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and son turned quickly towards the open doorway of the little sitting room.

It framed a forlorn figure—a boyish form covered with mud, hatless, and disheveled.

"Van!" cried Mrs. Fairbanks in astonishment.

She had a warm corner in her heart for the refugee who had made her home his for so many weeks when his poor mind was distraught.

Her motherly face lit up, and she extended her arms in greeting.

But Van edged up to her gingerly, and kissing her cheek quickly drew back with the remark:

"I've been homesick and hungry for a week just to see you smile and to hear you call me your boy, but I'm too muddy and torn up for even a second-class prodigal son!"

"Why, Van!" cried Ralph; "how did you get in that fix?"

"Run down by a team."

"And you are hurt—there is a deep cut on your cheek." Rh

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Rh "Oh, that's a whip-handle clip from a very particular friend of yours," responded Van carelessly. "Ike Slump."

Mrs. Fairbanks shivered at the mention of that detested individual. Ralph was eagerly inquisitive.

"And about Mrs. Davis?" he asked hurriedly.

"The woman who lived here—the photograph woman?"

"Yes, Van. Do you know anything about her?"

"I fancy I do. She has been kidnapped."

"We feared that!" murmured Mrs. Fairbanks anxiously.

"Yes," nodded Van briskly, "it looks that way, and I have had a lively time of it. Did you tell your mother about meeting me here last night, Ralph?"

"No, Van."

"Then I will tell her now. You see, Mrs. Fairbanks, I was caught by Ralph peeking into this very room, last night. I explained to him how it was. I had an old photograph of a woman who turns out to be this Mrs. Davis. I had been instructed to locate her."

"By whom, Van?" inquired the astonished Mrs. Fairbanks.

"It's a secret, it is not my business in a way,"

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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134 he burst forth abruptly, "but I can't keep the truth from you two. I think you ought to know it. I think, too, that the person for whom I am acting, the way things have turned out, would also wish you to know it. Here is the fact: Farwell Gibson is the person who got me to come here to locate this Mrs. Davis."

"Farwell Gibson?" repeated Mrs. Fairbanks in wonderment, though Ralph was not surprised at the statement. He had already half guessed out what his chum now disclosed.

"Yes," nodded Van.

"Then he knows Mrs. Davis?" asked Mrs. Fairbanks.

"Ought to," answered Van promptly, "seeing she is his wife."

"You astound me, Van !" murmured the mystified Mrs. Fairbanks.

"Well, she is. At least, the original of the photograph I showed Ralph is his wife. I don't know all the details, only it's some more of Farrington's fine work. You know Gibson was in his clutches for years. Mr. Gibson and his wife had a bitter quarrel over money matters many years ago. It seemed he had used some of her means in his stock-jobbing operations with Farrington. They separated. Later Farrington made Gibson believe his wife was dead. He did

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Rh this to get Gibson to consent to sign certain papers that furthered Farrington's schemes. Then he got Gibson under his thumb, and drove him into exile."

"I wonder the villain sleeps nights!" said the indignant Ralph.

"Well, anyhow," proceeded Van, "Gibson got looking into matters, when his meeting with Ralph led to your having your rights, and old Farrington taking the clamps off Gibson by destroying the forged note he had held over him for so many years. Gibson learned that his wife was not dead. He sent me to try and locate her—which I have done."

"But she is lost again," suggested Mrs. Fairbanks.

"Oh, don't fret about that," spoke Van coolly. "I'll find her again, don't you doubt it. You see, all this concerns you and Ralph very closely, I am sure. In fact, Mr. Gibson intimated to me that if he could get into communication with his estranged wife, he believed she could give information that would lead to the recovery of those twenty thousand dollars in railroad bonds."

"Everything fits to one conviction," mused Ralph aloud. "All this being true, it is certainly to Farrington's interest to drive Mrs. Davis away from Stanley Junction."

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136 "They drove her away, right enough," nodded Van vigorously—"in a close carriage, behind a spanking team. It was old Farrington's, and the drivers were Ike Slump and a fellow I heard him call Mort."

"Mort Bemis," murmured Ralph.

"You see," said Van, "when I left you last night, I had only one idea: to get back to Mr. Gibson and report. I started for the depot to take the train for Springfield, intending to come back and see you all in a day or two. Well, on my way to the depot I ran across old Farrington I got thinking that his appearance on the scene, spying on the woman Gibson, was sig—sig—what's the word, anyhow?"

"Significant," suggested Ralph.

"That's it—significant. I thought I would watch him a bit. He did not go home. He went to an old abandoned shanty near the fair grounds. He met two fellows there, apparently waiting for him. They strolled up and down the road, talking together. As soon as I recognized Ike Slump, I knew deep mischief was up. I saw Farrington give them money. I caught the name of the other fellow—Mort. I saw old Farrington to bed, and lay down in one of his comfortable garden hammocks to think. When I woke up it was daybreak."

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text: The New Student's Reference Work/Vaccination


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By Arthur Symons

is it I remember yet You, of all women one has met In random wayfare, as one meets The chance romances of the streets, The Juliet of a night? I know Your heart holds many a Romeo. And I, who call to mind your face In so serene a pausing-place, Where the bright pure expanse of sea, The shadowy shore's austerity, Seems a reproach to you and me, I too have sought on many a breast The ecstasy of love's unrest, I too have had my dreams, and met (Ah me!) how many a Juliet. Why is it, then, that I recall You, neither first nor last of all? For, surely as I see to-night The glancing of the lighthouse light, Against the sky, across the bay, As turn by turn it falls my way, So

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Rh "Why didn't you come to the house and see us?" inquired Mrs. Fairbanks reproachfully.

"Couldn't bring my mind to disturb you, with business on hand," declared Van sturdily. "I hung around, and saw old Farrington go about as if nothing unusual was on the string. Then about noon I went down to the shanty where he had met Slump & Co. No one there. They had moved quarters, it seemed. I nosed around generally. About four o'clock I ran across that Mort. He was visiting some stores. Acted as if it wasn't exactly safe to linger around people, for he didn't lose much time in buying some neckties, collars, cigars, and two new hats."

"He robbed a chum day before yesterday," explained Ralph.

"Oh, that was it? He looked like a thief. I suppose Slump didn't care to show his face at all. Well, I took up the trail of his crony. He started out the west turnpike. I kept safely in the rear. He beat me."

"How?"

"A man came along with a fast team. This fellow, Mort, begged or paid for a lift. They disappeared in a cloud of dust. I went back to town, saw your railroad detective, told him Ike Slump was on the scene, and he is looking for him with a warrant for stealing those brass

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130 So surely do I see your eyes Out of the empty night arise, Child, you arise and smile to me Out of the night, out of the sea, The Nereid of a moment there, And is it seaweed in your hair? O lost and wrecked, how long ago, Out of the drowned past, I know, You come to call me, come to claim My share of your delicious shame. Child, I remember, and can tell One night we loved each other well; And one night's love, at least or most, Is not so small a thing to boast. You were adorable, and I Adored you to infinity, That nuptial night too briefly borne To the oblivion of morn. Oh, no oblivion! for I feel Your lips deliriously steal Along my neck, and fasten there; feel the perfume of your hair, And your soft breast that heaves and dips, Desiring my desirous lips, And that ineffable delight When souls turn bodies, and unite In the intolerable, the whole Rapture of the embodied soul.

That joy was ours, we passed it by; You have forgotten me, and I Remember

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138 from the roundhouse. I thought I'd clip Slump's wings for good. It made one the less to watch."

"Whew!" whistled Ralph slowly, "you're action when you get started, Van."

"There is only a little more to tell," continued Van. "I went back to the Farrington place. Just at dusk, who should drive out but old Farrington himself, with his best team hitched to a close carriage. The fates were again against me. He got out by the rear, and he, too, took the west turnpike. I ran for a mile, keeping tab on a cloud of dust. It was no use. I sat down on a log by the roadside to rest. In a few minutes I keeled over double-quick, and lay flat. Farrington was coming back—on foot."

"He had left his team somewhere?"

"That's it. I waited until he was out of sight. Then I reasoned out that this was a very queer proceeding. I made up my mind that somehow he had given that team over into the keeping of his two young scallawag friends. I put for the country. I inquired along half a dozen branching country roads I took. About an hour ago I gave it up, was trudging back for town, when down the road came a team—Farrington's team. One of its drivers flashed a match to light a cigarette. Then I knew my people. I edged aside, but as

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Rh Remember you thus strangely, won An instant from oblivion. And I, remembering, would declare That joy, not shame, is ours to share, Joy that we had the will and power, In spite of fate, to snatch one hour, Out of vague nights, and days at strife, So infinitely full of life. And 'tis for this I see you rise, A wraith, with starlight in your eyes, Here, where the drowsy-minded mood Is one with Nature's solitude; For this, for this, you come to me Out of the night, out of the sea.

