Victory at Portsmouth peace. For such a peace as that men The Real So long as the world is as unorgan- As the world becomes more highly organized the need for navies and armies will diminish. Crude physical encounter with sword and bayonet, gun, mine, and torpedo, will give way to encounter of wit with wit before established tribunals. Peace will continue to follow struggle; but the form of struggle will be more rational, more enlightened. The President's achievement in terminating this war has cleared the way for what may prove to be a yet greater achievement on his part-the creation of the Second Hague Conference. By this means a surer method than now exists of establishing justice between nations may be adopted. The greatness of this achievement, however, like that of bringing about the Portsmouth Conference and its happy outcome, will be measured, not by the amount of bloodshed it will avert, but by its effectiveness in strengthening the forces of right. Whatever name may be affixed to the end of this war, whether it be called the Peace of Portsmouth or be known as the Treaty of Washington, it will be associated with the name of the man who sought for it with all his might as a just peace. It will bring to this land a double measure of pride if the same hand which wrought it can make peace more surely grounded in justice, more enduring and extensive, by the enlargement of the Hague Tribunal. Now that the war is over and its issues decided, men are wondering what it has wrought. Plain enough it is that this war has wrought destruction and waste, suffering and pain, disease and death. What else has it wrought? Anything that has been worth the cost? Have those little, silent Japanese, those big, elemental, good-natured Russian peasants, laid down their lives for the good of Japan, Russia, and the world? Peace has stilled the clamor and ended the confusion. But does it bring anything except an end to the agony? We believe that it does. It brings that which we fear could never have been wrought out in tranquillity, but could be produced only by the cost and toil of war. To Japan, peace brings immunity from Russian aggression. For a generation, surely, Japan may look toward the northwest without that anxious fear which for years has led her to sharpen her weapons and strengthen her defenses. That ancient menace, Russia's power in eastern Asia, has probably disappeared not to return for at least many years. It is true that Japan has not so utterly crushed that power as she would have done if, by obtaining an indemnity, she had humiliated Russia in the eyes of the petty Asiatic chiefs. The successful party to a suit forces the party against whom judgment is rendered to pay the costs of the suit. This Japan did not accomplish. To this extent Japan has failed to wring from Russia the confession of the full measure of her defeat. She may, however, have left the way open for receiving from Russia what might be of far more value-her future friendship and respect. And here Japan has followed good precedent. The timehonored principle of reimbursement to the victors was abandoned in two notable cases, when, after the close of the Mexican and the Spanish War, victorious America herself paid money to the defeated nation. Japan's insistence on indemnity might have meant the continuance of the war; and the continuance of the war, though it would almost certainly have cost Russia her Pacific possessions, would also have probably meant the financial devastation of Japan. Russia had good reason to decline to pay an indemnity. It may prove, we believe it will prove, that Japan was wise in acquiescing. Moreover, the war had already wrought for Japan all that she had demanded and much besides. In 1895, Russia, with the consent of other Powers, despoiled Japan of Port Arthur, and roused the Koreans against her. Now, by concluding peace with this despoiler, Japan is regaining what she then lost, and has gained other things which she could then never have hoped for. She has not only driven Russia from Manchuria, she has won, and with China's consent will hold, the Kwangtung Peninsula, which includes Port Arthur and Dalny. She has regained also what she had not owned for years-the southern half of the island of Saghalien; and thereby she not only commands, even more emphatically than before, all approaches to the Russian port and fortress, Vladivostok, but also obtains a source of wealth in undeveloped mineral ores, naphtha wells, fish fertilizers, and salmon fisheries. She also regains, and will indisputably hold, ascendency in the invaluable buffer State, Korea. In addition, she has by this war strengthened her alliance with England, or rather has renewed her former alliance, with provisions more than ever to Japan's advantage, Heretofore England has stood ready to aid Japan only if attacked by any two Powers. According to the agreement consummated with the announcement of peace, this is broadened and strengthened. Japan, by the terms of this peace, also gains a predominant intimacy with China. Preceding the war China lay almost help less, certainly nerveless, before the arrogant pretensions of the Russian commercialists and jingoes. Now China is free to turn to Japan, a purely Oriental nation like herself, for guidance in progress toward a more stalwart form of civilization. Best of all, not only by her amazing efficiency in arms, but now by her even more admirable magnanimity and restraint in victory, Japan has won the applause and profound regard of the world. It is idle to deny that the Russian plenipotentiaries displayed acumen and ability in conducting their part of the negotiations, but it is equally idle to assume that Russia has won any genuine "diplomatic victory," as is claimed in many quarters. Japan was in a position to demand more than ever before, and probably more than later. She perceived this, and secured terms that well repay her for the life and treasure she has spent. She has saved her own national existence and has put danger out