rist and his
apostles first showed men the way to be better and happier, have
the nations stood in sorer need of a return to that teaching, in its
pristine purity and simplicity, than now! Never, more certainly than at
this critical time, was it the interest as well as the duty of mankind
to turn a deaf ear to the turmoil of false teachers, and to trust
in that all-wise and all-merciful Voice which only ceased to exalt,
console, and purify humanity, when it expired in darkness under the
torture of the cross! Are these the wild words of an enthusiast? Is this
the dream of an earthly Paradise in which it is sheer folly to believe?
I can tell you of one existing community (one among others) which
numbers some hundreds of persons; and which has found prosperity and
happiness, by reducing the whole art and mystery of government to the
simple solution set forth in the New Testament--fear God, and love thy
neighbour as thyself."

By these gradations Amelius arrived at the second of the two parts into
which he had divided his address.

He now repeated, at greater length and with a more careful choice of
language, the statement of the religious and social principles of
the Community at Tadmor, which he had already addressed to his two
fellow-travellers on the voyage to England. While he confined himself to
plain narrative, describing a mode of life which was entirely new to
his hearers, he held the attention of the audience. But when he began to
argue the question of applying Christian Socialism to the government of
large populations as well as small--when he inquired logically whether
what he had proved to be good for some hundreds of persons was not
also good for some thousands, and, conceding that, for some hundreds of
thousands, and so on until he had arrived, by dint of sheer argument,
at the conclusion that what had succeeded at Tadmor must necessarily
succeed on a fair trial in London--then the public interest began to
flag. People remembered their coughs and colds, and talked in whispers,
and looked about them with a vague feeling of relief in staring at each
other. Mrs. Sowler, hitherto content with furtively glancing at Mr.
Farnaby from time to time, now began to look at him more boldly, as he
stood in his corner with his eyes fixed sternly on the platform at
the other end of the hall. He too began to feel that the lecture was
changing its tone. It was no longer the daring outbreak which he
had come to hear, as his s