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Rh the carriage flew by I jumped on the rear axle, drew myself up, and tried to look in through the rear little glass window. Someone was lying on the back seat. There was a smell like chloroform in the air. I managed to climb right up on the smooth, slippery top of the carriage."

"What was your idea?" asked Ralph.

"I hardly knew. Somehow, a quick suspicion came into my mind that the person inside that carriage was Mrs. Davis."

"It was."

"I know that now, sure enough. I crept forward. That fellow, Mort, happened to turn. Our faces came nearly together. I grabbed at him, he at me. He must be a pretty husky specimen. Before I could save myself, he gave me a pull and a fling. I went down between the horses."

Mrs. Fairbanks shuddered, and looked solicitous and alarmed.

"Ike Slump reversed the whip and struck out at me. I dropped into a mud-puddle. For a minute anyhow I was insensible from the blow and the fall. When I picked myself up the team was nowhere in sight. I came back to find out if they had really kidnapped Mrs. Davis, and met you."

Van sat down, pretty well tired out, at the

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140 conclusion of his recital. Mrs. Fairbanks looked very serious, Ralph worried and excited.

"Something must be done instantly," Ralph declared.

"Hold on," interrupted Van coolly, "make this strictly my affair, if you please. From what I hear, you need all your time and ability for the splendid railroad service you are doing. You can't corner old Farrington—he's too foxy. You can't overtake Slump & Co.—they've got too good a start. It's a simple matter: Farrington is sending Mrs. Davis out of the way. That team has got to come back. The police will find Ike Slump. They don't dare seriously molest Mrs. Davis. I shall keep on the watch. In the morning I will get word somehow to Farwell Gibson. Then I will devote my time strictly to finding Mrs. Davis, and—I intend to find her."

They closed up the deserted house. Then all three took their way homewards.

"Of course you are coming with us, Van?" said Mrs. Fairbanks.

"Yes, ma'am," answered Van promptly. "I want to forget all about this worrying business for twelve hours, so as to be fresh and bright for a new trail in the morning. And I'm just pining for a good, thick slice of your home-made bread."

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text: The Yellow Book/Volume 1/Stella Maris

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 {| style="float: left; width: 8em; text-align: center; border: 1px solid black;"
 * Vol. 1. No. 1
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Rh "You shall have it, Van," smiled Mrs. Fairbanks, trying to momentarily put aside her troubles, "and half a mince pie, as well."

"Home-made, too?" interrogated Van, in a famished way.

"Only to-day."

"M-m-m!" mumbled Van ravenously. "I'm homesick for one of your rare, square meals. Hustle, Ralph—lead the way to the royal banquet!"

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text: Ralph in the Switch Tower/Chapter 16

title: Ralph in the Switch Tower/Chapter 16


text: The New Student's Reference Work/Vacuum

title: The New Student's Reference Work/Vacuum


text: The New Student's Reference Work/Valdai Hills


text: The New Student's Reference Work/Valencia (Spain)


text: The New Student's Reference Work/Valentine, Basil


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24 CHAPTER II.

HE next day was devoted to excursions in the immediate vicinity of Honolulu, a carriage-drive through the principal streets of the town, a visit to the palace and other Government buildings, and two or three calls to present letters of introduction. The visit to the palace included an introduction to the King, Kalakaua, who received his visitors politely and devoted a short time to their entertainment. The conversation referred mainly to the United States, and barely touched upon matters connected with the islands.

In their drive about the city Frank and Fred found that Honolulu is a well-built town with narrow streets. The houses are mostly of wood, dropped down rather carelessly in many places, with little attempt at uniformity, and not much decoration. The amount of tropical verdure, which almost concealed many of the villas and detached residences in the side streets and outskirts of the place, recalled Ceylon and other regions near the equator which they had visited in their former travels. Frank thought he could readily imagine himself in the suburbs of Colombo, while Fred was inclined to close his eyes for a moment and think he had been transported on the enchanted carpet of the Arabian Nights to Batavia or Buitenzorg, in Java. In many of the court-yards fountains were playing, the drops of water sparkling in the bright sunshine, and adding materially to the beauty of the scene.


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Rh There are some fine residences in Honolulu, but none that would be considered of much consequence in a wealthy capital of Europe. The best buildings are the public ones, and in the list we must include the Hawaiian hotel, as it was built by the Government at an expense that was considered a heavy one for the country to bear. Near the hotel is the theatre, which is also a Government affair, and brings very little revenue to its owners. It is in use occasionally whenever a strolling company on a voyage between Australia and America happens along and gives a few performances. Honolulu is hardly able to support a theatre through the entire year, as the portion of the population able and willing to patronize it is very small.

Frank and Fred were amused at the equestrian performances of the natives, and particularly at the dash and energy with which the laughing girls pushed their horses at full speed. They rode "man-fashion," bestriding the horse instead of sitting on a side-saddle, and few of them seemed contented with any but the most rapid pace. The horses of the Hawaiian Islands are small but strong, and capable of great endurance;


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26 in fact, if they were otherwise it is evident they would not live long, when the habits of the natives are remembered. In travelling in the Hawaiian Islands it is necessary to carry your saddle, as carriage-roads are not numerous, and a good many places that one wishes to visit cannot be reached by wheeled vehicles. Of course it is possible to hire saddles when hiring horses, but this is by no means universally the case.

The afternoon drive was extended to the Pali, a mountain-pass six miles out of the town, and one of the chief attractions to visitors who can only make a brief stay at Honolulu. Outside of the business portion of the place our friends entered upon a straight and very dusty road, which for the first two miles and more led among the villas belonging to the merchants and other well-to-do people who make Honolulu their home. Each villa stands in a garden by itself, and the houses are often rendered invisible by the masses of foliage that surround them, and the creeping and climbing plants that rise to their very tops. The road steadily rises, and consequently the occupants of the houses have fine views of the bay and town; while the mountains rise behind them to form a background. Fred was so charmed with the beauty of the scene that he wished to sketch some of the villas, but the recollection of their limited time prevented his carrying the desire into execution.


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text: Talk:Stops of Various Quills/Statistics

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Stops of Various Quills

 * Stops of Various Quills
 * Stops of Various Quills/November
 * Stops of Various Quills/Midway
 * Stops of Various Quills/Time
 * Stops of Various Quills/From Generation to Generation
 * Stops of Various Quills/The Bewildered Guest
 * Stops of Various Quills/Company
 * Stops of Various Quills/Heredity
 * Stops of Various Quills/Twelve P.M.
 * Stops of Various Quills/Change
 * Stops of Various Quills/In the Dark
 * Stops of Various Quills/To-morrow
 * Stops of Various Quills/Living
 * Stops of Various Quills/If
 * Stops of Various Quills/Solitude
 * Stops of Various Quills/Respite
 * Stops of Various Quills/Question
 * Stops of Various Quills/Hope
 * Stops of Various Quills/The Burden
 * Stops of Various Quills/Calvary
 * Stops of Various Quills/Conscience
 * Stops of Various Quills/Reward and Punishment
 * Stops of Various Quills/Sympathy
 * Stops of Various Quills/Statistics
 * Stops of Various Quills/Parable
 * Stops of Various Quills/Vision
 * Stops of Various Quills/Society
 * Stops of Various Quills/Good Society
 * Stops of Various Quills/Friends and Foes
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 * Stops of Various Quills/Materials of a Story
 * Stops of Various Quills/The King Dines
 * Stops of Various Quills/Labor and Capital
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 * Stops of Various Quills/Mortality
 * Stops of Various Quills/Another Day
 * Stops of Various Quills/Some One Else
 * Stops of Various Quills/Life
 * Stops of Various Quills/Weather-Breeder
 * Stops of Various Quills/Peonage
 * Stops of Various Quills/Race
 * Stops of Various Quills/Temperament
 * Stops of Various Quills/What Shall It Profit?


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 By Max Beerbohm

, but it is useless to protest. Artifice must queen it once more in the town, and so, if there be any whose hearts chafe at her return, let them not say, "We have come into evil times," and be all for resistance, reformation or angry cavilling. For did the king's sceptre send the sea retrograde, or the wand of the sorcerer avail to turn the sun from its old course? And what man or what number of men ever stayed that reiterated process by which the cities of this world grow, are very strong, fail and grow again? Indeed, indeed, there is charm in every period, and only fools and flutterpates do not seek reverently for what is charming in their own day. No martyrdom, however fine, nor satire, however splendidly bitter, has changed by a little tittle the known tendency of things. It is the times that can perfect us, not we the times, and so let all of us wisely acquiesce. Like the little wired marionettes, let us acquiesce in the dance.

