JD V -i J J. / . J . y.' o / J- ::; -L o 
 
 Ward, Harry Frederick, 1873 
 
 1966. 
 C^-^' ^:tianizing community 
 
CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
BOOKS IN THE SERIES 
 
 First Year: 
 
 Part I — Student Standards of Action, by Harrison S. Elliott 
 and Ethel Cutler. 
 
 Part II — Christian Standards in Life, by J. Lovell Murray 
 and Frederick M. Harris. 
 
 Second Year: 
 
 Part I— A Life At Its Best, by Richard Henry Edwards and 
 Ethel Cutler. 
 
 Part II — A Challenge to Life Service, by Frederick M. Harris 
 and Joseph C. Robbins. 
 
 Third Year: 
 
 Part I — (In course of preparation.) 
 
 Part II — The Faiths of Mankind, by Edmund D. Soper. 
 
 Fourth Year: 
 
 Part I — The Social Principles of Jesus, by Walter Rauschen- 
 busch. 
 
 Part II — Christianizing Community Life, by Harry F. Ward 
 and Richard Henry Edwards. 
 
J 
 
 COLLEGE VOLUNTARY STUDY COURSES 
 
 FOURTH YEAR— PART/ 
 
 NOV 23 19lfl 
 
 CHRISTIANI^Q^ 
 COMMUNITY Llfk 
 
 By / 
 Harry F. Ward 
 
 Professor of Social Service, Boston University School of Theology, 
 and Secretary Methodist Federation for Social Service 
 
 and 
 
 Richard Henry Edwards 
 
 Secretary for Social Study and Service, 
 Student Young Men's Christian Associations 
 
 Written from outline prepared by 
 vsub-committee on college courses 
 Sunday School Council of Evangelical 
 Denominations 
 
 AND 
 
 Committee on Voluntary Study 
 Council of North American Student Movements 
 
 fCAL Sl^# 
 
 ASSOCIATION PRESS 
 
 New York: 347 Madison Avenue 
 1918 
 
Copyright, 1917, bt 
 
 The International Committee op 
 
 Young Men's Christian Associations 
 
 The Bible text printed in short measure (indented both 
 sides) is taken from the American Standard Edition of the 
 Revised Bible, copyright, IQOI, by Thomas Nelson & Sons, 
 and is used by permission. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 I. The Worldwide Community Task i 
 
 II. The Family at the Center i8 
 
 III. The Child in the Midst 32 
 
 IV. Training for Full Efficiency 47 
 
 V. Restoring the Weak 62 
 
 VI. Protecting the Worker 77 
 
 VII. Industrial Democracy 92 
 
 VIII. Establishing Equal Justice 108 
 
 IX. Good Government 121 
 
 X. Overthrowing the Common Enemies 134 
 
 XI. Making the Church Christian 148 
 
 'XII. The Commonwealth of God 164 
 
COLLEGE VOLUNTARY STUDY COURSES 
 
 "Christianizing Community Life" takes eighth place in a 
 series of text-books known as College Voluntary Study 
 Courses. The general outline for this curriculum has been 
 prepared by the Committee on Voluntary Study of the Council 
 of North American Student Movements, representing the 
 Student Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Asso- 
 ciations and the Student Volunteer Movement, and the Sub- 
 Committee on College Courses of the Sunday School Council 
 of Evangelical Denominations, representing twenty-nine com- 
 munions. Therefore the text-books are planned for the use 
 of student classes in the Sunday school, as well as for the 
 supplementary groups on the campus. The present text-book 
 has been written from detailed outline approved by these 
 Committees. 
 
 The text-books are not suitable for use in the academic 
 curriculum, as they have been definitely planned for voluntary 
 study groups. 
 
 This series, covering four years, is designed to form a 
 minimum curriculum for the voluntary study of the Bible," 
 foreign missions, and North American problems. Daily Bible 
 Readings are printed with each text-book. The student view- 
 point is given first emphasis — what are the student interests? 
 what are the student problems? 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 This book assumes that its readers have assimilated the 
 previous book in the series, 'The Social Principles of Jesus," 
 by Prof. Walter Rauschenbusch. It is an attempt to apply 
 those principles concretely, to discover what imperative obliga- 
 tions, what actual tasks they impose upon present day Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 The book is mainly concerned with the local community, 
 because that is the first place, and for most Christians the 
 only place, where the social principles of Jesus must be worked 
 out in social living. Naturally, however, and inevitably, the 
 sphere of Christian social achievement widens into national 
 policies, into international relationships. The book, therefore, 
 has a worldwide touch and outlook. It points out that 
 through innumerable efforts to Christianize all types of com- 
 munities all over the world, the universal Christian social order 
 will finally be established. 
 
 The book is neither a catalog of needs, nor a summary 
 of methods. In its brief compass, only those outstanding needs 
 that call for immediate action can be surveyed and only trunk 
 lines of effort can be charted. Many questions concerning 
 Christian social conduct are raised to which no definite answers 
 can now be given.^ These answers can be found only in the 
 experimental laboratory of local community life by those 
 who are determined to find them. Here is a challenge to 
 social action. It is an attempt to open up some of the trails 
 that will lead to the civilization of God. It calls for men and 
 women of the pioneer spirit to follow those trails to the end, 
 that others may "follow after." Those who hear and answer 
 the challenge of the social principles of Jesus are confronted 
 
 • Some of them will be answered if the " Suggestions for Discussion and 
 Action " are followed out. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 with the choice of general method. Shall we spend our time 
 and energies in the propaganda of some general scheme of 
 social reconstruction which embodies the principles of Jesus, 
 or shall we engross ourselves in the immediate concrete meas- 
 ures which these principles plainly require? Shall we agitate 
 for the abolition of poverty, or shall we find a way for the 
 Italian widow with four children to live on her mother's pen- 
 sion of $7.50 a week? This book essays the difficult task of 
 combining both methods. 
 
 This was the practice of Jesus. He proclaimed a great mes- 
 sage of social reconstruction. He trusted those who would 
 come after him to realize this program and find the methods 
 that would express it for their need and time. For their 
 enlightenment he also left a record of personal action. The 
 immediate result of the application of his teaching to current 
 conditions was that Nazareth attempted his life, and the end 
 of it was that Jerusalem did him to death. 
 
 Still at work in the world, his task unfinished, he calls those 
 who follow him in thought to join with him in action, to 
 embody his principles patiently in the daily round of com- 
 munity service, to carry them fearlessly to their ultimate con- 
 clusion in the great tasks of social reconstruction. 
 
 The authors have had the valuable cooperation of the Sub- 
 Committee on College Courses of the Sunday School Council 
 and the Committee on Voluntary Study of the Council of 
 North American Student Movements. Helpful suggestions 
 have been received from others in touch with student work. 
 Grateful acknowledgment is also made to Harrison S. Elliott 
 and Charles H. Fahs for their invaluable aid. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY TASK 
 
 "There is nothing of that sort here," said the people of a 
 prosperous church-going town to the speaker who had described 
 some of the unchristian conditions that are common to com- 
 munity life. "We will be glad to help change things elsewhere, 
 but this is a dry town and we have no poverty or vice." Then 
 the young doctor called the speaker aside and told him of the 
 big liquor bills at the drug store; of the undernourished, 
 badly housed, tubercular colony on the outskirts of the town; 
 of the girls who, to his knowledge, had been led astray. If 
 such conditions obtain in the highest type of community that 
 the world can show, what a task yet lies before Christianity 1 
 
 Have our social studies ever yet shown us, even in America, 
 a community in which family life is pure and strong through- 
 out ; where children are all protected from evil and developed 
 to their full powers ; where the spirit of brotherhood has so 
 permeated industry that all the toilers are free to enrich their 
 experience; where there are no assailants of the common 
 good; where justice is measured out with even hand to all; 
 where officials are "the ministers of God for good"? These 
 are some of the things that must be accomplished if we are 
 to Christianize community life. 
 
 This is a worldwide task. On every continent, in every 
 nation, human life forms itself into communities. Next to the 
 family it is the most universal social grouping. If the world 
 life is to be transformed into a universal Christian order, the 
 community life of the world must be Christianized. 
 
[I-i] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 Daily Meditations 
 First Day: The Word and the Deed 
 
 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the 
 things which I say ? — Luke 6 : 46. 
 
 Read the parable of the two builders. — Luke 
 6: 46-49. 
 
 To see the truth and venture nothing to carry it into com- 
 munity life is to invite paralysis of the will. Those who talk 
 of social Christianity and do it not are in a perilous state. 
 They are the most modern hypocrites. The social principles 
 of Jesus have been made clear. They must now be translated 
 into social action. They must be worked out everywhere in 
 community deeds. 
 
 "Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which 
 I say?" Does hot Jesus say the same thing as he looks at our 
 modern community life, which calls itself Christian? Would 
 we be willing to have the whole world rise to the level of 
 our community and stop there? This challenge of his comes 
 to all who call themselves by his Name. They cannot avoid 
 it. Naming his Name, are they united in doing his will, not 
 merely as individuals,- but collectively? Is their program 
 community-wide — worldwide? The unchristian world at 
 home and abroad repeats his challenge — Why call ye him 
 Lord, Lord, and do not the things which he says? 
 
 Second Day: Seeing Community Needs 
 
 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, 
 and stoneth them that are sent unto her ! how often 
 would I have gathered thy children together, even 
 as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and 
 ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you 
 desolate. For I say unto you. Ye shall not see me 
 henceforth, till ye shall say. Blessed is he that cometh 
 in the name of the Lord. — Matt. 2Z : 37-39- 
 
 It was the mass needs of the city that brought this lament. 
 2 
 
THE WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY TASK [I-3] 
 
 He was not mourning for any particular man in Jerusalem. 
 He knew plenty of them and they all had their place in his 
 heart. It was the city now that moved him. It was the 
 capital of the nation, and like all capitals it had in it the 
 nation's wealth and leadership, and behind it the heart of the 
 nation's history. He was weeping because his mission to the 
 nation had failed. 
 
 How must the follower of Jesus feel as he looks out over a 
 modern city; as he realizes the mass need and dire wickedness 
 of Chicago or Calcutta? How much have the needs of our 
 community ever gripped and moved us? 
 
 Jesus also mourned because of the impending doom of the 
 city. He saw its buildings in flames, its citizens filled and 
 exiled. Have we ever seen a vision of the fate that threatens 
 our civilization unless its cities and towns can be Christian- 
 ized? It has within it the seeds of death, in its lust and greed, 
 its poverty and disease. It has not yet wholly refused the 
 message of Christ. It is indeed a time for tears, but for tears 
 that drive to deeds. 
 
 Third Day : W^orldzvidc Kinship 
 
 And he made of one every nation of men to dwell 
 on all the face of the earth, having determined their 
 appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation. 
 — Acts 17 : 26. 
 
 Study Paul's sense of world kinship. — Acts 17 : 24-28, 
 
 Let us look back over the last twenty-four hours and sur- 
 vey the contribution which the community has made to our 
 life; the things it has given to our need and comfort. It is 
 the larger family caring for us. Consider all that it has 
 poured into our life ; the safety and security it has provided ; 
 the industry and transportation that have nourished and 
 aided us; the schools that have brought us education; the 
 churches that have furnished religious training and spiritual 
 vision. This wealth coming to our life from the common 
 hand is the unearned increment of human welfare. The com- 
 
[1-4] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 munity made it by living together, and it gives it to us 
 ungrudgingly. How can we rest content until everyone has 
 the same opportunity as we to share in the common benefits? 
 
 Now look out over the world. The human family has 
 a common life as well as a common blood. Everywhere there 
 are groups of people living in communities for the same 
 reasons — for mutual protection, for the better performance 
 of common work, the higher development of common prog- 
 ress. There are communities still living in black goat-skin 
 tents, as Abraham and his family did. There are villagers 
 tilling the soil on the plains of India and in the valleys of 
 China, as on our own broad acres in America. There are 
 great cities with their multitudes in every land. All com- 
 munities have the same fundamental needs of food and shelter, 
 health, education, and spiritual development. They are all 
 facing the problems of poverty, pain, and vice. Community 
 life is another touch of nature that makes the whole world 
 kin. Our missionary heart and our social conscience will not 
 consent that the accident of birth shall determine the back- 
 wardness of the African, or Might the future of the tenement 
 child; that the village in far Tibet shall be less favored than 
 the American suburban community. 
 
 How will the success or failure of our own community to 
 become Christian afifect these other communities all over the 
 world? 
 
 Fourth Day : Not a Mere Spectator 
 
 And they come to Jerusalem : and he entered into 
 the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and 
 them that bought in the temple, and overthrew the 
 tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them 
 that sold the doves ; and he would not suffer that any 
 man should carry a vessel through the temple. And 
 he taught, and said unto them. Is it not written. My 
 house shall be called a house of prayer for all the 
 nations? but ye have made it a den of robbers. And 
 the chief priests and the scribes heard it, and sought 
 how they might destroy him : for they feared him, for 
 
 4 
 
THE WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY TASK [I-5] 
 
 all the multitude was astonished at his teaching. — 
 Mark 11 : 15-18. 
 
 Here was a great community wrong. The poor were being 
 forced by the priestly monopoly to pay an exorbitant price 
 for the things they needed for their worship in the temple. 
 It was an established custom which went unnoticed. The 
 priests went on praying and the elders gathered in the San- 
 hedrin with never a thought concerning it. The throngs 
 came and went. The independent Galileans muttered as they 
 went home and that was all. Jesus had been there before and 
 watched it. At last he could stand it no longer. He acted. 
 How long will men pass the saloon and the brothel in our 
 communities and do nothing to remove them? Christianity 
 has long branded their rottenness and there are other more 
 subtle community wrongs that need branding. Who will 
 look for them? Who will test the community life by the con- 
 sciousness of Jesus? Let us walk in spirit through the com- 
 munity that we know best. Write down the one outstanding 
 condition in its life that causes us to react against it as Jesus 
 did toward the moneychangers in the temple. 
 
 Fifth Day: Thou Art the Man 
 
 Do we ever unwittingly pronounce judgment upon our- 
 selves? — Read I Sam. 12: 1-7. 
 
 A group of students were asked to write down the most 
 non-Christian relationship that they could think of in their 
 home community. A number of them wrote down class cleav- 
 age. They portrayed a group living in luxury in one part of 
 the town and a group living in poverty at the other — at one 
 end comfort and education, at the other end ignorance and 
 misery. They declared that one half of their community 
 did not know how the other half lived. Does one half of the 
 world know how the other half. lives? 
 
 Why should men feel that class cleavage in a "Christian" 
 community is so wrong? India's religions have sanctified 
 
 5 
 
[1-6] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 caste ; Japan still recognizes feudalism ; but in the Western 
 world democracy spreads. Is this merely the Western tem- 
 perament, or is it due to the compulsion of the teachings of 
 Jesus? 
 
 Sixth Day: As Others See Us 
 
 Hear this, O ye that would swallow up the needy, 
 and cause the poor of the land to fail, saying. When 
 will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? 
 and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making 
 the ephah small, and the shekel great, and dealing 
 falsely with balances of deceit; that we may buy the 
 poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, 
 and sell the refuse of the wheat? Jehovah hath sworn 
 by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget 
 any of their works. — Amos 8: 4-7. 
 
 Shall I be pure with wicked balances, and with a 
 bag of deceitful weights? For the rich men thereof 
 are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have 
 spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their 
 mouth. Therefore I also have smitten thee with a 
 grievous wound ; I have made thee desolate because 
 of thy sins. — Micah 6: ii-i3- 
 
 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 
 for ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, 
 but within they are full from extortion and excess. 
 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup 
 and of the platter, that the outside thereof may be- 
 come clean also. — Matt. 23 : 25, 26. 
 
 Here are bits of descriptions of community conditions. 
 They were made long before social surveys were invented. 
 There is a difference, however. Our social studies are mainly 
 in the region of poverty. These seem to be in the well-to-do 
 neighborhoods. They deal with financial magnates, ornaments 
 of the bench, ecclesiastical dignitaries. Suppose we turned 
 our survey methods for a while on to the homes of the wealthy 
 or the middle class. Would the results be any different than 
 
 6 
 
THE WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY TASK [I-7] 
 
 those which come from the regions of poverty? Why not set 
 up some betterment agencies on the boulevard, or appoint 
 some friendly visitors for our "best families"? How well 
 would they stand the test? How would a college community 
 like to see an exact portrayal of its actual moral and social 
 conditions? Dare we face it? 
 
 Seventh Day: Going Back Home 
 
 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into 
 Galilee : and a fame went out concerning him through 
 all the region round about. And he taught in their 
 synagogues, being glorified of all. And he came to 
 Nazareth, where he had been brought up : and he 
 entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the 
 sabbath day, and stood up to read. — Luke 4: 14-16, 
 
 What was it that Jesus tried to do back at Nazareth? Did 
 he seek to help its needs on the first opportunity that came to 
 him? Do we expect ever to help the community where we 
 have been brought up? 
 
 There are men and women who go from small communities 
 to great cities and win wealth or fame. Often in old age 
 they send back some gift to their birthplace to maintain their 
 memory, but if nothing of their life has gone into the com- 
 munity they have no really lasting record there. 
 
 The smallest community is big enough for all the efforts of 
 the best-equipped man and woman. Charles Kingsley, the 
 great English author and teacher, was not too big to invest 
 his life in a little country village. He went there to preach 
 when he left college, and on the day of his death he was still 
 the rector of that village church, but he had changed that 
 community. He has monuments of fame elsewhere, but his 
 living presence is there. Arthur Smith, the noted writer and 
 missionary, chose a little village in North China for his life 
 work. He has enlightened thousands by his books, but he has 
 lived himself into the lives of those Chinese villagers, and 
 through them out into the life of the nation and the world. 
 
[I-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 Study for the Week 
 
 I 
 
 A few years ago one college graduate was sent to proclaim 
 Christianity in the neighborhood of one of our great national 
 industries. What did he find there? "Whiskey Row" with 
 its long line of saloons^ lying in wait for the pay envelope of 
 the worker; the gambling system of the city luring the wives 
 of the workers into "playing policy" ; houses in which children 
 died every year from unsanitary conditions, until the death 
 rate of the ward was twice that of any other in the city; no 
 rooms in the schools above the sixth grade because the chil- 
 dren must go to work; a higher delinquency rate than any 
 other ward in the city. How could he be a true preacher of the 
 Gospel unless he set himself to change these unchristian com- 
 munity conditions? 
 
 A classmate of this minister heard the call of need from the 
 other side of the world and settled in a great Oriental city. 
 In one crowded section he found people jammed so close 
 together in their sleeping quarters that one could hardly turn 
 over during the night. He saw fifty per cent of the workers 
 in the industries of that city afflicted with tuberculosis. 
 His task too was to work the Gospel into community life as 
 well as to preach it, but he had no Christian conscience to 
 which to appeal and no heritage of Christian progress on 
 which to rely. 
 
 When the Men and Religion Movement speakers came to a 
 suburban community, the ministers said, "We have no need 
 of the social service section," but they found a group of young 
 people going from their dry village to the neighboring wet 
 town, another group going down regularly to the red light 
 section of the city, and still another finding their recreation in 
 the questionable resorts half way between the suburbs and the 
 city. Can such a situation be met by regular preaching and 
 pastoral visitation alone? 
 
 In a small American rural community that prided itself on 
 being "a splendid place to live," the briefest kind of social 
 
 8 
 
THE WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY TASK [I-s] 
 
 study showed childhood being injured by gambling in the 
 pool room and at the baseball game, and by unusual profanity 
 upon the streets ; youth wasting into inefficiency because there 
 was no community response to its longing for wholesome 
 recreation and its intellectual aspirations; a few folks in the 
 stores, working long hours past the point of fatigue. Here 
 again the community's problem was the task. 
 
 Now a bird's-eye view of a village in China : There is 
 no sanitation. The filth of the streets overpowers the senses 
 with its odors. Tuberculosis breeds and thrives in the 
 windowless, damp, mud-floor huts. Concubinage degrades 
 family life.* Justice is administered by bambooing alike the 
 accused and the witnesses until confession is obtained or forti- 
 tude assures truthfulness. It is understood that the local 
 official who has bought his office will squeeze out for him- 
 self as large a proportion of the taxes as possible. Supersti- 
 tion and demon worship still persist. The missionary must 
 discover that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation 
 for the community, as well as for individuals. 
 
 This is being demonstrated in each one of the commu- 
 nities described. In that great industrial community the gam- 
 bling system was destroyed. Child labor laws opened the closed 
 rooms in the school. Municipal sanitation reduced the death 
 rate. Organized recreation cut in half the delinquency rates. 
 In that Oriental city the health of the workers is beginning 
 to be protected. The suburb has constructively organized its 
 recreation life. The American village is building a social 
 center for its young people. The Chinese village slowly begins 
 to improve its sanitation, to accept new ideals of family life 
 and administration of justice. These things are happening 
 largely because there went into those communities from our 
 colleges pioneer spirits, teaching and applying the principles 
 of Jesus both to the individual and to the life of the com- 
 munity. They were reenforced by the rising social conscious- 
 ness and intelligence of today. On the other side of the world 
 they had first to create the basic consciousness of wrong. On 
 this side of the world, when they led the people to see the- 
 
 9 
 
[I-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 unchristian conditions, they found support and a number of 
 agencies ready to aid a community program. 
 
 But such results on a world-wide scale can not be achieved 
 by some spectacular new universal campaign. In foreign 
 countries and at home the redemptive force of Christianity 
 must operate in community units. The local community is 
 our focus. 
 
 II 
 
 Our glimpses into unchristian community conditions reveal 
 a striking similarity. This makes it imperative for those 
 who seek to Christianize community life to think and plan 
 with the world-view ever in mind. Jesus projected his prin- 
 ciples into a world that was organized against them. It 
 was in the grip of alien and hostile powers. The Roman 
 Empire had stamped a uniform type of community admin- 
 istration upon the whole known world. Its dominating forces 
 were brute power and lust. Mars and Eros were its divinities. 
 Behind these, as the Master clearly saw, the grimmer god — 
 Mammon — was coming to power. Jesus proclaimed that his 
 principles were to overthrow these false gods. They were ulti- 
 mately to transform the whole community life. It was to be 
 organized in purity and love on the basis of service. 
 
 Centuries have gone by. Once again the world is moving 
 toward a uniform type of community life developed by our 
 industrial civilization. Osaka takes on the characteristics of 
 Manchester, and Hankow becomes like Pittsburgh. In this 
 country the factory creeps out into the village and changes its 
 life. The same thing is happening in China and Japan, when 
 the girls and the women come back home to the village after 
 living for a while in the silk and cotton mills. The organiza- 
 tion of agriculture on a business basis, the spread of news- 
 papers and magazines to remote villages, even in the Orient, 
 is leading the countryside to think and act like the city. As 
 community life develops the world over in a common direc- 
 tion, is it being controlled by the principles of Jesus? 
 
 A considerable part of the world already feels the touch of 
 10 
 
THE WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY TASK [I-s] 
 
 powerful Christian agencies, relieving its poverty, healing its 
 distress, redeeming its sins, but how far does the purpose of 
 Jesus prevail in its organized life? Europe has proudly called 
 itself Christian, but whom does it now serve — the Iron God 
 of Battles or the Prince of Peace? America has proclaimed 
 itself a Christian nation desirous of showing the path of peace 
 and brotherhood to the people of the earth, but does America 
 today serve God or Mammon in its national desires? Does 
 it seek the gain of trade or the service of brotherhood? 
 The great evils of ancient civilizations that were to be left 
 behind when men started life afresh in a new world, the old 
 social sins that weakened the nations of the past — have they 
 been banished from among us? In our tenements and shacks 
 the poor waste away to death. In our gilded mansions the 
 children of luxury rot into degeneracy, even as it was in 
 Babylon of old. The tale of our deaths from preventable dis- 
 eases rivals the record of the slaughters of the past. In 
 crowded cities and remote country districts our undeveloped, 
 untrained children grow to weakness and inefficiency. The 
 old poisons still run in our veins. The great wheels of 
 industry fling aside junk piles of broken lives. Ever and 
 again blood runs on the industrial battlefield and class hatred 
 spreads through the body politic. Physicians warn us that 
 our community life is rotting to the death with lust. They 
 see the hand-writing on the wall. The same fate threatens 
 which has wiped out races in the past. The economists tell 
 us that our industrial life is hot with conflict that may rend 
 civilization to pieces. The champions of Mars and Mammon 
 openly declare that they, and they alone, can save us. The 
 forces of war and greed propose to organize our community 
 life on the basis of self-interest and to make it strong enough 
 to defend its selfishness. It is war to the death. The principles 
 of Jesus cannot live in the world if these forces prevail. One 
 or the other must go. It is for this generation to choose. 
 
 Ill 
 More than our own fate hangs upon the choice. We are 
 II 
 
[I-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 citizens of the world with power to shape world forces. Here 
 again, as in local community conditions, we face a world situa- 
 tion. If there be a social plague spot anywhere in the world, 
 sooner or later every other part must suffer from it. Not a 
 transpacific ship ties up at an American port but every hawser 
 must be guarded lest a plague-infected rat from some Eastern 
 port might crawl ashore. ''Will you please tell these people, 
 sir, how many saloons and brothels there are in the city of 
 Chicago?" When a missionary was preaching in the interior 
 of India this was the question asked in good English by an 
 Indian in the audience. 
 
 From the East, the ancient mother of civilization, there 
 came the fundamental evils of our common life, and there 
 they still are found in all their primitive power. There is the 
 caste system, the oldest form of class cleavage; there great 
 hordes of men and women toil as beasts of burden; there 
 woman is often held as property; and pollution, which here 
 takes the form of prostitution, there manifests itself in wide- 
 spread polygamy, and even grosser forms of sex license. 
 There, until Christianity creates it, no social conscience senses 
 the enormity of these wrongs. 
 
 The West has added to the original social burden of the 
 East. While the missionary has been carrying to the Orient 
 the words of life, our industrial civilization has been transport- 
 ing the seeds of death. While the Gospel has been modifying 
 the callousness of primitive people to human suffering, the 
 exploitation of the weaker races by the white men has become 
 a world scandal, as in the Congo rubber atrocities and the 
 slavery of the cocoa plantations of West Africa. English 
 cannon rammed opium down the throat of China, and now 
 American advertising sticks the deadly cigarette between her 
 teeth. While our states are rapidly going dry, pious Boston 
 helps to make Africa drunk by shipping rum in cargoes worth 
 sixty-five thousand dollars apiece. While the Gospel has been 
 repealing the law of the jungle, transforming the cannibals 
 of Fiji and the head-hunters of Borneo, our Western civiliza- 
 tion has been organizing slaughter on a greater scale than the 
 
 12 
 
THE WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY TASK [I-s] 
 
 world has ever known. It has finally called from the East 
 the primitive fighting men who were bred to kill, who were 
 taught from infancy that killing Christians was a work of 
 religious merit, has put into their hands all the deadly weapons 
 that modern science could invent, and then led them forth to 
 slay Christians with maximum efficiency. How can our 
 Western civilization accomplish its missionary purpose unless 
 it transforms these forces which are shaping the world? If 
 the Occident would carry the Gospel over the whol'e world, 
 it must supply a type of living which will realize both the 
 teaching of Jesus and the ideals of mankind. 
 
 IV 
 
 To Christianize the community life means to permeate all 
 its activities and relationships with the principles and ideals 
 of Jesus. It means to make the whole of life religious, so 
 that there shall be no separation between the spirit of worship 
 in the community and the spirit of its play, its work, and 
 its government. The task is not the endeavor of a day. It 
 is not the carrying through of any specific social reform. 
 Community service, which is undertaken with the Christian 
 motive, does not stop with an attempt to improve the surface 
 conditions of community life. It reaches underneath to the 
 relationships which are back of the facts. It proposes not 
 simply reformation, but reconstruction and transformation 
 of the community life. It knows that palliatives will not 
 suffice. Underneath the breakdown of the family there is 
 a fatal lack of reverence for the personality of others. Be- 
 hind the unprotected, undeveloped children there is a failure 
 to sense the sacredness of the child. Back of the death rate 
 and delinquency of the American city or the Chinese village, 
 behind their poverty and inefficiency is the exploitation of the 
 weak by the powerful through industry and government. 
 
 Christianity demands a fraternal community for the satis- 
 faction of its ideals. It requires that men who call God 
 Father should find the way to live as brothers. Now we have 
 rifts and chasms. Our task is to bring the different groups 
 
 13 
 
[I-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 of our community life, the divers nations and races of the 
 world, together in a real brotherhood, until there shall be no 
 handicapped, exploited, dispossessed people, but all shall live 
 together on terms of equal opportunity. Solidarity is not 
 simply the dream of the workers at the bottom. It is the 
 imperative of the Gospel. 
 
 The process of Christianizing community life began, of 
 course, long ago. The Church could not have preached and 
 taught the message of the Master for centuries without achiev- 
 ing great social results. Although its effort has been directed 
 largely towards the improvement of individual life, the 
 result of its work has been mightily felt in the community. 
 Out of preaching and teaching and personal evangelism, there 
 have come great streams of healing and enrichment for the 
 community life. These efforts, however, have never achieved 
 their full possibility in community life because community 
 results have been only a by-product. Yet they provide tre- 
 mendous reserve funds of idealism, now that we take up the 
 direct and conscious task of Christianizing the community. 
 
 This large purpose permits no lessening of the effort to 
 educate and-to save the individual. It means more evangelism, 
 stronger churches, a closer personal fellowship with Jesus, as 
 his followers cooperate more fully with him in his gigantic 
 task of redeeming the whole world life. All the reserves of 
 Christian character and training must be drafted for this 
 campaign, the extension of Christianity to the group relations 
 of mankind. It is the mightiest venture upon which religion 
 has yet embarked. It is a world that Christianity now goes 
 forth anew to conquer, and the forces of evil have not been 
 idle while that world has been growing. This generation of 
 Christians must have the utmost faith and daring courage if 
 its task is to be successfully accomplished. 
 
 Suggestions for Discussion and Action 
 I. General Suggestions to the Leader and the Group 
 It is desired that the group hour shall be a clinical study, in 
 14 
 
THE WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY TASK [I-s] 
 
 the light of the book, of community conditions. It is not 
 intended that the time shall be spent in a review of the text, 
 but rather in a discussion of actual conditions in particular 
 communities. The ground covered in each group hour should 
 include communities in foreign lands, as well as in America. 
 The material for discussion of community problems in 
 America should be secured by actual investigation in the 
 college town or a nearby community. It may also be supplied 
 by a vivid remembrance of conditions in home or other 
 well-known communities. The presence in the group of 
 students born in mission lands will greatly aid the discussion 
 of world conditions. In this way material from a wide variety 
 of communities may be presented; as for example, agricul- 
 tural, or industrial, either at home or abroad. Where the 
 membership of the group does not supply adequate variety of 
 material, and particularly where knowledge of foreign 
 conditions is lacking, this may be secured by visualizing com- 
 munity life on the basis of personal talk with travelers, mis- 
 sionaries, and old residents, or by careful reading and study.^ 
 
 11. Knowing the Community 
 
 Let each member think persistently in terms of one com- 
 munity, as indicated above, and let the results be compared 
 with the study of the college town. 
 
 Here are some of the things each group member should be 
 familiar with in the community he has chosen : 
 
 Get a map if possible, or make a sketch of your own and 
 study its streets and boundaries. 
 
 What are the various national groups among the people? 
 Where do the wealthy live? the poor? Color roughly on the 
 map the districts which are occupied by various groups. 
 Where are the chief industries located? Where do the largest 
 
 1 The following books on social conditions in mission lands should be used 
 for reference: " Sociological Progress in Mission Lands," Capen; "Human 
 Progress through Missions," Barton; "Social Aspects of Foreign Missions," 
 Faunce; "The Social Work of Christian Missions," Taylor; "Contrasts in 
 Social Progress," Tenney. Recommendations as to the best books on partic- 
 ular countries can be secured from the Student Volunteer Movement, 25 
 Madison Ave., New York City. 
 
 15 
 
[I-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 groups of people do their work? Indicate these facts on your 
 map. Is the chief economic basis of your community life 
 I. agricultural; 2. industrial; 3. residential; or 4. mixed? Label 
 its type on the map. Put these maps up in a convenient place 
 for comparison and further study. 
 
 Has any social survey been made of this community? If 
 so, study with care the needs and active forces which it 
 reveals. If not, these can probably be satisfactorily secured 
 without undertaking a survey. 
 
 Is there anything like a general state of mind prevalent in 
 this community? Are the people as a whole discouraged, 
 optimistic, boastful, pleasure-seeking, thrifty, backward, or 
 progressive? Can you locate the sources of different atti- 
 tudes which may be present throughout the whole community? 
 How highly has community spirit been developed? What 
 distinguishes it from other towns round about? 
 
 III. Suggestions for Further Investigation During the Period 
 of Study 
 
 During this course various distinct aspects of community 
 life will be considered. A considerable amount of definite 
 information, secured by investigation, conversation, and read- 
 ing, will be necessary. It is suggested, therefore, that each 
 member of the group take a double responsibility: First, that 
 he continue during the twelve weeks to represent the com- 
 munity he has chosen for the purpose of enriching the compar- 
 ative discussions of the group. This will necessitate his becom- 
 ing more and more familiar with this community. If it is one 
 that he can visit, he must get acquainted with more people. 
 Some old residents who never heard of a social survey have a 
 deep understanding of the life of the town. Think long on 
 what you know about typical families, their morals, their rela- 
 tion to poverty, disease, and crime, their relation to civic 
 achievements, education, and religion. If it is a community in 
 other parts of America or in foreign lands, then one will need 
 to continue to gather data about it. Think over the personal 
 forces available for the Christian transformation of the com- 
 
 16 
 
THE WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY TASK [Is] 
 
 rnunity. Second, each group member will need to undertake 
 a more careful investigation of one special phase of com- 
 munity life, not only in the community he has chosen, but 
 in community life in general. This will involve the assignment 
 of some one chapter of the book to each member of the group 
 at this first meeting. 
 
 The limitations of space make impossible any bibliography 
 in this book. Consult the college librarian and well-informed 
 professors or ministers. 
 
 It should be clearly recognized that this book does not 
 attempt to provide a standardized program of community 
 service. It diagnoses the general situation and indicates the 
 directions in which progress can best be made. Those who 
 study it must develop a program adapted to the needs of their 
 own local situations. In doing this they should consult the 
 social service department of their respective communions, or 
 of the Federal Council of Churches, or of the Young Men's 
 or Young Women's Christian Associations. 
 
 17 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE FAMILY AT THE CENTER 
 
 At the center of community life, the world over, among all 
 the races of men, there stands the family. It determines the 
 character of community life. The Hebrew nation, developing 
 out of the family of Abraham, is a summary of social develop- 
 ment. The human family grows out of smaller families. 
 Scattered in lonely regions, in solitary mountain huts and for- 
 est cabins ; crowded together on Chinese river boats, or in 
 New York tenements; living in the primitive conditions of 
 African jungles or in the high development of an American 
 suburb, all famihes have in them the possibility of contribut- 
 ing to the world life. Those who would Christianize the 
 communities of the world, must raise family life to its highest 
 terms. 
 
 Daily Meditations 
 
 First Day : Everybody in a Family 
 
 God setteth the solitary in families. — Psalm 68: 6. 
 
 The "man without a country" was the sensation of a day. 
 The man without a family would be a greater marvel. When 
 a child loses his family relationship, the community makes 
 haste in various ways to form other family bonds around 
 him. Can we estimate the contribution that the family has 
 made to our life? Multiply this and endeavor to assess the 
 community work of the family. The ties that pull both back 
 to the old home, and forward to the home of the future, are 
 among the spiritual bonds that tie men and women to the 
 higher life of the community. The homing instinct is a spirit- 
 ual force. 
 
 A man recently wrote an intimate friend, "I have come back 
 i8 
 
THE FAMILY AT THE CENTER [II-2] 
 
 here to my native village after an absence of many years, to 
 the sunlight of the eastern room w^here I w^as born, in the 
 old house where our family lived for fifty years in unbroken 
 love and friendship, where our father and mother sacrificed 
 and worked for us, in this home from which they maintained 
 for twenty consecutive years one of their five children away in 
 school or college." What other contribution to the world 
 could these parents have made comparable to five lives, put 
 out into the constructive forces of the nation, carrying some- 
 thing of their message to the life of men? 
 
 Second Day: What Sort of a Family Do I Like? 
 
 Jesus said unto them . . . from the beginning of 
 the creation, Male and female made he them. For this 
 cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and 
 shall cleave to his wife ; and the two shall become 
 one flesh : so that they are no more two, but one 
 flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let 
 not man put asunder. — Mark 10: 5-9. 
 
 Here is the Christian standard simply stated by Jesus him- 
 self. Does it seem like a commonplace in our community life? 
 How would the purity and charm of the Christian home 
 impress us if we saw it for the first time after being brought 
 up in the midst of Moslem polygamy, or in a part of Africa 
 where women are chattels, purchasable for half the price of 
 a cow? Does Jesus set too high a standard, or is there more 
 charm in the lax views of some Bohemian group, coining 
 clever phrases about platonic affection, and imagining itself 
 making new experiments in sex freedom? It is sheer hypoc- 
 risy to talk of social progress if one's own life operates for 
 the breakdown of the very foundation of society. 
 
