a man of probity and justice, but lacking the wisdom of the statesman, prepared a constitution for a model republic, which had too many defects for adoption; a republic with advantages for a select class, but slavery for the masses doomed to manual labor, which was made despicable. More wrote his “Utopia,”[4] regarded by some as a kind of program for a needed social reform. It had little influence with his countrymen, most of whom ranked it with works of the imagination, where it belonged, whether so intended or not. Campanella,[5] a radical communist of Stilo, in Calabria, wrote his Utopia, called “The City of the Sun,” a sensual paradise, in which there was to be a community of goods and of wives. For more than a century socialistic and communistic publications were numerous; many of them denouncing property as a sin, and advocating the greatest license in the intercourse of the sexes. Rousseau, in his discourse on the “Origin and Grounds of Inequality Amongst Men,” speaks with approval of “a state of nature,” something like that among our American Indians before they had any knowledge of civilization. He seems to have supposed there was no inequality, no vice, no misery, among untutored savages, and advised those who could, to return to a state of nature. The skeptical Owen,[6] and the philosophical Fourier,[7] more practical than others, attempted to establish communities as models or examples of what could be accomplished on their theory, but failure attended their enterprises, or the communities were saved from utter disintegration by the tacit admission of principles that were once disavowed. Modern socialism, akin to communism, and in all its tendencies subversive of good government, declaims over the poverty and misery of the unhappy masses, laments their insufficient shelter, food, and clothing, is sentimental on the subject of labor and wages, and seeks to rouse the abject sufferers to a sense of their sad condition. Its pictures of suffering are in many cases not overdrawn, and the greatest efforts can hardly exaggerate the facts. But socialism is not “social science.” It is utterly and perversely unscientific; it discusses effects, carefully leaving causes out of view; and would reform communities by corrupting and debasing individuals. With a vague notion that every man has a natural right to whatever he needs, it allows that the problem of equalization may be solved by violence, and thus all brought to a common level. The crimes against society, which have lately appalled us, are doubtless the result of the pernicious principles and teaching of “socialistic reformers.” But a reaction is sure to come, and the better instincts of the race will yet destroy the corrupt tree whose fruit is evil. SUNDAY READINGS. SELECTED BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D. [_April 5._] Ecclesiastics 7:29: “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.”