For behold! The Victorian era comes to its end and the day of sancta simplicitas is quite ended. The old signs are here and the portents to warn the seer of life that we are ripe for a new epoch of artifice. Are not men rattling the dice-box and ladies dipping their fingers in the rouge-pots? At Rome, in the keenest time of her degringolade, when there was gambling even in the holy temples,

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User talk:67.164.110.151

Please do not add nonsense to Wikisource; it is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you. Hydriz (talk) 03:36, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:67.164.110.151


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Rh Beyond this region of villas the carriage entered the foot-hills, where the road wound with a steep grade among taro-fields, in which men were at work up to their knees in water tending the plants which yield to the Hawaiian the staff of life. The water which irrigates the taro-fields is brought by innumerable streams from the sides of the mountains, to which it is supplied by the clouds borne by the trade-winds. Honolulu receives its water from the mountains, and there is certainly an abundance of it.

Beyond the taro-fields there is good grazing for cattle and sheep, of which there are numerous herds and flocks. Frank called attention to a water-fall some distance away, which made a pretty contrast with the dark sides of the mountain, and was evidently nearly, if not quite,two hundred feet in height. At one of the turns of the road the carriage came in contact with a cart which was descending the slope too swiftly for safety; the damage was trifling, but for a few moments things wore a serious aspect, as there was a good chance of being tossed over the side of the almost precipitous slope.

There were not many travellers along the road, the most


text: Talk:The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's

title: Talk:The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's


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Page:Place & Influence of Church Congresses.djvu/5

 OF

A. J. B. BERESFORD HOPE, M.P.

LONDON

EDWARD STANFORD, 6, 7, & 8 CHARING CROSS

1874


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 of the executive or a successor of the Apostles; the division of the land into parishes with their parsons, belongs to the common-law of common-sense; liturgical worship and pre-adjusted forms can claim the sanction of educated experience. An Establishment may be destitute of these features, and then the onus probandi will be upon its authorities to show if it can do as well or better without them. A Church claiming to be Apostolic may also, from some external cause, have been organised without their full manifestation having been secured. But while in this latter case the organisation is plainly defective, so in the former one the presence of such features is no à priori proof that the Establishment is more than an Establishment. The broad fact which is certain is, that an Establishment can assimilate the external organisation of an Apostolic Church, and that an Apostolic Church can accept the benefits of an Establishment without creating any liability why it should be called on to abandon or to modify its distinctive features. The Church of England, as it is, is a living example of this compatibility; for it can claim the allegiance and support, without arrière-pensée, alike of those who regard it as a powerful and popular engine for those high moral objects, which can only be compassed by a national Establishment, and of those who reverence it as the Civitas Dei within its territorial borders. It is the 'truce of God' between the parties. The Establishment section might desire to make it more popular, and the Apostolic section might long to make it more hieratic, but each side, if wise, feels that the attempt, if pushed too far, would sever the alliance, and bring down the Church of England as it is with a heavy swoop. In the meantime, while patient, like all institutions, of cautious and conservative reform, it remains so long as it is not tampered with, neither too popular to be a Church, nor too hieratic to be an Establishment. Of this 'truce of God,' an active and vigorous, not to say young and bustling embodiment is the Church Congress. The professing


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Page:Earle, Does Price Fixing Destroy Liberty, 1920, 144.jpg

144 ways underestimated. The explanation of this is, again, free competition. In order to keep their trade, men have a tendency to underrate possible loss, and to take chances in business with reference to the elements which are uncertain and undeterminable. Thus we have the high percentage of failures in business enterprises, where the preponderating element and distinction necessarily consist of risk taking.

If the Act is to be thus interpreted, Judges will have an impossible task in their instructions to juries in the cases tried before them. They will have to say, in effect:

 "Gentlemen, this is a criminal proceeding; you cannot guess men out of their Liberty; you must have evidence that satisfies you, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the defendant, in dealing with matters looking largely to the future, and about which no one can be guided except by surmise or guess, didn't guess at all, but correctly drew deductions from the known facts and circumstances, which could not be known at the time he acted. You must be guided by the knowledge and experience of the ordinary reasonable business man in determining that the defendant, beyond every reasonable doubt, drew improper deductions from known facts in fixing the prices of the necessaries in which he deals.  You must be careful, however, to remember that it was impossible for him to know all these essential facts, and that the common deductions of the ordinary man upon such matters are, to an excessive degree, entirely wrong. You are also to remember that as one section of the Act, itself, provides, in supplying the President of the United States with funds for business purposes, that such funds are recognized as  'revolving'  items. That is to say, that business proceeds in a cycle, and, so long as it continues, is never completed, nor its profits really ascertainable. That in such matters the real result is never


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 service of Christ; more hearty cultivation of hymnody; increased facilities of worship; the material construction and decoration of the temple, — these all are among the subjects frequently, ably, and profitably debated at Church Congresses; these all relate to the Church as a corporate body; these all are points on which High Churchmen and Low Churchmen alike may learn, and have, I believe, by God's mercy, learnt, since they began to gather as brethren in the Congress halls, that they have far more in common, and are capable of learning far more from each other, than any man could have thought possible, brooding by the solitary warmth of his own fireside. Breezes have occasionally occurred, but they have borne a slight proportion to the mass of wholesome discussion, while they have been fewer and less sharp in later than in earlier Congresses.

Hitherto I have been dwelling on the material influence of Church Congresses as between Churchmen, and have, as I anticipated, trenched on the question of their moral value. Let me bring you back to more mundane contemplations, and treat of their material significance in reference to the nation. We have all of us, as I need hardly prove, to try conclusions with Dissent — whether devotional, political, or rationalistic; with the Liberation Society and the Education League; with philosophers and with the concentrated power of the Roman Church. The forces of indifferentism and worldliness are sometimes our unscrupulous foes, sometimes our damaging allies. The Church of England is bound, in face of the sacred treasures, of which it is the keeper and the dispenser, to hold its own, to assert its dignity, and to make its power felt in the busy mart and on the teeming thoroughfare. Towards this work of hallowed policy the Church Congress is a strong instrument ready to hand. From one populous town to another it has moved, and has exhibited in the eyes of active, intelligent, and opulent communities, to many of whom 'Church' has hitherto been a term of isolation, and therefore


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 faction incidental and self-justified opportunities of spiritual assembling, such as meetings in the nature of our Church Congresses so manifestly supply.

There is another aspect of usefulness in which I must present the Church Congress, so as to do full justice to the subject. I have spoken of the value of the debates in relation to the topics discussed. There is, however, an antecedent advantage in the debating itself, apart from the questions raised. Ever since our Church has awakened to new life, a strong and reasonable desire has grown up, both among laymen and clergy, for opportunities of regular conference, of which the placid Englishman of George III.'s days could not have realised the slightest idea. It was a healthy and strong impulse, and its repression would have produced inward inflammation: yet the means of gratifying it at that time were sufficiently difficult to discover. There were grave reasons, so long as the Church retains its constitutional position in the nation, from which we hope and believe it will not be so easily displaced, why the Convocatio Cleri should not risk its status by changing its identity. Diocesan conferences are of very recent introduction, and still but partially organised. In this emergency, the Church Congress — a purely voluntary association — combining, as I showed in my earliest sentences, a wide popular constitution with a very careful internal organisation, was preferred as an expedient, not pretending to be complete, but yet claiming to be real within its limits, to bring together the classes of Churchmen anxious for common deliberation.

The fact of such an institution, so voluntary and yet so regular in its self-responsibility, being so calmly conceived, and then launched with general acceptance into the orbit of an old ecclesiastical system, of which the members were already revolving in compliance with the law of their own attraction, proves, with a vividness of illustration, which it is impossible to embody in words, how young in physique,


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 I shall, of course, regard the question from the only point of view which I can occupy in honesty to my own convictions, that of a follower of the so-called High Church party. I am not ashamed at owning my side; but in so doing I shall labour for peace, not controversy. I am always more glad to discover one point of agreement than to assure myself of ten of divergence among the sections of a body whose Divine mission is to dwell together in unity; and it is mainly because I believe that Church Congresses are engines of agreement, and not of divergence, that I trouble either myself or yourselves with their affairs.

To begin with the material influence of the Congresses on the movement within our Church, we must take in that Church in all the complexity of its various aspects, both as the Established Church of England and as the Anglican Communion. These two ideas are not indissolubly connected either in theory or in fact, but they are quite compatible, and, as I venture to contend — with, I hope, the unanimous assent of all Churchmen in England, and with that of a vast multitude of those outside of it — it is in the highest degree desirable to preserve them in their connection. Taking note of these conditions, I claim for Church Congresses that they tend to secure that the Church of England shall, in preserving its more strictly ecclesiastical aspects, continue to be directly recognised in the National Constitution as the religious Establishment of the country, and that while it continues to be the religious Establishment it should hold fast to its peculiar ecclesiastical characteristics.

Fundamentally different in principle, as would be a religious Establishment which derives its constitution from some act of the State, and a Church claiming the allegiance of baptised Christians, as a branch of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic body, the two communities can, without doubt, be moulded so as to present identical external features. A Bishop is an expedient chief officer, whether he be a delegate


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Rh  really ascertainable until the final cycle is completed. But you are to ignore all this, and stop it anywhere you please, although you know that business varies, and that the profits of inflated years are, as a rule, more than lost in the succeeding years of deflation and depression. You must guess and you must not guess. You can reach a verdict in this case only by guessing, but you must not guess as to the facts, or consider other than the positive evidence (if there is any that has been offered) of the case."