 Third Day : The Creative Power of Motherhood 
 
 A worthy woman who can find? 
 For her price is far above rubies. 
 The heart of her husband trusteth in her, 
 And he shall have no lack of gain. 
 
 19 
 
[II-3] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 She doeth him good and not evil 
 
 All the days of her life . . . 
 
 She openeth her mouth with wisdom; 
 
 And the law of kindness is on her tongue. 
 
 She looketh well to the ways of her household, 
 
 And eateth not the bread of idleness. 
 
 Her children rise up, and call her blessed ; 
 
 Her husband also, and he praiseth her, saying: 
 
 Many daughters have done worthily, 
 
 But thou excellest them all. 
 
 Grace is deceitful, and beauty is vain; 
 
 But a woman that feareth Jehovah, she shall be 
 
 praised. 
 Give her of the fruit of her hands; 
 And let her works praise her in the gates. — Prov. 
 
 31 : 10-12; 26-31. 
 Read all of this alphabetic poem in praise of a mother 
 of the long ago. — Prov. 31 : 10-31. 
 
 This picture goes far beyond the sacred sentiments of per- 
 sonal affection which lead our modern communities to cele- 
 brate Mother's Day. It is a description of the community 
 service of motherhood to a patriarchal group. It compares 
 the labor of woman in the home with that of the other 
 groups that support the community, with the toil of the 
 merchants who bring it nourishment; with the strength of the 
 soldiers who defend it; with the wisdom of the philosophers 
 who teach it. It shows that in her family sphere she partakes 
 of all the services which are rendered by the larger community 
 groupings. 
 
 Do our communities fully appreciate the creative work of 
 women in the home? Study the conditions among the thou- 
 sands of women secluded in the zenanas of India and the 
 harems of the Moslem world. What factors have made the 
 difference between their situation and that of women in 
 America? 
 
 A tenement mother working at her sewing machine and 
 nursing her babe while she worked was portrayed on one of 
 the posters at the Chicago industrial exhibit. There was no 
 
 20 
 
THE FAMILY AT THE CENTER [II-4] 
 
 time for her to stop if her own food was to be earned. Under- 
 neath was the inscription : "Sacred Motherhood." Do our 
 communities treat motherhood as sacred? How does our 
 reverence for motherhood in the tenements compare with that 
 in our own home? 
 
 Fourth Day: A Training School for Righteousness 
 
 Children, obey your parents in the Lord : for this is 
 right. Honor thy father and mother (which is the 
 first commandment with promise), that it may be well 
 with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. 
 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath : 
 but nurture them in the chastening and admonition 
 of the Lord. — Eph. 6: 1-4. 
 
 "Parents are all the time asking me to solve their children's 
 moral problems, to give them the guidance they themselves 
 ought to have given them long ago in their own homes," says 
 a teacher. "Often enough I cannot give it because of the 
 parents themselves. They cannot make high standards effec- 
 tive in their home until they themselves are different people." 
 The famous boys' schools in England have certain traditional 
 standards of honor. They are an unwritten law. The boy 
 who enters the school finds himself in their atmosphere. He 
 lives up to them by unconscious development or he is ostra- 
 cized. The family, likewise, by its standards of honor must 
 be the training school of righteousness for the community. 
 
 The cry for social righteousness is a cry for family right- 
 eousness. The records of juvenile lawlessness trace back 
 into homes where the family life has broken down. The cor- 
 ruption of the last thirty years in American political and 
 business life has been due in no small measure to the break- 
 down of standards in the family. The old control of force 
 was largely abandoned, and parents were not adequately 
 equipped to train their children by the power of love and rea- 
 son. How shall this needed equipment be secured? 
 
 21 
 
[II-5] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 Fifth Day : Family Relationships Extended 
 
 And there came his mother and his brethren; and, 
 standing without, they sent unto him, calling him. 
 And a multitude was sitting about him; and they say 
 unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without 
 seek for thee. And he answereth them, and saith. 
 Who is my mother and my brethren? And looking 
 round on them that sat round about him, he saith, 
 Behold, my mother and my brethren! For whosoever 
 shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and 
 sister, and mother. — Mark 3 : 31-35. 
 
 In a full family there are eight relationships to be main- 
 tained: husband and wife, father and mother, son and 
 daughter, brother and sister. Meditation upon each of these 
 will reveal their significance as social forces in community 
 life. So important are they that when people are denied 
 them, substitutes grow up to replace them. Homes are sup- 
 plied for children without parents. Fraternities and sorori- 
 ties express the extension of two of these relationships. 
 
 But there is no possibility of extending the central relation- 
 ship. According to Jesus this is a tightly closed circle. To 
 break or extend it involves disaster, personal and racial. The 
 evidence of modern science confirms the ancient teaching. 
 
 Which of these eight relationships is most in danger in 
 American life — among the poor? among the well-to-do? 
 among college men and women? 
 
 Sixth Day : Love, the Family Law 
 
 These things therefore the soldiers did. But there 
 were standing by the cross of Jesus his mother, and 
 his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and 
 Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his 
 mother, and the disciple standing by whom he loved, 
 he saith unto his mother. Woman, behold, thy son ! 
 Then saith he to the disciple. Behold, thy mother! 
 And from that hour the disciple took her unto his own 
 home. — John 19: 25-27. 
 
 22 
 
THE FAMILY AT THE CENTER [II-7] 
 
 In the blackness of that cross-crowned hill there are rays 
 of light. One shines from family love. Mary's yearning heart 
 endures the awful scene, that she may comfort her son. 
 Jesus, in mortal pain, with the weight of the world upon 
 him, yet makes provision for his mother's care. Is there any- 
 thing stronger in the universe than this family bond? When 
 the world breaks up, here is a place of refuge. Was this the 
 reason why Jesus proclaimed that the world must organize 
 its whole life on this same principle of love? This scene 
 reflects the place of the mother in the Oriental household. 
 Her honor, however, is generally accompanied by the irksome 
 and bitter subordination of the young wife. In India, betrothal 
 takes place often in infancy and the child wife frequently 
 goes to the home of the bridegroom to be the family drudge. 
 Has Christianity exalted the place of the wife in the home 
 without lowering that of the mother? 
 
 Seventh Day : The Whole Family in Heaven and in Earth 
 A great American philosopher once described the scholastic 
 definition of God as an idol stuffed with adjectives. Contrast 
 with that Jesus' approach to God. For him God is not simply 
 the ultimate power or knowledge, but he is the Father of all 
 the children of men, caring for their needs, providing power 
 to redeem them from their sins. Jesus interprets the universe 
 in personal terms and makes it one great family. This involves 
 certain consequences. If we desire to lead all men into a 
 consciousness of the fatherhood of God, is not the easiest 
 path the practice of all brotherhood with them? How c^n 
 we spread Jesus' conception of the universe unless we can 
 show the Christian family life? If we know not how to give 
 good gifts to our children, how can we make the backward 
 parents of other lands get any realization of a Heavenly 
 Father and his divine benevolence? Do we support national 
 policies which will make for separate families of nations or 
 for one great world-wide brotherhood? In our attitude to 
 other races are we helping to draw them into one family 
 company ? 
 
 23 
 
[II-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 Study for the Week 
 
 I 
 
 In Tokyo many who could not speak English came to use 
 "Christian Home" as their phrase for an ideal household. 
 One of the first results of the contact of Christianity with 
 non-Christian social life has always been a change in family 
 standards. In the Roman world, a distinguishing difference 
 that made the Christians a separate group was their higher 
 order of family life. In Uganda it was formerly a source of 
 shame for a man not to have a large number of women to 
 cultivate his land; today, as the direct result of Christian 
 influence, it is a disgrace to have more than one wife. The 
 ideal connoted by our word "home" is peculiar to Christianity. 
 In pagan lands it is easier to secure church membership than 
 the abandonment of polygamy; and even in New York or 
 London or Paris, it is easier to secure regular church attend- 
 ance than obedience to the single standard of morals. 
 
 A great European historian declares that there is an exact 
 historic parallel between the present condition of our industrial 
 civilization and the final period of the Roman Empire. He 
 finds the same fundamental forces of degeneration at work. 
 That empire broke down finally when its family life was 
 rotted to the roots. Does this mean that never since Chris- 
 tianity faced the family degeneration of the Roman world has 
 it been called upon to meet such malignant forces operating 
 for the destruction of its life? The question is not simply 
 what is the present condition of the family in America, but 
 what forces and tendencies throughout our whole industrial 
 civilization are massing themselves against the permanence of 
 family life? 
 
 II 
 
 Bad housing defeats the Christian ideal of family hfe. It 
 saps its physical strength, destroys its moral standards, and 
 depletes its spiritual energy. A few families can rise above 
 it, but in the main it means family decay. It presses hard 
 upon both health and morals. In the districts of bad hous- 
 
 24 
 
THE FAMILY AT THE CENTER [Us] 
 
 ing, where filth and darkness breed the germs of disease, the 
 mortality rate of our cities mounts the highest. In the tene- 
 ment sections, where overcrowding prevails, where there is 
 lack of privacy in sleeping quarters, the first restraint of 
 morals is removed and life is left defenseless against the evils 
 that mass against it on our city streets. 
 
 These conditions are not confined to great cities. Almost 
 any small town has its group of shacks and shanties along 
 the river bottom or over across the tracks. In almost any 
 rural section there can be found houses which offer conditions 
 for the family not as good as the barn offers for the stock. In 
 some industrial sections boarding houses can be found where 
 the beds are never cold, where as the day shift turns out, the 
 night shift turns in. 
 
 In South Africa white proprietors herd the native diamond 
 miners together in great enclosures, like animals. In North 
 China, the average poor family lives in one room, huddling 
 together on the heated stone and brick k'ang, which serves as 
 stove and bed. In Sumatra eight to twelve families live in 
 a single house, rectangular in shape, without partitions, each 
 family being assigned to a section of the floor. 
 
 Christian ideals of family life create a demand for good 
 housing. Among the first evidences that the Christian faith 
 has gripped the native mind and heart in Africa is the demand 
 for two-room instead of one-room thatched huts. A native 
 teacher built his home in the familiar Chinese architecture, and 
 made its sanitary conveniences teach his people how to make 
 a house the basis for efficient family life. 
 
 In the community that is seeking to become Christian, ade- 
 quate provisions for sunlight and fresh air, for proper sleep- 
 ing quarters for all the people, become an imperative Chris- 
 tian duty. Health and housing lectures, agitation, and edu- 
 cation in city and country, are producing far-reaching results. 
 In many cities determined groups of men and women have 
 secured building codes. The building of attractive tene- 
 ments with rents supplying a moderate return on the invest- 
 ment, or better still, the creation of garden cities, may be 
 
 25 
 
[II-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 just as truly religious service as Jesus' caring for the bodies 
 of the people in his day. Rapid transit distributing the people 
 out to the regions of open space and fresh air becomes like- 
 wise a religious undertaking. The homestead policy of the 
 United States attempted to give every family a home, trying 
 to produce a hardy race, of sound stock and good health. 
 Why has that policy failed to achieve its ideal? Can a Chris- 
 tian citizen take up the practical aspects of housing reform 
 and refrain from fighting through the fundamental issues of 
 economic justice in land ownership? There must be Chris- 
 tian thinking here as well as Christian action in service. There 
 is an inevitable connection between the great estates of the 
 wealthy and the depletion of rural life. What do we think 
 of the Christian standard of the young couple just graduated 
 from college who went back into an agricultural community 
 with the ambition to see how many farms they could own? 
 How do we trace the connection between them and city con- 
 gestion? 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Christian family has a fighting chance to survive bad 
 housing, but it cannot survive bad household management 
 and low ideals. The ideal home is a cooperative enterprise of 
 good management. But in our modern cities anarchy often 
 rules the home. Meals poorly cooked and badly served, dis- 
 order and dirt and the lack of discipline — what paralysis of 
 ideals follows in their train ! But the neatness and order, the 
 light and cheer, the cooperative triumph of a happy family 
 meal make ideals live. In many of our homes poverty makes 
 this impossible. A college man living in the lower East Side 
 of New York found one of the most surprising elements in 
 the community life the way in which, as he put it, "the people 
 eat any time they feel like it, on the street or in the house, 
 without regard for the regulation three meals a day." In 
 many other lands the common meal is unknown save among 
 Christian families. The African woman eats after her lord 
 has finished. The child wives of India, the inmates of Moslem 
 
 26 
 
THE FAMILY AT THE CENTER [Us] 
 
 harems, can know nothing of efficient household management. 
 Even in Japan it has not been good form for the woman to 
 eat with her husband and his guests. It is not to be wondered 
 at that domestic science is called for in schools for girls in 
 all mission lands. 
 
 The menace of bad home management is not limited to 
 backward peoples or the poor. What is the influence of apart- 
 ment house life upon the family? Do well-to-do women never 
 give up their normal share in the work of the home and be- 
 come shirkers and parasites, mere gadders and spenders? 
 The opportunities which modern organization offers to lighten 
 housework have often been used to escape its responsibilities 
 altogether. How much temperamental incompatibility has 
 been intensified to disastrous results, both in the group of 
 riches and the group of poverty, because of the failure to 
 center life in the simple cooperative tasks that go to make a 
 home ! 
 
 Successful homemaking calls for scientific management. It 
 demands skill in the efficient employment of labor. House- 
 hold management probably numbers more employers than any 
 other single industry, and these employers are women. More- 
 over they are deahng with women. If women have an obliga- 
 tion to use their social conscience in improving conditions and 
 standards in the industries from which they indirectly draw 
 their income, how much more are they obligated to put social 
 justice into the industry they directly control! 
 
 IV 
 
 A Continental economist declares that the family is the 
 training school of morals. If the family is not saved from 
 moral destruction, the community has no hope of survival. 
 The family must in the end bear the result of all the immor- 
 ality which the community permits and the individual practices. 
 This reveals a vicious circle. If the community permits con- 
 ditions that destroy the family, the family will destroy the 
 community at the source. Give the family a chance, let it 
 become the training school and it will save the community 
 
 27 
 
[II-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 from the breakdown of vice and crime. But the family must 
 be first of all protected against sex immorality, for this is the 
 fundamental sin that destroys the life of the community root 
 and branch. This is the reason why Christianity must wipe 
 out a red light district where college men are "initiated" and 
 change a system which wrings from a Moslem boy the cry: 
 "What chance have I for purity of life? My father has one 
 hundred and three wives and concubines." 
 
 The prevalence of sex immorality is one of the manifest 
 signs of decadence in modern community life. Recent inves- 
 tigations here in America show conditions almost past belief. 
 Their testimony cannot be evaded or escaped. The records 
 of our vice commissions are "the handwriting upon the wall." 
 They recall what Paul wrote about the works of the flesh in 
 the Roman Empire, and parallel the conditions that the mis- 
 sionary finds in the Orient. Alongside the facts are the 
 records of results. The spread of sex disease, the increase 
 of defective children, sterility — here is the real race suicide ! 
 
 But the nation has begun to grapple in dead earnest with 
 the sin of commercial vice. We are able now to pass regula- 
 tions wiping out segregated districts, to develop campaigns of 
 sex education, to proceed perhaps to quarantine sex diseases, 
 but how shall the personal standards of men and women be 
 reached and changed? In certain of our own intellectual 
 circles, theories of free love are bandied to and fro upon the 
 lips of callow youth, as though they were a sign of emancipa- 
 tion, instead of a sign of utter weakness and bondage. What 
 an immeasurable tragedy if woman, emancipated from sex 
 servitude and economic dependence, should lead man with her 
 along the path of imaginary freedom into the old bondage of 
 sex sins ! One has only to recall the lot of woman and chil- 
 dren under systems of polygamy and promiscuity to see how 
 stern is the choice if racial purity is to be preserved. The 
 straight path of the single standard of morals — the Christian 
 ideal of purity — is the only safety for the race. Christianity 
 must now save the family as it saved it once before in the 
 Roman world. 
 
 28 
 
THE FAMILY AT THE CENTER [lis] 
 
 The conclusion of the whole matter is this : The Christian 
 ideal of the family must be realized throughout the whole 
 community the world around. The time was when the home 
 was the conscious center of religion. Family worship in count- 
 less homes was a great reality. The early strength of the 
 American nation traced back to the devout simplicity of its 
 home life. At the center of its power was the sense of rever- 
 ence. In overcoming the evils that developed from prudish 
 ignorance of sex matters, have we fallen into a flippancy that 
 destroys the sense of reverence and increases immorality and 
 divorce? 
 
 There will be little appeal, however, in the proclamation of 
 a family ideal for its own sake. The real reason for having 
 a Christianized family is because it may become the great 
 regenerating force to Christianize the community life. It is 
 the fulcrum of social Christianity. This is the challenge of the 
 Christian family ideal to college men and women : that they 
 shall approach the marriage relationship, the inner sanctuary 
 of the temple of life, in reverent awe; that they shall dedi- 
 cate themselves to the creation of a holy family, to the 
 development of creative lives which shall count for the Com- 
 monwealth of God. 
 
 Suggestions for Discussion and Action 
 
 (Note — There is more material suggested under Sugges- 
 tions for Discussion and Action in each chapter than can 
 possibly be covered in the group hour. The leader of the 
 group, in mapping out the work of the hour, should select for 
 attention those parts which are of most moment to the group.) 
 
 I. Home Conditions 
 
 Think over in advance for the particular community selected 
 the conditions of family life in a number of typical homes 
 which are representative of varying economic levels. Espe- 
 cially valuable material can be secured on family life in 
 Moslem lands, and in many Oriental countries. 
 
 29 
 
[II-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 1. In how many does home life appear to be normal and 
 happy? What factors do we consider indispensable to make 
 them so? 
 
 2. What proportion of these homes are providing suc- 
 cessful family life in spite of heavy handicaps? What 
 handicaps do we discover under which it is unfair to expect 
 any family to work out a successful family life? 
 
 II. Housing and Happy Homes 
 
 1. How much overcrowding and bad sanitation are there 
 in the housing of the college town? Compare these condi- 
 tions with the various communities represented in the group, 
 with those in city tenements and tenant farm houses, with 
 those in some particular mission lands. 
 
 2. Trace the effects of house crowding on the morality 
 of the members of the home. 
 
 3. What are the local housing ordinances? How far 
 do they ensure proper spacing, light, air, safety, and sanita- 
 tion? What provision is there for inspection and enforce- 
 ment? How difficult is it for a family in our commu- 
 nities to own their own home? 
 
 4. What can we do to secure better housing in our com- 
 munities? What effects do Christian missions have on hous- 
 ing conditions abroad? 
 
 III. Household Management and Happy Homes 
 
 1. How does household management compare in diffi- 
 culty with business management? Do the same causes of 
 success and failure operate in both? 
 
 2. What are the comparative difficulties of training chil- 
 dren in the home and in the school? Ought a certificate of 
 efficiency to be demanded of intending heads of households 
 comparable to that demanded of prospective teachers? 
 
 3. Are courses in household economics and household 
 arts given in our public schools? Are they practical? How 
 does the amount of preparation given in our colleges for 
 
 30 
 
THE FAMILY AT THE CENTER [Us] 
 
 carrying on successful homes compare with that for teach- 
 ing and the other professions? 
 
 4. How can bad household management and inadequate 
 care of children be prevented? What share must the 
 husband take in home management more than to be the 
 "provider"? 
 
 5. Why are effective household arrangements so difficult 
 in non-Christian lands? 
 
 IV. Morals and Happy Homes 
 
 1. How far is extravagance wrecking the home life in 
 our town? Are the standards of hving and the social life 
 of our college on a grade of extravagance which would 
 wreck the homes from which students come? which would 
 imperil their future homes if continued? 
 
 2. How far is the double standard of morals wrecking 
 home life in our town? What is the prevalent college atti- 
 tude toward loose talk and vulgar stories which undermine 
 home life? toward lax and "Bohemian" relationships? 
 toward the double standard? 
 
 3. What elements in the family life of Moslem lands are 
 inherently immoral from the Christian point of view? 
 
 V. What Makes a Happy Home? ' 
 
 1. What transformation does Christianity work in the 
 family life of non-Christian lands? 
 
 2. What real differences does Christianity make in home 
 life in America? 
 
 31 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CHILD IN THE MIDST 
 
 The child is the reason for the family, that life may be per- 
 petuated. This is why the community must protect the family. 
 In childhood lie hidden all the possibilities for the improve- 
 ment of mankind. 
 
 You may be Christ or Shakespeare, little child, 
 A savior or a sun to the lost world — 
 There is no babe born but may carry furled 
 Strength to make bloom the world's disastrous wild! 
 O what then must our labors be to mold you, 
 To open the heart, to build with dream the brain, 
 To strengthen the young soul in toil and pain, 
 Till our age-aching hands no longer hold you. 
 
 — James Oppenheim. 
 
 "He is the future, sitting there as a guest at our table," a 
 mother said of her young son. "What we want the future to 
 become we must put into him." With something of the same 
 awe must the community look upon the child, for childhood is 
 ever the new material for the Commonwealth of God. Of 
 what else shall it be built? We have no other stuff wherewith 
 to make it. "Of such is the Kingdom of God." 
 
 Daily Meditations 
 
 First Day : Look at the Boys and Girls 
 
 Blessed is every one that feareth Jehovah, 
 
 That walketh in his ways. 
 
 For thou shalt eat the labor of thy hands : 
 
 Happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. 
 
 Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine. 
 
 In the innermost parts of thy house; 
 
 Thy children like olive plants. 
 
 Round about thy table. 
 
 32 • 
 
THE CHILD IN THE MIDST [111-2] 
 
 Behold, thus shall the man be blessed 
 
 That feareth Jehovah. 
 
 Jehovah bless thee out of Zion: 
 
 And see thou the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy 
 
 life. 
 Yea, see thou thy children's children. 
 Peace be upon Israel. — Psalm 128. 
 
 This ancient picture of the old-fashioned family is as fresh 
 as on the day it was written. It was not drawn from a land 
 of one and two-child families. See the boys and girls sitting 
 there "like olive plants round about thy table !" How would 
 the picture fit into our modern apartments and tenements? 
 One of the deepest joys of life comes with one's own children, 
 blood of our blood and flesh of our flesh. This is not a selfish 
 joy. The community depends upon it — lives by it. Is it not 
 then an unpardonable community sin that any group of people 
 should be deprived of the possibility of children? Is it not a 
 deeper sin that some should deprive themselves of this price- 
 less privilege? Do we look forward to the joy of having our 
 own children with reverent anticipation? Are we fit for it? 
 Has the community not a right to ask us this question? To 
 what extent is the adoption of children by childless couples 
 to be urged as a social obligation? 
 
 Second Day: The Child Is in the Midst 
 
 Lo, children are a heritage of Jehovah; 
 And the fruit of the womb is his reward. 
 As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, 
 So are the children of youth. 
 
 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. 
 
 —Psalm 127: 3-5. 
 
 And he called to him a little child, and set him in 
 the midst of them. — Matt. 18: 2. 
 
 Study Jesus' attitude to little children. — Matt. 18: 
 1-6. 
 
 In youth life is likely to be self-centered, but with parent- 
 hood great changes come and gradually the child occupies the 
 very center of experience. The whole family centers itself 
 
 2>2> 
 
[III-3] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 around the needs of the developing children. The missionary 
 everywhere has given large attention to the training of chil- 
 dren. The marked contrast between the children on the 
 street and those in the mission school, the place the graduates 
 of these schools take in the new life of these nations, is evi- 
 dence of the transformations possible through such effort. 
 
 As Christianity all over the world develops the community 
 into a larger family, great movements for child welfare grow 
 up. Here is the point of power. If our city councils and legis- 
 lative bodies would focus their attention upon the child, what 
 effect would it have upon the development of the city and the 
 nation? 
 
 Third Day : The Child Gentles all Community Life 
 
 And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the 
 leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf and 
 the young lion and the fatling together; and a little 
 child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall 
 feed ; their young ones shall lie down together ; and 
 the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the suck- 
 ing child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the 
 weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. 
 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy moun- 
 tain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of 
 Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea. — Isa. ii : 6-9. 
 
 A group of college men were going one night through 
 Chinatown in New York City. Secret passages were being 
 pointed out which entered into gambling dens and opium 
 joints. A bullet hole marked the wall in a dark arcade where 
 a Tong battle had been fought. Suddenly, as the group 
 emerged on the street, two small Chinese children in native 
 dress were found, playing on the sidewalk, while their father 
 placidly smoked his pipe in the warm air of the summer 
 evening. Every man in the group was caught and held by 
 the contrast. The child gentles even the roughest life. Mrs. 
 Browning makes one of her hardest characters say : 
 
 34 
 
THE CHILD IN THE MIDST [III-4] 
 
 "Go it, Jim, 
 "I'm a tender soul; 
 I never banged a child at two years old 
 And drew blood from him, but I sobbed for it 
 Next moment — and I've had a plague of seven. 
 I'm tender; I've no stomach even for beef. 
 Until I know about the girl that's lost. 
 That's killed, mayhap." 
 
 — E. B. Browning, "Aurora Leigh." 
 
 How many evil things even the worst men would not do 
 before a child. In the childless 'camps of the miners, the 
 lumberjacks, the construction workers, life often sinks to its 
 lowest level, but instantly when a child comes it rises. Bret 
 Harte achieved sudden fame by writing this truth into "The 
 Luck of Roaring Camp," 
 
 The power of the child to refine the life of grown-ups 
 reaches far into governm.ent and industry. Some of our 
 most effective social movements today — the attack on infant 
 mortality, the crusade against child labor, the recreation move- 
 ment — are undertaken for the sake of the children. They 
 all show the hand of the child reaching out from the family 
 group to bless the whole community, to humanize our com- 
 mon life. 
 
 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou 
 
 established strength. 
 Because of thine adversaries, 
 
 That thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. 
 
 —Psalm 8: 2. 
 
 Fourth Day: The Protection of Children the Primary Duty 
 
 Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of 
 the Wise-men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, 
 and slew all the male children that were in Bethlehem, 
 and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and 
 under, according to the time which he had exactly 
 learned of the Wise-men, — Matt, 2: 16. 
 
 But whoso shall cause one of these little ones that 
 believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that 
 
 25 
 
[III-5] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, 
 and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea. 
 . . . See that ye despise not one of these little 
 ones : for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels 
 do always behold the face of my Father who is in 
 heaven. — Matt. i8: 6, lo. 
 
 A recent cartoon shows a small girl coming out of a city 
 alley. About the entrance lurks a throng of evil creatures — 
 vice, disease, imbecility, tuberculosis, drink, poverty, cruelty, 
 dissipation. The inscription reads "Give the Child a Chance." 
 If this is a true picture, what is the social effectiveness of 
 religion in that community? Is there no modern slaughter 
 of the Innocents to compare with that of Herod? Animals 
 will fight to the death for their young, and the higher groups 
 protect their young in organized fashion. Do we know any 
 community which is protecting its youth against the powers 
 that prey upon them, as effectively as a herd of bison formed 
 in a circle will protect its calves against a pack of wolves? 
 How does Jesus' condemnation apply to those who make 
 profit off the weak lives of youth in the underpaid industries, 
 to those who make income out of houses where children rot 
 away to death? How about those who make high profit off 
 the food supply, which means poor living for the common 
 people? 
 
 Fifth Day: Guided Play Is Childhood's Great Vocation 
 
 They are like unto children that sit in the market- 
 place, and call one to another; who say, We piped 
 unto you, and ye did not dance ; we wailed, and ye did 
 not weep. — Luke 7 : 32. 
 
 And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and 
 girls playing in the streets thereof. — Zech. 8 : 5. 
 
 Zechariah knew too well the desolation of a childless city. 
 Pestilence and famine had stalked through the streets of 
 Jerusalem, taking their toll of little ones. The prophet looks 
 forward to the city that some day shall be, and sees at the 
 center of it the joy and laughter of playing children. 
 
 36 
 
" THE CHILD IN THE MIDST [III-6] 
 
 "What is it about these children that bothers me so? There 
 is something gone out of their faces," said a college man 
 spending his first summer among the poor children on the 
 East Side of New York City. Was it that age had come to 
 them before their time, because they had lost the normal 
 opportunity for play-life? When country people move to the 
 city the first thing they are forced to give up is room outdoors 
 for their children to play. There can be no city of righteous- 
 ness that does not provide play for its children. Ten thousand 
 cases in the juvenile court of one great city showed that by 
 far the larger number came from neighborhoods where there 
 was no organized recreation, — the homes too weak and the 
 church too poor to provide it. The city was allowing the 
 instinct for play — the great constructive force of childhood— 
 to be turned aside to its destruction in commercial amuse- 
 ment and in perverted forms of pleasure. Here is a chal- 
 lenge to the Christian forces of the community. 
 
 Sixth Day: Growth Results 
 
 The earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, 
 then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. — Mark 
 4:28. 
 
 And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in 
 favor with God and men. — Luke 2 : 52. 
 
 One of the tragedies of modern life is the arrested develop- 
 ment of youth. Is it confined to the cities alone? In the 
 countryside, do the children of the farmers struggling with 
 poor land, or those of hired hands, achieve the possibilities 
 of normal childhood? The industrial city likewise lays a 
 repressive hand upon the growth of children. In its worst 
 sections children have a dwarfed and stunted life. Investiga- 
 tion shows that at the age of thirteen the children of the well- 
 paid workers in one industry weigh eleven pounds more, and 
 average three inches taller, than the children of the unskilled, 
 low-grade workers in the same trade. Labor will not long 
 consent to endure these handicaps. The iron is entering its 
 soul; its mind is awakening. Said an old cotton mill worker 
 
 37 
 
[I1I-7] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 to a young man who was leaving the mill to go into the 
 ministry : "You will have a chance to tell the people. Tell 
 them how we have to live. Maybe you can help us to find a 
 way out, for, if there is no way out, I would rather strangle 
 my kids than have them go through what I have gone 
 through." 
 
 What do the children of India most need? "Childhood 
 itself," answered the young teacher home on her first furlough. 
 In China, a boy frequently begins work with his father at six. 
 In Moslem lands, child marriage is widely prevalent. What 
 chance have children under such conditions for normal 
 development? 
 
 Seventh Day : The Child Reveals Religion's Heart 
 
 And they were bringing unto him little children, that 
 he should touch them : and the disciples rebuked them. 
 But when Jesus saw it, he was moved with indigna- 
 tion, and said unto them. Suffer the little children to 
 come unto me ; forbid them not : for to such belongeth 
 the kingdom of God. . . . And he took them in his 
 arms, and blessed them, laying his hands upon them. 
 — Mark lo: 13, 14, 16. 
 
 A two-year old girl was taken by the authorities from a 
 drunken mother in a house of prostitution. Her childish 
 prattle already spoke the phrases of the underworld. What 
 a revelation of community life | Those who found her cried 
 out in wrath at such a violation of the sacredness of child- 
 hood. If a great audience of citizens could listen to her, would 
 it not be a more effective condemnation than any scathing 
 denunciation? Would it not stir to action more quickly than 
 all our scientific surveys? 
 
 "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast per- 
 fected praise." The talk of children is an unconscious revela- 
 tion of the family and the community. They speak out the 
 real standards. They reveal the real forces. Trust them to 
 recognize religious reality in life. 
 
 "Where is the University of Chicago Settlement?" a visitor 
 38 
 
. THE CHILD IN THE MIDST [III-s] 
 
 asked a child playing on the street within a block of it, but 
 the child had never heard of a place with such a name. 
 "Where does Mary McDowell live?" and at once the child's 
 face lit up. "Come with me, I can show you." Are we 
 willing to have our life and religion reproduced in the chil- 
 dren of our neighborhood? The children reveal the heart of 
 religion; they lead the way to the inner shrine. What path 
 leads into the city of God save that of becoming as little chil- 
 dren in simplicity and faith? 
 
 Study for the Week 
 
 "The children, they are all of it," cried the Polish miner, 
 whose children were threatened with death from an epidemic 
 due to the neglect of the politician for whom he had voted. 
 Childhood largely determines whether adult life shall be an 
 asset or a liability. If the community fails to protect and 
 develop the children of this immigrant miner and his fellows, 
 who can count the loss? 
 
 There is an old Persian proverb which says, "When one 
 child cries in the dark, the throne of God rocks from side to 
 side." It declares that the neglect of injured childhood shakes 
 the foundations of the universe 
 
 Our modern Child Welfare Movement is a striking trib- 
 ute to the place given children. At this point Jesus' great 
 principle of the sacredness of personality has come to its 
 clearest expression. Yet the Christian family and the organ- 
 ized Child Welfare Movement are both challenged to exert 
 their utmost power, because they continually come face to face 
 with great forces that operate for the destruction of child- 
 hood. They find the community not yet organized for the 
 child. Indeed in some aspects of its life it is organized against 
 the child. The two fundamental relationships of the com- 
 munity are those of sex and property. Are these organized 
 for the sake of the children or against them? 
 
 All the homes of the community stand or fall together. 
 
 39 
 
[III-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 A child of the American Consul in Bombay died of bubonic 
 plague. Infantile paralysis smites both rich and poor. If the 
 children of the weak are subjected to the solicitations of vice, 
 immoral contagion brushes by the barriers of the Christian 
 family and touches its children. Our urgent task is to remove 
 the forces that make for the destruction of child life every- 
 where. 
 
 II 
 
 The first duty of the community is to keep its children alive. 
 The test of its efficiency is its ability to care for its young. 
 Christianity intensifies the demand for efficiency and heightens 
 the conscience of the community. It abolishes infanticide. 
 Yet in the United States there are each year one hundred 
 thousand needless infant deaths. They come from causes 
 which are preventable. This heavy infant mortality registers 
 the breakdown both of the home and of the community. It 
 likewise registers the breakdown of national life in those 
 lands where estimates place the infant mortality as high as 
 fifty to eighty-five per cent of the births. 
 
 The distribution of the infant death rate flings still another 
 moral challenge to the Christian conscience of America. It 
 is to the tenement districts that the white hearse comes the 
 most frequently. There are blocks in New York from whose 
 streets it is never absent in the summer time. Why should 
 one ward in the city or one nation show twice the infant death 
 rate of another? The children who are born in those families 
 which can live in four rooms, have almost twice as much 
 chance for life as those who must live in one room. The 
 immigrant and the negro pay a heavier toll to infant mortality 
 than the rest of our population. In such a situation the 
 Christian conscience cannot satisfy itself with reading the 
 burial service about its pleasing "Almighty God in His wise 
 providence to take out of the world the soul of the departed." 
 It must search away in back for the causes that take children 
 in successive years from the same family to the graveyard. 
 On the surface there is the exposure of child life to unsanitary 
 
 40 
 
THE CHILD IN THE MIDST [Ills] 
 
 conditions, to the unclean streets and alleys, to the dampness 
 and dirt of foul living quarters. Underneath the surface 
 there is the lack of proper nourishment and care, the enfee- 
 bling of motherhood by improper labor, the greed that forces 
 the workers to work for less than living wages and to live in 
 bad houses, because profit comes out of it. 
 
 The path of progress is clear. When the family fails and 
 the child is orphaned, the community in some manner becomes 
 the family. It finds a home or it provides an institution. In 
 the same way it has extended the functions of the home over 
 other needs of childhood. It developed fresh-air work to 
 overcome the crowding and bad air of the tenement; day nurs- 
 eries to take the place of the care of the working mother; 
 district nursing to supplement deficient home care ; guided 
 recreation to supply the lack of the father's ability to share 
 in the life of childhood; public baths to supply the lack of 
 such facilities in the home. It has become an established 
 matter of social procedure that the community shall supply 
 the depleted resources of the child's life. 
 
 But these efforts finally reach a barrier. The improvement 
 of the family life becomes impossible beyond a certain point 
 without the change of economic conditions. There must be 
 an increase of income. The fatal fundamental fact in unde- 
 veloped childhood is the lack of adequate nourishment. It is 
 in the last analysis a question of food supply. This is not to 
 be met simply by free lunches in the school room — the com- 
 munity cannot flinch from the underlying economic issue. 
 Ultimately its family care will have to be extended to this 
 point also. The community will have to find a way to provide 
 income for all families adequate for the proper nourishment 
 of children. This is clearly a task in which woman must take 
 a large part. Through all the ages she has guided and cared 
 for the strengthening and development of youth in the home. 
 Now it is her task to help in ordering the community life, 
 that the standards which she has been able to work out at 
 home through her intelligence ?nd efficiency shall become the 
 recognized rule of the community life. 
 
 41 
 
[III-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 III 
 
 In front of a factory in New York City, in the year of 
 our Lord, 1916, the sign said "Small girls wanted." If some 
 antiquarian of the year 5000 A. D. discovers a sign like that, 
 and transcribes it, where will he class us morally? If New 
 York were a Christian community that sign would hang there 
 till doomsday and never a little girl would be allowed to 
 answer it. 
 
