ness? Contrast for a moment the position of the sister who is forbidden to form personal intimacies with the members of her own society, who cannot kiss one of her fellows except on the cheek, and, if we understand rightly, on bended knees, with that of another woman, possibly her cousin, who enjoys all the happiness of married life. It is inconceivable that the world should not ultimately pronounce that the life of the one woman or the other is wrong. But again it may be said that at any rate asceticism leads to no harm. The whole of history confutes this assertion; and the following anecdote of a Sister of Charity affords a painful instance of the incalculable misery which may be inflicted on the most exalted characters by devotion to an erroneous theory. Miss Stephen tells us of a Sister of Charity who gave up her life to the service of the poor, and 'seemed as like an angel in human form as any woman could well be:'

She was spending her very life for the poor, and I fear had not much more to spend; she seemed bound to the earth not by her own sufferings, severe as they evidently were, so much as by those of her poor people, and her own sense of utter helplessness to relieve or benefit many of them-contending as she was day by day with a mass of poverty, ignorance, and misery which she evidently felt her visits to be utterly inadequate even perceptibly to lessen. When the visits were over, I said to her something of the comfort she must at least have in carrying some alleviations to the people she loved so well: her face for a moment lightened up as she said, 'Yes, they are my joy;' and then it fell again, and a dark cloud came over her as she continued half bitterly and altogether sorrowfully, 'I cannot help it-I cannot help loving them. I have no merit in my work, for I do love the poor-some of my sisters have so much merit, for they do it all for Jesus, and not at all for the poor.' I knew too much of the rule of her order to have any hope of comforting her by asking if there could be a more beautiful or holy thing than to work from pure love.-The Service of the Poor, p. 312.

This feeling may indeed be called morbid; but if there be disease, it

is disease engendered through the system by which the woman's life was regulated. Her thoughts were in strict accordance with the rules of her order-rules of which their author seems to have laid down that their observance was of more importance than acts of charity themselves :

Donnez-moi la plus grande ouvrière qui soit dans la Charité, qui serve aux pauvres forçats, aux insensés, qui fasse merveille partout où elle va: si elle n'observe ses règles en tout point, tout cela n'est rien au prix d'une autre qui est exacte.—The Service of the Poor, p. 91.

But there is no danger, it will be urged, in overrating asceticism in an age and country where there are no ascetics, or in unduly depreciating the ordinary conditions of life at a time when everyone gives them at least their due honour. Miss Stephen's reply to such observations is striking and unanswerable:

The danger does not always take the form of a temptation unwisely to renounce the depreciated conditions of life. We are not perhaps in England in much danger of renouncing these things too freely. But we are in great danger of valuing them too little-that is, of thinking meanly of them while we pursue them. ... Though only few may be tempted to give up what they ought to keep, the many are but too likely to lose self-respect while keeping what they vaguely feel they ought to give up.The Service of the Poor, p. 289.

Add to this, that people luxurious themselves are prone enough to admire asceticism in others, and that brothers who never dream of renouncing pleasures which are not altogether innocent are extremely likely honestly to think it admirable that their sisters should give up even innocent enjoyments. It is always a luxury to have a saint in the family, and a luxurious household may well feel it a comfort to have vicarious sacrifices performed for them by a relative in a sisterhood. It is sometimes a great deal easier to admire

a saint in a convent than to bear with her at home.

Asceticism is the foundation of conventual discipline. A belief in the spiritual benefits to be conferred by the ministration of others regulates the mode in which the members of a sisterhood labour for the good of the poor. The question, which sooner or later the public must answer, is whether such belief is grounded on truth. Of the belief in the efficacy of sacraments we purposely say nothing, except that those who once admit it will find it extremely hard to keep from granting much more, which, when once conceded, will make their Protestantism hardly worth defence. But is it true that souls can be saved by the propounding of a scheme of salvation to sick or dying men, or is it even true-we ask the question in all seriousness-that 'souls can be saved' at all in the sense popularly attributed to the expression, and in that sense in which it must be used if the ministrations of sisterhoods are to be held specially effective for the salvation of souls? It is no question here of the importance of sound belief. No one can conceive that in matters of religion, any more than in matters of less consequence, it is not of importance as far as may be to know the truth and think truly. What is doubted, and doubted with the soundest reason is, that acceptance of a formula, even though that formula be true, by a man, say, at the point of death, can affect the whole destiny of his soul. 'Those who believe that God has made the eternal welfare of His creatures to depend upon the assent to any such formula are as much justified in desiring to engraft sisterhoods upon Protestantism as those who believe salvation to depend on rites are justified in organising such associations for the purpose of securing their administration.' But

