Few of us are aware of what we are doing when we close our galleries and churches, and open our saloons to the poor. This last, so far, has proved impossible. But let our hot gospellers, whose creed is based on "Be-it-enacted," visit any one of the poor abodes of the laborers denied admission to innocent places of amusement on the only holiday they have for such recreation. Such investigator will descend to a subterranean excavation dug in the sewer-gas-filtered earth, where the walls sweat disease and death. These are homes for humanity. Or he will ascend rotten stairways to crowded rooms, heated to suffocation by pestilent air poisoned by over-used breath from men, women, and children, packed in regardless of health, comfort, and decency. These are the so-called homes of thousands and thousands: and the wonder is, not that they die, but that they live. We send millions of money with missionaries to foreign shores: to our own flesh and blood we send—the police. Loving care and patient help are bestowed on distant pagans: poor-houses, prisons, and wrath are the fate awarded to our brothers at home.
A little way from these abodes of misery and crime the saloon is open, with its gilded iniquity, warm, cheerful, and stimulated with liquid insanity in bottles and beer-kegs. Do we wonder that the churches are empty and the saloons crowded?
The advent of our blessed Saviour was heralded by the anthem of the heavenly hosts, that sang "Glory to God on high, and peace and good-will to men on earth." The few sad years of our Redeemer's life among men were passed with the poor, the sinful, and the sorrowing. We have to-day much glory to God on high, and no good-will to men on earth.
Your churches decrease in numbers as the population swells, O brethren, because of your lack of Christian sympathy!
THE TRUTH ABOUT SAMOA.
It would be interesting to know at what precise period in Prince Bismarck's masterful career he first conceived the scheme of colonial empire which has grown to be an absorbing passion of his declining years. Probably it was about the time when he began to proclaim, with suspicious energy, that nothing was farther from his designs than to rival the achievements of Great Britain in the field which that nation had made almost exclusively its own. No modern statesman is better versed in the arts of diverting public attention from the enterprises he has resolved to prosecute with his utmost strength and skill. Events which rapidly followed the exhausting war of 1870 were calculated to admonish him that Germany's resources were insufficient to maintain her in the position of supremacy to which he had led her. The steady increase of emigration to America was one of the discomposing consequences of his splendid triumph, and the hope of retaining under German rule the tens of thousands of fighting men who annually deserted the fatherland may have been a powerful incentive to colonial development in various attractive parts of the world. Whatever the original impelling motives were, there is now no doubt that the plan of extending the German sway indefinitely by establishing vast settlements in regions yet uncivilized, and making them tributary to the glory and wealth of the empire he had created, took possession of the Chancellor's mind, a dozen or more years ago, with a tenacity which no discouragement or dissuasion has ever weakened. It was about that date that the unusual activity of German ships of war in the Oriental seas excited the watchfulness of European governments and provoked inquiries which led to singular disclosures. The methods of diplomatic investigation in the far East are in some respects different from those which prevail nearer home—possibly owing to a lack of facility in employing them where official scrutiny is close and constant; and it might be injudicious to examine too minutely the processes by which it became known that the guardian of Germany's destinies was engaged in maturing a plot of territorial aggrandizement the like of which has been devised by no other European statesmen in recent days, and which has been paralleled only by the vivid imagination of the first Napoleon. It was soon learned that of the numerous islands which constitute what is known as Polynesia, not one of value had escaped visitation by carefully selected explorers, whose errand it was to report upon the feasibility of eventually making the German flag supreme in the Southern Pacific, and delivering over enormous tracts of land to the domination of the German race.
