BR 115 .W6 M35 1915 Macfarland, Charles S. Christian service and the modern world Christian Service and The Modern World BOOKS BY Charles S. Macfarland The Spirit Christlike, The Infinite Affection. Jesus and the Prophets. Spiritual Culture and Social Service. Christian Service and the Modern World. Books Edited and in Part Written by the Author The Christian Ministry and the Social Order. Christian Unity at Work. The Churches of the Federal Council. Christian Service and The Modern World / B; CHARLES S. V MACFARLAND New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 191 5, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave. Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street To the Students of The School of Theology of Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas The Biblical Institute of Vanderbilt University, and The School of Theology at Fayette, Mo. to whom these messages were first given, and with whom I have held helpful con- ference upon these themes Contents Introduction 9 I. The Great Physician and His Healing Ministry 15 II. The Church and Modern Industry . 33 III. The Consolidation of Conscience . 60 IV. The Federal Unity of the Churches a Social Obligation .... 87 V. The New Internationalism a Funda- mental in Religious Education . 114 Introduction THESE messages have been given to the School of Theology of Southwestern University, the Biblical Institute of Van- derbilt University, the School of Theology at Fayette, Mo., and on other similar occasions. They have been prepared in such time as could be taken from those administrative duties which necessarily limit both adequacy of thought and literary preparedness. These utterances are not set forth as compre- hensive of the Gospel message. They are limited to only one or two aspects of that message or to one or two expressions. The author had once preached a sort of trial sermon before the students in the chapel of the Theological Seminary, and was rebuked by one of his fellow-students, who stated that the sermon had not discussed the Atonement and several other cardinal doctrines which he proceeded to name. The answer of the embryo preacher was that he expected to preach several more sermons. The author has, however, in this instance, in previous volumes considered certain primary and constitutional features of Christian faith and ex- perience. The knowledge of such former utter- 9 io Christian Service and the Modern World ances as these would be essential if one were to attempt to analyze the author's experience and faith. " At heart all human life is spiritual, and while the Gospel must glorify the fruits of the spirit it must not forget the spirit itself. There is a tendency to-day to obscure this truth and to overmagnify environment over the inward life. The Kingdom of God will not appear simply by doubling men's wages with no reference to con- scientious service. The Kingdom of Heaven will not come through shorter hours of labor, without regard to the moral uses of leisure. Social re- generation will not be performed by building better houses if there is no concern for better men and women and homes within those houses. " At the same time, while the life is more than meat, we must also remember that the meat is necessary to the life. Our social reformers are right in reaching up towards the heavenly through the earthly. While, with the one hand, we seek to transform the hearts and characters of men, we must, with the other, seek to gain for them human justice. " But it is true that sometimes a larger moral existence and a deeper spiritual sense would mean less necessity for philanthropy, and all economic reformations must have their roots in moral, spiritual impulse. Our modern danger is that of divorcing social betterment from spiritual Introduction 1 1 life, whereas the one ought to be the expression of the other. No social program will ultimately avail that is not expressed in terms of the spirit. The inward and the outward life must reflect each other. Our modern social movements will be good and abiding only as they are the revelation of the divine mind, as ' In Him they live and move and have their being.' " One weakness of our social reformers is that of substituting the circumference for the centre, of dealing in effects without sufficient thought of ultimate causes. So while religion without humanity is sad, it is equally sad to have a humanity without religion. Such a humanity is transitory and specious. Our real social leaders to-day are not those men and women who, in their blind zeal, would substitute humanity for religion, who would displace the Christian re- ligion by the club and social settlement, and who neglect spiritual truth in the supposed interest of human comfort. Our real leaders are those men who have a profound faith in a God who loves men, and whose love of mankind is an expres- sion of their faith in the Eternal. " Jesus is the sovereign example of a well-bal- anced mind and heart. He fed, He healed, He comforted men, He rebuked the rich with great severity, but He was always saying that the life was more than the meat. He was always lead- ing men towards the fulfillment of their life in 12 Christian Service and the Modern World God. His whole life is a picture of the blending of religious faith with human sympathy, two elements which in Him God hath joined to- gether and which by man should not be rent asunder. " Our social movements, our philanthropic en- terprises, our economic betterments and other institutions, instead of taking the place of Gos- pel, pulpit, truth and religion, can never endure, can never be more than the outward passing semblance of a kingdom of heaven, without some institution, some spiritual school which is ever teaching men that salvation does not rest in political economy or in social enterprise. Above' all these mansions of the earth there is a house not made with hands. "The downward reach may, without the upward look, mean the depression of hope. Sympathy with human needs is vain without communion with divine grace. He who would bring the light of the world to the darkness of man must possess the riches of God as well as witness the poverty of the race. There can be no nether springs of service without the upper springs of inspiration. None of us can uplift even himself, how much less can he uplift others. Thus every one of us stands between the appeal of the things above him and of those beneath him, between the human reality and the divine ideal, between the discipline of duty and the peace of faith. It Introduction 13 is sad to see men and women in religion trying to save themselves and forgetting all the rest of the world except perhaps their own charmed and chosen circle. It is just as sad to find men try- ing to save the world without any vision beyond their own horizon and with no strength stronger than their own. We are living in both eternity and time, we must seek both the geistes-leben and the welt-anschauung, to use Eucken's classic terms. " In the religion of Jesus we find the sense of finality, of ultimate reality, and thus of last re- sort. The knowledge, the sense and the reality of the infinite lie behind our moral universe. Human life, without this consciousness, is vain and void. In the last analysis it is without meaning and interpretation, unless with the psalmist we can say, ' In Thy light do we see light.' No human problem receives its satis- factory answer except by the light of the divine. As the psalmist put it : ' Not until I went into the sanctuary of God did I understand.' " ' He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. " ' And when it was day . . . He came down . . . and stood in the plain . . . there went virtue out of Him, and healed them all.' "Thus, with the Master, he who does the work of an unselfish ministry in the daylight hours 14 Christian Service and the Modern World must find his way back, at eventide, to the sources of his refuge and his strength ; there is no lasting, perfected social service without its commensurate spiritual culture, and the one will be as real and abiding as the other is deep and reverent." The following chapters set forth simply certain social expressions of Christian experience, and they assume that that ulterior experience is vital, personal and profound. Three pressing oppor- tunities and obligations are selected — Human Health, Modern Industry and Christian Inter- nationalism, calling for the solidarity of Christian Conscience and impelling the united influence and the cooperative action of the Churches of Christ in America. Charles S. Macfarland. October i, ig ij. THE GREAT PHYSICIAN AND HIS HEALING MINISTRY THE Christian faith, both in its form and in its institutions, has always been militant in varying degree. This militant spirit is now finding significant expression in the new social impulse of Christian faith, and perhaps its most concrete declaration is what is known as the social creed of the Churches unified in behalf of Protestant Christianity, set forth by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. The critics of this social platform, I am con- vinced, have in the main been hostile because it was the attack of the Churches, in behalf of man- kind, upon private and selfish interests, and while it is true that some of these censors have been honest in their concern lest social service should impair the interests of the spiritual life, too many of the critics have, knowingly, or unknowingly, let loose their strictures because this social creed, demanding equal rights and justice for all men in all stations of life, has simply found the vulner- able points of moral sensibility. In our human nature, resentment is the precursor of a deepen- ing conscience. Of the sixteen articles of this social faith, many *5 16 Christian Service and the Modern World are frankly in the interest of physical health. Thus " it seems to us," says the Federal Council, " that the Churches must stand " " For the protection of the family by the single standard of purity, uniform divorce laws, proper regulation of marriage, and proper housing ; " For the fullest possible development for every child, especially by the provision of proper education and recreation ; " For the abolition of child labor ; " For such regulation of the conditions of toil for women as shall safeguard the physical and moral health of the community ; " For the protection of the worker from dangerous machinery, occupational diseases, and mortality ; " For suitable provision for the old age of the workers, and for those incapacitated by injury ; " For a release from employment one day in seven ; " For the gradual and reasonable reduc- tion of the hours of labor to the lowest practicable point, and for that degree of leisure for all which is a condition of the highest human life." All of these articles may also be comprehended in one other, which reads, " The Churches must stand for the conservation of health." The Great Physician 17 When these united Churches spoke these words they seemed new, if not strange ; and yet, strangely enough, we have here, if it be reversal, merely a reversal in significant degree to both the Old and New Testament Gospels. For when we come to think of it, the books of the Old Testament have whole chapters, anddn- deed, whole books, on the conservation of health. The first four books of the Law of Israel consti- tute the story of the war on disease — a war which was commanded and led by Jehovah and His chosen captains ; and to the effectiveness of this warfare is due, in no small measure, the marvel- lous permanency of the Jewish race. Not only is the conservation of health a part, and a large part, of the Hebrew code of ethics, not only are divine rewards and punishments meted in accordance with these laws of health, but they were also embodied in the very ritual and worship of Israel. Long before Paul spoke the word, the Jew was teaching God's command, that men should make of their bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to the Infinite. Some of our religious leaders are battling for the inspiration of the Old Testament Scriptures, and surely if they themselves believe the faith for which they fight, they must be willing that the Churches should take their part of leadership in the battle for human health. Yet, to my sorrow, I have more than once 18 Christian Service and the Modern World heard religious and ecclesiastical leaders speak of anti-tuberculosis campaigns and similar great movements in terms of contempt. Others have spent much time discussing the question as to whether or not the member of a Christian Church should proceed with these activities in his capacity as a citizen or as a churchman. Is not this ques- tion academic ? As a practical matter the citizen, if he is a Christian, cannot separate himself from his church in discharging his civic duties, and the attempt to do so invites the greater danger of separating morals and religion. Jesus divested the Jewish religion of much of its formalism. He seems even to abrogate some of its laws by their fulfillment, but we do not find Him finding any fault with the Hebrew war upon disease. While the Gospels give us no story as to the bodily appearance of the Master of mankind, the impression which we have is surely that Jesus had a healthy physical life. We read many stories of His weariness, but none of enfeebling sickness. He plucked the corn upon the Sabbath day in the interest of physical health, and said that man was lord of the Sabbath, and that the Sabbath was made for man, and that David was even justified in using the elements of sacred worship for the conservation of human life. It would appear also that the followers of Jesus were healthy men, and the utterances of the The Great Physician 19 Master, both rhetorically and explicitly, without exception, breathe the spirit and have the charm of a wholesome physical life. But more significant still than this is the heal- ing ministry of Jesus. Cut out from the synoptic Gospels the story of the physical ministrations of the Master and, quantitatively, there is not much left. If there are those among our Churches who would stay this great crusade for health, they must first turn ruthless higher critics and stamp as errors and interpolations many passages in the Bible. Jesus seems to be stop- ping every moment to bring back some sick body to the glow of health. And He makes no artificial distinctions between the healing of the soul and the healing of the body. There even seems to be a certain identification between physical health and spiritual life. And it is interesting to remember that the one Gospel which records this human ministry of Jesus in the fullest detail and with the finest emphasis was written by Luke, the beloved physician to the bodies of men. A religion which, in service, makes contemp- tuous distinctions between the helping of men's souls and the helping of men's bodies and would neglect the one in the supposed interest of the other, finds no warrant in the spirit and atti- tude of Jesus. We have sincere religious men to-day who are always in danger of losing 20 Christian Service and the Modern World their sight of the man in their search for his soul, but in this they lose the pathway of their Lord. This same spirit and attitude of Jesus prevails throughout all the New Testament. The Gospel of Paul and the apostles is that of the physician of the body as well as the soul. Thus through- out the whole of the Scriptures we find a sense of the sanctity of health. No wonder then that the early Church caught this spirit, and that its monasteries became upon every wayside and every mountain top a symbol, not only of spiritual retreat, but also of physical regeneration. We have a good many waiting critics who are always ready to cudgel the Church and take a whack at the pulpit, and who are eternally proclaiming the dismal failure of the Church to meet her social tasks. And yet, throughout all her history, the Church of Christ has been the healer of men's bodies as well as the savior of their souls. There are no servants of humanity who have larger opportunity to show forth the spirit of the Master than the physician and the nurse. One of the most touching pictures in all the galleries of Europe is that by Luke Fildes, in the London Gallery, of the physician, with his serious, anx- ious face, bending over the form of the little child. There are few finer symbols of the spirit of the Great Physician than in those of our The Great Physician 21 number who lead the warfare upon disease and who manifest the one great emblem of Christian discipleship, the sacrifice of self. Some persons lose sight of the source because the stream itself has become so large. But now, it must be candidly admitted, the Christian Church does face a new task. She may go back to the physical ministry of Israel, but she must not go back to Israel's therapeutics. Her new crusade is that of the engineer as well as of the physician and the nurse. She has al- ways dealt in a spirit of self-sacrifice and has in- spired that spirit with the effects of disease, but now she is called to the larger task of a warfare against its hidden, subtle causes. To avow that the Church may be the inspiration for the heal- ing of disease but not the spiritual force to lead men in their holy fight against its causes is the same as to aver that we may reform a drunkard but may not war upon the devilish liquor traffic, as indeed, sad to say, some men do seem to think. We cannot suppose that Jesus would wish us to make any distinction between pre- venting blindness and restoring sight. May it not be that this greater task is the fulfillment of the Master's prophecy to His disciples that they should do greater works than His, because He was with the Father ? The reason that the Federal Council's social platform seemed so new, when it really was so 22 Christian Service and the Modern World ancient, was that it marked this departure from measures of social amelioration to means and methods of prevention. We have awakened to the fact that we have failed because we exercised our healing ministrations with the results while the causes went on unchecked. We have de- veloped a system of industry and a type of civilization which, together with our prevalent individualistic conception of Christianity, have brought to us great forces both of good and of ill. In one city I once discovered over thirty cases of most terrible disease, all of them traced back directly to one industrial occupation upon which that city had amassed its wealth. The physicians of the city had been so busy dealing with effects that they had failed to note the causes. The Churches had visited the hospitals when they should have visited their righteous wrath upon the factories and mills. Under our present industrial system and our modern methods of population, no mere ministry of healing can prevail. It has got to be a militant warfare which reaches into every nook and corner of our common social life. Our great captains of in- dustry can no longer go on making their contri- butions to our hospitals and our asylums, while our industry, by preventable causes, maims and mangles and stifles our human brothers. Those who control our lands and estates can no longer satisfy themselves with even the most lavish gifts The Great Physician 23 for cure, while their tenements kill off our babies beyond the count of Herod. But is this the task of the Church ? Is it her business ? Let us go back again to the ministry of Jesus. John the Baptist doubted Him. He sent his disciples to ask of Him, " Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?" The answer of Jesus was brief and without a mo- ment of hesitation : " Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see : The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whoso- ever shall not be offended in Me." Jesus made His healing ministry of 'men 's bodies a sovereign test of His own Messiahship and His spiritual Lordship. But again : upon only one occasion did the Sovereign of mankind declare the moral de- terminance of human destiny. He pictured the final judgment only once in all His preaching, but here again He never spoke more clearly ; He never spoke with less qualification, and these were His words of judgment : " When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory : And before him shall be gath- ered all nations ; and he shall separate 24 Christian Service and the Modern World them one from another, as a shepherd di- videth his sheep from the goats : And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the King- dom prepared for you from the foundation of the world ; For I was ahungered, and ye gave me meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in : Naked, and ye clothed me : / 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 ahungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or naked, and clothed thee ? