trine I have chosen for myself is Christian Communism and my aim will be, the Life after Christ in the service of humanity, without distinction of persons or morals. The Man Jesus is my master, and by His example I will walk."

CHAPTER V.

THESE then were the stages through which Joshua's mind had passed; first, literal acceptance of the Word, which as he went on he found to be against the laws of nature, and which therefore he relegated to the ignorance and exaggeration of the time in which it was written; next, the authority of the Church with its increment of symbolism and tradition, by which the Humanity of Jesus is resolved into a mystical Appearance of Divinity, and his Life made no longer an example for men to follow but a dogma to

be worshipped under emblems; and now the frank acceptance of that Humanity alone, of the Man as a teacher, and of the Life as an example to be faithfully followed; more especially in its tenderness to sinners and its brotherhood with the poor and outcast. It was an abandonment of the dead mystical for the living real; but I doubt if any single sect among all the hundreds into which the Christianity of Jesus is shredded, would have recognised him as a brother Christian, or have believed that Christ would do aught else to him in the Last Day but deny him as a "thief and a robber."

And now Joshua began to carry out his programme of life with more fixed lines. He disdained nothing that could advance him in knowledge and intellectual strength: and I have often heard him say that the

great marvels of science, such as were shown us in the lectures to working men that we attended, stirred his soul to religious feeling just like the passion of prayer. And what he knew and valued for himself, that he was eager to impart to others. And it was this which made him begin his "night school," where he got together all who would come, and tried to interest them in some of the more taking "fairy tales of science," as well as to teach them a few homely truths in the way of cleanliness, health, good cooking, and the like; with interludes, so to speak, of lessons in morality; winding up with a few simple prayers and an attempt to make his hearers feel the Presence and the Power of God. All came to this meeting who would; thieves and drunkards, lost women and gutter-children-no matter who: there was a

kindly welcome for all; no preaching at them for their sins; no expression of spiritual or moral superiority, but just the great loving equality which does the degraded so much good, and gives them, if only for a moment, a flash of natural selfrespect and the glorious sense of inclusion and brotherhood. So that you see his life was not a meagre one; and while he blessed others so far as his power went, he grew daily riper in his own thoughts, and fuller of knowledge, and more clear as to what he meant.

We were very poor all this time: that of course we understood we must be. We were accustomed to it, and would have been more embarrassed with a lot of surplus money to spend, if we had had to spend it on ourselves, than we were to make the best of the little we