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SS.’ 4 ar > 4 cae I, 3 5 - whe —_ ms > Nh . ey q . oh Seed. ; i +>) ee th BP € b 6 ee oe CHAPTER I BEFORE COPEC ‘* Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you; but an old commandment, which ye had from the beginning .... Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you.”’—I John ii, 7, 8. COPEC is a new word, but it stands for something which we have had from the beginning. And yet whenever the old is freshly seen, and believed, and put into action, it comes to mankind as something new. COPEC will be a new thing if through its means *‘ the whole world feels and sees that things which were cast down are being raised up, and that those things which had grown old are being made new.” The Conference on Christian Politics, Economics and Citizenship, which met in Birmingham from April 5th to 12th, 1924, was itself the fulfilment of a long past; it may prove to be the starting-point of a great future. The story of all that led up to it can be told, and it is so manifestly a story of divine guidance, that it fills the reader with confidence and hope. But what will follow no one yet can tell. That depends—not only upon things re- solved in Birmingham, but upon the faith and constancy of those who have heard the call. A time of vision is itself a thing of terror, as well as of hope. Of one of the men who were in the circle of the disciples it was said, “It were better for that man if he had never been born.” It were better for COPEC that it had never been born if the vision is allowed to die away, and if apathy takes hold upon those who were summoned in a great hour to this Christian adventure. But COPEC may become as a busy junction into which much traffic poured, that it might be distributed down many lines. A junction is not a place in which to stay. It is possible now to record the past history and to register the call; the sequel has still ¥ be decided. ~ 2 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP For years there had been a disquietude in the Christian Church. Its members had inherited a tradition, that large sections of human life were outside the range of the Christian Faith. The catchwords of the age of Individu- alism, though rejected by philosophers and economists, survived long, and still survive among the maxims of the market place. But for years before Copec there had been a revolt against the dual control, which had once been accepted as inevitable. The way had been prepared in many minds for a new word concerning the bearing of Christian principles upon the social life of the nation. They could not rest content with the decree, which left to the Church the area of things spiritual on condition that it did not interfere with the working of economics and industry. That at least could not be the true way. Even in the years between 1820-1870, rightly called the Age of Individualism, the Christian witness, though often weak and faint, had never ceased. While others were ready to surrender the ordering of social life to the working of ‘““economic ”’ laws, there were always some who refused to, ‘halve the gospel of God’s grace.”” They received little encouragement from the organized Church of their day. They were few and lonely, but it was in them the authentic Church of Christ spoke. It was they who were in the rightful succession of apostles and prophets. It was Lord Shaftesbury, and not his critics, who represented the mind of Christ in this matter. These men and women who would not bow down to the tyranny of their age would have rejoiced to see the day of COPEC, which witnesses to a widespread longing for the vindication of the Christian Faith in every human department of human life. The memory of the Christian Socialists (1848-1854) was much with the members of Copec. Maurice, being dead, was still speaking ; Ludlow, the keen, learned, untiring enthusiast; Kingsley, who blazoned abroad the Faith; and Vansittart Neale, famed in the Co-operative movement—were present in spirit. They, too, based their hopes of a new order of justice and brotherhood upon their faith in the God and Father of our Lord. All must begin with Him, and to Him all must tend. The words of Maurice might have been printed upon all the papers of COPEC: BEFORE COPEC 3 “IT was sent into the world that I might persuade men to recognize Christ as the centre of their fellowship with each other, that so they might be united in their families, their countries, and as men not in schools and factions.”’ It is possible now to understand the real greatness of those heroic figures who made their stand against the Baal of their age, and could have said, ‘‘ When that black Baal blocked the heaven he had no hymn from us.” There were men and women from every Church in these lands, and many from other lands, gathered in Birmingham with the faith in their hearts for which Maurice stood. And in many a city and village there are to-day a host of disciples waiting for their call, and straining at the leash. They will not honour the Christian Socialists by borrowing their schemes, they will honour them by seeking for a faith akin to theirs, and for a courage which will not shrink from the price. There are thousands now where there were few in those days; but there is still the same price to be paid. There followed after 1870 a strong reaction against Individualism, and against the wrongs which found their justification in that philosophy. Many Christian citizens took their part in that revolt. And some of the thinkers, who led the vanguard, brought their indictment not in the name simply of philosophy, but in the strength of Christian principles. It was fitting that one who had learned from Thomas Hill Green should address the Conference and recall his master. He, too, would have rejoiced to see that day. In that same age Cardinal Manning entered with great sympathy and courage into the arena, in which men were fighting the battle of the dockers; and till old age he took the burdens of the poor upon him. But there were distinctive Christian associations formed in that period. In 1877 the Rev. Stewart Headlam founded in Bethnal Green the Guild of St. Matthew, which was a Christian Socialist Society. Canon Barnett, from Toynbee Hall, sent forth a rare and stimulating influence. Whitechapel because of him became a place of vision, in which many saw for the first time the glory of service rendered to the common life. 4 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP Barnett would have rejoiced in Copec. The Congrega- tionalists learned from him and founded Mansfield House ; there was no Church which did not catch something of his spirit. In that same age the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes boldly claimed the right to lift political and social life as he saw it into the light of his glowing faith. He was of those who refused to let any human interests contract out of the realm of Christ ; and in the Wesleyan Methodist Church, and far beyond, his power is still felt. In 1889 the Christian Social Union was founded by Dr. Gore and Canon Scott Holland. ‘‘I wonder if it is true to say,” writes Miss Lucy Gardner, “‘ that Copec was born on the day that Canon Scott Holland and other members of the Anglican Church formed the Christian Social Union. For in the Christian Social Union was the germ of most of the things for which Copec stands— personal service, knowledge, co-operative study, all in relation to the central thought of Christianity.” There were links between the Christian Socialists of the ’50’s and the C.S.U. ‘In the ’go’s there used to be among its members a bent figure sitting with the face of one who had come out of other and more heroic days.’”’ When youthful members spoke in words of gloom, this man would bid them cheer up, for he had seen other and darker days. That was Ludlow, who lived to see the torch which he had carried taken by other hands. And as though to link COPEC with the same great succession, Dr. Gore was at Birmingham. When he was called to sum up the dis- cussion upon Industry and Property, the assembly rose to do honour in him to all whose toils and prayers had made Copec possible. Of these origins he spoke to the Con- ference, which filled him with exhilaration and with fear. So much had gone to the making of that day; so much might follow, if only his hearers were willing to turn their faith into action. When Copec recalled its founders, it could not forget Bishop Westcott, who taught that the Incarnation meant the hallowing of all life, and lived his creed among the miners of Durham; or Scott Holland, who exulted with joy, so the Conference was reminded, when he heard that the London County Council was to be formed. ‘“‘ London has a soul!” he said to himself, as he walked down the BEFORE COPEC 5 mean streets; or Dr. John Clifford, who in his long life, both by word and pen, never ceased to plead that Christi- anity should be applied to civic and national concerns. He had known as a boy what the industrial system meant from within ; and he never forgot his own folk. These all died in faith, and they without us shall not be made perfect. During this same period the consciences of men were deeply stirred by In Darkest England and the Way Out through which General Booth sought to awaken his countrymen, and by the Bitter Cry of Outcast London. The facts revealed could not but disturb those who had hidden themselves from the unpleasant realities of their times. They set men enquiring how they might alleviate the sorrows of the poor, and whether there was any way whereby the problem of poverty could be solved. The Christian Social Union was Anglican ; the Wesleyans established a Social Service Union in 1905 ; Roman Cath- olics, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Primitive Methodists, the Friends, and the Unitarians—all established similar unions. In 1911 there was held in Birmingham the first Conference of these Unions, seeking fellowship one with another in their common task. At this point the outlines of COPEC come more definitely into view. It was an hour when there was a new fellowship coming into being among those who faced an urgent task in an age of crisis. In the summer of 1910, at Edinburgh, Christian statesmen of all schools and lands had considered together in council the problem how they might carry the Gospel into all parts of the world. That Conference has proved a landmark in the history of Christian Missions. As its members came into the presence of their Lord, and surveyed in His light the needs and sorrows of the world, they were drawn into a fellowship of service, which has already meant much, and will mean more. The same Divine Hand which was drawing Christian men together in Edinburgh was drawing them into fellow- ship in the Social Service Unions. The two tasks were not unrelated. To carry the Christian Faith to every man, and to apply the Christian Faith to every part of man, are not two tasks but one. Men were seeking to know the breadth and the depth of their Christian Faith; and they cannot know one of these until they know both. 6 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP The yearly conferences at Swanwick of the Social Service Unions from 1912 onwards were fruitful times. They were evidence that Christian people were bent upon a scientific handling of their problem. They were not content with alleviations of the trouble, which had its seat in the body of the nation. Before those days there had been for years, as case after case had been brought forward, a readiness on the part of Christian people to remedy that evil. First, conscience had provided all kinds of measures, whereby such sufferings were at least lessened. Then there were more positive attempts to reach a condition of social life in which the evils would not arise. These were gallant and daring adventures, and they must not cease. The members of the Social Service Unions had been in the thick of them. But something more was needed. There must be more deliberate thought, more collective thinking, and more sustained educational effort, if the problem of a Christian order of life was to be solved. No treatment without diagnosis ! Before such a programme could be carried through, it was seen to be necessary at this stage that religious faith and feeling should be deeply stirred. Social progress has not become a secular hope in which Christian people can share, as they might share a territory outside their life of faith. Social progress becomes possible in the great way only as it is seen to be an inevitable expression of a religious faith, and as it takes its direction from the char- acter and purpose of the Eternal God. To those annual conferences no one gave more true and patient service than Father Plater. In the COPEC assembly the Roman Catholic representatives found them- selves unable for theological reasons to take part ; but they gave much invaluable help during the years of preparation, and the COPEC reports would have lacked much of their insight and inspiration if it had not been for their help. It is fitting therefore to recall how much COPEC owes to them, and if one may be named, it would be Father Charles Dominic Plater. He had a great share in drawing up the manifesto of Social Reform published in 1917. But it is rather as one in whom the spirit of this enterprise was embodied that he has his place in this narrative. He would have rejoiced to see the day of COPEC, BEFORE COPEC 7 After he died it was written of him by Miss Lucy Gardner : ‘“ He truly was ready for service anywhere. Those of us whom he helped so wonderfully for these last years will, I hope, learn through his memory to be more ready.” In him there lived the unifying spirit without which such a common enterprise must fail. In him, too, was the very spirit of joy and hilarity, which is the experience of those who in the midst of a hard and sorrowful task have entered into the joy of their Lord. He went about his tasks “as noble boys at play.” COPEC is not in its origin a movement in pure and abstract thought. It has come into being out of the mani- fold and eager activity of human beings, thinking and praying and working together. Father Plater stands in the story of Copec as a noble representative of the union of a deep spiritual insight with a warm humanity. Once when he had left a Swanwick Conference, at which he had been with his bulldog, “Jimmy,” he sent the following lines to his friends in the name of that dog, which was made to say many droll and wise things : “Children I love; and if you are as these, I love you, too, and do my best to please. If you are not; well, let me put it thus, As Christians you have simply missed the ’bus.”’ Without doubt this is the spirit of every true adventure, and of Copec among them. Except ye turn and become as ape children ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of God. CHAPTER II — THE VISION AND THE METHOD THE Social Service Unions in fellowship did much to direct study and to show the way to practical service. But the War, which broke across all such societies, seemed to check its plans. There were other fellowships at that time upon which the war came like a thief in the night. The war diverted energies of mind and will to one urgent task. It put an end to many dreams. It showed social reformers that they had omitted from their reckoning certain master-facts. But if the war for a time interrupted the work of these Unions, it did not make it cease. Something was done to guide the conscience of the Church, something to prepare it for the readjustment to present realities, for which the war called. The war, in its own terrible fashion, was stating the problems and the tasks which awaited the Christian Church. It ruled out many easy solutions. But it left within the Christian mind the conviction that the one conceivable way of deliverance for mankind was to discover afresh the truth of Christ, and to make the experiment of obedience to it, on the scale both of the in- dividual life and of the nation and of humanity. After the war had swept past, leaving many shattered plans, and among them one hope, still to be tried, under the shadow of Westminster Abbey the leaders met to con- sider their position. There they began to see the vision of Copec. On February 20th, 1920, they gathered together a number of leading men and women from the Churches to consider with them this vision. This Conference, too, was held in Birmingham. The time was one of crisis ; for good or evil the years after the war were seen to be one of the turning points in human history. They who shared the faith of Jesus Christ were agreed that in His teaching there was implicitly contained the principles by which a just order could be saat dyts But who had thought out THE VISION AND THE METHOD 9 what was involved for the present hour in the Master’s life and teaching ? And if some way into the master-secret were discovered, how could it be revealed to the Christian community ? Others were busy with their remedies. A number of Utopias were offered. Christians were tempted either to support some sectional reform, or to formulate principles so broad and general as to leave the vital issues of the time untouched. Clearly there was room for an attempt to think out the Christian answer to the problems before mankind. It was time for the Church to enter with boldness, The first step was to form a Council of 250 representative men and women to prepare for a great Conference on Christian Politics, Economics and Citizenship. They were a company most varied and representative. It is not the purpose of the present sketch to trace all the details of the years of preparation; but it would be most misleading if no mention were made of the Chairman, the Bishop of Manchester, and the Secretaries, Miss Lucy Gardner and Dr. C. E. Raven; of the Rev. Hugh Martin, the Chairman of the Executive, and the Rev. Will Reason the Secretary of the Christian Social Crusade. With these must be named Dr. Garvie, who presided over the Com- mission upon War, and served the Conference admirably as deputy Chairman. If anyone experienced in human societies looked upon the assembly in Birmingham, he would say at once, there has been great ability at work, and boundless faith, and a love which no disappointments and no failure could daunt. Four years passed in making ready. But the value of Copec does not lie in the fact that a fine Conference was prepared and held. Any group of enthusiasts can plan a Conference, and muster the old stage-army. The value of Copec lies in the method in which the preparations were made. This was the method which came to the Conference already tested and proved. Of this something must be said, because that method is still one of the chief gifts which Copec has in trust for the Christian Church. It has still to be received and practised on an ever-widening scale. It was clear that no one thinker could cover the ground which needed survey ; nor could a group of thinkers trained in any one discipline by themselves make ready. 10 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP Theologians, historians, economists, men of business, financiers, journalists, doctors—all were needed, and all were called into the fellowship of research. The main theme of the Conference was mapped out into provinces, and commissions were appointed to survey them with all the thoroughness which their members, working together, could ensure. Each commission became a group, thinking and praying together; its members sought to discover whither they were led by their faith and insight. If they were led to agreement, that was recorded. If they found that after all their thinking they still differed, then the differences were recorded. They were prepared to test the blessing put upon fellowship when our Lord said, “‘ ‘Where two or three are gathered in My Name, there am I in the midst of them.” But before the Commissions were called into being, questionnaires had been prepared, and distributed to the number of 250,000. These were considered by study- circles and groups in many places throughout the land. In this way the experience and judgment of thousands of helpers were made available; and the way was opened to an awakened and consecrated public opinion. From the time when the questionnaires on The Social Gospel and Property and Industry were issued in the spring of 1922, the Study Group method became an integral part of the educational work of Copec. Some groups were formed in societies such as the Student Christian Movement Auxiliary, already versed in the method. Others, though they were called into being for the express purpose, were in connection with existing societies. In this way many became familiar with a new and helpful form of corporate activity. There were also ad hoc groups, some of which refuse to disband. The value of the reports, as was only natural, varied enormously. Some of the groups were composed of members almost experts on their subject, as, for instance, the group of magistrates and pro- bation officers, who sent in a report on “ The Treatment of Crime”; others, from knowledge of the circumstances discussed, were peculiarly fitted to have an opinion, as the Oxford undergraduates, who considered ‘‘ Public School Religion.” Groups were of every kind—from Ministers’ Fraternals THE VISION AND THE METHOD II and academic or scholastic groups, to village Church of England Men’s Society branches and artisan groups gathered through the Brotherhood Movement and Adult Schools ; from wives of Harley Street specialists to mem- bers of working girls’ clubs. There were also mixed groups of men and women drawn from different social classes and of different religious complexions and political outlook. Not the least of the wonders of Copec was to have given a centre of unity to people so diverse; and to watch the group mind grow, as it did so wonderfully grow in many cases, was the reward of leaders and individual members alike. One Church Tutorial Class, all Anglicans, but of different educational and cultural opportunities, and of all political parties, met under the brilliant leadership of Sir Henry Slesser. Apart from the results which they were able to contribute, these groups found the study of incalculable value. There were groups that failed and straggled off into nothingness, but they were comparatively few. The main appeal in almost every case was found in getting down to reality ; to quote a Brotherhood group of working-men, “ This is something like religion; this is what we have been waiting for.’’ | The aim of the group work may be summed up as the search of truth in charity. And since this was so, it was not after all wonderful that the success was so great. Public meetings were held in London and in other cities. No one who was present will forget the assembly in the Albert Hall, to which a host of chartered omnibuses carried enthusiasts from every quarter. But more char- acteristic than such meetings was the enlistment of a great company in the quest. Copec did not come to the Churches with the command: these are the things you must do; it came rather to call for volunteers to help in the common search. It offered the humblest member of a group met together to consider its themes a place in a gathering host. No one could be spared; no one need lose his share in this venture. The method which has been followed in COPEC is the method which in the realm of science has led to many achievements. The parallel between the method as set forth by the President of the British Association and that 12 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP of Copec is clearly seen. Into the mist of the unknown no man can penetrate far by himself ; there must be a number of men with trained scientific imagination, working together; and as they toil in fellowship there arises upon them an illuminating conception based on accumulated knowledge, and in this light the toilers see the meaning of their work. In experiment and imagination, and neither without the other, lies the open secret. In many groups, and along many lines, thousands of students and seekers, with imaginations, disciplined in many ways, were at work before the Conference. They shared the conviction that they were in the presence of a thick mist of confusion and uncertainty. In the Christian Faith there was, they believed, if men could only find it, a vision and a power whereby this mist might be dispelled and man might see his appointed way. ‘‘Each in his own special field of enquiry,” Professor Rutherford said of his fellow-students, “‘ is enabled by the scientific method to penetrate a little distance, and his work reacts upon and influences the whole body of other workers.”’ This has been the experience of many who have worked for Copec. In this investigation of Christian ethics, as on the study of physics, there has been the hard toil of separate minds, united and thrilled by a common purpose. Copec, so far, is true to the method of science. Experiment in fellowship is the secret of advance. There are many who can declare that it is the true way, because they have tried it, and it did not betray them. It is a misreading of the purpose of Copec to demand of it formulas, to be applied by the Church on the authority of Copec. No such formulas can be found. But a method of advance has been commended to others by those who have tried it themselves. It is to the disciplined imagination that the light will come. If imagination is needed in physics, it is no less needed in ethics. And imagination was not wanting during the days of preparation, and it became the hope of all who worked through these years that some illumin- ating conception might come to the Christian Church through their fellowship. The scientist knows what this means; how in one flash the work of a thousand scholars is interpreted, and a vast THE VISION AND THE METHOD 13 range of the mystery into which all things move is rolled back. That illuminating thought could not come, but for the hard toil; yet without the flash of insight the toil remains unfinished. It is the visitation of the Spirit of God, who broods over the face of the deep, and brings order out of chaos. What this illuminating conception may be for those who are seeking to know the Christian way of life in the modern world no one can tell. But if the analogy of Science holds good, it may be something simple. “It has been of extraordinary intellectual interest,’’ said Professor Rutherford, “‘ to watch the gradual unfolding of new ideas—the ever-changing methods of attack on difficult problems. It has been of great interest, too, to note the comparative simplicity of the ideas that have ultimately emerged. . . . Nature appears to work in a simple way, and the more fundamental the problem often the simpler are the conceptions needed for its explanation.” What if this is as true of Christian Ethics as it is of Physics! The time may not be far distant when some illuminating conception may light up the whole range of Christian duty. In that time there will be many to say, “How simple!” and a host of shallow and light-hearted writers and preachers will declare that they knew it all the time. But they who have toiled at the preparation will have a reward not given to those who come in when victory is proclaimed. For the man of Science, when some new master-truth shines upon him, there is no resting; his next task is to make experiments whereby he may make a fresh advance. “The attack begins anew on a wider front.” The way lies through experiment to illumination, and then back to experiment again. There is no other way for those who seek to win for man his true life out of the confusion of the moment,—through experiment to the hour when upon the company of the faithful there comes a master-truth, simple and yet almost infinite in its outgoings ; then with that truth as the common possession there will be experi- ments in thought and in action, in the individual life and in society; and through such experiments the way lies to new triumphs for the spirit of man. Every goal is a starting-point. 14 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP It is along such lines COPEC is working. It is criticized by impatient zealots. They will suffer from the folly of practical men who want something to do at once, no matter what; but if the men of Copec are wise they will not be greatly troubled by such attacks. COPEC has followed a method which is true to the principles by which man had made whatever advance he has made in knowledge and in wisdom. It is strange that men should be so slow to apply to their religious life the methods which have proved mighty in their search for mastery over this material earth. These methods are not indeed foreign to the Christian Faith ; but the Church has been slow to use its own divine wisdom. It has not revealed the singleness of mind to which alone is promised the vision of God. Its servants have not toiled humbly and patiently at their material; above all they have not worked in fellowship ; and when a master- truth has come they have not treated it as the starting- point of new experiments. The endeavour with which this book deals is a brave attempt to follow the method, not only approved by Science, but true to the mind of God in Christ. It is called for such a day as this; human society is crying in despair for some new guidance; the Christian Church is paralysed because it does not know how it should express its faith. On every hand there are those who have lost heart and sink into individualism, or forsake the Faith altogether. In such an hour it is well that there have appeared leaders who, according to the method of Science, which is also the method of Faith, are seeking in this modern scene for a way of life according to the mind of Christ. Such is the method which must be remembered when the story of the sessions at Birmingham is told. Those who look for ready-made solutions will look in vain. Those are deceived who think that for them there is no demand for toil of heart and mind, since others have done it in their stead. But any who find themselves in the thick of a great adventure, in which they, too, must take their part, will not miss the secret of Copec. CHAPTER III —— THE MASTER LIGHT THE REPORT ON THE NATURE OF GOD AND HIS PURPOSE FOR THE WORLD ‘¢ Whom to know is life eternal.’ THERE must be a way, if we could only find it. It is true that many ways have proved to be blind alleys. But there is one way, that still remains to be explored. Every where men are becoming more ready to try whether this way will lead humanity into beauty, truth and goodness. “For many loves he now has only one ; His many gods before the tempest flee ; His light is dying and his day is done, But he at last has Me.” There are assemblies in which the men agree to lay aside their religious beliefs, and, apart from such things, to plan the best policy for an earth-bound life. Copec was not such a Conference. Its members started with the one purpose to discover what was the mind of the God and Father of Jesus Christ for this generation in all the range of its life. They believe, and experience of late years deepens their conviction, that in Jesus Christ, their common Lord, and His good news of God, lies the way to the under- standing and the right use of life in allits manifestations, aspects and activities. Copec was not a Conference charged to explore all the mysteries of the Faith. Its purpose was to seek for the light to see that Faith in its practical bearing upon the social, industrial and political life of the world, as it is to- day. Its concern with the great truths of the Gospel was not so much with their value for abstract thought, as with their meaning for the ordering of human life in a confused and desperate world. But, as the assembly proceeded from one problem to another, there came to its members the conviction that no 15 7 16 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP expense of toil in thought and in prayer, whereby man comes to know God better, can be wasted; and that no answer can be found to the pressing needs of the world, except in the very nature and purpose of God. If the right treatment of Education, or Sex, or Criminal Law is to be learned, it must rest upon an understanding of the divine education of the race, and this in turn must rest upon the purpose of God. This had been the firm conviction of the group of thinkers, who, under the chairmanship of Professor Moberly, prepared the Report on The Nature of God and His Purpose for the World. THE STARTING-POINT Copec had no theological creed, to which assent was demanded. Men had been led to its councils by many ways, and after many struggles. But there was for all one starting-point, the beliet in the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. They set out to discover what was the Will of Christ, sure that in His words and life and death, the eternal truth was translated into the language of humanity. The light of heaven, as Coventry Patmore said, is seen through the smoked glass of humanity. We become conscious in Christ of a God, Who is making Himself known to us in the only way in which we could learn to love Him. To Jesus Christ, God was supremely real. Towards nature and towards man His attitude was determined by this one fact, that God was Father. But this Fatherhood was not one simply of benevolent interest. God so loved that He gave. This is the foundation upon which the Christian must build his social Gospel. It is not enough to invoke the divine blessing when the plan is adopted. It is not enough to open the enquiry with prayer and then to pass into other realms of thought over which God has no rule. God must be the Alpha, and the Omega, and He must fill the vast spaces between. This trust in the Father is shown in the attitude of Jesus towards men. He thought in particulars. To Him the multitude was an assembly of individual beings, each with his own value. Jesus never trusted to mass- emotion. His chief preparations for the future were made in His training of the Twelve. Every human THE MASTER LIGHT 17 personality was sacred to Him. He gave a new valuation to womanhood. It was He who first taught the care for children. In His own life He was associated chiefly with the poor and simple, who were more favourably situated for entering the Kingdom of God. His mind was shown in His revolutionary treatment of sin; for the Pharisaic goodness He had no place, because there was no redemptive love in it. In all His treatment of the lost He showed a deep reverence for human personality. He taught men first to reverence the Holy Name of God, but in the same prayer He taught them to work out in their relations one with another the eternal things of truth and hope and love. They were to forgive as well as to receive forgiveness. This life in the will of God and in His Kingdom was the true life for man. But by no easy way could it be reached. There must be a transformation, like nothing so much as a new birth. To live, a man must die. There was much in man which hindered him from entering the Kingdom of God. To free him from the grip of pride and fear, and from all that held him back Jesus lived and died. He came not only to reveal but to redeem, and in His Cross the Christian heart has found the two “ vast spacious things,” sin and love, laid bare. God in Christ suffers the effects, and bears the burden of our sin. But love is not powerless ; its might is revealed in the Cross, and in the Resurrection ; but the end for which it is released must not be mistaken. It is not to save man from physical need or spiritual suffer- ing, but to undermine his pride, to overcome his fears, to enable his repentance, to transform his sorrow into joy. And the love, kindled by Christ, is not love for a dead Master, but love for One through whom the soul is made anew, and enters into the service and joy of the Lord. Fellowship must follow for those who share together the new life of goodness, truth and beauty. They gain their own souls by living and working in the fellowship, in which the values of God are accepted and tested. Brother- hood comes from a spiritual source or it is nothing. The kinship of the common dust does not prove brotherhood. That must arise from a common experience of an eternal purpose, in which is the power of the endless life. Man has now entered into eternal life; he is already a citizen 18 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP of the Holy City of God; and for that very reason he must seek to realize its spirit, and build on the plains of this earth after the pattern of its towers and palaces. Fellow- ship in such a life is not the outworking of some mechanical scheme, nor yet a time of training in the preparatory school, but a splendid adventure and voyage of discovery. NATURE Man must live out this life in the midst of nature. How then must he treat it? Does Jesus give him any clue? There is for Him, it is clear, no partiality and no fatalism. Man is under no ruthless and mechanical force, but through creation, if he had eyes to see and ears to hear, the Father is making Himself known. Jesus, moreover, accepts the order of nature, and gives it a meaning. The world was able to train as well by its seeming ruthlessness as by its generosity. It must be accepted as the order of the household of God. Nature is not meaningless, but her meaning is drawn not so much from us as from God. The world is His parable. It is not evil, it is a divine sacrament. It follows that the blessings of the earth are therefore for man to accept gladly and to use without shame. The body is not the prison-house of the soul. The surrender of earthly ties or normal gratification where it is demanded is not a matter of law or system, but of spiritual well-being. Such a sacrifice has no merit of its own. Nature to Jesus and to those who base their lives upon Him is the scene in which man works out God’s purpose. It is the means whereby spiritual values are achieved. Through His interpretation of this human scene Jesus opens up to men the very secret of romance. “To ride loose to this life, is to see it with the glory of Eden upon it.” THE CHRISTIAN HYPOTHESIS Every man must bring to the mass of facts which wait his ordering, some working hypothesis. This is the Chris- tian one. The world-process is not purposeless; it is meant to be the means whereby free personalities are made capable of apprehending and reproducing in their character the eternal values of goodness, truth and beauty. If this be taken as a working-hypothesis, it will be seen how it makes sense of the long process. There were needed persons who THE MASTER LIGHT 19 could enter into this high destiny of fellowship with God. Neither we nor God can love machines. But to bring free personalities into the scene, a long development was needed. There was a demand for adventure and endur- ance. There had to be a risk of that frustration, which St. Paul-called “‘ vanity.” If the sons of God are to be revealed, it may well be that the groaning and travail of creation was needed. Life remains a mystery; but it can be best understood by the Christian if he fixes his eyes upon the future, for man has not yet arrived. GoD AND MAN Our whole outlook upon the problems of social and industrial life depends upon our view of the character and purpose of physical nature. To see the world as a vale of tears is naturally to transfer one’s dreamland from it to Paradise. Ifitis evil, then we may turn either to asceticism or to licentiousness. If it is a machine, which has blindly stumbled upon man, why trouble ? The other-worldliness which despairs of improvement, and the materialism which reduces Christianity to an ethical scheme, are alike alien to the mind of Christ. He taught man that two worlds were his, and that they are not to be divided into two separate realms. Man does indeed become himself when he is conscious of God, but it is through the material world-process of which he is a part that God gives Himself. At once our Lord rejects in His teaching the view which sharply divides spirit from sense, and that which merges God in His world. The belief that the material world is susceptible of God, consecrates material life, and lifts the social aspect of Christian endea- vour into a directly religious task. To give beauty and rightness to our human life may be our contribution to the full flowering of Divine Reality in space and time. And, if we create or permit the ugly, sordid and imperfect, we are impeding the self-expression of God. Every act becomes religious. But the supreme sacrament is not in Nature but in Man, and the whole personality of man. It is through persons we most plainly receive the knowledge of God. Through our friends religion comes first to us. Causes may inspire us, but through persons alone do we find our truest satis- 20 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP faction. Through the sacrament of personality will a person reveal himself to us. It is only One whom we know as a Person that we can love. But before we go further, Love must be defined. It may be said to spring from an act of faith, of recognition and of trust. The primary quality in love is passion, which is the driving force of life, the source of vitality and power. Passion is balanced and directed by reverence, the regard for the sanctity and worth of another’s person- ality, which makes it impossible for us to use him as a means to our end, or to seek less for him than his own highest good. ‘“‘ Love draws the soul as the force of gravity draws the body.” God, who is revealed in Christ, can alone be the object of a love which will absorb every fibre of our being; and the love thus aroused and fulfilled will colour with its quality all the lesser relationships. As He has loved us, so we are to love one another. MAN’s RESPONSE Neither worldliness nor other-worldliness can satisfy the mind of man; his whole personality seeks an object other than himself. Ethical ideals by themselves cannot transform character. Man needs to find God as the disciples found Him—incarnate in their Master. That experience saturates the whole personality with the influence of God. And what follows? Man is conscious that there is an infinite value put upon his individuality. At the same time by coming into relations with One, who understands him altogether, and still does not cast him off, man is transfigured. The bitter loneliness is over. God being what He is, now loves him, being what he is. And this experience of the individual soul involves three things for the society of such redeemed beings: There is a personal relation between all its members. Each becomes the servant of the whole. All the members keep in mind continually the end of their service. It is not a legal bond that holds them together. They are children of one family, each a freeman, each a person. If one of the members goes wrong, the word is not, “‘ Let him die!”’ but, ‘‘ How can he be saved ? ”’ But we lapse easily from the personal to cut-and-dried THE MASTER LIGHT 2X legalism. We limit personal relations within a narrow circle, outside of which other values hold. It is hard to treat all men as persons. All difficulties are solved as the members devote them- selves to the end, for which they exist. That end is to share in the creative and redemptive act of love. It is an adventure to which they are called, and the days are days of crisis for such a fellowship. In such hours the real man slips off the mask. Crisis leads to a trust among com- rades. In the sharing of a common adventure, with the hazard of a death before them, men are drawn strangely near together. There is something in such a brotherhood upon which a man may fall back when he is in the presence of the real things of life and death. It is in the fellowship of this adventure and with the resources of such a brotherhood, that a man in the Christian interpretation of life, comes to his full and harmonious life. That is why it is right to speak of a Christian Sociology. There is a study of man’s life in society which does not take account of the revelation of God in Christ, and of the power that comes from that revelation. There is a science, which among its facts does take account of these things, and this is a Christian Sociology. - It must make a difference in any estimate of human relationship if human nature, in its ideal, is the nature of Christ. That is a fact of the first importance. Christianity at the first, lived through the bankruptcy of a civilization. Its acceptance might yet save us from the bankruptcy of the present civilization. GOD AND SIN Why has the vision of Christian faith not been fulfilled ? Is it because of the fixity and stubbornness of the material environment ? This does put a certain constraint upon man, but it is not the chief obstacle. That obstacle is sin. Man’s condition may be called a parody of the divine purpose. It is below any pattern worthy of his limited vision. To attain to his true life man needs the divine grace. To be out of God’s order is sin. To be out of God is to be out of life. Sin means a steady sinking of life within the individual and corporate soul. The wages of sin is death. 22 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP In the personal life there is ignorance, for mankind 1s still in its infancy, but this ignorance is reinforced by the drag-back to primitive standards. Man capitulates to animal impulses. Sin as involving guilt is the misdirection of human energies; and for it no piecemeal remedies are of any value. The whole person must turn round from self to God. There is corporate as well as personal sin, since the whole society is involved in the sin of each member. The Cross itself was the consequence of a multitude of relatively small errors. No one individual willed it. It was the work of a number of men whose sins converged upon the Holy Lord. In this way the Cross was from the side of man a corporate sin. A great number of selfish and God- denying lives create a miass-consciousness tolerant of selfishness. Men acting together accept and even initiate practices of which privately they would be ashamed. That is their corporate sin. To overcome this, means corporate action, following upon a multitude of individual protests, and possibly martyrdoms. Corporate dealing with corporate sin is possible, provided there is first of all individual action, prompted by faith. In these modern days there is no need that its action should be slow. The corporate life is far more plastic in this age. The number of ties which bind the household with the common life of the nation and the world are far more than they were formerly. There are a vast number of roads, known and unknown, between human lives, roads down which evil may travel, roads down which the gracious powers of the Kingdom of God may move swiftly. The speed of movement one way or the other in the human scene has rapidly grown. Therefore it is not essential to demand long ranges of time for spiritual changes. Mankind can break its chains. If the corporate life is low, it need not remain low. But there is need for the Church to interpret sin in harmony with the new conditions of the world. It is not that too much was made of sin when it was interpreted largely of the indi- vidual life. There is needed not a less but a more serious thought of sin. Man must still be brought under conviction of sin, but it must be measured in terms not of the individual life alone, as if that were separable from THE MASTER LIGHT 23 others, but also in terms of the social life, of which it is a part. And salvation must become the consecration to service of all our redeemed powers for the sake of the little ones who perish through our indifference. Sin will become a more terrible concern, Salvation more full and complete, as it is understood to mean the offer of life to the service of Christ in those in whom He bade us meet with Him. THE MEANS OF RECOVERY “To be to the eternal goodness what his own hand is to a man.” That is the end of the redeemed life. There is need moreover for a corporate surrender to the purpose of God; the Society must be to Him hands and feet. We must repent. We must adjust ourselves to the dark facts of our individual and social life. We are only free when all are free ; we are only saved in a saved humanity. But such a society can only be brought into being through the grace of God acting upon individual lives; and He gives Himself to men as they empty themselves to receive Him. “T cannot do the work without God, and He may not or will not without me.” THOUGHTS UPON THE CHURCH We need a Society to be a guide to the way, a witness to the truth, and a channel for the life of Christ. The Church represents not only the corporate experience of Christian life, but also its attachments with history. The Church repays the surrender of individualism by applying to the necessarily limited experience of the individual member the hoarded wisdom of the race. The Church is criticized by its own members, because we have let down our home-life ; and we know it. If the Church exists to symbolize and enrich the com- munity of His children with their Father, its chief activities must be the fostering of the means of communion, prayer and the sacraments. Prayer is ‘both individual and corporate. The first Cc 24 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP reason for the existence of the Church is that this private relation with God may be extended and accomplished in the sphere of social life. INTERCESSION AND SOCIAL DvuTy Intercession is a perpetual need for those who deal with Social Reform. They are constantly tempted not to look beyond the world. They tend to accept the earth-bound conditions in the midst of which they toil. They allow the other side to choose the weapons. If the Church of Christ is to apply its Gospel to the human scene, it will need not less, but more intercession. It will lay not less emphasis, but more, upon adoration and worship. Ex- perience shows that for those who look for a Christian order to arise only through new relations between persons, it is essential that there should be a world of light into which they can come, from which they can draw unfailing resources. GOD AND PRESENT CONDUCT But it is not a Christian society in which we live. What must the Christian man do? It is vain to say, ‘Scrap all industrialized civilization.” To do so now would mean disaster and tragedy for the present generation. The problem is how to feel and think and work worthily in a world where the Christian standard is not accepted. It must be remembered that the Church exists to make a Christian order of life, and therefore it cannot contract out of the activities and institutions of this world. Only in service and sacrifice for the winning of the world can the soul become healthy, and to do this it cannot leave the world. If this is so, decisions of grave difficulty must be made. The citizen, for example, who doubts the Christian character of the penal system, is called to serve on a jury. A business man has to satisfy at once his own ideals, and those of his shareholders. What is he to do? There must be first of all self-knowledge; and, in the second place, thoughtful sympathy for the needs and well- being of others. In all cases of difficulty we must accept nothing which will destroy or endanger our sonship to God or the eternal welfare of any of His children. Christ called His disciples to follow such an ideal, knowing that THE MASTER LIGHT 25 it means the Cross. But what is it to go the way of the Cross ? The Cross means the utter surrender of life for the King- dom and not for ourselves—not even for our spiritual selves. Our motive must be love not self-interest. “ May my name perish, so His will be done.”” The Cross becomes inevitable for those who say this, but they can face the Cross serenely, since their Master is in them, and they in Him. They have attained their end. They are crucified with Christ. There are very practical sequels wherever men die with Christ. There is a change in the very substance of their natures, a radical renewal in their attitude towards God and towards human society. For the entrance of this new life there can be no substitute. It is the soul, the value and outlook of humanity, that must be altered. That is the issue which mankind is always unwilling to face. If personality is the holiest fact in the universe, then the Church will change its standards of greatness. False standards are ingrained in the fibre of our being. How far do we apply Christian standards to the work of the world ? How many of us have the Christian standard in our estimate of the work done by women? How many careers is it possible to receive as vocations? Are we content that so many of our fellow-citizens should be debarred from the joy of vocation? These are but a few of the many evidences that we have not accepted to the full, the standards by which life should be valued. We have to examine afresh our policies and standards all along the line. This is the sum of the matter : “In the cause of social righteousness we believe that the first duty of the Christian and of the Chureh is not with programmes or policies, not with acquiescence or with revolution, but with God: we believe that it is only the God-possessed and God-inspired who ean rightly and radically reform themselves and the world: we believe that such reform, initiated and carried out in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, would bring its own commendation to multitudes of men and women who are now lifting blind hands above the turmoil and groping for a deliverer: we 26 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP believe that the time is ripe for a renewed acceptance among Christians of the full responsibilities of their Master’s commission to His followers, that those who accept it will find His strength sufficient for them, and that in the world of to-day a widespread spiritual awakening will follow.”’ With such thoughts as these in their minds, the delegates at Birmingham plunged into the thicket of problems, beginning with Education, CHAPTER IV THE KEY IN THE SATCHEL THE REPORT ON EDUCATION THERE are three ways of treating the relations between education and religion. Religion may be disregarded al- together. Or it may be considered a separate interest ; in this case we might survey the human scene, and provide a way in which childhood and youth might be trained to fill their part init; then after all was arranged, the blessing of God might be sought upon the accomplished fact. There is a third way, and by this alone has Copec sought to discover the duty of Christian citizens. They must begin with God, and form an understanding of His character and His purpose for human beings, and so learn what is needed in education if by it they are to fulfil His design. In the other ways there is a cleavage between secular and sacred education. In the way which is taken by the Report upon Education,* the unity is preserved in the only possible way—through the recognition that God is all and in all. He is everywhere or nowhere. We must begin with God. As is our God, so will our educational system be. Where there is a faith in the God revealed in Jesus Christ, then education becomes the solemn task of teaching that truth and preparing the mind to receive it. Education is the way, whereby the human personality is led out into a world, made for its discovery and use and for a training ground in Christian character. It is to set a child in a world which is sacramental through and through, and to enlist a new personality to walk with God in time and beyond time. Religion in such a case is not a subject like geography or history. It runs through all things; and what is believed by the teacher makes a difference in the teaching of history or art or geography. God is everywhere or nowhere. * Chairman, the Bishop of Liverpool, 27 28 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP It may seem a waste of time to return to the Gospels for the starting-point from which to approach modern educational problems. Whether for example boys and girls should stay at school till sixteen or playgrounds are to be provided or classes reduced are practical questions, which it is supposed can be solved without bringing in the spiritual world. But our dealing with the boy between 14 and 16 years will depend upon the values that we apply to his life. And these depend upon the place that we conceive him to fill in the scheme of things. There is no great art, said Robert Louis Stevenson, till a man can write over it “Enter God!’ There is no consistent educational system, until it is based upon an interpretation of the values of life, and therefore upon the character and purpose of God. For those who met in Birmingham, there was but one starting-point for their thinking, the revelation of God in Christ. It is clear, if the Gospels are studied, that Jesus created new and personal values; He set men free from the tyranny of things; He attached them by love to a God, who was so interpreted as to become intelligible to human minds, responsive to human hearts. A new life became theirs, keen and bold, glad and calm; a new fellowship with others, a new willingness to sacrifice self for the Kingdom, a new interest in Nature, and in all the works of man. The ideal of Christian education is to do what Jesus did, and to follow His method. First, life must open out in the presence of Christian character and Christian surroundings. The training must begin in the family of the children of God with the atmosphere of that family. Then it is necessary to teach as Jesus taught the presence of God in nature and humanity. The child should become familiar with God, not only as expressed in Jesus, but also in the sacrament of His creation. After- wards it will be remembered how Jesus appealed to the divinest element in human nature, the love of person for person, and deliberately set Himself to attach that love to Himself, as the representative for mankind of God. It is still the end of all education to attach the life, set in the midst of a world which is God’s world, by love to God in Christ. Education will mean the full and harmonious develop- THE KEY IN THE SATCHEL 20 ment of the resources of the human spirit. The thoughts of an individual, as Dr. Maxwell Garnett has shown, tend to be grouped in interests, each of which is focussed on a purpose which deeply stirs his emotion. In a complete human being there must be a single wide interest, whereby he will take his proper place in the society from which it is inseparable. For the Christian this must be the purpose of fulfilling God’s will by advancing His Kingdom. And this purpose, undertaken as it is by those whose love has been claimed by that God in the only way in which He could claim love from human beings, will perfectly fulfil the conditions. Every child in every school must be inter- preted therefore in the light of this vision. He must have his values read in the measure of that single, wide interest, the Kingdom of God. “‘ In the school satchel lie the keys of to-morrow.” To each generation there is offered the liberation of personality by which alone the entail of folly and evil can be broken. ““ And in their blood the great age sleeps sepulchred Till thou and I shall roll away the stone.” But to work this liberation, faith in the idea must. pass into action. THE TEACHER More important than building, or equipment, or com- mittees, or codes, is the man or woman who is the chief human influence brought to bear on the child’s mind for some hours daily. The Christian Church should honour the teacher’s office and work, and should encourage the best men and women to undertake it; both in knowledge, and technical skill and spiritual understanding it should demand for the teacher a full equipment. Already the Shadow of an increase in cost creeps over these pages ; but if in Apostolic times for the sake of their faith, the Christians took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, for the sake of the one dominant purpose in all education, the Kingdom of God, the modern Christian should not pay less joyfully his rates and taxes. In education if there is one dominant purpose through all its ranges, there can be no separation of one stage from another. Each shades into the next. The programme of the primary school cannot be planned apart from that 30 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP of the secondary school. No one can deal rightly with a child of ten unless he has some ideal for him at fourteen. Each stage will be a preparation for the following. If, once more, our concern is for the Kingdom of God we shall never rest content with a waste of power, due simply to social distinctions, “A’s child, mentally slow, may long for the cowboy’s or the woodman’s life, and is pushed (with difficulty) through a public school and University. B’s child is in- tellectually brilliant, reaches the seventh standard of a crowded city school at eleven years old, marks time there for three years and then begins his life-work as a railway van-boy. The sole reason for this difference is that A’s income is ten times as large as B’s.”’ Such a waste cannot be justified even on purely secular grounds ; no nation is so rich that it can afford to squander its treasures. But if education is designed to prepare fellow-workers with God, to do His will, then to allow gifts to be wasted is to sin against Him. If, once more, the end is the Kingdom of God, then in education the outmost bound must not be the nation. Children must be given some knowledge of world history ; their nation must be seen as part of a large whole. And since we have come to an age in which the nations are feeling their way towards a new fellowship through the League of Nations, children should be led to know of its work, and to understand its ideals. To become good citizens of the world English boys must first become good Englishmen and to become good Englishmen they must first be good sons and brothers, and after that loyal par- ticipators in the affairs of their own neighbourhood. It is possible to educate a nation for war ; it should be possible, though it may be harder, to educate a nation for peace within a new and greater Christendom. Life should unfold, if the Christian Faith is true, as Beauty, Truth, Usefulness and Goodness. For each one has in him the artist, philosopher, worker, saint; and these are not living apart. A good teacher will make every lesson a lesson in ethics. It was Origen who spoke of “ the holy mathematic.’”’ But it is stillnecessary to provide some definite teaching upon the relations of God to man and of man to man. THE KEY IN THE SATCHEL 31 An education from which religious instruction is lacking is without the very thing which growing boys and girls need most. The affairs of the material world are thrust upon them. Some time should be given to the discovery of the laws of the Kingdom of God. Youth is in the realm of visible things; it feels the thrill of the outer world. It should be made at the same time to know the inner side of things as that has been revealed to others and will be revealed again. A definite place in the time-table; for text book the Bible; the teacher helped to become thoroughly versed in the modern Study of the Bible— these are some of the first necessities. All the teachers must be enlisted, but in each school there should be one who is an expert. The subject is not so simple as our grandfathers believed, and there are not enough teachers who have been able to qualify themselves for this task. The public elementary school code, 1t 1s recommended, should therefore cease to restrict religious instruction to the first or last period of the day’s schooling. Teaching there must be, but it must not be such as to overshadow or obstruct the boy’s own search for God. Everything once more depends upon the character of God, with whom the child meets in the outset of his way. It is good for hirn to know the story of Joshua for example, but it is wrong if he puts the revelation of God’s character in Joshua alongside the revelation of God in Christ. The Old Testament should be used as an educational instru- ment by means of which the child can see the progressive revelation of God. Without this clue the mind of youth is left bewildered amid a number of clashing texts. God becomes a composite figure, made from the impressions leit by many stories, unarranged and unrelated. That was the tragedy, discovered by those who studied the mind of the soldiers in the days of the war. In the hour when they needed desperately a clear vision of the Holy God, they were left with puzzled and confused memories. That spiritual tragedy may be repeated or it may be averted. The issue will be decided in the schools. THERE MUST BE A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION There is reported by all enquirers a miracle of indifference 32 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP on the part of the Christian public upon this matter of education. They are willing in many places to leave the children in huge “efficient ’’ barracks or in insanitary buildings, which await the condemnation of the authorities. They care little by whom and in what fashion, the all- important work is done. Whether the teacher has to wrestle with and tame fifty infants or seventy-five, or, as in some rural areas, has to handle thirty children of all ages and standards. Education only becomes exciting to the public when the problem arises how to keep down the rates and abolish Bolshevist Sunday Schools. If the devoted few, who do their part and the part of others, should set up an apology for the Christian public they must remember that no words of praise for their service can be too great, but that they are the few. For the most part the members of the Churches lack imagination and vision, and shrink therefore from the cost. It is little that we pay for the liberation of immortal powers in the service of the Kingdom of God. If it is urged that the ratepayer would not grudge the money if he had value for it, there is one answer—‘‘ What are you doing in thought and in prayer to discover what is the true value and how much of imagination and service are you willing to offer ? ”’ Nursery Schools must be restored. They were the first victims to come under the axe. But they are essential under present conditions; they may be the second-best, but as things are, the only alternative offered is between the nursery school and the street. The elementary school and the secondary school imply at present social distinctions. They should be made real educational stages. At the age of eleven or twelve secon- dary education begins, and this fact must be recognized. Secondary education must be for all. “All our young people up to the age of eighteen should remain within the purview of the State for educational purposes. Whether spent in schools or works, these are to be educative years. All these boys and girls are to be thought of as belonging without exception to a great human society, that exists to cherish a complete life and prepare for later developments. Their membership must be retained ; none can be spared; none can be neglected. THE KEY IN THE SATCHEL 33 It is not merely that to close the period of education at fourteen means the loss of years; it is that these years of adolescence are psychologically of supreme importance for every kind of spiritual development.” The favourite analogy hitherto has been the ladder, whereby one or another might escape to a higher plane. The better analogy is that of the broad open highway. At present less than five per cent. of children in elementary schools pass into secondary schools. That fact alone pKa Ow far we are at present from “ Secondary Schools or all. If the primary school is to be a place in which the best is to be made of the nation’s children, its site, its playing fields (at present there are virtually none), its furniture, its walls, its curriculum, its teachers, its corporate life must be made worthy of the great enterprise. Every school must become a home of romance and a fitting palace for childhood. Therefore classes must be reduced. Otherwise there cannot be the personal relation between the teacher and pupil. Everything should be done to give the teacher the right equipment, and the noblest vision, and afterwards he must not be thrust into conditions such as must rob him of his visions, For secondary education the years twelve to eighteen should be a continuous period of training. The first thing needful is to put the Acts of 1918 into force; Parliament sometimes lags behind public opinion ; in this case it went ahead. No boy or girl to leave school till sixteen! That is clear and definite ; and many more dramatic programmes would do less for the nation than this. The years from fourteen to sixteen are mysterious and troubled years in the heart of youth. It is then his soul is in a tunnel, and out of sight. They are years in which undirected freedom is a peril. The Church of Christ should know these things. It is without excuse if it suffers unheeding those who are in those years to leave school for factory or too often for the street, waiting for the call which does not come. The Secondary schools have a noble office on the foun- dations that have been laid. They will train the reason, feed the imagination, and develop the power of concen- tration. They will seek, as we urged in the last section, 34 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP to link their work with the experiences of life and the story and interests of the locality. They will open out new regions of thought in the teaching of organized science and it may be of some foreign language. They will connect their history teaching and their moral and religious influence with the future function of citizenship in the town, the State and the larger realm of humanity. They will introduce their scholars to the splendid heritage of English literature. They will use the agencies of Art and Music and the Drama to bring new thoughts of beauty, and new openings for unsuspected gifts. They will harness the powers of the young adolescent to the disinterested service of the school community. Of the ideals of the University, COPEC had much to say, but for this readers must turn to the Reports. The last impression left upon the student who surveys our educational scene is one of unfinished work. ‘“ Ephraim is like a cake not turned.” But those who hold in trust the Christian vision of personality cannot leave the task half-done. The most wasteful of all works are those which are left unfinished. ADULT EDUCATION ‘““Give me the child till he is five and then you can do with him as you choose.”’ This would be wicked if it were true, but it is not true. It would be in order to reply: “Give me the grandparents, and the parents, and you can do as you choose with the child.” But neither claim is true. Education is a lifelong business and at every turn of the way the word of the Lord comes to a man. It is significant that the method of Jesus with His gioup of adult students is the only method which the adult education movement of our own time finds likely to attract or to be successful in its results. The spirit, conduct, and teaching of Jesus Christ are in fact the historically achieved transmitted spring and measure of the personal and social qualities, that we must needs regard as sufficient and unsurpassed. There is much work being done in this field,* prompted both by the right ideal and true to the right method. But it suffers from the lack of energetic and sympathetic * See The Report of the Commission on Adult Education; publications of the Workers’ Educational Association, Settlements, Adult Schools, etc. THE KEY IN THE SATCHEL 35 support from the Christian community. The Churches have not yet taken into their imagination the need and the promise of adult education. Individual members of Churches have done much but the Christian Societies as a whole have not stood behind the pioneers in this field, and their own adult educational work is declared to be negligible. That is why it is commended that “ steps should be taken to investigate the causes of the present deficiency of adult educational effort which characterizes them and to develop adult education, especially in subjects directly related to the Bible and to religion among their own members.” “The Churches should seek definitely to co-operate with other bodies in the general movement of adult education, particularly by encouraging their members to join in such activities whether as students or teachers.” The great thing is that the adult educational work of the Churches should be thoroughly integrated with that of the other agencies in the community. They cannot themselves cover the whole field of adult education, even for their own members. Probably, if they are doing all they might do in providing for education in Biblical and related subjects, they will find their powers taxed to the full. But Christian education includes far more than this, and if it is to be secured, the share of non-ecclesiastical organizations in giving it will assuredly have to be recog- nized. This would mean that Churches would encourage their members to embrace the opportunities provided by other bodies for the study of economic, political, scientific, literary and artistic subjects. Unless they do so they run the risk of failing to develop in those members a really thoughtful, intelligent, practical Christianity. They may rest satisfied in equipping them for civic and national service only with abstract Christian principles which, apart from wise applications based on sound knowledge and wide human sympathies, will never change the world. Little is said here of Sunday Schools. This is because all that is urged upon the meaning of religious education is as true and applicable in the Sunday as in the Day Schools. In them at least the Churches have the chance to put into practice what they believe upon education. There are many welcome signs that the members of Churches are more and more taking this task as a serious charge, 36 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP and are seeking to introduce into the Sunday School the best educational methods. They should not be content to cover the ground already occupied by religious in- struction in Day Schools. The Sunday School must at least ‘‘ include training and practice in the expression of worship and prayer, suited to the instincts and experience of the child, but on lines that lead to the forms of worship established in the Church to which the School belongs.” In each report we begin with God, and we end with the call to self-oblation. There must be a price paid for the liberation of the sons of God. If education is to be the instrument whereby this enrichment is to come into our national life, there is no other way than the ancient one of service and sacrifice. It is inevitable if we begin with God in Christ, that we should come to the Cross CHAPTER V RHYTHM IN LIFE THE COMMISSION UPON LEISURE. AT first sight it looks as though leisure should be con- sidered at the end of all the other great and pressing themes. When we have rightly ordered our industry, and built our houses, when we have set international relations on a true footing, and banished the shadow of war, then, and not till then, shall we have time for leisure. It is true that it can only be perfectly enjoyed when the rest of life has been moulded on the Christian pattern, but at the same time it will never be so moulded except by those who have learned something of the rhythm of life. We cannot wait for the Christian order to arrive before we begin to experi- ment in the right use of leisure. It was fitting therefore that the subject should not be kept till the end. At Birmingham it had its place at the close of the second day. It had been a day of intense and even painful interest. The Conference had come into its own as a deliberative body. The consideration of leisure gave a quiet cadence to the day. But in a great assembly it was perhaps inevitable that the interest should be directed chiefly to such sub-sections as those which dealt with Drink and Gambling. It would however be a serious loss if the general counsels upon Leisure made by the Commission were disregarded. The right use of leisure may make all the difference in the effectiveness of a human life ; the right provision of leisure for a people is so necessary that the neglect of it may undo the work of many social reformers.* The Commission began with the attitude of our Lord to leisure. In the Gospels He is represented as inviting His disciples to come apart to a desert place, in order that He and they might be quiet. Palestine was a thickly- * Chairman, the Rev. T. Pym. 37 38 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP populated province, and the crowd was always near at hand, only the desert and the mountains offered solitude. Moreover Jesus loved the social life, which brings refresh- ment of mind and body. He was able to take in the beauty and truth around Him. His whole teaching of the Father’s joy in the daily life of His children implied that leisure as well as work was a part of life. All life was good; work and play could all be done to the glory of the Father who delights to see his children happy. But leisure for Jesus was governed by His work. He took in that He might give out. There was rhythm in His life. There is this rhythm in all life. The place of leisure in life is to supply tn our conscious lives the contrast which will make for rhythm. It is therefore a necessity and not a luxury. It is the growing time of the human spirit which in its leisure from toils, and in the necessary re- creations they entail as their counterpoise, can expand in communion with its own thoughts and with the thoughts of others and with the grace of God. | SUNDAY Now man is not a body with a spirit, but a spirit which expresses itself through a body. There is danger that the spirit may be starved. That is why at the very outset we must consider Sunday. This is not the Jewish Sabbath, but the principal Holy Day of the Christian Church, with worship for its first purpose. Worship itself is re-creation ; but worship will not end with the devotions in church. Worship only begins in outward acts of devotion. ‘‘ The ideal Sunday would seem to be the taking of spiritual recreation in worship, and some bodily or mental re- creation as well, not as something alien to the other, but as a legitimate part of it.” There are many practical difficulties, when once it is agreed that the Christian Sunday is not a day to be secured by prohibitions, but a day of joyful freedom. The problem of Sunday recreation in such a case becomes a problem to be solved not necessarily by law but by mutual con- sideration. “While it is quite true that Christians have no right to impose any observance of Sunday on those citizens RHYTHM IN LIFE 39 who do not recognise the claims of religion, it is equally wrong for the latter to make it hard for Christians to observe those claims. A State which is called Christian should guard jealously the rights of all religious people to have what they need, and even to make it easier for them to have it, just as where there is a preponderance of another religion, such as Islam or Judaism, the author- ities should respect the prevailing religious convictions. It is probable that if the majority of Christians showed a united example to the world of what a happy and religious Sunday could be with worship and recreation combined, the world would in time give up its own selfish and some- times sordid way of using the day.” Therefore it was recommended : That Church members as individuals and through their organizations make a more positive contribution towards freeing the Christian Sunday from negative rules applying to the pre-Christian seventh day, while at the same time doing more to help people to use it for worship and for the refreshment of spirit as well as of body. LEISURE AND WORK In an ideal order every man would find in his work a constant interest. The doctor or the writer or the minister of religion will not imagine that their real life begins, only when their professional duties are over for the time being. But as things are, many are doomed to work for their bread and butter at tasks which have no interest. To spend the hours of toil in putting india-rubber into ginger-beer bottles cannot supply what the worker needs to draw out all his powers of mind and spirit. Even as things are, much might be done to make workmen understand the whole craft of which their piece is a part. That would help ; but in modern life the right use of leisure becomes all the more serious a problem, when in his leisure alone man can be himself, and so much has to be crowded into that part of life. SOME SUGGESTIONS Holidays should always be provided with payment... . Co-operative holiday and Guest House schemes are valuable helps. ... So too are institutes in villages and small D 40 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP towns, and a word of praise may be said for Women’s Institutes which have sprung up with wonderful speed, and already fill a useful place in rural England. It must not be the aim of the Church to stand for the rights of a leisured class, but to secure adequate leisure for all men and to encourage all endeavours to provide means whereby that leisure:may not be abused but may serve to make human life recover its rhythm. In our big cities the Church must become institutional. It must witness to the possibility of a fellowship such as the world by itself cannot know. If it is the Church’s work to promote a full and abundant life which finds its best expression in Christian fellowship, the fellowship of Church members should not be limited to fellowship in worship alone. There is little doubt that if there were seen a vision of real fellowship as an outcome and expression of the life within the Church, men and women would be drawn into the Christian society by a compelling force which the best at any rate would not resist. Joy is a gift of the Spirit. It is the business of the Church to proclaim the place of joy in life. In the Society in the midst of which it is placed the Church must set the stan- dard, and encourage all that is true and clean and of good report. ... If its members are ready to encourage the good films in the Cinema, they will be heard more seriously when they draw attention to the bad. . . . Books provide a way of escape into the land of joy and adventure. A clinic for the direction of readers may be very useful. But it should be a task in which the counsellor should speak to the intellectual condition of the reader. It would be unwise to direct the Orczy enthusiast to the poems of Wordsworth.... In dealing with dancing there should be no trace of the taboo. “Considered in itself we might say that dancing is a natural, healthy, social amusement, giving physical poise and grace to the body, and relaxation to the mind; it makes a strong and perfectly legitimate appeal to an otherwise unsatisfied sense of rhythm and desire for beauty and for artistic realization. Like friendship, correspondence, conversation, it affords an outlet for the legitimate desire RHYTHM IN LIFE 4I of one sex to associate with the other, and may be a natural, moral and even necessary channel for the direction of sex emotion often not recognized as such. But there may be conditions in which grave disadvantages may disfigure and distort, when means become an end, when the desire for publicity and unhealthy excitement get the upper hand. If we analyse a village folk-dance or a county ball, and a thé dansant at one of the big ultra-fashionable hotels or a dancing hal] run for profit out of the appeal to barely restrained passion, we shall scarcely find the same amount of true self-expression in the last two as in the two former.” In sport the Church should use its influence to suppress all that involves unnecessary suffering. There were some at the Conference who doubted whether the word “ un- necessary ”’ could be justified, and whether indeed if there were suffering at all, the sport must not be condemned. ART AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT IN LEISURE. The garments of the Majesty of God are Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and the passionate pursuit of these is mankind’s one means of communion with Him, which must lead to creative action through the channels of Science—Religion —Art—and righteous action. In the great periods these three are not separated. When the separation takes place it is a sign of decay. That Art should be relegated to a Report on Leisure was a sign in the judgment of the Commission, that in the Church of to-day Art has lost its rightful place. There are many evidences that both Religion and Art suffer from the estrangement. In the great periods of creative art there has been an accepted spiritual order—a boundless belief in God and in Life. “ The need for us is to begin at last—to apply the ethics of Christ’s teaching universally and sincerely, and not many years will elapse before our triumphant faith will burst forth into the creation of temples and civic halls, and music and painting and poetry on a scale as grand and rich and varied as that of any period in the past whose inspiration was a religious belief in life. Our life will become religious, and we shall be solemn and happy and wise and gay and full of exuberant health and beauty.” The Church should encourage its people not to leave the 42 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP provision of drama and music to the professional artists. There is no desire to disparage the distinctive gifts which only the trained artists can give to the community. But there may be an outlet given through home-made drama to the high spirits and imagination of youth. In this way there will be provided for the audiences of the future a knowledge and a capacity of appreciation which they now BACK tba In music too, the Church should lead the way. But Church music is often enervating, and stirs the emotions too easily. The people must be taught to make music themselves. It should be a community affair. It used to be so in the days of Elizabeth; it might be that again ; and the Church should lead the way. GAMBLING AND DRINK Gambling is taking the risk of either winning or losing to others without creating anything of human or social value. It is an outlet for the spirit of adventure. Much can be done to educate public opinion upon its moral and social danger ; much also may be done in the removal of temptation from the weak and immature. But the Church must also satisfy the desire for romance and hazards. The Christian religion is in reality a heroic religion, but we have toned it down. Its people have been likened to mountaineers armed with ropes and axes climbing up Ludgate Hill. It is not their business to praise “ Safety First !’’ if they are followers of Him who said “he that taketh not his cross . . . cannot be My disciple.” It is rather the business of the Church to show how in gambling there is a perversion of a noble instinct and to offer some counter-adventure. If it is urged that gambling provides relief in drab surroundings this is indeed a reason for providing an opportunity for true recreation, but the unfavourable surroundings do not explain the appeal of gambling. “Gambling is the stay-at-home, imaginary, squalid, mechanical, anemic and unlovely adventure of those who have never been able to encounter or create the real necessary and salutary adventure of life.’ The remedy is partly spiritual, partly social; so far as the law is concerned it may be said that the main aim RHYTHM IN LIFE - of the law should be the elimination of professional gambling and the removal of inducements to betting in the press. DRINK AND LEISURE Drink appears in other reports, but it cannot be left out of the consideration of leisure. While the members of the Commission were not agreed upon the universal obligation of total abstinence, they were agreed in question- ing many of the age-long assumptions of the value which alcohol has for human fellowship. They were agreed that the first and immediate effect of drink upon industry was the reduction of industrial efficiency and that the drug action of alcohol weakens self-control and adds a peculiar danger to adolescence. It is also a factor responsible for criminal disorder. There was however, less need for Copec to go into the whole problem, inasmuch as the Temperance Council of the Christian Churches had already formulated an agreed policy of educational and legislative temperance reform. This was counted by the Commission an admirable example of the work which Copec itself sought to do. The action of the Temperance Council was strongly underlined by the Commission. The Recommendations were chiefly directed to the provision of education concerning the facts of alcohol ; and to the support of all measures of social advance, whereby a positive counter-good may be set over against the evil. Upon these there was no division of opinion, but the Conference was divided upon the legislative proposals which were suggested. Local Option with three alter- natives was the suggested method. (1) The present system ; (2) No licence ; (3) Re-organization involving the elimination of private interests, the taking over of the trade in intoxicants and a stringent control of the trade in the area by a statutory board. A fourth alternative “a reduction in licences’’ was added. An attempt to omit No. 3—-the re-organization alternative—was rejected by a majority. Upon these and other practical matters the discussion at Birmingham turned. But it was well that before the 44. CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP end the Conference should be brought back to the question : Who ts to undertake all this service? Leaders and social workers are needed who in their turn will train others. It is upon this matter that the call of one of the speakers seemed to drive home the appeal of the Report. There are many who have freely received in education and culture. ‘What are they ready to pay back? Others have laboured for them; others have laid their know- ledge and their art at their service. What are they willing to do as stewards of that culture ? CHAPTER VI _— THE BASE THE COMMISSION ON THE HOME EDUCATION is a lifelong process, whereby human beings are led out into the liberty of the children of God. If that is the character of education, then it is right to enquire what the Christian principle has to say of the home, where the process begins. That cannot be left unconsidered while the student moves out into the fields of public life. Every problem of personal or social life raises the question of the home. It is the centre of the social problem ; it is the chief means of spreading the Christian faith ; no reforms in the State can be effectively planned by the Church if the home-life of the people is not Christian. To leave the home as it is to-day out of account is to move an army forward with its base undefended and ill-supplied. There are two matin lines of study: How can the family contribute to the establishment of the Kingdom of God ? What must the community do to provide for a wholesome family life for tts members ? BACK TO THE GOSPELS For Jesus the home was the model of the new order. He chooses the names “ Father,” ‘‘ Son,” ‘‘ Brother,” as the language whereby He could best describe the relations between God and man, and between man and man. Family- love must be extended to the greater family of the human race. The ideal family life would be that which gives to its members the best training for a part in the larger family. The family is not an end in itself. It is rather the finest of all training-grounds for the service of the Kingdom. It is the best unit for proving and using the power of Christian love, a love which brings joy and sacrifice and understanding. There the art of service is 45 46 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP learned. There the equal value of every human being in the sight of God is set forth. In the true home the Spirit of God will pervade and test all things : “ Even those who but touch that home and pass on will feel that it is ruled by a spirit and a law that ts not of the general world, and that there flows from tt a determination to create love and joy and peace and make them possible in every home and habitation in the world.” Of the inner life of such a home, and the right bearing of its members one to another, the Commission* had much to say. Christ Himself has delivered the child from being the chattel or the plaything ; since He came and taught, the child has become a person. It is a great charge to care for his physical health, but the charge of a character in the making is far greater. It is not kept where parents seek to make their children after their own image. The child is a person; therefore from the earliest days parents will seek to carry the children with them, and will remember that mere repression of instincts and desires leads only to mischief. They owe it to their children to help them to win a character which will be their own—a social character —and above all, and through all, a religious character. Children leave home with an attitude to life which it is very difficult to change. It is the responsible charge of the parents to ensure that the habits carried out from the home shall lead to the service of the community. It is recognized that many problems arise from the removal of restrictions in these days, and from the changed attitude of children to parents. The reaction against former restraints may have gone too far. The years of war were not helpful. But nothing can be gained by a return to coercive methods. We are not driven, however, to choose either the Victorian daughter meekly doing needlework in the drawing-room, or the Georgian damsel with powdered face, drinking cocktails. Neither is a representative picture. It is not necessary to choose either repression or licence. Children can be led to give as a natural and right thing their respect and their love to their parents. ‘The honour due to parents needs to be taught, but it is suggested that the Church should instruct children in this duty rather than that parents should have * Chairman, Capt. R. L. Reiss. THE BASE 47 to claim it for themselves. It must be understood as part of God’s good purpose. Christian homes are gravely needed. In them more than anywhere else there might be found the miniature society in which there is equality in personal values. Each Christian home is the Christian state in little. In the home, for example, the delicate or the dull child, who may have little economic value, has an equal share in the love of the family. Not seldom indeed a home has been centred in some life of no value in the judgment of the world. The right line of advance is to direct all social adjustments towards making the true marriage and the happy home more possible. To make a world fit for children to live in would be to make it fit for everyone besides. But homes cannot be without houses, and it is cant for the Church to discourse upon the sacred mission of the home when it tolerates the present position of houses in Great Britain. The end of the morning session in which Housing was considered left the delegates with harrowed feelings and consciences badly shaken. “The right attitude of the Christian to social evils is easily mis-stated, but the pithy saying of one of those who dealt with our questionnaire comes very near the truth: ‘It seems to me,’ said the lady in question, ‘ that our attitude must be that of saying, “‘ As a Christian I cannot rest until you have as good a sink as I.” We must, of course, avoid saying, ‘‘ You cannot be as spiritual as | am unless you have as good a sink.”’’ To this we would add that we must equally avoid saying, ‘I cannot be as spiritual as you unless my sink is as good as yours.’ ” All that has been made clear upon the Christian ideal for the family and the home, all the vision of the duty of the community converged upon one practical concern— Houses. The discourse moved inevitably to that applica- tion. The character of the houses occupied by many citizens is to be measured not only in terms of bricks and mortar, or of cubic space, but also and chiefly in moral and spiritual values. It is true that overcrowding provides a breeding- ground for tuberculosis, and all manner of diseases. But this is not the worst harvest. From Sheffield was reported 48 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP the case of one bedroom in which a husband and wife, a daughter aged 26, and two sons aged 21 and Ig, were sleeping. In the other bedroom of the same house slept a husband and wife and three children of school age. From Manchester there was brought the case of a house with two bedrooms, living-room and kitchen; tenant, wife and four,children (two males, 21 and 14 ; two females, Ig and 16), all in one bedroom, and in the other bedroom a married man, his wife and two babies. In Glasgow there was in Ig2I a one-roomed house in which a father of 52 occupied the same bed with a mentally defective daughter of 24, who had an illegitimate child of 10.... In another a mother shared the same bed with two sons of Ig and 20 respectively. When therefore it is enquired why a Christian community should take thought of such material things as houses, the answer must be that they are not material things at all. They are a most direct challenge to the Christian conscience. They offer moreover a problem not beyond the range of attack. There are already laws in the statute book which could be carried out. Much can be done at once by administra- tive action. Through the formation of Public Utility Societies, and through the steady pressure of Christian Societies, authorities may be encouraged to bolder action. It is because too often it has been nobody’s business that these evils have been allowed to remain.* It must not be forgotten that intemperance was nowhere more powerful than in its influence on the home. The vicious circle of poverty, intemperance and poverty, deeper still, could be broken at more than one point. But at the last the Conference agreed without hesitation to this resolution : That Christians cannot tolerate the present housing conditions, and that it is the imperative duty of all Christians and all Churches to demand and work, politically and otherwise, for measures which will secure : (a) that such a number of new houses be built as * Atithe Conference welcome testimony was given to the work already being taken in hand for example in Glasgow, THE BASE 49 wil completely meet the housing shortage and abolish the slums ; (b) that all families have adequate means of sub- sistence and other reasonable comforts and oppor- tunities of life. For the future the line of advance seems to run through the fullest possible use of the Town-Planning Acts. The community in time past has left things to drift. Slums have been created. To deal with them is one thing. But they need not be allowed to come into being in the future. Already in many cities and towns there is a serious attempt at town-planning. In Birmingham, where the Conference was held, there is at once an example of the problem that has to be solved in all industrial areas, and at the same time an example of the public spirit which gives promise that it will be solved. For some time past the Birmingham Corporation has enforced the Town- Planning Act in the expanding city. The test of a true civilization is to be found in the pro- vision which it makes for after-ages. Those were great Christian civilizations in which men planned cathedrals which they would never see finished. The present genera- tion of citizens inherit a housing-system, planned without any thought of the future generation. They were im- poverished for a moment. It is the honourable task of citizens in the present day to break away from this careless and uncivilized practice, and to lay plans upon which in future days cities of a new kind can be built. “That Christians should work to secure for others the necessaries and comforts of home which they enjoy them- selves.” That is the resolution ; but how far does poverty or riches affect the possibility of living an ideal family life? What of the blessings pronounced in the Gospel upon poverty ? It is clear that “ poverty ”’ in Galilee A.D. 28 and in the Italy of St. Francis in the 13th century was not the same as it is to-day in a crowded city. “ Poverty,’ said the late Canon Barnett in 1913, “is not, as the survival of medieval teaching seems to suggest, a source of blessing. Conditions have changed. The 50 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP want of money did not hinder St. Francis and his followers from making friends with the flowers and the birds, from enjoying natural beauty, and from having leisure and silence ; or, in the society of their fellows, of learning the best of what men knew. Poverty cut them off from the “ deceitfulness of riches,’ but was not so pressing as hourly to add to the ‘cares of life.’ The poor in pocket could then claim the blessing of the poor in spirit. But poverty to-day has far different effects. If it is still very hard for a rich man to see the way into the Kingdom of Heaven, it is almost impossible for a poor man to enjoy the fulness of life.” It is misleading to transfer the associations of poverty from the Oriental or Medieval world to our modern scene. The blessing which Jesus pronounced on the poor cannot cover the people who live in an over-crowded house, breathing its foul air, and exposed to its moral and spiritual perils. Poverty as it is found to-day in our cities is not something to be approved, but to be banished. It carries with it conditions which were not in the thought of St. Francis. Now the causes of poverty are these: low wages; unemployment or casual employment; sickness and ill- health and old age; and in a limited number of cases intemperance or other vices. It is not the business of Copec to say how the problem of poverty may be met. It is its business to show to what it is due and what it involves, and to demand that as a fact in the spiritual order it shall not be ignored. There are some who believe that it can only be done through an entire change in our economic system. Others think that the root-causes can be dealt with under a private and capitalist system. Those who believe that it can be secured under the existing system are bound to recognize that it has not so far been achieved, and that drastic alterations are needed in our administration and legislation, and in the conduct of busi- ness, if the present system is to be justified. Just as in the problem of Education all roads led to the teacher, so in the problem of the Home all roads lead to the mother. The mother has been the theme of poets and artists, but she has received scant recognition for her services to the community. It is she who has to bear the THE BASE 51 greatest burden of our social injustice. Important as good housing is to the father, it is ten times as important to the mother. She spends most of her time in the home. If foods run short she is the first to suffer. The one who most needs wholesome food in the days when she needs to be saved from worry is the one to suffer most. There is improvement to be reported in the provision made for the poorer mothers and their babes. The National Insurance Act, by making provision for maternity benefit (now 42s.), helped to secure better conditions for mothers. Maternity and infant welfare centres; the employment of health visitors properly trained; maternity homes or hospitals provided by local authorities—these are valuable helps. But still the work is not covered. It would be a sound investment to give more attention to this important branch of preventive medicine. One more recent method, that of “home helps,” for example, might be adopted in a larger number of districts. The method began in White- chapel. Under it women are employed to do house- work, and look after the children for a certain number of hours a day, where there is a maternity case. It would be a helpful service for the motherhood of the nation if this modest and useful method were introduced more widely. Further, it would provide domestic work for workers where they are most needed. “To solve the housing problem and to prevent sweated wages and unemployment may call for measures which will involve sacrifices by certain sections of the community. Such sacrifices are as much Christian obligations as volun- tary subscriptions to hospitals and to other ‘ charities.’ What our Lord said to the rich young ruler contains lessons not merely for individuals but for nations. No mechanical shaping and carrying out of legislation will have the full effect desired without that moral and spiritual force which it is the part of the Christian Church to pour into the national life.”’ CHAPTER VII —_— SEX THE COMMISSION ON THE RELATION OF THE SEXES THE method of frank co-operation in thinking and in dis- cussion makes great demands upon those who adopt it. It was a hazard which the leaders of Copec were prepared to run. It was never more severely tested than in the discussion of the problems of sex. It might have been possible by silence or reserve to escape the risk, or to say that in a great public assembly the range of subject should be severely limited to matters of general agreement. Those who planned the Conference showed no small measure of faith in their method when they gave a session to the discussion of sex. Knowing that there is no problem in practical ethics upon which Christian people are more divided, they said—‘“ let the whole problem, with the things upon which men and women agree, and those upon which they differ, be brought into the open.” The Tuesday afternoon of that week in Birmingham will not be forgotten by those who were present. They will remember it as a session in which men and women spoke under the constraint of strong conviction, and because out of their thought and experience a burden was laid upon them. They brought their convictions to the common stock, and they revealed how in an assembly of men and women, who agree that there is but one regulative principle of life, there may be differences in judgment, but there need be no bitter and fruitless controversy. The method of Copec was put to its fiercest test, and it was justified. But in this as in other sessions there was some danger that the agreements of the Commission upon the Relation of the Sexes should be overlooked. It is only just to record the positive directions upon which the members of the Commission were cordially at one. These were in their 52 SEX , 53 judgment most important ; before they reached any parting of the ways they had advanced very far together. They had shown the will to agree. This did not mean that they were anxious to discover a form of words, which might be read in several ways, according to the mind of the reader. Agreement must rest upon mutual under- standing and respect. Upon certain matters of immediate and practical importance the Commission were able to report agreements. Sex is a gift of God which must always be guarded from abuse, and its true use, like that of other gifts of God, must be learned. “But it is meant for the enrichment of life,” said the Chairman of the Commission,* “‘and if it demands a certain reticence of speech and even of thought, this is not because it is slightly unpleasant or improper, but because it is too holy a thing for vulgar jesting or casual talk. All this, we feel, applies not simply to the close relations of married life, but to all intercourse between the sexes. Co-operation is, or ought to be, in most cases something more than co-operation between persons ; it is co-operation between men and women. In most of the serious business of life, as well as in its hours of relaxation, members of each sex have some definite contribution to give to the common stock. This law must be understood and _ practised. We are not unaware of the dangers, but we recognize that there are also very serious dangers if the law is neglected. Whenever any piece of work has to be done in common, the object to be attained must be first in the interest and attention of each; then the gifts which each has to give, and the best manner in which they can be given. In this way the dangers of distraction or pre-occupation with sex will be forestalled. We believe that in this principle we have a guide for the difficult problem of the education of girls, and at least a partial solution of the difficult problem of those for whom marriage is for one reason or another impossible.”’ What then is the Christian ideal ? ‘““ We wish to emphasize that in our view all love that is worthy of the name, whether it involves what would be called passion or not, must always involve at least two * The Rev. W. F. Lofthouse, M.A. 54 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP elements, moral self-surrender and the desire for creation. By this creation we do not simply mean parenthood, although we are agreed that no love between man and woman can reach its final completion without parenthood We also mean by the term the bringing into being of a new power and beauty and effectiveness—of a deeper personality.” In love each becomes an end to the other ; each counts the other’s happiness his own. This is Christianity. Now if this ideal is accepted it gives the Christian parent or teacher a positive way of dealing with the problems of sex. It is not enough to frighten men and women through the threats of what will follow the abuse of this power. No wise man, it is true, can ignore the fact that of those who yield to lawless and selfish passion it is written by Nature, “I am against you.” But there is higher and distinctive ground upon which the Christian Church can stand. It can declare that “to use other persons as means is always wrong ; and when they are used as a means to mere sexual pleasure it is an outrage.” The Christian revelation rests upon two truths, that the body is meant to be the Temple of the Holy Ghost ; that is to say, our physical life should be the embodiment of the eternal values of beauty, truth and goodness. The other, the royal law of love which forbids the use for selfish ends of any child of God for whom Christ died. It follows that in the movement towards the single standard for men and women the Christian Church should share by every means in its power. The double standard is a relic of the past, but such relics are not easily removed. It will not be finally removed until a serious attempt has been made to discover what is behind it. The answer that man’s passions are the stronger is not sufficient. “God has granted to mankind that through the ages this act of creation shall come to be an expression of love, so that there is constantly the double pull of love and of necessity on the part of man to give and of the woman to receive this great gift of God.” But with this gift there is also granted the gift of freedom, so that through the exercise of self-training and self-control the spiritual side of human nature may grow and the vision of truth and beauty may become a reality. It is not a SEX 55 complete rendering of the facts when man is treated as if he were not endowed with this capacity for freedom. It is counted important in this matter that there should be a fuller recognition of the honour due to fatherhood. Wherever the chivalry of men towards woman has been known it has rested upon the belief that a woman’s part in the reproductive experience is pure and holy. “Is there not an equal honour due from women to men in their part of fatherhood ? ” For the unmarried young men far too little is done by those who might help them. The happy possessors of Christian homes might welcome them more warmly. In the frank comradeship between men and women, which is one of the marks of the present time, a deeper under- standing is needed on both sides. The new intimacy which is a mark of the times may be the beginning of a new era of helpfulness, or it may degenerate into licence. Women can make the fight easier for men. They should encourage their men to play games, to get out into the country, to have hobbies. This is in some ways an age too preoccupied with sex, and much may be done by counter-interests which will restore the balance. Men and women should stand together in the fight, knowing that they share the same struggle, encouraging not judging, loving not despising, praying and believing in the power to overcome which is bestowed by the grace of God. But probably the most effective attack upon evils which arise from the false attitude to sex can be made through education. This should be positive, not negative. It is in the training of a child’s character, in the fostering of habits of self-control, unselfishness and truthfulness, that the foundation for a right attitude towards purity is laid. Reverence for themselves and for others, physical cleanliness and health, frankness and friendliness, a sense of beauty and of wonder, and in all things a belief in God—these things should be taught in every home. The Christian standard was once accepted, even when it was not obeyed. Those who disregarded it believed that they were doing wrong. To-day it is no longer possible to assume that all men and women accept that E 56 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP standard. Those who imagined that criticism of the Christian Faith would always be limited to its theology were gravely mistaken. To-day there are many in fierce revolt against its ethical teaching. It is true that the rebels through their gifts and their opportunities produce the effect of a company greater than it really is, but such a revolt quickly spreads. And if there is no reason for panic there is no justification for complacency. There may be near at hand a hard fight for the very fundamentals of Christian ethics. When it comes the Christian Church must not play the Pharisee, but be ready with its positive affirmations. Quite clearly mankind as compared with the rest of the animal creation is over-sexed. Civilization has fostered the development of the sex-instinct; but great and glorious as sex may become, it is wholly a mistake to regard it, as many have done, as the supreme fact of the universe. Here, too, as in all the enquiries with which these Reports deal, there can be no rest for the mind except in the vision of God. All things must be seen in their relation to that last Reality. The beauty and truth and goodness of earth receive their meaning only when they are seen against the background of eternity. All the gifts of God, and sex among them. are designed to lead him into his true life in the glorious liberty of the Sons of God. The report passes on to the subject of prostitution. Deep-rooted as is the system in this, and all, societies, for the Christian social conscience acquiescence in its continued existence is impossible. How can it be met? Not by the easy method of condemnation and casting stones ; and not by State prohibition or regulation. Prohibition has always proved impossible; regulation has always proved ineffective. So much is now generally admitted outside as well as inside Christian circles. But we cannot stop there. It is the demand which must be attacked. Everything which will, if the expression may be used, help to drain off the supply will be of assistance; better housing, higher wages for women, education, care of the mentally defective, temperance work ; but the real and the soluble problem is the demand of the man. It is the moral appeal for self-control and chivalry on which we must concentrate. There is our greatest hope. We must and shall overcome SEX 57 evil, not by law, or prudential motives, or social rearrange- ments, but by good. Meanwhile much might be done to make men see that when they have created the prostitute they are responsible for the pimp, the brothel-keeper, the procurer, and all the whole vile traffic. Every man of any honour or mercy loathes such a system. But it must be made clear that these things are the inevitable outcome of a life of licence and selfish passion. MARRIAGE When the Commission came to consider marriage, they reached a point at which agreement was no longer secured. But before that point was reached there was much, and that not the least important matters concerning marriage upon which there was complete agreement. It was agreed that marriage was not a second-best to avoid a worse fate, but a life-long union of two persons in which is to be found a type of the relation between Christ and the Church. The members agreed that the Church should pay more attention to preventing marriage from being a failure than to dealing with it when it is a failure. The education of young people before marriage is greatly to be desired. It is a mockery to exhort them at the altar against under- taking this solemn duty “rashly or thoughtlessly.”’ It is too late then. ‘“‘ The Church must prepare men and women for marriage, and it must solemnize the unions, and we most of us hold only those unions which God can bless.” What then of divorce? Of the marriages into which men and women enter in Christian faith, knowing and accepting all that is involved in this sacrament of love, there can be no question of divorce. Some members of the Commission thought that these were the only marriages contemplated in the New Testament passages. But there are others—the great majority of married persons, who are not so married. Here there was disagreement; three positions were held: Marriage once knowingly entered into is a sacrament, and cannot by any procedure be undone. r, Marriages which in spirit are really no marriages 58 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP at all are better ended, for the sake of the parties themselves, the children, and Society. Or, The Church should pronounce only those marriages indissoluble which the Church itself had blessed. These varied views were held in the Commission and in the Assembly. It is idle to lay claim to an agreement which is not yet reached. On certain matters there is room for more corporate thought and prayer. Only by patient searching and reverent sympathy with what others have learned, the Commission believed, would the Church be led into all truth. Upon these differences members of the Conference spoke with frankness and decided convictions. The misery entailed in a marriage which had ceased to be marriage was not left unheeded; but one speaker said, “You have not been tender to the, landlord and the capital- ist, but you are going to be very tender to the wife or husband who think they would like a change. We are here to hurl back the accusation of Nietzche that Christianity is a softened or feeble religion that demands no sacrifice from those who hold it.’”’ Another pleaded that marriage was an art, and the artist combined genius with technique. The technique of marriage was being pressed on them in pub- lications right and left, and the soul of the thing was left out. The Church had more to do than discuss divorce. But upon divorce no agreement was reached in the Con- ference. The other cleavage in the Commission was upon Birth- Control. This problem has become one of the urgent issues of the day. There was no difference of opinion upon the present state of things. The way in which things were managed secured that the information, and the means of carrying out the information, got into the hands of the wrong people in the worst possible way. It was in the case of married people, united in the sacrament of Christian marriage, that the difference arose. Both sides agreed that married people ought normally to have children, and that any refusal to have children based on self-indul- gence or shirking of duty is indefensible; but when the birth of children is feared, on good grounds, is all physical intimacy to cease? Some would say, Yes; others, No. SEX 59 No direct guidance was brought from the Commission. Upon a resolution brought forward in the Assembly a frank discussion took place, in which both cases were put with courage and thoroughness. Since this discussion was widely reported, in any sketch of Copec it is well that the resolution as proposed and as amended and carried should be given : “ In view of the difficulty of the moral issues involved in the practice of conception control in marriage, and especially the use for this end of contraceptives, [and the insufficiency of evidence which would justify any decision], the Conference [whilst refraining from expressing any condemnation of those who with a due sense of moral responsibility approve such a practice], urges the Churches here represented either severally or unitedly to investigate thoroughly and to consider with the intention of offering definite guidance to perplexed consciences on these and other relevant questions regarding marriages and parenthood. It would meanwhile lay emphasis on the privileges and obligations of Christian parenthood.” The sections in brackets were omitted by the will of a large majority. It will be seen therefore that it was the decision of the Assembly to urge the Churches to investigate, but it deliberately refused to pronounce upon either the “insufficiency of evidence,” or to include words which might appear to preclude the Churches from condemning the action of those who use contraceptives. In other words the Conference refused to do more than encourage the Churches to investigate, in order that they might give guidance to troubled consciences. But there was before the Assembly far more than the arguments for or against birth-control. The problem of sex is one which Christian people have not always handled wisely. Some have been content to judge offenders, and to hold up their hands in horror. They have left the victims to perish. They have refused to take into account the desperate character of the struggle. They have played a game of pretence. And, worst part of all, they have taken the rdle of the Pharisees. The frankness of the present age, with all its dangers, is far less dangerous than pretence or hypocrisy. 