and declared he could not stop any longer. It was in vain that the farmer reminded him that his house was only about half a mile distant, that the moon was already up and in an hour would illumine the snow and make it bright as day, and that, if he needed it, he might have a bed for the night. He was deaf to all entreaties.

"Well, Mr. Robins," I said, "you have spoilt my moral. I was going to show you that there are no such monuments of God's wrath as you imagine, and I am sure that knowledge would have given you, as a Christian man, comfort."

“Well, well,” he said, "I will talk with you another day."

Saying this he took his leave and broke off our conversation at its most interesting point. When he was gone some concern was expressed that Mr. Thomson had not returned. Allowing for the badness of the road, Mr. Freeheart estimated he might have been home two hours before. His non-arrival so far unsettled us that we could not at once renew our subject. When another hour had passed, our concern developed into speculation as to the cause of his delay, and as the evening grew on some consternation was felt. At the suggestion that an accident had happened Lilian turned pale, and for the time womanly feeling triumphed over sectarian bigotry. "I'll tell you what it is, Lilian," said her father, the roads are worse than we thought they were, and that young man is as tender-hearted to a horse as a woman to a baby. To my mind he has got a soul as full as a chestnut, while some others that I know are as hollow as a drum."

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WAR: ITS RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL ASPECTS.

"W

THAT is truth?" said Pilate, when he was judging Jesus; and his question remains unanswered up to this nineteenth century,-this century of enlightenment and knowledge, this age of progress in things material as well as in things spiritual,—unanswered, that is, in its fullest sense, for who can define truth? But our blessed Lord answers the question for us: He says, "I am the Truth."

And what Pilate asked so pertinently with regard to truth, we may also ask in reference to war, What is war? But this question does not admit of such a brief answer from finite minds as Pilate's question did from the Infinite. Can any one indeed answer the question satisfactorily? We may say that war is cruel, that war is horrible, even heart-rending; and we may remember that the accompaniments of war are rapine, pestilence, and famine. These three may be likened to three fatal sisters who go hand in hand, stalking the battle-field; and the father of them is-Death. War begins with life, but ends in death. We may call up to our recollection the fact-the bitter fact that with war come the sufferings of war; and what are these? Men slaughtered, women outraged, and their children torn from their mothers' breasts and killed on the point of the sword; your helpless old men and women butchered before your eyes; your wounded murdered in cold blood, or left to die upon the field of battle, with no Nightingale at hand to help, and no Coutts at home to send the needful succour. Passing from the appalling sacrifice of human life which it invariably involves, and leaving the actual scene of the battle, we find our towns bombarded and shelled, our villages burnt, our houses pillaged, our homes broken up and those who are nearest and dearest to us on earth driven out into the world, houseless and homeless; naked, yet with no kind friend to clothe; hungry, but with none to feed, until death

often comes as a welcome release from their sufferings, and they find in the other life that peace that the world cannot give, and receive at the hands of Him who is a Father to the fatherless, and who provides a home for the wanderer, the mercy that wicked men denied to them while here below.

From a commercial point of view we may reckon up roughly the cost in hard coin of any particular war to the nations engaged in it; but we cannot calculate the consequent cost to the future generations of these nations. The Game of War (as it has been called) is far more difficult to play than "the Game of Chess," and is, at the same time, the most wicked that men can engage in. It impedes all progress in religion and morality, and often leaves the countries that engage in it weak and helpless for the following generation. Even the conqueror has so many, and such heavy, losses, that his position in the end, is but little more enviable than that of the conquered.

So far, we have merely referred to the effect of war: we will now endeavour to ascertain its cause, according to the doctrines of the New Church.

