else they were or were not, most assuredly were "Ages of Faith." St. Edmund of Canterbury, in his Mirror, one of the most popular books in mediæval England, lays it down, with startling plainness, that the rich can be saved only by the poor; for the poor are they of whom it is said, "Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven," and only through them can the rich enter it. Dives has had his consolation here the hereafter belongs to Lazarus; the rich man must share with the beggar in this world if he would have fellowship and portion with him in the next. Such was the contribution of Christianity to "the social problem," as we now speak. I know well that this teaching has been perverted, or, rather, has been blasphemously prostituted, to an argument for retaining the masses in material and economical degradation, by representing the All Just as an accomplice in human wrong and robbery. Certainly, I do not so employ it. And the abuse of a truth does not vitiate its proper use. The question which I invite my readers to consider is: Can the social problem be--I do not say solved, it will never be solved, but rationally treated without that belief in the Divine Law of Righteousness, expressed in the teaching of Christ concerning poverty and riches? It is a question worth pondering. I shall leave my readers to ponder it, placing before them certain words of a great master-whose inimitable beauty and pathos, as I know too well, no translation can

more than dimly adumbrate-which may perhaps aid them in the task, and which may fitly serve as the epilogue to this volume.

"A disaster-I might almost call it the disaster of our time "-Victor Hugo is reported to have said1 -" is a certain tendency to bring everything within the limits of this life. Give to man, as his sole end and object, this earthly and material existence, and you aggravate all his miseries by the inherent negation: you lay upon wretches already crushed to the ground the unsupportable burden of Nothingness: you convert mere suffering, which is the law of God, into despair, which is the law of hell. Hence convulsions which shake society to its base. Assuredly, I am one of those who desire,-no one in this place doubts it-I am one of those who desire, I do not say sincerely, the word is all too weak, I desire with an ardour that no words can express, and by

every possible means, to ameliorate in this life the material lot of those who suffer. ameliorations is to give them hope.

But the first of all

How little do

our finite miseries become, when an infinite hope is mingled with them. The duty of us all, be we who we may, whether we be legislators or writers, is to diffuse, to spread abroad, to expend, to lavish, under every form, the whole energy of society in warring against and destroying misery: and, at the same time, to lead all to lift their heads towards heaven,

'In the debate on the Falloux Law (1850).

to direct all souls, to turn all expectations, towards a life beyond this, where justice shall be done, where justice shall be requited. Let us proclaim it aloud: No one shall have suffered unjustly or in vain. Death is a restitution. The law of the material world is equilibrium: the law of the moral world is equity. God is recovered at the end of all. Let us not forget it: let us teach it to all: there would be no dignity in living-it would not be worth the trouble if we were destined wholly to die. What lightens labour, what sanctifies toil, what makes man strong, good, wise, patient, benevolent, just, at once humble and great, worthy of intellect, worthy of liberty, is to have ever before him the vision of a better world, shining athwart the darkness of this life."