school children, and we are alarmed at a falling birth-rate. Augustus, "in order to increase the free population," initiated a system of subsidy to poor families in proportion to the number of their children, and the system was continued and extended until the exhaustion of the treasury in the later Empire. We may in this connection recall Pitt's abortive poor law which had the same object. Again, we have recently adopted the principle of a minimum wage. Diocletian endeavoured to arrive at the same result by fixing a maximum price for food. One result of this was that at the least appearance of scarcity all strangers and even Italians were expelled from Rome. The experiment was an unqualified failure.
Again, we now hear on every side denunciations of the selfish luxury of the idle rich, but they are as nothing to similar denunciations by the fathers of the Church. "You sit down to a sumptuous feast," says St Chrysostom, "when Christ has not the barest necessaries ! You drink the wine of Thasos when He has not a glass of water to quench His thirst." "What will you say to your Judge?" says St Basil, "who clothe your walls with splendour and leave your fellow-men naked, who let your corn rot in your barns and give none of it to the poor. If an unhappy man begs of you, you say that you have nought to give him. But the very hand with which you repulse him glitters with a priceless jewel and gives the lie to your words. How many poor debtors might be set free, how many houses rebuilt with that ring? Your wardrobe would suffice to clothe a whole people and you send the poor naked away" (Chastel, "Etudes Historiques sur l'influence de la Charité," p. 195-6: Chrys., Horn. 48; Basil, Horn, in Div., c. 4). St Jerome says, "All riches are the result of iniquity. Every rich man is unjust or the heir of an unjust
