fore it is the way assigned for each particular person. The rich and the poor, the high and the low, the healthy and the sick, the ingenious and the simple, the fair and the ugly, must each receive in this their special property the same proportion of means for arriving at the same goal of their earthly life. Even in a merely human consideration we find these conditions of life well balanced. Each has its advantages and its disadvantages for procuring the happiness of the soul; each has its aids and its temptations, and in the position of the person towards these aids and these temptations consists freedom of choice, on the use of which it depends whether he arrives at the goal of his earthly life, which is happiness, or not.

"Regarded from this point of view, the general, political aspect is changed. The State, the form of the collective body, has nothing to do with procuring the earthly well-being of the individual. This, which is only one of the forms of individual life, and as such is no more regarded than any other, is given to one and withheld from another, according to the plan and the will of God, which is manifested in the whole course of the destiny of man from his birth to his death. The duty of authority is only to provide that this natural development, which appears in the condition of each individual, shall never be disturbed by the violence either of the subjects of the same state or of a foreign enemy. It should protect lawful freedom and maintain internal and external peace.

"This thought is the basis of a system in which only one side of human life is referred to the State; the other is referred to the Church.

"An inquiry is here raised in which we must not fear to go back to the ultimate principles. I ask what would be the form of the mutual relations of man, if he had remained in the condition in which he first issued from the hands of his Creator? As long as man remained in full intercourse with the Lord, he was perfectly free and perfectly unfree. In this state there could be no talk of mine and thine; for the separation of man from his neighbor is the first consequence of his separation from God, and the first product of egoism. Right or property of any kind cannot be thought of under that supposition. The dominion over nature, which was bestowed on the human race by its Author, would have remained common to all, since every motive was wanting for regarding one's neighbor otherwise than one's self. This opposition began with the Fall, in the flesh. Man thereby cast himself off from the society of God, and placed himself under his own direction. He now has property, but, since every one else can and will have property also, the conflict of interest begins and the need of peace. This peace is granted the sinful and self-seeking race by the command which the Lord has at different times given to all nations: Thou

shalt leave to every one his own. From this command proceeds all private right, originally as an immediate divine direction, as in the Mosaic legislation and in the oldest traditions of law in every nation. Here also is the revelation from Sinai the most complete, for it not only forbids to take away or steal the goods of another, but it also prohibits the desire of them. This is the divine side of right, laid down for nations in revelation, for the individual in his conscience, independent and out of the reach of every human will. Immediately connected with this is the historical side of right. What is particularly to be regarded as belonging to any one as his justly acquired property, can be decided only by the conviction living in the lawful consciousness of a particular time and of a particular people. Historical right is no more than divine right a creation of human arbitrariness, but may in some sense be called a product of nature. It proceeds from the collected development of the social life and state of cultivation of a nation, and appears in its practice and in the laws which, as to their true nature, are nothing more than the written expression of the common feeling already living in their habits and wants. The right position of a nation, therefore, rests upon the sanctification of the divine command, and the veneration for its representation in history. For the maintenance of this position, for the preservation of internal and external peace, the state is instituted among men by God, as a defence for the weak and a restraining power for oppressors. This is the high and distinct duty of authority; where it is fulfilled, the country is free, for he only is free who can be held back by no one in the pursuit of that to which he has a just right. In the human race in heathendom, this form of true freedom is found in the greatest purity among the Germanic nations; their state was entirely and exclusively founded on the immunity of the rights of the natural man. This immunity is, however, only negative by the nature of the law which lies at its bottom, and therefore the state also is negative. It teaches and prevents only what must not be done, and never goes beyond this limit.

"How would the life of man appear, if based only on the principles of law and right? One man has an account against another: he is rich and the other poor. What to him is but a little ruins the other; still the authority has no choice; the right of the rich man is incontestable and must be defended. Another, by the exercise of his right, would bring loss and want on many of his fellow-men. He may labor to raise the price of the indispensable means of subsistence and fuel, still no one can disturb him in the free pursuit of his right. A third refuses to assist in an undertaking upon which depends the good or ill of many. A street or a canal is to be made, and a part of his land is needed. Who can without injustice enforce his consent?

"At this point Christianity comes into the world and gives a new command: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. It is not enough to leave him what he already possesses, but thou shalt moreover help him, assist him, and support him. It teaches the faithful that they should possess as though they possessed not. Similar sympathies have always been found in the consciousness of every nation, but Christianity raised them to precepts. It allowed property, but at the same time required that its possessor should regard himself as only the steward or administrator, and divide its enjoyment with all men. While the law of right allowed every one to assert that he exists for himself, the law of love commands him to use what he possesses as though he existed only for his neighbor.

