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whom they first arose, and be able to lead forth her sons, saying, 'These are my jewels.'" 1

Yet these teachers of duty and of beauty, when they abandon the path of spiritual inspiration, and undertake that of economic instruction, warn us of the limits of the prophetic office. Carlyle proposes a reversion of industrial life from liberty of contract to the bondage of feudalism. "I am for permanence in all things." "Gurth, the serf of Cedric, with a brass collar round his neck, is not what I call an exemplar of human felicity, but Gurth to me seems happy in comparison with many a man of these days, not born thrall of anybody." "Liberty when it becomes the liberty to die by starvation is not so divine."2 Ruskin proposes a principle of exchange which shall abolish all distinctions of ability or fidelity, and which assumes an equality of service, the possibility of which Ruskin himself denies. Nothing, indeed, is more curious in literary history than the place which both Carlyle and Ruskin have come at last to occupy in the history of social reform. Both were completely opposed to the democratic tendency of modern politics and industry. Both were at heart aristocrats and reactionaries. Neither had any fundamental sympathy with the socialist pro

1 "Unto this Last," Essay II, Conclusion.

2" Past and Present," Book III, Ch. XIII.

8 Compare, "Unto this Last," Essay III, with "Fors Clavigera,” Letter V: "No liberty, but instant obedience to known law and appointed persons; no equality, but recognition of every betterness and reprobation of every worseness."

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gramme. Both stood for authority, order, obedience. Ruskin speaks of himself as an "old Tory" and as an "Illiberal." 1 Carlyle pours contempt on the antislavery agitation of a "long-sounding, long-eared Exeter Hall."2 Both found in mediavalism an escape from modern social ills. Carlyle would heal the economic evils of the nineteenth century by a reversion to feudalism; Ruskin would redeem the ugliness of modern civilization by a revival of primitive simplicity. Both distrusted the spirit of democracy and the rule of the majority. "I hate your Clutterbuck republics,” said Carlyle, of the United States; and Ruskin, in his splendid rhetoric, coincides in this view: "This I say, because the Americans as a nation set their trust in liberty and in equality, of which I detest the one and deny the possibility of the other; and because, also, as a nation, they are wholly undesirous of rest, and incapable of it; irreverent of themselves. both in the present and in the future; discontented with what they are, having no ideal of anything which they desire to become, as the tide of the troubled sea when it cannot rest." 8 Yet, by a strange perversion of the main intention of Carlyle and Ruskin, their prophetic denunciations have outlived their positive teachings; their invectives against the world as it is have been heard, while their pictures of the world as it ought to be have

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been forgotten. Carlyle's "Past" would be absolutely intolerable to the radical reformers who still delight in his arraignment of the "Present." Ruskin's "Unto this Last," in its economic doctrine, may be so impracticable as to justify the jest that its title should be "Beyond his Last," but the visionary quality of Ruskin's economics does not diminish the effectiveness of his splendid satire or of his moral exhortation. The prophetic quality in both these literary masters outlives their advocacy of feudal authority, and both have been swept into the movement of radical socialism from which they would have instinctively recoiled, and find themselves at last cited as leading authorities in the text-books of social revolution.1 Few lessons are of more importance for teachers of righteousness to learn than the natural limitations of the prophetic office which even these distinguished cases illustrate, and which are much more obvious in less gifted men. Many a Christian preacher, stirred by the recognition of social wrong, - and not infrequently by the burning message of Carlyle or of Ruskin,-is called to be a prophetic voice, crying in the wilderness of the social question; but many a prophet mistakes his office for that of the economist, and gives a passionate devotion to industrial programmes which are sure to fail. Neither ethical passion nor rhetorical genius equip a preacher for economic judgments. It is

1 E.g. Morris, "Art and Socialism," 1884, appendix, with passages from Carlyle and Ruskin.

for the prophet of righteousness to exhort and warn, rather than to administer and organize. A different temper and training are required for wisdom in industrial affairs.

Reasonable, however, as such criticism may be concerning the function of prophecy, it does not fix a limit for Christian thought concerning the social question. On the contrary, it may happen that those who desire to apply the religious motive to social life shall frankly dismiss the function of prophecy, and enter, like other people, into the region of economic discussion and research. While it is true that there is nothing in Christian piety which of itself fits one for social wisdom, it is certainly not true that there is anything in such a sentiment which disqualifies one from prudent and patient inquiry or from intelligent decision. Beyond the position of the prophet, therefore, lie various phases of direct and practical service through which it is proposed to utilize religion as a social force, and to give it a definite place in economic life.

The most usual and the most moderate type of the social utilization of religion is in what may be called if the title may be used as one of appreciation and honor-the method of Christian opportunism. The opportunist is not necessarily a time-server; he may be simply a reformer who uses each opportunity as it arrives. The opportunist has no definite or final programme, but is ready to use any means which for the moment appears practicable. He feels his way through what is immedi

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ately possible toward the end which he desires. This is the frame of mind of the great majority of those who are attempting to apply the spirit of Christianity to the social question. The "Social Congresses" of Catholics and Protestants held each year in European countries, urge on their adherents, not specific enterprises in the name of religion, but observation, research, and readiness to apply the motives of religion to social life wherever the way may open. They represent an alert, awakened, opportunist spirit, stirring great communions of Christians, a spirit which is often led by new circumstances into quite unanticipated ways of usefulness.1 Of this direction of the Christian impulse into unforeseen channels one of the most notable illustrations is to be found in the devoted service of Maurice and his friends in England.2

1 "Verhandlungen des Evang.-soz. Kongresses," I-XI, 18901900; L. Grégoire (pseudonym), “Le Pape, les Catholiques et la question sociale," 1895 (p. 313, "Programme du Congrès Catholique de Cologne," 1894).

2 The story of the Maurice-Kingsley movement is delightfully told in the "Life of Frederic Denison Maurice, Chiefly in his Own Letters," 4th ed., 1885, especially Vol. II, Ch. I (a bibliography is prefixed to Vol, I); and in Brentano, "Die christlich-soziale Bewegung in England," 1883 (with bibliography). Of Maurice's own writings, the most significant are: "Dialogue between Somebody (a person of respectability) and Nobody (the author)," 1890; "Reasons for Cooperation," 1891; and of Kingsley: "Message of the Church to Laboring Men," 1891; "Alton Locke," 1880; "Yeast," 1891; "Literary and General Lectures," 1880. See also Kaufmann, "Christian Socialism," 1888, p. 57 ff. The true relation of Kingsley to Maurice is recorded in a conversation reported by E. Yarnall, "Reminiscences," 1899, p. 190: ""I owe all that I am to

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