of sight. She has exhibited magnanimity, it is true; but she has exhibited no less a high degree of wisdom and shrewdness. Japan has won the real diplomatic, because moral, victory. It can even be compared with her brilliant achievements on field and sea. To Russia peace also bears a gift which is likewise the work of the war. It is not always possible to see the glint of gold in the rough-hewn ore, but the gold is there just the same. The rage of the Russian jingoes at the terms of peace is a measure of one treasure which Russia has received. For the war, with its series of Russian defeats and its final results, has checked, not the progress of the Empire, but the aggression of that Grand Ducal faction represented by Alexiev and others of his stripe. Peace has, therefore, not dishonored Russia; it has rather humiliated her worst enemies, those of her own household. While the end of the war leaves Russia still an Asiatic power, it has, to a great extent, ended her existence as a power for harm in the East; she has been saved, therefore, from incurring for the present the enmity which, until her defeat, she was arousing in China. War, too, has brought to the Russian people a new consciousness of their power as well as of their rights. Though it did not create the revolution which is leading to liberty, it has roused that revolution and given it new life. One product of the war, therefore, that peace bears to Russia may well be a freer and more humane government. Peace, moreover, brings out of the war to Russia a new knowledge of the world. In battle after battle Russian soldiers have learned to admire those whom they once despised, and have seen in the humble little Japanese peace express the feeling of relief not merely that a horrible war is ended, but also that an impending danger to an efficiency which they now covet for themselves. These Russian soldiers are now to return home, their dormant energies awakened and their minds the world is averted. This feeling is broadened. Russia's spoils of war are not all sorrow. To the world peace brings more than relief from a spectacle of slaughter. The outcome of the war has shattered any reasonable dread of the "yellow peril.' A nation that can fight so masterfully and chivalrously, and can make peace so magnanimously and shrewdly, is no such peril to civilization as it has been thought would come out of the East. The war has revealed the qualities of the more than sympathy; it is, in its widest sense, humanitarianism. This war, as has no other, has awakened mankind to the fact that what injures one nation or two nations threatens the fabric of the world. Peace has therefore given its best gift, not to Japan or to Russia alone, but to the world at large-a more than ever vivid understanding how inestimable is unity in the family of men. and Moral Inde pendence At the meeting of the American Board in the city of Seattle, Washington, next week, a resolution prepared by Dr.. Washington Gladden will be presented, with the purpose of persuading the Board to adopt the rule that it will "not solicit Japanese, the potential qualities of Asi- Gifts All this the war has wrought for the world. But more than any other war it has revealed the essential solidarity of mankind. The uncounted messages of praise and gratitude despatched to the President upon the announcement of or invite " donations from persons The discussion will be centered, not on the acceptance, but on the solicitation of gifts. It is clear to us that solicitation of gifts is on a different plane from mere acceptance of them. It is easy to understand that one who would be willing, as an agent for another, to receive donations without scrutinizing the source might hesitate to go to that same source and ask for donations. What gift should be accepted can be decided apart from the temperament of the man who receives it. What gift should be solicited, however, can hardly be decided apart from the temperament of the solicitor. To lay down a general rule as to how gifts should be accepted is therefore easier than to lay down a rule as to how gifts should be solicited, for in the latter case the personal element enters as it does not in the former. It is because this personal element enters that many feel it important to hedge about the solicitation of gifts with restrictions. There is a general feeling that the solicitor of a donation, unlike the mere receiver of a donation, runs into the grave danger of putting himself and the interests which he represents under obligation to the donor; that by the very fact that the officer of a missionary society, for instance, suggests to a wealthy man how he may freely dispose of some of his wealth, he offers to that man unqualified honor, and puts himself into alliance with him. He may do so, especially if he regards his own offer as the request of a mendicant rather than as a business proposition made on behalf of humanity which has helped build the rich man's fortune. We recognize this danger; we realize that it has been incurred many times, not only by the officers of missionary societies, but by the representatives of philanthropic institutions, and even by the presidents of colleges. It is an honor to the Congregational body that members of it are aware of this danger, and desire to protect their churches from it. If the passage of this resolution seemed to us the best and surest way to save the American Board and the Congregational churches from becoming sycophantic, we should urge that it be passed; but we believe that it is not the best way. It is a very simple principle that, in order to gain strength, it is never the best way to avoid an encounter, but to prepare for it. Apart, therefore, from subsidiary considerations as to the wording of the resolution, as to the vagueness of the guidance offered in what is "generally believed," as to the difficulty of determining what constitutes sufficient social injury to vitiate a gift, the question is narrowed down to this: Do the American Board and