The tree of faith ingraft by priests

Puts its foul foliage out above thee, And round it feed man-eating beasts

Because of whom we dare not love thee; Though hearts reach back and memories ache, We cannot praise thee for their sake. . .

Nay, if their God and thou be one,

If thou and this thing be the same, Thou shouldst not look upon the sun;

The sun grows haggard at thy name. Come down, be done with, cease, give o'er; Hide thyself, strive not, be no more.j

BOOK VIII

The Church

Contains passages, both of exhortation and denunciation, dealing with the relation of the church toward modern problems, and the effort to bring back a property-strangled institution to the revolutionary gospel of its founder.

"FOR

God and My Neighbor

BY ROBERT BLATCHFORD

(See pages 66, 121, 170)

OR all that, Robert, you're a notorious Infidel." I paused-just opposite the Tivoli-and gazed moodily up and down the Strand.

As I have remarked elsewhere, I like the Strand. It is a very human place. But I own that the Strand lacks dignity and beauty, and that amongst its varied odors the odor of sanctity is scarcely perceptible.

There are no trees in the Strand. The thoroughfare should be wider. The architecture is, for the most part, banal. For a chief street in a Christian capital, the Strand is not eloquent of high national ideals.

There are derelict churches in the Strand, and dingy, blatant taverns, and strident signs and hoardings; and there are slums hard by.

There are thieves in the Strand, and prowling vagrants, and gaunt hawkers, and touts, and gamblers, and loitering failures, with tragic eyes and wilted garments; and prostitutes plying for hire.

And east and west, and north and south of the Strand, there is London. Is there a man amongst all London's millions brave enough to tell the naked truth about the vice and crime, the misery and meanness, the hypocrisies and shames of the great, rich, heathen city? Were such a man to arise amongst us and voice the awful truth, what would his reception be? How would he fare at the hands of the Press, and the Public-and the Church?