["That you above all men should find fault with Kingsley or any one else for setting social above political reform, I own, amazes me. But it is not true in any sense of the words that Kingsley wanted Chartists to 'take up social and drop political reform.' In his first letter to Thomas Cooper (Life, vol. i. p. 182), he expressly says: 'I would shed the last drop of my blood for the social and _political_ emancipation of the people.' [The italics are mine.] Again, you misquote General Maurice's (not Mr. Maurice's) words, when you say that 'Maurice owned that his object was not to socialise society, but to Christianise Socialism.' General Maurice's words are: 'Beyond all doubt he dreaded becoming the head of a _party_ of Christian Socialists. His great wish was to Christianise Socialism, not to Christian-socialise the universe' (Life, vol. ii. p. 47). "Your story about the 'old grey-headed Chartist' and T. Hughes does not tally altogether with the statement in Mr. Maurice's Life (vol. ii. p. 13), but as I do not recollect being present (nor, I believe, were you) on the occasion, I cannot say which is right. I should have thought that an 'old greyheaded Chartist' would have had more courtesy as well as more sense than to hiss the Queen." Mr. Ludlow's letter throws a flood of light on the mistakes of Canon Kingsley and his colleagues. Mr. Ludlow "is amazed that I above all men should blame any man for setting social above political reform." It is now some fifty years since Mr. Ludlow first did me the honour to notice what I wrote or said. Yet I think he never knew me to subordinate political to social reform. I always thought it base to teach men to barter political freedom for social benefits. The leaders of early co-operation in the days before Mr. Ludlow knew it--being like Robert Owen, mostly of a Tory way of thinking--deprecated political reform, and thought its pursuit unnecessary, as their social remedy would do everything for the people. I always dissented from this doctrine and resented it, as the politician, if you do not watch him, will come some day and throw the savings of a century into a sea of imperial blood. Mr. Ludlow quotes a letter from Kingsley to Thomas Cooper, in which he says he "would shed the last drop of his blood for the social and political emancipation of the people." What! for the "smoke of the pit"? as he described the agitation for the Charter. What! "shed his blood" for a "Morrison pill measure"--shed the last drop of his blood" for a poor, bald, constitution-mongering cry as ever he heard"? I agree that this is extraordinary political enthusiasm. Still it was no proof that Kingsley was a Chartist, and that was my point. General Maurice's version of his father's saying that "his object was not to socialise society," shows that Maurice cared no more for Socialism (which at that time meant co-operative communism) than Kingsley cared for Chartism. Both meant well to the people in a theological--not a political way.