the Congregational churches lack to such a degree moral strength that they cannot ask for gifts from a person whose conduct and character they condemn without sacrificing their liberty to express their condemnation at any time they choose? If the churches are as weak as this, they are weaker than those Salvation Army lassies who bravely enter saloons and pass their boxes for contributions. Those who believe that neither the missionary society nor the churches which support it are competent to exercise this moral independence will vote for the resolution. The Outlook believes that the American Board is morally competent to exercise such liberty, and that the Congregational churches believe this also. That there is moral weakness in churches as in other institutions is indubitable; but such moral weakness can never be remedied by a surrender to fear. We hope that the question will be settled and settled definitely at the meeting at Seattle, that the way to protest against all forms of sycophancy is not by avoiding opportunity to become sycophants, but by fortifying the moral vigor and the social conscience of the churches. The Spectator The Spectator has a woman friend with the spirit of an explorer. The turn in the wood-path, the road beyond the rise of the hill, the bend in the river, must be reached, or else walk, drive, or row is a failure and leaves her restless and dissatisfied. Again and again she has found a barn over the top of the hill road, a rocky field at the end of the wood-path, a spreading marsh beyond the bend of the river; but she admits that no disappointments of the past ever detract from the possibilities that are hidden just beyond. the Spectator has missed her. She had disappeared and left no trace. As the days passed and no word came back the Spectator grew expectant. She would return bringing joy and gladness and visions of hitherto undiscovered lands. At the end of two weeks came an invi Recently tation to enjoy the moonlight on her piazza. "I've done it," she exclaimed, with the triumph of success and the enthusiasm of a child. The Spectator did not need to question, so he sank expectantly into a chair. "I've trolleyed from New York to Boston and back! I've always said I should have lived in the days of stage-coaches, but I know how much better the twentieth-century coaching is than that of any other age. No train to catch, no dirt or smoke; God's free air and sunshine all day. Rain? yes, but I never heard that rain was peculiar to the twentieth century. No, we did not know where we were to stay at night, but we were in God's country and knew no fear. You cannot know the joys of trolleying until you get out of the rush and roar of New York. That we had learned; so we began our journey at a railroad station in Connecticut not far from the State line. Almost at once we were flying through the woods, with gleams and glints of water through the trees. Soon we were going at a safer speed through the beautiful historic town of Norwalk, climbing its hills, turning sharp corners that brought us into a country that verified the geographical statement that the earth is onethird land and two-thirds water. And is there any body of water in the world more beautiful than Long Island Sound on a clear day? It sometimes lay an unbroken blue. vying with the skies above it, to the hilly shore on Long Island. Again, the white sails caught the sunlight, or lay blackened in shadow against the blue, the near-by indented shore with break of marsh, woodland, and farm. இ "We lunched in Bridgeport, and hurried away toward New Haven. Perhaps it was this part of the trip that gave me a new comprehension of our people. The really-truly summer cottage, not the stone mansion of the millionaire, but the little wooden cottage of eight rooms or less, with as much out-of-doors roofed over as the owner can pay for, began to appear here; children, barefooted, clean and happy; women in wash-gowns sit ting sewing, visiting, reading, swinging baby in a hammock. Metaphorically speaking, one removed one's hat to these homes of the new generation of home-makers. It grew to be a privilege to stop in these roadless villages found everywhere, by lakes, in the woods, on the hills of New England, to take on or leave low-voiced gentlewomen going to or coming from the city markets a halfhour away. They were met usually by clamorous, happy children as if returning from a long absence. Sometimes it was a whole family of friends who left the car to be greeted joyfully by mother and children; sometimes a gray-haired man and woman would appear unexpectedly from the car to be greeted with shrieks of joy by children: 'Here's grandma and grandpa !' Yes, I'll admit I grew envious of these summer dwellers under their own vine and fig-tree. In spite of the society columns of the newspapers, the records of divorce courts, the tragedies of the financial world, life is wholesome, sweet, and beautiful in this great land. We make too prominent the disease spots. We know so little of its magnificent good in comparison with its too much talked of evil. "We left the exploring of New Haven for our return trip, reaching Hartford by the roads east of the Connecticut, with that river appearing and disappearing from our view. We were beginning to see that if the trolley had been discovered fifty years ago there would have been no deserted farms. The motormen and conductors were the sons of farmers, often themselves owning neat and attractive homes on the old farms or within sight of the homestead. Friendly, affectionate waving of hands, cordial greetings, met them all along their routes. Gray. haired mothers, with the hesitancy of the New England reserve, not yet accustomed to this intrusion of the outside world on their privacy, peer over spectacles at the car, glances brightening and the world forgotten as a son, friend, or neighbor is recognized. Or the farmer stops hoeing as the whir of the trolley disturbs the air, disappointed if he does not receive a friendly nod from |