voluntary distribution continued to be commonly practised is not accurately known, but we have traces of it as late as the third century.

When, however, the Christian community ceased to be a persecuted body; when with both hands, after the death of Constantine, it seized the reins of Empire and started on its own career as a world power, its assimilation of the methods of the State, in business, wealth and trade, was very rapid. It became worldly in its

turn.

Then was seen one of the very strangest extravagances in history. Men and women in thousands retired into the deserts of Egypt and Sinai and Syria and stripped themselves even of the bare necessities of life in order to follow Jesus. There were two leading motives which influenced them,-the desire for personal chastity in an age of fearful sexual licence and indulgence, and also the desire for a life of personal poverty in an age of all-pervading luxury. The fanaticism which impelled these acts of ascetic fervour was pathetic in its misplaced zeal and devotion. For it robbed the Christian community of its noblest members, and as celibacy was strictly practised and marriage was regarded as impure, the moral energy that was stored up in one generation was lost to posterity. It was allowed to pass away in almost blank sterility.

When we turn to modern India from the study of this picture, we find ourselves faced with the beginnings of an unrestricted capitalism not unlike that of the

Roman Empire under the Caesars. In the next fifty years, it is not at all impossible that the very worst results of industrial capitalism in Europe will be visible in India on a vastly extended scale. The great problem appears to be, whether we are content to stand aside and witness all the social and religious sanctions, which have hitherto kept India out of this area of unrestricted capitalism, ruthlessly broken down; whether we are prepared to press forward the very system of wealth which has proved so fatal to Europe and has led directly to a world conflagration; or whether, on the contrary, we are ready to set our faces sternly against this capitalist ideal and to seek once more, in the Sermon on the Mount and in the Gospel, the law of life which can rescue society and prevent it from sinking into the abyss. This struggle with capitalism in its modern despotic form will have to be fought out in Asia and not only in Europe. And in Asia the population is far greater, and therefore the issues of the struggle are far more keenly critical.

One more detail may be given in concluding this slight sketch of a great subject,—the picture of Leo the Great, the one strong heroic figure standing out in the midst. of the tumult of a decrepit world, and ruling nobly in a decaying age. His wise, terse words on trade and profit are these:-" Qualitas lucri aut excusat aut arguit: quia honestus quaestus aut turpis ". This phrase may be translated, "It is the quality of gain that either excuses or condemns: for profit is either honourable or base."

CHAPTER III

THE MEDIAEVAL WORLD

THE MONASTERIES AND GUILDS

HE vital factor, as we have seen, which the early

THE

Christians brought to the solution of the problem

of "property," was the social (instead of the individual) idea of possession-" no man counted aught that he possessed as his own." There was a continuous redistribution of wealth, a constant re-apportionment according to need, instead of according to greed,-what one of the early Fathers calls a "recapitulation of wealth." We have been slowly learning, in the modern world, that this teaching is eminently practical and not merely idealistic; that, divorced from this, wealth accumulates in individual hands, till it becomes a monstrosity. We are beginning to understand, since the Great War, that there are no fixed individual rights of property -rights fixed and final and absolute, like "the laws of the Medes and Persians which alter not." On the other hand, there are unmistakably very definite duties of property, if the principle of brotherhood is to be observed. "Whoso hath this world's goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?"

Perhaps the greatest evil which the system of slavery brought into the world was this, that it degraded manual labour itself, and made it too mean and base and vulgar a thing for a freeborn man to practise. The consciousness of the dignity of labour, which Christ brought home to men, in parable and precept and living example, was long in breaking down this contempt for the work which was done with the hands and the muscles, as though it were a mean thing to labour with the body, a task fit only for slaves. The scene in the Gospel story, where Christ himself became a "slave," and performed the servile duty of washing the disciples' feet and wiping them with the towel wherewith he was girded, was indeed before men's eyes continually. But only very slowly did its full meaning dawn upon them. "Whether is greater," he said to them, on an altogether impressive occasion, "he that sitteth at food, or he that serveth? But I am among you as a servant."

In a translation made by Count Tolstoy, these last words are translated-“I am among you as slave." The Russian writer produces from them one of his most wonderful lessons of Service. I have been reminded lately of the story told about the Indian leader, who loved to call Count Tolstoy his teacher. Mahatma Gandhi was being praised before his face, one day, by a speaker who pointed out that, though a Vaishya by caste, the Mahatma had both the qualities of the Brahmana and the Kshattriya-and then

he stopped. Mahatmaji, in reply, stated that the speaker had left out the very qualities which he himself had all his life longed most to attain to if he was worthy the qualities of a Sudra. Because the highest ambition he had ever had in life was to work and labour with his hands and to serve others as a servant.

I have often thought, also, how essentially akin to this spirit of the first age of the Christian Church is the teaching contained in the poem of Rabindranath Tagore, from Gitanjali :

"Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors shut. Open thine eyes and see, thy God is not before thee!

"He is there, where the tiller is tilling the hard ground, and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put off thy holy mantle, and even like him come down on to the dusty soil.

"Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found? Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation: he is bound with us all for ever.

Come out of thy meditations, and leave aside thy flowers and incense! What harm is there, if thy clothes become tattered and stained? Meet him, and stand by him, in toil and sweat of thy brow."

The early Christians had to learn to "take a towel and gird" themselves, and wash the feet of the poor.