body; that without co-existence there is no life, only semblance of life; that this gift of imagination is the right seeing of a thing; no accidental gift of one man, no favouritism of Nature, but the result as all great powers are a result the result of living in harmony with Nature; the result of obedience to that moral law which is the life-pulse that beats at the head of all great human endeavour whatso ever. It has been said that "whatsoever the artist touches he beautifies;" it had been truer to say that he sees the beauty that is contained in everything. And it is this that marks the difference between a great painter and a base one. The former desires to be true, the latter to be beautiful. The one desire arising out of vanity-vanity in supposing he shall add to God's handiwork. The other out of reverencereverence in the knowledge of his own insufficiency; and as the further the one searches out truth the deeper will be his meaning, so as the other strives to beautify, the less will his work be true, and his power to understand the truth abated; for inasmuch as the beautiful can only consist in the true, so will his knowledge of what constitutes the true ideal of beauty be less and less as he seeks to beautify. To be beautiful; yes, perhaps that is the end of all desirable endeavour whatsoever. But what is beauty? What has this Academy to tell us of beautiful humanity? What ideals of beauty have they created for us? Let us have done with these ideals of beauty. For the real is the true ideal, and we have no patience with that art, which not representing humanity as we know it,does not represent anything that is nobler. If such painters are dissatisfied with humanity as they find it, they must show us that they have something better in its place. We think it more likely to be of interest to portray the sorrows, the sufferings, and the joys of our lot, rather than-like these painters to remove all traces of animation, intelligence, joy, or sorrow-to create an ideal of beauty not of this world, and certainly of no higher one-to attract and give pleasure alone through the medium of the senses. There is, we think, a far higher ideal in some men's minds than this; the faces that attract through intelligence to beauty, which grow upon us as we know them, not those that with time we shall weary of, the repose and peace which is the result of struggles and sorrows borns and overcome; the beauty that is born of goodness, passing into the forms and irradiating them, the face that is illumined by the soul that is within it-we count this a far higher beauty than any that can be produced by the abstracting of all these qualities. Then why is it, as we said before, that there is this absence of all poetical work, of all high endeavour, in the Royal Academy? Are these powers gone from us? Has Nature been unfaithful? Alas! no. "Nature never did betray The heart that loved her." con To the loving hearts and reverend who seek her for herself, who value her not as a means for gain, but because in her is contained all joy and happiness, she is ever present; but with those who would hawk her in the market place, who would seek her for gain, who set a price upon her virtue, she holds no verse. They have sold their birthright for a mess of pottage, they have given their hearts away. Yes; the fault lies not in the lack of ability, but in the direction of it; and the question is a vital one. Art not more than the whole of society is affected. For great powers are not developed independently of society, but are an accurate gauge of that society in which they exist. By the one we may measure the other. Then on whom does the responsibility lie? Whose duty first of all was it to arrest by all means in their power this downward tendency? It was the duty of those who have been false to themselves, who have been untrue to the responsibility of their high position. It was the duty of those who had undertaken to direct the art of this country. It was the duty of the Royal Academy-and what have they done to arrest this? What has their influence been? Hitherto it has been chiefly this—in leading on our young men to waste their powers as they have done, sacrificing their principles for their purse. They have made art a trade when it is not one. Depending on public taste instead of directing it; trading on the ignorance it was their duty to enlighten; denying to the people the means of education which it was in their power to give, they have thrown contumely on the noblest work; they have deliberately rejected it; they have denied to art all high significance. They have made it a fashion. Is it a surprise to them that the few thoughtful men hold aloof altogether; that they remain unrepresented at the Exhibition? CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM. "The business for which God sends a Christian priest in a Christian nation is to preach freedom, equality, brotherhood, in the fullest, deepest, widest meaning of those three great words."