cially of the British races, by providing | nine, twice seven are fourteen, so-and-so a vent for their growing numbers, and will do so-and-so; in this manner will the for their more eager and enterprising business surely take effect. But our Lord spirits; and that soon there will be no God says unto them, For whom, then, do For a cypher? Do I sit here vacant part of the globe which these ye hold me. more civilized races can occupy. The above in vain and to no purpose? You black and yellow races are filling up about finely, and make them all false reckthe hotter parts of the globe with their much-enduring populations. Mr. Pearson speaks with pride and warmth as Whatever Mr. Pearson's private conan Australian colonist who has "re-victions may be, in developing "the sided twenty years under the Southern argument of this book," he certainly Cross: "

for keeping our author's conclusion at | self, and will influence the procedure bay. What has been the most conspicu- of conquerors in southern Asia, in ous feature of all past human history? Africa, and in South America" (p. 82). Confessedly, war. Mr. Pearson notes It is not in the least reasonable, I subthe fact that the Chinese race is not mit, to expect that "massacres which constitutionally warlike, as the Turks Gustavus Adolphus, Cromwell, or Tuwere. He also refers to the growing renne would have looked upon as the distaste of modern Europeans, and regrettable but necessary consequences especially of the English, for violent of war" (p. 83), should not occur in proceedings, and to the shortness and the procedure of Chinese or Negro comparative humanity of recent wars. conquerors unrestrained by any inBut he takes for granted that the Chi- fluence of European powers; the develnese will create formidable armies, and opment of strength and ambition and he believes that the nations of Europe military effectiveness in half-civilized will be compelled to become more mili- races cannot fail to be accompanied by tary than they are now. He is not the wars of the old kind, such as will break dreamer dwelling on the happy time up dominions and keep down the inwhen the battle-flags shall be furled, in crease of populations. As regards the Parliament of man, the Federation immediate prospects in Europe, there of the world. From his point of view, are many who see in the large scale of what is more probable than that war the existing armaments of the nations will reign in the future as it has reigned a most dangerous incitement to war, in the past-war with a thousand bat- and who therefore long to persuade the tles, and shaking a hundred thrones ? powers to reduce simultaneously their It is true that the imperial sceptre of military strength: Mr. Pearson eviGreat Britain forbids fighting in India dently holds, and I think more wisely, and South Africa, and is likely to do so not only that any attempts to arrange increasingly in Central and Northern simultaneous disarmament would be Africa, and that under the Pax Britan- futile, but that if France or Russia, nica the protected races multiply with Germany or Austria, were seriously to inconvenient rapidity. But is it possi- diminish its preparations for war, war ble that great powers should be built would be the more likely to break out. up out of the inferior races without It can hardly be doubted that a temptdesolating wars? All experience con- ing opportunity would be too much for futes such a forecast. Mr. Pearson the self-restraint of almost any of the himself supplies evidence against it: Continental powers; and the shock of "India left to itself might be rent for a modern war between great nations, time by the war of Mussulman and though it may be brief, is terrific and Hindoo; but India is too populous for highly destructive. The fact that our any large part of its people to be ex- author has omitted to take account of terminated, unless indeed wars were the chances of wars-of wars which waged in the Chinese fashion" (p. 34). would excite mankind, and change govWithin our own time, the Tae-ping war ernments, and sweep away millions of cost China many millions of people, men- seems to me sufficient of itself and was at last brought to an end by to weaken the verisimilitude of his British aid. A Mohammedan rebellion forecast. But that the statesmen of was stamped out by Chinese troops in Russia and of England are bound to Yunnan and Ili, after wars in which keep their eyes upon China with a cermillions of lives were destroyed (p. tain anxiety, and that this is one of the 132). Mr. Pearson says: "Although many reasons for looking to the security it would not be wise to calculate that of our imperial system, and for refusthere will be no revival of the old saving to abandon ourselves to sentimental agery, it is reasonable to expect that dreams, Mr. Pearson's readers will the accepted practice of civilized na-probably be more convinced than they tions will, on the whole, maintain it- were before.

The spirit which, as Mr. Pearson of the State. He shows how, to the minds of the coming generations, beneficence and help and protection will be largely associated with the action of the civil power:

em

The State watches over the infant life

from birth; provides that the growing child is not stunted by excessive toil, is properly clothed and fed, and is so educated as to have a fair start in life; it assures the adult against starvation, protects him from foreign enemies, from tyrannical employers, and from the criminal classes that prey upon property; it secures him liberty of thought and faith; and it offers him the means of safe and easy insurance against illness and death. It is constantly endeavoring to extend the sphere of its beneficent energies. . . . Neither is it merely material benefits with which a great country endows its citizens. The countrymen of Chatham and Wellington, of Washington and Lincoln, of Joan of Arc and Gambetta — in

