pers who could afford to fight appeals are those who benefit by secret rates or rebates. They are quiet, and wish no change. The small shippers must suffer, especially if appeals can always be taken. They can spare neither the time nor the money it would require to obtain justice." He suggests, therefore, that appeals should be allowed only when a considerable sum is involved, and that the Commission should be entrusted with the final decision of less important cases. "Government control of railroad rates," he concludes, "I consider imperatively required. Other nations have found it so. So shall we." Speaking to the members The President of the Keep Commission on Adminisand the committees entrative Reform. gaged in the investigation of business methods in the executive departments, President Roosevelt, on March 20, said what he wanted was not a diagnosis of the case, but definite recommendations, so that if legislation were needed he could recommend it, or if, as he hoped would be true with the enormous majority of cases, the matter could be reached by executive regulation, that he could see that such regulation was made. He would value the reports, he said, largely in proportion as they did not call for legislation, but recommended what he and the heads of departments could do themselves to check the evils and remedy the shortcomings that existed. He recalled the pride with which a naval officer had once told him that he could find in a great docket of papers for how many bottles of violet ink each captain of a battleship was responsible. He had said he did not care a snap for such knowledge, that what he wanted to know was whether the men could shoot. There should be only enough paper work to make a record of what was done. It should be subordinated always to efficiency. In making their recommendations they would have to deal with broad principles, but they must support them with definite plans. If these were practical and made the general scheme effective in each department, bureau, section and subdivision, they should never hesitate, however radical might be the departure from established methods involved. Good team work was as much needed in the executive civil service as it could possibly be anywhere else. And it was the only way to prevent duplication of work. cannot impress upon you too strongly that It will be observed that what is before The Algeciras Conference. Though the sessions of the conference on Morocco still continue, no final agreement has yet been reached at Algeciras. Many signs indicate that this week will witness a termination of the controversy honorable to all concerned, Germany having successfully asserted her own right and thereby the right of all commercial powers to share in the settlement, while France has successfully asserted the peculiar claims due to her propinquity and the more vital character of her interests, which are political as well as commercial. That such progress has been made toward agreement is generally attributed by the European press to the tactfulness of Mr. White, the head of the American delegation, acting either upon his own initiative or at the suggestion of the Administration at Washington. Russian Elec- Unrest. As the Russian elections progress signs of popular distrust multiply. The rights of the Douma seem to be few, and the council of the empire promises to be little more than a mouthpiece of the bureaucracy. There will be no responsibility of cabinet ministers to Parliament; interpellation of ministers is so restricted as to be probably illusory; the right of petition is specifically prohibited; subjects of discussion strictly limited; the immunity of members inadequately guarded. So small is the confidence of the electorate that one district in St. Petersburg, with an irony peculiarly Slavic, elected a dog and a factory chimney as its representatives. Elsewhere Radical or Independent delegates have been arrested as soon as chosen. Reactionaries have made no secret of their purpose to control elections by whatever means may be necessary. Yet even a nominally representative assembly is better than none. The States General of 1789 had little power when it began its sessions, and it was not chosen by free and universal suffrage. Rational political transformations must be slow if they are to be peaceful or sure. The unrest among workmen in the provinces is inopportune and the Social Democrats are mistaken in urging another general strike. Thus far order has been maintained, though with much cruelty. A The Grand Jury in New Corporation York asked the court for Gifts to Caman opinion on the criminpaign Funds. ality of such corporation gifts to campaign funds as were disclosed in the insurance investigation. A brief was submitted to the court by District Attorney Jerome, arguing that such contributions could not be larceny or any other crime, because it could not be shown that there had been felonious intent or "intent to deprive or defraud the true owner of his property, or of the use and benefit thereof." Reasonable doubt, he said, must be allowed, and the selfish interest must not be remote or small. Judge O'Sullivan was of another opinion. He told the Grand Jury that it was their duty to decide whether criminal intent had been shown. "Was it," he asked, "an honest transaction actuated by commendable motives, or did they act under artifice, disguise and concealment? From the facts you will get the character of the intent." In regard to the accusation of forgery, the judge said: "The law says that one who falsifies the accounts of a corporation is guilty of forgery. If you find such evidence in this case you may theft of nearly half a million dollars from take that as an evidence of intent. .. I a Moscow bank is attributed to revolu tionists in need of money for their campaign. Franchise Coolie labor in South African mines played a large part in the recent British elections, but since the Premier has declared that the final solution of the matter must be left to a local Parliament, interest has shifted in England to the point