Teachers are producers indirectly, because, in the exercise of their profession, they are instructing those who shall afterwards engage in productive labor, and are fitting them to do more and better work than they could do if uneducated.

Lawyers are also indirect producers, in so far as their profession is a necessary part of the machinery of society. Whatever of their labor is given to quibbling and to pettifogging is wasted. But the time and effort spent in positive directions such as the perfecting of laws, the maintenance of strict justice, and adjusting more equitably the relations of men, prevents friction and loss and is, therefore, properly considered productive labor.

So, too, the physician, by preserving the life and vigor of many productive workers, himself becomes a producer. The scientist discovers the laws and principles upon which the success of labor depends and thus makes the efforts of the laborer more effective, and the inventor furnishes new and better instruments of labor, both increasing the capacity of the productive worker so that with the same outlay of energy he may produce much more, or producing the same may live more easily and toil less severely. Hence they too may claim a place in the ranks of productive laborers.

The tradesman and banker, by facilitating the profitable or economical exchange of productions, become indirect producers. Even those professions which have no other end than to amuse the public, as the profession of actors and singers, may be considered productive in so far as they afford needed recreation, giving rest to weary toilers, and prolonging or increasing their power to work. The necessity in this direction is, however, so slight in comparison with the number of people thus employed, and the general effect of their labor is such that we must include the great majority of public amusers among unproductive laborers.

We cannot draw a definite line between the different trades or professions, and declare that the representatives of one profession are all productive laborers, while those of some other profession are all unproductive; for those professions which we consider most useless may become productive in certain circumstances, and those which are generally accounted productive

may likewise become unproductive. If ten men are working together as farmers, it may be to the advantage of all that one should refrain from tilling the soil and give his time to the manufacture and repairing of tools. If by so doing he really facilitates the work of all and secures a greater crop, his labor is as truly productive as is that of the other nine men. If, however, all should say: The tool-maker is a producer, therefore we will make tools; then, however diligently they labored, they would starve; for none would be real producers, since they would manufacture articles not needed for use.

This is actually the case whenever a trade or profession becomes overcrowded. There is no increase of valuable production proportionate to the increase of labor expended, consequently some must suffer want. Productiveness is not a mere matter of creative efficiency. Concerning everything created we must ask: Does it really supply any human need? And it is a question not of possibility, but of fact. Grain is a commodity largely in demand for food, but the farmer who raises grain when there is already more grain in the market than the world's population can consume, is not really a productive laborer. He adds nothing to the wealth of the world; for, since the supply of grain is already sufficient, all that he raises or its equivalent must go to waste. Every intelligent man ought therefore to carefully distinguish between severe toil and productive toil, and also between apparent productiveness and productiveness that meets and satisfies some real need of humanity.

The productiveness of labor determines its moral character as well as its economic value. Production is a duty. Unproductiveness is a sin. For him who possesses in any degree the capacity for production and does not utilize it, the fittest of all punishments is starvation. And this is the universal law whose operation is seen in any department of life where the Divine order is not set aside by human interference. He only has a right to live who makes his own living. He who merely extracts a living from the store which others have gathered is a public malefactor, even though he be content with the smallest pittance.

The popular method of estimating the respectability of labor is very short-sighted and often false. Public opinion condemns the thief who takes his neighbor's property by stealth or by force or by certain proscribed methods of gambling. But if he adopts the disguise of honest toil and labors diligently and regularly, even though he produces nothing by his toil, he may take as much as he can from the wealth which others have produced and no one will call him to account for his action. Or he may steal without toiling if he be shrewd enough to so entangle the lines of his stealing that his wealth when gained cannot be traced directly to individual losers; and his fellowmen, instead of censuring him, will only praise his skill as a financier. Consequently we find in every community a growing class of unproductive laborers. Often they are ambitious; but their ambition looks not to the real value of their labor. It only requires that their toil receive a rich remuneration. They spend all their energy and skill in filching the good things which have been gathered by the labor of their fellows. Like the drones in the bee-hive they are apt to make a great buzzing and to rush about with an important air as though the life of the entire community depended upon them; but with all their noise they gather no honey and only drain the cells which others have filled. Little pity do they deserve when the sting of an indignant worker puts an end to their lazy existence. It were well if the sting of public condemnation could forever make an end to the respectability of unproductive labor. That labor only is respectable-i. e. worthy of respect which is productive of good, which makes the world richer, better, happier. They only are worthy of being counted in the ranks of labor whose toil is in some way productive, whose lives are spent in supplying the great needs of humanity. The mere money-maker-or accumulator, however valuable be the wealth accumulated-though he labor many long hours, and though his hands be hardened with toil and his brain racked with care, has no claim to honor or even to recognition among the workers of society.

