ments of their surroundings. The modern tall building is no exception; it will fill its place in the passing conditions of life, commerce, and industry, and make way in its turn to something developed by the constantly changing environment."

A NEW SHORTHAND TYPEWRITER.

SEVERAL

EVERAL attempts have been made to devise a practical shorthand typewriter, but apparently no one of them has been successful enough to come into general use. One was described in these columns a year or two ago, and we now present an account of another, contributed to La Nature (Paris, March 25) by M. J. Leroy. The new typewriter has some rovel features and is said to work well. It is particularly adapted to the Latin languages, but a simple rearrangement would make it equally suitable for English. The disadvantage of all special shorthand machines is that transcription with an ordinary typewriter is necessary. A rapid and skilful operator can take dictation directly on the ordinary machine, and this would appear to be an ideal method; but it is probably unattainable as a general thing, and the shorthand typewriter may be a useful substitute. M. Leroy's description runs as follows:

'The machine described herewith has the very appreciable advantage of writing in ordinary letters, which any one may read at first sight. It appears easy to learn, and the operator should be able to take dictation without very long experience. The difficul

ties of manuscript stenography come chiefly from the complication of signs, which, taken from the Oriental languages, differ from the Latin types and are deformed in rapid writing, which makes reading almost always impossible for any one else than the stenographer himself. On the other hand, the typewriter owes its marvelous development to the perfect legibility of its writing.

"These considerations have led M. Charles Bivort, the inventor of the machine in question, to base his system on the application of printed characters and his method on syllabic writing. By decomposing several thousand words, by dividing sounds, he has succeeded in establishing a rational alphabet. This not only facilitates the rapid composition of most of the words in the French language, but also those of all tongues of Latin origin and, with rare exceptions, of most foreign languages. The order adopted is

as follows:

SJBPFVCKBMDTNLRHIAUEO.

“The author has suppressed letters having the same sound; for instance, C when pronounced like S or K, X pronounced as CS, or Z as S. . . . On the other hand, he has added another letter I to represent the sounds IO and OI, and duplicated letters L, N, R, and S, as being the most used finals.

"On these principles M. Bivort has built his machine, limiting the number of keys to 20, ten for each hand. He thus reduces the number of letters by combining those of similar sound, B and P, F and V, Q, K and G, D and T.

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The alphabet is accordingly made up as follows:

SJBVMDNLRHIAOEUIRNLS

"M. Bivort's machine is conceived and executed on an entirely new plan; it does not at all resemble any of the typewriters, ordinary or stenographic, that have hitherto appeared, either in mechanism, or in exterior appearance, or in results.

"The keys are placed in two rows corresponding to the five fin

"The speed of the machine is limited only by the skill of the operator, and rapidity does not injure the clearness of the writing, which remains very readable, even beyond 200 words a minute.

"Learning is made easy by the letters inscribed on the keys. According to the inventor, after several days of practise a pupil writes on the average 50 words a minute; in less than two months he reaches the normal speed of 125 to 150 words a minute. . .

"As accessory advantages it has been noted that blind persons can thus correspond with those who see and even serve them as stenographers.

"In the application of this mechanical stenography to the telephone, we may preserve the trace of verbal communications; in commercial houses or banks we may, according to current usage, dictate a report or a letter directly to the typewriter, who will take it in shorthand from the dictation, but with peculiar facility and clearness. In general, it would seem that the new machine should greatly simplify the study of stenography.

"But we must not forget that, as in all stenography, a second operation is necessary to put the dictation into long hand, and consequently two machines must be bought-a stenographic and an ordinary.”—Translation made for THE Literary Digest.

THE PASSING OF THE FRAME HOUSE.