at which it has always been fixed in South Africa, as to the constitution of that Parliament and what the basis of franchise shall be. The question is in many ways analagous to that which confronted the framers of our Constitution and that which the restriction of suffrage in some of our Southern States brings up from time to time in connection with their representation in Congress. Shall the distribution of seats in the South African Parliament be by population or by voters? In some communities: it would make little difference. In South Africa it makes a vital one. The Boers marry early; their families are large. The English marry later; many of them are unmarried. If the distribution is by voters, the English will have a majority in Parliament; if it is by population the Boers will have a majority. A compromise is being urged with some prospect of acceptance. It is that the franchise shall be by voters, but with woman suffrage. It is said that this would put the races nearly on an equality. It would not be without precedent, since Parliament has already granted woman suffrage in New Zealand and in several Australian colonies. Kaffirs would in no case be counted in fixing a basis of representation. Ireland at Mr. John Redmond's speech at Manchester last week has been called the most noteworthy event in Irish history since the death of Parnell. At last there is a Government at Westminster which the Irish trust. According to the cabled report of his speech in the New York Evening Post, this Irish leader spoke without qualification and without reserve of his friendly attitude to the British Government. Those whom he represented, he said, were neither fearful nor impatient. "Ireland to-day is peaceful," he said. "There is no political rancor; there is no political disturbance." So peaceful are districts once given over to agrarian agitation and crime that all over the west and south of Ireland the dockets have been empty and the assize judges. have received the traditional "white gloves." There seems every disposition to be both just and generous toward the sister island on the part not only of the Government but of the Opposition. In speaking recently on Irish education, Professor Butcher, Unionist member for Cambridge, pronounced any Irish educational policy that did not commend itself to the Roman Catholic bishops at once foolish and useless. Evidently British opinion has travelled far in the generation since Gladstone disestablished the Irish Church. Progress of A bishop of Peterborough once said that he would rather see England free than sober, but the facts show that as England becomes free, as the people gradually come to take a larger share in the administration of their country, that national self-government brings with it personal self-government. For the last six years, as Dr. Dawson Burns has just shown in The London Times, there has been a steady, progressive diminution in the drink bill, amounting for the whole period to $110,000,000. The decrease in 1905 over 1904 alone was $25,000,000. It is said that some of the largest brewing companies are perilously near bankruptcy, with diminishing sales in spite of the increase of population, though Dr. Burns calculates that the total expenditure of the United Kingdom for alcoholic drinks, distilled and fermented, was last year $820,000,000. This would seem to give a large margin for further reduction. Excise receipts have fallen off by nearly $20,000,000, but no Chancellor of the Exchequer will regret a deficit on that account, for it marks, as the detailed analysis shows, amelioration especially among the poorer classes, and is paralleled, not unnaturally, by the increase in the same quarters of savings bank deposits. It is said that about a quarter of all the alcohol consumed in Great Britain is credited to a dozen cities, and some believe, despite the decrease in the total, that drinking among women and girls is increasing. How Protection Protects in Italy. It is now nearly twenty years since Italy adopted high protection. For the first ten years Italian finances seemed to be going from bad to worse, but it was generally felt that this was due not to the fiscal policy, but to African adventures and "imperialism." For the last decade there has been relative prosperity, at least in the north, and this has been currently attributed by protectionist writers to the tariff. This the Roman Giornale degli Economisti thinks quite beside the mark, and seeks to show that such prosperity as there is has come not because of the tariff but in spite of it. The betterment, it says, is due to improved methods of agriculture and to the growth in those branches of industry not hampered by protection. "The few fa vored industries have not been benefited to any great extent, while the trade in raw products, which is unprotected and which constitutes the real progress in Italian trade, has had to develop under intolerable restrictions which alone resulted in favoring a few special branches of industry." То secure a gain of $11,000,000 in twenty years in the amount of cotton goods manufactured in Italy, this journal calculates, has cost the Italian people $16,000,000 a year. High tariff in Italy has done what some surmise it has usually done elsewhere: "it has enriched the few and impoverished the many." Opium in the Philippines. The long-expected report of the Opium Commission appointed in 1904, was sent to Congress on March 12, and is now made public. It is of great interest to students of sociological conditions in the East, and, as we have already pointed out, is a document of quite unique significance in the long history of international opium trade. The President in a letter accompanying the report, reviews the legislation in the Philippines, prior to the American occupation, and shows how the first attempt to revise those laws led apparently to an increased use of the drug among Filipinos. More stringent regulations were proposed in 1903, but since, in connection with them, it was proposed to farm out the right to sell opium for restricted