CONTENTS OF VOLUME LIV. PAGE 1 Mr. Chamberlain and the Liberal Party. By the Rev J. Guinness Rogers The New Departure in Education. By James Runciman The Impartial Study of Politics. By Professor J. R. Seeley ‘Hymns, Ancient and Modern." By the Rev. Sir George W. Cox, Bart. The New National Insurance Laws of Germany. By Henry M. Felkin A Winter in Syria. By the Right Hon. Sir M. E. Grant Duff, G.C.S.I. NOVEMBER, 1888. DECEMBER, 1888. Mr. Sydney Buxton's "Finance and Politics." The Future of Food. By J. W. Cross. THE FUTURE OF RELIGION. Two WO questions will profoundly disturb the closing years of this century—the social question and the religious question. The social question may be summed up in the claims of the workingclasses for a larger share in the produce of labour. The religious question is the struggle between what is called the scientific spirit and religion. These two questions are in many ways bound up together. It was Christianity that spread abroad in the world the notion of equality, whence spring the equalizing aspirations now threatening the social order; it is also the influence of Christianity which now arrests the explosion of subversive forces, and its precepts, better understood and applied, will, by degrees, restore peace to the nations of the world. If one reflects on the future of civilized countries, one is led to propose to one's self this serious question: Is religion destined to survive the crisis it is now passing through, and, if it do not perish, what form will it take in the future? It is certain that it has never been subjected to a more severe ordeal than at the present time. Hostile winds blow on it from all sides, and threaten its destruction. Under the Roman Empire, religious belief was also greatly shaken. The old form of worship subsisted, and its rites were scrupulously practised, but the more enlightened of the population did not believe in them, and had recourse to one or other system of philosophy for rules of conduct, for consolation in affliction, and for the theory of human destiny. In the upper classes scepticism dominated, and they sought forgetfulness of moral and spiritual preOccupations in sensual pleasures. It appeared then as if religion were destined wholly to disappear, though the lower orders preserved their attachment to it. Their ignorance raised a barrier between them and their superiors. The peasantry, pagani, remained so long faithful to |