the sum total of all things and has no assured hope of immortality.

In spite of this latest result of the effort to produce a conception of deity that shall set aside the Fatherhood of God as revealed by Jesus, it is still true that Christ's portrayal of the divine being and character is indisputably the very best the world has ever seen. That portrayal was eminently his. A few of its elements had been perceived by different sages before his day, but no one had combined them all into one harmonious and perfect character. Much less could any one else have transfused this conception into the spiritual life of mankind so as to make it the organific force that has for eighteen hundred years been developing in church, society, and state the most stable and yet progressive results of true thought and noble action. Christ's portrayal of God involves no error and lacks nothing. Whence did Jesus get his idea of God? Was it the shrewd invention of an impostor? the dream of a fanatic? the fantasy of an insane person? No. This matchless portrayal of the character of God is itself a proof of its truth.

It is one thing to talk about God and prove his existence by argument; to say with the head, there is a God; but it is a far different thing to feel in one's soul the profound conviction and vivid realization of the sublime truth, God is. It is the most exalted experience of which our being is capable, the joy of the Christian's life. He loves the earth, because as he walks along by its river courses and rambles through its solitudes, and climbs its mountain peaks, and lifts up his head above the clouds, and gazes up into the heavens at night resplendent with flashing stars and silent planets, his breath comes and goes as through these glorious works of creation the being of God manifests himself to the soul. He loves the Bible, because as he reads it from Genesis to Revelation, with Jacob as he wrestles with the angel for the knowledge of God's name; with Moses at the burning bush realizing the presence of the great I Am; with Elijah in Horeb, discerning the character of God in the still small voice; with the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration stunned by the voice of God; with Jesus as he manifests in his embodiment of truth the image of the divine being, he sympathizes in heart and mind and is led to realize

more and more that God is, and that man may be filled with the knowledge of his glory. He loves to study the philosophy of the soul, because the more he knows of the faculties of the intellect, of the variety and force of the emotions, of the mystery and power of the will, of the nature and laws of conscience, not only in themselves but also as manifested in the experience and deeds of the individual and the race, the more is he thrilled with the conviction and realization of the existence and glory of him who created man and endowed him with such enduring worth. He loves Christianity, because all of its teachings declare the being and power and goodness of God; its religion binds his soul in intimate union with God; its morality regulating his relations with his fellow men has for its one underlying principle and motive obligation to and love for God; its church is the temple of God filled with his abiding presence; its services of prayer and praise and contemplation of the truth are worship, by means of which his soul is lifted up into the knowledge of God and participation in his enduring joy. He loves Christ, because his name is Immanuel-God with us; his testimony reveals God; he is himself the brightness of God's glory. The natural world, the Bible, human nature, and the Church, reveal God with great power; but no one nor all of these can make God known to the soul with such vividness as does the Lord Jesus. The more one knows of Christ, the more he knows of God. The more he imitates Jesus and drinks of his spirit, the more glorious to the soul is the manifest presence of the one perfect being; the more adequate is the comprehension and the more intense is the realization of that profound truth stated in the monosyllables, God is.

ARTICLE VIII.-AN ARCHIC SOCIALISM.

"Until Kings are Philosophers or Philosophers Kings cities will never cease from ill."-Jewett's Plato.

SOCIALISM is widespread and powerful to-day throughout Europe. In France it is at home. In Germany it has political status. In Italy many adherents. Spain with its society of El mano nera (the black hand), is honeycombed with it. Russia, on the eve of revolution, has its cities and villages permeated with it, and Ireland finds the means of its agitation in the themes of Socialism. It is a product of our modern civilization; a part of the unrest and ferment of the time; though similar movements are not unknown to history-for example the Agrarian difficulties in Rome-yet not one has had so intelligent leaders, nor so thoughtful a philosophy upon which to base its fundamental principles. It is weak just in proportion as government becomes popular and representative in its character; strongest where monarchy is most absolute. Its origin is easily traced to two working causes: Despotism and Idealism; the one the initial cause, the other the motive power which keeps the agitation in progress. It is easily seen that a people under the iron rule of a monarch, or under the no less iron rule of a corporation soulless, grinding the face of the poor, must seek for changed conditions, and better. That is Socialism reduced to its simplest statement. It is born of despotism. It is the cry of the oppressed-the social "de profundis." When we consider how the individual in many parts of Europe is trammeled, not to say under complete subjugation, it is no wonder that in these days of generally diffused intelligence such a widespread movement as this should take place. If there were no such movement, it would be a remarkable phenomenon. Take the youth of to-day, well educated and of the artizan class, having read of free institutions. What does he find himself confronted with in Europe-in many lands? A monarch at whose beck he gives up his best years to military service; for whom he is called upon to lay down even his life;