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee ? And the King shall an- swer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels : for I was ahungered, and ye gave me no meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me not in : naked, and ye clothed me not : sick and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee ahungered or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, The Great Physician 25 or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, say- ing, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment : but the righteous into life eternal." Some men are just simple enough to accept these utterances just as Jesus spoke them and just naive enough to believe that He meant what He said and not something else. Jesus made the healing of men 's bodies a de- termining test of the eternal judgment of man- kind. But still further, perhaps the most sacred scene in Christian history is that of the transfiguration of the Master. He had been upon the mountain. His face did shine as the sun. His raiment was white as the light. A bright cloud overshad- owed Him. The divine voice proclaimed His Lordship. It was the revelation of His spiritual sovereignty. It was His highest moment of spiritual exaltation. Here, if ever, He was away from earth. But the next scene follows in the very next moment. It is the picture of the transfigured Master at the foot of that same mountain with a lunatic kneeling at His feet to receive His touch and His word of physical healing. The disciples were undoubtedly surprised. In- 26 Christian Service and the Modern World deed, Peter had urged that they build abiding tabernacles upon the mountain top. But Jesus said, " No ! Peter, we go down to the foot of the mountain now to the needy world again." Jesus made the healing of meri s bodies the nat- ural expression of His own personality at the moment of His highest spiritual exaltation. Is the war on disease then a worthy objective for the Christian Church ? The answer of Jesus is that it was the test of His own Lordship ; that it was the measure and the expression of His own spiritual life ; and that it is a final determin- ing factor in the moral judgment of mankind. There is then a spiritual significance in this modern crusade for health. It is an expression of reverence for human personality. It is the answer of the Master's question, " How much is a man better than a sheep?" I have sometimes been in the hospital when the physician has brought in together the great strong man with life pulsating through all his being and the frail, weak brother with pallid face and trembling step, who has brought them together and has taken the blood and the life of the one and has put it into the other. It is a parable of the Christian spirit, so far as the Christian spirit is the spirit of Christ. There are those who tell us that we must al- ways have war. They mean the kind of war that they are fighting across the sea. And they The Great Physician 27 are partly right. We must have war. The fighting spirit in men remains. Christianity must always be militant. And we shall always have men lighting each other unless we can give to mankind new moral and spiritual objectives for the militant spirit. This is the kind of war- fare that gives the highest expression to our Christian faith ; the willingness to suffer for oth- ers. The culture of the Cross is not yet gained, the lesson of the school of Calvary is not yet learned, the law of Jesus is not fulfilled, when we see but one meaning of His sacrifice and learn by it to bear our own sorrows patiently. Not by the bearing of our own, but of one another's burdens do we fulfill the law of Christ. Let us take one example. The most beautiful thing in all the world is motherhood. And yet nothing in our modern civilization has been more degraded by physical neglect than motherhood. Modern industry and our inhuman methods of the distribution of population are the violators of its sanctity. I cannot understand how any hu- man being can oppose some of our present laws with relation to women in industry. What does God think of motherhood ? In the fullness of His goodness and His glory God was to come among men. It was by a very simple way. He found, first, a good and pure and holy woman. One by one He was to take every relation of human life and invest it with 28 Christian Service and the Modern World a divine meaning, and He began with mother- hood. " And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee." Page upon page of learned disquisition have been written to interpret this, and most of them have never touched its deeper meaning. It is a strangely materialistic mind that lowers the sublime and beautiful idea of this transcendently told story by making it the subject of a cold and hard analysis. Is the story true? To ask the question is to show that we have missed its deep- est meaning. "And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee : Therefore also that holy being which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." The first mark of the incarnation was the illuminating of motherhood with its divineness. And over every mother, if she will but look and listen, is the angel. Upon her is the shadow of the Holy Spirit, and 14 Heaven lies about us in our infancy! " " The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar : The Great Physician 29 " Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home." No diviner task awaits the Church than her crusade for motherhood, a sweet, wholesome motherhood. Take another great question which absorbs so much of our serious thought — the question known as sex hygiene. Shall the Christian Church make war in this realm ? Who can if she does not ? Men are trying other methods. They are pro- ceeding upon the assumption that the motive of fear can work the moral transformation. But sta- tistics certainly do not warrant their conclusions. Others tell us that if we give men enough knowl- edge they will behave themselves. And yet, so far as we can learn, neither students of medicine nor their companions, the nurses, who have more knowledge than anybody else, are any more chaste on the whole than other classes of people. You cannot make warfare in this realm with any but spiritual weapons — by what Dr. Cabot has so beautifully called " The consecration of the human affections." I went the other evening to a sacred service. It was the ordination of missionaries to the for- eign field. But there were all kinds of mission- aries. There were the preachers ; there were the physicians ; there were the nurses and the dea- 30 Christian Service and the Modern World conesses, the industrial teachers — and the beau- tiful thing about it was that they all knelt to- gether and bowed their heads and the hands of sacred ordination were placed upon all of them, and they all went out — the preacher and the doctor and the nurse and the teacher — with the same holy ordination for the same sacred task. Here we are in this world with our varied tasks. Some of us are preachers; some of us are doctors ; some of us are teachers ; but in this great service to which we are constrained we were all of us divinely committed by our Master two thousand years ago, and the task of one of us is no more sacred than the task of the other. The disciples, then, must go to the Mountain of Transfiguration with Jesus. The next hour of the day they must go down with Him upon the plain of human life to heal men of their diseases. But mark this, they cannot do His work upon the plain unless they have been upon the moun- tain top with the Master, so that they may come down radiant with the light that shines from His face. " The world sits at the feet of Christ, Unknowing, blind and unconsoled, It yet shall touch His garment's fold And feel the heavenly alchemist Transform its very dust to gold." Is war on disease a worthy objective for a re- ligious crusade ? The answer is the answer of The Great Physician 31 the Master, who made His own ministry for hu- man health the sovereign proof of His Messiah- ship, the expression of His own spiritual life and the arbiter of the eternal judgment of men. " In- asmuch af: ye did it, or as ye did it not, ye did it, or ye did it not, to Me." We have thousands upon thousands of men maimed and mangled in our industrial life, thou- sands upon thousands of our women, our chil- dren and our babies, who in the name of Christ Himself stretch out their hands to His holy Church. Is war for health a worthy crusade in the name of religion ? Let another of the most sacred scenes in our Master's life give answer. It is the story told by the physician disciple, Luke, and this is the way it reads : " He went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day He came down and stood in the plain ; there went virtue out of Him and healed them of all their diseases." 11 Where cross the crowded ways of life, Where sound the cries of race and clan, Above the noise of selfish strife, We hear Thy voice, O Son of Man ! " In haunts of wretchedness and need, On shadowed thresholds dark with fears, From paths where hide the lures of greed, Wc catch the vision of Thy tears. 32 Christian Service and the Modern World " From tender childhood's helplessness, From woman's grief, man's burdened toil, From famished souls, from sorrow's stress, Thy heart has never known recoil. " O Master, from the mountainside Make haste to heal these hearts of pain ; Among these restless throngs abide, O tread the city's streets again." Among the "spiritual gifts" of the modern Church, different in its application because of the eternally enduring universality of Christian truth and its adaptation to every age, but handed down to her, through the Apostolic Church, from the pierced hands of her Master, is her " gift of healing." II THE CHURCH AND MODERN INDUSTRY AN attempt to analyze the world order of to-day resolves that order into three con- stituent institutions or movements — the State, the body politic, the all-inclusive institu- tion of the social life of mankind ; DEMOCRACY, the constant, irresistible rise of the people out of obscurity and oppression into equality and au- thority ; and CHRISTIANITY, not ecclesiastically, but spiritually constituted by the Holy Spirit. The State, inclusive of all human interests in one universal form ; Democracy, the order towards which the State is moving steadily ; Christianity, the power, the leaven, the dynamic of democracy. And the relation between these three phenomena is vital, substantial and essen- tial. The order of our human progress must come by the three related processes — the State will become the ultimate form of human life ; Democracy the ultimate form of the State ; Christianity the vital power of Democracy. Thus I would state what we call the social prob- lem in its relation to the Gospel and the Church. Democracy is the comprehensive factor ; its life and being consist largely in the social move- 33 34 Christian Service and the Modern World ments of our day, and the social mission of the Christian Church is that of relating her life and inspiration to these movements. We discover two elements in all our social movements. First, the background of ultimate purpose, intent and ideal ; second, the foreground of immediate means and methods, and the first duty of the religious leader is to understand their spirit in order that he may guide them towards their true ideals. A complex of wrong means and methods is very often in the foreground, and these obscure the splendid impulses of justice and righteousness in the background. The King- dom of God is made up largely of these modern social movements, but it is not yet an ordered kingdom. An international peace convention was held a little while ago. All kinds of men were there, economists, commercialists and churchmen. The note of highest moral and spiritual idealism in that convention was struck by neither economist nor churchman. It was by a socialist leader. The Church has here the sovereign vocation of conscience, interpreter and guide of social move- ments. She is to determine what their motive must be, and to develop a conscience in them, to interpret with ethical lucidity their inner and ulti- mate meaning, and with powerful hand and mind and heart to guide them towards their spiritual ends. The Church and Modern Industry 35 A chief element in our democratic order and its sovereign movements is industrialism, a problem that cannot be treated by Christians as calm, dispassionate, economic students. He who could thus consider it, throbbing with questions of righteousness and justice, would be capable of pursuing the study of botany by pulling to pieces the roses upon the grave of his mother. For here, if anywhere, we find ourselves in the very depths of religion, as it reveals itself in the emo- tion of the human heart. The Church to-day is growingly inspired by three impulses — first, the impulse of Democracy itself ; second, the deepening of human sympathy ; and, third, the instinct of self-preservation. The progress of the Church is grievously retarded by the havoc of the present social and industrial order, and she must herself become the leader in creating the new environment which is a para- mount necessity for the perpetuation of her life. And yet had she not just that task she could not live. On every hand men are yielding to the sweet temptation to place the Church upon the rack, and sometimes, with playful sarcasm and hilari- ous impertinence, to apply to her " the third degree." She has failed ! It is asserted that her new and hitherto neglected task is Social Service. Yet it is not new. Israel's history began with an industrial uprising. The Church has always been, 36 Christian Service and the Modern World either directly or indirectly, the leader, the in- spirer, the supporter of philanthropy, charity and social regeneration, and she stands without the suggestion or intimation of a peer. Every such movement in the world is a child of the Church and an expression of her Gospel. And, what is more, that Church and that Gospel have been the arch-creators of our social unrest, as the Gospel has given to mankind this vision of his higher, larger, freer, nobler life. We might as well recognize our responsibility. The Gospel of Jesus has never proved a sedative. It has always been productive of that discontent which is the first approach to aspiration. Shall the Church, then, stand in dread before the mighty task for which she herself is so responsible ? Shall she go on opening up before the eyes of men a vision of economic, moral and spiritual freedom, while she does not break the iron bands of injustice and dishonesty which fetter their economic moral and spiritual progress ? Why then are we disquieted within ? The Church has failed to adjust herself to a new in- dustrial environment, which came upon her un- awares, which she herself created. In fact all in- stitutions have failed thus far to meet it. The State has failed ; society has failed ; political economists have failed to a most pitiful degree. All are discovering that in our attempts to ex- press our human sympathy we have been dealing The Church and Modern Industry 37 only with effects and neglecting resident forces. We are now getting back to the causes of things, and without, it is to be hoped, neglecting regen- eration and redemption, we are seeking to apply prevention. And just as the Church has ever been the great physician in repairing social damage, so now she is to become the restorer of the social order, if it is to be restored. The Church's self-respect and her deepened social conscience no longer permit her to be rep- resented in the slightest degree by the individual at the banquet, who, listening to the impassioned utterance of the orator of the occasion depicting the sufferings, the hardships, the unselfishness, the sacrifice of the working man, arose at its close, spoke of the stirring of his deep emotion, said that something must be done, and proposed to the assemblage " Three cheers for the work- ing man ! " to be followed by a liberal collection. The Church is bound to go deep into the issues of the debate. When the Christian Church attempts thus to get back of social wrong to its vital and intimate relation with social wrongs, she finds herself at every point face to face with modern industry. Is it the saloon ? The problem is inextricably intertwined with industry. Is it social vice ? Her commissions trace it, more or less directly, back to the conditions and environment of toil. Is it the welfare of the child ? She is facing the 38 Christian Service and the Modern World wan and pallid countenance of child labor. Is it the conservation of a sweet wifehood and a happy motherhood within the home ? Is it that of guid- ing and uplifting those who come to our doors from the nations of the world and the islands of the sea ? She finds herself involved at every point in the industrial order. Nay, it comes closer home. One of her sacred tasks has been the preservation of the Christian Sabbath. Here she is face to face with the ever-increasing " continuous " industries. The churches and the pastors in the industrial com- munity investigated by the Commission on the Church and Social Service, with from twenty- eight to forty-three per cent, of the men work- ing not only twelve hours a day, and sometimes twenty-four continuous hours, but also seven days in every week, have some other questions to ask than the more common one, "Why don't the working men go to church?" It becomes not only the question of getting the working man into the Church, but the somewhat larger one of getting the Christian Gospel into industry. At the present moment it must be admitted her sense is largely that of a confused helpless- ness. I have met recently with the ministers of three cities which, if certain portents of industrial disaster are not groundless, may all be within sixty days wiped practically out of industrial existence, and they all admitted their inability The Church and Modern Industry 39 and that of the Church to stay for one brief in- stant the inundation. Witness the sad spectacle in recent days — at Lawrence, at Paterson, at Little Falls, at Mus- catine, in Michigan and Colorado. In every in- stance preachers and churches were not only without adequate influence, but also without contact with the immediate situation, because they were so absolutely without contact with the great democratic life which for years had been growing up about them. Yet, in the midst of all this, we face the ques- tion as to whether or not the Church shall op- pose those who still proclaim the sense of her irrelevancy to these human problems, and whether or not she shall, at their behest, adapt the ethical principles of the Gospel to the sup- posititious exigencies of commerce or to the meagre, shamefaced codes of an overstrained industrial system. That she does not mean to do so was indicated when, at the organization of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, and again at the second quadrennial council, after the affir- mation of the divine sovereignty of Jesus Christ, she proposed the Church's Industrial platform in terms like this : " To us it seems that the Churches must stand : " 1. For equal rights and complete justice for all men in all stations of life. 40 Christian Service and the Modern World " 2. For the protection of the family, by the single standard of purity, uniform divorce laws, proper regulation of marriage, and proper housing. " 3. For the fullest possible development for every child, especially by the provision of proper education and recreation. " 4. For the abolition of child labor. " 5. For such regulation of the conditions of toil for women as shall safeguard the physical and moral health of the community. " 6. For the abatement and prevention of poverty. " 7. For the protection of the individual and society from the social, economic, and moral waste of the liquor traffic. " 8. For the conservation of health. " 9. For the protection of the worker from dangerous machinery, occupational diseases, and mortality. " 10. For the right of all men to the oppor- tunity for self-maintenance, for safeguarding this right against encroachments of every kind, and for the protection of workers from the hardships of enforced unemployment. "11. For suitable provision for the old age of the workers, and for those incapacitated by injury. " 12. For the right of employees and em- ployers alike to organize ; and for adequate The Church and Modern Industry 41 means of conciliation and arbitration in in- dustrial disputes. " 13. For a release from employment one day in seven. " 14. For the gradual and reasonable reduc- tion of the hours of labor to the lowest practi- cable point, and for that degree of leisure for all which is a condition of the highest human life. " 15. For a living wage as a minimum in every industry, and for the highest wage that each industry can afford. " 16. For a new emphasis upon the applica- tion of Christian principles to the acquisition and use of property, and for the most equitable divi- sion of the product of industry that can ulti- mately be devised." And then was added : " To the toilers of America, and to those who, by organized effort, are seeking to reduce the hardships and uphold the dignity of labor, this Council sends the greeting of human brother- hood and the pledge of sympathy and of help in a cause which belongs to all who follow Christ." And when the Church made this newer Creed she just stood by her Master in the Synagogue of Nazareth, took the sacred roll from His hand and read, " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor ; to preach deliverance to 42 Christian Service and the Modern World the captive ; to set at liberty them that are bruised ; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Then, turning to the people, she pro- claimed, " This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." But now is this all ? Is the question the simple one of bringing the persuasions of the Gospel to bear upon what we call Capital and Labor? Part of it is this, but we find serious limitations. While the conflict is too largely brought about by the unequal distribution of wealth through superior ability or opportunity misused for selfish purpose, this is by no means all. It is not simply a moral question. The elements of combination, competition, prices, the tariff and a multitude of economic matters enter in. Are these her questions ? Manifestly, no. As many preachers have been spoiled by polit- ical economy as have been helped by it. Moral vision and the prophetic sense are, and always will be, the assets of the prophet. Therefore the Church is obliged to appeal for the assistance of the State. Seven-day labor is not the simple moral question of inducing an employer to give his working people one day in seven. They are all bound up together. One cannot do this unless others in the same industry comply. Indeed, it cannot be done in one in- dustry or nation unless other industries and peoples cooperate in the same rule. In other The Church and Modern Industry 43 words, we have to deal not only with ideals, but with an economic system. Let us realize that two elements are here — personality and environment. Men are wrong, heartless, specious, but even when not so the thing it- self is bad ; and if, in making it right, the persons suffer, we must try still to make it right. Let us be frank. We are