his mind what a modern Yorkshire mill would be like, he would have failed completely. Yet the conclusion presented by his conscience was right. Slavery was bad, economically as well as morally; and the emancipation of slaves has not impoverished the world, nor nor left us without

cloth.

In such problems, the question of conscience and motive is the one we are capable of forming a sound judgment on not the question of the results of actions. And whether we believe that conscience is a guide to be consulted and followed, depends again on whether we believe that there is a Power "lasting through the ages, which makes for righteousness," and which acts upon

us.

As to the moral revolution which is now fermenting in many lands, especially with regard to economic questions, it can neither be helped nor hindered by shams and lies,—and surely, as to this revolution, it behoves all men to take heed what side they are on; for "if this counsel or this work be of men, it will be overthrown; but if it be of God, ye will not be able to overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to be fighting against God."

Moscow, June 1896.

The above formed the "Epilogue" to "The Tsar's Coronation" (Brotherhood Publishing Co.), the other chapters

of which, written when the events described were still fresh, form a valid indictment of state-pageantry, but one, I fear, written with too much animus, and too little goodwill towards the wrong-doers.

RIGHT AND WRONG

WHEN I was about thirty-seven years old I acted in a manner of which I had always disapproved. I had known of other people acting in the same way, and had always felt that they were doing wrong. It was in sex matters that I sinned, and the case was the more startling because I had been guilty of no outwardly wrong action of the kind since I was quite a young man, and for about a year before the lapse I had been stirred by a strong desire to change my whole way of life and be of more use in the world than heretofore. And the question arose-Was I to confess my conduct to those whose lives were linked to mine and whom I could not wound without lacerating myself? or had I better conceal it?

If I told them the truth it would hurt them and I should fall in their esteem, while, on the other hand, by not telling them I should be entering on a course of concealment which would easily lead to untruthfulness and ultimately, perhaps, to systematic deception.

I had from childhood kept a clear perception that truth is better than falsehood, and the feelings which had grown up on this opinion caused me now to be frank; and as soon as I had confessed, and saw how the knowledge of my conduct

acted on those who were nearest to me, it became obvious that I must not repeat my misconduct. All the excuses and justifications which seemed so plausible while I was looking at the matter from my own point of view-swayed by a strong personal bias,-vanished when I had to face the case as it really stood, and saw that it affected not one or two people only, but necessarily reacted upon all with whom they were in touch.

I had in fact run up against the root question of human conduct: Is there a right and a wrong? I had assumed that it is right to tell the truth and wrong to tell lies, and this had decided for me another important question of conduct. Evidently each part of our conduct is linked on to all the rest. Morality (i.e. right conduct) relates to all we do, and knits our life into one organic whole. We cannot be moral in one thing and irresponsible in another. If right and wrong can be predicated of human actions at all, they relate to all our actions-and we cannot separate out some one section of life (our family, our business life, our sexual relations, our friendships and enmities, our amusements, or our studies) and say that in this department we wish to be free from the rule of right and wrong.

I was resident at that time in Russia where such problems are discussed with great frankness, and with these thoughts working in my mind it came natural to me to speak of them to some personal friends. I found that more than one acquaintance had gone through experiences similar to my own,

but not all of them had felt it necessary or desirable to confess their actions. This one, and that one, had chosen the path of concealment, the ultimate consequences of which were not yet apparent. For convenience sake let me speak as though the considerations which were presented to me, and claimed my attention, all came from one and the same friend.

I pleaded that surely truth is better than falsehood. This my friend would not admit to be necessarily so; he said he had become convinced that our ideas of morality are conventional. He recognised an evolutionary process going on in the world. Some power of which we know nothing, for reasons we cannot discern, ages ago evolved enormous antediluvian animals with tremendous teeth and claws adapted to their environment, and enabling them to fight - which was what they were destined for. When the power (Nature) had done with them, it wiped them all out and continued its process of evolving fresh types, which it successively used up and wiped out. Among the rest came man. To man nature has not given such terrible teeth and claws, but it has furnished him with faculties which adapt him also to his environment. has given him a conscience and a capacity to feel sympathy and love. These, he said, are evidently mere adaptations of the primitive tribal instincts of the savage, which, in turn, were adaptations of the sexual and maternal instincts of the animals. Love is a lubricant designed to enable

It