The payment of subscriptions, if this principle be disregarded, becomes a soul-destroying process, alike to him that gives and him that takes. The pious Henry III. turned once at bay, after listening to the pleading of Friar William of Abingdon, one of the most eloquent of the early Dominican preachers, and cried to him, "Brother William, there was a time when thou couldst speak of spiritual things; now all thou canst say is, [p.97] ' Give, give, give ! ' One may compare the disgust with which a modern public schoolboy often turns from the familiar appeal of the clergy- man who year by year comes to the school to preach on behalf of the school mission, and to carry back with him the usual collection, but nothing better. For the only thing worth giving or asking is life; and such a missioner too often fails to ask for it. Here surely we may find a hint of the explanation of all successful social work, which is the passing on of life from life, the result of the contact of personality with personality. In so far as organization promotes this and makes it possible does it stand justified, and only by this test. One does not wish to undervalue the associations, the reflexes of life, which institutions so often pass on, or the wealth of a great past which they keep in store for us. But death is perhaps as needful and as inevitable for the body corporate as for the individual; for both it is often true that whom the gods love die young. It is surely better to spend and be spent in a short life rich in ideas, than to carry on a long existence by the aid of a comfortable endowment, which may prevent men from realizing how far out of touch they are with the actual needs of those about them. It is not known whether any council of bishops has decided if there be humour in Heaven, but one is inclined to think that the solemn way in which men shake their heads and lament the impending decease of an outworn institution must sometimes be greeted elsewhere by a peal of celestial laughter. CHAPTER VII: PRIESTS AND PONTIFFS SOME day we may hope to see among our great national museums one made to illustrate the religions of the world, from the rudest rites of the savage to the highest developments of Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Judaism and Christianity. This museum of comparative religions does already exist to some extent in embryo in every great collection of antiquities, and the students of ethnology and folklore have been long at work in preparing materials for its catalogues. A partial glimpse of what it would contain is given in such a world-wide missionary exhibition as that organised in connection with the work of the London Missionary Society at the Agricultural Hall in the early summer of 1908.