trying to reverse the law so that, so far as justice may adjust, to him that hath not shall be given, and from him that hath shall be taken away that which belongs to him that hath not. And I thank God I find men of business ready for the task, waiting for both Church and State to teil them what to do. Thus the important question that faces us is the question as to how far it is our divine obliga- tion to transform human philanthropy into in- dustrial justice. Are we to leave the working out of the larger problems of our democracy to such organizations as the Industrial Workers of the World while we simply criticize and con- demn their mistaken means and methods ? Are we to be mere repairers while they seek to re- generate ? We must continually remind ourselves that we have been the creators of this industrial unrest. We have by our gospel of freedom brought wit- ness of the larger human life, and we have been nurturing it. The Church and the Gospel have created a social democracy in which they live 44 Christian Service and the Modem World and move, and have their being, in which they have room to grow, in which their cries can be heard even though they be " like infants crying in the night, like infants crying for the light and with no language but a cry." I would not be misunderstood. There has been a good deal of argument in the public press about the relation between social vice and the industrial wage. Much of what is said is very trivial. It is absurd to assert that the vice is proportional to the wage. That there is a rela- tionship between the two no one can deny. (As a matter of obvious fact, the prostitution of womanhood is caused by the lust of men. Be- side this cause, all others are insignificant. Everybody knows it, but for some reason or other nobody likes to say it.) All this, however, is aside from the essential question : The ques- tion of an equitable division of the product of in- dustry. The obligation to seek justice for the workers in industry is not dependent upon the question as to whether or not impoverished con- ditions lead to vice. It is not a question of ex- pediency ; it is a question of justice, truth, right- eousness. The long procession of women and little chil- dren at Lawrence with faces filled with bitterness and hate; the lurid pictures of the Pittsburgh survey ; the sad story of Muscatine as told by the social service commission of the Federal The Church and Modern Industry 45 Council ; the recent scenes in religious Boston, when the great army of telephone girls with nerves racked not only by the sudden sense of rebellion which arose among them, but racked by their severe and too incessant toil, largely brought on by our exactions, witnessed their sis- ters imported from another city and set over against them by the bribes of luxurious living at the Back Bay hostelries, the 5,000 men and women whom I saw gathered in the auditorium of Denver to express their protest against what they believed to be a deep injustice of the courts of justice themselves ; are the problems of all these men and women the problems of their Christian brothers and sisters ? It is not the primary function of the Church to fix the blame or to make a specialty of personal- izing the attack (she is not the judge or the divider in this sense), but mainly to acknowledge her own large share (and this she has done, mark you, more than any other institution or element concerned) and then proceed bravely with her constructive task. And if the old garment can no more be patched, or the bottles no longer hold the new wine of jus- tice, she must obey her Lord and let them go. Let it be remembered that the Church is com- mitted to the present social order only so far as the present social order is committed to the teachings of Jesus. 46 Christian Service and the Modern World Here we come upon the vexed question of the relation between Church and State, and yet is it not clear ? The Church is to do her work in the order of modern industry by bringing to bear upon it the idealism of her Gospel and by infus- ing it with the impulse of her sympathy. The business of the State is to bring about such economic conditions and environment that the idealism of the Gospel may have as clear and fair a field as possible. It is this that justifies the Church, not in entangling herself in economic or legislative machinery, but in turning to the State for a moral cooperation which will enable her to do her sacred task. Thus the whole problem stands before the moral and social conscience of the nation as we face the wrongs of industry. Force and violence — these cannot be condoned. But most men are not violent by nature, and it is the duty of both Church and State, not simply to restrain or to condemn, but to seek the terrible aggravations behind such force and violence. The profound restlessness of the workers is largely caused by their feeling that there are no organic ways, through either Church or State, by which they may act collectively with regard to the things that deeply concern and, indeed, determine their whole physical, moral and spir- itual welfare. Is it so? Let us ask ourselves what channels are open for them by which they The Church and Modern Industry 47 may better their conditions or express their needs, other than their own channels. Can we for a moment contend that the indus- trial workers have yet found in the Church an opportunity for self-expression? The question shrinkingly answers itself. That the press of the nation is more than closed to them is clear to any man who reads it side by side with the journals of labor and of social reform. What man of us believes that the press of our day enjoys a real moral freedom ? They have the opportunity of political action, ideally to an unlimited degree, practically to a very fragmentary one. Through economic action they have the mu- tual bargaining between employer and em- ployed, which is, again, ideally their privilege ; but can they really feel that their " masters " are as a whole primarily concerned with human con- servation ? Finally, are the courts of justice their last and adequate resort? Let the judges upon the bench in the recent centres of industrial disorder give answer. Read the story of industrial injunc- tions. In short, there has been, up to this time, no satisfactory medium for such expression ; the workers feel themselves to be economically and morally disfranchised, and that he that is not for them is against them. 48 Christian Service and the Modern World Therefore perhaps the most important measure, next to the affirmation of the Social Creed of the Federal Council of the Churches, is the recent appointment by the President, prompted by the appeal of thirty ministers and social workers, of a Federal Commission empowered to lay bare the whole problem before the eyes of the American people. This commission may make mistakes, but this does not invalidate the principle. For the situation is veiled in a mysterious darkness. If we could only know the real pro- portion or disproportion between dividend and wage, between selfishness and human sacrifice ! We want to know why, when men are, accord- ing to the common plea, " losing money," they maintain a status of luxurious living which seems to give their claim a doubtful cast. We want to know whether or not the increased wage should be the contribution of the industry or the passing of the collection plate to the congregation of consumers by the industrial diaconate and elders. Is it not time for the Church to say to society in the name of her Master, " There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and nothing hidden that shall not be made manifest " ? Her sovereign task is to turn on the light, no matter what the light reveals. Thus far we have suggested two cooperating elements in the solution of the problems of in- dustry — the moral leadership of the nation in The Church and Modern Industry 49 the Church, and the economic leadership in the State. When, however, we get close to the particular problem, we find not simply, as is generally sup- posed, the two elements commonly called Capital and Labor, but rather four elements immediately concerned. We may eliminate two of them from the situation ideally, and earnestly wish we might do so actually. The first of these consists of those leaders of industry, wanting in sympathy, whose spirit is bitter, whose selfishness is primary, and those with them who, if not moved by greed, are blinded by economic fallacies. I mean those employers of labor who — sometimes riotously — conspire together for the covert or avowed intent and purpose of crushing out of existence the organization of industry, men whose political economy is that of a sometimes paternalistic feudalism, which they blindly seek to conserve in the face of an industrial democracy chartered by the very Gospel of Jesus Christ itself. The second element, and equally to be eliminated, are those leaders of labor who are equally false to this great trust, for to worship the Mammon that other men possess is little, if any, better than to worship the Mammon that we possess ourselves, and labor has her foes within. The one element is to be condemned equally with the other. Anarchy conspired and syndical- 50 Christian Service and the Modern World ism plotted in the luxurious office or the sump- tuous parlor of the hotel are no better, if not worse, than when conspired and directed from the dark room of the saloon. Here the solemn obligation of the Church may bring her to the cross. Like her Master, she may be betrayed, both by Judas and the temple traders, for thirty pieces of silver, and by the blind populace, who likewise cry that she be crucified, and she may find her life in losing it upon the cross between two thieves. Having eliminated these two elements, we come down to two others — that saving element among the leaders of industry, of high-minded men with sympathetic hearts, who are seeking to extricate themselves and their fellows from the toils of a bewildered economic system ; the other, those high-minded leaders of labor who ought to be the copartners and colleagues of the other ele- ment and of the Church itself. The industrial program of the Federal Council should become the articles of faith of the Chambers of Commerce and the Manufacturers' Association, and not only that of Labor and the Church. Here is a magnificent chance for a new set of " gentlemen's agreements." All it needs is the stretching of existing ones, and when this is done every preacher will be willing to preach nothing but the simple Gospel, what- ever that is. The trouble with the trusts is not The Church and Modern Industry 51 that they are too large. They are not large enough. I speak of the leaders of labor. Do I mean Organized Labor ? There is one fallacy which should be dispelled. It is claimed that organized labor represents only the 2,000,000 men who compose its organization, but any thoughtful man knows better than this. Is it not clear to any sane man that we might as well insist that we would discuss religion without recognizing the Christian Church as to talk about the prob- lems of industry apart from the collectivism and the solidarity of labor ? And has not the recent sad experience in the city of Lawrence and in New Jersey and Colorado shown us clearly that we may take our choice between the guidance of Organized Labor, with its economic machin- ery, as a conserving, constructive, evolutionary agency, mingling at least light with heat, serving not only to incite, but also to restrain — our choice between this and the anomaly of absolutely un- regulated riot in the very cause of justice ? For syndicalism is here, not as a vague and idle threat, but as a stern reality. Instead of soli- darity and communal action for the uplift of the people, we may have mankind destroying the plague by burning down its own house and meeting social wrong by social wrongs. So much for the long-sown seeds of our neglect. The scene is shifting. The battle-ground is 52 Christian Service and the Modern World within labor itself, and the crisis which is immi- nent will give the Church the sovereign oppor- tunity of all her history to establish peace with the administering hand of justice. Why is it that all our moral leaders do not see that in such an organization as the American Federation of Labor, with its magnificent eco- nomic machinery, the most gigantic economic force of any day or generation, we have, in the midst of our seething, threatening social unrest, one great safety valve, one great conserving, con- structive social agency, one clear speaking voice amid the many clamoring tongues, so many of which are " like infants crying in the night, Like infants crying for the light, And with no language but a cry," one great evolutionary force that is, more than anything else, bringing order out of chaos, be- cause it mingles light with heat and serves not only to incite but also to restrain. Why do men not see that these men hold the destinies of our human social order? There is surely one thing for which the Church cannot stand. It cannot stand for anarchy. And one definition of anarchy is that it is the attempted destruction of any fundamental institution of so- ciety. In a democratic state, the organization of la- bor is, by the common agreement of statesmen and economists, one of those fundamental institutions. The Church and Modern Industry 53 It needs guidance ; it calls for restraint ; its meth- ods should be the subject of most careful thought and revision, but with all its limitations this re- mains true, that any group of men who conspire together for the covert or avowed intent and purpose of crushing or crowding out of existence the organization of industry, are the most dan- gerous and dreaded group of anarchists in this or any other land. Here then we have three cooperating elements in the situation ; and all three of them — the State, the high-minded men of Industry, and the true leaders of Labor — are to-day awaiting, though they know it not, even though she knows it not, the moral leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ. In the burning, fiery furnace there is a fourth form, and it is like unto the Son of Man. Among the most significant utterances of recent days is that of the Commission on the Church and Social Service of the Federal Council in its recent report to that Council. It says : " This Commission has made its approach in its interest in social and industrial questions, alike to favored and unfavored, to the employer and the employee equally, to the leaders of industry as to the leaders of labor. " We bear glad record that the response has not come only from those who suffer grievously from economic wrong. " We have confidence, therefore, to bear a spe- 54 Christian Service and the Modern World cial message to our Chambers of Commerce, and our Associations of Business Men and Industrial Directors. " (a) We ask them to adopt openly and make their own our social platform and all its implica- tions. We express the profound belief that the time has come when these organizations must earnestly and sympathetically make the problems of the workers and the people their problems. We remind them that they have a tremendous power, which, if rightly used, could solve the problems of society, that the great multitude of evils with which the Church is called upon to contend — the social evil, the problems of the welfare of the child and the conservation of womanhood — are largely commercial, are all problems of industry and business and should not only be questions of moment on the part of the Church and the organizations of social reform, but matters of concern upon the part of our business interests, both as composed of indi- vidual Christian men and as organizations. "(b) It ought not to be necessary for the Church to resort to legislation for social uplift. It may be better obtained by another process. Should this Commission be obliged, for example, during this next Quadrennium, to wend its way among the forty-eight States of this Union, to get bills passed in their legislatures requiring that men should have one day's rest in seven ? The Church and Modern Industry 55 May not the employers of labor and the general business interests of this nation unite to the end that in every calling and industry the seven-day- week shall be abolished ? " (c) Upon those whose incomes are derived from their holdings in mill and mine we urge the social danger of absentee ownership and its grave abuses, and we plead the full law of human re- sponsibility, reminding them that, in the twenty- fifth chapter of Matthew, Jesus' judgment was pronounced on men and women for the things they did not do. " (d) We would remind those to whom afflu- ence has come, whether by righteous or unright- eous means, that the tendency of our day upon the part of the great masses of the people to look to revolution rather than to the process of evolu- tion, for their uplifting, is largely caused by the way in which so many of the rich flaunt their riches in the very face of the poor and emphasize the wide gulf between Dives at his table and Lazarus at the gate, and to such we commend the teachings of Jesus upon the productive use of wealth. " (e) We urge a deeper sense of the value of productive thought and toil and wealth. To create, for the benefit of all, is the highest end for the investment of talent, toil, and of material possession. Hence every industrial and com- mercial enterprise that ministers to wholesome 56 Christian Service and the Modern World life should be encouraged and honored, and every device that aims to secure something for nothing should be discountenanced and con- demned. Return and reward are just, only as they measure their moral equivalent, however it may be expressed in its material terms." The task of the Church is to train, transform and inspire such leaders of Industry, to guide with sympathy the leaders of Labor, and to mold the conscience of the State. But, again, is this the obligation of the Church ? She must do it or revise her Gospel. Let the Church do it, or else let her accept in place of her Lord an industrial master to say with outstretched hands, ''Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Mammon." Let the Church do it or say frankly, "The Sabbath was not made for man." Let the Church do it or answer her Master, "How much is a man better than a sheep?" No better. Let the Church do it or get a new higher critic to cut out Dives and Lazarus, and another to find that the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew is an interpolation and the Book of Luke a pseudo gospel. It is one thing or the other — the teaching of Jesus or the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche ; God or Mammon ; Barabbas or Christ. The Church and Modern Industry 57 But is this her task ? The only time, perhaps, when Jesus declared the moral determinance of human destiny was in the severe and searching utterance in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew : " Inasmuch as ye did it, or as ye did it not, to one of these, My brethren, ye did it, or ye did it not, to Me." I read this chapter the other evening. I had just read the latest word from the Bureau of Labor — thirty-five thousand men killed ; of two million injured in one year in industry. A large proportion, so the report said, were preventable disasters, and I said as I read the chapter : Two million and thirty-five thousand " of these My brethren." (These are not my words. They are the words of Jesus.) In the factory the other day, with its five hun- dred little children, with less glow upon their cheeks than that which flashes among the ma- chinery of which they are but a part — five hun- dred " of these little ones." In one industry in one little town — five thou- sand "of these My brethren," working twelve hours a day, and sometimes twenty-four hours, seven days every week ! In the name, then, of the churches of the na- tion, let us proclaim the moral and spiritual lead- ership of the Church, inspiring the State, mold- ing Industry, guiding Labor, until every home in our land, to the last poor stranger that comes 58 Christian Service and the Modern World within our gates, becomes the abode of happiness and health. Until the rushing wheels of in- dustry no longer drown the moans while they blight the lives of little children as dear to God as your children are and mine. Until woman- hood in the home shall be a happy wifehood and a sweet motherhood that shall bear its own natural and sufficient burdens without the hag- gard countenance of hunger of body and of soul, or, if in toil, shall have the safeguards of virtue and health. Until manhood, with a toil that does not diminish self-respect, and with leisure to cultivate the finer graces of our human life, shall all be the answer to our prayer: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth." But what has this to do with the men and women whom these words reach ? We are not responsible for this situation, sad as it may be. We have rightly laid the blame sometimes on what we have called Capital, sometimes on what we have called Labor. Was that where it be- longed? Let us read that twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew again some time, and if we have not been before, we shall be profoundly impressed by this strangely severe and significant fact — that the judgment of Jesus was there pronounced upon men in every case for the things they didrit do. As we look out upon the order of Industry, The Church and Modern Industry 59 upon the great ocean of democracy, with its waves and billows, but also with its splendid wide horizon, we need to hear the call of the Master to those who have fished and taken noth- ing, " Launch out into the deep and let down your nets." Among the greatest of social opportunities be- fore the Christian Church is the establishment of industrial justice, that a weary, wasted world of toil may hear her voice : " Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The Church cannot fail to find her way into mill and factory and mine and office, if she simply takes Jesus at His word. Ill THE CONSOLIDATION OF CONSCIENCE WE are accustomed to recognize two definite relations of human person- ality ; the relation between the indi- vidual and God ; and the relation between the individual and society. The security of the first is dependent upon the realization of the second. Therefore, in morals and religion, our predomi- nating emphasis is upon the relation between man and men. Pessimism is generally due to limitation of vision in time and space. It is the want of a correct perspective. It is the inability to cover the entire field and to see things in their relations and proportions. Take, for example, the alleged decline of the Christian Church. The Church has decreased largely because Christ has in- creased. As the Kingdom of God has extended itself over the great field of human life, religious institutionalism takes its place as one part of this kingdom. Attainment seems less because our ideals are greater. We pursue a flying goal, and the nearer we approach it the farther off it seems. 