THE TRUE HISTORY OF JOSHUA DAVIDSON  STRAHAN AND CO. 56 , LUDGATE HILL , LONDON  1872  [ All Rights Reserved ]  LONDON : BRADBURY , EVANS , AND CO. , PRINTERS , WHITEFRIARS .  PREFACE .  SO many false reports have got about concerning the life and opinions of JOSHUA DAVIDSON , the Cornish carpenter , that I feel it to be a duty I owe his memory to tell the truth as I know it ; leaving the world to judge between what I , his nearest friend , knew of him , and what gossips and his enemies have falsely said .  As I am neither a gentleman nor a scholar I have not pretended to any graces of style ; and I have not tried to make an amusing story .  My little book is more a record of what JOSHUA said and thought than of what happened to him through others : that is , there is next to no dramatic interest in it .  Neither do I care to give my name .  Those who know JOSHUA will know who I am well enough ; and if I have said anything wrong they can come forward and challenge me .  And for the rest it does not signify .  I have written merely for truth 'ssake and love 's; and with this I leave my dear friend 'smemory to the verdict of all honest hearts .  JOHN .  CHAPTER I .  JOSHUA DAVIDSON was the only son of a village carpenter , born in the small hamlet of Trevalga on the North Cornwall coast , in the year 1835. His parents were poor but worthy people , who kept themselves very much together and had but little to do with the neighbours .  Folks blamed this for pride , and said they held themselves high because they were the decayed branches of an ancient family — some said dating from King Arthur 'sself .  Of course this was only an “ Arthurian legend , ” if I may call it so , that could not be verified ; for naturally down about Tintagel everything has to do with King Arthur — even the choughs .  Joshua sometimes spoke of it , but not from pride ; there never was a man freer from that failing than he ; rather from the belief he had in what a learned man would call hereditary transmission , but as we say , just “ in the blood , ” and a kind of idea that dawned on him , quite of late years , that there would be a revival of national glories , national names and leaders , under new aspects but from the ancient sources .  And if so , might he not count for something , direct descendant as he believed he was of the hero whose Castle had been one of his earliest playgrounds , and on whose Quoit he had spent many an hour of way-side dreaming ing ?  It was a fancy ; a harmless one ; so let it pass for just as much as it was worth .  There was nothing very remarkable about Joshua 'schildhood .  He was always a quiet , thoughtful boy , and from his earliest years noticeably pious .  His parents came of the Friends 'stock ; not of a strict kind themselves , for they joined in the Church services ; but the fact is just an indication of the kind of influences which helped to mould him in early youth .  He had a habit of asking why , and of reasoning out a principle , from quite a little lad ; which displeased people ; so that he did not get all the credit from the schoolmaster and the clergyman to which his diligence and good conduct entitled him .  They thought him troublesome , and some said he was self-conceited ; which he never was ; but the more he was in earnest the more he offended them .  He was never well looked on by the Vicar since a famous scene that took place in the church one Sunday after afternoon catechism .  He was then about fourteen years of age , and I have heard say he was a beautiful boy , with a face almost like a young woman 'sfor purity and spirituality .  He was so beautiful that some ladies and gentlemen staying at the Vicarage noticed him during church time , and said he looked like a boy-saint .  But he knew nothing about himself .  I question if he knew whether his hair was black like mine , or , as it was , a bright brown like ripe nuts in the sunshine .  After catechism was over he stood out before the rest , just in his rough country clothes as he vas , and said very respectfully to the Vicar , Mr. Grand : “ If you please sir , I would like to ask you a few questions .  ”  “ Certainly , my lad , what have you to say ?  ” said Mr. Grand rather shortly .  He did not seem over well pleased at the boy 'saddressing him ; but he could not well refuse to hear him because of the ladies and gentlemen with him , and especially Mr. Freeman , a very good old man who thought well of everybody , and let everybody do pretty much as they liked .  “ If we say , sir , that Jesus Christ was God , ” said Joshua , “ surely all that He said and did must be the real right ?  There cannot be a better way than His ?  ”  “ Surely not , my lad , ” Mr. Grand made answer ; “ what else have you been taught all your life ?  what else have you been saying in your catechism just now ?  ”  “ And His apostles and disciples , they showed the way too ?  ” said Joshua .  “ And they showed the way too , as you say ; and if you come up to half they taught you 'lldo well , Joshua .  ”  The Vicar laughed a little laugh as he said this ; but it was a laugh , Joshua 'smother said , that seemed to mean the same thing as a “ scat ” — our Cornish word for a blow — only the boy did n't seem to see it .  “ Yes ; but , sir , it is not of myself I am thinking , it is of the world , ” said Joshua .  “ If we are Christians , why do n't we live as Christians ?  ”  “ Ah indeed !  why do n't we !  ” said Mr. Grand .  “ Because of the wickedness of the human heart ; because of the world , the flesh , and the devil !  ”  “ Then , sir , if you feel this , why do n't you and all the clergy live like the apostles , and give what you have to the poor ?  ” cried Joshua , clasping his hands and making a step forward , the tears in his eyes .  “ Why , when you read that verse , ‘Whoso hath this world 'sgood , and seeth his brother have need , and shutteth up his compassion from him , how dwelleth the love of God in him ?  ’ do you live in a fine house , and have grand dinners , and let Peggy Bray nearly starve in that old mud hut of hers , and widow Tregellis there , with her six children , and no fire or clothing for them ?  I ca n't make it out , sir !  Christ was GOD ; and we are Christians ; yet we wo n't do as He ordered , though you tell us it is a sin that can never be forgiven if we dispute what the Bible says .  ”  “ And so it is , ” said Mr. Grand sternly .  “ Who has been putting these bad thoughts in to your head ?  ”  “ No one sir .  I have been thinking for myself .  Michael , out by Lion 'sDen , is called an infidel ; he calls himself one ; and you preached last Sunday that no infidel can be saved ; but Michael helped Peggy and her base child when the Orphan Fund people took away her pension , because , as you yourself told her , she was a bad woman , and it was encouraging wickedness ; and he worked early and late for widow Tregellis and her children , and shared with them all he had , going short for them many a time .  And I ca n't help thinking , sir , that Christ , who forgave all manner of sinners , would have helped Peggy with her base child , and that Michael , being an infidel and such a good man , is something like that second son in the Parable who said he would not do his Lord 'swill when he was ordered , but who went all the same — ”  “ And that your Vicar is like the first ?  ” interrupted Mr. Grand angrily .  “ Well , yes , sir , if you please , ” said Joshua quite modestly but very fervently .  There was a great stir among the ladies and gentlemen when Joshua said this ; and some laughed a little , under their breath because it was in church , and others lifted up their eyebrows , and said , “ What an extraordinary boy !  ” and whispered together ; but Mr. Grand was very angry , and said in a severe tone —  “ These sinners are beyond the knowledge of an ignorant lad like you , Joshua ; and I advise you , before you turn questioner and reformer , to learn a little humility and respect for your betters .  I consider you have done a very impertinent thing to-day , and I shall mark you for it !  ”  “ I did not wish to be impertinent , sir , ” said Joshua eagerly ; “ I want only to know the right of things from you , and to do as God has commanded , and Christ has shown us the way .  And as you are our clergyman , and this is the House of God , I thought it the best plan to ask .  I want only to know the truth ; and I cannot make it out !  ”  “ Hold your tongue , sir !  ” said Mr. Grand .  “ God has commanded you to obey your pastors and masters and all that are in authority over you ; so let us have no more of this folly .  Believe as you are taught , and do as you are told , and do n't set yourself up as an independent thinker in matters you understand no more than the ass you drive .  Go back to your place , sir , and another time think twice before you speak to your superiors .  ”  “ I meant no harm .  I meant only the truth and to hear the things of God , ” repeated Joshua sadly , as he took his seat among his companions ; who tittered .  When they all went out of church Mr. Grand was heard to say to Mr. Freeman : “ You will see , Freeman , that boy will go to the bad ; he will turn out a pestilent fellow , a freethinker and a democrat .  Oh , I know the breed , with their cant about truth and the right !  He richly deserved a flogging to-day if ever boy did ; to dare to take me to task in my own church !  ”  But Mr. Freeman said gently ; “ I do n't think he meant it for insolence .  I think the lad was in earnest , though of course he should not have spoken as he did .  ”  “ Earnest or not , he must be taught better manners for the future , ” said Mr. Grand .  And so it was that Joshua was not well looked on by the clergyman , who was his enemy , as one may say , ever after .  All this made a great talk at the time , and there are many who remember the whole thing at this present day ; as any one would find if they were to ask down at Trevalga ; but all that Joshua was ever heard to say of it was : “ I thought only of what was right in the sight of God ; I never thought of man at all .  ”  He did not however , repeat the experiment of asking inconvenient questions of his social superiors in public ; but it was noticed that after this he became more and more thoughtful , and more and more under the influence of a higher principle than lads of his age are usually troubled with .  And though always tender to his parents and respectful to the schoolmaster and minister , and the like of that , yet he was less guided by what might be called expediency in his conduct , and more than ever a stickler for the uncompromising truth , and the life as lived by Jesus Christ .  He was not uncomfortable to live with , his mother said ; quite the contrary ; no one ever saw him out of temper , and no one ever knew him do a bad thing ; but he somehow forced his parents to be always up to the mark , and even the neighbours were ashamed to talk loosely or say what they should n't before a lad whose whole thought , whose sole endeavour was , “ how to realise Christ .  ”  “ Mother , ” he once said , as he and Mrs. Davidson stood by the cottage door together , “ I mean when I grow up to live as our Lord and Saviour lived when He was on the earth .  For though he is God in Heaven he was only man here ; and what He did we too can do with His help and the Holy Spirit 's.  ”  “ He is our example , lad , ” said his mother reverently .  “ But I doubt lest you fall by over boldness .  ”  “ Then , if imitation is over bold , His life was a delusion , and He is not our example at all , ” said Joshua .  “ Which is a saying of the devil .  ”  CHAPTER II .  JOSHUA did not leave home early .  He wrought at his father 'sbench and was content to bide with his people .  But his spirit was not dead if his life was uneventful .  He gathered about him a few youths of his own age , and held with them prayer meetings and Bible readings , either at home in his father 'shouse , or in the fields when the throng was too great for the cottage .  It gave one a feeling as of old primitive times to be sitting there under the clear sky of a summer 'sevening , with the larks singing over head , and the swallows and sea birds flashing through the air , the voice of the waves as they beat up against Long Island subdued to a tender murmur that seemed to have a mystery somehow in it , and the young carpenter reading to us of Christ , and praying for the power to be like unto Him in life and heart ; praying with an earnestness , a realization , a very passion of entreaty — nay , I have never heard or seen aught like it since , in church or chapel either !  And then he himself was so unlike other boys .  He was so upright , so steadfast !  No one ever knew Joshua tell the shadow of a lie , or go back from his word , or play at pretence .  And he had such an odd way of coming right home to us .  He seemed to have felt all that we felt , and to have thought all our thoughts .  Young as he was , he was our leader even then .  We all looked for great things from him .  I should be laughed at if I said how high our expectations reached .  The youths that Joshua go together as his friends were as well-conditioned a set of lads as you could wish to see ; sober , industrious , chaste .  They were never in any trouble , and no one could say they had ever heard one of them give back a bad word , whatever the provocation , or say a loose one ; but the clergy of their several parishes scouted them , and stood at no evil to say of them .  For they were not church-goers ; and that is always an offence to the clergy of country parishes , who treat even the best of the Dissenters as little better than rogues , taking it partly as a personal affront and partly as a moral sin if their parishioners find greater comfort for their poor souls elsewhere where than under them .  However , for the matter of that , the lads were of no denomination ; and though they prayed much and often , it was neither at church nor chapel ; it was at their own houses or in the fields .  Their aim was to be thorough and like Christ .  They denounced the sin of luxury among professing Christians , and spared no one , lay or clerical : so did Christ , they said .  They set their faces against the priestly class altogether , and maintained that Christ as High Priest needed no subordinate or go-between , and that the modern parson was only the ancient Pharisee , whom Christ was never weary of denouncing .  They were anti-Sabbatarians too , as He had been , and held the doctrine of freedom in Christ throughout .  They believe implicitly every word of the Gospels , which they stood by as fuller of the Divine Life than the Epistles ; and they thought that the Example left the world was the one thing to follow and the one pattern to imitate .  Joshua 'sgreat hope and desire , confessed among us , was to bring back the world to the simplicity and broad humanity of Christ 'sacted life ; and as a believer in the divinity of that life , he could not understand how it had been let drop .  