The foregoing, for the purpose of emphasizing the difficulties arising under an erroneous interpretation of the Act, may have gone somewhat to the extreme of illustration, but it is entirely consonant with the true and existing conditions which a dealer faces every day in determining the prices of the "necessaries" which he offers for sale, all of which considerations should be given full weight by a jury, or other tribunal attempting to pass upon the issue whether such prices charged were, in fact, unfair, unreasonable and excessive.

No one who thinks the matter out can have any doubt as to what would be the final conclusion as to such an inquisitorial attempt. It will be exactly the result that has ever been reached after such attempt and throughout the centuries. Although to the present time there have been various conflicting decisions under the Act, there has been none in which the Court has not shown marked evidences of embarassment and reluctance.

The final consideration of the Court in the Weed Case suggests a matter that seems to have been overlooked. It is of most vital importance, and involves the question whether it was not necessary for the Government, through the President, to "fix the


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28 being groups of girls on horseback and the herders who were driving cattle to market or for a change of pasture. The girls were generally in bright-colored robes, which were gathered in at the waist with brighter sashes that streamed behind them as they dashed alongthe road. Most of them wore straw hats on their heads, and generally the hats were adorned with flowers in wreaths and festoons, which were most liberally bestowed. Now and then Frank's attention was drawn to a pretty face which surmounted a neck adorned with a string of blossoms of gaudy colors; the necklace formed an admirable setting for the complexion, but sometimes the blossoms were not chosen with due regard to the contrast of colors.

The Hawaiian cow-boys, or cattle-drivers, were not unlike their American prototypes, as they wore broad-brimmed hats and bright-colored scarfs; they were mounted on tough little horses, and sat in saddles of the American cow-boy pattern, the pommel rising high, and the stirrups made of wood. Then there were strings of pack-mules and horses coming down from the points in the mountains inaccessible to


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Rh wheeled vehicles, and now and then our friends met a Chinese gardener taking the produce of his little patch to market on the back of a pack animal, and in some instances on a wheelbarrow. A few groups of men and women on foot were encountered, but the number was so small that Frank and Fred concluded that the Hawaiians were a home-loving people, and did not wander about much.

Near the Pali the road passed through thickets of how-trees, which resembled the growths of manzanita on the slopes of the California foothills. These thickets are so dense that it is impossible for man or horse to pass through them; in fact they are impenetrable to any but the smallest animals. Frank thought he would like to cut a cane as a souvenir, but refrained from doing so when reminded by Fred that he could probably buy all the canes he wanted in Honolulu.

Suddenly from the other side of the narrow pass a wonderful panorama was presented. Around on each side were the rugged cliffs of the mountain range, while in front they looked from a height of eight or nine hundred feet above the sea-level upon a picture which included every variety of scenery. In the distance was the blue Pacific washing


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 Churchman who attends one, need only do so, as agreeing in the words of a teacher to whom personally I own myself more indebted, in days long past, than to any other living man, for the realisation of an Apostolic Church, and for the conviction that the Church of England is, as such an one, worthy of all obedience and honour; words written after the great teacher had unhappily reasoned himself out of his earlier convictions. This writer declares the Church of England to be a 'time-honoured institution, of noble historical memories, a monument of ancient wisdom, a momentous arm of political strength, a great national organ, a source of vast popular advantage, and, to a certain point, a witness and Teacher of religious Truth.'

Commending these words of Dr. Newman to other informers of public opinion who only resemble him in not belonging to the Church of England, I pass on to further phases of my present head. The Church Congress, I have shown, is, or may be, the truce of God between those who accept the Church of England as a merely human institution, and those who uphold it as a spiritual body. In its debates, dealing as so many of them do with the practical or administrative agencies of the existing organisation, frequent points of contact, involving no sacrifice of principle, may be found between the votaries of the two schools, and much useful information thrown into the common stock, while the inevitable ventilation of deep-rooted differences brought out, handled, and received with courtesy and Christian charity, cannot fail to put controversy on a more pacific basis than if they were always hidden away and brooded over. But, unhappily, those who adhere to the Church of England as a spiritual body, are not unanimous on many important questions. I have here reached very delicate ground, but I hope to make my way safely by speaking out plainly. High Church and Low Church now come upon the scene. These


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30 the sandy shores and curving reefs of coral, and between the ocean and the point where our friends were standing were grassed and wooded foot-hills, and long stretches of lowlands dotted with coffee and sugar plantations, taro-fields, and other evidences of careful cultivation, together with villages and clusters of huts that marked the dwelling-places of the men engaged in this tropical agriculture.

"We could almost say that we had the colors of the rainbow in this bit of landscape," said Fred, afterwards, while describing the scene. "The blue sky and sea were tinged with purple, the distant mountains varied in shades of blue and gray, the foot-hills and plains gave us every verdant tinge that you can name, from the bright green of the mountain grass to the dark foliage of the vegetation that surrounded the villages; and as for yellow, you had it in every variety, from the reddish tint of the sinuous roads to the bright and almost white belt of sand that separated land from sea. We recalled several similar views in different parts of the world, but could give none of them preference over this. It was the view from the Baidar Gate in the Crimea, combined with Wockwalla near Point de Galle, and a bit of the scene from the Righi Culm in Switzerland."

Whoever goes to the Hawaiian Islands will consider his visit incomplete unless he includes the island of Hawaii and the great volcano of Kilauea in his tour. Doctor Bronson desired that the party should proceed thither at the earliest moment, and found on inquiry that a steamer was to leave for Hilo on the second morning after their arrival at Honolulu.

"Prepare for wet weather," said his informant, "as it rains all the time at Hilo. They say they have seventeen feet of rain there annually, and sometimes there are days and days together when it rains without letting up a minute. Gum-coats and water-proofs are in order, and the more you have of them the better."

Continuing, the narrator said that a Hilo man once made an experiment by knocking out the heads of an oil-cask, and it rained in at the bung-hole faster than the water could run out at the ends! Frank asked for the documents in the case—the affidavits before the justice of the peace, and the certificate of the resident clergyman—but they were not forthcoming. Another story was that the fishes frequently swam up into the air a distance of three or four hundred yards before discovering they were not in the bay, the showers being so dense that it was impossible for them to distinguish the one from the other. Fred declared himself skeptical on this subject, as the showers consisted of


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mental trick by which the first half of English history has been wholly dwarfed and dehumanized is a very simple one. It consists in telling only the story of the professional destroyers and then complaining that the whole story is one of destruction. A king is at the best a sort of crowned executioner; all government is an ugly necessity; and if it was then uglier it was for the most part merely because it was more difficult. What we call the Judges' circuits were first rather the King's raids. For a time the criminal class was so strong that ordinary civil government was conducted by a sort of civil war. When the social enemy was caught at all he was killed or savagely maimed. The King could not take Pentonville Prison about with him on wheels. I am far from denying that there was a real element of cruelty in the Middle Ages; but the point here is that it was concerned with one side of life, which is cruel at the best; and that this involved more cruelty for the same reason that it involved more courage. When we think of our ancestors as the men who inflicted tortures, we Rh


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 spiritual life, or, as it was termed at the last Congress, 'the life of godliness,' as in the clergy so in the individual souls of all. Three successive conferences have produced papers and addresses of remarkable depth, spiritual and intellectual, to which I do not refer in particular, only because I have made a rule to myself to abstain absolutely from individual references. They have shown how much the High Churchman values personal religion, and how far the Low Churchman has been brought to recognise system and external order in the discharge of the more delicate offices of the Pastorate. At the same time, there is a risk in giving too great amplitude to this branch of the Congressional work. The danger which may be apprehended is, an over-encouragement to lay bare personal experiences, infinitely interesting to the soul which has undergone them, but not of a nature to make public without some deterioration of that finer moral sense in the person himself, which can hardly flourish without the co-existence of scrupulous reticence.

