The Merthyr Express

The Dark Side of Convict Life. [Being the Account of the Career of HARRY Williams, a Merthyr Man.] CHAPTER XV. Marching from the stone quarry at Portland back to the prison one day, I noticed that a whispered consultation was going on in the rear of the party between the Principal War- der and the officer in charge, and 1 suspected that myself and one or two others, were the victims of their conspiracy,, which was just be- ginning to ripen into action. As soon as ever we reached the parade, instead of marching straight to our usual place, the order was to march straight to the bath-room. Of course, we all knew then that meant a special search, for some convict, in order to curry favour, had been doing a bit of informing during the morning. They took us all by surprise. Now it happer d at the time that I carried an ounce of thin t in the waist-band of my breeches, so I sai. within myself, "what on earth am I to do now, find it they surely will." How- ever, luck was in my favour that day, thanks to my presence of mind, and no thanks, but bad luck, I say, to the man who gave the in- formation. One by one we filed into the emp- ty bath-room, and I stepped down into my bath. o_ "Take off your boots, first," said the omcer. "Right you are," says I, trying to shake off my nervous sensations. As eoon as I unlaced mv boots I proceeded to unbutton my jacket, and all the time my heart was pounding so fast that I was afraid it would damagea my ribs. I then took off one boot at a time, and I threw it rigJit into the middle of the passage. Quite naturally, and exactly what I expected, the officer turned round to pick up the boot to see what was in the inside, and, like a flash of lightning, I whipped out the "snout" (tobacco) from my waistband, and dropped it at my feet, saying at the time, "Shall I take off my leggings next, sir?" "No," says he, "let me have the other boot first," which 1 gave to him at the same time planting my foot on the to- bacco. I then took off my garments one by one, until I was as naked as the very first time I saw the lights of Cyfarthfa. After waiting for the space of five minutes he shut the door <'nd departed, when I picked up my "snout," bit a chew off. and smiled contentedly at the event. Thus, I escaped what would otherwise have been a serious report, followed by fifteen days bread and water. My heart went, back to its normal oc at again. The moral of tnis lS, never alJov your right hand to know what the left is doing, for no matter how careful a man e^n lie, there are others, and those who some- times pretend to l>e your best fvienus, who wi;! put you away just for the sake of a smile and a little favouritism. It is not so much the officers themselves who find these things out, for, like the policeman or the commonly called expert detective, their scent comes by information received. Thus, they obtain their promotion not by their own cleverness, but by the help given them from the criminal class. Time went on, and I was doing a splendid trade with my tooth-picks, when one day there came an individual to Portland as an assistant warder, and stuck on his breast were two medals which told that he had been engaged in the late row in South Africa. This man took me into his confidence, and one day asked me where I came from, and other questions which he knew, and I knew, was strictly against the rules. He told me that he hailed from Brecon, and our conversation drifted right into Mer- ihyr Tydfil and from there right to Abercanaid over the mountain into Aberdare, until he mentioned all the villages and towns he knew all through the Rhondda Valley. Our con- versation was then cut off. for the chief warder happened to come in at the time, and he left with the remark, "All right, Williams. I will see you again," but I wish I had never seen him at all. A few days after, just before Christ- mas, 1903, this man happened to be on duty in my ward. He came up to me, and, says he, "Williams, I have heard you are very clever in carving articles out of bone. Just make me one so I can send it as a memento to my par ents at Brecon." "Certainly," says I. Well, I made a pretty little article, taking great pains lover it, and I wrapped it up in a piece of paper, together with a note, asking him to oblige me in return with half an ounce of twist tobacco. On the following Monday morning, I put