easy enough to recognize the greatness of a man when he stands in the front rank of affairs, projected by his own eminence with great distinctness on a great stage; it is quite another matter to discover the greatness in the same man's soul when he is still our unknown neighbor; the man who lives next us, whom we meet at the market, with whom we exchange words at the post-office. There is no virtue in knowing such a man when all the world recognizes him; there is virtue and satisfaction in discovering him before the world has found him out.

Now, goodness exists everywhere, among all classes of people, in all churches, under all forms of religion, and among unreligious people as well; and there is nothing in life which is more satisfying, or which tends more to preserve one from the vice of cynicism and the depress ing and contracting influence of pessimism, than the habitual endeavor to find in those about us, in every rank, occupation, and station, the spirit of goodness as it reveals itself in spirit and in deeds. This spirit is universal. Not many months ago a policeman was taking down Broadway, in this city, a man who had been caught in a criminal act—a great, burly fellow, who looked like a bully, and whose hands were manacled. At the corner of a street this man suddenly shook himself loose from the grasp of the policeman, dashed into the middle of the crowded thoroughfare, and with his manacled hands, at imminent peril of his life, dragged a child from under a cable-car. Before the police or the people about realized what had happened, the child was rescued, brought to the sidewalk, and the man under arrest was once more in the keeping of his custodian. It was a little thing, but it arrested attention for a moment, because men always stop when a deed of heroism is done. In the heart of a crowded city street it was a glimpse of a human soul. The man may have done many evil things, but he had not eradicated essential nobility. Very few people have. The divine image is often blurred; it is rarely destroyed. The wise live as if it were never destroyed, as if they always expected to find it-and they are rarely disappointed. He who searches for the good not only discovers it in other men, but, by constant association

with it, develops it in himself. The quest for good leads one at length inevitably into that Presence from which all goodness comes, and the quest for good becomes the quest for God.

The Spectator

The Spectator hears a good deal lately about the passing of Bayreuth. His musical friends assure him that the artistic doom of the old festival town is sealed, and that hereafter, when moved to pay homage to the genius of Richard Wagner, he had best betake himself to Munich. The Spectator knows that the new Prinzregenten Theater, beside the Isar, is a glorified edition of the old Bühnenfestspielhaus at Bayreuth, for he saw it with his own eyes during the winter of 1901. He knows it has all the proper Wagnerian ear-marks-the myriad entrances, the concealed orchestra, the moving scenery—and adds to them a gorgeous foyer, comfortable seats, ventilation, and, touching creature comfort-a restaurant! He has not a moment's doubt that what his friends tell him of the advantage of escape from the autocratic rule of Madame Wagner is true. And yet, despite all this, the Spectator is jealous for poor, outshone Bayreuth. A Wagner festival in Munich? The Spectator would as soon think of attending the Passion Play in Chicago! Why, it would not even be necessary to engage accommodations in advance. is as if one said to good Mohammedans, "The way to Mecca is intolerably long; the place is hot and stupid, and expensive withal; besides, it's out of date. Why not try Damascus instead? It's much more accessible. The enlarged reproduction of the Great Mosque is ever so much more imposing, and they have an accurate model of the Kaaba and the sacred black stone, all complete. Try Damascus." Ah, but the saving grace, what of that? The Spectator thinks that the apostles of luxury overlook the vital essence of the Bayreuth experience-the purifying sufferings by which one is qualified for fine Wagnerian frenzy.