use, the bill met with vigorous opposition, especially from the clergy at Manila. Hence the appointment of a committee of investigation, which made its report to the Commission in June, 1904. There has since been no legislation in the Philippines, though a bill has just been passed penalizing the sale of opium to Filipinos, or its use by them, or its sale to any Chinaman unless registered as a habitual user of the drug. This bill im poses license taxes and provides for close regulation and scrutiny. After April, 1908, opium may be imported only for medicinal purposes, and by the Government alone. This is in accordance with the plan adopted by Japan in Formosa, and though differing in some of its details, will accomplish practically the same results as that recommended by the investigating committee. Whatever revenue may be derived from the opium trade is to be used by the Government in disseminating information concerning its evils, payment of hospital expenses of habitual users desiring cure, payment of the expenses of Filipino students in the United States, salaries of Filipino teachers in the islands, and the construction of school buildings. Mortgage Taxation. A determined effort is being made at Albany, led by real estate owners in New York and supported by the Tax Reform Association, to secure the repeal of a law, in effect since last July, imposing a State tax of one-half of one per cent. on mortgages. Prior to that date mortgages were in theory taxed like other personal property, and in practice, like other personal property, they were rarely taxed at all. The new law undertook to place the burden of taxation on the mortgagee. If the borrower paid, or contracted to pay, the tax, the mortgage was void. The re sult is thought to throw an interesting light on the much discussed problem of who really pays the tax, the borrower or the lender. The Tax Reform Association has compiled statistics of the amount of mortgage loans at various rates of inter est, made in Manhattan, Brooklyn and typical rural counties of New York State in 1904 and 1905 and to compare these with similar figures for Boston and a typical rural county of Massachusetts, where mortgages are exempt from taxation, for the same period. It appears from these figures, and from the singularly graphic tabulation of them, that, whether because of the law or not, the average rate of interest on mortgages increased in 1905 over that of 1904 by nearly the full amount of the tax in New York and Brooklyn and by about half the tax rate in the rural counties, while in Boston there was a slight decline in the mortgage rate, and in rural counties of Massachusetts no change. In Erie county, Penn., there was a slight decline in the rate. For Philadelphia the figures are not yet obtainable. It would appear, therefore, that through an addition to the mortgage rate the tax is in fact paid by the borrower and that legislation is powerless to shift its incidence. Of course, every tax is a burden, but this tax, falling as it does upon the home, either in the form of interest or of rent, seems to be peculiarly undesirable, since it tends, in the words of the Tax Reform Association, "to check the erection of buildings, to lessen the demand for building materials, to reduce oportunities for employment and to increase rentals." The Fight Against Vicious Saloons. The Rev. Dr. John P. Peters, long in the forefront of the battle against the Raines Law hotels, issued last week a statement to the Committee of Fourteen on the failure of the Ambler Law and the necessity of immediate and active work for the pending bill to remedy the defects that the last year's experience had revealed. Investigations had shown in New York "conditions of infamy which are simply appalling." Raines Law hotels in a large majority of cases were found to differ chiefly from the ordinary houses of ill-fame in that they enjoyed through their license "special immunity and a peculiar opportunity, by masquerading under false pretences, to corrupt and debauch." Out of 1,200 places investigated 700 existed in flagrant violation of the Ambler Law, which had, however, proved unenforceable. To the new Prentice-Page Bill there had been no apparent opposition, but every subtle device for delay had been interposed to bar its passage. This bill provides for a general inspection of hotels thirty days in advance of the issuance of permits. It would put most of the vicious resorts out of business and would be the means of securing material evidence of great value, both to the Tenement House Department and to the District-Attorney. Action must be im. mediate, however, as, in the regular course, inspections soon begin. Dr. Peters urges good citizens to bring their influence to bear on members of the Senate Committee on Taxation, and of the Assembly Committee on Excise, as well as on the Governor and Excise Commissioner Cullinan. Probably few of our readers have any conception of the horrible conditions it is sought to remedy. They are not such as can be fitly described here. American Church The Church Congress. promises to be News. The Church Congress to be held in Philadelphia from May 15 to May 18 of great and varied practical interest. On the first day, as will be seen from the provisional programme printed elsewhere, Bishop Peterkin will deliver the opening address, and the problem of child protection, so vital to the political, economic and religious future of our country, will be discussed. On the second day "The Relation of Art to Religion and Life" is the topic of the afternoon, and "The Ethics of Legal Practice" of the evening. The third day is given as usual to theological and religious topics. "The Idea of God" is to be considered in the afternoon; "Liberty and Limits of Creed Interpretation" in the evening. On the last day, "The Adaptation of Christianity to Japanese Life" gives prominence to the missionary note. The subject of the last session is the eminently practical one for us all, "How Shall Society Punish Moral Offences." Among the writers we note the names of Bishop