last period of life. Almost always there is a preparation made by Nature for unearthing a soul, just as on a smaller scale there is for the removal of a milk-tooth. The roots which hold human life to earth are absorbed before it is lifted from its place. Some of the dying are weary and want rest, the idea of which is almost inseparable in the universal mind from death. Some are in pain, and want to be rid of it, even though the anodyne be dropped, as in the legend, from the sword of the Death-Angel. Some are stupid, mercifully narcotized that they may go to sleep without long tossing about. And some are strong in faith and hope, so that, as they draw near the next world, they would fain hurry toward it, as the caravan moves faster over the sands when the foremost travelers send word along the file that water is in sight. Though each little party that follows in a foot-track of its own will have it that the water to which others think they are hastening is a mirage, not the less has it been true in all ages and for human beings of every creed which recognized a future, that those who have fallen worn out by their march through the Desert have dreamed at least of a River of Life, and thought they heard its murmurs as they lay dying. The Professor at the Breakfast-Table.

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OLST, HERMANN EDUARD VON, a GermanAmerican historian; born at Fellen, Russia, June 19, 1841; died at Freiburg, January 20, 1904. He was educated at Heidelberg. In 1866 he settled in St. Petersburg, but on account of a pamphlet on an attempt to assassinate the Emperor, published while he was traveling abroad, was forbidden to return to Russia. In 1869 he went to America, where he remained until he was appointed Professor of His

tory in Strassburg University, in 1872. Two years later he was given the chair of Modern History at Freiburg. He afterward revisited the United States, and delivered a course of lectures at the Johns Hopkins University and subsequently accepted a professorship in the Chicago University. He is the author of Verfassung und Demokratie der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika (1873–78), translated under the title of The Constitutional and Political History of the United States, 1750-1892; a Life of John C. Calhoun (1882), and The Constitutional Law of the United States of America (1887). He was one of the editors of the Deutsch-Amerikanisches-Conversations-Lexikon.

Considerable discussion was aroused in 1895 by Dr. Von Holst's announcement of the position that the Monroe Doctrine does not apply to the Venezuelan dispute, because that doctrine is "not what Cleveland and Olney tell us it ought to be, but solely what its authors understood and intended it to be." Possibly, he thought, the people ought to endorse the policy of the Administration unanimously, and with the greatest enthusiasm; "but not because of the Monroe Doctrine; it would have to be done on the strength of other reasons."

ORIGIN OF THE UNION.

Turgot and Choiseul had very early recognized that the separation of the colonies from the mother country was only a question of time; and this irrespective of the principles which might guide the colonial policy of England. The narrow and ungenerous conduct which Parliament observed toward the colonies in every respect, brought about the decisive crisis long before the natural course of

things and the diversity of interests growing out of this had made the breach an inevitable necessity.

To this circumstance it is to be ascribed that the colonists were satisfied that an amicable solution would be found to the questions debated between them and the mother country, long after England had given the most unambiguous proof that she would not, on any consideration, yield the principle in issue. A few zealots like John Adams, harbored, during the English-French colonial war, a transitory wish that the guardianship of England should cease forever. But shortly after the conclusion of peace, there was not one to be found who would not have "rejoiced in the name of Great Britain."

It was long before the ill-will, which the systematic disregard by Parliament of the rights of the colonists had excited, triumphed over this feeling. Even in August and September, 1775 that is, half a year after the battle of Lexington, so strong was the Anglo-Saxon spirit of conservatism and loyalty among the colonists, that the few extremists who dared to speak of a violent disruption of all bonds entailed chastisement upon themselves, and were universally censured. But the eyes of the colonists had been for some time so far opened that they hoped to make an impression on Parliament and the King only by the most energetic measures. They considered the situation serious enough to warrant and demand that they should be prepared for any contingency. Both of these things could evidently be accomplished in the right way, and with the requisite energy, only on condition that they should act with their united strength.

The difficulties in the way of this, however, were not insignificant. The thirteen colonies had been founded in very different times and under very different circumstances. Their whole course of development, their political institutions, their religious views and social relations, were so divergent, the one from the other, that it was easy to find more points of difference between them than of similarity and comparison. Besides, commercial intercourse between the distant colonies, in consequence of the great extent of their territory, the scantiness of the population, and the poor means of

transportation at the time, was so slight that the similarity of thought and feeling which can be the result only of a constant and thriving trade was wanting.

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The solidarity of interests, and what was of greater importance at the time, the clear perception that a solidarity of interests existed, was therefore based mainly on the geographical situation of the colonies. Separated by the ocean, not only from the mother country, but from the rest of the civilized world, and placed upon a continent of yet unmeasured bounds, on which Nature had lavished every gift, it was impossible that the thought should not come to them, that they were, indeed, called upon to found a new world." They were not at first wholly conscious of this, but a powerful external shock made it soon apparent how widely and deeply this thought had shot its roots. They could not fail to have confidence in their own strenth. Circumstances had long been teaching them to act on the principle, "Help thyself." Besides, experience had shown them, long years before, thateven leaving the repeated attacks on their rights out of the question the leading-strings by which the mother country sought to guide their steps obstructed rather than helped their development, and this in matters which affected all the colonies alike.

Hence, from the very beginning, they considered the struggle their common cause. And even if the usurpations of Parliament made themselves felt in some parts of the country, much more severely than in others, the principle involved interested all to an equal extent.

Massachusetts recommended, in 1774, the coming together of a General Congress, and on September 4, of the same year, "the delegates, nominated by the good people of these colonies" met in Philadelphia.

Thus, long before the colonies thought of separation from the mother country, there was formed a revolutionary body, which virtually exercised sovereign power. How far the authority of this first Congress extended, according to the instructions of the delegates, it is impossible to determine with certainty at this distance of time. But it is probable that the original intention was that it should consult as to the ways and means best

calculated to remove the grievances and to guarantee the rights and liberties of the colonies, and should propose to the latter a series of resolutions, furthering these objects. But the force of circumstances at the time compelled it to act and order immediately, and the people, by a consistent following of its orders, approved this transcending of their written instructions. Congress was therefore a revolutionary body from its origin.

This state of affairs essentially continued up to March 1, 1781. Until that time, that is, until the adoption of the articles of confederation by all the States, Congress continued a revolutionary body, which was recognized by all the colonies as de jure and de facto the national government, and which as such came in contact with foreign powers and entered into engagements, the binding force of which on the whole people has never been called in question. The individual colonies, on the other hand, considered themselves, up to the time of the Declaration of Independence, as legally dependent upon England and did not take a single step which could have placed them before the mother country or the world in the light of de facto sovereign States. They remained colonies until the representative of the United States "in the name of the good people of these colonies" solemnly declared "these united colonies" to be "free and independent States." The transformation of the colonies into "States was, therefore, not the result of the independent action of the individual colonies. It was accomplished through the "representatives of the United States;" that is, through the revolutionary Congress, in the name of the whole people. The thirteen colonies did not, as thirteen separate and mutually independent commonwealths, enter into a compact to sever the bonds which connected them with their common mother country, and at the same time to proclaim the act in a common manifesto to the world; but th one people" of the united colonies dissolved that political connection with the English nation, and proclaimed themselves resolved, henceforth, to constitute the one perfectly independent people of the United States. The Declaration of Independence did not create thirteen sovereign States, but the