GEORGE H. HUBBARD.

ARTICLE IV.-THE SECTS AND CHRISTIANITY.

How much do the sects work for Christianity and how much against it? It is plain that they work against it so far as they lay out strength on things which do not belong to it. And things do not belong to it about which men differ who acknowledge each other as equally good Christians. For instance, a good man in a Presbyterian and one in a Baptist church have not only the same Christian faith and morality, but the same form of both. Each trusts the other, religiously and socially, and believes that his influence and efforts are advancing the reign of Christ. Neither expects to stand any higher hereafter than the other for his specific peculiarities of opinion. How then can the public organs of the two bodies be justified in spending large space and pains over infant baptism and immersion? It is plain that neither the Pædobaptist nor the Baptist position can be of the essence of the gospel, since confessedly Christian faith and morals are equally well realized on both sides. When this difference is treated as an interesting historical development, resulting from human limitation, and justifiable, by sound arguments, on both sides, it is well treated. But when it is treated as of moral and spiritual import, all the energy that is thrown into it is deducted from Christianity. How enormous a deduction then sectarianism makes from Christianity in this one particular alone!

Disputes over church government, once so fierce, are plainly dying out. Less and less discount has to be made under this head from the forces working in the sects for Christianity. The rise of Methodism, a system necessarily Low Church in its doctrine of polity, has greatly helped to deaden this form of strife. Even the doctrine of Episcopal succession has become absorbed into something of more substance, that Semi-catholic form of Christianity which, being more acceptable to us than Roman Catholicism, is blending with our Protestantism, greatly to its advantage. The recent retreat in St. Louis, conducted by Father Grafton, and attended by clergymen of various de

nominations, shows that Ritualism is coming to be a helping force, enriching, not dividing, our Christianity.

As disputes die down between the sects, do they die down within the sects? Plainly. Passing over imperfectly naturalized bodies, there is at present but one conspicuous American Christian sect within which a serious controversey is raging, Congregationalism. The dispute shows no disposition to

spread, even into bodies nearest akin.

The various religious newspapers, therefore, among the Protestants of this country, can hardly be said, as a rule, to make very large discounts of sectarian zeal from their Christian zeal. They are largely petty, but not largely virulent. The common ground is all the time gaining on the peculiar grounds. Even a body which, like the Disciples, professes to believe that all the unimmersed are outside the covenant of salvation, yet maintains an organ which is so far from encouraging this way of thinking, that it is one of our most eminently Christian journals.

In what point then is sectarianism, in our country, doing the most harm to Christianity? At the west. Of what avail is it that the sects acknowledge each other as equally Christian, if they are eager to build themselves up as against others in places where others are already established, and where all the avowed Christians together are not numerous? The most shameful thing in sectarianism is, that it denies or excuses this notorious and shameful fact.

For what does each of the microscopic societies exist which in almost every western town triturate the very moderate amount of common Christianity into an impalpable powder? To bring the power of Christian faith, love, righteousness and purity to bear upon the characters of men? How much time or interest is left for that, where Christians are so few and churches are so many, that their members are mostly concerned to compete for customers, temporally in the week, and spiritually on the Sunday? The spiritual centre of an average town church in Nebraska and the neighboring regions is not the Eucharist, the sign and pledge of redeeming grace and regenerate devotion. It is the necktie party, the sign and pledge of shallow sociability, engineered for the sake of