The main intention and drift of the work is to show that progress in human well-being can only be achieved by relying more and more on reason and conscience, and less and less on man-made laws; that we must be ready to sacrifice the material progress we have been taught to esteem so highly, rather than acquiesce in such injustice and inequality as is flagrant among us to-day; that what we desire is the supremacy of truth and goodness, and that consequently violence from man to man must more and more be recognised as evil, whether it boasts itself in high places or lurks in slums-and that we must more and more free ourselves from the taint of murder that clings to all robes of state.

These things, to my mind, seem certainly true; we must turn our back on the religion of Jesus if we would rebut them.

But as soon as it comes to any definite precept and external rule to do this, or not to do that-we must remember that what is really needed, and what Tolstoy is aiming at, is that mankind should steadily advance towards perfection, and no one action can be the next step for all men in all places.

Of the three things Tolstoy here definitely advises,-viz.: (1) not to take part in Governmental activity; (2) not to pay taxes, but to submit rather to imprisonment or seizure of goods; (3) to possess only what others do not claim from us;-it is the third that is the most difficult and the most important. Without it the others would have no great value; and our own falling short in it is a reminder of what is so

important-viz. that we form parts of the obstacle hindering the coming of the Kingdom of God.

Nor would external obedience avail: "If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing." I knew a man who performed an act of heroic generosity, but was so self-willed and wrong-headed that he set others at discord; and I knew a woman whose advance along the path of unselfishness was almost free from friction, yet who helped an ever-increasing circle of men and women to shape their lives better than they would have done without her aid and encouragement.

I will not stop to discuss the tempting subject (more than once treated of by Tolstoy in other books) of Christ's relation to Cæsar and to taxes. A very fair case may be made out for the view that the hardest blow ever dealt at the power of the prince of this world, was dealt by carrying the doctrine of non-resistance one step further than Tolstoy takes it in this book. Why not, it may be asked, hand over the tribute-money to Cæsar as one might yield one's purse to a highway robber without waiting for him to put his hand in one's pocket.

But whatever may be the best method of undermining the authority of the prince of this world, the condemnation pronounced by Jesus makes in the same direction as Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience," and Tolstoy's theory of "NonResistance." Each in his own way says, "The kings of the Gentiles have lordship over them; and they that have authority over them are

called Benefactors.

But ye shall not be so: but he that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve" (Luke xxii, 25, 26).

The prince of this world is judged,—the change foreshadowed is a vast one, and must commence with a change of each man's inner self. But its outward manifestations may be as various as the flowers of the field which are all fed by the same rain and sunshine from above.

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The direction of the change is shown in this book on Slavery, and the heart of the matter is reached in the truth that he who would reform society must first reform himself. It is not by 'retaining India," by being "paramount" in Africa, or by insisting on "our rights" as individuals or as nations, that we shall establish the Kingdom of God. "For whosoever would save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life-shall find it." When men have learnt not to desire to retain what others claim, the Kingdom of God within them will make itself outwardly manifest. Nor will this change be a sudden one; age after age it is going on, step by step, inch by inch, in men's hearts and consciences, and even in their manners and customs. And it is because we dimly perceive and desire, that the poor shall be blessed, and "the meek shall inherit the earth," that we sympathise with those who strive to hasten the process, whether by the tender persuasion of a Woolman or the vehement logic of a Tolstoy.

October 1900.

AFTER THE TSAR'S CORONATION

THIS Coronation, more destructive of wealth and more fatal to life than many a pitched battle, I witnessed, not as a special correspondent bound to telegraph columns of descriptive copy day by day, but as a resident; and having time to chew the cud of reflection, I ask myself in how far does a similar demoniac possession by the passions of patriotism and loyalty afflict the inhabitants of the British Empire? I fear that the worship of rank, wealth, and especially of royalty, in many English people amounts to an hypnotic influence, depriving them of reasoning power and of all sense of proportion. A curious instance of this was contained in a letter I received lately from a near relation of my own, who, à propos of this very coronation calamity, wrote: "The Moscow disaster has been very terrible to read about, and I feel so sorry for the Emperor and Empress." That is as though when a house falls in, killing and maiming the members of several families, one's first thought were to feel pity for the ground landlord! Yet it is a fair sample of the feeling expressed by many people.

A still more striking example of the same sentiment came under my notice some years ago. Another near relative of mine had an acquaint

ance, a Miss Wells. A Russian lady, who pronounces English rather badly, came into her room one day with the announcement, "Wales is dead!" "What?" cried my relation; "the Prince of Wales is dead?" and she burst into a flood of genuine tears for a man she had never spoken to. But she cheered up promptly on discovering that it was only her friend Miss Wells who had departed this life. Such "loyalty" may have

seemed suitable in the time of Edward the Black Prince (whose courage in the eyes of his contemporaries outweighed his cruelty), but it seems somewhat out of place when applied to Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.

I recollect also, as a boy of nine, a couple of years after the close of the Civil War in the United States of America, that my father's duty was taken for some months by a Canadian clergyman, who came to live at the parsonage. He was very friendly to me, and under his guidance my mind expanded; on politics, however (a subject to which he introduced me), the main point he made clear to my boyish perceptions was the terrible blunder committed by the English Government in not seizing the opportunity afforded by the American War. He pointed out that by joining the Confederate States-a policy in which we should have been enthusiastically supported by both Canada and France - we could have broken the United States in two, and the hegemony of the English-speaking nations would have remained with England. I accepted this