to every home and every heart in the wide world. International unions, with their noble and beneficent objects, constitute the fellowship of nations, under the dominion of law, in the bonds of peace. Central bureaus are required for the management of these unions, and it needed but little reflection to discover that the Swiss republic presented peculiar advantages for their location. Its neutrality stood guaranteed by the powers; it could not come under any suspicion of political ambition or territorial aggrandizement; it was thus mapped out to be a neutral state, with every reasonable prospect of this _status_ being sustained. This neutrality, with its strong assurance of immunity from “all entangling alliances” and the untoward complications of war or foreign occupation, and the central position in Europe with convenience of communication with the principal European capitals, were in themselves sufficient to recommend Switzerland. Then the Swiss possess perhaps the most marked genius of any people for the administration of an office; the government itself is surely the most laborious, the most economical, the least pretentious, yet withal systematic, thorough, and efficient; the same sobriety of demeanor, conscientious discharge of duty, with painstaking, patient labor at their desks, pervade the entire Swiss bureaucracy; these were distinct and all-important advantages. And, last, the supposition that affairs which influence the conduct and affect the interests of nations might be discussed amid its mountains with a calmness and candor which the contemplation of nature inspires, contributed no little to the cheerful consensus as to the propriety of its selection for the seat of the bureaus. There are now a sufficient number of these unions, with their central bureaus or seats established in Bern, to confer upon the Confederation a singularly conspicuous position of distinction and usefulness. Uncontaminated by the ambitions of its neighbors, Switzerland offers to contending nations a quiet spot in which to settle their disputes by the peaceful means of arbitration. It is not only a place of occasional conventions, but also the official headquarters of a host of continuous international agreements, commercial treaties and unions, which render peace and freedom necessary, and therefore secure within its borders.