maxim of prudence by which they might disarm hostility.

The teaching of Christ does indeed give a rationale for the cultivation and practice of these social virtues to which self-assertion of every kind is opposed. It offers a needed corrective to the personal habits of mind which distort our views of ourselves and our fellow-creatures.

The man who is conscious of his own sins in the sight of God, of his own neglects and unintentional transgressions, will not be inclined to regard himself as a model, or to feel that he is able, either by precept or example, to set everyone else right. The superciliousness of conscious wisdom and conscious virtue may be characteristic of impersonal religion, but it is quite inconsistent with the Christian habit of mind.

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Nor will the man who is habitually conscious that he must stand before the judgment-seat of Christ be ready to arrogate to himself divine powers and claim to reckon up the blame or the guilt of others. What right have any of us to judge another man's servant? Wherefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall every man have praise of God.'

V. The Foundations of Political

Society

ST. PAUL was, as we have seen, eager that the converts should disarm criticism by their social conduct, and he was also anxious they should be careful in regard to the foundations of society which all wholesome social life assumed, and without which it could not persist. He is not only anxious that the converts should have a good report of them that are without, but that society should be well organised and efficient. The common weal could not be cared for unless there was recognised political authority. I exhort,' he says, in writing to Timothy (ii. 4), that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and all that are in authority, that we may lead a godly and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.' The common life which all the citizens of a country enjoy is not the peculiar personal possession of each; all share the benefit of being protected from foreign invasion, all share the advantage of being protected from crime, of having disputes with their neighbours peaceably settled, and of having their wants catered for by the economic machine. The advantages of citizenship cannot be privately appropriated or made the subject of exchange between individuals: they evade the economic

calculus,' though they are of the first importance as contributing to the welfare of the people. Political authority underlies them all-the organisation of the army and navy, the enforcement of justice and the punishment of crime; the issue of money on which the working of the mechanism of society depends, and all else that is for the common weal of the members of any society, depend upon the organisation and efficiency of political authority. In so far as this political power is ineffective, or is undermined, there is a danger that friction may arise which may throw the whole working of society out of gear, and involve in common disaster those who are least prepared to meet it or least able to escape it.

The collapse of the defences of the realm, and the danger of being exposed to the horrors of invasion and the miseries of starvation, have come so near us that we are able to realise something of what we have escaped. But the efficiency of the modern State is not only important in time of war, but of great and increasing importance in time of peace. The modern State goes much further in catering for common requirements than could be attempted in bygone times; provision is made by central authority for the education of the young and for the maintenance of the aged, as well as by many undertakings for securing health in the conditions of life and the conditions of work. These are

essential to the common weal of society as now recognised, and there are many directions. in which the demands especially for public health and education may be indefinitely increased, while many argue for the nationalisation of transport and of mines and of land as essential for doing away with the sense of grievance which is so widely diffused in our present society. The crime of the parent who exploits and neglects his children can be brought home to him and punished, but it seems to me impossible to estimate the far-reaching mischief which is done by the man who willingly diminishes the efficiency of the State in such matters for the sake of his own private convenience.

The devoted personal loyalty of clansmen to their chief is something of which we know nothing in modern times: the enthusiasm for tribal success was blended with admiration for a personal leader who excelled in the arts that all cultivated. Even the loyalty of her subjects, on which Queen Elizabeth relied so much, seems to us overstrained and sentimental but there is great need for enthusiasm; and we may feel enthusiasm for a system, whether that system is typified by a person or a flag. The subject must fall in with the social system in which he lives if that system is to have solidarity and to be effective in all the various departments of life in which it operates; there cannot be good government unless there is loyalty

to the system, combined with desire to improve the system, instead of the personal attachment which serves in simpler societies.

There is doubtless a large element of interest in the impersonal loyalty of the present day. The sense of property and of the protection of property was taken by Locke as the fundamental element in civil society, and the Bolsheviks in our day argue that while civil society as organised is a benefit to the classes, it is a mere incubus on the masses of the poor who have little property to protect. But civil society protects life, and thus confers a benefit upon all, and the more civil society puts down the evils which interfere with an orderly and well-doing life-the evils physical and moral-the more does it justify its existence. Political authority cannot maintain itself among thinking men as a mere exhibition of force, but as the expression of rational will, directing its activities to common objects.

St. Paul did not recognise that there could be any religious reason for setting the authority of the heathen Emperor at defiance. 'Let every soul,' he said, be subject to the higher powers, for there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.' It was only when the source of authority came into question,