because, as they reported to him with eager zeal, "he followeth not us"? Have they forgotten how, instead of commending for fidelity, he rebuked his followers for bigotry? Have they never noticed that he did so in words that distinctly imply the power of others than himself and his disciples to work cures?

It will emphasize my point to state a legal opinion of a friend of mine given a few years ago to a mental healer upon the question whether the latter came under the public health law. An indictment, said he, for practising mental healing without a doctor's license would not hold; there is no law against thinking, nor any that requires a physician to be called in to attend a sick person, except in the case of children; adults cannot be compelled to employ doctors or swallow drugs; the fate that sooner or later overtakes every doctor-a patient dying on his hands-may befall you, but you need not fear an indictment as much as a doctor; he can be prosecuted for negligence in prescribing the wrong drug, and the books are full of cases against physicians for malpractice; no Grand Jury can lawfully indict you for thinking or praying; if, however, one should do so, no petit jury could convict you without subverting the principles of the Christian religion as set forth in the very book on which they had been sworn a true verdict to give; if the doctors or ministers are fanatical enough to pursue you, I should defend you by subpoenaing leading clergymen as expert witnesses, and out of their own mouths force the opinion that the Bible, on which they also had been sworn, teaches that healing of the body can be done by mental operations.

The lawyer was right. The theologian who affirms cures in the first century and denies them in the nineteenth is guilty of flagrant inconsistency.

It must be conceded that little is known about the laws governing the operation of mental forces, or thought-waves, to use a recent term. That is a reason, not for denial but for investigation. Our learned doctors, medical and clerical, would do better if they would condescend to study mental cures, instead of being quick to decry simple folk who suppose that Christ did say and did mean that those who believed on him should

have power to heal the sick. Whether he cured by fiat or by law is not made very clear in the Bible. There are two passages, however, which trouble the clergy greatly. You never hear any sermons on them. The theologians would rejoice if the verses were not there, for they prove that Christ's power was limited. St. Mark says: "And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid hands on a few sick folk and healed them." St. Matthew tells us that this was because of the unbelief of the people in that region. If the thought-forces of the second person of the Trinity were powerless in the hostile atmosphere of unbelieving Jews, it is not strange that those of the humble healer of to-day are hampered by an environment of unbelieving Christians.

O foolish theologians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth before whose eyes facts are set? Have ye suffered so many things in vain? He that ministereth to you the Spirit and worketh miracles of healing among you -doeth he it by the aid of your theologies, or by the having of faith in principles taught by Christ and discarded by you? It is prevalent speech among laymen that your subtleties and refinements, your perversions and pretensions, have done more harm to your Master's cause than all the open antagonism of skeptic and agnostic. "I thank thee, O Father," said He, "that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes." Can you not see, O ye spiritual leaders, that, if our religion is true, the Church has everything to gain and nothing to fear from the efforts of those who are seeking to cast out sickness in His name, even though they follow not us?

Perhaps they once were followers of the Church and left its ranks because they thought, however mistakenly, that it was not following Christ. Perhaps they did not find that it ministered to their spiritual needs. Mayhap they felt that some of its gardeners were spending too much time in the cultivation of the tree of Institutionalism, to the neglect of the tree of Life.

Cease your practise of lighting religious candles and putting

them under theological bushels; hold to your errand of truthtelling; give up your claim of truth-interpreter; take the rôle of truth-seeker. Then may you be able to actualize, in a returning influence over men, the mighty mental and spiritual forces wrapped up in that inspired deliverance of St. Paul-"God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind."

New York.

JOHN BROOKS LEAVITT.

THEB

IV. CHRISTIANITY'S NEXT STEP.

It

'HE modern, rational conception of Christianity, it has been truly said, had its birth about a century ago. was born of a great, strong, new impulse. It was a fresh awakening, both ethically and religiously, and has had a powerful influence surely in the Christian Church. On its negative side it was a moral as well as an intellectual revulsion from the dogmatic theology of the time. On its affirmative side, it is now widely acknowledged, it was a truer conception in many respects of Christ's teaching. It is contended, however, that this grand and beneficent impulse has now spent its force and done its special work. Still another assertion is added, quite naturally perhaps that no new impulse takes the place of the old one.