McVickar, Bishop Burgess and Bishop Edsall; the Rev. Dr. Holland, of St. Louis; the Rev. Dr. Beverly Tucker, of Norfolk; the Rev. Theodosius S. Tyng, of Tokyo, and the late presidential candidate, the Honorable Alton B. Parker. Among the speakers are Bishop Gailor, the Rev. Dr. Worcester; the artist, Elliott DaingerJ. Lewis Parks, the Rev. Dr. Elwood field, Dr. Hamilton Wright Mabie and Mr. Rathbone Gardner. The number of laymen who are to take part is, as will be observed, unusual. Far more good, says Church Bishop Johnston, in tellSchools for the ing of the progress of the West. Episcopal Church in West Texas, in the last thirty-two years, "would be accomplished for the future of America by moderately endowing Christian schools at the West, whilst it is in its formative condition, than by falling in with the fad of overendowing the great colleges at the East, which minister largely to the sons of the rich; who, unfortunately, form so small a part of those who shape the destiny of the nation, and contribute so little to its greatness. The men who do this usually come from the great mass of those whom Mr. Lincoln called 'the plain people.' The permanent bent to character is generally given to a boy before going to college; in fact, comparatively few enjoy that privilege at all; not more than five in a hundred. The crucial time of a boy's life is during his attendance at the primary and secondary schools. Churchmen who wish well to their country, and who want to help make the highest style of Christian men and American citizens, would be wise in turning their benefactions toward the maintenance of Christian academies in which the whole man is educated; remembering that it is in the academies and not in the colleges that the men and women who are going to dominate the future are being made." Negro Churchmen in New York. St. Cyprian's, the youngest chapel of the New York City Mission, is in many ways its most remarkable achievement, and the need which it meets is among the most urgent. Manhattan Island has a larger colored population than any city in America save one, New Orleans. For the negroes in rural districts of the South much has been done by Tuskegee and Hampton, and our own St. Paul's, and St. Augustine's, but these touch only indirectly urban problems. They are all rural in situation; they are engaged largely in meeting rural conditions, teaching rural industries, combating rural temptations. Little thus far has been done to help negroes to meet the far greater temptations and difficulties of city life. St. Cyprian's is making a beginning in this direction and is leading the way for North and South alike so far as the problem of teaching the city negroes to do their duty to their neighbors, as the catechism puts it, "to learn and labor truly to get their own living and to do their duty in that state of life unto which it has pleased God to call them." A plot of land one hundred feet square has been bought on West Sixty-third street. Here a parish house is to be built at a cost of $50,000 and a church that will cost $40,000 more. There is every indication that this youngest of the Society's missions will very soon be paying its own running expenses and develop presently into a strong, self-supporting parish. From the very beginning emphasis has been laid on self-respecting thrift. It will be well worth the while of those who are perplexed with urban negro problems in other cities to see what the City Mission Society and the Rev. Mr. Johnson, once of the Bishop Payne Divinity School, have done and are about to do. They are devising large things at St. Cyprian's. The Tract Society's Year. The American Tract Society held its annual meeting in Washington, on March 25, Judge Brewer, of the Supreme Court, presided. General Howard made the annual address, and, in alluding to the possibility of an ultimate surrender of the Philippines, said that such a thing must not be done till the islands were Christianized. "That," he said, "is both the opportunity and mission of our country, and one of the most successful agents in this work is Christian literature." The Rev. Judson Smith, in his report on the work of the society, said the most pressing question was that of reaching immigrants, and described especially the Society's work at Ellis Island and elsewhere. In the sixtyfour years since the Immigrant Branch has been established, colporteurs had, he said, paid 15,500,000 family visits and distributed 16,500,000 volumes. The Distribution of Charity. Under the heading, “An Example in Arithmetic," the United Hebrew Charities of New York undertakes to show to contributors what proportion of their gifts goes to each class of beneficiaries. The results attained are probably reasonably characteristic for other well administered charitable organizations, and are at least worth recording. It appears that out of every $10 given to the U. H. C. $4.20, or over two-fifths, went to the support of widowed or deserted women with children, two-thirds to the former, one-third to the latter class. For the relief of the sick $3.80 out of each $10 was allotted; nearly half of this, $1.70, went for consumptives. Other applicants of all classes receive $2 of every $10, one-fourth of this, 50 cents, going to the aged. Of the classes relieved, the sick were naturally the most numerous-4,111, of whom 182 were consumptives. But the 2,512 widows and deserted wives with their 7,188 children, requiring assistance for longer periods, took a larger share of the funds. Of the 2,734 other applicants, nearly a third, 794, were over sixty years of age. It is to be wished that other charitable organizations might publish similar statistics, for they are eloquent in their appeal and enlightening to the social conscience. Christian Churches in Japan. All Protestant churches in Japan, says the Congregationalist, Kirisutokyo Sekai, seriously discussed last year independence and selfsupport. The Congregationalists achieved it. There is, says the same journal, an undoubted revival of interest in Japan in moral, religious and philosophic