recognizes, has been working in the characteristic opinions and habits and in the legislative reforms of this epoch is that of humanity, or consideration of the claims and happiness of all. Amongst the liberal changes of the century "he specifics "religious tolerance, the mitigation of the penal laws, the recognition of the laborer's right to associate, the diffusion of education, the extension of the suffrage." These he describes as "acts of justice,” inently defensible," and as, at the same time, unavoidable. And, on the whole, their tendency is towards State Socialism. Competition, the free struggle of individuals, is being superseded by the care of all for each. "The State appears to be the best expression of the wishes of the majority;"" each man identifies himself more and more with the needs and aspirations of his fellow-short, the citizens of every historie State countrymen;"" what are now the governing classes will have to arrange reasonable compromises by which the condition of the poor is made endurable" (pp. 27, 28). Mr. Pearson has some acute remarks on Democracy, as a different thing from Socialism, but a form of government which in these days promotes Socialism: "Socialism It will hardly be hypercritical if I note gives an industrial programme; de- in this last sentence the confusedness mocracy only gives the power of adopt- which appears here and there in the ing a programme (p. 110). Every book, and which probably indicates that month that has gone by since the the author had not an opportunity of author penned his forecast has made it revising it carefully. The intended more certain that we are moving, and meaning of the sentence presumably is, shall continue to move tentatively that the State is as worthy of religious and by degrees, and in respectful disre-reverence as any divine being named gard of many warnings- towards the in the creeds of the Churches — as the carrying out of the industrial pro- Heavenly Father, for example, or the gramme of State Socialism. It is pos- Lord Jesus Christ. Religion which sible that experience may say to us before long, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further. But everything seems to portend that we shall go a good deal beyond our present stage in the controlling of labor and trade by public authorities, and in the application of the wealth of the country to the promotion of the general wellbeing.

One of Mr. Pearson's most original views is his expectation that the religion of the future will be the worship

are richer by great deeds that have formed the national character, by winged words that have passed into current speech, by the example of lives and labors consecrated to the service of the Commonwealth. The religion of the State is surely as worthy of reverence as any creed of the Churches, and ought to grow in intensity year by year (pp. 224, 225).

grows in intensity must be the feeling of reverence or worship, not the object of worship; but it is the object of worship, and not the feeling, that is more or less worthy of reverence.

On a succeeding page the author

says:

The religion of the country [that is, the worship of the civil power] is likely to become a deeper and more serious feeling as the sphere of State action increases, as the State shows itself more beneficent in its

aims than a good king, more effectively | seems to be unquestionable warmth, moral than the Churches, and more com- if rather doubtful reasonableness, in prehensive and human than king or Church, our author's polemic against "the aristocratie caste, or guild of associated Churches: workmen (pp. 227, 228).

That the morality of the State is superior to that of the Churches is one of the author's most emphatic allegations. His chief indictment against the Churches is that they have restrained individual liberty:

Every Church is tempted to compromise with human frailty so long as its own supremacy is recognized. It often, almost habitually, prefers the immoral man, who gives it no trouble, to the moral man, who is always fingering his conscience, and doubting how far the Church system is adequate. To a considerable extent, accordingly, the Churches proscribe independence of speculation, and weaken the springs of character by relaxing the moral fibre (P. 264).

When the Churches have sought to impose morality upon their members, they have failed :

In the struggle to repress irrepressible human nature the Churches have always been worsted, and their defeats have necessarily been disgraceful. Even, however, if the Church ideal could be maintained, it would be at the cost of something better

While it is apparent that society has lost nothing by transferring the correctional functions of the old Churches in certain matters of religious and moral obligation to the secular law-giver, it is demonstrable that it has gained very much since the State has vindicated its supreme right to deal of labor, and popular education. with such matters as pauperism, the right All these are issues in which the Church has failed from having a low ideal, as well as from inherent ineffectiveness (p. 205).

As regards education, for example, the clergy in every country demand the control of the schools; and, while they are willing to teach the elements of knowledge, desire above all to send out the scholars entrusted to them saturated with a superficial and gross theology" (p. 214). But these clerical desires and demands are in vain. Moral authority, as well as the fascination of promise, has passed from the Church to the State. Christianity is now seen to be " grotesque and incredible" (p. 344), as well as injurious to morality; and men in general will transfer their faith and worship to the secular power.

Together with the gross theology with which the clergy are endeavoring in vain to saturate the recalcitrant laity, a "religion of the family," according to our author, is also passing away, to

than the formal abstinence from evil — of human liberty. If we can conceive a generation that abstained from saying what it thought for fear of Church censures; that was sober, moral, and cleanly mouthed, not because it regarded vice as evil, but because it feared fine, imprisonment, or disgrace; that talked with the tongue of be similarly lost in the apotheosis of By-ends, while within was all uncleanness, we should have the picture of a society more hopelessly corrupt than the world has ever yet seen. The sons of such men would be born, suckled, and bred in lies; would inherit the lust of the flesh, the craven spirit, and the tortuous intellect. In vindicating for every man the right to think mistakenly, to speak foolishly, and to live within limits riotously, the State has vindicated also the right to believe on conviction, to denounce error fearlessly, and to lead sweet and wholesome lives, untainted by Pharisaism, and not degraded by the reproach of a profitable conformity (pp. 198, 199).

the State. With regard to the family, I must again observe that it is difficult to make out Mr. Pearson's real feeling. The basis of the family that which made it what it has been till now - he describes as a barbarous absolutism exercised by the husband and father and master. The man claimed to do what he liked with his wife and children, and if he behaved brutally, "the Church " made no objection :

As late as the thirteenth century, the Church courts in England ruled that a

husband could transfer his wife to another man for a period determinable at the recipAs I have before intimated, there ient's pleasure (p. 230). The right of the