cientist. The distinction doubtless is partly explained
by the problems severally selected. Mr. Jerome practically supposes
Christ to be trying to save disreputable people; and that, of course,
is naturally a simple business. Mr. Kennedy supposes Him to be trying
to save the reputable people, which is a much larger affair. The chief
characters in The Servant in the House are a popular and strenuous
vicar, universally respected, and his fashionable and forcible wife.
It would have been no good to tell these people they had some good in
them—for that was what they were telling themselves all day long.
They had to be reminded that they had some bad in them—instinctive
idolatries and silent treasons which they always tried to forget. It is
in connection with these crimes of wealth and culture that we face the
real problem of positive evil. The whole of Mr. Blatchford's controversy
about sin was vitiated throughout by one's consciousness that whenever
he wrote the word "sinner" he thought of a man in rags. But here, again,
we can find truth merely by referring to vulgar literature—its
unfailing fountain. Whoever read a detective story about poor people?
The poor have crimes; but the poor have no secrets. And it is because
the proud have secrets that they need to be detected before they are
forgiven.

THE ELF OF JAPAN

There are things in this world of which I can say seriously that I
love them but I do not like them. The point is not merely verbal, but
psychologically quite valid. Cats are the first things that occur to me
as examples of the principle. Cats are so beautiful that a creature from
another star might fall in love with them, and so incalculable that he
might kill them. Some of my friends take quite a high moral line about
cats. Some, like Mr. Titterton, I think, admire a cat for its moral
independence and readiness to scratch anybody "if he does not behave
himself." Others, like Mr. Belloe, regard the cat as cruel and secret, a
fit friend for witches; one who will devour everything, except, indeed,
poisoned food, "so utterly lacking is it in Christian simplicity and
humility." For my part, I have neither of these feelings. I admire cats
as I admire catkins; those little fluffy things that hang on trees. They
are both pretty and both furry, and both declare the glory of God. And
this abstract exultation in all living things is truly to be called
Love; for it is a higher feeling than mere a