60 The Consolidation of Conscience 6l So men are pointing in despair to the great problems of our day and tell us in dismay that we are increasing them. But why, for example, our great social tumult? It is because Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. The light of His coun- tenance has shone upon darkened Russia, and the serf has seen it. The wage-earner in the mills and mines has seen Him. They have re- ceived from Him the charter of their freedom. We have our social and industrial problems be- cause we have dared to attempt the realization of a Christian democracy. Three things are necessary to a correct per- spective : the sense of time — on the whole things are better than they were ; the sense of space — diffusion is apt to be misleading ; third, we need to take account of the many unseen influences and resident forces. The fact is, the Christian Church as an institution suffers by comparison with its own creations, with the multitude of other social institutions to which it has given birth. It is because the Kingdom of God has become larger that the Church seems smaller. She has lost by the giving of herself. Her leaven is less easily distinguished because it is more widely diffused. The stream of the Chris- tian Gospel has overflowed the banks of the Christian Church and is spreading itself over all the valleys of human life. Therefore, that the Church has lost her place 62 Christian Service and the Modern World is the sublime tribute to her greatness and her success. She is becoming the Kingdom of God. Many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things that we see and to hear the things that we hear, and saw and heard them not. If we look with the eye of spiritual vision into the fiery furnace of our moral social struggle we shall behold there the fourth form, and the form is like unto that of the Son of Man. I am sorry to see so many of our preachers losing their grip, letting their vision become be- muddled, getting frantic because they mistake the transition of temporary institutions for the decadence of eternal truth, wildly running to one expedient after another, wasting their sub- stance in riotous experimentation, mistaking the momentary splash for the unyielding billow ; in- stead of standing calm and firm and strong in an age of outward transition, waiting with pa- tience and assurance for the sure returning tides of God. And yet, if there be no abiding stream and source there can be no continuous flood. This great moral social conscience must have its central dynamic. We should rejoice in all this diffusion and should glory in a dispersed gospel. Nevertheless it is also necessary to keep in mind the three elements of source, stream, and flood ; the moral power of the individual, the group, and society. The Consolidation of Conscience 63 Let us consider a second question. As this larger social conscience has developed, it has raised the question as to the moral primacy and ultimacy of the individual or society. Is a good society made up out of regenerate individuals, or, is a good social organization necessary in order to make men good? Jesus answered this question two thousand years ago. He was no Hindu Pundit drawing men away from their human and earthly environment. He was a Hebrew Prophet preparing men for a new social order. He spake to the individual, but He always spake to the individual as a member of society. It is true that there can only be brotherhood where there are brothers. It is also true that brotherhood helps to make men broth- ers. A tainted atmosphere never helped men to resist disease. My purpose is to allow for both processes. First, the moral conscience of the individual creates the conscience of society. Second, the social conscience also persuades and coerces the apathetic individual conscience. In the main, however, my task is to show that the individual and the group are the creators and the molders of the social order. Another question of our day is that of author- ity. Is it subjective or objective ? is it innate or imposed? At this point some very attractive theses of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit need to 64 Christian Service and the Modern World be qualified. Imposed authority must be given its rightful place. It is true that every man should follow his own moral sense. This does not mean, however, that he has a right to live as though there were no other men. In part he must live by the moral sense of other men and of mankind. Israel did not prosper when " every man did that which seemed right in his own eyes." There is always objective authority to be found somewhere in the process. This objective au- thority should be the moral rule of the strongest and best conscience. Thus conscience itself is in part innate and partly imposed. Or if innate, it is awakened, developed, and transformed by the persuasive power of that which is stronger and better. My purpose, therefore, is to declare the imperative necessity of the imposed conscience and the principle of the moral authority of the strongest and the best. We have still another fond term which needs some qualification. We talk about the "Zeit- geist" Men point to great movements for moral upliftment and say, "That shows the spirit of the times." This is a great and true idea. Such idealism lends hope and courage, and gives wings to faith. Nevertheless, it will not do to fly too far in advance. Very often we let our monistic idealism have too much play. We should be fired by a magnificent prophetic vision. At the same time we need to distinguish The Consolidation of Conscience 65 between our vision of the things that are to be and things as they are. It will not do for us to take our highest ideals and generalize by calling them " the spirit of the time." The actual fact is that there are two spirits of the time : one of them is very good ; the other is very devilish. One spirit of the time is indicated by such- gatherings as the Peace Conference in the Hague ; the spirit of the time indicated by our humane institutions and Civil Service ; our laws against predatory wealth ; our prosecution of political bribery. But there is another and a very different spirit of the time. It is the spirit of the time indicated by the following humorous (?) statement of a New York business man in the subway the other morning. He said, " The men who go down at seven or eight in the morning are the men who make things. We who go down at nine or ten spend our energy in trying to take them away from each other." There is a social conscience. Yes, but there are two social consciences. Some of the news- papers have one conscience in the editorial chair, and another conscience in the business office. Very frequently it is the conscience of the busi- ness end that dominates the editorial utterance. There are two rules of life, the golden rule and the rule of gold. Both are very active and very powerful. Thus monistic idealism is very good as ideal- 66 Christian Service and the Modern World ism. Pessimism palsies the hand. But so also does looking at life as though it were an unhin- dered moral order, and failing to realize that all moral evolution is struggle and warfare against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. So sometimes the world looks like Paradise ; at other times like an Inferno. There are two social consciences, two spirits of the time, and they are in deadly con- flict. Thus far I have sought to intimate these three propositions : First : Society creates man, and man also creates the society that creates men. Second : Both the individual and social conscience are amenable to the imposed moral authority of other consciences. Third : The actual world is a clear-cut dualism, which idealism may actually diminish but must not idealistically deny. These propositions reveal three principles : First : The moral power of the individual and the group upon society. Second : The right of conscience to impose it- self. Third : That this effort to impose conscience is the real moral battle of society. The history of all moral movements has been that of the imposed conscience. It was the con- science of Moses defying Pharaoh. It was the The Consolidation of Conscience 67 conscience of the Prophets exercised upon Israel. It was the moral power of the little group called the " Servant of Jehovah " upon the Hebrew Nation. It was the conscience of Luther imposed upon Germany. It was the conscience of the Abolitionists finally imposed upon our Nation. All moral progress has come in response to the demand for righteousness ; the insistence of the moral authority of the imposed conscience. We talk a great deal about something which we call public spirit. What is it ? It is always the conscience of the individual or of the group awakening, moving, and dominating the people. It is thus only that the voice of the people be- comes the voice of God. We obtain moral legislation in so far as this public spirit demands it. The judicial conscience is largely amenable to it. Fines and penalties are apt to be small or great, judicial authority is likely to be stern or lax, according to the insistence of the demand of the imposed conscience. The most striking instance is that of industrial betterment. It has been the conscience of the labor unions imposed upon employers. It has been the unceasing insistence of the combined conscience of the laboring men and a scanty few who have helped them, that has brought about the betterment of industrial conditions. Sometimes it is thus the conscience of the in- dividual and the group imposed upon society. 68 Christian Service and the Modern World At other times it is the reverse process, as, for example, when recently a minister who had per- formed an unholy marriage found the conscience of his church ready to impose itself upon him and reverse his moral decision. Thus the relation between the individual and the social conscience is retroactive. Generally it follows in this order : First, the individual on the group ; second, the group on society ; third, society acting on the conservative individual conscience. All are both primary and ultimate. All are both cause and effect. We need con- science as well as consciences, and we cannot have conscience without consciences. Let us next consider the question as to what shall be the method and the message of the im- posed conscience. It is the prophetic. By what manner of preaching shall it be aroused, com- bined, and imposed ? Shall it be the wrath of God or the appeal of the Divine affection ? Shall it be by persuasion or compulsion, bold denun- ciation or monistic idealism ? Does the age need light or lightning ? The answer is, both. The conscience which is to impose itself must declare itself in unmistakable terms. The ultimate aim of religion and faith is the development of moral character. But character is infinitely more than the outward deeds and lives of men. It is the state of the heart. It in- heres in the motive* If, then, character and The Consolidation of Conscience 69 motive are consubstantial terms, it follows that growth in character is not only the doing of bet- ter things, not only doing better things in better ways, but doing better things in better ways for better reasons. It is growth in the quality of in- centive. Moral development is transition from lower to higher, from good to better motives. As there are lower and higher attainments of goodness, so there are lower and higher initial persuasions to goodness. The message to the man must depend upon the motive to be initially incited. The two motives to the beginning and pur- suance of a better life are love and fear. Both are essential to imperfect humanity. Admira- tion and attainment of the good has for its re- verse side the abhorrence and fear of evil. The motive of love is the infinitely higher. But we must take men and our age where we find them, so we do not leave them there. We find differ- ences in the natures of our children. Some, al- most from the beginning, only need our tender- ness and love ; others need a severity and chastisement which true love will not withhold. Only by a judicious use of these can they be brought to a moral state to which love can make its last appeal. It is so with God's older chil- dren. The motives to be used in an age depend upon the character and temperament of the age. The generation to which we are called to 70 Christian Service and the Modern World proclaim the truth is one of appalling indiffer- ence to the deeper issues of human life and destiny. Men and women are little concerned about their eternal souls. It is not an age of great and profound sense of moral obligation and responsibility, but of easy-going disregard. It has little of the spirit of humble confession, but much of arrogant self-complacency. It blindly refuses to tremble for itself. It is self- satisfied, with too little capital for its self-satis- faction. It lives in time and sense, and ignores eternity and spirit. The Almighty is patronized. Jesus Christ is ignored in His divine Saviourhood, His holy Church is neglected, and His disciples and apostles condescendingly tolerated by a growing mass of men and women who have less and less use to make of them or their sacred message. They think they can conserve an adequate moral character and nature, and tell themselves that they are doing it without wor- shipping God or directly seeking His grace and strength. It takes an occasion like this awful war, or some nearer local calamity to bring us to our knees, and to the sense of our neglect. Ours is not a serious age. In the pulpit itself, light-weight and flippant entertainers have their day. The Church must minister amusement rather than religion. With the sense of obli- gation the sense of privilege has departed, and many men and women, when they come to The Consolidation of Conscience 71 church at all, do it and speak of it as though they were conferring a favor upon the church, upon the preacher, and upon Almighty God. Heavenly treasures are unsought, and material- ism rules. Rich men are fervently denounced by men who are trying their very best to be rich men. They have not time to go to church. The family hearthstone is no longer a sacred altar, and the father is no more the priest of God in the home. The mighty movement, the animation, the ceaseless energy of the time, is in the realm of material things and to gain pos- sessions of the earth. There is a correspond- ingly growing apathy on the side of religion. As ministers of the Gospel we wait and long in vain for some one to come, some time, to talk with us about some great, deep and profound spiritual interest. And it grows difficult and dangerous to dare to go to them. The fact is, our age is dangerously near the experiment of trying to get on without religion and without God. We are moving merrily on over the sur- face of an ocean deep with unseen and forgotten perils. Let me pause to insert a word of caution. Had I been called to speak of good things and advances of our time I could have done so warmly. But I am now urging its dangers. It is not so much a flagrantly bad, as a loung- ing, careless, heedless and indifferent time. 72 Christian Service and the Modern World Men are serenely strolling over moral paths, and gayly tripping on the edge of the eternal solemnities of human life. The age lacks deep moral force and conviction. It has corrected some of our fathers' faults, but has lost their virtues. It has a gentler-heartedness, but it has less moral power. It has lost in fortitude. The fathers braved the angry waters of an ocean for the sake of truth and religion. Their offspring will not go to hear the truth or seek religion, be the Sunday morning sky relieved by a cloud the size of their hand, and dare not, for religious worship, brave an April shower. They sat for hours and listened with intellectual alertness and spiritual earnestness to a sermon on the attributes of God. Their sons and daughters must have sermonettes, not more than twenty minutes, and not too deep, profound or intellectual. If it be true — and who will say it is not true ? — that we are wanting in our fathers' virtues, is it not altogether probable that we need their daily bread, those articles of faith which inspired those virtues ? We have sought thus far to establish two propositions : i. The character of the age de- termines the motive to be appealed to ; 2. An easy-going, careless, willful age needs a tone of severity and sternness. And men have drifted so far that it must be so severe and so certain and so stentorian, it must be uttered with such The Consolidation of Conscience 73 power and conviction, that it will go beyond the portals oi the Church and reach the ears of men and women who are dealing with the eternal problems of human destiny and caring for the culture of their immortal souls, and worshipping their Creator, and thinking their great and pro- found thoughts, in their beds or by the inspira- tion of the Sunday newspaper. I say it with profound conviction ; the age needs lightning. The stern, strong, earnest men of Puritanism have a word to say to us. First of all, they had some doctrines. Their faith was no indefinite and incoherent thing. The Puritan said, " I be- lieve " ; and when he said it he knew what he believed. We hear a good deal of foolish talk — It does not matter what a man believes. Such talk is eternal nonsense. A man's convictions of the truth determine his manhood ; and if he has no convictions he is a characterless man. The ultimate article of the Puritan confession was, I believe in God. That belief was no vague and shadowy thing. They believed in a sovereign God. They believed in Almighty God. This is the supreme article of any faith. Every other is but an inference from it and a corollary to it. It determines the length and height and breadth of a man's moral being. God ! The name has lost its solemn sound and meaning. Men are too busy to pray to God. He is passed by. The age has outgrown him. The Puritan believed 74 Christian Service and the Modern World in Almighty God, Maker of all things, Judge of all men, before whom men were to acknowledge and bewail their manifold transgressions against His divine majesty, by which they had justly pro- voked the infinite wrath and indignation, to whom they repented and prayed, Have mercy upon us. They sometimes made a very doubtful use of the Scriptures ; but they used them. The Scrip- tures, like the Puritanism that followed them, speak with magnificent consistency upon the foundations of religion. Everywhere, on every page, from Genesis to Joshua, from Judges to Job, from Psalm to prophet, from Matthew to Revelation, in every one of Professor Cheyne's Isaiahs, in every Hexateuchal document, from beginning to end, one truth stands unshaken as the firmament itself : God is God. To do His holy will means ultimate blessing; to defy it means disaster and death. Yes, they made some slips of exegesis and some errors as to date and authorship, which they rejoice to have us correct, and which they would dare to correct did they live now. But they got one definite, profound, eternal truth out of their Bibles. They built a nation on that truth. The first word of the Declaration of Independence was writ on Plym- outh Rock. They wrought for liberty under its impulse. They surmounted the unsurmountable by its power. The Church was against them. The Consolidation of Conscience 75 Civil government was against them. The bil- lows of the ocean threatened them. A barren shore beckoned them to death. What was the source of their fortitude and the mighty power of their personality ? It was their faith in God — in Almighty God. He, and not the Archbishop of Canterbury ; He, and not the sovereign of England ; He, and He alone, was the ruler of men and of the universe. His law and His law alone determined right and wrong. They feared Him. And it was because they did fear God that they did not fear anything else. They would not bow the knee to prince or potentate, because they did get on their knees to the God they ac- knowledged. This conception of the absolute, eternal, un- movable sovereignty of the Infinite, and nothing less than this, is the ultimate and fundamental of a real religious faith. The man is not worth his weight in dust who does not stand in awe of God. In all history and biography, in every age and clime and nation, this has been the spirit that has hated iniquity, broken tyranny, induced righteousness, wrought liberty, and made men worth making. And there never was an iniquity hated nor a tyranny broken nor a righteousness induced nor a liberty wrought nor a man worth making made without it. The commercial life which is usurping every hour of our day needs to learn that it cannot manipulate and deal so as 76 Christian Service and the Modern World to get ahead of God. In civic life men must be made to realize that they cannot circumvent the Almighty and that they cannot pull the wool of demagogism over the eyes of the Infinite ; that when God and truth seem submerged it is an optical illusion ; that His all-powerful hand is on this world, and He will ultimately bring things to the issues of His holy will. A good-for-noth- ing god in theology means good-for-nothing prophets in the pulpit and good-for-nothing men in the pews and on the street. Does this conception deny the Fatherhood of God? No I It is essential to it. The father who does not rule his household with his wis- dom, uphold it with his strong arm, and guide it with his love, is no father at all. This is the real fundamental of any faith. Let it be granted and comprehended, and the related truths will follow as certainly as source and is- sue. Theirs was no slipshod thinking, no undi- gested truth. The inevitable conclusions and corollaries were and are momentous and of deep concern. Theirs was a moral God. They were moral beings. The first of these deductions is the sense of moral obligation. In the light of a God perfect in character, absolute in righteous- ness, man beholds himself in contrast. He sees and knows himself only as he knows and feels God. The consciousness of God inevitably brings the sense of human sin. The humanity The Consolidation of Conscience 77 of our age is forgetting that mankind is sinful. Men are inclined to be on easy terms with them- selves. The eternal difference between right and wrong is evaded and ignored. We can afford to dispense with " original " and theoret- ical sin. There is enough left that is actual and undeniable. We admit that there are crimes. All else we are prone to look upon as infirmities. There is something between the two. It is sin. We do wrongs ; we do them intentionally and volitionally. We repeat them. We sin. We are sinful. The sense of it is the first step to holiness. The better men become, the keener is their consciousness of it. No saint ever lived who did not feel it deeply. The complacent self-satisfaction of our generation needs hum- bling in the dust. The conception of sin as an offense against an outraged and righteously in- dignant God is an unknown, unheard and for- gotten thing. We must relearn the preaching of it. This conception and consciousness of God, with man's self-consciousness, gives him his relation to the universe : — GOD — I. I live under that all-seeing eye. This Infinite de- mands righteousness of me. He sees my evil deeds and knows my evil thoughts, and abhors them. He rightly demands confession of them and the substitution of repentance, issuing in good works. Does this impair the heavenly Fatherhood? 