What more natural than that a new social order should arise, into which should be gathered all classes of men, glorified, purified, ready for the Advent of the conquering Galilean, which was then almost universally anticipated. But alas, the Augustine City of God has never come. It will never come, as a political organization. Its home is in the human heart. It is not Lo here or Lo there ; and cometh not with observation. The City of God, the City of Light, will come when

THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL. 14I

ethical conscience is so quickened that law become love, and love, law. We might go on and say more of the exalted dreamers who from age to age have attempted the impossible task of idealizing the State by geometric rules or fantastic theories. Perhaps the two most notable -- at least until the recent expansion of Socialistic propaganda -- were the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More and the "New Atlantis " of Lord Bacon. We must dismiss them by naming them. They lacked the Democratic Ideal. Yet, among the many gems which Lord Bacon has given to our language, the short terse phrases, which make him one of the most quotable of authors, is one memorable line in his " New Atlantis." He said of the Father of Solomon's house, " He had an aspect as though he pitied men." Benignant and blessed thought. One, however, of the world's intellectual sovereigns, who lived in the uplands of the imagination, who traversed the gamut of human experience, and of whom we may say, if of any man, " He saw life steadily and saw it whole ;" in dealing with the relation of man ro the civic order, never indulged in illusion -- William Shakspeare. It has often been said to his reproach that his dramas are not instinct with the spirit of liberty ; that he believed in the right of the strongest to rule ; that he deified strength and power ; that he showed contempt for the mob and " rabblement." We cannot go into a discussion of this interesting matter.