When in 1888 Emperor William I. sank under the weight of years and the crown rested upon the head of his son Frederick, that adored prince was no longer in the full tide of victorious youth, but being borne by a swiftly ebbing tide beyond the reach of earthly honors. He was a stricken and indeed a dying man when the opportunity came to carry out the policy he had intended for Germany. What that policy was we shall never know, nor whether it would have been a safe and a wise one. We are sure it would have been beneficent, for no gentler, kindlier prince ever had power and opportunity. The distrust of him manifested by the conservative party, and notably by Bismarck, and one still nearer to him, leads us to believe that he leaned too strongly toward the ideal of the patriots of 1860. But we shall never know. We can only conjecture whether in Frederick's death Germany escaped a danger or missed an opportunity. The unseemly dissensions, the heartbreaking complications, which tormented this dying man make one of the saddest chapters in history; and his reign of five months can scarcely be matched in suffering. At last it was ended. The untarnished soul and tortured body parted company, and William II. reigned in his stead. It is not the province of history to pass judgment upon the living. When the young Emperor William II. dismissed his great chancellor, he assumed the full responsibility of his empire. Whether he has the intelligence and the wisdom required to control, unaided, the forces at home, or to guide his bark amid the whirl of European currents, later histories will tell. But one thing is very certain. Time spent to-day in riveting antiquated chains upon Germany is time thrown away; and the ruler who desires his work to be permanent must turn his back upon medievalism and must realize that the true source of abiding power in his country is that sentiment which emancipated her from Napoleon in 1814, and which in 1871 made of her a UNITED GERMANY. THE END. End of Project Gutenberg's A Short History of Germany, by Mary Platt Parmele