Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



157 



A NOVELIST AS PROPHET OF CHRIST. 

 Mr. Winston Culkchill on the New Era. 

 A VERY striking jiaper on modern government and 

 > hristianity is conlril)uted to the Athvttic Monthly 

 lor January by .Mr. Winston Churchill, the American 

 novelist. The recent campaign for moralising politics 

 has brought home vividly, he says, to many men 

 certain throbbing sjii ritual currents. People cry, not 

 for Parties; they ask, " Give us a good man." .^;.,,. 



"r.'in IS IN POLITICS." 



" .-Vnd what is a good man but a Christian ? We 

 begin to see moie and more clearly that God is in 

 politics, that He nUvays has been and always will be. 

 He enters into the hearts of the people, and moves 

 them, and so the uoild progresses. God is in politics, 

 to the >.onfusion of politicians. We are at the 

 dawning of an age, spiritual, like all the great ages 

 which have preceded it." .\ spiritual craving is 

 ]. resent everywhere. A publisher asked to send 

 recent books on religion said they would fill a library. 

 A medical specialist declared that most of the so-called 

 nervous prostration of to-day is due to a lack of 

 religious belief. Mi. Churchill seems to think that 

 the wave of agnosticism has passed. Even scientists 

 now acknowledge the necessity of religion. 

 (;KiriNr, b.*ck to Christ. 



Martin Luther lilicralcd the idea which is embodied 



w the Declaration of Independence, and the fer- 



lentation he be.; in is growing towards culmination. 



We stand on ilie threshold of a greater religious 



I a than the worn! lias ever .seen." 'I'he monarchical 



eriod in Chureh and State is passing away ; we 



re getting back to the new and bewildering idea of 



tlod which Jesui brought, that "God is the Father: 



not the Father ul a nation, but the Father of every 



njan and woman who walks the earth, of tlie publican 



and the sinner, ot tiic outcast as well as the fortunate.' 



liin may become, by recognising God in His true 



lalionship, a responsible, autonomous being." 



1 HI LAW OK SERVICli. 



.Serviic was the only acceptable thing in the sight 



1 God. "Our Lord taught no system of govern- 



eiit ; but He brought into the world the germ, the 



cd, the idea that "as to change all governments." 



I niversal sufTrag'- is but the Christian principle 



directly applied ot the recognition of the intrinsic 



worth of the indivi(Juai. We are beginning to under- 



sian<l at the dawning of the twentieth century that 



tiwre is still a higher, more Christian conception of 



government to com--, and that our Declaration was 



but a step toward-, it. Service -that is, civic service 



. of the child, service of the slum-dwcllcr, arc part of 



the political applic.ition of Christianity. 



FAIlll IN IMMORTAMTV RKTIRNIXG. 



Just as in the e.uly days the brotherhood of man 

 w.is willingly adopt, ij because of the belief in the 

 imminent coming ol the .Messiah, so " what our age 



needs, and what it has lacked, is the conviction of 

 immortality." The old mediaeval eschatology has 

 gone, but " if my own circle of acquaintances 

 jiresents any indication of the times I should say that 

 thousands and thousands of men and women to-day 

 who had lost their belief in immortality are regaining 

 it, and some who never had it are acquiring it. Men 

 are beginning to conceive of immortality itself in 

 terms of service. .\11 is service, here and hereafter. 

 .Ml is development." Immortality was not only a 

 conviction of Jesus Christ, it was the supreme con- 

 clusion to be drawn from His life. 



" THE RELIGION OF THE RISEN CHRIST." 



" Christ lives not only, as some would say, in the 

 influence of His life and teachings upon men, but in 

 a truer and more positive and vital way. To believe 

 is to act upon it. To act upon it is to bring upon 

 earth"the reign of that kingdom which is God's own 

 government for mankind in all its fellowship and 

 simplicity. Let us believe firmly that a time is 

 coming when the religion of the risen Christ, freed 

 from idolatry and superstition, shall find its true 

 abiding place in the heart of man, reign there in its 

 supreme authority, and permeate all the departments 

 of life. 



THE TRUTH ABOUT RUFUS? 

 From early childhood the imagination is impressed 

 with the mysterious death of William Rufus in the New 

 Forest. Fresh light is shed on that challenging 

 event in the English Historical Rericw for January 

 by the late F. H. M. Parker. The writer does not 

 accept the old story that, killed accidentally by 

 Walter Tyrrell, \\'illiam Rufus died by the judgment 

 of God because of the devastations wrought by 

 William the Conqueror to provide himself with a 

 deer forest. The writer says : — 



The two great events in the history of ihe fores!, iis found a- 

 lion and the death of William Rufus within it, arc connected 

 by the uionaslic writers, who suggest that one w.as a crime, the 

 other ils punishment. But if we do not accept the story of the 

 creation of the -Nciv Forest, to what must we ascribe the death 

 of William Rufus ? Nothing is so incriminaling as the attempt 

 to hide something. To drag in supernatural intervention to 

 account for an accident which might have occurred to any one, 

 suggests a deliberate scheme tn" introduce the judgment of Got 

 10 hide the unlawful act of man. 



Biyonil doubt William Rufus possessed many «ncniies, and 

 h.il made himself specially obnoxious to the Church. Possibly 

 through mistrust of the clergy, he was a free thinker ; and it 

 cannot be denied that in his spoken opinions on religion he was 

 tactless anil brutal in a way that put a weapon into their hands. 

 .\nd there are many signs which go to indicate, not merely thai 

 William Rufus was slain of malice, but that there existed a 

 powerful and elalx>rately organised conspiracy to compass his 

 death. The decisive action Henry took suggests that he knew 

 his part and was ready to play it. The conduct of the 

 ecclesiastics, in burying William without the riles or even 

 the ilccencics of Chiislian burial, seems needlessly offensive 

 unless they h.ad their cue. 