my name down for the doctor, not for physic, but in order to see the officer, as I knew perfectly well that he would be in charge of the doctor's men. So just for a bit of swank. I asked the doctor if he would allow me to have mv ears syringed, so that I could be taken to trie iri- firmary. On the way I passed him the article and note. All, went well until the parade, when I was marched right from the infirmary to the separate cells. "Hullo," says I, to the officer in charge, "what am I brought here for?" "You are under report," says the officer. "And what for?" says 1. "For attempting to traffic with an officer," says he. I have known some tricks played by officers and convicts, but never in all my experience have I known any- thing to come up to this. The following day I was brought berore the governor, and I was awarded ten days bread and water and forfeited ten weeks of my ticket-of-leave. It soon float- ed about that the assistant warder had tried his hand for promotion, and he was hooted by convicts, and even some of the good officers threw him many a look of contempt. Thus his life in the convict service became a misery to him, and finally he was dismissed for traffic- ing, being caught "bang to rights," 94 the "Laggs" call it. Meanwhile I w&s undergoing my punishment, but getting a bit daunted and my stomach get- ting a bit weak, I went beyond my food, for what I did eat did me no good whatever. One day the medical officer came to see me, and says he, "Why do you not eat your *ood, Wil- liams?" "It is no use," says I, "for I may as well snuff it now as any other time." So, thinking me rather weak in my intellect, he ordered me to be taken to the hospital, and to give him his due, he ordered me the best of diets, but no use, for tnv stomach was too weak to take it, and in reality I knew that I was going off my head. One day the doctor again came to see me, and said, "Look here, Williams, if you do not eat your food, I shall have to make use of the stomach pump." "Pump away," I replied, and sure enough pump away they did, for they placed me in the straight jacket, and strapped me to a chair, placed a gag between my lips, and in this way thev kept me alive with milk and brandy from the- first of January to the 12th of July, 1904, when I was transferred to Parkhurst Convict Prison, Isle of Wight, as a weak-minded con- V1In my next chapter I will relate my experi- ence at Parkhurst. (To ba continued.) Have you anything to Sell? Advertisf, in our Want Columns, and it is as jrootl as sold.

Miners' Executive. WAGES OF ABERCYNON HAULIERS. The Executive Council of the South Wales Miners' Federation met at Cardiff on Monday to prepare for the next conference, to be held on the 23rd of May. Mr. Wm. Abraham, M.P., presided.—A deputation attended from the Abercynon Colliery to report that in oon. sequence of certain alterations having been made by the owners in the wages of the riders and the hauliers working the afternoon arult, this class of workmen had been on stop smce the previous Monday.—It was resolved that the workmen be advised to return to work, and that the question in dispute be sent to the Conciliation Board for consideration. Reference was made to the prolonged stop- page of 1,000 men at the Pentro Colliery of Messrs. Cory Bros., and arrangements were made to interview the management of the col- liery where the workmen aro alleged to have been locked out, with a. view to trying to effect. a settlement.—It was also resolved to ask the management of the Gilwern Colliery, Cwm- twrrch, and the Cwmgors Colliery, Gwauncae- gurwen, to meet a deputation, with a view to consider the matter in dispute at those pits, which concerns the observance of Ma-bon s Day. In this district Mabon's Day was observed until the new agreement came into force, but now the management object to the practioe, and the men are idle. The election of representatives of the men on the Conciliation BoaTd was deferred Pea^~ ing & proposal to increase the number froni ^4 to 28, so that all the members on the Executive Council might be elected on the Board. The draft agenda for the annual conference was considered and agreed upon.-The follow- ing nominations of officials were received: Mr. W. Abraham, as president; Mr. W. Brace and Mr. Winstone, as vice-presidents; and Mr. A. Onions, Mr. James Winstone, and Mr. George Barker, as treasurer.

