thereby be subserved. In the second place he bestows "the heartiest approval" on the "socialistic movement," as he himself describes it, for transferring "power and discretion in the matter of the education of children" from the family to the Government. Let us very briefly discuss both points. The exemption of church property from taxation is equivalent, General Walker tells us, to a "subsidy of many millions annually. . . It is claimed," we are further told, "that the services of this agent are worth to Government more than the taxes which the treasury might otherwise collect from the smaller number of churches and missions which would survive the assessment of the ordinary taxes, and that the remaining tax-payers really pay less, by reason of the reduction in violence and crime hereby effected." Now the question that presents itself to our mind is this: What view might we expect a dispassionate and capable observer, like the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to take of an utterly unverified and utterly illogical claim of this nature? That it is unverified no one can deny. What facts are there to prove that, if church property paid taxes like other property, crime and violence would increase, and the general rate of taxation be advanced? Absolutely none. That the claim is an illogical one is equally evident. Why should state aid to the churches, if it really assists the cause of order, stop short at the exemption of church property from taxation? If a few millions in this way are of so much benefit, why not try the effect of a few millions more in the payment or supplementing of the salaries of ministers? Why not have a fund for the erection of church-edifices in spiritually destitute districts? Why not subsidize the Bible Society? Why not distribute tracts through the Post-Office letter-boxes? There is really no end to what the Government might do to aid the churches; and it is really very odd that any one should seriously pretend that the whole duty of the Government in the matter is done when it has "dead-headed" the churches on the assessment-roll. Or look at the same question from another side. If it is conceded, as it probably is by the great majority in this country, that state patronage of the Church is hurtful to the life and activity of the latter, why should it be held that the particular form of state patronage involved in exempting ecclesiastical property from taxation is beneficial? Why should it not be held that just as the Church has gained in spiritual vitality by being cut off from other forms of state support, so it would further gain by shaking itself free from this last remnant of the old system? If this view is correct—and we should like to know what solid arguments can be advanced against it—then, instead of a gain to social order by the remission of the taxes on ecclesiastical property, there must be an injury to that very cause through the moral injury inflicted on the churches. The whole argument referred to by General Walker is so hollow, so unscientific, so manifest a begging of the question, that we can not but be surprised at his omission to denounce it as such; and still more at his putting it forward as an argument valid enough, if only used genuinely, in the interest of good government. No one knows better than General Walker that the sincerity with which an argument is used has nothing whatever to do with its logical validity, but depends wholly on personal conditions. A very ignorant or stupid man may use with perfect sincerity an argument which a better-informed and clearer-headed man could not use without conscious sophistry. We should very much like to read an article from General Walker's pen dealing with the one question: Should ecclesiastical property in the United States he exempted from taxation? We feel persuaded that, when he
