And while I do not know anything about it for certain, it is my opinion that at the Last Great Day the folks who stayed around home and pruned their vines and tended their flocks and loved their wives and babies will fare a deal better than those other men who made war on innocent people and tried to render them homeless. Of course I may be wrong about this, but I cannot help having an opinion. Altogether, my sympathies are with the Philistines—who were so strong in personality that they gave their name to the Holy Land—_Pelishton_, _Pelesheth_, _Philistia_, Palestina, PALESTINE. II. Long years ago Professor Jowett called attention to the fact that the word Philistia literally meant Land of Friendship: the term having the same root as the Greek word Philos—Love. Max Muller has recently said: “The dwellers in the Valley of the Jordan, in the fifteenth century before Christ, recognizing the idea of Oneness or Fraternity, gave a name that signified Love-Land to their country: thus embodying the modern thought of the Brotherhood of Man.” In view of these things it was rather a strange move—a man so scholarly as Matthew Arnold applying the word “Philistine” as a term of reproach toward those who did not think as he did! I can see though that he shaped his language to fit the ears of his clientele. He sought to make clever copy—and he did. The opinion being abroad that the Philistines were the enemies of Light—how very funny to throw the word like a mud ball at any and all who chanced to smile at his theories! Having small wit of their own, the scribbling rabble took it up. On reading certain books by a Late Critic, who now wears prison garb and is doing the first honest work that ever his hands found to do, I see that he is very fond of calling people who are outside of his particular cult, “Philistines.” But look you! Brave Taurus at the bull-fight is a deal more worthy of respect than the picadores who for a price harry him without ruth to his death. And as his virtue surpasses that of any in the silken, belaced and perfumed throng who sit safe and with lily fingers applaud, so do we accept your banderilla, recognizing from whence it comes, and wear it jauntily as a badge of honor. As the Cross for eighteen hundred years has been a sacred emblem, and the gallows since John Brown glorious; and as the word Quaker, flung in impudent and impotent wrath, now stands for gentleness, peace and truth, so has the word Philistine become a synonym for manly independence.