scientiousness in industrial systems and civil laws. It is not enough for Christian people to preach the Gospel and seek the salvation of souls, but they must begin to labour for the salvation of society and must seek the whole kingdom of God. It is not enough for men to build churches and conduct Sunday-schools and distribute tracts, but they must also take up stumblingblocks out of the way of the people, teach them how to make more Christian homes, and inspire them to arise and build a more Christian city. It is not enough for us to have goodness and kindness and brotherliness in the hearts of men, but we must incarnate these virtues in social customs, in political institutions, in industrial orders and economic systems. Society needs saving as much as the individual; the purpose of Christ will not be realized till we have the perfect man in the perfect society. "Christianity," said Immanuel Fichte, "is destined some day to be the inner organizing power of the state"; and it is the business of all who believe in Christianity to organize the state after the spirit of Christianity. "There is in human affairs an order which is best," says DeLaveleye. "This order is not always the one which now prevails, but it is the order which should prevail. God knows it and wills it. Man's duty it is to discover and realize it." 5. To fulfill this task we must also arouse and enlist all men of good will in the work of social reconstruction. We need to secure a union of all who love and serve in behalf of all who sin and suffer. The grace of love is the greatest grace and the virtue of cooperation is the supremest virtue. However it may have been in the past, the great duty of all men of good will to-day is the duty of union and coöperation in behalf of the kingdom and its righteousness. The people of the churches must accept this duty first of all, and they must unify and federate their forces; they must mobilize their members and must think of each denomination as a division of the one great army. They must come together and must make the King's purpose for the world their plan of campaign. They must then seek to unite the men of good will in every community in behalf of certain definite and practical measures. There are many brave and earnest men in all communities, men who love their fellows and have a passion for righteousness; and yet many of these men have scant patience with the churches and do not confess faith in Jesus Christ. These men believe in honesty and justice, and they are ready to enlist in behalf of good practical measures. The churches owe these men a duty and it is this: The churches must furnish a rallying centre for all right-thinking men in the community; they must seek to enlist these men in behalf of social righteousness and political progress. There are enough intelligent and right-thinking men in the average community to transform it from top to bottom. But alas, they are divided to-day by all kinds of lines real and imaginary; and worst of all the churches themselves are not united and so they cannot unify the people. One part of the churches' mission is to set up a standard and then rally these men around that standard. The churches must breed a generation of men able enough and courageous enough to deal with the evils of society and to lead the social faith of the people. The churches of to-day need a large and constructive and comprehensive plan of campaign, and then they need to mobilize the forces of righteousness in behalf of progress and victory. We may not be able to do everything that needs to be done, but we can do something. We may not be able to bring in the kingdom in our generation, but we can work definitely towards that end. There is a marked difference between the better and the worse. There is a vast amount of remediable wrong in the world. There is many a path that may be straightened for men's feet. Any effort that will help any soul in any way is the translation into deed of some article of the Christian faith.' BIBLIOGRAPHY Batten : แ The Christian State." Patten: "The New Basis of Civilization." 1See Appendix for Social Service Program, VI THE CRISIS AND THE OPPORTUNITY N these times there are many students of human affairs who declare that Christianity is passing I through the great crisis of its long history. "Western civilization," says my friend Prof. Walter Rauschenbusch, "is passing through a social revolution unparalleled in history for scope and power." "We are to-day-without most of us being aware of it-in the midst of perhaps the greatest revolution the ages have seen. The social order which has served us and our fathers for uncounted centuries is dissolving before our eyes. And religion, in the forms we have known it, is sharing in the dissolution."? "The Church is to-day facing the most serious crisis in its history; and if this crisis is not successfully passed, a calamity will befall the human race of the most momentous character. It is not a crisis that pertains primarily to any particular form of creed, ritual or organization. It involves the existence of the Church itself; and bound up with the Church are the spiritual interests of mankind, so vast, so precious, so essential." The signs of the times indicate that stormy years are ahead of us, and the Church is about to witness an attack upon the fundamental Christian positions to which previous history furnishes no parallel. "That conflict will effect 1 "Christianity and the Social Crisis," Chapter XI. enormous changes, not so much in the faith itself, as in the forms it will take, and the reasons in men's minds for holding it.” 1 On all sides we find many men doubting in their hearts whether Christianity is not played out and must soon become extinct. Many are debating whether the decline of all religions has not come, and with it the end of men's immortal hopes. Some time ago the Chrétien Français gave an account of a remarkable meeting held in the Trocadero, in Paris. It was a wet Sunday evening when the churches were empty because of the storm. And yet the vast hall of the Trocadero with a seating capacity of five thousand was packed to the doors with an enthusiastic and applauding audience. The occasion was an atheistic demonstration in which the speakers poured scorn on “the dead god on whom the priests live," while saluting justice, the moral ideal and the new social order. In all the nations of Europe, the lands where Christianity has been longest known and most dominant, we witness the general revolt of the people from the churches. In addition to this in all lands to-day a great movement is going on among the people that has many of the characteristics of a religious movement; indeed millions of men declare that it is their religion, and that it is a good substitute for Christianity. Socialism is the creed of millions of men to-day; and yet Socialism, many of its leaders affirm, is the avowed enemy of the churches. In these times, as every one knows, there is a widespread uncertainty concerning the foundations of the Christian faith and the credibility of the Christian 1 Brierley, "The Common Life," p. 55. |