feeling, as in the Thirty Years' War, only for a righteous longing after political unity and social freedom. France, it is just possible, forced to drift into the current in the opposite direction by her people, again from no religious motive, to interfere with Italy.

Papal Court gathering both men and money; the whole Roman Catholic world putting on its

armour.

And when this is done, will not the end come? North Germany and Italy against all comers?

:

Then Spain for how many hundred years under the clergy as her sole governors? Not a government to be got rid of by proclaiming and Federal-Republicizing.

Then Alsace and Lorraine: as French and Roman Catholic as ever, and perhaps arming to oust German and Protestant.

The struggle which began in the 4th century culminating at the end of the 19th.

And who believes that in all this there is any religion? It is like a Reformation without Reformers. It is a godless God-service, pregnant with great results.

And before 1999 we may be left without a Religion.

And shall we remain Magazineing while all this is going on?

Or are we to live alone because of this? Negative and solitary dissent is a mistake.

Every great reformer began by being a solitary dissenter, that is

true.

Our Great Master Himself was a solitary dissenter to begin with.

But in every case it was a positive dissent; ending, not in a protest, but in a great reform.

The Indian's Estimate of our
Religion.

What says in these years of England a chief of an Eastern religion? 'I saw Christ's hand in England, but I did not see Christ's heart

and soul in England.' 'It was the hand of Christ outstretched for the purpose of doing good to England and to the world." 'But where is Christian devotion? Where is He who went on the mountains to pray? Where is that desire to overcome temptations with the allconquering force of' God—' where is that daily communion with God?' He goes on to explain what he means by those devout men who could not live except in prayer,' that is, who 'felt the reality,' or as we should say, the Laws or Order, tried to discover the Order and Laws of the spiritual world as we see to-day the 'realities' (Laws) ' of the physical and moral world.' [In this sense, are not the spiritual and moral worlds the same?] 'Men who wanted to prove everything upon the ground of direct spiritual testimony' [we like that word; but does any one now in England believe in moral or 'spiritual' evidence as he does in physical evidence? or if he means anything by direct spiritual testimony,' do we not suppose him bitten by the madness of spirit-rappers and table-turners ?] 'men who distended their hearts' [do any 'distend' their hearts now to grapple with the idea, the reality of God's Order?] and 'opened the eyes of faith in order to see and worship the living Father as one infinite Spirit; that is, as the Almighty Father of whose thoughts the Laws or Order of the physical and spiritual, or moral worlds are only the expressions.

See the Eastern's estimate of our Christianity:

'By Christianity I never mean a certain number of stereotyped dogmas and doctrines.' Does the Indian understand by this the Established Church and Orthodox Dissenters? By Christianity, I do not mean rites and ceremonies.' Does the Indian understand by this the Papal Church? No, for

true Christianity says there is no justification in works, nor in external rites, but righteousness, justification and sanctification must be the results of spiritual conversion, must be worked out by faith. That is true Christianity; that, I say, is true Hindooism, that is true Mohammedanism, that is true Zoroastrianism... Not if you are proud of ten thousand works of charity, not if you have inundated all' London 'with outward institutions' . . . 'No. If you have faith in the living Father, and your whole heart has been converted and regenerated, then I say you are fit for the kingdom of God. And England is still as far from the kingdom of heaven as you and I are. We are still far from that integrity and fullness of true theistic life (call it Christian life if you like); we are all yet far from that.'

We are indeed. What is Christianity? What is it to be followers of Christ? Is it not to be full of what the Indian calls the 'true theistic life?' that is, to see God in everything,to find Him out in everything, in the Order or Laws as of His moral or spiritual, so of His political or social, and so of His physical worlds?-to find out, one is tempted to use the homely word, what He is driving at? But is it not the sole thing of importance what God is driving at? To Christ God was everything, to us He seems nothing -almost, if not quite nothing. Or if He is anything, He is only the God of Sundays, and only the God of Sundays as far as going to what we call our prayers,' not the God of our week-days, our business and our play, our politics and our science, our home life and our social life, our House of Commons, our Government, our Post Office and correspondence-such an enormous item in these days our Foreign Office, and our India Office.

Our Indian goes on, after a hit

at his 'Hindoo, Mohammedan, and Parsee friends,' let 'Christian missionaries' and 'Christian governments' admit the truth of this: that, not by preaching dogmas and doctrines, [can anything be more appropriate to the state of Europe now?]- but by bringing the spirit of true devotion,' that is, finding out God's purpose in everything, 'firm faith and fervent communion with God, and on the other hand Christ's noble charity and untiring industry in the matters of doing good to others,' must their work be done.

Then our friend gives us a hit for what he thinks our 'bigotry and superstition,' our 250 small narrow sects into which Christendom in England has been split up,' 'the fetters, the bonds of' our 'sectarian dogmatism'; he calls our 'sectarianism' the curse of the country.'

