substance it must always be, whatever the particular topic), "Since it is admitted by us both that no theory can work without friction, we are bound to accept the one which, as a theory, presents none at all; for it stands selfjustified, to begin with."

But

The purely speculative difficulties in the way of establishing either an Atheistic or Pantheistic scheme of ethics we hold to be insurmountable. that is not now the question. We may be quite certain that if after a generation or two Atheists and Pantheists in the main were found as good citizens as Sandemanians or Muggletonians, no penal or disqualifying law against them would last while its ink was drying. But it is at least safe to say that Fakredeen himself never conceived a wilder "combination" than that under which an Atheist may be at once a citizen with all rights, and an outlaw with not even the most primitive; while a man who goes to make laws in a country with a legally-established Christian creed is not to be asked if he believes in a God.

H

AFTER HOSPITAL SUNDAY.

OSPITAL SUNDAY for the year 1878 has come and gone. The collections were as good as ever, if not better; there was the usual touch of "sensation" about what may be called the penny-a-lining of the subject, and a faint revival of the question whether hospitals are of purely Christian origin as institutions. On the whole, the result was, we believe, satisfactory. At least, one does not know how to avoid some such commonplace without seeming ungracious, even though there were eddies of discussion about the application of the money, even quite apart from the painful question raised by the anti-vivisectionist party. It is more blessed to give than to receive; and the right hospital in the right place is a most beneficent institution, and one which we are all interested in helping. But Hospital Sunday did bring with it an unpleasant thought or two.

Of course, we mean an unpleasant thought that might be spared; for raging epidemics and broken bones can never be pleasant things to think about, even in the way of friendly treatment. But who that read it can ever forget Mr. William Gilbert's article on the economic administration of the hospitals in London, which appeared in the CONTEMPORARY REVIEW lately? Nor did that exhaust, or pretend to exhaust, the unpleasant topics that gather round the hospital question, especially in London and other large cities.

It is well known-though not so well as it should be, for even so wellinformed a man as Sir Arthur Helps had to be coached upon the point-it is well known, we say, that the larger the number of sick or wounded people who are gathered together, the greater the danger, or, rather, the larger the inevitable mischief arising from what we hope it will not be very wrong to call diffused or atmospheric pyæmia, and other causes of a similar or parallel nature. It stands to reason-very melancholy reason-that it is so, even leaving out the obvious effects upon the nerves of one patient from his being a close and unwilling witness of the sufferings of another. Whoever has had to spend much time in the wards of hospitals, especially in the accident wards, well knows what awful weight there is in that one point only. Imagine a sensitive person, struck down by a street accident, and brought insensible into an accident ward. Perhaps the first thing he sees, on recovering consciousness, is some other man who has just cut his own head nearly off, shouldered in, dripping with blood, and laid down on a bed. A bell rings; students come hurrying and clattering in from every corner of the building; and the housesurgeon in charge lectures them on this fine "case" within ten feet of the previous comer's pillow. In an hour or two a third patient-in the next bed, we will say gives signs of approaching death; a few groans, perhaps a scream or two; a long, horrible rattle in the throat-and then the nurses, quick as a

* March, 1878.

sharp bargain, close up the screen round that bed, and it is promptly emptied of its ghastly burden, in order that it may be ready for a new comer. Suddenly loud shrieks, evidently from a young and uncontrolled sufferer, are heard in the distance. What is that? What is that? Oh, a little girl, mortally scalded, just on the way to another ward. But we forbear-and this is only a fraction of the subject. The proportion of deaths in hospital is in appalling excess of the deaths at home, when similar cases are compared. The same rule applies even to childbirth. And the larger the number of cases under the same roof, the more marked is the sequence.

Within the last few years London has witnessed the removal of St. Thomas's hospital to a new site. One is not bound to debate the aesthetic question; but everybody will allow that that is an imposing pile of buildings on the Albert Embankment, and probably some hundreds of the contributors to the General Hospital Fund the other Sunday have felt a pride in looking at them. Well, leaving to Mr. Gilbert the outrageous costliness of the beds in that building, which is to the general public an esoteric matter, the dullest observer cannot help fancying that the hospital was a great deal better placed where it was in the old days; that its removal has been a source of very serious expense and inconvenience to the poor of South London; and, above all, that it would have been infinitely better to establish three or four smaller hospitals on different and appropriate sites, than to set up that monster building there.

