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THE MEN'S SOCIETY, EFFORTS are being made to settle the Church of England Men's Society in a strong position once again. The war took a toll of many of the keenest and most spiritual of the rank and file, and the present cost of living has inevitably affected the financial security of the organisation. We hear that Mr. Kemp, the genial and inspiring secretary, had a most effective tour last month in South Wales, and that he is away until the end of this month reorganising and revivifying branches. No men's organ- isation is more deserving, of support at the present juncture, for the training of the young men in Christian sanity is a safeguard against unchristian anarchy.

IN THE COMMONS. ALIENS, COAL AND RUSSIA, (By Our Parliamentary Correspondent.) PARLIAMENT has met this week in an atmosphere of comparative calm after the excitement of the finance discussions of last week and the aliens debates of the week before. But the proceedings have not been without considerable public in- terest. The chief subjects of debate have been the Government's alien policy in connection with the Bill laying down the priciples for peace time, the present and future control of the coal industry with special reference to the recent increase of six shillings a ton, and finally the whole issue of British intervention with special bearing on the expenditure of ninety-four millions between the armis- tioe and the end of October, and on the new demand of the Government for fifteen millions more in aid of General Deniken. On each of these subjects there were first-class debates. The Aliens Bill, which was taken on report stage, had to be postponed until next Mon- day, but the Government have passed out of any real difficulty in securing the passing of a measure which as first drawn up gave general dissatisfaction. The Aliens Bill. The whole of the first day of this week was devoted to the Aliens Bill. Aliens in the Civil Service were dealt with. Clause 6, as it stood, gave the Home Secretary power to sanction the appoint- ment of aliens to the Civil Service in special cases. Mr. Shortt agreed to the cutting out of this power of sanction, and the Clause now reads: "After the passing of this Act no alien shall be ap- pointed to any office in the Civil Service of the United Kingdom." Colonel Wedgwood made a vain attempt to alter the Bill in order to allow the German hus- band of an English-born wife to take his wife's English name. Colonel Wedg- wood accused the Government and anti- alien Members of having made a bargain by which the Government secured the passing of the French Pilot Clause and the anti-alien Members obtained a Clause to deport thousands of English wives of aliens. Sir John Butcher and Sir Ernest Pollock (Solicitor-General) do- clared that no bargain had been struck. The discussion on the deportation ques- tion was proceeding when the time arrived for adjournment. Coal Position. All the trouble about the coal position began with the appointment as Coal Controller of Mr. Duncan, a Scot- tish solicitor, in succession to Sir Evan Jones, who had only promised to act temporarily during a period of great emergency. It was urged by the Labour Party generally and by the miners' leaders in particular, that the industry called for the appointment of an expert fully acquainted with coal production and distribution problems. The answer of the Government was that Mr. Duncan is a skilled administrator and lawyer who would be specially qualified to help the Government in the matter of the pro- | posed nationalisation of mining royal- ties. There was a real battle of figures between the miners and Sir Auckland Geddes, who, as President of the Board of Trade, is responsible to the House for the work of the coal control depart- ment. Sir Auckland stoutly defended the recent increase in the price of coal, and stoutly repudiated the figures upon which the miners' representatives sought to establish a charge that the increase was unjustifiable. Incidentally all doubts regarding the decontrol of coal were set at rest. There is no likelihood of that process being attempted by the Government for months to come. The Government hope to take the fetters off industry as soon as possible, but with regard to coal they -point out the in- evitability of soaring prices if control is removed. In this connection it is pointed out that only the other day lead- ing shipowners were. pressing the Board of Trade for cheap bunker ooaJ. Control is the only thing, say the Government, not only to prevent bunker coal from rising still more, but to keep down the price of coal for domestic use, having regard to the world shortage and demand. The output of a year could be consumed in a quarter. Sir Auckland Geddes thinks tha-t the cost of living would increase another six shillings a week if coal were decontrolled. Steps are to be taken, however, to bring down the cost, of bunketr coal, upon which prices shipping so largely has to depend for its success.

