the criminal, the waste-ends of humanity, the poor woman on the streets, the drunkard. Her greatest novelist, Dostoievsky, was an epileptic; her national poet, Nekrasof, was a drunkard; Vrubel, one of her greatest painters, was an imbecile; Chekhof, her great tale-writer, was a hopeless consumptive. She is not opposed to the good and the sound, but the suffering are dearer to her, more comprehensible. She loves the drunkard, and says "Yes, you are right to be drunk; you are probably a good man. It is what you are likely to be in this world of enigmas." She loves the white slave, but does not wish to shut her in a home for such. The Russians, so far from segregating the diseased and the fallen, frequently fall in love with them and marry them. They are sorry for the crippled children, but do not wish they had never been born. They see in them a reminder of the true lot of man upon the world. They make such children. holy, and set them at the church doors. Russia does not execute the murderer except under martial law, but she sends him to Siberia to understand life and be resurrected. Thus, in The Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikof the murderer, goes to Siberia with little Sonia, the white slave, who whispers to him all the way the promises of St. John's Gospel.

In America the man who is tramping the road and will not work is an object of enmity. He is almost a criminal. He is not wanted. He will receive little

hospitality, must chop wood for his breakfast or steal. His life is a blasphemy breathed against the American ideal. But in Russia none is looked upon more kindly than the man on the road, the tramp or the pilgrim. There are a million or so of them on the road in the summer. They are characteristic of Russia. In them the Russian confesses that he is a stranger and a pilgrim upon the earth.

The Christianity of Russia is the Christianity of death, of renunciation, of what is called the podvig, the turning away from the empire of "the world" as proposed by Satan on the mountain, the wasting of the ointment rather than the raising of the poor, the giving the lie to Satan, the part of Mary rather than the part of Martha.

But the Christianity of America is the Christianity of Life, of affirmation, of "making good," of accepting "the world" and preparing for Christ's second coming, of obedience to the law, of almsgiving. America is the great almsgiver, appealed to for money from the ends of the earth, and for every object. If Russia can give faith, America can give the rest. It is impossible for America to say with St. Peter, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee." The Americans believe in money, and the pastor of a fashionable church is able to say, "I preach to fifty million dollars every Sunday morning." But as Mme. Novikof, in one of her brilliant conversations,

once said, "What is greater than the power of money? Why, contempt of money." There are no people in the world who keep fewer account-books than the Russians. They fling about their wealth or the pennies of their poverty with the generous assurance that the bond of brotherhood is greater than their fear of personal deprivation.

The Americans are great collectors. It It may be said collecting is the genius of the West; emptyhandedness is the glory of the East.

The Russians are a sad and melancholy people. But they do not want to lose their melancholy or to exchange it for Western self-satisfaction. It is a divine melancholy. As their great contemporary poet Balmont writes:

I know what it is to moan endlessly

In the long cold Winter to wait in vain for Spring,

But I know also that the nightingale's song is beautiful to us just because of its sadness,

And that the silence of the snowy mountain peaks is more

beautiful than the lisping of streams

which is somewhat of a contrast to a conversation reported in one of Professor Jacks' books:

Passenger, looking out of the train window at the snowy ranges of the Rockies: "What mountains!"

American, puzzled for a moment: "I guess I h'ant got any use for those, but ef you're thinking of buying real estate. . .

The phrase, real estate!

Britain is seated in the mean. Compared with America she is semi-Eastern. Despite the bloodrelationship of the American and British peoples they are more than an ocean apart. We receive without much thanks American songs and dances, boxers, Carnegie libraries, and plenty of money for all sorts of purposes. But our backs are to America; we look towards Russia and are all agog about the next Russian book or ballet or music. We are an old nation; as far as the little island is concerned hope has died down. We have explored the island. America will take a long time to explore her territory. No vast tracts and inexhaustible resources and terrific upheavals of Nature reflect themselves in our national mood. The American working man has a true passion for work, for his country, for everything; the British working man does his duty. We have not the belief in life that the American has Russian's belief in death.

we have not yet the

The American breathes full into his lungs the air of life. The American is glad at the sight of the strong, the victorious, the healthful. How often, in novels and in life, does the American woman, returning from a sojourn in the far West, confess to her admiration of the cowboy! She is thrilled by the sight of such strong wild "husky" fellows, each of them equal to four New Yorkers. In England, however, the town girl has no smiles for the strong peasant; he is a country bumpkin,

no more.

She wants the ideal, the unearthly. In Russia weakness attracts far more than strength; love is towards consumptives, cripples, the half-deranged, the impossibles. The Americans do not want the weak one; England backs the "little un" to win; Russia loves the weak one, feeling he will be eternally beaten, and loves him because he will be beaten. But America loves the strong, the healthy, the pure, because she is tired of Europe and the weakness and disease and sorrow of Europeans.