from Pliny to the Emperor Trajan concerning a great fire which had broken out in Nicomedia, in which he asks permission to form a guild of carpenters as a fire department. The Emperor replied as follows:- "After the precedence of several other cities, you have come upon the idea that we might erect a guild of carpenters at Nicomedia. We must not forget that the cities alluded to have been repeatedly disquieted by such societies. The danger of political agitation is always near, under whatever name and for whatever reason the people may unite themselves together. I therefore consider it better to furnish abundant means for extinguishing fires, and to remind house-dwellers that they themselves must lay a hand; last, the public is to be called on."

The world has a strange way of repeating itself, "that which is, has been," and we should probably learn how to think of, and how to deal with, the trade combinations of our time if we had fuller knowledge of the history of such unions, and of both the good and the bad sides of their influence on the social life of the nations. Religious men, and especially religious teachers, can best preserve calmness of mind-that essential to the formation of sound judgment—amid the excitements and extravagant demands of the modern guilds or trades-unions, by careful study of the very similar phenomena which have appeared in well-nigh every land and age.

CHINESE AND MEDIEVAL GUILDS. BY FREDERICK WELLS WILLIAMS (The Yale Review).-Some of the points in this article may be reviewed as further illustrating that guilds and trades-unions are no invention of this nineteenth century, but, with both their good and bad features, have been developed in the social life of every civilized nation. When we recognize a common experience we have a basis from which to draw lessons for present experience.

Nowhere are the economic laws governing work and wages under conditions known to its people better understood than in China. No industrial folk in the world are more keenly aware of the disturbing effects of labour-saving con. trivances than the Chinese. The notion of association, whether for profit or preservation, which in all countries seems to have been incident to a certain stage of civilization, can be traced with varying degrees of conclusiveness to a remote antiquity among the people of Asia. The essential principle underlying trades-unions, fraternities, guilds, and like combinations, is simply the outcome of the gregarious nature of man. However diverse their form and variety, their dominant motive is always the same-that of mutual assistance, offensive and defensive, in social and industrial matters. The term "guild" should be limited to groups of persons within the body politic banded together for some legitimate object of assistance or gain, generally without any political aim.

We are not likely ever to know with certainty whether the guild in China was formed at a comparatively recent date to meet new conditions of trade, or was simply the development of an institution already existing. It would not be difficult to formulate a sociological theory of growth from the family to the clan, from the clan to the craft, and so to the guild. It is safer to recognize that it belongs to humanity in all climes when a certain stage of culture has been attained. Each caste in India is said by Sir William Hunter to be to some extent a trade guild, a mutual assurance society, and a religious sect. As a tradesunion it insists on the proper training of the youth of its craft, regulates the wages of its members, deals with delinquents, and promotes good fellowship by social gatherings. The two great classes of guilds in China are the Wei-Kwan (or clubs), resembling medieval merchant or trade guilds, and, more distantly, our modern

chambers of commerce; and Kung-so (public halls), representing craft guilds, and in a less degree trades-unions. Probably the Wei-Kwan were developed before the Kung-so, and provided a model for the artizans in forming their unions.

The genesis of a merchant guild might be sketched in some such way as this: Enough traders of the same class from the same province being found in a given city, they subscribe money to buy land and erect a house. To support the estabOn the lishment a tax on sales by members is levied, close watch being kept by all to ensure an equitable contribution; defaulters are severely dealt with. other hand, the guild stands loyally by a member who suffers unjustly at the hands of outsiders, or becomes the victim of an unscrupulous mandarin. This sentiment of mistrust towards the tribunals of the government and disposition to keep its members out of the clutch of public law courts is especially suggestive of the medieval guild in Europe. The administration of a Chinese guild is customarily entrusted to a manager, and to an executive committee elected annually. On this committee each staple commodity has its representative. To keep themselves in This touch with the local authorities the guilds hire a literary man possessed of actual or honorary rank sufficient to demand personal interviews with officials. secretary is well paid, and used as adviser, correspondent, and intermediary at the yamêns. The membership is usually kept below thirty. The revenues of a merchant guild average not far from a tenth of one per cent. on the goods sold by the members. The ratio varies in different localities and with different commodities.

These Wei-Kwan also provide a social club and benefit society for their members. When compelled to enforce discipline they can strike with a force which puts practical resistance absolutely out of the question. Its weapon is the taboo or boycott. Standard weights and measures must be used under severe penalty. There is no common standard for the Empire, and most guilds and There is apparently no very severe scrutiny of a candidate's traders have their own. qualifications for membership.

The treatment of the medieval guilds is reserved for a succeeding article.

THE CRUCIFIX: ITS ORIGIN, HISTORY, AND RELATION TO DOCTRINE. By W. J. REYNOLDS (The Baptist Quarterly Review).-Judaism and Mohammedanism manifest the same inherent opposition to all images as accessories to worship. The simplicity and naturalness of the life and manner of worship of the early Christians rendered unnecessary and, to their minds, essentially sinful the presence of pictures or images, either as aids to private devotion or as furnishing stimulus for public social worship. This opposition to art was beginning to wane in the second century, when it was not an uncommon thing to find Christians having recourse to pictures in private devotion. The early Christians met in halls, the walls of which were sometimes adorned with At first, these pictorial sketches of vines and boys, and pictures of the seasons. representations, supplied by Greek and Roman art, would attract little attention; the time came, however, when the Christians found that these same pictures were As a counteraction of exercising a more or less degrading influence over them. such tendencies, pictures of sacred personages and facts would gradually come

into use.