The Writings of the New Church teach us that all good and all truth are from God; and all evil and all falsity originate through man's abusing the Divinely-given faculties of freedom and rationality with which he has been endowed; and thereby perverting good into evil, and truth into falsity. We are also taught that man is not life itself, but only a recipient of life; although by virtue of his freedom and rationality he has the power of either acknowledging and looking to the Lord as the only Source of life; or of looking to himself and believing that he receives his life from nature, and thus of becoming a worshipper of self, and not of God. Hence, the love of God and of the neighbour is perverted by him into the loves of self and of the world, so that he becomes selfish and worldly; coveting everything, and anxious to acquire wealth and power in order to gratify his selfish nature. The same principles actuate nations as individuals, and so the loves of self and of the world, or (in other words) the loves of dominion and possession, inflame their breasts; and all the jealousy, hatred, and rancour of the natural, sensual man, is aroused within them; the torch is applied, and they let loose the dogs of war. We see, therefore, that all evil comes from man, and not from God; and it follows, consequently, that war, which is but an extreme and aggravated form of evil, comes also from man, and not from God. It by no means follows from this (as some imagine) that God, because He is Love itself, ought to interpose and prevent these scenes of bloodshed; for such interposition on God's part would interfere with man's acting in freedom. Still wars,

like all evils, are under the Lord's Divine Providence, and He continually tries to lead man away from the horrors of war to the pleasures of peace, and from a state of evil to a state of goodness. The Lord permits no evil but to prevent a greater. For, as we learn from the Writings of the New Church, goods and truths are provided by the Lord, but evils and falsities are permitted. To say that God causes war is to charge God Himself with creating evil, when yet it is man who is the cause of evil; and any reasoning that does not admit this, is blasphemy. The true cause of war must be sought for-as the true cause of every kind of evil in the natural world must be sought for—in corresponding struggles in the spiritual world; for we know that all things in the natural have their correspondences in the spiritual world, whether good or evil. Therefore, concerning the permission of wars, we read in the Writings of the New Church as follows:—

THE COMPANIONS OF OUR LORD.
II. JOHN THE BAPTIST.

LTHOUGH John the Baptist cannot be accurately

described as a companion of our Lord, their intercourse having apparently been remarkably brief and restricted, his office in connection with the Incarnation was so important, and his life and character possess so many features of interest, and afford so many practically useful lessons, that no apology can be necessary for including him in our present series.

Like the Messiah, he was the subject of Old Testament prophecy. Isaiah had declared that, previous to the promised deliverance which Israel was so anxiously expecting, a voice should be heard crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way of Jehovah! make straight in the desert a highway for our God" (Isa. xl. 3). And Malachi, in language of conspicuously Divine authority, had written, "Behold I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me" (Mal. iii. 1); and again, "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of Jehovah: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse" (Mal. iv. 5, 6).

Moreover, in further resemblance to the Lord, before whom he was sent, the birth of John the Baptist was distinguished by special circumstances from the ordinary nativities of mankind. On the side of both parents he On the side of both parents he was descended from the sacerdotal house of Levi: his father Zacharias being a priest "of the course of Abia" or Abijah, the eighth of the twenty-four orders into which David distributed the posterity of Aaron, that they might exercise the duties of their sacred office in rotation (1 Chron. xxiv. 10); while his mother Elisabeth also belonged to the same family, being described as of the daughters of Aaron" (Luke i. 5). But more honourable than their illustrious ancestry, is the testimony recorded of their personal worth: "They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless" (ver. 6). Yet, under a dispensation in which piety and virtue usually received the reward of obvious natural prosperity, their domestic happiness lacked one element, without which, according to the Jewish estimate, no household could be perfect: "They had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years" (ver. 7).

Notwithstanding these physical obstacles, however, Zacharias and Elisabeth were chosen by Divine Providence as parents to the forerunner of the manifested God. For while Zacharias was executing the priest's office in the temple, "in the order of his course," the Angel Gabriel appeared on the right side of the altar of incense, and assured him that his prayer was heard, and that, despite his wife's age, he should become father of

a son, who should be called John; a Greek modification of an ancient Hebrew name, which literally signifies the gift or grace of Jehovah (vers. 8-13). Of the child to be thus miraculously born it was further stated: "Many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias"the Greek form of the Hebrew Elijah-"to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord" (vers. 14-17). Thus was Zacharias apprised of the approaching fulfilment of the prediction of Malachi already instanced; while he was at the same time instructed that the promised sending of Elijah would be accomplished, not, as the Jews commonly expected, by the resuscitation of the brave old prophet who had so fearlessly confronted Ahab and Jezebel, but by the birth of a child in whose character and career the Old Testament hero should live again, since, when grown to manhood, he should go before the Lord "in the spirit and power of Elias."