questions, and Christianity has been considerably helped, it says, by the visit of Secretary Taft and Mr. Bryan. With regard to the relation of missionaries to the independent Congregational Church, of which they are now honorary members, the Sekai thinks they should be ordinary members, lest divisions recur. "If on account of their being missionaries they are treated differently by the churches which they serve, that would be a proof that those churches have not reached a high stage of development." The Sekai states that, from Jan. 1 of this year, the Japanese Missionary Society took over the churches now receiving support from the American Board, which is to contribute to the Japanese Society 6,000 yen (about $2,000), within three years, and the Japanese society undertakes to collect a like amount in the same interval. A Good Churchman. "What is a good Churchman?" asked the late Archbishop Temple, and answered: "The first and most special characteristic of a good Churchman is, that in every respect he shows that he has a conscience. He is just, he is upright, he is true, he takes nothing on himself, h upholds with all his strength what he reads in the Bible to be good. A good Churchman ought to be known more than any other by his trustworthiness, and by his kindness to all around him; and whilst this is the character that he shows everywhere, to those who know him well and come to closer intimacy, he presents the character of a God-fearing man, a man who loves the Lord, not over-ready, perhaps, to talk about that love, but cherishing deep in his heart, and showing in whatever he does say that he loves the Lord, and that he loves the Lord's Church, because there he finds the Lord's teaching, there he finds the Lord's worship, the Lord's sacraments. If the laity could convince England that these are the men whom the Church produces, how far it would go to make it impossible to hurt such a Church as that." English Church News. A Church for the People. Speaking at a Church Reform meeting at Hanley, on March 10, Bishop Gore, according to Church Bells, observed that it was fatal to them to get nice and comfortably settled inside the Church and to be content that those who were outside should remain outside. The most vigorous periods of the Christian Church had been those when the Church had drawn its strength from the body of the wage-earners. Church extension meant laying hold of the thousands outside the Church as well as to build churches and pay the stipends of curates. They touched the quick who asked if the Church was the Church of the people. Unfortunately the experience of many years had taught him how much there was to be said to the contrary. He believed that it was coming about in English politics that England was going to be governed more and more not only for the people, but by the people, and that a greater real share in the responsibility of government was going to belong to the wage-earning classes. He did not want the Church of England to be political, and he did not want it to take sides in what was commonly called party politics, but their real Church extension should be grounded on the lives of the wage-earning classes. It lay in getting hold of the wage-earning classes and in the Church giving up being the Lady Bountiful and getting people to come to church not for what they could get, but for what they could give. Secularizing the Schools. of the Nonconformists seem prepared for the elimination of specific religious instruction altogether from the national school curriculum. At the recent Free Church Council Dr. Clifford moved and carried a resolution for "simple Biblical instruction according to a syllabus," though not without opposition, and a resolution demanding that the Government withdraw grants from denominational normal schools-training colleges, the English call them-was carried also. At a dinner of dissenting Members of Parliament Mr. Birrell made the looked for announcement that religious tests for teachers would be abolished and that all schools would be brought under full popular control. He also remarked, incidentally, that disestablishment was coming in sight, and that the Church would be the better for it. In connection with the secularization policy it is worth while to notice the remark of that shrewd labor leader, Mr. Will Crooks, that if the Bible is thrown out of the schools, the working-classes will throw out the new system. What syllabuses of moral and religious instruction might amount to was shown, says The Church Times, by the report of the Bishop of Southwell, on one of them, in which he found that "God is hardly mentioned. Jesus Christ is a good boy and man Who loves animals, as is taught in the Parable of the Good Shepherd.. There is no mention of union with Christ, or of prayer, or of worship; not a word to arouse the sense of the need of a Saviour. The whole syllabus might be taught by a Mohammedan or an atheist. It is a cruel travesty of Christianity." Letters Commendatory. Persistent disuse of commendatory letters by communicants removing from one parish to another is strongly reprobated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in a letter to the clergy of his diocese. The wholesomeness of the practice is, he says, so obvious that it is quite unnecessary to enlarge upon it, and the bad results that follow its neglect have been brought frequently to his attention, both in England and in the colonies. American Churchmen need the reminder quite as much as the English. It is probably as true here as The Guardian says.it is there, that not 5 per cent. of those who change their parishes are canonically . commended. How unbusinesslike this is, what difficulties it creates in the proper keeping of parish records, is obvious. Nonconformists in England are said to be much more particular, and to find their pains repaid in an increased spirit of fellowship. Even on the lowest ground, as The Guardian says, the neglect "is exceedingly unbusinesslike and a quite gratuitous aid to lukewarmness." Undenominationalism or Fellowship. were. "Why," asks