Church Property in France.

Facts are facts,

The French ecclesiasti- his happy conduct of the negotiations at cal authorities are still Portsmouth in a position not unlike that refusing to face facts. which Necker held in the early stages of Though the Disestablish- the French Revolution. Like him, he had ment Act is a matter of history, and the the confidence of financiers. He believed will of the majority in the late Chamber that this confidence could be used in order is embodied in law, the Pope refuses to to substitute in Russia industrial demeet things as they are. and, whether the Church has been harshly and unjustly treated or not, they remain facts. Yet, according to the statement in the Figaro, confirmed by the Débats, His Holiness has refused to authorize French Catholics to form the associations cultuelles in which church property must be invested under the Disestablishment Act, and this despite the fact that these are the only religious bodies which have corporate rights under the law, and unless they are formed such temporalities as re main to the Church will not enjoy legal protection. It may be that the position of the Vatican is simply a "counsel of negation," and that such associations may be formed without the Pope's leave; otherwise the condition of affairs will be so

anomalous that the civil power may be obliged to adopt still more stringent methods, and seize and occupy the church property as a measure of public order. The incident is an exhibition of the same wrong-headedness in the Church's relations to the State to which may be attributed the unfortunate results of the past in connection with the disestablishment measure.

The Republic of France has again been strong enough to prevent either outbreak or disorder. When May Day came Paris was filled with troops. Crowds collected. There were casual skirmishes—nothing comparable to the ordinary violence of a strike in this coun

try—but the attempt to rouse the public

by the ingenious combination of the reactionary party which has money, and the labor and Socialist party which has men, dismally failed. It is no longer possible for any agitation in Paris even to affect the Bourse, much less the confidence of public opinion in the Republic as a stable administration.

May Day in Paris.

The French elections, unlike the British and like our own, take place in all electoral districts on a single day.

The French Elections.

This is usually Sunday. If no candi

date receives an absolute majority, there is, as in Germany, a second balloting be tween the two receiving the largest number of votes. The first election was held on May 6; the second will be held on May 20. So far as is now known, there were elected 235 supporters of the Sarrien ministry, 141 of various opposing groups, chiefly Socialist, and in 127 districts there will be a second balloting. The Government has gained 32 seats and lost 9. In Paris, where it was feared the May Day agitation had weakened the Government, it seems probable that the second ballot will leave the representation almost exactly as it now is. In the capital the Government has gained one seat. The polling was the largest ever known but was without disorder. If May 20 confirms last Sunday's verdict, the Roman Church in France will have no choice but to accept the Separation Act, which will then have the sanction of the nation. The expected increase in the Socialist vote was, apparently, not shown.

velopment for political enfranchisement,

and, like his predecessor, he has fallen a victim to the joint opposition of the reaction and the advance. He has had against him the palace and the people. As with Necker, when the States General met in 1789, Count Witte has seen the situation solely from the financial side and has believed that the Duma could be made useful in order to control the financial expenditure of Russia and could by a "fundamental law" be prevented from addressing itself to the real control of the Government. He undoubtedly assured the Tsar that it would be possible to elect a Duma under the direction of the bureaucracy just as Necker assured Louis XVI. that the States General could be controlled. While the Russian loan pending it was impossible to drop Witte. Now that this loan has been subscribed, he has been dropped, and the Duma meets, as the French States General did, with reaction and revolution face to face. The new Premier, M. Goremykin, who succeeds Count Witte, has been Minister of the Interior. He is a man of good official record, of colorless political views, who has hitherto acted in sympathy with the bureaucracy.

was

Sultan Abdul Hamid, who has a flagitious record for massacre and cruelty, but has indubitable ability as a diplomatist, is again risking a conflict with a European Power as he has before with Austria, France and the three

Powers united with Italy, by persisting in his claim to the port Tabah, on the Akabah Gulf, part of Egyptian territory. Great Britain has insisted on the immediate withdrawal of the Sultan's troops, and set its fleet in motion. Germany has ostentatiously announced a refusal to support the Sultan. But the Turkish Government continues to move troops into the region. It is necessary in a matter relating to the pilgrimage routes to the holy places of Islam for the head of the Moslem faith to place himself in the position of yielding only to force. When this has been applied in the conventional way, by

England and Turkey in Egypt.

seizing an island, the Sultan will be, in his own mind, none the worse for the temporary occupation of his territory, while the inhabitants of the island itself will congratulate themselves on what the fleet will spend there.

