selves might reasonably complain of the narrow limits within which they have been confined, it is quite impossible, within the still narrower limits of an article, to give anything like an adequate idea of the strength of the case they have presented to the public. We have contented ourselves with stating that case in outline for the benefit of those who may be unable to find time to read the book itself. But valuable as the contents of the book are, the mere fact of its appearance will be found to have produced a considerable effect in restoring a confidence which has been seriously shaken. Its writers are men acquainted with Hebrew literature, and some of them have a high reputation as Hebraists. Therefore the boast that all scholars' are agreed' in accepting the theories of the Kuenen-Wellhausen school is dissipated by the simple fact of the appearance of this volume. Moreover, the writers in it have subjected the conclusions of the critics to a severe and unsparing analysis, and have shown upon how slender a basis of fact, and on how vast a basis of assumption, very often plainly contrary to fact, many of the critical conclusions actually rest. At present there has been, so far as we are aware, no real attempt to grapple with the arguments it contains. Critics, it is true, of the stamp of Professor Bevan affect to have annihilated a treatise of 700 or more pages, bristling with arguments, in an article seven pages in length! Others, like the reviewer in the Guardian, have sought to minimize the effect of the book by complaining of the tone adopted in it towards the critics. Arrogance and contempt are, it would seem, the vested right of the critics, and of them alone. We are quite ready to accept this proposition. But we cannot go so far as to grant that if a defender of the orthodox view should unfortunately lapse into the faults to which his antagonists are prone, it can be said to invalidate the force of his reasoning. Others, again, take exceptions to the form of the book, its repetitions, its omissions, and the like. But these, after all, are shortcomings which do not in the least affect its main argument: namely, that on all the ordinary principles of literary and historical investigation, every century of Jewish history displays abundant evidence of the existence of the Mosaic institutions in the shape in which they have come down to us. The critics will, no doubt, take refuge, as usual, in silence. They will, as they are wont, repeat their assertions dogmatically, as the decisions of a tribunal from which there is no appeal. One thing we may be sure they will not do. They will not attempt the refutation in detail of the principal arguments by which the writers of Lex Mosaica have main

From hence

tained the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch. forth, therefore, the unlearned, who instinctively cling to the Bible as they have received it, may 'thank God and take courage.' This last attack on the trustworthiness of the Scripture narrative, though supported by a more formidable array of English authorities of weight than has ever been known before, will go the way of its predecessors. We shall be in possession of far fuller information than our forefathers concerning the conditions under which the Old Testament was produced, while its contents, as 'gold tried in the fire,' will come out all the brighter and purer for the ordeal to which it has been subjected.

ART. III.-SOCIALISM AND THE 'CHRISTIAN SOCIAL UNION.'

1. A Lent in London. A course of Sermons on Social subjects, organized by the London Branch of the Christian Social Union, during Lent, 1895. (London, 1895.) 2. The Church of the People. A selection from a course of Sermons on the Church of England's duty to the People of England. Preached at All Saints' Church, Notting Hill, May and June, 1894. With a Preface by the BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. (London, 1894.)

3. The Economic Review. Published quarterly for the Oxford University Branch of the Christian Social Union. (London, 1893-95.)

4. The New Christian Socialism. Quarterly Review, July 1894. (London, 1894.)

5. Industry and Property. A plea for Truth and Honesty in Economics, and for Liberty and Justice in Social Reform. By GEORGE BROOKS. Two Vols. (Published by the Author, Mells Lodge, Halesworth, Suffolk, 1894.) 6. Socialism. By ROBERT FLINT, Professor in the University of Edinburgh. (London, 1894.)

WE have arranged these books not in the order of their permanent or substantial value, but as they bear upon, and contribute to, decision on a practical and particular question : to wit, the complicity of the Church, through tacit allowance, with a movement 'reduced to iniquity;' and the substitution, by a gradual down-grade drift and perversion, of a New Goal and New Means for Christian effort in the place of the Goal

VOL. XL.-NO. LXXX.

Y

and Means proper to the Gospel. In the volumes before us ample material for judgment is provided if they be studied collectively.

Lent in London is avowedly official, officially organized and selected; The Church of the People has almost a more representative character, because it is not official. The sermons themselves, as might reasonably be expected, are of unequal value; but we will endeavour as little to do justice to their excellence as to criticize their defects individually, or from any other view but one. A great enthusiasm, and the impressive eloquence that springs from enthusiasm, runs through them all. It is the unity of their ideal that gives them importance, an ideal which may be summed up in Gordon's saying, ' They strive to mend the world which is doomed to be destroyed.' On the relation that secular has to eternal salvation, we fear that either indefiniteness or definite perversion of the Gospel prevails, and we regret that the Archbishop of Canterbury, who introduces the official series, has not spoken more clearly; has left the impression that to guide the 'upward march of men'-the secular progress is the essential office, in his view, of the National Church.

