was a time in which that ray had not existed, it would not in the slightest degree shake our conclusion that it owed its existence to the sun. There is therefore no necessary antagonism between the doctrine of a Divine creation and the doctrine of a world whose matter has no historical beginning (pp. 105, 106).

Modern researches in the science of heat, however, appear to make it certain that the universe has existed for only a finite time, and therefore must have been created at a definite epoch. Dean Reichel says this discovery has made atheism absurd. We think atheism was always so; but it certainly has greatly strengthened the argument for Theism as against Pantheism.

Although the philosophy which Herbert Spencer expounds does not attain to the Christian idea of God, and refrains from naming Him, yet this is not error, but only defect. Nature alone does not reveal God; the heavens declare the glory of God only to those who believe in God already ;—if a man is an atheist in the darkness of his own chamber and his own heart, he will not be able to see God in the light of the stars or the sun. Nature does not reveal God's holiness nor His love. It does reveal His eternal power and selfexistent Godhead.* Agnostics, as we have seen, recognize this, though the argument is obscured by their refusing to use the name of God. We believe that nature also proves His intelligence; we believe, though this is not admitted by the Agnostics of the present generation, that the old-fashioned 'argument from design,' which is identified with the name of Paley, is substantially untouched by the doctrine of Evolution, though no doubt it needs to be stated in a different form. But nature will carry us no farther. The relation of God to His intelligent creatures as not only Ruler, but Judge-not only Creator, but Father and his Personality, making Incarnation possible, can never be learned from nature, but are suggested in conscience, and are made fully known only by Revelation.

This brings us to that subject of the distinctive principles of Christianity, where Dr. Matheson is most at home. Perhaps the most original, and certainly the most beautiful, of his speculations is on the place of suffering in the evolution of the moral universe. He says of Man

For the first time in the evolutionary history of the world there appears a being who, without any dynamical compulsion either from without or from within, has the ability to choose the path of sacrifice; and to surrender his personal joy through the simple motive of impersonal

* Epistle to the Romans, i. 20.

love. . . . The development of the principle of Evolution is thus at the same time a development of the principle of suffering. He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow (pp. 246, 247).

This is a familiar truth, but let us hear Dr. Matheson's explanation and justification of it

It has often, indeed, been observed that the actual existence of animal happiness decreases as we ascend the ladder of being. The increase of knowledge is verily an increase of sorrow-we might almost say an evolution of sorrow. As we proceed from spontaneity to consciousness, and from consciousness to self-consciousness, we proceed from the absence to the presence of care. One of the poets of ancient Israel has very strikingly expressed this thought in his description of the comparative unrest of man in the order of creation he tells us that the sparrow has a house and the swallow a nest for herself, but that the human soul longs and faints for a place in which to dwell. The sentiment is very beautiful, and it is not less scientifically true. If happiness be the fitness of an object for its environment, then man is of all creatures the least in possession of happiness, for he is of all creatures the least in harmony with his environment. The fact of man's comparative unrest in creation has seemed to many a blot in the system of Providence. . . But it is when we turn to the law of development that we find the best vindication of the ways of Providence. There are two ways in which an object may be unfitted for its environment: it may be unfitted by defect, or it may be unfitted by excess. . . . The appearance of man upon the scene was manifestly an introduction of the latter case. .. It was inevitable that such a being should in process of time outgrow his environment. . . . Yet the very existence of a feeling of privation, which the environment of life cannot supply, is itself an infallible proof that the life has to some extent been enlarged and dignified-an unmistakable evidence that it holds within itself the prophetic anticipation of an environment more ample and more suited to its higher being. . . . What is meant by that utterance which is written on the very threshold of the temple of Christianity, Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted'? . . . It comes from the fact that the soul has obtained such an influx of life as to render the old condi. tions of life no longer endurable. . . . The sense of unfitness between the life and its environment must inevitably deepen with the enlargement of life itself; it will find its highest manifestation in man, and the most perfect illustration in the highest man. It will be felt increasingly in proportion as the ladder of Evolution is ascended; and he who shall prematurely reach the spiritual summit shall be of all others the least in harmony with his environment. The doctrine of Evolution coincides with the doctrine of the old faith in holding that the perfect man must be a man of sorrows (pp. 246, 251).

Perhaps this is the most intellectually satisfying answer yet given to the question of one who was herself a sufferer

Is it so, O Christ in Heaven, that the highest suffer most?

That the mark of rank in nature is capacity of pain,

And the anguish of the singer makes the sweetness of the strain ? *

*From Twilight Hours,' by Sarah Williams. Strahan, 1868.

