institution to acquire sacredness? And the God of the State also? Yea, of without sacredness we have such a world, perhaps, as that which Mr. Pearson describes —a world on which death and corruption have set their mark. 6. the State also, if so be that God is one. Often has the religious authority shown itself less careful of justice, sometimes even of humanity, than the State. And we are thus warned that the Church, whose office it is to learn as well as to teach, has no commission to be the exclusive or the infallible teacher of mankind. The living God has not resigned his own prerogative as the universal teacher into the keeping of any earthly authority. When the Church puts itself in the place of God, it is sure to go wrong and to be humiliated. But because the Church, however wanting in faithfulness, cannot help bearing witness to the Christ of the New Testament and to the Father revealed in him, it has the power-a power unknown to the State as a mere expression of the will of the majority or of the strongest of awakening and feeding the noblest and most vital and fruitful instincts of human nature — the trust, the hope, the love, the selfsurrender, which are the true life of the world. According to the argument of this book," belief in a living God is doomed. Before acquiescing in this assumption, there are a good many of us that will know the reason why. It was not in this century or the last that "Christianity began to appear grotesque and incredible." Porcius Festus, in A.D. 60, represented a world of men to whom the original Christianity had just that appearance. We are perfectly aware that we are passing through a time of great spiritual perplexity, a time when the heavens are shaken even more than the earth. We do not shut our eyes to the crumbling of the foundations upon which our fathers allowed their faith to rest the two, mainly, of the authority of the Bible and the authority of the Church. And we may surely add to these, as failing to give us dictation which we can accept without reserve, the authority of reason; for the human reason is convicted If we who retain our belief in the of a perfectly bewildering incapacity. God of our fathers try to run before One defect after another which Divine time, and to imagine what is to be, our Providence (for to us it is nothing less first feeling will be that it is only with sacred), working through historical extreme diffidence that we can form criticism, discloses in the structure and any expectations. It has become a contents of our sacred books, makes it proverb, that it is always the unexevident that we cannot continue to pected that happens. But that the build our faith upon the Bible. If per-pursuit of what is just and humane will plexed inquirers are referred to the injure the higher interest of mankind, Church, and they ask, Where is it? no and accelerate the decline of the civilone can tell them where it is, or through|ized world, we shall emphatically refuse what organ its voice is to be heard to believe. Timid members of society no one but the Romanist, who has the have long been threatening us with the satisfaction of seeing his Church dis- subversive tendencies of Democracy tinctly enough in the person of the and Liberalism, and for some time they pope. And here is Mr. Pearson telling made Socialism a name of horror to the us though he is not the first to make respectable classes; but the changes the discovery that the morality of the that have been promoted by the feeling State, its interpretation of human duty for justice and humanity have up to has proved itself superior to the moral- this moment amply commended themity of the Church. That is, no doubt, a selves to the moderately well-informed trying and awakening discovery to and intelligent, and the most conservathose who have loved and honored the tive are now almost ashamed to conChurch, but there is nothing in it that tinue the old predictions of revolution need utterly discomfit us. Is God the and ruin. No one openly expresses a God of the Church only ?—is he not wish that we should go back and undo the democratic changes of recent times. | therefore be able to keep the peace We may concede to Mr. Pearson that between them all. Nothing but grave in these days the world-movements are so large and sweeping that we can but slightly control or modify them. We can only go on in faith, careful and resolute that the steps we have consciously to take shall be in the right direction. And we may deny that, so far as we can see, the future threatens to make our faith foolish any more than the past has done. danger and the palpable interest of all would make such control possible; and most of us will be unable to foresee any necessities strong enough to drive the European countries into federation. But this may take its place amongst the schemes on which the imagination may exercise itself. It is somewhat surprising, by the way, that Mr. Pearson has not given a prominent place to Australia, or even to North America, in his forecast. 66 It is true that at this time, by what we do and what we refrain from doing, we may be said to be nursing the proThe characteristic sentiment of our lific inferior races into power. That time, especially amongst the most remeans, according to Mr. Pearson, that ligious Christians, includes an extreme our trade will be wrested from us and shrinking from war. It is highly imour emigration reserves closed to our portant that on this question we should surplus population. We may prefer to clear our minds of cant," and endwell upon the immense increase of the deavor to discriminate between the volume of the world's trade which the kind of action which Christianity binds expansion of the inferior races scems upon sincere, uncompromising Christo promise, and on the probability tians, and that which is the indulgence that openings may present themselves of sentimental weakness. It is clearly which we cannot count upon foresee- wrong to bring on war, with its ineving. And I have intimated that, ac- itable evils, to gratify selfish vanity, or cording to all historical precedent, there greed, or ambition. But for high obwill be no great developments in the jects which appear to be committed to less civilized parts of the world without our keeping, it is right for Christians to exciting and destructive wars. Mr. go to war, and wrong to be deterred by Pearson predicts conditions which can- its costliness or its horrors. For such not fail to issue in war, but does not objects, the more Christian we are, the predict war. Thus he puts the Euro- more willingly ought we to prepare pean nations in a position of unstable ourselves for war, and the more resoequilibrium as regards mutual conflict, lutely to go into it when it is forced and assumes that they will not topple upon us. It is an essentially Christian over. Each nation is to have a uni- estimate, that the shortening by a few versal conscription and a strong mili- years of millions on millions of human tary executive; but the population is lives-lives which are so often of little to go on within each country feeding spiritual worth!