democracy in the godhead itself.

Not until then will

the working class come back into the church.

These then are the three counts in the indictment which the democracy to-day is bringing against the idea of a fatherly creator and ruler of the universe: First, that it is unbiblical, and was a "devised fable" craftily interpolated into the christian system by Greek metaphysicians at the behest of their Roman overlords. Second, that it is untrue, because the forces of nature do not operate on any basis of personal intelligence and kindliness; they are brute powers which are not to be prayed unto but are to be mastered. Third, that it is immoral, inasmuch as it presents to fundamental democracy the opposition of fundamental absolutism. And the last is the most damnatory count in the indictment. A religion can exist after it has been found to be unbiblical. It can even struggle on after it has become untrue. But it cannot continue after it has been found to be immoral. The tidal drift away from the church means much. But there is setting in to-day a tidal drift against the church, and that means vastly more, particularly as that tidal sweep includes to-day some of the noblest enthusiasms of our time. When once conscience has been enlisted against a church, that church is doomed. The religion of the classic world was able to keep going after it had lost its power of producing martyrs. But when, on a stream of passion that came surging forth from Nazareth, martyrs were raised up against that religion, its hour had struck. The democracy to-day believes with all its soul and heart and mind and strength

that paternal despotism in the heavens is the begetter of paternal despotisms upon earth; that the church's theology was made in an age of aristocracy, by the paid retainers of the aristocracy, and in the interests of aristocracy. Therefore the democracy is putting conscience in its fight against this "spiritual wickedness," and is saying in the words of an aforetime warrior against wrong: "We shall doe God and our country true service by taking away this evil."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE INDUSTRIAL COMRADE

MALMESBURY tells of a prodigy, two women joined together from birth. "At last, one dying, the other survived, and the living carried about the dead for the space of three years, till she dies also, through the fatigue of the weight."

The ligature woven by the Græco-Roman philosophers, conjoining The Carpenter with the idea of a paternal despot in heaven, threatens, unless the two can be severed, to cause a similar fatality. For the speculations of Greek metaphysics are dead. The scientific view of the universe, discovered by modern research and increasingly accepted by the modern world, is in polar opposition to the laboured mysticisms of Plato and the Platonists. Science is an august thing; it is taught to-day in the schools, is preached by the universities, and is the organizing principle in modern industry. A belated bishop here and there may issue a prayer for rain; but he is no longer taken seriously. The theistic school, driven to the wall, unable longer to defend its theory of a personal intelligence back of the forces of nature, is resorting to obscurantism — is fighting a slow retreat, or lapsing into sullen silence. The divine despotism is dead. The danger is lest the Carpenter of Galilee, conjoined to that partner, may

-

also be dragged down, "through the fatigue of the weight."

A section of the proletary class to-day is showing a trend away from the spiritual foundations of life and into a pronounced secularism. These have never seen the Nazareth Workingman in his real aspect, as the industrial leader of the industrialists of the world. They have accepted the portrait of him as it was repainted by the theologians of the Roman Empire - a representative of the cæsarized sovereignty in the heavens. Therefore they are stripping themselves of religion of every kind they regard any leanings toward a spiritual view of life as evidence either of outworn superstition, or of a covert sympathy with the master and proprietary class.

If this trend were to grow, if the social movement were to be lopped away from its holdfast in religion, that movement would receive therein its death mark. For democracy is an enthusiasm or it is nothing. To divorce it from faith leaves a mutilated thing, devoid of beauty and stamina. A propaganda, to succeed, must have within it the driving power of a great emotion. Religion is the premier force in human life, and always will be; for it changes the verb from the subjunctive to the imperative. Democracy in its essence is not a movement away from religion: it is a movement toward a truer and higher religion. The calm clear thinking of the schools is powerless to effect social alterations: it must be emotionalized. Logic is like sunshine in winter, full of light but freezing. It is only when the earth swings near to the sun that there takes place the upheaval and resurrection of the springtide. "Not a revolution in Europe but there has been

a monk back of it," is perhaps an overstatement. But there resides a soul of truth in the proverb. Faith touched with passion that has been in every age the great social dynamic. For the democracy to leave the religious area to the exploiter and privileged class, would be a tactical blunder of the first magnitude. Let me write a nation's religion, and I care not who writes her laws.

Said Mazzini: "Great social transformations have never been and never will be other than the application of a religious principle, of a moral development, of a strong and active faith. On the day when democracy shall elevate itself to the position of a religious party it will carry away the victory, not before"; and again: "The religious question pursues me like a remorse; it is the only one of any real importance." Richard Whiteing speaks to the same theme: "Democracy is a religion or nothing, with its ritual, its ceremonies, its cenobites, its government as a church-above all, its organized sacrifice of the altar, the sacrifice of self. This is the deepest craving of human nature. All attempts to sacrifice man's heroism to his interests have ever failed. His goodness must make him smart." Where social interest has no rootage in religion, it is a precarious and fragile thing. "Nothing has struck me more," bitterly exclaims a leader of the democratic ideal, "than the short life of social enthusiasm. We have had thousands of examples." The Carpenter foresaw this. Zeal, if it has no roots, is a short lived thing; it will parch at the first drought. He pointed this, in his parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. Where there is a spiritual reinforcement, social en