explanation of our average prosperity to-day. There are ghastly inequalities and exceptions, but the average condition of the laborer, even in this favored country, is vastly better than it was a few years ago. As Dr. Smyth says; "He feels the pinch of poverty higher up on the scale of his wants." The Church does not discourage trades unions, or when necessary, even strikes; but it does discourage the unions when not conducted properly, as well as most strikes. It is only when these matters are attended to in fidelity to Christian principle, that they fall in line with past and future success in the improvement of society. The money of the unions should be disposed of in a way calculated to increase the facilities of the laborer for self-help. All socialists, whether they call themselves Christians or not, who seek to counteract willful idleness, extravagance, intemperance and other immoralities, are working in the right way. The work of capital in the Church in founding industrial schools, free libraries, parish houses, schools for sanitary instruction, has justified the outlay. Christian men have interested themselves in establishing savings banks for the benefit of the poor, co-operative stores and building associations. A most commendable instance of philanthropic effort to induce thrift, by training the children of the public schools to save earnings, is that instituted by M. Laurent in France. The results reported are most encouraging. Preaching economy to grown men is fruitful work, but work for the children yields greater results for the same investment of moral force. A few generations trained to thrift by the state through the use of the public schools, can not but exert a wholesome influence on a nation. One of the happy signs of the times is seen in the adoption by capitalists here and there, of some system of dividing the profits of business with their employees. A long list of firms might be given which are now working on this line. There is good authority for the statement that Charles A. Pillsbury, of Minneapolis, has distributed many thousands of dollars to his employees, beside their regular wages. Prof. Ely says that during 1884, 5 and 6, this distribution amounted to one hundred thousand dollars. This could not be done in every branch of business or at all times, but indicates what can be done under favorable circumstances. The growth of socialism has aroused men of wealth to careful consideration of this whole question. Says Amory H. Bradford, D. D., “When all manufacturers, according to their ability, treat their employees as the Tangys and Cadburys of Birmingham, England, treat theirs, there will be nothing left for trade unions to do. Those great firms have never had strikes and workmen will cross England any time to work in their factories." Whether these people maintain their former reputation is not in point. It is probable that they do. The central fact is that a profound spirit of regard for humanity is in the air, and that men of all classes and conditions recognize in the study of the labor problem a genuine endeavor to do two things; first, not to deny that there is a problem and so encourage the explosions of anarchy; second, to set ourselves to its solution by Christianizing the individual in this world, thus accomplishing the gradual social revolution, when the will of God shall "be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” "Yet there is to me a more excellent way and that is love! The true and the only cure seems to me to lie in the personal and regular communion of the better with the worse, man with man, until each Christian like his Saviour becomes one with those who are to be saved; until he can be bone of their bone, sympathize, teach, weep, rejoice, eat and drink with them as one with them in the flesh. The world will not believe, because it can not see that Christianity is true, by seeing its reality in the marvelous oneness of Christ and the people.-Norman Macleod. A Greylock Pulpit. Christ, Society and Progress. Thy kingdom come. Matt. 6:10. Last week we began a study of the relation of Christ to the Church and society. Pursuing this theme, let us note the influence of the Church on morals and manners. There is so much of both good and evil in the world, that a man can keep himself busy gathering evidences of the power and extent of either. Anyone sees what he wants to see and finds what he goes after. His bias will determine his report, whether sent like Caleb and Joshua to spy out the land, or going to the court of the Sultan to form an idea of the missionaries. The more exclusively the perils of society hold our attention, the longer will be the period we shall survey to convince ourselves that we have made progress. Take unchastity. Is the Church making society purer? It has been urged that it is not, that modern society has made an advance upon ancient society in the art of concealing impurity; “while rank corruption mining all within infects unseen." This fact can be inverted. The Church has made impurity unpopular. That which was formerly public and common occurrence, is forced to concealment. Contrast our society, with that of the Roman emperors. Among the first families, it was usual to wantonly expose at public places unwelcome female children. Those who wished took and raised them, for lowest ends. Have we not made great gain? Later in the time immediately preceding the Reformation, many of the clergy lived in open concubinage and sold indulgences for the same to their people. Still later in the reaction from Puritanism, during the first half of the eighteenth century, all but a remnant of the Church in England and America were dissolute. Take our own boasted century. In the year 1815, in England, husbands were known to lead their wives like cattle with halters, and sell them at auction, for a few pounds. Alarmists have said that our lax divorce laws and their evil consequences, were proof of a general deterioration in morals. This is a mistake. The changes in the laws have necessarily swelled the reports, but it is not clear, that these reports prove a general decline, especially when we take into consideration the "runaway" method of divorce lessened by the day of the telegraph and the steam engine. Charles Loring Brace gives, as follows, the result of work in behalf of the daughters of drunkards; "It is found by long practical experience, that the daughters of habitual drunkards, being brought under daily influence of order and industry in the schools, having better food, coming in contact with superior and refined women, and getting lessons of morality daily, hardly ever grow up in the way of their parents, but become naturally sober and decent women." The Church finds these girls in idleness and ignorance and sometimes lower. It establishes employment bureaus, schools, homes, coffee houses, places of amusement, sociability and culture, hospitals and other institutions, enswathes all with religious motives and hope that save to the uttermost. Doubtless all present methods of reaching the masses of the city populations, are painfully inadequate. But when we consider the combined effect of the city missions and settlements, the many evangelistic and humanitarian societies, the Bible women and colporteurs, the great evangelists, and even the tracts, there is great progress. The work, like that set on foot by Bishop Lightfoot, known as the "White Cross League," is being taken up, but not as it deserves. There is great interest in the churches on the subject. The times as compared with those of Jonathan Edwards are purer, but we hold aloof from reformers in this field. The experience of Anthony Comstock and Mr. Stead, illustrates this. Most men do not wish to become targets for the shafts, of a misguided conservatism. Unchaste literature is not in decent society as it formerly Our times can never produce a Smollet. Longfellow and Tennyson do not have those impurities, which are reflected in Pyron from the age in which he lived. It is true that impurity lurks in the visible church. We are at loss to tell how far the counterfeit neutralizes the genuine in church life, but when we survey society as a whole, within the circle of the average preaching of the Gospel, progress is readily discerned. was. The rise of the moral tone of society as respects crime is also a witness to the power of the Church. The impression in some quarters, that crime is on on the increase is received from newspapers. The change in the character of the newspapers, since 1850, is not sufficiently appreciated. Formerly the newspaper was a merely local affair. Now we read it to learn what has been going on in the whole world during the last twenty-four hours. In looking over this broad field, whatever else the newspaper's eye fails to see, it is not crime. During the past twenty-five years the publication of crime has increased, not crime itself. Murder affords better material for a headline than the latest beneficence. Good deeds do not strive or cry." The news-boy "lifts up his voice in the street" about matters which the publishers find to pay best. The quiet and more powerful forces of society have not meanwhile ceased working. Allowance must also be made for the fact, that what has been supposed to be an increase of crime is often progress in the enforcement of law, or an increase in the number of acts which the law recognizes as criminal. Notwithstanding the increased vigilance of Great Britain in enforcing law, there has been since 1840 a great decrease in the number of convictions for crime. From 1840-42 there was one conviction to every seven hundred and thirtytwo inhabitants. From 1876-78 there was one conviction to two thousand and eleven inhabitants. Where official reports show a comparative increase in the number of sentences for crime, the explanation is often found in a |