And at this point we reach a very grave question. Medical cliques will, of course, have a great deal to say about the peculiar value of large hospitals as schools of pathology; but the answer is obvious that any advance in pathological "science," so called, which is made at the expense of individual wellbeing, is in the nature of things a sham or self-cancelling advance: unless we are prepared to sacrifice much more than "a cock to Esculapius," and produce the line of argument up to human sacrifices in form. No; we do not believe in the "advance:" what we want is the diminution of human suffering, and the extirpation of the causes of it; not the multiplication of wonderful "cases to the praise and glory of pathological specialists. In a word, we want hospitals mainly for cases of accident; we want them widely distributed; and we want them small. Pathological science will take care of itself: the medical profession abounds with men as good as they are able, and we will appeal to them against the gelid specialists who would as soon cut up a man as a frog to "demonstrate" something totally insignificant except to a batrachoid brain. It is with profound suspicion, and, on the whole, dislike, that some of us have seen the recent proposals for "middle-class hospitals"-institutions to which the patients would resort of their own choice when ill, instead of being nursed at home. There may be some present necessities which institutions of that kind would meet; there is no telling to what the monstrous crossdevelopments of crowded city life, false pride, decay of domestic simplicity, and increasing specialization of various kinds may point as a temporary thing. But it seems pretty clear that hospitals ought, in any state of things approaching the normal, to be confined to wards for the reception of cases of accident and retreats for incurables. The latter it is impossible to exclude (as a little examination will satisfy the inquirer); and of course there must be infirmaries in workhouses. But what do we want with hospitals for "middle-class patients?" The real want of the middle classes, and of all classes, is what Helps long ago suggested in "Realmah." One of the charming dialogues that filled up the pauses of the story was upon house-building, and it was universally allowed by the guests, including even the irreconcilable Ellesmere, that the prize suggestion was Mrs. Milverton's. This was simply a spare room situated "off" from the dwelling, and built in a plain way. The ordinary use would be that of a play-room for the children, who might then make what noise they pleased; but it would be of unspeakable value as an infirmary, in case of need; and it might be otherwise applied. Now how much of "Utopian" is there about this? The writer of these lines knew of a case in a country town where

a clergyman, staying with his wife at a friend's house, took small-pox of a tramp. There was no sending the poor man home: but the house of the host was full of blooming sons and daughters. At the bottom of the garden was a large summer-house. It was in shaky order, but a little energy made it habitable in a very few hours-say three, or less-and even got into it two beds, a table, a chair, and other conveniences. The weather was moderate, but a fireplace was set up in an adjoining small shed; and there the good clergyman was nursed by his wife through his illness. The case was isolated with complete success, and the room thus set up never afterwards went out of use,—it was found so great an addition to the comfort of the home.

And now we would ask the candid reader who has come thus far with us to call to mind what he has noticed in the back gardens of working men and tradesmen in the suburbs of large towns. A working man, or indeed any man who can drive a nail, handle a brush, and afford to buy planks, and joists, and paint, felt roofing, &c., will find it pleasant work to run up a room, twelve feet square, which may be used to live in upon any emergency-the thing is quite common. Or ten pounds, or perhaps less, will purchase such a room-weathertight, glazed, moving on wheels, and every way adaptable: it being very easy to introduce a small fire-place when necessary. Where, then, is the wide and pressing need of "middle-class" hospitals? The truth is, this movement-for part of which something may be said—is, in the main, only one more wave of a general current which one would fain hope is profoundly repulsive to the better heart of the people. There is a general rush out of doors-anywhere, anywhere, away from home-to clubs, to common dining-halls, to common curing-halls, to the excitements and perils of life in regiments, wherever possible. And a very ugly rush it is. Some money may be saved, for a time, by doing this, that, and the other in common; but the money saved goes in luxury elsewhere, and the whirligig speedily brings its revenges. A living writer, of acknowledged power and of extraordinary moral intensity, has, in that portion of a recent work of his entitled "A New Age," claimed for even the poorest that they should be treated, when sick, at their own homes, not trundled off to hospitals. To the selfish and cynical this will sound like claiming that they should go in silver slippers, and drink out of goblets of Venetian glass. And it would, indeed, imply that Dr. Wilkinson's "dukes" in society should cultivate their " ducal Saharas," and expend their revenues more justly. But this would pay them. Dr. Wilkinson calculates that, if we were all to set ourselves to the task of administering the social revenues wisely and well, in the fear of God and love of man, we should have handsome returns for our labour in ten years:

"It is a powerful religious position that charity does not consist in almsgiving, but in each man and woman shunning evils as sins against the Lord, and doing the duties of his or her calling, sincerely, justly, and faithfully.