The Olympic
Games.

President Roosevelt pressed, in his despatch to the head of the American team in Greece, a widespread national satisfaction at the unprecedented success of the American athletes in the Olympic games. The United States were so far in advance that there was no com

parison. Their number of representatives was larger, their general work was better, and their capture of twelve firsts, five seconds, and six thirds, or seventy-four points in all, gave them almost double the position of the British representatives with thirty-nine points, or of Greece and Sweden, who tied at twenty-eight. Half a century ago the United States was notorious for its lack of attention to exercise. To-day it is in advance of any other land except Sweden, Switzerland, and the better-organized portions of Germany. Military drill under universal service has done much to raise the European level of physique, but it is accompanied by grave counterbalancing evils. The United States

ex

is already showing how much more can be done by universal and voluntary exertion. Where scarcely any athletic record was held in this country forty years ago, nearly all the world records are now American. The number of men working at comnearly as great as in all the rest of the petitive athletics in this country is now civilized world put together. The only woman world records are in this country, and the improvement in the feminine physical type is apparent on every hand. It is possible, too, in America, to provide the means to send across the seas, as we have just sent to Athens, a larger number of representatives than were present from any other country. The historic Marathon race was won by a Canadian.

Under the leadership of the New Jersey State Charities Aid Association a vigorous anti-tuberculosis campaign has been undertaken in New Jersey. At a public meeting held lately in Plainfield under the auspices of the local Clinical Society with the co-oper ation of the various churches, a large audience listened to addresses by physicians and others. Dr. B. D. Hedges put the problem in a very striking way, when he declared that according to past statistics 3,500 of the people of that community, and 75 of the audience before him, would be victims of consumption. Dr. Livingston Farrand, executive secretary of the National Society, stated that a conservative estimate was over a million deaths a year from this disease in the civilized world and over one hundred and fifty thousand deaths in the United States. A few days later a meeting was held in Jersey City, and other meetings to organize local associations are reported in Paterson, Hoboken and elsewhere. In Orange a public meeting was held especially to interest the Among Church people working people. actively interested in the work are Robert L. Stevens and Mrs. C. B. Alexander, of Hoboken, who will serve on the executive committee.

Anti-Tuberculosis in New Jersey.

The Successors

When the official year book of the Roman of St. Peter. Catholic hierarchy appeared last year, much excitement arose

over the fact that Pius X. had suppressed the names of five or six popes from the list. "For various centuries," says The Pall Mall Gazette, "the pontiffs have unquestionably accepted this list, but Pius X. is a lover of truth, and as some names were more than doubtful he bravely removed them. But the consequences were direful. His courageous act brought a perfect hornet's nest about his ears, the intransigeants declaring that what was was, and no one, not even the Pope himself, could upset it; and, anyway, the list was consecrated by time, and what are we that we should interfere? Also-and here lay, according to them, the real fault-such a change causes outsiders to scoff and say things better left unsaid. Those who saw behind the scenes have thus been anxiously looking for this year's 'Gerarchia' in the hopes that it would show which way

the wind blows." When the year book of 1906 finally appeared it was found that the Pope had discovered an ingenious, if somewhat humiliating, way out of the difficulty. He had suppressed the list of Popes altogether. So once more the Curia has approved Cardinal Manning's view that the appeal to history is anathema where it concerns the successors of St. Peter.

American Church

News.

