adopted-by which the single-line dealers. should be enabled to compete with their great rivals. The parcels post seems to offer an absolutely fair method of furthering this end, since the post-office can deliver parcels to remote customers for all dealers at less cost than can even the largest store. So far as transportation charges are concerned, our post-office could adopt the German rates for distances less than forty six miles the present loss on our onecent-a-pound rate for delivering newspapers being due to the fact that they are carried an average distance of over four hundred miles.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

To many men in America Cornelius Vanderbilt was simply a multi-millionaire; his name connoted great wealth, and in some excited not a little envy. To others he was a great railroad king; his name connoted great power, and in some excited that spirit of controversial independence

so characteristic of Americans. To a smaller number he was better known as a Christian philanthropist who gave liberally of his wealth and of what was more valuable, his time and energy, to a great variety of philanthropic and Christian enterprises. We have very good authority for believing that a man may dole out all his goods to feed the poor and not have love, and "cold as charity" has passed into a proverb. Cornelius Vanderbilt had love, and was not cold." He was more than millionaire, railroad king, or philanthropist. What he was to those who knew him most intimately is made apparent by the following letter, written in reply to a request of the editors of The Outlook by Dr. David H. Greer, who was Mr. Vanderbilt's pastor and a very inti mate friend :

Mr. Vanderbilt was a rich man, with the emphasis on the man. That, to those who knew him well, and even to those who did not know him well, was his distinctive characteristic. The value of his estate, great as it was, was not equal to the value of him. The man was more than his money. It did not own him; he owned it. Nor did he own it exclusively or chiefly for himself; he owned it for others. His wealth was regarded by him, not simply as something personal, but as a great and sacred trust, which it was his duty to administer, not with a lavish carelessness, but with a wise and discriminating conscientious

ness, for the benefit of his fellow-men. That duty he tried to perform, and did perform, not only in connection with the many and various charities in which he was interested (and how many there were none will ever know), but also in the management of his business, for business to him meant something more than the opportunity for personal enrichment. It was the opportunity for doing good, for serving and helping others by economic methods and through economic channels. That was and while, of course, he added very greatly to the way in which he looked upon business; his own personal fortune by his wise and conservative business management, it was not the hope of personal gain that constituted the principal motive in it. He literally sacrificed his life in the administration of his great trust, for he not only gave money, but, what was still better, he gave himself. John Ruskin has somewhere said: "If your fee is first with you and your work second, then fee is your master, and the lord of all fee, who is the devil; but if your work is first with you and your fee second, then work is your master, and the lord of all work, who is God." Mr. Vanderbilt's masother. He was pre-eminently a religious man; ter was God; he knew and acknowledged no not occasionally and at times, but always. His sense of responsibility to God was always with him. He lived in it, whether in the pew or the office, at a vestry meeting or a railroad meeting. That was the keynote of his character, and made him the man he was, or rather the man he is, for such a life as his does not pass away.

He was a man of great simplicity of character, easily approached, but strong, even to sternness, when necessary, and yet withal as gentle as a woman. People have the idea, and a correct one, that he gave away a great deal of money, and yet he did no colossal thing. He was appealed to from all over the world, and he devoted a great deal of his time to his correspondence. Indeed, until he was stricken three years ago, every letter he regation, and in order to respond to these wisely ceived came under his own personal investiit was necessary to exercise much discrimination. He looked upon his business as a charity, as it was putting money into circulation so that it got into the hands of the people for whom it was intended. One prominent characteristic of the man was that he never obtruded himself in the exercise of his benevolence. He, perhaps more than any other person with whom I am acquainted, did not let his left hand know of the works of his right, and that is one reason why the extent of his benev olence will never be known. While he contributed largely toward many benevolent institutions, his charity was not concentrated upon a few things, but was widely disseminated over a great number of things, not only in this country but in all parts of the world. He did not create many institutions to advertise his name, but devoted much of his time to personally investigating the appeals sent to him, and relieving distress whenever it was genuine. In spite of the fact that efforts were constantly made to impose upon and deceive him, he

always believed the best of people and never lost his faith in them. He was constantly looking for, and therefore always finding

"some soul of goodness in things evil,” and his strong human sympathy never seemed to desert him. It was because of that human sympathy, that inextinguishable human instinct, that so many people were attracted to him and regarded him as their friend, and that even those who were never acquainted with him experience now a sense of great personal loss in connection with his death. Although his sphere in life was very different from that of Phillip Brooks, yet, as in the case of that eminent lover of his kind, even so now they cannot avoid the feeling that humanity has lost a friend. But it has not lost him, for he lives and will live as an illustration to us of religion in daily life, and to show us how, in the midst of our absorbing secular duties,

"At noonday, in the bustle of man's worktime,
To greet the unseen with a cheer;"

and therefore, as we think of him as somehow and somewhere living and working still, we

may

"Cry, Speed-fight on, fare ever,
There as here!"

