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calmness and serenity, which were the best adapted to touch and influence his emotional nature. His words show that it was the appeal of the poet to feeling, but to feeling of a cultivated and moderated character, which made Wordsworth the best of all guides for him at this period. "What made Wordsworth's poems a medicine for my state of mind," he writes, "was that they expressed, not mere outward beauty, but states of feeling, and of thought colored by feeling, under the excitement of beauty. They seemed to be the very culture of the feelings, which I was in quest of. And I felt myself at once better and happier as I came under their influence." The feelings having been touched, the emotional nature having been given an opportunity for expression, the result was, in Mill's case, that "gradually, but completely, he emerged from his habitual depression, and was never again subject to it." Later in life Mill derived emotional benefit of the highest importance to him from his wife, who was the guide of his mind as well as of his heart. The tribute he pays to her memory in his "Autobiography" shows how profoundly she had moved his nature, and how much it had become enriched by this emotional experience.

A still more remarkable instance of the crippling of a great mind, by concentrated habits of analytic inquiry, is afforded by the life of Charles Darwin. In youth, Darwin was a lover of poetry, had great delight in music, and was a religious believer, to the extent that he purposed entering the clerical profession. After giving himself up to his lifework his emotional nature gradually ceased its activity, and it came at last to have little influence on his life or his thinking. In his "Autobiography" Darwin describes this decay of his emotions, and says that he has lost his love for poetry and music. He found Shakespeare "so intolerably dull that it nauseated" him. His former exquisite delight in natural scenery nearly all passed away.

Although Darwin had thus permitted his emotional nature to decay, he was conscious that he had done himself a

great wrong.

What he says about it is very instructive: "My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organized or better constituted than mine, would not, I suppose, have thus suffered, and if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week, for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of my nature."

Had Darwin been as well informed in psychology as he was in those sciences to which he devoted his life, he would easily have seen why it was that his higher faculties became atrophied. It was a penalty due to the neglect of his æsthetic and religious nature, that they should have become dormant. Darwin clearly taught that in the process of evolution those creatures grow which are active, while those which neglect their gifts fall back into a lower order of existence. This law of constant activity would have explained the process of atrophy in his own mind. He used the analytical faculties, and they developed to a wonderful degree. He neglected the æsthetic, moral and religious, and they became atrophied.

It is fully established that Darwin was the greatest student of nature who ever lived, that he accomplished larger results in the way of its interpretation than any other observer, and that he produced a greater intellectual revolution than has ever been brought about by any other thinker. He stands by the side of Aristotle and Bacon as their peer, if not their superior. His results have been larger and more fruitful than any they obtained; and his methods have already proven more efficient.

Gladly and reverently as this tribute

but it was precipitated by the appearance of a novel by Edward Bellamy setting forth in a pure, attractive way the beauties of a social state in which the present cut-throat usages of competitive business would give place to manners more like the Christian courtesies of really polite society.

Mr. Bellamy's book has been described by Miss Willard, with that rich appreciation which has made her name an inspiration to many, as "a revelation, and an evangel." It furnishes much food for thought, but on some points should not be ruthlessly criticized. In the good time coming it is to be hoped that the art of sermonizing will have reached more noble proportions than those illustrated. People with an acquired taste for tragedy, and a craving for the "daily murder," and other sensationalism, have thought the book insufficiently vivid. Others have censured it as materialistic, but the material conditions imposed are obviously designed to afford freer scope for the high concerns of intellectual and spiritual life. If this life appears featureless to us it may be because the present generation (writers and readers alike) have not acquired palates sufficiently delicate to savor all the delightful foretastes of a holier existence.

This book led to the formation of the Nationalist Club on socialistic lines, and in the enthusiasm of its inception, as upon a flood tide, the older movement of Christian socialism took organic form

in Boston.

The society is practically committed to a tentative approach toward a number of reform measures, all of which are commendable, at least as far as they may be so proved by the prudent method of tentative approach. These several reforms need not be here discussed. They are like the several articles forming a complete suit of clothing, each appropriate in its special application. Specialists may say, first this or first that, but the socialist seeking a complete order in human society must be committed to a bill of human rights, to a new Magna Charta. But the outcome and value of the movement will depend upon the

standard of justice upon which rights are established.

There is a disposition to make this standard material, to make it depend upon a kind of bureaucratic supervision, which will tend, like a great deal of German criticism, to wenigkeit - littleness. Such a system of justification is ignoble, and contains the elements of its own destruction, the equating of temporalities, the washing of swine, the cleansing of the house of the restless spirit ever ready to return with seven devils more wicked than itself.