The religious influence of the Congresses makes itself directly felt through the devotional apparatus which is provided as an essential part of their programme. Every Congress, at least from the one at Manchester, has commenced its session with a solemn service in the great church of the meeting place, followed by a concio from some distinguished divine, except in two cases where the want of any leading church caused service and sermon to be multiplied. During the days of sitting, early Communions, more frequent mattins and evensongs, and noteworthy sermons have been provided in the various churches of the town, with the specific recognition of the Congress managers. On three occasions a stately dimissory service has been held upon the morrow Saturday after the session, in the cathedral of the neighbouring city within whose diocese stood the Congress town. On these exhibitions of the worshipping Church of England in the face of week-day


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Rh ought sometimes to think of them as the men who defied them. But the modern critic of mediævalism commonly looks only at these crooked shadows and not at the common daylight of the Middle Ages. When he has got over his indignant astonishment at the fact that fighters fought and that hangmen hanged, he assumes that any other ideas there may have been were ineffectual and fruitless. He despises the monk for avoiding the very same activities which he despises the warrior for cultivating. And he insists that the arts of war were sterile, without even admitting the possibility that the arts of peace were productive. But the truth is that it is precisely in the arts of peace, and in the type of production, that the Middle Ages stand singular and unique. This is not eulogy but history; an informed man must recognize this productive peculiarity even if he happens to hate it. The melodramatic things currently called mediæval are much older and more universal; such as the sport of tournament or the use of torture. The tournament was indeed a Christian and liberal advance on the gladiatorial show, since the lords risked themselves and not merely their slaves. Torture, so far from being peculiarly mediæval, was copied from pagan Rome and its most rationalist political science; and its application to others besides slaves was really part of the slow mediæval extinction of slavery. Torture, indeed, is a logical thing common in states innocent of fanaticism, as in the great agnostic empire of Rh


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146 prices of * * *  necessaries."  The opinion thus refers to this subject:  "His failure to do so, perhaps, because of its recognized futility, does not render the indictment invalid."  If the President could not determine prices of necessaries safely and effectively, as was shown in the case of sugar, then far less should it fairly be required of his fellow citizen to make such decision under peril of indictment.  This phase of the matter is, however, not now under consideration, but a more serious one.  A citizen, having used his best judgment as to prices which he fixed, and having reached a conclusion conscientiously and without any complaint or threat from the Government, has, in turn, no right to complain.  He has no right to redress where no wrong is threatened.  But he has a constitutional right, where his property or its fruits are to be taken from him, freely to submit his contentions to a court of justice and have the matter judicially determined, both for his redress and guidance. That right has been for centuries the chief aim of civilization. An Act that discourages such procedure is both against civilization and the Constitution. Even a sovereign state cannot check the right that now "freely exists" to have proper Constitutional questions involving rights of citizens determined by the Supreme Court, as was decided in the Harrison Case and in the Wadley Case.

It, of course, follows under the latter case and those cases which are approved and relied upon therein, that defendants, before they can be either fined or imprisoned, are entitled to their day in Court, and the determination by some judicial tribunal of what is a fair


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 working mankind—not the Church of England dissecting rubrics in Commission and Law Court, but joining in psalm and anthem, and united prayer, or listening to grave words of earnest teaching, or kneeling round the altar, with one heart—I fully believe that a blessing must attend. To its outward effect I can bear witness. It was not with discourtesy, or even indifference, but with marked respect and co-operative kindness, that hard men of business and Dissenting corporators received and even took their part in manifestations which must have seemed to them so strange as those of long processions of choirs and clergy and prelates gowned and surpliced and robed, chanting as they wended their way from trysting place to sanctuary. I know that these are but external matters; but I know also that it is as false a philosophy to underrate as to overvalue externals; and in the sense in which I wish for the moment to consider Church Congresses—that of a politic instrument in the sustentation of our Church among the foremost institutions of the realm—I consider that the evidence of such spectacles has a very decided significance.

Deeper feelings gather round these services; without them the Congress might degenerate into a battlefield of intellectual prowess. Sanctified as it is by the incense of prayer, and praise, and Sacrament, it becomes in a degree a season of spiritual refreshment This refreshment, I venture to say, does not lose in healthiness because it is, as it were, incidental, and combined with practical action. It would be plainly impossible to bring together so large a number from such distances for a simply spiritual gathering, and if the attempt were made, the resultant might be the feverish excitement of Revivalism. The Congress, with its special topics inviting discussion, is the corrective element. Far be it from me to deprecate the machinery of extraordinary occasions of unusual devotion, wisely conceived. I was, during the last autumn, myself present at such an occasion,


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Rh was approval of a popular fact already in existence. Men banded together in guilds and parishes long before Local Government Acts were dreamed of. Like charity, which was worked in the same way, their Home Rule began at home. The reactions of recent centuries have left most educated men bankrupt of the corporate imagination required even to imagine this. They only think of a mob as a thing that breaks things—even if they admit it is right to break them. But the mob made these things. An artist mocked as many-headed, an artist with many eyes and hands, created these masterpieces. And if the modern sceptic, in his detestation of the democratic ideal, complains of my calling them masterpieces, a simple answer will for the moment serve. It is enough to reply that the very word "masterpiece" is borrowed from the terminology of the mediæval craftsmen. But such points in the Guild System can be considered a little later; here we are only concerned with the quite spontaneous springing upwards of all these social institutions such as they were. They rose in the streets like a silent rebellion; like a still and statuesque riot. In modern constitutional countries there are practically no political institutions thus given by the people; all are received by the people. There is only one thing that stands in our midst attenuated and threatened but enthroned in some power like a ghost of the Middle Ages: the Trades Unions.

In agriculture, what had happened to the land Rh


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Rh was like a universal landslide. But by a prodigy beyond the catastrophes of geology it may be said that the land had slid uphill. Rural civilization was on a wholly new and much higher level; yet there was no great social convulsions or apparently even great social campaigns to explain it. It is possibly a solitary instance in history of men thus falling upwards; at least of outcasts falling on their feet or vagrants straying into the promised land. Such a thing could not be and was not a mere accident; yet, if we go by conscious political plans, it was something like a miracle. There had appeared, like a subterranean race cast up to the sun, something unknown to the august civilization of the Roman Empire—a peasantry. At the beginning of the Dark Ages the great pagan cosmopolitan society now grown Christian was as much a slave state as old South Carolina. By the fourteenth century it was almost as much a state of peasant proprietors as modern France. No laws had been passed against slavery; no dogmas even had condemned it by definition; no war had been waged against it, no new race or ruling caste had repudiated it; but it was gone. This startling and silent transformation is perhaps the best measure of the pressure of popular life in the Middle Ages, of how fast it was making new things in its spiritual factory. Like everything else in the mediæval revolution, from its cathedrals to its ballads, it was as anonymous as it was enormous. It is admitted that the conscious and active emancipators everywhere were Rh


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 how fresh, how elastic, how sufficient, is the constitution of the hereditary and traditional Church of England. The fact that the Church Congress aims at influence, and has neither will nor way to grasp at power, does not at all diminish the auspicious signification of its healthy assimilation by the pre-existing Church. If that Church were not conscious of strong life, it could not stand the sudden generation of new influence within its frame. Since the Church Congress has taken root, more regular gatherings within dioceses or arch-deaconries have sprung up. Some people may argue from this incident that the Congresses have run their course, and ought to give place to more formal organisations. I cannot share this conclusion. The more completely constituted the Church is, the more abundant in good works, the more steadfast in the Faith, the more eager and successful in the salvation of souls, the more will it crave for, and the better will it use, occasions of mutual counsel more free and unconventional than Synod or ranged Conference can provide. It will find them in Church Congresses.

A. J. B. BERESFORD HOPE.

LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET


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to which I desire this evening to direct the attention of the most representative body which the Church in London has ever possessed, is a chapter in the contemporary history of the Church of England. If, as all must own, the religious progress achieved during the present generation has been of critical importance for that Church, and of course for the nation; and if, as I shall endeavour to show, Church Congresses have had, and will have, no mean share in shaping that progress, then (whatever may be my short-comings in the treatment of the question) I shall at least not have wasted your time, by leading you to think of matters little deserving of serious thought.

The idea of supplementing Academies or Societies—that is, stationary bodies of men, devoted to some common object of serious pursuit—by Congresses or larger meetings, assembling at rarer intervals, and with a laxer system of membership, is, I believe, of foreign origin, and the offspring of an age of facilitated locomotion. It took root in England when the British Association was founded, but the winter of 1861 had come before — thanks to the energies of two resident Fellows of Cambridge Colleges, of whom, as in this connection, so for their great services to the Church at large, I cannot speak too highly, Mr. Emery, now Archdeacon of Ely, and the


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Rh the parish priests and the religious brotherhoods; but no name among them has survived and no man of them has reaped his reward in this world. Countless Clarksons and innumerable Wilberforces, without political machinery or public fame, worked at death-beds and confessionals in all the villages of Europe; and the vast system of slavery vanished. It was probably the widest work ever done which was voluntary on both sides; and the Middle Ages was in this and other things the age of volunteers. It is possible enough to state roughly the stages through which the thing passed; but such a statement does not explain the loosening of the grip of the great slave-owners; and it cannot be explained except psychologically. The Catholic type of Christianity was not merely an element, it was a climate; and in that climate the slave would not grow. I have already suggested, touching that transformation of the Roman Empire which was the background of all these centuries, how a mystical view of man's dignity must have this effect. A table that walked and talked, or a stool that flew with wings out of window, would be about as workable a thing as an immortal chattel. But though here as everywhere the spirit explains the processes, and the processes cannot even plausibly explain the spirit, these processes involve two very practical points, without which we cannot understand how this great popular civilization was created—or how it was destroyed.

