Now the point in all this paper is just this: If we wait till all our fellows have entered externally into our circle before we find fellowship with them, we must pass out from among them without ever having lived with them. All who have thought of it will acknowledge that the value of life depends very largely on its being shared with our fellow-men. To live at all worthily is to live with others, sharing each other's goods and ills. And all are no doubt willing to acknowledge that, in addition to keeping alive, they are striving to do something to lift the humanity that is below them up to a level with themselves in order that it and they may share together a better life. But if we wait until we all live in mansions, or all in cottages, or all in cabins; if we wait until we are all clothed in "purple and fine linen," or all in serge and worsted, or all in jeans and blue denim; if we wait until we all do the same kind of work, till we all read the same books, till we have all accumulated the same amount of money; in short, if we wait until we have become externally equal, we shall live a narrow life to the end without ever having come into companionship with the majority of those about us.

We all long for acquaintance and companionship with heroes. We seek for them in history, in song and in story. They are the life of literature, the impelling power that draws us into books. We count no hour lost that is spent in the company of a great man. But what is it that makes a man really great? What is it that we really worship in the hero? It is, in short, his devotion to a worthy ideal. It is his willing choice of suffering for another. That man who willingly accepts pain that he might have avoided, and accepts it in order that another may escape it or some other and thereby live better, is to that extent a genuine hero. Nothing greater than this can be found in any man How often do we pass men and women devoted to this ideal without ever discovering their equality with the best! It may be that if our eyes were only open to the vision, we might often behold the same maternal devotion that made Mary immortal. If we could only look more deeply into the innermost souls of those about us, we might often see visions of self-sacrifice and devotion that would surprise us-visions that would make us yearn for com

panionship with the lives in which such deeds are enacted. If we could only look into the secret chambers of the hearts of those about us, both those above us and those below us, we might often see the same ends, the same plans, the same inner intentions, the same perplexities, the same hopes and the same fears occupying and ruling the lives of all. And in so doing we might find a breadth of life and a companionship that now we miss. After all, this is what men and women need and long for; namely, to have that which is most significant to them seen and recognized at its full value. If the rich and the poor could only see each other as they are and see how much alike they are within their innermost hearts; if the employer and the employee could only look at each other as they look at themselves and see how both have ultimately the same ends and aims in view; if the learned and the ignorant could each know the perplexities of the other, and could each see how alike he is to the other; in short, if all could only see all in their inner equality, they would hate and fear each other less because of their outer differences. Indeed, I believe if we could all come to see the good there is in others as we see it in ourselves, we should feel much less the burdens of our inequalities.

Character of the Early Virginia Trade.

The earliest form which the trade of Virginia took was a monopoly in the hands of those who projected the settlement. The London Company, however, were only partially successful in their attempts to exclude unlicensed traders. In 1616 the older policy was somewhat relaxed. Then it was recognized that external traders might come to the colony; but the Company took large measures to furnish the people with all the commodities which were needed. To carry out this plan they founded a Magazine, as it was called, which was a stock of goods sent to Virginia in the hands of an agent called the Cape Merchant. He was expected to sell the goods at rates fixed by law, and to buy in return tobacco from the colonists at rates similarly established. The Company were not able to live up to the full import of their action in removing the restrictions on trade. They were alarmed when they saw other traders coming into the colony, competing with their Cape Merchant in a disadvantageous way, and they undertook to forbid the trade altogether to the interlopers. In this attempt they were largely unsuccessful. They held less and less hold on the trade of the colony till the repeal of the charter in 1624 threw open the trade in theory, as it had already become in practice, to all who chose to enter.

The trade of Virginia now took on the character which it kept all the rest of the colonial period. There had already come to the place a number of ship captains with cargoes of miscellaneous goods. These men represented European business houses, either as owners or as agents. They came into the Virginia rivers, traded with the inhabitants who were scattered at wide intervals along these rivers, till they had disposed of their cargoes, and then returned to their homes with the quantities of tobacco they had received in exchange. This form of trade had many disadvantages; but the chief of them was, perhaps, the difficulty of collecting debts due from the planters. It was not always possible to sell for cash, and this brought the trader into the credit system. Such debts were secured by mortgages on the growing tobacco crop. It

would frequently happen that a planter would have more than one creditor, and then there would be competition to see which of the two should get the first chance at the crop. The traders, in order to meet this condition, formed the habit of leaving powers of attorney with certain inhabitants of the colony, with instructions to sue for the debts at the earliest necessary moment. Thus trade got another form than the first. It came about that the London owner came less frequently to Virginia, and that he left his affairs more and more in the hands of others. Loading a ship with goods he would send them in charge of a trusted captain to Virginia. Sometimes the ship would be owned by the merchant, but more frequently it would be merely chartered by him for the voyage. In the latter case the merchant might take out the charter in his own name, but he expected to get back the charter-money in freights paid by the planter. If it chanced that he did not get enough tobacco to load the ship he lost by the operation. The latter fact made the merchants rather cautious about sending ships; and it frequently resulted that not enough vessels were sent to carry home the crop, in which case freights went to a high figure.

There was much indirection in this trade. The London merchant was not ordinarily a merchant, except as he bought and sold tobacco. The goods which he sent back to the colony were bought by him from various dealers. They were paid for by himself and charged to the Virginian. If they were sent in excess of funds realized from the tobacco received, it was at the risk of the merchant. On the other hand the agent of the merchant was not a trader, that is he was not the keeper of a store. He was little more than an attorney charged to keep his eye on the merchant's debts in the colony. He made collections, when the debtors did not remit promptly enough, and he gave advice as to the financial responsibility of individual planters. He also might look after the interests of his employer to the extent of turning new custom to him. William Fitzhugh, who was a lawyer, seems to have been acting in all of these capacities. At other times the agent appeared as a buyer of tobacco for the London merchant. The planter had his dealings directly with the merchant. He sent to the

latter an order for goods along with his consignment of tobacco. The system brought all the evils of long credits, large profits, bickerings over accounts, a facility for overreaching on each side of the ocean, and it precluded the establishment of a strong trading class in the colony.

The last of these evils was most far-reaching. It gave, indeed, a more cosmopolitan cast to colony trade, because it brought each planter into close contact with London firms. It may have given, also, a certain modish turn to colony dress and manners, but it prevented the establishment of towns in Virginia, confirmed the tendency to agricultural life, and left the Virginia trade permanently at the mercy of distributing points foreign to its own borders. As a result the oldest colony in America remained throughout the colonial period without a metropolis, and without the social utilities of urban life.

"Why," we may ask, "did not large traders develop?" It was not, as some have thought, on account of a social prejudice against trade as a calling. Both of the Byrds and William Fitzhugh were traders, and all of them were men of the best social influence. Many of the most prominent men of the colony were likewise engaged. Neither was it because trade would not have been profitable. The expenses of the existing system were so great, that it is probable that large importers could have competed in an active market with the Londoners on favorable terms. It was rather on account of the profitableness of tobacco planting. Few persons realize how profitable slavery made farming in either the cotton or the tobacco regions of the South. In colonial Virginia it was possible for a man of a small capital to buy a thousand acres of land and four or five slaves, and with this for a beginning he could expect, if he were reasonably industrious, to die at an old age a man rich in lands and negroes, and honored and influential in his county. How clearly this affected society may be seen from the fact that there were the fewest persons following other callings in the colony who did not sooner or later become planters also. This was true of the physicians, of the lawyers, and of the merchants as well.