In

THAT fireproof construction is now nearly as inexpensive as frame construction, and in some cases even cheaper, owing to the rise in price of lumber, is asserted by the writer of an article on fireproof country homes in The Architectural Record. Bids recently received for a modest residence in Pittsburg showed $4,500 for frame construction and $4,200 for fireproof construction. Washington the cost of a certain dwelling was stated at $5,800 for frame construction and only $5,100 for fireproof construction. These are city figures. For dwellings in the country frame-construction ranges from 5 to 8 per cent. cheaper. These prices, while they apply only to the East, seem significant of a tendency all over the country that will make fireproof construction less costly in the near future than frame or frame and brick construction. An editorial writer in The Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn., June 18) comments on these facts as follows:

'For all over the country the margin between fireproof materials and lumber is narrowing with some rapidity, and, as has been shown, has already disappeared or is on the point of disappearing, in certain sections. At points distant from any source of lumber supply and nearer the centers of steel manufacture lumber is naturally higher, and fireproofing, or at least mill construction, naturally lower than in Minnesota. Yet, even here, careful estimates on the proposed J. J. Hill school showed a margin of only about 11 per cent. between reenforced concrete construction and ordinary brickand-frame construction. In ordinary residences a difference running from 12 to 18 per cent., averaging probably about 15 per cent., remains between the cost of a brick-and-frame building and a reenforced concrete building.

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R

L

'But the price of lumber, while now fairly stable, is almost certain to advance again as it has advanced in the last ten years. Fifteen years is set down as the limit of the Minnesota timber supply at the present rate of lumbering, and even before that time we shall have to secure part of our supply of even ordinary grades from much more distant points. But as lumber has advanced the general tendency of steel has been downward, Portland cement has been becoming cheaper and cheaper, and brick, tile, and other artificial fireproof building material has likewise steadily declined with the improvement in processes and the introduction of other economies possible with an enlarged production.

'It is, therefore, safe to say that before long the extensive use of wood in buildings except for floors, doors, and interior finishings will become a thing of the past. The desirability of such a change is apparent."

A

THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

REFORM IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. LTHO from a Protestant point of view the Roman Catholic Church remains essentially an unreformed church, writes the Rev. C. A. Briggs, Professor of Biblical Theology in Union Theological Seminary, nevertheless "the history of that church since the sixteenth century has been a history of reforms, and in no period have such great reforms been made as in the past half century." Leo XIII. was certainly a reforming Pope, urges Professor Briggs, and Pius X. promises to be a still greater reformer. Emphasizing the changes which have taken place in Protestantism since the Reformation, Professor Briggs claims that "the common doctrine of the present Protestant theologians would not be recognized by any of the Reformers," and that "even if all the reforms demanded by the original Protestant Reformers had been accomplished, the Protestants of the present day would still regard the Roman Catholic Church as unreformed." The dogmatic differences with Rome, he continues, “either no longer really exist or are in different forms, and concerned with different questions." From his article in The North American Review (July) we quote passages expanding the main points of his contention. Of the reform movement in general in the Roman Catholic Church, and of its latest manifestations, he says:

"Reforms in the Roman Catholic Church have usually begun in France or Germany, and have been resisted in Italy, and especially in Rome. Many reforming Popes have failed in their noble purposes owing to the stubborn opposition of the Roman Curia, whose interests were all in the perpetuation of their authority and privileges. The significance of the present movement is not only in the fact that the Pope himself is a reformer; but still more in that reform has begun in Italy, and most of all in Rome, and is promoted by members of the Curia itself."

Professor Briggs describes the reforming pamphlets which have been recently published in Rome (see THE LITERARY DIGest, July 8) and states that while the Pope is not responsible for all of them, he is nevertheless undoubtedly at the head of the reform movement. Of the principle underlying the Pope's attitude toward reform we read:

