true that Shelley sang the praises of
Love--"immortal" Love if you choose to call it so; but Mr. Brooke has
to admit that he did not "give it a personal life." Shelley also "thinks
Immortality improbable," yet, Mr. Brooke says, he "glides into words in
his poems which continually imply it." But this we deny. Allowing for
personification and emphasis, without which there can be no poetry, we
venture to affirm that there is not a single passage, line, or phrase in
Shelley's later poems which is not in essential harmony with his belief
in the mortality of man and the practical immortality of the race. It is
one of the offences of theologians ("liberal" or otherwise) in relation
to Shelley, that they try to turn metaphors into logical propositions,
in order to make the poet give evidence against himself.

In one respect, however, we quite agree with Mr. Brooke. "Liberal
theology" has _not_ yet "reached the level of Shelley's thought," nor
can it ever do so until it ceases to be Theology and becomes simple
Humanity. Mr. Brooke may flatter himself that he has "a higher faith
than Shelley had," but we think he is mistaken. Substitute "blinder" for
"higher" and the expression would be more accurate. Shelley did believe
that Love--not alone, but co-operating with Knowledge--would achieve
the salvation of mankind; but he resolutely refused to talk about man's
"destiny in God the Father," which seems to afford such comfort to the
devotees of "liberal theology." For this he deserves the gratitude of
all scientific Humanitarians, who should protest with all their might
against the attempt to emasculate him into a prophet, or even an advance
agent, of some new form of Godism. "Liberal theology" should beget its
own poet, if it can; it should not try to steal the poet of Humanity.

CHRISTIANITY AND LABOR. *

* Sept. 24,1893.

Whatever else may be thought about the present coal-strike, or lock-out,
as it might be more accurately described, it will be admitted by
many persons who do not rail at Political Economy that the miners are
following a sound instinct in demanding that a decent wage shall be a
fixed element in price. To dig coal out of the earth is worth a minimum
of (say) thirty shillings a week, and if it will not yield that
modest remuneration to the worker let it stay where it is, and let the
community do without coal altogether. Morally speaking, society has no
right to demand that an important industry shall