-C. KINGSLEY. DURING the last half century the three principal countries of Western Europe have witnessed the rise of a Christian Socialist movement, not connected with a new sect, like the Socialism of the sixteenth century Anabaptists, but proceeding directly from the historical Church of each nation. In France, the famous group, which included Lamennais, Lacordaire, Montalembert, and Frédéric Ozanam, chose for their motto, "God and Liberty," and boldly called upon the Church to separate herself from kings, and join hands with the people. Their efforts were crushed under the iron discipline of the Papacy; and the Papacy has its reward in the revolt of Republican France from a religion which could be Bourbonist or Bonapartist, but not Democratic. Had the appeal of the great French Catholic been echoed rather than silenced by Gregory XVI., not only would the fiery zeal and gifted intellect of Lamennais have been saved from shipwreck, but the present extraordinary vehemence of French hostility to all forms of religion would never, we are convinced, have been developed. In Germany, the land of Karl Marx and Ferdinand Lassalle, both the Catholic and the Protestant Churches have given birth to a Christian Socialist school. The late Archbishop Ketteler, of Mayence, and Canon Monfang, though differing as to the manner of application of Socialist principles, founded organisations which fully justified Bismarck's dread of a possible alliance between the Black International and Red. The Jew-baiting court chaplain, Stöcker, and Pastor Todt, are the leaders of the Protestant movements, which is strongly monarchical, and looks for the solution of social problems by the agency of a benevolent despotism. Both schools have been reduced to comparative silence by the anti-Socialist legislation of Bismarck, and the influence of the Protestant section seems to lack the elements of permanence. The Catholic division may yet have a future. Leo XIII. may take warning from the appalling results of his prede cessor's abandonment of Lamennais, and if he cannot encourage and inspire the Christian Socialists of Germany, he may be persuaded to let them alone. The so-called Socialists of the coair, a body chiefly made up of German university professors, form a most interesting group, of which no more than bare notice can here be taken. They include men of widely different convictions; from the banker Samter, who would nationalise land, to Held, whose only claim to the name of Socialist would seem to lie in his rejection of the Individualist principle in economy. We are only now concerned, however, with Socialist endeavours which are born of the Church. In England, the great names of Frederick Maurice and Charles Kingsley connect themselves with the Chartist movement of thirty-five years ago. There could be no greater mistake than to suppose that this movement was a failure. Undoubtedly, the Charter has long since been forgotten, and Kingsley admitted, without apparent regret, that Maurice's schemes and his own had not succeeded in the exact shape in which they were proposed. But Chartists and Christian Socialists alike did their work. The commanding position occupied by the Trades Unions to-day is a direct result of the agitation of 1847-48. The movement towards co-operation is another result, and the brave heart "Parson Lot" would have rejoiced to see Miss Hart's gallant experiment in the promising field of co-operative production. The "Decorative Co-operative Association" is an avowed imitation of the famous Maison Leclaire, but none the less is its establishment due to men and women who have inherited the traditions of the Christian Socialists of the English Church. The school of Maurice and Kingsley was by no means without opposition from some in authority. But happily, England had neither a Pope nor an iron Chancellor to stamp out free movement and silence free speech. Hence, with us, the principles set forth in 1847-50 have had fair play, and are working in men's minds to this day. It is not too much to say that but for the Christian Socialist of 1850, the Christian Socialist of 1883 would never have seen the light. But the work to be done is different now. Old questions have been answered, or have taken new forms, and the questions to-day are others than those of thirty years ago. We have not to vindicate the right of workmen to combine for their own protection, or claim for their unions recognition by the law. The social problems of to-day are of wider and more far-reaching significance. Men are beginning to ask why workmen should continue to be the slaves of capital; why the State should not secure them free access to the implements of labour; why the soil of England should remain in the absolute possession of a privileged minority? Men are inquiring whether modern society, with its millions of struggling poor, and its few and luxurious rich, is really a desirable or a beautiful thing? whether indeed it be not utterly rotten and false? There are those who answer that the state of society is so hopelessly corrupt, that no improvement is possible until every existing institution is destroyed from off the face of the earth. When "pan-destruction" has been accomplished, and society reduced to a condition of "amorphism,' then the rebuilding may begin. Till then, at whatever cost, by whatever means, destruction, say the Anarchists, must be the work of all who desire a change. Dynamite, poison, the knife, the revolver; all are lawful weapons in the belief of a Nihilist or an Invincible. There are others who feel as keenly as the Anarchists that modern society is built upon a foundation of selfishness and wrong. But they aim at reconstruction rather than destruction. They believe that the time has come when the régime of the few must give place to that of the many, and that the change can be wrought by peaceful and bloodless means. They find the principles of the ideal society set forth in the teachings of the Divine Man, and latent in the constitution of the Church which bears His name. Because those teachings have been corrupted, and that Church chained to the footstool of thrones, therefore it is that modern society has become the thing we see it. The best hopes for the future of humanity lie in a frank acceptance of the Christian idea of free and equal brotherhood among men, with all its consequences. There can be no true brotherhood, as Maurice finely said, without a common Father. To work for the fuller realisation of that most noble of all human ideals, the Kingdom of God upon earth; to fight against the new idol of competition, which is but old selfishness writ large; to maintain the original unison of the followers of Christ; the bettering the condition of the poorest and most numerous class; to substitute for the ignoble motto, "Every man for himself, and God for us all," that which proclaims, "All for each, and each for all," on the modern reading of the old command, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self,"-here is work enough and to spare for the Christian Socialist of to-day. A LONDON PARSON. PREACHING AND PRACTICE.