This symbol One of the earliest symbols used by the Christians was the cross. has, in fact, a history antedating the Christian era in connection with heathen religions. The hieroglyph of a cross has been found among the ruins of Susa; it was an object of worship in the idol temple of Anahane, on the temple of Serapis at Alexandria, and it is also found on Babylonian cylinders, on Phoenician

and Etruscan remains, and among the Brahminical and Buddhistic antiquities of India and China.

At first, the Christians made use of a form of the cross combined with the monogram of Christ, This is the form found in the catacombs. From the monogram to the pure form of the cross the change was gradual. Because Constantine saw a flaming cross in the sky, he had the cross placed upon the shields of his soldiers, and erected large crosses on the hippodrome and elsewhere in Constantinople. The Scriptural use of the term "Lamb," as applicable to Christ, gave rise to the use of the figure of the lamb in connection with the cross. This, however, exerted a mischievous influence, and at the Council of Trullo it was ordained that "henceforth the actual historic figure of the Man Christ Jesus should be substituted in all church paintings and mosaics for the symbolical lamb."

The difference between the cross and the crucifix must be borne in mind. The cross becomes a crucifix when a victim is represented as attached to the cross. In the seventh century, Christian emotion, stirred by contemplating the sufferings of Christ, gave to the world the crucifix, as the embodiment in artistic form of strong Christian emotion. The early Christians did not delight in contemplating the agony of Christ upon the cross; their thought was busy with the glorious redemption which His death secured. That the Christians could not, and the pagans would not, tolerate such visible representations of the crown of thorns, the blood streaming from His side, hands, and feet, is very evident. The influence of such an emblem upon the pagans can be easily imagined when it is remembered that Julian and Cæcilius derided it, and with bitterest sarcasm reproached the Christians for their use of it. Different crucifixes are described

by the author, that at Florence, Aix-la-Chapelle, Lucca, and Mount Athos; and it is shown that the early artists designed to make them as complete as possible, adorning the front of the crucifix with whatever objects seemed to be in harmony with the scene depicted.

The relation of the crucifix to life and doctrine remains to be noticed. Among the early Christians the cross was unquestionably regarded as the embodiment of Christ. In the first instance these images were used merely as symbols, and as such served the purpose of eliciting and strengthening religious feeling; but by degrees the Christians came to regard these, not as symbols of Christ, but as embodying Divine power. It is a historical fact that Tertullian found it necessary to defend the Christians against the charge of idolatry; and the Council of Elvira, held in Spain, A.D. 306, prohibited the admission of sacred pictures on the walls of the buildings. The worship of images has had a vital relation to the history of the Church, precipitating the iconoclastic controversy which culminated in the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches.

Ruskin, in his Lectures on Art, says: "The effect of realistic art on the religious mind of Europe varies in scope more than any other art power. In its lowest branches it addresses itself to the mere thirst for sensation of horror, and also to a strange love of death, as such. The same morbid instinct has also affected the minds of many among the more imaginative and powerful artists, and the worst of all its effects is this: it has occupied the sensibility of Christian women universally in lamenting the sufferings of Christ instead of preventing those of His people. Think of the quantity of time, and of excited and thrilling emotion, which have been wasted by the tender and delicate women of Christendom. What would have been the result for the righteousness and felicity of mankind if these

same women had been taught the deep meaning of Christ's words, 'Daughters. of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children'?"

No sensible student of history will deny that the early reverence for the cross and crucifix has developed into the worst kind of idolatry. Alliance with imperial power, a love that had grown cold, brought to the Christians, though not until several centuries after the death and resurrection of their Lord, artistic representations of His agony, before which they bowed, worshipping the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.

EARLY CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM. By Right Rev. Mgr. ROBERT SETON, D.D. (The American Catholic Quarterly Review).-The word symbol means "that which is taken with," and it denotes an object by which, through the sense of sight, some particular idea is suggested, awakened, and impressed upon the mind. In the primitive monuments of Christianity we find the continual repetition of certain mysterious signs, characters, and, we might say, hieroglyphics, which are evidently meant to excite attention to some matter of faith or morals. This is early signpainting or symbolism. The richest source is found in a circumscribed circle of objects, whether real or chimerical, such as a bird, a fish, a dragon, the phoenix, the centaur, or a flower, a tree, an anchor, a crown. These and others have been represented in a variety of ways upon the monuments of Christian antiquity, from the tomb of a pontiff martyr to an insignificant little brooch or lamp. From a passage in Clement of Alexandria it may be inferred that symbols were in common use among the Christians of the second century, and that then a new and a religious sense was attached to them; a motive for their use, besides the fostering of individual piety, being the veil of secrecy which Christians were then obliged to assume for their own safety and for the honour of holy things. Possibly this ingenious symbolism was deliberately contrived and intended as an easy and pious mode of instructing the young, the simple, the illiterate, the ignorant. No doubt, the early Christians took their symbols, in great part, from the Jews, and through them from the Egyptians and Orientals; paganism even furnished some. Our Lord constantly made use of allegorical speech and symbolical figures.