His one central point was the same now as that which had formerly troubled him — and Mr. Grand ; namely , how , if Christ was God , and His life given to us as our example , do we not follow it literally , in simple exactness , and as we find it set before us in the Gospels ?  And he believed that God would strengthen his hands , not only to enable him to realise this in his own person , but also to evangelise society , and bring it over to the Truth along with him .  He was waiting for a Sign ; and he believed it would be given him .  He was but a young man at this time , remember ; enthusiastic , with little or no scientific knowledge and with much of the logic of fanaticism ; unable to judge between the possible and the impossible , and putting the direct interposition of God above the natural law .  Wherefore , he accepted the text about faith removing mountains as literally true , and possible to be done .  Given the faith , the mountain would move .  And one evening he went down into the Rocky Valley , earnest to try conclusions with God 'spromise , and sure of proving it true .  He had fasted all day , and he had prayed all day ; not necessarily kneeling and repeating set forms , but in the whole attitude of his mind ; and in the twilight when work was over he went down with three of us , myself and two others , a certain that the truth of the Word would be made manifest , and that he could remove rocks by FAITH .  He prayed to God to grant us this manifestation — to redeem His promise .  He was full of faith : not a shadow of doubt chilled or slacked him .  As he stood there in the softening twilight , with his arms raised above his head and his face turned up to the sky , his countenance glowed as Moses 'of old .  He seemed inspired , transported beyond himself , beyond humanity .  He commanded the stone to move in God 'sname , and because Christ had promised : and we knelt beside him , not so much trembling as exalted , feeling in the very presence of the Divine , and that He would do unto us according to His word .  But the rock stood still ; and a stonecchat went and perched on it .  Another time he took up a viper in his hand , quoting the psalm , “ They shall take up serpents .  ” But the beast stung him , and he was ill for days after .  So , when he ate a handful of the berries of the black briony , and all but died of the poison .  Yet he had handled the viper and eaten the berries in faith as simple and sincere as when he had commanded the stone in the Rocky Valley to move .  When the doctor was called in , and Joshua told him , boylike , what he had done and why and in what spirit , he shook his head gravely , and told his mother he was mad and had better be looked after .  “ No , no , not mad , sir , because I believe the Bible , and have determined to lead a life after Christ 'sword and example , ” said Joshua .  “ Tut !  rubbish !  ” said the doctor .  “ What you 'vegot to do , my lad , is to plane your wood smooth and make your joists firm .  All this religious folly of yours has no sense in it .  I tell you it will upset your brain , and that you are mad now , and will be madder if you do n't pull up in time .  ”  “ So Festus said to St. Paul , sir ; but he was not mad , nor am I .  ”  “ But what do you want to do , jackass ?  ” said the doctor with a good-humoured kind of impatience .  “ What 'samiss with your poor foolish head that you ca n't take things easy ?  ”  “ I want to find out which is true , sir , ” answered Joshua : “ the Bible which ordains certain ways of life ; or the Christian world which disobeys them .  If Christ was God , there is but one way for us all .  He could not have left us an imperfect example to be mended here and there as we think best for the convenience of society .  He is God or man ; for , as things are , it is not God and man — Christ and Christians ; and I want to know which is the truth .  ”  “ Take my advice , ” said the doctor kindly ; “ put all these thoughts out of your head as quickly as you can .  Get some work to do in a new part of the country , fall in love with some nice girl , and marry as soon as you can make a home for her .  Give over reading the Bible for a time , and look up some pleasant stories and books of travel , and the like ; and leave off eating poison-berries and handling vipers .  That 'sthe only life for you , depend upon it ; and though I am no theologian , I venture to say , that working honestly in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call you , going to church , kneeling out of beershops , and living like your respectable neighbours , is a far better kind of thing than all this high-flown religion you are hankering after .  Depend upon it , our best religion is to do our duty , and to leave the care of our souls to those whose business it is to look after them .  ”  “ Thank you , sir ; you mean kindly , ” said Joshua .  “ But God has given me other thoughts , and I must obey them if I would not sin against the Holy Ghost .  ”  And the doctor said afterwards to Mr. Grand , that he was quite touched at the lad 'ssweetness and wrong-headedness combined , and would have given much to have been able to send him there and then to a lunatic asylum , where he might have been taken care of for a time and put to rights .  The failure of these trials of faith perplexed us all , and profoundly afflicted Joshua .  Not many men have gone through greater spiritual anguish , I should suppose , than he did at this time .  It was like the sudden darkening of the sun to him , and the doubt of himself which it brought was nearer madness than his simple faith had been .  He passed through a bad time ; when his soul went down into the Valley of the Shadow , if ever man 'sdid !  But in time he came out into the light again .  He knew his own sincerity , and his entire acceptance of the Word of God and of the Divinity of Christ ; and he could not think that God had met his prayer with a rebuff .  God , who knew the heart , would he felt sure have accepted his endeavour , had that endeavour been within the scope of His plan for humanity .  It was the first struggle between Faith and Law , Revelation and Nature , through which every inquiring mind has to pass ; and it was a bitter one .  He said nothing of these thoughts for many weeks .  He was not a youth who jumped to conclusions , but rather one who pondered well , and who let his thoughts ripen ; but at last he spoke one evening , when we were gathered together as usual , after work .  “ Friends , ” he said , “ it seems to me — indeed , I think we must all see it now — that His Word is not to be accepted literally , and not to be acted on in all its details .  The laws of Nature are supreme , and even faith cannot change them .  Can it be , ” he then said solemnly , “ that much of that Word is a parable ?  — that Christ was truly as he says of Himself , the corner stone , but not the whole building ?  — and that we have to carry on the work in His spirit , but in our own way , and not merely to try and repeat His acts ?  ”  I do not think we were prepared for such a speech .  We looked at one another uneasily , even the dimmest of us seeing something of the conclusions to which such a principle would lead us , and forecasting the rudderless wandering of souls that would ensue .  But Joshua would say no more .  He bade us good-night soon after , and it was long before we renewed the subject .  We all felt that he had broken dangerous ground ; for had we not set out with the determination to realise Christ in our lives , founded on our conviction of the literalness , the absolute uncompromising truth of every word in the Gospels ?  — a truth not to be explained away , or paraphrased in any manner of worldly wisdom or expediency ; but to be accepted crude , naked , entire as it is set down ?  It was one thing , or the other — Christ or society , the Bible or the world .  It could not be both ; but once admit the right of choice , of criticism , and where was then our standard ?  Yet again , what could we make of that text about faith , when we had proved it for ourselves and found it wanting ?  And if wrong in ever so small a matter , was not our theory of absolute infallibility at an end ?  But if absolute infallibility was at an end , was not that making Christ a mere temporary teacher , local and for the day — not universal and for all time ; and God a bit by bit worker ?  And if so , and even Gospel revelation is not final , where then exists the absolute necessity of acceptance ?  Yet , if we came to this conclusion — sorrowfullest of all !  — we must relinquish all anchorage everywhere , and do our best to piece together a theory of life for ourselves , glad if any of the broken fragments of faith might still serve us .  But we were far off , as yet , from any such conclusions ; and the Christ life , and the Gospel narrative , and the need laid on us all to follow in the Master 'ssteps , and believe lieve as He taught , and do as He did , were still the cardinal points of Joshua 'screed , and the object of his endeavour : and , with him , of ours .  CHAPTER III .  IT was after this that we noticed a certain restlessness in Joshua .  He seemed to feel the narrowness of his life down at such a place as Trevalga , where a man must work hard to keep body and soul together , and keep them very poorly when he has done his best ; and where he cannot get forward save by his own thoughts .  There is nothing for an energetic-minded young man to do there after his day 'swork is over .  No lectures , no mechanics 'institute , no library ; only a few books to be borrowed here and there by chance .  And Boscastle and Trevenna are no farther advanced ; nor was even Camelford in those days .  And then Camelford is full five miles away , across a wild whisht country that does not invite much night walking .  To be sure there are the cliffs and the sea , the waterfall up at Knighton 'sKieve , the rocks and the old ruins at Tintagel — King Arthur 'sCastle — which fill the imagination .  But imagination does very well for extreme youth , as looking back does for old age : a man coming to his prime wants action .  An opening however came in time , and Joshua had an offer to go up to London to follow his trade at a large house in the City ; which he accepted ; and got me a job as well , that I might be alongside of him .  For we were like brothers ; he , the elder , the better , the leader ; and I , the younger , the led .  And neither was afraid of work ; or , let me add , afraid for our work .  We were skilled in our trade so far as we could be without first-rate teaching , having made it a point of duty and honour both , that we should never give folks occasion to talk of us as babbling saunterers , who took to the Bible because they could not manage the plane and the saw .  A few days before he went , Joshua happened to be coming out of his father 'sworkshop just as Mr. Grand was passing , driving the neat pair-horse phaeton he had lately bought .  “ Well , Joshua , and how are you doing ?  ” said the parson , pulling up .  I dare say he was a good man when he was at home , but Mr. Grand was not fit to be a parish priest — at all events , not of such a place as Trevalga .  He might have made a fine general officer , or a dignitary in a field where he had nothing to do with the poor ; but among a lot of half-starving , uneducated creatures , such as you find in a by-kind of coast hamlet in Cornwall , he was worse than useless .  He had no love for the poor , and no pity : he always called them “ the common people , ” and spoke of them disdainfully , as if they were different creatures from gentry .  I question if he allowed us the same kind of souls ; and I do know that he denied equality of condition after death , and quoted the text of “ many mansions ” in proof of his theory of exclusion .  He was a man of good family himself , and his wife was the daughter of a bishop ; he was rich too , and looked to be made dean or bishop himself by time .  So you see , Trevalga was only a stopping-place with him , where he just put off the time the best way he could till he saw his way to better things ; and did n't care a rush for any one in the place .  However , he drew up at seeing Joshua , and asked him how he was ; and then said : “ And why have you not been to church lately , my man ?  ” as if Joshua had been in the habit of going , and had failed only of late .  This was Mr. Grand 'sway .  He never knew anything about his people .  That gave them to think , you see , that he held himself too high to notice what such poor wretches might be about .  God forgive me if I misjudge him !  “ Well , sir , ” said Joshua , “ I do n't go to church , you know .  ”  “ No ?  have you joined the chapel then ?  Is that your latest fad , Joshua ?  ”  “ No , sir ; neither church nor chapel , ” answered Joshua .  “ What !  a new light on your own account , hey ?  ” and he laughed as if he mocked him .  “ No sir , only a seeker .  ”  “ The old paths not good enough for you ?  — the light that has lightened the Gentiles these eighteen hundred years and more not pure enough for an unwashed Cornish lad , planing wood at a carpenter 'sbench and not able to speak two consecutive words of good English ?  ”  “ I must answer for my conscience to God , sir , ” said Joshua .  “ And your clergyman , appointed by God and the State to be your guide , what of him ?  Has he no authority in his own parish ?  ” cried Mr. Grand warmly .  “ Does it never strike you , my fine fellow , that in thinking for yourself , as you call it , you are flying in the face both of Divine ordinances and the laws of man , and that you are entering on the sin of schism on the one hand , and of rebellion on the other ?  ”  “ Look here , sir , ” said Joshua with earnestness , but quite respectfully ; “ if I speak plainly , I mean it for no offence ; but my heart burns within me and I must speak out .  I deny your appointment as a God-given leader of souls .  The Church is but the old priesthood as it existed in the days of our Lord , and is , as much as that was , the blind leading the blind .  There are good and kind gentlemen among you , but not Christians according to Christ .  I see no sacrifice of the world , no brotherhood with the poor — ”  “ The poor !  ” interrupted Mr. Grand disdainfully ; “ what would you have , you young fool ?  The poor have the laws of their country to protect them , and the Gospel preached to them for their salvation .  ”  “ Yes , and in preaching that — that is , in giving two full services on Sundays , and reading the marriage-service and the burial-service and the like of that when you are wanted — you discharge your conscience of all other obligations towards them , and think you have done enough .  You never seem to remember that when Christ preached the Gospel to the poor it was to make them equal with the rich .  Why , sir , the poor of our day are the lepers of Christ 's; and who among you , Christian priests , consorts with them ?  Who ranks the man above his station , or the soul above the man ?  ”  “ Now , we have come to it !  ” cried Mr. Grand .  “ I thought I should touch the secret spring at last !  And you would like us to associate with you as equals ?  — Is that it , Joshua ?  Gentlemen and common men hob-and-nob together , and no distinctions made ?  You to ride in our carriages , and perhaps marry our daughters ?  ”  He had his little girl of six or so in the phaeton with him ; a pretty little maid that used to go about dressed in blue velvet and a white feather in her hat .  “ That 'sjust it , sir .  You are gentlemen , as you say , but not the followers of Christ .  If you were , you would have no carriages to ride in , and your daughters would be what Martha and Mary and Lydia and Dorcas were , women of no station , bent only on serving God and the saints , and their title to ladyhood founded on their degrees of goodness .  ”  “ Going in for socialism , Joshua ?  ” said Mr. Grand , continuing his bantering tone .  “ A little radicalism , a little methodism , and a great deal of self-assurance — that seems to me to be about where you are !  ”  “ Going in for no isms at all , sir , ” said Joshua .  “ Only for the truth as it is in Christ !  ”  “ Shall I tell you what would be the very thing for you ?  ” said Mr. Grand quite quietly .  “ Yes , sir ; what ?  ” asked Joshua eagerly .  “ This whip across your shoulders !  — and , by George , if I were not a clergyman I would lay it there , with a will !  ” cried the parson , half rising from his seat .  No one had ever seen Joshua angry since he had grown up .  His temper was proverbially sweet , and his self-control was a marvel .  But this time he lost both .  It was not so much as a man , because of the insult to himself ; he would have borne that meekly enough ; but it was the feeling that the Sacred Thing had been mocked in him which drove him into sudden anger : an anger so violent and so sudden as to take the clergyman fairly aback .  “ God shall smite thee , thou whited wall !  ” he cried with vehemence .  “ Is this your boasted leadership of souls ?  — this your learned solving of difficulties ?  — this your fatherly guidance of your flock ?  ‘Feed my lambs’ — with what ?  with stones for bread — with insult for sincerity — with the gentleman 'sdisdain for the poor thought of the artisan — with class insolence for spiritual difficulties culties !  Of a surety , Christ has to come again to repeat the work which you priests and churches have destroyed and made of no effect , and to strip you of your ill-used power .  You are the gentleman , sir , and I am only a poor carpenter 'sson ; but I stand against you now — man against man — soul against soul — and I spurn you with a deeper and more solemn scorn than you have spurned me !  ” He lifted his hand as he said this , with a strange and passionate gesture , then turned himself about and went in ; and Mr. Grand drove off more his ill-wisher than before ; as perhaps was only natural .  And yet he rightly deserved all he had got .  This was one of the stories that got bruited abroad to Joshua 'sdiscredit .  Some said he had struck the parson — some that he had been monstrously and unjustifiably impertinent ; and the tale got bandied about as a kind of dramatic scarecrow — a kind of logical warning to young men given to think for themselves , as to what would become of them if they shook themselves free of authority .  “ You 'llbe as bad as Joshua to Parson Grand , ” was a phrase I myself heard more than once .  But here is the story just as it happened ; and I put it to my readers — was Joshua so very much to blame , all things considered — motives , feelings , spiritual disappointment , and that inner dignity of Man which overpowers all social differences when the fit moment comes ?  I can only say that never , to the last , could he be got to see that he had done wrong , and never , to the last , could I say it or see it either .  “ No , ” he used to say , “ some kinds of anger are righteous ; and this was of them .  ”  But Mr. Grand made old Davidson , Joshua 'sfather , suffer for his son ; for he took away his own custom from him , and did him what harm in the neighbourhood a gentleman 'sill-word can do a working man .  It was a bad thing for the old man .  The Trevalga schools were being built , and St. Juliot 'schurch was under repair , and Davidson , as the best workman thereabouts , would have been sure to have been head man at both jobs .  But Mr. Grand , he put his spoke in that wheel ; and one day when I took courage to speak and plead , all I got was a recommendation to mind my own business , and not interfere where I was not wanted .  And then as if in consideration — a kind of condescending consideration — for my being a “ canter , ” Mr. Grand wound up with saying that I must see he was justified according to the law of God .  When I challenged him hotly , I daresay intemperately , I daresay even impertinently , for his proof — for you see I was but a poor uneducated artisan , and he was a gentleman and a scholar — he laughed , and said he did not argue with carpenters 'lads ; and when I answered back , he ordered me out of the house , saying I was as pestilent a fellow as my friend ; — I replying angrily that I did not think the pestilence rested with Joshua .  Which ended the interview ; not without loss of temper and dignity on both sides , and no good done to anyone .  The night before we left for London Joshua had a kind of vision or waking dream , which he told me as we were on our way to Launceston , walking up the hill from Boscastle , while the omnibus toiled after us .  He was on the cliff by Long Island , when suddenly he seemed to be caught away to a wide plain , where many men were gathered .  In the centre of the plain was a hill , like Brown Willy out there by Camelford , and on this hill sat two kingly figures who ruled over the swarming multitudes below .  They sat together hand in hand , and he saw that they were in some mysterious manner inseparable .  The one was dressed as a high priest , and was Ecclesiastical Christianity ; the other as a king , and was Society ; and both were stern , forbidding , and oppressive .  The only persons to whom they showed favour were the well-dressed and the subservient — rich people dressed in gold and jewels , and the poor and undistinguished who were submissive and conforming ; who accepted all that the high priest taught without questioning the truth of any part , and who obeyed what the king ordained without even so much as a wish to resist .  These were called Believing Christians and Respectable Members of Society ; and , in consideration of their obedience , both the high priest and the king smiled on them , and spoke them fair .  Yet they were scarcely friendly to their adherents .  The one surrounded them with the most monstrous shapes of demons cast by magic lanterns and in every way unreal , of which they were in continual fear — GOD , whom yet they labelled “ Our Father , ” and the “ God of Love , ” the most terrible looking demon of all ; and the more they were afraid , and the more cruel they believed Our Father to be , the more Ecclesiastical Christianity was content .  The other bound them round and round with chains and swathing bands , till they were scarcely able to move or breathe .  And when they submitted to the stifling torture with a good grace — some of them even drawing the links tighter , and buckling up the thongs more home of their own accord , and all declaring the pattern of each particular bandage to have been sent down direct from heaven , and in no wise invented as an experiment by Society — then the king smiled on them kindly , and praised them with many flattering words ; and the poor atrophied wretches were quite content with the barren honour of their reward .  At the feet of these two rulers lay three figures cruelly bound and tortured .  They were Truth , bearing in her arms her young child Science , Freedom , and Humanity .  All three were stretched on racks made in the form of a cross , which gave in the eyes of the multitude a kind of symbolic sanction to their torture .  The two rulers were for ever trying to gag them , so that they should not speak ; but they could not quite succeed ; and every now and then they uttered words , loud and clear as the sound of a silver trumpet , that stirred the multitude below , and set men running hither and thither , some shaking themselves free of the bonds in which both Christianity and Society had bound them .  And when they spoke , the high priest and the king and their worshippers , all the well-dressed little kings and poorer conformists , buffeted them ; and would have killed them if they could .  Ill-treated as they were however , each tortured being had a small knot of adherents .  Round Truth , bearing her young child , Science , gathered men of imposing aspect — men of authority , of large brains , of temperate nature , of clear and candid thought .  There were some among them of such unquestionable grandeur , that even the mob of Believing Christians and Respectable Members of Society paid them a certain cold , deprecatory reverence as they passed ; while Ecclesiastical Christianity tried to reconcile their statements with his own creed , hiding his magic lantern painted with demons and that all-devouring hell with which he terrified the multitudes , when he spoke to them saying , “ See , there is no such great difference between us after all !  I do not contradict you .  Say what you will about the sun , and the age of the earth , the relations of the universe , and the gradual evolution of man , nothing that you advance disturbs me .  I only supplement you , and add the divine grace of spiritual truth , which is beyond your analysis .  You are right and I am right ; let us be friends and brothers .  ”  Society was less concerned about these philosophers .  They were for the most part swathed in his bands tight enough ; some for pre-occupation with other matters , some for expediency , some for dread of the unknown , and some for conviction ; and , for the rest , he let his twin-brother , the high priest , fight his battles as he best could .  Round the prostrate form of Freedom , scarred , gashed , bleeding , fettered , stood only a few .  Even the men of science were afraid of this huge giant , this son of the old gods , whose might no one had been able to calculate should he once arise in his strength .  All , save his own few lovers , chiefly of the poorest class , looked on him with dread , and prophesied evil days for the world should he ever get free of his bonds and the symbolic constraint of the cross .  But his small band of lovers , themselves either martyrs or victims , worked incessantly at his deliverance ; every now and then getting one link loosened here and another there , knowing that in time he would with their help shake himself free of all his chains , and stand up before the world , the great-hearted leader , the glad possession of every man and woman that breathes .  The third figure was the most deeply oppressed .  The face was hidden , but it was a lovely form , vilely clad in disfiguring garments , and bespattered with dirt that had been flung at it by the high priest and Society in concert .  On its nailed hands hung the weeping and the miserable ; and no one was rejected or bidden back .  The most miserable sinner that crawled — the thief , the murderer , the harlot — it gathered them all around it ; its own bound hands doing their checked best to free them from their stains .  Pleasure and pain and sin and virtue all rested equally on its large breast , and to all it gave full sympathy and understanding .  It condemned no one ; only it refused obedience to the high priest and the king .  As the dreamer looked , it slowly turned its face to the sky : and Joshua recognised in the soiled and vilified face of Humanity — the face of Christ .  Suddenly standing side by side with the magnificently attired pontiff , this Ecclesiastical Christianity , oppressor of Truth , slanderer of Humanity , tyrant of Freedom , ruler of the churches , and through them of the consciences of men ; side by side too , with his twin-brother Society , his fellow-tyrant and oppressor , was a man coarsely clad in rude garments , a man of uncultured speech , of unconventional manners , but of a noble aspect , whose face was the face of an enthusiast who believed in himself , and in whose self-reliance were his sole credentials .  His companions were the same as those who had gathered round the crucified form of Humanity .  All the poor and the miserable , the leprous , the sinners , the outcast , and those “ sinless Cains ” of history , those men who had lived to do good to their generation , and who had been stoned and crucified and blasphemed and cursed as their reward — they were all clustered closely round him .  He had nothing to do with that regal Society , that mitred Christianity .  He loudly proclaimed his antagonism to both , and drew to him only such as they spurned and rejected .  He pointed to the high priest : “ Look , ” he said to Joshua , “ what they have made of me ; of an unskilled artisan , no schoolman even of his day , and a vagrant preacher living by charity , they have made a king ; of a man , a god ; of a preacher of universal tolerance , the head of a persecuting religion ; of a life , a dogma ; of an example , a church .  Here am I , Jesus the Nazarene , the son of Joseph and Mary , as I lived on earth ; poor , unlearned , a plebeian , and a socialist , at war with the gentlemen and ladies of my society , the enemy of forms , of creeds , of the priestly class of respectabilities ; and there you see my modern travesty , this jewelled , ornate , exclusive Ecclesiastical Christianity , who is the ancient Pharisee revived .  To you , and to such as you , is given the task of bringing men back to the creed that I preached .  And if in securing the essence of the creed you forget the Founder , and call my doctrine by another name than mine , so be it .  The world wants the thing , not the label ; and Christ-likeness , not Ecclesiastical Christianity , is the best Saviour of men .  ”  As he said this the whole vision seemed to fade away , and the voice of Peggy Bray , whining and drunk , with Mr. Grand 'sdeep tones of angry disgust , broke the quiet evening stillness , and brought Joshua back to the realities of life .  “ Something seemed to bid me , ” he said , when he told me the story : “ I ran off over the down as fast as I could , and caught Peggy on the Tintagel Road .  She was drunk , dirty , and crying .  I took her by the hand .  ‘Peggy , woman , ’ I said , ‘dry your eyes , and come along with me.’ I spoke so sudden , I startled her , and so a little sobered her .  Then I took her by the arm and led her to mother 'scottage .  ‘Here , mother , ’ I said ; ‘here is a bit of Christ-work for you to do .  Take this poor creature , in her dirt and vileness as she is , and cleanse her .  You believe and know that God 'slove did that for the world : we are less pure than Christ , but we hold ourselves too fine to follow His example in that !  Love her , mother ; she is your sister — and maybe your love can heal her.’ Poor mother !  she did n't like the task .  She cried over it , and said that I put a burden on her she could not bear ; but I held to my point , ” said Joshua , with a glowing face ; “ and she yielded .  Peggy stayed in our house for over a month , and mother was ill-called for her work .  Not that she much cared , I fancy .  I do n't know , however , whether she did or not ; she never said much .  And though Peggy broke out again and went to the bad as before , yet a month 'sexperience of loving-kindness and cleanly living was something .  At all events , it was practical Christianity ; and if it did Peggy herself little or no good permanently , it was the right thing to do , and mother was so far benefited .  ”  CHAPTER IV .  IN London a new view of life opened to Joshua altogether .  The first thing that struck him in our workshop was the avowed infidelity of the workmen , with the indifference so many of them showed for any spiritual life at all .  Having apparently made up their minds that Christianity , as taught by the churches and practised in high places , is a humbug throughout , they seemed to have stopped there , not caring to go farther , nor to find a truer and better religion for themselves .  Distrust had penetrated to their inmost most souls , and God was abandoned because man had betrayed them .  Some of the better class among them had become Unitarians ; which gave them the most religion with the least dogma of all the sects that go by the name of Christian ; and some had transferred their whole passion and life of thought and intellectual energy to science , finding that consolation in nature which they could not get from revelation .  But very few were what is called religious men : that is , men believing in the Bible , going to church on Sundays , and reverencing the clergy as men placed over them by a higher power to guide their souls as they would .  The immense gulf existing between the church and the workmen also surprised the Cornish lad .  At home , though the cottagers and the clergy stood as wide as the poles apart , socially and intellectually , yet there was some kind of mutual knowledge and intercourse ; which , if it meant little for human wants and less for spiritual needs , still was intercourse and knowledge .  In London there was none ; or so little in proportion to the work to be done , it seemed almost as good as none .  The parish priest , save in some chiefly ritualistic exceptions , scarcely exists , and his place is supplied by all sorts of lieutenants , both authorised and irregular ; by Bible women , the City missionaries , Baptists , Roman Catholics , and the thousand and one odd , obscure sectaries of whom no one in good society ever heard the names — anything rather than the fashionable preacher who has invested all his store of godliness in his sermons , or the beneficed clergyman who thinks his East-end income dearly bought at the price of his East-end residence .  As he grew however , to understand the inner relations of life in the metropolis , he ceased to wonder at the wide-spread indifferentism of the working men ; and he came further to understand how religion , like other things , had followed that class antagonism felt by the artisan , to which the exclusiveness of caste cherished by the rich had given birth .  Christianity represents to the poor , not Christ tender to the sinful , visiting the leprous , the brother of publicans , at whose feet sat the harlots and were comforted , but the bishop in his palace and the parson in his grand house , the gentleman taking sides with God against the poor and oppressed , as an elder brother in the courts of heaven kicking the younger out of doors .  It is in fact , he used to say , antagonism not love ; Cain not Christ .  His religious experiences followed the natural course of such a mind as his , at once so earnest and so logical .  Attracted by the self-sacrificing lives of so many of the Ritualist party , he threw himself with ardour into the congregation of a noted City priest whose name I do not feel justified in giving , as I have not asked his consent .  If , however , he should read these pages he will remember Joshua Davidson well enough .  The Superior , as he was called , took to him greatly , and Joshua felt all the charm of close intercourse with a cultivated mind .  It was the first time this great good had been granted him , and it was like a new life to him .  At one time I thought he would have abandoned the independent line he had chosen and would have gone over to the High Church party ; but I do not think now that he was ever very near .  For , fascinated as he was with the earnestness and culture of the Superior and his colleagues , they failed to hold him mainly because of the largeness of their assertions , the smallness of their proofs , and the feeling he had that more lay behind their position than they acknowledged , and that they used their adherents as tools .  Added to which , their devotion to the Church rather than to Christianity at large , the absorption of the human example of Christ in His mystical character , the deification of the man as He lived , as if He had walked about like a God with a halo round His head , and was not a real man of the people of his time — of lowly birth , of confessed scientific ignorance , in antagonism to all the wealth and culture , and class-refinement and political economy of His day , fighting the cause of the poor against the rich , of the outcast against the aristocrats , just as any earnest democrat , any single-hearted communist , might be doing at the present day — all this repelled him from close union ; and all this made him feel that , great and good as the men themselves are , in the High Church movement was not his Shekinah .  Then again , their elaborate system of symbolism seemed to him puerile ; a playing with spiritual toys that had less reality than ingenuity ; and their central creed of sacrifice rather than commemoration in the Eucharist , backed by their assumption of a priesthood possessing unproved and mysterious powers , failed to convince him .  “ You have captivated my heart , ” he one day said to the Superior — “ you charm my tastes — you delight my imagination ; but you have not mastered my reason .  Fairly reasoned out I do not think your position is tenable .  You are Roman Catholics under another name ; irregulars claiming to be received on the footing of the acknowledged Body Guard ; you are infallible yet eclectic , and I cannot concede infallibility to eclecticism .  ”  “ But have you no reverence for the virtues of obedience and humility ?  ” asked the Superior .  “ Cannot you quell that questioning spirit of yours for the sake of the Church 'shonour , and to maintain a close front ?  Who can hope to do anything as an isolated unit against a host ?  Is not the whole secret of strength in organisation ?  ”  “ But I cannot become part of a system for expediency !  ” said Joshua mournfully .  “ Some men may , but it is not given to me to be able to stifle my own individual conscience for any considerations of party strength .  I have got it to do — to find out if practical Christianity is possible in the world , and to learn why , being Christians , we are not of Christ .  I know I should get something of the kind in such institutions as St. Vincent de Paul and the like , but I should have there so much in excess of the simple faith I love , that I cannot join them .  I must go on my way alone .  ”  “ And you will fail , ” said the Superior .  “ No one man can succeed in such a search as yours .  Guided by wise counsels and supported by authority you might come to satisfactory conclusions ; but adrift on the wide sea of dissent , and private opinion , and individual vidual interpretation , you are lost .  To the Church came the promise and the Spirit ; believe in the Church is your only ark. ”  “ If any , then the Roman Catholic at once , frankly and without reserve , ” said Joshua .  “ If the keys of life and death are held by a governing body , they are surely held within the Vatican ; and if I must enter into the virtue of unquestioning obedience , I would rather accept it in its totality .  Your ritualism seems to me like Canute and the waves .  ‘Thus far and no farther , ’ you say to private inquiry ; and ‘only so much and so much will we take of tradition and the vitality of past ages.’ Where is your standing-point ?  where your logical foothold ?  By what authority do you reject and accept at will ?  and by what measure sure do you set the length of the tether of reason ?  ”  “ If you are for the whole history of the Church you must read more closely than you have done , ” said the Superior a little evasively .  “ Forgive me , sir , ” continued Joshua earnestly ; “ I know you will , whatever I say ; for I am speaking now heart-open , man to man , and there is no question of discourtesy or of courtesy ; but with all my personal love and admiration for the professors of your creed , the creed itself is tainted with an insincerity I cannot digest .  And your position , standing as you do in the front , between yearning souls demanding the support of authority , the moral protection of infallibility , and the only Western Church that can give it logically , is , to my way of thinking , both dangerous to yourselves and cruel to the people .  Why do you not go over to Rome at once , sir , since your commission is self-appointed and irregular ?  ”  The Superior smiled gently .  “ I never argue , ” he said ; “ for I never found any good to come of it .  These questions are matters for spiritual reception , not dialectical discussion .  Use the appointed means and the grace of our Lord will find you .  ”  “ I have used them ; I do use them ; and yet I cannot get conviction , ” Joshua made answer , as sorrowfully as frankly .  “ Persevere !  ” said the Superior solemnly ; “ the promises of God never failed yet .  ”  Joshua did not speak .  He remembered his trial of the material promises and how they failed ; but he did not go into that with the Superior .  He had learnt to look back on the phase through which he had passed then as a boyish craze , sincere if you will , but a craze all the same .  Yet it had struck into him , and , perhaps unknown to himself how much , had helped greatly to modify his views .  It had broken down his belief in the literal exactness of the Scriptures , and the science-lectures he attended event the same way ; and when one 'schildlike confidence has received its first shock , it is long before anything like an analogous faith is reconstructed out of more mature knowledge .  At this time Joshua 'smind was like an unpiloted vessel .  He was beset with doubts , in which the only thing that kept its shape or place was the character of Christ .  For the rest , everything had failed him .  “ What , ” he said to me at this time , “ if the spiritual life is as little real as that act of faith in which we all failed ?  — if what we call conviction is only a state of the mind — a subjective condition owning no absolute without — a state as good and righteous for the Buddhist , for the Mohammedan , for the Hindoo , as for the various Christian denominations ?  We are all convinced .  Every creed has had its martyrs and enthusiasts and its well-trained , well-balanced professors , all as firmly convinced of its truth and of its being the one truth only , as the Superior is convinced of the absolute rightness of Anglicanism , as the Pope believes in the infallibility of his Church , and the whole Christian world in the impregnability of the Bible and its literal exactness .  I cannot focus God as these men are able to do ; and yet I feel it better to be rooted than wandering , as I am wandering now , unfixed and unnourished .  If you are rooted you can grow ; but floating , hovering , what is the soul but as one of those winged seeds carried about by the wind and fastened nowhere ?  ”  “ And yet , ” I answered , “ it is better to be unfastened from a fallacy than to be rooted on it .  There must be the moment of suspension when you are in progress .  To mount a ladder you must leave the rung on which you stand , and before you have your foot on the other it is nowhere — only in space .  The time of doubt is a time of pain , but it must be passed through if we would believe the better thing .  To have lost the old land-marks — left them behind us — is not necessarily to have lost the right way , Joshua !  ”  “ Ah !  but to have been so near to God as I once felt myself — to have lived in the light — and now to be so far off — to be in darkness and alone !  ” he sighed .  “ The darkest hour is that before dawn , ” was my reply .  “ Even at this moment God may be preparing you for conviction .  ”  I do not think that what is called the Evangelical school ever warmed Joshua as the Ritualists had done .  If the assumptions of the Church , clad in her venerable authority , seemed to him excessive , the assumptions of sectarianism , where each man is an independent pope and quite as bigoted as the real one , were more so .  And he could not come to believe that faith , which is a thing we cannot give ourselves , which will not come for the seeming , and which , when we have it , is as likely to lead us wrong as right — unless all beliefs are true alike ; which sectarianism does not admit — is the one sole means of salvation , without which we are lost .  It seemed to him a theory entangled in contradictions .  Faith is the gift of God ; no one can believe at will , but only as God gives him grace to do so ; but if you do not believe you are damned , and God punishes you for not having what He will not bestow .  Again , you have to distinguish between your various kinds of faith , and you must discern accurately which kind is sent by God and which by the devil .  No outward test can tell you : for the Calvinist holds the Romanist in deadly error ; the Romanist damns the heretic with no hope of mercy ; the Anglican talks about the deadly sin of dissent ; and not one of them all regards the Unitarian , the Jew , or the Pagan , as in any sort of possibility a child of God , or as aught but a confirmed , if unconscious , son of the devil .  What known test then can be applied to all these conflicting schools ?  To Joshua 'smind , none ; and the more he sought for the unerring truth — truth centralised , unified , focussed — the less , it seemed to him , he found it , and the more dignity and grandeur and charity he felt resided in the wide creed of Universalism .  During this time he did not neglect what I suppose may be called secular life .  He attended all such science-classes as he had time for ; and being naturally quick in study , he picked up a vast deal of knowledge in a very short time ; he interested himself in politics , in current social questions , specially those relating to labour and capital , and in the condition of the poor .  