you complain does not represent the real sentiment of America, but is the work of demagogues. * * * I do not doubt, and no one can doubt, that in the end, no matter what effect the agitation for the time being may have, the American people will treat the Chinese with kindness and justice, and not deny to the true and deserving people of your country the asylum they offer to the rest of the world.” And may God bless him for saying it. Moreover, in the month of June following, this same man of great deeds and weighty speech, in an interview with certain of the highest officials of the empire at Peking, and at their request, offered counsel, which a few weeks later, on a like request, he repeated in an interview with the Emperor of Japan, to the effect that the time had now arrived when the two nations of China and Japan, in peace and close alliance with one another, should no longer submit as they had done to the interference and dictation of foreign powers in their affairs; should assume control of their own commerce, and together stand for their independence and their proper rights, as it became so great nations to do, and as they were able to do against the world. God bless him for saying that, too! It was the most seasonable word, next to the Gospel, that has been spoken on that side of the world in this age. And I, for one, am thankful and proud that it was an American who had the breadth of vision and the magnanimity to speak it. And now there remains to be spoken of an outcome of good from the anti-Chinese agitation that is of more immediately practical consequence than any other. It has been the occasion of calling universal and earnest _attention_, such as had not been drawn to it before, and such as it is scarcely conceivable could have been drawn to it otherwise, _to the fact of the presence within our borders of so many of the Chinese people_. The nation at large is now aware of them and informed with respect to them. While it is not yet settled what is to be done with them politically, and while no doubt there will be further contention over them, it does seem to be settled that they are not to go by a violent dismissal. Here they are, then, more than a hundred thousand souls of them, and here they are to stay. They are an object of the very highest interest, and that for more reasons than one. Not only are they such in themselves, but they constitute by far the most vital point of our contact with that great nation beyond the sea, and afford the most available means and medium of reaching it that we possess. And we are interested in them on our own account. By their presence we have already been put to the test in one way, and we are still to be tested by them in other ways. We are to be tested as to the capacity of our civil institutions, and as to the power of our religion—no, not as to the power of our religion, but as to our power in it.