youth to high adventure, and stridently proclaiming the glory of upright living. They do not tattle about Washington's blazing profanity at Monmouth, but see his stately figure riding into the storm of battle beneath the tattered flag of a new nation he would fain bring into the world. They do not whisper about Lincoln's choice of companions or his taste in anecdotes or his cunning in politics; but they read incised on white marble walls the sacred poems which his literary genius has left to posterity, behold him in the night watches correcting his mistakes and using even his humility as a sword with which to carve out the victory of his cause. And so it will be with Woodrow Wilson in the long perspective of the years. The destiny in his blood decided that he should possess The unconquerable will . . . And courage never to submit or yield, He had the thirst for fame and human remembrance that belongs to all great natures. It was not easy for him to forget or to forgive. The pride of righteousness sometimes froze the more genial currents of his soul, but he was willing to die, and did die, to guarantee to humble men a fairer chance in a juster world, and therefore the savage assaults of his enemies will shrivel into the insignificance of Horace Greeley's editorials against Lincoln's policies, or the futility of the early century pamphleteers against Thomas Jefferson as iconoclast and antichrist, and his mere detractors will themselves either attain a repellent fame as detractors of greatness or else they will pass out of memory and no one will ask Who or what they have been The four closing years in the life of Woodrow Wilson were harsh, unheroic, uninspiring years in public affairs, such as generally follow the emotional climaxes of war, and it is a commonplace to describe them as years of personal tragedy to him. A vast disillusionment, a chaos miscalled peace, a kind of shamefacedness and cynicism in the recollection of its dreams and faith in the triumph of moral ideals, seemed to hold the nation and the world in its grasp. As far as Woodrow Wilson himself was concerned, it is well perhaps not to confuse the bodily pain, the palsied side, and all the cold malignities of the time with the essential meaning of those years. Adversity had been wanting in his career, and now it was come upon him, and he was to have acquaintance with its sublime refinement, and the country was to gain knowledge of its power to smite the hearts of just men with love for the baffled fighter who had known none too much of popular affection in his career of self-reliant conquest. He carried his head high in the dying days of his public service, omitting no duty his strength could bear, meeting the gracious courtesy of his successor at the end with an equal courtesy, as they rode away from the White House, so deeply associated in American history with memories of sorrow and pain, as well as pomp and power, while unseen of human eyes to each of them alike "tragedy with sceptred pall comes sweeping by." In the days left to him as the first private citizen of the Republic, unlike Burke, he did not waste his strength in windy opposition or factious controversy. He wrote no memoirs. "With my historical sense, how could I be my own biographer?" he said. He exploited in no way his wide fame, uttered no complaint, suffered no pity, displayed no vainglory. It was as if a great gentleman, "weary of the weight of this unintelligible world," sought his peace at last in a quiet home luminous with love and perfect care, and shut out at last from the noises and the storm. From this sanctuary, day by day, it was given him to behold the processes of his own immortality, as simple men and women gathered about his home and perceived in his wan image the poignant symbol of their great days and the historic link forever binding them to noble enthusiasms. The very depth and dignity of his silence won through to the imagination of men, and when he spoke, the world stood at attention heartened to have knowledge that his high hopes for mankind were undimmed, and that there was no faltering in that firm faith of his that liberty guided by reason and not by force was the contribution of his century to human advancement. I doubt not that regrets came to vex his mind for lost opportunities that might have been better used as he reviewed the pageant of his days in that long sequestered time; but a durable satisfaction fortified his soul, that even the devil's advocate must bear witness that He had loved no darkness, A grace which his heart craved came in the exaltation and excitement of a valiant new generation on the march, intent to light its torches at the still burning fire of his purpose to substitute for the arbitrament of war and death the reign of law, to restore to the land of his love and his loyalty its surrendered ascendancy, and to guarantee to the principles he had fought for eternal validity. The puzzle