-"Those who agree with the and without reserve, reject as false the whole system of present writer are not sceptics. They positively, absolutely, objective propositions which make up the popular belief of the day, in one and all of its theological expressions." "The first advance towards either the renovation of one faith or the growth of another must be the abandonment of those habits of hypocritical conformity and compliance which have filled the air of the England of to-day with gross and obscure mists." These be brave words. Their writer, Mr. John Morley, is the Member of Parliament who, while Mr. Bradlaugh was still excluded from the House for his want of religious opinions, took his seat quietly, without rejecting the necessary "theological expression," LAND REFORM UNION OBJECT-To advance the principles laid down by Henry George for the restitution of the land to the people. MEMBERSHIP OF THE UNION open to all who approve its objects, and pay an Annual Subscription of not less than 2s. 6d. HON. TREASURER-H. H. Champion, 17, Harewood-square, London, N.W. HON. SECRETARY - R. P. B. Frost, 30, Woburn-place, London, W.C. ALL WHO ARE WILLING to organise Branches of the Union, no matter how small, in any town in the United Kingdom are requested to communicate with the Secretary. CARDS OF MEMBERSHIP are issued to every Subscriber of not less than 2s. 6d. annually. AN INAUGURAL CONFERENCE will be held at Anderton's Hotel, Fleet-street, on Tuesday, June 5th, at 7.15, to which Land Reformers are invited. HIGHLAND LAND LAW REFORM ASSOCIATION OF LONDON. The First Annual Meeting will be held at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon-street, on Wednesday, May 30th, at 8 p.m. Chairman-D. H. Macfarlane, Esq., M.P. Speakers Professor J. S. Blackie, LL.D., Daniel Grant, Esq., M.P., Jesse Collings, Esq., M.P., S. Storey, Esq., M.P., Rev. J. Kennedy, D.D., G. B. Clark, Esq., F.R.C.S.E., C. R. Macclymont, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, Angus Mackintosh, Esq., of Holme, Roderick Macdonald, Esq., F.R.C.S.E., and others. The object of the Association is "To effect such changes in the Land Laws as will secure Fair Rents, Durability of Tenure, and Compensation for Improvements, with such an Apportionment of the Land as will promote the welfare of the people throughout the Highlands and Islands of Scotland," and membership "is open to all who approve of its object and subscribe to its funds." Palace Chambers, 9, Bridge-street, Westminster, S.W. GUILD OF S. MATTHEW. OBJECTS. I. To get rid, by every possible means, of the existing prejudices, especially on the part of "Secularists," against the Church-her Sacraments and Doctrines; and to endeavour "to justify God to the people." II. To promote frequent and reverent worship in the Holy Communion, and a better observance of the teaching of the Church of England as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer. III. To promote the study of Social and Political Questions in the light of the Incarnation. "THE CHURCH AND SECULARISM; being some account of an attempt to 'justify God to the People.' Second Thousand. 2d. "REPORT OF THE WORK OF THE G. S. M., 1881-2" (32 pp.) Second Thousand. 2d. "SECULAR WORK OF JESUS CHRIST, His Apostles, and the Church of England." An Address delivered to a Society of Secularists by Rev. S. D. Headlam (Warden G. S. M.) Second Edition. 1d. "CHARLES KINGSLEY, Poet, Reformer, and Divine." By Rev. G. Sarson, M.A., Rector of Orlestone. 1d. "CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM." By a Radical Parson. 1d. Rules, Forms of Nomination, a full list of the Publications of the Guild, and all information will be gladly supplied on application to DE FREDK. VERINDER, Hon. Sec. 5, Goldsmith-square, Stoke Newington, London, N. Price SIXPENCE each. COMING REVOLUTION in ENGLAND. By H. M. HYNDMAN. THE LAND NATIONALISATION SOCIETY. Established to advocate the Nationalisation of the Land of the United Kingdom. President-ALF. RUSSEL WALLACE, LL.D., F.R.G.S. Hon. Sec. (pro, tem.)-H. W. LEY. The publications of the Society can be had at W. Reeves', 185, Fleet Street, or from the Secretary. THE DECORATIVE CO-OPERATORS' ASSOCIATION (Limited), 405, Oxford-street, W. DIRECTORS. Albert Grey, Esq., M.P., | A. H. Dyke Acland, Esq. A. Cameron Corbett, Esq. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. P. P. (Birmingham).