 One test of the efficiency of our modern Christianity is 
 whether it can prevent the recurrence of the economic ex- 
 ploitation of childhood as our western industry enters Asia. 
 At an early hour one morning in Shanghai a child was taken 
 ftom a cotton mill to the hospital. Working for twelve hours 
 on the night shift this child of eight — one of many — fell 
 asleep at his work from utter exhaustion. As his head nodded 
 it was caught and mangled in the machinery. In the binderies 
 of a great printing estabhshment in China mothers and young 
 daughters work side by side. Many of the mothers have 
 bound feet ; but not the daughters. Two great world bond- 
 ages of childhood staiid there together. In the very hour when 
 Chinese girlhood was being delivered from foot-binding, it is 
 bound again by the industrial cruelty of child labor from the 
 western world and the vicious circle is complete. How can 
 Christianity strike off both shackles ? 
 
 The American people have decreed the abolition of child 
 labor, but the task is far from being accomplished. Recent 
 investigations show children, hardly more than infants, pull- 
 ing the heavy roots from the half-frozen soil of the beet fields, 
 working at night in the canneries, and laboring, inexcusable 
 hours in the shrimperies along the coast. Who will emanci- 
 pate the child workers on the farms, denied normal growth 
 and schooling by short-sighted parents? The ideals of Jesus 
 concerning child life have no foothold yet in some sections 
 of our community life. There is a sharp clash between the 
 conception of the child as an economic asset and as a spiritual 
 possibility. 
 
 42 
 
• THE CHILD IN THE MIDST [III-sJ 
 
 Child workers for profit lose the land of dreams. Chris- 
 tianity must prolong still further the period of childhood, that 
 its joys and delights may contribute a larger portion of life. 
 How are overworked, undeveloped children to be emancipated? 
 How much can be done by law, how much by the development 
 in every community of a powerful sentiment based on the 
 Christian ideal? 
 
 IV 
 
 None of our surveys have yet disclosed any kind of com- 
 munity which protects all its youth against the contagion 
 of evil. In the small community it is often the contact with 
 vicious adults that destroys purity. How shall the boy on the 
 farm be protected from the evil stories of the hired man? 
 In the city, commercialism advertises the road to vice with 
 rosy colors and corrupts and degrades the spirit of youth. 
 The community for the most part still permits the natural sex 
 curiosity of childhood to be answered by evil-minded adults, 
 or to be stimulated by posters and motion pictures, by amuse- 
 ment parks, dance halls, and suggestive plays. In India the 
 family system puts vile language on infant lips and the Moslem 
 harem surrounds with pollution the children of the wealthy 
 and powerful. 
 
 But it is in the contact of play and in the satisfaction of 
 the recreational need that the contagion of evil most persist- 
 ently touches child life. Every lawful amusement for child- 
 hood indoor and outdoor has been made a means of profit, 
 and to all of them harmful features have been added as a 
 result. This is the second unpardonable sin of the com- 
 munity against its children, that it permits not only its work 
 but its play to be a means of profit, that it prostitutes for 
 gain the joyous energies of youth needed for its own revitaliz- 
 ing. The abuses of commercial recreation must be fought, 
 but the energy which is necessary to maintain constant regula- 
 tion and restriction ought to be set free for a truly con- 
 structive community program. The community must be led 
 to see that play is the great vocation of childhood and the 
 
 43 
 
[III-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 universal avocation of later life. The modern recreation 
 movement, with its parks and playgrounds, its pageants and 
 festivals, its boy scouts and camp fire girls, its municipal 
 centers with their baseball parks and their lively games for 
 children, its amateur dramatics and holiday celebrations — 
 these express our growing sense of the sacredness of childhood. 
 
 In Shanghai there is a playground provided by foreigners 
 for their children, and carefully fenced about. The play- 
 hungry Chinese children crowd about to watch the foreign 
 children enjoy that which they themselves are denied. Yet 
 this denial is not forever. The recreation movement is becom- 
 ing a world movement. Demonstration playgrounds under 
 American auspices are being conducted in Calcutta. Uruguay 
 is appropriating thousands of dollars for a nation-wide plan 
 under American guidance. A demonstration playground in 
 Manila is growing into a complete Filipino system, with base- 
 ball displacing cock fighting and gambling. No more welcome 
 work is being done by the Christian Associations in foreign 
 lands than their development of organized recreation. 
 
 There is yet a gigantic battle to be fought before all child- 
 hood everywhere can have a normal, free chance to play. 
 There are ancient prejudices to remove. There is the senseless 
 conception, that life is for work alone, to be overthrown. The 
 community must see not simply the educational value, but the 
 character value of play. If evil controls recreation, the com- 
 munity cannot save its children. If the community puts its 
 hand upon this greatest force in the life of youth and uses it 
 for their highest development, there will be no question about 
 its future. Here is the natural path to community service 
 for college men and women, most of whom have been trained 
 in the discipline of recreation, and who are in some way 
 fitted for play leadership. They know how play leadership 
 opens up great values for any life; how it brings order and 
 cooperation, discipline and endurance, self control and manly 
 growth. They have found for their own lives the religious 
 values in recreation. In what ways can they pass them on to 
 their community? 
 
 44 
 
THE CHILD IN THE MIDST [III-s] 
 
 V 
 
 The coming of a child into a home means a spiritual trans- 
 formation. It brings new responsibilities, new visions, new 
 outlooks. The determination to develop the spiritual possi- 
 bilities of a child's life unfolds new and higher possibilities 
 in the lives of parents. In like manner, whenever the com- 
 munity will consider its children solely as material for spiritual 
 development, it will itself come into a higher life. This is 
 the path that leads to the Commonwealth of God. 
 
 Suggestions for Discussion and Action 
 
 I. Conditions of Child Life 
 
 1. What forces are working actively against child wel- 
 fare? Observe street influences, home conditions, physical 
 dangers, moral temptations, forms of children's work and 
 play. 
 
 2. What conditions are working for child welfare? Ob- 
 serve parental care, play spaces, guided recreation, educa- 
 tional advantages, moral influences. 
 
 3. Estimate the probability of a child's growing up 
 physically and morally sound under such conditions. 
 
 4. Compare conditions working for and against child 
 welfare in the most favored sections with those in poorer 
 sections. 
 
 5. What are the conditions of child life in Africa? 
 China? Moslem lands? Compare the cbances of a child in 
 these countries with his chances in America. 
 
 6. In what ways do our communities most outrage the 
 social principles of Jesus in their treatment of child life? 
 
 II. Responsibility for Neglect of Children 
 
 Trace out in given families as accurately as you can how 
 far the parents are directly responsible for bad conditions, 
 and how far these grow out of forces for which the com- 
 munity is responsible. 
 
 45 
 
lIII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 III. Improving Conditions 
 
 1. What is the worst condition for which the community 
 is primarily responsible? 
 
 (a) Is it communicable disease, and a high death rate? 
 If so, can we locate the chief causes? How about the milk 
 supply? How improve it? Is it contagious diseases of chil- 
 dren? How can we help to get rid of them? Do the dirtiest 
 sections of our town have the highest death rate? How can 
 we get the proper officials to clean them up? 
 
 (b) Is it child labor? If so, how can we bring to parents 
 and employers a new conscience on the value of life, and 
 of schooling? 
 
 (c) Is it conditions of play? Where do the children play? 
 What forms of amusement for our children are run for 
 profit? How large do these bulk in the total play life of the 
 community? What is the worst form of children's amuse- 
 ment run for profit in our community? Enumerate the evil 
 effects which this is having upon children. How shall we 
 secure proper regulation of commercial amusement enter- 
 prises? How work for free recreation? What free play 
 spaces are available? Why are they so often vacant while 
 commercial places are crowded? What unwholesome influ- 
 ences exist in unguided play? How can we help to secure 
 and carry out a recreation program? 
 
 2. What is the worst condition in our town for which 
 deficient homes are primarily responsible? How can the 
 community insure the proper care of children in such homes ? 
 Under what conditions should children be removed from 
 such homes? How may children without homes and 
 homes without children be brought together? 
 
 3. What is being done by the missionaries in Japan, India, 
 and the Philippines to deal with the death rate, the child 
 labor situation, and the conditions of play among children? 
 What is being done by the governments themselves? 
 
 4. What transformations would take place in our com- 
 munity if child welfare were really given first place? 
 
 46 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 TRAINING FOR FULL EFFICIENCY 
 
 The Christian values in personality are potential; they have 
 to be realized. Development is one of the natural rights. But 
 how many today get full development? Vast numbers of 
 people are conscious that they might be greater than they are, 
 if their powers were only fully developed. What changes 
 might not be wrought out in our communities if all the per- 
 sonalities that compose them were developed to their full 
 capacity ! The endeavor to create a Christian community 
 involves new values and responsibilities in education. 
 
 Daily Meditations 
 First Day: Fractional Personalities 
 
 And he also that had received the one talent came 
 and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, 
 reaping where thou didst not sow, and gathering 
 where thou didst not scatter; and I was afraid, and 
 went away and hid thy talent in the earth : lo. thou 
 hast thine own. But his lord answered and said unto 
 him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest 
 that I reap where I sowed not. and gather where I did 
 not scatter; thou oughtest therefore to have put my 
 money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have 
 received back mine own with interest. — Matt. 25 : 
 24-27. 
 
 Recall the parable of the talents. — Matt. 25 : 14-30. 
 
 Arrested development is a universal community fact. 
 Observe the corner loafers interested in nothing but cigarettes 
 and smut. Out of this crowd are developed the vagrants and 
 the criminals. Of the men applying for work at one muni- 
 
 47- 
 
[IV-2] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 cipal woodshed, eighty-six per cent had never gone beyond the 
 fourth grade in education, and yet eighty per cent of them 
 were American-born citizens. The community had doubtless 
 sinned against them, but they had also sinned against them- 
 selves. They had refused the opportunities of self-develop- 
 ment which might have enabled them to overcome the pres- 
 sure of the community upon them. These undeveloped frac- 
 tional lives are defectives just as truly as the cripples or the 
 blind. If we have any faith in Jesus' declaration of the 
 possibility of ordinary life, we are face to face here with a 
 tragedy which must be overcome. 
 
 A young minister interested the boys of his village in a 
 magazine club. It developed later into a reading room with 
 interests leading their lives to higher levels. Another com- 
 munity worker recently found a Christian Association secre- 
 tary and a newspaper reporter who had belonged to clubs 
 that he had organized in former years in tenement neighbor- 
 hoods. A missionary in Liberia rescued a little girl from 
 domestic slavery. Later this child, grown to young woman- 
 hood, was graduated from an American college and returned 
 to lead in the education of her people. Whom are we helping 
 to get an education? 
 
 Second Day: Wisdom the End of All Education 
 
 Doth not wisdom cry, 
 And understanding put forth her voice? 
 On the top of high places by the way, 
 Where the paths meet, she standeth; 
 Beside the gates, at the entry of the city. 
 At the coming in at the doors, she crieth aloud : 
 Unto you, O men, I call ; 
 And my voice is to the sons of men. ... 
 Receive my instruction, and not silver; 
 And knowledge rather than choice gold. 
 For wisdom is better than rubies ; 
 And all the things that may be desired are not to be 
 compared unto it. — Prov. 8: 1-4; 10, 11. 
 Read this great Song of Wisdom. — Prov. 8: 1-36. 
 
 48 
 
TRAINING FOR FULL EFFICIENCY [IV-3] 
 
 When Charles Kingsley closed his course of lectures on his- 
 tory at Cambridge University, he said: "Now, young gentle- 
 men, I have done, and if I have taught you that right and 
 wrong are rewarded and punished in this world as well as 
 the next, I shall have done more for you than if I had 
 crammed your heads with many dates and facts." Wisdom is 
 more than knowledge. The education that gives understand- 
 ing and all-round judgment, social vision and the capacity for 
 finding one's way through the dark places of life — this alone 
 is worthy the effort of an intelligent people. Such education 
 becomes a process of growth into rich maturity, releasing all 
 the abilities, freeing the entire personality. Have we been 
 seeking that kind of education? How? 
 
 Third Day : Real Religion Vitalises Education 
 
 The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and 
 kill, and destroy : I came that they may have life, and 
 may have it abundantly. — John 10 : 10. 
 
 Why is it that religion has worked such changes in indi- 
 vidual life? Is it because a religious motive' is a compelling 
 force to set free both the ambitions and abilities of a life? 
 The abundant life that Jesus came to bring is something more 
 than the culture of Greece. It means the development of all 
 the faculties of life to their highest possibility in the service 
 of humanity. This purpose connects Jesus directly with the 
 new education, whose purpose is "nothing short of the ideal 
 of total personality at the highest point of development." 
 When men see this ideal they propagate it. Henry Drum- 
 mond lays his hand upon the head of a sleepy working lad 
 in the mission at Glasgow and bids him get an education. That 
 boy becomes a speaker and writer of power. A missionary in 
 India found a half-starved native boy, nourished and edu- 
 cated him ; that boy became a perfect specimen of physical 
 development and took a university degree granted to only 
 three men in India. Now he gives his life to the emancipation 
 and development of his fellow natives. In both ways does 
 
 49 
 
[IV-4] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 the Christian motive work, inciting higher self -development 
 and investing that development in the service of others. 
 
 Fourth Day : Shall Education Blight Sympathy? 
 
 I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men. — Luke 
 i8: II. 
 
 Am I a Pharisee or a publican? Read Luke i8: 
 9-14. 
 
 A prominent business man, a university graduate whose 
 father was a carpenter, carefully evades all manual labor and 
 no longer believes in democracy. A Christian minister thinks 
 that immigrants cannot be trusted with citizenship. The best 
 that we can do for them, he says, is to help them with wel- 
 fare work, and keep them "in their place." 
 
 A prominent ecclesiastic, who in childhood was familiar 
 with the hard labor of the farm, has been so long secluded in 
 the culture of the library that now he has only harsh and 
 ignorant words for the struggles of the workers. Said a 
 workingman, a friend of his youth, who recently heard him 
 speak: "My God, has he paid that price?" For such a man 
 it is only a step to the belief that the workers must ever be 
 but hewers of wood and drawers of water, permanently 
 inferior. It is only another step, to the attitude that says, 
 "I thank thee that I am not as other men." Who would not 
 rather say with Abraham Lincoln, "God must love the common 
 people — He made so many of them." 
 
 Fifth Day : The Roots of IneMciency 
 
 No man careth for my soul. — Psalm 142 : 4. 
 
 Incapable John, whether he lives in the city or the country- 
 side, is a burden to the community. He is constantly out of 
 work, and his family must be kept in food and clothing by 
 the neighbors. They will grow up to be more inefficient and 
 sickly than John himself. 
 
 John was born of a mother who was too tired to give him 
 
 50 
 
TRAINING FOR FULL EFFICIENCY [IV-6] 
 
 strength. The family income was never sufficient to provide 
 his body with proper nourishment. When he went to school 
 .somehow his head would not work, and nobody examined him 
 for adenoids or under-nourishment. When he left the school 
 and went to work, the job that was given him taught him 
 nothing. It only used up his scanty labor power as rapidly 
 as possible. Pretty soon he married Slack Susan. She had no 
 more preparation for home making than he. She knew 
 nothing of household management. 
 
 Who is responsible for the inefficiency of Incapable John 
 and his family? Oh, John, of course! But the community 
 which failed to provide the background, the environment, the 
 nourishment for efficiency, the training, must it not now face 
 the penalty f8r its neglect? Does it become those who have 
 always received the nourishment and training of good homes 
 and schools to look down with scorn on Incapable John and 
 his wife, to withdraw themselves from all relation to them? 
 How many incapables will it take in our community life so 
 to weaken its foundations that it shall fall down about our 
 heads? For what weakness of life among the poor whom we 
 know personally is the community chiefly responsible? 
 
 Sixth Day: How the Abundant Life May Come 
 
 The young man saith unto him, All these things 
 have I observed: what lack I yet? Jesus said unto 
 him. If thou wouldest be periect, go, sell that which 
 thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have 
 treasure in heaven : and come, follow me. But when 
 the young man heard the saying, he went away sor- 
 rowful; for he was one that had great possessions. — 
 Matt. 19: 20-22. 
 
 To forget the ornaments, whether of education or wealth, 
 and get right in where people live, is the only way to find 
 real abundance of life. 
 
 The practical man has a great scorn for the theorist. The 
 young demonstrator from the agricultural college wanted to 
 help a farmer improve his run-down cotton fields. "But," 
 
 51 
 
[IV-7] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 said the farmer, "you don't know nottin' about cotton growing. 
 Why, you can't eyen pick." Then the young fellow stripped 
 off his coat and picked a row against the farmer and his 
 son ^together. When he had beaten them both, the farmer 
 said : "Young man, you can teach me any new thing you 
 want to." 
 
 When the mission schools showed the natives of Africa that 
 a carpenter or wagon maker earned as much in a day as an 
 untrained laborer in a week; when they demonstrated that 
 the soil could be, as the natives say, "kept young" by fertiliza- 
 tion, it dawned upon the African intellect that learning was 
 worth while. 
 
 Has the college fully realized that vital social service is the 
 laboratory side of education in the humanities'; that it joins 
 religion and education and puts them both to work? 
 
 Seventh Day: Unto the End! 
 
 If any man would come after me, let him deny 
 himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For 
 whosoever would save his life shall lose it; and who- 
 soever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's 
 shall save it. For what doth it profit a man, to gain 
 the whole world, and forfeit his life? — Mark 8: 34-36. 
 
 The one little glimmer of light in all the blood-stained 
 gloom of the battlefield is the fact that those who die for their 
 country often live out the fulness of life in one glorious 
 moment. In the mind of the crowd this atones for a multitude 
 of sins. It is evidence of the fact that those who would 
 reach fulness of life must carry burdens to the limit of 
 sacrifice. They must pay the whole price. Jesus found the 
 more abundant life for himself when he turned his face 
 towards Jerusalem and accepted Calvary. Wealth of per- 
 sonahty comes in no other way. 
 
 The Western world today must choose between the false 
 and the true efficiency; between the Greek and the Christian 
 ideal of education ; between a culture which means super-men 
 lording it over the universe and one that pr'oduces men and 
 
 52 
 
TRAINING FOR FULL EFFICIENCY [IV-s]. 
 
 women ready to serve to the end all for the development of 
 others. Love makes learning dynamic. 
 
 Study for the Week 
 
 I 
 
 The Christian ideal proposes that every person secure the 
 best possible development. How far has this ideal been real- 
 ized? 
 
 Even at the centers of our highest development of public 
 education — Boston, New York, Philadelphia — only fifty-nine 
 to sixty-one per cent of our public school children finish the 
 eighth grade. In the United States there are sixty-five people 
 out of every thousand who can not read or write. In every 
 thousand in India there are eight hundred and ninety one. 
 In many rural schools in certain sections of our country 
 the session lasts for twelve weeks only. There are two 
 hundred thousand part-time, one-room schools in the country 
 districts in the United States. In Asia and Africa there are 
 countless villages with no schools at all. 
 
 Even in the most advanced communities the schools have 
 not always prepared effectively for life. The average public 
 school has followed a stereotyped general plan without regard 
 to the needs of students from different types of communities. 
 Boys and girls have seen little relation between the work in 
 the school room and the world outside, and they have not been 
 trained for its fundamental processes. A prominent educator 
 declares that judged by this test of service to the life of the 
 pupil — service in the broad aspects of full living — one half of 
 the time in public school is wasted. Home training is often 
 even more inadequate than that of the schools. Even in 
 America vast numbers of young people enter life work with 
 no preparation for a vocation, without any instruction in the 
 fundamental matters of sex; without any real religious 
 training. 
 
 Here is a startling situation — a world seeking after democ- 
 racy with this enormous untrained group in its midst. 
 
 53 
 
[IV-s] CHRISTIA-NIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 II 
 
 Striking as are the facts, the meaning of them is even more 
 significant. 
 
 The group of untrained, undeveloped young people in any 
 community is doomed to economic inefficiency. In the com- 
 petitive struggle for a livelihood they are cruelly handicapped. 
 They are condemned to the blind-alley jobs, the low-grade, 
 casual labor. They swell the ranks of the unemployed and 
 unemployable. The industry which calls them early from 
 school, to put them at work at tasks contributing nothing to 
 mind or character, will soon reject them because they are 
 economically inefficient. They are a dead weight for the pro- 
 ductive processes of the community to carry. Many of them 
 are literally not worth a living wage to the employer or to the 
 community. They actually do not earn what they get. The 
 labor that wastes more than its keep in the kitchen, whose 
 mistakes in the office cost more than its salary, whose blunders 
 in the factory mount up to more than its pay envelope, is 
 not only a handicap upon the managers of industry but is a 
 net loss to the whole community life. 
 
 The tragedy of spiritual loss is even greater than that of 
 economic damage. These untrained lives are for the most 
 part barren of desire or capacity for entering the world of 
 higher interests. The gates are barred to the enlarging pur- 
 suits of life. Leisure is barren for lack of the knowledge of 
 its use and degenerates into drinking and viciousness. They 
 eat, they sleep, they take their pleasure where they find it. 
 Life is one dull round of commonplaces — it is one dull, drab 
 pattern, with no high lights of inspiration. One man who is 
 sensitive to social need finds that whenever he reaches New 
 York in the early morning and walks the crowded downtown 
 street to his office, he is struck anew with the weary hard- 
 ness of the young faces that meet him hurrying to their work 
 in the low grade jobs of industry. Our deadening com- 
 mercialism has already stamped its mark upon them. Yet 
 behind these is the great motley throng of every color in every 
 
 54 
 
TRAINING FOR FULL EFFICIENCY [IV-s] 
 
 land whose faces show the age-long repression of monoto- 
 nous toil. 
 
 Noblesse oblige must be the motto of the group who have 
 the extra equipment. Said a cotton mill foreman, "I have 
 always believed that any workman who desires should be able 
 to send his children to college. I am a foreman but I cannot 
 do it, even if they help support themselves." Uncounted 
 multitudes the world over are living on traditional and low- 
 grade planes. Like oxen in the field and in the stalls, they 
 drag their weary limbs from labor to sleep. Ever and again 
 there comes a pathetic cry from an old gnarled toiler — "If 
 only I knew more ! The children must know more than I do." 
 An old scrubwoman put two dollars into the basket at a meet- 
 ing where the speaker had proclaimed a great propaganda of 
 education for the masses. The well dressed woman sitting 
 next her looked her surprise. "I have two grandchildren at 
 home," the old worker said. It was a sufficient answer. 
 
 Will college men and women answer the challenge of the 
 masses here? Will they pioneer the new education in the 
 Near and Far East and in Latin America? 
 
 Ill 
 
 The first opportunity of the college-trained group in its 
 relation to the untrained and handicapped is to utilize and 
 improve the educational agencies of their own communities. 
 Our newer leaders in education are working to reconstruct the 
 school system so that it will genuinely interest the children, 
 and furnish them a training for actual life. They are appeal- 
 ing to their instinctive interests, with the provision for crea- 
 tive work in manual training, in home economics, and house- 
 hold arts. They are combining "work-study-play." A boy's 
 mother could never get him to school on time, but since he 
 moved to Gary and found there was a clay modelling room in 
 the school where he could spend part of his time if he was 
 faithful in his other work, he has never been late. He cannot 
 be driven away from the school on Saturdays. 
 
 The new education is training the judgment of children to 
 
 55 
 
[IV-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 cope with the real situations of life in the family and in the 
 community. Two lads of five living in a rural community had 
 caught the viewpoint when, of their own volition, with com- 
 plete absorption, they reproduced in play the work of the vil- 
 lage milk station, the hauling, unloading, preparing, and ship- 
 ping of milk for the small boys of the city far away. A 
 skilled director made their play the basis for a vital process 
 of education. Many arithmetical processes were learned in 
 connection with this aspect of real life; reading to find out 
 more about the enterprise came quite naturally; simpler 
 aspects of science, both in physics and chemistry, were de- 
 scribed; and the rudiments of the relations of sanitation and 
 food to health were worked out in a way that fundamentally 
 enriched the life of those boys and made them share the 
 common welfare. 
 
 But the missionaries of the new education preach to many 
 deaf ears. Communities are not willing to pay for it. It costs 
 more and the results reveal themselves slowly. College- 
 trained men and women know the defects of the old educa- 
 tional system. When they go into the old-fashioned school 
 room they can see its narrow and monotonous routine, its 
 constriction of child life, its lack of guided activities — is it 
 not their responsibility to apply the discoveries of the experts 
 to their own community? Whose opportunity equals the 
 teacher's? What kind of men serve on the local school board 
 in our community? What conception have they of education 
 and child development ? Is there no obligation for college men 
 and women to perform missionary service on the school board? 
 One college woman was elected to a village school board, pre- 
 viously made up of stingy retired farmers, and has helped to 
 revolutionize that whole school system. 
 
 The most significant advance in removing the handicaps 
 from the adult untrained group is the widening of the educa- 
 tional area. It is significant that one of our greatest schools 
 of commerce is running its courses with full faculty in two 
 sections, a day section and an evening section. Out of 3,386 
 students in the school, 3,091 are in business during the day 
 
 56 
 
TRAINING FOR FULL EFFICIENCY [IV-s] 
 
 and attend the university at night. Why is not this provision 
 for extending regular college education to the business groups 
 more common? The opening of the public school buildings 
 as social centers, the extension of library service, the increase 
 of popular lectures, the development of public forums for the 
 free discussion of the vital public questions and, perhaps most 
 important of all, university extension — in all such movements 
 the college group can put their trained powers at work for 
 the enlightening of the community. 
 
 Here lies also the special significance of the educational 
 agencies being developed by some manufacturers within their 
 plants. Others have made special provision for their em- 
 ployes to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the 
 community. Carry ^is through to its logical conclusion and it 
 means the gradual purification of the industrial process from 
 the profit motive. Industry will finally come to seek the whole 
 development of human life, the creation of all its highest 
 values. This ideal will mean not simply that every youth shall 
 bring some productive labor power to community life, but 
 that the whole work life of the world shall be organized for 
 the full development of the higher life of the workers. 
 
 IV 
 
 This means that the whole community must come to a real- 
 ization of the religious nature of education, of the necessity 
 of permeating all education with the religious spirit. Here is 
 the heart of the whole matter. The minister of a great insti- 
 tutional church in New York City asks : "Why should I give 
 the people everything but that which sends me to them?" If 
 the Christian spirit inspires men and women to carry educa- 
 tion to the masses of the people, are they not obligated to 
 carry the spirit of religion into all education? 
 
 Are they not also obligated to make the Bible and religion 
 a recognized part of education? Progress is already being 
 made. The introduction of graded lessons and modern meth- 
 ods of teaching is making the Sunday school a truly educa- 
 tional institution. Successful experiments in several states 
 
 57 
 
[IV-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 point to the day of universal week-day instruction in religion 
 under the direction of the churches and correlated with the 
 public school. 
 
 It was a great day for community progress when the schools 
 began to teach applied science. It will be a greater day when 
 all the churches teach applied religion. But this will require 
 that the teaching of religion go on in the home, the market- 
 place, the workshop, as well as in the church. Of what avail 
 to teach the child certain ideals of life one hour of one day 
 in the week, if for six days in the week the total pressure of 
 the community life is against the realization of those ideals, 
 and some sections of its life definitely teach him other ideals? 
 The total possible wealth of the Commonwealth of God will 
 not be realized until all the forces of the community are 
 turned to the vital teaching of religion. 
 
 Everywhere Christianity has brought education to the 
 masses. A leading Hindu nationalist in India says: "After 
 all, when it comes to practice, Christianity alone is effecting 
 what we nationalists are crying for, namely the elevation of 
 the masses." A minister of education from Europe mar- 
 velled at the intelligence and manliness of a boy in our public 
 schools, who belonged to a race which his nation had held in 
 subjection for hundreds of years. 
 
 In the social records of mankind the greatest attempt of 
 privileged people to carry to deficient races the means and 
 methods of training for life efficiency is the educational work 
 of Christian missions. They have carried to illiterate tribes 
 and nations a complete educational system from public school 
 to university. They have given the emancipation of modern 
 sciences to races held in the bond of an artificial pedantic 
 system. They have released woman from her ancient bondage 
 and ignorance. They have provided undeveloped groups with 
 the best training for the needs and pursuits of life that the 
 world knows. They have taught domestic science and medi- 
 cine, industry and agriculture. From India, a Princeton 
 
 58 
 
TRAINING FOR FULL EFFICIENCY [IV-sJ 
 
 graduate reports that his Indian neighbors grow six or eight 
 bushels of wheat per acre, while with the proper methods of 
 cultivation and seed introduced by the missionaries, twenty-five 
 to thirty bushels are raised under the same conditions. 
 
 The results are social transformations on such a scale as the 
 world has never seen in so short a period. The sons of coolies 
 who did the work of the animals, and those of pariahs, who 
 lived in cowering subjection, have become scholars and edu- 
 cators. The daughters of women who were drudges or play- 
 things have become competent physicians. Age-long social 
 fetters have been broken; time-worn prisons for the mind have 
 been opened ; and great masses of the earth's population are 
 now coming with vision and power to take their part in the 
 future development of mankind. 
 
 Unbiased recognition of this result is the fact that the Eng- 
 lish government has subsidized mission schools in India, and 
 education in China and Japan has now been extended under 
 government direction far beyond the mission schools. These 
 schools have furnished native governments with many of their 
 most enlightened and effective leaders in commerce, education, 
 and statesmanship. More than twenty of the well-known 
 journals of Japan are edited by men who graduated from 
 Christian schools. The contribution of Christian education to 
 the growing democracy of the Near East and the Far East is 
 immeasurable. What forces made the new China? Who are 
 the leaders in movements for democracy in other of the non- 
 Christian nations? 
 
 Here is proof of the help Christianity is giving the world 
 in its search for democracy. When this world movement of 
 Christian education is carried to its inevitable conclusion, when 
 the fullest equipment for life that the science of education 
 provides is given to all the handicapped groups of this 
 country and Europe and to all the undeveloped peoples of the 
 earth, what kind of a world will there be? The educational 
 achievement of Christian missions is a world fact and force, 
 only because some pioneer spirits of the last generation went 
 from the colleges to endure loneliness and encounter danger. 
 
 59 
 
[IV-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 Have the college men and women of this generation the spirit 
 to complete their work? 
 
 Suggestions for Discussion and Action 
 
 I. The Untrained in an American Community 
 
 1. Let us think over the present situation and life experi- 
 ence of the friends who were in our classes in public school 
 and who quit school before we went to college. To what 
 extent have some of them succeeded in spite of lack of 
 advanced education? In what ways? In what cases has 
 lack of further training proved to be a handicap? How? 
 Can we remember the reasons why any of them dropped 
 out? In what cases has personal degeneration followed upon 
 lack of employment, low wages, and loss of courage? 
 
 2. What groups of men and women of low grade effi- 
 ciency are there in our community? Describe typical per- 
 sons. In given cases to what extent is their inefficiency due 
 to lack of training and to what extent to personal incapac- 
 ity? What added training was needed and how would it 
 have affected their lives? 
 
 3. What were the main reasons for the failure of these 
 groups to secure fuller training? Would the raising of the 
 compulsory age limit have solved it? How far was the type 
 of education offered to blame? 
 
 4. How can college graduates prevent the continuance 
 of these conditions? 
 
 H. The Untrained in a Foreign Community 
 
 1, What are the effects upon the community life of the 
 widespread illiteracy? 
 
 2, How does the lack of industrial training affect the 
 . labor efficiency? 
 
 III. The Public School Situation 
 
 I. Let us look into the public school situation. What is 
 the point of view of the local school board? Have we a 
 school system which genuinely interests the children? 
 60 
 
TRAINING FOR FULL EFFICIENCY [IV-s] 
 
 2. How far have the school board studied the needs of 
 our community and planned the schools to meet them? 
 
 3. How far does our public school education train the 
 people for the wise use of leisure? For play? For citizen- 
 ship? For appreciation of music, art, and literature? 
 
 4. What are the most urgent changes needed in our 
 public schools? Which are we willing to work for? 
 
 5. Do we need special provision for sex education? 
 
 IV. Widening the Educational Area 
 
 1. What educational assets has our community beside the 
 public schools? 
 
 2. What is being done especially for the untrained adult 
 groups through night schools? By the manufacturers or 
 the stores in giving employes opportunity for training? 
 
 3. What other methods of enriching the educational life 
 are available, such as library, lectures, or health education? 
 
 V. Religious Education 
 
 1. To what extent is religious development an intrinsic 
 part of education as a whole? What do we believe ought 
 to be included in vital religious education? 
 
 2. What changes in the church and Sunday school of our 
 town would increase their educational efficiency? What can 
 we do to bring them about? What proportion of public 
 school children are not in any Sunday school? Why? How 
 can they be provided with a vital religious education? 
 
 3. What has been done for week-day religious instruc- 
 tion in our town? 
 
 VI. Educational Missions 
 
 1. Review briefly the extent and character of educa- 
 tional work carried on by Christian missionaries. 
 
 2. What has been the influence of this work upon the 
 educational development of the countries? upon the eco- 
 nomic and social life? upon democracy? upon moral prog- 
 
 ■ ress? 
 
 61 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 RESTORING THE WEAK 
 
 Just as the wounded retard an army's progress, so the weak 
 hold back community life in every land and time. They are 
 present today in every community, their pallid faces in the 
 bread lines of our cities, their tragic struggles recorded on 
 our charity books, their weary lives hiding in the barren rooms 
 of our villages. We must reckon with more than the misery of 
 those whose hardships bring them to public attention. Many 
 a family shelters those who are weak of body and crippled 
 of soul, hiding them away from the public gaze with true affec- 
 tion. The community has a duty toward them all. What 
 shall it do with its weak? 
 
 Daily Meditations 
 
 First Day : Jesus' Social Program Is for the Weak 
 
 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been 
 brought up : and he entered, as his custom was, into 
 the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to 
 read. And there was delivered unto him the book of 
 the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and 
 found the place where it was written, 
 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. 
 Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the 
 
 poor: 
 He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, 
 And recovering of sight to the blind. 
 To set at liberty them that are bruised. 
 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. — 
 
 Luke 4: 16-19. 
 
 Jesus seems to have begun his contact with the weak in 
 62 
 
RESTORING THE WEAK [V-2] 
 
 his own home town. Whether they were sick of body or sick 
 of soul, he healed them. That pathetic group on the streets 
 of Nazareth! Who are they in our communities? The com- 
 fort and strength that Jesus brought to weak individuals has 
 been passed on to great groups in all the corners of the earth 
 through many organized activities. Among the first works 
 of Christianity was its ministry to the poor and the sick. 
 From that day to this its fairest record has been the story 
 of its manifold ministry of mercy. Lord Curzon, former 
 Viceroy of India, declared that the greatest influence of Chris- 
 tianity in that country was through its philanthropy, the 
 undeniable evidence of its religion. Beyond the reach of 
 Christianity the sick and the maimed are left without care 
 to die. Jainism has hospitals for animals, but none for hu- 
 man beings. Hinduism has been very solicitous for the wel- 
 fare of the sacred cow, but has never even erected a dis- 
 pensary for the relief of human suffering. 
 
 Second Day: The Sick Surrounded Jesus 
 
 And there came unto him great multitudes, having 
 with them the lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many 
 others, and they cast them down at his feet; and he 
 healed them, — Matt. 15 : 30. 
 
 Read also Matt. 11: 4, 5; Mark 10: 46; Luke 7: 21. 
 
 What other instances have we of Jesus' healing the 
 sick? 
 
 Jesus was always surrounded by the weak. He lived in their 
 presence. At a time when the public manifestations of disease 
 were far more distressing than at present, Jesus was continu- 
 ally among them. He dared to ignore the current attitude 
 toward the lepers, and brought them all a message of hope and 
 cheer. It is a challenge and an inspiration. "When a mission- 
 ary physician braves a storm in the middle of the night to 
 attend a sick girl baby, he sets an entire Oriental community 
 to wondering whether life may not be worth saving after 
 all, even at considerable cost." The Christian doctor has gone 
 
 63 
 
[V-3] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 to countries where native medical practice consisted in cutting 
 with knives, pricking with needles, and other forms of tor- 
 ture to drive out evil spirits, and has pioneered the cause of 
 modern medicine, saving hundreds of thousands of lives from 
 needless death. 
 
 Why is it that we increasingly resent commercialism in the 
 medical profession? Will the day ever come when the whole 
 practice of medicine will be a public ministry? 
 
 Third Day: No Baggage to Hinder the March 
 
 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, 
 Blessed are ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. 
 Blessed are ye that hunger now : for ye shall be filled. 
 Blessed are ye that weep now : for ye shall laugh. 
 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when 
 they shall separate you from their company, and 
 reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the 
 Son of man's sake. Rejoice in that day, and leap for 
 joy: for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for 
 in the same manner did their fathers unto the 
 prophets. But woe unto you that are rich ! for ye 
 have received your consolation. Woe unto you, ye 
 that are full now ! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto 
 you, ye that laugh now ! for ye shall mourn and 
 weep. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well 
 of you! for in the same manner did their fathers to 
 the false prophets. — Luke 6 : 20-26. 
 