Hesitating to believe the angel's message, and requesting a sign of its truth, Zacharias was stricken deaf and dumb (vers. 18-20, 62); but returning at the end of his period of service in the temple, from Jerusalem to his own house in the hill-country of Juda, most probably in the ancient city of Hebron (vers. 23, 39, 40), he was soon satisfied of the Divine authority of all that he had heard. And when, six months later, Elisabeth was visited by her cousin the Virgin Mary, and miraculous confirmation was afforded of the mutual relationship which should afterwards exist between their respective sons, she meekly acquiesced in the subordinate position of her own offspring, and acknowledged her younger relative as the mother of her Lord (vers. 36, 39-45).

In due time the child of promise was born, and, according to the angel's message, received the name John. At the same moment his father Zacharias regained his speech and hearing, and, "filled with the Holy Ghost," immediately employed his restored faculties in the utterance of a psalm expressing the most fervent gratitude for the Divine mercy, and testifying in language of unmistakable force and clearness that his son should be the prophet of the Highest-even of the Divine Dayspring from above, the Lord God of Israel, who had Himself visited and redeemed His people (vers. 57-79).

Of the childhood and youth of John the Baptist nothing is recorded beyond the statement that "the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts. till the day of his showing unto Israel" (ver. So). Destined from his birth to the representative sanctity of Nazariteship, for this was involved in the prohibition respecting wine and strong drink (Luke i. 15; Num. vi. 2, 3), he seems to have additionally prepared himself, by austere seclusion from the common indulgences and interests of life, for the especial office to which he was appointed. Such retirement from the world was by no means unknown in his days. The Essenes, who, with the Pharisees and Sadducees, formed the three chief sects into which the Jews were at that time divided, and who, in the strictness of their morals and the spirituality of their interpretation of the Mosaic law, contrasted most advantageously with their religious and philosophical rivals, habitually practised separation from the usual business and pleasures of society, as a condition of

the mystical purity and illumination to which they aspired. Their principal community was settled in the desert to the west of the Dead Sea, which Luke mentions as the scene of the Baptist's preparation; from which circumstance, and from the similarity of his doctrines to those they advocated, it has been conjectured, with much probability but no absolute authority, that John was himself disciplined in the Essene rules. However this may have been, he appears to have lived a hermit life of meditation and self-denial, dwelling apart from the ordinary distractions of the world, and fixing his thoughts entirely on the solemn work to which he was appointed.

In fulness of time he was summoned by Divine commandment from this retirement to commence the active

duties of his ministry. The evangelist is singularly minute in fixing the period at which this took place. "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judæa, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituræa and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins" (Luke iii. 1-3). He was then thirty years old, the age at which the Levites were required to commence their sacred duties (Num. iv. 3). His appearance and manner would at once remind every Jew of the prophet Elijah, in whose spirit and power he was sent; who was described as "a hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins" (2 Kings i. 8), and who spake, alike to king and people, truths of the most dauntless and uncompromising severity. For "John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey" (Matt. iii. 4)-rude forest fare, such as the sylvan glades and rocky cliffs of the desert afforded, and the use of which was permitted by the Mosaic law (Lev. xi. 22). And his message well accorded with his rough attire and primitive, ascetic habits. Preaching in the wilderness of Judæa, the narrow, uninhabited tract lying between the Jordan and the precipitous crags which separate its valley from the then densely populated region on the west, he made its echoes ring with his stern, warning summons, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. iii. 2). His ministry rapidly produced a wide and vivid impression; indeed, his impassioned utterances and high reputation for sanctity occasioned what we should now call a religious. revival. "There went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judæa, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins" (vers. 5,6). Such was the enthusiasm that the public mind, intent at that period on anticipations of the promised Messiah, began to inquire whether this strange, fearless, unworldly man were not himself the Deliverer for whom the Jews were waiting. For "the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ or not" (Luke iii. 15). A base soul, inflamed by selfish ambition, and indifferent by what ignoble means his own exaltation might be secured, would surely have clutched at the opportunity thus offered, and, in the prevalent excitement of Jewish opinion, would probably have soon found himself the head of a formidable enterprise. But nothing is more characteristic of the magnanimous Baptist than the unswerving fidelity with which he invariably sinks his own dignity and mission in the superior glories and grander ministry of Him before whom he was sent. Therefore, without a moment's hesitation, "John answered, saying unto them

all, I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire" (ver. 16).