those who do not share this belief, but see in it a false and absolutely unworthy conception of God's dealings with man, are not only justified in declaring, but bound to declare, their disbelief, and must look with disapproval on institutions based on what seems to them a falsehood.

The last belief or supposition, which in a sense lies at the bottom of all the various views of which sisterhoods are the embodiment, is that there are to be found somewhere, either in the decrees of an infallible church or in texts of Scripture, certain indubitable dogmas which it is our duty to believe and propagate, but which it is not our duty to question or examine. If simply to believe, and not to question, be the right object of a religious mind, there can be no doubt that sisterhoods answer some important ends; for it is scarcely possible to conceive institutions

better calculated to produce amongst their members a feeling of strong conviction in the truth of certain doctrines. Unfortunately the strength with which a doctrine is believed is in itself no proof of the doctrine's truth. The question, therefore, arises-are institutions to be recommended simply because they train up women to. feel assured that certain dogmas are true without possessing any valid ground for knowing whether they are true or false?

Whoever thinks that belief is in itself a virtue may consistently enough support institutions for the simple promotion of credulity; whoever does not think so must feel grave scruples in giving any support to societies which in the first place assume religious dogmas to have a certainty which to many minds they appear not to possess, and in the second place train their pupils to feel intensely strong convictions as to doctrines which they have no adequate ground for believing to be true.

rest on

Miss Stephen shows, to our minds conclusively, that the practical merits of sisterhoods have been greatly exaggerated, and that they an unsound theoretical basis. There are two aspects of the question which it hardly falls within her scope to notice, and which deserve attention. She is fully aware that there is a great and increasing difference between the attitude of mind, with respect to religious belief, which prevails among thinking men, and that which prevails among believing women;' she is also aware how greatly and injuriously this difference would be increased by the spread of a conventual system. She does not notice, though probably she well knows, another evil effect which would arise from the same cause: even as it is, the apathy of wellmeaning men about all works of benevolence is a source of considerable evil, both to educated men themselves and to the public. We have heard an American story of an English young lady who confessed, on cross-examination, that she had never spoken to a poor person. The tale would have had more plausibility had it been told of the young lady's brother. There are a whole host of estimable men, engaged in professional and other pursuits, who never attain any real knowledge of the mass of poor living about them. The causes of this state of things are complicated: one main cause is a habit of looking upon the care of the poor as the especial province of women and clergymen : if benevolent women became, as it were, a professional class, this habit would be most harmfully increased. Exactly as laymen think less of religion because they look upon it as the especial affair of the clergy, so a mass of men would be even less interested than now in the care of the poor if they could once consider it as the special sphere of Sisters of Charity. Just as the crea

tion of sisterhoods would intensify the evil we have mentioned, so the true way to oppose their foundation is to diminish this evil. If ordinary men took more interest in the concerns of the poor, e.g. in the fair administration of the poor law, there would be much less reason why women should dedicate themselves wholly to works of charity. The assumption of a different position in regard to such works by laymen would, moreover, lead to a still more fundamental reform. What the poor need, as indeed what all men need, is in nine cases out of ten not charity, but justice; they receive far too much charity, in part because they are dealt with chiefly by a class who are often humane and merciful, but are rarely just. If laymen took their fair share in what are technically called good works,' we might make some faint approach to what, after all, is the ideal state of society-that in which a sense of justice is so extended as to include within it all that is true and admirable in charity or benevolence.