 The poor are much in Jesus' thoughts and on his lips, 
 because he has constant fellowship with them. They feel 
 today that he belongs to them. The poverty that Jesus shared 
 is in absolute contrast to all luxury. It is simple, strong 
 living. The poverty he blesses is voluntary freedom from the 
 besetting sins of luxury. As he walked through life, he 
 carried no baggage to hinder his march. His spirit was free 
 because he would not be burdened with material things. Who 
 among us today is brave enough for voluntary poverty in the 
 way in which Jesus lived it? 
 
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RESTORING THE WEAK [V-4] 
 
 Fourth Day: Who Sinned? 
 
 And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from his 
 birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who 
 sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be 
 born blind? — John 9: i, 2. 
 
 This whole incident may well be studied carefully. 
 — John 9: 1-41. 
 
 Contrast the attitude of Jesus and the Pharisees. He was 
 interested in helping the blind man, they in locating the 
 blame for his condition. It is fascinating to follow the trail 
 of the sinner, to run down the causes of human weakness and 
 defect. Yet these Pharisees were one degree ahead of our 
 strict individualists, who commonly hold every man wholly 
 responsible for his condition, and whg pile all the blame for 
 poverty on the heads of the poor. 
 
 But individuals are all the time challenged to face their 
 responsibility for the weakness of others. What about the 
 parents who transmit weakness to their children as the direct 
 result of sex sin? When innocence brings its indictment 
 against parenthood, who shall stand in that day of judgment 
 in the courts of God? How often are the self-righteous really 
 responsible for the very sins which they charge against the 
 weak and deficient ! Who draws the rent from saloons and 
 houses of ill-fame? Who takes the stolen dividends out of 
 the industries that blight and maim? Distance or the hiring 
 of agents to collect the dirty money cannot take the curse off 
 of it. When the tangled skein of social responsibility is 
 unraveled, who shall escape indictment? 
 
 Fifth Day : The Friend of Sinners 
 
 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they 
 say, He hath a demon. The Son of man came eating 
 and drinking, and they say. Behold, a gluttonous man 
 and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners I 
 And wisdom is justified by her works. — Matt. 11 : 
 18, 19. 
 
 Read also Mark 2: 13-17. 
 
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[V-6] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 A friend of publicans and sinners — what a fine title ! What 
 a morsel for the well-bred people of Jerusalem! With what 
 sneering scorn they said it : A friend of outcasts ! How many 
 of his disciples covet that scorn? Yet some have dared. 
 In India converted Brahmins have broken through ancient 
 caste lines and endured the bitterest social ostracism because 
 they associated in Christian fellowship with the outcastes. 
 
 Christ died between two thieves. How many of his fol- 
 lowers today live close to criminals? When Jesus fellow- 
 shipped with them they walked into his Kingdom. But did 
 Jesus' fellowship with the publicans and harlots on their terms 
 or on his own? That is a perilous job for even the strongest 
 man. How may a man be made strong enough to give even 
 that fellowship and make it redemptive in the lives of others? 
 Where can he find the power? 
 
 Sixth Day : The Whole J oh of the Good Samaritan 
 
 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came 
 where he was : and when he saw him, he was moved 
 with compassion, and came to him, and bound up his 
 wounds, pouring on them oil and wine; and he set 
 him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and 
 took care of him. And on the morrow he took out 
 two shillings, and gave them to the host, and said. 
 Take care of him ; and whatsoever thou spendest 
 more, I, when I come back again, will repay thee. 
 Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neighbor 
 unto him that fell among the robbers? And he said, 
 He that showed mercy on him. And Jesus said unto 
 him. Go, and do thou likewise. — Luke lo: :^2>-2>7- 
 
 Recall the picture of those who passed by. — Luke 
 10 : 25-37. 
 
 Christianity takes the good Samaritan beyond the task of 
 binding up wounds ; it leads him out to clear the highway of 
 robbers. But it does not stop even there. It requires that he 
 also discover the causes which make both the robber and 
 the robbed, in order that he may help them. This is perilous 
 
 66 
 
RESTORING THE WEAK [V-7] 
 
 business. The trail may lead straight back to one's own 
 business friends, to one's own household. 
 
 A man of wealth came into the office of a magazine and told 
 of his gift to anti-tuberculosis work. The next day two of 
 the staff went through his factory and found it a breeding 
 place for germs. One of them broke out in condemnation. 
 "Why, what would you have him do?" said the other. 
 "Suppose he went without some of his profits and made 
 this place decent for the girls." Where must philanthropy 
 stop and social justice begin in our community? Are any of 
 us justified in giving all our time to benevolence and none to 
 social justice, or in giving all our time to social propaganda 
 and none to personal service for the weak and helpless? 
 
 Seventh Day: The Test of Life 
 
 Then shall the King say unto them on his right 
 hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the 
 kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
 world : for I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat ; I was 
 thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and 
 ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, 
 and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto 
 me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, 
 Lord, when saw we thee hungry, and fed thee ? or 
 athirst, and gave thee drink? And when saw we thee 
 a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed 
 thee? And when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and 
 came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say 
 unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did 
 it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye 
 did it unto me. — Matt. 25 : 34-40. 
 
 We think of the judgment as a terrible test for the wickea. 
 At the hands of Jesus it was not only this; it was a terrible 
 test for the strong, moral, comfortable church-going people. 
 The question was, "Did you feed the hungry? Did you make 
 warm those who were cold in the winter time? Did you 
 
 67 
 
[V-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 ease the pain of the sick? Out of your rectitude went there 
 any virtue for the healing of those who were sick of soul?" 
 
 Can we stand that test? Are we personally related to 
 these pathetic groups in our own community — the dependent, 
 the defective, the delinquent? We may say, "Lord, I have 
 given my money to missions; I have supported the church; 
 I served on a charity board." Yes, but have we put our 
 lives into actual contact with other lives who need us? 
 
 Study for the Week 
 
 Never since the world began have there been such organized 
 movements to care for the weaker groups in human society. 
 But while this gain is being achieved, new forces for destruc- 
 tion have begun to operate. 
 
 Our modern industrial system is crushing down great heaps 
 of human wreckage. Because of the Great War the coming- 
 generation faces such a mass of human misery as the world 
 has never met before. Society has not only been wasting its 
 human resources, but it has been multiplying the power of 
 the world-old evils of disease and poverty and crime. These 
 evils are contagious. They have power to breed and perpet- 
 uate themselves. There will be no easy way out by doles of 
 relief, or opportunist programs. The mounting mass of degen- 
 eracy will test the strength of our Western civilization to the 
 bottom. 
 
 I 
 
 In every community the poor in their weakness challenge 
 the comfortable in their strength. There is no rural district 
 so remote, no suburban community so refined and prosperous 
 that it has not at least a margin of poverty around its edges. 
 It is not simply the destitute, those in the extreme of poverty, 
 who claim our concern. We have learned how to take care 
 of them. Our community would be considered pagan if it 
 had not established some organized method of relief work, 
 orivate and public. While we do not let the poor starve or 
 
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RESTORING THE WEAK [V-s] 
 
 die outright for lack of bread, while we do not "sell the needy 
 for a pair of shoes," there is still ever present with us a vast 
 group that lives upon the poverty line. 
 
 In India millions lie down hungry every night of the year. 
 "If the modern American almshouses were to be erected in 
 China and thrown open to all who would come," says an 
 authority, "two-thirds of the population would be at their 
 doors, because what they would receive there would be so 
 much better than what they had lived on all of their lives." 
 When constantly recurring famine sweeps these lands, this 
 perpetual poverty is enlarged into wholesale starvation and 
 death. 
 
 Even in our prosperous United States at least one-tenth 
 of the population is not adequately fed, clothed, nor sheltered 
 according to the lowest standards. They live on the run-down 
 farms, in the hovels of small towns, in the dark rooms of the 
 cities, in the shacks and shanties on the edges of the suburbs. 
 The ills of the industrial order heap up on their lives. The 
 competitive system ruthlessly casts aside their inefficiency. 
 Greed strengthens itself out of their necessities. They must 
 pay the high cost of American living with all its inclusion of 
 swollen profits. Everywhere the poor live with the fear of 
 hunger in their eyes, with the shadow of want upon their 
 doorsteps, with dread in their souls of what poverty may 
 finally do to the morals of their children. Prosperity even in 
 prosperous times is an idle word to them. They live from 
 hand to mouth. Any of the ordinary emergencies of life, 
 such as unemployment, sickness, or a funeral, would throw 
 them down below the poverty line, and change them into 
 dependents and paupers. 
 
 While relief work will not avail to remove poverty as a 
 social fact, there is no solution which omits personal service 
 and contact. There is no way up from the bottom except by 
 the leaven of life from another level. Merely to leave a basket 
 on the doorstep is to leave hunger in the house when the 
 basket is empty. To develop a program that will secure eco- 
 nomic efficiency for the whole family is a slower, longer task. 
 
 69 
 
[V-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 Relief work, public and private, has to be humanized by the 
 personal service of the volunteer. A college graduate of large 
 wealth and business connections recently withdrew entirely 
 from business to accept the supervision of the institutions 
 of his county dealing with the poor, and has revolutionized 
 them. Do such possibilities put a new meaning into politics 
 and a new responsibility upon the voter? 
 
 It is disheartening to pull some families up above the 
 poverty line, only to see others step in to take their place. 
 Intelligent relief work leads inevitably to preventive philan- 
 thropy. The mayor in a great inland Chinese city of 500,000 
 was following the lead of this modern philanthropy in his 
 attack upon the beggar problem. He not only made the 
 licensed trade of begging unlawful, but through industrial 
 orphanages for the beggars' children and industrial training 
 for the beggars themselves, sought to make these outcasts of 
 society self-supporting and self-respecting citizens. "The 
 dominant idea of modern philanthropy," says Dr. Edward T. 
 Devine, "is embodied in a determination to seek out and to 
 strike effectively at those organized forces of evil, at those 
 particular causes of dependence, and intolerable living con- 
 ditions, which are beyond the control of the individuals whom 
 they injure and whom they too often destroy." 
 
 The prevention of poverty is not alone the dream of the 
 idealists — it is also the sober demand of the scientists. They 
 declare that poverty now exists only because men are willing 
 it should exist, because of defective distribution, and not be- 
 cause of any basic economic deficit. What obligation does 
 this place upon those who share in the social surplus? How 
 far is the question of justice in the distribution of wealth a 
 world question to be thought out in the Orient as well as in 
 the Occident? How can the missionary help to work it out? 
 
 II 
 
 In one hospital in China, founded and maintained by Amer- 
 ican university men, twenty-five thousand out-patients were 
 
 70 
 
RESTORIXG THE WEAK [V-s] 
 
 treated in a single year. This is but one of seven hundred 
 mission hospitals in various lands. The missionaries have 
 carried modern medicine and surgery to Japan. Korea, China, 
 Siam, India. Persia. Turkey, and Africa. Christianity thus 
 inspires the care of the sick through countless institutions and 
 personal services. 
 
 Alongside of this vast work of Christian compassion there 
 still stands, however, the grim fact of the extent of prevent- 
 able disease. More than six hundred thousand lives are 
 needlessly sacrificed everj- year in the United States from 
 diseases which modern science knows how to prevent ! There 
 is no way to compute the doubtless vastly larger proportion 
 of needless deaths occurring annually in those lands where 
 medical science is in its infancy. The economic waste has 
 been computed into the millions, but who shall estimate the 
 loss to community life? A college communitj- recently lost 
 from typhoid fever one of its strongest professors — a man 
 whose influence on many generations of college men and 
 women was incalculable. That community had knowledge 
 enough and money enough to protect itself against typhoid, 
 but it did not have religion enough to tackle the job. The 
 burden of preventable sickness always falls most heavily 
 upon the poor. Low vitality sucks in disease like a sponge. 
 Comparative mortality figures of the wards of our cities 
 reveal the mass selfishness of the well-to-do, the educated 
 and efficient groups. They know how to protect themselves 
 and their families by personal and family hygiene. But the 
 poor are the ignorant, and they are left comparatively help- 
 less in their weakness. Their chief protection must be through 
 measures of public health, the enforcement of sanitation and 
 the improvement of housing. By the same token the mass 
 selfishness of the nations possessing medical knowledge stands 
 revealed. The answer for the backward peoples is the same as 
 that for the backward wards of a city. 
 
 But the community is wasting its money in medical care if 
 it does not also provide for disease prevention. In one city, 
 where the spirit of Christian compassion has erected a great 
 
 71 
 
[V-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 tuberculosis sanitarium, there is a long waiting list. No 
 patient can be kept longer than ninety days. Only the simplest 
 cases can be taken, and they must be discharged when only 
 partially cured. Yet the prevailing cause of tuberculosis in 
 that city is dry grinding in the metal trades, for it is a metal 
 manufacturing center. Without adequate measures of pre- 
 vention to remove that cause, the community is needlessly 
 wasting its money, its scientific skill and Christian compassion. 
 In many lands medical missionaries have pioneered in stamp- 
 ing out plagues and epidemics. Smallpox went unchecked 
 until they introduced vaccination into Siam. Christian doctors 
 were leaders in the fight against the terrible pneumonic 
 plague in north China. 
 
 The public health movement must be recognized as a mis- 
 sionary enterprise. Is it not the lineal successor of the sanitary 
 and hygienic legislation of the Old Testament and of Jesus' 
 work in banishing the shadow of death from the homes of the 
 people? It develops sacrificial service. It has its roll call of 
 heroes and martyrs — the investigators who have contracted the 
 diseases whose origins they were seeking; the field men of 
 our public health service who have caught the contagion they 
 were fighting; the "doctors courageous" who gave their lives 
 for typhus-stricken Serbia; the heroic medical missionaries 
 who have fallen on the frontiers of the kingdom. Here is a 
 religious community enterprise if ever there was one. Who 
 will show the communities in which we are to live the reli- 
 gious value of pure water, of proper sewage disposal, of ade- 
 quate quarantine and medical inspection in the schools? Ought 
 the community's treatment, both of the sick and of disease, 
 ultimately to be on the same basis as medical missions? How 
 can this be made possible? 
 
 Ill 
 
 There is no community without its moral offenders, those 
 whom we so glibly call "criminals." Sinning and sinned 
 against, they are outlaws of our community life. Their hand 
 is raised against every man and sometimes every man's hand 
 
 72 
 
RESTORING THE WEAK [V-s] 
 
 is raised against them. The contact of the community with 
 them is usually through the hands of the court. Two facts 
 can be put over against each other in our modern community 
 life. One is the apparent increase of crime, particularly the 
 extent of juvenile delinquency. The other is the changing 
 attitude of the community toward the offender. The spirit of 
 Christianity has brought brotherhood into the relation of the 
 community to those who sin against it. Not punishment, but 
 reformation, is now our goal. 
 
 The extent of juvenile delinquency is an indictment of our 
 community life. Think what it means that in one American 
 city fifteen thousand young people under the age of twenty 
 were arrested and brought into court in one year ! It means 
 that the vast structure of the church, working for religious 
 education ; of the school, working for moral, intellectual, and 
 economic development, have by so much failed to realize their 
 constructive purpose. The first work which one group of 
 men found to do was to serve as big brothers to the boys who 
 came before the juvenile court. This naturally led them to 
 consider the causes of delinquency in their community. The 
 definite causes that send boys and girls wrong must be studied 
 everywhere. This is a service which the trained men and 
 women of the colleges can render to their home towns. Have 
 they courage enough to dig these causes up by the roots? 
 
 The roots sometimes run a long way underground and come 
 up in unexpected places. The records of ten thousand juvenile 
 delinquents were traced back to the homes to discover the 
 causes that contributed to their condition. There were three 
 great groups. There was first, the depleted family life in the 
 region of bad housing. There was second, the perversion of 
 the recreation instinct and need. The third great group was 
 improper conditions of work, long hours, and over-fatigue. 
 Who are the real criminals disclosed by such a study of 
 causes? How can we bring the power of public opinion to 
 bear upon them? 
 
 Those who know the principles of the new penology, and 
 share the Christian motive for their achievement can overcome 
 
 72 
 
[V-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 this resistance. Those who carry Christianity to lands where 
 dungeons and tortures are the common lot of prisoners must 
 be equipped to change these conditions. 
 
 IV 
 
 Social study confronts us with the need for more than 
 purely personal religion. The Gospel accomplishes miracles 
 of transformation in individual lives, yet who dare write the 
 triumph of environment over personal faith, of community 
 pressure over personal aspirations? The missionary sees the 
 pride of the school dragged off to child marriage. The settle- 
 ment worker sees the winsome girl slowly degenerating under 
 the terrible pressure of vice and the exploitation of industry. 
 Of what avail is it to build hospitals and leave unchecked the 
 dust trades, the plague spots of bad housing — all the forces 
 that make for deterioration among the poor? An English 
 alienist declares that one of his tests of insanity is to set the 
 suspected person to the task of filling a barrel with water 
 while there is an open faucet at the bottom. How would our 
 community stand a similar test in its Christian social work? 
 
 Three remarkable maps of Chicago reveal the typical areas 
 of weakness in community life. One shows where the families 
 were given aid by the relief societies; another where the 
 mortality is the highest ; and still another where live ten thou- 
 sand juvenile delinquents. The strange truth is that delin- 
 quency, disease, destitution are all massed in the same neigh- 
 borhoods. They are the regions of economic inefficiency — the 
 districts where live the victims of industrial exploitation. 
 In other parts of the city the family has been able to strengthen 
 its life to resist the attacks of these social wrongs. How can 
 the community now do the same for these regions of need? 
 Is not the abolition of the liquor traffic the first step in the 
 removal of one of the most powerful causes of poverty, dis- 
 eas-e, and delinquency? What will come next? Now turn 
 to a map of the world and mark those regions where poverty is 
 most baffling; where disease works greatest havoc; where 
 
 74 
 
" RESTORING THE WEAK [V-s] 
 
 crime is most unchecked. Here also the strange fact appears 
 that these are all massed in the same areas. What have the 
 missionaries done to remove them? To whom do they call? 
 
 Suggestions for Discussion and Action 
 
 I. Cost of Poverty, Disease, and Delinquency 
 
 1. What percentage of the people is a drag on our com- 
 munity as a whole because of poverty, disease, and delin- 
 quency ? 
 
 2. How much does their care cost the public ? How many 
 people's service does their care require? 
 
 3. Estimate the increase in the productivity of our com- 
 munity if poverty, disease, and delinquency were eliminated. 
 
 n. Saving the Community Loss 
 
 1. What are the chief causes of poverty in our imme- 
 diate neighborhood? How much poverty could be eliminated 
 by the poor themselves? How much by the community? 
 How much is irremovable? Why? 
 
 2. What preventable diseases have wrought most havoc 
 in our town the past year? How much was due to the care- 
 lessness of the individual? How much to the carelessness 
 of the community? If average life is forty-five years, how 
 many years were lost to our community life from prevent- 
 able diseases? What single force in our community is the 
 most destructive of health? 
 
 3. How many persons were convicted of crime in our 
 community last year? What proportion were juvenile de- 
 linquents? List the causes. 
 
 HI. Elimination of Poverty, Disease, and Delinquency 
 
 I. What is the most immediate step in elimination of 
 poverty from our community? Consider higher wages, 
 relief work, a thrift campaign, minimum wage law, and other 
 possible measures. 
 
 75 
 
[V-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 2. What phases of a public health program in our town 
 are already in operation? What are the next steps? 
 
 3. Is the point of view in local treatment of criminals 
 retribution or reformation? What immediate changes would 
 the latter involve in the trial of offenders and the treat- 
 ment of criminals? What are the most urgent steps in the 
 prevention of juvenile delinquency? 
 
 IV. Poverty, Disease, and Delinquency in Mission Lands 
 
 1. Compare the general conditions of poverty in India 
 and China with those of the poorest section of the poorest 
 community we know. In what ways does missionary work 
 affect these conditions? 
 
 2. Consider the relative chances of preventing and re- 
 covering from disease in the Orient or Africa and in 
 America. How does this affect our view of medical 
 missions? What is the true function of the Christian 
 doctor? 
 
 3. Describe prevalent methods of treating moral offenders 
 in the Near and the Far East. 
 
 76 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 PROTECTING THE WORKER 
 
 At the foundation of community life is the mass of manual 
 labor. What does industry do to the folks at the bottom? 
 They have long been the mud-sill of the community house, 
 over which the rest of its people have walked to comfort or to 
 power. The vast hordes of slaves who toiled under the bitter 
 lash to build the great monuments of history have passed 
 into oblivion. What value has the life of the common man 
 today in Africa or India or China? What is the fate of the 
 unskilled workers in our own construction camps and vast 
 industrial enterprises? "We think no more of killing a man 
 than of killing a dog," said a fighting man in the Balkans. 
 And an American manufacturer says of the effect of his 
 industry on immigrant workers : "We eat 'em alive." Are we 
 grinding up in our machines the strength of manhood, the 
 laughter of children, the yearning heart of motherhood, to 
 make "cheap goods and nasty"? The Christian community is 
 beginning to measure its industry by Jesus' principle of rever- 
 ence for personality. Can it stand the test? 
 
 Daily Meditations 
 First Day: Getting a Right Attitude Toward the Worker 
 
 And it came to pass in those days, when Moses 
 was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, 
 and looked on their burdens : and he saw an Egyptian 
 smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked 
 this way and that way, and when he saw that there 
 was no man, he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in 
 the sand. — Exodus 2: ii, 12. 
 
 Read Exodus 5 : 1-4. 
 
 Here is the reaction of one strong man to injustice. Moses 
 had to learn in the desert a different method, and then, out of 
 
 77 
 
[VI-2] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 that labor struggle, there slowly came the Hebrew nation with 
 all of its contribution to the social and religious enrich- 
 ment of mankind. It is significant that life in the palace had 
 not paralyzed the sympathies of Moses or deadened his sense 
 of justice. Lord Shaftesbury endured the bitter hatred of his 
 fellow-peers in England, but he wrote the first chapter of 
 modern labor legislation. Jane Addams went from college to 
 share the life of the workers in Chicago and become a mighty 
 force in leading her state and the nation to a new estimate 
 of human values. Already there are signs that the next 
 quarter of a century will see strong men of the nations of 
 the East rise up, under the stimulus of Christianity, to lead 
 in the emancipation of its workers. If industrial management 
 had the human point of view, would it be necessary for the 
 community to legislate so carefully for the protection of the 
 workers? How can more college men be led to see the human 
 values in industry and to conserve them? 
 
 Second Day : The Value of a Life 
 
 And he departed thence, and went into their syna- 
 gogue : and behold, a man having a withered hand. 
 And they asked him, saying. Is it lawful to heal on 
 the sabbath day? that they might accuse him. And he 
 said unto them. What man shall there be of you, that 
 shall have one sheep, and if this fall into a pit on the 
 sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? 
 How much then is a man of more value than a sheep ! 
 Wherefore it is lawful to do good on the sabbath day. 
 — Matt. 12: 9-12. 
 
 Jesus astutely turns the tables on the scribes and Phari- 
 sees. He takes them back to the authority of the very law 
 which they have been evading in their religious conventions. 
 They display much the same reaction to his healing a man 
 on the Sabbath as some very good Christians had to the use of 
 the churches by the unemployed during an unemployment crisis 
 one recent winter. Sabbath keeping and property rights 
 superior to human needs ! 
 
 78 
 
. PROTECTING THE WORKER [VI-3I 
 
 Slowly but surely the Christian standard of values has been 
 set up in the world. "The great thought of the present cen- 
 tury is the transference of value from property to humanity," 
 says the dean of a great law school. 
 
 Our legislatures now give attention to eight-hour laws 
 and minimum wage bills. Congress considers poisonous sul- 
 phur in the match industry, as well as the claims of the pork 
 barrel. But it is still difficult enough to secure adequate atten- 
 tion for humanitarian legislation. A prominent Sunday school 
 worker was recently found at the State House opposing child 
 labor legislation, and the secretary of a Christian Association 
 recently lent his influence to the same cause. How can we help 
 such men to see more clearly the nature of the struggle? 
 
 Third Day: The Workers Want a Chance at Life 
 A college graduate who had made a great success in a min- 
 ing enterprise was telling his bishop what new comforts and 
 luxuries he proposed to give his family the following year. 
 "But," said the bishop, "what about the men in the mines ; 
 should they not have more pay and higher standards of 
 living?" "Yes," said the college man, "they ought to have 
 them, but my family comes first. I cannot do both, and we 
 simply must have these things." In what did his attitude differ 
 from that of the old Greeks who regarded the workers as an 
 'inferior class? 
 
 A manual laborer, writing to a sympathetic friend of wealth 
 living in the same city, records his deep sense of injustice 
 at the two standards of living conditions. They were living 
 in wholly different worlds. Is this compatible with Paul's 
 great declaration that "all are one in Christ Jesus"? If this 
 barrier is to be crossed in religion, must it not also be crossed 
 in the world of economic and social relations between races 
 as well as classes ? Read Gal. 3 : 23-28. 
 
 Fourth Day: A Rest Day Helps 
 
 Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as Jehovah 
 thy God commanded thee. Six days shalt thou labor, 
 
 79 
 
IVI-5] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 and do all thy work; but the seventh day is a sabbath 
 unto Jehovah thy God : in it thou shalt not do any 
 work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy 
 man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor 
 thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger 
 that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and 
 thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. And thou 
 shalt remember that thou wast a servant in the land 
 of Egypt, and Jehovah thy God brought thee out 
 thence by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm : 
 therefore Jehovah thy God commanded thee to keep 
 the sabbath day. — Deut. 5: 12-15. 
 
 Here is an ancient community regulation for securing 
 a rest day. The service which God required on this day was 
 that men should cease from labor and give the same priv- 
 ilege to the immigrant worker who was employed by them. 
 Our Sabbath regulation has been based upon a different idea. 
 It has been an attempt to secure the observance of the day. 
 Now we are attempting to secure legislation based squarely 
 on this rest-day principle. But the monotonous and confining 
 nature of modern industry makes this more necessary than 
 ever before. At least a million men in the United States 
 work seven days a week. The effort for a rest day goes back 
 to the very roots of our religious development. Does this 
 not suggest the religious value of the shorter work day? 
 It puts God out into the life of the common people. How does 
 the realization of this fact make labor legislation a spiritual 
 endeavor? Meditate upon the rights of Jesus as a worker at 
 a modern carpenter's bench ! In many lands toil never ceases 
 for rest days. As modern industry is being introduced no 
 day of rest has yet been recognized. 
 
 Fifth Day: What Counts More Than Results? 
 
 An efficiency engineer was recently asked if one result of 
 the efficiency movement was not to increase unemployment, 
 to push out into the ranks of the unemployed those who are 
 unable to keep up with the speed of the system. He ad- 
 
 80 
 
■ PROTECTING THE WORKER [VI-6] 
 
 mitted that this was so, but declared it was no concern of his. 
 Was he right? 
 
 A salesman who had worked many years for a large con- 
 cern, and had tried in vain to buy stock in the business and 
 thus provide for his old age, was recently told that if he 
 could not keep up to the pace set by the younger men his 
 route would have to be taken away and given to another; 
 that the management could not consider age nor years of 
 service, but simply the turning in of business. This sounds 
 strangely like the treatment of aged animals by the fierce 
 young leaders of a roving pack. Does anything count more 
 than "results"? 
 
 Both these incidents reveal an attitude which is being 
 abandoned by the more humane managers in industry. Are 
 there murderers in the industrial world today? Read Gen. 
 4: 1-15. From that cry to the Sermon on the Mount is a 
 long road to travel. Would we get social justice quicker if 
 the captains of 'industry had sometimes to change places with 
 the unemployed ; if they had to stand for a while in the bread- 
 lines, and sleep in the park? 
 
 Sixth Day: Who Gets Too Much? 
 
 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil : 
 which some reaching after have been led astray from 
 the faith, and have pierced themselves through with 
 many sorrows. — I Tim. 6: 10. 
 
 If the workers desire more money because they seek higher 
 standards of living, good things for homes and children, then 
 their desire becomes a spiritual force and makes for the prog- 
 ress of the whole community. Whether or not the love of 
 money is to be a root of all kinds of evil depends upon 
 whether it is sought for self, or is a social desire leading to 
 higher standards of living. 
 
 The community which has accepted the standards revealed 
 in the Bible has always sought something approaching equality 
 of income. One purpose of the Hebrew law was that no man 
 
[VI-7] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 might be born into poverty. When Nehemiah tried to reor- 
 ganize the life of Jerusalem, he persuaded the rich to return 
 to the poor the interest on their mortgages. The Jerusalem 
 community of early Christians attempted to raise the standard 
 of living for all. To realize such a standard will require 
 much effort and some sacrifice by the strong. Are we willing 
 to limit our income for the sake of justice in the community? 
 Is there hope that men will be fair about the profits they exact 
 from the poor of the community, or shall we be driven to 
 fix prices by law? 
 
 Seventh Day: Labor Serves Human Needs 
 
 For which is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he 
 that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am 
 in the midst of you as he that serveth. — Luke 22 : 27. 
 
 Recall the attitude of Jesus toward service. — Luke 
 22: 24-27; John 13: 1-17. 
 
 Jesus was teaching his disciples that the highest freedom 
 and joy of life come only to one who is able to take the atti- 
 tude of service. Is this spiritual privilege to be confined to 
 certain classes of people and to certain spheres of life? When 
 the United States Government classifies the different occu- 
 pations of the country, it puts one group under the head of 
 "personal service." The minister, the lawyer, the physician, 
 the nurse, the teacher — they serve human needs directly. 
 Workers in commerce and industry serve more remotely. 
 The more complex the industry becomes, the more difficult it 
 is for those who are engaged in it to see how they are serv- 
 ing human needs. They seem to be merely making money for 
 some corporation, for some employer, or for themselves. 
 The whole process tends to become a sharing of the spoils 
 instead of cooperative community service. Can the best work 
 ever be done when people are working primarily for profit? 
 Here is the great question of industry : Can it be organized 
 into a cooperative human service to make personalities as well 
 as to coin dollars? 
 
 82 
 
. PROTECTING THE WORKER [VI-s] 
 
 Study for the Week 
 
 I 
 
 "They build the roadway over which the Pullman car runs, 
 but they never ride in it; they cut the lumber that goes into 
 mansions, but they live in vermin-infected shacks in the 
 woods, and in ten-cent lodging houses in the city; they gather 
 the wheat that nourishes the nation, but they waste away into 
 nameless graves from under-nourishment, exposure, and vice ; 
 they harvest the ice that cools the sick child in our homes, but 
 they have no family of their own." So writes an American 
 minister of our wandering seasonal labor group. How much 
 better off are they than a similar group described by an ancient 
 poet? 
 
 They go about naked without clothing, 
 And being hungry they carry the sheaves. 
 They make oil within the walls of these men ; 
 They tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst. 
 From out of the populous city men groan, 
 And the soul of the wounded crieth out. — Job 24: 
 10-12. 
 
 "How many of you men have ever been married?" asked 
 a minister who houses every winter three hundred homeless 
 seasonal laborers. Less than ten hands went up. "Why not?" 
 The most intelligent man answered as he pulled out a little 
 note-book: "I have kept a record," said he, "of my income and 
 expenses for the last three years. I have never made four 
 hundred dollars in any year. If I should marry a woman, it 
 would mean that when the kids began to come she would have 
 to go out to the wash-tub. I won't ask any woman to do that." 
 
 More tragic still is the portion of working women. "You 
 must go to work," said a prosperous business man to the strik- 
 ing garment worker, an imm.igrant girl. "The community will 
 not support you. If you want to live you must work." "I 
 live not much on forty-nine cent a day," was the answer. 
 
 "Why are you getting up so early?" said the mother to 
 the daughter in the tenement. "It's not time to go to the mill 
 
 83 
 
[VI-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 yet." "I'm not going today ; I'm going to work for Votes for 
 Women. It's not for me; it's for Maggie in there (the thir- 
 teen-year-old sister who was asleep). Look at me — I've been 
 three years in the mill. Will any man want me now? I 
 want things to be different for her." 
 
 In the rocks along the cliff shores of the Upper Yangtze 
 River are thousands of grooves worn deep in the solid stone 
 made by the friction of bamboo ropes during long centuries 
 as boats have been dragged up the cruel rapids by man power. 
 They are monuments to conditions of labor untouched by 
 Christian ideals in a non-Christian land. 
 
 And now comes the exploitation of modern industry. 
 "Each evening along the streets near the mills in Shanghai," 
 reports Robert E. Speer, "two long precessions move, the 
 women and the children on their way to the mills, and the 
 women and the children on their way home. It is a tragic 
 company, for the mills run night and day, week-day and Sun- 
 day, in two long twelve-hour shifts. Children of eight and 
 ten are trudging along with their rice bowls in their hands, 
 and many of the women with them tramp stiffly on their bound 
 and hampered feet. All day and all night long the women sit 
 by the looms and the children stand before the spindles — little 
 wizened creatures, the threads of whose frail lives are being 
 spun into the cotton, and the guilt of their blood pressed out 
 into the cloth." 
 
 If these pictures seem overdrawn, make one for yourself 
 out of the industrial facts to which you have access. When 
 the strength of the factory girl is exhausted by the speeding- 
 up process, does she get the same care as the woman who 
 breaks down in the "higher" pursuits? Who cares for the 
 homeless and unemployed working woman? Compare fairly 
 the conditions of life and labor in your own community for 
 the two groups of workers — the business and professional 
 groups and those who do the so-called common labor. Are we 
 satisfied with the contrast? Are we ready to sympathize effec- 
 tively with the efforts of the workers to protect themselves? 
 After all, in fairness, should not those doing the most dis- 
 
 84 
 
PROTECTING THE WORKER [VI-s] 
 
 tasteful and hardest work receive the higher pay and have the 
 shorter hours? 
 
 Conditions among laborers in every part of America, in 
 every part of the world concern us, for multitudes of these 
 workers are, in a very real sense, our employes. We all use 
 the help of masses of laborers : the garment-makers of New 
 York City, the silk weavers of Japan, the rubber porters of 
 Africa, the coffee cultivators of Brazil and the tea pluckers 
 of India and Ceylon. Are we Christian enough to want 
 justice for the workers everywhere? 
 
 n 
 
 The first expression of the sacr^dness of personality in the 
 world of work is to give to those who do the common labor 
 the same chance to live as all others. The wives of the Breton 
 fishermen have a saying : "The sea is hungry, we must bear 
 many sons." But the mine and the factory have been just 
 as hungry for the lives of the workers. Appalled by the 
 slaughter of industry, the Western nations have been taking 
 steps to check it. Our nation has begun by safeguarding 
 machinery and making factories more healthy ; by its "Safety 
 First" movement, educating both employers and careless work- 
 men. 
 
 The risk of preventable accidents, however, is only a small 
 part of the worker's extra hazard. He is constantly exposed 
 to occupational diseases. There are over fifty-seven distinct 
 trade poisons lurking in modern industry to destroy the life 
 and health of its workers. The bad air diseases which claim 
 so large a part of our death rate take their heaviest toll from 
 industrial workers in the dust trades. The dust of the coal 
 mine and the emery wheel, the lint of the cotton mill, the stale 
 air of the tenement, feed upon the lungs of the workers and 
 never go hungry. "Government statistics show," says Dr. 
 Sidney Gulick, "that out of every one hundred girls to enter 
 upon factory work in Japan, twenty-three die within one 
 year of their return to their homes, and of these fifty per cent 
 die of tuberculosis." The pathologists class the largest pro- 
 
 85 
 
[VI-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 portion of our present diseases as misery diseases, due to 
 improper conditions of life and labor. From this group the 
 manual workers suffer much more heavily than the rest of the 
 population. Their under-nourished bodies, their ignorance of 
 personal hygiene, make them easy victims to the "pestilence 
 that wasteth at noon-day." 
 
 Sum up the extra hazard of the industrial worker from all 
 causes, and it means that he may expect to live only a trifle 
 more than half the average life of the worker in intellectual 
 pursuits. All of us must play the game with death, but when 
 we send ignorant men and women out into modern industry 
 to face death from concealed risks of which they are ignor- 
 ant, we are forcing them to play the game with death after 
 the dice have been loaded against them. "Thou shalt not kill" 
 is one of the first expressions of religion in community life. 
 Is it not just as binding on the indirect, preventable killings 
 of an industrial civilization as on the primitive blood-lust of 
 the ancient Orient? How does it challenge Christian pioneer- 
 ing in both medical science and industrial management? 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the winter of 1913-14 great throngs of unemployed men 
 hammered at the conscience of the nation. The people awoke 
 to the fact that those who want work and cannot find it are 
 a tragic reality in our social order. Statesmen, industrial 
 leaders, and preachers declared that unemployment must be 
 faced and solved. In two years prosperity returned and the 
 unemployed were immediately forgotten. Yet during the 
 regular course of industry there is a permanent fringe of 
 unemployment around every trade and in every community. 
 The tragic figure of the man or woman who wants work and 
 cannot find it is always with us. The seasonal trades con- 
 tinually turn their workers adrift. The pressure of speed in 
 modern efficiency schemes pushes the dead-line back nearer to 
 the beginning of the workers' career. "No man over thirty- 
 five need apply" is a constantly increasing order, and the 
 further down in the scale of work we go, the less secure is 
 
 86 
 
PROTECTING THE WORKER [VI-s] 
 
 a man's grip upon his employment. The lower the wage, the 
 less able he is to provide against unemployment, the more 
 likely he is to have to endure it. 
 