RELIGION AND SOCIALISM. THE INSPIRATION OF SOCIAL REFORM. WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS TO OFFER. The Rev. J. Morgan Jones, M.A., delivered the last of the series of sermons on Religion and Socialism," at Hope Chapel, Merthyr, on Sunday evening. His theme was Religion and Social Reform," and taking for his text Isaiah xxxii., 17, he said The previous ad- dresses have been occupied, perhaps to a greater extent than was agreeable to some of you, with the differences and the antagonisms of Religion and Socialism; with those elements in the Socialistic movement that are hostile to Religion and those inflexible and inexorable demands which Religion makes upon every theory and every scheme of social life. In this last address my task is a much more pleasant one to me and, I dare say, to the majority of my hearers. This address, at least, will merit the title which I gave at the outset to the whole series, viz. A Word of Reconciliation." We are living to-day, so to speak, under the sign of social reform. Everybody nowadays is, or professes to be, an advocate of social reform. Every political party is committed to this object, it is inscribed on every banner, and it finds a prominent place in every programme. Indeed, no movement or programme, political or religious, can claim the attention of our people to-day unless it gives prominence to this subject. This much, at least, the Socialistic movement has already accomplished :-It has so conclusive- ly demonstrated the right of social reform that no one can or dare ignore it. Whatever may be said of Socialism, this credit cannot be denied to it. THE SOCIAL CONSCIENCE. As I have said before, I prefer to study Socialism, not as an economic theory or a philosophical system, but as a great complex human movement; a movement that has its beginnings very far back in the past, and has only been accelerated because tho conditions were rips for it during the last hundred and twenty years, and especially during the latter half of tnat period a movement as many-sided and changeful as such great historical move- ments usually are. The nerve of this movement is, and always has been, the demand for social reform that is, for a more righteous social order, the removal ot those man-made conditions that condemn groat ma-sses of the people to unneces- sary and preventable deprivation and suffering. This is the deepest and tiltiniate principle of the Socialistic movement, the social conscience rising to condemn and to remove unrighteous j conditions of social life. It is not surprising that this real meaning of the movement has often hee: obscured even by its advocates, and by men who had little sense for the meaning of history, whose minds were enthralled by some social theory or dazzled by some social ideal. Often enough it is the man who propounds some such hard and fast theory who is regarded as the true prophet of the movement and the more narrow the outlook of that theory the more popular it is likely to be. For the great multitude to whom they appeal cannot, or at least do not, realise that all these theories, however pretentious, even when supported by the most imposing philosophies, are only the bubbles that lioat on the surface of the stream, I SYSTEMS THAT CEASE TO BE. J These little social systems have their day j they have their day and cease to be. They j are only imperfect attempts to give intellectual j expression to that great movement which goes on and gathers strength, independently of them, and often in spite of them. That movement which men indiscriminately call Socialism is certainly not confined to Socialism in the technical sense of that word it is at least as real and as powerful in the minds of men who repudiate t;ie-;rstical Socialism. I am well I aware of the objection that will be raised to this way of thinking; it was stated in an angry retort by a Socialist speaker, not long ago I stand for Socialism, not for Social Reform." I' But he did not know what he way saying, or, let me say, he did not mean what he said. The man who stands for Socialism and not for social reform stands for a- theory and not for a reality for the shadow and not for the substance; and there is no doubt that this is a fair, though harsh, criticism of many Socialists. In their zeal for Socialism, which is a thing in the air and in the future, they are only too apt to dis- parage and to neglect social reform, which is something that lies at their very door. But a truce to criticisms of this sort. The reality that underlies; Socialism and Communism in the minds of earnest men operates no less powerfully and effectively in circles most remote from these. is that social-ethical sense— that awakened social conscience, which is a conspicuous feature of our modem life, the most distinct; 0' lecture of the spirit of the age— which make!' .t. impossible for any man to-day, whatever his position, who is not wholly wrapped up in himself, to refrain from criticising the present order society, and the conditions under which so many of his fellow-men are compelled I to live. It is no longer a mere sentiment of pity for the. folvo,;red classes; it is a sense I of unrighteous* £ ■«». Poverty is no longer a misery to be n'.iievcd by individual, capricious I acts of ciiaritv. It is an injustice that must be I removed by delibftiate, concerted action of the community. I A FUNDAMENTAL ERROR. The relief of poverty and social disability j has ceased to be an affair of vague sentiment; it has become a demand of conscience. The