"When we consider the matter closely, the charity that consists in doing the duties of one's calling in the world, sincerely, justly, and faithfully, leaves nothing outside it in the way of good works.

"The present faith of mankind is that wealth belongs to the possessor in such a sense that he has full right to spend it all upon himself. If he has a thousand a-year he has this right, and if he has half a million a-year he has this right. Only in the latter event he will be largely solicited by 'charities,' and be expected to build churches and endow wings of hospitals. This claim upon him is no religious but a social claim; it knocks at no door that opens to his whole conscience, but appeals to him to fill his respectable position according to his great estate as a humane man of society.

"Among things to come is an answer to the question, what is the calling of wealth,

On Human Science, Good and Evil, and its Works; and on Divine Revelation and its Works and Sciences. By James John Garth Wilkinson, Author of "The Human Body, and its Connection with Man." London: James Spiers.

There is, we willingly admit, a special value in hospital treatment for the uneducated classes in certain cases: they are kept under strict sanitary discipline. The family doctor cannot prevent foolish and irregular doings on the part of his patient at home. But a hospital patient, just on the turn from rheumatic fever, cannot rush out and dig in his shirt-sleeves, at sundown.

and of great wealth, in the commonwealth? Wealth here is neither a doctor, nor a lawyer, nor a clergyman, nor a soldier, nor a tradesman, nor a writer. It is a totally indeterminate calling; an unconstituted profession. Its determination is the point to be settled. "It is a dukedom; a chieftainship. Being a dukedom it has a principality attached to it. Its revenues belong there. What is that principality? It can be no other than a subjacent society. There never yet was a real dukedom that did not consist of other men; the real dukedom of Cornwall consists of all the men and women of Cornwall. The subjacency is the ignorance, lowness, want, foulness of habitation, inferiority of manners. Especially in so far as these things are not the fruit of present personal vice; that is, in so far as they have descended from the past, and are its woeful legacy for of the wrecks of vice now the State takes cognisance in workhouses and prisons; it is the compulsory duke of rogues and paupers. But these are not under the dukedom of wealth, and need not come before its immediate administration.

:

"If this view be true for the future, it is clear that wealth must descend from the upper ranks, and by wise administration begin at the bottom for the redemption of the honest and hard-working lower classes. At any given time a certain amount of this redemption can be effected. For instance, by the year 1886, the steady enginery of wealth diverted from luxury, vanity, self-seeking with the people, and personal indulgence, and held to that charity which is bound to urgent business, and believeth all things, and knows no impossibilities or improbabilities,-would clear London of back slums, and base the virtues and industries of all its good people upon decent homes.

"The revenue accruing from these would reascend to the private dukes, and increase the riches of their dominions. And then a further redemption would already stand clear before them, and claim the coming down of the wealth again from the upper hands.

When this process is begun on a religious principle, as the main part of the daily labour of dukes, casual charity may cease, its necessity supplanted by an organic rational charity to be ingrained in the course of generations in the nature of industrial society. At present the communications of the charity which lies in almsgiving are leakages of wealth, benevolent flashes of gifts, incommensurate both with the breadth of the wealth, and with the breadth of the want underneath it; whereas rational charity or the administration of the revenue of the dukedom apart from the private purse of the duke, involves that the whole surplus income shall roll through the just wants of the people, that is, through the population of the dukedom, that the influx and circulation of the wealth shall be exactly as its span of power.

"If the basis of society in the building of dwellings were worthy of human beings, the home would keep within it that sickness and calamity which are now taken away into public buildings because the private rooms are too bad to house them. This state of things does not occur with the sick and afflicted of the favoured classes; and as habitations are improved, and as wealth is greater and better administered, it will not be necessary for the industrious poor, or be submitted to by them. In this way hospitals which are guest-houses in defect of homes will cease, and honest sickness lie on its own bed and ask alms of no man. Establishments at various distances in towns for the service of accidents rest on a different foundation; and so does insanity, which belongs, as we have seen before, to the care of the State whenever the insane person requires to be sequestrated.

