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respecting and self-conscious rational beings. The rudimentary rationalism involved in Puritan- ism as distinct from the symbolism of the orthodox was an unmistakable mark not of reaction but of penetration, not of a swinging back upon the past, but of a soul-stirring adven- ture into the unexplored regions of the universe, a response to an overwhelming suggestion. Whatever effect it had in purging religious usages of much of the vainglory compounded in them, to claim for it the general abstersion of the country politically, literary, and religiously from all the taints and immoralities of outworn systems and beliefs, is to claim for it what rightly does not belong to it. Dr. Miall Edwards quotes the mistaken generalisation of J. R. Green. Green might have found it convenient to make such a statement, but to credit Puritanism with everything attributed to it by him is blowing it out of its normal and historical proportions. No one can dispute its place in history, but we must remember that it passed away as a move- ment because men are more than movements. What was best in it was assimilated, yet to call John Bright, John Clifford, and others of similar qualities, Puritans, is sheer anachronism. If they were Puritans then they should have attempted at the time they occupied to be some- thing more and better. Undoubtedly they were, were we to read history aright. Puritanism had its day and ceased to be, yielding place to the indomitable urge of new forces let loose through its exercise-forces greater than itself,-and which aimed at more than Puritanism went out to achieve; and the result was far from what had been cherished and expected. The Puritan Revolution, as it is miscalled, was not by any means Puritan. Other forces were at work which proved stronger, as the overthrow of the authority of the Church and its sectaries goes to show. The conflicts of the time are more reliably de- scribed in contemporary utterances than in com- mentaries, in studying which we are impressed by the social rather than the Puritan nature of the revolution. Had Puritanism not been merged in and absorbed by a more advanced current of opinion-bad it secured the enthronement of its own cast iron system all round-had it succeeded in planting its theocratic domination over the destinies of the land, it is difficult to apprehend precisely the extent of the tyranny which would have been established. Not only was Charles I beheaded, but Puritanism was emphatically over- thrown. Neither the one arbitrary rule nor the other was allowed to stand before the surging elements of an inchoate democratic conception of life. What remained of the latter found a semi- nary in the Nonconformist conscience," ulti- mately to be modified beyond recognition in many respects. The problem is still induced of choosing between the theocracy of religion and the demo- cracy of men, Wales has suffered by what is generally termed Puritanism, not necessarily, yet almost unavoidably from want of imagination and vision. Nor has it devoted itself to it from a conviction that Puritanism is the consummation of all that is virtuous, manly, and God-like, rather, indeed, has it been subjected to it through the pressure of what I might be allowed to call Economic Puritanism, which has, up to the present moment, weighed heavily on the spirit of the Welsh peasantry. In these latter days the latent powers of the Welsh genius have been roused to action fostered by the growing confidence of an educated democracy and the manliness bred in easier economic surroundings. The new move- ment-or the new humanism-initiated by the youth of to-day does not react in any way from the "degenerate Puritanism of the Nonconformist conscience" and the sober religiosity of the fathers. It is the incarnation of new values-a new adventure which leads to a land of promise it is a great departure-a liberation, and a penetration. Dr. Miall Edwards has raised some issues in connection with Puritanism which, in my opinion, will hardly bear scrutiny. Allow me to say emphatically, yet with due reverence, that we are not concerned so much to-day with the Kingdom of God as with the democracy of men. To reduce the theocracy of Puritanism, as he does, to the terms of a moral kingdom, is to resolve an idea into a contradiction. A moral kingdom cannot subsist without changing completely the conno- tation of both terms; it is ideally contradictory and in reality unrealisable! It does not fit into the developing conception of the universe as presented under existing cosmopolitan and social conditions of human interest and human volition. Another aspect is presented in such phrases as "Selection implies rejection or suppression"; "dying to live"; "self-repression as a condition of fuller self-expression." Dr. Edwards in his endeavour to justify Puritanism tries to bring cer- tain suitable contradictions to the altar of religion and securely wed them in a synthesis. This is a gross mesalliance, as the above statements exemplify. If there is self-repression there can be no self-expression both ideas are mutually exclusive, and cannot by any nicety of reasoning be reconciled. Had it been maintained con- sistently that certain leanings, certain desires and certain notions have to be suppressed in order to enhance the value of self-expression one would feel justified in entering upon a detailed examin- ation of such a thesis. The pivotal assumption that the attainment of positive qualities involves a negative process of "rejection or suppression" hardly coincides with the facts and experience of great and worthy characters. When it comes to choosing between one path and goal of desire, impulse or notion and another the process of volition does not involve nor suggest a "strenuous