60 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP It is not a problem for the few. ‘‘ The great decisions of sex are demanded from every one of us, and of our fellow- men and women; and every friendship, every casual acquaintance even, has its bearing on these decisions.”’ It is a personal,problem for everyone, but it is not a problem in which the individual soul should be left to fight alone. We are all in it, and we are all bound therefore to help one another. The Commission would like to see every local Christian community or Church taking careful measures for the due instruction and guidance and protection of all for whom it can consider itself before God as responsible. This is no small task for the Church. It demands far more than agita- tion for the passing of new laws, or the maintenance of old ones. But it would do what no laws can ever do. It would fulfil the spirit of Christianity, wherein each one sees himself set to serve another’s need in the name of a disciple, and for the sake of the Redeemer, who chose to be the friend of publicans and sinners, CHAPTER VIII —— WASTED PRODUCTS CRIME AND THE TREATMENT OF CRIMINALS “Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom.” “‘ This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.”’ * Did ever paladin adventuring forth To face the great uncharted enterprise, Choose for companion in the crucial bout A sorrier squire with whom to agonize ? ” —J. S. Phiilimore. WHEN Christ sets a child in the midst of men to-day He sets a fact of immediate and personal concern. When He sets a criminal before them, it seems a matter of more general and even theoretic interest. Most of the Assembly in Birmingham had probably never come into personal relations with a criminal. Yet there is involved in the problem of Crime and the Treatment of Criminals* not only the destiny of certain human and therefore sacred per- sonalities, but there is a test of the measure in which the Christian principle in a State has prevailed. The criminal is counted a waste product ; but for the wise manufacturer the waste product is a most significant fact. The criminal system of this country is the growth of ages. It carries down the experiences and judgments of mankind at various stages of its history. In it Rome still speaks, and the ages before Rome. It cannot therefore be transformed by one heroic act. That there have been many reforms during the last century and particularly in recent years, it would be folly to deny. The institution of Children’s Courts, and the Borstal system might be named as examples; and modern changes in general have been in the direction of a Christian policy. * Chairman, Francis Allen, Esq., J.P., O.B.E. 61 62 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP Nevertheless the system still remains less than Christian. This does not mean that it is wicked or unjust, but that it is not yet Christian. This can be shown when the im- plications of Christian Faith are traced. The problem, like other problems, is one of personal relationship. It is significant that in the teaching of Jesus this was always the first consideration. He laid great stress on the need of right personal relations with those who had done wrong. The wrong-doer must be brought into a network of helpful personal relations. “I was in prison and ye visited me.’’ The man who is able to take a class in a prison, or is taking a personal interest in a discharged prisoner is dealing with the problem of crime in direct obedience to the mind of Christ. It is not suggested that retribution is absent from the teaching of Christ in the Gospels, but it is seen to be internal in its working rather than external; and in all cases it must be the servant of Redemption and a very subordinate servant. Love, Redemption, Forgiveness are the distinctive marks of His teaching; no treatment of Crime, which has no room for these things can be Christian. Much must be left for further study, but meanwhile it can be declared: (1) In the age-long struggle between Humanity and the Human Law our Lord was no vindicator of legalism. For Him the human personality was always the first thought. The Sabbath and other institutions were made for man, (2) His mission was Redemption, and a criminal system which is true to His teaching must move along redemptive lines. (3) Forgiveness and Love do not cease to be binding upon us, when we deal with criminal law. At present judged by these standards the criminal system is “in most respects un-Christian and in many respects anti-Christian.’’ It is un-Christian for example when it regards offences against property more seriously than offences against persons. It is anti-Christian so far as its action, instead of redeeming the criminal, crushes him down into hopelessness—so far by its treatment as it turns the man, who has offended once, into a habitual criminal. WASTED PRODUCTS 63 The Christian standpoint cannot be understood unless it is contrasted with other standpoints. This was done during the Conference by Professor Moberly, who showed that there are three levels upon which mankind had dealt with Crime. Upon the level of nature, crime is con- sidered a nuisance, contrary to public interests, and the public is at liberty to rid itself of the crime and the criminal, not on any moral ground, but simply as a nuisance. That is the level, non-moral and even immoral. There is, in the second place, the level upon which the ideal is justice which establishes a connection between what a man does and what he suffers. Here ethical considerations prevail ; and the human will is honoured ; as a man sows he reaps ; and the august moral order is vindicated. It is an ethical order, but not as yet Christian. The third level is to be met in the teaching of Jesus, in which men find themselves in a new atmosphere. The prodigal son does not pay for his wrong-doings, as the elder brother points out; the elder brother stands firmly on the ethical level. From his standpoint the welcome of the Prodigal is a grave disturbance of the moral order. The fact must be faced that the order of redemptive love, which came into human affairs in Christ is a new and strange fact. How is it to be related to the ethical teaching of stern justice ? It needs a miracle of grace to go through that level and to get beyond it. Men forget the cost to be paid if the treatment of the wrong-doer is to be raised to the level of redemptive activity. It is not enough to short- circuit the system. That would be to throw the whole evolution of mankind in this matter into confusion. Here is a real problem to be faced. Just because the claims of justice are real, and because only through the level of justice can we come and that at a great cost, to the level of redemption, the insistent question must be asked, “ Are we ready to face the cost ?”’ It was not with the merely legal side of crime, but with the ethical that Copec was concerned. Much that is technically “crime ’’ could be ignored. No one thinks a man a criminal who forgets to buy a dog licence, or rides his bicycle on the pavement. On the other hand a man might see a child drown in shallow water, and not be a criminal in the eyes of the law. Nor will ethical crime 64 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP ever come entirely within the survey of human justice. Murderous thought, so Jesus taught, has the guilt of murder in it, but courts of law cannot care for such things. From the Christian point of view theft, assault, murder, and the like are first conceived in the heart, and afterwards born into the world of deeds. To realize this is the key to the reclamation of wrong-doers. A close study of the facts led the members of the Com- mission, in common with most modern criminologists, to discard the theory that there is a criminal type. There is no such thing, they declare, as a pure “ born-criminal”’ type. Most criminals are like other men, and it is by gradual steps they have fallen.t{ The problem is hard enough in itself but its factors are human beings, and the methods which are true to the human facts will be sufficient in dealing with them: The causes of Crime are many ; poverty, unemployment, bad housing conditions, drink, though drink is often a symptom of underlying causes ; betting, lack of education, a false standard of life; and it must not be forgotten that the ordinary citizen, through his carelessness, often affords an occasion of stumbling. But the want of discipline in School or child-training at home is the greatest unconscious cause of crime. It is not out of order to put in a word for the old-fashioned teaching upon the power of example. THE TREATMENT OF CRIME There are five methods, the Retributive, the Deterrent, the Preventive, the Reformative, the Causative, or Radical. Till lately the Retributive and the Deterrent were the chief methods in use. But punishment for punishment’s sake is both morally bad, and economically unsound. Sixty-six per cent. of all serious crimes are committed by persons who have previously been convicted. The main line should be the Reformative with due stress on the Causative, by which is meant the method of attacking the cause of the crime. Among the new methods which are being adopted, is the placing of offenders on probation. The value of this has proved so great that many with a wide experience on ¢ There are, it is true, some who from innate instinct or from defective minds, are, so to speak, “‘ born”’ criminals, they need an asylum more than a prison; they are few, and even they may have a medical and spiritual treatment which may bring them into a condition in which they might be safely released WASTED PRODUCTS 65 the bench are pleading for its extension. Sir Robert Wallace has recently claimed that ninety-five per cent. of the cases placed by him under probation were successful. It is, moreover, an economical method. The cost of looking after one man on probation for an entire year is no more than the keeping of him in prison for a week. Prison is seldom reformative. No court should be without its Probation Officer; the personality of this officer is the main condition of the success of the method. Once more as in the study of education in the last resort the problem is one of personal influence. Another valuable method is to compel the offender to make reparation to the party wronged by repayment of the cost of the damage done. The payment of monthly instalments by the thief to the man who was robbed has a salutary effect. The State has often been careless of the one who is wronged. A great advance was made when Children’s Courts were formed. But there is a demand that should be considered for the raising of the limit of age from sixteen to eighteen. The years from sixteen to eighteen are years in which the character of youth is still largely unsettled and naturally turbulent, and to treat boys and girls of that age as men and women may be to drive them downwards. The Report provides many details of reform, which should be weighed by Ghristian people. For some of them it may be possible to render direct service in prisons ; in some of them for example, educational classes are held. To visit a prison in such a way is a service which all who have the opportunity, should gladly accept. For others something may be done through influences which are open to a Magistrate or through the personal touch with those who have come out of prison. For all good citizens it should be a duty to press for reforms in the system.{ But whatever peculiar opportunities may come to individual citizens, every man by the expense of toil and service, can fight against the causes which produce crime. On the question of capital punishment the Commission were content to state the case for and against. But at Birmingham the assembly clearly declared by a majority ¢ The work of Mr: Mott Osborne in New York is a notable example of what may one: 66 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP of votes that it desired the abolition of the death-penalty. That seemed to the majority a manifest case, in which punishment could not be redemptive. It was an important decision, but it would be an injustice to the Report to believe that the one thing done by Copec was to send to the Home Secretary a resolution in favour of the abolition of the death-penalty. There was left indeed upon the conscience of the Assembly at Birmingham the conviction that its members had their part in this matter. Crime proved to be not an isolated subject but one intimately related to the home, education, the social and industrial order, and above all to religion. It became evident that if Christianity is to be applied no human interest can be ignored. So long as the causes of crime are left in their ancient entrenchment there will be this reproach upon the Christian community. The wasted members of the body of the nation prove that something is lacking. They have been to others objects of condemnation or contempt. They are a challenge to all who believe in the miracle of grace. But there is no re- demption without shedding of blood. CHAPTER IX THE DARK CONTINENT OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS THE REPORT ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS THE Christian doctrine of International Relationships is the dark continent of Christian Ethics. The members of Copec set apart to explore its mysteries* were able to reach but a few of its regions, but a beginning was made. In the days before the war, for many thinkers, the prob- lem had receded into the background. Certain sentiments and even principles were accepted as inevitable. Nation- alism in its extreme non-ethical forms was accounted legitimate. Now we are oppressed by its insufficiency, and we are being driven back to discover in the light of the Christian Revelation what is the place and purpose of nationality. In any such enquiry we have to remember that if we are the inheritors of the nineteenth-century nationalism, there have been nobler ideals in history to which it is within our power to return. In the New Testament there is no definite guidance upon the duties of nations one to another; but the truths of the Kingdom of God were there, waiting to be translated into the policies of nations. In the Middle Ages an attempt was made to carry out the principles of the Christian Faith through the acceptance of the ideal of a Christian Commonwealth. Central and Western Europe was re- garded as a single community, subject to Pope and Em- peror, as vicegerents of God, the Invisible King, and united by the possession of a common creed, and the acceptance of common principles of conduct. The ideal was the master-thought of the greatest minds in the Golden Middle Ages. They did not attain to it, but they made it clear that they had seen the City of God, and would not rest till they had built it upon this earth. There was no idea in those ages that there could be a * Chairman of Commission, E, F. Wise, Esq., C.B, 67 68 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP State which owed no allegiance to an order above and out- side itself. The modern doctrine of the non-moral sovereignty of the State was unborn. The peoples had many quarrels, and wars, but they accepted, as an axiom, that they were within Christendom, and in it they were fundamentally one. The place and this ideal was afterwards taken by the doctrine of the secular sovereign state of which Machiavelli was the first sponsor. The influence of Machiavelli was one of the dark shadows which rested upon modern life. He was the villain of the international drama. For the last four hundred years his doctrine of the sovereign state had been largely accepted by rulers and peoples.* Unfettered sovereignty in the era before the war was the religion of the statesman and the soldier, the journalist and the man in the street. The brotherhood of man was a lost cause. Moltke declared that perpetual peace was a dream and not even a beautiful dream. The Great War was at once the consummation and the condemnation of a nationalism which had become a peril to the world. It has sent many back to the medieval or Christian ideal of a partnership of nations. But there is no solution through a restoration of the past. Our task is to harmonize the just claims of a nation with the duties and responsibilities it has to the larger community of which it forms a part. How the system of sovereign national groups may give way to an association of nations in which the individuality of each will be preserved,—that is our problem. RELATIONS BETWEEN HIGHLY DEVELOPED COUNTRIES Since the world is an organism all the parts of which are vitally inter-connected, the whole can be healthy only as each of the parts is healthy. Each country must be itself at its best. It is at the same time essential that each country should respect the distinctive principles and actions of every other country, even when it does not accept them as its own. The United States introduced ~ Prohibition, for example, and it became the duty of other * There was among the Reports a peculiarly valuable one upon Historical Illustra- ae of the Social Effects of Christianity. Chairman, the Rev. J. Vernon Bartlet, D.D. furnis. necessary material to all the other Commissions, and it is indispensable for #)] who would understand the message of the Conference. _— \} oe ge —e. o> wey a a DARK CONTINENT OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 69 nations which differed from that country to respect and not to attempt to frustrate its plans. But it is in the thousand and one occasions of everyday commerce and diplomacy that a country makes its im- pression upon the world. Everything in the last resort depends upon the character of the men who represent it abroad. If the nations of the world are one organism there must be certain principles applicable to all its parts, just as the human body has a nerve system common to all its parts. The nations of the world in certain matters have a common standard, which may be ignored under pressure of certain temptations of ambition or greed, but is not dis- owned. These matters may be tabulated in six divisions : (1) Matters of a Political Nature—The Sanctity of Treaties ; the Character of Treaties; the Obligations of Recognized Law. (2) Matters of a Soctal Nature——tThe Slave Trade; the White Slave Trade; the Traffic in Obscene Literature ; the Traffic in Dangerous Drugs; the Traffic in Spirits in Uncivilized Countries; the Prevention and Control of Disease. (3) Matters of an Economic Nature—The Freedom of Water Communications; the Simplification of Land Communications ; the Freedom of Postal and Telegraphic Communications; the Conditions of Labour; the Pro- tection of Property Rights; the Conservation of certain Natural Resources. (4) Matters of Human Rights—Religious Freedom ; Racial and Linguistic Freedom ; Individual Liberty. (5) Matters relating to War.—The Humane Conduct of War; the Crime of Aggressive War; the Abolition of the Right of Conquest ; the Traffic in Arms. (6) Matters relating to Science-—Generally the right of the whole world to participate in the benefits of any beneficial scientific discovery. It is the duty of the Christian community to remind the nation of its own best, “‘ Whereunto we have attained by that same rule let us walk.”’ In the councils of the League of Nations, as COPEC was reminded by Lord Parmoor, Great Britain held a position of honour and trust ; it was expected by others to take the pioneer steps in the move- ment towards peace. 70 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP Here are some of the tasks in which by the inspiration of its own records Great Britain should give a strong lead : the reduction of armaments; the promotion of race equality ; the just use of the world’s material resources ; the lifting of the standard of life. If we are to take the lead, we must be ready to make sacrifices. To this end we must learn to see the modern situation as other nations see it. To Britain for example disarmament means—the reduction of the French army; to France—the removal of the menace of the British Fleet! One thing is certain, nothing will be done unless the rich and powerful nations take the lead. Once more, noblesse oblige. It may be impossible to lay down a Christian solution for any particular economic doctrine. But it is the duty of the Christian Church to declare that a solution must be sought, and that it must be a world-solution. The Church may well say to the statesmen of Christendom: “ This is the task which is laid upon you; the precise way you must find; but we are sure it can be found and you must not rest till you have found it.” To believe that a solution of the economic and other problems is possible calls for great faith in the world, and in the Providence that guides it. For encouragement let it be remembered that till recently, in Christianity alone could be found the faith that the world was a unit and that all men were members one of another. Christianity has been proved right so far. Its advocates should be encouraged to go further. TRADE INTERNATIONAL Industry now is an international service. The value of international trading institutions must be tested not by the amount of profit they yield to British subjects or to the British exchange, but by the service they render to humanity. No profit for example won from the growth and sale of opium can justify such a trade when it visits degradation upon the members of another race. The traffic in spirits in Africa is not to be valued by a trade return ; it must be judged by what it does among a primitive race to waste its physique and to corrupt its mind. The attention of the Conference was drawn more than once to the intro- DARK CONTINENT OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 71 duction of Western industrial methods without our safe- guards into the East, and to the danger which will follow, if in China the condition of the England of a hundred years ago is repeated. In trade, patriotism now is not enough. The Christian Community should definitely range itself on the side of those who recognise that the essential interests of all peoples are one and must be considered together. BETWEEN HIGHLY DEVELOPED AND LESS DEVELOPED NATIONS. “In relations between more advanced and less advanced countries, the governing principle should be that of trustee- ship. The administration and development of less advanced countries should not be undertaken by any single Power in its individual interest, but as a trust, either directly by a League of Nations, or by one Power acting on behalf of the nations under a Mandate system,” There are many difficult questions that arise but they can be solved by an International Board of Control. Only by its means can the world’s underdeveloped resources be placed at the disposal of European powers. The method of selfish nationalism is morally indefensible; and it is at the same time certain to end in catastrophe. The Mandatory system is a step in the right direction, but it should apply all round, and Great Britain could set a valuable example by its extension to those territories which we possessed before the war. The aim of a privileged nation must always be to develop the country and not to exploit it. The declaration of the Government in the case of the Kenya Colony made it clear in principle that the interests of the original in- habitants should be a first charge on the property. But it will be the task once more of the Christian Community to see to it that the nation in this matter lives up to its best. In all such matters the Church has more power than it is willing to use. What it wills, it can. MINORITIES IN A STATE It is an urgent task for statesmen in the twentieth century to find a new principle of association between the F 72 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP varied racial groups within a nation. The old ways have failed to give value either to the individuals or to the group. There are three methods :—amalgamation, separate colonies, and the community idea. Let us picture, for example, the Swedes or Poles making their home in the States. They might be amalgamated, and in the end lose their identity. They might remain a colony within the large nation with their own distinctive life. But the Americans are beginning to say “‘ we want them to be part of a true community, giving all they have to give and receiving equally. Only by a mutual permeation of ideals shall we enrich their lives and they ours.”’ It cannot be doubted that this community ideal is nearest to the Christian ideal. It zs that ideal. THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL The medieval ideal of a Respublica Christiana was lost. The Churches had no international vision. The State became supreme. The world in the Igth ne became an economic but not a moral unity. After the war new nations were started on their career with the spirit of hate roused by the war seething in them. Excluding Great Britain and Russia there are in Europe twenty-five separate states. If moral unity is not recovered Europe is doomed. The organizations of the Medieval Church cannot now be reconstituted. But we must seek fora unity of spirit, which will find new forms for its expression. Certainly the Christian ideal is that the nations should be related as members of a family, and that all sovereignty is held subject to the sovereignty of Christ, Whose law is supreme over all. If the Christian principles upon which the League of Nations was founded are to be anything but a blind, behind which Machiavellianism creeps back to its former haunts, Governments must alter their way of looking at international morality. The Covenant is not the final word; and if it is to become what it is meant to be, it will need the con- tinuous and watchful support—the keen and discriminating mind, and the eager idealism of the Church of Christ. It is an instrument waiting to be used. Only by the support of men of goodwill will the instrument be wielded wisely. DARK CONTINENT OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 73 THE LAW OF CHRIST The Law of Christ is the Law of Justice, without which man can never be content. It is written upon the very charter of humanity that without justice there can be no permanent peace. Men stand to each other in the King- dom of which Christ speaks, as brothers, and the spiritual bond which unites them transcends all barriers of race and nationality. Christians do not believe that any satisfactory society of nations can be created by force; they believe that love alone can bring this society—a love which ex- presses itself in care for others, self-sacrifice, and co- operation. Overcome evil with good. For these reasons Copec commends to aJl Christian people an effective instrument already in being. The World Alliance for the Promotion of International Friend- ship through the Churches. It is cheering to discover that here as in the promotion of Temperance Reform there are already associations standing with eagerness and ability for the very things which are in the Copec pro- gramme. In such cases COPEC has for its task to enlist new support for them. THE CONDITIONS OF A STABLE WORLD ORDER Certain common objects sought; certain common standards accepted! These things alone will make a stable world. “Such a faith, moreover, gives birth to a common culture—coloured in a hundred ways by varieties of national temperament and local custom, but recognizable wherever that faith is shared, and taking form in institutions in which men moving from country to country, and city to city, can find something with which they are familiar, and which they can in some measure enjoy, co-operate with, and understand. “It is clear that such a state of things amounts, over the area which it covers, to the most effective possible form of ‘internationalism’ which can be imagined, for it is something which grows up naturally, as it were, from the very soil of civilization; it is not something imposed from above in obedience to intellectual or prudential considerations. It is an atmosphere, not an apparatus— though forms or organization may arise to embody it.” 74 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP We need Christendom, and the Church must aim at manifesting Christianity as what it essentially is—a world religion. It must at the same time reveal it as not only challenging everywhere those forces of the ‘“ world” which its members renounce, but actually projecting and as far as lies within its power, building up a social fabric constructed in despite of them. It is unfair to blame the statesmen. Each nation gets the statesmen it deserves. The Church must strive for the Christian Common- wealth—the Respublica Christiana of these days. But that will never come, unless at the same time the Christian communities in every land struggle for the establishment of a distinctive Christian Social Order. This is the commis- sion given to the Church; and its children must have solemn thoughts when they see that the Christian Church alone has the power to do this. It alone can plant every- where the tree “‘ whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.” CHAPTER X CHRISTIANITY AND WAR AFTER dealing with the Christian ideal of international life, the Conference received the Report of the Commission upon War.