But the Christian socialists (as expressed in their paper, The Dawn,) do not seek to "systematize society into perfection, but to Christianize society into brotherhood." Some "We say: have had enough of such good talk; we want definite talk." The doctrinaire with his perfunctory system of perfecting things is too impatient of the faithful teaching of the truths of that kingdom of heaven which is within us. He is prepared to pluck the fruit and say: "I have by my cleverness done that for which ages have waited. We want the ripe fruit; we do not want fertilization and culture." Beyond doubt we do want something definite, but it is idle to wish it out of due time, or without due preparation. here touched upon a distinction which may perhaps develop into a line of cleavage between the Nationalists and the Christian socialists, bodies thought to be so kindred in purpose as to belong together.

We have

The familiar Shaksperean peroration to mercy, grand as it is, appears to conclude with an inadequate philosophy, We

"when mercy seasons justice." are thus led to think of mercy as a leaven, an impurity, an infraction of perfect justice. "Let us have justice," say some; 66 we have had enough charity." But what justice will be had? Shall it be by the square inch, or by the mouthful, or by the pound avoirdupois? Shall the large man with his equal share have less of other things to compensate for his amplitude of necessary clothing, or shall the small man help to pay for the large man's coat?

Material justification is inadequate. Mercy is not a principle apart from justice. Mercy is the standard of justice. It is God's standard. To build up to heaven on any other presumption is to repeat Babel. To ask for a parcelling of celestial space is the prayer of a child crying for the moon.

Mercy is the only standard practicable. It may be applied by carrying the idea of systematic sharing only so far as will permit the soul fair opportunities of life, liberty, and the pursuit of duty in happiness. Out of the fulness of his power God gives us life. Social order may guard this precious privilege. It may restore it when impaired, and give it the largest opportunities of growth. It may not make an artificial tree, a dead and spiritless automaton. It may remove the girdle, destroy the insects, and let the natural tree grow. It may be easily seen that this permission transcends every notion of parcellation. It does not propose to equate sacrifices, which is the idea of the superficial observer, but it accepts the words of Christ: "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice."

Such is the influence of the Christspirit upon that wing of the pragmatical movement which has set out by calling itself Christian. Its work is none the less practical, and it invites all true citizens to further that work. Upon the basis of a true philosophy which can not be put to the blush, it demands that the State shall assume the care of its children, shall teach them their duty, shall protect and nourish them in all the rational opportunities of life. To this end it demands all the modification of existing system which may be required. It recognizes no vested privilege as having a right to abridge, debase, or brutalize human life. It holds to a sacred duty to the body politic, and a sacred care for human life. If Egypt and Siam have been able to sanctify and preserve bulls and elephants, it may not be thought a visionary ideal that the United States should be able to sanctify and preserve its human beings. But what have Christian socialists to to do with the church? Their idea is to teach the church "that there is a so

cial question" (Rev. Francis Bellamy), that there are methods of church work available for the restriction of those competing and materialistic forces which are riding rough-shod over human lives. And Dr. A. G. Lawson has explained that they wish to emphasize to all of the Christian name the fact that most nominal Christians are in rebellion against the spirit of Christ.

Sectarians join themselves to a system which they propose shall teach to the churches with which they are allied, duties and truths which are nothing if not divine. Are the taught superior to the teacher? Christian socialists have risen above the material conception of justice; they have gone aside from the perfunctory ideals of state socialism, and yet they might disclaim trespass upon church ground. Of what effect would be such a disclaimer when they are found upon the ground? Shall they pretend that they are only there on a temporary errand? Shall they hang the head like boys caught in an orchard which belongs to somebody else's father? God forbid! When they are put to it let them rather lift the head, and claim the divine right to be there forever.

Nothing could be more foreign to the idea of Christian socialists than that they are making a new church in any canonical sense. But they are bringing together men "of many religious names, and of no religious name upon a platform of the most essential principles of true religion. They present not church fusion, but a flux looking toward church fusion. The flux, the socialistic system, may be very dull-looking limestone by itself. It may not burn like coal, nor kindle like faith in the individual soul; but put it into the furnace, let the heat of vital action be applied, and we shall see if it does not do something toward melting the refractory iron of sectarianism.

Christian socialism thus brings a useful flux to the fires of religious activity. Its good results are not to be carried away and cherished apart by members of the several ecclesiastical systems who have come out to promote them. So far as it performs its work at all it is des