and complex of his dual nature seemed at last to fall into a mould of simplicity and consistency. We die but once, and we die without distinction if we are not willing to die the death of sacrifice. Honor and distinction come only as rewards for service to mankind. Thus Woodrow Wilson had spoken in the days of his strength to high-hearted American youth, and now, broken in body but crowned with bays, he could of right claim the supreme distinction as his very own! And so even as death enfolded him in its shadows, men paused in their busy lives and came to comprehend that a man of great faith had lived in their era, akin in heart and blood to John Milton and John Hampden, Mazzini, and Luther, that a prophet had guided their country and stirred the heart of mankind in an hour of destiny, and that an incorruptible liberal aflame with will to advance the slow ascent of man had joined those whom men call immortal and stood among that high fellowship, Constant as the Northern Star Of whose true, fixed, and lasting quality, HERBERT HENRY ASQUITH (SINCE EARL OF OXFORD AND ASQUITH) ALFRED LYTTELTON Herbert Henry Asquith was born on September 12, 1852. was president of the Union at Oxford where he won distinction as a scholar and impressed everyone with his intellectual power and promise. He won success at the bar, entered parliament in 1886 and in 1892 entered Gladstone's cabinet. From that time he has been constantly in public life, his service as prime minister from 1908 to 1916 covering some of the stormiest contests of English domestic politics and the opening years of the Great War. He was created Earl of Oxford and Asquith in 1925. Ready and incisive in debate, sensible and forcible in argument and exposition, Mr. Asquith has also an extraordinary gift of condensed and impressive statement which expresses emotion with restrained but unusual power. His great war speeches are given in Volume XII. The first of the following addresses, the tribute to Alfred Lyttelton, delivered in the House of Commons, July 7, 1913, is surely destined to a permanent place among memorial addresses because of its flawless beauty. The second, delivered in the House of Commons, June 21, 1916, after the tragic death of Lord Kitchener is likewise a model of dignity and simplicity. These addresses have been printed in a volume, "Occasional Addresses," copyright, 1918, Macmillan & Co. We should not, I think, be doing justice to the feelings which are uppermost in many of our hearts if we passed to the business of the day without taking notice of the fresh gap which has been made in our ranks by the untimely death of Mr. Alfred Lyttelton. It is a loss of which I hardly trust myself to speak; for apart from ties of relationship, there had subsisted between us, for thirty-three years, a close friendship and affection which no political differences were ever allowed to loosen or even to invade. Nor can I better describe him than by saying that he perhaps, of all men of this generation, came nearest to the mold and ideal of manhood which every English father would like to see his son aspire to, and if possible to attain. The bounty of nature, enriched and developed, not only by early training, but by constant self-discipline through life, blended in him gifts and graces which, taken alone, are rare, and in such attractive union are rarer still. Body, mind, and character-the school-room, the cricket-field, the Bar, the House of Commons-each made its separate contribution of faculty and experience to a many-sided and harmonious whole. But what he was he gave; gave with such ease and exuberance that I think it may be said without exaggeration that wherever he moved he seemed to radiate vitality and charm. He was, as we here know, a strenuous fighter. He has left behind him no resentments and no enmities; nothing but a gracious memory of a manly and winning personality; the memory of one who served with an unstinted measure of devotion his generation and his country. He has been snatched away in what we thought was the full tide of a buoyant life, still full of promise and of hope. What more can we say? We can only bow once again before the decrees of the Supreme Wisdom. Those who loved him—and they are many-in all schools of opinion, in all ranks and walks of life, when they think of him will say to themselves: This was the happy Warrior; this was He LORD KITCHENER WHEN the House adjourned for the Whitsuntide Recess Lord Kitchener had just received a strong and unmistakable expression of its confidence, and the next day he met in private conference a large number of its Members, including some of his most persistent and, as it then seemed, irreconcilable critics, with the result that he and they parted on terms not only of mutual respect, but of complete understanding. I am glad to remember that, at his last interview with me, he expressed his pleasure at what had happened, and his hope that this was the |