* It was a session in which men and women unburdened their souls in words, which echo still, and will echo in the mind and conscience of the nation. Upon the last issue of all, whether it is the duty of a disciple of Christ to have no part or lot in any war, there was no agreement either on the Commission or in the Assembly. In their labours the members of the Commission had found two things to be true, that they shared a large body of convictions, and that they came to a point at which they must speak with two voices, and yet while they could not but present alternative reports upon this one issue, they did not break away from each other. Those experiences were repeated in the larger assembly. The Report of the Commission dealt first and chiefly upon things agreed, and then set forth the two views side by side upon the matter in which agreement was found unattainable, TuHIncGs AGREED What is to be done with the primitive instinct, the tiger within us? It may be rationalized, that is, respectable reasons may be found for these unworthy impulses. They were in man at first for certain reasons, they are allowed to remain for other reasons, which are after-thoughts. Or these impulses may be directed into channels of activity, in which they wil be made to serve man’s nobler ends. An explorer fights the ice, or a doctor fights the microbe. This second way is the true Christian way. It used to be common for defenders of warfare to treat it as a biological necessity. Upon this the Commission reported : * Chairman, the Rev. A. E. Garvie, D.D. 75 76 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP ‘The support for war which was sought in biology is tottering to its fall. Naturalists are now telling us that nature is nct,so ‘ red in tooth and claw ’ as a crude Darwin- ism tended to represent it. ‘ The survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence’ is not now regarded as the sole or the main factor in organic evolution. Animals do not fight for fighting’s sake, unless men have corrupted them, but when vital interests are concerned of self, sex, or herd. Samuel Butler, Henry Drummond, Prince Kropotkin, Patrick Geddes, and J. Arthur Thomson have shown us nature as not only, or chiefly a battlefield, but a workshop in which there is co-operation. Hermann Reinheimer especially in a series of writings has endea- voured to show that conflict is contrary to, and co-operation in accord with the dominant principle of evolution.” Science does not warrant the affirmation that fighting, in the form of physical conflict at least, is a necessity from which man cannot escape. If the protection and the preservation of the interests for which he fights are assured to him in some other way, then, unless his nature is per- verted, man will not continue to fight for fighting’s sake for all time. There is, indeed, a perversion possible. The admiration of the courage, endurance, comradeship developed in war have cast round it a glamour. And there is still a more sinister danger from the power of the industry which lives upon modern warfare. Wars may arise from many varied causes. These are concealed in these days. A class may promote war for its own enrichment, or a monarch for his own ambitions, but the real reasons will not be declared. The economic interest is seldom confessed, but it is most powerful ; and still in the prejudice, suspicion and rivalry of nations the herd-instinct lives on, and may be called into full activity by cunning players. But more deep-seated and wide-reaching than national or social differences are racial antipathies. These are often close-allied with differences and resentments which arise out of economic dealings, but they cannot be omitted; among the possible causes of warfare, racial distrust must be remembered. The occasion is one thing, the cause another. They must be distinguished; the cause must be sought among the hidden things. And when the Christian Church speaks of peace, it must do so CHRISTIANITY AND WAR 77 with humility and penitence, for religion has not only been powerless for the most part to prevent wars, it has caused many wars itself. A Church loses within a nation the power to bless any war, when it has never done any- thing else to wars but bless them. But its ideal is not in doubt. “Men believe, and rightly believe, that the Church should. be an international Christian Commonwealth, transcending all smaller divisions, and refusing to be moved from the principles of the Gospel by any lower ideals. That this has not been so historically, and is still so far from being so, is the great tragedy of the Christian ages.” ; In DEFENCE OF WARS On certain grounds war is justified by its defenders. The individual is subordinate to the State, and whatever the State demands, he must yield. The responsibility rests with the rulers. The State is the organ of common action, and since it has done so much for us, we cannot refuse such service and sacrifice as it may demand from us. But are the Nation and the State to be so closely identified ? May not a distinction be drawn between love of country and loyalty to the State? Sometimes in the past it is admitted that men have served their country best by resisting its government. The State often falls short of the standard of its best elements. Progress has come not seldom through such patriots as Jeremiah, who in the eyes of the State was a traitor, giving comfort to the Chaldzeans. There are worse things than War. It is always evil and never good, but it may be the lesser of two evils. Those who argue in this way are not to be charged with delighting in war. This argument stated the case, as it came home to millions of men during the Great War. To serve in the war was for them a real moral choice. They took it because not to take it meant for them the choice of a greater evil than war. It is admitted that hitherto the moral judgment of mankind has agreed that there are evils greater than war. Questions, however, may be put on the other side. Is it certain that evil would have prevailed but for war? We are in the realm of conjecture. It may be urged that though in an earlier age fighting had 78 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP an ethical value, for us in these days it is a dangerous survival ; and we must not lightly assume that the moral ends sought in war cannot be secured in other ways. “Man ts not good enough yet to do without War.’ There- fore those, it is urged, whose consciences rebel against war must sacrifice themselves. On the other hand it is pleaded that conscience is the one thing which no man has a moral right to sacrifice. FoR THE CONDEMNATION OF WAR Apart altogether from distinctively Christian grounds there are reasons offered by the judgment of humanity why war should be condemned. War is a retrograde movement, and it is out of keeping with the modern unification of mankind. On candid examination, it is said, wars are recognized as due to rival ambitions, military or economic, or both. Nor can they be justified by the analogy of the appeal to force, made in the police-force. In war it is not only force that is used but falsehood and deceit; the parallel between police activity and warfare would be closer if it were permitted to the police to abandon all moral obligations in the pursuit of their duty. Furthermore wars, it is alleged, are futile. Nations at the close of wars commonly change their sins. So the conflict rages in the forum of humanity, between those who apologize for war, and those who condemn it. There is no unanimity. Can the Christian Revelation give the guidance needed, and speak the decisive word? Is there any agreement within the Church ? THE CHRISTIAN PosITION There is no direct evidence that Our Lord either con- demned, or condoned war. Upon this, as upon so many practical issues, His views can only be ascertained by indirect means. Jesus, indeed, based His teaching upon certain great truths concerning God in the revelation of the Old Testament ; but He was not bound to that revelation in all its precepts; He came to fulfil the law: ‘“ Ye have heard that it was said, but I say unto you’”’ ; the guidance of the Old Testament must be examined in the light of these words. Jesus broke down racial barriers which had been of ‘ CHRISTIANITY AND WAR 79 divine ordinance, according to the belief of the Jews. To Him the Love of God was not a reward for His people, but a powerful force able to transform the unrighteous into the righteous. Through Him man received a new thought of God the Redeemer, and what His redemption meant. “The root cause of His death was His message. The idea of God which the Jewish rulers had was in conflict with the idea He had. Their God stood for privilege, favouritism,rigid nationalism, narrowly conceived righteous- ness. His God was love; He stood for the unity of all men, and for a redemptive love that would make sinners righteous. Thus His death confirms His message. But in another way alsoit confirmsit. Facing evil and hostility, Jesus continued to meet them with love and forgiveness. Standing for a God of love, He must love to the uttermost, and suffer the utmost that evil men could devise rather than retaliate upon them. Jesus loves His enemies, and dies at their hands.” There are apparent contradictions. Much is said in the Gospels of the destruction of the wicked. Terrible is the fate pronounced upon those who cause little ones to stumble. We read the words of Jesus, ‘‘ Think not that I came to send peace, I came not to send peace but a sword.” The words of Jesus which bear most nearly upon war are these: My Kingdom is not of this world. Love your enemies : Resist not him that ts evil. It is upon the section in which the last command is contained, that the attention of those who seek guidance from the Gospels is chiefly directed. It is agreed that Jesus definitely intended to repudiate both the retributive and the deterrent methods of punishment. The primary reference is to the administration of law; but He may have had other forms of wrong-doing in mind. He teaches clearly that the evil-doer must be met with kindness and conciliation. Jesus believed in the overcoming of evil with good. So much was common ground, but the members of the Commission starting from that ground found that they were unable to agree upon the necessary implications for the disciples of Christ. 80 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP On the one hand were those who held that war is tn all cases and circumstances wrong, and on the other, those who believed that in the ‘end under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Chrisiamty must show the utter incompatibility of the Gospel with war, yet held that 1t might be not tmpossible at present to conceive of a religiously righteous war. The two cases are presented side by side and must be read in the reports. The members who disagreed, had thought and prayed together and learned to understand each other’s position. Two quotations will show how near they came together, and where they parted company. This is the pledge which the non-pacifist members were willing to adopt: “ Believing that Law must take the place of War in international disputes, we, the undersigned, solemnly pledge ourselves to withhold service from any Government which refuses to submit the causes of the dispute to an international court, or which refuses to accept the decision of such court. We will fight to defend our country in the event of an attack by another nation which has been offered arbitration, and which has refused it, but in no other circumstances.”’ The expediency of such a pledge need not now be dis- cussed. But surely the Christian Churches could declare that they would not give any sanction or support to a war for which the fullest moral justification could not be pleaded? And those Christians especially who are not prepared to condemn war in all circumstances are under a moral obligation to do all they can to prevent just those circumstances in which war seems the lesser of two evils. They must be not less zealous than Pacifists are in their opposition to war, and all policies which make for war, and in working for the international relations which will promote a permanent, assured peace. On the other hand the Pacifist members issued this call to represent their ideal and hope: “What greater message of cheer and reconstruction could be brought to mankind to-day than the assurance that all who bear the name of Christ in every land have solemnly resolved to have no part in war, or in preparation for war, but henceforth to work unitedly for peace by peaceful means alone? Shall we not make this venture of CHRISTIANITY AND WAR 8I faith together in the love that beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, and that never fails? Shall the torch of spiritual heroism be borne by the Church of the living Christ, or shall leadership in the utter rejection of war pass from our hands to men of braver and truer spirit? Which Master shall we who call our- selves Christians be known by all the world to serve, the God of Battles or the Prince of Peace? ” In the Conference the addition to a resolution was made which declared that “all war 1s contrary to the spirit and purpose of Christ.” It was a phrase taken, with the addition of “all,” from the report of the non-pacifist members of the Commission. Both the mover and seconder made it clear that it was not an attempt to commit the Conference to the side of the Pacifist. It was intended rather to strengthen the resolutions, so as to make them more explicit. Upon this amendment there was a long debate. It was made clear by those who were against all participation in war that theirs was no negative policy. They believed in the mighty and positive power of love. There was no apology for war, offered on the other side ; but there were speakers who could not approve a resolution which seemed to require a Christian, under certain conditions, to act in disobedience to his country’s will, or to break his oath of loyalty. Since there has been much discussion upon the signifi- cance of this addition, it may be necessary to explain, that it was not intended to commit the Conference to one out of the two alternative positions presented in the Report. It is not the business of the present writer to do more than record the stage reached by the Conference, so far as he understood it. Those who were present will not deny that there was a wish on the part of the majority to strengthen the condemnation of war in the Resolution, by an inclusion in them of a general judgment upon war, shared by all the members of the Commission. Many who voted for this phrase, “ All war is contrary to the spirit and purpose of Christ,’’ were convinced pacifists, many were not; and it was understood that the phrase was not intended to commit the Conference to a definite attitude upon the issue, which the Commission had left undecided. The chairman made this perfectly plain, and his interpretation was not disputed. 82 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP The Recommendations which were passed along with the amendment to which reference has been made, and another, whith called upon the Church of Christ to give moral guidance to a nation in time of war, were as follows : (1) That the Christian Churches should in their public testimony and with all their influence oppose all policies that provoke war, and support all conditions in the relation of nations favourable to peace, and the agencies which promote peace. (2) That they should unreservedly condemn, and refuse to support in any way, a war waged before the matter in dispute has been submitted to an arbitral tribunal, or in defiance of the decision of such a tribunal. (3) That they should exert all their authority in securing protection from any form of persecution for those whose conscience forbids their rendering any kind of war-service. (4) That by study of the New Testament in the light of the guidance of the Spirit, they should seek to reach a common Christian conscience in regard to war. (5) That they should cultivate such intimate fellowship with the Churches of other lands that through the one Church of Jesus Christ the spirit of reconciliation shall triumph over all national prejudices, suspicions, and enmities, and that the Churches of many lands may unitedly formulate a Peace-Programme which can be commended to all who profess and call themselves Christians, so that Christ shall reign as Prince of Peace. (6) That the Churches should hold these principles, not only in times of peace, when their practical denial is not threatened, but that also, when war is imminent, they should dare to take an independent stand for righteousness and peace, even if the Press and public opinion be at the time against them. These resolutions read in sober print, seem the expression of quiet and calm principles. They may prove to those who take them seriously a call to patient service, and self- surrender. They who fight for peace, will not win their battles, except as other battles are won. They have a positive good to commend to the world; but they will commend it only as other causes are commended, by their faith and courage, and by their willingness to keep back nothing of the price. It is noteworthy that whatever was CHRISTIANITY AND WAR 83 the theme before the Conference, its members were led at last to the Cross. There is a better future within the reach of mankind. The race may be redeemed from the curse of war. But everything waits for the coming of the sons of God, crucified with Christ, and therefore risen with Him, and prepared to introduce His Kingdom throughout the length and breadth of human life. CHAPTER XI — OUR RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX THE REPORT ON INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY ‘“ What man has made man can unmake ”’ THAT the sovereignty of God is supreme over all human life, is an axiom of Copec. The Commission therefore that enquired into the problems of Industry and Property* had their distinctive claims staked-out from the beginning. They had to deal first of all with motives, human relations, and effects upon character. They studied things, but always with their eyes upon persons. To urge that the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom, and therefore that the Church has nothing to do with such things as industry, is to establish a division which has led and will always lead to disaster. At this very moment industrial leaders and statesmen from their side are calling for a change of spirit. They can see the evil of the separa- tion between the spiritual and the material. Such a change of spirit would bring consequences, which would not leave’ industry as it is. When the teaching of Jesus is accepted it transforms the individual life; no less will it make a difference in industry and commerce. With many sections of this study of industry the Commission were dealing with things, which man with certain motives had made; these same things man with other motives may unmake. TO THE TEACHING OF JESUS! Many scholars teach that Our Lord and His Apostles were planning for a world near to its end. They stood by the death-bed of the world as they knew it. Therefore, it is urged, they could have nothing to offer to guide the student of modern industry. It was not the concern of the Commission to discuss the theological issues raised, * Chairman, Miss Constance Smith, O.B.E. 84 OUR RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX 85 except in their bearing upon the application of the teaching of Jesus to modern industry. There is the significant thing ; the teaching of Jesus concerning the kingdom, whether it was to come soon or late, was based upon the character of God. The conditions of entrance were spiritual and moral, and for all ages. The perspective of time makes no differ- ence in these qualities—faith, poverty of spirit, humility, self-surrender, love. It is significant that the conduct of those who look for His coming is that of a steward providing for the needs of a household, or a man of business faithful to his job.t If it is contended that Jesus thought of salvation as individual, the answer is that the individual is saved for the service of a kingdom. That must involve life in a society. The spiritual life is not revealed by its separation from social life but by its control over it. Not by any other teaching than that of the Kingdom, could Our Lord have fulfilled the law and the prophets. They are mean- ingless unless they are the Word of the Lord to a com- munity. From the teaching of Jesus this is the first principle to be learned by the student of social conditions—Industry 1s to be valued by tts effect upon the life of persons. In the eyes of Jesus the personal life was always the great concern. What shall tt profit a man, tf he gain the whole world and lose his soul P But Jesus did not ignore things. They were in His eyes to be used for the service of life. When they ceased to be so used, they-were evil. He spoke many warning words to the “‘rich’’; and the “ rich”’ in His teaching are those who have a super-abundance in comparison with their own needs and with the needs of others. The evil fruits are plain: covetousness; desertion from God’s service; a false confidence ; an anxiety about means; blindness to the needs of others. Riches in this sense leads to a thoroughly unsocial character, which by the very necessities of the case is outside the fellowship of those who are ruled by God. How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God! But things may be used for the service of human need ; the spirit of real helpfulness alone can make a social t Sts Matthew xxv. 14: St: Luke xix: 12: 86 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP life which can endure, for this is the spirit of love, and love is of God. Jesus has no criticism of industry itself ; He is concerned chiefly to warn men lest they should become entangled in the means of life, and lose life itself. They may “ fall down and worship the net, and burn incense unto the drag.”’ When Jesus promised that if men would seek first the Kingdom of God, and “all these things’”’ (the material needs) “shall be added unto you,’’ He seems to teach clearly that where the spiritual factor is duly recognized, satisfactory economic results must follow. ‘‘ The teaching is offered to all men as the way of life and not to a special class to be supported by the labours of others.”’ What- ever may be its application to individual cases, its social application seems clear. An industrial and economic system can be rightly ordered, and can fulfil its purpose, only if it rests upon the acceptance of the eternal values of the Kingdom. The call of Jesus will involve for the pioneers who give the lead in obedience to it, the surrender of prejudice; the reconstruction of life; the change of values; but for Society it does not spell disaster, but health and joy and peace. Social conditions which are in harmony with the nature of God are for that reason in harmony with the true nature of things. THE GAINS AND LossEs OF MODERN INDUSTRY It is not the business of the Church of Christ simply to denounce evil. It should eagerly seek for the good that is to be seen. Now the modern Industrial system has its good gifts, as well as its evils. Both must, however, be measured in terms of personal life. These may be tabled : Pro. “(r) It supports, in varying degrees of well-being, immense numbers of people. (2) It has banished, in normal times and in Western civilization, the fear of local and temporary famines. (3) It has supplied innumerable appliances for comfort and enjoyment; for rapid transport and transit; for interchange of communication; for sanitation, the treat- ment of disease, the alleviation of pain, and other means of physical well-being. OUR RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX 87 (4) It has provided the material means for indefinite advance in scientific achievement and at least the apparatus for culture in the arts and literature.” Contra. (rt) It injures the physical life of the people. 2) It robs them of the freedom to develop their life. ) It banishes beauty. ) ) ce It establishes wrong relations between men. ( (3 (4 (5) It stirs up strife between nations. . THE PRESENT SYSTEM It is the gross inequality in distribution that impresses the enquirer most painfully, when be comes from the upland of the Gospel to the plain of modern industrial life. There is a lack of neighbourliness. We are divided into two Cities, the citizens of which do not understand each other. The conditions of working-life are only vaguely known to those who dwell in the other City; and the danger is that to those who dwell in the City of the Poor the others seem “ Capitalists,’ and are not known as fellow-citizens with the same human needs and joys, with the same sorrows and hopes. Geography too often com- pletes what economic inequality begins. The Christian Church is not concerned with economics as an abstract science, but it is concerned when any system breaks up the unity of the people, and creates false and unChristian relationships between human beings. A lack of fellowship is a symptom of disease somewhere in the body of the nation. In the present system, Capital, Management and Labour may be called the three associated partners. With Capital, which supplies the funds necessary for the initiation of the undertaking, and may further contri- bute to its extension and development by the taking in of new partners or the raising of fresh share capital, lies the planning and direction of the lines of the enterprise, the control of the volume of business, the adoption and main- tenance of methods of production (including factory con- ditions which intimately affect the life, health and morals of the workpeople employed), and the acceptance or re- G 88 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP jection of financial risk. In the large private firm or the limited liability company the details of working are mainly in the hands of Management, whose reports and counsels, the outcome of practical experience, tend increasingly to influence the general policy. Labour, the indispensable instrument of Capital in the execution of its plans and purposes, has little part in these high matters. Workmen in general are ignorant of the “ business position ”’ of the firm which employs them; the financial commitments, perils, prospects of the concern are quite outside their en. These facts will not be disputed. The immediate concern of Copec is to be found in the fact that the personal human relations between employer and employed tend to become thinner and thinner. Even when the interests of the groups are identical, as they well may be, it is hard to blame the workman if he does not know this. There are problems which await solution, but they can only be named here. (I) The prevalence of wages below the standard of adequate living. There are still a large number of citizens who cannot be adequately housed, fed and clothed, and must remain without means of satisfying the higher needs of human nature. (2) The position of women in Industry. At the one end of the scale there are a great number of young unmarried women, at the other the comparatively few, who have returned in middle or later life through loss or disablement, or the unemployment of their husbands. The strain of the double parts, domestic and industrial, tells upon health and efficiency. (3) Young people in Industry. The raising of the age at which boys and girls leave school is of the greatest importance for industry ; apart from its value for their training in character, it would be a fact of significance on the economic plane; and there should be a revival of apprenticeship. (4) The low level of wages in Agriculture. The level has always been low, and it is low still. In March, 1923, the average wages stood at {1 7s. 11d. (compared to a pre-war rate of 18s.). During the brief life of the Agricul- OUR RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX 89 tural Wages Board, the farm-labourer had some measure of security. In a Society largely gathered into great cities he is apt to be overlooked. But no system can be accepted by the Christian Church as satisfactory, which leaves in poverty and insecurity, the men who till the soil. No solution can be tolerable which frankly gives up, as a burnt-offering to an Industrial Order, these men who belong to the brotherhood of the nation, and have much to give to its lie. But it was upon the symptom of Unemployment that the thought of the Commission was chiefly directed. This is the most characteristic sign of our modern distress. Un- employment, for Copec, must be measured in terms of human life. Loss of physical powers ; the strain of anxiety ; the paralysis of hope; the loss of skill; the gradual deterioration, these are the marks of this disease. ‘‘ The manufacture of unemployables out of the unemployed is the product of which a great industria] nation may well stand in fear, while to the Christian it can hardly seem less than acquiescence in the murder of a brother’s soul.” But it is not only the actual experience of unemployment that has to be measured, there is the menace of it always across the path. The demand for higher wages cannot be understood until it is seen as in part the outcome of fear. The chief thing for which the workman prays is security. There can be no prescription for the ending of Industrial Strife. At present the armies are arrayed in armed camps. And if we prepare for war we shall have it. Through knowledge and justice to confidence, and through confidence to peace—this is the only way. [If it is said that this is no practical solution, it may be answered, “ this is at least the condition without which no solution can be reached; and so long as the condition is unattained, what is the value of any ingenious solution ? ’’* * In the discussion of Finance, a Committee consisting of a broker, an accountant, a merchant, a stock-broker, and a civil servant, prepared areport. Their suggestions are contained in the report. One extract will show the drift of their minds : ‘Tt is the control of capital by a few men rather than the ownership of capital by all and sundry which constitutes the chief ground of criticism of the present system. It is undeniable that a comparatively small number of men, armed with all the vast resources which modern investment gives them, possess a power over the conditions of life of their fellow-countrymen quite unparalleled in any previous epoch. It may be and probably is inevitable that the actual conduct of modern industry should get into the hands of a few men. But the all-important question is the manner in which they exercise their power, and to whom they are held responsible for their conduct.” go CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP CONCERNING COMMERCE If Industry is the transforming of one material into another, Commerce is the marketing of the material. Some of the worst evils in our present system are due rather to disharmonies in the functioning of commerce than to anything in the condition of industry itself. Much might be done to regularize the life of the merchant by a more scientific control and direction of credit. “Tt is likely that as marketing becomes stabilized and organized through the adaptation of collective planning to industries as a whole, this will tend to be the line of future development. The ideal merchant would be a highly skilled professional operator employed for a recog- nized fee or salary as the servant of a public or semi-public corporation. Commerce would then lose much of its adventurous, gambling spirit, and would in time be trans- formed into a self-governing public service with a higher code of morality than is possible in a society where specu- lation and private adventure is still the established mode of carrying on the business of distributing the world’s goods.” CHARACTER AND THE SYSTEM But how far are these evils due to the faulty character of men? In the world with which Industry has to do some things are constant. Certain economic conditions are invariable, and cannot be changed by act of parliament. But other laws, valid within their own limits, are con- tingent upon human activity. If in such and such cir- cumstances this action is taken the result will be so-and-so. While land, labour and capital are indispensable for any advanced industry, yet there are different ways of using them, with different effects upon human life. But they are what we call the system. There are evils which result from individual character. A man may stand idle in the market-place because no one hires him, or because he prefers to live on the work of his wife. But it is a grave error to put down all unemploy- ment to the lack of will to work. It is necessary to dis- tinguish between the wrongs that need for the righting a change of heart, and those for which what is needed is a change of method. To a certain degree personal unfitness enters into the consideration of Unemployment. OUR RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX oI “The limitations on this admission, however, have to be carefully noted. First, the number of the entirely unemployable class, though uncertain, is certainly not very great. Second, the most practical way of improving human character lies often in abolishing industrial or social conditions which induce or pander to the vices of idleness, slovenliness and irresponsibility. Third, no conceivable improvement in the character of the workmen will eliminate the main factors of unemployment.’”