The Commonwealth, "should not Socialists understand us when we plead that religion only exists in the form of a Fellowship? That is the reason why we detest any religious instruction which is severed from the root-idea of Fellowship, that is, of Denominationalism. The idea has been crushed by the hideousness of this unspellable word. No one can affo to use up the entire alphabet every time he writes the word down. Why not drop it, and call it Fellowship, or Brotherhood? Undenominationalism would then appear as 'Unbrotherly Religious Teaching,' and we should all know where we Christianity is, in its primal essence, a brotherhood. That is the first fact that belief carries with it. A believer belongs to a Fellowship. What does this Fellowship say of itself? That is its Creed; that is the thing that it teaches its children; so that they may know what it is to which they belong. But this Creed proceeds from the Fellowship; it is an incident of belonging to the Fellowship; it has no meaning except in the Fellowship; it can only be taught by the authority of the Fellowship; it ought always to be felt as inseparable from this, its vital background. And every child who rehearses the Creed should recognize that it is declaring the symbol of Brotherhood-the witness that it belongs to a known community, a household, a family, a body. How inspiring all those words are! Why rob them of all their joy, by nicknaming them 'Denominations'? Why this vile Latinity, when sound Saxon English serves our purpose so far better? How it would clear up matters if we named Undenominationalism by its true title, 'Disembodied Religion? Ghostly Religion? Homeless and Hearthless Religion? Waif and Stray Religion? Outcast Religion? Foundling Religion? Unmothered Religion? Unsocial Religion?' No State, itself the pledge that man's true reality can only be found in society, could dare to undertake to teach man that, in religion, he ought to violate the law of his innermost being, and dissociate himself from all adherence in a Fellowship. It would be bound to assert that here, too, he can only realize himself inside some definite citizenship as a member of a living body." Catholic opposition to his forthcoming education bill. It practically provides for a return to the voluntary school under certain restrictions, with a government grant, but no share of the rates. Roman Catholics who are chiefly massed in certain districts of large towns would be able to avail themselves of this opportunity to establish what would practically be parochial schools, such as they had before the Act of 1902. In rural districts, where the voluntary Church schools are chiefly found, the plan would be impracticable. Princess Ena's Betrothal. The betrothal of Queen Victoria's granddaughter, Victoria Eugenie, of Battenberg, to the King of Spain, was announced by that King to the Pope, and by Princess Beatrice to the Isle of Wight, but not to his people by the lady's royal uncle, Edward of England, as though to emphasize the fact that this descendant of Queen Victoria is not a member of the English royal house. Before the betrothal the Princess renounced the Anglican allegiance, as she had previously renounced the Presbyterian, and professed conversion to the Roman Church. "We could have wished," says The Guardian, "that the circumstances of the young lady's 'conversion' to the Roman branch of the Church had been different, and that the assumption by that branch that she has hitherto been an unbaptized heathen had been less crude and arrogant. The reunion of Christendom is a splendid dream, but, so long as such things can be, a dream it must remain. It will be a pleasure to Englishmen to see a Queen Victoria on the throne of Spain, and we may surely take it for granted that royal courtesy will preserve her from forgetting in her future visits to her native country that here she once professed another form of faith." Fundamental Chris- An Editorial in The Church Times, At a meeting held some weeks ago for the discussion of educational problems, a distinguished prelate was bluntly asked what he meant by "Fundamental Christianity." He replied as bluntly that he meant the Apostles' Creed. It would be unfair to pin anyone down to an expression so unpremeditated, but we take it as an utterance of a state of mind that is not uncommon. That state of mind finds many expressions; it is accountable for much vague talk about religious teaching in schools; it is responsible for some suggestions which are anything but vague. It is the conception of Christianity as a body of doctrine, a set of principles, or a scheme of conduct, which can be taught in the abstract. This conception flourishes. And yet we shall seem to be uttering a truism when we say that Christianity is rather a life than a creed. That will be disputed by none. And yet many who accept it as obviously true will say in their haste that Fundamental Christianity means the Apostles' Creed. Why this contradiction? It is due to an undercurrent of desire for a formula which shall contain the essence of Christianity, and which can be taught in the abstract. But Christianity is a life to be lived, not a formula to be learnt. All religion is life; from the tyrannous caste-system of Hinduism to the individual aspirations of the agnostic, in all its forms, carnal or spiritual, reasonable or grotesque, religion means the submission of the will to law and the subsequent control, more or less perfect, of human action. Like every other religion, Christianity is a life to be lived. But it is more. It is an organized life. It is a social life. It is a life controlled by a social environment. It is intensely individual, inasmuch as it brings each man face to face with God, insisting on his personal responsibility for the exercise of his personal will; but it is at the same time intensely social, for it teaches the man that he can attain the end of his being only in a brotherhood, knit together under the Fatherhood of God. There are forms of Christianity which may exaggerate the one or the other of these two aspects; but nothing can rightly be called Christianity which ignores either of them; and so potent are the dynamics of religion that the side which is depressed has a tendency to assert itself even with new exaggerations. Protestantism is rightly held to be rooted in the individual; and yet Protestantism, in that pure and undiluted form which is presented by English Dissent, shows a capacity for mere social organization which puts to shame the efforts of orthodox Christianity. The "Free Church" may be in its origin a mere congeries of individuals, drawn together by their individual beliefs and preferences; but it is, in fact, one of the most strongly compacted forms of human society. It knows the meaning of social tyranny. