COMBES AND CHRISTIANITY.
Sin,—I read in the last issue of the Spectator the following comment on M. Combes's policy regarding the Disestablishment Bill in France :—" As for M. Combes's references to Christianity, we will only say that he is strangely ignorant or hopelessly prejudiced if he really believes that the arid secularism of the twentieth century shows a more humane and lofty philosophy than true Christianity." As a Frenchman anxious that his country and countrymen should be fairly judged abroad, I write to say that the above-quoted affirmation is apt to lead a casual reader on French questions into an erroneous belief regarding France and the French. The Frenchman of the present day is far from being the unbeliever he is reported to be in English newspapers ; most Frenchmen have more or less a philosophic—i.e., an inquisitive—turn of mind, and a man may not be irreligious at all although he does not choose to attach himself to any special creed. Now Frenchmen con- sider their philosophy more humane, and, indeed, more "lofty," than Christianity as they have seen it at work in France for several centuries; and any one desirous to know what that philosophy is will do well to read the two highly interesting books, " Esquisse d'une Morale sans Obligation ni Sanction" and " L'Irreligion de l'A.venir," by J. M. Guyau. The influence of those two books on modern French thought and politics is immense, as great as that of Rousseau at the end of the eighteenth century; now no one, unless thoroughly
conversant with them, can lay claim to a complete under- standing of things pertaining to France and the French. If the writer of the comment I referred to at the beginning of this letter had read them and understood them thoroughly, he would certainly not have spoken of the " arid " secularism of the twentieth century in France ; he would have known the fact, totally unknown in England, that the French Universities are practically ousting the Church as regards the moral direction of the nation, and he might have grasped the whole meaning of the words of M. Combes, whatever they may have been. There is at the present moment in France a higher philosophic culture than is thought of abroad ; and, indeed, one which accounts for much of the general tendency of the policy of that country either at home or in relation to foreign countries.—I am, Sir, &c., A FRENCHMAN.
[If the secularism of which our correspondent writes is not arid, it is a subject for congratulation. We must still assert, however, that it cannot be superior, or even equal, to true Christianity,—the Christianity of the Gospels and of Christ's own teaching. That teaching is something much more than "good morals." It carries with it the quickening spirit that makes morality a living force. That some new form of the Stoic creed—the religion of Marcus Aurelius—may be better than much of the Christianity that has been preached in France in the past, we are not concerned to deny. What we do assert is that morality divorced from the true faith of Christ, though it may do much practical good, will in the end prove a dead thing. A nation cannot live on Rationalism. That a rational and liberal Christianity may, however, replace mere Rationalism in France is our hope. History, in our opinion, shows that though Christianity may suffer a catalepsy, it can never wholly die out. It has in it that which is capable of infinite revival.—E D. Spectator.] CHINESE LABOUR IN THE TRANSVAAL.
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