The lessons involved in such a life as that of Cornelius Vanderbilt are so simple and so plain that they scarcely need an interpreter.

Much is said in our time about the evils of concentration of wealth. The wealth concentrated in Mr. Vanderbilt's hands was beyond estimate. His own possessions are variously reported at from $80,000,000 upward. But this enormous sum by no means represents the money power which he wielded. The New York "Tribune" gives a list of some fifty corporations in which he was either president, vice-president, or a director, and in most of which he undoubtedly exercised a dominating influence. All the property involved in these corporations, and much other property indirectly affected by them, was very largely influenced by his judgment and his will. There are richer men in America than he was, but it is doubtful whether any man in America ever exercised so great a money power, or one that exerted so diffused an influence on the lives and fortunes of others. But no intelligent man would venture to affirm that either the properties of the stockholders of these various corporations or the wellbeing of the enormous army of their employees would have been better cared for if the questions submitted to Mr. Vanderbilt's judgment, and largely determined by him, had been submitted to either stockholders or employees, or both com

bined, to be determined by them after public debate in mass-meeting. It still remains open for the advocate of the democracy of wealth to insist that judgment is developed only by its exercise, and that those stockholders and employees would themselves be educated by the process if they had been compelled to determine the questions which were determined for them, and that the education would have been worth the cost involved in even serious errors of judgment. It is open for him also to insist that it is dangerous to allow such concentration of power in a single man, since we can never be sure that he will be worthy of so great a trust. But it remains true that economically there is no real disadvantage in such concentration of wealth, provided the man who possesses it is both intelli- · gent and conscientious.

What do we mean when we say of such a man as Cornelius Vanderbilt that he is worth $80,000,000? We simply mean that he has the administration of a certain productive property, such as the New York Central Railroad. In such a case possession simply means power, and power means responsibility. The railroad which he owns serves thousands of employees and hundreds of thousands of travelers and shippers. The owner has the charge, the people enjoy the benefit. Within certain narrow limits, the owner can determine what prices the people shall pay for the service rendered them, and what prices shall be paid to the employees for the service which they render. But this apparently unlimited power is really very limited. If the owner so administers the railroad that it ceases to serve the public, it soon ceases to serve him. If he underpays or overworks his employees, he is soon mulcted in heavy fines by a destructive railroad accident, by the gradual loss of his best men, or by an expensive strike. On the other hand, if, in a fit of unwise generosity, he endeavors to pay more than the earnings of the road justify, he soon loses the ability to pay at all. The President of the Carnegie works is reported as saying that he wishes he could reduce the labor day in the mills to eight hours, but he cannot without Federal legislation. competition prohibits. A multi-millionaire can have for his own occupation three or four houses instead of one, and big houses

instead of small ones; he can spend more money in dress and ornaments and on table luxuries than his less wealthy neighbors; he has at his command all the comforts, and is morally imperiled by easy access to all the luxuries, of modern life; and in case of emergency, such as sick ness, he can summon to his aid all the resources of modern civilization. But the limit of possible expenditure on self is soon reached; the greater part of his income, whether he will or no, must be invested; that is, must create new properties to serve the public, or must be expended in charities to serve the unfortunate. The millionaire can only eat three meals a day, wear one suit of clothes at a time, and live in one house at a time. The only pleasure of which he has a monopoly is that of alleviating the distress or enhancing the comfort of great multitudes by his charities. And generally he is so busy that the administration of his charities is intrusted to a steward, who alone sees the comfort and the pleasure and receives the gratitude. Mr. Vanderbilt was in this respect a remarkable exception to the general rule. He was to a very unusual degree the almoner of his own benevolence.

