loudly enough--but liberty to dissent and to set forth with all the fulness and force that may be in the man his reasons for dissent. Think of the sermons we preached last year to the people of France because they listened impatiently to "the intellectuals" who spoke out for Dreyfus! Let us take some of our own medicine. It will do ourselves good, though poor stuff for others. Now that our participation in the present war has been settled by the logic of events, generally the way of introducing changes into the British Constitution, it remains to be determined to what extent we ought to offer contributions to the Imperial authorities? Is there any principle to guide us? This is the immediate practical question. For it is clear that the

present is not the time to ask for a constitutional quid pro quo, in the form of a partnership in Imperial affairs with the Mother Country. That cannot even be discussed till the war is over, and perhaps all that need be said on the immediate question before us is that the more hearty and thorough-going our action now, the better our position shall be when readjustment of our political relations comes up for consideration. We have unmistakeably taken the position that the Empire is one, and that Britain's quarrel in South Africa is our quarrel. We must not fold our hands when the second contingent has sailed. The war must be pressed to a speedy conclusion, and we must prepare to assist in applying the needed pressure. The best, because most direct, steps for us to take next would be to release the two Imperial battalions now doing garrison duty in Halifax and the West Indies, by supplying their places with militia from the Maritime Provinces; and to proceed at once with the organization of the Regiment of Mounted Rifles in the North-West, advocated in General Hutton's report last year, generally approved at the time, and now seen to be the arm in which we are most deficient, as well as the one which is most needed in fighting with a people who are all cowboys" and fairly good shots as well. What has been done, and what must still be done, means expenditure on our part, but having given our boys to the war, we have taken the leap, and compared to their lives money is the small dust of the balance. We aspire to be a nation, and how can we realise that high ideal save by doing the work and submitting to the sacrifices demanded by national life? The hour has come, and with it our responsibility. We have accepted it in the illogical and blundering way that is characteristic of our race, but there can be no doubt about our sincerity, and that is the main point for statesmen to recognize.

6.

It is scarcely necessary to refer to another step which the Government will surely take at the fit moment. Hitherto they have acted in concert with the Imperial authorities, who arranged to defray all expenses of our contingents from the day of

It

their disembarkation at Capetown. That was all right. would be as absurd to have different paymasters and different rates of pay for the men on the field as it would be to have different modes of transport, commissariat or generals. None the less it should be understood that a vote will be taken at the proper time to repay the Imperial Government all that they spend on our forces, and another vote to pay the men who return to us at a rate corresponding to what would be received for service in Canada. The price of labour is higher here than in Britain, and our boys who have volunteered for the country must not be skimped in their pay or in anything else. It would be scarcely necessary to refer to this, were it not for the almost incredible fact that because Sir Charles Tupper has said that he would support a vote to that effect, some of his organs are already taunting the Government that they will have to do it, but that all the credit will belong to the Opposition leader. He was by no means the first to make the suggestion; but even if he had been, it required no brilliant or original stroke of genius to give utterance to the happy thought. Evidently, members of the Government are not free to give expression to it or to any other of their inspirations on the subject till the House meets. In Great Britain, party warfare is suspended when the country is engaged in deadly conflict. Support the Government, in order that it may prosecute the war to a successful issue, is the universal cry of the British public, and any party that disregarded the universal sentiment would not be easily forgiven. This noble tradition is even more imperative in our case than in the Mother Country. Our national life is in the making; and it is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that it is composed of different strands which have not yet been completely woven together. It takes a long time to build a national structure; and the greater the variety in the materials the longer the time needed, though as a compensation the more beautiful will the structure eventually be. Every statesman recognizes our condition and what it imposes on us. He will therefore refuse his consent to every disintegrating cry or policy, knowing well that it will bring curses that may come home to roost to his own embarrassment and to the peril of the country; and he will also publicly warn the baser elements among his followers that in hitting below the belt they are imperilling their own chances with an electorate, which pardons much, but will never pardon attempts to make party capital at the expense of the national honour or at risk to the nation's life. Instead of wondering that French-speaking Canadians are not as enthusiastic in this war as their English-speaking countrymen, the marvel is that their representative men have as a rule spoken so warmly on behalf of the Empire, and that so few protests have been made against the flagrant violation of the Constitution in

volved in sending the Contingents without sanction of Parliament. The practical emanimity of Canadians in endorsing the new departure is gratifying to every one who believes in the unity of the Empire, and no word should be said that would lessen in the eyes of the world its dignity and significance.

Far too much has been made of our reverses. The total Our repulses and number of killed, wounded and missing for the three months does not amount to one-fourth of the number

the reason why. lost at any of the great battles from Cressy to Gettysburg. Did we expect unbroken successes against a race whose mettle we had good cause to know from the 17th century down to Majuba? Considering that we have been outnumbered till now, the record is pretty fair. Talana and Elandslaaghte were victories. Methuen drove Cronje from three chosen positions before he was arrested for a time at Magersfontein. Mafeking, Kimberley and Ladysmith have held out against heavy odds. The Boers have had to put every man and horse in the field and they have no reserves. Mistakes, of course, have been made, and doubtless the strategists who scan the bulletin boards would not have made any, had the War Office sent them, instead of men like Buller, Clery, French and Baden-Powell. But, as wars go, we need not cry out yet, nor seek for occult reasons of special divine displeasure. A divine, eminent by his position, preaches that if Britain had no "rum traffic" or opium business she would have had no reverses. In that case, Boers, who know nothing of opium, would have been killed, instead of the gallant fellows who had nothing to do with the rum traffic! The question has been asked, "Why do not men go to church?" and it might be answered, "Why should they, if they must listen silently to crude paganism?" Our Lord, it is true, denounced doom on Jerusalem, but why? Religious insincerity and blatant pretension, priestly arrogance and greed, censoriousness, spiritual pride, religiosity and internal uncleanness, these were the sins which He denounced and against which we must be ever on our guard.