78 Christian Service and the Modern World Will a true father encourage his children in their sin by countenancing it ? Is God a seller of in- dulgences ? The Fatherhood of God calls for the forbidding of sin, and if He ignores it He is no true Father. If thus we follow the Puritan conception of God and its consciousness of sin in the light of moral obligation, we are led on by the undeviat- ing march of law and logic to another ancient and much execrated doctrine. The Puritan looked himself and his sins squarely in the face. He was scientifically exact. Cause had relation to effect ; acts had their consequences. He was an evolutionist before his time. Men ask indifferently and doubtfully : Is there a judgment? It is the question of an imbecile mind. Do moral paths lead nowhere ? Can men break laws without consequences? Can men break eternal laws without eternal conse- quences? Try it. There is yonder lofty column. There is a law called gravitation. Break it, and step airily from the summit. To break that law means death. Has the Infinite been thus exact in the physical realm of law and indifferent in the spiritual ? Is the material universe a cosmos and the spiritual a chaos ? The age to which we are called to proclaim the truth needs to be told that while it blinds itself to the eternal future, the eternal laws of God move to their issues with as certain and as ceaseless and eternal march as if The Consolidation of Conscience 79 men saw them. They may hide their heads be- neath the screen of the coverlet, but the light- ning does not thereby cease to flash nor lose its pathway to its mark. They may bury their eyes in the desert sands, but they do not thus anni- hilate the danger. The simple and undeniable truth needs to be dwelt on that there are two ways and trends of life, — to ruin and to blessed- ness ; that every moral decision of every moral being, that every moral act of every moral per- sonality, brings it nearer the edge or centre of a path. Then we must ask how, in the light of human weakness, in the light of human tempta- tion, we can live without ceaseless prayer and supplication to the infinite strength and grace ? We are false to ourselves, and commit a crime against men, if we do not tell them they are moving, either towards the heaven of a growing life or towards a day of remorse, by whatever name we call it. Will there be a judgment? It is — now. Science dares to state it for us in appalling terms. It is called the survival of the fittest — correspondence to environment. Philosophy calls it cause and effect. Judgment is but an- other way of stating the law of the survival of the morally fit, of correspondence to divine en- vironment. The evangelist who warns men to seek the glory or to flee the wrath to come is but stating a proposition in mathematics. Two 80 Christian Service and the Modern World lines going in different directions will never come together. The doctrine of divine judg- ment is the simplest and most apparent of all truths. It is that every man is free to go as he wills, and that he will go where he goes. He is his own witness and his own judge. Are love and fatherhood impaired ? No, it is essential to them. This moral law of the sur- vival of the fittest has for its end to produce moral fitness. It could be produced no other way. The freedom of the human will involves it. And as moral fitness could be produced by no other method, so moral fitness never will be produced by any other preaching than the solemn preaching of this truth. Would He be a Father if He let His children sin against them- selves? Would He be a Father if He let them misuse His other children without punishment ? The true father wants his children to be good. To gain this end he must, if he be true, use every means. God is so good and loving that He is supremely concerned for the moral welfare of His children. He wants them to be righteous. He has placed the barrier of retribution between them and evil that they might turn from evil. Judgment, retribution, punishment, belong among the evidences of love. This brings us to our final thought. The ulti- mate end is the regeneration and restoration of The Consolidation of Conscience 81 sinful men and women. There is absolutely no other path to it than that of the Puritan faith. There is no other preaching that will accomplish it than that of their fundamental doctrines. The awakening in the souls of men of the conscious- ness of an absolute, holy God, under whose all- seeing eye they live, whose laws they cannot defy without disaster, who hates their sins, who loves them so deeply that He wants to give them the gift of His own infinite righteousness, and has put every obstacle He can, without intruding upon the inviolable solitude of their free person- ality, between them and sin, — this, with the con- sequent consciousness of sin, is the only way by which that sense of need of redemption is awak- ened, by which alone redemption can be gained. They all stand or fall together. The age and generation call for a solemn, searching, fearless utterance of solemn, searching and fearful truths. The older terminology need not be used. We have a vocabulary better suited to our age. We have a light that makes those truths clearer. Science and philosophy are by our side. They give us analogies that are start- ling, and lend us pregnant and significant terms. The Gospel is outgrown, the Christian pulpit is superfluous, the Church of Christ goes out of existence when the truths of the Gospel, the vocabulary of the pulpit, and the constitution of the Church do not contain the words GOD, SlN, 82 Christian Service and the Modern World Judgment and Redemption. Strong moral manhood never was, never is, and never will be without these conceptions and convictions. We need, in this heedless generation, to be first of all Isaiahs, Jeremiahs, Malachis, Amoses, Hoseas, to prepare the way for Jesus Christ. The voice of the prophet is stilled in the land. We need to become John the Baptists forerun- ning the Redeemer, with the stern raiment of camel's hair, with strong leathern girdles about our loins, preaching in a wilderness of religious indifference, and saying, Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, that men may come and be baptized of us, confessing their sins. We must be more than John the Baptists. But we cannot be more than John the Baptists until we have been John the Baptists. Then, on the morrow, looking upon the transcendent form of the Son of God, revealing so ineffably the Father's character and will and love, we shall, with the joy of the Gospel making our voices to tremble in the transformation of the message, point suppliant and confessing sinners to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. We can never save the world and the age to which we are called to proclaim the eternal laws of God which determine the eternal destinies of men, until that world and that age is brought to realize that it needs to be saved. Thus men must be told that there is a God in The Consolidation of Conscience 83 Israel as well as a Jesus in Nazareth. We must utilize the parable of Dives and Lazarus as well as the Beatitudes. In large measure this must be the spirit of the imposed conscience. Do you answer that this is not the spirit of Jesus ? You have omitted one aspect of His mes- sage. "Wo!" "Wol" "Wo!" The important question for us is, How may we relate this order to the Christian Church and the Christian ministry ? This is the real problem of Church and State. The individual should be the minister. The group should be the Church. Society is our community and commonwealth. This is the supreme work of the Church and the ministry, to tell men that they must earn money decently rather than endow with it richly ; to tell our business men that their office signs, " No admittance except on business," must come down ; to tell our employers of labor that they must estimate men vertically not horizontally. James Russell Lowell said, " There is enough dynamite in the New Testament to blow all our existing institutions to atoms if illegitimately ap- plied." It is still truer that there is enough power in the Gospel to transform our institutions into the Kingdom of Heaven if legitimately ap- plied. It will not do to tell men, in general terms, that they ought to have a conscience. In large measure the Church should be their conscience. 84 Christian Service and the Modern World In this sense we should be an authoritative Church and an authoritative pulpit. Some Prot- estants think of the Church as a kind of Masonic lodge and some preachers think of their ordina- tion as a sort of election as Worthy Grand. If I felt that way, I think I should frankly drop the whole thing. We live in the midst of a magnificent historic opportunity. Whether the issue shall be weal or wo depends on the last resort of summoning, arousing, combining, and imposing the great latent moral forces in our midst. These great moral forces are in a state of balance. The spirit is, "I will if others will." There are a great host of business men who are ready to turn either way, and either make a stand for commerical integrity or give up trying to be Christian men altogether. The social conscience of society awaits the group. The group awaits the individual. The supreme question for us is, Shall the Christian Church be the group, the " Servant of Jehovah," the saving remnant, the moral leaven of the nation and the world ? The still nearer question is : Shall the personal, individual, initiative force be the Christian ministry ? Shall the Church be the imposed conscience on society? Shall the conscience of the prophet become the imposed conscience on the Church ? Shall they both have, first of all, a great burning conscience them- selves? When the eternal Sovereign of the The Consolidation of Conscience 85 universe would turn all the great forces of a great age into one great moral movement He moves one man. The man moves men. Thus begins the great onward march of a reformation, a revolution, and this has been the history of every great renaissance that the world has ever known. Florence groans and travails for her San Marco. San Marco awaits her Piagnoni. They in their turn await the voice of Savonarola. And it may be that the Arno stays her flow to await her freight of smoldering human ashes. Do we not all feel it — the imminence of great decision? Said a prominent business men of New York to me the other day : " When the Church and pulpit enter definitely into the com- mercial and industrial problems of our time they take their lives in their hands." In reply I told him the pathetic story related of Frederick W. Robertson. One of his parishioners sought to stay the boldness of his utterance. " Mr. Robert- son, you will suffer for it." " I don't care." "Mr. Robertson, you invite personal ruin." " I don't care." " Mr. Robertson, do you know what happened to ' Don't care ' ? " "I do, He was crucified on Calvary." We are trying to find some appeal to our young men to induce them to enter the ministry. We have a magnificent chance for an appeal for a brave ministrv. 86 Christian Service and the Modern World " ' Seest thou that brightness approaching us?' " ' I see nothing,' said Nazarius. " ' Some figure is coming in the glare of the sun.' Then Peter threw himself on his knees, and this cry left his lips: 'O Christ!' 'O Christ!' and again 'Quo vadis, Domine?' " ' If thou desert my people, I am going to Rome to be crucified a second time.' " l Quo vadis, Domine?' This time the voice of Nazarius. " ' To Rome,' said the Apostle, and he re- turned." "Then Jesus took unto Him the twelve and said unto them, Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accom- plished. " For He shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked and spitefully entreated, and spitted upon ; and they shall scourge Him and put Him to death ; and the third day He shall rise again. 11 " Domine ', quo vadis ? " IV THE FEDERAL UNITY OF THE CHURCHES A SOCIAL OBLIGATION FEDERAL unity is denominationalism in cooperation. It is the effort to adjust autonomy and corporate action, individu- ality and social solidarity, liberty and social adaptation. According to the classic definition of Herbert Spencer, evolution is the process of passing from an indefinite, incoherent homoge- neity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation. Thus the rise and existence of denominations, following the Protestant Reforma- tion, was an indication of progress and not of deterioration. A study of history, however, reveals another element in evolution — namely, that it is cyclical. Progress is not directly in one direction, it comes through both forward and backward movements. We go a long distance in one direction, we then pause, and to a certain point make a return. We then gather up our renewed forces and move on again. In theology, we know of thesis and antithesis. First we move in the line of one proposition ; 87 88 Christian Service and the Modern World then comes a proposition the antithesis of this, and out of the ultimate blending of the two we find harmony and progress. These various theories of evolution seem ap- plicable to our denominationalism. We have gone pretty far in carrying out the proposition which has resulted in the diversity of denomina- tionalism. Those who hold to Rome have gone equally far, in their antithesis, in the direction of unity. Perhaps we are getting, among our Protestant denominations, to recognize in equal proportion the two principles of evolution and progress which we find everywhere in the natural order — diversity and unity. Our various denominations and sects arose largely from the demand for freedom, and through much suffering we found our freedom. We are now recognizing as denominations, how- ever, that the highest freedom we possess may be the freedom to give up some of our freedom for the sake of the common good. This was the kind of freedom to which Paul referred in his dis- cussion of those denominational differences which had already begun in the Apostolic Church. We are ready to acknowledge, without forgetting perhaps that in our intellectual expression of truth we have been of Apollos or Cephas, that we are all of Christ, and that in allegiance to Him we must maintain or regain unity even in the midst of our diversity. We are following still Federal Unity 89 farther our denominational search for freedom, and are seeking this highest freedom in our modern movements towards Christian unity. For the past century or two we have been largely building up denominationalism, and now we have discovered the severe truth of the word of Jesus : " He that saveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for My sake and the Gospel's shall find it." That is the one text and suggests the one sermon for these thirty con- stituent denominations of the Federal Council, and for all other Christian bodies. Meanwhile one of the most startling of modern discoveries is that we have been so sadly and thoughtlessly wasteful. We have wasted our mineral wealth, squandered our forests, and allowed the mighty forces of our streams to run out into an unneeding sea. Worse still, in the development of industry, and by social neglect, we have wretchedly wasted our human power and, as our new legislation witnesses, we have been criminally prodigal with human life itself. We have poisoned, neglected, maimed, and mangled by our inefficient speed- ing up, by our twelve-hour days and seven-day weeks. While we have wasted the forests that make the mines, we have also wasted by thou- sands our human brothers in the mines, have slaughtered and despoiled our women, and have consumed our babes beyond the count of Herod 90 Christian Service and the Modern World in our suffocated cities, while we had half a con- tinent of fresh air. In our commercial develop- ment we have sacrificed innocent human life upon its altar and have given over our little children to an industrial Moloch saying, with outstretched iron arms, " Let little children come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Mammon." And if we followers of Christ are content to disavow the blame, let us remember that in the same breath in which the Master said that to neglect these little ones was to forget Himself, He also condemned men, in His most severe and solemn utterance, for the things they didrit do. But these are not an intimation of the worst of our dissipations, and indeed these wastes have been largely because of a deeper and more serious prodigality. We have let the very light within us become darkness, and the saddest of all has been the waste of our moral powers, oui finer emotions, and our religious enthusiasms, through sectarian divisions, denominational rivalries, and unrestrained caprice often delud- ing itself as a religious loyalty. If our effort for redemption had been given more fully to prevention, we should not now stand trembling, shamefaced, and bewildered be- fore the results of our own social havoc. Our most serious profligacy has been the neglect to cultivate our ultimate power, the power of our Federal Unity 91 religious enthusiasm and our spiritual impulse, because they were neither socially concentrated nor socially interpreted and applied. Let us face the facts. One of our most im- portant Christian endeavors is that of our home missions, which is nothing less than the under- taking of the conquest and the moral develop- ment of a new nation. It was the earliest and one of the most potent forms of social service on the part of the Church and it was the beginning of a multitude of new social movements. Its leaders, like Oberlin, built roads and highways for religion, and, like Marcus Whitman, blazed the trails of civilization across a continent. This work, however, the Church has more or less recklessly attempted without serious forethought or prearranged plan. Sometimes it has been carried on in conflict between the very forces attempting it, and even when sympathetic it has not been cooperative. And the result, time upon time, has been that, like the intrepid discoverers in the antarctic seas, religious enterprise has per- ished within the reach of plenty, just because it was not social. Three years ago the Committee on Home Missions of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America investigated the state of Colorado. One hundred and thirty-three communities were found ranging in population from one hundred and fifty to one hundred thou- sand souls, without Protestant churches of any 92 Christian Service and the Modern World kind, one hundred of them being also without a Roman Catholic church. And they were places of deep need in rural and mining sections. In addition to these there were four hundred and twenty-eight towns large enough to have post- offices, but without any churches, and whole counties were discovered without any adequate religious service. The seriousness of the other problem of over- lapping is indicated by a town of four hundred people in the same state with four churches, all supported by home-mission aid, and this but one of many like it. Let it be remembered that there is a relation- ship of cause and effect between the revelations of this investigation in Colorado and the recent social disaster which has befallen that state. The result shows that the report of the Commission on Home Missions was in the nature of a prophecy. The churches and the religious forces of Colorado, as of other states and local- ities, were unprepared to meet the social situ- ation. Neglected religious conditions cannot help breeding social injustice and wrong-doing, and in order to meet such injustice and wrong- doing the churches need clear spiritual vision, and a thorough knowledge of plain human facts. Such situations utter the clear call for cooperation and unity of action by the churches. This investigation