It is a

"It is of great importance to understand the fundamental principle of reform in the words of the Pope himself, namely, ‘Restaurare ogni cosa in Cristo,' to make Jesus Christ himself the center and mainspring of all reform. This is exactly what the most enlightened Protestants desire for their own churches; what more can they ask for the Church of Rome? The Christological movement has been, and still is, one of the strongest impulses of the past fifty years. It is of immense significance that the Roman Catholic Church, under the headship of the Pope, deliberately enters into, and takes part in, this world-wide movement. common objection of Protestants to the Roman Catholic Church that it pushes Jesus Christ into the background, and that the popular religion is the worship of the virgin and the saints. This objection is not altogether valid; for the sacrifice of the Mass is the great central fact in the worship of the church, where Jesus Christ himself, in real, substantial bodily presence, reigns supreme, and is worshiped as God and Savior. But it has been true in the Roman Catholic Church, as in the Protestant churches, until recent years, and among Protestant theologians at the present time, that Jesus Christ has not held the central and dominant place in Christian doctrine and Christian life that is his due. The more advanced Protestant scholars have been working for half a century and more to lead Christians back to Jesus Christ, and have only partially succeeded. If now the Pope, as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, owing to the reverence and obedience given him by that whole church as the successor of St. Peter and the living representative of our Lord, can succeed in raising up Catholics throughout the world to this exalted position of reforming everything in Christ, there will be ere long the greatest revival and reformation known to history, and the Protestant churches will have to bestir themselves to keep pace with it."

Professor Briggs goes on to tell of the Pope's efforts to promote

spirituality in the church. "He has himself set the example of preaching practical sermons, and thereby lifted the sermon to a new importance in Rome." And it was his firm purpose of remov ing incompetent and worldly bishops, says Professor Briggs, that brought the Pope into conflict with the French Government.

It is noteworthy, continues the writer, that in this reform movement little if anything is said of Christian dogma. While many think that dogma is the principal thing," that differences in dogma are the most important, and that reform in dogma should come first," a more thorough study of the sixteenth century, argues Professor Briggs, makes it evident that the division of the Western Church at the Reformation was not due so much to dogma as is commonly supposed." He continues:

'So far as dogma is concerned, the original Reformers repudiated the corrupt and hair-splitting scholasticism of the fifteenth century, and fell back upon the Bible interpreted by Augustine and Jerome. All the original Reformers were high Augustinians, and they charged the Roman Catholic theologians with SemiPelagianism. They also fell back on Anselm's doctrine of the Atonement. It is a common error that they made the Scripturesalone their rule of faith. A more thorough study of the Bible has shown that the Reformers were, all of them, greatly mistaken in their interpretations. Protestant theology has, for the most part, abandoned the high Augustinianism of the Reformers. There are few high Augustinians in Europe; and in America they are not tobe found, except in a few theological seminaries, and among their pupils. The common doctrine of the present Protestant theologians would not be recognized by any of the Reformers. The dogmatic differences with Rome either no longer really exist or are in different forms, and concerned with different questions. . .

"The Roman Catholic Church made a very important reform in dogma when Leo XIII. directed that Thomas Aquinas should be used as the standard authority in all Roman Catholic colleges and seminaries, for thereby theology was divested of the accretions of the so-called newer scholasticism since the Reformation, and of the corrupt scholasticism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and Roman Catholic dogma was built upon the purest and best: scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas and his contemporary BonavenThis was a reform in dogma of incalculable importance. It is doubtful, to say the least, if there would have been such an antithesis between Protestant and Roman Catholic dogma if ThomasAquinas had been the universal standard of doctrine in the sixteenth century."

tura.

EFFECT OF FOREIGN MISSIONS UPON CHRISTIANITY.

ON

NE of the most striking results of foreign missions, writesMr. J. C. V. Durell in The East and the West (London, July), has been the effect which they have had upon our comprehension of the Christian faith. Since it is a law of human thought, he holds, that man can only discover truths which arise out of his. own experience, "it follows that each nation, with its own peculiar psychological experience, must have some contribution to make toward a fuller understanding of the religion of the incarnation." Thus the special qualities of each national type of thought and life are needed to elucidate Christ's "perfectly representative human nature," he argues. As the Christian faith sutigated the Greek and the Latin mind, says Mr. Durell, glancing back to the beginnings of foreign missions, its development took on something of color and direction from each. "Thus, while the Greeks had been occupied in working out the meaning of the Incarnation, the Latins were able to show more satisfactorily how the fruits of the incarnation satisfy the needs of man." Again, the spread of Christianity to the virile nations of Northern Europe was bound to react upon the faith. But "not till we reach the period of the Reformation do we arrive at the permanent contribution which Teutonic Christianity was destined to make to the Christian faith.” Of this contribution he says further:

