regeneration, of his final reconciliation with the Divine. The time will
perhaps come when some inspired man or men will be enabled to handle our
modern history with the same esoteric insight which informed the Hebrew
scribes, when they used the annals of the obscure tribe to which they
belonged as a cover under which to present the relations of God with all
the human race, past and to come.

* * * * *

Modern history tends more and more to become philosophic: to be an
argument and an interpretation, rather than a bald statement of facts. The
facts contained in our best histories bear much the same relation to the
history itself, that the flesh and bones of the body bear to the person
who lives in and by them. The flesh and bones, or the facts, have to
exist; but the only excuse for their existence is, that the person may
have being, or that the history may trace a spiritual growth or decadence.
There was perhaps a time when the historian found a difficulty in
collecting facts enough to serve as a firm foundation for his edifice of
comment and deduction; but nowadays, his embarrassment is rather in the
line of making a judicious selection from the enormous mass of facts which
research and the facilities of civilization have placed at his disposal.
Not only is every contemporary event recorded instantly in the newspapers
and elsewhere; but new light is being constantly thrown upon the past,
even upon the remotest confines thereof. Some of the facts thus brought
before us are original and vital; others are mere echoes, repetitions, and
unimportant variations.

But the historian, if he wishes his work to last, must build as does the
Muse in Emerson's verse, with