was followed by the Home Federal Unity 93 Missions Council in fifteen western states, in what was called the Neglected Fields Survey. In one state seventy-five thousand people resided five miles or more from a church. A rich valley with a population of five thousand, capable of supporting fifty thousand people, had but one church. In another state fourteen counties had but three permanent places in each for worship. One county in another state had a rural popula- tion of nine thousand with no religious ministry except that supplied by the Mormon hierarchy. Another county with a rural population of eight- een thousand had regular services in only three of its school districts. And these are but hasty suggestions from this report, made within the past two years. The social problems raised by home missions have been a determining factor in the development of Christian unity. One of the finest expressions of our religious enthusiasms has been the carrying of a Christian civilization to the peoples of the earth and the far-off islands of the sea. It is safe to say, in view of the marvellous things accomplished in spite of our divided forces, that had there been united or federated effort, a Christian society would now be spread in social power over the whole earth. But we did not bring to the infant vision of the heathen a gospel. We brought gospels. At least so it seemed to them. 94 Christian Service and the Modern World If we ourselves can see to-day the wrong of our sad divisiveness, what wonder that to the uncultivated eyes and ears of the heathen it looked, not like the approach of human love, but, as it certainly did look to them, like the ap- proach of those who could not truly love them if, as it seemed, they did not love each other ? For half a century we went to the East, not with the persuasion of the tongues of Pentecost, but with the confusion of the tongues of Babel. What wonder that those who could not learn our language, and whose language we could not speak intelligently, seemed to find them- selves under the necessity of acquiring, not one speech, but many new languages, in order that they might learn the vocabulary of our social brotherhood ? If waste is the cause of inefficiency, surely we demonstrated it in our approach to the heathen world, and our deepest encouragement may per- haps be drawn from it, for if they could discover, as they finally did, what we were trying to say in so many confusing tongues, how simple is our task when we all come to speak one lan- guage and make it clear that we are there upon one holy mission ! Meanwhile the development of a new and complex social order about us was getting ready for the call of a persuasive and effective gospel. New foes were arising on every hand. They Federal Unity 95 were all united, and we found ourselves facing federated vice, the federated saloon, federated corruption in political life, federated human ex- ploitation, and then all these together multiplied in one strong federation, the federation of com- mercialized iniquity. All of these were bound together in a solemn league and covenant, and the reason they so confidently faced a derided Church was because they faced a divided one. On the one hand were the federations of labor and on the other hand federations of capital, girding themselves for their conflict, waiting the voice which should speak with power and influ- ence, that should quell their human hatreds. Problems of social justice were looking to us with beseeching voice, and we found ourselves obliged to face them, or, worse still, to shun them, with shame upon our faces and with a bewildered consciousness, because we had no common ar- ticulation of a code of spiritual principles or moral laws. Our spiritual authority was not equal to our human sympathy, because it was divided. On all these things we had a multitude of voices trying to express the same consciousness, but the great world of men did not know it. Why should they know it when we had not found it out our- selves ? We spoke with voices, but not with a voice. Very nearly up to our own day the Church has faced united iniquity while there has been 96 Christian Service and the Modern World scarcely a city in which it could be said, in any real or serious sense, that its churches moved as one great force. And in many a town and rural village we yet have churches wearying them- selves to death in a vain struggle for competitive existence, or suffering from that worst of diseases, to be " sick with their brothers' health." What wonder that we have lost our civic virtue ! Why should we not lose, not only our Sabbath as a day of worship, but also our Sun- day as a day of rest ? Why are we surprised that we have lost not only temperance laws but also our temperate ways ? Why should we be astonished that with the loss of these we have also lost our sons and filled our houses of refuge with our daughters? Why should we wonder that the rich have left us for their unrestrained, unholy pleasure and the poor because we had no united sense of power of social justice to re- strain an industry that devoured widows' houses and that bound heavy burdens grievous to be borne, especially when this was sometimes done by those who for a pretense made long prayers ? What wonder that, with disintegrated religions which gave no adequate sense of religion, the home should lose its sacredness and the family become the easy prey of easy divorce and of unholy marriage ? Still we went on singing : " Like a mighty army moves the Church of God." And when we came to resolve it to its Federal Unity 97 final analysis the only trouble was that we did not sing together. Leave for a moment the larger review and consider the work of our individual churches and the loss of their constituency. I say the loss of their constituency, because the Church cannot be said to gain or even hold its own if it simply fills its vacancies. Many churches have marked time, year upon year, and thought that they were moving because they kept their feet in mo- tion. The age became a migratory one. Here was a root difficulty in our social disorder. The family left one city for another. It drifted, by the necessities of industry, from place to place. And because we had no provision for shepherd- ing the sheep that left one fold for another, they wandered about just outside some other fold. If the family, say, from one Baptist church moved near another Baptist church, there was some hope. But in at least half the cases they did not. For a study in efficiency visit the average city on a Sunday night and measure the power of, say, one thousand people, scattered among twenty-five or thirty churches, when they might, with the contagion of human impact, be gathered into one, with a manifold and constantly increas- ing power which, with wise direction, would send them back to fill the empty churches whence they came and to become and to exert a social conscience. 98 Christian Service and the Modern World As in the home-mission fields so in our cities. We have whole sections religiously dying and socially decaying because they are without any churches, while other sections right beside them die because they have too many churches to be supported. Effective distribution is as yet, in every city, either an undiscovered art or at best a feeble effort. Our rural communities are in a like situation because there has been no concert of action. The so-called rural problem as a social perplexity has arisen almost entirely from the disunity of our religious forces, and we might as well admit it. Then, for many, many years we had fervently prayed that God would open the doors of the heathen world and let us in to take care of the heathen as our inheritance. God always gives us more than we ask ; and so He not only did that, but He opened our doors and poured the heathen in upon us. When the immigrant came he became, as often as not, an American patriot before there was time for him to become an American citizen. He assimilated everything except our religious impulse. He learned the language of our daily speech because we have only one language to be mastered. But our re- ligion presented to him too many tongues. And why should we wonder that he could not dis- tinguish between them ? He met centrifugal forces which repelled and Federal Unity 99 not a centripetal force which might have been an irresistible attraction. He found a united democ- racy and he became a part of it the day he landed. He saw the unity of ideal in our public schools, and he made it his own. And if we had met him with a united brotherhood of the Church, he would have felt the mass impact of religion as he felt everything else and he would have yielded to it. Why is it that we have not sooner found our- selves in all the pressing problems of social regeneration ? It is because we are still dis- cussing our alleged differences which do not exist except in our discussion. The specious differentiation between personal regeneration and social salvation is a divergence purely in philosophy and not in fact. Then, too, witness our initial attempts at in- tegration. We began our interdenominational movements and organizations. It was and it is a movement in the right direction, and yet it must be confessed that to-day one of the greatest problems of religious federation is the federation of these federations. Out of the moral force of the Church sprang our reform agencies, which were subject, not only to moral impulse, but also to human caprice, and another of our problems is the federating of all or the elimination of some of these. Then when we began our federative move- loo Christian Service and the Modern World ments in local communities we simply multiplied our groups. The Bible classes of the community were formed into a federation ; also the boys' clubs, the church temperance groups, and the men's clubs. The ministers separated them- selves off from their churches, or assumed that they were their churches, and formed ministerial associations, and listened sometimes to papers on the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, at other times on whether there were one or four Isaiahs (when the political corrupter of the city had never even been assured that there was any Isaiah at all), but only occasionally, and not with very serious intent, to the common problems of their community life. We had to begin this way because we were afraid of bringing the churches themselves together. Every once in a while, generally not oftener than once in four or five years, the wave of evangelistic power would strike the community. The evangelist came, rallied the united forces of the churches for a week, then went away, and we strangely supposed that what it was perfectly clear could be begun only by united action could be kept up and developed without it, and the churches fell apart sometimes a little farther than they were before. Meanwhile every force, every movement, every single group gathered to oppose the Church was making its common compact with Federal Unity 101 its common stock and its evenly divided divi- dends. The wonder is that we have gained as much ground as we have ; we have here a wonderful testimony to the power of the Gospel and its un- quenchable fire that the light of religion did not go out altogether. We give all sorts of reasons for it. But it was not because we were not thinking right. It was not because we were not thinking alike. It was not because we were worshipping differently or because our polities were different. It was simply that we did not work and act together upon the tasks in which we were in absolute agreement. We were confused in our self- consciousness. We conceived our churches and our sects as ends in themselves, rather than as the means to the one end that we have always had in common. We remembered that we were of Paul, or of Apollos, while we forgot that we were all of Christ, and that all things were ours. We were losing our lives because we were trying to save them. So much for the facts of history. Let us now seek the vision of prophecy. This prodigality of moral power and spiritual impulse was not because the Church was becoming an apostate Church. It was not because she was leaving an old theology or because she was rejecting a new one. Taken as a whole, her views were becom- 102 Christian Service and the Modern World ing larger and her vision finer. In certain ways she was creating greater forces. But her forces were spent because her attack on sin was not concerted, and because she was not conscious of her own inherent unity. The Church and min- istry went on doing their unrelated work, gaining a keener moral sense and stronger ethical Gos- pel. The Church and her Gospel were creating the very unrest that was crying out for social justice. And even while the Church was losing the toilers she was preparing for their social eman- cipation. She was continually creating larger opportunities which, however, she was failing to meet because of her divided moral forces. We now feel that something very different is to be done. It is interesting that the first serious movement towards federation was in the foreign field. The missionaries began to send back word that they could not make their way by using such confus- ing tongues. They sent imperative messages to us that they must get together, not only in order to impress the Gospel upon the heathen, but for their own self-preservation. Both Chris- tian unity and social service are largely reflex actions from the field of foreign missions. Now, throughout the heathen world, we are rapidly multiplying union church movements. In India we have the South India United Church of nine different denominations, and another Federal Unity 103 federation is under way in Central India. These foreign federal councils are not being organized on the basis of common forms of worship, but are being grouped by the languages or dialects which their people speak. They are formed on social units. In West China a movement has in view one Protestant Christian Church for that entire im- portant part of the new Chinese Republic. The same story is coming back to us from Korea and the Philippines. Japan has dissolved its tenta- tive and voluntary evangelical alliance and now has an official federation of eight denominations. Practically all of the mission schools are interde- nominational and federated. There come to my desk every week something like two hundred and fifty different home religious publications, most of them being, or alleging to be, denominational organs. On the other hand, in the heathen field their publications are common and interdenomi- national. Thus are our little children leading us. In fact, if we should in this country only follow the example of the foreign field, we should make progress that would surprise ourselves. The recent splendid call of the republic of China for the prayers of the Christian Churches of China and the world is the clear issue of a social Gospel. The main point, however, upon which we are finding our most common approach is in the 104 Christian Service and the Modern World new emphasis which we are giving, because we are forced to give it, to the nearer social problems of our day. Here, at least, we find no true reason for differentiation. No one will argue that there are Methodist Episcopal saloons ; or such a thing as Baptist child labor, or Congregationalist vice, or Presbyterian sweat-shops, or Episcopal Tam- many Halls, or Seventh-Day Baptist gambling- houses. Not only do we thus find no sensible reason for division, but we have very quickly discovered that we shall meet this opportunity in unity or else we shall not meet it at all. Social regenera- tion must have a social approach. The social tasks and problems of a city cannot be met by any Church except in common conference with every other Church. This application of the Gospel to the needs of the world is what is giving us our unity. When we get together upon our common task, we can- not help forgetting, for the time being at least, the things which have divided us because we find ourselves in unity upon these two laws upon which Jesus said the whole law and the prophets hung, on love to God and love to man. We are facing our common foe of commercialized vice, of human exploitation together, and we are re- ceiving abuse. As we stand side by side it be- comes impossible for us to'do anything but love our fellow-Christians, and we are willing that Federal Unity 105 they should make their intellectual expression of religion according to their own type of mind, and that they should worship after their own forms and customs. We have made another great discovery. We have discovered (a few have not) that evangelism and social service are not only inseparable now and forever, but are one and the same. In other words, when we get together seriously upon the work of social service we find that we are to- gether upon what we thought was the remote work of evangelism. The evangelist is to proclaim the full father- hood of God — a God who rules His household with the unwavering hand of justice and with a heart of love. Thus the invocation of the heav- ens for divine justice and the cry of an infinite affection meet and mingle with every human cry that rises upward for human justice or of human suffering. A true father will not let his children hurt each other, either by malice or neglect, and he does not love the strong child better than he does the weak. We feel a deeper and more tormenting sense of sin, a profounder consciousness of the eternal truth, that a sin, whether of indifference or intent, against our brother or our sister is an offense against an outraged and righteously indignant God, that social morals and personal religion are one and inseparable now and forever, and 106 Christian Service and the Modern World that God is not a seller of indulgences at any price. The third article of our evangelical message is the absolute certitude of judgment. Shall not God avenge those whose cries come up to Him 'day and night? Yea, speedily He shall avenge them. The final message is redemption, the redemp- tion of the individual in the world, and through him of the world itself, and there is no redemp- tion of either without the redemption of the other. The Gospel is abandoned, the Christian pulpit is superfluous, the Church of the living Christ goes out of existence, when the truths of the Gospel, the vocabulary of the preacher, and the constitution of the Church no longer contain the words "God," "sin," "judgment," and "re- demption." They are capacious gigantic words, belonging to a vocabulary that can interpret the whole universe of right and wrong, both indi- vidual and social. They are applicable to every problem in God's world. Thus nearly all the things belong together that we have thought apart. In fact, we have discovered that while we were praying for a revival of religion we were really in the midst of what promises to be one of the greatest revivals that this world has ever known. Our present sensitive social conscience Federal Unity 107 simply means that we have a "second blessing" and that we are again passing through the ex- perience of religion. How on earth can there be any jot or tittle of difference between saving one man at a time or saving two ? Between regen- erating an individual and sanctifying a whole city full of individuals ? The only difference between a true social evangelism and what we used to consider by that word is that the mourners' bench and mercy seat are full. We come, not one by one, but all are kept on our knees together. True social service is simply evangelism a hundred or a thousand fold. Is it any less holy to crush out a den of vice than it is to regenerate a vicious man ? Here again our differences are only in our use of terms, and not in reality and fact. Go to com- mercialized vice and to industrial injustice and say to them, " We will make the laws tighter," and they will answer, " Very well, we will find ways to break them." Go and say to them, "We will make our courts stronger," and they will answer to themselves, if they do not to us, " The political power of our money is stronger than any court of justice." But suppose you could go to them and say, " The churches of this city, all of them, have gotten together. They are thinking, planning, and moving as one man to crush you." They lo8 Christian Service and the Modern World might doubt it; but if they did not doubt it, they would fear it as they have not feared even the Almighty Himself. Now for these common tasks we are discover- ing, faster than we admit it, and we are conscious of it faster even than we express it to ourselves, that for these common missions we require no changes of our symbols or of the intellectual ex- pression of our religious faith. We have passed the periods both of division and of toleration and we are entering that of serious cooperation. While Christian unity as a sentiment is every- where in the air, it is taking perhaps three con- crete forms. The first is that which is expressed by the hierarchy at Rome. It is not our purpose here to discuss this form. The second is that which finds expression in such movements as the Christian Unity Founda- tion and the proposed Conference on Faith and Order. For that we pause to offer a sympathetic prayer and to express our hope. Cooperation in service must precede it, or at least go hand in hand with it. Fellowship and unity of action must not wait too long upon it. We must come together for it with enough mutual faith and trust to believe that our aim and work are common. There is therefore another form of Christian unity which is possible without waiting for any Federal Unity 109 conference on faith and order, and which is absolutely necessary before we can reach the common ground for any such conference. It might be called Christian unity at work. It is a unity, not to be created so much as discovered and interpreted. We already have it. All we need to do is to exercise it. God has put into our human order the min- gling together of unity and diversity. While it is a unity on the one hand which is not uniformity, it must also be diversity on the other