Sharing, as I myself now do, very largely in this changed outlook of mind, I find the question forces itself upon me as it doubtless also does on many readers of these pages—Is the gospel of Art and Socialism as exemplified in the work and teaching of William Morris adequate as a practical precept and philosophy of life? Would I, for example, say to any earnest-minded young man or woman, 'Go and follow as far as in your power lies the teaching of William Morris, and therein you will find the whole duty and Kingdom of Man?' No, indeed, I should not. My infatuation, if such it be, for Morris' genius and achievement does not carry me to so rash a conclusion. But I should unhesitatingly say 'Go to Morris and follow him as far as relates to your duty towards your fellows, as friends, citizens, and workers, as far as concerns all things embraced in the terms, Society, industry, art, politics, and the common life of the community, and you will not go far wrong; indeed I do not think you will go wrong at all.' Morris' practical teaching he himself has crystallised into an axiom: 'There are only two ways to-day of being really happy—to work for Socialism or to do work worthy of Socialism.' And to doers of the will, knowledge of the doctrine has been promised.
But having said so much on the subject of Morris and religion, I perceive I must yet, for my own satisfaction, say a word or two more. For I find myself haunted with the thought that I, like others who knew him, may have too readily assumed that because he did not in his public utterances or except in rare instances in private conversations (so far as I have heard tell) discuss the deeper questions of religion, he therefore took no interest in these questions, and possessed no beliefs or hopes concerning them. How far wrong all this may be! Indeed, considering how essentially moral (I use the word in its strongest and truest sense) was Morris' whole attitude to life, and how deeply instinctive were the powers of his nature, it seems incredible that there did not lie somewhere in him thoughts and