What we call the manors were originally the Rh


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 of weakness, the spectacle of a Church — of the Church of England — as a vast corporate whole, loving much, energising abundantly, having its internal differences, but so confident in its intrinsic strength and in its deeper unity as to dare voluntarily to talk out those differences in the presence of universal journalism. The result has been that, in every successive town in which it has gathered, the Congress has been welcomed with a courtesy, even from those who can have no part in it, which demonstrates that the Church possesses the working strength which has won a respect such as never is accorded to the claims of lazy arrogance. I am not specially referring to the 'working men's meetings,' which have for some Congresses back been an almost invariable adjunct of the more formal sessions. They are not an intrinsic feature; and I fear the speakers at them have sometimes shown tendencies to overlook so rare an opportunity of distinctively putting the Church forward before such unusual audiences. More general topics, I make no doubt, win more certain plaudits; but at a Church Congress 'working men's' meeting what may be really useful in the highest degree should surely have been considered rather than what was popular. I understand the plea that the popularity of these meetings contributes to the general popularity, and therefore value, of the whole Congress, and may therefore be sought by a judicious selection of safe topics. Still I must say that such reasoning seems hardly serious enough in face of the grave responsibility of bringing Church and working classes into a juxtaposition which might be misrepresented as that of patroniser and patronised.

I have now arrived at, if I have not already trespassed into, my second and third heads, of the moral and religious influence of Church Congresses. A class of debate, or rather conference, which has only assumed a distinct personality during the three latest Congresses, is distinctly referable to these heads, namely, that upon the means of deepening the


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Rh villae of the pagan lords, each with its population of slaves. Under this process, however it be explained, what had occurred was the diminishment of the lords' claim to the whole profit of a slave estate, by which it became a claim to the profit of part of it, and dwindled at last to certain dues or customary payments to the lord, having paid which the slave could enjoy not only the use of the land but the profit of it. It must be remembered that over a great part, and especially very important parts, of the whole territory, the lords were abbots, magistrates elected by a mystical communism and themselves often of peasant birth. Men not only obtained a fair amount of justice under their care, but a fair amount of freedom even from their carelessness. But two details of the development are very vital. First, as has been hinted elsewhere, the slave was long in the intermediate status of a serf. This meant that while the land was entitled to the services of the man, he was equally entitled to the support of the land. He could not be evicted; he could not even, in the modern fashion, have his rent raised. At the beginning it was merely that the slave was owned, but at least he could not be disowned. At the end he had really become a small landlord, merely because it was not the lord that owned him, but the land. It is hardly unsafe to suggest that in this (by one of the paradoxes of this extraordinary period) the very fixity of serfdom was a service to freedom. The new peasant inherited something of the stability Rh


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Rh of the slave. He did not come to life in a competitive scramble where everybody was trying to snatch his freedom from him. He found himself among neighbours who already regarded his presence as normal and his frontiers as natural frontiers, and among whom all-powerful customs crushed all experiments in competition. By a trick or overturn no romancer has dared to put in a tale, this prisoner had become the governor of his own prison. For a little time it was almost true that an Englishman's house was his castle, because it had been built strong enough to be his dungeon.

The other notable element was this: that when the produce of the land began by custom to be cut up and only partially transmitted to the lord, the remainder was generally subdivided into two types of property. One the serfs enjoyed severally, in private patches, while the other they enjoyed in common, and generally in common with the lord. Thus arose the momentously important mediæval institutions of the Common Land, owned side by side with private land. It was an alternative and a refuge. The mediævals, except when they were monks, were none of them Communists; but they were all, as it were, potential Communists. It is typical of the dark and dehumanized picture now drawn of the period that our romances constantly describe a broken man as falling back on the forests and the outlaw's den, but never describe him as falling back on the common land, which was Rh


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 appellations are generally taken as symbolical of antagonism—as the titles of rival parties—and I cannot deny the accuracy of the imputation. But they may in another light be regarded with truth and charity as names indicative, not of oppugnancy but of gradation. High Church and Low Church both presuppose a Church. The very word 'gradation' involves the metaphor of a staircase or ladder. So a High Churchman may be described as one who goes up the ladder as high as he can to get the best look-out, but not so high as to risk falling over; while a Low Churchman, equally desirous of a sufficient look-out, and equally fearful of the fall over, also attempts what he considers the utmost safe altitude, which, however, happens to be some rungs under that of his compeer. I do not offer this as a perfect metaphor, but it grows naturally out of the vocables in question, and serves to place the two parties in that amicable attitude which they deserve to assume relatively to Church Congresses. If any man be asked truthfully to recapitulate the most crying shortcomings of the Church in the Georgian age, he would, quite irrespective of party, reckon personal isolation among them. This has absolutely nothing to do with High or Low. The country vicar may have been basking in the afterglow of Non-juring divinity, or in the newer light of evangelical activity, but still he was for practical purposes fighting his own battle with only his own arm to help him. The Church movement had brought the two schools within each other's scope intellectually, and now the Church Congress enables them to meet personally. Their members are both of them Churchmen belonging to one Church, that Church being the Church of England. That Church accepts episcopal regimen; it is served by a threefold ministry set apart by the imposition of the Bishop's hands; it worships God in forms of antique significance; it renders glory, honour, and praise to the Sacraments of Christ, as among the chiefest of God's good gifts


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Rh a much more common incident. Mediævalism believed in mending its broken men; and as the idea existed in the communal life for monks, it existed in the communal land for peasants. It was their great green hospital, their free and airy workhouse. A Common was not a naked and negative thing like the scrub or heath we call a Common on the edges of the suburbs. It was a reserve of wealth like a reserve of grain in a barn; it was deliberately kept back as a balance, as we talk of a balance at the bank. Now these provisions for a healthier distribution of property would by themselves show any man of imagination that a real moral effort had been made towards social justice; that it could not have been mere evolutionary accident that slowly turned the slave into a serf, and the serf into a peasant proprietor. But if anybody still thinks that mere blind luck, without any groping for the light, had somehow brought about the peasant condition in place of the agrarian slave estate, he has only to turn to what was happening in all the other callings and affairs of humanity. Then he will cease to doubt. For he will find the same mediæval men busy upon a social scheme which points as plainly in effect to pity and a craving for equality. And it is a system which could no more be produced by accident than one of their cathedrals could be built by an earthquake.

Most work beyond the primary work of agriculture was guarded by the egalitarian vigilance of the Guilds. It is hard to find any term to Rh


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114 his two aides, Captain A. L. Mills and Lieutenant W. E. Shipp, slept near us. We were up before dawn and getting breakfast. Mills and Shipp had nothing to eat, and they breakfasted with Wood and myself, as we had been able to get some handfuls of beans, and some coffee and sugar, as well as the ordinary bacon and hardtack.

We did not talk much, for though we were in ignorance as to precisely what the day would bring forth, we knew that we should see fighting. We had slept soundly enough, although, of course, both Wood and I during the night had made a round of the sentries, he of the brigade, and I of the regiment; and I suppose that, excepting among hardened veterans, there is always a certain feeling of uneasy excitement the night before the battle.

Mills and Shipp were both tall, fine-looking men, of tried courage, and thoroughly trained in every detail of their profession; I remember being struck by the quiet, soldierly way they were going about their work early that morning. Before noon one was killed and the other dangerously wounded. General Wheeler was sick, but with his usual indomitable pluck and entire indifference to his own personal comfort, he kept to the front. He was unable to retain command of the cavalry division, which accordingly devolved upon General Samuel Sumner, who commanded it until mid-afternoon,


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Rh measure the distance between this system and modern society; one can only approach it first by the faint traces it has left. Our daily life is littered with a debris of the Middle Ages, especially of dead words which no longer carry their meaning. I have already suggested one example. We hardly call up the picture of a return to Christian Communism whenever we mention Wimbledon Common. This truth descends to such trifles as the titles which we write on letters and postcards. The puzzling and truncated monosyllable "Esq." is a pathetic relic of a remote evolution from chivalry to snobbery. No two historic things could well be more different than an esquire and a squire. The first was above all things an incomplete and probationary position—the tadpole of knighthood; the second is above all things a complete and assured position—the status of the owners and rulers of rural England throughout recent centuries. Our esquires did not win their estates till they had given up any particular fancy for winning their spurs. Esquire does not mean squire, and esq. does not mean anything. But it remains on our letters a little wriggle in pen and ink and an indecipherable hieroglyph twisted by the strange turns of our history, which have turned a military discipline into a pacific oligarchy, and that into a mere plutocracy at last. And there are similar historic riddles to be unpicked in the similar forms of social address. There is something singularly forlorn about the modern word "Mister." Even Rh


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 lamented W. J. Beamont, of Trinity College — the first Church Congress met in the Hall of King's College, Cambridge. It was but a scanty assemblage, and it boasted of no episcopal presidency, the chair being filled by the late Archdeacon France of Ely. The one which gathered during the subsequent summer at Oxford, in the Sheldonian Theatre, with Bishop Wilberforce as its President, was the earliest manifestation of the organisation in its normal completeness. The autumns of subsequent years have witnessed similar gatherings at Manchester, Bristol, Norwich, York, Wolverhampton, Dublin, Liverpool, Southampton, Nottingham, Leeds, and Bath, the diocesan having in each instance been in the chair, while it has been decided that another such Congress shall be held at Brighton before the present year closes.

