m what they are, and they can no more alter than the Ethiopian
can change his skin or the leopard his spots. Religion is always the
consecration of the past; never the spirit of the future working in
the present; and the clergy, who, as Sidney Smith said, are a third
sex--neither male nor female, but effeminate--are instinctively
conservative, thoroughly enamored of what is, and obstinately averse to
all radical changes. Their timidity would be quite phenomenal, if they
were _not_ the third sex; and, like all timid people, they can shriek
and yell and curse and foam at the mouth when they are well frightened.

Were it otherwise, were Christianity a real agency for social
improvement, and the clergy the moral leaders of the people, we should
have seen by this time a tremendous alteration in the condition, and the
relations, of all classes of society. There might still be differences,
but they would be on a higher plane, and less grievous and exasperating.
As the case stands, all the best of the clergy can do is to preach
harmless platitudes once a week. One Bishop has been actually
harangueing the miners, and only provoking contemptuous remarks about
his salary. The truth is, that Christian ministers are, in the main,
only fit to preach kingdom-come. That is their proper work, ana they are
exactly cut out for it.

We are not in love with all the details of the elaborate ecclesiasticism
of Comte's Religion of Humanity, but we are bound to say that a
philosophical priesthood, such as he planned, would be better fitted
than a Christian priesthood for the work of moral control and social
diplomacy. There is an ethical as well as an economical element in
most of these disputes between labor and capital; and a philosophical
priesthood, vowed to study and simplicity of life, would be able to
intervene with some effect. It would be something, indeed, to have the
deliberate judgment of a dispassionate though sympathetic tribunal, even
though it had--and could and should have--no authority to enforce its
decisions. At present, however, all this is Utopian, and perhaps it
always will be so. We will return, therefore, to our immediate object,
which is to point out the utter uselessness of Christianity in the midst
of class antagonisms. It cannot control the rich, it cannot assist the
poor. Its chief idea is to stand between the two, not as an ambassador
of justice, but as a dispenser of charity. And _this_ charity, instead
of reall