of the evils we deplore. This is something worth living for. This is why we meet here to-day. This combination offers a key to some yet unsolved problems in the life of individuals. Here perhaps is to be found the object of our boasted individual freedom. Freedom for each man to think, and speak, and act as he will, is ever growing. But to what purpose? Freedom is a means, not an end. This is, I suppose, Mazzini's meaning in his great saying that it is no longer rights but duties that the Social Reformers must preach. Social Science has become religious. Here too is the cure for aimlessness, for melancholy, perhaps even for cynical worldliness. Here is an aid to purity and simplicity. In such a combination may also be found the solution of some speculative problems that tease us. A man learns himself by action, not by self-observation. "Do thy duty," as Goethe said, "and thou shalt know what is within thee." Obedience and love, as Christ tells us, bring an unexpected insight into divine things. Here too you may find Christ, if you never found Him before, where so many of the most deeply religious spirits of our time are finding Him, men and women who in past centuries would have sought Him in monasteries and convents. He lived on earth with the outcast, the suffering, the poor; and there you will still find Him, though you may have sought Him in vain in the homes of the rich, or in books of devotion. "Believe it, 'tis the mass of men He loves, And where there is most sorrow, and most want, LOWELL. Again, the same combination may solve some problems of society. One great evil of our age is the width of the breach between classes in our cities. The wedge of separation is daily being driven home by natural causes, which left to themselves will widen the breach and ruin the nation. Social Science has to find a cure for this, a cure by prevention not revolution. And in such a work religion is her best ally. Religion could at once put a hand across the breach from both sides; it teaches the true brotherhood of men in Christ; gives men faith in God; teaches the rich that wealth is a splendid trust, and the poor that poverty is not ignoble. Religion alone, and I mean by that the love of God alone, could support such workers as Oberlin and Edward Denison, as Mary Carpenter and Octavia Hill, and others of that noble band, known or unknown to fame, who have served and are serving God in the service of their fellows, and are the salt of the earth. But it is not less true that this combination of Social Science and Religion is the one condition for the permanence and true life and growth of Social Science. Social Science is ultimately based on some philosophy. It may be utilitarian and agnostic; it may be theologic and Christian. The real danger of the students and professors of this science is that they should limit their views to practical utilities and convenience, and should study phenomena alone, and not endeavour to base their action on a real philosophy, and to guide it with a view to some high aim. high aim, the recognition and extrication of the spiritual and divine element in man, lost and smothered as it may seem in evil, is the only worthy and permanent aim. Materialistic and evolutional philosophies have for the time perhaps obscured this divine, supernatural This element in our sociological philosophy, or shaken confidence in it. But nevertheless this truth is the foundation of all social philosophy, and therefore of that social methodical action which we call Social Science. Utilitarianism can never be the basis of vigorous social action. Men will judge of their own interests; and the interest of the nation and the race in the long run often conflicts with the interest of the individual in the short run. But the fundamental belief of religion that man is made in the image of God, and the belief that Christ is our Restorer and Saviour, the proof to us that love and self-devotion are essential elements of the divine and therefore of the highest human character, these are the only permanent springs of consistent endeavour to bring about the coming of the kingdom of God. In the same combination is the hope of the Church. We must never lose the hope of attaining a less sectarian Christianity. Christianity, with all its various denominations, as it exists in England or Englishspeaking countries, does not fulfil the mind of Christ. Let us insist on this. We are not one in spirit. We have not got the true perspective of duties. Variety of opinion-dissent-is a sign, and healthy sign, of earnestness; but bitterness, discord, exaggeration of differences, angry exclusiveness, ought to diminish. Now this result may be aimed at in two ways: one is by arguing about the unimportance of points of difference, and endeavouring to produce amalgamation on points of agreement. This is hopeless. The other and more hopeful way is to forget for a while the points of difference in a great enthusiasm, and thus learn by practice the points of agreement. And experience proves that the enthusiasm for social amelioration, the infection of a grand aim, are strong enough to make Christians of all denominations work together. Any great aggressive philanthropic movement-the abolition of slavery, the promotion of temperance, the protection of women and children, the relief of great temporary local distress-does in fact bring men on the same platform, and give them mutual respect, who will meet in no other way. This is one of the signs of the times. And we surely cannot doubt that for many ages past Christianity has too little aimed at the improvement of social conditions. It soon began to regard the earth as but a lodging place; it forgot that the kingdoms of this world, as well as the kingdom of the next, were to become the kingdom of Christ. It is the old charge of want of patriotism. "They dwell on earth, but they are citizens of heaven,” was said of the Christians of the second century. But in remembering that Christ came to save, we need not forget that He came also to heal and to fill with brotherly love, and that this was the sign of His Messiahship to which He appealed. We are too much haunted by the medieval unchristian opposition between secular and religious. We dare not boldly say, though few will deny, that the first religious duty of a community is to make the conditions of life for every member of it such that he may arrive at the best of which he is capable. That this truth has begun to be whispered is another sign of the times. When this truth takes possession of us it will be a new departure. The A new departure of some sort is imminent. only question is in what direction are we to work for it. I believe it is in the direction of Social Science pursued in a religious spirit. For if Chris tianity moves along this line it will find itself in the first place reinforced by the irresistible democratic movement of the age. The deeply-seated inherited religious feeling of the industrial classes in England, their faith and trust in God, their wonderful kindliness, patience, sympathy, hope, are still, in spite of all discouraging signs, the basis of a national religion and a national church. If Church-Christianity had in it more of these practical elements of faith and love, and less of a routine and a sentiment which seem to the poor to sanction unlimited class isolation and personal selfishness, and which are in fact so terribly frivolous and unchristian, then it would be no more possible to overturn our national church than to upset a pyramid resting on its base. In the second place, the appearance of direct collision between religious faith and materialistic philosophy would be evaded; they would be seen to be moving on different lines. It is true that the materialist and the Christian must always differ toto cœlo in opinion; but a contest about opinion would be seen to be of secondary importance as compared to the Christlike and truth-loving life; and the life of the true Christian, as well as the life of Christ himself, will never fail to command the honour and love of the materialist. He will judge the tree by the fruits. In the third place, Christianity would co-operate with the sociological forces of the age. The age of struggling for liberty is nearly over in England, as in America. Some few rights have yet to be won; but the far more important question is now pressing upon the Anglo-Saxon race, What use shall be made |