j spirit of our time has shaken off the conception It that social inequalities and disabilities are decreed by Nature or Fate or Divine Providence I that fundamental error of Greek philosophy, i which finds expression even in the noblest representatives of that philosophy, and especi- ally in Aristotle, who maintains that some men are by nature barbarians and some by nature slaves and animated machines," and women only Nature's failures to produce men. Men of all classes and conditions and opinions in j our land, to-day, have come to realise that I social inequalities have, in a large measure, been created by the will of man, and can be and must! be changed by the same power. To see how I' far this development of a social conscience has proceeded I would recommend you to watch carefully the public utterances, even of our I most conservative thinkers, and the frequent admissions of men whose self-interest would certainly prompt their minds to move in the I opposite direction. I was considerably edified, not to say amused, during the recent General Election, by the rank Socialism that was talked upon Conservative platforms. What does it mean ? It means that thinking men, even among the classes, have relinquished, in many i cases perhaps unconsciously, that ancient! privilege of the aristocracy, the privilege of charity, and that they, too, have been caught in the current of social reform. The right of ) social reform has become, so to speak, a pre- ¡ supposition of modern thought, which everybody, I consciously or unconsciously, adopts. The deeper one penetrates beneath the surface of modem thought on this subject, the clearer it bacomes that these noisy antagonisms of theories and of parties are aften very unreal. Eliminate from them the elements of party feeling, and mere class-interest and very little real opposition remains. Socialists and anti. Socialists often resemble that disciple who came to Jesus saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy Name and he followeth not us, and we forbade him because he followeth not us." Socialists and anti-Socialists agree in a larger measure than they think, very often. If they could only forget their theories and I parties and shibboleths, and fix their minds on the end in view, much of the wrangling would cease, and the great cause would prosper more rapidly. MANIA FOR MERE PROGRAMMES. What a pity it is that so much energy is diverted from the task of social reform by this mania for mere programmes and parties, this endless sectarianism and splitting up of forces that tend in the same direction is the greatest

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Whisky and Education. DECREASED GRANT FOR BRECONSEIRE. At the meeting of Breoonshire Education Committee last BYiday, Councillor S. H. CJow- per Coles, in moving the adoption of the re- port of the Finance Committee, embodying the estimates far the year ending 31st March, 1911, pointed out that a deficit of L!5,121 6s. 7d. would have to be met by the rate?, amounting to Is. Id. in the E. Through the great falling off in the consumption of whisky, they had been apprised that in the E947 paid them by the Treasury was a sum of JB130 too much, which would have to be refunded to the gen- eral county account. The Treasury did not like to say "pay us back £ 150, but they said you may transfer it to the police account and we will pay you that amount less to the polioe." So the Committee were bound to take that oourse, but he was glad to eee that in the House of Commons educationists of all inter- ests, independent of politics, weare making it quite clear that this matter of payments to- wards education must not depend on the con- sumption oj whisky, but must be a permanent payment to the education autbont.i.es.-The report was adopted. The Hon. R. C. Devereux moved :That this Committee regrets that the subsidiary granted from the Exchequer to intermediate education authorities should be a second charge on so precarious a source as the Customs and Excise duties, and is of opinion that the time has arrived when the Government should take steps to put the payment on a more stable basis." Instead of being a second charge, the speaker said, he thought the money for I education should be ear-marked for the year.— Rev. D. A. Griffiths: I don't regret the drink- ing of less whiskey (laughter). -Rev. Rees Evans 6econed the resolution, and it was carried.

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OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. [SOME THOUGHTS BY AN OCCASIONAL CONTRIBUTOR.] li.-ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. The only desire which every lover of educa- tion, every educated man and woman can possibly have, is that the utmost possible extension shall be given to our national I system of education which in the last generation made such great progress, and that we should not level down but level up, and make the institutions of the country as perfect for the education of the people as it is possible to make them."