comfortable for the unsuccessful many, among whom the idea is gaining
ground that as salvation is the reward, not of virtue, but of a
judicious blend of cleverness, unscrupulousness, selfishness, and
greed, there is no reason, in the moral order of things, why it
should not be wrested from those who are enjoying it, either by
organised social warfare or by open violence and crime. And even if
an anarchical outbreak should result in perdition all round instead
of salvation all round, it would at least be some consolation to the
"lost" to feel that they had dragged the "saved" down into their own
bottomless pit. This would not be a lofty sentiment; yet I do not
see who is in a position to condemn it,--not the supporter of the
existing social order, which legalises a general scramble, first for
the "prizes" of life and then for the bare means of subsistence, and
is well content that in that scramble the weak, the ignorant, and
the unfortunate should go to the wall,--not the exponent of the
conventional theology, which has taught men to dream of a Heaven in
which the happiness of the "elect" will be unruffled by the knowledge
that an eternity of misery is the doom of perhaps a majority of their
fellow-men.

In the West, then, there are two conceptions of salvation,--a
selfish, worldly conception which is daily becoming more effective,
and a selfish other-worldly conception which is daily becoming more
ineffective, and is therefore less and less able to compete with or
control its rival. Out of the attempts that are made to realise
both these conceptions and to keep them on friendly terms with one
another, there is emerging a state of chaos--political, social,
moral, spiritual,--a weltering chaos of new and old ideals, new and
old theories of life, new and old standards of values, new and old
centres of authority, new and old ambitions and dreams. And in this
chaos there are only two principles of order, the first (which is
also the ultimate cause of all our disorder) being the pathetic fact
that nearly all the actors in the bewildering drama are still seeking
for happiness outside themselves, the second being the fundamental
goodness of man's heart.

I will now go back to Utopia. There a new conception of salvation is
implicit in the new theory of education which has revolutionised the
life of the school. Humble as is the sphere and small as is the scale
of Egeria's labours, her work is, I firmly believe, of world-wide