It

Hear the tale of the Spectator's initial journey to Bayreuth. His tickets had been purchased at the eleventh hour; that

When he had cooled down a bit, and his knees had stopped trembling, the Spectator got out his Baedeker and measured up the distance to Nuremberg. As the crow flies it was considerably less than three hundred miles. "Nonsense!" he said to himself; "that clerk needn't have rushed me off like this. I could have made the distance twice over." He drew out his watch to count the tell-tale click of the rails. His smiles faded; he counted again, and yet again. There was no mistaking the fact, the ten o'clock express was making a speed of-thirteen miles an hour! Upon the Spectator's dismayed consciousness floated snatches from a long-forgotten rhyme of Eugene Field's, written "while snailing on to Magdeburg" upon a German train. What was it he said? 'Why, thirteen miles an hour's the greatest speed they ever go," and "You'll break the third commandment if you take that schnellest train."

is to say, in February, for August perform- ten o'clock express with just half a second ances. A confirmed Bayreuther had to spare. secured him nice quarters in Cottenbacher Strasse, and the Spectator felt that all he had to do was to drift into Bayreuth on August 11 and be raised to the musical seventh heaven. It was August 9 when he reached Lucerne. As he unpacked his bags at the Schweizerhof, he reflected that if anything could fit one for musical ecstasy, it would be the contemplation of the splendid peaks outside his window. He said to himself that he would stay here quietly for two days in communion with Nature in this exalted mood; and then, refreshed in spirit, he would take the night express for Bayreuth. He He would not "do" Lucerne; he would skip the Rigi; he would even run away without seeing the Lion. This programme the Spectator carried out to the letterall save the two days' communion with Nature. Accident led him next morning to the door of a tourist office. (The language shifts so frequently in Switzerland that the Spectator saves time by buying his tickets in English.) A little man on a large stool was making beautiful figures in a beautiful ledger. "Er-r, what train," began the Spectator, comfortably, "what train had I best take for Bayreuth? I have tickets for performances beginning August 11."

The little man leaped from his stool, snatched a fat time-table, and skimmed its leaves with mad haste. At length his traveling finger paused; he jerked out his watch, and then fairly pushed the Spectator's elbow off the desk. "Man!" he shouted, as if the Spectator had been a nobody, "catch the ten o'clock express, or you won't make Bayreuth on the 11th. Go! Fly!" The Spectator flew. The play for the 11th was "Parsifal," sacred "Parsifal." The Spectator burst into cold perspiration at the thought of facing his friends if he missed it through his own stupidity. At the hotel he took no time to remember whether French or German was the language of Lucerne. He demanded the omnibus in three languages. "Schnell! Vite ! Dépêchez-vous! Hurry up!" he shrieked, as he bounded up the stair. He does not know how he got his things together, nor whether he paid his bill. But he knows that he made that

They put the Spectator out at Ulm, three hours after midnight, and dragged him from his bed at five-fifteen in the morning to continue his stifling journey. They gave him a roll and a cup of villainous coffee for breakfast. Dinner was promised at Nuremberg at noon. But, the "schnellzug" being two hours late, the Spectator had just time to snatch a roll-sandwich from a railway stall and dash for the Bayreuth train. The roll was the indestructible German kind, too thick to be bitten, too hard to be broken. The famished Spectator made an incision with his penknife and gnawed away uncomplainingly till the train crawled into Bayreuth, just one hour before the curtain rose on "Parsifal."

The Spectator dressed with his carriage at the door and his host reminding him in sounding German that if he didn't get there before the last trump sounded he would be shut out. No time for food, no time to buy a guide to Richard Wagner's "drames," though these were offered at every step. The Spectator threw himself from his carriage before the door of the Wagner Theater just as

The Hon. Andrew Dickson White, who retires next November from the post of Ambassador to Germany, has served his country longer in that position than any other American. Born at Homer, N. Y., November 7, 1832, he was graduated at Yale in 1853 with Justice Shiras, Edmund C. Stedman, Bishop Davies, of Michigan, and other noted men living or deceased. At first an attaché of our legation at St. Petersburg, he next filled the professorship of history and English literature at Ann Arbor, and then served several years in the Senate of New York. When Cornell University was founded, he took its presidency, with the duties of Professor of History, and served it eighteen years, interrupted by two years' absence as Minister to Germany. From 1892 to 1894 he was our Minister at St. Petersburg. In 1897 he was again appointed to the post at Berlin, from which he now retires. Both as a man of affairs and a cultured scholar, no American could have better represented at the German Court and in German society all that is best in American life.