One of the most startling, but at the same time, most thought-compelling proposals for the ideal State are Mr. Ruskin’s Bishops. The έπίσκοπος of the New Testament was an Overseer, a man who looked after the members of the Early Church, the agent of their relief, and the supervisor of their conduct. This order of men Ruskin proposes to declericalize and to municipalize. The preaching, we shall remember, is to be separated from pastoral care, and to be done gratuitously by unofficial ministers. This leaves no link between the State and the family; even the action of the Fatherland as a father, now afforded by the State clergy, being done away with. Therefore, over every fifty or a hundred families there is to be elected, for life, a Bishop, who is to be a friendly counsellor, and to keep a record of all notable events--a much extended public registrar. All exceptional treatment which special circumstances may render desirable, any mitigation of ordinary law, is arranged through him. Where law is to be so pervasive, some cushion for its impact would certainly be necessary. He bears to the Government the relation which the Charity Organisation Society bears to the Poor Law Guardians, or an Inebriate Home to the Jail, or (in theory) Equity to Common Law. Thus the terrible loneliness and neglect of the poor, and haunts of undiscovered vice, would no longer be possible. The whole episcopal action was to be elastic, the methods patient, gentle, not compulsory, and not intrusive. The Bishops were to be paid officers, and they had to report to a higher officer called a Duke (_Time and Tide_, XIII). We now approach the question of national leadership. So great was Ruskin’s distrust of the People, his hatred of Liberty and Equality, that he fell back upon our Aristocracy, commonplace as he knew it to be, for the power of governance. He is not so far out of our current national habit. We know well that any good, hardworking peer, baronet or landed magnate of good family, has at once a favourable hearing, and possesses by birth an open door to the confidence of the people; and he has only to show that he deserves it, to maintain it with ease. We democrats love a lord. So the Home Office and police work, also the Judgeships and the officering of the citizen army are to be the work of the present landed gentry; the careful husbanding of the nation’s resources in a glorified Board of Trade is to be the work of the present kings of business. The Education Department and the now nonexistent Artistic Department, the Board of Works, together with the few necessary Doctors, and the Musicians, are the third department of upper-class work, to be undertaken by the professional classes. It will be remembered that there are to be no hired soldiers or clergy and very few lawyers.