NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 159, 11 July 1906, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

IViHr-; with tho political outlook in I-Vs^ec. ,'tlic Saturday Review states: - Y\o are mo opponents of social econc.uk's; (>?.oncjncia!]v. Socialism, we be!\:.\j.. coi'h'.ins i-i it the ger'U of truth; !mk il: erri!--".-,.: work una-'.^isieil by other i:'ih;:-'-)vr'.!1- whi^i ii in tiio prune ;;im of Soclisli'-'ts in i'Yn'iec to destroy. With-c;-':t rcliirioM, iuv}. diroc'-e-l by t'i\:> nvyv[i";r> "■-■; in, <'ie'.:>oer£i''Y becomes ivateriali's'n Mji'.'i d^g-m'raiv.s into cc-nlraclic-i .••>!•>• .Viv.irciii^m. 'Die .-■oi-inlism which b:;s bid hold of the working da sties in Prance, wlsfn /b-ipped of the mere v.'-/.>iago. which, oratory may throw rrouncl it. means rctiiing but_ the increase of persona! comfort and an en-dr-avour to till the pockets of the many Itwu the Dockets of the few. This is a nurely .seifish cult, in whicn the nation iissuoh is lo:-:t sig!;t ol'. Thy Englishman, with :.:i"L his faults, still has

;;u outlook 113)011 vie affairs of lii.s country in general, but the ordinary Frenchman is ludicrously limited to the details ot: Jj.is own locality and the pur-suit of petty distinctions. In. fact, the general condition cf France recalls with" startling similitude the state_ of the Greek provinces of Rome, during the earlier Empire. There is a great diffusion ci personal comfort among all classes, much cleverness and intellectual alertness, coupled with artistic capacity on a considerable, but not a high, scale, a growing desire for persona! distinction of a trivial kind. Scepticism and cynicism as to religion ap.d'all. high idea!;; are genera! save in briliant exceptions. We gladly admit that there is mncli capacity for h.gher ;;;ms among a certain class, but unfortunately they have allowed the control of evnts to slip from them, and the country at large maintains that indifference to its wider destinies, which is shown by the recent elections. Anyone who has road that remarkable book " La Terrc Qni Mcurt " will have grasped the fact that the class which avi'.s once locked upon as rooted to the soil i;; now drifting into the towns, and demands cf the Government " pnnem " if not ' Gircenses." France, who for long led the world in political ideas', now aspires to shew the way to a dull uniformity of physical ease and parochial indifferendsm. THE CHURCH AND LABOUR. The Bishop of Birmingham (Dr. Core) was one of the speakers at the anvinal.meeting of the Church Reform League, on May 1. He delivered a remarkable address on the attitude of the Church towards labour. The health and vigour cf any Church, at sis.v moment, depended, he said, upon tlio extent to which the spirit which w;j« crepressed in it was the spirit of those who wore at the bottom, and not mainly the spirit of those who- were at the top; the" spirit of labour, rather than the spirit of capital, and cf poverty rathsr tlvjui of wealth. "I am speaking,"' continued Di- Gore, "on Labour Day. which is also St. Philip and Hi:, .lames' Day. T do not know that it i.-i more than an accident that 1:13 days should coincide, but, rightly cv wrongly, the Church directs us to the Epistle of .St. J'amos on this day, and lean conceive no document better qualified than that short letter to give labour its charter and its distinction.'' It came, lie proceeded, to be more and more the all-absorbing dominant note of his tlica^lit that this expression of lbs spirit of labour must be the goal of their reform, because as they passed from one to another of the councils cf churchmen they must feel generally Vicav vory little really representative these councils of the Church were of labour. "I am as sure,'" added Dr (lore, "as I can be of any fact 0/1 o-irth, tliat, from the Christian point of. view, the strength of any Church is measured by the degree to which its representation is the representation of those, who belong to- the classes to which, Jesus Christ chose, to give, the prerogative of His kingdom; that is, those whom we customarily call by the name of the labouring classes. The attitude of the Church has, on the whole, been the attitude of patronage, the attitude which deals with them from above, not the attitude of a Church which is continually realising that in that class Jesus Christ found the real strength of our religion, and to that class He has given a prerogative place in His kingdom."