"The Reformation was a revolt against the irrational. It asserts. that no truth, however transcendental, can be repugnant to the:

God-given reason. It introduces a robust common sense, which will not admit of a presentation of Christianity that is either unmanly or unreal. The Christianity of the North appeals to man as man in the fulness of his complete human nature and in his social relations. It finds its ideal, not in monasticism, but in social life. And herein its contribution to the practical aspects of the faith is not yet complete. Teutonic Christianity still has its prophets, whose work it is to interpret the message in the light of the ever-increasing complexity of social conditions; to show us that, as the incarnation has sanctified the whole of human life, so every condition of human activity may find in the religion of the incarnation the satisfaction of its needs."

As Christianity spread to the Celts, they too made their unconscious contribution to Christianity, continues Mr. Durell:

"Celts and Teutons are planted side by side, and each is the necessary corrective of the other. The special function of the Celts has been to exhibit the lovableness of the Christian life, to bring the gift of enthusiasm to correct the coldness of pure reason; to remind us that the religion of the Son of Man claims the heart as well as the head, and that a warm-hearted temperament is a necessary element in Catholic Christianity."

Thus, through the work of missions, successive types of humanity have been brought into the body of Christ, and each of these types, says Mr. Durell, has had its contribution to make, "sometimes in a further interpretation of fundamental dogma, sometimes in a new application of the faith to the changing conditions of life." He concludes:

And as it has been in the past, so without doubt it must be in the future. The church still has missionary triumphs in store for it. Many new national churches are to take organic and characteristic form. Humanity has many types, which as yet are hardly represented in the body of Christ. What is to be the fruit of the religion of the incarnation when grafted on to these new nations? It is hardly possible even to guess. But this at least is certain, that a new expansion of the Christian consciousness must follow. Take, for instance, the nations of the East. They, like ourselves, are made' in the image of God,' with power to know God. Yet so different are their modes of thought from our own that a European, it is said, never really understands an Oriental mind. Now, will not the characteristic thought of these nations, when brought under the sway of Christianity, react upon the Christian faith? All analogy proclaims that it must be so. Take, for instance, the races of India; take the people of China or of Japan. No one who grasps the principle of the incarnation can doubt that such striking types of human nature must be destined to play an important part in the enrichment of the faith.

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6

But in what direction? Perhaps not even a professed Oriental student will do more than vaguely conjecture. But at least one idea suggests itself. A prominent Eastern characteristic is a disregard of time. The Oriental can wait. He is careless of the lapse of years. So his home is the unchanging East.' How different is this from the turmoil of the West, with its incessant rush, allowing no opportunity for rest and little for thought! Now may not this feature of the Eastern mind enable it to throw light upon that idea of timelessness which underlies the Christian doctrine of eternity, an idea so difficult for a Western mind to grasp? 'One day as a thousand years!' May it not be that in this direction the Oriental will help us better to understand the Christian faith? Detail, however, must be conjecture. But at least let us be certain that in some direction a rich development of the Christian consciousness will be the outcome of further missionary work."

