individual interests, present and to come, in economic science, and we can lay stress upon the power of humanitarian sentiment and the principles of ethical science. We may be satisfied to be swayed by one or other of these considerations in turn; but we can hardly hope to be self-consistent, or to bring these two sides into relation, unless we have some such conception as that of duty, in which considerations of interest and of sentiment may each find a proper place. Economic science can enlighten us as to certain evils we would do well to avoid, and sentiment may supply a driving force to initiate improvement, but the two sides must be brought together if we are to have a real guide to progress.

Though we may analyse the community into the individuals who compose it, we cannot account for individual rights or aspirations without looking beyond them. Each of us has been placed under obligations by the social system, and the developed material conditions in which we have been born; we have relations of neighbourliness to our fellow-citizens in our own locality and our own country, and we are bound to strive to pass on to others a civilised society that is as good or better than that which has been our heritage. The national life has a character of its own, and is not a mere stream of individual lives, each guided

by its private tastes and interests. The sense of membership of a community and obligations to the community have been an inspiration for the heroes of the past, who devoted themselves to the cause of their country; and there cannot be a wholesome life in the present, unless men are prepared to admit their obligations to the community as a whole and are ready to discharge them at some sacrifice.

The sense of duty to the community is a very real force in the present day, and it is not easy to account for it on rational grounds, if we acquiesce in the elimination of the religious element from politics. Why, anyone may ask, should I be taxed to provide education for the community? If I have no children, the facilities for instruction are no good for me. Why should I pay for an Army and Navy if I disapprove of war? Why should I develop resources for the benefit of posterity since posterity has never done anything for me? Why should I yield obedience to the magistrate unless I see that it is my interest to do so? To the religious man, whether Theist or Christian, such self-interested questionings seem idle and irrelevant, and the answers are plain.

The religious man believes that God governs the world, that the destiny of the nation is in His hands, and that it is through them that He

accomplishes His purpose for Mankind. In His Providence the civil ruler has come to wield earthly power; and by rendering what is Cæsar's to Cæsar we are rendering obedience to the God Who has placed him where he is. St. Paul elaborates the argument and says, "Let every soul be "subject unto the higher powers. For there is no "power but of God: the powers that be are or"dained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth "the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and "they that resist shall receive to themselves dam"nation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, "but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of "the power? Do that which is good, and thou "shalt have praise of the same. For he is the min"ister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that "which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the "sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, a "revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth "evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not "only for wrath but also for conscience sake." Such Christian teaching gives us light as to the real nature of the obligations we owe to the community, while it also furnishes us with an incentive for doing these duties at some personal sacrifice.

V

RELIGION AND PUBLIC SPIRIT

I. SELF-DISCIPLINE AND GROWTH

THE Ecclesiastical Courts had been so unpopular as to become a political danger under James I and Charles I, and little attempt was made to revive them after the Restoration. They were not used to enforce the observance of fish days, and such secular ordinances; and in so far as ecclesiastical discipline was re-introduced, it seems to have dealt chiefly with moral offences, such as drunkenness and slander. In this modified form it did indeed give rise to some complaint, but there never seems to have been any general attempt to enforce it systematically, and we hear little of it after the beginning of the eighteenth century when Bishop Wilson tried to re-introduce it in the Isle of Man.1 In so far as this religious discipline was revived, we see that it had a somewhat different character from that enforced in the Presbyterian theocracies. There the end in view had been the preservation of the Christian community from

1 J. Wickham Legg, English Church Life, 256. For instances of public penance in Yorkshire in 1731 see Whytehead, "Discipline of the Church," in Yorkshire Archæological Journal, XIX, 80.

scandal; but the aim of those who desired to restore ecclesiastical discipline in England was to bring about the repentance and restoration of the sinner personally. The Commination Service, and the public discipline of which it is an echo, were intended to be a definite call to repentance on the part of sinners, in the hope that they would use the season of Lent aright, and could thus be restored to communion at Easter.

The tendency of the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination and election had been to throw the need of individual growth in the religious life somewhat into the background; but the religious revival, which arose under the influence of Cosin, Thorndyke, and other Caroline divines, was a conscious reaction against Calvinism. Though external discipline remained in abeyance, there is ample evidence that large numbers of Churchmen were trying to live more strictly, and to discipline themselves to comply with the standard of Christian life embodied in the Prayer Book. Care was taken to provide opportunities for daily prayer by ecclesiastical authorities,1 and daily services were very generally available in London churches in 1714, though the numbers rapidly 1 J. Wickham Legg, English Church Life, 79.

James Paterson, Pietas Lundinensis; also Strype's Stow (1720), bk. v, p. 19.