-Our next number will have some contributions by Henry George, the well-known author of " Progress and Poverty.' H. (London) writes :-"I like the title of your paper. It undermines the prejudice that attaches to the word 'Socialist' alone." MISS H. (London) sends us a cheering letter, from which we extract the following:-" Most heartily shall I welcome the C. S., and were I less busy and brain tired, I should be proud to contribute." must utterly vanish away, and become "portion and for the desirability of the proposed slate railway parcel of the dreadful past," unless we wish to see was the difficulty the quarry found in paying a divian awful reversal of the ancient myth of Saturn dend; but when we inquire a little further, and devouring his children. The monstrous creation of ask how this difficulty arose, we learn that Lord Frankenstein was mightier than he, and was well Leconfield is the landlord of mountain and valley, aware that such was the case. The labouring and that the rent which he exacts for the quarry monster of to-day, which has long been wielded at eats up all the profits of the quarrymen. This will by the capitalist, is at last becoming aware of being the case, we can sympathise with the House that same significant fact. The great blind giant of Landlords in their anxiety to keep Lord Leconis recovering his sight, and already his strong grasp field's rent at the highest possible point. "Perish is laid upon the twin pillars that support the Borrowdale," they say to themselves, "perish all mighty temple of Mammon; the pillars are shaken the beauties of the Lake District, sooner than that at the touch, and bowed by the stress and strain, one penny should be taken from Lord Leconfield's and the name of the one pillar is capital, the name rent." Again, there is the question of the relief of the other land. The worshippers of that greedy god of local taxation, a subject which the landlords as a would do well to agree with their adversary quickly, class have very much at heart, and the reason is or they and their temple and the object of their plain. They perceive that the burden of the rates insensate idolatry will assuredly be involved in one falls finally upon them, and they are anxious to see common ruin, whose crash already almost deafens it shifted to other shoulders. Indeed, they seem the too prophetic ear. As yet the demands of the to have abandoned the attempt to prove that they toilers are just and reasonable. Their requests are are not the real ratepayers; at least, that is the limited to the prayer of Agur, "Give me neither only conclusion we can draw from their argument, poverty nor riches, feed me with food convenient for that if the rates were relieved they would be able me; but if we persist in giving them stones for to make large reductions of rent. Thus, the relief bread, and instead of a fish a scorpion, they will of local taxation is resolved into our old acquaintsurely grow athirst for blood, and that thirst will ance, the confidence trick; but we fear that this not be quenched by any compromise. The iniquity particular form of swindle has been already too of our present system of property in land has long much discredited in different law courts to be any been realised by the few, but, thanks to " Progress longer an effectual bait for a trustful public. and Poverty," that knowledge is rapidly becoming "Free us from the incidence of taxation," say the the property of all. Those seventy persons who landlords in effect, "and then see what we will do between them own half the soil of Scotland are for you in the way of reduction of rent!" Alas! beginning to have doubts about their right divine, the public is in the proverbial condition of "once and the wisdom of an interloper like Mr. Winans, bitten, twice shy," and the confidence trick has as displayed by the eviction of the crofters for the been played upon us before. The Tories in the sake of a deer forest, is seriously questioned in the House of Commons, who shouted "None at all," highest and most respectable circles of landlordism when Mr. Goschen asked them to what extent they in this country. But then Mr. Winans is a Yankee, admitted the existence of hereditary burdens on and the slightest taint of foreign competition is sure land, are not to be congratulated on their practical to stink in the nostrils of a true-born British land- wisdom. They have got rid of a good many of its lord. The Sutherland clearances were apparently hereditary burdens, notably the Land Tax, but it not meant for imitation by other than native talent. would have been wiser not to be quite so barefaced Not that this makes any difference, however. in the expression of their intention to get rid of Mr. Winans is acting strictly within his legal rights, them all. Spoiling the English may be as pleasant and his action is only another apt exemplification and as profitable a task as spoiling the Egyptians, but of the excellence of our system of private property in the long run it is not likely to be quite so safe. in land. But there are plenty of instances to And this brings us to the consideration of the other choose from in proof of this wonderful doctrine. pillar of the temple of Mammon, capital, to wit. Take the case of the recent abortive attempt of a Egypt, already over burdened with debt, has just railway company to make a line along the Borrow-issued a new lean for five millions. This loan is to dale Valley, when our hereditary House of Landlords did its best to assist them in their scheme of robbery of common lands. It would have been only reasonable to suppose that the Peers, being a class of men who, in spite of their faults, have some claim to culture and refinement, would resist with all their might any proposal for the desecration of Borrowdale and Derwentwater. The expectation, however, was delusive. The Peers are landlords, and must "do their level best" to uphold the landlords' interests. The alleged reason carry interest at five per cent., and is to be applied to the payment of indemnity claims, and the cost of the English army of occupation. These are the results of our latest exploit "in the brave squares of war.' We