Bishop Lawrence serves the thanks

deof

The Condition

of the Clergy. clergymen and laymen throughout the whole Church for his careful and thoroughly grounded study of the material conditions of clerical life in one of the wealthiest, most thickly settled and most socially advanced of all the dioceses of the Church. Massachusetts, as he recognized, is not typical. Conditions there ought to be in some respects better than elsewhere. Certainly the case for the whole Church is not better than that which he presents for Massachusetts. Everywhere laymen to whom the clergymen must look for the material power to carry on their work have much to learn in ecclesiastical economics and Bishop Lawrence is an excellent teacher. It is poor policy to underpay any workman; worse policy still, if possible, to underpay professional men. The cheap doctor is not cheap in the long run; neither is the cheap lawyer. Unless their remuneration is such that they can carry on their work without harassing anxiety and can secure for themselves an atmosphere of intellectual stimulation, the world will not get from them the best they have to give; they will not be working as economists would say, efficiently. The same thing is true even of machines. Their best work is not got either by low pressure or by overdriving. But what men see clearly enough in the ordinary course of their business or social relations Bishop Lawrence's figures show that they are apt to forget in their parochial ones. Men will not get first-class work even out of a first-class man if they take advantage of the fact that he has responded to a vocation to serve God in the ministry to offer him the salary of a clerk and do not even pay that salary regularly. There is, indeed, as Bishop Lawrence says, something invigorating in the thought that thousands are willing even on such terms to enter on the work. There is, he says, "no demand equal to it upon any class of men, to lead, upbuild and strengthen in organization and character some hundreds of people, who have buildings, expenses and work, with no endowment, no income by tax or collectable by law, no person in it but from devotion to the cause, and not a dollar in the treasury except that which will come through free-will offerings. It is a fine comment on the good faith, loyalty and character of Christian people and their pastor." Self-sacrifice, he says elsewhere, is one of the essential characteristics of the ministry. "The vital question is how to so support the worker that he can put his self-sacrifice into its most ef fective channel." That is a plain business proposition to put to the Christian laity.

A bishop of the AmeriReligion for can Church, a Roman Public School Catholic priest, represenChildren. tatives of four other Christian bodies, and a Jewish rabbi, joined at a meeting in New York on April 30 in urging better provision for the religious education of public school children. Some of our readers may remember our account of the meeting last fall in which this movement originated. A committee was then appointed to consider the subject of so arranging the schedule of public school studies that matters of "relative unimportance" might be grouped on Wednesday afternoon, so that students could be excused from attendance, without ma

terial loss, if they or their parents desired it, and so be free to go to churches of their choice to receive religious instruction without loss of public school standng. This plan had commended itself to the committee and was generally favored at this second meeting. The Rev. Dr. Atterbury, a Presbyterian, presided. The Roman Catholic Father McMillan was the first speaker. There could be, he said, no morality without religion. To some extent Sunday-schools were ineffective. This plan would help to solve many problems. It will, he said, "help us to get rid of that absurd pernicious idea that religion is for Sunday alone and has no place in the business day. It is a weakness of the Christian Church that under present conditions it has no officers who can go out and make the child come to Sunday-school as the public school can." Parents, he thought, had "an inherent right to insist that their children be educated in the parents' faith." Bishop Greer, the next speaker, said he was a strong and staunch believer in the public schools and wanted them pretty much as they were. They served a great patriotic purpose; did what they aimed to do and did it well. They were not "godless," for their teachers were not. Their influence was good as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. The training of the public school needed to be supplemented by the training of the churches. "No great harm," he said, "would be done if the proposal did not succeed, and, on the contrary, if it did what it was intended it should, a great and lasting service would have been performed." The Rev. Dr. Saunders urged that parents were often not qualified, even if they wished, to supply the need for religious teaching. Rabbi Mendes repeated his plea at the former meeting for instruction in a second "Three R's," reverence, righteousness and responsibility. The other speakers were the Rev. Dr. North, Methodist; the Rev. Dr. Wenner, Lutheran, who originated the proposal, and the Rev. Dr. Stimson, Congregation alist. It was unanimously voted to continue the committee with power to act.

bishops of to-day, those of London and Worcester, for instance. Mr. Ramsey thought there should be a closer tie between bishops, clergy and laity; their interests were one, their difference only of function. The Rev. H. H. Clapham, of Tacoma, Wash., read a paper on Dr. Sanday's "Fourth Gospel," the free and eager discussion of which showed how deeply the members of the Clericus were interested in the topic. It showed also that there was little fear of any honest higher criticism. Then Canon Bearland, of Victoria, B. C., reviewed the Rev. Percy Dearmer's "Parson's Handbook," making a plea for uniformity in ritual usage at least for intelligence in ritual practice. Altogether, the meeting was eminently well attended and successful. Clericus is to be held at Vancouver.

