demand made by the Government is first of all considered by them with an eye to the possibility of it being the thin end of a Conscription-wedge.

This attitude is the less easy to overcome, because their fundamental religious belief that men should not harm each other, clashes with the system of executions, imprisonments, military preparations and wars, upon which all Governments, as we know them to-day, rest. And moreover, it unfortunately, but not unnaturally, happens that among the educated people who have helped the Doukhobórs (and one or two of whom have lived with them in Canada) are some who are philosophic-anarchists, not merely in the sense that they have understood that there is no moral right inherent in majorities (any more than in hereditary rulers) entitling Governments to do violence, but in the sense that they nourish an antipathy to Governments somewhat similar to that felt by rabid Protestants towards Catholics. Such people feel the truth of what Thoreau wrote in 1849:

"Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which

the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure."

But suffering from that sectarian spirit which confines man's vision to one side of a question, these reformers seem only able to deal with the matter in the abstract, as it concerns their inner consciousness. Of what advance they can help others to make, practically, wisely, and rightly, they seem to have no notion. Fixing their eyes on the distant mountain peak, and forgetting to consider where they start from, or what strength they possess, they often tumble straightway into the next ditch. They lose all sympathy with Thoreau when he goes on to say: "But to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government."

It is, I think, true of these advisers of the Doukhobórs, as of many idealist reformers, that their strong point is their faithfulness to to an idea, and their weak point is disregard for the perplexity and distress they cause to other people.

It is not enough for such people to see through, and expose, the delusion on which the authority of the Church or the State rests, they must needs confuse people with principles, and behave like

the war-horse of a former age, who panted for the battle. They are only happy when they are exposing a Jesuit trick, or denouncing the iniquity of an official demand.

But let us try to be just even to the rabid Protestant or the rabid, though nominally philosophic, Anarchist. Great wrongs are not perpetrated without producing great reactions. Many men, not otherwise stupid, can see but one thing at a time; when they see that a thing is wrong they cannot stop to discriminate between people and principles, or to understand that it is by enlightening Papists and politicians, rather than by hating them, that progress can be made; and that, to enlighten people, much sympathy and kindly consideration of the reason of their errors is required.

I have allowed myself this final digression because I believe the tendency to ticket men, and bodies of men, by this or that collective name, and to regard the men as we believe the principles denoted by the said ticket deserve to be regarded, is one of the greatest hindrances to that progress which will be possible when people learn to think freely on all subjects, and to feel kindly towards all men.

February 1901.

Since the above was written the papers have published an "Address to all Nations," issued by the Doukhobórs, protesting against the Canadian laws concerning the regis

tration of land, as well as of births, marriages, and deaths, and asking whether there is any country where they can live "without being obliged to break the demands of our conscience and of the Truth."

Without attaching much importance to an appeal which, I hear, was most actively promoted by one not himself a Doukhobór, we have, in this Appeal, an instance of that lack both of a sense of proportion and of consideration for others, which has been observable in many otherwise estimable sects.

With tact and patience this present difficulty may quickly blow over, but should the Canadian authorities be unwise enough to attempt coercion, they may arouse in the Doukhobórs that indomitable spirit (closely allied to obstinacy), which, when the issue was a really vital one, successfully withstood the power even of the Russian Government.

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