not skipped (the better way, as we think, in Sunday schools), they must have a Christian point put to them. This point, as in the story of Uzzah, is in showing how the Heavenly Father, as Christ has revealed him, differs from the jealous avenger that God was supposed to be;-showing, also, how men who in their time were esteemed great lights were but poor guides to truth in comparison with the Divine Christ, the Light of the world;-showing, also, our right and our duty, even though a prophet or an angel were to teach otherwise than Christ has taught, to listen to Christ alone.

There is also another side of truth to be brought out in contrast to the superstition that we find in these two stories.

Do any of us suppose that, if all men were godly men, ocean steamers would never sink each other in a fog, lightning never hit anybody, epidemics of typhoid or cholera be things. unknown? What we call the natural or physical evils of the world, like the plague at the census, or the thunderbolt that fell on Uzzah, or the death that sooner or later ends all animal life, are the products of natural causes. They would operate as they now do, were there not a sinner in the world. They are not caused by the fact that Adam sinned, and all men after him. The shadow they cast over sinful consciences, the gloom and fear, and dread of God, this, this only, is what we are to attribute to sin. In proportion as we learn of Christ to know God as our Father, we learn to say with Paul, that "all things work for good to them that love God." Thus Jesus corrected those who thought that a falling tower had crushed the life out of those beneath it, because they were especially sinners. Even as far back as the book of Job was written, the Bible protests against the notion which still lingers among us, that the natural evils, the catastrophes of life, are to be regarded as the punishment of sin. And so the Christian correction of this superstitious error of the times of David leads us to a profounder view of the retribution of sin. It is not without but within the man that it works to death. Not in the death of the body, but in the death of the soul; not in severance from the material world, but in severance from God; not in the loss of the breath, but in the loss of the spirit of filial trust and loving hope toward God; not in losing the body to the grave,

but in losing to the powers of inward darkness the power of living the Eternal Life through Christ and like him. This is what Christ teaches us to fear as the death which is the fruit of sin. What men call death, Christ teaches us to view as nothing but a falling asleep to wake again. It is not in the sleeping but in the waking again, that the judgment comes, in which it shall be to every man according as he is found in spirit, fitted or unfitted to see the kingdom of God and inherit its rewards.

ARTICLE VII.-THE CONDITION OF THE LABORING CLASSES OF ENGLAND.

THE Condition of the laboring classes of England is a theme of vital importance to thinking men on both sides of the Atlantic; but in its consideration passion is as much out of place as indifference. A serious and candid statement of facts without exaggeration and without concealment is that which is now demanded; among such data are the following:

1. The unprecedented increase of emigration from Great Britain shows that great numbers of the laboring classes of England are leaving the country. In the year 1882, the last year for which accurate figures are accessible, 1135 men, women, and children daily left the British shores; a continuous stream of humanity pouring out to make for itself a channel across the ocean to the ends of the earth; six-sevenths of this mighty host of 365 regiments, each more than 1100 strong, composed of the laboring classes! Could we station ourselves where we could look into the faces of this everincreasing procession and study the phases of human life there depicted, we should ponder more and more the meaning of this modern exodus of the Anglo-Saxon race and stand in awe of the tremendous social forces whose power surpassing that of physics is capable of such an effect. What are the adequate causes? There may be forces pulling these thousands across the seas; but there must also be greater forces pushing them off from their native land.

2. Every student of English history knows that the laboring classes in Great Britain have no social standing. English society, take it all in all, is the best in the world. Its wealth, its culture, its honor, its power, its influence, its glory, its prestige, is known and respected of all men. Men may love it, or they may hate it; they may serve it, or they may fight it; but ignore it either in England or without they cannot. Its spirit rules the British Empire and makes itself felt throughout the world. To define English society is well-nigh

impossible; its reality and stability, however, are none the less appreciated. From this society the laboring man is forever debarred. He comes often in contact with it. He beholds afar off enough of its glories to excite his envy; but were the English aristocracy the inhabitants of another planet they could not be farther removed than they have been from any real interchange of thought, feeling, or purpose with the workingmen. They have little or nothing in common. Their lives are diverse. Their movements are in different orbits, in different planes.

And

3. The laboring classes of England have virtually no political power. The nobility share their power of government with the middle classes; but the laboring classes have little influence either in the making or in the execution of the laws, though in some cases they may have the semblance of power. They are poor; no poor man's voice has much influence in politics. An election to Parliament costs a small fortune. Could a poor man be elected he must serve without salary and pay his own expenses. Should poor men combine and pay all the expenses of one of their number, this poor man's voice in Parliament would not be heard. But may not the laboring classes choose their representatives from among the aristocracy? Only a small part of the laboring classes have any right to vote. in many cases, whatever the theory may be, the laboring man is free to vote only as his landlord or his employer dictates. The justices of the peace, whose duty it is to execute and administer the laws for the laboring classes, are independent of them, being seldom from the middle classes, almost always from the aristocracy, the appointees directly or indirectly of the crown. In the administration of the civil service the laboring classes have no share, all offices of profit and trust being monopolized by the gentry. When the best of the middle classes are put to their wits' end to find places for their own children, it is folly for a laboring man to hope for a place under the government.

4. The laboring classes in England, in that sense of the term which implies among its essentials self-reliance in thought and action, have no education; I do not mean that they cannot read and write, nor that they are ignoramuses; I mean that

they have been trained neither to think for themselves nor to control themselves. England has no free schools to-day, since the poor must pay out of their scanty wages more than they are able for the compulsory schooling of their children; and it was only in 1870 that the state established any general system of public schools. Without the power to think and act for oneself no man is truly educated. The whole trend of English life for generations has been to the end of rearing a laboring class that should neither think nor act independently. That the laboring man should think and act for his landlord, for his employer, for his king, has been taught him by fire and by sword; but when and where has he been taught to think for himself, to act for himself, to govern and to take care of himself? The government has always said: To govern you is our prerogative; to take care of you is our duty; this is a paternal government.

From the time of Elizabeth to the present the English poor law has put a premium upon shiftlessness and a burden upon thrift; it has trained the laborer to sell his manhood for a mess of pottage. In hunger, in cold, in sickness, the laboring man's first and last resort has been to the government, until selfreliance has been sadly impaired, if not wholly eliminated.

For generations England has been one vast workshop. What has been the effect of England's industrial organization upon the workingman? It has tended more and more by its increasing division of labor and its rapid multiplication of machinery to narrow the channel of the workingman's thoughts. Now and then a Livingstone may put a book upon his loom and refuse to allow his brain to be fastened to the monotonous vibration of the shuttle; but Livingstones soon leave the humdrum of the mill to face lions and savages in unknown lands. The mass of workingmen are forced by the pressure of their environment to restrict their thoughts more and more to the particular manipulation that their place in the mill demands. R. W. Emerson has a suggestive essay upon Compensation, in which he elaborates the idea that every value has its proportionate cost. England's commercial greatness has its value matched by the cost to the workingman of his power to think and to act for himself.