The next

The International Clericus at Seattle.

Some important and quite radical changes were made in the plans Lesson of the Diocesan Lesson Committees. Committee at their meeting in New York on May 3. They decided to present alternate courses of Lessons for the primary classes and the Bible-classes, and they agreed to submit a scheme of graded instruction for four years for the consideration of the Commission on Sunday-schools appointed by the General Convention. The uniform lesson plan is not given up, for many persons believe it to be the best, but those who prefer special lessons for beginners and for

advanced

scholars

can

have alternate

schedules for them next Advent. The committee has shown itself thoroughly alive to the importance of the religious training of our young people, and willing to consider plans submitted for what are thought by others to be improvements upon existing methods.

Meeting of the Diocesan

The General Clergy Re-. A Notable lief Fund received on Gift. May 4, from an unnamed benefactor, $50,000, the interest of which is to be applied for the purposes of the society, that is for the pension and relief of aged clergy and of the widows and orphans of deceased clergymen through the Church's official and national organization. By such generosity not only are the struggling and bereaved assisted, but the whole Church is blessed and advanced because those peculiarly set apart for its work feel the support and interest of the whole Church behind them.

of

The International Clericus held its session immediately preceding the conference of the Seventh Missionary District, in Trinity church, Seattle, Wash. A large number of clergy from both sides of the line were present, including the Lord Bishop Columbia and Bishops Keator, Wells and Spalding. California was not represented, it being of course impossible for bishops or clergy to leave their posts at a time of such overwhelming trouble. A sympathetic appreciation of the calamity which has befallen San Francisco and other places in the State colored much that was said. It was expressed also in the prayers at the public services and in Bishop Keator's sermon.

The heresy trial at BaThe Religious tavia is a chief topic for Press on the editorial comment in Crapsey Case. both the religious and the secular press, with very diverse opinions. The Pittsburg Christian Advocate, for example, boldly announces its opinion that "it would be a wholesome thing if the Episcopal Church should have the nerve to convict a man of heresy," and then adds the rather important provisoOn the second day of the session there "if he is really guilty." The Congregawas an early Eucharist, and after Morn- tionalist thinks that if Dr. Crapsey is reing Prayer Bishop Perrin, of British Co- tained in office that result will be "a lumbia, made a helpful address to the repudiation by the Church of belief in the clergy, urging them to keep as system- Virgin birth and the physical resurrection atic an account of their cure of souls as a of Jesus Christ as essential elements of physician would do of the bodily treat- the Christian faith." One does not quite ment of his patients. He spoke, too, of syssee how this conclusion is arrived at, but tematic reading, and noted the absence it is ample evidence of the unwisdom of in the American Prayer Book of the in- such a trial, which, whatever its result, junction to the English priest to read puts the Church in an anomalous posiMatins and Evensong daily. The first tion through a merely local hearing of a paper, by the Rev. R. Connell, of Cedar most complicated theological question. Hill, Victoria, B. C., on the history of The (Unitarian) Christian Register thinks the C. M. S., was sympathetic and hope- "the question in the trial is not whether ful. Then the Rev. H. M. Ramsey, of the standards of the Episcopalian Church Portland, Ore., spoke of Archbishop Ben- represent the truth, but whether Dr. Crapson's "Cyprian," and of the counterparts. sey is true to the standards." Similarly of that father of the Church among the The New Unitarian thinks that if Dr.

Crapsey cannot say the words of the creed in their natural sense, he should leave the Church and spare it the scandal of tolerating an ecclesiastical conscience which would not be respectable in Wall street, or (say) before an insurance investigation committee."

The Examiner (Baptist), considers Dr. Crapsey's statement to the court "a curious example of what an intelligent man can do in the way of muddling a very plain subject. . . The real point is, Does he believe what his Church requires him to believe as a 'priest' of her communion? We believe absolutely the right and the duty of every man to think his own thoughts, and to declare what he thinks the occasion demands; but not at the cost of those who hold him to be wrong." So also The Lutheran Observer: "Whatever Dr. Crapsey's message may be, it is not the message of Christ and His apostles. It may be a religious message, but it is not Christianity."

