European lines. The establishment will be erected in the present year, and its success is a foregone conclusion. It will be followed by others in a series which will gradually supply the entire population. This is no slight mark of municipal progress, but rather a most hopeful and far-reaching line of new public policy. One of the most difficult problems in a great town is the proper shelter of the floating population. The old-fash ioned common lodging-house is an exceedingly hard thing to regulate. In the English cities the only effectual means of lodging-house reform thus far discovered has been municipal construction and operation. The municipal model lodging-houses have not wholly superseded those conducted

by private enterprise, but have set a high standard, and, by virtue of example and by force of competition, have driven the meaner and smaller establishments out of business,. compelling private lodging-house keepers to provide large, well-appointed establishments which can readily be in-spected by the health authorities and the police. For several reasons needless to discuss (the "floating vote " being one of them), municipal lodging-houses in New York could not secure public indorsement. The feasibility, however, of the provision of model lodging-houses through private enterprise-under motives of public spirit and philanthropy, yet with the assurance of a moderate return upon capital. invested-has become clearly evident to those best informed. No fact has more strongly impressed itself upon the minds of Mr. Milbury and his associates in the work. of the Industrial Christian Alliance (this work dealing with the most unfortunate element of the floating population). than the great need of a series of model lodging-houses in New York. One of the social experiments of Calvary. Church is a lodging-house in East Twenty-third Street (next to its admirable workir gmen's club, known as the Teetotum, on Mr. Buchanan's London pattern); and this hostelry is highly successful. It is now well understood that a prominent capitalist and man of public spirit is preparing,. out of his own means, to provide for New York a notable series of model lodging houses. Mr. D. O. Mills, who is engaged in this project, has thoroughly acquainted himself with the British models, and has enlisted the co-operation of Mr. Ernest Flagg, a very brilliant New York architect.. The undertaking is destined to form one of the most notable forward steps which New York will have taken in this decade in the direction of a betterment of social conditions and facilities.

The field for educational improvement is everywhere an unlimited one; but New York's educational deficiencies areby comparison painfully conspicuous. Nevertheless, the very fact that this necessity for educational reform is now so. appallingly evident is perhaps the most hopeful element in the situation. A few years ago the condition of things had not been laid bare. Few people appreciated the inadequacy of New York's educational methods and opportunities.. To day the work of reform is based upon a better knowledge than ever existed before.

The public schools of New York are sadly inferior. The school system is badly organized, and has hitherto been fatally involved in Tammany politics. Some of the teachers. are faithful and enlightened, while many of them are of poor qualifications, and others are lacking both in character and in zeal. The school accommodations are so insufficient that many thousands of children are unable to find places. A majority of the buildings are of ill design, and playgrounds and modern appliances are totally lacking. The movement for public-school reform is, however,