The Old and 



the 



New Year Meet. 



LONDDiV, Dec 30. 191 1. 

 The Old Year passes. 1 salute it 

 in Whitman's familiar lines : — 

 .Arm'd year — year of tlie struggle, 

 .No iLiimy rhymes or scniimenlal verses 

 for you, terrible year. 

 Vear that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round lip^icl cannon 

 I repeat you, hurrying, c/ashing, s;id, distracted year. 



And in the words of the same prophet-bard I 

 aildre.ss the New Vear : 

 .\re all nations comnuining ? 



Is there going to be but one 



heart to the glolw ? 

 Is Humanity' forming (^/ muss, I 



for lo I tyrants tremble, 



crowns i;ro\v dim. 

 'Ilie earth restive confronts a 



new era ; perhaps a general 



divine war ! 

 .\o one knows what will hap- 

 pen next. 



Whitman's curious med- 

 ley of hope, of fear, and 

 of hiank uncertainty aptly 

 expresses the emotions 

 'xcited as 191 1 passes 

 into 1912. 



Sursum Corda : 



The outlook is stormy. 

 The tocsin of industrial 

 war is pealing through the 

 darkness. " Iron san- 

 dalled crime" is abroad 

 .unong the nations. 'I'ho 



jreat inarticulate aspirations of mankind " Confront 

 |)eace, security, and all settled laws to unsettle 

 them." Famine liroods over Russia, threatening 

 twenty millions with death. China llounders 

 through civil war to revolution. I'he hearts of 

 men fail them for fear. But although the .story 

 'f fighting daily oppres^eth us, it is well to take 

 • Durage with the Psalmi.si, and declare, " \\ hat time 



Chang;es in the Government of Bengal 



I am afraid I will trust in Thee." Cromwell's words 

 — if indeed they be those of the Lord Protector, for 

 they are not to be found in Carlyle's collection of his 

 speeches and letters — seem to have the true ring : — 



Think you iliat He Who led His chosen people through the 

 wilderness will fail you now. Has He deserted His people and 

 cast oft' His Herilage'; I tell you Xay. When the deeps arc 

 broken up then doth He make bare His .\rm, and you are never 

 >o much in the prc-sence of Almighty God as when the founda- 

 tions are shaken, and when the 

 Heavens seem to be falling 

 and the pillars of the earth 

 to be removed. . . . Though 

 ihe mountains be removed and 

 the strong pillars of the earth 

 ilo shake, thou shall be kept 

 in perfect peace in the hollow 

 of the Hand of .\lmighty God. 



Monarchy 



in 

 Apotheosis. 



1 1 is one of the most 

 striking contrasts in the 

 Sensational drama of con- 

 temporary history that 

 the same month which 

 witnessed the substitu- 

 tion of the Republic for 

 the Monarchy in China 

 should also havq wit- 

 nessed the apotheosis of 

 iMonarchy at Delhi. 

 Europe and Asia seem 

 to have changed rd/(S. 

 The East advances -the West retreats. The prin- 

 ciple of representative government is acclaimed 

 in China at the very moment when the authority of 

 the Emperor is asserted in India. 1 am not' 

 referring to the pageantry of the Durbar. That 

 was first-class circus, no thjubt ; but the significance 

 of the ceremony did not lie in the ceremonial. Not 

 until all tlie homage had been rendered, and the 



