China is upon the verge of a revolution. Every great nation of the world will inevitably be drawn into more or less intimate relations with this gigantic development. It is for them to determine, each for itself, what these relations shall be--whether those of amity and friendship and kindness or those of brute force and the mailed fist. The United States ought not to hesitate as to its choice in this matter. The nation which succeeds in educating the young Chinese of the present generation will be the nation which, for a given expenditure of effort, will reap the largest possible returns in moral, intellectual, and commercial influence. LAST WORDS OF FAMOUS MEN. When a man is in the full flower of health and intellectual activity, his utterances, either guarded or careless, usually are more or less tinctured by his social environments--environments that are rather more artificial than natural. But when the shadow of death falls upon him, and earthly vanities crowd out of the chamber that is marked as the vestibule of his tomb, the language he speaks is that of the man himself--one who realizes that he is nearer eternal truth than human pretense. For this reason the last words he speaks on earth are more significant of his true character than any he has spoken before. No better proof of this fact may be adduced than is to be found in the following collection of sentences uttered by dying men: =Adams, John= (1735-1826), American statesman: "Jefferson survives." =Adams, John Quincy= (1767-1848), American statesman: "This is the last of earth! I am content!" =Beethoven, Ludwig van= (1770-1827), German composer: "I shall hear now!" (He was deaf.) =Bozzaris, Markos= (1790-1823), Greek patriot: "To die for liberty is a pleasure and not a pain." =Brooks, Phillips= (1835-1893), American clergyman: "I am going home." =Byron, Lord= (1788-1824), English poet: "I must sleep now." =Charles I= of England (1600-1649): "Remember." =Charles II= of England (1630-1685): "Don't let poor Nelly (Nell Gwynne) starve." =Chesterfield, Lord= (1694-1773), English courtier: "Give the doctor a chair." =Columbus, Christopher= (1440-1506), Italian navigator: "Lord, into Thy hands I commit my spirit." =Cowper, William= (1731-1800), English poet: "Feel? I feel unutterable, unutterable despair. What does it signify?" =Cromwell, Oliver= (1599-1658), English statesman: "My desire is to make what haste I may to be gone." =Franklin, Benjamin= (1706-1790), American philosopher: "A dying man can do nothing easy." =Frederick the Great= of Prussia (1712-1786): "We are over the hill. We shall go better now." =Gilbert, Sir Humphrey= (1539-1583), English navigator: "We are as near heaven by sea as by land." =Gladstone, William Ewart= (1809-1898), British statesman: "Amen."