effect a change in the face of society. For they loved and believed in their cause with a generous and touching enthusiasm, and were so sincerely and absolutely persuaded of its truth themselves, that they hardly entertained the idea of other minds resisting it. "I certainly thought," says Mr. I. Hughes, "(and for that matter have never altered my opinion to this day) that here we had found the solution to the great labour question; but I was also convinced that we had nothing to do but just to announce it, and found an association or two, in order to convert all England, and usher in the millennium at once, so plain did the whole thing seem to me. I will not undertake to answer for the rest of the council, but I doubt whether I was at all more sanguine than the majority." Seventeen co-operative associations in London, and twenty-four in the provinces (which were all they had established when they ceased to publish their Journal), may seem a poor result, but their work is not to be estimated by that alone. The Christian Socialists undoubtedly gave a very important impetus to the whole movement of co-operation, and to the general cause of the amelioration of the labouring classes. The general position of Maurice and his allies (though with important differences, as will appear) has been taken up again by two groups in Germany at the present day--one Catholic, the other Protestant--in dealing with the social question which has for many years agitated that country. In one respect the Christian Socialists of England were more fortunate than their German brethren. Nobody ever ventured to question the purity of their motives. The intervention of the clergy in politics is generally unpopular: they are thought, rightly or wrongly, to be Churchmen first, and patriots afterwards; but it was impossible to suspect Maurice and his friends of being influenced in their efforts at reform by considerations of ecclesiastical or electoral interest, or of having any object at heart but the social good of the nation. It is otherwise with the Christian Socialists of Germany. Neither of the two German groups affects to conceal that one great aim of its work is to restore and extend the influence of the Church among the labouring classes; and it is unlikely that the Clerical party in Germany were insensible to the political advantage of having organizations of working men under ecclesiastical control, though it ought to be acknowledged that these organizations were contemplated before the introduction of universal suffrage. But even though ecclesiastical considerations mingled with the motives of the Christian Socialists, we see no reason to doubt the genuineness of their interest in the amelioration of the masses, or the sincerity of their conviction of the economic soundness of their programme.