There is only one question closely involved in the foregoing statement that we are concerned now to consider: Has liberal Christianity ceased to be a forward movement; does it take any new, progressive step, or throw itself into any great cause. of the present time?

One of our well-known Unitarian clergymen not long ago asked the question: "What is to be our next step forward?" Surely there is abundant need always for such onward steps in morals and religion-as in science and civilization. It is a familiar saying that revival, renewal, is the course of Nature. New movements, ethical, religious, social, are in order in our

time as in every age of the world. The evolutionary progress of mankind is made, and has ever been made, by these repeatedly rising tides-these great waves of advance, religious and spiritual as well as political and literary. We have been in the habit of instancing, as such, Protestantism, and even Christianity itself; but there have been many minor ones. Can it be that there are no such overflowings of the great pulsing, bounding spiritual Life in our day and generation?

There are as a matter of fact some very active, and possibly not inconsequential, new movements going forward to-day. Let us briefly consider two of them.

The first, we will notice, is what we call the New Social Movement, which is arising throughout the world among the foremost Christian nations. This movement has its "message," supposed to be indeed "good news," "glad tidings," to men of to-day-the new Social Gospel. It is not, however, really new; in a larger sense it is old. Its essential element is in Christianity itself, taught and emphasized eighteen centuries ago by Jesus Christ. But the world was then only in very small measure ready for it. It was in fact born "out of due season," and though not destroyed, and having not been dead at any time since, it could be truly said of it, all through these centuries, "it sleepeth." In our time it has come to life, to rebirth, and, let us hope, is now "born in due season," and, if it be a good tree, surely it will grow and bear fruit and its "leaves be for the healing of the nations."

Certainly we may believe that there was never before in the world's history such an awakening, such an unfolding of what we fitly call the "Social Consciousness," which is now ready to welcome the "Social Gospel" declared of old, "Peace on earth and good-will to men," and put to-day into the formula, "Each for all and all for each." This Social Movement is surely a vital one, and its gospel a living word. May it prove a real awakening, full of life and power-be indeed an upward-rising, onward-moving wave of human reformation!

It is not alone in its nature an industrial, or a narrowly social, or mainly an ethical, evolutionary advance. It is all of these,

and yet more; it has the spiritual (religious) element freshly and strongly kindled into life and activity. It means human redemption morally and spiritually, as well as deliverance from the present degrading poverty and monstrous injustice in the world. It is, therefore, truly Christian, in nature and spirit as in origin. It has been articulating itself in recent years philosophically as "solidarity of the race;" religiously as "freedom, religion, fellowship;" Christianly as "human brotherhood," and socialistically with intensity as "liberty, equality, fraternity." It is being voiced by many single tongues, which are fast increasing in number. Not long ago Professor Herron championed it in a scholarly and forceful way. It is abroad in the earth, stirring consciences, engaging thinkers, moving hearts, and actually beginning to be a prevailing spirit among some classes of men.

Here is a fresh social awakening-a movement toward social reconstruction. The time in a measure is ripe for it, and the need surely is a pressing one. What would it mean? The brotherhood of men, not simply acknowledged in theory but really attempted in practise; cessation of deadly strife; abolition of war; an end to antagonism between man and man, class and class, nation and nation; a true fraternity, mutual coöperation, and brotherly relations established among mankind. Aye, what would that mean? The very heart and core of such a revolution, the mighty impulse giving it life and power, could only be religious, moral, spiritual-yea, Christian in the true sense of the word—and surely fit to inspire and engage intensely the Church of Christ. Is the "Liberal" faith, or any branch of the Church now existing, astir, aflame, or likely to be, with the spirit of this grand forward step of humanity? Or is it only possible that another and a new Church of Christ, of God, of man, can be equal to the demands of so great a task and worthy the honor and glory of insuring its consummation?

There is another contemporary new movement of no mean proportions, making its way with great activity, which claims. the attention of the Christian Church to-day. This movement also has its "message" of "good news," of "glad tidings," which