the current talk about Christian Socialism and the identity of socialism with Christianity is that it does not conduce to this clearness of understanding, which is the first requisite for any useful dealing with such questions. If socialism is just, it is Christian--that seems the sum of the matter. But do socializing bishops believe it to be just? Do they believe, as all socialists believe, that it is unjust for one man to be paid five thousand pounds a year, while his neighbours, with far harder and more drudging work, cannot make forty pounds? or do they believe it wrong for a man to live on interest, or rents, or profits? or would they have the law lay its hands on property and manufactures, in order to correct this wrong and give every man the income to which he would be entitled on socialist principles? It is good, no doubt, to have more equality and simplicity and security of living; but these aspirations are neither peculiar to Christianity nor to socialism. FOOTNOTE: [1] The bishop draws this conclusion from the principle that God has directed all men to nature to obtain from it the satisfaction of their necessary wants, and that this original right of the needy cannot be superseded by the subsequent institution of private property. No doubt, he admits, that institution is also of God. It is the appointed way by which man's dominion over nature is to be realized, because it is the way in which nature is best utilized for the higher civilization of man. But this purpose is secondary and subordinate to the other. And, therefore, concludes the bishop, "firmly as theology upholds the right of private property, it asserts at the same time that the higher right by which all men are directed to nature's supplies dare not be infringed, and that, consequently, any one who finds himself in extreme need is justified, when other means fail, in satisfying this extreme need where and how he may (wo und wie er es vermag)."--_Die Arbeiter-frage und das Christenthum_ (p. 78). CHAPTER VIII. ANARCHISM.