SIXTY YEARS OF AN AGITATOR'S LIFE.* THE passion of public

service, as Mr. Holyoake calls it, is probably an inexplicable force. Be the cause whatsoever it may, its persistent advocacy is considered folly by the friends, and impertinence, perhaps infamy, by the foes of the agitator. Tolle, legs, some unknown voice or some trivial circumstance has said to the man imbued with the reforming spirit ; but apparently he invents the revelation he preaches. No one ever believes that the agitator did not enjoy his agitation. Yet, seemingly unbidden, irritating those near him, sacrificing the best years of human happiness, perhaps, as he is always told, throwing overboard all his interests, expending brains and life in underground labour,—the agitator is an agitator for life, and the passion of public service can never be burnt out of him. It is interesting to consider him from his own point of view. Mr. Holyoake puts before us with all frank- ness the agitator's joys and sufferings, and traces his path through the years of change which lie behind.

The opinions of an agitator as well as his environment may change. The present volumes give us an interesting example of this, and should be read with a grain of salt. Let it be the salt of Christianity : the usefulness of which, even merely as a preservative, we have reason to believe Mr. Holyoake no longer denies, when, as a veteran of seventy-four, he takes his place amongst the old and new in the entirely altered Trades Congresses of to-day. Perhaps he sees now that the same spirit was in his Christian opponents of old as in himself,—the same spirit of energy and neighbourly love, as, for instance, when Maurice writes privately in 1849 :— " One can only speak when the fire is in one's heart, and when it is, one must speak, in spite of diffidence, despair, and all the devils outside and within one." So Mr. Holyoake over and over again reflects upon a like impelling force, though he does not, as do the opposing Christians and the Christian Socialists, feel it a responsibility to possess this strength, or that he is accountable to aught but common-sense for its misuse. He now recognises the difference this sense of responsibility makes, and in passing we may note his tribute to Mr. Gladstone's churchmanship. Speaking of Mr. Bright, it is said :—" He had great humility, as Mr. Gladstone has ; but in Mr. Bright it was the humility of genius falling below its own ideal—in Mr. Gladstone it is the humility of duty falling short of the obligation of ser- vice due to the Giver of it." We do not imagine that in -earlier days Mr. Holyoake would have perceived the worth in humility of duty done to God.

His two volumes bristle with names ; some, of course, have often appeared in the previous volumes from the same pen, but there is much that is from a new point of view. Some of the names mentioned had a tendency to disappear about the time of the Assizes, as he says, humorously alluding to Sydney Smith. There is a capital description—comic from this distance of time, so far as Mr. Holyoake is concerned—of the troubles of trying experiments with infernal machines. But, on the more serious side, we have been much interested in that portion of the work which, where the reader is not in a position to know the facts for himself, should be compared with the life of F. D. Maurice, and if possible with numbers of the Christian Socialist, and other such materials for esti- mating how little and much Secularism gave to the Church of England. It is possible to see now who received its good, and fought to the death against its evil.

There are many materials for considering a point of much practical interest at this very time, but so far as we are aware, they are as yet focussed nowhere. We have got a good many of the materials for the story of the Oxford Movement, but there is yet much to be collected for the story of the men who met the Secularists, were confounded with them, but took their spoil for the New Christianity. No one could have listened to the Church Congress addresses of this year (which, whatever the subject, touched upon Capital and Labour) but must have felt that the beat men and women of this generation are reaping what others sowed long ago in a new grasp of the idea that the kingdom of earth is the point of departure for the Kingdom of Heaven. This age can bear better with those who fiercely denounced a preaching of the Kingdom of Heaven which had little to do with earth, because it better knows the value of those who helped to connect

• Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life. By G. J. Holyoake. With photogravures. London: Fisher trnwin. 1892.

earthly work with Divine Love. But Mr. Holyoake's volumes only strengthen the case against Secularism, and enable us better to understand with what the Christian Socialists wrestled. We are in the struggle still—none knows how far from the end—but more of us understand what we are doing to-day, and most of us can better bear to hear the other side. We can see how all higher life transforms character, though we believe that only Christianity can trans- figure it, and that the Christian ideal is the completion of the morality so slowly taught and still most gradually becoming more fully understood.