The

It

Outlook, in the course of a long editorial, points out that "Heresy trials have always brought to the front the most offensive and unchristian elements in the Church. There is no authority for them in the New Testament; they are antagonistic to the whole body of Christ's utterances, as they are to His spirit; they have never settled any question; they have always disseminated error instead of exterminating it." adds, what we have already pointed out again and again, that “nothing will be decided by this trial except the attitude of the Bishop of Western New York and of the clergymen who constitute the court." "Their action," the article continues, "will not be binding on the Episcopal Church, the great strength of which lies in the fact that it rests on a few facts and not on a philosophy of those facts. It is for this reason, among others, that the Episcopal Church has made such progress in this country during the last two decades; and if its leaders are wise they will guard the freedom of thought in the Church, not only as an invaluable possession, but as an attitude which appeals more and more strongly to rational religious men." Again: "Those who are demanding an infallible authority and a final statement of faith, complete in its expression, mathematically exact in definition, to be accepted by all men of all times and races in precisely the same sense, are demanding a complete and finished world, a society in its final forms, a race that has come to the end of its life, touched all points of experience, sounded all depths. climbed all heights, and reached the goal. This is not the divine idea of the world. The very nature of men makes this rigid and literal definiteness impossible. There is no such certainty, and there ought to be no such certainty. The divinest thing about life is its capacity for growth. The universe is not dead matter, as many of our ancestors thought; it is living force, constantly changing its form."

Independent Views.

The Independent takes a legalist view. It thinks it "perfectly clear to the blindest eye that Dr. Crapsey does not believe in the entire Apostles' Creed. He repeats it; he says he believes it; but he believes it in a sense that is not the historical sense of the words, nor the present-day sense of them. He puts on them a novel, arbitrary meaning not yet in vogue and accepted, although we do not know but it may later be accepted."

Secular The opinion of the AuComment. burn Citizen is of interest as expressing the feeling of those near the scene of the trial. "The whole future of the denomina

The Laborites object because the bill does not concede a purely secular education, though as a matter of fact great strides have been made in that direction, through the principle of public control and the relieving of the teachers from all religious tests. The bishops' opposition is based largely on the objection to ethical teaching without a basis of doctrine upon which to build it, and on the charge that Church schools built at great cost and sacrifice may be turned over to the authorities at a merely nominal rental.

time in English history it is proposed When it is remembered that for the first completely to divorce the schools from the Church, it is small wonder that public opinion is at odds on the proposal. Such States has its disadvantages, as all of us a system as that in the United of the system will show merits of which are aware; yet an unbiased examination many Englishmen might surely be convinced, if they could be induced to consider the subject dispassionately. The new bill is a large step in the American direction. It is not a change from religious to non-religious education; one of the wits (if we remember rightly a caustic writer in The Church Times), calls it neither religious nor irreligious but "Birrelligious." The bill proposes to rent the Church schools five days in the week at a fair sum, while the Church will have their use at other times. If, under the circumstances and with the revenue thus received, the Church cannot provide the doctrinal instruction which the State omits, it behooves her to seek for the cause of her weakness rather

than bemoan the growing secular power. continue to maintain parochial schools, Roman Catholics and the Church may but with no support from the public funds. In most schools there may still be, on request, religious instruction by the Church, but it must be out of regular school hours, and not be given by the regular teachers. The significant thing, of course, is that if Mr. Birrell's measure is adopted England will for the first time in her history make secularism rather than ecclesiasticism dominant in popular education, with all which that may involve.

Churchmen have begun to realize that the As the discussion has progressed, some movement toward secularization has gone so far that the Church cannot stop its for her to accept the decision and, inprogress, and they urge that it is wiser stead of embarrassing the State in its educational control, try to co-operate, make the best of things as they are, and help the Church to use her opportunity in such a way that opposition to her privileges will die away.