hand which is not divisiveness. I believe that the movement of which the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America is the most concrete expression is an illustration of this principle of progress. Federal unity is stronger and more vital than the first form of unity, represented by the Vatican, because it is unity with freedom, and because unity is stronger without uniformity than with it. The social difference between the unity of the Federal Council and the unity of Rome is also thus : With federal unity the Church may give herself for the sake of the world regardless of what becomes of herself, she may give herself for the sake of humanity and not for the sake of herself ; while under the unity of Rome she is obliged first of all to take care of her own life. We must be willing to save our life by losing it. Federal unity, however, recognizes the two 1 1 o Christian Service and the Modern World principles of progress, differentiation and co- herence. It recognizes that the Kingdom of God does not mean solitariness on the one hand or uniform consolidation on the other. It is simply genuine cooperation without regard to the ultimate result to ourselves. It is not trying to get men to think alike or to think together. It is first willing that the army should be com- posed of various regiments with differing uni- forms, with differing banners, and even, if neces- sary, with different bands of music at appropriate intervals, provided they move together, face the same way, uphold each other, and fight the common foe of the sin of the world with a common love for the Master of their souls, for each other, and for mankind. It is unity with- out uniformity ; diversity without divisiveness ; comprehensiveness not competition or compul- sion. Such a Church is absolutely irresistible. Ac- cording to Biblical arithmetic, if one can chase one thousand, two cannot only put twice as many but ten thousand to flight ; and if you multiply according to this arithmetic until you reach the twenty million Protestant church members in this country, we can gain some estimate of what God intends that we should do. I have discovered, I think, this interesting fact : that it is possible, almost always, to get the Churches into Christian unity, provided you can Federal Unity 1 1 1 prevent them from discussing Christian unity. I am not asking men any more to come together from the various Churches to hold a conference on the question of Christian unity. I am willing to talk with them upon almost any other subject but that. The important thing is to get them together to show them the common social task — a task which absolutely cannot be done unless they do it together — and leave them to draw their own inference as to their duty, and as to the will of God and the Spirit of Christ. I have discovered another interesting fact. If you want to have a conference which will be absolutely harmonious, without bitterness or invidious utterance, get men to come together from just as many denominations as you can, like the Quadrennial Council where they met together to face the common task. It is only when men and women of one denomination get together in conference that there is any serious divisive utterance. And the differentiation and distance between the two remotest constituent bodies of the Federal Council are less than the variance between the two wings of any one of them. This unity we already have. It simply awaits its discovery and use. When the task is completed and the Church becomes the conscience, the interpreter, and the guide of the social order, and when the spiritual 112 Christian Service and the Modern World authority which she possesses is translated into one common tongue and her voices become one mighty voice, the gates of hell shall no longer prevail against her, and she will be no longer weak and helpless before the haggard, sullen, and defiant face of injustice, inhumanity, and heartless neglect, and she will be able to take care of all her children — and her children are humanity. Finally then, the creative work of home mis- sions can be conceived, to-day and to-morrow, only by a Church with the social vision and impulse, and can be performed by unity and comity. And only by these selfsame tokens can the heathen lands be redeemed ; the heathen of those lands who come to us to be shaped into a Christian democracy ; the Christian Sabbath be saved ; the Christian home preserved in sacred purity ; our boys delivered from the hosts of sin ; our girls delivered from the lust of men ; the people redeemed from injustice and oppression; our evangelism be redemptive, and the Christian Church itself be saved from becoming atrophied and from the contempt of the world ; by an im- mediate sweeping social vision and an instant sense of genuine and earnest unity, through which and by which only her spiritual authority can make the kingdoms of this world the King- dom of our Lord. Federal Unity 113 It is true that the pages of federal unity are not free from interrogation points. There is one comprehensive answer to them. As the writer is called to go from one to the other of the Federal Council's constituent bodies his one message to each is this : You can trust the other twenty-nine. The day for servile sus- picion is gone. These other brethren will act with you in united freedom, in united faith, competing with you for the finest of Christian consideration that no principle held sacred by their brethren be derided, violated, or impaired. Christian unity will come, not so much by ab- stract process as by concrete experience ; not by asking whether or not we shall come together, but, at least so far as our Protestant evangelical Churches are concerned, by coming together first in order to find out whether or not they should come. It is the call of trust and faith and we are safe to heed it. One thing is certain, as we face the task of to-day : — if the Church has a social obligation and opportunity, if her human sympathy and sense of human justice are to have a commen- surate spiritual authority, if the forces of iniquity are to challenge her powers and be met, if the kingdoms of this world are to become the King- dom of our Lord the Church must unite her scattered forces. THE NEW INTERNATIONALISM A Fundamental in Religious Education " r I "\WO men went up into the temple to pray ; the one a Pharisee, and the R other a publican. "The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself ; God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adul- terers, or even this publican. " I fast twice in the week ; I give tithes of all that I possess. "And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. " I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased ; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." One of the great beauties of nature is her mingling of things unlike each other, each serv- ing the other's needs. This universal order, since the stars sang their morning song together, has been the blending of a multitude of things which, in our human knowledge of them, we have set apart. Nature consists of unity in diversity. 114 The New Internationalism 115 Her subdivided kingdoms exist only in the thought of man. She is not like our human life, marked off into its political states with their boundaries and barriers. Her various systems pervade and penetrate each other. They live upon and by one another. In our human order also, when we live its freest and most natural life, we do not gather ourselves together so much upon the basis of similarity as that of unlikeness. The family is the highest type of our mutual existence and it is a bringing together of the unlike and opposite. When, however, we pass out from this natural social order of God into the realm of our artificial human associations, we find this spiritual law per- verted and repressed. In God's order it is the unity of unlikeness. Man's disposition is to bring together by their similarities. The one completes defect by compensation and gives a real and final unity. The other takes one small portion, multi- plies it by itself, and issues in a system of inhar- monious exaggerations, so that life has fallen largely into the order of the survival of the fittest ; to him that hath is given, from him that hath not is taken away ; the weak become weaker and the strong stronger, and the great commotion in the social order of our day and generation is the ef- fort to divert this current which, in national life, takes the form of a self-deceptive patriotism, into the splendid order of democracy. In Europe, n6 Christian Service and the Modern World the main division is by nations ; in America, by classes. Each of those nations is fighting, in others, the very sins which it has itself committed. Each is fighting now a foe without, because each failed to fight her foe within. Newspaper and litera- ture had contemplated this holocaust, with crimi- nal levity. Each was unwilling it should come, but not enough unwilling. All have, in varying degree, either talked or acted an arrogant imperialism, and each has constantly increased the suspicions of the other. The nations have helped it to come by perpet- ually reminding themselves and the others that it was " bound to come." And in the final judg- ment, while the guilt for certain immediate acts may rest more heavily on one or two, they will all admit their share of criminality, and on no other assumption can we hope for justice at that judgment. And one thing has been absolutely neglected by each and all, although if anything stands out as the clear verdict of history, it is that no nation was ever killed by guns and pow- der, but that all who have gone down have died of injuries internal. Our statesmen, some of them, are telling us that Europe's war is Amer- ica's warning ; that we must get ready and that our readiness must be very much like that of Europe's nations ; that we must do the very things that they for thirty years have done. The New Internationalism 117 They tell us that our chiefest need and our most permanent defense and our lasting security is a battle-ship, which costs millions of dollars and takes many years to build, but which can be blown to the four winds with a little torpedo that can be made in an hour and costs a few dollars. But I want to approach it from another view- point, and put the warning in a different light. They say that we must get more guns and ships and shells. I want to point out a different kind of armament. They are dealing with one set of forces. I will try to deal with another. And one thing I admit, we must have either theirs or mine. Our nation must have forces either ma- terial or moral, and the sober question is — which shall they be? It is either God or mammon, for no nation can serve two masters. The duty of the hour then for us is to under- stand the deeper meaning of the hour's deeds, to discover how they may be the means of ultimate regeneration, to seek how we may build the new and holy city, upon the ashes of the old ; and most of all to ask ourselves what should be our own state of mind and condition of heart at this moment, when the world has lost its way, and the civilization of centuries seems to be under the very curse of God ? Our first duty is not to condemn the world, but to find out how it may come again to life and have it more abundant than before. 1 18 Christian Service and the Modern World For let us forget it not, far above this, another battle wages, one of whose armies may with right and truth appeal to God. Let us rise out of this conflict into the higher one, which is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual hosts of wickedness within the heavenly places of our own souls, the battle of eternal and ultimate realities and ideals. Our President's call for prayer made the deep- est moral impression in Europe of anything that has occurred during these past weary months. Had he been contented to upbraid the nations of Europe, or had he but reproached them for their folly, it would have had the opposite effect. The moral power of his utterance was that by which he besought us to humble ourselves and confess our sins, not to express our satisfaction with our- selves. It will, therefore, be wise and well, in- stead of lamentation for the national misdeeds of others to make this the solemn opportunity to turn our eyes inward and seek, in an inviolable solitude of our national personality, to stand face to face with the divine reality, and having judged our brothers, if we so must, proceed then to judge ourselves. We read the utterance of Europe's university professors, and those of her religious leaders, with unspeakable depression because they are rilled with bitterness and scorn, with reproach and contempt for those who only a few short The New Internationalism 119 weeks ago were their brethren beloved. It shocks our moral sense and we lose, for the mo- ment, our faith in human nature. But we must not forget that these brethren are not expressing themselves to us at this moment. We do not see their real hearts. Such utterances at such moments can never be taken at their face value. They bespeak nerves overwrought and minds illusioned. And who can tell ; might not we our- selves be like them were our situation such as theirs ? The best thing for us to do is to make this primarily a day of national introspection. For the culpability is universal. We have all assented to a so-called balance of power, equipoised upon a sword, with bullets in the scale for weights ; have all agreed to secret alliances other than for reason and justice ; all share the peril of the sword because we have taken the sword. The differences are in degree and not in principle and kind. It is becoming clear to us that with the piling up of armaments which invite conflict, and in which we have shared as well as others, the civilized world to-day has two alternatives. It is either all war or no war at all. The Atlantic and the Pacific have become very narrow, and we are by no means immune from this alternative. The conflict over there was no mere accident. Its ultimate causes are material ambition, selfish competition, unfair advantage, suspicion, the doc- 1 20 Christian Service and the Modern World trine that might makes the only right, the confu- sion of moral with physical power, the ruthless law of the survival of the fittest. It arises out of a delusive philosophy of human life, a haggard conception of racial relationships, a perverted view of human progress, a constitutional mistake in education and in training. Are we free from the danger of these ultimate causes ? Is our inward social order, which cor- responds so largely to that of Europe, as a whole permeated by an elevating philosophy of human life ? Have we yet solved, by moral processes, the problem of racial relationships? Are we dominated by the higher law of the survival of the fittest for the sake of the unfit? Do we throb with the pulses of what Baroness von Sutt- ner has so beautifully called the international heart ? Even suppose we grant that, because of our newer and fairer opportunity, we are approach- ing nearer to it than the other nations ; let us not forget that the nations of Europe are suffering, not only because of their immediate sins, but be- cause of their past records. Admit even that some one of these nations is primarily at fault, how about the past conquests of the others ? But let us pursue the historical method further. How about our methods of the past ? Let the Red Man answer. And the Black Man. Yet with our larger opportunity, and our more benign condi- The New Internationalism 121 tions, if we are not infinitely better than the other nations we are infinitely worse. Have we, as a nation, been free from responsi- bility for the exploitation of the poor people of Mexico, and have we cause to wonder because they do not trust us and have little confidence in our benevolent intentions ? The peoples of the Far East have had occasion to exercise great patience with us, and they have been very for- bearing. We have sent others to them than our missionaries. Our present treatment of Japan is irritating to her national sense of honor, and our flimsy methods for the protection of the aliens in our midst, and who have as much right in our midst as did our own fathers, are things to give us pause and cause the native hue of a self-glory- ing satisfaction to become sicklied o'er with the pale cast of humiliating thought. Are the militarists of America very much bet- ter than any other militarists ? And would not more than one of them, in the same environment, be readily transformed into a Bernhardi, and are not some of our intellectuals little better than a Treitschke or a Delbriick ? Is it any worse to talk about a Slav peril than it is to talk about a yellow peril and a black peril ? Let us turn our eyes inward. We have the grievous story of that same militarism, only in another form, in Colorado, whose reckless viola- tion of law and order bears sad resemblance to 122 Christian Service and the Modern World the breaking of international law and order across the sea and which is due to the same in- herent cause. We are by no means free from a false and boasting patriotism. Our people have by no means caught the splendid spirit of Mazzini's eighteenth century appeal from the " rights of man " to the " duties of humanity.'' What would our people do were the occasions great ? God only knows. But, above all, witness the resemblance of our internal class consciousness and self-conceit and contrast it, if it can be really contrasted, with the setting over against each other of race and nation across the Atlantic. Does ours not bear sad witness to the philosophy of a Friedrich Nietzsche ? We are amazed at the recklessness and the mad presumption witnessed in the desecration of neutral protection, and yet one of our own states is at this moment in danger of seeking the same narrow, false self-interest so that our federal gov- ernment, as our Secretary of State regretfully admitted, is powerless to insure the inviolability of its own sacred treaties, and that state and its people say they will not wait, because the issue is self-preservation. It is sad indeed to witness, in Europe, race antagonism and a tribal contempt crushing out Christian sympathy and love, but have we within The New Internationalism 123 our borders a brotherhood and sisterhood which constitutes a divine democracy ? I think it was a German philosopher who once uttered the beautiful thought that religion was reverence for inferior beings. Have we attained that height of thought in our estimate of other states and races ? We clearly recognize that no tranquillity can come to Europe unless it be the peace that comes from justice, but yet within our own land thousands upon thousands of our people live in a continu- ously armed truce and we have here a social and industrial order still awaiting the peace of justice. Just as the mills and factories of Europe and America too are turning out weapons of hatred and destruction, so our mills are manufacturing hatred in human hearts and our mines hide deep in the earth an injustice which is being trans- formed into ill-suppressed violence. Our com- mercialism is feasting itself on the carnage of war. The same malevolent forces, the same ultimate causes, the same specious philosophies, the same insane expedients are at work with us as those which on a larger scale are wrecking the other continent. Perhaps the chief of all causes of every kind of warfare is the desire for mastery, the lust for domination. We have that same thing, except that it exists between classes instead of between nations. Across the sea there has been for many years a process of unification of nations with its 124 Christian Service and the Modern World intensification of prejudice which has now set alliance over against alliance in deadly array. We have the same hateful phenomenon between classes in our midst, and the bombs beneath the seats of our judges are premonitions of a greater danger to us than any that may await us from without. Another cause of the world conflict is the rise of submerged peoples, and we have here in- undated thousands struggling for air and light and freedom of opportunity. If you think this is not so, read a few of the papers and magazines published by our organizations of labor, not to mention some others, and then read the magazines published by our industrial manu- facturers. We have the dismal spectacle of the nations calling upon their tribal gods. We are not far from that same individualistic class creation of deities. Great masses of our people are looking for their uplifting towards a revolution, while our rich gaily flaunt their riches in the face of the poor and emphasize the wide gulf between Dives at his table and Lazarus at the gate. The real prophets in Europe have been for many years warning the nations of their mad materialism. We have the same insidious foe of social progress among us, and it exists not only in high places but also among the lowly, for to worship the Mammon that other men possess is The New Internationalism 125 no better than to worship that which we possess ourselves. The conflicting, or seemingly conflicting in- terests over there have engendered and nurtured these hatreds. We have the same supposititious conflict intensifying the same hatreds. Read, if you will, the recent address of the president of the National Manufacturers' Association, or the report just from the press of the president of the great mining company, and then read with them, at the same time, the record of the same events by those who are arrayed in conflict against them. Remember that these are not isolated instances, that these men are the mouthpieces of great classes and masses of mankind upon whose mutual relations our national life depends. The over-sea pronouncements about nations crushing each other sound very much as though they might have been made at a dinner of a great association of manufacturers held recently, or at a gathering in some dingy hall of their open foes in the world of industry. We have built up deliberate and powerful organizations, legitimate when