things serve the higher self. All trouble and difficulties will be of service, for they will reveal some truth, something we could not know except by such teaching. These things will put some impress on our character which could not have been put there if we had not been just so softened to receive it.

When a man is wrestling with some passion or appetite which seems to say "you must give way to me," how shall he conquer it? He may tell himself that the laws of health demand that he shall conquer it, and he may think of the pain, sickness and misery he will suffer if he does not conquer it; or if it be a temptation to dishonesty he may think of the disgrace that would cover him if he yielded. Fear of pain, fear of disgrace and shame may help him conquer, but they are not the solid shore on which his feet should rest.

He must lay hold of the truth that right is right and that from his higher self will come all the strength that is needed to conquer if he obeys the voice of duty, and surrenders himself fully to the highest.

The man who keeps his purity, honesty, and strength by faith in his own divinity, may still care for his health, his reputation, and cultivate a healthy shame before his fellow-men. But these are not the King he serves, they are but servants who bring orders. Sometimes the servant must be disobeyed that obedience to the King may be complete. Sometimes the preservation of health and the care for reputation must be given up in order to keep purity and integrity.

We must sometimes forfeit the regard of our fellow-men in order to be upright, for the inner voice must always be obeyed. Such then is the ideal and such the help Theosophy gives for the perfecting of the personal life. I think you will agree with me that there is no grander ideal, and that no other philosophy or view of religion furnishes such helps for its attainment.

Fraternally yours,

JOHN SCHOFIeld.

We are in the hands of the Lord. There are no such things as "fortunate" or "unfortunate" events. There are only events-steps on our journey to the Sacred Land.

BOOK OF ITEMS.

T

CHRISTIANITY AND THE SOCIAL CRISIS.

HREE recent books on the relation between Religion and the problems which are usually referred to under the head of Socialism, show how deeply important a hold on the popular attention such questions have at the present time. There is not only the religious revival itself, wihch would naturally make any humanitarian subject interesting, but there is the great increase of socialistic sentiment which is so evident in our Western countries. This brings us at once to a most interesting and instructive comment, namely, that the problem of Socialism is a distinctly Western problem; _not, as some socialistic writers would have us believe, because the peoples of the East are without sufficient enterprise to raise such questions, but because, under the Eastern religious and philosophical systems, a social problem cannot exist. It would be well worth serious inquiry to discover just why this is so, but that is foreign to the immediate object of this review.

R. J. Campbell, author of The New Theology, already noticed in this journal, has written a book entitled Christianity and the Social Order; Walter Rauschenbusch, professor of Church History in the Rochester Theological Seminary, has contributed a work called Christianity and the Social Crisis to the subject; while Charles Stelzle, superintendent of the department of Church and Labor of the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church, adds his quota in a study of modern conditions in a city, called Christianity's Storm Center. The three books form a remarkable and most interesting addition to the literature of the subject, for they are written from three entirely different points of view, and reach very different conclusions. All three agree that the great problem before western civilization at the present time is Socialism, all agree that something must be done to solve it, and all agree that the Church, that Religion, should take a foremost place in this work, as it is essentially a religious question, and not an economic one; but from this point on, they differ.

Mr. Campbell is frankly socialistic. He thinks that the Kingdom of God, which Christ repeatedly said was "within," is nothing but the application of the principles of Christianity, or what he conceives to be the principles of Christianity, to modern material conditions. A large part of his book is taken up with a superficial discussion of the meaning of The Kingdom of God in Jewish History, among the primitive Christians and in present-day Christianity. He has read his own opinions into his theme, and neither his history nor his philosophy will stand the test of criticism. Indeed, many reviewers have passed this part of his discussion by as not worth serious attention. Who can think, after reading the New Testament, that the Kingdom of God had anything whatever to do with this world? Not only are we repeatedly told the direct contrary, as for instance in the following verse from Romans, 14, 17; "For the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," but the whole spirit of Christ's teaching was to the effect that the Kingdom of Heaven was not of this world, but was within;-in a word, a spiritual state or condition.