 Morality sags under unemployment. The saloon becomes 
 more attractive than the dirty and complaining home. What 
 is at first "the bitter bread of charity" comes to be eaten with 
 contentment. No man looks the world in the face with inde- 
 pendence when he knows not where his next meal is coming 
 from. The first move of the Christian conscience is to 
 supply relief. But to give men charity when they want work 
 soon brings demoralization. It makes human derelicts. 
 
 Valuable programs of public work for the unemployed have 
 been worked out in Europe. But the real solution of the 
 problem lies in the reorganization of industry for the produc- 
 tion of men and not simply 'the making of goods. When 
 industry is humanized, it will be seen to be the maintenance 
 of the whole population steadily at work for the benefit of the 
 whole community. 
 
 IV 
 
 Modern science has discovered that over-work is just as 
 dangerous as under-work. There is no more brilliant chapter 
 in recent medical and industrial research than that which 
 deals with the results of fatigue. Because it makes for disease 
 and death by lowering vitality and lessening resistance power, 
 the physicians are fighting it. Because of its economic loss, 
 the managers of industry are overcoming it. Because the com- 
 munity has traced its results in depleted motherhood, in 
 sterility, in stunted children, short-hour laws for women 
 have been passed. The moral and spiritual effects of fatigue 
 must be reckoned with by all who seek to Christianize the 
 community. The studies of our twelve-hour industries prove 
 that the exhaustion of over-work is followed by debauch. 
 Fatigue lowers the resistance power of the moral nature to 
 temptation, just as it lessens the resistance of the body to dis- 
 ease. The pressure of monotonous, exhausting industry upon 
 girls is a far more powerful factor in leading to moral down- 
 
 87 
 
[VI-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 fall than any sharp choice between low wages and the easy 
 money of wrong-doing. During a certain period in Osaka 
 one-half of the number of criminal girls arrested had been 
 factory hands. Can those who have been released from fatigue 
 endure that the weaker should suffer this physical and moral 
 pressure? 
 
 Legislation stops at the point of fatigue. Can the Christian 
 conscience rest there? Must it not demand for labor the same 
 right of development that is enjoyed by any other group in 
 the community? The developing life depends upon adequate 
 leisure. Raymond Robins says that when he worked in a 
 coal mine twelve hours a day, the only thing he felt like doing 
 with his evenings was to spend them in the saloon, but when 
 he got work in a metal mine in the West with an eight-hour 
 day, he began to read. It was the opening of his career. 
 Modern machinery and organization have made possible the 
 relief of labor from excessive toil. Who are obligated above 
 others to see that this benefit is not appropriated forever by 
 the few, but actually shared by the many? 
 
 In India, ten or twelve cents is the day's wage for the 
 manual labor of men, three or four cents for women. The 
 wage of the common laborer in non-Christian countries aver- 
 ages about one eighth to one tenth that in America. It is 
 not enough to answer that living is cheap. It is a low stand- 
 ard of living that makes it possible for a vast majority of 
 people in these lands to live at all. 
 
 Even in America in normal times fifty per cent of the adult 
 male workers earn less than $500 a year — less than enough 
 to provide a decent standard of living for the average family. 
 We are again face to face with the effects of industrial con- 
 ditions upon the higher life. The lack of a living wage joins 
 with overwork to weaken the physical and moral vitality of the 
 worker. Family Hfe, the first school of morals, is reduced 
 to its lowest power. The relation between wages and vice 
 has perhaps been overstated, but the undeniable fact is that the 
 
. PROTECTING THE WORKER [VI-s] 
 
 armies of vice are recruited from the regions of low income. 
 The Illinois State Vice Commission reports: "Your Com- 
 mittee finds (i) That poverty is the principal cause, direct 
 and indirect, of prostitution." It is the result of the contin- 
 uous pressure of poverty upon the life of the family as well as 
 that of the growing girl. This is also the root cause of the 
 heavy mortality and delinquency rate of industrial workers. 
 The results must be reckoned in community terms. When 
 industry maintains itself by paying less than living wages, it 
 is piling up a great deficit in human life for the community 
 to meet. Does this imply that the first charge upon any 
 industry must be the proper maintenance of all who are 
 engaged in it? 
 
 Again the Christian conscience has recorded itself on the 
 statute books, but dare we stop with minimum wage laws? 
 A minimum wage will give a living, but it will not give a 
 life. It takes income to provide books, recreation, the means 
 for spiritual development. The desire for income is one of 
 the greatest forces for spiritual progress. "They will want 
 pianos in their homes next," said one indignant business man 
 when the workers of his community were demanding higher 
 wages. The ideal of the abundant life for all the people could 
 be realized in the United States. It would require more 
 personal efficiency, but the greatest barrier is the fact that the 
 income from the ownership of property is greater than the 
 income from service rendered to the common life. If it is 
 impossible for all to get what you now enjoy, are you willing 
 to take less in order that others may have more? 
 
 VI 
 
 Does the pursuit of social justice stop with the attainment of 
 higher wages and shorter hours? This is the final question: 
 Must the worker be less than a full personality at his place 
 of work, or shall he be set free for full development in and by 
 his labor? Most college men and women grow in and through 
 their work. How can this spiritual privilege be open to all 
 the workers throughout the labor world? A modern poet 
 
 89 
 
[VI-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 describes Jesus going through a great factory, not impressed 
 hy its marvelous machinery, its speed, its skill, but still look- 
 ing. He is looking, he says, for his singing-man — the majn 
 whom his Father made to sing at his work. Will he look in 
 vain? 
 
 Suggestions for Discussion and Action 
 
 I. Conditions of Labor (Study agricultural or industrial 
 
 conditions according to type of community.) 
 
 1. What is the net yearly wage of typical working men? 
 Of women? How much does the average workingman's 
 family need for the yearly budget? How nearly do they 
 get it? 
 
 2. What are the prevailing hours of labor among workers 
 in the local community? How much seven-day work is 
 there? How much room do the hours of labor leave for 
 home, church, recreation, and other aspects of a growing 
 life? 
 
 3. Study the local labor situation to see whether health 
 is endangered from fatigue due to length of hours, over- 
 speeding or rush seasons, undue nervous tension. What 
 are the special dangers of overwork on the part of women? 
 
 4. What are the most frequent occupational accidents? 
 What have been their consequences during the past year? 
 What has been done to prevent their recurrence? 
 
 5. What are the prevalent occupational diseases in the 
 community? How much unemployment and death are 
 they responsible for? What preventive measures have been 
 initiated ? 
 
 6. What further measures are needed to protect the 
 workers against accidents and diseases? 
 
 7. In what ways do these conditions challenge the fol- 
 lowers of the social principles of Jesus? 
 
 II. The Square Deal for Labor 
 
 I. What nationalities in the community do the lowest 
 90 
 
PROTECTING THE WORKER [VI-s] 
 
 grade labor? What do they do? To what extent are for- 
 eigners discriminated against in the matter of hours and 
 wages? 
 
 2. Compare thoroughly the conditions of working and 
 living in the community, of the labor group with the pro- 
 fessional group ; with the business group. 
 
 III. Labor Conditions at Home and Abroad 
 
 1. Study the industrial or agricultural conditions in Japan 
 or other foreign countries. Compare the labor and living 
 conditions of the workers in that country with those in our 
 community. Compare the ratio between the wages and cost 
 of living in the two countries. 
 
 2. To what extent is America responsible for these con- 
 ditions? What effect do they have upon the American labor 
 situation ? 
 
 3. To what extent are foreign missionary enterprises 
 being planned to change the working and living conditions 
 of the people? What particular measures are in operation? 
 What effects are they having? 
 
 IV. Community Responsibility 
 
 1. Who is to blame? 
 
 a. When the wages of a worker will not allow him to 
 
 send his children to church or to public school? 
 
 b. When a working girl's health and morals break 
 
 from over-fatigue? 
 
 c. When the supporter of the family is killed at an 
 
 unguarded machine? 
 
 d. When a family starves in a period of unemploy- 
 
 ment? 
 
 2. What is the way out? Is it laws governing wages and 
 hours, state regulation of industry, governmental owner- 
 ship, or what is it? 
 
 3. What can a local community do about it? What can 
 a local church do to serve the labor group? 
 
 91 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 
 
 When the teachings of Jesus led men to call each other 
 "brother," the doom of slavery was sealed. It later made the 
 feudal state impossible. The serf became a citizen. Is there 
 now a similar task confronting the fraternal spirit of Chris- 
 tianity? Are new lords established in our midst? Is despot- 
 ism making its last stand behind the bulwarks of our indus- 
 trial system? 
 
 Daily Mediiations 
 
 First Day: Wanted: More than a Full Dinner Pail 
 
 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall 
 not live by bread alone, but by every word that pro- 
 ceedeth out of the mouth of God. — Matt. 4: 4. 
 
 This teaching has long been applied to the life of the indi- 
 vidual. Christianity has never been content with external 
 results. It has sought to quicken the souls of men, to put 
 them in touch with God. This same search is now being car- 
 ried over to the collective life. The nation cannot be allowed 
 to content itself with an ideal of material prosperity alone, 
 to think it can satisfy the workers with the full dinner pail, 
 or justify itself before God merely by the development of 
 welfare work. 
 
 In a government factory in England the women workers 
 suffered much from unhealthful conditions. Their leaders 
 got the wife of a cabinet minister to visit the factory. One 
 of the girls was carried out fainting from the heat. She was 
 laid on the floor and water thrown over her. The visitor was 
 horrified. "Is this what is always done?" she asked, and was 
 
 92 
 
. INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY [VII-2] 
 
 assured that it happened constantly. "Something must be 
 done about it," she declared as she went away. The leaders 
 of the workers rested in hope that now conditions would be 
 changed. A few weeks later, a new sofa came with the com- 
 pliments of the good lady. She wanted the girls to have some- 
 thing comfortable to faint on! 
 
 Christianity has developed the spirit of compassion, but is 
 it now voicing the stern demand for justice? Is it now creat- 
 ing discontent', both among employers and wage earners, with 
 those industrial relations that destroy brotherhood? 
 
 Second Day : Recognition of Human Values 
 
 Study the teachings«of Jesus concerning the sacred- 
 ness of every human life. — Cf. Matt. 6: 26-30. 
 
 An American manufacturer found himself on an ocean 
 steamer in company with an English labor leader. After- 
 ward he told a friend, "That man changed my view of my 
 business. I had thought before that my part was to get my 
 material in the lowest market, to assemble my goods as cheaply 
 and well as possible and then to dispose of my product to the 
 best advantage. He made me see that I had been ignoring the 
 human factor in production." Here is an application of 
 Jesus' principle of the sacredness of personality. Men who 
 accept this can no longer treat labor as mere raw material. 
 A federal law now declares, "Labor is not a commodity nor an 
 article of commerce." 
 
 It is largely a question of personal attitudes. Do we treat 
 the helpers in kitchens, factories, and offices as conveniences 
 or aids to our success? If Jesus' principle of the sacredness 
 of personality is recognized in personal attitudes, the methods 
 of industrial democracy will develop naturally therefrom. 
 Where can we take hold? 
 
 Third Day: Christianity, a Breeder of Revolution 
 
 And when they found them not, they dragged Jason 
 and certain brethren before the rulers of the city, 
 
 93 
 
[VII-4] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 crying, These that have turned the world upside down 
 are come hither also. — Acts 17: 6. 
 
 What was the occasion of this violence? — Cf. Acts 
 17: 1-9- 
 
 The Roman historian puts this in another way. He de- 
 clares: "Wherever Christians come they destroy our world; 
 law and order cease." Christianity has ever disturbed the 
 institutions of this world. It must, as long as the kingdoms 
 of this world are not the kingdom of Jesus. Disturbance is 
 inevitable under such conditions. There is bound to be the 
 breaking of the crust of life by the emergence of new ideals. 
 Christianity has been in deed and truth a breeder of revolu- 
 tions. It will make trouble for those who practice it, for 
 those who resist it, and for those who are content with a 
 world which It does not control. n 
 
 Those who live from the liquor traffic think it irreligious 
 for the church to Interfere with business. Those who profit 
 by child-labor declare it to be monstrous that the pulpit should 
 interfere with industry. A nation on the crest of a war 
 counts it treason to hold out for peace. The missionary is 
 often assailed as an instigator of unrest. 
 
 Not many years ago men went to prison in England for 
 holding a meeting demanding the right of every man to vote. 
 To advocate universal suffrage in those days seemed absolutely 
 destructive of law and order. Today those who are in con- 
 trol of the industrial procedure think it would be just as 
 revolutionary to advocate the extension of industrial control 
 to all the people. 
 
 Fourth Day: Leadership versus Mastery 
 
 But Peter raised him up, saying. Stand up; I myself 
 also am a man. — Acts 10: 26. 
 
 What led Peter to this statement? — Acts 10: 1-48. 
 
 Here speaks Peter, the independent Galilean. But Peter 
 has met Jesus and become a fisher of men. He has entered a 
 new world of human service. He has gone to Jerusalem with 
 
 94 
 
INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY [VII-5] 
 
 the Master and found the way of the cross. He has learned 
 that ambition must be transformed into service. He has seen 
 the selfish jealousies of the disciples stilled by the Master's 
 great example, as the Teacher became the Servant and washed 
 the feet of those whom he taught. This kind of a gospel 
 makes for equality. There is no caste when a man has 
 learned the lessons of the grace of God, for it eradicates class 
 distinctions. They run deep. In the servants' quarters of 
 great houses, the social distinctions of the world up-stairs 
 are imitated. "A thrippence won't speak to a tuppence," as the 
 saying goes. While Christianity has been breaking down these 
 lines, our modern industrial organization has been creating 
 new ones. Recently the manager of a public service corpora- 
 tion informed the workers that he would not arbitrate with 
 them. "You are my servants," said he, "and I do not arbitrate 
 with my servants." Can he sit in church and hear the Gospel 
 of Jesus, and then go down to his house justified? Is it true 
 that Jesus' instruction to his disciples not to be like the 
 Gentiles, but rather to be as servants, cannot be applied in the 
 modern world of work? Can the world's work be done in 
 this way? "No orders today" is the card above the desk of a 
 Christian man who conducts a worldwide business from his 
 office in New York. Men ask "Can it be done that way?" 
 He does it. Others do it. 
 
 Fifth Day— The Strong are Ministers 
 
 But it is not so among you : but whosoever would 
 become great among you, shall be your minister ; and 
 whosoever would be first among you, shali be servant 
 of all. — Mark 10: 43, 44. 
 
 This is a hard saying of Jesus', especially to those who would 
 confine his teachings only to the spiritual world. Apply this 
 to the world of government and it means Liberty, Equality, 
 Fraternity. Christianity has always worked for a leveling up 
 and not a leveling down. Apply the same teaching to the 
 world of industry, and what does it mean? If there we are 
 
 95 
 
[VII-6] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 to treat men as brothers, are some to be always inferior? 
 The American ambulance men during the Great War said 
 that the English officers talked to them as though they were 
 servants, that the German officers insisted upon being cared for 
 before their men. This grated on the independent and demo- 
 cratic American spirit. And yet America is in danger of 
 carrying these attitudes into the world of industry. Is the 
 belief spreading that well-to-do and educated people and their 
 children should be reheved from difficult and dangerous 
 work, while on the other hand there must always be a per- 
 manent group condemned to soiled hands and hazardous 
 j obs ? 
 
 Sixth Day: Workers to he Owners 
 
 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth ; 
 and the former things shall not be remembered, nor 
 come into mind. . . . And they shall build houses, 
 and inhabit them ; and they shall plant vineyards, and 
 eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and an- 
 other inhabit ; they shall not plant, and another eat : 
 for as the days of a tree shall be the days of my 
 people, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of 
 their hands. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring 
 forth for calamity; for they are the seed of the blessed 
 of Jehovah, and their offspring with them. — Isa. 65 : 
 17, 21-23. 
 
 This great vision of the new heaven and the new earth is 
 seen entirely in terms of the improvement of the life of the 
 people at the bottom. They are released from tears and suffer- 
 ing. They dwell in peace and safety, with none to oppress 
 and make them afraid. They inhabit the houses they have 
 builded and eat the fruit which they have planted. Their 
 spirits are developed by direct contact with Jehovah. Can 
 such a social order involve anything less than that the 
 workers shall also be owners? Where does the obligation 
 rest to discover the economic methods which shall make it 
 possible for all workers really to enjoy the full fruit of their 
 
 96 
 
INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY [VII-7] 
 
 own labor? Are any of us unwilling that it should be done, 
 or would we welcome it? Can we not achieve an order of 
 society, in America at least, in which the vision of Isaiah and 
 the fundamental principles of Jesus shall be translated into 
 terms of action? 
 
 Seventh Day: Cooperation 
 
 But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh even 
 until now, and I work. — John 5 : 17. 
 
 There was perfect spiritual unity between Jesus and the 
 Father — a relationship of absolute cooperation. But this 
 unity, Jesus says, is not to be confined to the Father and Son. 
 Jesus clearly taught that his followers might share his expe- 
 rience and relationship with God. He also clearly taught that 
 they might do this in the world of work, at the carpenter's 
 bench as well as on the mountain-top. 
 
 Modern science shows us the eternal energy at work, and 
 discovers new methods for human cooperation with Divine 
 Power. It therefore increases religion. 
 
 In agriculture and industry men are in constant touch with 
 God. They are using materials which he has made, and are 
 continually cooperating with him through what they are 
 pleased to call the laws of nature. For the cooperation to be 
 complete, they must work according to his spiritual laws. They 
 must deal with men according to his will. With Jesus Father- 
 hood involved Brotherhood. Must not those who desire his 
 relationship with God find his relationship with men? 
 
 Study for the Week 
 
 I 
 Every industrial community is troubled with recurrent dis- 
 putes and conflicts. It is a reflection of the universal indus- 
 trial unrest, which is felt not only in the factory but even in 
 the kitchen, and reaches out to remote agricultural areas. 
 Some people have a patent remedy for this. They would put 
 the labor agitators in jail. But industrial unrest would still 
 
 97 
 
[VII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 persist. It has deeper roots. Some more intelligent people 
 have another remedy. They would improve conditions for 
 the worker. Like kings of old, they have a vision of contented 
 workers plodding on to their daily task like well-fed oxen. 
 Some labor leaders apparently share the same point of view. 
 They look first for* the loaves and fishes. 
 
 But industrial unrest is something more than the rumbling 
 of empty stomachs. It is the stirring of the souls of men. 
 There is something in the labor movement that men are 
 willing to starve for. Better material conditions alone will 
 not satisfy its basic demand. If well-fed Christians are in- 
 clined to rest content with them, important as they are, the 
 workers will not let them. "Welfare Work Won't Do. We 
 Want Industrial Democracy," read a sign recently carried by 
 Chicago working girls. 
 
 What the worker wants is to count as a man and not as a 
 tool. He is no longer content to take what is given him. He 
 will know whether or not his present lot represents justice in 
 the distribution of the product of industry and in industrial 
 control. It is a change of relationship that is required. 
 
 II 
 
 This country has seen some labor conflicts which may prove 
 to be as significant in the development of democracy as was 
 the French Revolution in its day. The Federal Commission 
 appointed to inquire into the causes of these conflicts puts 
 first emphasis on the demand for industrial democracy. The 
 cctmmunity usually cries out first for peace. But peace in 
 industry as in government comes only by a long pathway of 
 struggle. Orderly government came after many tyrants and 
 maraudings, after despots and mobs. It delayed until justice 
 was established. It will so wait in the industrial world. 
 Some day the majority of the people will together give con- 
 sent to conditions and relationships in industry. This is the 
 court of last resort. People make laws and change them ; 
 accept constitutions and revise them. By the same token indus- 
 trial control will not be left in the hands of the few. Indus- 
 
 98 
 
INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY [VII-s] 
 
 try will some day be of the people, by the people, and for the 
 people. 
 
 The development of democracy has proceeded with Chris- 
 tianity. It is not found apart from it. The Day of Pentecost 
 made men brothers in the community life at Jerusalem, No 
 other relationship will satisfy the demands of Christianity. 
 The question is not whether our immigrant workers are better 
 off than they were in other lands or whether the workers of 
 today are better off than the workers of yesterday; the ques- 
 tion is whether they are treated as brothers by those who call 
 themselves Christians. Christianity will not rest satisfied 
 with benevolent despotism in modern industry, any more than 
 it was satisfied with well cared-for slaves. Slowly but inevit- 
 ably it dissolves such a relationship. The Gospel that preaches 
 "The first shall be last and the last first" is a trouble-maker. 
 When it finds a world in which power is in the hands of a 
 few, it makes uneasy nights for those few. Inevitably it 
 destroys concentration of industrial power. Modern industry 
 is at present a struggle for power and advantage between two 
 groups with antagonistic purpose. This struggle is not essen- 
 tially new. It is the age-long contest for the control of the 
 ■economic basis of subsistence. It appears again in the revolt 
 of the peons in Mexico and in the attempt in India to break 
 the caste system which settles by birth the form of labor for 
 nine-tenths of the population. Its latest appearance is in the 
 growing discontent of tenant farmers in some sections of the 
 United States with the limitations that absentee land ownership 
 is placing upon their lives. 
 
 In this struggle the spiritual bonds of the community are 
 rent asunder, "He called us 'brother' in the church," said the 
 strikers, "but when his foreman was robbing us he refused 
 to talk to us in the factory." Men who are antagonistic in the 
 industrial world cannot easily be brothers in the church. It is 
 equally difficult for employers and employes to live on both the 
 competitive and the Christian basis of life. Can the two be 
 harmonized? 
 
 The ultimate expression of democracy and of Christianity 
 
 99 
 
[VII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 in the working world is in relationships of cooperation rather 
 than competition. Then the economic world becomes spiritual- 
 ized. When men work together instead of working against 
 each other, when they work for the common good instead of 
 for their own advantage, God stands again in the workshop 
 of the world. His righteousness is manifest in human justice 
 and his love in human brotherhood. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Under the influence of Christianity industrial democracy has 
 been working out, just as pohtical democracy has developed. 
 It has come up from the bottom of society, where Christianity 
 began. Its primary principle, the partnership of labor with 
 capital, is the central idea in the trade union. As long as the 
 worker must sell his labor in the market, the unions demand 
 that he shall sell on terms of equality. This is the principle of 
 collective bargaining which is now widespread. In Europe, 
 in New Zealand, in Australia, the sanction and support of the 
 state is behind it. 
 
 In this country collective bargaining has established itself 
 in the face of intense opposition, but it is steadily converting 
 employers to its value as an ally in shop management. In some" 
 industries, notably garment making and coal mining, it has 
 replaced industrial anarchy with orderly procedure. "You 
 cannot work out a democratic procedure for the minute dis- 
 putes and the various nationalities of the garment trades," said 
 the employers. But now they say : "We would not go back 
 to the old way for anything." 
 
 Those who desire to establish the democracy of Jesus, 
 however, will not assess the worth of the trade union merely 
 by what it has done to help the employer or to secure better 
 conditions for the worker. They must ask : "Is it a defense 
 against the assaults of the conscienceless exploiter of labor 
 upon the life of the worker, the conscience of the Christian 
 employer, and the welfare of the community? Does it make 
 men free and equal? Does it develop self-respect and 
 respect for others? Does it make for brotherhood in the 
 
 100 
 
INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY [VII-s] 
 
 workshop and between the workshop and the office?" It may 
 include in its ranks many whose sole interest is selfish, but if 
 it does these things to any appreciable degree, then it makes 
 for the Commonwealth of God, and those employers who 
 seek to break it down are obligated to substitute something 
 which will do these things in greater degree. Those labor 
 leaders likewise who discredit the trade union by making it the 
 instrument of tyranny and injustice, are both betraying their 
 fellows and committing high treason against the community. 
 
 Employers who are willing to give good conditions to their 
 own workers, but not to deal with the union, are bound to 
 consider the effect of their attitude upon the struggle of the 
 workers throughout the trade as a whole. The acting principle 
 of some great corporations is, "Millions for welfare work, 
 but not a cent for industrial democracy." How does this 
 work out socially ? Such a policy seems a subtle bribe to make 
 the workers selfish and narrow, to keep them subordinate and 
 inferior, in order that the employing group may perpetuate its 
 control. Will it satisfy the Christian conscience? 
 
 The struggle for liberty has never been free from the abuse 
 of freedom. It has often meant nothing but the transfer of 
 power from one set of hands to another. Oligarchies have 
 replaced the tyrant. The bosses have enslaved the free citizens 
 of a democracy. The sins of labor unions are on record. 
 They make a tragic story, comparable to the disasters attend- 
 ing the search for political democracy. It is largely a story 
 of false leaders and evil counselors. A great challenge comes 
 out of it to those who have caught a vision of service, to make 
 alliance with the leaders who are holding the labor movement 
 true to the principle of democracy. After a Christian labor 
 leader had literally risked his life to compel the keeping of a 
 trade agreement, a Christian employer took advantage of the 
 weakened condition of the union to compel the acceptance of 
 a new contract for longer hours and smaller wages. It is 
 easier to give the workers what one thinks they ought to have, 
 than to work out with them what is mutually just. Yet the 
 slower and more difficult thing must be done, as it had to be 
 
 lOI 
 
[VII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 done in the world of political relations. Those who help to 
 do it are leading industrial life toward the day when it shall 
 be a competition in service instead of a struggle for power. 
 Who can estimate the value of those trained men and women 
 who will patiently and humbly set themselves to this task and 
 give their lives to constructive leadership? 
 
 IV 
 
 The joint trade agreement is not the final expression of 
 Christian democracy, but when the labor conditions of a great 
 industry are settled by groups of men representing both sides, 
 it is a great gain over the days of anarchistic industrial war- 
 fare. In the Joint Trade Boards which havfe been settling dis- 
 putes in the garment trade, the chairman is neutral. He is 
 really the umpire of the game, to see that neither side cheats. 
 This fact reveals a situation of conflict. Collective bargaining 
 is still a struggle. It is subject to the law of trade, "Let the 
 buyer beware!" Each side is playing for advantage; seeking 
 to get the better of the other. The most brutal features of 
 industrial strife are removed, but it is still a struggle with other 
 weapons than those of physical force. What principle of 
 Jesus does this embody? What does it leave unapplied? 
 Unless the roots of industry are transplanted from the field 
 of competition to the field of cooperation, will not the funda- 
 mental evils of industrial conflict still manifest themselves? 
 
 The principle of Christian democracy must be carried to its 
 final expression in the industrial world. It must be applied 
 to ownership as well as to management. The modern cor- 
 poration represents the distribution of ownership to a number 
 of small capitalists. Must this distribution not be carried still 
 further until it fully represents cooperation? A far-seeing 
 statistician who furnishes reports to financiers recently in- 
 formed them that the only settlement of the industrial conflict 
 was to make the workers themselves the owners of industry. 
 This principle has already been recognized in profit-sharing, 
 which is being continually extended. It makes the worker a 
 
 102 
 
. INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY [VII-s] 
 
 partner in the product. It says, "We jointly made it — we will 
 endeavor justly to share it." When this movement represents 
 merely a bonus to reward extra work, or when it is simply 
 an attempt to buy the loyalty of the workers, it is foredoomed 
 to failure. If, however, it is a genuine attempt to "do justly," 
 if it really recognizes the partnership of the worker in the 
 business, it is a step toward complete industrial democracy. 
 
 As the principle of partnership in the control of industry is 
 increasingly recognized, the further vision of common owner- 
 ship of the resources and equipment of industry becomes more 
 clear. How far are the tools of industry now possessed by all 
 whose labor created them? Would such common ownership 
 not lead us on toward the Christian commonwealth? 
 
 A great Christian body has declared that the principle of 
 Christian democracy leads to "the fullest possible ownership 
 and control, both of industry and of the resources upon which 
 industry depends." This principle is being worked out in 
 practice. In Europe the cooperative movement in retail and 
 wholesale merchandising, and also in production — both agri- 
 cultural and manufacturing — has brought together great groups 
 of workers who both own and manage their own business. 
 This is industry of the people, by the people, and for the 
 people. It eliminates the parasites, the absentee owners who 
 toil not and do not spin, and yet draw incomes from the indus- 
 trial process. It does away with the exploiters — those who 
 contribute something to industrial management, but take out 
 far more than the fair reward of their labor. The story of the 
 cooperative movement proves that the teachings of Jesus will 
 work in economic relations. But it pays its largest dividends 
 in the coin of the spirit. It has united the workers in great 
 bonds of service. It has made the prophetic missionaries of a 
 new order of life, willing to forego profit and income for 
 the sake of spreading the gospel of cooperation. Recently 
 there died the manager of a great cooperative business with an 
 annual turn-over of millions. He left less than $5,000 and he 
 had never drawn more than $2,000 a year. Private, profit- 
 making enterprises had in vain offered him many times this 
 
 103 
 
[VII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 salary. Is this not the same spirit that has animated Christian 
 ministers, doctors, and missionaries? 
 
 The widest application of the principle of industrial coopera- 
 tion takes in the community. It leads to community owner- 
 ship. Joint trade agreements may become a mere "plunder- 
 bund" to levy toll on the consumer. The alliance may assume 
 powers which belong only to the whole community, and neu- 
 trals may have no rights left. In the recent anthracite labor 
 controversy nobody sat around the table to represent the gov- 
 ernment of the United States. The dispute was settled by 
 representatives of the owners and workers, and the consumers 
 paid the bills without having any voice in the terms of 
 settlement. When a city owns its gas works, its water works, 
 and traction system, when a nation owns its railroads, it 
 admits every citizen into ownership. Such industry becomes 
 then a partnership of all the people to serve each other. It 
 ties the people together with the bonds of common property 
 and common labor. Just as a family is drawn together around 
 its homestead, so the community is drawn together around 
 its mutual enterprises. When the people have the park for 
 their playground, a civic spirit develops which is absent when 
 to get a glimpse of beauty they must visit the private grounds 
 of millionaires. In spite of the terrific opposition against it, 
 collective ownership and management is extending throughout 
 the world. 
 
 The Christian must measure all practical proposals for 
 collective ownership and management from the standpoint of 
 the social principles of Jesus. Does such action recognize the 
 rights of all the people? Does it bind the people together 
 in fraternal living? Does it throw the weight of economic 
 pressure on the side of moral development, rather than against 
 it? By such tests must the citizen of tomorrow decide the 
 business of the nation. It may be that the Orient, with its 
 long development of communal action, will help the world to 
 solve this common problem. The principles of economic 
 
 104 
 
INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY [VII-s] 
 
 cooperation involved in the teachings of Jesus must finally be 
 applied to the relations between nations and races. The 
 dragon's teeth of future world conflict are buried in the soil 
 of economic relations between the white and yellow races. In 
 South Africa a cultured people holds in leash a primitive 
 people who yearn for a larger life. Economic cooperation, 
 anything approaching industrial democracy, seems impossible. 
 Imagine for a moment the blacks of the diamond mines in 
 Kimberley, or in the gold mines on the Rand, sharing the 
 administration of these vast wealth-producing enterprises ! 
 The task of satisfying the demands of Christianity will be long 
 and difficult, but if the white race is to follow Jesus to the 
 end of the road, it cannot hold other races in economic. sub- 
 jection. 
 
 The whole story of social evolution is a record of the 
 increase of cooperative capacity. Today mankind has power to 
 organize life on a cooperative basis as never before. The 
 Christian whose faith hesitates before Jesus' teaching concern- 
 ing democracy has turned his back upon the facts of history 
 and life. 
 
 The motive of life has to be changed for many people. 
 The world has taught that the strong have a right to the 
 rewards of their strength; it has sneered at the call to cooper- 
 ative service as the gospel of inefficiency and failure. The 
 question is now, what will the strong do? Will Jesus' fol- 
 lowers take the same attitude in industry that they take when 
 they go into settlements and foreign missions, into medicine 
 and the ministry? Will they enter the world of money- 
 making, not for themselves or their families, but to help all the 
 people to transfer industry from the basis of struggle to the 
 basis of brotherhood? 
 
 Suggestions for Discussion and Action 
 
 I. Industrial Unrest 
 
 I. Is there industrial unrest in our community? If not, 
 105 
 
[VII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 what has prevented it? If present, what are the main 
 causes? 
 
 2. What is labor really striving to secure? What are the 
 objects of the local labor and radical groups? 
 
 II. Industrial Relationship 
 
 1. To what extent is industrial unrest justified in pur 
 community? 
 
 2. In our own community, or in an industrial community 
 which we know, what is the attitude of the employer toward 
 the industrial worker? 
 
 3. Where is the relationship between employer and 
 employe thoroughly commercialized? If so, how does it 
 differ from the relations between master and slave? 
 
 4. How do industrial relations differ from ordinary 
 human relations? Have any employers in our community 
 subordinated profit to human values? What is the secret of 
 their attitude ? What human values should employers recog- 
 nize? 
 
 5. How does the relationship between the farmer and his 
 hired hand differ from the relations between the industrial 
 employer and his machine operator? 
 
 6. Study the situation in a Japanese or South American 
 community, where modern industry has recently developed. 
 How does the situation differ from previous industrial con- 
 ditions? From the problem of industrial relations in this 
 country ? 
 
 7. How tense is the relationship between employer and 
 employe? How great a national problem is this? 
 
 III. Possible Solutions. 
 
 1. What is meant by industrial democracy? To what 
 extent do you believe that industrial democracy is really the 
 goal of the labor movement? How does this differ from the 
 ordinary idea of its purpose? 
 
 2. What are the values and the limitations of welfare 
 
 106 
 
INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY [VII-s] 
 
 work? Is it a step towards, or a hindrance to industrial 
 democracy ? 
 
 3. In what ways does unionism benefit the workers? 
 
 4. Does collective bargaining tend to increase or decrease 
 the tension of relationship between employer and employe? 
 To what extent does it lead the way to full industrial 
 democracy ? 
 
 5. To what extent does profit-sharing identify the in- 
 terest of employer and employe? When does it tend toward 
 industrial democracy? When does it lead away from it? 
 
 6. What is cooperative ownership of industry? To what 
 extent has labor a right to share in the ownership and con- 
 trol of the equipment and resources of industry? How 
 far does community ownership of public utilities demon- 
 strate the feasibility of industrial democracy? 
 
 IV. Christianity and Industrial Democracy 
 
 I. How far will the achievement of industrial democracy 
 lead toward the Christian commonwealth? 
 
 107 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ESTABLISHING EQUAL JUSTICE 
 
 The movements involved in Christianizing community life 
 will not be accomplished by mere changes in its organization. 
 They require an increase in its spiritual funds. They demand 
 the full development of the cooperative spirit. The beginning 
 of this development in community life is the effort to establish 
 equal justice. This is a task to v^hich Christianity long ago 
 addressed itself. 
 
 Daily Meditations 
 First Day : Justice Has a Long Record 
 
 Ye shall appoint you cities to be cities of refuge for 
 you, that the manslayer that killeth any person unwit- 
 tingly may flee thither , . . that the manslayer die 
 not, until he stand before the congregation for judg- 
 ment. — Numbers 35: 11, 12, 
 
 These cities were duly established as Moses com- 
 manded. — Cf. Josh. 20: 1-9. 
 
 Here are the beginnings of community procedure, to limit 
 the right of the individual to take blood revenge. Here is 
 evidence of the fact that when men begin to live together in 
 communities, the right and power of individuals must be 
 restrained, there must be adjustment between the clash of 
 rights. So there developed judges, courts, and laws. The 
 whole process can be traced in the Old Testament — the elders 
 sitting at the gate, judgment passing to the hands of the king, 
 and then into an assembly. So in Europe feudal justice, the 
 high, the middle, and the low, all for different classes, gave 
 way to trial by jury and all the processes of modern demo- 
 cratic justice. Our own development in the Western states 
 went through similar stages: first there was the. unrestrained 
 
 108 
 
ESTABLISHING EQUAL lUSTICE [VIII-2] 
 
 right of the individual; then the Vigilance Committee; and 
 these in turn were restrained by the advent of the law. 
 
 The difference between this development and that recorded 
 in the Old Testament is that in Hebrew life the administra- 
 tion of justice was intimately connected with religious think- 
 ing and feeling. Do men now feel that justice must be held 
 sacred ? How can our own courts be made worthy of religious 
 respect from the people? 
 
 Second Day : The God of Justice 
 
 The Rock, his work is perfect; 
 For all his ways are justice: 
 A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, 
 Just and right is he. — Deut. 32 : 4. 
 Read Isa. 45 : 21. 
 
 Why is it that the Scriptures continually refer to God as 
 just? Is it because this is the quality that men desire? The 
 prophets continually talk of a God of justice. He requires 
 of men that they shall be just. If religion is to be a com- 
 munity affair and not simply a matter between the individual 
 and God, those who are equal before God also come to 
 equality with one another. This equality is first established 
 under the law. This has been one of the greatest contribu- 
 tions of our Western civilization to human development. It 
 took the foundation of Roman law and extended it to all 
 people in the community. Look over your own community — 
 do the relations between the groups of people who live in it 
 satisfy the ideals of justice in the Old Testament? Would 
 they satisfy Jesus' teaching concerning neighbor love? 
 