This , above all , was his main subject ; and perhaps more than any thing else , the fact that all the sects and denominations he had searched into accepted the class divisions of the present time as final , and thought that it was enough to preach the Gospel to the poor — that is , to preach to them submission and patience , and belief that Christ was God , and then leave them to their physical wretchedness and social degradation as to things that must be , and with which they must make themselves content — had turned him from communion with them , one and all .  It was such a comfortable way of getting rid of a difficulty , he used to say .  It was offering a potential heaven as a bribe to induce the starving and the down-trodden to be patient with their sufferings , and submissive to the unjust tyranny of circumstances .  It was shirking the question of Christian equality altogether , and nullifying the whole teaching and tendency of Christ 'slife .  So his time passed , and his thoughts went more and more into the rationalistic channel ; till at last one evening , when I and other of his friends were sitting with him , he made his declaration .  “ Friends , ” he said , “ I have at last cleared my mind and come to a Belief .  I have proved to myself the sole meaning of Christ ; it is Humanity .  I relinquish the miracles , the doctrine of the Atonement , the doctrine of the Divinity of Jesus , and the unelastic finality of His knowledge .  He was the product of His time ; and if He went beyond it in some things , He was only abreast of it in others .  His views of human life were oriental ; His images are drawn from the autocratic despotism of the great and the slavish submission of the humble , and there is never a word of reprobation of these conditions , as conditions , only of the individuals according to their desert .  He did His best to remedy that injustice , so far as there might be solace in thought , by proclaiming the spiritual equality of all men , and the greater value of worth than status ; but He left the social question where he found it — paying tribute even to Cæsar without reluctance — His mind not being ripe to accept the idea of a radical revolution , and His hands not strong enough to accomplish it , if even He had imagined it .  But neither He nor His disciples imagined more than the communism of their own sect ; they did not touch the throne of Cæsar , or the power of the hereditary irresponsible Lord .  Their communism never aimed at the equalization of classes throughout all society .  Hence , I cannot accept the beginning of Christian politics as final , but hold that we have to carry on the work under different forms .  The modern Christ would be a politician .  His aim would be to raise the whole platform of society , he would not try to make the poor contented with a lot in which they cannot be much better than savages or brutes .  He would work at the destruction of caste , which is the vice at the root of all our creeds and institutions .  He would not content himself with denouncing sin as merely spiritual evil ; he would go into its economic causes , and destroy the flower by cutting at the roots — poverty and ignorance .  He would accept the truths of science , and he would teach that a man saves his own soul best by helping his neighbour .  That , indeed , He did teach ; and that is the one solid foothold I have .  Friends , Christianity according to Christ is the creed of human progress , not that of resignation to the avoidable miseries of class ; it is the confession that society is elastic , and that no social arrangements are final ; that morals themselves are only experimental , and that no laws are divine — that is , absolute and unchangeable by circumstance .  It is the doctrine of evolution , of growth ; and just as Christ was the starting-point of a new era of theological thought , so is the present the starting-point of a new era of social fact .  Let us then strip our Christianity of all the mythology , the fetichism that has grown about it .  Let us abandon the idolatry with which we have obscured the meaning of the Life ; let us go back to the MAN , and carry on His work in its essential spirit in the direction suited to our times and social conditions .  Those of you who still cling to the mystical aspect of the creed , and who prefer to worship the God rather than imitate the Man , must here part company with me .  You know that , as a youth , I went deep into the life of prayer and faith ; as a man , I have come out into the upper air of action ; into the understanding that Christianity is not a creed as dogmatised by churches , but an organization having politics for its means and the equalization of classes as its end .  It is Communism .  Friends !  the doctrine trine I have chosen for myself is Christian Communism — and my aim will be , the Life after Christ in the service of humanity , without distinction of persons or morals .  The Man Jesus is my master , and by His example I will walk .  ”  CHAPTER V.  THESE then were the stages through which Joshua 'smind had passed ; first , literal acceptance of the Word , which as he went on he found to be against the laws of nature , and which therefore he relegated to the ignorance and exaggeration of the time in which it was written ; next , the authority of the Church with its increment of symbolism and tradition , by which the Humanity of Jesus is resolved into a mystical Appearance of Divinity , and his Life made no longer an example for men to follow but a dogma to be worshipped under emblems ; and now the frank acceptance of that Humanity alone , of the Man as a teacher , and of the Life as an example to be faithfully followed ; more especially in its tenderness to sinners and its brotherhood with the poor and outcast .  It was an abandonment of the dead mystical for the living real ; but I doubt if any single sect among all the hundreds into which the Christianity of Jesus is shredded , would have recognised him as a brother Christian , or have believed that Christ would do aught else to him in the Last Day but deny him as a “ thief and a robber .  ”  And now Joshua began to carry out his programme of life with more fixed lines .  He disdained nothing that could advance him in knowledge and intellectual strength : and I have often heard him say that the great marvels of science , such as were shown us in the lectures to working men that we attended , stirred his soul to religious feeling just like the passion of prayer .  And what he knew and valued for himself , that he was eager to impart to others .  And it was this which made him begin his “ night school , ” where he got together all who would come , and tried to interest them in some of the more taking “ fairy tales of science , ” as well as to teach them a few homely truths in the way of cleanliness , health , good cooking , and the like ; with interludes , so to speak , of lessons in morality ; winding up with a few simple prayers and an attempt to make his hearers feel the Presence and the Power of God .  All came to this meeting who would ; thieves and drunkards , lost women and gutter-children — no matter who : there was a kindly welcome for all ; no preaching at them for their sins ; no expression of spiritual or moral superiority , but just the great loving equality which does the degraded so much good , and gives them , if only for a moment , a flash of natural self-respect and the glorious sense of inclusion and brotherhood .  So that you see his life was not a meagre one ; and while he blessed others so far as his power went , he grew daily riper in his own thoughts , and fuller of knowledge , and more clear as to what he meant .  We were very poor all this time : that of course we understood we must be .  We were accustomed to it , and would have been more embarrassed with a lot of surplus money to spend , if we had had to spend it on ourselves , than we were to make the best of the little we possessed .  But we did look to live like decent men , and not like savages .  And we desired the same for our order .  Yet how was that possible in the conditions in which we found ourselves ?  And we were only two out of thousands .  We lodged in a stifling court , Church-court , where every room was filled as if cubic inches were gold , as indeed they are to London house-owners , if human life is but dross .  Children swarmed like rabbits in every house , and died like sheep with the rot .  It was sore to see them , poor little , pale , stunted , half-naked creatures , playing about the foul uncleansed pavement of the court , from the reeking gutter of which they picked up apple-parings , potato-peelings , fish-heads , and the like , which I have seen them many a time wipe on their rags and eat .  “ The bronchitis ” it was called that sent so many of them to the hospital and the graveyard , but the real word was poverty : poverty in everything ; in food , in clothing , in care , in lodging .  It made one 'sheart ache to see them — them and their parents too : the hopeless misery of their lives and the moral degradation following .  And it made one think with deep amazement of what the wisdom of that nation could be which leaves its riches to rot in the gutter for want of looking after and tending ; not to speak of the religion , which contents itself with building churches , and endowing foreign and colonial bishoprics , while its own immortal souls perish for lack of the Bread of Life squandered in baskets full on the altars to Baal !  Where to find the issue ?  How to fill up the great chasm between the rich and the poor , the virtuous and the vicious , the learned and the ignorant , the civilised and the brutish ?  “ There is only one way out of it , ” said a noted M.P. to Joshua one day , a great political economist and a strict Malthusian : “ abstinence ; if you wish to see the poor raised you must lighten the labour market by bringing fewer labourers into it .  That is the first necessity .  Leave off having children , live frugally , and put by money , and as many of you can , emigrate .  ”  “ Is this not omitting one important factor from your calculations , sir ?  ” said Joshua .  “ What do you mean ?  ” asked Mr. —  “ Merely the human nature there is in humanity , ” said Joshua .  “ Do you think the poor have no instincts ?  Is not a wife or a husband , a home where there are little children , sometimes a day 'spleasure , and the old family ties of father and mother and brothers and sisters — are not all these as dear to them as to the rich ?  Why should they be required to forego these that the rich not be called upon to share ?  ”  “ Would you destroy the existing order of society ?  ” said the M.P. sternly .  “ Destroy it ?  aye !  root and branch , if need be !  In no civilised community — not to speak of a Christian one , if Christianity meant anything — ought there to be such places as Belgrave-square and Church-court .  Keep your Belgrave-square by all means , but let the Church-courts be made at least wholesome and decent .  ”  “ You have the remedy in your own hands , ” said the M.P. “ So long as you will marry on nothing , spend all you get , and breed paupers , paupers you must remain , wallowing in filth and wretchedness .  The whole question is as much a matter of exact science as any other mathematical problem ; and you are to blame , Davidson , that you do not abandon your foolish rant about Christian charity and human rights , and apply yourself to the only way out of the difficulty — the science of Political Economy .  ”  Joshua smiled sadly .  “ Political Economy is not quite human enough for us , sir , ” he said .  “ It rests too on the basis of these very existing conditions of society that I do not care for ; I would rather see something more radical , going straight to the root of the evil .  ”  “ You are an enthusiast , ” said the M.P. coldly .  “ I tell you again , Political Economy does go to the root of the evil ; and the only thing that does .  ”  “ Then Christianity is wrong , ” said Joshua .  And the M.P. was silent .  He had never confessed himself on the subject of religion , and never would .  Not his most intimate friends knew what he believed or what he did not believe .  All that the world saw was that he went to church , made the orthodox bow at the Name in the Creed , and wrote books and pamphlets full of anti-Christian , hard-headed doctrines , without ever once alluding to religious dogma .  When he was called an infidel by his foes he hit out savagely , and said , “ Prove it .  ” And no man could : only every man felt that his whole teaching , from first to last , was absolutely devoid of all Christian feeling ; that pity , charity , warmth , and love were as far from him as heaven is from the earth ; and that he squared the accounts of humanity with the most sublime unconsciousness that such disturbing elements as passions or the sentiment of rights existed to upset his sums and prove his sociology for the present at least imperfect .  And the result of the conversation was , that Mr. — , the M.P. , who is a worthy man , upright and honourable , but practically one-sided because so utterly undisturbed by weakness or passions of any kind , and therefore unable to allow for them in another , denounced Joshua as a mischievous agitator and an ignorant fanatic , and warned those of us whom he knew to beware of him .  Yet Mr. — was as hearty as Joshua himself in his desire to see the regeneration of the working class : but as Joshua said , and I thought said well too ; “ He advocates our making ourselves so slender that we can slip through our bands and fetters , while I hold that we should make ourselves strong enough to force those who hold the fastenings to loosen them .  We both mean the same thing in the end , liberty and social advancement ; but we differ as to the means .  ”  Our court was one of just ordinary moral character , neither strictly respectable nor the reverse .  We had all sorts ; from the man who would harbour a pal in trouble and stow away swag not honestly come by till the police scent grew cold , to the decent workman doing his best to be respectable , and to keep his girls pure and his boys honest ; from the hard working-woman slaving night and day to make her two poor ends meet , to the idle slattern who was drunk half her time , and begged in the streets the other half ; from the fond mother with her pretty pride in Sunday frocks or bits of coloured bows , to the husbandless wench whose half-starved children , as naked as crows and nearly as black , were knocked about as if they were street dogs , and on the highway to the gallows through neglect ; from the virtuous spinster proud of her character and intolerant of looseness , to the poor flaunting girl who got her living in the streets , leastwise eked out her scanty wages from slopwork and the like by prostitution , more or less avowed .  One of these girls lived just opposite to us .  Her name was Mary Prinsep .  He had seen her at a music-hall we went to by times : for Joshua was not one of those prudes who are afraid of appearances pearances , and as he wanted to learn the world on all sides he went to all sorts of places and talked to all sorts of people — to these poor girls , as well as to any one else , and just as he would to any one else ; seeking to know the causes of things , and why they went on to the streets , and if they would keep out of them if they could , and so on .  