"And ELISHA prayed, and said, Jehovah, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And Jehovah opened the eyes of the young man: and he saw" (2 Kings vi. 17). Elisha's prayer is peculiarly fitting now. The first need of American Protestantism is for clear vision, to discern the supreme issues involved in immigration, recognize the spiritual significance and divine providence in and behind this marvelous migration of peoples, and so see Christian obligation as to rise to the mission of evangelizing these representatives of all nations gathered on American soil.--_The Author._ Out of the remote and little-known regions of northern, eastern, and southern Europe forever marches a vast and endless army. Nondescript and ever-changing in personnel, without leaders or organization, this great force, moving at the rate of nearly 1,500,000 each year, is invading the civilized world.--_J. D. Whelpley._ Political optimism is one of the vices of the American people. There is a popular faith that "God takes care of children, fools, and the United States." Until within a few years probably not one in a hundred of our population has ever questioned the security of our future. Such optimism is as senseless as pessimism is faithless. The one is as foolish as the other is wicked.--_Josiah Strong._ I THE ALIEN ADVANCE _I. A Year's Immigration Analyzed_ [Sidenote: A Million a Year] What does a million of immigrants a year mean? Possibly something of more significance to us if we put it this way, that at present one in every eighty persons in the entire United States has arrived from foreign shores within twelve months. Of this inpouring human tide one of the latest writers on immigration says, in a striking passage: [Sidenote: The Peaceful Invasion] "Like a mighty stream, it finds its source in a hundred rivulets. The huts of the mountains and the hovels of the plains are the springs which feed; the fecundity of the races of the old world the inexhaustible source. It is a march the like of which the world has never seen, and the moving columns are animated by but one idea--that of escaping from evils which have made existence intolerable, and of reaching the free air of countries where conditions are better shaped to the welfare of the masses of the people. [Sidenote: Variety of Peoples]