AN ADVOCATE OF EARLY MARRIAGES. DR. HENSLEY HENSON, Bishop of Here- ford, appeared in a new role the other day as an ardent advocate of early marriages. Many men, he said, delayed marriage until the natural mating time had long passed, and their habits were fixed and their characters set. Even when there was no open breach; there was in too many belated marriages a woeful impoverishment of ideals. The transfiguring grace of sentiment and romance with which youth invested the sexual relation was absent, and marriage sank into a demurely respectable con- I nection, which was but a poor version of what it was meant to be.

LITERARY LIGHTS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. IX— bulwer-lytton. BY MORICE GERARD. IN the" brilliant circle of literary men and women who have made the nine- teenth century famous for all time, Edward Bulwer-Lytton shines as a bright, particular star. In one respect lie had no peers—versatility. He dazzled and delighted his own age. If his light is dim to-day, it is because of the changes of taste, which have marked the predilec- tions of the reading public, during the fifty years which have elapsed since his activities ceased. It is safe, however, to prophesy that Bulwer-Lytton will be read (and acted) long after present-day writers who hold the public eye are for- gotten. He did not escape severe, some- times almost malevolent, criticism dur- ing his brilliant career. He may almost be said to have courted it. He under- stood perfectly what Whistler-a master in the art—called 11 The gentle art of making enemies." He was for ever trailing his ooat; and, as Disraeli the elder has reminded us, no human beings are so sensitive, so quick to find and take offence as authors. It is perhaps part, it may be a necessary part, of their equipment. Thackeray versus Dickens (with Edmund Yates holding the sponge); Bulwer and Tennyson; these are only conspicuous instances, which might be multiplied indefinitely among lesser scribes. Anthony Trollope has left behind him his candid opinion of his fellow authors—not to be published until after his death a wise proviso A&thony Trollope's View. This is what he said of Bulwer- Lytton "I cannot say of Bulwer as I have of the other novelists whom I have named—that he lived with his charac- ters. He lived with his work, with the doctrines which at the time he wished to preach, thinking always of the effects he wished to produce; but I do not think he ever knew his own personages, and therefore neither do we know; them. Even Pelham and Eugene Aram are not human beings to us, as are Pickwick and Colonel Newcome and Mrs. Povser." Trollope winds up his criticism with these two sentences: "His language is clear, good, intelligible English, but it is defaced by Mannerism. In all that he did affectation was his fault. One would have liked to place against this Lord Lytton's opinion of Anthony Trol- lope. It has been said that the worst possible critic of a novelist is a brother of the criaft; which is probably true if we interpolate the word "contemporary." Not the Universal Verdict. Trollope's theory of fiction (and his practice) was that authors must live with their characters during the incuba- tion of a book, if they were to live by them in the love and remembrance of their readers. He tries Bulwer by this test and finds him wanting. This is not the universal verdict. There are count- less readers—the present writer among them—who can recall Bulwer's leading characters years after they became familiar history. Of such are the inimitable Pelham, Kenelm Chillingly, Warwick, Gloucester, Harold, Ernest Maltravers; and among his women Fanny Trevannion", Evelyn Leslie, Ellen Glanville, the Countess Edith, Caroline Merton. Looking back over his long life of multiple activities stretching over seventy years, the author's range is amazing. At Cambridge he won the Chancellor's Medal for a poem on Sculpture." At the Union Club he was regarded as an orator; remember- ing that among his contemporaries were Alexander Cockburn, (afterwards the great Chief Justice), Winthrop Mack- worth Praed, Macaulay, Benjamin Hall Kennedy, "Charles Buller, and William Selwyn, the distinction accorded to Bulwer was no inconsiderable apprecia- tion. On leaving Cambridge the narrow- ness of his means, which contrasted with the extravagance of his aims and habits, made a career of some kind a necessity. He chose literature. Poetry, his first love, he discarded as not sufficiently re- munerative. Sir Walter Scott, who, like Bulwer himself, had the poetic gift in considerable abundance, had shown the way. Fiction of a popular kind was the royal road to wealth. A man who had two hundred a year and spent three thou- sand required a strong staff to lift him out of the mire. Bulwer soon proved that he had found it. His first book Falkland was brought out by Colburn, the first publisher of Anthony Trollope's work. The most astute pub- lisher of the day had faith in his author. He offered t 500 for another novel. Bulwer gave him Pelham, which at once achieved an immense, success, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the attacks of the critics. From this time forward Bulwer never looked back. He loved the bizarre and the recondite. In- tellect and scholarship helped to give him a place all his own. He chose sub- jects which might well repel a lesser man, and the public accepted the results at his hands as they would probably from no other writer. To attempt to depict the terrible story of the destruc- tion of Pompeii, to seek inspiration from such models as- Eugene Aram and Paul 'Clifford; to have as heroes great men I doomed to failure and tragedy. by the inexorable law of history-such as Rienzi, Warwick, and Harold—these were subjects which seemed to defy and yet achieved popularity. In the intervals of this flood of extraordinary novels he found time to write plays which have been acted for more than half a century, and to pose not unsuccessfully as a statesman. Tribute to His Mother. Nearly eighty years have gone by since Bulwer wrote the preface to Pelham dedicated to his mother. It must ever find a. place among similar tributes. The great son of a great mother Happy while I borrowed from your taste could I have found it not more difficult to imitate your virtues, your spirit of active and extended benevolence, your cheerful piety, your considerate justice, your kindly charity. Never more than at this moment did I wish that my writings were possessed of a merit which might outlive my time, so that at least these lines might remain a record, of the excellence of the Mother and the grati- tude of the Son."

