some work for him. At most he is but one in 250 or 300 of us, and it should not be hard to find work that he could do, and do well, without fear of his being laid up in the doing of it, and again thrown on our hands-such work as driving tramcars, post cars, and cabs; or work as gaffer, overseer, or watchman-gardening and farmwork are too heavy-any work, in fact, that keeps him in the open air—in the country if possible, and that is of a light nature. At such work he will almost invariably keep well and in time learn to forget that he was ever a consumptive. Even such consumptives as, at a pinch, could scrape together enough money to pay for their treatment, and who were not in a very prosperous way of life-such as clerks and shop-assistants-would be wise to return no more to that work under which they had broken down, but should, at any rate for some years, get outdoor employment-perhaps as commercial travellers, pursers on shipboard, or work of that nature. Only such consumptives as are in a good way of life, and can therefore afford to have plenty of nourishing food, and who can take work more or less easily, should risk going back to their former employment.

At the same time we must do all in our power to stamp out tuberculosis in cattle, for we can neglect no means to the end of our getting the mastery of this disease both in man and in beast. We must be just in our dealings all round, and in no way can we be so but by bearing all losses, and meeting all expenses entailed, out of the public purse. No one can reasonably object to this being done, as all will benefit.

It appears that our Government are the only objectors to such a course being taken; perhaps they fear the voting power of the farmer who conscientiously objects' to the compulsory testing of his cattle. But then there will be no conscientious objector if we treat the farmer honestly, which we mean to do.

That tuberculosis in cattle is a matter for compulsory measuresfor State interference and supervision-would not be hard to prove. At a meeting held in Belfast, on the 4th of April, for the purpose of establishing a branch of the National Society for the Prevention of Consumption, mention was made of a farmer who had some cows that were in a very advanced stage of tuberculosis, but who would not sell them, for purposes of investigation, because they ate so little and gave so much milk! What will avail with such a man? Nothing short of compulsion. He will never move of his own free will. The periodical examination of all herds, the strict and complete separation of unsound from sound cattle (the unsound being got rid of as expeditiously as possible, it being allowable only to sell them for slaughter), the competent inspection of all byres in order to ensure adequate ventilation and to prevent overcrowding, would soon clear our herds of tuberculosis. The table given by Sir Herbert Maxwell in his article, 'Tuberculosis in Man and Beast,' in this Review

for October 1898, dealing with the five years' result of a system of partially separating-in Denmark-the unsound from the sound animals-both being under one roof and kept apart only by a movable partition gives one reason to hope that, with complete separation and under improved conditions of life-good food, well-lighted, wellventilated, clean byres, no overcrowding and a reasonable outing for the cattle in the open every day-no fresh cases of tuberculosis would develop among the sound animals. The table referred to shows that, even under the unfavourable condition mentioned, sometimes only as few as 1 out of 127, 2 out of 122, and 2 out of 132 animals in the sound section reacted at the end of six months.

'But,' you say, 'it will take a great deal of money to do all this -to get our Act of Parliament, to compulsify notification, to train our doctors, to build sanatoria, and to stamp out tuberculosis in cattle. All in good time! Let us hasten slowly, and therefore surely. Rome, you know, was not built in a day.' Oh, yes, all this would take a lot of money; and even if we spread the burden of it over the twenty years necessary to effect the end, yet it would be a lot of money, perhaps as much as the sum by which we reduce our national debt every four years as much as is lost in money-not to speak of lives-every three years to the nation, owing to consumptives being unable to work. Who knows? Perhaps it is too much to spend in order to be able merely to say 'We have banished consumption.' It is true that Rome was not built in a day; but we may be sure that it was not long, once the building began, before it was a habitable city. So dead in earnest was Romulus about the work that he slew his own brother for being contemptuous of his plans. If we had the enthusiasm and single-mindedness of Romulus we should not be long in building our Rome. Don't we all -even the most backward of us-hope and believe that one day we shall be in a position to treat all our consumptives? It has got to come to that in time. Wouldn't it be much better for us, and more sensible, to do it right away by creating a special department which would undertake systematically the sole work of suppressing this disease, and thus save much life, time, and money? Surely the saving of many lives would be justification enough for our spending very largely, even if that spending were commercially unsound, which it would by no means be. There is more than one man in this country who, from his private purse, could bear the whole expense. Where is there a work of philanthropy to compare with

this?

What stands in the way of our taking, as a country, immediate steps, if but at first merely for the relief of the most congested and most affected districts, later on, by degrees, working up to the full undertaking of measures for the eradication of this disease? As a consumptive as one who knows something, though but little, of the

utter hopelessness and misery of the lives of these neglected consumptives-I call for the strongest and the quickest measures. Nothing but organised effort of the most comprehensive kind can meet the urgency of the case; private and philanthropic endeavours can but touch a few spots in the all-pervading, deep-rooted, festering sore. If we put forth such organised effort, not only would consumption be eradicated, but all other forms of tuberculosis would quickly thereafter disappear as the overcrowding in our slums gave place to more healthful surroundings; as children ceased to be born of emaciated, consumptive parents; as good sanitation became more general, the laws of health better understood, and the standard of living higher-all resulting in a healthier and a happier people. Such an effect would this have on our power to resist disease and sickness of all kinds that it is certain a stride would be made in the next twenty-five years towards universal good health and longevity such as had never before been made in the history of our country.