"But wherein do the direction, the obligation, and the penalty of this new command consist? The business of the State is only with right and its maintenance. Whatever lies beyond the limits of natural justice is also beyond the question and reach of the State. Here the Church comes in, established upon the earth to direct Christians with the Spirit of God, and to break down their selfishness, she says in the above case to the rich man: Thou shalt forgive thy brother, the poor man, the debt which he owes thee. Thou shalt forego the exercise of thy right which oppresses thy fellow-men. Thou shalt, even against thy inclination, do whatever the love of thy neighbor requires, all for the sake of thy eternal salvation.' In all this she does not place the title of the rich man in question, she does not deny that the State must defend him, if he requires it; but she subjects him to a higher command to which the lower must yield. She does not use external means to compel the obedience of his unwillingness, as the State does and is ordered to do. She takes to herself no office of judge, mindful of the words of Christ to the man who came to him for help against his unjust brother: Man, who hath made me a judge or a divider over you? Take heed and beware of all covetousness; for a man's life doth not consist in the abundance of things which he possesseth. So also the Church turns only to the inward man. Knowing well that if sin, the root of evil, be successfully combated within him, the external manifestation in life will be in accordance. The pillars, the sources of a Christian's natural right, are the Church and the State. All order in human and divine things depends upon their remaining within their own proper spheres. To confound them together is as improper and as dangerous as to deny either of them. The imperfection adhering to the fallen nature of man does not suffer the Church and the State, each for itself and in their mutual relations to each other, to appear in entirely pure and undisturbed activity. There is neither an example in the past, nor to be expected in the future, of a race which follows out the precepts of both the laws of love and of right. But the Middle Ages of

Europe, at least, lived in the consciousness that both laws were of importance, that the office of worldly authority was only to protect lawful freedom, and that whatever lay beyond this belonged to the Christian Church. The latter appears as the counterpoise to the bare principle of right, and only from this point of view can we understand their struggle against the distinction of castes, against slavery, against the German lex talionis, and innumerable other abuses. Not without historical grounds, but with full knowledge of the whole question, has the part of the Church in the Middle Ages been compared to that of philanthropy in modern times." Vol. IV. pp. 117-127.

Modern philanthropy may indeed be compared, or more properly contrasted, with the spirit of love taught by the Christian Church, but it gains not much by the contrast. The aim of philanthropy was to supply the place of Christian charity; it originated in infidelity, in the disbelief of the latter, and attempted to do by human means what the Church was instituted by God to do. Philanthropy is a mere natural sentiment; charity, a supernatural virtue. Poverty in the eyes of philanthropy is the worst of evils. Philanthropy set itself at work to abolish poverty and give to all men an abundance of wealth, and so begat socialism, and socialism begat revolution. Order overthrown, and society shaken to its foundations, industry discouraged, trade diminished, commerce threatened, pauperism increased, the rich made poor, the poor and wretched made more poor and wretched still, such are the fruits of philanthropy.

In the eighteenth century philanthropy rejected the doctrine of the fall of man, and set itself to preach the perfectibility of human nature. The world, according to philanthropy, had been all wrong from the beginning. "What right had man," it asked, "to punish his brother man?" Jails were barbarous, the gibbet was eminently barbarous; men were to be governed by reason and by love, and men who loved one another would no longer stand in need of jails and gibbets. Such was the philanthropic cant of the day, and philanthropy went to work to reform, — on a large scale; for philanthropy scorns small beginnings, and proposes always to commence operations on the masses. Of this new philanthropic gospel, Robespierre was one of the most ardent apostles; his first appearance in public life was as the author of a tract against "Capital Punish

ments," and Robespierre the philanthropist had many colleagues almost as active, and quite as consistent, as himself. And so punishments were relaxed, and the reign of love and universal brotherhood commenced. Alas! man would not love his brother. In spite of that brother's alternative, - "Love me or I will cut your throat," — love and reason seemed as far from the earth as ever. As punishments were mitigated, crime was strengthened. Under the influence of philanthropy, Europe became one vast slaughter-house; kings and nobles, bishops, priests, and nuns, old men and young women, were dragged to the scaffold, and the reign of love was drowned in torrents of innocent blood. Philanthropy could not bear to see the criminal hung, but wept maudlin tears over the bloodstained villain about to expiate his crimes and terminate his infamous career on the gibbet; but it had not one sigh for the victims of the criminal's brutality, not a feeling of compassion for the family which, by the ruffian's crimes, had been bereaved of its head; it had no time to think of the anguish and desolation which the cutthroat had brought upon the innocent sufferers. The sympathi of philanthropy were all for the criminal, and the greater the rascal, the more intense its sympathy. Thus, by its morbid sentimentality, philanthropy has taken from vice all its horrors, and opened the floodgates of iniquity. "The worst use you can put a man to is to hang him," says philanthropy. It is not true; the very best use a man can be put to, in certain cases, is to hang him.

But charity works not so. Charity sees that all these evils over which she weeps proceed from the heart of man. Charity, therefore, makes no associations, deals not with committees, attends not meetings, and is not to be seen on platforms, moving or seconding high-sounding "resolutions," but addresses herself to the heart of man; for charity is not puffed up, and seeks not to make a noise in the world. Charity is quiet and long-suffering; she seeks to win back man's heart to God, to implant therein the love of justice and the love of God, for he who loves God will always love his neighbor as himself; and charity knows that, when once the heart is right towards God, her work will have been accomplished. Without the aid of statutes, charity knocked the fetters from the slave; silently, yet most effectually, she abolished serfdom throughout

THIRD SERIES.

VOL. III. NO. I.

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