The Ideal State 253 



ought to have been ended long ago, but the powers of 

 Mammon were too powerful ; but at last the trumpet 

 has sounded, and the walls of Jericho are about to fall. 

 Poor suffering humanity has had long to wait for this 

 simple act of justice, but at last the clouds are breaking, 

 and the sun of Christian love and self-sacrifice shall 

 shine forth in its full effulgence to enlighten and warm 

 the world with its cheering rays. 



In a recent number of the " English Review " Mr. 

 H. W. Hobart, " still struggling at fifty-eight years of 

 age for a bare subsistence in the industrial army, having 

 started as a breadwinner at nine," gives some " Revela- 

 tions of Industrial Life." This article ought to be 

 circulated widely ; it is so obviously true, and would 

 do much to bring home to the well-to-do the folly of 

 attempting to continue society as at present consti- 

 tuted. We can quite well remember the days when the 

 clergy were in the habit of rebuking the working classes 

 for discontent, and enforcing the duty of thanking God 

 for their manifold blessings. Now our ministers of 

 religion are deserving of honour and gratitude in so far 

 as they endeavour to carry out the teachings of their 

 Master, but in regard to this matter they act in entire 

 opposition to His message in many instances. One has 

 only to read this article in order to appreciate the fact 

 that it is quite impossible for the members of the great 

 industrial army to pay much, if any, regard to Christian 

 ethics as long as they are compelled to suffer at the 

 hands of professing followers of Jesus for no other 

 reason than that the latter are determined before they 

 die to accumulate hundreds of thousands of pounds, 

 become great landowners, and advance their position 

 in aristocratic society. And the methods by which 

 professing Christians attain to wealth are often such 

 as to proclaim the ideal of our religion as hypocritical 

 cant of the first order, or even worse, as of fraudulent 



