the protracted deliberations of these hypercritical Berlin people : the sewerage, canalization, the supplying of the town with drinking water, the foundation of covered markets, are instances of the dilatory tendency of such discussions. But this tendency certainly makes the community inclined to listen to the counsels of prudence; nor has it hitherto prevented the authorities from taking a bold initiative since the time when the municipality obtained the free control over its streets and public places.

Again, it cannot be denied that the periodical elections of representatives, and the public debates in the Town Council, rouse party agitation, which has of late assumed an odious form, but still not so violent as to deter the respectable part of the citizens from devoting themselves to the unpaid offices. There is also a party patronage, but not to so short-sighted an extent as to appoint persons unfit for the offices. This element of party gets soon smoothed in the intimate deliberations of the Court of Aldermen, in the great committees, and in the numerous committees of wards. These animosities of party get gradually blurred and finally blotted out altogether in the common toil of daily work for the interests of the community. The result of this activity teaches every day that it has been the aim and object of the communitates to smooth down and to obliterate social hostilities.

More important certainly than the good financial results of this constitution is the neighbourly feeling and the local patriotism fostered by it. This feeling of personal coherence between the wealthy classes and the small taxpayers has given the community energy to resist extravagant demands for the extension of the franchise, for a mechanical division into equal election districts, and for capricious inventions of new modes of voting. The wealthy classes not only pay higher taxes, but even in a higher degree their personal activity for the benefit of the community exceeds that of the smaller taxpayers. The writer of these lines in the year 1860 undertook the somewhat laborious (and therefore, unfortunately, not repeated) task of inquiring in what proportion the higher classes took a personal share in the administration of the city. The result of the inquiry was, that in a group of 1,976 persons who undertook honorary duties in the service of the town or served on jury, there were no less than 1,831 house-owners or greater tenants paying a rent of more than 300 marks; whilst only 145 persons belonged to the middle class of lesser tenants, paying a rental of less than 300 marks; and only twelve belonged to the class of tenants paying less than 150 marks. Dividing the resident electors into three classes, each of about 25,000 heads, I found that the first class (of houseowners and tenants above 300 marks) bore no less than 823 per cent. of the entire taxes

of Berlin, and 'performed 92 per cent. of the honorary functions; that the second class (of tenants paying a rent of between 150 and 300 marks) bore 12 per cent. of the taxes, and performed 7 per cent. of the honorary functions; whilst the third class (of tenants paying less than 150 marks) contributed only 5 per cent. to the taxes, and per cent. to the performance of personal functions. The value of personal service and of taxes is, it is true, not commensurable in themselves; but, adding them up as items of about equal value, it appeared at that time that, if equal suffrage were introduced into the municipal administration, the higher class, who bore nine-tenths of the entire burden, would only command over one-third of the votes; that the smaller taxpayers, who bore in their aggregate number one-tenth of that burden, would enjoy two-thirds of the It appeared at the same time that the higher contribution of taxes corresponded exactly to the higher share of personal service in the administration of municipal offices.

votes.

It is the consciousness of this state of things that encourages the wealthy and the middle classes to resist the introduction of an equal suffrage into the municipal administration, not only with a good conscience, but also with success, although it is the favourite aim to which a Radical, a Social Democrat, an Ultramontane, and a pseudo-Conservative agitation unanimously tend.

A consideration of this condition of things will perhaps in England also make a number of politicians understand that in the society of our days, in which the rural and the urban elements of the population are fluctuating to and fro, in which capital and labour are in increasing enmity, in which the possession of land, of capital, and of industry seem to clash in vital interests, in which hostility of churches and of nationalities are more strongly accentuated that in such a society, I say, the personal bond of communal life and of the parochial mind is the only foundation on which a House of Commons can exist, just as in former times it grew up as an alliance of the communitates.

RUD. GNEIST.

A FAITHLESS WORLD.

A

LITTLE somnolence seems to have overtaken religious controversy of late. We are either weary of it or have grown so tolerant of our differences that we find it scarcely worth while to discuss them. By dint of rubbing against each other in the pages of the Reviews, in the clubs, and at dinner parties, the sharp angles of our opinions have been smoothed down. Ideas remain in a fluid state in this temperate season of sentiment, and do not, as in old days, crystallize into sects. We have become almost as conciliatory respecting our views as the Chinese whom Huc describes as carrying courtesy so far as to praise the religion of their neighbours and depreciate their own. "You, honoured sir," they were wont to say, "are of the noble and lofty religion of Confucius. I am of the poor and insignificant religion of Lao-tze." Only now and then some fierce controversialist, hailing usually from India or the colonies where London amenities seem not yet to have penetrated, startles us by the desperate earnestness wherewith he disproves what we had almost forgotten that anybody seriously believes.

As a result of the general "laissez croire" of our day, it has come to pass that a question has been mooted which, to our fathers, would have seemed preposterous: "Is it of any consequence what we believe, or whether we believe anything? Suppose that by-and-by we all arrive at the conclusion that Religion has been altogether a mistake, and renounce with one accord the ideas of God and Heaven, having (as M. Comte assures us) outgrown the theological stage of human progress; what then? Will it make any serious difference to any

body?"