have not the space to comment on them at length, but we will conclude with a quotation from Mr. Ruskin, the greatest living master of English prose, whose words are well worth pondering over at the present time. "There is nothing really more monstrous in any recorded savagery or absurdity of mankind than that governments as they are now waging in the Highlands. We would also remind them of the processes of the fa mcus Sutherland clearance, were it not that we are mindful of the danger of truth-telling in that particular instance, and of the threatened prosecution of the author, who recently dared to describe in plain terms what was there done by the landlord and his factor. Fearful of a similar threat, we avert our editorial eye from Sutherlandshire, and turn to the islands on the wild western coast, those happy hunting grounds of irresponsible and autocratic landlordism in its worst and most wicked phases. Let us take the Isle of Arran, not by any means as an extreme instance, but as one of the most ludicrous in its practical results, and one with which we are ourselves acquainted. Let the traveller perambulate the paths and glens of the island, and his admiration of the scenery will hardly be able to outdo his astonishment at the ruins which will be presented to his view. He will come upon one complete village absolutely tenantless and deserted, from which the inhabitants were bodily shipped off to the other side of the Atlantic some forty years ago. But when the family property is entailed, the sins of the fathers are not visited upon the children, except in the way of their hereditary inclination to go and do likewise. Consequently, the present holder enjoys full opportunity to indulge in any vagaries he likes in the way of domineering over his tenants. These vagaries have not yet taken the form of forcibly expatriating any other of the inhabitants of Arran than lunatics and dogs. Such tenants as those he cannot abide, and consequently several of the former have been recently deported across the sea to the mainland, so that the laird alone retains the privilege of being an insular lunatic, while any cur that may venture on the voyage, and have the impudence to show its nose on the sacred precincts of the island, is incontinently drowned or knocked on the head by the keeper. Who is ignorant of the case of the dweller in the hamlet of Corrie, where a more touching parting scene than that of Launce with his dog Crab was lately enacted? The rascal had the audacity to attempt the surreptitious introduction of a dog into the island, and for some time managed to avoid detection; but he could not for ever evade the keeper's eye. That important functionary paid a domiciliary visit to the lawless tenant, and though he pleaded with tears that it Was an awful kind dog," the keeper was as cruel as the dog was kind, and the result of the visit was an expedition of the three to the shore of the quiet waters of the loch, from which only the keeper and the tenant returned alive to tell the tale. THE conditions of society in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland are well worth the careful study, not only of the inquiring sociologist, but also of the more enthusiastic socialist. Of the three most important products of those misty regions of the north, grouse, deer, and landlordism, the two first may claim to be considered indigenous, and the third an importation, though not of recent date, and now thoroughly acclimatised in the country. The orthodox theory, which in times past even the crofters have implicitly believed, maintains that the final cause of the creation of the two first was the profit and enjoyment which could be extracted from them by the third. This theory, however, though it enjoys the advantage of an immense weight of eminent authorities, does not altogether commend itself to Christian Socialists, and it is one on which we must confess ourselves to be heterodox in the highest degree. In fact, we maintain, on the contrary, that the single word landlordism sums up in itself the wrongs of which the crofters justly complain, and supplies sufficient cause for all the agitation which has been, is, or is to come in the Highlands. We shall be interested to see whether that innocently inquisitive Commission of landlords. which is at present traversing the distressed districts, will be able, in spite of its prejudices, to come to a conclusion at all in accordance with the facts. For the facts are there in plenty, if they will open their eyes to see them. Let them visit Sutherlandshire, and they will find the Board of Guardians scarce risen from their recent wrangle about the decent interment of a Highlandman who died of starvation in their district. In this case, landlordism, having starved its victim, did not see its way to the provision of a coffin for his remains, and the result of the consequent delay in his burial was, we fear, a prejudice aroused in the public mind against that particular method of exterminating crofters. Actuated, therefore, by the very friendliest feeling for landlordism, we would suggest that its sub-reiders may imagine that the reason for the sequent victims should be put under ground as speedily as possible without any coffin at all; and we can assure the landlords that what is so frequently done in an actual war would be perfectly justifiable in the case of such a social or civil war 66 Our exclusion of the canine race from the island is a paternal wish on the part of the laird to protect the crofters who are legally committed to his care from all risk of the terrible disease of hydrophobia. But it is not so, Curs are noisy creatures, and |