 Third Day: The Unjust Have to be Spotted 
 
 And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. — II 
 Sam. 12: 7. 
 Read context II Sam. 11: 2-12: 15. 
 
 It was no pleasant thing for the prophet to risk his life 
 by facing the unjust king. Nathan had no easy time standing 
 
 109 
 
[VIII-4] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 before David and saying "Thou art the man." Yet God's 
 men can never be silent when injustice is done. They cannot 
 abide one law for the rich and another for the poor. They 
 must interfere at any cost. It was said of Knox, "Here lies 
 one who never feared the face of man," because he was never 
 afraid to rebuke injustice in high places. Luther could "do no 
 other," God helping him. He must stand and speak out against 
 the injustice of the Church. So Jesus could not witness 
 extortion as he passed through the temple and remain passive. 
 God's followers must ever lift the voice and raise the hand 
 against injustice. 
 
 A young man walking upon the streets at night saw a police- 
 man take a drunken man to an alley and club him viciously. 
 Should he have taken any action? Is self-interest or other- 
 interest the law of progress? The philosophers of self-inter- 
 est tell us that no group has ever fought except for themselves. 
 Yet in the labor movement, the union time and again will 
 fight for the cause of the unorganized worker. The chivalry 
 of tomorrow is that of one group fighting for others. Which 
 takes more courage — to stand for the rights of others or 
 to stand for one's own rights? 
 
 Fourth Day: The Righteous Have No Corner on Justice 
 
 I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no 
 delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye 
 offer me your burnt-offerings and meal-ofiferings, I 
 will not accept them ; neither will I regard the peace- 
 offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from 
 me the noise of thy songs ; for I will not hear the 
 melody of thy viols. But let justice roll down as 
 waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. — 
 Amos 5: 21-24. 
 
 Read also Amos 8:4-7; Isa. i : 12-17. 
 
 The prophet always rudely insists on pushing religion out 
 from temple walls to the market-place and field. He declares 
 that God prefers brotherhood to ritual; that he wants justice 
 before ceremony. Jesus put the same teaching in another 
 
 no 
 
ESTABLISHING EQUAL JUSTICE [VIII-5] 
 
 form when he told the temple worshippers to inquire whether 
 their brother had anything against them. If so, they must 
 leave their gift at the altar and go to establish brotherhood. 
 What would that test do today to our church-going, our 
 revivals, our conventions and religious assemblies? If there 
 be in the land any people who do not share life on terms as 
 favorable as those enjoyed by the majority of folks within 
 the churches, God wants something more than church wor- 
 ship. He desires his justice to be established in all the rela- 
 tions of the community life. 
 
 Fifth Day: Honor to Whom Honor Is Due 
 
 And Paul, looking stedfastly on the council, said, 
 Brethren, I have lived before God in all good con- 
 science until this day. And the high priest Ananias 
 commanded them that stood by him to smite him on 
 the mouth. Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite 
 thee, thou whited wall: and sittest thou to judge me 
 according to the law, and commandest me to be 
 smitten contrary to the law? — Acts 22,: 1-3. 
 
 Such language as this coming from Paul, who was some- 
 what of a stickler for respect for authority, is rather startling. 
 It is true he takes it back partially when he discovers to whom 
 he is speaking, but he has good cause for his outburst and 
 there was authoritative precedent for him. The language 
 that Jesus used to the authorities who sat in judgment over 
 the people was not exactly polite or reverent. The Scripture 
 gives no warrant for respect for unjust authority. There can 
 be no sanctity around men merely because they hold office. 
 The official must gain the reverence of the people by his acts 
 and attitudes, not by his office. The day has gone by when 
 either priest or judge could claim to be sacrosanct. When a 
 noted denominational leader paid a fine of twenty-five dollars 
 for expressing his opinion in public concerning a judge who 
 had made a notorious decision in a liquor case, he declared 
 it was worth twenty-five dollars to express his opinion of 
 such a court. 
 
 Ill 
 
[VIII-6] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 If judges will represent all the people, if they will hold up 
 ideals of impartial justice, the people will respond. At a 
 meeting in her early days at Hull House, Miss Addams was 
 challenged by a labor leader, saying that she was under 
 the influence of the capitalists. She replied that she was not 
 controlled by capitalists, nor did she propose to be bullied by 
 labor. The instant applause of the gathering showed its 
 appreciation of independence and fairness. 
 
 Sixth Day : Playing Tricks on Justice 
 
 So when Pilate saw that he prevailed nothing, but 
 rather that a tumult was arising, he took water, and 
 washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am 
 innocent of the blood of this righteous man ; see ye to 
 it. — Matt. 27: 24. 
 
 Here is the typical politician. He does injustice not will- 
 ingly, but indirectly and by evasion. He has a just law to 
 administer, but his future is at stake. What is one Jewish life 
 against that? So he hides behind the responsibility of the 
 Jewish leaders. The trick is as old as Babylon and as new as 
 Chicago. We have made progress from the bribery of the 
 ancient East, but is the spirit of Christianity expressed in 
 all fullness in our local administration of government? 
 
 Politicians who use office for their own profit or political 
 future continually gamble with human rights, even as Pilate 
 did. In order that their business friends may make profit 
 out of the board of education, they condemn the children to 
 inefficiency. In the sacred name of loyalty they let the gang 
 plunder the institutions for the care of the sick and the 
 aged, with never a thought of their treachery to the helpless. 
 For the sake of the machine, they cripple the health department 
 and leave the people to die. Who is responsible for this? 
 
 Seventh Day : Neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, 
 Bond or Free 
 
 Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what 
 judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what 
 112 
 
ESTABLISHING EQUAL JUSTICE [Wills] 
 
 measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you. And 
 why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's 
 eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own 
 eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me 
 cast out the mote out of thine eye; and lo, the beam 
 is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first 
 the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see 
 clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. 
 —Matt. 7 : i-S- 
 
 Jesus continually pushes moral questions back from the deed 
 to the motive. Murder and adultery he makes matters of 
 desire and attitude of mind. So is it here with this issue of 
 the administration of justice in the community. If people 
 regard other races, nations, or classes as inferior and sub- 
 ordinate to themselves, there can be no working out of 
 measures of justice. Does the Californian look on the Jap- 
 anese as a brother? Does the Texan regard the Mexican 
 as a neighbor, to be loved and helped? With this attitude of 
 mind there will be justice; without it there cannot be. A 
 mining engineer in South Africa objected to the missionaries' 
 elevating the natives. "They will be asking for their rights; 
 it will be more difficult to work them," he said. 
 
 The world's friction-point of the future is on this question 
 of the regard of one race for another. National and inter- 
 national policies will reflect individual attitudes. The mis- 
 sionary is a pioneer in establishing right racial relationships. 
 But does not an equal responsbility rest upon the Christian 
 at home? 
 
 Study for the Week 
 
 I 
 
 The cement of community life is the assurance of equal 
 justice — the confidence that all men will get their rights. When 
 this is gone, the community breaks up. The sense of injustice 
 is the yeast of revolution. 
 
 In the Western world our criminal laws break down at times 
 and innocent men suffer punishment, but we have established 
 
 113 
 
[VIII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 the machinery of justice. The task now before us is to pre- 
 vent the law's delays, to overcome technicalities, to abolish 
 special privilege and secure equal justice for poor and rich, 
 white and black, Jew and Gentile, American and immigrant, 
 capitalist and laborer. 
 
 In many other lands there is a more difficult problem. Be- 
 yond the influence of Christianity, crime, oppression, and in- 
 justice are well nigh universal. The oppressed and the inno- 
 cent have little hope for redress. Justice is arbitrary. Single 
 officials have the disposal of property rights and the power 
 over life and death. Bribery and torture are accepted as 
 inevitable. In areas containing one-third of the population 
 of the world, the very machinery of effective justice is yet to 
 be created. 
 
 II 
 
 Theoretically, all groups stand equal before the law in 
 America, but occasionally there are those who are able to shape 
 law-making to their own ends. 
 
 The history of legislation shows continuously the influ- 
 ence of special groups. In the early days of railroad develop- 
 ment the railroads practically owned some of our states. In 
 certain states, to understand the political situation one must 
 find out what group of financial interests is in control. In one 
 state it may be the brewers ; in another the public utilities. 
 Even when the people assert themselves and really make their 
 own legislation, there is still the little joker slipped in to 
 defeat it. The same thing occurs in municipal affairs. The 
 story of street-car, water, and gas franchises shows this influ- 
 ence of privileged groups. Eternal vigilance alone can keep 
 the municipal council free from the influence of special inter- 
 ests and ready to give justice to all the people. 
 
 The remedies are being applied. Legislative reference 
 bureaus are drafting legislation effectively. Legislative and 
 municipal voters' leagues help to defeat the enemies of the 
 common life by making public the record of legislators. There 
 is an increasing people's lobby — a great third house, watching 
 and influencing legislation. The principle of petition, which 
 
 114 
 
.ESTABLISHING EQUAL JUSTICE [VIII-s] 
 
 has so often been used effectively in the struggle for human 
 rights, is getting a new force and meaning in democracy. 
 Through letters and telegrams and personal interviews legis- 
 lators and aldermen are kept in touch with public desires and 
 wishes. Certain organized groups in the community — 
 churches, clubs, Christian Associations — can make their influ- 
 ence felt. No Council will sell out the people's rights, if 
 it hears the people's voice of protest in unmistakable tones. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The American people put blind trust in law-making. They 
 seem to think that law will automatically result in justice. 
 But when the forces of evil are defeated in the making of law 
 they next attempt to influence its interpretation and adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 Is the law administered with equal justice in our community? 
 Has the policeman taken a drink from the saloon-keeper and 
 let him keep open after hours? Is he ordered by some one 
 "higher up" to be blind to gambling and prostitution? Does 
 the magistrate listen to the case against the ward-heeler? Is 
 there a regular price for exemption from obedience to the law 
 so that those who "come across" can "do business," while 
 those who do not pay tribute are so harassed they cannot live? 
 Is there blackmailing of corporations in the shape of subscrip- 
 tions to campaign funds, for which return is to be given in 
 the conduct of the city's business? Have the prosecuting 
 officials no fear or favor for any individual or any group ? In 
 a Middle Western town a group of young fellows were arrested 
 for a drunken spree which involved the failure to return some 
 guns which they had hired for a day's fun. One man was a 
 stranger to the town. He received the full penalty of the law 
 — fifteen months in prison. The others went free. They had 
 political influence. The prosecuting attorney established his 
 reputation upon the conviction of the helpless stranger. Is 
 any group exempt from the full payment of taxes in the com- 
 munity? A Christian manufacturer in the West put in an addi- 
 tion to his plant. A political friend came to see him about 
 
 115 
 
[VIII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 returning his assessment schedule. "You don't need to put that 
 in," 'he said. "I can get it fixed for you." The suggestion 
 was indignantly rejected. 
 
 The machinery of the courts often breaks down of its own 
 weight, without any conscious interference with it. Rich and 
 poor do not always have the same chance before justice, be- 
 cause of the expense of litigation. In one industrial case in 
 this country the first group of defendants were sentenced to 
 prison for a term of years. They had no money to pay a 
 lawyer. Sympathizers in other parts of the country secured 
 a lawyer before the next group were tried, with the result that 
 their sentence was less than half that of the first group. 
 
 The long delay in securing final decisions and the oppor- 
 tunity for numerous appeals frequently defeat justice. In the 
 days before workmen's compensation laws, a continuous cor- 
 poration game was to secure delay after delay until the poor 
 prosecutor was worn out in patience and in pocket book. 
 This situation is being remedied by reforms promoted within 
 the legal profession. Our new municipal courts, our juvenile 
 courts, and courts of domestic relations all make it easier for 
 the common people to get justice. 
 
 IV 
 
 Securing equal justice goes beyond technicalities to attitudes 
 of judges and lawyers. Do the lawyers pit their wits against 
 each other to win in competition rather than to cooperate in 
 joint search for justice? Special interests and racial groups 
 are constantly trying to secure friendly judges. Why are so 
 many corporation lawyers upon the bench? The subtle effect 
 of personal association and social influence must be reckoned 
 with. If the judge has been associating all his life with men 
 of privilege and property, if they are the people whom he 
 meets at his home and at his club, he will naturally reflect 
 their point of view. 
 
 A new spirit is coming into the courts and the practice of 
 law. The courts have been changing their views in recent 
 years because judges have become more familiar with economic 
 
 ii6 
 
.ESTABLISHING EQUAL JUSTICE [VIII-s] 
 
 facts and with modern social forces. This gives hope of the 
 day when all judges shall feel it their high duty to know and 
 represent justice for all the people. A lawyer no longer 
 remains unquestioned who serves his client against the public 
 interest. How far may he advise business men to keep out- 
 side the penalties of law? The lawyer has a duty to his client, 
 but his larger duty is to the community. 
 
 The issue of equal justice goes deep down into the soil of 
 current opinion and prejudice. In certain sections it is impos- 
 sible for members of races or classes regarded as inferior to 
 get justice. It is very difficult for a member of certain rad- 
 ical groups to receive fair treatment from the police, the prose- 
 cuting attorney, the judge, or the jury, because of the popular 
 prejudice against them. Injunctions have been used much 
 more freely in behalf of capital than in behalf of labor. Labor 
 leaders have been arrested for kidnapping other labor leaders 
 and taking them out of towns or states. This has been done 
 several times by capitalists, but no man has ever yet been tried 
 for it. In one of the greatest industrial wars of this country, 
 the leader of the labor forces was tried for murder, but no 
 leader of the forces of capital was ever indicted. In a 
 Western state a group of labor agitators arrested for speak- 
 ing on the streets were driven out of the community by men 
 on horseback wielding whips. The sheriff boasted of the pro- 
 cedure and the prominent citizens at the chamber of commerce 
 banquet applauded. But a federal judge told them the day 
 would come when they would be on foot and labor on horse- 
 back. "Then." he said, "whose back will be scored, when 
 you have taught labor how to use whips?" 
 
 The immigrant does not have the same opportunity for 
 justice as the native American. He is frequently not under- 
 stood in the courts. He does not understand the procedure of 
 the law. Does the Jew stand an equal chance of getting 
 justice? In Chicago a young Russian Jew was accused of 
 attempting to kill the chief of police. The chief of police shot 
 
 117 
 
[VIII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 him without witnesses. The whole community was stirred 
 with instant prejudice against the Russian Jews, accusing them 
 of anarchistic plots. Why are the best men and women of the 
 South demanding that the negro be given fair trial and that 
 lynching cease? 
 
 The restriction of an overpowering atmosphere of prejudice 
 is fatal to the administration of justice. No change of venue 
 would avail here. No judge or jury can be found who is above 
 it. It comes back to the individual citizen. It is a question 
 of his attitude, of whether or not he can get free from race 
 or class prejudice. 
 
 VI 
 
 Many of our current issues of justice are community 
 matters ; they involve classes and races. They are tried in the 
 court of public opinion. In the last analysis it is a question of 
 getting the case fairly before this court of last resort. How 
 often does it get done? Editorial policies of newspapers are 
 largely controlled by the business office. Department store 
 accidents are kept out of the newspapers because of the adver- 
 tising power of that business. A Middle Western editor says : 
 "Of course our newspapers do not print things which the 
 liquor interests do not want printed, because they are the 
 dominant group in this city." 
 
 News is frequently distorted and suppressed because of the 
 poHtical partisanship and economic interests of the owners 
 of the paper. It is impossible to get the truth concerning labor 
 struggles through the press. On one side is the deliberate sup- 
 pression and on the other the unconscious distortion of class 
 bias. It leads to half-truth on the one side and to exagger- 
 ation on the other. In a Southern city it was impossible for 
 the people who stood for righteousness to get the facts con- 
 cerning evil into the newspapers. They finally published a 
 bulletin of their own which told the truth. Here is another 
 challenge to a special group of workers. Will the journalists 
 purge the press of its most heinous sin — the malformation of 
 public opinion ? 
 
 ii8 
 
ESTABLISHING EQUAL JUSTICE [VIII-s] 
 
 The responsibility, however, cannot all be placed on the 
 workers in this profession. What do the people read? What 
 do they want to read ? Why do they read scare headlines 
 rather than solid facts? "I do not want to know the unpleas- 
 ant things" is a common attitude. Scientific training boasts 
 of its ability to face all the facts. It must cultivate and spread 
 this desire through the whole community. Here is a task for 
 those who would live out the social principles of Jesus in any 
 community : to secure equality in the making of law and the 
 operation of the courts; to elect officials who will fairly admin- 
 ister the law; to allay race and class prejudice and to develop 
 and inform public opinion — yet even these things are not suffi- 
 cient to realize ideal justice. The final goal is social justice, 
 a spiritual end. 
 
 Suggestions for Discussion and Action 
 
 I. Equal Justice in a Pioneer Community 
 
 Imagine that we are settled in a new community — either 
 a pioneer mining community, or a town in an agricultural 
 region newly opened to settlement, or a newly created indus- 
 trial city. Let us face the problem of establishing and main- 
 taining equal justice in such a community. 
 
 1. What emergencies will first demand the establishment 
 of the machinery of justice? What will be the first mani- 
 festations of lawlessness? 
 
 2. What effort will be made to defeat equal opportunity 
 and right for all? What race or economic group is most in 
 danger of being discriminated against? 
 
 3. What can a group of Christian citizens do who want 
 to see law and order with equal rights for all established 
 and maintained? 
 
 II. Securing Equal Justice in an Established Community 
 Now think in terms of some well-established community, 
 
 preferably your own. Let some one do this for a foreign 
 community. 
 
 119 
 
[VIII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 1. How far have we solved the problem of securing 
 equal justice? 
 
 2. Where are the points at which we have failed? In 
 what ways have we succeeded? 
 
 III. Justice in Other Lands 
 
 1. Describe the machinery for making, interpreting, and 
 administering the law in an African tribe ; in a Chinese 
 community. What chance is there to secure equal justice? 
 
 2. What changes are necessary in the court system of an 
 Oriental country like China? What is being done? 
 
 IV. Facing a Single Problem 
 
 Take one of the most flagrant cases of defeat of justice, 
 such as disobedience to liquor laws, or discrimination against 
 a special group, such as the immigrants. What can be done? 
 
 1. If the present laws are inadequate to ensure equal 
 justice, how shall we go about it to have them changed? 
 How can the control of legislation by special interests be 
 broken? Must the people use the same methods as the 
 special interests? 
 
 2. If the courts are defeating the intent of the public 
 will, what can be done by the people? What are the chief 
 reasons for this misinterpretation of law? How far would 
 the recall of judges solve the problem? 
 
 3. What are the chief forms of administration of law in 
 our town? If the mayor, police officer, or judge fails to 
 administer the law impartially, who is to blame? Where do 
 they fail to cooperate? What can we do to secure the 
 enforcement of law? 
 
 4. If equal justice is not secured, to what extent is public 
 opinion to blame? How does public opinion manifest itself? 
 How is public opinion formed and by whom? If the news- 
 papers are on the wrong side, what can be done? 
 
 5. If a citizen allows injustice to go unchallenged, how 
 far does he share in the guilt? To what extent can a single 
 citizen secure the proper administration of law? 
 
 120 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 GOOD GOVERNMENT 
 
 The effort to Christianize community life requires the opera- 
 tion of government. All the great social reforms — the aboli- 
 tion of child labor, the reduction of infant mortality, the 
 protection of children from vice, the improvement of educa- 
 tion, the abolition of poverty — every one of them involves 
 government action. Efficiency in government is an indispen- 
 sable tool for social progress. But it must be another kind of 
 efficiency than is commonly admired. It must be efficiency in 
 caring for all the interests of all the people, in giving expres- 
 sion to the common vital desires of the whole community. 
 Such a government is the people doing together in all justice 
 and brotherhood the things they cannot do apart. 
 
 Daily Meditations 
 
 First Day : Autocracy Fails 
 
 The arrogant young Rehoboam thought that his imperial 
 will gave him the right to oppress the poor. 
 
 And the king answered the people roughly, and 
 forsook the counsel of the old men which they had 
 given him, and spake to them after the counsel of the ' 
 young men, saying. My father made your yoke heavy, 
 but I will add to your yoke : my father chastised you 
 with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. 
 So the king hearkened not unto the people; . . . 
 And when all Israel saw that the king hearkened 
 not unto them, the people answered the king, saying. 
 What portion have we in David? neither have we in- 
 heritance in the son of Jesse : to your tents, O Israel : 
 now see to thine own house, David. So Israel de- 
 parted unto their tents. But as for the children of 
 Israel that dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam 
 
 121 
 
£IX-2] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 reigned over them. Then king Rehoboam sent 
 Adoram, who was over the men subject to taskwork; 
 and all Israel stoned him to death with Stones. And 
 king Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his 
 chariot, to flee to Jerusalem. So Israel rebelled 
 against the house of David unto this day. — I Kings 
 12: 13-19- 
 
 Here is a glimpse at one of the long historical processes, the 
 ;age-long attempt of the strong to control the weak. The 
 robber bandit, the brutal chieftain, set themselves up in power. 
 They pass on their power of exploitation to their family and 
 then to a class. Intrenched in economic opportunity and 
 governmental privilege, their descendants continue to rule at 
 the expense of the weak. One of our modern students of 
 .government maintains that historically the state is the instru- 
 ment of the strong for economic oppression. Witness the 
 exploitation of China by the Manchus, and the land question 
 in Ireland and Mexico. What powerful economic groups are 
 .-seeking to shape the destinies of the people of the United 
 .States and to control her policies? 
 
 Second Day: Citizens Must Speak Out 
 
 Then Amaziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jero- 
 boam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired 
 against thee in the midst of the house of Israel : the 
 land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos 
 • saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall 
 surely be led away captive out of his land. Also 
 Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thou 
 ;away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and 
 prophesy there : but prophesy not again any more at 
 Beth-el,; for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a royal 
 house. Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I 
 was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son ; but I 
 was a herdsman, and a dresser of sycomore-trees : and 
 Jehovah took me from following the flock, and Je- 
 hovah said unto me. Go, prophesy unto my people 
 Tsrael. — ^Amos 7 :, 10-15. 
 
 122 
 
GOOD GOVERNMENT. [IX-3] 
 
 Amos had no license to preach. He was a common worker 
 of the soil, "a herdsman and a dresser of sycomore trees." 
 But he could not keep silent in the presence of injustice. The 
 spirit of protest within him and the voice that spoke through 
 him was of Jehovah. What is the duty of a citizen of a 
 democracy in like case? Dare he keep silent? When evil is 
 enthroned, can he justify himself for being loyal to the party 
 and forsaking his allegiance to the whole people? The prophet 
 is no more popular in a democracy than he is at court. 
 Wendell Phillips was the idol of Boston when he attacked 
 slavery, but when he espoused the cause of the workers in the 
 cotton mills, he walked the streets in lonely ostracism. In 
 democratic France, Jaures was assassinated because he wrote 
 and spoke against war. Those who endeavor to lead democ- 
 racy to God must be willing to pay the price. 
 
 Third Day : Evil Rulers Condemned 
 
 Then spake Jesus to the multitudes and to his dis- 
 ciples, saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit on 
 Moses' seat : all things therefore whatsoever they bid 
 you, these do and observe : but do not ye after their 
 works ; for they say, and do not. Yea, they bind 
 heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them 
 on men's shoulders ; but they themselves will not move 
 them with their finger. — Matt. 23 : 1-4. 
 
 Why did the rulers get the bitterest condemnation of Jesus? 
 Was it their temple monopoly? Was it their swallowing of 
 widows' houses by their usury? Was it the burdens they piled 
 upon the backs of the poor? The effects of bad government 
 are always seen at their worst where the poor live. There it 
 means dirty alleys, bad housing, and no moral protection. It 
 multiplies babies' funerals, and boys in the juvenile court. 
 If government is to be an agency of the Commonwealth of 
 God, its power must strengthen and not exploit the weak. It 
 must improve their working and living conditions. What is 
 American "business" administration of governments? Does 
 it mean profitable contracts with the municipality for leading 
 
 123 
 
[IX-4] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 firms, while the costs are passed on indirectly to the com- 
 mon people? Would Jesus not trace this indirect exploitation 
 just as easily as he uncovered the evil of the temple monopoly? 
 Are the strong men and women of the colleges going to sup- 
 port the kind of government that gives special privileges to 
 some and foredooms others to weakness? Is it any wonder 
 that missionaries are not welcomed in many foreign ports by 
 business agents of alien corporations, who are present to drive 
 hard bargains with native folks? 
 
 Fourth Day : The Ideal Leader and His Strength 
 
 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; 
 and the government shall be upon his shoulder : and 
 his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, 
 Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 
 Of the increase of his government and of peace there 
 shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon 
 his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with 
 justice and with righteousness from henceforth even 
 for ever. The zeal of Jehovah of hosts will perform 
 this. — Isa. 9: 6, 7. 
 
 Read also Isa. 11 : 1-5. 
 
 There is much of truth in the old adage: "He who would 
 command must first learn to obey." Only the man who is able 
 to come measurably near his own ideals can ever commend 
 them to the people. Notice the qualities of the Great Leader. 
 He is the counsellor, the adviser of the people, the father, 
 the head of the family seeking the good of all the children, 
 the Prince of Peace, seeking not dominion or power, but the 
 establishment of brotherhood. Do you see such leaders in the 
 world today? Does democracy produce them? Are they pres- 
 ent in your own community? Is it a lawful ambition for a 
 man to seek office with such ideals in mind? There is a theory 
 abroad that in a democracy the leader of the people should 
 only voice public opinion, the representative should only 
 express the wishes of his constituents. But should not a leader 
 make public opinion instead of following it? Should he 
 
 124 
 
GOOD GOVERNMENT [IX-5] 
 
 not lead his constituents as well as serve them? How does the 
 increase of intelligence and power among the people give 
 greater opportunities to the real leader of democracy? 
 
 Fifth Day: Government a Cooperative Enterprise 
 
 Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law 
 of Christ. — Gal. 6 : 2. 
 
 The keyword of our democracy is government "of the 
 people, by the people, for the people." They make it; it is 
 responsible to them ; it operates for them. Yet we still talk 
 about government as though it were some institution set up 
 over us. In the old world, government was an institution 
 to impose taxes, to maintain order, to defend the people against 
 its foes. But as democracy spreads, the real enemies of the 
 people are within the boundaries of the nation. Government 
 then becomes the agency of the people acting together to 
 protect and develop themselves. What is involved in the exten- 
 sion of government in our community? Do the people already 
 control their education, their recreation, their health, their 
 transportation? Are they doing these things together as one 
 big family? In what ways does this make government a 
 field of Christian service? Meditate upon the tragedy of the 
 great groups of the world's population among which such 
 conceptions and ideals could scarcely be voiced as yet, because 
 to voice them would invite a speedy martyrdom. 
 
 Sixth Day : Government Is not Rule hut Service 
 
 Then came to him the mother of the sons of Zebedee 
 with her sons, worshipping him, and asking a certain 
 thing of him. And he said unto her. What wouldest 
 thou? She saith unto him, Command that these my 
 two sons may sit, one on thy right hand, and one on 
 thy left hand, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered 
 and said. Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to 
 drink the cup that I am about to drink? They say 
 unto him. We are able. He saith unto them. My cup 
 indeed ye shall drink : but to sit on my right hand, and 
 on my left hand, is not mine to give; but it is for 
 
 125 
 
riX-7] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 them for whom it hath been prepared of my Father. 
 And when the ten heard it, they were moved with in- 
 dignation concerning the two brethren. But Jesus 
 called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the 
 rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great 
 ones exercise authority over them. Not so shall it be 
 among you : but whosoever would become great among 
 you shall be your minister; and whosoever would be 
 first among you shall be your servant: even as the Son 
 of man came not to be ministered unto, but to 
 minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. — 
 Matt. 20: 20-28. 
 
 One of the most striking phrases of the Old Testament 
 describes the great leader of the people as the Suffering 
 Servant. Here is the secret of the authority of Jesus. It 
 is only when he is lifted up that he draws the world unto 
 himself. The world today calls him master because he first 
 called himself servant. This is the great Christian contribu- 
 tion to the thought of government. The leaders of the people 
 are now called public servants. Face frankly the fact that this 
 means a vast raising of standards on the part of public offi- 
 cials. But a large part of the earth is yet in the grip of age- 
 long governmental extortion. What is done in spite of public 
 conscience in the Christian world is the unchallenged prac- 
 tice of those countries. When the taotai of a certain Chinese 
 city pays some three thousand taels for his post, receives a 
 nominal salary, and retires wealthy at the end of three years, 
 he has achieved success. 
 
 As we extend government over more of the domain of 
 human life, everything is at stake unless this Christian ideal 
 of service can be maintained. Are college men and women 
 not called increasingly to be unselfish ministers of God in 
 the public service? 
 
 Seventh Day: The Final Government Is of God 
 
 Thus saith Jehovah of hosts : Behold, I will save my 
 people from the east country, and from the west 
 country; and I will bring them, and they shall dwell 
 126 
 
GOOD GOVERNMENT [IX-sJ 
 
 in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be my 
 people, and I will be their God, in truth and in right- 
 eousness. — Zech. 8 : 7, 8. 
 
 In that day will Jehovah of hosts become a crown of 
 glory, and a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his 
 people; and a spirit of justice to him that sitteth 
 in judgment, and strength to them that turn back the 
 battle at the gate.— Isa. 28 : 5, 6. 
 
 The old Jewish ideal of government sought to establish the 
 authority of God. It was to be God living in the midst of the 
 people. He was not to be set up on a far-off throne, to be 
 represented on earth by monarchs or priests with divine right 
 and power. He was to rule in reality in the inner courts of 
 life; his being was to be expressed in the common life, in 
 righteousness and justice and brotherhood. Men might know 
 ihat he was among them by whether or not they did justly 
 and loved mercy. So should they walk humbly with him. 
 Here is the real inspiration and authority of government. 
 
 The modern world needs a new sense of the place of God 
 in life. "In the beginning God," and in the end God. The 
 ideal social order that Jesus would establish upon the earth 
 is something more than a house built with hands, something 
 more than can be realized in time and space. He called it 
 the Kingdom of God because he lived in a world where mon- 
 archy had long been the accepted form of government. We 
 need a conception of God that will spiritualize democracy and 
 be real for industrial communities. Will this not view God 
 as the Father, the Master Workman, working with all the 
 children of men for all the good of men? Rightly conceived, 
 may not the developing social sciences be thought of by the 
 Christian college man as a progressive discovery of the will 
 of God as expressed in human communal life? 
 
 Study for the Week 
 
 I 
 The average citizen wants good government. For most men 
 127 
 
[IX-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 it is the smooth administration of law and order. Mr. Good 
 Citizen is very well satisfied if his house is secure from 
 burglars, if he need not be troubled by the sight of vice upon 
 the streets, if the processes of business life are uninterrupted, 
 if his particular ventures are not interfered with. The 
 Chinese citizen under the old government was well content if 
 the officials left him^alone and the taxes were not too exorbi- 
 tant. 
 
 When in times of peace a strong-arm sheriff runs any law- 
 abiding body of citizens off the streets and denies them the 
 constitutional right of free speech, what becomes of the 
 American ideal of government? It is not satisfied with the 
 military conception, the mere control of the external forces 
 of disorder by the strong hand of superior force. Does such 
 government not leave untouched many of the most powerful 
 enemies of community life? It was in such a time of "peace 
 and prosperity" that this country was defrauded of millions 
 of dollars in customs dues by the sugar trust, whose lawyer- 
 protected "men higher up" were never branded with the trea- 
 son for which they were responsible. There have been enough 
 instances like that in recent years to spread among the prop- 
 ertyless a bitterness and distrust that menace the foundations 
 of law and order. 
 
 The mayor of a certain city was pricked beneath his skin 
 by the traveling evangelist whom he heard preach. He went 
 back to his office and ordered the lid on the red light district. 
 The next Monday there came to his office a delegation of the 
 leading retail business merchants. They said : "Mr. Mayor, 
 we beheve in decency, but the levee district brings us a lot of 
 out of town trade, especially on Saturday nights. Can't you 
 raise the lid just a little?" What the mayor said to them 
 was more vigorous than printable. When opium was pro- 
 hibited in China the merchants of Shanghai, with twenty 
 million dollars' worth of opium on their hands, begged the 
 government to lift the ban just enough to let this mass of 
 poison be consumed. By the aid of British diplomacy they 
 succeeded. In any community those who would improve 
 
 128 
 
GOOD GOVERNMENT [IX-s] 
 
 government must look under the surface and find the secret 
 influences that control it. Do we know them for our com- 
 munity? Are we able to identify them with evidence suffi- 
 cient to convince the people? 
 
 II 
 
 For some time now the American people have been .on the 
 trail of invisible government. The muckraker has been joy- 
 ously abroad in the land. The record of our bosses and their 
 overlords is painfully familiar. The "Shame of the Cities" 
 came near to undoing our popular government, but it has 
 proved the saving salt, even though the wound still smarts. 
 
 It is the impulse of most young men to reform political cor- 
 ruption. But many a man has found himself silenced in the 
 convention or cowed by strong-arm men at the polls. In 
 places where this rough work is no longer tolerated, the insur- 
 gent finds the precinct system of organization by which every 
 individual is known, operated by men who make their living 
 out of politics. Facing these conditions, he either gives up in 
 despair and "stands in with the machine," or turns to find what 
 forces can be organized for good. 
 
 One bright page of our political record is the story of the 
 fight against the bosses. Here is a story of modern patriots 
 who dared the common enemy within their own parties and 
 among their own friends. Some have taken their lives in their 
 hands and fought the battle of civic righteousness with all 
 the abandon of missionary martyrs. And this fight is not done. 
 It has to reckon not only with the boss, but also with the 
 "regular voter," who is the strength of the boss. The "good 
 citizen" has done some amazing things in our civic history. 
 In one state a leading educator was elected governor by the 
 machine, against the candidate for real reform, by an alli- 
 ance of the underworld and reliable "party" men, including 
 most of the men of the churches. The key to the situation lies 
 in the hands of the independent voter — the man who follows 
 his honest judgment and conscience, whatever his party con- 
 nections. There can be no real freedom from political cor- 
 
 129 
 
[IX-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 ruption until the power of the political machine is broken. To 
 overcome it the ordinary citizen must often take the attitude 
 of the rebel and stand a rebel's punishment. He must face 
 all the forces that are brought to bear upon the man that chal- 
 lenges the power of "the organization." One of our great 
 political scandals centered around the knowledge of a business 
 man concerning certain transactions. When he began to make 
 public his knowledge, he was not only threatened but actu- 
 ally subjected to almost unbelievable attacks. His home 
 and children had to be constantly guarded. His reputation 
 was assailed with the foulest lies — the price many another 
 man has had to pay. The people must be made to see the 
 throttling power of political corruption. Now it is often 
 obscured in darkness and ignorance. It must be brought out 
 in dramatic form. The final defeat of the "gray wolves" in 
 the Chicago Council was not accomplished until there was a 
 rebellion in the legislature that drove the speaker from the 
 chair. This movement was led by a college professor. Is 
 heroism dead in our colleges? 
 
 IV 
 
 The American panacea for bad government is the improve- 
 ment of the machinery. Direct primaries, the commission 
 plan, the city manager — these are all attempts to administer 
 local government with business efficiency. 
 
 The Christian ideal, however, is not satisfied by honesty and 
 efficiency in government. It demands government by the 
 people. There is danger that the educated, the righteous, and 
 the rich will consider themselves chosen to govern the whole 
 community. We may pay too high a price for the achievement 
 of efficiency in government at the hands of any one of these 
 groups. Unless the common people are directly in control, our 
 last state may be worse than the first. 
 
 For powerful business interests in America to defeat the 
 growing movement for a real government of the people by 
 offering efficiency of administration with one hand, while 
 with the other they take special privileges in profit-making, is 
 
 130 
 
GOOD GOVERNMENT [IX-s] 
 
 even a greater sin against the Commonwealth of God than 
 that of the open grafter. It is a universal tendency. Chinese 
 governors with their "squeeze," Indian princes with their 
 fabulous tax revenues, African chiefs with their enforced 
 tribute, "Boss Tweed" with his graft — they are all birds of a 
 feather. Will their kin persist? How can Christianity exter- 
 minate them all from the earth? 
 
 The Christian ideal of the community life as a great family 
 is coming to prevail, and government thus becomes increasingly 
 a matter of community house-keeping. It involves the pro- 
 vision of water and food and health, of play and education. 
 It is a ministry to the vital needs of the family. Christianity 
 has transferred the spirit of compassion which animates the 
 family over into the organized institutions of the community. 
 Human welfare is now the paramount business of government. 
 This means a great advance in government ideal in America. 
 The poor-house, the city and county hospital, the outdoor 
 relief, tuberculosis hospital — do we think of these when we 
 vote? They spend our money, do they represent our purpose? 
 Would the physician in charge of a great municipal sanitarium 
 have gone to his death hopeless over the attack of the politi- 
 cians upon his institution, if the college group or the church 
 group of his city had been alert to stand by their common 
 interests which he was defending with his very life? And yet 
 is it any less shameful for business men to graft on school 
 books, coal contracts, or franchises, than for the politicians 
 to graft on the poor-house and the hospital? 
 