There would seem to be little doubt that if the Kingdom of God could be established on earth, our social problems would be solved. No sincere Christian could think otherwise, else religion would be a failure. But there is a very great difference between this and the idea that we can bring about the reign of God on earth by legislation, which is what Christian Socialists want to do. They put the cart before the horse. They wish to solve our economic muddles, which undoubtedly have their root in the evil in human nature, by passing laws against that evil, thus thinking to eradicate it. The whole of the world's experience

shows this to be impossible. We know that people cannot be legislated into being good, or into doing anything they do not want to do. Laws follow character, they do not precede it. There will be drunkenness and prostitution so long as people want to drink alcoholic liquors and want to have illicit sexual relations, all possible laws on the statute books notwithstanding.

The last half of Mr. Campbell's book is pure Socialistic propaganda. He gives many statistics of poverty, crime, degradation and squalor, with which most people at all conversant with the general subject, are already familiar, and which prove nothing except that there are many sore spots in the world which need remedying; something which everyone knows. Then he attempts to do what most Socialistic writers have balked at entirely, and which he only sketches, that is the outlining of a program of legislation which he thinks would bring about the great change in our economic conditions he so much desires. This is the weakest part of his book, for the absolute impracticability of the program is apparent, even on the surface. Let us hope that no state will ever be so rash as to try the experiment, for able thinkers and students believe that it would throw civilization back a thousand years.

It is painful to contrast this book with other of Mr. Campbell's writings. It is a grievous thing that the man who could write his recent sermon, "The Master on the Shore," should use his God-given talents to bolster up an impossible cause. It is pitiful that such powers of inspiration, guidance and true religious feeling and leadership, in a world so lacking in these rarest of gifts, should be perverted from their proper channels and turned downward to material ends.

Mr. Rauschenbusch's book is more ambitious, and from the point of view of scholarship, much better done. A student of history by profession, he discusses the historical roots of Christianity and then endeavors to interpret the social aims of Jesus. To the many who think that Jesus came to preach an inner life of the soul and that he cared little about the outer, social life, except that we render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, his conclusions fail to carry conviction. He holds that Christianity is essentially a social religion and that the reason why it has not heretofore undertaken the work of social regeneration is because it was too busy with historical and political obstructions which have now passed away.

It does not seem possible to us that any one can read the New Testament and doubt that Jesus' object was to preach a new gospel of the soul life. He told His disciples repeatedly that His Kingdom was not of this world, that He had not come for any outer reason whatever, but to teach that Kingdom of Heaven, which was within. Worldly wealth and power were as nothing in His eyes in comparison with the higher life; poverty was to be desired rather than feared or shunned, because experience had shown the distractions of wealth. So strongly did He feel this that He advised those who wished to follow Him to sell all their goods and give the proceeds to the poor. Now these strange modern disciples wish us to believe that His real object after all was to bring about a state of society wherein everyone would be happy and fat! If, as seems to be the concensus of opinion of all the Saints and Seers of the race, we only grow spiritually through tribulation and anguish, through self-renunciation and sacrifice, what would be the effect of satisfaction and ease upon the future growth of the Soul?

While not so outspokenly socialistic as Mr. Campbell, Mr. Rauschenbusch ends his book by a discussion of poverty, land, labor; the "people," as against the upper classes, and sees nothing ahead of us but communism, which he believes to be in accord with the underlying principles of Christianity. Perhaps it is, but we are so far from applying the fundamental principles of Christianity to any other part of our lives that there does not seem to be any very good reason why we should begin with economic conditions, particularly as there are a great variety of very excellent reasons why we should do no such thing.