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, is in origin one, a living society into which individuals are grafted by no personal act of their own, but by the act of God; and upon this Catholic theology insists without ceasing; yet in practice the Catholic Church, even where the Roman genius for organization has worked upon it, is the loosest of aggregates, and nothing is so little realized by its members as their social unity. It remains, through all aberrations, that Christianity is a life to be lived in a social order. The Church is of the essence of Christianity. No "Free Churchman," we think, will deny this. He will rather assert it with an intensity of understanding which many of our readers may lack. But if this is the essence of Christianity, this must certainly be found in Fundamental Christianity. Fundamental Christianity is not, therefore, something apart from the various Christian organizations. It is not a common basis upon which all build their various superstructures. It lies at the bottom of each structure; and it varies as the structures vary. St. Paul's and the City Temple could not stand on the same foundation, though good Portland stone may be used in the foundations of both alike. The blocks of stone quarried or unquarried do not of themselves make a foundation. They may be compared with the primary facts of the Old Testament and of the Gospel. These facts are not fundamental Christianity; they are antecedent to Christianity, and systems which are not Christian may rest upon them. Somerset House is built of Portland stone, as well as St. Paul's and the City Temple. Fundamental Christianity consists in the fitting together of the primary facts into a form that will bear the superstructure. The primary facts are no more a system of Christian teaching, or even the beginnings of it, than a quarry is a cathedral. Fundamental Christianity is taught in the Catechism. The child is given to understand from the beginning that he is to live the common life of the Body of Christ. This is not a superstructure; it is the foundation. But the Catechism itself, if it were taught in the abstract, would mislead the learner. An abstract Body of Christ, into which he has been admitted; an abstract state of salvation, to which he has been called, is not the matter of religious teaching. That would be external teaching about Christianity; it would not be the teaching of Christianity. It would not be the laying of the foundations of the Christian life. To secure this, the child must have the truth about himself brought home to him as a practical reality. In other words, the Catechism must be taught in definite and obvious connection with the Church. Otherwise it is not the teaching of Fundamental Christianity. Still less will any abstract teaching of the text of the Holy Gospels be the teaching of fundamental Christianity; and still less again the teaching of the Old Testament Scriptures. Unless these are studied by child or man in the definite capacity of a member of the Christian Church, there is nothing Christian in the study. It will be the historical study of events that led up to Christianity, or of events intimately connected with the beginnings of Christianity; but the fullest possible understanding of these things will not even begin to make anyone wise unto salvation. The Holy Scriptures are studied, and deeply studied, by many who are not Christians, and the study brings them no nearer to Christianity. From the standpoint of Christian teaching, every thing of the kind is useless. We shall go further. It is not only useless; it is mischievous. This external study of things belonging to Christianity makes against the growth of the Christian life. The fruits of it may be seen at large in India. It has been for many years the well-meant but fatal policy of certain mis sionaries to give to Hindu boys in their mission schools careful and minute instruction in the Holy Scriptures and in the heads of Christian doctrine. And the result? India is full of men, some of them no longer young, who are perfectly familiar with the Christian writings, who have a large though inaccurate acquaintance with Christian doctrine and the details of Christian practice, but who have not the least intention of becoming Christian. Their knowledge makes them the less likely to accept the faith, and is freely used for anti-christian purposes. Why? Because they have been taught in the abstract things pertaining to Christianity. They have learnt as Hindus things which should be taught only to Christians as members of the Christian Church. cry that Englishmen of the lower social grades are gradually withdrawing themselves more and more from the Church. Orthodox and Dissenters tell the same tale. Mr. George Haw's book, which we recently reviewed, is the latest utterance. It is agreed that this alienated class retains religious instincts, and some religious habits, something even of a Christian habit of thought. But the alienation from institutional Christianity is almost complete. That is to say, these people are not true Christians; they forsake the gathering of themselves together; they are losing the very habit of thinking this necessary. They are content with a vague sort of religious sentiment which is apart from the social life of Christianity. Now the development of