The proposition of Jesus Christ that wealth is a trust and its possessor a trustee for others is no figure of speech; it is a hard, cold, scientific fact. The possessor may be intelligent and conscientious; then he will know that he is a trustee and will administer his trust in honesty and with honor, and will receive the pleasure which the doing of a difficult duty with fidelity always brings. He may be unintelligent and unconscientious; none the less will he be serving others whether he knows it or not, though in the latter case he will deny himself the pleasures and only bear the burdens of public service. The benevolence of Cornelius Vanderbilt is not to be measured by the amount of money which he gave away in so-called benevolences; nor by the amount of personal time and energy which he gave to the numerous charitable organizations in which he was more than a nominal director; nor even by the kindly personal sympathy which he found time to express to men to whom there was absolutely nothing to bind him but the ties of a common humanity. The true measure of his benev

olence was his habitual recognition of his own trusteeship and the spirit in which he administered his trust. The good which he accomplished, great as it was, through recognized charities, was not a tithe of that which he accomplished by the spirit in which he administered the properties over which he exercised a controlling influence. It is not too much to say that the stocks which he owned himself he regarded not less sacredly as a trust than those which, belonging to others, depended for their value on his administration.

But if Mr. Vanderbilt's life illustrates the truth that the concentration of wealth is not economically disastrous if it be concentrated in the hands of one who accepts and administers it with fidelity as a trust, his death illustrates the vital danger in the concentration of responsibilities. Under an economic system which tends to the diffusion of wealth, the burdens which Mr. Vanderbilt bore would have been divided among a hundred or perhaps a thousand men. Possibly under such a system the material prosperity of the community would not have been so great; but death would not have come so

soon.

No one man can safely undertake so varied a responsibility as Mr. Vanderbilt carried throughout the greater part of his life. From it the overburdened man can escape only by refusing some of the responsibilities or by carrying them all with a careless conscience. The first Mr. Vanderbilt would not do, the second he could not. So at fifty-three years of age he was disabled, at fifty-six he died-just at the time when, with a reasonable proportion of life's responsibilities, he should have been in his prime, taking the highest enjoyment out of life and rendering to it the greatest service. Whatever may be said economically of the concentration of wealth, the concentration of responsibilities which it necessarily involves is fatal, alike to those whom it relieves of a burden which they ought to bear and to those on whom it places a burden which they ought not to bear. The Czar cannot rule the Russias; he must leave practical government to a bureaucracy or it will kill him.

The Pope cannot rule the Church; he must leave practical government to a hierarchy or it will kill him. As little can a multi-millionaire personally

administer an industrial empire. If he does not attempt to do this, injustice is sure to be perpetrated in his name and under cover of his authority; if he does attempt it, the task is almost certain to exhaust his powers before the allotted time.

The life of Cornelius Vanderbilt is the all-sufficient answer to captious criticisms hurled against rich men because they are rich; the death of Cornelius Vanderbilt is a serious indictment of an industrial system which lays on the conscientious trustee a heavier burden than it is possible for him to carry.

The Trust Conference

The Trust Conference at Chicago, of which we publish a fuller report on another page, sensibly adopted no resolutions. Its object was not to settle the question, but to set people to thinking upon the suggestions put forward. These were numerous and generally coherent. Professor Jenks, of Cornell, opened the Conference with a judicial statement of the economic inquiries before it, and Professor Henry C. Adams, of Ann Arbor-the statistician of the Inter-State Commerce Commission-followed with a statement of the fundamental change in the structure of society which the acceptance of trusts would involve. "English jurisprudence," he pointed out," assumes that competition between producers on the one hand, and consumers on the other, is a guarantee of justice and equity." Therefore, he urged, the burden of proof rests upon those who advocate the consolidation of manufacturing industries. It is theirs to show that such consolidation does not lessen the guarantees of equity, does not tend to close the door of opportunity, and does not impair the democratic organization of society. Professor Adams plainly believed that the consolidation of competing corporations had all these tendencies, and he put strongly the argument that in so far as the railways discriminate in favor of large shippers they push forward consolidation. He did not urge the prevention of railroad discrimination as the sole remedy for the evil, but there was general agreement with him that it formed one of the remedies. The reduc

tion of the tariff-where it protects trusts -was another remedy that met with general, in fact surprisingly general, assent. Ex-Governor Luce, of Michigan, and other prominent Republicans took the position of ex-Senator Washburn, of Minnesota, that the tariff was justifiable where it fostered American competition with foreign producers, but unjustifiable where it fostered American combination by excluding foreign competition. The free-traders, on the other hand, did not claim that the tariff was the "mother of all the trusts." They generally recognized that there are many manufacturing industries in which Americans can produce more cheaply than their foreign competitors, and here the removal of the tariff would not destroy trusts, though it might lessen their exactions.

