grace that is embodied in the New Testament. For whatever. the faults of those who compose the church, the gospel of Christ emphasizes the value of the individual, reveals the way by which each can work out his own salvation, and teaches that every man may become the master of his environment; while the philosophy of the socialism in question makes each a passive slave of his social condition. The gospel of Christ offers hope to the humblest through the expansion of their inner qualities; the gospel of Hegel offers only despair to those whose social environments are unfriendly. If human society were universally to throw overboard faith in a God of grace, and a gospel which glorifies the individual, and were to accept a system whose tenderest message to man is the pitiless phrase "the survival of the fittest," is it to be believed that the consequence would be a brighter beacon-light of opportunity or a wider door of happiness for the world's working people, or, indeed, for any element of humanity save those only who combined the largest intelligence with the smallest mercy? It will be a sorry day for the poor, and the weak, and those who look aloft, and aspire after an honest happiness, when the gospel of mercy shall have become a forgotten volume in the earth.

Have those of our American wage-workers who are disposed to allow themselves to become alienated from the Christian church really given Christianity a fair trial as a means of removing human injustice and suffering? Have they always done their full part toward securing the purity of the church, rendering it a complete embodiment of Christ's teachings, and supplying its largest strength for the destruction of sin, with all tyranny and all selfishness? To ask the question is to answer it. Granting that the visible body we term the church but faintly represents the system of truth of which Christ is the soul, and that its members are not all laboring for the fulfillment of the kingdom of God on earth, how bet

ter can any friend of humanity serve the race than by entering the church, and laboring to make it what it ought to be, and what in idea it is? If there be a vital connection between gospel and church, and if the former be the one message of peace, justice, and love to humanity, the argument for friendship and loyalty to the latter on the part of every aspirant for the best the universe affords for man becomes unanswerable.

ARTICLE VI.

THE DEMAND FOR MORE MONEY.

BY EDWARD W. BEMIS.

IT may seem strange to many readers of the BIBLIOTHECA SACRA that an article so largely economic as this should appear in its columns. But when the American Board of Foreign Missions, for the first time in its history, has been forced to reduce the salaries of its missionaries ten per cent, and to reduce the volume of its missionary work one-fourth; and when all philanthropic, religious, and moral work finds it increasingly difficult to secure contributions because of the bad condition of business, no apology is needed for a study of the causes of this condition.

Indeed, in these times of industrial depression all social reformers make slow progress. When every one feels poor, or at least anxious as to the business future, large sacrifices of time and wealth for the public weal are less freely made. The trades-union, built up through many years, suddenly loses half of its members. Wages fall in one year more than several years may be able to restore. Hours of toil, which in many trades had been reduced to eight, are increased to ten, while restrictions on child labor are harder to advance, and tens of thousands of willing workers are unable to find employment.

Surely every reformer, every student of society, every business man, every laborer, and indeed every citizen, is interested in the causes of the industrial depression through which we are passing.

Although there has been great improvement in the arts and in industrial processes, and a comparative freedom from war since 1873, business has developed less rapidly, and there has been a greater feeling of discouragement among business men, than during the twenty-three years prior thereto. This is especially true of Great Britain and the agricultural districts of continental Europe.

In this country, outside of the large but decreasing proportion of our population living upon farms, there has been less discouragement, although such statistics as we have appear to reveal a slower development of wealth and business per capita since 1873 than before that date. The value of our exports and imports, for example, increased threefold from 1850 to 1873, and only about fifty per cent from 1873 to 1895. Their bulk also increased more rapidly in the former period. The year 1895 is the first time since accurate records began in 1879, when the second year following a panic has witnessed more failures and greater liabilities than did the first year. The number in business, as reported by Bradstreet, increased 21.4 per cent from 1880 to 1885, and 11.1 per cent from 1885 to 1890, but only 6.6 per cent during the last five years.

An eminent English authority, Sir William Houldsworth, states that the English assessments for income tax in "Schedule D," which includes the leading classes of income, increased two hundred per cent between 1857 and 1875 and only thirtyfive per cent between the latter date and 1893, while there was an actual decline in all assessed incomes from 1892 to 1895 of nearly fifteen per cent. British foreign trade has also been increasing less rapidly since 1873 than before. Panics, indeed, came in regularly recurring periods prior to 1873, as throughout Europe and America in 1857 and in Europe in 1866, although, on the whole, business seems to have recovered from these crises more easily than from those of

1873, 1884, 1890, and 1893. In the last twenty-three years the dull times, especially in Europe, seem to have been more continuous than before. In seeking an explanation of this apparent decline in business prosperity during the past twentytwo years, one must be very sure of his ground before attributing it all to any one cause. An almost world-wide movement must have equally far-reaching causes.

It is possible, as claimed by Robertson, Hobson, Rodbertus, and others, that private ownership of capital, and the apparently diminishing portion of the yearly product of industry that goes to the chief consumers of the staple articles of manufacture, may produce recurring crises and industrial stagnation. This contention, most important if true, has not yet been accepted by most of our economists, and, however plausible, cannot be considered as proven. Others claim that much displacement of industry, with consequent suffering, follows inevitably on the development of agriculture and manufacture in new countries; but such displacement is hardly greater now than thirty years ago, when business was more active. The practical exhaustion of our free government land, and the uncertainties and mistakes of our own financial legislation, are not sufficiently far-reaching in character to account for general depression in so many countries.

Again, the cause of the acute though brief spasms known as panics, which have recurred almost exactly ten years apart in Europe and America since 1816, may be found in some rhythmic tendency of human nature to be alternately buoyant and over-speculative and then depressed and suspicious of credit.

Our present concern, however, is not connected with the short sharp panics, but the long periods of depression that the world has twice experienced since 1873. It is admitted by all that the general level of prices of the great articles of commerce, such as food products, cotton, wool, iron, etc., has