We feel that all interested in social progress should make the acquaintance of these volumes. They are not literature, though some striking thoughts are embedded in the book of one who has been a nervous and fertile writer, speaker, and organiser. They are not—as we have hinted before—to be read without particular allowances for the class, constitution, character, and general opportunities of an energetic, able, thoughtful, but almost self-taught man. Evidences ran throughout the book that Mr. Holyoake knows his personal limitations at last, and perhaps not the least valuable may be his witness to the men of his own, or of another, class and type, that even they are not infallible, but, without knowing it, may be handicapped for want of an inherited faculty possessed by some of those descended from the ruling classes. In this connection, it is a pity that if the promoters of Uni- versity Extension lectures are to have County Council grants, it is not yet possible to encourage the historical and literary lectures as well as the science classes. Perhaps voluntary aid will come to the rescue, and somehow supply working leaders with more knowledge of backgrounds.

Mr. Holyoake points out that the alleviations of an honest agitator's life can only be found in two ways,—in being able to laugh at the ridiculous side of what he likes, and in enjoying the study of human nature. He quotes on his title-page the saying of Gttizot that "In order to become acquainted with an age or a people, we must also know something of its second- rate and obscure men ;" but in his text he adopts the lines of Professor Thorold Rogers :—

"If he has gained but little for his purse, His conscience, happily, is none the worse ; He never flouted peasant, fawned on peer, He neither stooped to flattery nor to fear ; Knew in familiar fashion face to face The wisest and the best of England's race ; Still walks erect although his head is grey, And feels his youth not wholly slipped away."

Yet it is strange that a man can look back with satisfaction

to such a life, which, as lived, must have had many keen pains and some grave sorrows. Is the sense of service to humanity really able to compensate for all the troubles of those sixty years ? Mr. Holyoake says :—

"My argument was that a man could judge a house

without knowing who was the architect or landlord So it is with this world. It is our dwelling-place. We know the laws of sanitation, economy, and equity, upon which health, wealth, and security depend. All these things are quite independent of any knowledge of the origin of the universe or the owner of it. And as no demands are made on us in consideration of our tenancy, the least we can do is to improve the estate as our acknowledgment of the advantage we enjoy. This is Secularism."

But when all is said, would the motives of Secularism—duty to the unknown—be sufficient for us ? We fear that most of

us would behave like the cheap trippers in the park woods. We picnic and enjoy ourselves—some of us know, some do not, that we disfigure the place by leaving rubbish and papers there,—but even amongst educated people, who endeavours to leave the place none the worse for his sojourn P Who cares for the unknown owner? Who cares for those who come after ? The place has served our time.

It is an argument that scarcely appeals to men like Mr. Holyoake. With all their faults, they act on what they know. Mr. Holyoake was born in 1818, a Birmingham man, and from his twenty-third year has been constantly before the public, or some section thereof. The story of his life is told with some repetitions ; it is really a book of reminiscences, chats, as it were, in short chapters, to be half-listened to by a younger audience to whom his names are chiefly names, or by older men whose memories he awakens, and who recall him in other aspects. Undeniably the book may be counted too long ; and yet, if we have time and read fast enough not to be wearied by its sameness, it is full of interest for these reasons : it produces a vivid personal impression, it contains contemporary notes on men and women of the century, it has shrewd and vigorous sentences, and it illustrates our real progress in civilising thought, sometimes as the author intends it, and sometimes as he does not. In his own words : "All progress is a growth and not an invention;" but, at least, we may be allowed to give some credit to its gardeners, and, after a time, to look to the results. Yet in days to come, perhaps, they will not distinguish as much difference as we do between the men who socialise Christianity or christianise Socialism,—though greater and greater must become the differences between Secular and Christian Socialism.