Any one who knows anything about us working men as we are and not by fancy portraits , knows the profound contempt , and more , in which as a class we hold the professed prostitute , or the woman of our own homes who lets herself be seduced by a gentleman .  A base child — nay , more than one , and by different fathers too — if by men of our own class is not so unpardonable an offence .  We think it a pity , of course and we would rather not have it happen to our daughters and sisters ; but we get over it ; and the women not unfrequently marry , and marry well , when the thing has blown by a little .  But the poor , painted , bedizened wreck of womanhood who goes about the streets at the West-end , and sells herself to club-gentlemen and the like , is of all things that of which we have the most abhorrence .  I do n't pretend to explain it , and very likely it is only a matter of class jealousy when all is said and done ; but I mention it as a kind of introduction to what I have to say of Mary Prinsep .  I want it to be seen that it was no indifferentism to her trade which actuated Joshua ; but , on the contrary , that it was the large and generous humanity in him which made him able to accept even a streetwalker as his sister and his friend .  Mary was very young and very ignorant .  She had been brought up any how , and had been neglected and untaught from the beginning .  There was no romantic history attached to her .  She was no “ soiled dove ” whose feathers had once been white and shining ; she was the daughter of a dram-drinking charwoman , sent out to mind children when quite a child herself , brought up to no trade , and knowing nothing now but the streets and the music-halls .  But she had so much to the good , that she did not drink — at least not much — they all drink some ; and she had never been in trouble or locked up .  She was merely one of the abandoned — abandoned by society from her birth , and left to sink or swim in the foul streams of the metropolis as she best could .  She had been picked up by a gentleman a few years ago when she was about fifteen ; and he had taught her a good deal both of refinement and womanly ways .  She had been grateful to him at the time , but she scarcely loved him .  He was older than herself ; in fact , an old man comparatively ; married , with grown-up daughters and sons , a churchwarden , and a fine Christian gentleman living out at Bayswater in the very odour of class respectability .  But he had an eye for pretty girls ; and he had placed Mary in a little house at Bow , where , as I said , she had learned some things that were useful to her , being a girl of great natural quickness , and , if she had had fair play , of refined taste and good disposition .  In time he got tired of her .  Such men always do : for what was there in an ignorant girl like to keep him when he had had enough of her beauty ?  So , making her a handsome present — oh !  he behaved to her quite handsomely !  — he parted with her , and Mary had to turn out into the streets with a ruined character and a taste for good living .  She had learned however , during her two or three years of “ protection , ” to keep herself and her place tidy , and to do needlework after a fashion , but not sufficiently well to keep her .  Twelve hours a day of slop-work would not feed , clothe , and lodge her ; flower-selling would not ; but her youth and good looks would .  So she sold them , as all she had to sell ; and got bread of the devil 'sbaking because she could not get it any way else .  It was a bad life ; and she felt it was .  And it was a hard life too .  Those who see these girls only in their show-hours , dressed in the height of the fashion and queening it at night-houses and the like , have no idea of the wretchedness of the reality for the poorer kind ; for there are classes even here .  No wonder they take to drink , poor souls , suffering as they do — merciful Heaven , how they do suffer !  And how some of them loathe their lives as they go on , and go down , and wish they had died before they took up the trade !  Not that I say for an instant they go moaning about in eternal agonies of remorse or horror — human nature does not live at such high pressure ; but a lot of them do hate their business nevertheless , when the drink is not in them and their vanity is not flattered .  But — virtuous women will start at this — they look on themselves , like all the poor , as martyrs to society .  They think that , as men and things are , they must be ; that they make the virtuous wife , the chaste maiden , possible .  In their blind way they are vaguely conscious that the root of this fine flower of western civilisation , the rich monogamous Christian home , is planted in the filth of prostitution , and that to them is owing the “ self-restraint , ” so much admired in gentlemen who do not marry until they can afford to have a family , and so often offered as an example to us working men who love honestly one of our own sort , and do not as a rule go among these girls .  And the more thoughtful of them , conscious of their economic uses , resent the opprobrium dealt out to them , and pity themselves angrily as victims rather than criminals , the scapegoats not the polluters of society .  To be sure , they do not fret at the scorn of the great ladies whom they help to keep virtuous , for they have their compensations .  Fine ladies think that because they would not brush skirts with a prostitute , therefore no one will , and that all life shows them the same aspect of repulsion and horror .  It is nothing of the kind .  Decent women of the poorer class , consort with them , if not cordially yet humanely ; then they have friends of their own sort , and many of them ; and we know that a multitude of evil doers makes the evil done seem light to each .  The gentlemen who go with them are often kind and playful , and no more brutal than most men are to most woman outside the artificial restraints of society .  Sometimes , of course , they are vile enough ; but these are the men who would be brutal to their own lady-wives and daughters .  So that the poor Girls , as they call themselves , are not quite shut out from all human sympathy like the lepers of old — though indeed the circle is terribly narrowed !  And though many of them have fits of self-loathing and regret , others take matters more coolly , and look on their profession as a legitimate trade , as lawful as a publican 'swho sells the gin that robs a man 'sfamily of bread , and makes him perhaps a murderer as well as a madman .  Mary Prinsep was what the world calls lost — a bad girl — a castaway — but she might have been a saint for the natural virtue that was in her .  I have reason to speak well of her , for to her we owe the life of Joshua .  Soon after we came to know her , Joshua fell ill in our wretched lodgings where we lived and did for ourselves .  He did not like to go to the hospital , nor did I like it for him .  We both had a strong feeling against accepting the charity of society ; so I said he should not go , and that I would work harder for him and myself too .  But by my harder work — overtime , and the like — I was obliged to leave him for twelve hours and more at a stretch ; and Mary Prinsep , whose “ friend ” had just left her to go into a west-end “ dress-house , ” poor wench !  came over and nursed him , and kept him alive .  She it was who made up the fire , cooked his broths and messes , gave him his medicine , washed his clothes , and kept him clean and comfortable .  And when I came home from work , and found her there , with everything arranged so nicely and as only a woman can — Joshua 'sbed made and him settled for the night , and my own supper ready , and hot water for cleaning myself — for we had but one room between us — as one of the great family of the frail , the suffering , I could not feel anything like virtuous horror of her .  She was our sister — our sister of sorrow , of poverty , of affliction .  Gladly would Joshua have lifted her out of her life into something purer and nobler .  He was so poor himself with all he did and gave away , he had much ado to live on the leavings ; and as for marrying , that was as unlikely as murder !  So that he could neither put her into any way of business independently , nor give her a home that the world would not misjudge .  We did what we could , however .  I say we intentionally , as it makes the whole thing clear to those who are candid enough not to wilfully misunderstand .  We helped her all we could , and she helped us .  We worked for her food , while she gave us her time and did our chores .  And so in this way we made it unnecessary for her to continue her sad trade .  This got us the name of associating with bad women ; for it was said that we lived partly on her earnings ; and made us to be shyly looked on by our shopmates .  But Joshua 'smind was set to do the thing that is right ; and what men said against him , not understanding facts or motives , hurt him no more than that dogs should bark at shadows .  That which is , not that which seems , nor what folks choose to say , was what he lived for ; and Mary Prinsep was only a text and an occasion , like others .  And even when , one day , the men fairly hooted him down and hustled him into the street , and me along with him , because when he was chaffed savagely about “ his girl ” he answered them mildly enough ; “ Mates , did our great Master receive Mary Magdalene and all sinners , or did He not ?  And if He did — as you may find for yourselves — am I too pure to help them ?  ” — He only said to me , wiping the mud from his torn coat ; “ You are not afraid , John ?  You 'llgo on the right way , whatever comes of it ?  ” — and not a word even of impatience against those who had misused us , calling us “ canters , ” “ white-livered hypocrites , ” and worse words still .  No , I was not afraid , I said .  I would stand shoulder to shoulder with him through it all ; and where he led , there would I follow , if we sunk up to our very necks in the slough of the world 'sreproach .  And we were not far off .  CHAPTER VI .  AMONG the rest of the doubtful characters with which our court abounded , was one Joe Traill , who had been in prison many a time for petty larceny and the like , but who , the last time he was had up , was convicted of burglary .  However , he was out now on a ticket-of-leave , and fast going the way to get it cancelled , with a new score to the back of it .  Respectability and the police were bent on elbowing poor Joe into the mire , which was only too much his natural element .  He had been crotch deep in the mud from the earliest ; a gutter child , in whose very blood ran the hereditary taint ; a thief , the son of thieves , the grandson of thieves ; a thing of mud from head to heel , inside and out ; dirty , dissipated , shiftless , and with no more moral principle in him than he had of education .  His only morality indeed , was his cleverness in being able to break the law without being found out ; and when he was most down on his luck , he was disposed to think most meanly of himself .  He was one of those who stink in the nostrils of cleanly , civilised society , and who are its shame and secret sore .  And cleanly , civilised society , not being able to make a good job of him as he stood , thrust him out of its sight , and tried to forget him behind the prison grating .  There was no place for Joe in this great world of ours .  There was no work for him to do , because he could do none requiring any of the deftness got by practice ; and if by chance he got a job anywhere , he lost it mysteriously in a day or so ; and , double as he might , he found the dogs of detection too sharp for him .  So he said to Joshua one night in his blithe way — poor Joe !  he had not fibre enough in him to take even his misfortunes seriously !  — that there was nothing for him but the old line along with his pals , making a running fight of it , now up now down , as his luck went .  “ We 'llsee if something better wo n't turn up , ” said Joshua .  “ Burglary 'sa bad trade , Joe .  ”  “ Only one I 'vegot at my fingers 'ends , governor , ” laughed the thief ; “ and starvation is a worse go than quod .  ”  “ Well , till you 'velearned a better , share with us , ” said Joshua .  “ If we have no widow 'scruse — ” “ Blowed if I know what that means !  ” put in Joe , “ — we have what does as well , ” continued Joshua ; “ and it 'sbetter for four to go short than for one to be rationed at the hulks .  ”  So now our little home circle was increased by one more ; and we had added a burglar to the prostitute .  “ It is what Christ would have done , ” said Joshua , when he was remonstrated with .  “ He lived among the lepers whom no man would touch , and whose very presence was pollution .  But he healed some among them ; and so will I these .  ”  But the police did not see it .  They do not understand practical Christianity in Scotland-yard , save as a generous kind of fad or pastime in a swell with more money than brains , and a lot of idle time on his hands .  And then they laugh at it behind backs , and ridicule him for being green .  But when it came to a poor journeyman carpenter housing a jail-bird , and consorting with bad characters daily , they had but one conclusion to come to — the carpenter was no better than his company .  Wherefore , “ from information received , ” Joshua and I , who had long been looked on askance by our mates as I said , were called up before the master , and had our dismissal from the shop .  His other men , he said , objected to us ; and , by the Lord , from all he had been told he did not wonder at it !  And he gave us a caution — kindly meant , if harshly said — not to keep such company as we did , if we wanted to be respected by master or mate , and to remember that “ birds of a feather flock together , ” and if we chose such birds as he was told we did , we could look for nothing else than to be classed along , with them .  On which he paid us our week 'swages , and we found ourselves next thing to penniless in the wilds of London .  But Joshua was disturbed .  He told both Joe and Mary , on the evening , we were discharged , that he would not forsake them come what might .  It should still be share and share alike ; only let them be of good courage and a clean conscience , and things would go well .  How , nobody knew ; but this is what he said , and promised .  And Mary , looking up into his face with a look that made her like an angel — for indeed she was a pretty girl !  — said , “ If I have to starve , Joshua , I 'llnever go back to the streets again !  ” and poor Joe , first laughing , and then sobbing like a woman , said , “ You 'dhave done better to have left me to my little game , governor !  I 'vebrought you bad luck , you see ; and I 'mno good , you see , when you 'vedone your best !  ”  “ Do n't carry on like that , Joe , ” said Joshua .  “ I shall have done something , if I save you both : and I will .  ”  I could not help thinking that this “ I will , ” said with such manly courage , such deep religious firmness , was a greater trial of faith than the boyish exaltation in the Rocky Valley so many years ago ; and that to save from the streets a girl who was not able to do anything , else that the world wants , and to put honesty and a clean name into such a poor conscienceless waif as Joe , were greater deeds than to cause a stone to move out of its place in the Name of the Lord .  And all of us , his old Cornish friends who had come up to be near him , and some new friends he had made in London , swore we would never desert him , but would stand by him to the last .  For we looked that he should do something in his day , as I said before — something to advance the world , and towards the solution of the great questions perplexing society at this moment .  True , we were a poor , moneyless lot — all working men , no science among us , no political power , no social status , no political-economy knowledge of the right sort ; a handful of enthusiasts set out to realise Christ at one time by faith , and now by works .  But we had a soul among us — a leader in whom we believed ; and we trusted in ourselves .  And one by one we all got to work again somehow , and floated in the shallow but sufficient water to which we were accustomed .  But it was a hard time ; and , bit by bit , everything we possessed passed over the pawnbroker 'scounter , even to our tools .  And when they went , it seemed as if all hope had gone .  But when we were at the worst , and things looked as though they had given over all thought of mending — for we were getting whersh and weak for want of food — Joshua received a letter enclosing a five-pound note , “ from a friend .  ” We never knew where it came from , and there was no clue by which we could guess .  It was very certain that neither had Mary earned it in the old way , nor had Joe stolen it ; but who sent it remained for ever a mystery .  I always thought that Mary had had a hand in it , and I think so to this day .  I believe , though I do n't know , that she borrowed it of an artist to whom she went to sit for a model ; for she did not make any secret of this ; and that she paid it back honestly when we were in funds again .  However that might be , it came at the very nick of time ; and immediately after , both Joshua and I got the offer of a job at Messrs. — in Curtain-road , which we could not have accepted had we not had money wherewith to take our tools out of pawn .  It was a sharp pinch while it lasted , but , God be praised , it passed without doing real harm to any one .  And Joe and Mary still bided with us .  By this time Joshua 'sstrange doings in Church-court had got known to some of the gentlemen who practise philanthropy .  His night-school for those who would learn either prayer or secular knowledge of him — his charity dinners , when he could get enough money together to give them — his goodness to the children , to the lost , to the starving — all this had got wind ; and just as he wanted help most , the news of his doings brought him the famous Mr. C .  anxious to know how a man like him could carry on charities , apparently on nothing , which cost himself a large income to keep up .  He was a good man , this Mr. C .  ; up to his lights , none better ; but his lights were few and feeble , and he drew a line hard and fast where Joshua did not .  His line was respectability .  He distinctly refused to aid those who were hopeless paupers , or those of bad repute .  He would help respectable poverty , and help it substantially though always afraid of overdoing it and inducing a habit of reliance on extraneous aid ; but beasted , shiftless , drunken poverty — poverty that lied and whined and drank gin and got relief from half-a-dozen charities at once — poverty that was its own cause and that never stirred a hand to help itself — for this he had no pity , and to it gave no help .  “ To encourage pauperism ” and “ to offer a premium for vice ” were the two things of which he was most afraid in his dealings with the poor ; but he held out a helping hand gladly enough to the “ deserving ” and the “ respectable ” poor , and he was a warm patron of reformatories , refuges for soiled doves , and the like half-punitive places of retreat for sinful flesh , where they might repent of their evil past , and be made fit to take up a lowly place among the respectable members of society once more ; — but always , in a sense , a place of humiliation and penitent degradation .  As he came along at this time , and was handy , and as Mary 'sfriend , the artist , had gone to Italy for some months , and she had no other patron of the like kind , so was out of work as one may say , to him Joshua told the whole story of both her and Joe Traill ; also how he had kept them in the best way he could from the evil to which society had driven them in former days : he did not add the rider of how society had revenged itself on him as on them , and cast us all out in company .  But now , he said , he was desirous of placing them both where their temptation would be towards honesty ; where it would be better for them to be honest , and where falling back would plunge them into misery as well as shame .  Mr. C .  listened attentively .  He was evidently touched by the high spirit of the man , but he greatly questioned the wisdom of his ways .  For Joe , he said , he scarcely knew what to propose .  He shrank from committing himself to the patronage of a convicted thief , who was not a boy to be sent to a reformatory and disciplined into good ways .  It was out of his line altogether , and he had no machinery at hand for him .  Had he been a broken-down , sober , honest , and industrious chap , who had failed through sickness or any blameless misfortune , he would then have given him a lift willingly ; but a man who had slipped into the dark ways of crime , who had got into houses at dead of night with a crowbar bar and a jimmy — he shook his head , and said he did not like to have anything to do with him .  It was offering a premium to vice to take trouble to place this unsatisfactory waif and stray , when hundreds of honest men , who had never gone wrong , were perishing for want of aid .  “ As for that , ” said Joshua , “ I ask nothing , whether this man sinned or his parents ; or neither .  He is in want ; and , to my way of thinking , his need is his claim , not his respectability .  ”  Mr. C .  looked dubious .  “ We must draw a line , ” he said .  “ Christ drew it at the Pharisee , ” answered Joshua simply .  “ To make no difference between vice and virtue — to treat the one as tenderly as the other — would soon be to obliterate all difference between them in minds as well as in practice , ” said Mr. C .  “ And what , then , do we say to the parable of the men who worked unequally , and who got the same wages at the end ?  ” said Joshua .  “ My good fellow , ” cried Mr. C .  a little impatiently , “ it would be perfectly impossible to try and live strictly after the Bible .  ‘Counsels of perfection’ are all very well , but they are impracticable for the world as it is .  ”  “ I have to find that out yet , ” said Joshua .  “ Then you will not help me with poor Joe ?  ”  “ Do not say I will not — I cannot , ” said Mr. C .  “ How can I ask my poor , honest pensioners , or my respectable workmen , to receive a convicted thief among them ?  ”  “ ‘And forgive us our trespasses , as we forgive them that trespass against us.’ Does that mean only petty , personal affronts , sir , or does it mean trespass against our patience , our hope , our faith , our principles ?  Does it not mean the everlasting Love , whether we call it charity or humanity , by which we would raise the fallen and help the weak ?  ”  “ As for that , ” retorted Mr. C .  , “ there are texts enough against consorting with evil .  You cannot touch pitch , Mr. Davidson , without being defiled .  ”  “ Christ lodged in the house of Simon the leper .  Mary Magdalene loved Him , and He her .  I want no other example , sir .  What the Master did , His followers and disciples may imitate !  ”  “ You are an enthusiast , ” said Mr. C .  just as the M.P. had said before him , and both meant that enthusiasm was ridiculous ; “ and some day these fine theories of yours will come to a cruel downfall .  You will be harbouring some ruffian who will turn against you , and perhaps cut your throat for your pains .  I tell you I know these people — they are incorrigible .  ”  “ Then what would you do with them , Mr. C .  ?  ”  “ You can do nothing with them !  ” he answered .  “ But they cannot be let to starve , ” said Joshua earnestly .  “ I do not see that it is any one 'sduty to feed them , when they will not feed themselves save by vice and crime , ” answered the philanthropist .  “ I would make all rogues , male and female , show some tangible signs of repentance and good living before I would help them or countenance them in any way .  Believe me , your universal charity is the most disastrous line you could adopt .  ”  “ Then Christ was wrong , ” said Joshua : “ and so we have come round to our starting-point again .  So this is decided — you will not give Joe Traill a trial ?  ”  “ No ; I would rather not have anything to do with him , ” said Mr. C .  , who had talked himself cross and determined .  “ I should never be easy with the fellow .  I have no fancy for burglars , and I do n't believe in their reformation .  All my men are picked men ; not a loose character among them .  I could not ask them to admit a convicted thief as one of them ; and if I did , my own influence over them would be gone .  It is because they know I would never pardon the smallest dereliction of duty that I keep them up to the mark : with what face then could I place among them such an unsatisfactory companion as your protégé ?  The thing would be impossible !  With the woman perhaps I can do something .  If she is young , she cannot be wholly hardened , and I could get her into the — Street Reformatory .  ”  “ No , ” said Joshua , “ I will not consent to her going into a reformatory .  It is not that she needs .  In a reformatory she will be continually reminded of what I want her to forget .  She would be made morbid by incessant thought about herself ; taught to say penitential psalms when she should be set to learn some skilled employment that would be of use to her in the future .  I wish her to be kept virtuous through self-respect , and by being placed beyond the need of going back to such a life .  I do not want her to be weakened by a self-torturing contrition for the past , or terrified at the prospect of eternal damnation for the future .  I want her to be lifted up , not cast down .  ”  “ You surely do not make light of repentance !  ” cried Mr. C .  warmly .  “ What other assurance have we that she will not fail again ?  ”  “ The best assurance , sir , will be to teach her self-respect and the means of gaining an honest living , ” said Joshua .  “ You are a rank materialist , Davidson !  ” said Mr. C .  “ I cannot stand your referring sin to mere social conditions .  Are there no such things as sins in high places ?  Poverty and ignorance are not the only roots of human wickedness !  ”  “ About the strongest though , ” Joshua answered .  “ And the sins of luxury — ”  “ Make Mary Prinsep and her class , ” interrupted Joshua .  “ See here , sir , what are you asked to do ?  — to repair , in a very small way , the evil done by society .  You represent society at this moment , and you are asked to undo a portion of your own bad work .  ”  “ Pshaw !  ” said Mr. C .  “ I have not made Mary bad !  ”  He was an individual kind of man , and never saw beyond his own point .  “ Well , ” he then said , “ I will do what I can for the young woman .  My wife wants an under-servant ; I will put the case to her ; but I rely on you , ” he added , old habits of thought coming back to steady him in this sudden taking-off of his feet , as it were ; “ I rely on you that I am dealing with a woman substantially repentant , and so far purified ; and that she will not corrupt the rest .  For it is a dangerous experiment at the best .  ”  “ She is good enough for any one to trust and to love , ” said Joshua warmly ; and Mr. C .  looked at him with a sharp , suspicious glance that quite changed his face .  “ And I thank you heartily , ” Joshua went on to say , unconscious that he had caused the slightest discomfort in the gentleman 'smind ; “ you have done a good work to-day — a work of brotherhood with Christ .  ”  “ I trust I am not doing wrong , ” said Mr. C .  doubtfully ; “ but it is against my principles , you know .  I cannot help feeling that I am rewarding a woman , because she has lived a life of infamy , with a position which hundreds of virtuous girls would be rejoiced to fill .  ”  “ If your economic conscience troubles you , sir , lay it at rest by the answer our Lord made to Himself , when He asked the Canaanitish woman if it were meet to cast the children 'sbread to dogs .  ”  “ For all that , I cannot think it a duty to reward vice , ” persisted Mr. C .  “ And in doing what I am doing now , I wish it to be distinctly understood that it is at your instance .  ”  “ Which means that you refuse the responsibility ?  ”  “ It does .  ”  “ So be it , sir .  I accept it .  ”  “ That will not help me much if the thing turns out ill , ” said Mr. C .  in a discomposed voice .  “ Oh , sir , have faith in human nature !  ” said Joshua earnestly — so earnestly that I believe the tears were in his eyes : they were in his voice .  “ It is because I know human nature that I have so little faith in it , ” said Mr. C .  “ Every one wants the help of strict moral principle to enable him to steer clear of the temptations so sure to beset him , and these fallen brothers and sisters are but leaky vessels at the best .  If human nature was the grand thing you say it is , Mr. Davidson , of what need the coming of Christ ?  You are a Christian .  ”  “ And it is because Christ lived that I believe in humanity , ” said Joshua .  On which , Mr. C .  said , with a smile , “ There is no doing anything with you , Mr. Davidson ; you are as unconvinceable as a woman , ” shook hands with him kindly enough , and left .  A day or two after this he came again , with many kind words , much regret and I doubt not genuine , but — his wife was as afraid of our poor Mary as he had been of Joe Traill , and refused to take her into her house .  If the other servants should ever know ; if Mary had imposed on Joshua , and was really of no good ; if she should corrupt the younger ones ; and then the repute of their house — the duty they owed their neighbours to keep up a stainless appearance .  No , there could be no home for her there ; but the lady sent a note , full of that half-censorious advice a virtuous woman knows so well how to administer to her fallen sisters — a parcel of tracts ( Mary could not read ) , and a renewal of her husband 'soffer to get her in the — Street Reformatory .  