ORIGIN OF THE PRESS. JULIUS CiESAR'S PART. FELICITOUS speeches were delivered af the annual dinner of the Readers' Pen- sions Committee. Sir George Riddell presided, and there was a large gather- ing, including Lady Riddell, Lord Russell of Liverpool, Sir Auckland Geddes, Sir Edmund Robbins, and Sir F. and Lady Newnes. Sir Auckland Geddes proposed Literature and the Press." He said the Press of this country had its roots in the curiosity of the population, tempered by fear, in the days when our forefathers waited for the coming of the Armada. They went eagerly one to the other and said, What is the last tiling you have heard about the Dons? Gradually there arose the system of writing the news of how the Santa Maria was having guns far heavier than ever was known before mounted on her twentieth deck, or that the Dons were bringing thumbscrews, "maidens," and racks. The Press was therefore one of the daughters of Bellon. Literature arose out of the desire of humanity to know the past. The bards and harpers mixed up the stories of the past with the present glory of their patrons. If he had been a bard he would have sung that Moses was a queer old chap, Who didn't understand a map ■ He wandered around in the wilderness For forty years-more or less," and then he would have stated that Moses was the grandfather of the chair- man. That was the origin of literature. Literature, far older than the Press, stimulated man by the example of his forefathers. It w.as sometimes very dif- ficult to d raw the line between the two—« not between some examples of the two. The First Newspaper. Sir George Riddell, in a witty speech, said that Sir Auckland Geddes was quite wrong as to the origin of the Press. As a matter of fact the first newspaper was posted on the walls of Rome by a politician who was engaged in a great military campaign, and who thought it was necessary that the people of Rome should know what he was doing, or said he was doing, from day to day. Julius Caesar was the inventor of newspapers,1 and one of the greatest politicians the world has ever seen. On Monday he would have posted up I came on Tuesday, 'I saw'; and on Wednesday, I conquered.' Since then, added Sir George, the politicians had taken the greatest interest in the doings of news- papers.

THE CHURCH CONGRESS DR. WOOD'S MESSAGE. THE predominant feeling throughout, the diocese this month must be one of profound thanksgiving to God for His mercies in connection with the Church Congress, says the Bishop of Peter- borough, in this month's issue Of his Diocesan Magazine. First, that it was possible to hold it at all, and then for the way in which all the arrangements were carried out without hitch or diffi- culty of any kind; for the splendid ser- vice rendered by many workers in Lei- cester who gave their utmost in time and energy; for the informing and inspiring papers and addresses to which we lis- tened, and, most of all, for the spirit of fellowship which animated every meet- ing and which made itself felt increas- ingly as the Congress proceeded. This is only to say, as I humbly believe, that the Holy Spirit was pleased to answer our prayers and to bless us with the palpable experience of His presence and power. God has given us a great gift in this Congress, and one which we hope will nerve the Church at large and par- ticularly in our own diocese, for new ad- ventures in the extension of His king- dom.