Amid all the educational controversy it is good to London's evangelistic council has not know that the Bishop of ceased its work in the promotion of missions in various parts of London. Each month the clergy and laity who comprise the council meet in the Church House to devise ways and means by which the message of the Gospel may be brought to the indifferent and the careless. The lately published report of the council tells of the mission at Whitechapel in the week preceding Lent, and of other missions held since last autumn, of the Quiet Day for the West London clergy, the great service for workers at St. Paul's, and the Good Friday services at the theatres. the city and in the East End. The council now has in view missions in In July, under the presidency of the Bishop of conference of London, there is to be held at Fulham a missioners representing every diocese in England and Wales.

London Missions.

The Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom is neargives added interest to the annual report, ing its jubilee, and this just issued. The paper declares that it is

reunion is increasing and becoming more a satisfaction to see that the desire for widespread. ciates are urged to show their gratitude All Anglo-Catholic assofor the action of the Lambeth Conference of 1878, recommending the observance of days thereafter as Rogation Tuesday or any of the seven a season of special is proposed this year to hold united inprayer for the unity of Christendom. It tercessions in the various cathedrals and churches.

In this connection an interesting will educational exchange is reported which

bring England and the East Bishop of Salisbury visited the Patriarchs into closer theological touch. When the of Constantinople and Jerusalem in 1898 he suggested that English students of theology should attend the courses of instruction at the Halki Theological College and the Seminary of the Convent of the Cross, and that Greek students should study at Oxford. The Guardian reports that the Patriarch of Jerusalem has now arranged to send to St. Stephen's House, Oxford, the most distinguished Greek student of his theological seminary, Pythagoras Themelis, who will take a three years' course there, attending especially the lectures of the University Professor of Archæology. He will be accompanied to England this month by Canon Dowling.

For the Unity of Christendom.

A Beautiful Rood Screen.

Some of our readers, who attended the Chicago Exposition of 1893, may remember a rood screen, by Harry Hems, the artist, exhibited there; though there were so many things to be seen and there have been so many exhibitions since, that if it was seen it has probably since been forgotten. At any rate, Mr. Hems, who exhibited it at Antwerp the following year, where it took a first prize, has offered it to his parish church of St. Sidwell's, Exeter. He considers the screen his finest piece of work and values it at more than five hundred guineas. It is understood that a similar offer was made to the parish some years ago, and that at that time, owing to opposition to the screen being placed in the church, the vestry declined the offer.

The death is announced, at the advanced age of ninety-three, of the Rt. Rev. Reginald Courtenay, D.D., formerly Bishop of Kingston, Jamaica. He was consecrated over fifty years ago, and both by age and consecration was the oldest bishop in the Anglican Communion. It is sixty-five years since his ordination as priest, after a brief practice at the chancery bar, before his decision to apply for Orders. Another recent death is that of the Ven. Robinson Thornton, D.D., late Archdeacon of Middlesex, and clerical secretary of the London Diocesan Conference. He was the author of several books and was vice-president of the S. P. G. and of the S. P. C. K., and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Death of Bishop Courtenay and Dr. Thornton.

The Church of the Anglo-Saxon

Peoples and Social Reform.

By the Rev. W. D. P. Bliss.

rulers. It was largely Churchmen who made the Pilgrim Fathers what the Puritans were not. Through the whole history of the Church of England runs a righteous secularity which must be set down to her merit, even as we chronicle the worldliness which is recorded to her demerit. It is not accident that has made

the Church of the English peoples the Church which has probably done more for freedom than all other Churches put to gether. Of modern England, too, Mr Wheeler is right. It is Lord Shaftesbury, the humble and earnest Churchman, probably more than any other one man, t whom England owes the passage of the earlier Factory Laws, which are still today the main defence of English children, English women and English laboring men against English greed.