A glance at a map of the world will show how immense the possibilities of conquest in the East are to one who has fixed his resolve upon unscrupulous annexation or absorption. The natives of these regions are incapable of resistance, and nothing but the combined opposition of European naval powers could ever stand in the way of the gigantic enterprise. Such opposition Germany has—or believes she has—little cause to fear. Some of the leading nations are bound to support her interests by alliances which they dare not break. France can interpose no obstacle that would be regarded with anxiety. Russia has no immediate concern in the Asian archipelagos, and any claim put forward by the United States would be rejected with derision. Great Britain alone remains, and against her interference the German rulers are confident that they have a sure safeguard in the traditional apprehension of Russian encroachments in the north and west of Asia. While England is straining her eyes to scan the slightest movement of the Czar toward China and Korea, and speculating incessantly upon the outcome of supposed intrigues which probably have no substantial existence, Germany considers herself secure from molestation in other quarters. It is quite as likely, however, that the rooted English conviction of German incapacity to conduct colonial operations may more reasonably account for the indifference to Bismarck's proceedings. From some cause, not yet clearly divulged, the Germans have certainly been permitted to pursue their audacious course with singular freedom from remonstrance. It cannot be surmised that the British authorities are ignorant of what is in progress. Even if they were unprovided with direct sources of information, there is enough in the avowed and unconcealed demonstrations of the past ten years to awaken jealousy. Without anything approaching a sound commercial basis for the undertaking, the far-seeing Chancellor has established a huge national steamship line, exceeding in length of route the extremest reach of the most important British maritime companies. From the Baltic ports this line runs southward, one arm extending through the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and skirting the continent of Asia until it comes to an end in Korean waters, while the other embraces almost the entire coast of Africa, and, starting eastward, touches Australia, penetrates the great Malay group, and finds a convenient terminus in the Samoa Islands, concerning which so much futile discussion has been wasted in the last few months. All along the aforesaid African route the shores are dotted with German settlements, often planted in direct defiance of England's claim to priority, and maintained in spite of every form of protest. The British flag has been affronted under circumstances far more flagrant than the world suspects, yet the outrage has been passed over with careful avoidance of public scandal. Unless it is believed by the English government that Bismarck's mighty conception is destined to an ignominious collapse,—like an ill-balanced arch whose span is too ponderous for self-support,—it is difficult to conjecture the reasons for this prolonged submission to an insolent and unprecedented dictation.
But no apprehension of collapse disturbs the German statesman's undaunted soul. In his cabinet lie the maps of the reconstructed world, upon which the future dominions of his country equal in magnitude, if they do not surpass, those of the most extensive territorial powers. The course of operations with respect to each accession is plainly marked out, and to the fulfilment of the stupendous whole he and those who bear his name are unalterably pledged. It may be generations, even in his ambitious view, before the great result is attained, but no doubt of the final consummation is allowed to take shape among those who know the bent of the iron Chancellor's will. Meanwhile, effective measures are employed to try the temper and test the enduring faculties of the native races to be subdued. Cruelty and barbarity mark the German range of advancement, wherever their footsteps are imprinted. In Africa and in most parts of Asia their name is held in terror and abhorrence. They are uniformly represented by men of Bismarck's own stamp, who shrink from nothing that can accelerate the completion of their plans. The episode of Samoa affords a fair example of their intentions and their methods of execution. What is Samoa? Simply a strategic point of departure—a station that must be owned and held as a rallying-spot, a depot, and an arsenal. Having been once selected, it will never be surrendered, except under a pressure greater than the civilized world is willing or able, in Bismarck's belief, to concentrate upon such an object. The notion that the Washington government can exert the minutest influence is too groundless to be entertained by any person who has studied the situation. It is true that most of the European powers courteously abstain from offering opinions as to the result of American intervention, but the Chinese, who are aware of no reasons for reserve, openly laugh at it. The Japanese, more keenly alive to ultimate consequences, do not laugh, but are grievously concerned at the growing feebleness and irresolution of the only country that has ever permitted considerations of humanity to enter into its foreign policy. Russia—strangely or not, as the observer may choose to decide—is the sole great power that appears to cherish expectations of a future growth of American influence in the Eastern Hemisphere. German agents, acting under well-defined and easily comprehended instructions, omit no opportunity to belittle and degrade the reputation of the United States in all the districts which are included in the scope of Bismarck's magnificent projects.
But the reputation of this Republic, for good or evil, is not the question now under consideration. What we desire to point out is the uselessness of attempting to controvert, by ordinary diplomatic means, a scheme of wholesale aggrandizement to which the most resolute, unshrinking, and pitiless mind of this age devotes all its energy and all the instruments of material force now subject to its control. For a considerable time a certain amount of reticence will be deemed necessary, and the completest ignorance of the movement will be professed, especially by those who have been most actively concerned in the preparations. But the facts are known to so many who care nothing for the realization of Bismarck's hopes that the secret cannot long remain a close one. It is hardly to be supposed, however, that the fullest possible revelation, much as it might irritate him, would substantially modify his arrangements. It would perhaps retard them, and doubtless cause him to noisily disavow the whole proceeding; but the machinery would continue to move as surely and efficiently as ever toward the required end. This being understood, and thoughtfully considered as a firm and fixed purpose of the German rulers, to occupy as much of the coming century as is necessary for its execution, a sufficiently new light will be thrown upon the Samoan complication to show that instead of being a petty incident of international debate, it is in truth the opening scene of a great and portentous historical drama. To imagine that the hand which has contrived this colossal enterprise will falter at the first sound of adverse criticism is to totally misapprehend the character of its owner and to blindly disregard the lessons he has been teaching for a score of years.