The most salient characteristics of Church Congresses are the democratic simplicity of their organisation, and the autocratic limitation under which they are allowed to deliberate. Membership is voluntary for clergymen and laymen, under the single condition of communion with the Church of England. Women may attend the meetings, though happily there has never been a claim from any one to address the gathering. But the debates are conducted under the triple restriction of no voting or authoritative summing up, of a selected list of subjects published beforehand, and of the initiation of each topic (a process which not unfrequently takes up about two-thirds of the appointed sitting) being distributed among selected readers and speakers, at the choice of an organising Committee, by whom it is published in the programme — not to mention a wide license of selection which Chairmen claim, among the bewildering multiplicity of competitors for the modest allowance of ten minutes each, into which the remaining time is divided. We may put the nature of their constitution in another way: they are potential Comitia; the whole body of citizens form their members, if only those citizens can and are willing to attend. But


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 in sound it has a simpering feebleness which marks the shrivelling of the strong word from which it came. Nor, indeed, is the symbol of the mere sound inaccurate. I remember seeing a German story of Samson in which he bore the unassuming name of Simson, which surely shows Samson very much shorn. There's something of the same dismal diminuendo in the evolution of a Master into a Mister.

The very vital importance of the word "Master" is this. A Guild was, very broadly speaking, a Trade Union in which every man was his own employer. That is, a man could not work at any trade unless he would join the league and accept the laws of that trade; but he worked in his own shop with his own tools, and the whole profit went to himself. But the word "employer" marks a modern deficiency which makes the modern use of the word "master" quite inexact. A master meant something quite other and greater than a "boss." It meant a master of the work, where it now means only a master of the workmen. It is an elementary character of Capitalism that a shipowner need not know the right end of a ship, or a landowner have even seen the landscape, that the owner of a gold-mine may be interested in nothing but old pewter, or the owner of a railway travel exclusively in balloons. He may be a more successful capitalist if he has a hobby of his own business; he is often a more successful capitalist if he has the sense to leave it to a manager; but economically Rh


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 complicated machinery, yet equally respectable. But I am not content with a negative; for, while I very fully admit the extent of the responsibility thrown upon the casual organisers, and while I reserve the desirability of a larger permanent element (which is growing up), I contend that, upon the whole, admitting the powerful factor of outside opinion, there could not well have been devised a less offensive machinery for summarising the appointed work. The Congress, however constituted, can only debate upon a limited selection of questions; and it would be plainly monstrous to leave them to the accident of 'first come, first served,' by letting the aspirants fill up the notice papers by a chance priority. The committee steps in, with the feeling of responsibility which English plain-speaking brings home to all who are bold enough to accept voluntary work of a confessedly delicate description. The list of subjects has varied in interest from year to year; and there have, perhaps, been occasions on which it has erred on the side of timidity. On the other hand, the successive choice of selected readers and speakers has been subjected to much sharp, though legitimate, criticism from those who are certainly not the meekest of mankind — the controversialists of the religious press. The assignment of parts after the entertainment had been settled is even a greater difficulty than the preliminary one. Only the abstract merit of the subject-matter has to be appraised; but when the from four to six selected athletes have to be entered, a bewildering variety of cross considerations arises within an area full small for their sufficient adjustment. Those who know too much may sometimes be as ineligible as those who know too little. The Church has, for some questions, to be assumed as composed of two, and for others as of three parties, or else to be dealt with as an united fraternity. The general success of the Congress demands a certain recognition of official, political, and social distinction, as well as of technical knowledge;


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Rh when the bulk of the fighting was over. General Sumner's own brigade fell to Colonel Henry Carroll. General Sumner led the advance with the cavalry, and the battle was fought by him and by General Kent, who commanded the infantry division, and whose foremost brigade was led by General Hawkins.

As the sun rose the men fell in, and at the same time a battery of field-guns was brought up on the hill-crest just beyond, between us and toward Santiago. It was a fine sight to see the great horses straining under the lash as they whirled the guns up the hill and into position.

Our brigade was drawn up on the hither side of a kind of half basin, a big band of Cubans being off to the left. As yet we had received no orders, except that we were told that the main fighting was to be done by Lawton's infantry division, which was to take El Caney, several miles to our right, while we were simply to make a diversion. This diversion was to be made mainly with the artillery, and the battery which had taken position immediately in front of us was to begin when Lawton began.

It was about six o'clock that the first report of the cannon from El Caney came booming to us across the miles of still jungle. It was a very lovely morning, the sky of cloudless blue, while the level,


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116 rays from the just-risen sun brought into fine relief the splendid palms which here and there towered above the lower growth. The lofty and beautiful mountains hemmed in the Santiago plain, making it an amphitheatre for the battle.

Immediately our guns opened, and at the report great clouds of white smoke hung on the ridge crest. For a minute or two there was no response. Wood and I were sitting together, and Wood remarked to me that he wished our brigade could be moved somewhere else, for we were directly in line of any return fire aimed by the Spaniards at the battery. Hardly had he spoken when there was a peculiar whistling, singing sound in the air, and immediately afterward the noise of something exploding over our heads. It was shrapnel from the Spanish batteries. We sprung to our feet and leaped on our horses. Immediately afterward a second shot came which burst directly above us; and then a third. From the second shell one of the shrapnel bullets dropped on my wrist, hardly breaking the skin, but raising a bump about as big as a hickory-nut. The same shell wounded four of my regiment, one of them being Mason Mitchell, and two or three of the regulars were also hit, one losing his leg by a great fragment of shell. Another shell exploded right in the middle of the Cubans, killing and wounding a good many, while the


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Rh military men with a taste in cookery, tell each other in after-dinner speeches that it has been the glory of their lives to make allegorical bricks without straw. In another case we shall find a Worshipful Company of Whitewashers who do deserve their name in the sense that many of them employ a large number of other people to whitewash. These Companies support large charities and often doubtless very valuable charities; but their object is quite different from that of the old charities of the Guilds. The aim of the Guild charities was the same as the aim of the Common Land. It was to resist inequality—or, as some earnest old gentlemen of the last generation would probably put it, to resist evolution. It was to ensure, not only that bricklaying should survive and succeed, but that every bricklayer should survive and succeed. It sought to rebuild the ruins of any bricklayer, and to give any faded whitewasher a new white coat. It was the whole aim of the Guilds to cobble their cobblers like their shoes and clout their clothiers with their clothes; to strengthen the weakest link or go after the hundredth sheep; in short, to keep the row of little shops unbroken like a line of battle. It resisted the growth of a big shop like the growth of a dragon. Now even the whitewashers of the Whitewashers Company will not pretend that it exists to prevent a small shop being swallowed by a big shop, or that it has done anything whatever to prevent it. At the best the kindness it would show to a bankrupt Rh


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 to men. One party, no doubt, concentrates its labour on developing the Church upon those specific lines, and while anxious, even to death, for the soul's internal concerns, treats those internal concerns as under the administration of the external Church; while the other party, in acting within that external Church, makes, so to speak, something of a separate interest of the internal condition and welfare of the soul. The High Churchman may be said to be differentially jealous lest the Apostolic depositum of the Faith should suffer by over-much anxiety as to personal religion; the Low Churchman lest the care to sustain a formal system should overlay the warmth of personal devotion. There is, of course, infinite individual interlacing between the two parties; and, now-a-days, a school has come into prominence about which I must be excused from speaking in this connection, which appears to seek not so much to fuse as to couple them. I can only, within my allotted limits, give the roughest sketch of distinctive differences. The influence of Church Congresses in bringing the parties face to face on the topic of personal religion will come under my second head of their moral influence. Under the present one comes their value in fostering, on both sides, a broader, deeper appreciation of the Church as a system and as a corporation than was possible in the days of the earlier isolation. The organisation and multiplication of dioceses; the strengthening and enlarging of cathedrals, both in their Chapters, and in the varied work given to those Chapters to do; the development of synodical action, including the due placing of the clerical and of the lay element; the relations of our Church to other communities at home and abroad; missions to the heathen, and enterprises having a missionary character among the dark corners at home; elementary and middle-class education; the higher training of the clergy; the Universities in relation to the Church; co-operative associations of men and of women for the


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Rh washer would be a kind of compensation; it would not be reinstatement; it would not be the restoration of status in an industrial system. So careful of the type it seems, so careless of the single life; and by that very modern evolutionary philosophy the type itself has been destroyed. The old Guilds, with the same object of equality, of course, insisted peremptorily upon the same level system of payment and treatment which is a point of complaint against the modern Trades Unions. But they insisted also, as the Trades Unions cannot do, upon a high standard of craftsmanship, which still astonishes the world in the corners of perishing buildings or the colours of broken glass. There is no artist or art critic who will not concede, however distant his own style from the Gothic school, that there was in this time a nameless but universal artistic touch in the moulding of the very tools of life. Accident has preserved the rudest sticks and stools and pots and pans which have suggestive shapes as if they were possessed not by devils but by elves. For they were, indeed, as compared with subsequent systems, produced in the incredible fairyland of a free country.

