To AIL English-Speaking Folk. 



457 



point of those who seek to rouse among the most 

 enlif;htene(! a consiimint; passion for their country's 

 ■j,oud. 



Hut how can it lie done ? As everytiiing else of a like 

 nature has been done since the world liegan — by the 

 foolishness of preaching. And here again let Mr. 

 Carlyle speak : — 



" There is no church, sayest thou ? The voice of 

 Prophecy has gone dumb ? This is even w hat I dispute ; 

 but in any ciise hast thou not still preaching enough ? 

 A preaching friar settles himself in every village and 

 builds a pulpit which he calls a newspaper. Therefrom 

 he preaches what most momentous doctrine is in him 

 for man's salvation : and dost not thou listen and 

 believe ? Look well ; thou seest everywhere a new 

 clergy of the mendicant order, some barefooted, some 

 almost bareba<ked, fashion itself into shape, and teach 

 and preach zealouslv enough for copper alms and love 

 of God." 



It is to these friars that we must look for the revival 

 of civic faith which will save the English-speaking race. 

 For other hope of salvation from untutored democracy, 

 weighted with the burdens of empire and distracted 

 by its own clamant wants and needs, it is difficult 

 to see. 



That which we really wish to found among our 

 readers is in very truth a civic church, every member 

 of which should zealously, as much as it lay within 

 him. preach the true faith, and endeavour to make it 

 operative in the hearts and heads of its neighbours. 

 Were such a church founded it would be as a great voice 

 ounding out over sea and land the summons to all 

 men to think .seriously and soberly of the public hfe in 

 which they are called to fill a part. Visible in many 

 '.vays is the decadence of the Press. The Mentor of the 

 young Democracy has abandoned philosophy, and 

 ^tulfs the ears of its Telemachus with descriptions of 

 'alypso's petticoats and the latest scandals from the 

 Court. .Ml the more need, then, that there should be a 

 voice whii li, like that of the muezzin from the Eastern 

 minaret, would summon the faithful to the duties 

 imposed by their belief. 



.•\ recent writer, who vainly struggled towards this 

 ideal, has said : — " We are told that the temporal 

 welfare of man and the salvation of the State are 

 ideals too meagre to arouse the enthusiasm which 

 e.xults in self-sacrifice. It needs Eternity, say some, to 

 stimulate men to action in time. But as there is no 

 Eternity for the .Stale, how, then, is patriotism pos- 

 sible ? Have not hundreds and thousands of men and 



women gladly marched to death for ideas to be realised 

 solely on this side of the grave ? The decay of an active 

 faith in the reality of the other world has no doubt 

 paralysed the spring of much human endeavour, and 

 often left a great e.xpanse of humanity practically 

 waste so far as relates to the practical cultivation of 

 the self-sacrificing \irtues. We go into this waste land 

 to posse.ss it. It is capable of being made to flourish, 

 as of old, under the stimulating radiance of a g^eat 

 ideal and the diligent and intelligent culture of those 

 who have the capacity for direction. If we could enlist 

 in the active Service of man as many men and women, 

 in proportion to the number of those who are outside 

 the churches, as any church or chapel will enlist in 

 self-sacrificing labour for the young, the poor, and the 

 atiflicted, then, indeed, results would be achieved of 

 which, at present, we hardly venture even to dream. 

 But it is in this that lies our hope of doing effective 

 work for the regeneration and salvation of mankind." 

 This, it may be said, involves a religious idea, and 

 when religion is introduced harmonious co-operation 

 is impossible. That was so once ; it will not always be 

 the case, for, as was said recently in the Universal 

 Review : — 



A new Catholicity has dawned upon the world. .Ml 

 religions are now recognised as essentially Divine. They repre- 

 sent the ciifl'erent angles at which Man looks at God. All have 

 something to leach us — how to make the common man more 

 like Goil. The true religion is that which makes most men 

 most like Christ. .\nd wiiat is the ideal which Christ trans- 

 lated into a realised life ? F'or practical purposes this : To 

 take trouble to do good to others. A simple formula, but the 

 rudimentary and essential truth of the whole Christi.an religion. 

 To take lroui)le is to sacrifice time. .\11 lime is a portion t>f 

 life. To lay down one's life for the brethren — which is some- 

 times literally the duty of the citizen who is called to die for his 

 fellows — is the constant and daily duty demanded by all the 

 thousand-and-one practical sacrifices which duty and alTection 

 call upon us to make for men. 



To establish a periodical circulating throughout the 

 English-speaking world, with its affiliates or associates 

 in e\ery town, and its correspondents in every village, 

 read as men used to read their Bibles, not to waste an 

 idle hour, but to discover the will of God and their dut\ 

 to man — whose staff and readers alike are bound 

 together by a common faith, and a readiness to do 

 common service for a common end — that, indeed, is an 

 object for which it is worth while to make some sacrifice. 

 Such a publication so supported would be at once an 

 education and an inspiration : and who can say, 

 looking at the present condition of England and of 

 .America, that it is not needed .•* 



This is our programme, and wc trust that wc may in the future be able to write as did he who drew u[) 

 that programme when, after twenty-one years, he said : " Nor can anyone discover in these forty-two volumes 

 a p;ige which does not ring true to the keynote sounded in the first number of the Rkvikw." To follow in his 

 footsteps, to carry out his ideals, is our worthy and inspiring anibition— an aiiihitioii which we are firmly 

 convinced his example will enable us to realise, thus 

 attnining more nearly the goal which he had intlicated 

 in the beginning and worked towards during the whole 

 of his life. 



