s not one miss from the Bishop's attack upon
the social reformer something much deeper than successful logic,
something which expresses itself in the works of other men by the
language of sympathy and charity, something which hungers and thirsts to
shed light and to give warmth, something which makes for the eventual
brotherhood of mankind under the divine Fatherhood of God?

Some such spirit as this, I think, is to be found in the writings of Mr.
R.H. Tawney, who, however much he may err and go astray in his
economics, cherishes at least a more seemly vision of the human family
than that which now passes for civilisation. Is it not possible that the
day may come when a gigantic income will seem "ungentlemanly"? Is it not
a just claim, a Christian claim, that the social organisation should be
based upon "moral principles"?

Christians are a sect, and a small sect, in a Pagan Society. But
they can be a sincere sect. If they are sincere, they will not
abuse the Pagans . . . for a good Pagan is an admirable person. But
he is not a Christian, for his hopes and fears, his preferences and
dislikes, his standards of success and failure, are different from
those of Christians. The Church will not pretend that he is, or
endeavour to make its own Faith acceptable to him by diluting the
distinctive ethical attributes of Christianity till they become
inoffensive, at the cost of becoming trivial.

. . . so tepid and self-regarding a creed is not a religion.
Christianity cannot allow its sphere to be determined by the
convenience of politicians or by the conventional ethics of the
world of business. The whole world of human interests was assigned
to it as its province (_The Acquisitive Society_).

It must not be supposed that the Bishop has no answer to this criticism
of his attitude. He would say, "Produce your socialistic scheme, and I
will examine it, and if it will work and if it is just I will support
it; but until you have found this scheme, what moral right do you
possess which entitles you to unsettle men's minds, to fill their hearts
with the bitterness of discontent, and to turn the attention of their
souls away from the things that are more excellent?"

On this ground, the ground of economics, his position seems to me
unassailable; but it is a position which suggests the posture of a
lecturer in front of his black-board rather than that of a shepherd