that her strength could never be recovered, she would at any time have welcomed death but for the sake of those who clung to her. "Would it not be better that I should go in peace?" But her peace of mind remained to the end. The feebler voice still spoke with interest of her friends and any events that concerned them, and her pencil was busy with cheerful notes to them, some so recent that cheerful replies arrived after her death.

In November she felt that her life would close with the year, and as if preparing her usual Christmas donations gathered together her jewels, heirlooms, and other little treasures, which were distributed as souvenirs among her relatives and friends. This she did almost merrily. Though it was necessary to conceal our anguish, she could not fail to know what the approaching change must mean for her devoted children and her husband. For me she had ordained the work of writing out my "Reminiscences," and on this task I entered during her life, submitting to her in July several chapters, preceded by this dedication:

"In response to your desire, my wife, I undertake to record the more salient recollections of my life. It is a life you have made happy, and never unhappy save by the failure of your health. Its experiences during forty years have been yours also, and on the counsel and judgment which have never been wanting at my side I can happily still rely in living over again in our joint memory the events deemed worthy of record.

"Let me obey my own heart, and secure the favour of many hearts that have known your friendship and witnessed your life, in America and Europe, by writing your name on a work as yet unwritten, to which because it is an enterprise near your heart - I now dedicate myself." On Christmas Day, in a city gay with birthday celebra

tions of one said to have healed the sick and raised the dead, I sat beside my dead wife, and recalled the words ascribed to Martha, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." But I said, "If thou hadst been Lord, this woman had not died."

Love enough was here; science was here; but love and knowledge have not yet mastered those blind, unguided forces by which hearts are broken hourly, and which have struck down this great-hearted woman in the midst of her happiness and usefulness. That she found "something good" in her trouble was because she was able to put something good into it; and I, bereft and broken, must try to do the same. But I shall not ascribe any providential purpose to the diseases and griefs that desolate mankind, and of themselves work no moral benefit at all, but tend to sap the mind, lower courage, and embitter the heart.

305 West 70th Street, New York.

MONCURE D. CONWAY.

INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND

ARBITRATION

ADRESSE AU CONGRÈS DE LA PAIX

RÉUNI À PARIS, AU MOIS D'OCTOBRE, 1900

ESSIEURS, -Les armements des nations, sans

MES

cesse augmentés de siècle en siècle, ont atteint leur plus complet développement à une époque où la conscience populaire se révolte contre l'effusion du sang et où la paix est, plus que tout, l'intérêt suprême de l'humanité. Bien que de tels armements soient basés théoriquement sur le prétexte qu'il faut pourvoir nécessairement à une légitime défense - car c'est là la seule justification admissible de la guerre le fait de voir que, chez certaines nations peu exposées à une invasion, ils dépassent en puissance ce qui serait nécessaire pour la défense, et que chez d'autres ils sont portés au plus haut point et forcément disproportionnés aux forces nécessaires pour repousser les seuls ennemis dont on puisse supposer une attaque, tout cela prouve que l'augmentation des établissements militaires et navals est due à de tous autres intérêts que ceux de la défense. Ils sont le refuge et la seule ressource de plusieurs milliers d'hommes sans carrière; ils soutiennent un grand nombre d'industries; ils créent comme des royaumes où l'ambition personnelle peut aisément trouver encouragement, titres, rang, privilèges, à une époque où le vieux régime aristocratique a perdu toute autorité et va perdant son prestige.

1 A congress of many individuals and representatives of societies from different countries came together in Paris in 1900. Mr. Conway was one of the representative Americans attending, and presented this plan and explanation. The elimination of war by both natural and methodical means was, perhaps, the chief aim of Mr. Conway's later life.