—(Sis John Gobst.) j In setting forth to deal with some more I interesting and pertinent facts with respect to the interior of an elementary school, it is ad- visable to assure the reader that the facts are garnered from first-hand experience and that the essays are a mirror reflecting without dis- tortion the march of events, and the actual work in progress. People have been too busy fighting about education to understand much about t. The sectarian quarrel-for it would be a blot on the fair escutcheon of religion to describe it otherwise—has barred progress, and a national system worthy of the British nation and commensurate with the great require- ments, will not be evolved until the vital ur- gency of the national needs will extinguish the sectarian interest. About the middle of last century Mr. Robert Lowe, afterwards Lord Sberbrook, Secretary at the Board of Education, introduced a most pernicious system of payment by results into the elementary school system. It can be doubt- ed whether the cause of education was ever more seriously damaged than by this, and the whole administration of Lowe at the Board is a conspicuous example of the evil that an able non-expert is capable of doing. He did not believe in the science of education, but in in- struction he was prepared to pay for a max- imum of the forms of knowledge even if there was a minimum of meaning; he laid down the astounding doctrine that it was impossible to cram the turee "R'e," but it was easv so to do in the case of the other subjects; and that it was quite a simple matter to reproduce technical names and phrases without in the least intelligently understanding them. Cram- ming for results was the regime, and indigna- tion is felt to-day at the painful reminiscences thereof. The subterfuges of teachers to get the requisite number of percentages, the schemes of inspectors to defeat these devices. remind us of "battles of leng ago." "I object," said one headmaster to an inspector, "to my Standard n. picking out for tou the nouns from the "Historical Reader," because the pu- pils have onlv had their grammar lessons from fch-j "Miscellaneous Reader." A fiat of the Board of Education demanding a knowledge of local geography secured a singularly felicitous response with this solecism, "In the basin of what river do we live in?" These illustrations could be multiplied ad nauseam. The payment-by-result method was also intrin- sically as well as fundamentally stupid. It produced a variable unit system, ear-marking one subject of the curriculum at Is. 6d. per pass, and another at 2s., and so on. This is more like shop-window dressing than true edu- cation, for if the principles of the education were true, domestic economy can give as much scope and as creditable a pass as reading, while some people would be prepared to debate the relative utility of the two. Pricing the subjects is rank demoralisation. But to be more explicit, let the grant in the eighties for the teaching of agriculture be considered as an instance of the mischief that zeal without knowledge can effect. There arose a craze for the teaching of Agriculture, and dazzled by the grant, and goaded by the instructions of the Board of Ed- ucation, it became the intellectual pabulum of children in every standard in some schools, of pupil-teachers, normal students and evening eci- enoe students. Little ragged London urchins, !bo had never seen a green field, were raving about the rotation of crops, the intoxicating charm of rusticity, and the delightful order of nature, "first the blade, then the ear, then the iuii com m uie ear. The extra grant for the teaching of science gave another stimulus. To some elementary schools laboratories were at- tached, in which pupils of a tender age could pass a dolce far niente existence dreaming of atoms and molecules. Now the doors are in- exorably closed against young children. And the viciousness of the system is its perpetuation > x j6r- ^orP15'. in fostering traditions which, deleted in districts where there is a 6plendid system of education, appear in less favoured localities in a moribund condition. But "the old order changetb yielding place to new." The old examination and payment by results have been buried beyond nope of resurrection, and the void created is the special purpose of this article. The thoughtful reader at once urges, and with truth, that a system of education without results which can be tested by a reasonably-conducted examination is a contradiction in terms. No advantage will be gained by an unqualified denial of the pragmatic theory in philosophy, that actions are good or right according as* the results or effects are satisfactory, and the just and silent criticism is antecendently accepted. Examinations as the be-all and end-all of teaching are vicious, whilst however, the total absence of proper examina- tion is a bad thing, for rightly used it is a real part of education. The removal of the rigours of the old system of government in- spection increased the responsibility of teach- ers, but there are indubitable signs of relaxa- tion though this may not apply to Merthyr. There seems to be httle exterior incentive to exactitude in the elementary school, and a priori an apparent absence of savage earnest- ness. Immune from the vigorous, periodic, systematic, yet parching inspection of former limes, by the law of gradualism, a spirit of in- difference operating sinuojslv has asserted it- self, so highly corrosive and pregna.nt with danger that it affects educationalists with deep concern. It produces a superficiality and a veneer in the school which is not pleasant to Î probe. The art of veneering wood requires great skill, and the smooth covering of mahog- any on the commoner wood which has been slightly grooved in certain places presents an attractive appearance. But the article must be used gently, for an ugly scratch reveals the thinness. Will the veneer in elementary edu- cation withstand the trituration which the scho- lars experience when