Christ's Patriotism.-Christ's quotations from pre-Christian scriptures, maintains a writer in the London Spectator, reveal a special liking for the book of Deuteronomy, whose author was "before all things a patriot." While Deuteronomy deals with the law, it is "the law in the mouth of a poet." The author's mind was inflamed with the greatness of the Jews." He dreamed that the future would acknowledge their paramountcy, "for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." Is it fanci

ful, asks the English writer, to trace the effect of this early inculcation of spiritual patriotism upon the character of Christ? And he answers:

"Surely not, for tho Christ taught a universal religion, he never forgot the Judaic soil from which his doctrine sprang. In his most catholic statement of his faith, when he declared, in contradiction of the express commands of the author of Deuteronomy, who aimed at setting up a central altar, that every man worshiped rightly who worshiped in spirit and in truth, and that where he might worship was matter of no moment whatever, he paid a tribute to his own race which must still fill the reader with astonishment, saying,' Salvation is of the Jews.""

AN IRISH ATTACK UPON DISESTABLISHMENT IN FRANCE.

AMBROSE COLEMAN, O.P., a writer in The Dublin Re

view for July, sees in the bill recently passed by the Chamber of Deputies for the separation of Church and State in France, "the greatest victory ever achieved by Latin Freemasonry against the Church since the time of the French Revolution." Moreover, he regards it as a proof that "the steady, unrelenting policy of the anti-clerical party, not only in France, but in Italy, Spain, and the other Latin countries, is the destruction of Christianity as a moral force in the world."

The same determination to blot Christianity out of France shown by the leaders of the French Revolution, in their orgy of blood and murder, continues this Irish writer, appears now in the less violent but no less effective legislation of the Third Republic. With those Roman Catholics who argue that disestablishment will be a great benefit to the French Church he has no sympathy. To him the suggestion of benefit appears as a hollow mockery. He sees only "an infidel government throttling the Church," in order that "she may not prove any serious hindrance to the utter deChristianization of the country." To return to his argument more in detail:

"It is not clericalism which is the enemy, but Christianity itself. That is the true meaning and motive of the persecution of the religious orders in France, and the separation of Church and State. The real issue, undisguised at times by the more outspoken and violent of the party, is between Atheism and Christianity, between a Christian and atheistic, or, as M. Combes terms it, a neutral government. It is a return to the atheistic principles and violently persecuting character of the first revolution. When M. Combes declares, as the keynote of his policy, 'the absolute independence of the state of all dogma and its recognized supremacy over every religious communion' to be the 'doctrine of the French Revolution, of which the French Republic glories in being the heir,' the most skeptical should be convinced that the uprooting of the religious idea has been the sole motive of the present legislation in France. It is startling, indeed, to find that the ex-Premier of France has drawn his inspiration on the religious question from that lurid assembly which abolished Catholicism, closed the churches, forbade all outward signs of religion, decreed death to the priests, and saw that decree carried out in the fiendish September massacres."

What has happened before, he adds, may happen again. Turning to another point:

Many English Catholics, with their experience of almost entire liberty under a Protestant government, have been of opinion that the Church in France will gain rather than lose by her separation from the State. . . . The clergy, no longer crouching under the insolent orders of a Masonic and infidel minister of worship no longer hated by the people as government employees, no longer shackled by State interference, will be able to look after their flocks free from outside interference. But those who reason thus do not understand the real meaning of the Bill of Separation. There is no intention of allowing the free Church to exist in the free State. The bill belies its name, for it does not propose a real separation. It is simply a repudiation by the French Government of its pecuniary obligations to the Church, an unwarrantable confisca. tion of Church property, and the dragging down of the Church from

the honorable position of an ally in the furtherance of the welfare of the nation to that of a dangerous society to be kept under the constant surveillance of the police. There will be no more separation than that existing between the police authorities and an exconvict, or ticket-of-leave man, liable to reimprisonment if he does not report himself from time to time. The purpose of the bill is to degrade, impoverish, and manacle the Church more securely than before. The ultimate intention, of course, in the mind of the atheistical government is to reduce the Church to such a state of slavery that she may not prove any serious hindrance to the utter de-Christianization of the country."