The preaching with which he laboured to fulfil the subordinate duties which he thus claimed as his office, was of a singularly vital and heart-searching character. His doctrine, so far from manifesting the mystical abstraction almost natural in such a recluse, glowed and shone with shrewd practical directness. Though himself, for especial reasons, a hermit, he clearly saw that his own case was exceptional, and that religion for the great bulk of mankind must consist, not in a withdrawal from the world, but in a watchful resistance of its temptations, and a faithful discharge of its duties. Thus he never encouraged his penitents to remain with him in the desert, but he sent them back to their daily work, to prove the reality of their contrition by an amended life. The only observances of technical piety on which he seems to have insisted were the custom of fasting (Matt. ix. 14; Mark ii. 18; Luke v. 33), and the sacred obligation of prayer (Luke xi. 1). "Fruits meet for repentance" (Matt. iii. S) formed the burden of his appeals, which were varied to suit the particular evils to which each class of his hearers was liable. The bulk of the people, absorbed in the besetting sins of worldly selfishness, were instructed to practise a liberal charity: "He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise" (Luke iii. 11). To the publicans, the collectors of the Roman taxes, a class odious alike for their unpopular calling and for the notorious dishonesty with which it was conducted, he said, "Exact no more than that which is appointed you" (ver. 13). Herod's soldiers, engaged at the time in fighting his battles with Aretas, King of Arabia Petræa, were admonished against cruelty and pillage: "Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages" (ver. 14). The Pharisees and Sadducees, the haughtiest and most influential members of Jewish society, were cautioned with startling plainness against the vanity of trusting in their boasted descent from Abraham, and were charged to cultivate the graces of humility and usefulness. "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? The axe is laid to the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire" (Matt. iii. 7, 10).

66

(To be continued.)

JOHN PRESLAND.

RELIGION AND THE LABOUR QUESTION. HE Labour Question is one of the great problems of the age in which we live. What is called "The Labour Market" is, as it has been for some long time past, in an agitated state, and much bitter feeling exists between employers and employed.

If religion had no lesson to teach, no guidance to give, in such a crisis, it would be an incomplete system, and lamentably so.

Labour is a Divinely-appointed institution, and the creation of man in order that he might perform uses in this life, as a preparation to the higher uses of the life to come, is a proof alike of the wisdom and goodness of the Lord. Labour is no curse, idleness is. Just as the tree that bringeth forth no fruit is fit for nothing but to be hewn down and cast into the fire, so the idle man is a worthless member of society, a mere cumberer of the ground. Labour is, in a sense, the source of every blessing that we enjoy, of all human wealth and comfort.

The Labour Question is rather more complicated than in the days when our first parents began to work. Then there would be neither strikes, nor short-time movements, nor disputes about wages. If they had not worked for themselves in those days, they would have had to starve. They could fix their own hours of labour, knowing that it was at their own risk. They worked for themselves, and the earth and the seas, the forests and rivers, paid them just what they earned, and nothing more. In the early ages of the world's history the wants of the people would be but few, and their fare and clothing and habitation would be of the simplest character. Their riches would, like Brotherton's, consist in the fewness of their wants rather than in the abundance of their possessions. Most things would be held in common under a patriarchal form of government. With an increase of population arose a necessity for the migration of parts of the community, and in process of time the rights of private property in the soil and in cattle would necessarily come to be recognised. At first every man would labour for himself and family, raising his own food, making his own clothes, and building his own dwelling-place. But gradually the mutual advantages to be derived from 'The Division of Labour' would come to be recognised, and every man devoting himself specially to some particular branch of industry, trade by barter would come into vogue. This would involve the growth of capital, the savings of the product of labour. With the growth of capital, the relations of employer and employed would come into existence. Capital is sometimes supposed to be antagonistic to labour. There could be no greater mistake than such a notion. Capital is accumulated labour, those results of labour not immediately consumed, whether in money or goods.

