Thus in many directions their propaganda has been an obstacle to their success in their proper task of emancipating the working class, and it has at the same time been a hindrance to the peaceful solution of the great struggle. The great central problem has been confused by side issues and irrelevant matter. We can best show how tragic has been the confusion of parts and of issues by reference to religion. Love, brotherhood, mutual service, and peace are most prominent notes in the teaching of Jesus. They must be woven into the moral texture of socialism if it is to succeed and be a benefit to the world. If Marx and his school had merely attacked what we may call the official and professional representatives of the Christian Church, they would have been within their rights. As it has been, the religion of love, brotherhood, and mutual service has officially become part of a government system by which the hereditary oppressors of the poor in Germany and elsewhere claim to continue their unblest work. The professional representatives of Christ’s teaching support and encourage them in it, and so make themselves accomplices, not only in the oppression and degradation of the poor, but in war and militarism, and in all the waste, extravagance, and misdirection of class government. How many of them are conscious of the profound incongruity of their position? In the history of human thought opinion has hardened often prematurely into dogma, and dogma has usually degenerated into pedantry. Dogma has often been simply the expression of egotism, which had not the saving grace either to be loyal to truth or really helpful to mankind. So it has been in the development of socialism. Its champions have too frequently failed in keeping a single eye and mind on a task which requires insight, self-restraint, loyalty, and consistency, as well as energy and enthusiasm. A great cause demands the best and noblest service. Such a cause as socialism demands from its supporters the self-denial which will suppress the many phases of an excessive, disorderly, morbid, and malignant egotism that has done so much harm in the past—no easy task for human nature. It is a very serious result alike of the past history and of the present policy of socialists that the practical work of emancipating labour has to such a degree been postponed to a remote and hypothetical future. They form only a small minority in the legislatures of the leading European countries. This minority is increasing, and is likely to increase. But there is no present probability of an increase that would win political power by parliamentary action.