It does not require much reflection, says Ambrose Coleman, to see that under the new conditions "the Church will be bound hand and foot, and that there will be less religious liberty allowed in France than in Russia, Turkey, or any other country." To quote further:

Religious France, once the 'eldest daughter of the Church,' is now to be the Cinderella, deprived even of those vestiges of liberty that even persecuted Catholics of other nations enjoy. The aim of the Bill of Separation is, after the robbing of the property of the church, to keep her impoverished for all future time and exclude her from every legitimate sphere of influence. No longer will she be allowed to practise works of beneficence, no longer may she educate the young or tend the sick, or relieve the wants of the poor or open asylums for the afflicted. The societies being allowed to exist for the sole purpose of religious worship, the careful scrutiny of their accounts by the civil authorities will detect any outlay for what these will decide are objects not legitimately belonging to the purpose for which they exist. Every utterance of a priest against the vices of the age, every warning to his flock to avoid the company of the wicked may be construed by the police-officer present as an incitement of one body of citizens against another, and be made a pretext for closing the Church and dissolving the local society."

As the years roll on, predicts the writer, the present laws will be followed by others still more oppressive. "Who knows," he exclaims, "if legislation may not be attempted against infant baptism?"

BLURRED OUTLINES IN RELIGION.

N Dr. Felix Adler's recent book, "The Religion of Duty," we find certain affirmations of belief which, coming from so prominent a leader of the Ethical-Culture movement, may be regarded as having significance other than usually pertains to a merely personal creed. Dr. Adler demands "definiteness in religious thinking,” and urges that “it is time we put away from us this mush of religious sentiment, and cease to be content with vague blurred outlines of thought on the greatest of all subjects, while we demand distinctness in every other." He then proceeds to define his own beliefs. After eliminating from the body of ideas accumulated by the religious experience of the race, such ones as he can no longer retain, there are left, he affirms, these three: “the idea of righteousness, the idea that justice will gain the ascendent, and that there is a sublime purpose in things-three aspects of one idea." These he would not give up; and he adds: "I do not see how any courageous attitude toward life is possible unless one, either avowedly or surreptitiously, retains them." As to the sanctions upon which these moral ideas rest he says:

"I believe that there is a higher Being, an ultimate, divine Reality in things. This Being is not a man, is not He, or She, or It, did not make the world as a carpenter makes a table, or as an architect builds a house. In the attempt to describe this Being, language faints, imagination grows dizzy, thought is paralyzed. On moral grounds, and in the last analysis on moral grounds only, I assume the existence of such a Being. All that I can say, by way of description, is that there really exists that which corresponds to the moral ideal, that there is a Power back of the effort toward righteousness, which gives effect to it, beyond our finite power. . .

Certain other ideas I am

ideas of which it has been the vehicle. anxious to recast, to take out of the form in which they have been contained because I realize that I must continue to,use them, that, with respect to them, there is community between myself and the Theist. The ideas that are true to me, are, in the first place, that there is a Supreme Righteousness, tho I have ceased to think of that Supreme Righteousness as a King or Special Providence. Then the idea, so invaluable to the wronged and the oppressed, that justice is somehow going to work itself out in the world. I do not see how we can do without that idea. I do not see how Dreyfus could have done without it. It was the one grand, sublime thought that supported him during those five horrible years on Devil's Island. If you read his letters you will find constant reference to the cry of his soul,' the cry for justice, the belief that justice would somehow come uppermost. And, then, there is the idea, so invaluable to the afflicted, or those in trouble, that there is a purpose working itself out in the world, and that the tears that are shed and the blood that flows and all the sufferings, and black misery is but the price paid for the accomplishment of a measureless good. We human beings can bear any amount of pain if we are able to see purpose in it, if we can convince ourselves that it is not sheer cruelty; but that it will serve a supreme end, even tho we know not how."

