might at first appear. It is the skeptic of Israel-the man who has come to disbelieve the old doctrines of invariable temporal rewards -who is to create the new conception of the soul and the life beyond as the answer to the problems of this life. And this early doubter in Israel has given the truest conception of prayer in time of trouble: Let him send as he will, and all temporal prosperity be blighted, yet will I rejoice in Yahweh my preserver. It will speak yet more strongly in that prince of ancient doubters: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." It will produce martyrs of the Maccabean age-to be tortured, not accepting deliverance; who can reply to their tormentors as Antigone replied when taunted by the worldly-wise man Kreon for incurring the death penalty in response to the impulses of her love and her convictions of duty: "I bear the name of fool-from a fool." Or they might say, with Kusakahe of Satsuma:

It is better to be a crystal and be broken

Than to remain perfect a tile on a housetop.

Of all this courage and devotion the Jewish skeptic is the father. The literary ancestor of the tribe has left them a guiding star in all their world-pain and speculation:

Behold the faint-hearted man!

My soul shall not delight in him:

But the just shall yet live, by his steadfastness.

Another trait of character must be noted. Habakkuk had not built the Pharisaical wall of separation familiar to the later Jew between himself and the unrighteous in Israel. He laments the presence of wrong, but there is no note of exultation over its punishment. The heart of the man and the Jew is behind the ethics of the prophet. It is a strange irony of fate that has made this very forbearance to exult over the punished wrongdoer in his land, this sympathy for even the evil man when he suffers, a weapon in the hands of some critics to rob him of his literary work. It is but a parallel to the weeping Hosea, a premonition of the cry of Ezekiel: "As I live, saith Yahweh, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his evil way and live. Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die, O house of Israel!" And his humanitarianism breaks forth in the taunt-songs hurled at the oppressor. All nations share in his sympathy.

O, he that buildeth a town with blood,

And establisheth a city by iniquity!

And the nations weary themselves for the fire,
And toil but for smoke!

Shall they not make moan unto Yahweh of Hosts?

-For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of

the glory of Yahweh,

As the waters cover the sea!

This tangled crux of the critics is but the logical correlate of his extension of the humane spirit of Deuteronomy to all the realms that Yahweh governs. And in the humane spirit of this prophet of the cloister, this sympathy for all the oppressed, there is a forerunner of the Ebed-Yahweh who will consider himself the helper of all people.

I have just called Habakkuk the prophet of the cloister. It is, I think, a chief answer to much recent destructive criticism of the book. When we cease speaking of his work as oracles-as public sermons upon specific events-there will be less basis for microscopic complaints about details. When we feel that we are not dealing with the pulpit but with the cloister or confessional; that we are vouchsafed, not a photograph of the times but a glimpse of the soul of a man battling alone with shadows, with deep questionings forever unanswered, yet chanting in solitude the memories of seven centuries before to maintain its steadfastness in the valley of the shadows, we shall find fewer critical difficulties. So passes from our vision, in the midst of the years, Israel's single great prophet-sage, to

Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go
From less to less, and vanish into light.

Ablere

Godby,

ART. IV.-MEXICO IN 1904.

THERE are several Mexicos, of course. It depends upon which one you go out to see. There is the modern, progressive Diazmade Mexico, scarce a quarter century old, with its railroads, telegraphs, great smelters, breweries, and cotton mills, its wellpoliced and paved and rapidly growing capital, and its machinery of a modern republican government, the lever firmly grasped by a master hand. There is the Mexico of the Conquest, with its traces of a medieval Spanish civilization stamped upon the face of the country in countless churches and cathedrals and public works, as well as upon the people in social and religious customs of the time of Charles V. There is the Mexico of Montezuma and his Aztec predecessors, whose lineal descendants are the bone and brawn of the land, with dress and habits practically unchanged in five centuries. Then there is the Mexico that was already ancient at the time of Moses and Agamemnon, with its pyramids and monuments that are the despair and wonder of the archæologist. Any one of these Mexicos is well deserving of a pilgrimage for its study. All of them combined fairly bewilder the visitor with the mingling of modern progress, medieval romance, noble and beautiful forms of architecture in decay, and mystery as to the origin of races that were the undisputed American aristocracy before the Pharaohs built their pyramids. To record the impressions of a recent visit to this land of modern enterprise and ancient mystery is not altogether easy, for, while striving to deal with the realm of facts, one is constantly tempted to wander away into the field of romance.