the world buffets them after leaving hoc1? But, to use a French phrase, this is too much "in the air," Let us come down to the mundane as it were, and eschew these sophis- tries. The writer was privileged to inspect a fair sample of an elementary school in the Mid- lands some few months ago, and even to set propositions to various classes. To a Standard VI. class of twenty-one boys the following sim- r.le calculation was proposed: What LQ, the cost of 39 umbrellas at 3s. lljj-d. each Since the tCKvn is a large centre for the manufacture of such commodities, and some of the pupils would eventually become office bevs and clerks in the business houses of the town the question was obviously topical. At the end of eight minutes allowed for the computation, the correction discovered that seven pupils secured the right answer, and fourteen were wrong, while not one scholar had obtained his answer by tho short-method process. A few questions to the top class on the functions of words was a; revelation. Let the qualification be expressed at once that there is no desire to revert to the ridiculus method of grammar teaching which obtained a couple of decades ago, but the function of the word "good," in the een- tenoe "the good die young," is a reasonable question addressed to pupils in the senior. claases of an elementary schooL "In an experi- ence of a dozen years," said a manageress of a well-known London hotel, "I have only had one maid who could write a laundry account without making painful mistakes in spelling." "I would fear to see the collated results from our elementary schools," said a President of the National Union of Teachers, "if the Board' of Education directed a reasonably-conducted examination." The case of Barry Education Committee is so recent in the memory that it needs but. a passing note. The members had a dim suspicion that everything was not right in the state of Denmark. and an examina- tion of the three "R's" was arranged. Their suspicions were well-founded; their expecta.- tion were not disappointed; and there was cause for alarm. In an age enlightened by the science of edu- cation, and governed by a liberal code. the es- s^ptial but seoondarv character of the three 'R s is gradually being comprehended. Jt is a long time since the headmistress of a dame school said she did not teach "gehographv" because she was a three "harrer." It is laid down in the code "that the teaching should aim at stimulating intellectual interests and general intelligence, and this cannot be dons effectively if the curriculum be too limited." The true obligatory subjects are language Eng. lish, etc.), nature knowledge (object lessons, geography, science), manual, phveical and mo' ral training. The order of development is ex- perience, idea, and then expression, or an edu-ml cation of the senses by experience. It is es- i sential to give pupils experiences and thoughts concerning reaJ things before forms of expres- sion are either possible or useful to them. The three R's are mechanical pegs upon which our knowledge is suspended, but thev are not the substance or the sustenance of knowledge. This being so, there arises the very strong- ex. pectancy that pupils ought to be able to correctly these methods of expressing their daily experiences, such as in the inditing of a simple letter or essay free from spelling mistakes, in the computation of easy calculations with speed and precision, and in the intelligent reading and appreciation of good literature. Education must be partly utilitarian, and busi- ness and commerce demand exactness in the modes of expression of knowledge. To use a descriptive but unliterary word, "slap-dash" must be eliminated from the work of the ele- mentary school, and thoroughness must be in- sisted upon, in the art of precise expression of the experiences within the mental horizon of the pupils. This is not only true for the pupils who will receive a primary school education and then leave to find employment, but it is ur- gently demanded tor those who are to proceed to a secondary school. Let the fundamentals be established with exactitude for thp- rmswftiT« county school pupil and the work of the secon- dary school will be greatly facilitated. The specific work of the secondary school can then be proceeded with at once without the usual expenditure of time in teaching the elements. it wiu not be necessary to digress for twenty minutes, as one secondary school headmaster has stated, to teach pupils, for the first time, the English comparative and superlative de- grees, in a Latin or French lesson. This is one phase of the elementary system which is crying out for reform, and in come dis- tricts it is due to the desire to create an a:mos- kerS a school, by a reputation more showy subjects. Impressionism is very fine in painting, but its great exponents have also been through the school of realism. Impressionism in education is a method fraught with grave dangers, because it turns out scholars with adumbrations instead of definitions, and with a predisposition to inexactitude instead of pre- cision. The reform, too, will be a popular one because it will not affect the education rate and reform in this direction of more thorough- ness is so easy to effect when the imperative necessity is realised. Its conspicuous im- anoe has merited the exclusive nature of the article, and has caused the emission of the discussion of other topief m;HJ.if,-(:11y pres^n-* themselves into prominent notice, and the post- ponement for subsequent treatment.

