126 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tlie signs of the times. The knowl- 

 edge of Paley and Pearson might be 

 supplemented, if not supplanted, by 

 some knowledge of the movement of 

 scientific and economic thought dur- 

 ing the last fifty years, and pi-oof be 

 given that those offering themselves 

 as teachers ' perceive with their eyes 

 and hear with their ears and under- 

 stand with their hearts.' " 



The canon proceeds to discuss the 

 relation of tlie Church to charitable 

 work, but what we have already 

 quoted will suffice to show how ad- 

 vanced are his views as to the kind 

 of religious ministrations of which 

 society stands at present in need. 

 He believes, and we agree with him, 

 that the Church occupies a position 

 of exceptional advantage for holding 

 up to men the ideals toward which 

 they ought to strive. Ministers of 

 religion are allowed to preach, an 

 exercise in which other men must 

 indulge very sparingly, if at all, on 

 pain of being laughed at. They are 

 supposed to be occupied at all times 

 with the highest and most enduring 

 interests of mankind, and they can 

 adopt a tone of elevation and an ac- 

 cent of earnestness which in all oth- 

 ers miglit seem out of place. More- 

 over, there is something in human 

 nature which is prepared to respond 

 to their appeals. However conven- 

 tional or even sordid men may be in 

 their daily lives, however immersed 

 they may be in the all but universal 

 game of grab, they feel that some- 

 where in their natures is a chord 

 which might vibrate to higher im- 

 pulses. To put it otherwise, every 

 man knows that there is something 

 iu him better than that which he 

 habitually shows to the world or to 

 himself ; and it is for the religious 

 teacher above all to awaken that hid- 

 den, as Matthew Arnold says, " deep- 

 buried self " into life and activity, to 

 make it assert its authority and pow- 

 er. The rest of us deal with the aver- 



age man and make our appeal in 

 general to average sentiments: the 

 clergyman, the minister of the gos- 

 pel, testifies by virtue of bis office to 

 the existence of a divine element in 

 human nature, and to him therefore, 

 in dealing with men, all things are 

 or should be possible. What he 

 needs, however, as Canon Barnett so 

 clearly points out, is to be armed with 

 the kind of knowledge which will 

 Ijlace him at the modern point of 

 view and make him a true interpreter 

 of the times and of contemporary 

 human nature. Let him use the 

 words of his creeds as far as they 

 will go, and show the soul of truth 

 in antiquated forms and usages; but 

 let him not imagine that human 

 thought can ever be confined within 

 or fully expressed by, any formula 

 or set of formulas : the spirit of life is 

 a spirit of growth and of liberty. 



In conclusion, we have only to 

 say that we welcome most cordially 

 such utterances as those of the An- 

 glican canon, not because we suppose 

 that he occupies precisely the point 

 of view that we do, but because we 

 feel that no essential claim of science 

 is antagonized by aught that he ad- 

 vances in the name of religion. He 

 may, for anything we know, hold 

 many special opinions which we do 

 not share ; but^ so, these to us are of 

 no consequence beside what we take 

 to be his main and most characteristic 

 belief namely, that religion is not 

 a fetter for the human intellect, but 

 a garment of beauty for the whole 

 man, and that, without a due recog- 

 nition of science, no perfect or abid- 

 ing form of religion can be. 



HOST. DAVID A. WELLS'S ABTICLES ON 

 TAXATION. 



The editor of the Popular Science 

 Monthly is gratified that he is now 

 able to announce to its readers and 

 the general public, the beginning in 



