Farther, farther

Than with body's absence

But who walks with you now while your thoughts are here and brush mine?

This hour, O Master, shall be bright for thee:

Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea,

The braves who fight thy fight unsheath the sabre,

The slaves who toil thy toil are lashed to labor,

For thee the wagons of the world are drawn

The ebony of night, the red of dawn!

* This song comes from Flecker's unpublished drama Hassan, which those who have seen it consider immeasurably the finest thing that he ever wrote. It has remained in manuscript since his death, awaiting stage production. His Yasmin' is another song from the play, and his well-known Golden Journey to Samarkand' is its epilogue. Ishak is the Court poet of Harounal-Raschid.

SEVERAL German scholars and writers have visited England since the armistice. Some of them, like the venerable economist, Lujo Brentano, have renewed old acquaintanceship there while attending public conferences. Others have gone to report the state of popular sentiment, and to prognosticate political developments which are likely to affect the future of their own country. The correspondent from whose pen comes the first of the following articles, represents the Frankfurter Zeitung, well known as a leading organ of German Liberalism. During the war the editorial policy of the great liberal dailies showed a consistent desire for early reconciliation with Great Britain. This attitude was particularly marked in case of the Frankfurter Zeitung and Berliner Tageblatt, and in a somewhat less degree of the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten. These papers opposed a predatory peace; they criticized the harsh treaties that Germany forced on Russia and Roumania; and they were bitter adversaries of unrestricted U-boat warfare and of inviting American intervention. It is natural, therefore, that the same papers should be among the first to resume journalistic intercourse with the country from which they have de

rived many political ideals. Probably it was no mere accident that a freetrader like Brentano should have been one of the earliest emissaries of economic coöperation to visit the country that was the birthplace of the doctrines which he has so stanchly supported.

Just what facilities a German journalist would have at the present moment to ascertain the state of political sentiment among English working people is, of course, unknown to us. But besides being a picture of British political thought, as it presents itself to a German observer, the article is interesting as a very early example of the reviving reaction through normal peace channels of English public opinion upon that of Germany.

REMARKABLY little has appeared in the secular press upon the profound influence which the revolutionary movement, now covering the greater part of Europe, is likely to have upon the status of the Christian Church, and, indeed, of every religious organization. At present writing, we hear much of the attempts of the Bolsheviki to employ Pan-Islamism in their campaign against British India. About fifteen million of the former

Tsar's subjects were Mohammedans. One of the conspicuous buildings on the banks of the Neva, in Petrograd, was a mosque, whose white minaret stood in view of the ornate Cathedral of St. Isaac. However, the present friendly relations between Bolshevism and Islamism, if they actually exist, are due solely to political causes.

In the spring of 1919 the German and Austrian press contained several accounts of the active propaganda conducted by the Bolsheviki in Afghanistan and Persia, and among other Mohammedan peoples of Central Asia. Bolshevist dispatches were printed referring to editions of one hundred thousand or more pamphlets or tracts in the languages of those countries, designed to show the essential identity of the economic and social theories of Bolshevism with those of the Koran.

A powerful military party has evidently grown up in Russia during the Bolshevist régime. According to the Pravda, the People's Commissioner Gusef, at a session of the Petrograd Soviet, asserted that even if peace were made between Russia and its enemies it would only be an armistice in the war to the death between Bolshevism and capitalism. He said: 'We must be prepared to keep our army at its highest strength. Only by armed force can Bolshevism maintain its principles at home and abroad.' This military party stands for a direct negation of the platform upon which the Bolshevist régime originally won the support of the Russian working people and peasants. It seems to represent a revival, not only of old imperialist ideals, but also of policies associated with the former imperial bureaucracy. The pursuit of conquests abroad is advocated in order to distract attention from evils at home. A campaign against India would be a Bolshevist

resumption of the traditional Czarist programme interrupted by the AngloRussian Entente that followed the victory of Japan in Manchuria.

Returning to the topic of our article, the hostility of the Bolsheviki to the Orthodox Church is sometimes interpreted as retaliation for previous persecution by men high up in revolutionary councils who, though they have become strangers to the doctrines of the synagogue, are still inspired by reminiscences of its ancient racial resentments. However, the antagonism between Socialism and every established Church is based upon more general causes. It has manifested itself in Germany, Austria, Italy, and France as well as in Russia. But it is natural that the conflict should be more intense in Russia than elsewhere; for in that country supreme political and ecclesiastical authority formerly were vested in the same person, and the connection between Church and State was more intimate than in Western Europe. Our article, describing the persecution, not only of the Orthodox Church, but of all other religious communities and denominations, by the Bolsheviki, shows vividly how difficult it is to reconcile Socialist theories of property with the continuance of any organized form of worship which is not itself entirely committed to Socialist principles.

THE first Parliamentary elections in Western Europe, after the war, indicated that while the tide of Socialism was at that time ebbing in France and England, it was rising rapidly in Italy. Some of the economic causes for this condition are touched upon in the account of the Italian Government's programme which we republish from the Anglo-Italian Review.

Early in December, serious disorders occurred at Rome, Mantua, and