that the mayor could not get good appointments confirmed by the aldermen, and had generally to capitulate to the aldermen by either withdrawing a good appointment and making a bad, or by some other concession of an equally demoralising character. Moreover, it became impossible to know which of the two—the mayor or the aldermen—was responsible for the bad appointments, because a mayor could always throw the responsibility for such appointments upon the board. The reformers therefore, in 1884, led by Theodore Roosevelt, demanded and secured the passage of an act that relieved the mayor from the necessity of going to the board of aldermen for a confirmation of his appointments, thereby, strange to say, restoring the distribution of political power to what it had been. under Tweed's dishonest rule. The result of this last law was exactly what a very little political sagacity might have foreseen. The evil element in the political community, which before 1884 had contented itself with electing bad aldermen, now devoted itself to electing a bad mayor, and since the enacting of this so-called reform law of 1884 the mayor's chair in New York has been filled until today by an unbroken succession of Tammany candidates. The real evil lay beyond the reach of political science or legislative enactment; it lay in the indifference and discouragement of all those citizens 1 who were not engaged in politics for private or for partisan purposes. This indifference was a question not of political science but of private conduct; it

could be reached only by such influences as are generally termed religious, because they appeal to man's ethical sense against the evil tendencies which surround him. This whole incident furnishes an admirable illustration of the truth of Montesquieu's contention, that the welfare of a republic depends upon the virtue of its citizens. When citizens have ceased to be virtuous, or when virtuous citizens have abdicated in favour of admittedly corrupt political machines, it is hopeless to expect that the government can be made good by changing the distribution of political power amongst the thieves to whom it has been abandoned. Nothing, therefore, but an awakened sense of the duties of citizenship can reach the evils of municipal misgovernment. Where shall we find the voice to awaken it?

Now, although science may justify to us the Christian rule of "enlightened altruism," it has as yet utterly failed in inducing men to make the sacrifices necessary in order to conform to it. A few men of cultivated brain and philosophic temperament do undoubtedly, with a positivist ritual or without any ritual under the agnostic flag, lead lives of righteousness and morality; but neither positivism, nor agnosticism, nor any purely intellectual ism has as yet kindled enthusiasm among the masses, or reached the masses at all; nor is such ever likely to appeal to any but those in whom culture has developed the brain at the expense of the heart-wisely, perhaps, for themselves, but not wisely

for those who, subject to their example, are still unprepared for a purely logical code of ethics.

It is desirable, in the discussion of these things, to avoid any statement that may sound like a judgment. It may be that pure science is the religion of developed humanity in the future; it may be that it will not do more than play protestant to the existing Christianisms, purifying them and ridding them of all that is not "sweetly reasonable"; it may be that religion, deriving overwhelming strength from some new prophet of God, may with a new revelation sweep all our existing isms to Gehenna. Between religion and science it is not attempted to decide; but it is urged that each has its separate function in the world, each addresses its own peculiar people save where, thanks to a better balance between heart and brain, they are both open to both. The multitude is not intellectually developed; it does not act by scientific rule; it is certainly to-day incapable of self-sacrifice in the general cause of humanity. The voice it understands is the voice of authority that can quell or command the heart, or the voice of tenderness that can touch and lead it. For the teaching of virtue we must still fall back upon religion-religion with its music, its ritual, its flaming imperative, its kindling enthusiasm, its note of praise and its hush of prayer.

He must be a great—or a rash-man who would attempt in one lifetime to solve a problem that can probably only receive its solution in the slow development of the race. The very education that has

made us critical makes us bad material for prophets to work with. Were a Siddhartha to rise amongst us to-day he would probably never step forth from his harem; Christ would never return from the wilderness, and Mahomet would perish ingloriously in the cave of Hori. It is not through the voice of any one man that the religious question to-day can receive an even approximate solution; but it is to be hoped that through the slow ascendency which man can acquire over his inclinations during generations of effort and conduct he will at last reach a point where the ethics of science become coterminous with the ethics of religion.

That there are certain directions along which his efforts may be more fruitful in the future than in the past is likely; perhaps also there are fields of labour which have been neglected heretofore and which may richly repay culture and effort; perhaps, even, there are strongholds of evil which exist rather through our tolerance than through their strength, and which will be found to have been a prolific source of moral depravity, acting where we least expected and injuring where we felt most secure. These are some of the practical questions which it may not be unprofitable to study, and perhaps, to some small extent at any rate, answer.

The object of the preceding pages has been to show that religion and science are not destructive of one another, but, on the contrary, join hands in teaching substantially the same rules of conduct; that each, however, has a separate and necessary rôle

to play; that religion appeals to the heart, science to the mind; that religion orders, science persuades; and that because humanity is an exceedingly complex thing, being composed largely of men who have hearts more open to the command of religion than they have minds open to the persuasion of science, religion, in spite of the defects in its creeds, has to-day a mission to perform which all should respect and support; that the scope of action which religion and science should cover probably requires readjustment; and that religion can be helped by a conscientious study of what it really is, and what it may, with increasing wisdom, become.