from new perils. It took the ordinary politician a quarter of a century to see what the great politician could see in an instant,—that the Civil War was over. What miseries were endured, and what injustices were done, because well-intentioned leaders lacked the quality of moral quick-witted

ness!

If war is the game of kings, politics is the game of free peoples. There is no form of human activity which calls into play so many qualities at once, or which demands the constant exercise of such energetic virtue.

"Like a poet hidden in the light of thought," the politician's private conscience is hidden in the light of his public duty. He is himself a poet

a maker. He works not through words, but through the impulses and convictions of other men. His materials are the most ordinary- the events of the passing day, and the crude averages of unselected humanity. He takes them as they come, and remoulds them nearer to the heart's desire. Out of the conflicting aims of the multitudes of individuals, he creates the harmonies of concerted action.

To some the praise of politicians may seem

but the glorification of worldly success. "But what," they ask, "about the failures? The world acclaims the hero who marches to triumph at the head of a great people. But what of one who is far in advance of his own time, the lonely champion of unpopular truth, who dies unrecognized by the world he serves?"

The answer must be that there are good and great men whom we praise for other qualities than those of the politician. Their high function it is to proclaim ideas that are not affected by the changing circumstances of their own day. They belong to the ages, and not to a single generation. Their fame is dateless.

But, on the other hand, we must recognize the fact that one may be in advance of his age and yet closely related to it, as an effective politician. The politician aims at success, but it is not necessary that the success should be personal. It is the final issue of the struggle which must be kept in mind.

The politician is quick to seize an opportunity, but it may be only the opportunity to make a beginning in a work so vast that it cannot be completed in his own lifetime. He may deliberately

ally himself to the party of the future, and labor to-day for results that cannot appear till the day after to-morrow. He may see that the surest way to the attainment of his ultimate purpose is through the ruins of his own fortunes, and he may choose to take that way.

In all this he is still within the range of practical politics, and is concerned with the adaptation of means to ends. He is dealing with the issues not of a day, but of a century. It is not safe to say that a politician has failed till the returns are all in.

As the true sequence of events becomes plain, History revises our judgments in regard to political sagacity. We begin to see who were the leaders, and who were the blindly led.

There have been martyrs who in the hour of their agony have been far-seeing politicians. They have been sustained not so much by a beatific vision as by their clear foresight of the public consequences of the blunder of their adversaries. They have calculated the force of the revulsion of feeling that was sure to follow an act of cruel injustice. It was in this mood that heroic Hugh Latimer watched the fagots that were being piled

around him. "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man: we shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out."

Latimer's words were justified by the events. Those martyr fires, manfully endured, determined the policy of the nation.

Here good politics and good ethics are one. No cause has ever triumphed through clever management alone. There is always need for the leader, who, without regard to what may happen to himself, is resolved to play the man.

MY MISSIONARY LIFE IN PERSIA

WITH SOME REMARKS ON LIKING ONE'S JOB

A

I

MONG the most persistent of my early dreams was that of being a missionary. I wanted to be a missionary before it occurred to me that I had any particular doctrine to communicate or manner of life to recommend. Indeed I now perceive that my call was more of Nature than of Grace.

I wanted to be a missionary because I longed to go on missionary journeys. The call of the wild, the lure of the unknown, the fascination of terrestrial mystery takes many forms. It is all a part of the romance of Geography, which has survived even the invention of maps.

When one is eleven and going on twelve, there comes a great longing to go to the Antipodes, to visit No Man's Land, to wander through forsaken cities, to climb lonely towers, and to look out through