Curiously enough we are more in accord with Mr. Stelzle than with either of our other authors, although Mr. Stelzle was for many years a working man and knows economic conditions from bitter experience. But he is not a Socialist. He realizes that Socialism is impossible and impracticable. A sincere and devout man, full of the true spirit of religion, and keen to bring the forces of religion_to bear upon the problem, his book is by far the most practical of the three. He discusses modern social conditions, which he is admirably fitted to do both from personal experience and from his later professional work, and his conclusions are of great interest and value. Here is what he has to say about Socialism:

"What should be the attitude of the Church towards Socialism? First, it must recognize the right of every man to be a Socialist, if he is convinced that Socialism

is morally and economically sound. Second, it must recognize that there are some good things in Socialism, for which Socialism should be given credit. Third, workingmen should be informed that the Church does not endorse the present social system. It accepts only so much of the present system as is in accordance with the principles laid down by Jesus Christ. It insists that these principles shall be applied to society in all of its ramifications, but it also believes that others besides Socialists have both the brain and the heart to interpret these principles. Fourth, workingmen should be convinced that the Church is not offering them the Gospel as a mere sop, nor because it is afraid that some day they will bring on a revolution, and that it is offering the same Gospel, with all its privileges as well as all of its obligations, to their employers."

There are sympathetic studies of Trades Unions, the Slum, the Children of the Cities, and several chapters devoted to an exceedingly interesting description of the several kinds of social work carried on by the Churches. His remedy for the trouble is an aggressive evangelism. He would bring the essential truths of Christianity to every heart and every household. Nor does he think the conditions discouraging, for one of the most interesting parts of his book is his description of his own and his colleagues' work among the poor and especially among the workers. He says that he has invariably found that the workingman respects and admires and likes to hear about Jesus. It is the dogma and old-fashioned theology of the Churches with which he is no longer in sympathy.

Such is a brief and inadequate summary of three separate and divergent points of view towards one of the great problems which confront humanity to-day. It would seem that we had fulfilled our task but ill if we ended our notice of these three typical works without indicating in some measure our own view. We cannot speak for Theosophy, for no one has a right to do so. We do not pretend to speak for the Theosophical Society, for its constitution forbids it having any view on this or on any other question: we can speak for ourselves alone. To our minds, admitting, of course, that good Theosophists may differ theoretically from us, there is no problem. We find nothing requiring solution any more than the Eastern peoples do, and for the same reason. Reincarnation is a complete and perfect explanation of all the economic and social questions which are causing so much unrest, so much agitation, so much painful thought and heart-burning in the West.

We believe that every man is placed by God in exactly the right conditions to foster his spiritual growth. If he is poor and suffering, it is because he needs poverty and pain to develop his inner nature. If he is rich and prosperous, it is because wealth and ease will test his soul better than anything else. Furthermore, so exactly does the Great Law which governs the world and everything in it work, that we believe that not only are each man's conditions the best possible for him, but that they are exactly what he has himself earned by the use which he has made of his opportunities in the past. We reap what we sow in a manner so complete and so perfect that we never do or say or think anything that will not have its exact result and reaction upon our nature at some future time. The reaction may be immediate, as when we take poison, or it may be postponed for a very long period of time, perhaps for several lives; but the causes we have generated are stored up in Nature's warehouse, and sooner or later will be delivered to us in the shape of an effect upon our lives.

This simple belief, which is held by three-fifths of the human race, is a perfect explanation of the inequalities of existence, and of all the factors which go to make up the Socialistic position. If poverty becomes a necessary and desirable thing, an instrument in the hands of God, working for the regeneration of humanity, we certainly do not want to eliminate it, even if we could. If a man is born healthy and strong because he made good use of his health and strength in some past life, we can no longer envy him his good fortune. If he is born weak and sickly, we pity him, and do what we can to ameliorate his condition and to help and comfort him; but we no longer rail against a capricious God or try to take the running of the Universe out of His hands because we do not think He is doing it fairly.

