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a manual appears not only a retrograde but a dangerous step. A significant comment on it is afforded by the words of the Bishop of Durham: For the inspiration of conduct we require to consider what a quickened sense of duty prompts us to aim at rather than what a code forbids.'* Mr. Gore especially guards himself against the use of the word casuistry in the Jesuitical sense; but he cannot protect his proposal from evils inherent to the system. The provision of ready-made solutions for every moral problem tends to discourage the independent exercise of the individual conscience. The habit of dependence on external direction blunts and even destroys the sense of personal responsibility; but it is personal responsibility which constitutes the sense of duty. Casuistry conflicts with duty, because it dethrones that arbiter of conduct which the Creator has established in the heart of every man, and sets up instead an artificial, external authority of the Rabbis, whether Jewish, or Christian, or pagan.

Moreover, when we attempt to realize the effect of Mr. Gore's proposal, we are not disposed to regard it with greater favour. The 'reign of the saints' would probably prove as little beneficial to genuine religion in the nineteenth century as in the seventeenth. It would certainly encourage hypocrisy; it would probably stimulate a very offensive form of espionage; it would easily lend itself to odious social oppression. The experiences of the Commonwealth would be repeated under the new conditions of ecclesiastical organization and democratic coercion. A large importation of technical religious expressions into the language of society and commerce would be among the least of the evils of a 'Christian organization' of society. It will be noted that Mr. Gore contemplates official sanction for the 'new Christian casuistry' which the ten years' work of the Christian Social Union will provide. But, whether officially approved or not, if the new casuistry is to be practically effective, it must have behind it some coercive sanction. What that sanction

will be it is not hard to guess. The confessional may be put on one side as hardly available in England. The law will not very speedily add to its task of keeping the peace the more formidable labour of enforcing the Gospel. There remains that force of organized public opinion which is already a familiar fact in democratic life, and which is clearly capable of almost infinite application. The new Christian casuistry' threatens society with a despotism of a book, not now the Bible, or Calvin's Institutes,' but the Christian Socialist's

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*Incarnation and Common Life,' p. 13.

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Authorized Manual of Applied Christianity,' enforced not by the Ironsides, nor by the Kirk-Sessions, but by the silent severities of exclusive dealing.

It is a sound assumption that no movement ever enlisted a large measure of sympathy and support without possessing some genuine excellence. Assuredly the Christian Socialist movement is no exception to this rule. No one who has observed at all closely the normal life of modern society can greatly resent an indictment, however extreme and mixed up with misconception, of its astonishing and truly humiliating selfishness. It is a commonplace among philanthropists that the area of response to their appeals is severely limited, that the much-vaunted charities of Great Britain are maintained by a mere fraction of the wealthy classes, and that the exceptional success of one charitable undertaking is regularly conditioned by the exceptional misfortunes of some or all of the rest. For the most part, the connection between wealth and charity, between leisure and public-spirited work, is precarious and occasional. The conspicuous examples of that connection, never absent from English society, and never perhaps so numerous as at this moment, may conceal but cannot alter or neutralize the general fact. Of this melancholy social selfishness Christian Socialism is the stern indictment; and so far, however unfortunate the methods, however mistaken the proposals, and, we may add, however suspicious the connexions of some of its more extreine members, it justifies itself to the awakened social conscience as in the main a movement making for righteousness. To it belongs the peculiar fascination which attaches to all Socialism. Its influence generally on the Church will not be wholly injurious. True as it unquestionably is, that advocacy of democratic politics, simply because they are democratic, is alike irrational and unchristian, it is not less true that there have been, and still are, many influences at work which tend to blind the clergy to the intrinsic justice of many democratic aspirations, and so to put them dangerously out of sympathy with their flocks. If a popular character cannot sufficiently authenticate a policy, it ought certainly not to condemn it; yet what student of the post-Reformation history of the Church of England will deny that, in the main, an anti-popular prejudice has pervaded the ranks of the clergy?

The Christian Socialists demand from the Church frank sympathy with the aspirations of the multitude. Hitherto, they say, the sympathies of the Church have been with the leisured, propertied, educated classes, and the labouring masses have had to extort, as it were at the point of the sword, her reluctant acqui