After which perhaps some kind Christian person would be found to take her , she said , endorsed as she would then be by the Lady Superintendent of the establishment .  For without casting any slur on Mr. Davidson , she went on to say , the voucher of only a young man was not quite satisfactory to a mistress who cared for the honour of her house .  And perhaps she was right .  But then Joshua was not like other young men ; only she did not know this and Christians think it no sin to suspect all manner of evil of each other , unless they know for certain it does not exist .  Well , it was a disappointment ; but Joshua was not a man to be cast down for one blow or a dozen ; so he set to work to find some one who would take her , knowing her past life ; and at last lighted on a good , tender-hearted , but timid woman , who received her in full faith so far as the girl herself was concerned , but on the express condition that no one should ever know what she had been , and that there was to be no kind of communication between her and ourselves , or any of her old Church-court friends .  To these terms Joshua advised her to submit ; so with many tears poor Mary went away to take the place of kitchen-maid in a family living at a little distance from London , where , as the lady said , she had a chance now of redeeming herself , and a new start given her altogether .  “ And if I do well , Joshua , you will be pleased with me ?  ” she said as she was bidding us good-by .  “ More than pleased , Mary , ” he said .  “ You know that I trust you , and that we both love you — John here as well as I .  ”  Mary 'sface was as white as the frill round her neck .  “ Joshua !  ” she said , looking up at him , “ give me one kiss before I go ; it will help me .  ”  Joshua bent his noble head and kissed her tenderly .  “ God be with you , sister !  ” he said , and his voice a little failed him .  “ And I will say the prayer you taught me , Joshua , regularly morning and evening when I ai n't too sleepy , ” said Mary simply .  “ And you will pray for me too ?  ”  “ As I do ever , my girl , ” said Joshua : “ and I believe that God hears us !  ”  “ Then He will hear me !  ” said Mary with a kindling face ; “ and I 'llpray harder nor ever for the thing I want !  ”  Poor Mary !  prayer was naught but a “ charm ” to her as yet .  She had never heard one , never offered one , till Joshua taught her the Lord 'sPrayer , with a childish hymn and a childish “ God bless all I love ” at the end ; and she repeated what she had been taught as a young child might ; believing that it did good because she had been told so by one she loved and trusted , but realising nothing more .  Or if she realised anything , it was that she prayed to Joshua , grown very great and strong , and a long way off .  CHAPTER VII .  JOSHUA 'Slife of work and endeavour brought with it no reward of praise or popularity .  It suffered the fate of all unsectarianism , and made him to be as one man in the midst of foes .  Had he been a converted sinner like Ned Wright , preaching the doctrine of the Atonement , and Purification by the blood of Jesus , he would have had all the evangelical force at his back , pivoted as they are on the same hub , whatever their special denomination .  Had he been a Ritualist , working under organised authority , he would have then been a pipe , so to speak , through which flowed the power of the Church ; and this much more had he been a Roman Catholic , and of any Order .  Had he been a Unitarian , a stickler for respectability and that the poor he relieved should be deserving , like Mr. C .  and the charity-organisation people ; or a Political Economist , giving lectures on the law of supply and demand , and the immorality of large families ; had he belonged to any body whatsoever , he would have been supported .  But , as he was — a man working on the Christ plan , and that alone ; dealing with Humanity by pity and love and tolerance — he was as stranger and an alien .  The whole force of home missionaries of every denomination discountenanced him as an infidel , unsound , irregular ; and in whatsoever they disagreed among themselves , they all agreed in their ill estimate of him .  The police were suspicious of him , and set him down as a doubtful character who harboured criminals ; and the very people to whom he gave himself — accustomed as they were to be scouted by every man and woman pretending to clean hands and a pure life , or , at the best , to be preached at and urged to remorse — misdoubted him .  The absence of abhorrence in his dealings with them looked to some like a trap , to others like encouragement .  And yet they could scarcely think that !  — with all his endeavours to put them into a better way of life , and to lift them out of the necessity of crime by giving them the alternative of honesty made possible , because giving them work sufficient for their daily wants .  But he soon began to see that the utmost he , or a dozen such as he , could do , was only palliative and temporary .  He might save one out of a thousand , and he would do well if he did that ; but what is one out of a thousand cleansed and set in a safe place , to the nine hundred and ninety-nine left in their filth at the bottom of the abyss ?  Things have gone too far in England now for private charities to be of much use .  What is wanted is a thorough reorganisation of society , so that the distribution of wealth and knowledge shall not be so partial as it is .  And this the working classes must get for themselves by combination .  So Joshua turned to class-organisation as something more hopeful than private charity .  But do not let me be misunderstood : he gave up nothing of his own personal doings among the poor , and never wearied nor relaxed laxed .  If he looked to organisation as the framework , he did not disdain charity as the enrichment , in the plan of social amelioration .  When the International Working Men 'sAssociation was formed , he joined it as one of its first members ; indeed he mainly helped to establish it .  It had been one of his articles of belief long before any one else had spoken , that the time had passed for distinct and exclusive nationalities ; and that if working men would free themselves from the fetters in which capital and caste have bound them , it must be by their own class-fraternisation all over the world .  If labour is to make its own terms with capital , it must be by the coercive strength of the labourer .  To wait for the free gift of the capitalist , through his recognition of human duties , as some among the Comtists urge , would be to wait for the millennium .  Yet the International represented no class enmity with him .  He had no dream of barricades and high places taken by assault .  It was to him , as to his other English brethren , an organisation to strengthen the hands of the labourer everywhere , but not to plunge society into a bloody war .  It was a means of class-advancement by peaceable and noble efforts , not of universal destruction by violent or ignoble ones .  The middle classes laugh at the artisan 'sdesire to rise in the world , and speak of his close combinations as traitorous and rebellious to the existing order of things .  Some think it an irreligious contempt of a caste-Providence ; forgetting that their own order was made by the same determination termination , and that the recognition of the merchant class , and its reception on anything like terms of equality , was forced from the nobles by men who had at heart the great truth of human equality and human rights ; at least , down to that part of the social page where their own names stood .  Below that paragraph where the artisan , the prolétaire , is to be found , society has as yet drawn a line not to be overpassed .  Demand rights and recognition for working men , and even the Liberal press gives forth an uncertain sound , and the bugbear of “ Jack Cade ” scares such stout hearts as the Pall Mall and the Spectator .  Even they , kings of liberal thought as they are in so many ways , will not see that the modern artisan stands in the same relation to capital as that in which the ancient serf stood to the land .  The serf tilled the land , which was his master 's, for his master .  If he could get for himself a living about as good as that of the hogs he forested , he had all that was considered necessary for a serf .  And the artisan represents the serf of olden days , while capital is the foretime baron .  The baron gave his villein disdainful leave to live because his life was so far requisite to his own needs ; but individually he had neither rights nor value .  So the capitalist .  He gives his workmen only enough to keep them in efficient working order — or not that , if the labour market is so thronged that he can replace without trouble those who fall out .  His “ hands ” are the mere parts of his machinery .  The sum of them work to a certain result ; but he is indifferent whether the work is done with sorrow and insufficiency ciency to the individual or not .  His sole business is to see that the sum get through their labours creditably — to the firm .  It is good that the work of the world should be done at all costs , even by compulsory labour if need be ; but it is better that it should be done by men regarded as men , individual , and having inalienable rights , rather than as so many portions of a vitalised mechanism .  And a fair and proportionate share in the profits of the business is part of the rights of the labourer .  I am speaking now as if of myself ; but I am only repeating what I have heard my friend say scores of times .  Of course Joshua was an earnest Republican .  Who that thinks for himself can fail to be one ?  Not that he would have put aside the reigning sovereign by force , but he held that the times were ripening for the old monarchical symbol and aristocratic exclusiveness to disappear now that the reality had gone ; and that the Republic would come about of itself , thanks , in great part , to the monarch who has shown the people that royalty can be dispensed with and yet things go none the worse for the withdrawal , and to the aristocracy which has abandoned its traditions of blood and birth , and has sold so many of its blue ribands to money .  But he was not a Republican of the kind to rave and vilify , and accuse all the higher classes of wilful misdoing , of vice and selfishness , and what not .  He never abused anybody , but judged things by their merits , and gave to the professors of any doctrine , no matter what , at least the credit of sincerity .  By which he made many enemies , and was constantly accused of lukewarmness to the cause , and of looking two ways at once .  “ You cannot beat me off my point , ” he used to say , when he had put into an uproar a little inner and anonymous society which some few of us had formed together , by vindicating some man whose measures he also had attacked .  “ I say that we do our cause harm , and degrade ourselves , by all these childish personalities .  What we have to do is , to defend our own principles , and show the fallacy or the evil of our opponents '; but we must fight fair , and give that credit for honesty of purpose which we demand for ourselves .  If we are thieves and brigands to the governing classes , and they are thieves and brigands to us , what kind of understanding can we ever come to together ?  ”  But L .  , one of those fanatical men who cannot accept the doctrine of an opponent 'svirtue , and whose zeal takes the form of the wildest abuse on all who differ from him , got up and denounced Joshua as an “ inherent traitor , ” and advised his expulsion from the society .  And more than one of the council looked grave , and as if they were giving their minds to it , had not Félix Pyat risen , and given his opinion so forcibly that the malcontents were silenced .  Even the thin-voiced little man who had denounced Joshua , and whose ambition was to be regarded as the Robespierre of the society — incorruptible , and not to be moved by fear or favour — even he had to give in .  For Félix was our giant ; and Félix loved Joshua .  This was at the time when he was over here as an exile , chiefly reading at the British Museum , and when he gained the love and admiration of all who knew him by the dignity , the devotion , the earnestness of his life .  I mention this somewhat by the way , as my feeble protest against the terms in which it is the fashion to speak of one of the finest fellows that ever lived — as fine in his own way as Delescluze , our martyr , — and by those who ought to know better and who do know better ; but who think it politic to swim with the stream , and to curse those whom fortune has not blessed .  From his position in the International , and in other political societies — which abound among the working men more than the careless upper ten have the least idea of — Joshua was thrown into intimate relations with a great many men , more or less notorious torious .  He saw all sorts — the frothy ranter whose motive power was vanity ; the reckless agitator whose conscience was obscured , and , so long as there was something stirring , cared nothing what stirred or who suffered ; the bilious antagonist to all men superior to himself , and who would pull down those above to his own level but never raise up to it those who lay below ; the honest patriot willing to sink all minor differences in the one great aim , and ready to sacrifice himself for the good of his cause and class , but blind as a beetle as to the best methods : he saw them all , and he accepted all with that broad human love , that large and liberal allowance of differences , which made the charm of his character .  “ They are good elements , ” he used to say , “ badly mixed .  Does not some one say that dirt is only matter in the wrong place ?  So these men as leaders would be pernicious enough , but a wise administration could utilise them .  When Fourier could find an economic value in the diablotin , we need not fear for any one .  ”  It was on this point that Joshua and the chief man of the London branch split .  He was a purist , and gave his mind to tares .  But Joshua thought more of the wheat , and believed in the larger power of good than of evil .  He opposed all that narrow partisanship which goes only in one groove , and said , as the skilled workmen have lately said , that he would work with any one , no matter what his rank or politics , who would aid him and his order in securing the essentials for knowledge and decency of living .  The more rabid and ultra of the politicians attacked him , as he had been attacked in the other society ; but he held on in his own broad , generous way .  And though he never got the ear of the International , because he was so truly liberal , he had some little influence ; and what influence he had ennobled their councils as they have never been ennobled since .  This is not speaking against the society .