olent societies and other charities, to make some provision for the good of his dependents outside, and not to confine himself to the strictly business relations which exist between himself, as an employer, and his unknown dependents. Even the conscience of the most scrupulous railway shareholder may be satisfied by taking advantage of these opportunities, and he may feel that he is at once conferring a benefit on the public by the use made of his capital, and endeavouring to secure that the welfare of the employees as human beings shall not be forgotten.

When we recognise the various channels through which personality may make itself felt, and what far-reaching effects it may have in permeating society, we need not be oppressed by the pessimism which is so generally expressed. There is indeed reason to despair of the coercive force of the State; we see that its scope is limited, and that, however much may be accomplished by association for the pursuit of a common interest, this principle does not touch the root of the evil. But when these great social forces are regarded as instruments to be used by men with a strong sense of duty, we may feel that they are most potent weapons for putting down evil, and for fostering certain forms of good. If coercive powers and voluntary associations are supplemented by the

endeavour to bring Christian belief to bear habitually on personal conduct, the means are available by which the regeneration of society may be accomplished.

IV. CHRISTIAN ORGANISATION

The question remains as to the best means of invigorating this sense of personal duty. There is no need to enter on invidious comparisons or to make exclusive claims for Christianity. Patriotism and other ideals have been very effective in taking men out of themselves, and saving them from being swayed by mere self-interest; it will suffice to say that since the time of our Lord this religion has shown a very great power of stimulating the sense of personal duty. It is by consciously endeavouring to foster this sense of personal obligation that the Church can best co-operate with the State. This is the specific contribution which the Church can make to the welfare of the community. Compared with the State, the Church has little coercive power, and in bygone days the attempts to exercise coercive power were not so successful as to encourage us to attempt them again. But Christianity can exercise an attractive influence, it can set forth ideals of personal conduct and provide incentives for striving to realise them. The influence is spiritual;

it is not concerned so much with eradicating what is bad as with fostering and encouraging what is good. Its attractive power may draw forth the best that is in a man, and thus enlist his willing co-operation in the cause of good. This spiritual power can give insight to discern where duty lies and can inspire to perseverance in doing it.

Though the aim we set before us is distinctly practical, we need not yield to the temptation to disparage the intellectual side of Christianity; for intellectual elements are involved, if practical efforts are to be effectively maintained. The condemnation of intellectual error is most clearly shown in the practical results which follow from it. "Ye shall know them by their fruits." Seventeenth-century Calvinism, by its insistence on the overwhelming majesty of Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence, had a depressing effect on human activity. It had an affinity with fatalism which, while it may call forth unstinted devotion on the part of the man who believes himself to be a chosen instrument of God, condemns others to feel the uselessness of human effort, and leaves little scope for the cultivation of personal virtues. Again, the Deism, which was so widely diffused in the eighteenth century, by accustoming men to think of an impersonal God who had

created a mechanical order in the Universe, deprived religion of the confidence in a Divine Father and the sense of a personal duty to Him which had been revealed to the world by Christianity. Since theological errors may be so fatal to the influence of Christianity as a practical force in the world, intellectual efforts to detect such error and to guard against it are not useless and are not thrown away, even though this intellectual influence on the doing of Christian duty is very indirect.

The work of the Church in inspiring and fostering the sense of personal duty can be most effectively done by setting forth the encouragement which may be derived from the lives and examples of other men; what they have done shows what is possible to us. As Robert Browning says: "The secret of goodness and greatness is in "choosing whom you will approach and live with, "in memory or imagination, through the crowding, "obvious people who seem to live with you." We cannot afford to neglect any study that enables us to feel the inspiration that is given by human lives.

The life of our Lord stands unique and alone,

1 Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett (9 July, 1846), II, 318.

with intense patriotic enthusiasm, and a willingness to sacrifice Himself utterly. The rites which He ordained are the means by which men and women throughout all ages and in all lands may be brought into closest conscious union with His life; and in all the struggles of the saints in every age, there is a manifestation of the Christian spirit in circumstances in which our Lord was never placed, and under conditions which may be more familiar to us than those of His life in Palestine. In the lives of those who have departed in Christ's faith and fear, there is an example which may help us to interpret our own Christian duty, and may encourage us to do it. The work of the Christian Church 'may be most effective when it is catholic, and ready to draw examples of Christian heroism from the men, in any age or at any time, who profess and call themselves Christian.

Scholarship can enlarge the range from which inspiration is drawn by leading us to the Old Testament as well. The more we can study that collection of books so as to get at the personality of the holy men of old who helped to compile it, or whose doings it describes, the more we shall feel the reality of the personal power of religious influence. The careful study of philology, and the purely scientific investigation of literary forms,