are now considering; for, if we confine ourselves to the Christian element in his teaching, he proposes to alter the existing situation only by kindling in the “trust magnates” such a fire of Christian philanthropy that they will have given him all he wants before he has had time to ask for it, thus exonerating him from the duty of saying “Thank you” for what he owes to another’s goodness, and enabling him to offer to the Lord that which has cost him nothing.

And what the author of “The Gospel for To-day” urges on behalf of himself and his clerical brethren is precisely what he urges on behalf of the less competent majority generally.  Neither on them nor on the Christian clergy does the gospel of Christian socialism urge the duty of making any new sacrifice, or any new exertion, moral or physical, for themselves.  Just as the clergy are to learn no more of business than they know now, but are to be relieved of the necessity for all prudence as to ways and means, so is the ordinary labourer to work no longer, no harder, and no better than he does now.  On the contrary, his hours of labour are to become ever less and less, and at the same time he is to receive ever greater and greater wages.  These are to be drawn from the products, not of himself but of his neighbour:  and although he will owe them solely to the virtue which his neighbour exercises, he is, according to the Christian socialist programme, to demand them as though his own incompetence gave him a sacred right to them.

Now, apart from the fact that this gospel does resemble the Christian in declaring that, while salvation can be achieved only by sacrifice, and that so far as the majority are concerned their sacrifice must be strictly vicarious, we might well pause to inquire how either of its two messages—­that of economic asceticism for the few, and of economic concupiscence for the many—­has any relation to the gospel of Christ at all.  According to any reasonable interpretation of the words and spirit of Christ, a labourer’s desire to enjoy the utmost that he himself produces is no less legitimate than natural; but it hardly ranks as one of the highest Christian virtues.  How, we might ask, is it to acquire this latter character by being turned into a desire for what is produced by other people?  Again, on the other hand, though according to most of the churches Christ did not condemn the possession of superfluous wealth as such, he certainly did not teach that the possession of it was generally necessary to salvation.  It might therefore be justly urged, from the point of view of the few, that in proportion as Christ’s valuation of this transitory life was accepted by them, the duty of melting down their own vases and candelabra in order that every workman’s spoon might have a thin plating of silver on it, would constantly seem less and less, instead of more and more imperative.  All this might be urged, and more to the same effect; but we will content ourselves with considering the