The modern Mexico, the sister republic, is the creation of less than thirty years. Its real existence began after General Grant became President of our own republic. It is the work of one man who, under a constitution modeled closely after our own and a political system frankly imitating the American, exercises a despotism as enlightened and progressive as it is absolute. From the time the Mexicans threw off the Spanish yoke in 1821 the country scarcely saw a decade free from turmoil and revolution

until Porfirio Diaz assumed the presidential chair in 1884. He had been president for a brief term-from 1876 to 1880-then came the four years' interval of Gonzalez-another unsuccessful experiment-and on December 1, 1884, General Diaz was reelected and commenced his long career as real ruler of the Mexican people. In a peculiar sense Porfirio Diaz is a man of destiny. Born at Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, in 1840, the son of a blacksmith, with a strong mingling of Indian blood in his veins, early associated as a student of law and politics with Benito Juarez, that other great Indian patriot and reformer, he first claimed the gratitude of his country when, as general commander, he captured Pueblo from the French, in 1867, and shortly afterward took the city of Mexico, putting an end to the unfortunate and farcical reign of Maximilian which Catholic intrigue had foisted upon Mexico during our civil war. There had been a long line of patriots, statesmen, reformers, and successful generals before Diaz, but none who rose to the conception of orderly and stable government and the development of the resources of the country by the arts of peace. The Spanish left the legacy of intrigue, turmoil, and personal ambition, and Mexican politics before Diaz was of the familiar order of South American republics. But with Porfirio Diaz came a new régime. Knowing the Mexican character-inflammable, changeable, only needing a firebrand at any moment to start a conflagration-he first set about to make his power absolute. Through the country were thousands of restless spirits, some of them outlaws and bandits, who loved fighting. To them he said in effect: "I expect to hang or shoot every one of you; but if you prefer to come into my service for a dollar a day, wear a uniform and a saber, and help to keep order you may do so." Thus was organized the famous Rurales, or rural constabulary, who are to be seen everywhere thoughout the republic. Through them the president is informed instantly of any incipient political disorder or other trouble, and a swift and heavy hand is laid upon it. There is no wasting of time by public trials or discussions. If a town develops some dangerous characters that threaten the public and private peace they are put on mules with hands tied, led over back of the mountain, and questioners who want to know why they did not return

are told it is because of heart failure. Mexicans understand and admire that kind of government, and when it is exercised for the public good instead of for personal ends it seems admirably direct and efficient. A high official, who is sometimes credited with ambitions for the highest place, lately retired to his hacienda for rest and recreation. He was surprised to find soldiers posted everywhere about the place. He asked what it meant, and was told to see the commanding officer. The latter politely said his orders were from the president, who could explain. General Diaz was appealed to and replied with great cordiality that he had been made aware that his friend, the official, had many private enemies, and for his protection he thought it best that he should be well guarded. Revolutions have been known to start in haciendas.

While the president is supreme in the military administration and in all federal affairs, it is said that in the local governments of the several states also his hand is felt in all that is going on. Not a governor is chosen who is not a Diaz man; not a measure is adopted that is not acceptable to him. Arriving at Cuernavaca, the first object to strike my eye from the hotel window was a posted proclamation announcing the candidacy of Signor Manuel Alarcon for governor of the state of Morelos and in letters larger than Alarcon's name stood the name of Porfirio Diaz, indicating that he was the candidate of the president. On Sunday morning the little plaza, which had the night before been decorated with flowers and green boughs and national colors, began to fill with people dressed in their best. The moment mass was over in the cathedral the bells of all the churches began ringing violently. We could see men working the clappers in the quaint old towers. Then two improvised processions started up in the narrow streets, each headed by a brass band composed of ordinary peons in working dress. A dozen or twenty of the common people fell into each procession, and a score of ragged children brought up the rear. They marched and countermarched a few times and then brought up in the plaza, where the people of all classes sat around upon the benches apparently indifferent as to what was going on. In the meanwhile, the clatter from the church belfries not being enough, a committee from the local political club had ascended the tower of our hotel