history has ever lacked expression in ideals. Often, indeed, its excellence in the arts has been the chief source of its greatness in history. The power of Athens, even in the Fifth Century, was as nothing compared to the might of a Gengis Khan, yet the one continues a living remembrance to influence civilized man through all time, while the other lingers only as a name. Conversely, it is true that an age without ideal expression can never be a great age. The dark centuries after the fall of Rome are as

blanks to our memory. The real test of greatness in a nation, as on a minor scale in an individual, is what each has done that entitles it to live. To what degree has it understood, at any period, the true purpose of its existence, and piercing through the surface of things has linked its temporal nature with the eternal. Some ideal expression of what it has accomplished will always be found. When this ideal has been expressed in action, when by true sacrifice and devotion the foundations of a nation's welfare have been laid, little will it matter in after years if royal dynasties be overthrown, if battles be lost or capitals invaded. So long as the national spirit is unsubdued, so long as the national ethos remains preserved, lasting evil cannot befall it. France, with the enemy on its soil, has time and again reasserted its own, while India has fallen prey to every in

vader.

The literary expression of ideals partakes of greatness through reflecting the Universal. And because its source of inspiration is in life itself, it has been great only when life was great. By this is

meant, not necessarily the life of its immediate surroundings, but that life from which it has drawn the sources of its inspiration. This will explain the seeming paradox in Germany, of literary ideals preceding those of action. Goethe and Lessing, Herder and Schiller awakened a new national feeling through the appreciation of ancient ideals. The heroism of Greece, rising to throw back the Persian invader, was far more living to their genius than the sentimental trifling of eighteenth century Germany. What they did, however, could have happened only in a critical age of the world's activity. Most periods offer, therefore, a more direct relation between ideals in action and in letters. So, too, the want of true ideals is reflected at once in the liter

ature of an age. In England of the early sixteenth century, the rapacity of Henry the Eighth, and the sordid material greed of all classes could with difficulty find ideal expression in letters. Solitary writers like More and Surrey, almost alone in that wilderness, voice a nobler feeling. It required the new spirit infused into the nation with the advent of Elizabeth, and the speedy need for united action against the Spaniard, to bring it to a sense of its own. The national spirit, brought face to face with danger, rose then with sudden bounds which carried it to impetuous expression in life and in letters. The splendid daring of English seamen was voiced by English poets. Ideals of action and of letters went almost hand in hand, though action led and literature followed in her wake. The great deeds of the reign of Elizabeth were well nigh over when

Spenser and Shakespeare wrote; but their splendid courtesy might never have been voiced without the noble pattern which lives like Sidney's offered.

The twofold expression of ideals, in life as in letters, tends to establish by its relationship a ratio which may serve as an index of civilization. For if civilization is aught more than material progress, if economic conditions are not its reason, but its foundation, then surely must its key be searched for in ideals in which the living spirit of a nation is preserved. The perpetuation of the race is only the condition of a country's existence, not the source of its greatness. That source lies far deeper, dependent not so much on the state of the body, as on the resolute virtues of the mind. The Greeks, with appreciation far truer than our own of the laws which govern civilization, viewed Babylon with contempt as an agglomeration of mankind, whose inhabitants herded together solely for gain.

In ideals lies therefore the truest expression of civilization, the living symbol of its existence. And when ideals of action and of letters approach each other, when they represent not isolated examples of the devotion of noble minds, but the exaltation which at times uplifts even the meanest with a desire to contribute to their nation's glory, then does that age breathe the spirit of civilization. But in so far as they diverge, in so far as literature reflects no longer the ideals of life, nor life looks to letters for the mirror of its virtue, has there been a decay. History will only confirm this. The age of Pericles offered the perfect flower in Athens of the civiliza

tion of what was, judged even by the standards of antiquity, a small nation. In so narrow a medium, amid a race richly dowered with the genius of art, the relation between letters and life was not difficult to establish, and living ideals soon found adequate expression in literature. Yet the very perfection of Grecian greatness was almost the cause of its dissipation. Broadcast, it spread Hellenic civilization, till its vital strength sapped by this task could no more be voiced in literary ideals, which with the decay of Greece departed more and more from life. In the next great era, the ever widening circle of civilization, following the golden age of Rome, was likewise to weaken the force of former ideals, whose guardians sacrificed their treasure before the glitter of new temptations.

Last of all, in the modern world, among the nations called civilized, who in their culture at least are the children of Rome, each one has enjoyed some brief period when perfection was nearly reached and the ideals of letters were those of life. But when that movement was over, often before the perfect union could be fully consummated, there came a new period of preparation in which the bond between life and letters slackened once more. The widening circle of civilization left little time for contemplation or for that repose which is bred by disregard of others. New religious ideals have, indeed, accustomed it to sacrifice in hearkening to the cry from below. And in so doing it has differed from the culture of the ancient world, which, despite its beauty, was blighted in the root. Such as it was it

could advance no further; even in Athens it was a civilization in which woman was the inferior and the best citizen a slave-holder. Our own civilization, if less perfect, is yet nobler in its aspirations. Democracy has become our goal, though not our fulfilment. Only dimly from afar we have realized its beauty. Having forsaken one haven, the heights of the other are barely in sight, while on all sides runs the stormy sea. Small wonder that some are feeble-hearted and fain to return! We have, indeed, erected an ideal, but we have not made ourselves worthy of it. Even in our midst there is dissension. How then can we expect the fruit of perfect union before it has ripened? But the promise of the golden future lies before us. It is for us to prove if the guerdon shall be ours.