But he pays us a noble tribute when he says that, 'point out the defects of English 'character' to 'English people, and they will receive your words, I assure you, with the utmost alacrity and cheerfulness. In fact, I was oftentimes amused to find that what I said against English people was received with cheers; and all my words, which were meant as a sort of encomium on the British people, fell flat on the audience. What does that show? Is that not a wonderful trait in the British character, that they are so honest, that they like to hear a foreigner say what is wrong in their character? What better proof can you have of the national honesty? Tell John Bull his faults, and he praises and admires you. Then, I say, England requires only to be enlightened in order to do justice'

Perhaps in this quality England differs more than in any other from French, Germans, Italians, Spaniards. And perhaps from this very quality she may be destined to strike out the honest, true, God

trifling criticism of the most important of all subjects, Religion -God? speaking of Him not so seriously as we should of the Royal Academy; frittering away our time, and what is much worse, frittering away ourselves in what are called 'social duties,' or 'family duties,' which too often mean what the famous 'Jack' meant by helping Tom to do what?-to do 'nothing, Sir.' While, on the other hand, the vast majority of our fellow-creatures are forcibly absorbed in the great low problem of 'bread and beer,' without one intellectual, one spiritual, one civilising influence in their lives.

Or is it working, solving by real personal work the great questions or rather problems which, as they are solved or unsolved, will make 1999 what it will be? Such as de-pauperisation, colonisation, education, reformation, legislation, making religion and God a real personal presence among us, not a belief in a creed, a going to a room or church for what we call our prayers."

Religion, sermons, consist now either in telling us to believe what we are told to believe,' and to attend the 'means of grace,' 'as by law established;' never enquiring whether there be not other 'means of grace.' Or else, in telling us to practise certain so-called religious or social virtues in that 'state of life' (or state of mind), 'to which it has pleased God to call us,' leaving life just as it is, taking for granted that that state of life' is the one we are born into.

But, in 1999, shall we not wish to have worked out what life, family life, social life, political life, should be? and not to have taken for granted that family life, social life, political life are to be as they are, and we to get as much enjoyment out of them as we can ?

To dare to offer some petty suggestions as to the conduct of everyday on the way to 1999, seems like gratuitously setting out to imitate the mountain which brought forth mice.

Nevertheless, here are a few mice:

I.

1. Speeches, Articles, Sermons, seem always to be made for happy people, at least for tolerably successful people, those who have not to construct or alter their lives, sometimes to begin again life' right from the bottom; but only to make themselves and others as happy as possible in their lives. It seems taken for granted that life is on the best possible footing, that life is to be as it is, in families, in institutions, in schools, colleges, and universities, and among the masses' as they are called, as if they were Silurian strata.

And we are only told that we are not to be vain, selfish, ambitious therein, not to think of ourselves, but to consider others, that our 'conversation' is to be in heaven,' and not in the earth's opinion or in vanity or egotism.

But we must think of ourselves,' if we cannot do anything well or do the thing that we are doing well.

It is not all 'vanity or 'egotism,' this thinking about ourselves. A person who does well what he is doing, or who aspires to nothing better or more difficult than what he is doing, needs not to think of himself.

But what of him who does not, or who tries at something higher ?

2. Neither is thought taken or advice given for this: sympathy in good work is an essential of wellbeing. So much has this been felt to be the case that one Church has invented a whole system of Saints, Angels, guardian Angels,

like-not Godless-God-service (for we are always, consciously or unconsciously, carrying out God's plans), for all her brethren of mankind.

Our Indian religious founder ends: Now are the grand and glorious days of Reformation at hand; the kingdom of heaven, methinks, is drawing nigh.' 'Sleep not, humbly I beg and beseech you.'

But whether the 'glorious days of reformation' are drawing nigh for Europe, or whether Europe is simply to be shattered into two hostile camps, the German Empire and Italy against the Roman Catholic host, England standing by, or rather rushing by, as to her business in a state of restless, ceaseless activity-as to her spiritual interests in a Magazine-y state, depends, does it not? upon whether we discover and live by the laws of God's Moral World, or whether we content ourselves with leaving such things to criticism and chance.

Again, listen to our Eastern preacher: Say not that indolence and apathy, hypocrisy and inaction, characterise '-shall we insert European Roman Catholicism and Protestant Reformation at the present day?' but rather say from this time forward there shall not be compromise or sleep, apathy, hypocrisy, or inaction.' And also, 'the voice of Civilisation is "Onward, forward, and heavenward;" and let our motto from this night be "Onward, forward, and heavenward.” '

Or shall it be backward, to idolatry, superstition, and bigotry; or stand still at stupidity, indifference, and hardening routine, the rotten garment of a dead creed; or earthward, to engrossing, adulterating shop-keeping and shopping; and to trifling or sensual amusements ?

This depends upon us.

What will this world be on August II, 1999 ?

What we have made it.

And what in 1999 shall we wish to have been doing now? and what shall we wish not to have been doing now?

What of all the things that we do, or say, or think, will it have signified that we should have done, or said, or thought, then? and what will it not have signified?

Will crime, will pauperism, will the Established Churches, the views of God's government, be the same then as now? Will the views of family life, of social life, of the duties of social life, be the same then as now? Will the distribution of riches, and poverty, of land, the relative importance and civilisation of nations, of old countries and colonies, be the same then as now?

Will religion consist then, as now, not in whether a man is 'just, and true, and merciful;' whether the man seeks to know God, and what He is, and what He wishes us to do; whether the man seeks to be a fellow-worker with God, and for this purpose to find out God's plans; but whether the man had believed what he was told to believe?' had gone to church 'for what he called his prayers,' and 'had duly paid the fees to the 4 temple?"

What 1999 will be, whether all these things are the same then as now or worse, or better, depends, of course, in its proportion upon what we are doing now, or upon what we are not doing now.

What shall we then wish to have been doing now? is the question. Is it reading or writing mere articles (of the day' one cannot say, or even of the hour) of the Minute and the Boy-not 'The Hour and the Man,'-in weekly and daily papers? Is it criticism-the most