What is the Church?

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ance and of being diverted by them from practice.-Last Essays.

THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL PROGRESS.

THE ideal of the working classes is a future,—a future on earth, not up in the sky,-which shall profoundly change and ameliorate things for them; an immense social progress, nay, a social transformation; in short, as their song goes, 'a good time coming.' And the Church is supposed to be an appendage to the Barbarians, as I have somewhere, in joke, called it; an institution devoted above all to the landed gentry, but also to the propertied and satisfied classes generally; favouring immobility, preaching submission, and reserving transformation in general for the other side of the grave.

Such a Church, I admit, cannot possibly nowadays attach the working classes, or be viewed with anything but disfavour by them. But certainly the superstitious worship of existing social facts, a devoted obsequiousness to the landed and propertied and satisfied classes, does not inhere in the Christian religion. The Church does not get it from the Bible. Exception is taken to its being said that there is communism in the Bible, because we see that communists are fierce, violent, insurrectionary people, with temper and actions abhorrent to the spirit of Christianity. But if we say, on the one hand, that the Bible utterly condemns all violence, revolt, fierceness,

and self-assertion, then we may safely say, on the other hand, that there is certainly communism in the Bible. The truth is, the Bible enjoins endless self-sacrifice all round; and to any one who has grasped this idea, the superstitious worship of property, the reverent devotedness to the propertied and satisfied classes, is impossible. And the Christian Church has, I boldly say, been the fruitful parent of men who, having grasped this idea, have been exempt from this superstition. Institutions are to be judged by their great men ; in the end, they take their line from their great men. The Christian Church, and the line which is natural to it and which will one day prevail in it, is to be judged from the saints and the tone of the saints. Now really, if there have been any people in the world free from illusions about the divine origin and divine sanctions of social facts just as they stand,open, therefore, to the popular hopes of a profound renovation and a happier future,-it has been those inspired idiots, the poets and the saints. Nobody nowadays attends much to what the poets say, so I leave them on one side. But listen to a saint on the origin of property; listen to Pascal. ""This dog belongs to me," said these poor children; "that place in the sun is mine!" Behold the beginning and the image of all usurpation upon earth!'-Last Essays.

The Kingdom of God.

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THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

Ir is really well to consider, how entirely our religious teaching and preaching, and our creeds, and what passes with us for the gospel,' turn on quite other matters from the fundamental matter of the primitive gospel, or good news, of our Saviour himself. This gospel was the ideal of popular hope and longing, an immense renovation and transformation of things: the kingdom of God. 'Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God and saying: The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the good news.' Jesus went about the cities and villages 'proclaiming the good news of the kingdom.' The multitudes followed him, and he 'took them and talked to them about the kingdom of God.' He told his disciples to preach this. 'Go thou, and spread the news of the kingdom of God.' 'Into whatever city ye enter, say to them: The kingdom of God has come nigh unto you.' He told his disciples to pray for it. 'Thy kingdom come!' He told them to seek and study it before all things.

righteousness and kingdom.'

'Seek first God's

It is a contracted and insufficient conception of the gospel which takes into view only the establishment of righteousness, and does not also take into view the establishment of the kingdom. And the establishment of the kingdom does imply an immense renovation and

transformation of our actual state of things; that is certain. This then, which is the ideal of the popular classes, of the multitude everywhere, is a legitimate ideal. And a Church of England devoted to the service and ideals of any class or classes, however distinguished, wealthy, or powerful,-which are perfectly satisfied with things as they are, is not only out of sympathy with the ideal of the popular classes; it is also out of sympathy with the gospel, of which the ideal does, in the main, coincide with theirs.-Last Essays.

TRUE STRENGTH OF THE CHURCH OF

ENGLAND.

THIS is the real business of the Church: to make progress in grace and peace. Force the Church of England has certainly some; perhaps a good deal. But its true strength is in relying, not on its powers of force, but on its powers of attractiveness. And by opening itself to the glow of the old and true ideal of the Christian Gospel, by fidelity to reason, by placing the stress of its religion on goodness, by cultivating grace and peace, it will inspire attachment, to which the attachment which it inspires now, deep though that is, will be as nothing; it may last, such a Church may last, as long as this nation. --Last Essays.

'I BESEECH you,' said Paul, ‘by the mildness and gentleness of Christ' The word which our Bible translates by 'gentleness' means more properly 'reasonableness with sweetness,' 'sweet reasonableness.' 'I beseech you by the mildness and sweet reasonableness of Christ.' This mildness and sweet reasonableness it was, which, stamped with the individual charm they had in Jesus Christ, came to the world as something new, won its heart and conquered it. Every one had been asserting his ordinary self and was miserable; to forbear to assert one's ordinary self, to place one's happiness in mildness and sweet reasonableness, was a revelation. As men followed this novel route to happiness, a living spring opened beside their way, the spring of charity; and out of this spring arose those two heavenly visitants, Charis and Irene, grace and peace, which enraptured the poor wayfarer, and filled him with a joy which brought all the world after him. And still, whenever these visitants appear, as appear for a witness to the vitality of Christianity they daily do, it is from the same spring that they arise; and this spring is opened solely by the mildness and sweet reasonableness which forbears to assert our ordinary self, nay, which even takes pleasure in effacing it.-St. Paul and Protestantism.

1 διὰ τῆς πραΰτητος καὶ ἐπιεικείας τοῦ Χριστοῦ, Cor. II, x, I.