Under abnormal conditions the functions of the Church, considered in its external relation to the world rather than as part of a self-regulating social organism, consists in suggesting remedial measures for the salvation of Society. According to the theory now under consideration, the three elementary R's of Social Therapeutics, are-Reconciliation of Social antagonisms; Social Reforms to avert a Social Revolution; and the Regeneration of Society through the operation of Christian principle, as "the salt of the earth" which is to save it from social putrefaction. Thus, whilst the advocates of the "kill or cure" principle of the laissez-faire school would leave social re-adjustments to the Medicatrix Natura, Christian Socialists rely on the supernatural power of the Divine Physician to heal the sores of humanity.

We have alluded already to the force of Christianity as a tendency towards social peace; but in order to a peaceful solution of the social problem, it is not enough to leave the settlement of the question to the slow working out of such spiritual tendencies. The Christian Church has a mediatorial office to perform. Taking for her guidance the conduct of the Master on a notable occasion, she may well show unwillingness or acknowledge her incompetence to arbitrate in quarrels about possessions, and to adjudicate in matters of dispute between labour and capital. Besides, meddlesome interference on the part of "ecclesiastical persons" would soon be resented on the part of the combatants. Still, there are opportunities for timely intervention, when there is danger of the weak being crushed by the stronger, or when one of the disputants sues for peace whilst the other is unwilling to make fair concessions, and when, therefore, the friendly aid of a disinterested

umpire is needed. Nor is there cause for the ministers of reconciliation to be intimidated if, in the din of social wars, the voice of the Church is sometimes drowned, and efforts at pacification are met with an angry rebuff, such as was addressed to the great Lawgiver engaged in a similar attempt to compose social differences by reminding the disputants of the closeness of their mutual relationship: "Men, ye are brethren !" As the influence of the Church, notwithstanding its pacific tendencies, has not hitherto been strong enough to usher in the era of universal peace, though it has been instrumental in mitigating the horrors and lessening the frequency of social wars among Christian nations, so in assuming the office of peacemaker it cannot be expected to succeed in bringing about the immediate reconciliation of conflicting class interests. Yet, as in France during the dark ages the bishops and clergy promoted social peace by the "truce of God;" as in England during the thirteenth century the parochial clergy acted as the peacemakers at the Manorial Courts which settled all class disputes,*

* "A la féodalité, l'église imagina d'opposer une puissance nouvelle qui devait avoir de si grandes destinées: le peuple, l'association populaire. "Dès lors, en effet, au moyen de la prédication, le clergé organise, contre la puissance seigneuriale, une agitation pacifique, prélude de l'agitation guerrière, qui se traduit par un nombre considérable de conciles provinciaux."

Edmond Demolins, "Le Mouvement Communal et Municipal au Moyen-Age," p. 41.

James E. Thorold Rogers, "Six Centuries of Work and Wages," vol. i. p. 21; and on influence of the Church generally, ibid., vol. ii. p. 359, et seq., specially p. 362, where he speaks of the religious orders and the heads of monastic establishments as "advocates of generous dealing towards the peasantry."

It will be readily remembered that such efforts at conciliation have been tried, and upon the whole have been successful, at least sufficiently so to encourage similar attempts in the future. We need only mention the efforts of Canon Girdlestone and the late Bishop of Manchester,

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and thus mitigated and minimized social friction in a less developed state of society; so now there is ample room for the exercise of this mediatorial function as a branch of practical Christianity.

We have spoken of the tendency of Christianity to form character, and thus by means of a moral reformation in the individual to bring about social readjustment. Here, again, the let-alone theory of religious optimists, relying on this tendency to re-establish social harmony, finds its correction or complement in the more comprehensive theory of Christian Socialism; which, while it, too, relies on this spiritual lever for raising the standard of social morality, recognizes at the same time the imperative necessity of immediate social reforms. Whilst fully believing in the recuperative power of Christian society, it would at the same time have recourse to restoratives or sedatives, according to the exhausted or excited condition of the patient, so as to prevent coma or a serious crisis, in the social malady of the hour. То drop metaphor, Christian Socialism starts from the conviction that the state of the body-politic requires strong remedial measures. The natural course of things tends, according to Karl Marx and his followers, to a social revolution. Social revolutions, he cynically adds, are the best midwives to assist in the birth of new social eras. The abnormal concentration of capital and land in a very few hands is rapidly increasing. As the number of those who possess monopoly in either decreases, so the number of proletarians, who have nothing to lose and everything to gain from a social revolution, multiplies in corresponding ratio. Thus the gulf between the few millionaires and the moneyless masses of mankind is being widened daily. At the same time in the centres of industry where large bodies of men work in

concert and learn to think and act together, as a class, the latter are being organized. Their education in the workshops of the world will soon be finished, and then the day of retribution will come. The expropriators will be expropriated; the spoilers will be despoiled by those who have been dispossessed; the capitalist class as such will be wiped out of existence. Less time will be required for the many to dethrone the few, than it took for the dwindling class of usurpers to subject the many. The "captains of industry" can be discharged in a comparatively short time. It required centuries to develop capitalism; as many days will almost suffice for the devolution of property to its rightful owners, the disinherited classes.

The march of events, thus sketched with truculent force by Socialists, may, according to the Christian Socialist theory, be stopped effectually, or at least a direction leading to less disastrous results may be given to the current of social development, by timely reforms. Christianity points to former epochs in the history of society when a similar antithesis of excessive wealth and poverty threatened, as it does now social disruption, and shows how it was averted, as it might now be averted, by reformatory efforts from within, which Christian effort initiated. Hence in Germany, where Socialism at present is no longer a theory but a power, Christian Socialists have seen the necessity of opposing it by another power, the "Inner Mission," which consists of a number of social reformatory institutions. In France, where Socialism is, or is supposed to be, the outcome of a demoralized state of society, a group of associations, called "l'Euvre des Cercles Catholiques d'Ouvriers," has been formed for the preservation of society by a revival of Christian ethics, on the principle

that "la société ne vit que par la vertu ; le vice quelqu'il soit, est toujours antisocial." In this way the theory of Christian Socialism points to a twofold function in the Church as a reformer of society; namely, by its indirect influences effecting a moral reformation of social units, and by directly promoting social reforms for the benefit of the less favoured members of the Christian community. The former may be illustrated by the following quotation from a resolution passed at the Church Congress, or conference of the German clergy, at Meissen in 1878:

"Without a moral renovation in every section of society, it would be vain to expect any real improvement in its present unhappy condition. There is cause, therefore, for congratulation in the fact that the founders of the Christian Social Labour party endeavour to oppose Materialism and Atheism as the sources of the most serious social evils among the people, and to direct attention to Christianity as the surest means for their removal."

The latter finds its illustration in the repeated efforts of the Imperial Government of Germany to give effect to the theory in the region of practical politics, so as— to use the words of Prince Bismarck in his speech during the debate on the Socialist laws-" to ameliorate or entirely remove the real grievances and hardships in their lot which form the just cause of complaint on the part of the labourers, as far as a Christianly disposed commonwealth can accomplish this task."

"The performance of this duty towards the working" classes," says the imperial message, referring to repeated attempts at raising the economic and social condition of the labourers by organic laws, will make them "fully conscious of the blessings of a peaceful development throughout the United Fatherland, so as to deprive of their support the