The points really debated related to the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of trusts where they have arisen without the aid of railroad discrimination or tariff protection. Here ex-Secretary Foster, of Ohio, George Gunton, of New York, and several others—including the Socialistic speakers-urged that trusts are a natural and wholesome development which results in important economies to consumers. The anti-trust speakers denied all these propositions. They did not deny the economy of production on a large scale by a single firm or even corporation, but the combination of corporations naturally rivals they believed to be injurious from the standpoint of industrial progress as well as individual liberty. Several speakers urged that such combinations on the part of corporations were plainly an abuse of the privilege of incorporation granted by the State. Trusts, therefore, they urged, were not a natural development beyond the power of law, but an artificial one which the law could remedy. This was the essence of Mr. Bryan's reply to the defenders of the trusts. As a remedy he urged not only State action to prevent the combination of domestic corporations, but Federal action to prevent a monopoly organized in one State from doing business in any other. He read the famous Delaware circular inviting trusts to incorporate under Delaware laws, because they would thereby be relieved from all restrictions upon their capitalization, and nearly all upon their subsequent operations.

Such favors to combinations in certain States, he said, made it the duty of Congress to use its constitutional power to regulate inter-State commerce. The license of a corporation to engage in interState commerce, he urged, " can be granted upon conditions which will, in the first place, prevent the watering of stock; in the second place, prevent monopoly in any branch of business; and, third, provide for publicity for all the transactions and business of the corporation." The enthu siasm with which this speech was received seemed almost to make its proposals the programme of the so-called "radicals," who would continue the régime of competition. The programme of the "conservatives ". who welcome the era of combinations—— was perhaps best set forth by ex-Secretary Foster, who also favored publicity of accounts and the prevention of stockwatering, and advocated a Federal tax when the dividends of the combination exceed six per cent. Altogether the Conference was a remarkable success in enabling men to understand one another's positions.

The Pattern Prayer

The purpose of Christian as distinct from heathen prayer, to aid us to the doing of God's will rather than persuade God to the doing of our will, is strikingly shown in the pattern prayer prescribed by Jesus. Apparently distributed into a number of petitions, the aspirations of the Lord's Prayer are really summed up and concentrated in one, Thy Will be done. To this the preceding sentences lead up in their triple confession of love-Ou Father, of reverence-Hallowed be Thy Name, of loyalty-Thy Kingdom come. From this focal point, THY WILL BE DONE, the following sentences expand its contents into a triple specification of the prime particulars of the Divine Will concerning us, as we should contemplate it and seek to realize it, viz., in the sustentation of our being-Give us our daily bread, in the correction of our faults-Forgive us our debts, in the redemption of our life-Deliver us from the evil.

In true prayer of every type the focal point is the same. In thanksgiving for benefits, in confession of sins, in adora

tion of divine grace and glory, in aspiration toward divine ideals, in petition for whatever we desire for the bettering of our life and its opportunities, the innermost and universal implication of the Christian spirit is Thy Will be done, the sum and substance of the Lord's Prayer. In our various petitions for this or that we are imitating the example of that pattern prayer in translating its comprehensive word, Thy Will, into its particulars as we conceive them. Our translation is sometimes fallacious. So was St. Paul's, when he prayed for relief from his "thorn in the flesh." We may fail to "understand what the will of the Lord is," and experience must reveal it. Our translation fails; our prayer does not, for the will of the Lord is fulfilled otherwise.

Even the agnostic, who recognizes in the evolution of the universe a certain purposiveness, an intelligent advance toward ends, and who is bidden even by Mr. Spencer not to rely passively on this, but to do his best "to hasten the evolution," must see the reasonableness of prayer in this point of view, as the natural effort of the finite will to co-operate with the infinite. "Thy Will be done" is at least the implication of every effort, whether scientific, philanthropic, or religious, to discover the divine line of advance and on it to move forward. None who has, however dimly, glimpsed an Executive Mind within the universal evolutionary process can consistently abjure the thought, " Thy Will be done," or decline to adopt it, with its natural implications, as the fit and universal prayer of man.

Origen, in the third century, remarked that the Christian life, in an ideal view, is simply the outward expression in conduct of the Lord's Prayer. In the point of view here taken of the Lord's Prayer Jesus seems therein to have pictured his own life. Whatever various purposes his mission involved, he summed them all in saying that he had come to do the will of God. Whatever his various activities, he affirmed that it was his "meat" to do the will of Him that sent him. Whatever his ties to others, he declared that the doer of the will of God was his brother, sister, mother. By such sayings he irradiates the central significance of the prayer he phrased as the leader of mankind in In it we see the reflection of his

prayer.