guided by their prejudices rather than by good judgment. Of the former the Critic for March has this to say: "Mr. Froude, as is well known, learned his political and social philosophy and his literary art from his Gamaliel, Carlyle,” and, like his master, "in his secret soul he despised pretty much all the human race." This accounts for the coloring he gives to the negro's "incapacity" which he tries to prove by the reckless statements made by enemies of the colored race who persist in presenting a study of low types as indicative of the race.

That individual denominated the negro to-day, has shown his capacity for the exercise of virtues for which even his enemies give him credit; he has representatives in every profession doing honor to the race; he is being counted among the prosperous men financially; he has for years administered well the affairs of Grenada, which, despite Mr. Froude and others, proves capacity for government. The turbulent spirit in Hayti proves no more against him than the same spirit in France proves against the white race. He gave Senator Hampton's State his voice and vote for education, and in this line he has risen marvellously.

But after all, these things are not the question. They are only advanced to prove that the South must be left to manage this as it desires; that it is dangerous to allow the blacks to exercise their constitutional rights, and to rouse resistance against Federal supervision. Right here let me say the bill for this last makes no provisions for usurpation of power such as is claimed by its opponents, and if it did, such usurpation could not take place. It is true that it alone will not solve the problem, though it will eliminate some of the perplexing political features. The main question is How shall we adjust the present relations between the blacks and the whites, so as to promote the general interests of all? To this question we should stick, but in passing let me reaffirm what I have said elsewhere as to the matter of suffrage referred to by Senator Hampton.* To have failed to give the blacks the right of suffrage or to deprive them of it even now, and at the same time to permit them to remain within the state yet not of the state, without voice or vote, would precipitate far more serious trouble than would the so-called

*Forum for March.

negro supremacy. The solid South might be broken, but the solid negro element, with a gathering enmity intensified by this great wrong, would prove a most formidable force against law.

It is not the segregation of the negro that is intensifying his race prejudice, so much as it is the injustice done him in depriving him of his rights, and the cruelties to which he is subjected in forms varying from the mildest ostracism to murder; though I believe with Mr. Breckinridge, that it would be far better for these millions to scatter over this country, and that until this is done, America will be in a state of unrest. As this is not probable, at least at present, the trouble must be met and disposed of in some other way. To accept the inevitable, forget the past, overlook present mistakes and provide against further ill-feeling and friction, seems to be the only wise and discreet policy which can be carried out.

We must all look largely to the future, letting justice, wisdom, education, and the accumulation of wealth combine with time. The race problem is the natural outcome of environment, and a change must be made in the environment," says Dr. J. C. Price, the negro orator. This is true and this combination will produce the change. In a professional way it is best for the negro to eschew politics, but justice and wisdom must grant him all the civil and political rights of a citizen and a man, then education, moral and intellectual, and the accumulation of wealth will work together to insure respect and bring about a different state of affairs.

But to assert arrogantly, not only the present superior advancement of the whites as a race, but the determination not to allow the negro to rise to equal heights, is only to sound continually the tocsin of war, to throw down the gauntlet which a rapidly growing intelligence will pick up and prepare to measure arms in achievements. Let the "subtile" and "irresistible powers" work in each race and let the best win. To quote Mr. Breckinridge again, "Intelligence in the long run will conquer ignorance, even if from ' the hands of intelligence are taken all physical weapons and to ignorance is given every form of brute force." The negro must work out his own destiny, and as Judge Fenner asserts, "from the standpoint of his own self-interests:" he must "form a just and definite conception of what the race problem

is." But he is not to be hampered by all these varying, conflicting statements which affirm that he should say, "Hands off. This is my problem, I will solve it," and then set vigorously to work to declare what he shall do and what he shall not do in short that he must solve it by a solution proposed exclusively by the whites for their own self-interest. This assumption is as unjust as it is unwise. There are two parties interested in the solution of this great problem, and the views of each must be considered.

The present seems dark to the negro and that there is an increasing discontent, is perfectly evident, still I am far from despairing of his success in the future. In the language of Rabbi Gottheil, when referring to the condition of his own people in this land, I would say of the negro, I am of the opinion that his position will continue to improve in this great country. The old prejudice against him will gradually fade away. We shall, in no distant day, have the negro figuring not only in politics and literature, but in the fine arts and in every thing that unites to harmonize and elevate mankind, just as the men of other races.