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escence in their demands. The position ought to be reversed: the sympathy ought to be for the multitude, the reluctant acquiescence for the comfortable classes. In this demand there is much justice, but there is also much misconception. What the people can claim from the Christian ministry is, not political sympathy but spiritual service. The last, however, involves that frank association with the popular life which is almost inevitably expressed by political sympathy. The essential thing is that the political sympathy should be chastened by loyalty to the supreme spiritual interests, of which the clergy are the exponents and guardians. The Dean of Ely struck a false note when he said that Christianity arose out of the common people, and was intended in their interest.'' It is the essence of heresy thus to appropriate to some the grace that was intended for all. The Gospel is not democratic, it is catholic. There is no virtue in poverty, there is no crime in wealth: the poor man and the rich man can but be disciples, to whom the principle of greatness is service. Christianity must not shrivel to a class religion. The normal issues of political and industrial conflict are not in such sense moral that partisanship is obligatory on Christians. It is the cardinal blunder of the Christian Socialists to assume the contrary. Those issues are for the most part morally neutral: the antagonism is between the prejudices and self-interest of classes, not between right and wrong. We think the duty of the clergy is to urge upon both combatants those principles of justice which both are likely to forget. Of one thing we are positive: the clergy fatally hamper their power of spiritual service when they enter the ranks of contending parties. The social value of their position is precisely conditioned by its independence. partisans they will be popular, but their popularity will be purchased by their power. The influence of the Church upon Society is not the less beneficent because it is indirect. Christianity does not propound political systems and a true ordering of industry, but it does create that type of character, at once independent and self-suppressing, which may be called the raw material of sound politics and just industry. It works through individuals upon society. The Christian citizen is frankly subject to normal civic conditions. He advocates political schemes, not as being Christian, but as being politically sound; but his conception of political soundness will be determined by his Christian principles. Politics are concerned with men, not as Christians, but as citizens: but the Christianity

*Lombard Street in Lent,' p. 167.

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of the citizens will inevitably mould that conception of civic well-being, which will be enshrined in their legislation.

The Christian Socialists are wont to make frequent reference to the Hebrew prophets. In borrowing their stern rebukes of social wrong, let them not miss their principal teaching. The national history of those great men had taught them the impotence of external conditions to secure civic righteousness; they looked forward to a future in which the securities of national well-being should be found within the hearts of the citizens. So the formula of social hope was a promise of individual regeneration, I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them.' This lesson, learnt by Ezekiel through the calamities of his nation, is affirmed by the Gospel. The first word of the New Dispensation declares the necessity of inward change. Ye must be born anew.' The regenerated individual influences society. This, in our opinion, is the Christian method of social regeneration. It is a gradual method, and therefore does not readily commend itself to human impatience; but it is sure. The unlawful use of religious authority produces woful results on religion; these are yet in the background; the immediate injury is to society. The forces of reform are wasted. We trust that the Christian Socialists may learn this danger in time, and will not allow their cause to be ruined, and their great opportunities for usefulness wasted, by the hot-headed zeal or exaggerated language of the more extreme section of the Union. To subordinate Christianity to any political schemes or social changes is to frustrate their object, and discredit their professions. There are not wanting signs that moderate counsels still hold a preponderating weight in the administration of the Union. The result of the recent discussion on Christian Education in Board Schools was the defeat of the extreme party. If that victory is followed by others, a wide sphere of useful work is opened out to the Christian Socialists, without trespassing on territory in which their intervention is more noxious than beneficent.

ART.

ART. II.-Medieval Military Architecture in England.
By G. T. Clark. London, 1884.

TH

HE half-a-century of patient labour, of which the fruits have happily been collected in these two portly volumes, has earned for their author, among archæologists, the honourable distinction of 'Castle' Clark, and has done much for a branch of study which had remained in a singularly backward state. To borrow a metaphor from his own subject, Mr. Clark had first to collect his materials before he could raise his structure: in more homely language, he had to make his own bricks. It was only from prolonged examination in situ and comparison of the results thus obtained that general principles could be worked out, and the development of the castle in England scientifically studied. Broadly speaking, our noble series of national and private records only begins when the great castle-building era had come to a close. Although, therefore, it is of great value for the Edwardian period, it cannot help us just where help is, for our purpose, most needed. The darkness of the preceding age can only be lightened by the study of material remains. Allusions by chroniclers afford at the best fitful assistance, and, as we shall see, have hitherto served only to mislead those writers who have misunderstood their meaning.. In an excellent introduction, Mr. Clark reminds us that the architecture of this period has been studied almost always from an ecclesiastical standpoint, the church having retained its interest for ourselves, while the castle has long been wholly severed 'from the current sympathies and interests of humanity.'

To this comparative neglect is due that ignorance of its history to which we have referred. Without underrating the isolated studies of Mr. Hartshorne, Mr. Parker, and others in England, of M. de Caumont (the Clark of France) and M. Viollet-le-Duc abroad, we find in these volumes the one systematic work that has yet appeared on the subject. The only writer, in England, indeed, who had previously approached the subject as a whole was Mr. Edward King, whose papers were published about a century before Mr. Clark's volumes. The latter writer speaks with justice of its absurd theories, misplaced learning, and fanciful and incorrect descriptions'; but we would supplement this by illustrating the beliefs that used to be seriously held. The keep at Norwich, late in style, was deemed by Mr. King'a most noble specimen of Saxon architecture,' for 'certain it is that all its ornaments are in the true Saxon style'; and he held, like others, that that of Colchester was the work of

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Edward

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