In the East there is no jealousy nor bitterness between classes. It simply never occurs to a man there to resent the fact that another has something which he has not. He knows that what he lacks is due to his own fault, and he does not try to place the blame on Fate or Chance or on any other shoulders than his own. He accepts his lot, whatever it may be, secure in the belief that it is what he has himself earned, and that it furnishes him with the best possible opportunity to improve his condition. Not his material condition, for that is as nothing in the

eyes of God as compared with his spiritual interests. So the great shiboleth of the Socialists, "Equal opportunity for all," has no meaning for the man in the East. Of course there is equal opportunity for all. Is not the Universe managed by a great and just Law, the expression of the very Will of God, and is not every person in the world in exactly the right conditions to give him the greatest and the easiest opportunity? How could it possibly be otherwise?

To expect such a man to get excited about "Capital" and "Labor," "The means of production and distribution," "Interest," and other fetishes of the day, is about as sensible as to expect a great physicist to be troubled for fear the soap-bubbles blown by his child may upset the law of gravitation. They will not do so, and he knows it, and so does not trouble about it any more. If his friends should insist upon discussing as to how the weight of the soap-bubble might destroy the equilibrium of the world, and so forth, he either listens sympathetically, but with pity for their ignorance, or turns away in disgust at their stupidity, depending upon his nature. C. A. G., Jr.

Religions of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit, by Auguste Sabatier, translated by Louise Seymour Houghton, and published by McClure, Phillips & Co., New York, 1904. The author, who died before this book was published, was Dean of the Protestant Faculty of Theology in the University of Paris. He shows that Christianity, as taught by Christ and the Apostles, was not a religion of authority, but a religion of the spirit. He traces, with great learning, the evolution of the kindred doctrines of the infallibility of the Church, and later of the Pope, in Catholicism, and of the infallibility of the Bible in Protestantism. He points out that "Clement of Alexandria placed philosophy beside the law, and the sages on a par with the prophets. Justin Martyr and Theophilus of Antioch no more doubted the divine character of the Sibylline Oracles than of the Prophecies of Isaiah. Tertullian held that every edifying book was divinely inspired. Origen went farther: he clearly distinguished in the Scriptures portions of highly unequal inspiration and value" (p.169).

Erasmus, more orthodox in some respects than Luther, "held that the apostles, though animated by the Holy Spirit, were none the less fallible men, and that without injury to the gospel they were mistaken in certain matters and ignorant in others" (p. 171).

"The Reformers, and Luther in particular, dreamed of anything rather than of raising up an exterior authority, infallible like that of the Church, and functioning in the same manner. It never occurred to them to consider the Bible as a Codex of absolute and divine prescriptions, to be accepted independently of their possible relation to the Christian conscience" (p. 160).

Nothing could be more liberal than the statement of Luther, quoted (p. 158) from his Works, Erlangen edition, vol. lxii, pp. 128-133; lxiii, pp. 157-379; and cf. xlvii, p. 357: "Christ is the Master, the Scriptures are the servant. Here is the true touchstone for testing all the books: we must see whether they work the works of Christ or not. The book which does not teach Christ is not apostolic, were St. Peter or St. Paul its writer. On the other hand, the book which preaches Christ is apostolic, were its author Judas, Annas, Pilate, or Herod. John accords little space to the acts of Christ, much to his words. The other Gospels say much of his acts, less of his teaching. This is why the former is the chief gospel, unique, most precious, the one to be preferred above all the others. The Epistle of James is a veritable epistle of straw, for there is nothing evangelical in it."

Professor Sabatier concludes by urging a revival of original Christianity— of the religion of the spirit-and reminds us that the Quakers, for instance, "have managed perfectly well to do without any exterior authority," such as Confessions of Faith (p. 278).

It is a book that is making a considerable stir in Protestant circles, for the author was devoutly religious as well as learned. It should be recommended to all church members who show a tendency to "return to Christ." X.

A Prophet in Babylon which was recently published by the Fleming H. Revell Co. is attracting considerable attention and is well worth reading. It is the story of a clergyman of a fashionable New York Church who fails to find