its power, by destroying the form, as have severed the divine thought immanent in the Magian or Hindoo faiths from their integral embodiments. But a greater task awaits Britain. Among the races of the earth whose fate is already dependent, or within a brief period will be dependent upon Europe, what empire is to aid them, moving with nature, to attain that harmony which Dante discerned? What empire, disregarding the mediaeval ideal, the effort to impose upon them systems, rites, institutions, creeds, to which they are by nature, by their history, by inherited pride in the traditions of the past, hostile or invincibly opposed, will adventure the new, the loftier enterprise of developing all that is permanent and divine within their own civilizations, institutions, rites, and creeds? Nature and the dead shall lend their unseen but mighty alliance to such purposes! Thus will Britain turn to the uses of humanity the valour or the fortune which has brought the religions of India and the power of Islam beneath her sway. The continents of the world no longer contain isolated races severed from each other by the barriers of nature, mutual ignorance, or the artifices of man, but vast masses, moving into ever-deepening intimacies, imitations, mutually influenced and influencing. Man grows conscious to himself as one, and to represent this consciousness on the round earth, as Rome did once represent it on this half the world, to be amongst the races of all the earth what Hildebrand dreamed the Normans might be amongst the nations of Europe, is not this a task exalted enough to quicken the most sluggish zeal, the most retrograde "patriotism"? For without such mediation, misunderstanding, envy, hate, mistrust still erect barriers between the races of mankind more impassable than continents or seas or the great wall of Ch'in Chi. This is a part not for the future merely, it is one to which Britain is already by her past committed. The task is great, for between civilization and barbarism, the vanguard and the rearguard of humanity, suspicion, rivalry, and war are undying. From this the Greek division of mankind into Hellenes and Barbarians derives whatever justice it possesses. In those directions and towards those high endeavours amongst the subjects within her own dominion, and thence amongst the races and religions of the world, the short space that is illumined of the path in front of Britain does unmistakably lead. Every year, every month that passes, is fraught with import of the high and singular destiny which awaits this realm, this empire, and this race. The actions, the purposes of other empires and races, seem but to illustrate the actions, the purposes of this empire, and the distinction of its relations to Humanity.