Perhaps our ancestors were wise in their caution. Perhaps a change has become advisable. We are asking how far government changes or modifies the people; how far governmental action, change of President or controlling party, their legislation and policies, affect the deeper currents of character and life. The people seem to me to be still continuing to go their own way and to follow quietly but firmly their own line of development, largely regardless of the votes of national Congress or State legislature, perhaps sometimes with a slight sigh of relief at their adjournment. It may be best that it is so. The independence and continuity of popular development is still maintained to-day as throughout prehistoric times. How far do our vast accumulations of learning and discovery, our deep or superficial systems of philosophy, our splendid or decadent _fin de siècle_ art and literature reach and affect these people? Their chief characteristic is an attempt at distinction, an artificial uncommonness, a self-consciousness entirely foreign to the thinker of the common mind. The institution which has the widest and deepest influence on their feeling, thought, and life is the church. They generally love it, for they are "incurably religious." It is conservative in the best sense of the word. It represents, of course imperfectly, the feelings, aspirations, and hopes of all men everywhere in all ages--in one word, of humanity. It stands for the worth, dignity, and brotherhood of man, and the fatherhood of God. It is almost alone to-day in recognizing that there are ends in life. It offers a way of progress and a reasonable ground of hope in a somewhat weary age inclined to indulge in criticism, fault-finding, and pessimism. The fact that it is generally roundly abused for its defects, mistakes, and sins of omission, for its inability to accomplish the impossible, is a sign of the great hope and confidence which we have rightly reposed in it. The discordant chorus of mutually destructive criticisms arising from the cultured and intellectual classes seems to show that it is following fairly well a straight, right, and wise course, as Mr. Lincoln is said to have suggested concerning his own experience, plans, and leadership in a similar situation. "Wisdom is justified of her children," but the families of the elect are small. That the church does not conform to all the theories--not to say vagaries and fads--of to-day is no discredit. Most of them will be very unfashionable to-morrow. "The fashion of this age passeth away."