The capital of the world is its wage fund, the means available for the employment of labour. When the right of private property became admitted, in the time when all men were labourers, some would live from hand to mouth, producing no more than was absolutely required for their daily wants, while others would, either by curtailing their wants or by increasing their exertions, be able to lay by something not needed for present wants. We may readily see how it would soon come to pass that those who had been thus provident might be able to offer to the non-savers advantages superior to what they might be able to secure by working as independent labourers. Once started, the relationship of employer and employed would, from its mutual advantageousness continue to exist and extend.

Coming down to our own time, it is easy to perceive the immense use that capital performs in the world in the working out of the great manufacturing and mercantile system that has become so indispensable to meet the immense demand for the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of modern life. There can be no civilization and but little progress without the combination of capital and labour. Without such a combination existence in our day would be an impossibility.

The labour question is one of leviathan proportions, a puzzle to the politician and the economist.

But we are not without Divine guidance upon the question. There is no light so powerful, no guidance so safe, as the light and guidance of the Word of Life, and it would be well if we could form the habit of more frequently consulting the Word respecting those social phenomena that perplex us. Too often, moral and religious considerations are ignored, and men grope about in confusion for the right path, or quarrel in anger for the supremacy of their own opinions, when a candid consideration of that which is revealed, and a due regard

to the elementary principles of Christian duty, would set matters right in a very short time.

The Bible teaches us in the first place the proper basis of the relationship between employers and employed, viz. that it should be an association for mutual benefit, neither trying to oppress or defraud the other.

To employers the Bible says, "The labourer is worthy of his hire;" " Masters; give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye have a Master in heaven;" "Thou shalt not oppress a hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates.'

Loud complaints are frequently made about grasping, tyrannical, unscrupulous masters. We can understand that there are many of this class, but cannot admit that all the trade disputes spring from this cause, for we read in one of the Divine parables of a servant who called his employer a hard master' just because he was an idle, worthless fellow himself. It is probably often so: but in any case there would be no hard masters if the Bible counsels were obeyed.

But the Bible has also something to say to the employed: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;""Do violence to no man, and be content with your wages;" "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, . . . with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men.'

Thus both sides of the question are dealt with in the Scriptures, and employers should be as well read in what is written concerning their duties, as in what is written concerning the duties of employés; and employés should know not only their masters' duties but their own also.

There is great need for the working classes of this country to look this matter fairly in the face. If it is incumbent upon masters to give a fair wage, it is equally binding upon men to do fair work. It is recorded in the Second Book of Chronicles, concerning the builders employed by Josiah on the works of the Temple, that "the men did their work faithfully." This is what men should do now, for he who is not faithful in that which concerns his earthly duties, cannot be faithful in reference to his heavenly duties.

We have heard many comments and complaints in recent years on working-class tyranny; of bodies of workmen threatening to leave their employment unless some one obnoxious individual were discharged, and cast adrift to beg or to steal; of men refusing to permit a man to work at a trade which he had learned to follow without being apprenticed; of lads, who for charity's sake were being taught a trade, being objected to because their fathers did not work in that special branch; of honest men hunted from shop to shop, and from town to town, because they declined to obey the rules of a society they were unwilling or unable to join; of men being beaten, and even killed, for the same reason; and, strangest thing of all, we have known professing Christians defend all these practices except the killing.

It is perfectly legitimate, nay, it is most desirable, that men should combine together to resist oppression, and for mutual support in times of sickness and bad trade. "Union is strength;" and no sensible person can blame working men for uniting to acquire a strength which they can never attain as isolated individuals, and no employer is justified in endeavouring, under the threat of dismissal, to prevent his workmen from joining a Trades' Union. On the other hand, such unions should be perfectly voluntary associations, recognising the right of any man to decline joining. While doing their best to persuade, by argument, members of Trades' Societies