Aristotle, as Aristotle anticipates modern sociology.

The New Testament utters the same thought when it says that the powers that be are ordained of God, not some special type of civil rule-republic, aristocracy, or monarchy-but the essential powers of government which any of these forms of polity must use in order to do its work.

Kindred is the error of supposing that the social organism exists simply for the sake of the individual. Society is in part an end in itself. Man is greater and more glorious than any man. The totality of human relations, as a totality, is a splendid product, worthy of Almighty effort. Far from being accidental, mere scaffolding or instrumentality, it is the innermost, essential part of creation, destined to stand forever.

The gospel for the day, then, is thisthat we need a larger, heartier recognition of men's dependence upon one another, and of the moral and religious duties springing out of this close relationship. We are members one of another, and should so re

gard ourselves. If one suffers, all are hurt. The true weal of one is a blessing to the

rest.

Men pride themselves on family, blood, estate. You scorn to associate with so-andso because he is of plebeian stock. Friend, in ten generations your blood will flow in the very same veins with his, and in less time. than that descendants of yours will be serving descendants of his for wages. With absolute literalness is it true that men are made out of one blood to dwell on all the face of the earth.

The water which supplies the power for the mills at Kearney, Nebraska, has a peculiar source. As you follow it upstream, all at once the canal ends, and you wonder how on earth it is kept continually full. No lakes or ponds appear in the vicinity, yet, summer and winter alike, that mighty tide sweeps forward with steady volume. Travelers have journeyed thousands of miles to see this supposed freak of nature. But to the geologist it is no mystery. The canal simply unearths waters of the distant Platte River,

which are now known to course underground far on both sides of the visible channel. Canal and river seem diverse, yet are in fact but one stream in two parts, starting up in the eternal snow of the Rocky Mountains, and meeting again at the mouth of the Kearney flume, to roll on together down to the infinite sea. Even so it is with your blood and that of the poor pariah.

That the operative in your cotton factory may earn, say, $2 a day, the factory must be there with its owners and their capital. Builders of factories and machinery must exist with their respective plants and groups of workmen. There must be men working southern cotton fields; people engaged in the manufacture of implements for cottonraising; people building and running steamboats and railways; human beings in all lands who wish cotton fabrics and have means to buy them; morality, customs, and laws making traffic and possessions secure; and preachers, teachers, writers, legislators, judges, police, and army giving sustenance to laws and morals. Let any one of these

conditions fail, and the fortune of that workman is lowered. Society is in the same way a co-operator with every one in all that he is and does. What you think you accomplish is not wrought by you, but by you environed and helped as you are.

Intelligently viewed, the purely political aspect of social organization is immensely impressive. Human government is a wonderful thing-as complex and unfathomable as it is indispensable. The legislature and the executive, the constitution and the courts, the great body of laws, customary and statute, the imposing array of legal maxims, traditions and decisions, and, not least, the morality and political genius of the people, disposing them to law, order and united action-all this in effect goes to make up government. A social-political

structure of this sort is about the most precious possession which any people can possibly inherit. All that you possess,

whether of mental or of material stores, beyond what would be yours had you always lived in Central Africa, is due to society. It

measures what other men are to you, not as so many individuals, but as men organically related. It is estimated that through this co-operation and the consequent amassing of wealth one man may today, through his own efforts, enjoy more satisfactions than he could earn in ten centuries were he obliged to begin and work without such aid.

The authoritative aspect of social organization is also invaluable. A very poor government is an infinite blessing compared with anarchy. What thoughtful citizen of the United States has not often thanked God that we are not as Central and South America in this respect?

Nor will government ever become unnecessary. The well-meaning reformer who wishes and expects to reduce it to mere business administration, taking from it its political character and every element of authority, is laboring under a delusion. Some power of coercion will always have to be kept up among men, not because there will forever be wicked ones in their number, but because men will never cease to be