now working with renewed energy to secure an open field for all.

There is always a fascination about the methods of revolution. The remedy proposed appears to be so complete and so prompt as compared with the slow progress of gradual reform. But the best and most lasting ameliorations in the condition of the human race have not been accomplished by violent dislocations with the past. The French Revolution and the civil war that freed the American slaves are no examples to the contrary. The most effective advances have been made by the help of many various causes, each of them perhaps small in itself, working slowly and often unnoticed by contemporaries. It is hard to point to the exact date when the English peasant became a free man, so quietly was the change accomplished from villanage to liberty. Things move faster now, and the next stage, from the wage-earner to the profit-sharer, is already well advanced, and will be accomplished as effectively, and without the loss again of personal freedom, unless progress should be violently turned into some backward track. Time, the great innovator, is ever producing change by the condition of growth and the continual dropping off of the dying parts. The people of communities sprung from the Saxon stem will prefer to assist this process rather than cut down the tree, marked though it be with some blighted spots, in the vain expectation of there springing up in its place some wholly new growth that is to be free from the natural imperfections of the forest and not subject to decay.

CHAPTER XII.

RELIGION AND THE FAMILY UNDER SOCIALISM.

THE attitude of Socialism to religion and the family engages the attention of any one who desires to know whether it is ever likely to permanently influence human life and government. The amiable and even religious feelings of many who call themselves Socialists, and perhaps think themselves such, does not alter the principles that the new system really rests upon, nor the results that would come from the adoption of those principles. Men are free to choose their own line of action, but not the consequences that naturally follow upon it.

The present phase of Socialism is imported from Germany, and there can be no question that there it distinctly rests upon Atheism. This is not an incident of the new creed, but its foundation. Mr. Brooks, in his 66 'Industry and Property," gives some pointed references, out of many that could be had. Karl Marx is regarded by English as well as German Socialists as the high priest of the system. No one is more frequently referred to by Socialist authors of repute in both countries. He says: "We are content to lay down the foundation of the revolution. We shall have deserved well of it if we stir hatred and contempt against all existing institutions. We make war against all prevailing ideas of religion. The idea of God is the keystone of a perverted civilisation. It must be destroyed. The true root of liberty, of equality, of

culture, is Atheism." Feverbach thus explains the new idea: "Man alone is our god, our father, our judge, our redeemer, our true home, our law and rule. .

Man by himself is but man, man with man, the unity of I and Thou, is God." The following was the first resolution adopted at the Socialistic Alliance of Geneva:

"1. The Alliance declares itself Atheist; it demands the abolition of all worship, the substitution of science for faith, and of human justice for Divine justice; the abolition of marriage, so far as it is a political, religious, juridical, or civil institution." Bakunin shortly puts it: "We declare ourselves Atheistic; we seek the abolition of all religion, and the abolition of marriage."

These may be taken as samples of German thought upon this subject. Some English writers express themselves with equal directness, at least against all the existing forms of belief; others express the same thing inferentially, or quietly assume the negation as true. A few seek to join Socialism to Christianity. Mr. Belfort Bax, who is always outspoken, and whose works are recommended in the Fabian Tract entitled, "What to Read," puts it in his "Ethics of Socialism" thus: "It is useless blinking the fact that the Christian doctrine. is more revolting to the higher moral sense of to-day than the Saturnalia or the cult of Proserpine could have been to the conscience of the early Christians. 'Ye cannot serve God and humanity' is the burthen of the nobler instincts of our epoch. . . . The higher human ideal stands in opposition at once to Capitalism, the gospel of success, with its refined art of cheating, through the process of exchange, or in short to worldli ness; and to Christianism, the gospel of success in a hypothetical other life, or in short, to other worldliness." He goes on to urge that if we want an object of personal reverence, we should look not to Christ, but to some of the modern martyrs of Socialism. The Fabian Essays may be considered the text-book of the school in England. In the paper entitled, "Economic," the basis

of belief is analysed thus: "It was pleasant to believe that a benevolent hand was guiding the steps of society; overruling all evil appearances for good; and making poverty here the earnest of a great blessedness and reward hereafter. It was pleasant to lose the sense of worldly inequality in the contemplation of our equality before God. But utilitarian questioning and scientific answering turned all this tranquil optimism into the blackest pessimism. Nature was shown to us as 'red in tooth and claw.' If the guiding hand were indeed benevolent, then it could not be omnipotent, so that our trust in it was broken; if it were omnipotent, it could not be benevolent, so that our love of it turned to fear and hatred. We had never admitted that the other world, which was to compensate for the sorrows of this, was open to horses and apes (though we had not on that account been any the more merciful to our horses); and now came Science to show us the corner of the pointed ear of the horse upon our own heads, and present the ape to us as our blood relation. No proof came of the existence of that other world and that benevolent power to which we had left the atrocious wrongs of the poor. Nature knew and cared no more about our pains and pleasures than we know or care about the tiny creatures we crush under foot as we walk through the fields." Here is the old problem of the Atheist school, and not better told than before. Mr. H. M. Hyndman describes Christianity as seen in in England as "merely the chloroform agency of the confiscating classes." Gronlund, in his "Co-operative Commonwealth," which is also recommended to students by the Fabian Society, says: "If, however, by religion you mean dogmatic theology, Socialists do propose to drive it out. Socialism is the inveterate foe of theology—a fact of which our ecclesiastics are well aware, wherefore they are consistent in damning Socialism. . . . Theology is being driven out of human life by that 'Titanic laughterthat terrible, side-shaking, throne and altar shaking

laughter' which Rabelais started." He would, however, allow an undefined religion of his own, which might or might not include the belief in a life beyond the grave, the longing for which "has been fostered by creeds whose whole strength consists in offering a consolation to people who feel miserable here. It is possible that when men live to a good old age, and enjoy during life all the delights which nature permits, this longing will disappear." This touches the keynote of Socialism.

What one learns from personal converse with Socialists quite accords with the ideas thus expressed. In England they do not make a profession of Atheism, and many, I doubt not, have religious feelings of their own; but the majority break absolutely with the existing Christian religion. Such was the statement to me of a clever and sincere Labour Socialist leader. Another leader put the same thing, only not so directly. His position, in effect, was that he knew this world, but not another, and that one world was enough to deal with at a time. The American workman, to whom I have in a previous chapter referred, told me that what drove him out from the Socialist ranks was the blank Atheism and free-love principles that he found were being developed there.

Where they can, they establish Labour Churches and Sunday Schools of their own. But the idea of their Church is defective; its message being avowedly addressed to one part of the people only. There are a few of them in England. These are not in one sense irreligious, for they propound a religion of their own, a religion, if it may be so called, centred in this life, and adapted as a counterpart to the secular principles of Socialism for remoulding it. In the Sunday School they teach the children everything about reforming society, but nothing about reforming themselves. The Labour Prophet is their organ. It explains their creed thus: "The message of the older Churches is that God was in Christ Jesus, reconciling the world to Himself.' The message of the Labour Church is