I have mentioned these facts, not because I wish to throw discredit upon the Magyars, for government and people are usually two different things; but because I wish to throw light upon these Slovaks who come to us to do our most menial work and whose worth is obscured by our not knowing them. Their clannishness, the tenacity with which they cling to their native speech, and their attitude towards our Christian and national institutions, find some explanation in the miseries they have endured for the sake of preserving some kind of national or racial entity. I consider these Slovaks among the most unspoiled of all the Slavic peoples; low in the scale of culture, it is true, but of such innate goodness and possessing so many virtues, as to make them most desirable immigrants and splendid material upon which to graft the best of our Christian civilization. Like all Western Slavs they are largely Roman Catholic, but with enough of the Protestant element mixed with it to have given evangelical faith a grappling place. This broader vision with its ethical element has been transferred from America to the Slovaks in Hungary and is now manifesting itself in a company of people, which, though small, is so thoroughly in earnest and ethical as to prove that they can be brought into harmony with the most vital religious ideals. Ruthenians, or Ukranians, as they call themselves, who belong to the Eastern Slavic group, [Illustration: RUTHENIANS The most backward and oppressed of the Slavic people, whose destiny is worked out in America.] are a most unhappy people; degraded by adverse economic and religious conditions, worse if possible than those of the most debased Russians whose closest kinsmen they are. In Austria a majority belongs to the Greek Catholic church, which is a union of the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches, maintaining distinct Byzantine dogmas and acknowledging the supremacy of the Pope. There are about 34,000,000 of these people, numerically more important than the Poles, by whom a portion is governed or ill governed and persecuted. Neither have they any chance for full development in Russia where the largest number lives; nor in Hungary, where they make their home on the eastern slopes of the Carpathians. They are now struggling for the maintenance of their national consciousness and are bearing all the unfortunate consequences. In the United States their protest has taken form politically, in a National Ukranian Society, and religiously, in a Ruthenian Free Church, and both deserve sympathetic aid from those who believe in political and religious freedom. The great task of religion in its ministry to the Slav, and that no matter what its ancient form or symbol, will be to make clear to him the difference between God and Cæsar; for religion and nationality, Heaven and the throne, are confused in his mind.