 Progressive communities are discovering new adventures 
 in government. To provide recreation on a community-wide 
 plan ; to broaden education ; to warn the people against the 
 effects of alcohol and social vice — these are some of the newer 
 functions of progressive municipalities. This calls for new 
 types of public officials. It opens large opportunities for 
 college trained men and women, both in professional and vol- 
 unteer service. Recently an engineer engaged upon the prob- 
 
 131 
 
[IX-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 lem of bringing a pure water supply to a Western city from 
 the distant mountains was offered four times his salary by a 
 private corporation. He refused the offer. He preferred to 
 serve the people rather than to make money for a private 
 business group. In China Sir Robert Hart devoted his life to 
 the reorganization of the customs, helping China to free her- 
 self from the exploitation of other governments and her own 
 traditional corruption. He might easily have reached high 
 office in England. 
 
 When trained minds will set themselves to the task of mak- 
 ing government the servant, and not the master of the people, 
 the tool of the community development instead of the instru- 
 ment of its oppression, there will be new fields to be ploughed 
 that have never yet been cleared. Here in America the task 
 is to purify popular government and to broaden its scope. But 
 in countries holding more than half the world's population, 
 some of its peoples of strongest stock, the whole future of 
 government is in the making. China, just at the beginning 
 of popular direction of the country's affairs; the Philippines, 
 with their future still undecided ; India, with its yearnings 
 for a larger share in national control ; the Near East seeth- 
 ing with revolution; the Western nations extending the 
 borders of democracy — here is revealed a struggle for govern- 
 ment "by the people" confined to no cHme or race, uniting in 
 a common fellowship the workers for good government in 
 every community. What change would it make in American 
 life in ten years if this generation of college men and women 
 were to take a civic oath of service in local government, just 
 as the Athenian youth took an oath for the defence of the 
 Greek commonwealth? 
 
 Suggestions for Discussion and Action 
 
 I. Conditions of Local Government 
 
 I. Who is in control of municipal affairs? Is there a 
 boss? What indications are there of the presence of graft? 
 Are the grafters organized as a gang? 
 
 132 
 
GOOD GOVERNMENT [IX-s] 
 
 2. What control of municipal affairs by large commercial 
 and industrial enterprises can be discovered? 
 
 3. Has the community received adequate returns from 
 franchises? How are public utilities handled? What spe- 
 cial concessions are made to certain groups? 
 
 4. Are the taxes high or low? Why? Are the poorer 
 sections of the city discriminated against in public im- 
 provements? 
 
 5. What is the character of public officers? To what 
 extent are they bound by pre-election pledges? To what 
 extent are they acting as pubHc servants? 
 
 6. What is our appraisal of the character and efficiency 
 of our local government? 
 
 n. Recent Progress in Local Government 
 
 1. What have been the outstanding items of progress in 
 local government in the last four years? Discuss together 
 how they were accomplished. What lessons do they bring 
 for the future? 
 
 2. Is there a municipal league? Are there direct pri- 
 maries? Is there municipal ownership of public utilities? 
 What have been the most effective ways of fighting graft? 
 
 III. Advance Steps in the Local Government 
 
 1. What is the most outstanding present need? 
 
 2. To what extent does the local government hold itself 
 responsible for the community as a whole in some such way 
 as the family does for its members? Is there a department 
 of recreation? Is the health department really preventing 
 disease? How? How far have the newer ideals of educa- 
 tion been adopted? What special measures have been under- 
 taken for safeguarding and developing the lives of children? 
 
 3. What improvements in the city "housekeeping" most 
 urgently demand the support of college graduates? 
 
 IV. Government Progress in Other Lands 
 
 I. What hope is there of securing permanent democratic 
 government in China? in India? in the Near East? 
 
 • 133 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 OVERTHROWING THE COMMON 
 ENEMIES 
 
 To tackle one social evil in any community anywhere is to 
 encounter the opposition of those who make profit out of it, 
 and finally of all whom they can bribe, silence, or otherwise 
 control. If any college man scorns Christianity because it 
 seems to him to lack fight, let him come in on this affair and 
 he will find out whether his Christianity has any punch 
 in it Any venturesome spirits in the college world who find 
 the ordinary paths of life dull and prosaic will get all the 
 excitement they want the first day they strike the trail that 
 leads to the Commonwealth of God. 
 
 Daily Meditations 
 First Day: Real Fighters Needed 
 
 Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought 
 righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths 
 of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge 
 of the sword, from weakness were made strong, 
 waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens. 
 — Heb. II : 33, 34. 
 
 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the 
 course, I have kept the faith. — II Tim. 4: 7. 
 
 Paul's word to Timothy was not a mere figure of speech. 
 He was a battle-scarred veteran in deed and truth, and he is 
 no exception. The powers of darkness are organized to over- 
 throw the Commonwealth of God. The head of every man 
 who stands up to battle for it is a target for them. There were 
 martyrs in China in 1900; in Armenia in 1916. God's 
 country is invaded by the hosts of evil, but the warfare of 
 Christianity is not merely defensive. It is aggressive, with 
 the purpose of transforming the kingdoms of this world into 
 
 134 
 
OVERTHROWING COMMON ENEMIES [X-2] 
 
 the Kingdom of Christ. The war must be carried into the 
 enemies' country. 
 
 Jesus calls for no soft-handed, weak-kneed, spineless fol- 
 lowers, but for big two-handed fighting men. The struggle 
 calls as well for the fighting qualities of womanhood — their 
 tenacity, their enduring courage — forces of untold value in 
 reckoning the battle rank of Christianity. Whether the fighi 
 is here in America or on the forefront in Asia, none can 
 qualify save those who are clad in the whole armor of God. 
 
 Second Day: Defending the Common Rights 
 
 From that time began Jesus to show unto his dis- 
 ciples, that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer 
 many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, 
 and be killed, and the third day be raised up. And 
 Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be 
 it far from thee. Lord : this shall never be unto thee. 
 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind 
 me, Satan : thou art a stumbling-block unto me : for 
 thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of 
 men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples. If any man 
 would come after me, let him deny himself, and take 
 up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever would 
 save his life shall lose it : and whosoever shall lose 
 his life for my sake shall find it. — Matt. 16: 21- 25. 
 
 Peter was a first-class fighting man. The trouble was not 
 with his courage. He had the fiery spirit of the Galilean. The 
 trouble was that he did not understand Jesus' manner of war- 
 fare nor his motive in fighting. He could not understand 
 him who would not allow a sword to be drawn in his behalf 
 but would die gladly for the people ; who would raise no 
 hand for himself, but did raise his hand in the temple for the 
 rights of the people. Peter was still engrossed in personal 
 ends. They bulked too large in his scheme of things. Jesus 
 was seeking nothing personal, but with single mind the salva- 
 tion of the world. Here is the peril of all those who fight, 
 even in the warfare for justice. They are likely to become 
 so absorbed in the struggle that their own ends take the place 
 
 135 
 
[X-3] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 of the community good. As in local issues the test is always 
 the seeking of the highest good for the whole community, 
 so in national issues the touch-stone is the common rights of 
 humanity. Are these too big and vague and far away for 
 us to follow even now? How far are we actually following 
 just the desires of our own hearts in the things we fight for? 
 
 Third Day : Jesus the Fighting Pacifist 
 
 But I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil: 
 but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn 
 to him the other also.— Matt. 5. 39. 
 
 There is an attempt today to discount the teaching of 
 Jesus — to treat the Sermon on the Mount as a mere scrap of 
 paper, because he is believed to teach non-resistance. "This 
 is not practical," we are told, "evil must be overcome, or it 
 will overcome the world; therefore it must be fought against." 
 But is this a true interpretation of Jesus' teaching? Was he 
 a passive resister? Did he fold his hands in the presence of 
 evil and let it pursue its deadly way unchecked and unop- 
 posed? Jesus proclaimed his intention of casting evil out of 
 the world. He sees Satan falling from Heaven; he sees the 
 leaven of his Kingdom transforming the whole world; his 
 attitude is militant and aggressive, but his method is not the 
 method of the militarist. He will not use the weapons of 
 evil, for he sees clearly that to accept its methods is to give it 
 triumph. He will destroy hate with love. Can evil be over- 
 come merely by force? 
 
 Fourth Day : Opposing the Enemies of Community Life 
 
 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 
 ■ for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; 
 and when he is become so, ye make him twofold more 
 a son of hell than yourselves. . . . Woe unto you, 
 scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint 
 and anise and cummin, and have left undone the 
 weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and 
 faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to 
 have left the other undone. Ye blind guides, that 
 136 
 
OVERTHROWIXG COMMON ENEMIES [X-5] 
 
 strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel ! Woe unto 
 you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye cleanse 
 the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within 
 they are full from extortion and excess. — Matt. 23 : 
 15, 23-25. 
 
 To get the effect of these words, we must consider to whom 
 they were addressed. It is as if today Jesus were speaking 
 to church officials and judges. He is carrying the war straight 
 into the enemy's country. Having once identified the real 
 enemies of the people, having once become sure of his facts, 
 he uses no soft words. It is considered improper today to 
 criticize established authority in church or state. "We must 
 exercise the spirit of Christian charity." To call to account 
 the powers that be in religion, politics, or the labor world, 
 is not pleasant business. Yet "spiritual wickedness in high 
 places" must be faced and fearlessly opposed. Notice that 
 Jesus denounces the scribes and Pharisees because they are 
 community enemies. They have defrauded the people of reli- 
 gion; they have become usurers and extortioners. Think of 
 the courage of it — remember who filed the charges before 
 Pilate! How shall his disciples follow in his train? 
 
 Fifth Day: Lonely Hours Assured to Christian Fighters 
 
 A young minister who found vice was destroying his com- 
 munity was unable to secure the enforcement of law by the 
 officials. He was compelled himself to do it. He got into 
 the newspapers. He successfully proved his case against the 
 administration and then the ministers of his denomination in 
 meeting assembled censured him for securing undesirable 
 notoriety and bade him stick to his pulpit. This was harder 
 for him to bear than to fight the organized forces of evil. 
 The most difficult thing Jesus had to endure was not the 
 attacks of the scribes and the Pharisees but the subtle treachery 
 of Judas. A man who fights for righteousness has to learn 
 sometimes that his foes shall be "they of his own household." 
 
 It is a lonesome business to stand out against one's friends — 
 
 137 
 
[X-6] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 a far more difficult matter than to face one's foes. "He 
 came unto his own, and his own received him not." When 
 his followers endure to the end, what compensations come to 
 them as they came to him ! What honor is due to those 
 who, lonely and single-handed, have inaugurated the fight 
 against the social evils of the non-Christian world! 
 
 Sixth Day : Lust for Profit — the Arch Enemy 
 
 No man can serve two masters : for either he will 
 hate the one, and love the other ; or else he will hold 
 to one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God 
 and mammon. — Matt. 6 : 24. 
 
 One of the gains in the campaign for the Christian Com- 
 monwealth is that we are now able so clearly to identify its 
 foes. Our recent journalistic exposures, our scientific sur- 
 veys, our analysis of social conditions, have clearly given us 
 the facts concerning the foes of community life. But these 
 deal for the most part with surface conditions. Underneath 
 there is a common foe, manifesting itself now in one form 
 and now in another. The people of the churches fight vice, 
 and the working group fight economic injustice, yet behind 
 both vice and economic injustice stands the arch enemy — the 
 lust for profit. Back of all the lesser gods of evil is the 
 mightier god of mammon. Was Paul right? Is the love of 
 money "a root of all kinds of evil"? Does it involve the love 
 of comfort, of power, of special privilege? Is it producing 
 the unjust social conditions of our time? Is this the golden 
 altar upon which human lives have been sacrificed in every 
 generation? Is it the last great foe of the Christian Com- 
 monwealth? If it is, we are fighting a fatal fundamental 
 wickedness to which no quarter can be given. 
 
 Seventh Day : Let's Have Community Team Work 
 
 Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, 
 So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make 
 not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow 
 about this time. And when he saw that, he arose, and 
 
 138 
 
OVERTHROWING COMMON ENEMIES [X-7] 
 
 went for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which be- 
 longeth to Judah, and left his servant there. But he 
 himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and 
 came and sat down under a juniper-tree: and he re- 
 • quested for himself that he might die, and said, It 
 is enough; now, O Jehovah, take away my life; for I 
 am not better than my fathers. . . . And he came 
 thither unto a cave, and lodged there ; and, behold, the 
 word of Jehovah came to him, and he said unto him, 
 What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have 
 been very jealous for Jehovah, the God of hosts; for 
 the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, 
 thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with 
 the sword : and I, even I only, am left ; and they seek 
 my life, to take it away. — I Kings 19 : 2-4, 9-10.' 
 
 It is folly today in most communities to be fighting evil 
 alone and single-handed, for evil is socialized and mobilized. 
 The only effective way to meet it is to organize all the forces 
 of good. This is one of the compelling tasks of leadership in 
 all communities — to get together the people who believe in 
 righteousness, the forces of good will. This is the principle 
 back of the rapidly developing interdenominational union of 
 cooperative movements in mission lands. Organized team 
 work is what is needed. In battle, a regiment goes to pieces 
 when its officers are killed, unless there be some leader to 
 step into the breach and rally the forces. So in any com- 
 munity there needs to be a rallying point in the fight against 
 evil. Some courageous personality is often all that is needed 
 to fuse the latent forces of righteousness into an effective 
 organization. In one city in this country a man whose name 
 was known to but few people, was for years the vital force 
 in getting together all the agencies for good. By his quiet, 
 unobtrusive influence he was able to become a focal point, 
 uniting those who otherwise never would have worked to- 
 gether. Many a plan and many an achievement for progress 
 originated in that man's mind, but the public never knew that 
 this unselfish, devoted personality behind the scenes was its real 
 leader. 
 
 139 
 
[X-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 Study for the Week 
 
 I 
 
 A few years ago a college graduate went into the min- 
 istry. He had the tastes and training of a scholar. His own 
 choice would have been a professor's chair, but the turn of 
 denominational machinery put him into a city pastorate. He 
 saw vice encroaching upon the life of the young people of the 
 community. He came to understand the system by which the 
 underworld is permitted to do its business. He organized a 
 neighborhood club and secured convictions for some local 
 offenders. Gradually the evidence came in against those 
 "higher ujd" who were receiving the big money from the vice 
 business. One of his church members was a local politician. 
 With his backing he proceeded to gather evidence against the 
 administration. His plan became known and the beast bared 
 its fangs. The work was all done quietly and very respect- 
 ably. Word came from the city hall to the local politician : 
 "You stop the mouth of that preacher, or you'll get yours!" 
 Soon there was a meeting of the church board and a request 
 was made that the minister resign from the presidency of the 
 Neighborhood Club. Said a prominent surgeon who heard his 
 answer : ''Talk about your militant Christianity ! That boy 
 did me more good in five minutes than all the sermons I have 
 heard in a life time." 
 
 A pastor in a town of 1,200 saw the saloon undermining the 
 common life. He preached against it. He agitated the matter 
 with other ministers and leading laymen. A community 
 organization was formed to rally the public opinion of the 
 town. The question came to the polls and liquor was voted 
 out. Then a place was slyly opened in an alley. Proof of 
 liquor selling was secured and the offender prosecuted, and 
 the law enforced. Then came a long steady campaign to 
 keep public opinion staunch against the saloon and to hold 
 the town dry. The fight was typical of a thousand others the 
 nation over by which the saloon has been driven out of three- 
 fourths of the area of the United States. 
 
 140 
 
OVERTHROWING COMMON ENEMIES [X-s] 
 
 . Opium was for years the curse of China, following the 
 treaty of i860 with Great Britain. Missionaries worked 
 against it, and long before any effective national measures 
 had been taken, no opium smoker was accepted as a church 
 member. Later an anti-opium league was organized. Next 
 a memorial signed by 1,333 missionaries of all nationalities 
 'from 450 cities was sent to the throne. Then came the impe- 
 rial decrees of 1906-8 against poppy-growing and opium smok- 
 ing. But such decrees amounted to little more than advice to 
 the provinces. There the fight was waged by Chinese and 
 foreigners together. But Great Britain was not eager to give 
 up her lucrative trade in Indian opium with China. Finally it 
 was agreed that Indian importations should be reduced year 
 by year as poppy-growing in China was stopped. By this 
 time a National Opium Prohibition Union, under Chinese 
 leadership, had been formed. A national gathering was held 
 and prohibitive action hastened. By 1915 it seemed probable 
 that fifteen of the eighteen provinces had been closed to the 
 opium traffic. The public burning of $50,000 worth of the 
 drug in Tientsin was but one of many spectacular incidents of 
 this remarkable nation-wide campaign. 
 
 II 
 
 These are no isolated incidents. In every community, in 
 every nation, there are those who work against its well- 
 being. They possess great areas of our community life. 
 Some of them work openly and brazenly, others, beneath the 
 surface, plot in darkness. We call them "the underworld." 
 They have dug themselves in deep. They will not be dis- 
 lodged without a struggle. The attempt to make the world 
 Christian is no holiday parade. When the plans of evil are 
 really resisted in the community, when they are thwarted, 
 then the beast rages. In the same campaign in the first 
 city mentioned above, a young college professor was hounded 
 to another city and a militant reformer was threatened with 
 death. This is no light battle. Those who face the many- 
 headed beast must be prepared to endure danger and to suffer 
 
 141 
 
[X-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 wounds. The price is heavy. Ask Rose Livingstone with the 
 scars on her body, or Ben Lindsey with the wounds in his 
 soul. 
 
 We have been trained to think in the terms of individuals, 
 but the foes of the community are not simply individuals of 
 evil mind and malicious purpose. Evil is mobilized. It moves 
 mighty forces in great campaigns. A Christian worker was 
 instrumental in securing the conversion of a young college 
 graduate whose brains had been hired by the liquor forces. 
 Going to New York with him one day he said : "Were you ever 
 here before?" "Yes," he replied. "What were you doing?" 
 "I was working out a plan to help the liquor people keep 
 the small towns of the state from ^oing dry." In his own little 
 community that Christian worker at that very time was 
 engaged in a fight to keep the town from remaining wet. 
 Here was a little group of workers in a remote community, 
 fighting a great national organization with its money and 
 its hired brains and not knowing the forces that were arrayed 
 against them. 
 
 Evil has been mobilized in other forms. The evidence of a 
 gambling trust perennially appears in the papers of our great 
 cities. The vice traffic plans to trap the girls of our suburbs 
 and of our country villages. Just as the family has its 
 skeleton in the closet, so every community suffers from these 
 great evils. The suburb drives out the licensed liquor traffic, 
 but the blind tiger persists. It refuses to permit vice, but it 
 fails .to organize recreation and the evening trains to the city 
 are crowded with young people. A city mission that gets 
 large support from a city suburb secretly rescued from a 
 house of ill-fame a daughter of one of the homes of that very 
 suburb. The country community has its derelicts who come 
 home, stricken by the city vices, to spread contamination and 
 to die in its midst. 
 
 The forces of evil are organized for international business 
 and push their wares to the limits of adventuresome profit 
 seeking. The underworld is worldwide. Even in the Orient 
 the missionaries are having to face the organization of vice 
 
 142 
 
OVERTHROWING COMMON ENEMIES [X-s] 
 
 from the Western world. In addition to having to fight 
 the sins of heathen communities and corruption in native 
 government, they must now meet the massed power of 
 Western finance invested for the destruction of the bodies 
 and the souls of men. The opium dens of the foreign 
 section of Shanghai, administered by the representatives of 
 Western nations, were allowed to continue their nefarious 
 traffic for months after the Chinese officials in the native sec- 
 tion of Shanghai had abolished it. The excuse was the one so 
 familiar in America — the municipal administration needed the 
 money. An English doctor in Africa does his utmost to stop 
 the ravages of drink and lust among the native peoples of his 
 territory, and continually reads in the shipping news of the 
 clearance of big cargoes of rum for Africa from the ports of 
 England and the United States. How shall the forces of right- 
 eousness be made as effective on a world-wide scale as the 
 forces of evil? 
 
 Ill 
 
 Underneath all the organized activities of evil is the drive 
 of the profit motive. Devine says: "I have yet to find the 
 reform movement or the philanthropic undertaking which 
 does not at some point or other see its efforts thwarted by 
 some organized opposition which has its root in pecuniary 
 profit — unholy, obviously illegal profit, or, it may be, quite as 
 often outwardly respectable profit, sanctioned by law, and shar- 
 ing, it may be, with church and philanthropy, but none the 
 less at bottom anti-social, injurious to health or morals, worthy 
 to be outlawed as soon as its evil, nature is understood." 
 Ross says : "All the giant sins of our time are connected with 
 money making." A civic leader determined to find out where 
 the notorious alderman, whose name is a by-word the country 
 over, was securing his funds. Unexpectedly he found that 
 the leading contributor was the most powerful and respected 
 merchant in the city. Why was such a man interested in 
 keeping in the Council the leader of the underworld? The 
 answer was, his investments in traction interests. 
 
 143 
 
[X-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 The most powerful enemy of community life is predatory 
 business — business that seeks to make profit out of the whole 
 community, regardless of the results to the community life. 
 It has its standards of ethics for personal dealings, but it has 
 no ethics when it deals with the community as a whole. The 
 real anarchy in our communities is the destruction of their 
 life by the successful plunderers. The bomb thrower gets 
 caught and punished. Nobody wants to follow him, but 
 the man who can make a fortune by evading the law or 
 destroying community rights, and "gets by," sets a false 
 standard of success. What is the reason that business is so 
 often carried to the point of community destruction? It is 
 because so many men put profit above all other values. For 
 the sake of profit men have locked the doors of their factories 
 and their workers have burned to a crisp ; they have adulter- 
 ated the food that children eat and the medicines that babies 
 take; they have sent boats to sea overloaded, undermanned, 
 and without safety appliances; they have double-crossed child- 
 labor and safety-first legislation; they have broken down the 
 health, the strength, and the morals of the community in 
 their factories and mines. 
 
 Whoever enters the campaign against Mammon must see 
 its beginning and its ending. It will begin in his own life 
 with his personal interests and affiliations. How these blind 
 and paralyze men's courage! It is hard to see the justice of 
 labor's demands when one's own income comes from indus- 
 trial securities. College professors who work during vaca- 
 tions on high salaries for public service corporations adopt a 
 scale of living that makes it hard for them to adjust them- 
 selves to the sterner demands of academic life. Does this 
 help them to see injustice in the relations of those corporations 
 to the community? The church that is receiving large gifts 
 for education and missions from big business is not likely to 
 see clearly all the relations of big business to the common 
 welfare. What a sign of hope it is to learn of two millionaires 
 with great investments in Mexico, declaring that they wished 
 no man's blood shed to save their dollars ! Another sign of 
 
 144 
 
OVERTHROWIXG COMMON EXEMIES [X-s] 
 
 Christian progress is the fact that the conscience of youth is 
 being quickened today. The college girl who goes back to her 
 home community and finds herself compelled to support the 
 strikers in her own father's establishment understands what 
 Jesus meant by saying, "He that loveth father and mother 
 more than me is not worthy of me." 
 
 A young college graduate who had risen rapidly as a 
 reporter on a New York daily w^as covering the news from 
 the great anthracite coal strike. He was instructed by the 
 owner, a man high in government circles, under no circum- 
 stances to allow the news to be favorable to the strikers. He 
 promptly threw down his pencil and walked out — never to 
 return. He won spiritual freedom at the cost of financial 
 success, and today he is a writer of telling power. Two young 
 Chinese were recently won to Christianity through the superior 
 endurance of native Christians in the tasks developed by their 
 social study class in Peking. They both left positions in 
 the customs service for Christian social work at one-fourth 
 their former salaries. Only he can lead in the fight against 
 Mammon who has fought and won the battle in his own life; 
 who has learned like Jesus to live in all simplicity. That 
 man has no price ; he cannot be bought directly or indirectly. 
 He is a baffling puzzle to those who believe in the power of 
 ^Mammon. 
 
 IV 
 
 Since the majority of people live their lives practically on 
 the basis of the belief that business comes first, he who chal- 
 lenges this is facing the sin at the heart of the community. 
 The Christian is compelled to question the established habits 
 and customs of community life, and likewise its moods 
 and tempers. Time and again the hardest fight the leaders of 
 the community have is with the community's own evil spirit. 
 On occasion it gives itself over to passion and prejudice; it 
 follows low ideals; it becomes its own worst enemy. Bent 
 on evil, it goes to its own destruction. Then some lonely 
 spirits must stand out against it. So Garrison had to stand 
 
 145 
 
[X-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 out against slavery; so men in England stood out against the 
 Boer War; so sometimes men and women in America face 
 the lynching mob. 
 
 In every community someone has to take the lead — someone 
 who can bear no longer the insolence of the common enemy. 
 There is never any substitute for the moral passion of him who 
 will not abide conditions of evil — often some fiery-hearted 
 radical with an Irish soul or some quiet citizen behind the 
 scenes short on words but long on deeds ! No expert can be 
 brought in from anywhere to do their work. Agitation, edu- 
 cation, personal persuasion, the ballot, law enforcement, pre- 
 ventive measures — the methods are the same anywhere in 
 the world. Publicity too, is indispensable. The community 
 must not be afraid of the facts ; it must look them in the face. 
 Things which are not too bad to exist are not too bad to be 
 known. The evils of the underworld cannot live in the day- 
 light. Drag them out where the people can see them, and they 
 perish in the sun. There can be no compromise with these 
 forms of evil. Repression is the immediate method. Aboli- 
 tion is the goal. They are like slavery, things which Chris- 
 tianity cannot tolerate. But a program of repression alone 
 will not avail — the vacuum that is left by abolition must be 
 filled. There then comes in the whole constructive program 
 of community action. 
 
 Suggestions for Discussion and Action 
 
 I. Locating the Common Enemies 
 
 What are the worst foes of our community life? 
 
 II. The Tactics of a Common Enemy 
 
 Let us select one of these enemies, such as the local liquor 
 traffic, as typical and study what is necessary to fight it; any 
 enemy of community life can be similarly studied. 
 I. What is the strength of this enemy? 
 
 a. What are its local financial resources? What aid 
 can we call in from without? 
 146 
 
OVERTHROWING COMMON ENEMIES [X-s] 
 
 b. What are its political connections? What strong 
 
 men and business interests support it tacitly or 
 openly ? How large a percentage of the voters 
 does it control? How strong is its leadership? 
 
 c. W^hat channels of publicity does it command? 
 2. What are the methods of defence and attack? 
 
 a. In what ways has money been used ? 
 
 b. How have its forces tried to shape political 
 
 action? 
 
 c. By what methods has it sought to influence public 
 
 opmion 
 
 3. What is its effect in the community? 
 
 a. W^hat are its most pernicious influences? 
 
 b. How can we trace its results in the families which 
 
 we know? 
 
 c. How far does it consider human welfare as com- 
 
 pared with increased profits? 
 
 d. What are its results in poverty, sickness, and 
 
 crime? 
 
 4. Similarly select a community enemy in mission lands, 
 such as opium or gambling. 
 
 a. How fully is it entrenched in financial, social, 
 
 and governmental relations? 
 
 b. What is being done to defeat it? 
 
 HI. Methods of Fighting the Common Enemy 
 
 1. How do the resources of its opponents compare with 
 those of its supporters? Why has the fight been so hard? 
 
 2. What have been the most successful methods of over- 
 coming this enemy? To what extent do the opponents use 
 the same methods as the supporters? 
 
 3. What methods have been most effective in shaping 
 public opinion? 
 
 IV. A Heroic Fight 
 
 If a Christian really takes up this fight in his com- 
 munity, what will he face? Why do so many give it up? 
 
 147 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 MAKING THE CHURCH CHRISTIAN 
 
 When Jesus sought to make the community religious, he 
 went first to the house of rehgion. Where else shall his fol- 
 lowers go when bent upon his purpose? Like all institutions, 
 it shows the massed weaknesses of human nature, but when 
 the final balance is struck, what other institution has ever 
 poured so many and so great benefits into human society? 
 
 The social analysis that concludes to "scrap" the Church has 
 failed to weigh all the facts. In any community, when the 
 Church becomes impotent, it is a social tragedy. The Church 
 continually calls the community to righteousness and good- 
 will; it hallows marriage and glorifies childhood; it imparts 
 motive and instruction for social living; it provides funds and 
 leaders for social reform; it generates faith and courage to 
 assault the citadels of social wrong; it carries all the benefits 
 of civilization to the backward peoples. It often rejects the 
 prophets, but it first nourished them. The beginnings of or- 
 ganized philanthropy and education; the conscience that abol- 
 ished slavery and now outlaws alcohol and challenges eco- 
 nomic injustice; the spirit that achieved political equality and 
 now seeks industrial democracy — these are the contributions of 
 the Church to modern social progress. 
 
 Of all the tools that must be used to make the Common- 
 wealth of God, organized religion is the most indispensable. 
 
 Daily Meditations 
 First Day : Meeting God on the Jericho Road 
 
 A certain man was going down from Jerusalem 
 
 to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, who both 
 
 stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him 
 
 half dead. And by chance a certain priest was going 
 
 148 
 
MAKING THE CHURCH CHRISTIAN [XI-2] 
 
 down that way : and when he saw him, he passed 
 by on the other side. And in like manner a Levite 
 also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed 
 by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he 
 journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, 
 he was moved with compassion, and came to him, and 
 bound up his wounds. — Luke 10: 30-34. 
 
 Very deliberately Jesus brings into the story this despised 
 member of an alien race, condemned because his religion was 
 corrupt, and says that he is more religious than the chosen 
 officers of worship of the chosen people. The terrible fail- 
 ure of the priest and the Levite will bear reflection. The 
 pathos of the story is, they thought they were doing the best 
 they could. They were doubtless thinking about the religious 
 work that had engrossed their attention at Jerusalem ; but they 
 were neglecting the more religious human need by the roadside. 
 The tragedy is that they failed that day to meet God in the 
 presence of human suffering upon the Jericho road. Are 
 not those who attempt to confine religious experience to 
 "spiritual matters" in danger of finding themselves without 
 any real religious experience at all? 
 
 Second Day: What Doth Jehovah Require? 
 
 When ye come to appear before me, who hath 
 required this at your hand, to trample my courts? 
 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomina- 
 tion unto me ; new moon and sabbath, the calling of 
 assemblies, — I cannot away with iniquity and the 
 solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed 
 feasts my soul hateth ; they are a trouble unto me ; I 
 am weary of bearing them. And when ye spread forth 
 your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, 
 when ye make many prayers, I will not hear : your 
 hands are fiill of blood. Wash you, make you clean; 
 put away the evil of your doings from before mine 
 eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek justice, 
 relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for 
 the widow. — Isa. i : 12-17. 
 
 149 
 
[XI-3] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and 
 what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, 
 and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy 
 God?— Micah 6: 8. 
 
 By what dark paths have men sought to find God ! In 
 what strange ways have they endeavored to please him! They 
 have sacrificed their children and have mutilated their own 
 bodies, they have tried ascetic fastings and saintly ritual, 
 they have counted the beads and simulated frenzies of emo- 
 tion ! It is one of the glories of the Hebrew prophets that 
 they taught the world the true nature of worship. They 
 declared that God would not be satisfied with ritual if 
 brotherhood were lacking. They put religion into the world 
 of action and did not let it rest in passive virtues. Will our 
 worship stand the test of Isaiah? Are there any aspects 
 of our community life, any living or working conditions, that 
 make our formal worship a mockery before God? Would 
 a solemn act of social penitence for the actual conditions in 
 our town help our church to do its full duty? 
 
 Do the hymns and prayers in the service of worship in our 
 church promote the actual realization of brotherhood? What 
 effect would it have upon the spirituality of our church if the 
 great community issues were openly discussed in Sunday 
 school, in prayer meeting, or in a special open forum ; if we 
 were all required to report regularly concerning our contribu- 
 tion to community progress? 
 
 Third Day : First Things First 
 
 Then spake Jesus to the multitudes and to his dis- 
 ciples, saying. The scribes and the Pharisees sit on 
 Moses' seat : all things therefore whatsoever they bid 
 you, these do and observe: but do not ye after their 
 works ; for they say, and do not. Yea, they bind heavy 
 burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on 
 men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move 
 them with their finger. — Matt. 23: 1-4. 
 
 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 
 for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have 
 
 150 
 
MAKING THE CHURCH CHRISTIAN [XI-4] 
 
 . left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, 
 and mercy, and faith : but these ye ought to have done,' 
 and not to have left the other undone.— Matt. 23: 23. 
 
 One of the marvels of the history of religion is the way 
 in which its course has been diverted into activities of 
 secondary importance— theological discussion, forms and cere- 
 monies, tithing, automatic church attendance. Into the pro- 
 tection and promotion of such things has gone much of the 
 passion and power that might have been used to bring the 
 world to Christ. What a waste of spiritual energies! Are 
 there not still those among us who satisfy their religious in- 
 stincts with the saying of prayers and formal church attend- 
 ance, and yet oppose the great measures of humanitarian prog- 
 ress in our communities? Is your religious life occupied 
 with secondary or primary interests? 
 
 Fourth Day: Paradoxes of the Orthodox 
 
 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! 
 for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and 
 garnish the tombs of the righteous, and say, If we had 
 been in the days of our fathers, we should not have 
 been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 
 Wherefore ye witness to yourselves, that ye are sons 
 of them that slew the prophets. Fill ye up then the 
 measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye oflfspring of 
 vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell? 
 Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise 
 men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and cru- 
 cify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your syn- 
 agogues, and persecute from city to city: that upon 
 you may come all the righteous blood shed on the 
 earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto 
 the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye 
 slew between the sanctuary and the altar.— Matt. 2^: 
 29-35. 
 
 This is not ancient history. How tragically often have the 
 churches proved traitor to Jesus! It is the great apostasy 
 when any church turns aside from his teachings and perse- 
 
[XI-5] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 cutes those who would call it back to him. Time and 
 again the prophets are driven outside. Wycliffe was hunted 
 and tried; Luther was excommunicated; Wesley was driven 
 to preach on the gravestones and in the street; Roger 
 Williams had to flee to another colony to secure liberty; 
 William Booth was compelled to go outside to the streets and 
 the big bass drum. Shall we, too, drive out the prophets of 
 fearless speech? 
 
 Who can explain this paradox of human nature? In the 
 name of truth men deny the truth. In the attempt to estab- 
 lish righteousness, they violate righteousness. Is it the power 
 of institutions over the human spirit? 
 
 No group of men is exempt from this weakness. Science 
 boasts of its openness of mind, and yet at times scientific men 
 show a bigotry surpassing that of ignorance. Radicals boast 
 of their liberty and yet develop their shibboleths until there 
 is no orthodoxy so intolerant as the orthodoxy of radicalism. 
 How can we make it evident that no institution, not even the 
 Church, is good enough to hold the minds and consciences of 
 men in bondage? 
 
 Fifth Day : Democracy in Church 
 
 My brethren, hold not the faith of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For 
 if there come into your synagogue a man with a gold 
 ring, in fine clothing, and there come in also a poor 
 man in vile clothing; and ye have regard to him that 
 weareth the fine clothing, and say. Sit thou here in a 
 good place; and ye say to the poor man. Stand thou 
 there, or sit under my footstool; do ye not make dis- 
 tinctions among yourselves, and become judges with 
 evil thoughts? — James 2: 1-4. 
 
 A city minister gathered the people from the tenements and 
 boarding houses into the Sunday evening service. They had 
 to sit in the galleries because the pew holders paid for the 
 seats below. At a meeting of the church officials someone 
 said : "We don't want those people ; they don't pay anything 
 
 152 
 
MAKING THE CHURCH CHRISTIAN [XI-6] 
 
 towards the church." To them the church was a closed cor- 
 poration instead of the democratic fellowship of simpler 
 communities. In another city a wealthy church was not satis- 
 fied with a mission, to give religion by absent treatment to 
 the nearby foreign population. Instead they welcomed these 
 foreign neighbors to social and religious fellowship in the 
 regular activities of their church. 
 
 Jesus went in and out among the homes of rich and poor 
 alike. There was no barrier set up between classes that he 
 did not break through. When his disciples went out into the 
 world they had the same inclusive vision. Peter came to see 
 that nothing was common or unclean. Paul the Pharisee came 
 to see that there must be neither Greek nor barbarian, Jew 
 nor Gentile. He called a runaway slave "my very heart." 
 Whenever the Gospel touches the caste system of the Orient, 
 it breaks it down. How can it do the same thing to class 
 cleavage in this country ? 
 
 Sixth Day: Can the Church Save Itself f 
 
 Then are there crucified with him two robbers, one 
 on the right hand and one on the left. And they that 
 passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and 
 saying. Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest 
 it in three days, save thyself : if thou art the Son of 
 God, come down from the cross. In like manner also 
 the chief priests mocking him with the scribes and 
 elders, said. He saved others ; himself he cannot save. 
 He is the King of Israel; let him now come down 
 from the cross, and we will believe on him. He 
 trusteth on God; let him deliver him now, if he de- 
 sireth him : for he said, I am the Son of God. And the 
 robbers also that were crucified with him cast upon 
 him the same reproach. — Matt. 27 : 38-44. 
 
