well be raised against it. Of course, too, it is the perfect love that casteth out fear, which is to save us in the end, and it may be that the very upheavals of society in the line of divorce and marriage are on the search for it, although it is difficult to trace such end in either the life or literature of the hour. One thing is sure, however, and that is that it is not the poets and writers who drop us down in the mire of the strife, or carry us back to the brute instincts of creation, and whisper "Here's life, be not afraid of it," who will purge us of our coward fears. "Half dust," but also "half deity," life's life only as it includes the divine. Live for eternity as well as time, and the fearlessness and joy of the "perfect round" is assured to you. Especially if you do not try to reverse the method and stake all of eternity upon an hour of time; nor yet like Atlas to carry the world on your shoulders in the wrestle with time. You can smile at one man's failure, even your own, if sure that another hand will bring the desired victory. "Atlas was just a gentleman with a protracted nightmare," says Stevenson, and so is any single individual who "coddles himself into the fancy that his own work is of exceptional importance" and fears life's utmost ability to carry it on to any worthy end without him. Indeed, the dignity and grandeur of life in its far-reaching ends and fulfillments is something that glorifies every participant in it, and, though we are in a measure novices and "vagabonds in the great universe of power," yet there is nothing to fear, since history and science alike show us that “our little wherry is taken in tow by the ship of the Great Admiral, who knows the way and has the force to draw men and states and planets to their good." The primal passions to which the critics look for any strength in life or genius were lit at the divine fire of being, and the white flame at that altar needs no taint of any lower life to give it force. The "stainless integrity of a private life" ought not to militate against the fiercest fires of genius, and if it seems to it must be because the world and the critics have not yet discovered what stainless integrity in human life and relations means. We may grant them frankly that it does not mean "the mildly domestic" nor conventionally proper, but even then a white margin is left for the high passions to disport themselves in, which Dante knew, but minor writers have lost entirely. Some Who will restore to us the lost clew, who will give us the "Vita Nuova" which shall trace life and love to their intensest emotions, yet leave the celestial skies of Eden innocence and purity enfolding them both? The lion of love is hardly a fit animal for a domestic pet, the modern writers tell us, and the social records seem to sustain them, but what better they do with him in turning him loose in the company now sought for him, it is not becoming to consider. Dante or Browning to reinstate love on his own high throne is a prime need of society, and then the life philosopher may more safely say to us with Fichte, "What thou lovest thou livest." Perhaps the fear of life will drop away, even from strait-laced America, and, without the asset of broken hearts or broken morals, our poets may retrieve their lost inheritance, and be able yet to tell the new world's story of A life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, Yet, if the critics fail to "get their money's worth of life" out of the epic story, there is still a whisper from the last rim of the golden west, that "we are caught in the coil of a god's romance," and must wait the sequel from afar. THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE FORCES IN THE GAME OF LIFE L IFE as a game, death as an adventure, is a philosophical way of taking the whole "scheme incomprehensible," which puzzled humanity more and more inclines to. One of the latest books dealing with the eternal mystery calls death "the great adventure," and pictures the fearless and eager interest which a perfectly wholesome nature might take in it from such a viewpoint. The idea is not a new one, either, though elaborated in an unusual way. More people than the writers know have faced death in the spirit of the beloved Uncle Remus, who only whispered, “I have always been curious to know what was on the other side," as he passed over with a gentle smile into the face of his wife. Attempts to solve the mystery, either on the part of science or religion, have tended directly to cloud this pleasing speculation in it without in any way lifting the veil that obscured it. In general they are of a character best illustrated by the story of the two men each of whom was asked as to the existence of hell. The first man being a plain unlettered sort of person, simply answered, "I don't know," and was promptly set down as an agnostic, a heretic and a dangerous individual. The other, who was high of brow, wrote out his answer in full. He took 5000 words to introduce his subject and then 70,000 words to tell what the first man had told in three, and he was hailed as a philosopher, an uplifter, and a leader. To air their supposed wisdom or their doctrine is about all the would-be-teachers in this unknown realm can do, and that it leaves the matter about as it found it is as true to-day as when the Persian poet tells us "I heard the great argument" of doctor and saint, about it and about-but, evermore, "came out by the same door wherein I went." From first to last life is a riddle and guessing at the riddle is a large part of the entertainment it offers. That death changes this order of things and solves all life's puzzles in some fixed state either of bliss or woe, is a view of the great change accepted by many, but more or less appalling to all, and wholly unwarranted by any logic of happy being known on earth. That it will take ages on ages to find out what "lies on the other side" is more probably the truth of the business if we are not all to drop into some stagnant pool or monotonous plane of existence where no blaze of eternal glory could atone for the interest and zest of the game we have left behind us on the uncertain earth. That "man is hurled from change to change, his soul's wings never furled" or sure of the next peak to be reached, is the more cheering view of the situation that progressive spirits like Browning take of it. The main difference there and here may be that the eternal wonder as to how anything is "going to turn out" will be accompanied by some sustaining sense that it will turn out all right. The difficulty of laying hold of that comforting assurance in this crooked world, is what hurts the game, although it may give it a kind of desperate zest the good angels know nothing about. It is possible, however, to put a certain faith in what men call destiny, that will give one boldness and indeed delight in playing the game of life even when it goes against him. In his definition of romance a recent writer brings out this point in a significant manner. "Romance," he says, "is a chain of circumstances which out of the infinite chaos links two living things together for a definite end-that end, which is a pendant upon the chain itself, and may be a heart with a lock of hair inside, or a cross or a dagger or a crown. But whatever it is you may know that end was meant to be and for a very good reason." This knowledge that you are in the hands of destiny "gives you boldness." It carries a sense that you are meant to meet the people and circumstances that come in your path, and hence are not acting entirely of your own puny self in taking the preposterous steps and chances that your bold encounter with them might seem to imply. Of course this is little more than that faith in the ultimate good and man's appointed part in it, which saints as well as philosophers have been recommending through all ages. But, resolving the whole business into a romance, filling it with the "rigors of the game," is not commonly a part of the philosophic plan, nor yet the theologic, although to be sure Bunyan did send his pilgrims out with something of the zest for a fray, and the Sir Galahads of righteous renown have played a thrilling part in the pages of life and literature. But in fact, it is the Young Lochinvars of little thought beyond their own prowess and romantic desires, who find the battle and the game of life most zestful, while those who dwell upon the paradise to come or "heed the rumble of a distant drum" very shortly fall out of the enjoyment of the game and consequently bear no very effective part in it. This, of course, is why observing souls have proposed to drop them, saints and sinners alike, out of the earthly being and leave only those young spirits that could keep the zest of the game, the romance of the unexpected, whether good or bad, alive in the human arena. It may be directly in the interests of these that life, as an endless adventure, is the livelier note sounded from pulpit as well as lecture halls, and the soothing doctrine of under |