board of trade and stock exchange, "Speculations in futures and options form no exception to laws against gambling."

Beyond this Government cannot go. Legislation can never equalize inherent inequality, nor can enactment abolish eternal necessity. Not by acts of Congress, not by the paternal power of the state, not by a sweeping revolution in form of government, is industrial freedom to come, but in and through that upon which they all depend, the eternal and immutable impulse implanted in the mind of man. The law of the universe, material and spiritual, is evolution. From out the gloomy darkness of mental slavery, through persecution and affliction, through fire and blood, the forces of infinite truth and eternal right have been leading mankind to the light of a higher freedom. At each step some shackle has been stricken from human thought, some idea based upon the everlasting truth set free. The Orient said that one was free, the monarch, because he was a monarch. The Greek said that he was free, because he was a Greek. Modern democracy says that man is free, because he is a man-free to labor, free to think, free to worship, free to unite with his fellows in organizing a state which shall mediate the conflicts which arise while human nature is imperfect. Through free activity, man gets rid of physical necessity. Through democracy, he does away with political limits imposed by the tyrant. Through the de

velopment of science, philosophy, and art, he rids himself of intellectual necessity,-ignorance. By means of the church, he does away with subjective slavery-savage motives, evil passions, and becomes free with the liberty of Him who said, "Know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

Vital and enduring change is slow. The invalid shriveled in mind and body does not awaken from the sleep of a night possessed of manly vigor. Neither does a state. Natural agencies level all inconsistencies. Gigantic combinations of wealth, the despotic power of a single man, will go down with the unusual opportunities for speculation and accumulation which called them into being. Misery and want, oppression and inequality will grow less and less, as human thought and conscience are emancipated by an education of reason and a religion of humanity. We are not obliged to choose between extreme social industrialism and unrestrained private monopoly. It is in the maintenance of an equilibrium between the forces of individual and state. It is in the setting aside of prejudice, of misrepresentation, of selfish interest, that change will come,-that freedom, working in the minds of men, will establish itself in social institutions. Centuries, cycles of years may pass away and social struggle will continue. The opposing forces of individual and state will ever live, but the bitterness of conflict will diminish as mind becomes free. The only true free

dom is of the mind. Contending armies upon battle-fields can never establish it. The strong arm of Government can never maintain it. It comes from the perception of truth, the realization of the underlying purpose in human existence, a comprehension of the eternal truth as revealed in the universe around us. In palace or in hovel, surrounded by wealth or crushed by poverty, adorned by crown and scepter or bound by chains,

"He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside."

THE OPTIMISM OF HISTORY.

By GEORGE HIRAM GEYER, of the Ohio Wesleyan University.

BIOGRAPHICAL.

George Hiram Geyer was born May 26, 1868, at Pomeroy, Ohio. At the age of sixteen he graduated from the Pomeroy High School, in which institution he afterwards served as instructor three years. Later he spent four years as a student in the Ohio Wesleyan University, at Delaware, graduating with the degree B. A. in June, 1892. In the local oratorical contest in December, 1891, he was chosen the representative of the Ohio Wesleyan to the annual State contest in February, 1892, where he again carried off first honors, and thereby became Ohio's orator in the inter-state contest at Minneapolis, Minn., where he was a close second. In the fall of 1892 Mr. Geyer entered the Boston University School of Theology, from which he was graduated in June, 1895, as first-honor speaker. During these three years in Boston he also preached at Hope Chapel, a mission in that city supported by the Old South M. E. Church. In October, 1895, he became pastor of Spencer M. E. Church, Trenton, Ohio, and in October, 1898, began a pastorate at the King Avenue M. E. Church in Columbus, Ohio. He died in June, 1900.

THE ORATION.

Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest at Minneapolis, Minn., May 6, 1892, taking second prize. Judges: Pres. J. B. ANGELL, Judge B. K. ELLIOTT, Senator H. M. THURSTON, Hon. A. H. Young, EX-Gov. WILLIAM LARRABEE, and Rev. H. H. BOLTON, D. D.

"In our most pessimistic forecasts for ourselves there is always an under-protest of hope." A suggestive writer thus states a great truth. Man is optimistic. Sound the entire gamut of human experience and the prevailing note is hopefulness.