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hindrance to social reform in our country to-day. Now, it is time I came to the proper subject of this adds, viz., the attitude of Religion towards this movement of social reform. It is scarcely necessary to discuss the position that Religion has nothing to do with this matter, because Religion is an individual and otherworldly thing, although it is a position which many Socialists and anti-Socialists take up. It would be strange indeed if the Christian religion had nothing to do with a movement which that Religion itself has created. That social reform is the creation of Christianity is, I think, beyond doubt. It seems almost self-evident beforehand that Religion must enter into and play an important part in this movement; indeed, that every question of social reform must, in the last resort, be a religious question, that is a question which Jesus Christ alone is competent to answer. Let me try to point out that such is the case. From what has been said in the preceding lectures it is clear that it is without the province of Religion to propound any programme of social reform. Jesus prescribed no such programme. No materials for such a programme are furnished in the Gospels, nor can they be found by way of deduction from the words and the example of Jesus. To appeal to the words of Jesus on any matter of social order, as such, is to mistake them and Him altogether. This is the error into which Christian-Socialists are so apt to fall. It is the error of so many of our most eminent modern writers, such as Wagner and Tolstoi, etc. However brilliant and fascinating their writings may be, it needs little sober thought to discover their utter absurdity. And when modern Socialists appeal to the example of Communism in the Acts of the Apostles they only show how incompetent they are to read an ancient historical document, be it never so simple. It is safe to say that neither by word nor example has our Lord or any of his Apostles so much as suggested a precept for mere social betterment. Neither Communist nor Capitalist, or any other 'ist can appeal to the New Testa- ment in support of his theory. CHRIST'S SOLE ANXIETY. Neither is it within the province of Religion to criticise social or political theories and programmes, its such. Our Lord did not criticise the social order in which He lived, as such, nor did He show any preference for any of the parties or ideals of His time. His sole anxiety was that the whole mass of social life and thought might be leavened with the principles of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Church must follow His example. It is a departure from the Christian Religion when the Church takes a side in political and economic controversies. To my mind it is a terrible calamity that this is done to such an extent in our land to-day. The Nonconformist Churches in Wales have become identified with one political party. The Nonconformist preacher is regarded as the most valuable asset of that party. The Church of England is equally identified with another party. In many cases it is a matter of course that the Church is Tory and the Chapel is Liberal, and in some cases that have come under my notice lately it would seem that both combine to un-churcb Socialists. My brethren, these churches are not Christian Churches, but Synagogues of Satan. A Chris- tian Church is one in which Conservative and Liberal and Socialist can meet without restraint or reserve, and forget their differences in a. holy sense of Christian brotherhood. For my part i care not what a man's political creed may be: I care not that he is a Conservative, if he is a godly man; or that he is a Liberal, if he is a Christian; or that he is a Socialist, if he is a believer in Jesus Christ. That there are Socialists who are Christians surely goes without saying. I have read recently a large number of letters written by Socialist working-men on the subject of Religion. Let me quote to you the closing words of the paragraph in one letter that refers to Jesus: Finally, I am bound to confess, Christ was Very God of Very God." I should like to have that Socialist as a member of my church. I would persuade my people to make him an elder, and a teacher in the Sunday School. I take up this attitude because I believe it is the attitude presented by the Christian Religion towards political and social ideals, as such. DIFFERENCE INEVITABLE. In all these matters there is room for honest difference of opinion; nay, such difference is inevitable, and, indeed, it is by this difference of opinion and the mutual criticism of opposite views that the path of truth and well being is discovered. Yes, it is by this slow and labo- rious process that social betterment is won; by the interchange and interaction and struggle for existence and survival of the fittest of conceptions and ideas. It is as true of society as of the individual that it must work out its own salvation. It is not the will of God, it was no part of the mission of Jesus to give unto men a charter of social laws and institutions; it is the divinely-appointed discipline of the human race that men shall discover the path of progress for themselves by their own reason and conscience. Every generation must do this for itself, profiting by all the lessons of the past, bringing all its powers of experience and insight to bear upon the conditions of the present, the demand of the day and the need of the hour. Yes, bringing all its energies to solve the problem of