* Sir George Paish, who spoke at Birmingham, declared that there was no economic justification for poverty. It ought not to exist ; but only the practical adoption of the Christian ethical principle, in his judgment, could save the world. The disease is not in the nature of things. It can be cured. It is not within the scope of the Christian Church to master all the facts of the economic situation, out of which unemployment arises. But it has a right to demand of the leaders in industry, that they shall not ignore the moral and spiritual factors, available in this human scene. If it is just that the Church should not seek to withdraw the spiritual from the material, it is not less just that the leaders in industry should not withdraw the economic from the spiritual order. ‘““ The causes of this evil are obviously not to be charged upon the nature of things or the will of God; they are admittedly somewhere within the range of human methods, which means that these methods bear the responsibility. If the practical solution depends upon determining which of the rival theories is true or whether they are comple- mentary to each other, the best brains and the ripest experience ought to be charged with the task and given full facilities for carrying it out.” It is not unreasonable for the Church to tell its members, who are in the world of industry : ““ We do not know how precisely the change is to be made, but we know it is not the will of God that things should be as they are; and the will of God must be practicable. It is therefore your business to do this thing.” If it is true that the hardships which the poor suffer are not in the main the outcome of personal characteristics, it is no less true that riches also accumulate in personal * Sir W. Beveridge. Q2 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP possessions, not in the main according to virtue or ability, but from defects in the social ordering. It is not a reward for ability that is challenged, but the actual reward which is bestowed to-day. No blame is to be attached to those who profit by existing custom, nor is it just to argue that men are not helped to good positions by their abilities, but it is clear that the positions which they secure receive their value from quite other reasons. An economic opportunity may be taken by the ability and diligence of an individual. But it has been created by the toils of many other men. Every inventor, for example, is depen- dent upon the work of a whole host of seekers. Now, when once a man has done his own piece, it may be the last piece out of many, he deserves his reward, but the amount of the reward, as things are, is determined not by his own toil, nor is it in proportion to his abilities. It is a social achieve- ment. It is not the man receiving this, who is challenged, but the order under which he receives it. It is also quite possible for a man to become very wealthy without having added anything to the general wealth of the community, without indeed having had any part, in fact, in industry itself! Large profits are acquired in business from which risks have been eliminated. Competition is no longer the fetish of the business world. ‘‘ Trusts have the power to squeeze the public, but as a matter of fact, they frequently serve it better. Their organization, apart from the diversion of socially created profits into the hands of a minority, seems to point the way to a more effective means of meeting social needs, when consistently directed to this end.” But whatever be the method adopted, the end before Christian leaders in industry is clear. The end can be attained. It is for the Church to proclaim what is the goal to which a Christian society is bidden to move, and it is for statesmen and economists to devise the means, never allowing themselves to rest content with any system which withholds from their brothers the opportunity for a full and harmonious life. THE CONSUMER There is one cardinal principle. Every consumer must make it his purpose never knowingly to buy anything which OUR RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX 93 will injure life. There is a serious call for men to work out a better standard of life. It is their duty to discover, as far as they can, what is the effect of their own consumption, and their use of the purchasing power in their hands, both upon their own lives and the lives of others. A readjust- ment of our expenditure would liberate fresh springs of productive power. MoTIvEs IN INDUSTRY* The desire to serve others would be the dominant motive in a fully Christian society, though by no means the only one. In the Conference, after an able plea that a place should be found for ‘‘ rational self-love,’’ the resolution declaring that the motive of service should be substituted for that of gain was altered. It was felt that the motive of service must be predominant, but that to rule out the motive of gain as an evil thing was to put a strain upon men which they were not meant to bear. The desire of a man to supply his own needs and those of his family is natural and right, provided that he has a clear idea of what the needs really are. The Conference in amending the resolution was bringing out considerations not over- looked in the body of the Report. The man who does not provide for his own household is declared by the Apostle to be worse than an infidel. But Our Lord taught man to carry the ideal of the family into all social relations, and this principle would bring, if it were accepted, a new spirit of co-operation. Service is not the only motive, but should be the predominant motive. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY For the Christian is there any right to hold property ? Two principles are laid down in the New Testament : The owner must use property not only for his own satisfaction, but for the good of others; and the second like to it, is the danger of great possessions. Private property is recognized in the New Testament as a fact and is neither praised nor blamed. But Our Lord and His Apostles clearly show that no man has the absolute unrestricted right to use property at his pleasure. Re- ligion is chiefly concerned with the power that property * A subject still imperfectly explored by economists. 94 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP gives its owner over human life. ‘“‘ The whole question of the ownership, rewards and powers of capital can only be solved on moral, as well as on true economic principles.” The Commission urgently call the best representatives of both sides to set to work definitely upon this problem. “To hope for a solution from the unregulated self- seeking activities, or from industrial warfare, or from the clash of party political strife is to court disaster and invite not only a continuance of suffering and injustice, but a development which can only be contemplated with dismay.”’ PROGRESS REPORTED Things are not to-day as they were in 1824. There have been many movements to reveal and to express the growing sense of responsibility. ‘‘ The gathering or grouping of the confused inarticulate masses of the industrial popula- tion of 80 years ago into trade associations’’; the Co- operative movements ; the Protective Action of the State; Trade Boards ; Insurance Acts may be named. It would be untrue, as well as ungenerous, to deny the advances made, not without toil and suffering. Yet at the last it is the chief business of the Christian community to consider what remains to be done. There is an immeasurable value in the human soul; and so long as one such human life is denied its opportunity for its full development in the Kingdom of God, so long is the task unfinished. The way of advance is clear. “It is by the gradual extension of the common control over the individual passions and desires in the ordering of the common life that we have secured such a measure of peace as we enjoy, and it is only by the same method that we can hope to attain to peace in the economic world.” Therefore the Conference called upon Christian people to ponder these resolutions : 1. The aim of Christians with regard to industry and commerce should be to procure the predominance of the motive of service over the motive of gain. 2. Industry should be a co-operative effort adequately lo supply the needs of all. This -does not involve one particular type of organization universally applied. It does involve a perpetual effort to find the organizations best suited to each industry. OUR RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX 95 . Industry should be so organized that all those engaged in tt shall have an increasingly effective voice in determining the conditions of their work and lives. . The first charge on industry should be a remuneration sufficient to maintain the worker and his family in health and dignity. . The evils of unemployment are intolerable to the moral sense. Ihe causes must be sought and removed. . Extremes of wealth and poverty are likewise tntoler- able. A Christian order involves a juster distribution. . Ihe moral justification of the various rights which constitute property depends on the degree to which they. contribute to the development of personality and to the good of the whole community. If such vights subserve those purposes they deserve the approval of Christians: «if not, they should be modified or abolished. . The duty of service ts equally obligatory upon all. No inherited wealth or position can dispense any member of the Christian society from establishing by service his claim to maintenance. CHAPTER XII —— THE CHRISTIAN CITIZEN THE REPORT ON POLITICS AND CITIZENSHIP FROM more than one way of approach the Conference had come upon the problem of the State. In the study of Education, or of International Relationships, or of Industry, all roads led to the State. What is the nature and purpose of the State P The Commission entrusted with the subject Politics and Citizenship* had to consider whether there was any Christian tradition and doctrine by which the citizens of to-day may test their attitude to the State and to the Representa- tive Government. At the outset the Commission records that there is an idolatry of the State which must be resisted. It is an idolatry advocated both by reactionary and progressive thinkers. They differ entirely in the things which they desire the State to enforce, but they agree that it should have the power to enforce its will. Their ends are different, but they look to the State to accomplish them; both are in the line of Machiavelli. No Christian man can centre his hopes for the true ordering of the world upon the State. None the less, within its own province and for its own ends, the Commission declared that they believed the State to be ordained of God. The resolution in which this was laid down was challenged in the Assembly. In the eye of some members it seemed dangerous to confuse the State as it actually is with the State as it exists ideally in the purpose of God. After consultation an amended resolution was proposed and carried : “The purpose of the State is to bind men together in a justly ordered social life, and its authority ought to be generally accepted by Christians. The duties of citizenship are a sacred obligation for Christian * Chairman Brig.-General Sir Wyndham Deedes, Kt., C.M.G. 96 THE CHRISTIAN CITIZEN 97 people. The authority of the State is limited by its functions, and ought to be challenged by the Christian conscience only in the name of God. Christians should be willing while their strength lasts to spend and be spent in its service.” This resolution saved certain members from what seemed to them an impossible doctrine, that, for example, the rule of Turkey under Abdul Hamid was ordained of God. At the same time it affirmed what was clearly in the mind of the Commission, that the State so far as it is designed to establish and maintain a just order, and re the range of its powers, has its authority from od. | God, the Church, the State! Man owes obedience to the three. But what if their claims clash? How are these loyalties related ? There can be no precise formula to cover all cases. Sometimes the way is plain; if the State made itself the organ of an immoral end, then it is the plain duty of the Christian to refuse obedience. But there are many occasions not so clear. The Christian point of view is that the authority of the State within its own appointed range has a divine sanction, and that it can demand obedience in God’s name; it is to be judged not by what it has done, but by what it is endeavouring to achieve. In the Christian estimate of things the State does not base its claims simply upon the popular will, but in doing tts appointed work its authority must be traced to God. The function of the State is limited by the end, which it serves—the establishment and maintenance of a just order ; but its powers so far as it endeavours to serve that end must not be challenged save in the name of God, and the Christian must not take that name in vain. The most irreligious of all positions for the citizen to adopt is that his religious life, being spiritual and eternal, has no bearing upon politics. The man who believes that life has a spirit—a moral character—cannot rid himself of the responsibility of doing all that he can do to enable the State to embody in its actual working the spiritual principle which he holds to be right. If citizenship is a right it is equally a sacred and spiritual responsibility. There are peculiar difficulties in the present hour ; there 98 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP is no one spiritual society. The Christian Faith is not in possession. »There is in this fact a new challenge. “ All who realize their Christian responsibility as citizens will labour to bring a just order out of chaos, and the beginning of our labours must be the recognition that success or failure will depend upon our belief or unbelief.” “This is not an easy doctrine to preach. The world is usually ready enough for some spectacular religious revival which will, as it were, stoke up political energy ; it is less ready to accept conditions or admit limitations. Such acceptance, such admission, will depend largely on the way in which we who believe these things act upon our belief. The world is, I think, perhaps apt to be somewhat perplexed by a certain contrast between the quiet and clear-sighted performance of obvious social duties so constantly enjoined upon Christians by the writers of the Epistles, and the rather feverish exploration of social problems in which earnest Christians feel compelled to immerse themselves to-day. No doubt social relations in the modern State are infinitely complicated and must be carefully and fully studied, but a too anxious search for expedients will be taken, not unjustly, as a sign that we neither have guidance nor can giveit. A great American judge once said to me that ‘ education in the obvious is more important than investigation into the obscure,’ and that dictum has perhaps a special application to us. In face of present conditions idleness and indifference are unthinkable, but it is none the less true that in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength, and it is only quiet- ness and confidence that men will follow.’’* THE CHRISTIAN CITIZEN AND PARTY In the judgment of the Commission it was not the duty of the Church to work for the abolition of party, but rather that each party should be encouraged to recognize not only the points of view for which it stands, but also the aspects of truth represented by the other parties. At present if a question is not a party question there is no time to do it. If, however, parties were to recognize themselves for what they are—embodiments of certain aspects of a * Lord Eustace Percy. THE CHRISTIAN CITIZEN 99 truth which requires all of them for its full expression— agreed measures would obtain their right place on their merits. Before the Church as a Church takes sides there are many considerations to be borne in mind. And even if State- action is advocated, the Church can hardly claim to be a judge of method. It may press, for example, for the better provision for the aged, but it can hardly take sides between a contributory or a non-contributory scheme of old age pensions. On the whole it is the first duty of the Christian Society to preach the need for repentance, and the promise of redemption, but if that promise is preached with power it will stir men more effectively than any discussion of particular schemes. It is probable that the Church would fulfil its purpose more fully by being inter-party, rather than non-party. In the fellowship of the Church citizens should be able to test their political conclusions in the light of their Christian Faith. They may go out to act together, or to oppose each other; but there should be no subject upon which they are afraid to confer together, and no action can be justified for them which they cannot bring under the review of Christian principles in the fellowship of the Body of Christ. CLASS Class divisions in the particular form in which they exist to-day must be traced back to the beginnings of the industrial system. The great necessity is to overcome the sense of economic injustice. It is that which gives the bitterness to the class-consciousness of the hour. [If a cul- ture can be steadily developed which is not merely accessible to the masses of the people, but to which they themselves are able directly to contribute, we shall be on the way to overcome the most considerable obstacles to a free and united society. To work towards such objects is the compell- ing obligation laid upon the whole Christian Church. It is not enough to work for “‘ equality of opportunity ” as that is generally understood. That commonly means an offer to forcible and determined men to join the ranks of those who bear power in the industrial scene. It is in reality an escape offered from the one city into the other. But it is not an escape that is needed, nor the opportunity to I0o CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP excel others. Men have a right to seek in their work a true sense of vocation, and a real experience of fraternity, without feeling themselves sundered by arbitrary barriers from their fair share of the resources of civilization, It is not, once more, the ladder of escape that is needed, but the broad highway. MAKING IT LOCAL “Local government as we know it to-day is young enough to have been really exciting within living memory. The beginnings of the machinery were not there till 1835 ; Public Health, the first great function we now associate with it, was not brought under it till 1875; Education, the other typical function, in some sense, in 1871, but not under the general local machinery till 1902 ; Housing not effectively till 1890. Again, the principal Municipal Corporations Act now in force is as recent as 1882, County Councils date from 1888, and Parish and District Councils from 1894. Alongside of this development the battle for the place of women in local government was fought and won—and fought always on the ground of the service— the special kind of service—that women could render to it. Altogether, therefore, it is not surprising that this great development of the past fifty years or so should indeed on the one hand have become a field where threatened interests strove to maintain themselves, but also a field which has obviously offered itself for service to public- spirited persons, and in which social reformers have experimented, and steady administrators have steadily drudged.”’ Opportunities to serve upon local bodies are many, but they often seem dull. Most men awaken to the exist- ence of such public bodies only when they have some grievance to air. It is true that a great measure of dis- interested service is being done by the few, but when it is remembered that only 50 per cent. of voters go to the poll, interest in local government cannot be counted great.* Copec calls Christian communities to claim that all aspects of life shall be brought under the Christian rule. The whole of life is needed for the expression of the greatness of the Christian character. ‘‘ We shall not fully know * Good work is being done to stir up public opinion by the Christian Social Crusade and the Interdenominational Councils but there is much still to be dones THE CHRISTIAN CITIZEN IOI what the City of God means unless we learn it, as it has always been learned, through the love of our own city.” CITIZENS AND THE PRESS Little time was left at Birmingham for the report upon the Press. But in any consideration of the duties of citizenship the Press cannot be forgotten; and the im- portance attached to it must not be judged by the brief time assigned to it. It is the most powerful factor in adult education; it helps to determine the character of the home; it is a political factor which statesmen cannot ignore. It emerges into view whatever be the phase of modern life under review. The facts are set forth fairly and with expert knowledge in the report. There are newspapers, it is granted, which are not unworthy of their calling; and if all attained to the level of the best there would be no need for the Christian community to do more with the Press than to be thankful for its service. But, as things are, even in the best Press in the world, there are dangers. The chief danger comes from the commercialization of the Press, and from the con- trol by a few powerful men, sometimes with their chief interest not in the newspaper world at all. - One noticeable danger is the use of the news column for propaganda. “Great is the suppress! ’’ What an ideal paper would be like the Commission were bold enough to sketch in outline ; and with that they pointed out the way of advance. We come back to education. It is the business of the Christian community to create a public opinion which will prefer to have the better things, and not seek simply to be amused. At present the newspaper proprietor has to remember that he is dealing with men who would much rather have tips from Newmarket than exhortations from Copec. It is idle for the Church to prescribe hari-kari for such a proprietor. It is more in order for its members to use their own influence, and to educate others to seek the more excellent things. A nation gets the papers it deserves. The State can do little. If it attempts to interfere with the freedom of the Press it will create more evils than it cures.* * It has been suggested that the State might create a department of public infor- mation, like a judiciary, set up by the State and independent of political control, side by side with private enterprise. 102 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP : CONCLUSION The whole problem of citizenship is a matter of social and spiritual relationships. When we speak of “ political and social problems’’ we are simply emphasizing certain relationships between human beings. Every man is him- self the social problem. In the end we come back to things personal. Often the problems which meet men on the large scale are interpreted to them most clearly through personal experience. Housing is more than a problem for me, if I have friends who live in overcrowded dwellings, Unemployment is a more urgent thing if I have known a boy at school and seen him left in the unguarded years without work. With the call to public service there must go at the same time the call to individual Christians to take an interest in fellow-citizens, not as problems, but as human personalities, whom God has made for Himself. CHAPTER XIII oo THE SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF THE CHURCH Witness, Worship, Teaching, and above all the Embodiment of Christian Love and Righteousness in tis Members, these are the Social Functions of the Church. THE long days of Conference in Birmingham were drawing to an end when the Report was received upon the Social Functions of the Church.