an aristocracy, a privileged class with vested rights, to whose ranks he may never hope to gain admittance; an ecclesiastical organization for whose support he is taxed, though of another faith a corporation in whose service he is employed which reduced his wages to a small amount and from whose clutches he cannot escape except he starve; and alas! there is no land for him to till as a freeman. And now he is no longer an ignorant peasant; the printing press has emancipated him; his eyes look out on all the world. Now there comes to him with the consciousness of wrong, the hope of redress, of betterment, of liberty. He sees a vision of a new order of things. From the earth, which the people shall hold as their own, shall arise newer and fairer cities with their columns and arches, their heaven-pointing spires. Having no wars there will be no need of walls. Poverty will be done away, and with poverty crime. and its great result. No one can imagine this earthly Paradise, for how can any one tell just how the race will develop under these new social and economic conditions. It is a vision of the future; a golden age. Of this the poets bave sung, the dreamers have dreamed. For this the good and wise in all ages have wrought. But now the successful experiments of popular gov ernment have made it not only possible, but feasible. Based on a careful study of economic laws and individual rights, having the advantage of profiting by many previous mistakes, it cannot fail. The time is ripe. For what indeed can a man strive that is worthier, nay, holier, than this new order of things which will enrich the poor and not impoverish the rich; which will humble the proud and cheer the bumble; which will give to each and every one the opportunity and the privilege of living unfettered by any restrictions except self-imposed—neither of government, society, or commerce-and so to live his life in the full and perfect development of all his faculties. arbitrary power, old customs, vested rights in Church and State, push this movement in the minds of men to the front, while the hope, which has ever something of green in the human heart, beckons it on.

So

In no two countries of Europe has Socialism the same manifestation. It takes its form from its environment. To understand it, however, two great phases must be considered-the

two hemispheres of the world of its existence. These two phases are the Economic and the (to coin a word) Archic or Legislative; the first or Economic the greater. Its professed object is the more equable distribution of the results of labora fair chance for humanity. Economical reform is then its vital principle: the adjustment of social conditions with reference to wealth. Establish, it is said, economic laws; restrict undue class privilege, extortion, usury, monopoly, corporations as you would other evils which infest the State and war against the greatest good of the greatest number; make it impossible for the few to be very rich by taking away the opportunity for large accumulation, and the goal is reached. This implies a philosophy of political economy. Concerning the truth of the socialistic philosophy, the great question of its right to live, the battle wages. This region of thought, the economic, any student realizes, is thick with strife. One looks down upon it as upon a plain where a battle is raging. He sees the contending armies march and countermarch; here a flank movement, now a sudden ambuscade; now the main body is broken; anon the line comes marching on in full front. Conflicting theories of wealth, value, labor, property, taxation, lead one into labyrinths of opposing forces. Socialism does not fear. It can verify its own economic science. It bases its right to live and grow and become, in its great consummation, the new order of life for the world in what it claims are irrefutable economic principles. The archic or legislative phase of the movement, concerns the practical carrying out of its reforms and the status of its condition in the future. Here it is divided into two camps diametrically opposed to each other, the archic and anarchic schools. The two great leaders of these. opposing forces are the German Carl Marx and the Frenchman Proudhon. The German would have a strong government controlling and checking, managing the social sphere as if a machine of complicated working. The Frenchman would have almost no gov ernment: it is a useless appendage, a nest of abuses; under. pretence of protecting rights it robs of privilege. The world will never be happier or better until absolute individual liberty is secured. Mutuality, agreement to do or not to do with one's fellows, is the only way in which anything like a government is recognized.