·

The question asked of creeds as to the degree of certainty that they are able to enforce, finds, according to the leader of the Ethical Society, a sufficient answer when put to the creed that he here elucidates. He says:

"Agnosticism contends that the only certainty is scientific certainty, based on truth verifiable in experience. My contention is that there is another kind of certainty, namely, moral certainty, based, not on truth verifiable in experience, but on truth necessarily inferred from moral experience. Agnosticism neither affirms nor denies the existence of an ultimate higher Power. I hold myself warranted in affirming that there is such a Power, tho I confess to know as little as the agnostic what the nature of that Power, considered in itself, may be. The assertion that there is such a Power is plainly a step beyond Agnosticism. I take this step on the ground that all that is best in me urges me to work for a state of moral perfection in the world, and on the ground that the attainment of this goal is not dependent on human effort alone, but may be hindered or helped by Nature. If, then, I believe in the ultimate attainment of the moral end, I am forced to assume that there is provision in Nature looking to the achievement of that end."

The theistic conception of a Being, omnipotent, omniscient, and good, says Dr. Adler, was too abstract for any but philosophers to deal with until it was "superimposed upon the concrete image of a m2; or rather, an individual was glorified, idealized, and sublimated, by being endowed with attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and goodness." In the same way "human society made spiritually perfect," which is the substitute he offers for the theistic conception, is the abstract idea of a multiple God which "will achieve power, strength, and convincingness, by being associated with and superimposed upon human society." In elucidating this ideal he writes:

"Humanity, as we know it, is ever imperfect. We need some larger outlook, to have set before us an ideal of perfection, toward which our labors may be directed. What shall be this ideal of perfection? Seeing that a metaphor, a symbol is necessary, what religious symbol may be employed? I have said that we can not conceive of the moral ideal as incorporated in a Father; nay that we can not conceive of that ideal as embodied in any individual whatsoever. The moral ideal escapes the bounds of individuality. The clements which it includes are too manifold to be represented by a single individual, no matter how sublimely idealized. The moral ideal is a social ideal. It includes types of excellence which we can not think of as existing together in the same person; the excellence of man and of woman, of the aged and of the young, the special types of moral excellence which are peculiar to the dif ferent vocations. It can be represented only by a vast and differentiated society. It is the ideal, not of one Infinite Being, but of an infinitude of beings, of a world of spirits, comprising all rational existence that ever has been, is, or will be on earth or in the distant suns and stars. It is the idea of a spiritual whole, each mem

ber of which expresses uniquely some aspect of the life of the whole, is sustained by the whole, and sustains it, and is indispensable to it. The moral ideal is that of a multiple God; of a commonwealth of spirits, not of one spirit who, as sovereign, stands apart and aloof, and to whom the rest are subject. Just as sovereignty in the State is no longer incarnated in a single individual, but is disseminated through and permeates the whole people; so the sovereignty of the universe can not be lodged in an individual Spirit, but must be disseminated through the entire world of spirit. The Theistic conception is monarchical, the conception here indicated is democratic; viewing the sovereignty of the world as embodied not in one Infinite Being, but in an infinitude of beings, in the process of organizing into an ever-increasing unity."

Μ'

MILTON AS A RELIGIOUS RADICAL. ILTON was a bold advocate of progress, of freedom of thought and expression in religion. In view of the present twentieth-century Biblical criticism his genius foresaw the results of ages of intellectual experience. Such is the contention of a writer in The Spectator (London) who adds:

"No twentieth-century advocate of the Higher Criticism was ever more genuinely convinced, or ever declared more clearly, than Milton that the best friends of religion are mental energy and courage, the worst enemies mental sloth and timidity."

The writer shows that Milton described several types of men who worked in his day for the secularization of the nation-each of whom has his representatives in the present day. First there is the representative of spiritual sloth. To quote :

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The spiritual sluggard in Milton's mind at the moment is an energetic man of business who, according to the custom of his time, has picked out some learned divine to whose views he may pin his faith. He takes him into his home, and 'resigns the whole warehouse of his religion, with all the locks and keys, into his custody.' The custodian reads prayers night and morning, and follows his private avocations between times, leaving 'his kind entertainer in the shop trading all day without his religion.'

Allowing for changes of custom-for the apparel, as it were, of the model-the portrait would stand for a large class of hardworking and ceremonially observant men in the present day."