 "He saved others; himself he cannot save." It was the 
 biting truth, though those who uttered it knew not what they 
 said. If he had thought of saving himself he could not have 
 saved others, nor in the end have saved even himself. The 
 inventor forgets even the needs of his own body in his 
 
 153 
 
[XI-7] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 passionate search. Jesus taught that self-preservation Is not 
 the first law of nature, but that others' preservation is after 
 all the very essence of self-preservation. Is this truth less 
 valid for the Church than for the individual? Has the Church 
 any right to be more careful of the life of Jesus embodied in 
 its institutions than Jesus was careful of himself? How 
 can the Church save itself? 
 
 Seventh Day : The Source of Cooperative Power 
 
 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been 
 brought up : and he entered, as his custom was, into 
 the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to 
 read. — Luke 4 : 16. 
 
 Why did Jesus go to the synagogue as a regular custom? 
 His personal devotions he pursued upon the mountain top. 
 Is it enough, therefore, for us to find our contacts with God 
 apart from the crowd? The Master may have had little need 
 of the fellowship of the common meeting, yet he had a deep 
 respect for the needs of others. And in it there were values 
 for him as well as for them. There was the give and take of 
 comradeship, the revelation of human needs and aspirations. 
 Here he saw humanity at its best, and understood wherein 
 it was missing the way, even while trying to follow its ideals. 
 
 Yet what Jesus received from the synagogue came because 
 he went there primarily to give. He went to give the truth 
 to the people in the house of truth. If the Church is ineffec- 
 tive, how can those who see its ineffectiveness help to improve 
 it? 
 
 Study for the Week 
 
 If the social principles of Jesus are ever to dominate com- 
 munity life they must be clearly and fully exemplified by the 
 social organization which is teaching them. All over the world 
 the people outside the churches are increasingly looking to 
 them for community leadership. It is evidence of the permea- 
 tion of the spirit of Jesus through modern society; his test 
 
 154 
 
.MAKING THE CHURCH CHRISTIAN [XI-s] 
 
 of religion was social efficiency. The churches must stand 
 before this bar of judgment. How can the world be Christian- 
 ized except the churches be completely Christian? 
 
 I 
 
 In the beginning the Gospel made not a church, but a com- 
 munity. That community life spread from Jerusalem, creat- 
 ing others like it in many cities. They were separate from 
 the heathen community in morals and ideals. This separation 
 was the stern insistence, of their leaders. It became first the 
 mockery and finally the admiration of the Roman world. 
 There is still a sharp contrast betw^een the community ideal 
 of Christianity and the practice of civiHzation. Is there a 
 like difference between the life of the church group and other 
 people? What are the unchristian conditions in modern com- 
 munity life with which Christians are identified? Are they 
 challenging and arousing the conscience of the community? 
 Are they "odd," as were the men who first began to talk 
 against slavery or the women who first prayed against the 
 liquor traffic? Are they conforming to the world or trans- 
 forming it? 
 
 This is the fundamental problem facing the Church in mis- 
 sion lands. It must live in the midst of a non-Christian civil- 
 ization. Its new members have no background of Christian 
 training. It is a continual fight for them to keep free from 
 heathen practices. This makes essential requirements for 
 church membership so strict that many in America could not 
 attain to them. 
 
 The influence of church members as employers, in the pro- 
 fessions, as leaders of civic life, is either a witness to Chris- 
 tianity or a denial of it. A man who hadn't been to church for 
 twenty-two years was the partner in business of a prominent 
 church member. The non-church member insisted on paying 
 the girls in the factory more wages. The church member 
 objected because it interfered with profit. He told his partner, 
 ''You will never be a money-maker." Then he began to talk 
 
 155 
 
[XI-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 in another realm. He expressed his desire that the partner 
 should "get religion" and join his church. Is there enough of 
 this sort of thing to justify the saying of a prominent states- 
 man that he could be a Christian if it were not for the 
 churches, or was he unfair? Of course, most of the leaders 
 of organized evil hate the churches as they hate death; many 
 of the worst exploiters of the poor shun them as they shun 
 smallpox. How can the Church reach these social sinners with 
 the message of Jesus, if any of its members have part or lot 
 in their practices? 
 
 II 
 
 A social test of the churches is whether they exist for them- 
 selves or for all the people. "I changed my church home," 
 said an intelligent woman, "because Dr. So-and-so is such 
 a comfortable preacher." The church a rest-house on the 
 road of life ! To give esthetic satisfaction to its rriembers ! 
 To become a spiritual culture club for a selected few! 'T 
 didn't like that sermon," said a wealthy parishioner to his 
 democratic minister. "That's too bad," was the reply, "if you 
 keep on coming there will doubtless be a great many more 
 you won't like." 
 
 Like the Master, the churches must serve "all sorts and con- 
 ditions of men." The modern community is suffering from 
 class cleavage, and one peril facing the churches is that they 
 will come to be identified with a single class or economic 
 group— that they will fail to get the truth before all the people. 
 A church official considered it highly perilous because I. W. W. 
 leaders were invited to explain the purposes and philosophy 
 of their organization to an adult Bible class. But if the day 
 has come when the churches are not willing to hear the needs 
 and ideals of all groups of people, the day is near when they 
 will minister to but a section of the people. 
 
 The glory of the cathedral worship was that rich and poor 
 knelt together, but outside the cathedral door there was little 
 community life between these groups. The modern church 
 must share not simply worship, but all the fellowships of life. 
 
 IS6 
 
MAKING THE CHURCH CHRISTIAN [XI-s] 
 
 Its cathedral is the whole community. Just as the leaders of 
 the Church in the Orient have refused to recognize ancient 
 class cleavages, and have allied themselves with outcaste 
 peoples, so here it has the opportunity of bringing rich and 
 poor, the handicapped and the highly trained, into such demo- 
 cratic fellowships as may weld them in the common desire to 
 eliminate the economic injustice which makes and sustains 
 class barriers. By what methods can this be done? 
 
 Ill 
 
 A church must serve all community needs. Before the 
 world will accept Jesus' principle of leadership through serv- 
 ice, the churches must be wholly dominated by it. Jesus met 
 all varieties. of need that came under his observation, and his 
 Church has been an experimental workshop in which many 
 great agencies for community betterment, like charity and edu- 
 cation, have been developed. It has now passed most of these 
 over to community administration, but its task- of pioneering 
 is not done. The missionary is a pioneer in community prog- 
 ress. The churches are now developing programs adapted to 
 the particular needs of their type of community. An old-estab- 
 lished church in a downtown city district faced an entire 
 change of constituency. Formerly an atcclusive residential 
 region, the neighborhood has received a large boarding-house 
 and student population, and also a colony of Italians. With 
 the same church plant, the program has been so adapted as 
 to meet the new conditions and problems. Many a church in 
 city and country is recognizing its distinctive field and meet- 
 ing its opportunity. Courageous pioneering of this sort will 
 enable any church to reach its largest usefulness. The Church 
 has done such pioneering in every land. Originating in the 
 East, it has adapted itself to Western needs. The Church now 
 replanted in the East under missionary leadership is demon- 
 strating again its power of adaptation to environment. 
 
 The Church has never been content to stop with community 
 service under its own auspices. It sends its members out to 
 
 157 
 
[XI-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 work in every type of community enterprise. It affiliates with 
 all organizations that are working for community betterment, 
 but at the same time it challenges them to seek the ideal of 
 social transformation. In Chuchow, Anhui, the church leaders 
 called the leaders of the community, the gentry, officials, and 
 merchants of their own city into council for the welfare of 
 their town. The result has been a long list of good-roads 
 and anti-tuberculosis campaigns. The officials and merchants 
 and gentry of Chuchow no longer look askance at the Church, 
 but regard it as a center of inspiration, of love and good-will 
 towards men. They are thus brought into working coopera- 
 tion with the program of Jesus. Community needs are calling 
 to the churches all over the world to put the evangel into sus- 
 tained social action. 
 
 The Church is the spiritual power house of the community. 
 What obligation rests upon college graduates who have 
 received this new vision of the Church to help realize it in 
 the practical tasks of Christianizing community life? How 
 can they justify themselves before God and man if they evade 
 this responsibility? 
 
 IV 
 
 The social program of Jesus calls not simply for deeds of 
 service, but for social reconstruction. No patronizing phi- 
 lanthropy will satisfy the exacting Christ. He raises ques- 
 tions that test government and industry to their founda- 
 tions. These same issues now confront the Church as an 
 institution. If it does not face them fearlessly in all its own 
 relations, how can it lead in the reconstruction of the world 
 life? From what sources do the Church and its benevo- 
 lent, educational, and missionary enterprises draw support? 
 Does it profit indirectly by the proceeds of unrighteous 
 industry and finance? These are the questions which thought- 
 ful men both in and outside of the Church insist upon asking, 
 because high standards have been set by the teachings of Jesus. 
 The public conscience, quickened by his principles, brings them 
 back home to the Church for her testing. Is the Church 
 
MAKING THE CHURCH CHRISTIAN [XI-s] 
 
 demonstrating the ethics of Jesus as purchaser, employer, 
 investor ? 
 
 The Church, through her many agencies, is a great employer 
 of labor directly and indirectly. The present widespread 
 economic conflict demands that the relation between the 
 employer and employe be brought into harmony with the 
 principles of Jesus. Is the Church demonstrating to the busi- 
 ness world vvhat Jesus' teachings mean in industrial relation- 
 ships? 
 
 When a religious publishing house is used by the employers' 
 association of its city to force the nine-hour day upon the 
 workers in an eight-hour trade, what chance does Christianity 
 have to influence the workers in that occupation? What brings 
 the Church to such a pass? The determination to protect its 
 vested interests, or the failure to understand its stern duty? 
 To what extent do the prevalent salaries of ministers repre- 
 sent a living wage, and the possibility of study and travel — 
 for the results of which the minister is held accountable? 
 
 One cause of much of our industrial inhumanity and conflict 
 is that corporations in dealing with individuals do not observe 
 the standards that obtain in dealings between man and man. 
 The Church, as a corporate body dealing with the persons it 
 employs, is obligated to pioneer in securing the relationships 
 that Jesus requires. Economic justice in the employment rela- 
 tions of the Church cannot be established without some cost. 
 The Church is calling labor and capital to be Christian, and 
 both will have to pay a heavy price to do it. Can the Church 
 expect them to pay the price if she does not pay the price 
 herself? 
 
 V 
 
 The Church is a great owner of property. It is one of the 
 big business enterprises of the modern world, controlling its 
 millions. The old world is now in a gigantic struggle 
 between classes, nations, and races for control of the economic 
 means of subsistence. It makes imperative a new relationship 
 between persons and property. Here the Church must set the 
 
 159 
 
[XI-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 example. Once the Church was poor ; but it became rich. 
 Before long there came the striking contrast of the jeweled 
 splendor of the princes of the Church with the lowly poverty 
 of Jesus. Today the Church has its rich buildings within a 
 stone's throw of poverty-stricken masses. Many of its people 
 live in luxury. It holds costly banquets to raise money to 
 spread the simple Gospel. When the Master meets it today, it 
 is in the position of the rich young ruler. How shall it answer 
 his question? 
 
 The Church is surrounded today by mighty forces in the 
 industrial world, some of them ostensibly friendly. But Chris- 
 tianity has never yet controlled the power of this world. It 
 made alliance with the Roman Empire, but it never spiritual- 
 ized it. Now dominion is in commerce, industry, and finance. 
 Will the Church again make alliance with earthly power for 
 the sake of its support, or will it boldly undertake the diffi- 
 cult task of spiritualizing economic life? 
 
 Many working people believe that the Church is in alliance 
 with predatory wealth ; that its money is red with the life 
 blood of underpaid workers. The leaders of the churches 
 would not accept money with a string to it, but what if the 
 string is invisible ! What if the unconscious influence of per- 
 sonal friendship clouds the vision? What if respect for the 
 ability that created the anti-social wealth dulls the power of 
 diagnosing the process by. which it has been acquired? The 
 corporate Church is a large investor of wealth. If ordinary 
 interest involves burdens that the poor cannot bear, what effect 
 have the vested funds of the Church upon its facing of this 
 question? Is it able freely to consider whether or not the 
 property system is pagan? If the life of the institution is in 
 conflict with the life of the people, what then? 
 
 VI 
 
 This is the ultimate issue for the Church. Is it willing to 
 lose its life if need be in behalf of Christianity? Said a labor 
 leader, "We expect the preacher to be just as willing to lose 
 his job for a principle as we are to lose ours in a sympathetic 
 
 1 60 
 
MAKING THE CHURCH CHRISTIAN [XI-s] 
 
 strike." Many a preacher is willing. Is the Church as an insti- 
 tution ready to meet the same demand? 
 
 If the sources of the Church's income are in any measure 
 derived from unjust wealth, so that they limit the results of its 
 self-sacrificing service in the mission fields or hinder the free 
 workings of its conscience in the industrial problem, it will 
 not need to refuse them. A faithful search for economic 
 righteousness and social justice will cut them off automatically. 
 It is easy to praise the martyr« of old, or the martyrs of 
 today in China or Armenia, but is the Church at home willing 
 to become a martyr? If the sacrifice of institutions is neces- 
 sary to lead the world into the path of economic righteousness 
 and social justice that leads to the Commonwealth of God, is 
 Christianity ready to give up its vast equipment and go out 
 barehanded, to begin all over again with nothing but a message 
 and a life of power? 
 
 With prophetic longing, great groups of people all over the 
 earth, who are bearing bitter burdens because the economic life 
 of the world is not yet Christian, are looking to the Church 
 for release and leadership. Shall they be disappointed? 
 
 Suggestions for Discussion and Action 
 
 I. Present Contributions of the Church to Community Life 
 
 1. Do the churches of our communities compete or co- 
 operate? How have the churches adapted their program to 
 the needs of their community? 
 
 2. Trace out ways in which the local churches have con- 
 tributed to the development and stability of community life 
 through individual lives. 
 
 3. What definite pieces of community service have been 
 done by the local churches during the past year? What 
 funds were devoted to the relief of suffering, to spreading 
 Christianity at home or abroad? 
 
 4. What are the practical next steps in your church and 
 the other churches of your community for increasing the 
 effectiveness of the Church in its- community task? 
 
 161 
 
[XI-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 II. Unfinished Tasks of the Church in the Community Life 
 What are the most urgent needs of our churches if they 
 are to lead in grappling with the tasks already outlined? 
 
 1. Challenges from without 
 
 a. What do the social workers want the churches 
 
 to do? 
 
 b. How far are our church people as responsive 
 
 to the call of .human suffering as Jesus' prin- 
 ciple of human brotherhood demands? How 
 far will this take the Church into economic 
 reconstruction? 
 
 c. What do the workers want from the Church? 
 
 What opportunity is open to them to voice their 
 message? 
 
 d. What needs of immigrants are not being met by 
 
 the Church? How can it identify itself with 
 them and still maintain the separation required 
 for purity of faith and prophetic leadership? 
 
 2. Challenges from within 
 
 a. How does the sin of provincialism in the country 
 
 churches and failure to think of Christianity as 
 a world gospel compare with the sin of class 
 cleavage in city churches and their failure to 
 include in their social life all classes of society? 
 To what degree does "other worldliness" turn 
 the blind spot to "community mindedness"? 
 
 b. What social attitudes and viewpoints on the part 
 
 of church members are already socialized? 
 What most need changing? 
 
 c. Describe ways in which anti-social attitudes of 
 
 church members hold back the full sense of 
 community cooperation, 
 
 d. In what practical ways does the acceptance of gifts 
 
 from certain sources involve silence on the 
 issues of economic justice? How can the Church 
 Christianize its attitude as an employer? 
 162 
 
MAKING THE CHURCH CHRISTIAN [XI-s] 
 
 3. Challenges from abroad 
 
 a. In what ways has the missionary church shown 
 
 its adaptability to environment? 
 
 b. What is it doing to serve particular communities 
 
 in their development? 
 
 III. Church Leadership for the Future 
 
 Where must the Church look for fearless leadership in 
 grappling with its unfinished tasks and undertaking new 
 measures for community service? Can college men and 
 women do their largest service to their community in the 
 Church or outside of it? 
 
 163 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH OF GOD 
 
 It is imperative that those who are engaged in Christian- 
 izing the community should ever have before them a vision 
 of the goal. For lonely Christian workers in foreign mission 
 stations, in small rural communities, in submerged city sec- 
 tions, it is a great tonic to feel the solidarity of the cam- 
 paign; to sense their relationship to the other workers the 
 world over; to see the common objective. What is it that we 
 really want to do in the community — to carry out a mere 
 opportunist program, or to work for thorough reconstruction? 
 Are we engaged in tinkering the machinery? Is it because 
 we cannot be offended with the sights and sounds and^ smells 
 of misery that we clean up community conditions ; because 
 it is a decent thing today to do some social service, just as it 
 is a decent thing to go to church? Or do we seek the greatest 
 objective possible to human life — the establishment on earth 
 of the Commonwealth of God? 
 
 Daily Meditations 
 First Day: Praying for the Commonwealth 
 
 Aftet this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father 
 who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy 
 kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so 
 on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And for- 
 give us our debts, as we also have forgiven our 
 debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver 
 us from the evil one. — Matt. 6: 9-13. 
 
 When you pray the Lord's Prayer, for what do you pray? 
 For my daily bread, forgiveness of my sins? Have you shut 
 the door to shut the world out and be alone with God? But 
 
 164 
 
THE COMMONWEALTH OF GOD [XII-2] 
 
 Jesus taught us to pray, "Our Father." It is a collective 
 prayer. With the first words it is no longer an experience of 
 the soul alone with God — the thronging hosts of humanity are 
 present in the room. The need of others for bread takes place 
 alongside of our hunger; the passionate desires of others to 
 be released from the pressure of evil stand beside our desire 
 to be forgiven for our sins. It is a prayer of humanity for 
 humanity, and for the individual only as a part of humanity. 
 Have we thought of this prayer as an outline of the Com- 
 monwealth of God? It asks for the great human needs — for 
 bread, for fellowship with men and God in forgiveness, for 
 protection against the powers of evil. If this prayer were 
 carried out, what kind of community life would there be? 
 What kind of world would result? 
 
 Second Day: Sin and Suffering Must Go 
 
 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; 
 and the former things shall not be remembered, nor 
 come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever 
 in that which I create ; for, behold, I create Jerusalem 
 a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice 
 in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and there shall be 
 heard in her no more the voice of weeping and the 
 voice of crying. There shall be no more thence an 
 infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled 
 his days; for the child shall die a hundred years old, 
 and the sinner being a hundred years old shall be 
 accursed. And they shall build houses, and inhabit 
 them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit 
 of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; 
 they shall not plant, and another eat : for as the days 
 of a tree shall be the days of my people, and my 
 chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. 
 They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for 
 calamity; for they are the seed of the blessed of Je- 
 hovah, and their offspring with them. And it shall 
 come to pass that, before "they call, I will answer; 
 and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. And 
 the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion 
 
 165 
 
[XII-3] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 shall eat straw like the ox ; and dust shall be the 
 serpent's food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all 
 my holy mountain, saith Jehovah. — Isa. 65 : 17-25. 
 
 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth : for the 
 first heaven and the first earth are passed away; and 
 the sea is no more. And I saw the holy city, new 
 Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, 
 made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And 
 I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, 
 the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell 
 with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God him- 
 self shall be with them, and be their God : and he shall 
 wipe away every tear from their eyes ; and death shall 
 be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor 
 crying, nor pain, any more : the first things are passed 
 away. — Rev. 21 : 1-4. 
 
 Nirvana is for the individual. A future with sensual 
 delights is for the one man. So is "the happy hunting ground." 
 But the heaven of the Scriptures is a social vision. Sin and 
 pain are abolished from the common life. 
 
 Notice how practical the ideal is, how it cares for the weak, 
 how the poor and the suffering are relieved. What kinship 
 is there between "there shall be no more crying and no more 
 pain" and the attempt of modern medical science to abolish 
 disease? Has science, too, come to dream of what may be? 
 It means something today to believe in a new heaven and a 
 new earth and to pray, "Thy kingdom come." 
 
 Third Day: Accepting or Improving Civilisation? 
 
 Paul was a freeborn Roman citizen. On occasion he showed 
 a little pride in that fact. This was after his conversion. 
 Before that great event one can imagine him boasting about 
 his citizenship. Certainly he found no fault with Roman civ- 
 ilization. He was intent upon his own religious observances 
 and persecutions. It is so with many conventional Chris- 
 tions ; faithful in personal duties, they have never asked how 
 Christian is the civilization in which they live. 
 
 166 
 
•THE COMMONWEALTH OF GOD [XII-4] 
 
 After his conversion, Paul drew an indictment against the 
 social world of his day which is appalling. Read the catalogue 
 of vices of the Roman world outlined in the first chapter of 
 Romans, the fifth chapter of Galatians, or the sixth chapter of 
 First Corinthians. These have been praised as a masterly 
 picture of the sinfulness of the individual heart. But they 
 are more a vision of Roman society festering with sin, rotting 
 to its death. What makes the change in Paul's attitude? Has 
 the change which has occurred in his own nature shown him 
 the change that is necessary in human society? Has this 
 study shown you any fresh vision of the world in which you 
 live? Does it move you with a passion to change it? 
 
 Fourth Day : To Christianise the World 
 
 And I say unto you, that many shall come from the 
 east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, 
 and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. 
 —Matt. 8: II. 
 
 And it shall come to pass in the latter days, that the 
 mountain of Jehovah's house shall be established on 
 the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above 
 the hills ; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many 
 peoples shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up 
 to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God 
 of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we 
 will walk in his paths. — Isa. 2 : 2, 3. 
 
 It was a great day for religion when the old Hebrew 
 prophet broke through the bounds of nationalism and pro- 
 claimed a religion which was for all the nations of the earth. 
 It was a greater day for religion when the Galilean Car- 
 penter looked up into the face of God and said, "Our Father," 
 when he looked out over the whole world and called all men 
 his brethren. Consider the audacity of his vision — he, the 
 "man without a country," declaring that his kingdom shall 
 fill the earth ; he, despised and persecuted, proclaiming that all 
 men shall come unto him. Yet, today, slowly but certainly, the 
 Christian ideal is spreading throughout the world. And so 
 
 167 
 
[XII-5] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 the Kingdom expands, not simply outward, but inward, to 
 the center of the world as well as to its rim. We are joining 
 with the challenge to evangelize the world the still more 
 difficult task of Christianizing the world life to its very depths. 
 Followers of Jesus are in deed and truth citizens of the world. 
 This is the greatness of the fellowship of the Kingdom, and 
 yet the Gospel has touched barely one-third of the world's 
 population. 
 
 Fifth Day: More Radical than Socialists! 
 
 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world : 
 if my kingdom were of this world, then would my 
 servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the 
 Jews : but now is my kingdom not from hence. — 
 John i8: 36. 
 
 Neither shall they say, Lo, here! or. There! for lo, 
 the kingdom of God is within you. — Luke 17 : 21. 
 
 So then the Kingdom is in this world but not of it. It differs 
 from the kingdoms of this earth, not in location, but in prin- 
 ciple. For long Christianity thought that the Kingdom was 
 to be beyond the skies, beyond the bounds of time — in the here- 
 after. For longer still it thought the Kingdom was to be the 
 Church. But now it understands that it is to be a social order 
 in which God. is present in the common life. Is there any 
 difference here between social radicals who have no Christian 
 faith and those who have? What is the difference between 
 revolution and regeneration? "Are you a Socialist, then?" 
 they scornfully asked a witness at a great trial. "I am more 
 radical than that," he replied, "I am a Christian." 
 
 No other radical has such ground for his faith as the Chris- 
 tian. He has behind him the process of history. He sees the 
 Kingdom working out in time and space. Let the people of 
 the earth vote in their calmer moments, when they have the 
 time to think and reflect. Will they vote for the kingdom of 
 this world or the Kingdom of Jesus? Will they take war or 
 peace, lust or purity, injustice and exploitation or righteous- 
 ness and brotherhood? 
 
 168 
 
• THE COMMONWEALTH OF GOD [XIT-6] 
 
 Sixth Day: It Shall he Done! 
 
 Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain 
 of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, 
 Remove hence to yonder place ; and it shall remove ; 
 and nothing shall be impossible unto you. — Matt. 
 17: 20. 
 
 This is another way of saying that men can do the things 
 they believe in. The reason the Kingdom is not here is 
 because men have not believed strongly enough in it. Said a 
 great teacher not long ago, 'T cannot find men today who 
 believe hard enough in anything." Only those men will ever 
 advance a cause who believe in it hard enough to work for it ; 
 to sufifer for it; if need be, to die for it. 
 
 Yet there is faith abounding in the world today. Where is 
 to be found the faith in a new social order? Is it among the 
 social radicals, the Christians, or both? What have they in 
 common? It is a time for the deepening of faith. Idealism 
 has run low, for the iron hand of militarism has been choking 
 faith the world around. We do not believe in the practicality 
 of peace and righteousness as strongly as we did before the 
 Great War. What will save the world from reaction save the 
 quickening leaven of a group who still triumphantly believe in 
 the coming of the Commonwealth of God upon the earth? 
 
 Seventh Day: Be Ye Steadfast 
 
 But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day 
 is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand 
 years as one day. — II Peter 3 : 8. 
 
 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is 
 salvation ; even as our beloved brother Paul also, 
 according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you. 
 II Peter 3: 15. 
 
 One of our modern social prophets was accustomed to 
 say that the social reformer needs to cultivate the time sense 
 of the geologist, to think in eons and not in centuries. We 
 are an impatient people and discouragement comes easily to 
 
 169 
 
[XII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 the impatient. For the strengthening of our souls, for the 
 steadying of our faith, it is, well to take a long view of hu- 
 man life and history. It is a slow progress. Inch by inch 
 humanity rises, slips back and rises again, but still "to one 
 far-off divine event" the whole creation moves. 
 
 True, the old social evils of mankind are still present, but 
 never before were they so questioned; never before have men 
 so dug around their roots ; never before have men engaged 
 upon so scientific a program of prevention; never had the 
 world such equipment of knowledge, or courage, or social 
 organization to deal with them. 
 
 The scientific view increases our faith. It shows how short 
 a span is one generation, and yet it shows how the contribu- 
 tion of each generation slowly builds the Commonwealth of 
 God. 
 
 Study for the Week 
 
 I 
 
 If we had the power to create our community life anew, 
 what would it be like? We would not care to have our chil- 
 dren and children's children endure the things that we permit 
 — the saloon, the brothel, dirt and disease, poverty, industrial 
 exploitation, war. These must go, and how many others I 
 Those who have seen the world as it ought to be, have seen 
 a world from which these evils have been removed. It is 
 their bounden duty to translate this ideal into fact. Must 
 not the followers of Jesus generate divine discontent with 
 conditions intolerable to the Christian conscience? 
 
 The Christian ideal is positive, not negative; constructive, 
 not destructive. If in your community the will of God were 
 done as it is in heaven, what kind of a place would it be? 
 Would it not mean a community in which every family is 
 whole and womanhood is sacred; in which every child is pro- 
 tected and has full opportunity for development; in which 
 there is a proper house for everyone to live in ; where every 
 youth is free to enter the love-life in purity, where every 
 
 170 
 
THE COMMONWEALTH OF GOD [XII-s] 
 
 worker is safe and free to serve the community joyously, 
 where all income is derived from service, and all service is 
 adequately rewarded ; where economic competition does not 
 blight the common life, nor war destroy it, but where all live 
 together in peace and love? If, in some fashion such as this 
 we are able to create an ideal community in our imagina- 
 tion, whence came the vision? Whence came the principles 
 that outhne the ideal social order — the Commonwealth of 
 God? How far are they found outside of the Christian reli- 
 gion? 
 
 The persistence of this ideal is a challenge to our faith. 
 It has pulled men on through all the ages as the moon draws 
 the tide. If the men of other days with meager tools to work 
 out their vision could so dream a new heaven and a new earth, 
 then this age of new and mightier forces must follow the 
 gleam with renewed intensity. Today the dream has become 
 a plan. Science continually writes the specifications. But 
 the Christian ideal for community life is no cast iron form into 
 which society is to be compressed. Jesus committed himself 
 to the process of growth. He left us the principles, it is our 
 task to apply them. Can this be done except by those who 
 keep in living fellowship with him? 
 
 II 
 
 If we had the power to make a world ! But today humanity 
 is constantly gaining that power. There was a great tempta- 
 tion in other days for Christians to withdraw and let the 
 world go on its woeful way. There is a great temptation today 
 for educated men and women to fall back upon evolution and 
 to think that human progress will move forward of its own 
 momentum. But the evolution of society is no blind process 
 of nature; it is man-controlled. It is the product of the 
 human mind and will. And if man does not exercise his 
 powers there is no progress. What responsibility rests upon 
 those who have the vision and the training to see this fact? 
 
 Humanity is "going on to perfection." The Commonwealth 
 of God is being worked out in innumerable local communities 
 
 171 
 
[XII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 the world around. These are the cells of the great world 
 organism, and as they improve in both conditions and rela- 
 tionships these improvements spread throughout the common 
 life of mankind. It is possible today to measure progress 
 toward the Christian ideal of community life. We may see 
 it in our own community. Take stock of its progress. Talk 
 to the oldest inhabitant about conditions and standards years 
 ago. Think of the apathy of the early nineties when indus- 
 trialism was rampant and human life was ground down 
 without a quiver of conscience ! 
 
 In any community today, the standards by which it is judged 
 are the standards which Jesus set. Contrast the attitude 
 toward child-labor with the attitude of twenty years ago. 
 Ten years ago segregated vice was not only defended by civic 
 administration, but actually advocated from the pulpit. Today 
 every intelligent city knows that a segregated district makes 
 for the increase of vice. It is not long since the public con- 
 science approved the torture of prisoners. Today they are 
 beginning to be treated as erring brothers. 
 
 In any one of a thousand ways the spiritual temperature of 
 the community can be taken. Its progress is to be reported 
 not in changing conditions alone, but in a steady change 
 of relationships, which slowly but surely make toward the 
 Christian community ideal. This generation of business men 
 has a new set of values. They are putting human life above 
 profit. Before long they will put humanity even above busi- 
 ness. Some day the motive of service will completely replace 
 the motive of profit. No specific reform of this generation 
 is so significant as the development of the new social con- 
 science, the setting up of new standards of value. Does this 
 not mean that unprecedented things will be recorded in the 
 proximate future? 
 
 All over the world Christianity is producing twice-born 
 communities. The Christian missionary has seen one social 
 evil after another disappear before the advance of the Gospel. 
 The burning of widows in India is gone; child marriage is 
 under fire; foot-bindmg and opium will soon be things of the 
 
 172 
 
THE COMMONWEALTH OF GOD [XII-s] 
 
 past in China; the legalized prostitution of Japan has been 
 modified. Human life is worth more than ever it has been 
 in every land. The killing of small children is no longer 
 countenanced. Infanticide is driven into obscurity; slavery 
 has practically gone ; war is apologized for the world over. 
 There is a changed attitude toward despotism. Tyranny is 
 not popular anywhere. Industrial exploitation is coming under 
 the same ban with which slavery was finally abolished. The 
 world is coming to see that poverty cannot be tolerated. 
 Slowly but surely a world conscience is being formed. When 
 Lloyd George said that the English flag is as much disgraced 
 by flylpg over a slum as over defeated armies on the battle- 
 field, the world approved. He voiced a standard to which 
 all mankind is certainly coming. As there has come to be a 
 common ideal of what constitutes manhood, so there is com- 
 ing to be a common ideal of what constitutes just social con- 
 ditions and fraternal social relations. 
 
 To realize this growing world ideal there is developing a 
 common worldwide effort. An increasing number of inter- 
 national organizations are working together in common cru- 
 sades against vice, disease, and destructive industrial condi- 
 tions. There is the World's Student Christian Federation, 
 representing over forty nations, and dedicated to the task of 
 making Christianity prevail in human life. "The picked ten 
 million" Stead called them. What can they not do for 
 humanity ? 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Christian Commonwealth is not provincial. It is a 
 world vision and a world task. Rapidly the world-life becomes 
 one. All the forces that make for a unified civilization are 
 being drawn together. Truly "the world is the field." We 
 face a world-life in every American hamlet, every Indian 
 village. This means that local community builders must 
 become aware of each other. They must become conscious 
 of their common purpose and of the relation of this work 
 to the total result. They are all world-builders. 
 
 173 
 
 \ 
 
[XII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 The City of God lieth foursquare that the people of all the 
 earth may come to it. And they are coming — brown men and 
 black, yellow and white, each race bringing its own peculiar 
 contribution to the common development of mankind. It 
 becomes possible and necessary now to extend Christian con- 
 ditions and Christian ideals to national and inter-racial rela- 
 tions. 
 
 The very persistence of the ideal of a social order which is 
 better than anything that men have yet realized is a guarantee 
 of its possibility. It is like the persistence of an instinct in 
 the animal world. • Nature guarantees satisfactions to cor- 
 respond to it. The integrity of the universe assures' us a 
 reality corresponding to the desire for an ideal order. That 
 which men have always sought after, that which they have 
 continually worked for, that which they have gradually ap- 
 proached, they will some day find and realize. The ideal may 
 seemingly recede from their vision, but gradually they draw 
 nearer to it. 
 
 The process of social evolution is slow, but it continually 
 accelerates. In the physics of the Kingdom of God it is also 
 true that a moving force gains momentum. The progress of 
 the nineteenth century toward the ideal of the Commonwealth 
 of God was greater than that of all which preceded. The dis- 
 tance that we have to travel to reach the ideal of the Kingdom 
 is far shorter than the distance which humanity has already 
 come. And today there are possibilities of united and quick 
 world action such as never were before. The tools and 
 materials are at hand to build the road that leads into the 
 city of God. It can be done if men are willing. Yet in the 
 moment of our faith there comes a question : Is humanity 
 adequate to the task? In that moment one turns aside from 
 human forces to the God of Everlasting Power. 
 
 IV 
 
 A Japanese statesman recently declared that the modern 
 world, rent asunder, must seek some bond stronger than can 
 be forged by the mechanics of statecraft. He recalled that 
 
 174 
 
• THE COMMONWEALTH OF GOD [XII-s] 
 
 when a student in the United States he had found people of 
 all classes in a little country church knit together by the com- 
 mon worship of one religion. Because it lifted men above 
 the atmosphere of self-seeking, he declared that therein the 
 future bond of the world would be found. During the war 
 Mr. Morgenthau, then ambassador to Turkey, in a longboat 
 on the Bosphorus one evening said to a friend, "Jesus has 
 exercised more influence on human history than any other 
 personality. We shall never get out of war except by fol- 
 lowing his teachings." Is there here a force which can draw 
 the whole world together? 
 
 The Commonwealth of God as the ideal social order has 
 come only as far and as fast as men have consciously joined 
 with the purpose of Jesus. Constantly betrayed, he is never 
 defeated. He is today the empowering presence in human 
 society as never before. The world moves in the direction 
 of his thought and action. Think as far as we can, we are 
 still thinking his thoughts: look as far ahead as we may, he 
 is still in front. He voices both the ideal of man and the 
 eternal purpose. He joins together in his personality the will 
 of God and the desires of men. He makes the divine human, 
 and the human divine. The future belongs to those who work 
 with him. They share his immortality of purpose and power, 
 To create the Christian Commonwealth by Christianizing 
 community life — this is to bring the new Heaven and the 
 new Earth. 
 
 Suggestions for Discussion And Action 
 
 I. Making an Ideal Community 
 
 Try to draw the plans for an ideal Christian Common- 
 wealth. Consider every aspect of community life. 
 
 1. What evil conditions would you take out of your com- 
 munity? What unchristian relationships? 
 
 2. What fundamental transformations of family, work- 
 ing, living, government, and other conditions would most 
 need to be wrought out in our communities to make them 
 
 175 
 
[XII-s] CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE 
 
 Christian? What transformations in class, race, industrial, 
 and other relationships must be achieved? 
 3. What new factors would have to be introduced? 
 
 II. The Worldwide Christian Commonwealth 
 
 1. What world facts and forces need most to be changed 
 if our communities are to be made Christian? Vote on the 
 three that are most urgent. Give reasons. 
 
 2. Which of these are prevalent in our communities? In 
 .what forms? How does local action on these affect the 
 
 Christian World Order? 
 
 3. How does the Christian Commonwealth differ from a 
 federation of Christian communities? 
 
 4. Through what types of action are the world forces to 
 be controlled? 
 
 III. Achieving the Christian Commonwealth 
 
 1. At the present rate of progress what hope is there of 
 achieving it? 
 
 2. What groups in our communities believe that we are 
 progressing toward the achievement of an ideal social order? 
 Why ? What groups doubt this ? Why ? 
 
 3. How does the Christian assurance of the achievement 
 of the Christian Commonwealth differ from the views held 
 by other groups of idealists? What evidence has the 
 Christian to support his faith? 
 
 176 
 
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