"If the charity in contradistinction to the almsgiving of the future were only to yield sickness its own home, and manage that men shall die decently in their own beds, the boon would be sweet. The hospital exists against all the claims of sickness, and makes each man suffer and die in a large party naturally unsympathizing, by reason of the loneness of all suffering."

It will be observed that this does not mean "socialistic" or pauperizing "liberality;" it leaves property and wealth, with their legal rights, just where they were; and simply gives Wealth a business in the Common-Wealth. Now, is this too much? Is the faith of the prophet pitched too high? If, to our shame, it is so, let us begin, at least, to know our shame for what it is, and not hug it for an order of merit, prating the while of progress and civilization. Resserrer le foyer was the consigne of one of Michelet's books, and the words his countrymen needed (as they found too late) we need also. Let us fight for the old domestic ideal as long as we can, in this matter as well as in others. And by-the-bye it was with great pleasure that we noticed that Mr. S. Morley and Mr. Stansfeld, speaking the other day at a Girls' Home Meeting, expressed a strong preference for small homes rather than large ones. the right principle, and we should be glad to learn, in addition, that at those Homes (which appear to be necessary for waifs) the arrangements for taking care of the sick are constructed upon the hypothesis of proceeding, as far as possible, without recourse to hospitals.

It is

TH

COMMENTARIES ON THE NEW TESTAMENT.

HE SPEAKER'S COMMENTARY: THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS.*-The list of contributors originally named for the Speaker's Commentary on the New Testament has undergone several changes. Dean Mansel, to whom St. Matthew and St. Mark were assigned, died before he had completed the notes on St. Matthew, and his place has been taken by the editor, Canon Cook, to whom we are also indebted for the revision of the Commentary on St. Luke, which had been relinquished by the present Bishop of St. David's on his being raised to the Episcopate. For the remaining books, the list will stand as follows:-St. John is undertaken by Professor Westcott; the Acts by the Bishop of Chester; Romans by Canon Giffard; 1 and 2 Corinthians by Canon Evans and Mr. Waite of Durham; Galatians by Dean Howson; Ephesians (if we rightly understand) by Professor Lightfoot; Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, and Philemon by the Bishop of Derry; the Pastoral Epistles by the Bishop of London; Hebrews by Dr. Kay; St. James by Dean Scott; St. Peter and St. Jude by Professor Lightfoot and the Rev. J. Rawson Lumby; the Epistle of St. John by the Bishop of Derry; the Revelation by Archdeacon Lee.

A work in which so many persons are engaged, many of them having their hands full already with other things, labours under considerable disadvantages, such as those which make the present volume more or less a patchwork. And it is hardly possible that busy bishops, and polemical theologians like the late Dean Mansel, should show the same zest in their work as is shown by Biblical scholars like Professor Plumptre. But a certain unity is imparted to the present volume by the valuable and comprehensive introduction by the Archbishop of York.

This introduction is an elaborate treatise of some seventy pages on the origin of the Gospels. The problem is clearly stated, and the various views of critics fairly discussed. Then each Gospel is taken separately, and its authorship, contents, purpose, and peculiar features are discussed; after which the author returns to the general questions, and gives his conclusions.

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He admits the existence of antecedent documents, which are in some way imbedded in the Gospels; but he says, We are obliged to confess that they are for us irrecoverable by any process of separation." He allows also for the existence of an oral tradition, which, like the Talmud, gained more and more a settled form. But he considers that each Evangelist adapted his materials to his own purpose, and blended with them his own personal knowledge or reminiscences. He considers that their early date, before the destruction of Jerusalem, is proved. He believes that all the attempts to discover the common root of the Gospels will tend to bring into view the independence of each work taken as a separate whole. "The discussions upon the Gospels, so fruitful in details, so disappointing as regards the main problem, have arisen from the endeavour, by the help of these factors, to analyse the very source and composition of every part of the works. This will never be. "The time seems to be almost come when, with a hundred volumes before us" (the Archbishop's Apparatus Criticus includes more than one hundred and fifty separate works), each with its own explanation, and each with weapons of destruction ready for every other, we may admit that the explanation will never be forthcoming." We hardly like the tone of this "Jamais!" which may be as doubtful in criticism as in politics. Yet we must confess that there is

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The Holy Bible: with an Explanatory and Critical Commentary, by Bishops and other Clergy of the Anglican Church. Edited by T. C. Cook, Canon of Exeter, &c. New Testament: Vol. I., St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke. London: John Murray.