America has been and will be, despite legislation, the gathering place of the nations and races of the whole earth. Its future must be worked out by a harmonious working together of its heterogeneous population. All must be uplifted together. It must be acknowledged by all who are struggling.to solve this question, that selfish expediency never makes wrong right, that injustice reaps its own reward. In time, some way and somehow, these barriers will come down-it may be brought about by all this loud and constant discussion, as the walls of Jericho fell before the sound of trumpets in the hands of the marching Israelites. Let the thundering of right and truth come from friend or foe, and let the negro stand firm in the belief expressed by our minister to Hayti, Frederick Douglass, God and I make a majority." If the South and North, white and black, will unite on lines of justice and humanity to man, the race question will work out its own solution with the least friction and the best results.

SYMBOLICAL CHARACTERS IN THE OLD TES

TAMENT.

BY PROF. SHERIDAN P. WAIT.

IN this advancing age, when the human intellect has delved so deeply in the earth, fathomed the sea, explored the heavens, and found everywhere a changeless law and order, if any written records are still to be presented and accepted as in any sense the product of that Supreme Intelligence whose workmanship the cosmos is, the contents of such writings must coincide in form and substance with the highest knowledge we can gain of the course of nature and the constitution of man. This, I think, the Hebrew Scriptures, when rightly interpreted, can be shown to do. Not that I wish to participate in the effort often made to read into these ancient books the results reached by the progress of modern thought along many lines; but to exercise a rightful privilege, perform a sacred duty, in presenting some measure of that vital truth represented or foreshadowed by the principal persons and events of the Old Testament, which I have been led to see and to apply.

In this discussion, we must bear in mind the fact, that, in order to a right understanding of the symbol, we must apprehend something of the qualities of the thing symbolized. Thus the key to the Old Testament is found in the New. The life of the man Jesus, as a typical human being, renders it of value for us to know what went before to make him what he was, that we may more consciously conform unto the type.

To present the subject in detail would, of course, require larger limits than those of the present article; but it is believed it is possible, even in a brief paper, to give a few examples of a rational and perfectly legitimate interpretation of certain scriptural characters, which calls upon us to consider, if it does not prove, the following propositions :

1. The Bible is a history of the growth of the soul, from

its infancy in a state called Adam, to its manhood in a consciousness called Christ.

2. The allegories and parables, persons and events, recorded and described in the Old and New Testament scriptures, serve to illustrate, personify, and portray stages of development and phases of experience through which every human being is sooner or later destined to pass.

3. The root meanings of the words chosen as the names of individuals, who may not have had even an historical existence, and yet whose recorded lives are symbolical ones, define faculties of the mind, attributes or qualities of the soul. And, as in the demonstration of a geometrical proposition, the marks we make as aids to the mind have no place in the ideal figure whose points and lines require no space; so, with the persons and things described in the Bible, events are recorded and characters pictured in language best adapted to the solution of a problem in the intricate combination of forces involved in the progressive creation of man.

4. The account of creation given in the Book of Genesis, while having an evident literal reference to various stages and ages in the formation of the material universe, has also an inner, higher signification, prophetically descriptive of different degrees of evolution, or gradual upbuilding, through which all mankind must pass.

5. The life of nations and of individuals is marked by seven distinct periods, corresponding to the days of labor and the Sabbath day.

6. The creation of man has not yet been completed; but the typical line of descent, which terminated, through Joseph and Mary, in Jesus, individualizes a universal and orderly method, in which the laws of Heredity and Environment, and the Law of Laws, the Divine Overshadowing, co-operate and combine to foretell, in the Christ, what the perfected human race is to be.

7. The birth, nature, and mission of Jesus the Christ mark the fulfilment of natural laws and reveal possibilities within the reach of realization by all men, after the foundation has been laid, broad and strong, in physical, intellectual, and moral development, for that glorious superstructure, a spiritual consciousness.

The name of God is the first to which a symbolical character is given in the Old Testament. It has formed the