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But before we attain to such an end there is plenty of work for us to do. Are we to shirk the doing of it, and be for ever at the mercy of an enemy we have learned successfully to attack but have not the energy to overcome? Is it for us to set the example and show other countries how to satisfactorily solve a problem of such national importance, or is it for others to show us the way, while thousands of our fellow-countrymen, who might easily be saved, are dying? or is the task too heavy for us? There is ever sure to be some obstacle in the way of our doing, as it ought to be done, anything of more than ordinary utility, urgency, or magnitude. Why is it always so? Is it that the gods, unknown to ourselves, have planted in our hearts a fear of their jealousy, lest we might, perchance, sometimes realise our ideals?

JAMES ARTHUR GIBSON.

Statistics show five times as much consumption where there is overcrowding.

THE NEW REFORMATION

II

A CONSCIENCE CLAUSE FOR THE LAITY

SOME weeks ago I published in the Times a letter under the heading, now familiar to that journal, of 'The Crisis in the Church,' which has evoked so many criticisms and replies that I am naturally drawn both to explain my own position a little further, and to try to meet some of the objections to it that have been raised by religious newspapers and speakers. The editor of this Review has kindly given me the opportunity of doing so.

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My letter, which was written in support of a very able and interesting statement-also sent to the Times-of the modern Broad Church position, by a Liberal clergyman of forty years standing (Rara Avis'), urged, in effect, that the Ritualist revival was 'not the only new force knocking at the gates of the English Church,' that if liberty is claimed by, and given to, the High Churchman for the re-statement and reinforcement of certain doctrines and practices which, whatever may be their Catholic antiquity, are still novelties within the English Church, liberty may also be claimed for, and should, in fairness, be given to novelties of another typeto those reconceptions of Christian belief which, under the influence of historical criticism, and during the present century, have spread so widely in Christendom.

The answers to this plea of mine have been, very briefly, as follows: Lord Halifax in the Guardian replies that 'such toleration' as I had appealed for will never be given. To do so would be to sap the foundation which gives Catholic doctrine the extraordinary force and attraction' which my letter had fully admitted; since the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Christ, to which, with the Ascension and the Descent into Hell, I had pointed as laying a heavy burden on the historical conscience of the Christian of to-day, was the central truth of Christianity,' 'the very rock on which it is founded.'

The Guardian, for itself, repeats the same non possumus. The proposal to grant personal relief in the shape, say, of an alternative My first paper under this title was published in this Review in 1888, eleven years ago, as a reply to the criticisms provoked by Robert Elsmere, especially to Mr. Gladstone's article, which appeared in this Review, May 1888, immediately after the issue of the fourth edition of my book.

formula in the Confirmation service, so as to enable those who cannot give their personal assent to the historical statements of the Apostles' Creed as a whole, while still attaching great importance to the Christian fellowship in which they were brought up, to approach the Eucharist, seems to the Guardian a proposal 'to include Unitarian doctrines within the Church;' and although it appears to admit that, in the words of my letter, there are now in the world 'two distinct Christianities, two doctrines of God, of Incarnation, of sin,' it maintains that they cannot both be sheltered within the Anglican Church.

The Outlook, a very fair and sincere paper, speaks of the letter as 'passionately pleading for the admission of Unitarians into the communion of the Church of England.' The British Weekly asks how anyone could suppose that the British people could tolerate a Church establishment composed at one end of Romanists and at the other end of Unitarians. The Church Times says that the place for this new philosophy' is outside the Church, not inside; that to bring it in would imply, not reformation, but revolution; and would mean the desertion of the Church by both Ritualists and Evangelicals. The Christian World, in a courteous article, thinks that the letter testifies to the 'longing of Unitarians-a longing easy to understand and sympathise with-to feel themselves in acknowledged brotherhood with other Christians'; while the Record says that the proposal is impossible, and would open the doors of the Church to bald Unitarianism.'

As for the reasons for my plea-viz. the disturbance produced in the educated conscience of to-day by the books and conclusions of a free and scientific theology-I have not seen any other attempt to deal with them than that made by Lord Halifax when he says, 'Mrs. Ward must surely know that the latest results of the German criticism of which she speaks, far from destroying the genuineness of the Gospel narrative as it has been received by the Christian Church, has been, on the contrary, to confirm it in those very particulars which that criticism at one time was so confidently asserted to have disproved.'

Perhaps I may take this opinion of Lord Halifax first, for on the genuineness of the grievance depends the need of the remedy. 'German criticism,' I suppose, may be taken to mean the verdict of that country where historical study of all kinds, including the study of early Christianity, is pursued, on the whole, more seriously, more independently, and by more people than in any other European society. If then ' German criticism' confirms traditional and orthodox Christianity, if it has made it easier either for Germans or ourselves to accept the historical reality of such articles of the Creed as the Virgin Birth, the Ascension, and the Descent into Hell, then, indeed, my contention that historical study is making it increasingly difficult