Hitherto, thinkers of Mr. Bradlaugh's type have sung pæans of

welcome for the expected golden years of Atheism, when "faiths and empires" will

"Gleam

Like wrecks of a dissolving dream."

Christians and Theists of all schools, on the other hand, have naturally deprecated with horror and dread such a cataclysm of faith as sure to prove a veritable Ragnarok of universal ruin. In either case it has been taken for granted that the change from a world of little faith, like that in which we live, to a world wholly destitute of faith, would be immensely great and far-reaching; and that at the downfall of religion not only would the thrones and temples of the earth, but every homestead in every land, be shaken to its foundation. It is certainly a step beyond any yet taken in the direction of scepticism to question this conclusion, and maintain that such a revolution would be of trivial import, since things would go on with mankind almost as well without a God as with one.

The man who, with characteristic downrightness, has blurted out most openly this last doubt of all-the doubt whether doubt be an evil-is, as my readers will have recognized, Mr. Justice Stephen. In the concluding pages of one of his sledge-hammerings on the heads of his adversaries, in the Nineteenth Century for last June, he rung the changes upon the idea (with some reservations, to be presently noted) as follows:

“If human life is in the course of being fully described by science, I do not see what materials there are for any religion, or, indeed, what would be the use of one, or why it is wanted. We can get on very well without one, for though the view of life which science is opening to us gives us nothing to worship, it gives us an infinite number of things to enjoy. . . . . The world seems to me a very good world, if it would only last. It is full of pleasant people and curious things, and I think that most men find no great difficulty in turning their minds away from its transient character. Love, friendship, ambition, science, literature, art, politics, commerce, professions, trades, and a thousand other matters, will go equally well, as far as I can see, whether there is, or is not, a God or a future state."-Nineteenth Century, No. 88, p. 917.

Had these noteworthy words been written by an obscure individual, small weight would have attached to them. We might have observed on reading them that the-not wise-person who three thousand years ago "said in his heart, there is no God," had in the interval plucked up courage to say in the magazines that it does not signify whether there be one or not. But the dictum comes to us from a gentleman who happens to be the very antithesis of the object of Solomon's detestation, a man of distinguished ability and unsullied character, of great knowledge of the world (as revealed to successful lawyers), of almost abnormal clear-headedness; and lastly, strangest anomaly of all! who is the representative of a family in which the tenderest and purest type of Protestant piety has long been hereditary. It is the last utterance of the devout "Clapham School," of Venn,

Stephen, Hannah More and Wilberforce, which we hear saying: "I think we could do very well without religion."

As it is a widely received idea just now that the Evolution theory is destined to coil about religion till it strangle it, and as it has become the practice with the scientific party to talk of religion as politicians twenty years ago talked of Turkey, as a Sick Man destined to a speedy dissolution, it seems every way desirable that we should pay the opinion of Sir James Stephen on this head that careful attention to which, indeed, everything from his pen has a claim. Those amongst us who have held that Religion is of priceless value should bring their prepossessions in its favour to the bar of sober judgment, and fairly face this novel view of it as neither precious Truth nor yet disastrous Error, but as an unimportant matter of opinion which Science may be left to settle without anxiety as to the issue. We ought to bring our Treasure to assay, and satisfy ourselves once for all whether it be really pure gold or only a fairy substitute for gold, to be transformed some day into a handful of autumn leaves and scattered to the winds.

To estimate the part played by Religion in the past history of the human race would be a gigantic undertaking immeasurably above my ambition.* A very much simpler inquiry is that which I propose to pursue: namely, one into the chief consequences which might be anticipated to follow the downfall of such Religion, as at present prevails in civilized Europe and America. When these consequences have been, however imperfectly, set in array we shall be in a position to form some opinion whether we "can do very well without religion." Let me premise :

1. That by the word Religion I mean definite faith in a Living and Righteous God; and, as a corollary therefrom, in the survival of the human soul after death. In other words, I mean by "religion" that nucleus of simple Theism which is common to every form of natural religion, of Christianity and Judaism; and, of course, in a measure also to remoter creeds, which will not be included in the present purview. Further, I do not mean Positivism, or Agnosticism, or Buddhism, exoteric or esoteric; or the recognition of the "Unknown and Unknowable," or of a "Power not ourselves which makes for righteousness." These may, or may not, be fitly termed "religions;" but it is not the results of their triumph or extinction which we are here concerned to estimate. I shall even permit myself generally to refer to all such phases of non-belief as involve denial of the dogmas of Theism above-stated as "Atheism;"

The best summary of the benefits which the Christian religion has historically wrought for mankind is, I think, to be found in that eloquent book "Gesta Christi," by the great American philanthropist, Mr. Charles Brace. The author has made no attempt to delineate the shadowy side of the glowing picture, the evils of superstition and persecution wherewith men have marred those benefits.