It was John Ludlow, Charles Kingsley,

Noblesse oblige; let us note, in matters land. In our own day it is Stuart Headof social reform, the noblesse of the lam, Bishop Westcott, "the miner's bishChurch of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, and op," John Carter, Canon Scott Holland, then ask ourselves to what new duty and Bishop Gore, who have made the Church of the English familiar with, and often responsive to, the most radical reform thought. Seventeen years ago Canon Scott Holland wrote in the name of the Christian Social Union, "the time has come to vote urgency for the social question."

what new endeavor the Church is
obligated for the morrow by the very
greatness of the achievements of her pres-
ent and of her past.
In a
recent communication to THE
CHURCHMAN, Mr. Everett P. Wheeler re-
fers to Lord Shaftesbury and Mr. Glad-
stone and to the leaders in America of in-

telligent movements for social reform who
are members of Christian churches. He
might have gone much further. We can
but mention, what no Churchman may for-
get, that it was Stephen Langton, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, who marshalled at
Runnymede, the English barons, to de
mand from King John the Magna Charta.
It was an English Churchman, John Ball,
"St. Mary's priest," who first preached in
England, as Green tells us, "the knell of
feudalism and the declaration of the
rights of man." It was brave Latimer,
in the sixteenth century, who protested,
not only against the false claims of Rome,
but also against the equally false claims of
the English barons to own the common

lands over which they had been simple members of our own Communion.

It is true that there has been what is sometimes called a "Christian Socialism" in the Church of Rome, among German Lutherans and the Christian denominations of the United States and of England, outside the Anglican Communion; but it has been usually a very weak and diluted matter compared with the sturdy blows and fearless thought of Stuart Headlam and of "Parson Lot." Even in far away New Zealand, the Eight Hour Movement, which has been called the glad processional of the march of organized labor, gained its first victory largely by the efforts of the Rev. Thomas Burns.

In our own country I do not think it i generally known to what an extent t leaders and workers for reform have been

call there has developed an answer, far more than in all other communions of any land.

In the Protestant Episcopal Church there are two national or izations devoted to Social Reform, while we know of no other American Church which has even one, that is more than local. Is it known that Mr. George E. McNeill, often called "the father of the American Federation of Labor," is a Churchman and has done what in him lay to unite the Church and the workingman? Is it known that Professor Ely, who perhaps has done more than any other to develop the study of economic questions, economics and of from a Christian standpoint, is also a Protestant Episcopalian? In associated charities, perhaps none have been more useful or more prominent than Robert Treat Paine, of Trinity, Boston. In Women's College Settlements Miss Vida D. Scudder, of Wellesley College, and Miss Ellen G. Starr, associates of Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, with a very large share of the early leaders and founders of the movement, are Churchwomen. In institutional Church work, our Episcopal churches are admittedly, in most cities, far in the lead. In the Actors' Church Alliance, the Rev. Walter E. Bentley is the founder and Bishop Potter the first and the only president. In American Christian Socialism, the founder of its first society and editor of its first organ was one who has never left the Church, which he made his, largely because it was Such are the Christian Social Church. some of the facts of past and present for which there is a reason and from which undoubtedly there springs an occasion and

a duty.

The reason lies in that righteous secularity and in that sense of organic oneness, which is the birthright of the Church which claims to be catholic, bu not Roman. Rome stands admittedly and She is not, inevitably for paternalism. does not desire to be, and, by her very constitution cannot be, democratic. estantism, on the other hand, practically, historically and inherently, is and must be individualistic. Some Romanists, indeed, are democrats, as some Protestants are

Prot

Socialists, but in becoming such, they all but inevitably leave their Church behind them. Only a Church, catholic but not Roman, Protestant but not sectarian, can, in its very essence, be at once democratic and social.

Nor is the Church of the Anglo-Saxon peoples so given to other-worldliness as, in different ways, are the Churches of Rome and of Protestantism. A Church of

England must perforce believe in a Jesus

Christ Who is in England as truly as in heaven; while the Church of George Washington and, in spite of Tory beginnings, of so many American Government functions and functionaries, proves that the traditions of a Christian secularity have not been broken by the. breaking of the alliance between Church and State.

Because she believes in one body as well as in one spirit, because she believes in a Kingdom of Heaven now and on earth as truly as in heaven, has the Church done so much for social righteousness and for human brotherhood.

And from all this results great opportunity, with great responsibility. Before the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States lies an opportunity and therefore a responsibility that confronts An overwhelm

ing majority of the great captains of industry and organizers of capital in the United States belong to her communion. Beyond all proportion to her numbers has she the confidence and the ear of the chief