the present; taking no thought for the morrow, believing that the morrow will take thought for the things of itself; hearkening to the voice of conscience that sufficient onto the day is the evil thereof. Foresight belongs to God; insight belongs to man. You may be inclined to ask" Why does the preacher elaborate this point P" I will tell you, because to my mind it is one of the most important point of these addresses. Men come to Jesus demanding of Him what He does not give. The Gopsel story is repeated in our day: And one of the company said unto Jesus, Master, speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me And He said unto him, man, who made Me a judge or a divider over you ?" This is the explanation of much infidelity. Men seek in the Christian Religion a social programme; because it does not give themxthat they turn away thinking j it has nothing to give. I am not surprised that many thorough-going Socialists are suspicious of Christian Socialists," and say contemptuous things about it; for they themselves have searched the Scriptures and they are intelligent enough to perceive that this Socialism is only a shallow travesty of the teachings of Jesus, and that nothing could be farther from His mind than to teach Socialism or any other ism of economics or politics. Everybody will understand, of course, that I am not speaking of Christians who are Socialists, but of those Christians who find Socialism in the Gospels. With these men I utterly and vehemently disagree. I fear that they do incalculable harm to the cause of Religion. For they invite men to seek in the Religion of Jesus what that Religion cannot give to them; then, when the inevitable disillusion comes, they cast Religion from them as a useless tiling. Because it refuses them what they expect they rush to the conclusion that it contains for them nothing that they need. Is not this the traeic story of many in our land to-day ?j INSPIRATION OF REFORM.. What, then, does the Christian Religion give to the social reformer ? It gives, as nothing else can give, the impulse and the inspiration of social reform, and the fundamental and un- changeable principles according to which it must proceed thus a gift of infinitely greater value than any theory or programme. Indeed, if Jesus had enunciated any social programme it would be useless to usjto-day. For a scheme of social reform musfcjvary according to the circumstances of different peoples and different times. Let me put the matter very bluntly In England to-day none but a fanatical partisan would say that it isipreposterous to preach Socialism or Communism, but no thoughtful person would hesitate to say that to raise up the banner of Communism in the Roman Empire in the first century would be an act of criminal folly. Nay, it was no such temporary and doubtful service that Jesus rendered to humanity, but a service which none but He Himself could render, viz.,(to reveal in His teaching and in His person the motive and regulative principles of human progress through- out all the ages, until the will of God be done in earth as it is in Heaven. Let me try to indicate these principles as briefly as I can. As I read the Gospels I am more and more impressed by the worth which Jesus puts upon man—upon man as man, irrespective of his circumstances and position and possessions—only because of his manhood, How many words of His come crowding into one's mind, all breathing this tremendous respect for man. Man is a child of God, of greater value in the sight of his Father than all the world, having in his man- hood a more precious possession than all earthly things: What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul." And to the mind of Jesus all things exist for the sake of man—for the salvation and preservation and development of his god-like manhood. There is no purpose in the world that is worthy to be compared with this, and all that man esteems great and precious is as nothing beside this. This conception of the infinite value of man as an ethical personality—which is the key to so much of our Lord's teaching—is the great motive of social reform which His Religion affords. No man who has caught this Christian enthusiasm for humanity can remain indifferent to the social conditions that affect the realisation j and development of true manhood, No true

disciple of Jesus Christ, who has learned of Him to look upon man as a child of God, can ever contemplate with equanimity social conditions that make the proper development of manhood impossible; not to speak of conditions that degrade a man into a mere machine, a mere tool in the hands of another. The disciple of Jesus who has learned of Him to look upon the whole world as an institution to train up cliildren of God, that man is bound to condemn and to seek to remove all preventible conditions, all man-made institutions, that degrade sons of God into slaves of mammon; conditions that reduce the lives of great masses of men—God's children—into one long—often desperate— animal struggle for existence, in view of which it is ironical to talk of manhood, personality, etc. Is there any doubt what the attitude of a Christian towards such conditions well be ? This is what Religion gives Christ's tremendous respect for man, and His ideal of manhood. This is the motive and the inspiration of social reform: Christ's great enthusiasm for man. 0 SERVANTS can easily be obtained by the use of a small Want Ad. in these columns. Stats your requirements, and you will be sure to get suited at once.