—is an inconsiderable itself in animal comfort, shut out from loss, compared with the loss of anything all excitements, and in respect of the high and noble from amongst the spirnobler interests and aspirations becom-itual possessions of the world. It has ing more and more anæmic. This is been an instinctive conviction of almost surely in a high degree improbable. all good men, that national existence is Collisions of a shattering kind would an object for the sake of which any hardly be avoidable. But it is open to number of lives may rightly be given us, if we like to speculate on Mr. Pear-and taken, any quantity of sorrow inson's lines, to imagine the States of flicted on families. Wounds, deaths, Europe forming a federation, in the griefs - these are not to deter Chrisface of the new Asia and Africa, in tians from doing their utmost to prewhich there should be real coercive serve a trust which God has committed control exercised by the whole body to them. Contact with war, even over single members, and which should through descriptions, may do something "We beat every house about here, Aunt Paule." Miss Yearsley rejoiced in the name of Paulina, and she accepted the title of aunt in an honorary way from this family. "We have not only 'a' ghost but crowds of ghosts! You shall see them one day!" 66 "No fear!" had been her answer. Miss Yearsley might have been an American lady, so fashionably was she dressed, so grey and fluffy was her hair, so keen and cute was her glance. to brace spiritual resolution. The But these young folks were by no reader of such a book as "La Débâ- means the "Dancing Children of Harcle 99 may say to himself, "This is too ricombe." The story of these last had dreadful! Let us submit to any indig- just been told, and the end of it had nity or oppression rather than be re- been given in this way by Yorick Hare, sponsible for such horrors!" But the a boy of twelve : Christian will rather say, "In these scenes, and any still more appalling than these, we have a witness to the preciousness of ideal treasures.' To fight for the existence and the honor of our country is the way to gain a higher conception of the trust committed to the children of a nation. In this age, more than ever, and for Englishmen more than for the citizens of any other country, it should be a sovereign aspiration that we may help to make the country for which we are ready to die and to kill increasingly worthy of its destiny, a better instrument in the hands of the Ruler of mankind. Christianity imposes upon those who govern the British Empire the obligation of caring little about lives or feelings compared with the security of the empire and its power to do its appointed work in the world. Mr. Pearson's book is a call to us to prove that to be good is not to be weak; that we know it to be our Christian duty to guard by strenuous effort, and by any required amount of suffering, the priceless inheritance which has been entrusted to us. J. LLEWELYN DAVIES. From All The Year Round. 66 They'll bring you your fate, Aunt Paule," Beatrice Hare cried. She was eighteen, had just left school, and was going to be "out," much to the chagrin of her wild self. The party were by this time at the end of the old garden, and where the green combe slipped down from the high level of the manor grounds to the shining green sea what sea so green in the winter sunlight as the sea of South Devon? Gorgeous coloring was below and all around from the flashes of autumnal fire through brown and heather of the moorlands. Berries of all hues, berries purple, black, yellow, scarlet, and crimson, patched the greenery of the combe, full-leaved still, though Christmas was nigh at hand, for you know airs are soft and kindly in Devon, and Mother Nature when she made these rifts in the red-earthed cliffs THE DANCING CHILDREN OF HARRICOMBE. made them where greater heights than "No fear!" themselves tower above and shadow them. This boyish cry was made by a small, trim maiden lady of fifty, who was being shown over a domain new to her, but the ancestral" home of the group of young people leading her. The personal antecedents of this Miss Yearsley have naught to do with our story. During the last summer she had been unearthed by an old schoolfellow who had married Mr. Hare, of Harricombe, had become the mistress of the manor, and the mother of a goodly company of young Hares. May, the elder sister, who was being dragged along by Bee, gave one word as an ejaculation upon Bee's sugges tion. "Absurd!" Being twenty and the eldest, being also engaged to her cousin, Harold Hare, in India, she surely had a right to be more wise and grave than Bee was. Some people called her brusque she was most certainly sterling and true. 4286 "Right, May-right!" Miss Years- boys, hold the blackberry tangle out of ley applauded common sense. "But my eyes. Was there ever such mud?" give me the history and explanation of "The soft Devon air, and the deep your hundreds of ghosts," she went on. Devon combes-that's the way the "If you can, that is." guide-books have it. You like east"I do not know when they began, windy London streets and dry paveAunt Paule," the girl answered; "Iments, do you not, Aunt Paule? Now, suppose in the dark ages of the Hare your foot here on this stone, clutch the sovereignty. I only hope our Hare bough and swing on to that long stone