this deplorable state of things coincides with the development of a vast system of religious teaching in public elementary schools, which may have many good qualities, but which is wholly disconnected from the corporate life of the Church. It is not hard to see here something of cause and effect. Undenominational teaching is not the teaching of fundamental Christianity; the it is teaching which undermines foundations of Christianity. In the United States of America, on the other hand, there has been for many years a great system of purely secular common schools. The results, from a religious point of view, are said to be deplorable. But the United States seem to be free from this vague religionism which repudiates the foundations of the Christian life. There are two phrases which must strike all readers of American literature.. If a man "gets religion," he at once, and of course, "joins the Church." He knows. nothing of any Christianity which does not express itself in Christian fellowship.. Fundamental Christianity seems to be better understood in the United States, with. their secular schools, than in Englandwith its undenominational teaching. The Polity of the Church. By the Rev. H. S. Nash, D.D. G. H. Lewes has somewhere said that an English lawn is the embodied desire holds and housekeepers. of many generations of English houseOne may apply the saying to higher kinds of self expression. All the enduring forms of experience and achievement are the embodied desires of generations of men who have longed to live nobly on the earth and have in some manner attained their desire. The objects of command ing beauty in the field of art embody the desire of men for a close union between the clearest definitions of thought and the deepest movements of feeling. The classic books are the embodied desires of noble natures for selfknowledge and self-masterhood, and the power to interpret man to men. So too with the forms of law. The fine definition of justice given in the Institutes illustrates this. The law rightly conceived is the embodied desire fateful of all forms of military organization, and illustrating, by its combina-tion of individual freedom with the power of coherence and common action, the genius of the greatest of cities. The Greek city-state was the answer of the Greek to the greatest problem of our race-namely, how to make the most of the individual without sacrificing the interests of the whole? or, how to reconcile liberty and law? The Jewish synagogue system was the answer of God's people to the problem which the exile and the dispersion pressed upon them. It was a life and death question. How shall Israel continue to live a coherent life after the unifying power of a common country and a common political establishment had been forever taken away? The answer was the synagogue, and the synagogue system embodied the desire of the Jewish race for the con tinuous memories of their nation; for that the rights of every citizen shall unbroken communion with their sacred be guaranteed by the power and insured by the privilege of all. And the same principle applies to forms of polity. Polity, whether ecclesiastical or civil, is the grand strategy of the human spirit. Mere tactics can content themselves with temporary undertakings and temporary achievements. But strategy surveys a wide field and plans great movements. So the question of polity, as the strategics of history, inhumanity, covers wide fields of space volving the grander movements and long reaches of time. And all high forms of polity are the embodiment of the deepest desire of many generations, the desire for common and unwasteful action. of past, and an indestructible confidence in their nation's future. If polity is not to thwart the purpose of the Christian religion which it is supposed to serve, it must first of all express and embody individuality. Christianity is, in the supreme sense, the religion of personality. It brings Naturally, polity is the most difficult the individual soul close to God. It of all forms of self-expression, the hard- floods and flushes consciousness with est to achieve, and, when achieved, the a profound sense of the divine realslowest to change. Renan, with the ity. Prophetism, as the whole structure early middle ages in mind, said that of the Bible, both the Old and the government is the highest and most New Testaments, shows, is its vital difficult of the arts. And we find a humorous illustration of the truth of this in parliamentary law as it is beginning to be pursued and practiced by A man of some parliamentary experience, blessed with the privilege women. of seeing women handle a large body of women, is moved to quote"So have I, not unmoved in mind, Seen birds of tempest-loving kind Beating their way up 'gainst the wind." The point needs to be illustrated at some length. The Roman legion as the tactical unit of Roman strategy probably reached its clear development in the Gallic invasion. It was necessary to have a military unit which could withstand the furious charge of the Gallic host, without sacrificing the Roman conception of the best way to utilize the individual soldier. So appeared the legion, greatest and most breath. Therefore if ecclesiastical polity shall really embody the desire of the Christian religion, it must give large play to the principle of individuality. This is certain on the one side. But on the other side there is some thing else equally certain. The genius of our religion is supremely universalistic. The whole world is its field. Its imagination includes widely separated centuries. truly expressed by its polity, that polity If, then, its genius is to be must embody the principle of continuity. Or, putting the same thing in a different way, it must make possible co-operation on a vast scale, co-operation between peoples widely separated in space, co-operation between generations remote from one another in time. Dexter, in his interesting history of Congregationalism, declares that Congregationalism is the polity of perfect men. That is a somewhat difficult |