For Russia, as for other countries, there are but two alternatives, progress or revolution. If the latter consummation were to happen, it does not, however, follow that the cause of freedom would have any great direct and immediate furtherance. In the circumstances of Russia the man who wields the military power must be supreme. A new ruler resting on the army might be not less an autocrat than the old. We can but say that the present policy of the Tzardom is seriously retarding and arresting the natural and national development of Russia, and that it tends to provoke a catastrophe which may endanger its own existence. The industrial progress now being made in the country renders it only the more necessary that her political institutions should make a corresponding advance. It remains now to say a word about the revolutionists who have played so remarkable a part in the recent history of Russia. The members of the Russian revolutionary party have been drawn from nearly all classes of the people. Some, as we have seen, belonged to highly placed aristocratic families; some have been sons of priests and of the lower officials. More recently the rural classes supplied active adherents to the militant party. One of the most notable features of the movement is the influence exerted in it by women. It was Vera Sassoulitsch who opened the death-struggle with the autocracy in 1878. A lady of high birth, Sophia Perovskaia, by the waving of a veil guided the men who threw the fatal bombs at the assassination of Alexander II. But whether aristocrats or peasants, men or women, the members of the Russian revolutionary party have been remarkable for their youth. The large majority of those engaged in the struggle had not attained to the age of twenty-five. In view of their extreme youth, therefore, we need not say that they had more enthusiasm than wisdom, and more of the energy that aims at immediate success than of the considerate patience that knows how to wait for the slowly maturing fruits of the best and surest progress. Having regard to the very subversive theories which they tried to sow broadcast among the masses of the Russian people, we see clearly enough that no autocracy in the world could avoid taking up the challenge to authority which they so rudely threw down. Only the Government of an enlightened people long familiar with the free and open discussion of every variety of opinion, can afford to give unlimited opportunity of propaganda to such views as were entertained by the Russian revolutionary party.