forbears had not killed a lot of children, there," Bee advised from a firm standthe children of a rival tribe but all point in the very heart of a gorse-bush. round the country you may hear of the "Give me your hand and clutch the 'Children of Harricombe.' They are bough with your other. All right. proper ghosts-you cannot get them Why, you spring better than I do!" when you want them, and you cannot "And why not?" drive them away.” "You speak feelingly." The little lady's keen glance questioned the girl. "Of course I do." May colored under her warm, brown skin. "Harold and I saw them together, and at first we both thought they were village children coming up the combe. Harold had not proposed then. Of course he would have done so just the same, but it made me awfully hot. I could not help it, and I could not help seeing they danced and they sang. Yes! you needn't jeer, you boys; I heard them sing and so did Harold." Bee pursed up her pretty mouth, lifted her eyebrows, puckered her forehead, and did her best to keep from laughing too openly. No answer came from May up above. May had her skirts well up, and whereas she could have run and sprung down the combe like a young goat, was like a steed well in hand, stepping daintily and cleanly on rock and patch of greenery. No help did she need, erect was she as a young huntress behind the quick, half nervous springs of Aunt Paule. 66 Hurry up, girls," came from the boys below. "There's a jolly sight here - look sharp !” "I have not yet got the thread of the “All right!” and Bee's clear voice mystery. Why should they not dance rang down through the tree-trunks and and sing? Better far than wailing the bracken and the gorse. The shout ghosts, or ghosts with rattling chains." | rang like a bell to the ears of men on "We are not so commonplace with the sea. our ghosts, dear things! Come down easily, Aunt Paule," Bee cried, holding out her firm, young hand for the elder lady to descend round a muddy bend of the combe. "Shouldn't you like to have seen Harold and May blushing one against the other, and the children not caring one bit?" "You are talking Greek." "Then here's plain English. These ghosts of ours dance when they bring you good luck, and weep, and wail, and howl, and wring their hands like any other ghost when they bring you bad luck. I've never seen them, and I am out in the combe at all hours. Never mind, I've got the good luck without them," and the girl danced on ahead. "Well, never mind the children now. Help me down this place, Bee, and, you Bee forgot Aunt Paule's needs and flew. Her old blue serge dress gained a few new slits and scratches, but like a boy she pushed through briar and brake to the pebbly shore. There she stood with her hands on her hips, and with the dazzle of the December sun streaming over her and goldening her hair. The wind came from the sea, a soft, strong south wind, and it lifted skirts and short curly hair just as far as they would go, which was not far. The glow of roses was on her rounded cheeks, and a dropped white feather she had picked up was stuck in the rakish little cloth cap she wore; she was trim and untidy at the same moment. "What a love!" she cried. "Whose is she, Malc? When did she come? | young man said. He looked a sailor, What's her name?" A white-sailed yacht was lying to just within the entrance of Harricombe Bay, on to which the green combe opened, and at the moment when Bee's questions ceased a boat shot out from the far side of the dainty vessel. Swift, sure strokes sped the boat through the shining, green water, and then as May and Miss Yearsley came down the last slope of the combe, the crunch of the keel was heard on the shingle of the beach. "The Iris by Jove!" Malcolm cried with a grand air, as if the Iris were a personage, and he knew all about her. " Well? What about her?" Bee asked, with the superlative air sisters so nicely assume towards their very grand younger brothers. "Simply that she is Hatherley's new yacht." and his speech had a ring and lilt of 66 Hatherley is my uncle. I've been with him up and down the North Seas." "Yes; he's been cruising somewhere; we heard that." Yorick Hare was spokesman. "It is so. Not having enough of the sea I have been cruising with him landed him at Leith a week ago, and have brought the Iris round here." "She's a crack yacht-a prize-winner? All sorts, eh?" Yorick put in. "She is, my man. Would you like to look at her? I'll take you if you'll meet me here some time." The boy's eyes sparkled. "Not now; Scarbourne Court now, please. There'll be a way up? Short "Old Hatherley's-oh!" Interest and sharp, you know.” was dead. Open blue eyes looked as if their "Old Hatherley is a proper enough owner's path to most things would be old chap," sturdily. short and sharp. "And he has the finest yacht on the coast-look at her! Don't you pretend you've never heard of the Iris, or you'll be out of it." "How vulgar! Out of it!' Out of what, the Iris? I'm thinking I'd rather like to be in her," and Bee moved a yard or so further along the beach, as if that advance would give her eyes more searching power over the beautiful craft. A hundred yards to the west, the crew of the rowboat were standing and looking to right and left. Was it that they did not know the coast ? One detached himself from the rest. "I was never here before," the "The coastguard steps are just beyond where you landed; the combe is here - either will do. Scarbourne is just between the two; the combe is our beat. We are Hares," the boy added.' "It is very kind," and the stranger lifted his blue cap. "I'll just take the combe, as I'll be nearer to it now." He signalled an order to the sailors, while he himself sprang up the combe. Two days after this Edgar Graham was to be seen as much at Harricombe Manor as at his uncle's place at Scarbourne. quickly. Some friendships do grow As for Miss Yearsley, she openly declared for this young man. She was the mother's crony, and mothers and their cronies are known to have much talk over the ways, and the doings, and the possibilities of the rising generation, and about the criticism there lurked a touch or so of prophecywomen, especially old maids, foresee so much. Of course there came to be a cruise in the lovely Iris. |