I THAT NATION IS GREATEST WHICH DOES S MOST FOR ITS PEOPLE OME time ago we listened to a distinguished American lecturing to an audience of young men on the greatness of the United States. In the course of his address he spoke somewhat as follows: We are the greatest nation in the world. We have more miles of railroad than any other country. We build the longest bridges and the highest houses. We raise more wheat than any land, and our mines of coal and ore are inexhaustible. We carry on the biggest business and produce the richest men. We eat more beef than any other people. We build the biggest battle-ships and man them with the best men. We are digging the biggest canal in the world and soon we shall have ten of the biggest cities in existence ! The writer came away from that lecture revolving many things in his mind, and chiefly this question: What makes a nation great? Is it any of these things? Have not the greatest nations of the world-those which all men acknowledge greatest-possessed few or none of these things? Could not a nation to-day be great without any of these things? Is not the United States great just to the degree that she possesses certain qualities which were not mentioned in this category? Would she be great if she had all of these things and had no character, no fine idealism, no sense of honour, no justice within her borders, no spirit of mission, no great men, no lofty destiny in view? What are the things that will make all the world call her admirable, wonderful, inimitable? Is it not soul rather than things that makes nations as well as men great? This little book is the writer's answer to these questions. What makes a nation great? No one would think for a moment of calling Russia a great nation. She has illimitable stretches of territory. No one knows what wealth of minerals lies beneath those vast areas of Siberian ice. She has interminable railroads. She has wide fields of grain. She has a huge army and is constantly increasing it. Many of her nobles are very rich. She has even given the world some remarkable literature and some unique music. But with all these things, no one names her among the great |