* But till that Report was con- sidered, Copec had not finished its survey. It was not a Conference of those who think and act as if there were no such thing as the Christian Revelation, and no such instrument as the Christian Society. The cry of the oppressed and the heavy-laden had been heard. Many times the listeners had been driven to enquire what instru- ment was available to meet the need. And sometimes in penitence, sometimes with a measure of impatience, they came back always to the Church. How far could this Body bring the guidance and power needed in human society ? The Conference itself was evidence that a large portion of organized Christendom is uneasy, and determined to make a social application of the Gospel. They desire indeed the re-union of the Churches, but without waiting for that, there is much that can be done at once in fellowship. There is a far greater measure of agreement in the practical part of religion than they have yet made manifest. With- out waiting for any far-off goal, the Christian communities can do much now and do it together. But it is impossible for the Church to fulfil its social function, and to be the moral guide of Society, until it is clear upon the Truth concerning God. There is an ineffectiveness which can be traced to confused and muddled thinking.t| Where the Church * Chairman, the Bishop of Lichfield. t This was pointed out to the Conference by Professor Moberly. I03 H 104 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP thought cisarly upon the character and purpose of God, it had the most sure teaching for the social life of the age. It matters not for the moment whether it is of the Medizval Church or of Calvin that we think. There was effective action in the world, because there was a definite truth to apply. To-day there are other gods besides the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is the theory of nations and societies according to Machiavelli; there is the Society according to Marx. Now what is the nature of the God in Whose Name and by Whose Spirit the Church acts? How is He related to “‘Nature’”’? How to the revelations made in the Old Testament ? The Church has for its task to proclaim the Christian truth concerning God. It has to show how in that Kingdom the material and the spiritual are related. It has to declare that His Kingdom is always at hand, and to show what things help, and what things hinder that Kingdom. It is an unchanging truth, but it is upon its swiftness to bring it home to each age, with its freshly emerging problems and its new demand that the power of the Church depends. It has to make each generation see the eternal truth in its bearing upon its own life. WITNESS Those who set forth Jesus Christ must do justice to the social aspect of the Gospel. There is more in His teaching than that; but that social teaching is there. It is from Him that the Church learns its beliefs concerning human nature. Human nature for the Christian is the nature of Jesus Christ. The Christian Church has no doubt of His real Godhead; but it lays stress also upon His real humanity ; He touches every part of human life; and all its levels belong to Him. ‘“ The Incarnation becomes therefore a revelation of humanity,” and to apply His teaching to all human life becomes for the Church a sacred trust. In all the inter-actions of life the Church must witness for the true values which it has learned from its Lord. If it fights overcrowding, for example, it must be first of all because of the paralysing result of this evil upon the spiritual life of the community. That spiritual life is understood when it is interpreted according to the mind of Christ. In this fight against the enemies of the SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF THE CHURCH = 105 Christian life, the Church is promised for its success all the powers of the Living Christ—the powers of the endless life. Sometimes it has been imagined that social reform is the outlet in service for those whose spiritual faith has lost its first freshness. When they have seen their vision of the unseen wane they are supposed to find comfort in things seen and tangible. There can be no more fatal mistake than to imagine that the formidable tasks of the Social Reformer can be done without the resources of the spiritual world. The Church when it approaches social reform must not forget its inner life. It never needs its powers more thaninsuchanhour. It has to play two parts, one in the inner life, and one in the outer. Both parts must be played earnestly and both together. THE CHURCH AND POLITICS In giving its witness must the Church keep aloof from politics ? State action, it is true, can never make good the deficiencies of the Church. To promote legislation against gambling and the drink-traffic can never take the place of the direct work upon the mind and will which the Church is called to do. If the Church has no outlet for the instinct which is in the gambler, then it cannot rest content with legislation. Certainly the Church has no business to dictate to the State and to impose “ the morality of the Church,” as such, on the whole body of the nation. But it is another matter entirely if that body of citizens, called the Church, seeks to promote measures which can be fully justified to the conscience of the nation on the sole ground of their importance for the national welfare. The Church in such a case does not impose, it offers its light. But does not Political Science deal with ascertained facts? The answer is clear: behind the facts of politics lie human wills; behind the laws of a nation is the moral standard of the day, which is a variable standard; and supreme over that standard are the ultimate principles of right which alone can claim finality in human affairs. The assumption that human nature is a fixed and unchang- ing datum is entirely contradicted by Christian experience ; we know that Christ has changed and does change human nature, 106 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP It is not ‘claimed that the Christian Church has authority to speak upon all political questions. In many of them the moral issues are not at all plain; the Church cannot claim, for example, to pronounce upon a capital levy or a graduated income tax. Its teachers cannot speak with any effect upon matters where inevitably they lack knowledge. There must be in him a union of moral insight with the powers of political analysis before the spokesman of the Christian Society can hope to claim authority. All this is true; and yet there is a large field of political and economic action in which moral issues are perfectly clear; and for the Church to abandon these fields is for the Church to leave its Lord where He needs it most without the voice and the will which He has com- missioned for His Kingdom, PREACHERS AND TEACHERS In the New Testament there is a place for an authorized teaching ministry side by side with the Spirit-bearing ministry. More room should be made in these days for the witness of the prophet, whether in the holy ministry or without. Much more might be done to make use of the gifts available by co-operation between the Christian Churches. But there is no less room still for the teaching ministry. There should not be less teaching of theclogy; on the contrary, if the message of Copec is right, there can be no advance unless there is a clear and constraining under- standing of the Christian doctrine of God. But there should be teaching services not confined to Sundays, in which, along with that teaching concerning God, there should be set forth the social implications of the Gospel. The hours of Sunday might be used with more economy and more variety. Such teaching must begin with the children. As they grow older they will seek to know how they may serve the Hero of Heroes. They will be ready to discover how they may find their place in the great adventure. There is no need for a social or economic programme in the Sunday Schools. But just as the missionary en- thusiast has aroused in the child sympathy, which after- wards blossoms into an active interest in the missionary SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF THE CHURCH 107 enterprise, so the same child may be taught in such a way that when the time comes he will be ready to take his part in public service. Much depends upon the atmos- phere and fellowship of the school. In Brigades, Scout Troops, Girl Guides, there are constant opportunities for the cultivation of the team-spirit, and for the recognition of a place for youth in the team of the nation and of the world. When boys and girls are prepared for their first Communion there is a chance to set before them the ideals of fellowship and service, always based on their fellowship with God in Christ Jesus. For adult education there are agencies already in exist- ence. The Adult Schools have a long and valuable experi- ence to offer. There are also Christian Social Councils and Civic Societies. The survey-method of the Roman Catholic sociologist, Le Play, offers excellent guidance ; regional and civic survey are a necessary preliminary to local action. For those who seek to qualify themselves to lead, and to teach others, there are means available—the Summer Schools of Social Service Unions, the League of Nations’ Union, Summer Schools at Woodbrooke, the Workers’ Educational Association, and other like institu- tions. The teaching office of the Church is in some departments a joint affair of ministers and laymen, the layman's knowledge and experience being needed to define the social application of the truth, and his faithfulness in applying tt being needed to commend it to others. We would magnify the preacher's office of proclaiming the truth of the Gospel in its fullest vange; but the truth can only be transmitted adequately by a Church in which Christian works of social service and Christian thoughts of social progress are constantly promoted and made prominent as an essential commentary on the Christian creed. DIRECTION AND DISCIPLINE The Commission received and considered many sug- gestions upon the revival of the powers of direction and discipline, applied to a wider range of human life than was formerly customary. But there seemed to be many practical difficulties, and there were some witnesses who doubted whether the Church was qualified to undertake this duty. 108 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP The Commission attached more importance to the attempt to stimulate and educate the conscience of Christian people, prior to the point where scandal and abuse arise. Christian discipline must aim at being restorative and not damnatory. ‘The Society of Friends finds that the pressure of the corporate opinion of the Church can be definitely exerted upon individuals with their general consent. And it can never be forgotten that public action can only deal with offences when they become scandalous. Whether it is desirable or not in itself, it can only deal with a small number of cases, and it is no remedy against the deadliest evils. CHRISTIAN DISCUSSION “Where two or three are gathered together in My Name there am I in the midst of them.” That is the promise of Christ. How far are Christian congregations ready to explore its possibilities, both in joint intercession and in joint discussion, with a view to forming the common Christian mind? There is ground for hopefulness. Every- where there are men and women who have been trained in Student Circles and Discussion Classes. The Student Movement has made many members of the Churches familiar with such methods; they have seen them work. There are many who have proved that the promise of Christ is true. Their experience may be a valuable starting-point. Missionary Societies, moreover, have encouraged for years these methods of conference. The very bewilderment of the time is itself a call to fellowship in the search for the right way of life. In answer to the objection that there is no room in the schedules of the Church, the Commission entered into an analysis of opportunities, and made many valuable suggestions. The serious question arises whether in the presence of a grave need the organization of the Church must not be changed to make room for the most pressing concerns.* Increase of fellowship and unity in national and industrial life must be preceded by a growing unity of mutual under- standing ; and this can be best gained by Christian delibera- tion among Christian men and women, meeting in appro- priate groups, sharing thought honestly in friendship, and with a good conscience towards God. * Upon these and other matters the Report should be read. SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF THE CHURCH 10g The power of harmonizing differences which they may thus acquire in Christian fellowship is one of the supreme needs of our still rudimentary attempt at a democracy. THE TRAINING OF THE MINISTRY It is generally agreed that more space should be allotted to the training of the ministry to deal with social and econo- micconditions. Practical methods would vary ; but among other suggestions it was considered important that there should be well-qualified occasional lecturers who might visit colleges where for one reason or another it was im- possible for a college to have a lecturer upon the subject. It seemed equally an opportunity for co-operation between the Churches. In the end it was hoped there might be formed an inter-denominational general staff college. PARALLELS AND ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE WORK OF THE CHURCH IN Non-CHRISTIAN LANDS. “Nothing has done more to paralyse the influence of Christian Missions among the better educated classes of the East than what they have read, or in visiting have seen, of the social conditions of England and America.” This is but one of many illustrations that the problem before the Church of Christ can only be measured against the scale of the world. In the Supplement upon Foreign Missionary Work, Mr. Frank Lenwood has driven home this lesson. Hehas shown, moreover, from the Mission Field what has been the influence of the missionary upon the civilization of the primitive peoples, or of the ancient peoples of the East. He traces the growth of the Christian community, and points out how the early missionaries, as it were by instinct, threw themselves into social training as an essential part of the Gospel. In the story of missions there is a constant encouragement for those who believe that the Christian Gospel must and may be expressed in the whole range of human life. What the missionary enterprise has to offer to the Church at home is a valuable experience of the wide and transforming powers of the Gospel. But there are other inter-actions to be remembered. “There is a special call to face the fact that men and women who have made Christian profession in England cast it to the winds after a few weeks in a foreign station. IIo CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP There is a‘ pathetic regularity about the process. It is true that things are not so bad as they were. Increase of communications has also brought a measure of blessing, home influences are not quite so far away ; but it is difficult to state with too strong an emphasis how serious the prob- lem still remains. Yet for the most part the Churches in Britain are indifferent.”’ The strength and maturity of the Christian character, shaped in the Church, is tested not only at home in industry and politics, but in its action upon the spiritual destiny of other races. On the last morning at Birmingham, Mr. J. H. Oldham sought to link together the two great Conferences, Edinburgh, 1910, and Copec. As he saw them they were necessary to each other. It was at Edinburgh that the vision of the world in its need of Christ came home to men. All men were seen there as the object of the one Redemption. Now at Birmingham all parts of man’s life were claimed as the field of that Redemption. There is but one task and one end. The Church must be true at once to the Breadth and the Depth of the Love of God. CONCERNING WORSHIP The whole of our Christian year tells us of the need for oblation. By what strange sense of mutilated meanings have we come to offer to God our praise of Him, accom- panied by a primitive protest that we are not our brother’s keeper? Worship should always be an offering. In the hour of worship the Christian people should make a weekly presentation of the capital and the labour, of the directive skill and the executive skill, of the toil and the patience, of the links which bind men and women together in mutual service. The very act of worship should be the offering to God of life as well as of thought—of the consecrated, corporate life. The worship of the House of God might begin to have a new meaning and a glory unknown before, if it were counted the season in which the people of God came with their lives—the whole of their lives—to their Redeemer. ORGANIZATION If the Church is to fulfil its function in the Social Life of the Community some organization will be needed. SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF THE CHURCH § 111 “This means primarily new local and national councils of Christian congregations and denominations, to focus knowledge and service at the points where they can most fitly express themselves. In organization on the national scale, well-equipped staff-work also is essential to really fruitful work. We have indicated a variety of important services which we think call immediately for organized co-operation, chiefly to provide the Church with an adequate Intelligence Department. We also emphasize the great value of using the existing and autonomous bodies—each having its own special sense of Christian calling in these matters—as the basis for the more organized and united action which we think is now called for. Individual congregations and individual denominations need, of course, their own organizations to fit into the wider co-operations.”’ CONCLUSION One more thing needs to be added. The Church is a fellowship within the larger fellowship of the nation. It is a society which is called to serve as a model and promise of the day when a Christian order shall be estab- lished over the range of human life. It should reveal to the world how a company of men and women may share knowledge and ideas; how they may have the very spirit of joy and hilarity which springs up in hearts where Christ dwells; how they may differ and still remain friends ; how they may walk in love, and carry with them the spirit of love into all the range of their lives. The Church is called to be a kind of first-fruits of the society that is to be. CHAPTER XIV —_—_— AFTER COPEC ‘‘ And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed, and they that fol- lowed were afraid.’’—St. Mark, x. 32. ‘* Apart from Me ye can do nothing.” —St. John, xv. 5. LONG preparations had been made for the Conference at Birmingham. It was a centre towards which many toils and prayers had converged. For a short time men and women, assembling out of many Societies, thought and prayed together, received reports and passed resolutions, and then dispersed. They shared in a common inspiration. They experienced without doubt the presence of the Comforter. Then they departed each to his own home ; and Copec ended, only to begin. COPEC was designed to be not a Terminus but a Junction. When the end came, what then remained? Not one social injustice was righted ; not one of the lives held in bondage for which speakers had pleaded was set free ; the dark terrors which haunt mankind were not dispelled, nor were the stubborn and deep-based powers of evil shaken. Yet something had happened, which may compel the historian of human social progress to give a place to Copec. Something had happened, where all revolutions begin, in the heart of man. These things may be registered already among the gains. A body of representatives from the Christian Churches, passionately concerned for the social redemption of mankind, had given their witness together in the presence of all the people. Things which they had discussed in the class- room were proclaimed upon the housetops. Copec marks the coming into the open of the Christian Gospel of Social Redemption. Scattered enthusiasts of many communities had dis- 112 AFTER COPEC 113 covered each other, and had seen ways in which they might prolong and deepen their collective thought and service. What was gloriously certain at Birmingham might be experienced everywhere. It was a reassurance for many lonely and some despairing toilers to realize that there were others in every section of society and in every Christian community dreaming their dreams and sharing their sorrows. Where there is a power surging at the same time in many minds shaped under every variety of tradition and experience, it is most evident that the Spirit of the Lord is preparing some great opportunity for His servants. A method had been tested, and proved ready for use everywhere. It had been made manifest how Christians should think together, and how they should deal with the things upon which they are divided. A great wealth of learning and suggestion had been gathered in the Reports, which held the promise of what may prove to be a research department from which there will be distributed the precise information without which action is hesitating and indecisive. A landmark had been passed in the story of the Church in its relation to the Redemption of Society. The Church could not think and act as though the call of that week had never been heard. The appeal to the first principles of the Christian Faith must ever afterwards be either accepted or refuted. It could not be ignored. The Church had not been committed by the resolution of Copec. But in the eyes of men the Church had been challenged either to disprove the social implications, read in the Faith, or if these things were true, to give itself seriously to the work of social redemption. It may contract out of time in the hope of eternity, or it may introduce the kingdom of God into this human scene, true at once to the heavenly vision and to the claims of earth. At COPEC it was made clear that the observers of the Church would demand an answer. Many such gains might be registered, but the testing of Copec will be carried out when the dispersion is over, and the members of the Conference have travelled down their local lines, and are once more in the network of their customary life. The Movement began in an act II4 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP of faith. Certain men and women believing that the Gospel is the only solution of the world’s problem deter- mined to put their faith to the test. They sent forth a signal to others, who were of the same faith to join in a common venture; and as they prepared for the Con- ference they became conscious that a Power, not in them- selves, was constraining them. The task which was before the Church, as they studied it, grew more formidable ; but with every new revelation of the task there came a new joy in their fellowship, and a fresh revelation of the re- sources which were in their Lord. Their faith had still to endure the test of the vast Con- ference at Birmingham. Would the vision of the task be so terrible that it would dishearten the members, strange to each other and widely separated in their traditions ? Would they divide into parties, or break up in confusion ? The fear must often have come, that there would be no unity and no coherence. Now after the week had ended, it is impossible for those who were present to doubt that a Hand that is not man’s hand had guided them. The vision of need was bewildering. The very recommendations were many—about 170 or thereabouts. They traversed the whole range of human life. It was a sombre and be- wildering vision which the Conference was made to see; no mercy was shown to those who had refused to see things as they are; but if the needs were many and varied as the Conference met them one by one, it found itself always drawing near to one Centre. Whatever were the theme, the same principle seemed to bear directly upon it, and with every fresh investigation there came to the hearers the thrill which the scientist knows when one more experi- ment answers. With each new test, the original faith shone more brightly. The end of the Conference found the members surer of their faith. They had looked into the evils of the world, and they had measured against them, not their own re- sources, nor the resources of their newly-discovered fellowship, but the resources of the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. They were conscious moreover, - that they were “else sinning greatly a dedicated ’’ people. It was no light task to which they were committed. The Kingdom of God is not in word but in deed. No attempt AFTER COPEG IIs was made to disguise the fact, that before the faith could be turned into action, a price must be paid. One scene from the Gospels came as though to supply a solemn refrain. They were in the way going up to Jerusalem and Jesus was going before them and they were amazed and they that followed were afraid. Whenever the children of men approach the new Jerusalem He goes before them, and they must needs tremble for He bids them go with Him to the Cross. There can be no new Jerusalem built in “‘ England’s green and pleasant land,’”’ except by those who have paid His price. It was with no sense of elation as though they had done something, that the delegates dispersed. They went as men who had seen that Face and were afraid. For the sequel two main courses were possible. It might have been the will of the Conference to form at once a Society with a certain defined programme, with a Consti- tution, and all the necessary provision for effective organ- ization. In such a case A Society for the Promotion of This or That might have been added to the Societies of Christen- dom. The Conference would have taken measures to perpetuate itself, as it had found itself during its deliber- ations, and so to make known the common mind, dis- covered there. If such a plan were considered wise, Copec had many dangers to fear. It might easily harden into a strong institution, living for its principles it is true, but tending with the years to become an end in itself. The public mind would fasten upon one or more outstanding reso- lutions, and Copec would be in the judgment of most citizens—another Society either to fight against war, or to study the Problems of Sex, or Dealing with Unemploy- ment. The time might come when it would have earned as other societies have earned, the epitaph: “ And now its soul is lying in the grave“ But its body goes marching on.” _ Another course was open, and this was taken. COPEC refused at that moment to codify its purpose. Copec would not allow itself to harden and to remain where it had found itself at Birmingham. That was a stage, but only a stage. The method of fellowship had been tested, strained, and yet not found wanting. Its faith had been 116 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP confirmed. “But there was a spirit in the Conference which must not be fettered. A number of men and women, with many attachments to many Societies, had met together and seen visions together. They had many invisible tracks between their lives and the lives of others—they had opportunities of bringing that new spirit into other circles of friends and fellow-workers. They were members of Churches, citizens of villages and towns, employers, servants ; now that they had looked with clear eyes upon the human scene and had found a clue to the way of deliverance, they had it for their first task, “‘ to go back to their friends and tell them what great things God had done for them.”’ Regional Conferences were planned for the success of which much would depend upon the loyalty and en- thusiasm of those who had been already in COPEC. ‘“‘ The way to make a thing living,’’ says Mr. Chesterton, “‘ is to make it local.”” The resolutions presented at Birmingham look to some critics as though they were a little general in their language. Some would have made them more definite ; but it must be remembered, that those to whom the appeal of COPEC will chiefly come, the members of Churches, have not yet advanced to the stage in which those general principles are accepted. Many are still frankly individualistic ; others have separated the spiritual from the secular; others have definitely attached them- selves to certain “ practical ’’ services, which they have never linked to their spiritual beliefs. Now the spirit of COPEC is not a commonplace to them, it may be either a word of light or an occasion of stumbling. It is never safe in a process to jump over a stage. It would be most perilous to present to the Christian Communities a number of definite reforms without carrying them along the way whereby alone these reforms can be justified and accomplished. The world does not really need a fresh Society to promote such reforms. It needs most urgently a fellowship of men and women who can declare with conviction the character and purpose of God, and the nature of His Kingdom, and can then show how these master-truths are related to the practical problems of society. The “ practical’? man is often the slowest in movement, because he will skip the stage in the process, AFTER COPEC 117 without which the direction is lost and hope wanes. The delegates from COPEC therefore, have something dis- tinctive to give; they can offer not a programme alone, nor a general principle alone, but a Faith waiting to be turned into action. It was clearly necessary that certain representatives of the Conference should be appointed to give guidance to its members and to watch the occasion. A Continuation Committee of fifty members was elected to that end. To this Committee will be entrusted the responsible task of providing ways, whereby for the present the work of Copec shall be developed. They are to redeem the present time. It will be theirs to follow with their encouragement and wisdom the passengers down the local lines, and sometimes to visit them. It would be an idle thing to send forth into the world a body of men with only the memory of a great inspiration. That would soon be exhausted. But Copec stands for something more than a social movement, begun with prayer. It witnesses to the truth of the Kingdom of God as the appointed destiny of human society. It is not something foreign but the desire of all nations. Among many things variable this is fixed and immutable. The mind of Christ is truth, truth not for a remote future but for the present. To discover that mind, and to relate it to the facts of the present hour are tasks of immense difficulty, but they who make adventures in industry, with the joy and strength of a Christian fellowship for their comfort, will be able to relate everything however small to the one central purpose. “The continued force of any regenerative movement depends above all else on continued vivid contacts with the divine order, for the problems of the reformer are only really understood and seen in true proportion in its light.” It is not to a service, divorced from the spiritual life, that the members of Copec are called. It is to a spiritual life, for ever expressing itself in a creative and ingenious love. It is not for the disciples of Christ to choose between prayer and service. They will do nothing effectual for the social redemption of this nation unless they can draw : Ae UDLLY of faith and hope, and of the love that never aileth, 118 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP It was the day before Holy Week began, when the Conference dispersed. Its members were soon to follow their Lord along the way of sorrows to the Cross. The shadow of that Cross rested upon the assembly in its closing moments. Interwoven with all the deliberations of that week there had been the foreboding that to turn the faith into action could only fall to those who had made the surrender of all their powers to the King Who reigns from the Cross. There were voices crying out for succour. There were visions of the City of God in which life should be no more wasted. There were the witnesses out of the ages, who without this generation cannot be made perfect. All things were waiting for the revelation of the Sons of God. But with all these visions, and louder than all the voices there came the word of the Redeemer. He that would save his life, shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake, the same shall save tt. This is the last issue of all. The Kingdom of God is the same. The will of God is for ever that men shall be delivered. The variable thing is the human heart. Many now have heard the voices and seen the vision. Will they for the sake of Christ and humanity be willing to spend and to be spent? It is not enough to spend. BRISTOL: BURLEIGH LTD., AT THE BURLEIGH PRESS \ et heres ¢ Wat PAN Try ae Leen ae Ly iy t T bau fy } i ee Wa Date Due @ ve a ri 4h EA NA Da aah VE AM) Nai aa) ant | | | | | I | * © © ™ es N ™ © aes » STE T