so-called "miracles of healing." They were occasional and
special; they had as much effect on the "bodily welfare" of the Jewish
people as tickling has on the gait of an elephant; and as for
their being a "preparative to spiritual well-being," we may ask the
"humanitarian Christians of Christ" to tell us, if they can, how much
of this quality was afterwards displayed by the ladies and gentlemen
who were the lucky subjects (or objects) of Christ's miracles. Mr.
Keir Hardie might also recollect that the said miracles, if they ever
happened, are of no "bodily" importance to the present generation.
Humanitarians of to-day are unable to work miracles; they have to sow
the seed of progress, and await its natural harvest.

Mr. Keir Hardie is undoubtedly an earnest social reformer. We wish him
all success in his efforts to raise the workers and procure for them a
just share of the produce of their industry. Some of his methods may be
questionable without affecting his sincerity. If we all saw eye to eye
there would be no problems to settle. What we object to is the fond
imagination that any light upon the labor question, or any actual social
problem, can be found in the teachings of Christ. Jesus of Nazareth
never taught industry, or forethought, or any of the robuster virtues of
civilisation. On one occasion he said that his kingdom was not of this
world. He might certainly have said so of his teaching. It is all
very well for Mr. Keir Hardie to assert that our "industrial system
is foreign to the spirit of Christianity." What _is_ the spirit of
Christianity? Twenty different things in as many different minds. _Some_
industrial system is a necessity, and whatever it is you will never
find its real principles in the Gospels. Christ's one social panacea was
"giving to the poor," and this is the worst of all "reformations."
It only disguises social evils. The world could do very well without
"charity" if it only had justice and common sense.

Charles Bradlaugh, the Atheist, was laughed at for advocating the
compulsory cultivation of waste lands. He wanted to see labor and
capital employed upon them, even if they yielded no rent to landlords.
Mr. Keir Hardie, the Christian, also desires to bring the people into
"contact with nature and mother earth," though his recipe, of "open
spaces laid down in grass" seems ludicrously inadequate. The loss of
this contact, he told his interviewer, is "accountable for much of the
Atheism which