Milton adds to this type that of the men who submit their mind altogether to religious teachers-which latter humor them by settling, ordering, and regulating all things for them. The writer in The Spectator enlarges on Milton's list by adding another type. Nowadays, he says:

"We have not only those who accept religion without thought upon authority, but those who accept irreligion upon the same terms. On the authority of a particular phase of current literature, they make up their minds that nothing ever has been, and nothing ever will be, known about God or the human soul. They assure their intimate friends that 'either the thing is true, or it's not.' Just what they mean by the 'thing' they would not find it easy to say offhand. Perhaps if they were pressed they might reply that they meant religion, or more probably the Christian religion. To apply such an absurd sentence to any other branch of study would seem to them to be childish in the last degree. If asked whether they believed history, or philosophy, or psychology to be true, or whether they did not, they would put the questioner down as too ignorant to be worth arguing with. Yet the phrase is good enough to maintain their spiritual sloth, and close their minds to all the voices, both within and without, which might tell them something about a matter upon which they are determined not to think."

He considers that Milton's times were very much like our own, with a difference, but that the author of the " Areopagitica" sets an example to men of the present age, altho it is darker, and less hopeful than his own. To quote:

"Milton recounted a state of things very much like our own. He stood amid like circumstances, but not in the same atmosphere. There was a hopefulness in the air in his day which is not with us

THE

HE Rev. Dr. Robert Stuart MacArthur's recent impassioned defense of Mr. John D. Rockefeller (see THE LITERARY DIGEST, June 17) served to emphasize the idea of the Church as a brotherhood-a conception which has been somewhat in eclipse of late years, declares The Evening Post. Every new sect, says The Post, has made much of the idea of brotherhood. It continues:

"The Methodists-to mention but one example-actually used the term 'Brother' or 'Sister' as the common term of address for a fellow member; and they seriously set out to treat each other as 'dearly beloved brothers in Christ.' They promised, as members of one family, to settle their disputes out of court and thus avoid lawsuits, and to restrict their business and social intercourse, as far as might be practicable, to those who were of the 'same household of faith.' Inevitably these Christians who have taken to heart their mutual relationships have looked keenly to the morals of each individual of the flock."

Thus, fifty or seventy-five years ago, continues the writer, church trials were far more frequent than to-day in our rural districts, and minor offenses were pretty generally punished by censure or suspension, and grave transgressions by expulsion. “In 1905 a Methodist minister can achieve notoriety by threatening discipline for dancing and card-playing; in 1850, on the contrary, he could achieve it by neglecting to enforce his strict rules." This The Evening Post regards as evidence of a declining sense, within the church, of brotherhood and mutual responsibility. That sharp line which used to divide the children of light from the children of darkness is rapidly becoming obliterated." If the revival of religion for which the devout are praying so earnestly shall ever come, continues the writer, "it will surely be accompanied by a revival of the ancient and obsolescent doctrine of Christian brotherhood."

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Benefits of Schism.-Mark Twain, in his "Yankee at the Court of King Arthur," argues against the popular ideal of a united church, advocating, instead, a "go-as-you-please" policy in religion. Absence of unanimity among the churches, he urges, is a safeguard against the alliance of Church and State, and the consequent mutual interference between politics and religion. Mr. James Lang, in a letter to The Presbyterian (Toronto) offers yet another argument against church union. He says:

"Has not the divine Creator set the seal of approval upon 'diversity of operations' by establishing uniformity in law with infinite variety in matter and mind acted upon by law? By all means let the Evangelical Church leaders strive to soften the asperities of controversial discussion and emphasize the points of doctrine upon which there is already practical unanimity.

The 'Disruption' of 1843 dissipated the dull apathy which wealth and power and numerical strength had brought upon the Scottish Church.

"And at the present day the Roman Catholic Church exhibits by far the most forceful and effective activities where immediate contact with the Protestant churches stimulates her energies while repressing her assaults upon individual freedom."