makes their respectability a byword. On the other hand, the recoil from these affectations has caused many Protestant clergymen and laymen to rush to the other extreme and there inject the virus of misstatement and exaggeration into their utterances on social issues, disdainful of the delirium that may follow. It is not by chance that the hopeful features of a just economic, as immune from the plagues of anarchy as from those of autocracy, are found in Christian commonwealths. We shall enhance its future by faithfully dispensing the Gospel of righteousness which covers all theories of social betterment as the sky over-arches the landscape. It is regrettable that this has not been done sooner and more generally. Formerly there was no raving about eradicating the evils of capitalism by confiscation, nor were the earlier social reformers the enemies of property as such. But while Churchmen were vainly perturbed about explanations of the Trinity or the duration of the future punishment of sin, Marx and his associates proposed, under the shadow of dynastic autocracy, that men, instead of sharing their poverty, should share their wealth.

Socialism administered by the collectivist State has little in common with Christianity. Its essence and aims are frankly materialistic. For the godless and the cruel it has become a creed of force, and they have made it the predacious evil of the time. For its more amenable adherents it is the creed of peace, to be reduced to practice by persuasion, and the decisions of the majority. Other followers who cannot detect its inverted dogmatisms and subterfuges are Socialists mainly because of the manifest inequalities which fortify those dogmatisms and subterfuges. The sane verdict rendered by responsible thinkers of the Anglican Church is that prevalent economic abuses are not the accidental but the normal product of the present system. This verdict, once it is adopted by Protestantism, as I hold it must be, will end its fatalistic attitude toward social iniquities. It will then proceed to their extermination as its third primal duty. America's low valuation of human material, the smug arrogance of its native citizens, its reluctance to admit citizens of other races to reasonable social and commercial fellowship, are rapidly disappearing. We are learning that we have received more emigration than we can digest, and that in our haste

to exploit national resources, we have retarded national progress. Surely in the United States, if anywhere, Protestantism can develop its nascent Catholicity by means of a cosmopolitan life which furnishes even more material than we ask.

V

The last and perhaps the greatest immediate service which Protestantism can render the world is to redress the balance between Church and State. Behind the seething spirit of revolt and the wild stirrings of public opinion lies a deep seated distrust of nationalism as the source of war. Since Hegel announced that the State was absolute, an end in itself, and the organon of its own moralities, the cult of militarism has been both exalted and cast down. Its semi-divinities are now depressed but not vanquished. The peoples of Europe, betrayed by perfidious rulers, are obsessed with fear lest the Hegelian doctrine should revive, and another Baal be set up in blood and terror. It is this dread which explains three-fourths of our international and diplomatic imbroglios. Revolutionary labor, pleas and counter pleas for the mutilation or the restoration of Germany, the French alliances with Poland, secret treaties with the Turk, and the chronic excitement of the Balkan States, can be traced to the determination that the white race must not permit another orgy of massacre. Protestants who believe that the leadership of that race will not survive a second world war see no possibility of preventing it save by the increased control of Christianity over international affairs. But to gain the control, they must be Christians first, and nationalists afterwards. Situated as we are, between Pagan traditions which ennoble tribal relations and war, and Christian teachings which pledge its end in universal brotherhood, the choice must be made as to which we shall hereafter obey. For had not the Church been narrowly defined by nationalistic boundaries, and defiled by an idolatrous subservience to the State, the good the late war accomplished might have been obtained without shedding of blood, and the incalculable evil it left in its train might have been avoided.

Whatever may be said in praise of patriotism, surely it is limited by righteousness and subordinate to justice! There is