Of course it is implied that the process of spiritual evolution is to be resumed and continued in a future state of being, where the life and its environment will be in harmony with each other. We must also remark, in reply to a possible objection, that the evolution spoken of in the passage we have quoted is not mere Darwinian evolution by natural selection. In so far as evolution has become conscious, moral, and spiritual, it has left the Darwinian process far behind. In merely natural evolution the weak and the unfortunate perish, but the glory of the moral and spiritual evolution to which, under the influence of Christ, we are attaining, is to protect and to benefit these for His sake. Herbert Spencer admits, or rather states as part of his system, that in the intellectual, moral, and social evolution of mankind-that is to say, in the process of civilization-the agency of natural selection, which effects the improvement only by killing off the unimproved, constantly tends to be superseded by conscious, moral, and spiritual agencies, which cause progress and produce improvement directly. Coming as it does from the greatest master of the Agnostic and purely physical philosophy, this admission, that in the progress of mankind moral agencies constantly tend to supersede physical ones, appears to us to have a profound moral and spiritual significance. We think this goes far to confirm what Dr. Matheson has written in the book before us to prove that the natural philosophy of which Evolution is the most characteristic doctrine, is not opposed to the teaching of Christianity, and may be made a basis for it.

JOSEPH JOHN MURPHY.

ART. VII.-The Work of the London School Board.

THE approach of the fifth election of the School Board for London suggests the suitability of a brief review of the work of that Board, and of a consideration of what should be the line of action of the electors when the time comes for choosing new members.

We need not dwell at length on the Education Act of 1870 and its various amending Acts. There are many points in which the law might be improved, but these are for the Legislature rather than for the Board. At the same time it is obvious that the action of Parliament will be, to a certain extent, modified by the composition and action of the various School Boards throughout the country; for instance, on such a ques

tion as that of free schools. But here it is chiefly sought to call attention to the work which the London School Board is doing under the Acts, as to which their duty is very largely ministerial, and subject at every turn to the control and authority of the Education Department.

The work of the School Board for London is primarily to provide sufficient school accommodation, then to give efficient instruction in the schools so provided; to enforce regular attendance in all efficient schools and to raise by precept the sums necessary to meet this expenditure; the other minor work of the School Board, such as industrial schools, &c., though it has attracted an undue amount of attention, is a very unimportant and merely incidental portion of its duties.

Perhaps no part of the work of the London School Board has led to more contention and to more attacks than the work of providing the necessary school accommodation; and this is natural, for every new board school excites the apprehensions and jealousy of the neighbouring voluntary schools, which fear that children will be withdrawn from them, by an absolute local excess of school provision, by under-selling them through charging lower fees, or by furnishing, at excessive cost, an education far better than they can aspire to give. But curiously enough the most intense opposition to further school provision was made in the earlier days of the Board, and specially in the second Board, whereas during the last six or seven years, when an enormous amount of new school provision has been projected, sanctioned, and completed, the cry of overbuilding has been largely silenced, and only heard in a few exceptional cases.

In March, 1872, the Statistical Committee reported to the School Board that the total deficiency was of 103,863 school places, and for this deficiency it was proposed to build 100,600 school places. This was based on the estimate that 454,783 school places were required for the child population of London.

From that time the School Board went on supplying additional accommodation from time to time, on local estimates of the necessity; but in 1878 it was determined that a simultaneous census of all the children of the class attending elementary schools in London should be taken at Easter, and that simultaneous scheduling has been continued annually from that date, thus enabling the Board to take stock more accurately of the growth of the metropolis, and of the need for further school accommodation.

It was found in 1878 that the total number of children

scheduled between 3 and 13 was 611,454, being 93,000 less than the number there should be found according to the Registrar-General's estimate for England and Wales. And the school places necessary were set down at 517,346, an increase of 62,563 places on the estimate of 1872. Meantime the existing accommodation at midsummer, 1878, consisted of not quite 279,000 places in voluntary schools and 186,000 places in board schools, a total of 465,000 school places, leaving a deficiency of 52,000 school places. The following table will show the yearly state of London as to children scheduled, places needed, and steps taken to supply the deficiency down to the present day :

With reference to this table it must be observed, first, that a new school takes on an average more than three years from its first projection to its opening. The apparent excess, therefore, is simply due in a large measure to schools projected in the suburbs to meet the growth of the population, and it is generally found that by the time these schools are open the apparent excess has disappeared. Secondly, the balances of excess and of deficiency all over London are delusive, as there are local excesses of school provision such as in the City, in Hampstead, and other places, which are not available for other parts of London in which there is a deficiency. Thirdly, the existing places in voluntary schools are all reckoned, though many of them are unused places in Roman Catholic, Jewish, German, or French schools which are only available in practice for a limited portion of the population, and if not used for them cannot be taken advantage of by the mass of the community. Again, all voluntary schools are reckoned as furnishing school places on the basis of 8ft. per child, though there is no doubt that even in a well-arranged school, 8ft. per child, especially for the elder children, is far too little, and still more so when computed on the average attendance and not on the number on the roll. And many of these voluntary schools are so ill arranged and so unhealthy that they ought barely to be reckoned at all, much less at their nominal accommodation. Thus to give a few illustrations of