Events in other

The war makes such demands on our attention that we have no time to spare for events occurring elsewhere than in South Africa. It is a Presidential year in the States, countries. but no one asks what the rival parties are doing, or whether there is any prospect of the Democrats ridding themselves of Bryan and his precious sliver craze. The Phillippines might be sunk in the sea for all that the world cares at present. The war there is still sputtering on. It is enough to know that. Even the victory gained by Sir F. Wingate, in which the oncedreaded Khalifa died heroically, surrounded by his Emirs, was simply recorded, and in the next day's papers no reference was made to it, though the subject lent itself well to homilies. We

are not quite sure whether Italy is still a member of the Dreibund, or whether anarchy reigns in the Austrian Parliament, or the Parliament is sitting. The Emperor Joseph still lives and the dual monarchy will worry one somehow as long as he is on the throne. There are rumours about Russian designs on Persia and Afghanistan, but no person's pulse is stirred. Two countries beside our own still excite a languid interest-France and Germany. France generally gives us the unexpected. A revolution was promised in connection with the Dreyfus case, or at the very least the defeat of the ministry which ordered his second trial and saw the affair through; but the QUARTERLY never gave credence to the predictions, and never despaired of France. Writers for the British press seldom do justice to France, and they are astonished that the Paris papers should pay them back in kind. France has astonishing staying and recuperative power, and the support given to her present strangely composite ministry shows how well able she is to recover herself at the last moment. The Premier keeps his team well in hand. The Foreign Minister tells the Chambers that the British fleet is superior to theirs at every point and in every respect, and consequently that it is idle and undignified to bluster. Instead of raging at him for his frankness, the Government's majority is at once increased. The Minister of War goes on quietly with his policy of making the army subordinate to the civil authority and of suppressing the enemies of order, and in a city supposed to be honey-combed with disaffection no one cheeps. What a lesson for politicians everywhere that nothing pays like fearless discharge of duty! No one need keep away from the Exhibition, for fear of "the red foot fury of the Seine."

The Kaiser is determined to have a fleet that will permit him to shake his mailed fist wherever he pleases, and though his wisest subjects disapprove, he is likely to get it. It seems madness to impose new burdens on a people who are as much compelled to have the finest army in the world, as Great Britain to have the finest fleet; but there is continuity as well as method in his madness. Britain need not object; for the more successful he is the more necessary will it be for him not to quarrel with the Mistress of the Seas. Whether he sees in the future an occupation of part of South America or of Syria and the Euphrates valley, so that Germany may colonize over seas without losing her overspill to rival powers, need not affect us, otherwise than to wish him well in either case. It would be a clear gain to the world, certainly, to have a German Dominion established in the East; and it is gain to humanity about which we are concerned and not any mad idea of painting all the earth red. Russia might object, but that is her look-out. So far as her ambitions are legitimate, we can wish her, too, all success.

G.

QUEEN'S QUARTERLY

VOL. VII.

APRIL, 1900.

No. 4

All articles intended for publication, books for review, exchanges, and all correspondence relating thereto-should be addressed to the editors, Queen's University, Kingston, Ont.

"THE

GNOSTIC THEOLOGY.

HERE is a body of men," says Irenaeus, "who deny the truth, putting in its place fables and vain genealogies, which, as the Apostle says, 'minister questionings, rather than godly edifying, which is in faith.'* By specious and crafty suggestions they mislead and enslave the simple-minded. They wickedly pervert the good words of Scripture, which they handle deceitfully. They destroy the faith of many, leading them astray by the pretence of ' knowledge' (vo) from Him who has established and adorned the universe, claiming to reveal something higher and greater than God, the creator of heaven and earth, and all that is therein. By their sophistry and rhetorical arts they indoctrinate the unwary in their method of questioning, and destroy their souls by absurd, blasphemous and impious doctrines, so that their victims are unable even to detect the falsehood of so gross a fiction as that of the Demiurge."+

These words, with which Irenaeus opens his Refutation of Heresy, indicate the main features of the Gnostic sects as they existed in the second century. Their theology was not set forth in a reasoned and connected system, but was embedded in a fantastic cosmogony; their exegesis was of that artificial character with which our study of Philo has made us familiar; they claimed to be in possession of an esoteric doctrine or Gnosis, revealed only to the initiated; and between the Supreme Being and the world they interposed a number of spiritual Powers or Aeons, attributing the creation of the visible universe to a subordinate agent, the Demiurge. That a doctrine of this kind was inconsistent with the fundamental ideas of Christian theology,

*1 Tim. i. 4.

+Irenaeus, Refutation of Heresy, Pref., §. 1.