time retain medieval practices. Intellectually and emotionally we are improving, and we must expect that, as our finer powers grow, there will be an increasing demand for revision and reconstruction. As Mr. Watson finely says:
"Guests of the ages, at to-morrow’s door
Why shrink we? The long track behind us lies,
The lamps gleam and the music throbs before,
Bidding us enter; and I count him wise
Who loves so well man’s noble memories
He needs must love man’s nobler hopes yet more.”
This is, I think, a correct analysis of the innovating spirit of modern times. These general considerations to which it is due are quite beyond discussion. One feels that one is almost perpetrating platitudes in describing them. In fact, we would to-day find only a negligible number of people who oppose progress and innovation altogether. They usually oppose it in one or two departments of life, and quite warmly applaud it in others. A Socialist-Ritualist clergyman, for instance, fiercely demands advance in the economic field, yet fences his own department of life with the most rigorous warnings against innovating trespassers. A Rationalist-Individualist feels that the Church is the most obvious and urgent field for innovation, and at the same time guards his economic world against it with a flaming sword. A Suffragist pours fiery scorn on our obstinate conservatism in regard to the franchise, and then discovers an even more obstinate and entirely sacred conservatism when other women claim something
