quential, but which we yet fear has a certain logic. Is it, then, unlikely that we may have, with searchings of heart, soon to entertain the conclusion advocated alike by Kingsley and Maurice, together with many adherents of the Catholic restoration-the conclusion to which the Oxford movement looked, and with whose proclamation from the Church's pulpits London this very Lent is ringing that there is a sane and rational Christian Socialism, which must be-not made a subject for agitation; not presented as a theory for the world's adoption;-but quietly and increscently embraced by the followers of the Carpenter of Nazareth, who bade His disciples forsake houses and lands for His sake,-if the Kingdom of Heaven is to triumph on earth? I am submitting these questions to you. I feel their seriousness and my own inexperience too keenly to presume to answer them. Certainly the word which I have just used, "Socialism," connotes in the popular mind much that no Churchman, that no right-thinking man, can possibly look upon with favour. Is there not, there fore, all the more reason to claim it for a better, for a Christian, use, and to insist that, if—as it seems-it is to be the watchword of social progress, it shall mean no more, but also that it shall mean no less, than a New Obedience to the New Commandment to Love one another? MERCIFUL Lord, the Teacher of thy faithful people; Increase in thy Church the desires which thou hast given, and confirm the hearts of those who hope in thee, by enabling them to understand the measure of thy promises; that all thy children may even now with faith behold, and with patience await, the consummation which as yet thou dost not plainly manifest; through Jesus Christ our Lord." AMEN. |