Miss Stephen, again, is fully aware of the fact, and points it out with great clearness, that it is no use to oppose the entrance of women into sisterhoods unless you give due weight to the many legitimate motives which induce them to pursue that course, and afford free scope in some direction or other for the natural and admirable desire for work or activity which leads many women to dislike the monotony of a comfortable but apparently useless and certainly uninteresting life. She also implores young women to give an amount of rational consideration to the question whether they will enter sisterhoods or not, which possibly very few of them have ever given to any subject whatever. What she does not say-very probably does not believe-is, that since, after all, what everyone, man or woman, really desires, is interest

of some kind for mind and soul, it is impossible to expect that if women's

interests are confined within very narrow limits, they will be diverted from the paths in which alone these interests can find satisfaction. Religious subjects are, after all, almost the only topics of what may be called general interest in which a whole mass of women are educated to feel any interest whatever. On these subjects they are encouraged to have very strong and very decided opinions. A lady, for example, who would never dream of expressing a judgment upon the most ordinary matter of English history is considered to be quite within her proper sphere when she pronounces Colenso's objections to the Mosaic authorship of Genesis to be totally unfounded, and Darwin's theory as to the origin of man palpably absurd; and this she may do in virtue,

we suppose, of her 'instincts,' without having read a page either of Colenso or Darwin. Can anyone wonder that persons educated to feel an exaggerated interest in religious topics, and in those topics only, should be frequently ready to join societies of which all the members are devoted to religious interests? The real cure for the desire to join sisterhoods is at bottom an extension of education. No woman would consent to narrow her life who had once realised how wide its interests may be made, or to cramp the development of her mind if she had once been trained to develop its powers to the utmost. Obedience, renunciation, sacrifice, all the negative virtues, if virtues they are to be called, form the monastic ideal. You can never combat this ideal except by training up the world to realise the much fairer ideal of liberty, truth, and justice.

THE

HE radical change which has taken place of late years in the ties which bind Great Britain to her dependencies has been at tended by circumstances which have aroused a considerable amount of public interest. They would, probably, have received a larger share of attention, had it not been for the engrossing nature of the business submitted for the consideration of Parliament during the last two or three sessions. But however that may be, there can be little doubt that the whole subject of the colonial connection will shortly come under review; and although the settlement of the question may seem to many at home a matter of secondary importance, we who have a juster appreciation of the nations which England has built up beyond the seas the boundless resources of which each province is possessed, and the inevitably great future which lies before nearly all-cannot view without sorrow and alarm the almost fatuous indifference with which our alliance is regarded, and our claims to be considered integral and inalienable portions of the empire tacitly ignored. With the exception of the various representatives of her Majesty, the last symbol of British power departed from the Australian shores when the troops were recently withdrawn, and the reign of a purely commercial as contra-distinguished from a national policy was fairly inaugurated. I do not mean to say that our loyalty to the throne or our love for our native land is made of such slight materials that they need to be nourished periodically by the sight of a scarlet uniform; but it can scarcely be considered wise to withdraw every 'outward and visible sign' of a connection

which it is considered worth while to maintain. This expression of opinion, I am aware, would probably be designated by the disciples of the rigid politico-economic school, who are, unfortunately, all powerful at present, as so much sentimental nonsense. So it may be, but sentiment has a large share in shaping the destinies of nations. It certainly cannot but be galling to the pride of these great and growing communities, which have sprung up as if by magic in the Southern Seas, to find that we are held in such slight regard by her Majesty's advisers that they do not think us worth the few pounds which would suffice to keep up a small garrison in each of our capital cities. The danger, however, to which this cheeseparing policy pointed has happily passed by. Anxious as Lord Granville appeared at one time to force the colonies into independence through sheer disgust at his parsimonious and coolly insulting proceedings, he has been obliged to draw in his horns and acknowledge his error by the English people, who are not yet ready to promote economy at the expense of honour, nor shirk those responsibilities which rightly appertain to a great nation. We are happy to think, too, that in this matter the truth of the old saying that blood is thicker than water' has been amply verified. Whatever doctrinaires may say or think, the healthy natural instinct which binds together in bonds of affection distant communities of the same descent has had, and will have, its full operation, and will withstand all the sophistry of those who wish to place human impulses under the control of mathematical reasoning, and who think to mea