That the most mediæval of modern institutions, the Trades Unions, do not fight for the same ideal of æsthetic finish is true and certainly tragic; but to make it a matter of blame is wholly to misunderstand the tragedy. The Trades Unions are confederations of men without property, seeking to balance its absence by Rh


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Rh numbers and the necessary character of their labour. The Guilds were confederations of men with property, seeking to ensure each man in the possession of that property. This is, of course, the only condition of affairs in which property can properly be said to exist at all. We should not speak of a negro community in which most men were white, but the rare negroes were giants. We should not conceive a married community in which most men were bachelors, and three men had harems. A married community means a community where most people are married; not a community where one or two people are very much married. A propertied community means a community where most people have property; not a community where there are a few capitalists. But in fact the Guildsmen (as also, for that matter, the serfs, semi-serfs and peasants) were much richer than can be realized even from the fact that the Guilds protected the possession of houses, tools, and just payment. The surplus is self-evident upon any just study of the prices of the period, when all deductions have been made, of course, for the different value of the actual coinage. When a man could get a goose or a gallon of ale for one or two of the smallest and commonest coins, the matter is in no way affected by the name of those coins. Even where the individual wealth was severely limited, the collective wealth was very large—the wealth of the Guilds, of the parishes, and especially of the monastic estates. It is Rh


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 who are the citizens? Here the difference between a Church Congress and one for the cultivation of any learned or social object becomes apparent. In the British Association, the Social Science, or the Archæological Congress the qualification for temporary membership is that of belonging to the human race. In a Church Congress the qualification is as wide as, but stops rigidly short at, the Anglican Communion in its broadest aspect. It is obvious that such a body as I have described, of a purely voluntary character, of a more than republican constitution, but with a very carefully, if not suspiciously, guarded order of procedure, can never hope to exercise any direct power. What remains as its heritage in the commonwealth of the Church is influence; and of the existence, the extent, and the value of that influence, I shall proceed to speak. But, before doing so, I must point to yet another restrictive qualification in the avoidance, which has been from the first a 'standing order' — how far formally enacted I cannot charge my memory to say — of any strictly doctrinal issue among the subjects of debate; while the compression of the session within the inside of a week, inclusive of the Monday to go there and the Saturday to go away, very materially abridges the possible programme.

It is plain from all these considerations that the value of any congress, as an influential organ of Church opinion at each particular session, must depend upon a good choice of subjects, and of appointed readers and speakers. In fact, the organising committee is a provisional government with constituent authority; it is mostly fluctuating, and chosen by and among the Church notables of the meeting place. The off-hand conclusion will, I doubt not, be, that it is a palpable blunder to have entrusted such power to a shifting body, which, at each successive recurrence, represents the predominant feelings of some narrow locality. This criticism may, for all practical purposes be met by the challenge to produce some plan of more


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Rh scattered like guinea-hens. Wood's led horse was also shot through the lungs. I at once hustled my regiment over the crest of the hill into the thick underbrush, where I had no little difficulty in getting them together again into column.

Meanwhile the firing continued for fifteen or twenty minutes, until it gradually died away. As the Spaniards used smokeless powder, their artillery had an enormous advantage over ours, and, moreover, we did not have the best type of modern guns, our fire being slow.

As soon as the firing ceased. Wood formed his brigade, with my regiment in front, and gave me orders to follow behind the First Brigade, which was just moving off the ground. In column of fours we marched down the trail toward the ford of the San Juan River. We passed two or three regiments of infantry, and were several times halted before we came to the ford. The First Brigade, which was under Colonel Carrol—Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton commanding the Ninth Regiment, Major Wessels the Third, and Captain Kerr the Sixth—had already crossed and was marching to the right, parallel to, but a little distance from, the river. The Spaniards in the trenches and block-houses on the top of the hills in front were already firing at the brigade in desultory fashion. The


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Rh important to remember this fact in the subsequent history of England.

The next fact to note is that the local government grew out of things like the Guild system, and not the system from the government. In sketching the sound principles of this lost society, I shall not, of course, be supposed by any sane person to be describing a moral paradise, or to be implying that it was free from the faults and fights and sorrows that harass human life in all times, and certainly not least in our own time. There was a fair amount of rioting and fighting in connection with the Guilds; and there was especially for some time a combative rivalry between the guilds of merchants who sold things and those of craftsmen who made them, a conflict in which the craftsmen on the whole prevailed. But whichever party may have been predominant, it was the heads of the Guild who became the heads of the town, and not vice versâ. The stiff survivals of this once very spontaneous uprising can again be seen in the now anomalous constitution of the Lord Mayor and the Livery of the City of London. We are told so monotonously that the government of our fathers reposed upon arms, that it is valid to insist that this, their most intimate and everyday sort of government, was wholly based upon tools; a government in which the workman's tool became the sceptre. Blake, in one of his symbolic fantasies, suggests that in the Golden Age the gold and gems should be taken from the hilt of the sword and put upon Rh


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Rh the handle of the plough. But something very like this did happen in the interlude of this mediæval democracy, fermenting under the crust of mediæval monarchy and aristocracy; where productive implements often took on the pomp of heraldry. The Guilds often exhibited emblems and pageantry so compact of their most prosaic uses, that we can only parallel them by imagining armorial tabards, or even religious vestments, woven out of a navvy's corderoys or a coster's pearl buttons.

Two more points must be briefly added; and the rough sketch of this now foreign and even fantastic state will be as complete as it can be made here. Both refer to the links between this popular life and the politics which are conventially the whole of history. The first, and for that age the most evident, is the Charter. To recur once more to the parallel of Trades Unions, as convenient for the casual reader of to-day, the Charter of a Guild roughly corresponded to that "recognition" for which the railwaymen and other trades unionists asked some years ago, without success. By this they had the authority of the King, the central or national government; and this was of great moral weight with mediævals, who always conceived of freedom as a positive status, not as a negative escape: they had none of the modern romanticism which makes liberty akin to loneliness. Their view remains in the phrase about giving a man the freedom of a city: they had no desire to give him the freedom Rh


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 oratorical gifts cannot be overlooked; a fair balance of capacities on questions intended to be dealt with as two-sided is indispensable; and, finally, neither the clerical nor the lay element must, if possible, be overweighted.

I may have hitherto appeared to you to be summing up doubtfully as to Church Congresses; it is better, therefore, that I should, at the outset, explain that I hope to convince you that their place in the Church movement is legitimate and their influence healthful. But in order to do so fairly and fully, I have thought right to begin by showing you the difficulties, and it may be the deficiencies, under which they work, in order better to appreciate the good with which they may be credited. I have no intention of proposing any reform in their constitution or standing orders. I accept them as facts, and I assume that future Congresses will go on under virtually the same conditions. Their aim, as I must, at the risk of tautology, repeat, is influence, not power, and so restrictions which would be puerile or intolerable in bodies which had to reach decisive votes, and order the future actions of men, can merely be judged in the light of expediency or inexpediency when they are adopted by gatherings whose single, though important, object is mutual persuasion. Briefly, then, believing as I do, that the comitiary, as distinguished from a representative, constitution is essential to the vitality of Church Congresses, I further believe that restrictions in the nature of, and as stringent as, those which exist, are indispensable to guard the order, and in guarding the order to maintain the liberty, of rational debate.

I shall proceed to treat of the influence of these Congresses on the Church movement according to an ascending scale, handling first the material, then the moral, and lastly the religious aspect of the Congress, conscious as I am that these various aspects must and ought not to be too rigidly kept separate during the discussion. In what I have to say


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Rh of a wilderness. To say that they had also the authority of the Church is something of an understatement; for religion ran like a rich thread through the rude tapestry of these popular things while they were still merely popular; and many a trade society must have had a patron saint long before it had a royal seal. The other point is that it was from these municipal groups already in existence that the first men were chosen for the largest and perhaps the last of the great mediæval experiments: the Parliament.

We have all read at school that Simon de Montfort and Edward I., when they first summoned Commons to council, chiefly as advisers on local taxation, called "two burgesses" from every town. If we had read a little more closely, those simple words would have given away the whole secret of the lost mediæval civilization. We had only to ask what burgesses were, and whether they grew on trees. We should immediately have discovered that England was full of little parliaments, out of which the great parliament was made. And if it be a matter of wonder that the great council (still called in quaint archaism by its old title of the House of Commons) is the only one of these popular or elective corporations of which we hear much in our books of history, the explanation, I fear, is simple and a little sad. It is that the Parliament was the one among these mediæval creations which ultimately consented to betray and to destroy the rest. Rh