more bread on the table, and part ownership in what I make." And Christianity whispers: "Sh! Capital rents the pews, pays for the music, and patronizes the parson. We'll open a soup-house. We'll build a mission chapel on a side street and name it St. Lazarus."

It

Thus, whenever Churchianity comes out of the ranks of the foe and attempts to deal with existing evils, it does so in such amateur fashion that the very effort aggravates the difficulty. When the trouble comes from the social order it doles out temporary supplies to individuals. It contents itself with alleviation, and does not study to cure. gives pity, not justice. It provides charity, instead of insisting upon a rearrangement of the situation. Meantime, it is as ignorant of the impending cataclysm as Versailles was of the French revolution a year before it reddened the streets of Paris with blood; when, as Carlyle said, "The 18th century committed suicide by blowing its own brains out." What are the results? They are many and sad.

One is the weakening grip of the Church upon practical life. It builds cathedrals, not men. It meets on Sunday for worship in splendid exclusion and seclusion, and shuts the building through the week, while the congregation is occupied at the theatre, in the ball-room, or on Wall Street. The pulpit, warned off from the treatment of living issues, drones through a parrot-like repetition of the creed, and puts the emphasis on belief when it should put it on conduct.

Another result is that the Church is pre-empted (and emptied) by wealth and fashion. Lawyers who are of counsel for trusts and monopolies; capitalists whose names are identified with tricky monetary transactions, leaders of the ton whose real god is society, occupy the highest seats in the synagogue, and love to come because they can feel sure that they will not be reminded of time in the contemplation of eternity.

Saddest of all, the industrial classes are conspicuous by their absence from the church, like the images of Brutus and Cassius in the imperial procession. There is an almost

complete alienation from institutional religion on their part. Those who were foremost in planting Christianity, in its apostleship, among its most devout adherents, its chiefest beneficiaries, its saintliest exponents, its most eager martyrs,

are now embittered and critical. They do not, cannot

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recognize Christianity in Churchianity. They need religion as much as ever, more than ever. The gracious words and beautiful example of Christ would be as potent in the nineteenth century as they were in the first, were they as faithfully and lovingly presented. But the church of show, the church of the Holy Cash, the congregation of caste, the congregation of St. Sinner, à la mode, are an abomination to their souls.

Reinforcing these are many thoughtful people who make much of morality, and who contrast the professions of the church with its practice, its creed with its life. They, too, are shocked into alienation. When they see men and women prominent at church, in its officership, among its society leaders, who are at a discount as to honesty and reliability in the world, what wonder they conclude that they can be as good as these saints and remain sinners? And so, though they have no theological quarrel with religion, they train with the ever-increasing army of stay-at-homes.

At a recent notable meeting of the Evangelical Alliance there was on the part of all present a recognition of this drifting apart of the Church and the people. The Rev. Dr. Strong exclaimed: "The Church has largely lost touch with the world. It is more institutional than personal. The cry too often is not, Here am I, send me,' but Here is my check, send somebody else!' There is salt enough, but it is barreled up in the Church."

Bishop Huntingdon, of the Episcopal Communion, asked :

"How does it come to pass that the people, being at the Church's door, are on the outside? Certainly there can be no fault with the Gospel. Is the obstacle, then, in the people? If so, we cannot get it out until we get at the people. The obstacle is in ourselves. The Gospel and the people belong together. They were made for each other. No matter what the apostolicity of the Church may be, the putting apart of the Gospel and the people is her apostacy."

The Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, of New York, declared that "he would rather take the chances of an atheist before the bar of God than those of a saved (?) man who is not at the same time a saviour."

These are hopeful voices. Do they indicate the dawn of a better day?

Whatever may be the changes that are imminent, no matter

what the surprises of the future, religion will survive. It must. For, as Locke said of the Bible: "It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any admixture of error for its subject-matter." We may be sure that the ethereal mold,

Incapable of stain, will soon expel her mischief,

And purge off the baser fire, victorious."

One thing, however, is certain. The Church will never rehabilitate itself in popular influence by meretricious expedients. It is not to be saved by broom-drills, dairy-maid fairs, and catch-penny festivals. Neither will it better the situation by complaining. It will not fill the pews by lazily opening its doors once a week, clanging the bell in a dingdong fashion, and saying: "You people out there come in here and be saved!" If sinners ran their business as saints run the Church, they would go into bankruptcy in a year. Imagine Paul standing in a gorgeous pulpit, with a tenthousand dollar salary, and a five-thousand dollar choir, in a church where pew-rent is as high as house-rent, with two or three pews down by the door for the use of the poor, and attributing the absence of the people from such a service to total depravity!

No; the church must interest itself in practical affairs. It must be a leader in good words and works. It must vindicate its right to be by divine helpfulness. Christ never lacked hearers. "The common people heard him gladly." The apostles never complained of poor congregations. They went where the crowd was. They gave out instead of absorbing. Many of our preachers are like the Bourbonsthey learn nothing and forget nothing. They are too stubborn to change. Their type is Saul's chief herdsman, Dog, "having charge of the mules."

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As for Churchianity, let us hope it is doomed. We may devoutly pray for its demise. "A religion that does not take hold of the life that now is," wisely affirms an eminent preacher, "is like a cloud that does not rain. cloud may roll in grandeur, and be an object of admiration; but if it does not rain it is of little account so far as utility is concerned. And a religion that consists in the observance of magnificent ceremonies, but that does not touch the duties. of daily life, is a religion of show and of sham."

To much the same effect speaks Lord Bacon: "Pythagoras, being asked what he was, answered, That if Hiero was ever at the Olympian games, he knew the manner, that some came as merchants to utter their commodities and some came to make good cheer and meet their friends, and some came to look on; and that he was one of them that came to look on."" Upon which the great Englishman remarks: "But men must know that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on."

The writer is in full accord with orthodox theology. He only laments that orthodox practice is so heterodox. And he freely confesses that he infinitely prefers the Gospel of the carpenter to the gospel of the counting-room, the Epistles of the tentmaker to the epistles of the mill-owner,-Christianity to Churchianity.

CORRELATION OF PHYSICAL AND MORAL

DISEASES.

BY JUNIUS HENRI BROWNE.

To see unity in multiformity is said to be the province of the poet. It is certainly the province of the philosopher, who chiefly differs from the poet in viewing the Universe at a broader angle. The more we observe, the more we think, the clearer is the analogy, the correspondence between entities. All through Nature run not only parallels of illustration, but lines converging to, and pointing cut cosmic truth. The close analogy between what we understand as the physical, the mental, and the moral is evident enough upon scrutiny and reflection. Nevertheless, most of us are in the habit of regarding them, especially their defects or diseases, as widely apart, if not positively distinct. It is not many years, as everyone knows, since we treated persons suffering from mental disease as if they were responsible for it, punishing them severely for their misfortune. By such barbarity, we hoped to alleviate, if not to cure them. It seems incredible now that we could have been so stupid most of our cruelty comes from want of perception and yet we continue to punish criminals, to condemn the vicious, in the same

way.

We seldom think that moral defects and physical diseases are correlated. They unquestionably are, however. We never blame anyone for having consumption, dyspepsia, gastritis, pneumonia, peritonitis, albuminuria, small-pox, or typhoid fever. Contrariwise, we pity them deeply, and do all in our power to heal them, acting on the principle of common humanity. But is there not moral consumption, moral dyspepsia, moral gastritis, moral pneumonia? We do not give them such names, it is true; but names affect not fundamental truth. We may call them homicide, falsehood, theft,