Not only the unity of the ideal presented in these sermons is a grave portent-the phrases, the catch-words, the methods of amelioration suggested are full of omen: they mark the weakness of an emotional receptivity-the thoughts and their expression make their way in from without-and, as has been the case with the New Criticism, the external forces are dominating and controlling the Old Faith. We have only to ask that these forces should be themselves examined, as they may be exhaustively, in the works of Mr. Brooks or Professor Flint; we have no hesitation in our certainty that the impartial judgment will ratify our conclusion that to absorb heresies instead of resisting them is a ready snare which has not, alas! been spread in vain before the feet of modern Christians.

The Economic Review we have included for two reasons: it is the organ of the Oxford University Branch of the Christian Social Union, containing, therefore, materials for the formation of a very clear conception of the sphere of the Union inquiries, and of the spirit in which they are conducted; it contains, also, from time to time, exposition and defence against criticism of the motif and tactics of the Union, as eg. Canon Scott Holland's reply to Mr. Relton and the joint answers of Messrs. Rashdall, Fry, and Carter to the attack in the

Quarterly Review of July 1894. Very full and particular details of the Movement' in all its forms are provided, and no single school dominates the current of thought. The policy of the Union is sympathetic interest and inquiry, and with it little fault could be found if it were not for the close connexion of the Union with the Church. That connexion appears to us to close the doors upon some discussions, and the want of any definite line-the free canvassing of the settled principles of justice, with the free admission of members holding views irreconcileable with the teaching of the Church-constitutes, in our opinion, a grave danger.

The general bias inclines, indeed, towards the innocent, but perhaps impracticable, Utopias of voluntary Co-operation and Profit-sharing, with which we have nothing to say against Christian men identifying themselves, as works which God has ordained for them to walk in. The spirit of the whole series is, however, unmistakable; it assumes throughout that the regeneration of secular society is the proper object of the Christian Church, and that the Church exists for that purpose.

A side issue, which is yet a principal one, is raised by the discussions on the New Casuistry. So far as the motive of this is the motive that inspired Law and Wilberforce we have no quarrel with it; but it will appear from the Review that it pretends not only to awaken the public conscience to manifest wrong, and to purify the individual life, but to investigate the ethical value of ideas and institutions always recognized by the Christian Church; and not only to reduce Christianity to conduct, but to lay down standards of justice in all commercial relations. That there is a tendency to adopt these standards from the Trade Unionism of the day is also a not irrelevant phenomenon. We are of opinion that if this kind of work is to be done, it should be done by the Church in her corporate capacity; then responsibility would be some guard against the vagaries of individuals. We are far, however, from believing that it is any proper work of the Church in any sense at all.

The character of Mr. Brooks's volumes may be gathered from their dedication to Lord Wemyss. They are animated throughout by the well-known principles which are generally grouped as Individualist. The criticism that is obvious to the superficial reader of his work is that the polemic is too impassioned, and the condemnation of his opponents too indiscriminate and unmeasured. He apprehends Socialism not only as a hostile force encamped over against civilization, and

threatening it with destruction, but as a vicious] principle corrupting, consciously or unconsciously, the whole agemovement; not merely as an academic curiosity, but a living concrete enemy with whom we are grappling, or a disease that is eating away the vitality of State and Church.

It is with the concrete manifestations that his main interest is found; the various struggles of Labour and Capital, the strikes that have paralyzed trade, the particular policies and proposals of demagogues, statesmen, philanthropists, as they exist in germ or in realization, are all presented with a dramatic force of diction and considerable power of grouping. A running commentary of hard-headed reasoning and keen analysis accompanies the narrative. The nexus with the avowed plans of Socialism itself is vigorously asserted, and a very complete mastery of the literature and the facts enables him to defend his position at every point. To review a work of this massiveness in all its bearings would be beyond our present purpose. It covers the whole ground of the great controversy of modern times-in its social, economic, moral, and religious bearings and manifestations. We, however, are directly concerned only with the light it throws on the reflex movement in the Church. The setting of that movement is of signal importance in judging it. The very passion and polemic of the volumes is suggestive; it is with an indignation so intense, with a moral hostility so fervid, that Christian Socialism has to reckon, and some measure is provided of the schism that the lack of definite guidance must ultimately provoke. The ethical questions raised are treated with a firm grasp of those elementary truths into which the 'candid inquiry' of the sophist can only introduce immoral confusion; and, in spite of the defect due to a Nonconformist conception of the Church, we find a very clear and true statement of certain axioms of the Gospel which the Church is, and must be, irrevocably bound by so long as she is true to her Lord.

We may, perhaps, say that on the secular side there is a corresponding theoretical weakness. It is admitted that the State may intervene in the interests of justice, or may limit man's liberties and encroach on his property for the common good. The limits of this intervention are discussed both by Mr. Brooks and Professor Flint, and they lay down certain general rules to guide particular decisions. We do not think that either of them brings out clearly enough the relativity of all these decisions to the varying stages of development of manhood and civilization. We believe as little in a universal right of labour to be free, or of capital to be secure, as in a