need for lucid thinking at this point. The conception of the State as a concrete part of the "Absolute" in which all opposites are reconciled, suits Cæsarism, but it does not explain the verities forced upon us by dreadful circumstances. This "Absolute" has neither organism nor purpose. It is neither personal nor impersonal. It possesses no qualities for good or evil. Its asserted perfection is a myth. As a metaphysical dream, skilfully elaborated, without moral character or consistency, Hegel's ideal is a striking illustration of the havoc wrought by erroneous speculation. It destroys the freedom of the individual by consigning him, body and soul, to the State. The essential differences between the State and the Church and between the State and society at large are lost in the process of consignment. Because much organized human life is outside the purview of the State, its alignments traverse State frontiers. The reaction against the fatal heresy that the State is unconditional and supreme should be promoted and yet restrained by the Church. The moral attainments which she emphasizes are produced by self-determination as against mere impulse. But how can selfdetermination operate if the State is all and in all? Protestantism has a mission to guard the ethical and religious truths which enrich every political heritage. It can show that the claims of the individual upon the State and of the State upon the individual are reciprocal. But both sets of claims are conditioned by the fact that man's obligations as a spiritual being must be duly honored. The State is a body of persons, recognized by each other as having rights, and having a constitution for the maintenance of those rights. Thus, while the State is more important than any citizen, it cannot be indifferent to the rights of any single citizen. The Church is, as I have said, the congregation of God's faithful people upon the earth, who unreservedly accept the spirit, the life, and the teachings of Jesus Christ as their standards of belief and practice. And if theocracy as taught by the Bible is the one lasting foundation of democracy, blessed is that people whose God is the Lord! And equally blessed is that State which applies Biblical precepts to belated and brutal conditions of old time internationalism.

S. PARKES CADMAN.

THE "DO-NOTHING" CONGRESS

BY WILLIAM STARR MYERS

THERE is one practical facility in politics that is especially appreciated and admired by the American people. As they express it, this facility consists in the ability to "keep one's ear to the ground". In fact, the power of forecasting or anticipating the course of popular feeling and real public opinion is a priceless boon to the successful politician. Jefferson and McKinley possessed this ability to an unusual degree. So did Lincoln and Roosevelt, but they united with it the power to guide these popular tendencies along sound lines of statesmanship. Wilson told the people, in superb phrase and lofty thought, what they must believe, and then proceeded to act as though they really did so, but much to his own subsequent disillusionment.

It is exactly in this ability to sense public opinion that the members of the present, or Sixty-seventh, Congress, would seem to be most lacking. The reasons for this lack will be discussed later, but suffice it to say at the present time that in spite of the real honesty, sincerity and industry of the large majority of the members of both Senate and House of Representatives, a wave of public criticism and popular impatience has arisen during the past year, which has resulted in the nickname of the "DoNothing Congress". Whether or not this sobriquet is deserved, it is going to stick, and many a member will pay the penalty for the description at the polls in November, entirely aside from the question of actually deserving it.

In answer to the popular reproaches for inactivity and incapacity to legislate, the leaders of Congress "point with pride" to a record of accomplishment that is of no mean character. First of all comes the passage, in the early days of the Harding Administration, of the first national Budget Act. This took hold of our national financial administration and policy, hitherto not even worthy of the emulation in bookkeeping of a delicatessen

store on a back street in Bayonne, New Jersey, and placed it on a basis of sound common sense and efficiency. It is probable that future historians will rank the passage of the Federal Reserve Act as the greatest achievement of the Wilson Administrations, and the Democratic party has a right to be proud of President Wilson's leadership, which undoubtedly brought this about. In just the same way, the Budget Act will rank as an outstanding success for President Harding. With lapse of time, its enormous value will be more fully appreciated.

Along with the budgetary legislation goes an achievement that is as great in importance, although in the field of foreign relations. This is the Washington Conference, which may prove to be a turning point in the world's history as well as in that of the United States. Although President Harding and his administrative assistants are mainly responsible for the conception and accomplishment of the whole movement, yet the Senate must share with the President in the credit for its success. Within about seven weeks after the close of the Conference, the Senate had ratified all the treaties and agreements there formulated. This is remarkably quick action, when the ordinary delay in consideration of international matters is taken into account.

But not all the credit for this celerity is to be given to the Republican members of the Senate. One of the most forceful advocates of the treaties, and one whose leadership had great weight in their adoption, was Senator Oscar W. Underwood of Alabama, the Democratic floor leader, one of the ablest and most valuable members of the Upper House. His assistance was of vital importance, and it is doubtful whether ratification could have been accomplished without it. Also the dozen or more Democratic Senators who followed his leadership deserve like credit for sound and broad statesmanship. The less said about the statesmanlike abilities of both the Democratic and Republican opponents, the better. With a few exceptions, the debates were on a rather low plane of ability, and failed to arouse the interest or inspire the imagination of the American people.

Republican leaders in the present campaign, in preparation for the coming November elections, are stressing among the accomplishments of this Congress the "saving of two billion dollars