What a contrast is here in this clean, well-kept American city to European cities! There, ofttimes, we find narrow, crooked and dirty streets, and what is worse thousands of children who never knew the meaning of the word "home." Instead of filthy alleys filled with smoke and foul smelling gases and profanity and unclean jests from vagrant lips they should have, as the children here, the benefits of grassy lawns, running brooks and singing birds, the natural birthrights of every child. Oh! For more great hearted men who are more considerate of the sorrows and cares of others and less considerate of self, as that self exists for others' good! We thought of the wonderful parks of Antwerp, Belgium, where the land is so thickly populated, yet where the love for the beautiful in Art and Nature is so universal as to perpetuate these lovely parks, thus enriching the lives of all who see them. It is pitiful to see in the many smoky cities the little done for this thirst for beauty, inherent in all. Even in the poorest sections where many foreigners dwell one sees a broken pitcher with its stunted geranium, a window box with ferns and vines or a canary in a rude cage. As soon as a movement is on foot for parks the seekers after gain will be there howling "the poor must be fed!" Of course they must, but the body sometimes is the least part of man that needs nourishment; the soul hungers and thirsts for the beautiful. Nothing seems useless whereby we can gratify that insatiable thirst for all that is pure, beautiful and true in Nature, which draws us a little nearer the Master of all truth. We did not mean to preach a sermon this July day for we are not ordained and therefore our discourse might not be accepted as orthodox. We heard a few cannon fire-crackers, popping and sputtering like distant machine guns, the last faint echoes of the noisy demonstration that filled the streets the day before. The noise soon died away and we thought how like the politician's marvelous speeches and outward demonstrations! True patriotism consists in something vastly more than the waving of flags and eloquence, which the trying days of 1917 and '18 revealed. The orations were hot ones, and needed no fiery remarks or burning glances from the eye to make them such, as the mercury stood high in the nineties; yet some said they enjoyed them. Perhaps they did, but as a fish might enjoy dry land or an Esquimo the Sahara. Gladly we left it all for the grand amphitheaters of the hills where Nature each day holds her jubilees, filled with calm, serene enthusiasm that falls on one as gentle as purple shades that linger about her wooded heights, giving them that strange enchantment that is a part of their real glory.