Sometimes animals are found represented on the tombs of Christians as indicating the name of the deceased. Thus a sow was found on the tomb of one Porcella. The names of lowly animals were sometimes cut on the tombs in a spirit of humility. The lamb is the symbol sometimes of our Lord, sometimes of a simple Christian, or follower of our Lord. Since the special character of the Redeemer was that of Victim, the earliest and most numerous testimonies in the sacred Scriptures speak of Him under this figure. It recalled to the minds of the faithful the great truth that our Saviour shed His blood on the cross, without subjecting so sacred a subject to the ridicule of heathens. We may thus look upon the lamb taken as a symbol of Christ to have been the crucifix of the early Christians, and in following the various phases or manners of representation we see that gradually the figure melts away into the undisguised cross. At first the lamb was standing upon a hill or mountain, whence flowed four streams of water. Then came the lamb bearing one or another pastoral attribute-the milk pail or the crook. In this is easily recognized the Good Shepherd. The nimbus, called in art the halo or the glory, is, in connection with figures of animals, exclusively used on the lamb, as representing our Lord. As the Church developed the mystery of the cross to the outward senses, the lamb is found with some indication of suffering, as when over the head of the lamb was shown the monogram of Christ, which was a disguised

cross. In the sixth century we see the lamb supporting a cross-tipped staff-the Crux hastata. At a later period the lamb is "standing as it were slain" upon an altar, at the foot of a precious and ornamented cross-Crux gemmata. Again in the same century streams of blood issued from the wounded limbs and opened side of the lamb. Towards the decline of the sixth century a lamb is depicted or represented attached to the cross at the place where soon the Man of Sorrows will appear in human form, and the modern crucifix will be revealed. Up to the tenth century, and long after a human figure hung on the cross, a lamb was at the foot, or on the From this period down through the Middle Ages the symbols of lowliness and of suffering were abandoned, and the lamb is accompanied with those of victory and triumph. The lamb is sometimes shown armed with a cross, or a simple lance, and repelling a serpent, who represents the Evil One. In some mosaics of the eighth and ninth centuries the lamb is represented as in the vision of the Apocalypse, resting upon a glorious throne, around which are four angels and seven candlesticks.

reverse.

The lamb is also found as a symbol of Christians taken collectively, that is, as a symbol of the whole body of the faithful. Sometimes it signifies the meekness, humility, and innocence that should distinguish the followers of Christ. As a special symbol of purity, or freedom from the lusts of the flesh, the lamb is represented between two wolves, or other ferocious beasts. The ram must not be confounded with the lamb. It is founded on the story of Isaac, and is a symbol of Jesus Christ as substituting Himself for sinners.

Since the Scriptures frequently employ the deer, stag, hart, or hind to convey certain moral ideas, the early Christians represented this animal in their monuments with a symbolical intention. The hare is often found on sepulchral slabs, &c., but its exact symbolical significance is not clear. Sometimes the hare was pursued by the hound. The lion figure is seldom found on primitive Christian monuments. The calf is represented on the capitals of columns in very ancient churches. It was a symbol of Jesus Christ under the sacrificial idea of Priest and Victim. The serpent was used in three different senses. In sign of the victory of our Lord over the ancient dragon; as the symbol of prudence; and as a symbol of the cross itself, through the association of the brazen serpent. Among the faithful the serpent was sometimes used as a symbol of the resurrection and of immortality, the habit of changing or sloughing its skin, and of emerging from a mean state into a brighter and better one, easily explaining the reason. On the monuments of Egypt a serpent holding its tail in its mouth, thus forming a circle, was the sign of unbroken time or eternity. Birds, real or chimerical, were generally used as mere ornaments. Confined in cages, they are supposed to have symbolized the human soul within the prison of this material body, and also the confessors of the faith and the martyrs confined and tortured by their cruel captors. Few early Christian monuments show the eagle. The cock figures frequently, especially on the tombs of the dead. It was taken as a symbol of the resurrection, because it is chanticleer's shrill clarion that announces the dawn of day. It was also a symbol of vigilance. The dove appears on every species of monument, mural painting, mosaics, sepulchral slabs, lamps, candelabra, cameos, rings, brooches, and ornamental or gilded glass. Our Lord made the dove the emblem of simplicity, and the early Christians further took it as an emblem of chastity, humility, meekness, and innocence in general.

The fish was a very general symbol, first of our Lord, and then of His followers. The Greek word for fish, ix@ús, represents the sum of Christian theology concerning our Lord; His name, His twofold nature, His place among the Divine Persons of the Trinity, His priesthood, His redeemership: Ἰησοῦς, Χριστός, Θεοῦ, Υιός, Σωτήρ-Jesus