limited to the purposes for which they primarily exist, but in fact devoted to the destruction of other move- ments and bodies of men, equally to be sanc- tioned in their original intent, upon a class basis, and a class hatred as clear cut as the shameful breach between the striving nations ; and then 126 Christian Service and the Modern World as the issue of this, other great assemblages of men and women, so frantic in their sense of de- spair that they become industrial premillennialists and are agreed that the whole social structure must be destroyed by dynamite and arson. And these warring classes of ours are as ignorant of each other and each other's inmost thought as any nations divided by a great wall of China. It is said that one nation over there is attempt- ing to convey its culture by force ; but these utterances, whether or not they represent that nation, do not sound unlike some of those giving expression to our superimposed philanthropy as a substitute for human freedom and divine justice. It is said that one of these nations proclaims it- self as the divine custodian of God's blessings for the world, and this sounds very much like the familiar phrases of some of our commercial leaders who go farther than to talk about what they hilariously term their own business and piously profess a benevolent, paternalistic feudal- ism which denies democracy, and I suppose if any of the preachers in Europe had interposed they would have been told to keep close to their own business of preaching the Gospel. Just as the militarists of Europe declare the pacifists to be mild but dangerous fanatics, so again and again before our face our prophets of God's new social order are put to shame. The New Internationalism 127 The same principalities, the same powers, the same rulers of the darkness of this world are at work in one continent as in the other, in one be- tween its nations, in the other between its classes ; the poor people of Europe have been betrayed, both by their lords and by their own social leaders, just as, under the same plausible philos- ophy, our working men, misguided by feudal protectors, or by their own false leaders, are often, like Jesus, crucified between two thieves. And I am not sure but what the waste and want by war is under the same specious system as the waste of strike and lock-out which are now almost daily occurrences with us. And we have the discouraging attempt of aspiring but mis- guided creatures, seeking to destroy the social plague by burning down their own houses, be- cause we have not shown them any better way of doing. It is clear to men of vision that the old inter- national order of Europe is absolutely broken down, and that a new order must take its place, but this is no clearer than that the governing powers of our internal social life have failed and that a new order must be brought about either by the transforming power of a great Gospel or else must rise from out the ashes of the old. And the new order must come, both here and there, by the same great spiritual transformation, the appeal of a higher imaginative pity, the con- 128 Christian Service and the Modern World servation of human heritages, the unwillingness that even one of these little ones should perish, and, above all, by diverting all that is high and holy in the fighting spirit by setting before the eyes of men the great moral equivalents of war, so that mankind's scarlet sins themselves may be as white as wool, as they shall, instead of fighting each other, fight for each other, the moral battles of our humanity against disease, injustice, inhumanity, and every subtle foe of our common human progress. For we have not yet even tested, except in a very timid way, what this newer humanitarianism may do to bring forth heroism, courage and endurance, and the very wrath of man may yet be made by God to praise Him ; for even now, down in their hearts, as Ruskin declared, men worship the soldier, not because he goes forth to slay, but to be slain. We wonder at the powerlessness of the Chris- tian institutions of Europe, with the helpless Pope and the Protestant Church caught up in the maelstrom of a pernicious patriotism, and yet within these past few months, in Colorado and in Michigan, in the cities of Lawrence and Paterson, we have had witness of the same help- less Church and synagogue. Just as the Church in Europe is futile because it is bound to the state, which determines its social institution, so the Church in the United States is fettered to a false and passing social status. As the Church The New Internationalism 129 in Europe is divided by its racial hatreds, so the Church in the United States has as yet failed to demonstrate the reality of any racial brotherhood. As the Church in Europe is divided among itself, so in our own land, with our disintegrated re- ligious forces, problems of social justice have been looking to us with beseeching voice, and we have found ourselves obliged to face them, or worse still, to shun them with shame upon our faces and with a bewildered consciousness, our spiritual authority not equal to our human sympathy, because it is so sadly divided. Remember that I am given the restricted task of presenting only one side of the picture. Thank God there are great forces for social righteousness ; we have the beginnings of a great revival of the Church and of religion in new and splendid terms, and the Church will dare, so I profoundly believe, to appear as a leader and to express her spiritual authority in our midst. But let us not fail to remember that we are to reckon with the same demoniac forces as those which have ruined Europe. Let us profit by the sad example and learn as a nation not to ask God to be on our side, but to pray with Lincoln that we may be found upon the side of God. Let us not forget that we must purge ourselves in order that we may be ready to take the great part to which God and our age are about to call 130 Christian Service and the Modern World us. Our age and generation call for a solemn, searching, fearless utterance of solemn, search- ing, and fearful truths. The greatest prophet of the Old Testament, without one hesitating utter- ance or deviating line, declared that the protec- tion and peace of Israel, in her international rela- tions, were to be secured only when within her own borders oppression ceased and justice found its way to the abode of her children, and not until then could the sword be beaten into the ploughshare. Oh, if the nations of Europe had only thought less about their foes without and more about their foes within ! We blame them because they are not democratic either in form or in fact, but perhaps there is still greater danger to the na- tion that has the form without the fact ; that raises hopes before its people which it does not enable them to realize, and ideals before the world, which it sadly fails to demonstrate within itself. Ours is as yet a bewildered and confused democracy. The nations are still suspicious of us. Japan has an attitude of watchful waiting. China has her alternate hope and doubt, and is mercurial in her temper towards us. The little nations to the south are not quite sure of us, and the most hopeful sign of this day and generation was that three of them did try us once and did not find us wanting. The New Internationalism 131 We need to arm ourselves against them ; yes, but we shall do it best by disarming them of their doubts and their lingering suspicions. The unselfish return of China's indemnity was worth at least one battle-ship to this nation. Justice is our noblest armor, but our only pledge for the nations of our justice to them is that of our internal justice between our own peoples. The new patriotism will begin to transform the world when one nation makes her own people see that to love one people truly is to love all peoples, and that the loss of a nation's honor is infinitely worse than the loss of land, and that her service to other states is the measure of her greatness. Mexico is really waiting to see if we shall dis- claim and repudiate, and perhaps bring her exploiters to the mind of Zaccheus, and whether we shall send into her midst the messengers of light. And now the eyes of the whole world are on us. It does not yet know whether our de- mocracy is real or specious, and whether the whited sepulchres without are inwardly filled with dead men's bones. The eyes of God are on us. At this moment the vineyard is in our possession and it is ours to say whether or not, in us, the parable shall be fulfilled. But if our own house only can be set in order, we shall, under the hand of God, become the world's mes- 132 Christian Service and the Modern World siah. By self-discipline alone is moral domina- tion won and the surest way to protect ourselves without is to purify ourselves within. And now, when all else has broken down and the darkness about them is so dense that the light cannot be mistaken, let the nations see in us a national greatness that rests upon the power of our ideals, whose domination is that of moral power, which can weld together divergent forces and peoples in her midst by mutual interest and affection, whose people have equal rights and justice because the strong help the weak, whose patriotism is that of duty and service rather than of rights and privilege, a nation that will rather suffer wrong than do a wrong, and they will see the power of moral conquest. Our seed shall possess the nations and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. The nations shall come to our light and kings to the brightness of our rising. But it means, not a few peace schemes, but the fundamental reconstruction of our national ideals. Our brothers and our sisters across the sea have been trained and guided wrongly ? Grant it all ! The children of their fathers were con- ceived in national sin and born in racial iniquity, and the result is international depravity ? Yes. But how far is our own better state due to our better national morals, and how much to our more favored station upon the map of the world ? The New Internationalism 133 And what if our children of the next generation should be called to their mountain of tempta- tion ? Might not they too fall down and worship for the sake of the kingdoms of this world ? Is our education, sacred and secular, ablaze with the sense of social justice ; does it melt with a passionate feeling of world brotherhood, in- finitely tender? Are we imparting to our chil- dren the ineffable sense, the knowledge and the burning affection of a kingdom that shall become the sovereign compulsion of their life, that shall open a way out of human selfishness, and shall reduce the inherited effect of our own wild egoism ; which shall lift them up out of a con- fused social conscience and the bewildered order of our day upon the height of vision, unclouded by the mists of the human conflict of our own selfish interests ? Here is the fundamental prob- lem of religious education at this moment. But, you remind me, all these nations have been seeking peace, or, at least, their peoples wanted it. We have had our conferences at the Hague, and none should belittle them : And yet, how pitifully their little programs of mitigation have failed ! We have had within the nations our societies for peace and arbitration, and we should not despise their efforts, but they have discovered that they were trying to put new wine into old bottles and new patches upon old gar- ments. Their work has not been anti-Christian ; 134 Christian Service and the Modern World perhaps it has not been non-Christian, but it was not essentially and effectively Christian. The instruction of our youth has not reached the fundamental basis of all peace and brotherhood. The peace of Jesus Christ is a very different thing from that of the peace movement. We could never imagine the Master urging the na- tions to be peaceful because war would waste their material resources. Norman Angell, good as he is, and he is good, is quite removed from Jesus. We cannot imagine Jesus contenting Himself with international laws for the restric- tion of hostile manoeuvres. Every problem in the world is fundamentally a problem in education. The present devasta- tion of Europe is said to be due to three ele- ments ; the militarists, the aristocracy and the intellectuals. It is due far more to the third of these than to the other two. We can never make peace between our classes at home, or peace between the nations abroad, by confer- ences and laws and resolutions, while the chil- dren of men, as students of history both secular and sacred, are impregnated with the belittling sense and the trivial sentiment of a group mo- rality, class brotherhood, and a false and untamed patriotism, with its national and racial distinctions. If one-tenth of the time and effort given to peace parties and programs, conferences and economic argument had been spent in the pub- The New Internationalism 135 lie school in the study of history and on the Sun- day-school curricula, we should not now be the unwilling witnesses of a world gone mad. The real forces that have been bringing the nations together have been those of individual and group relationships. They have not been statecraft and diplomacy. The State as we now conceive it is a fiction ; international law a romance, writ- ten on a scrap of paper. The future must deal with realities and not with diplomatic fable. If when the present carnage is over the old order of things in international politics remains, the future will be worse than the present. There must not be left one stone upon another. If our present conceptions of statecraft and diplomacy with their serpentine ethics, rubber-soled steps and tongue-tied speech are maintained, for every devil that we cast out seven more will come in to occupy the house. There is only one Builder that can build the new temple, and He can do it in three days. The Church has surrendered to economists and jurists a leadership that belonged to herself, has consented to a blind utilitarianism, has seemed to confess that the ultimate and the eternal were something political and legal, has let the world go mad with its monstrous ma- terialism, shaping its political and social economy. These world forces cannot give the construct- ive, vital power for the healing of the world. 136 Christian Service and the Modern World The nations must have some power that will transform their feelings, their jealousies, their passions, and will open their eyes to their poor little racial distinctions. The world has forsaken the Master and has yielded upon the mountain of temptation ; has fallen down and worshipped for the sad promise of the kingdoms of the devil. They tell us that our idealism has broken down. Speaking in a world sense, the world has broken down because we stifled our idealism. We have tried to leap the chasm by gradual procedure. Christianity has never yet declared, so that men should understand it, that God knows nothing about races or nations, and that the words white, yellow, Slav, Teuton, and Anglo-Saxon are not found in the Divine vocabulary ; for in the speech of the Infinite there cannot be Greek or Jew, cir- cumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman or free. The child must be taught to feel, and to feel it deeply, that the black man at home and the black man in Africa belong to the same race and state as himself; that the yellow man in the laundry and the yellow man in the Far East are of his own blood and live, not only in the same house, but in the same Father's house. Not un- til then will the great mass of the world's toilers shake off the hypnotism of statecraft and diplo- macy, and witness the brotherhood of the world, bereft of the commercial title " limited." The New Internationalism 137 The waving of an ensign will lose its mesmeric power. There is no emblem in the world that has been used to greater dishonor than the flag ; and our own Stars and Stripes in foreign lands and in those of our near neighbors has been used to cover and protect the infamy of private exploitation. It has been used at home and abroad to hide God's sunlight from the eyes of simple, trusting men. In their patriotism our children should salute at least two flags ; the one that designates the home in which they happened to be born, and then a new world-flag which shall signify every race and every nation and every color of man- kind. Our children should be reminded at every meal of those from every corner of the world who help to set their table. An education that draws a meretricious inspiration from past national deeds or gaudily apparelled misdeeds instead of from the present is an unhealthy and infected thing. In their prayers they should be taught to pray that God shall preserve their nation from other nations ; while they should also be taught to pray that other nations should also be preserved from theirs. For some reason or other we have not taught our children that they must love without distinc- tions of class, and that they must love all the 138 Christian Service and the Modern World more those who are the more despised. We have not told them that they must love and be loyal, just as loving and just as loyal to their brothers and sisters in England, Germany, Aus- tria, Japan, and China, with the same love as for America. We have taught them in our Sunday- schools to worship Abraham of the East, but left them to spit upon Abraham of the East Side. Jesus said that a man must " love his neighbor as himself," and He meant it for nations and races as well as for individuals. The secular history in our public schools, the sacred history in our Sunday-schools, has glori- fied conquest in the one and glorified conquest in the other. One of the most solemn and sov- ereign rights of the child of our day and gener- ation is the right to a social vision as clear as the face of Jesus ; to a national and racial con- sciousness, that shall sweep the world in its affec- tion. It has been denied them, and to-day they breathe the sense of class distinction. The sense of race prejudice becomes their natural heritage on every hand. Historic terminology of both Sunday-school and public school should abso- lutely wipe out in their present connotation such words as Anglo-Saxon, Celt, Slav, Teuton, Latin, Mongolian, Caucasian, African. They should be obliterated from the lexicon of youth. In our public schools, in the sense which they now convey, we should expunge the discriminations The New Internationalism 139 of civilized, semi-civilized, barbarian, and substi- tute a new distinction which shall be grounded upon historical perspective and the principle of relativity ; likewise in our Sunday-school such words as heathen and pagan. The greatest task that awaits our experts in education to-day is not the insertion of a few quarterly lessons on peace and good-will, but the whole reconstruction, from beginning to end, of the teaching of childhood in the principles of a world-wide brotherhood that breaks down every social and political barrier that has been created by the failing vision of man. And so " The tumult and the shouting dies, The captains and the kings depart; Still stands thine ancient sacrifice ; An humble and a contrite heart. " If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe ; Such boasting as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law ; Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget — lest we forget." Let us think with more of affection than of scorn of all our misguided brethren over the sea, led as lambs to the slaughter, for even though we may deem them stricken, smitten and af- flicted of God, let us not forget — that they bear our griefs and carry our sorrows, that they are 140 Christian Service and the Modern World wounded for our transgressions, are bruised for our iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace is upon them ; and that, perhaps, by their stripes we may be healed. Before we reach the New Internationalism we must create a New Nationalism, and the cre- ation of both must come, not by the trivial sim- ulation of a neutrality that adds God and the devil together and divides by two, but by a pro- found repentance, by a national atonement, by a new status in international diplomacy, the status of unselfish reconciliation. Thus may we fulfill the prophecy of the Quaker poet: " Thy great world-lesson all shall learn, The nations in thy school shall sit, Earth's farthest mountain tops shall burn With watch-fires from thy own uplit." PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BIBLE STUDY, DEVOTIONAL, Etc. A. T. ROBERTSON, P.P., LL.D. Studies in the New Testament A Handbook for Bible Classes in Sunday Schools, for Teacher Training Work, for use in Secondary Schools and Colleges. i2mo, cloth, net 50c. In it are no references to books of any kind outside the Bible. With the help of the maps and a New Testament one can study this work with no other books in hand. REV. JOSEPH T. GIBSON, P.P. JeSUS ChrisT: : The Unique Revealer of God 8vo, cloth, $1.50. The author has sought to see, and aid others in seeing Jesus Christ as He is presented in the Scriptures. He has compiled a "Life" neither critical nor iconoclastic, but de- signed for those who regard the Word of God as being not only the infalliable guide to faith and duty, but the authentic chronicle of the earthly life of our Lord. Dr. Gibson has harmonized the Gospels and from them constructed a graphic narrative which, contrives, to re-limn an old picture with freshness and charm. REV. GEO. H. YOUNG, M. A., AuH Prof. Rhetoric and Public — m ~—~—~~— ————— ——— — — ^-^— Speaking, Colgate University The Illustrative Teachings of Jesus The Parables, Similies and Metaphors of Christ. i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. "A most readable and practical treatment of the methods of the Master for the general Bible student and Christian worker. A valuable contribution to one's conception of Jesus as the 'Teacher come from God,' and revealing in life, con- tent of instruction and method of presentation the will of the Father." — Review and Expositor. W. BEATTY JENNINGS, P.P. The Social Teachings of Chri& Jesus A Manual for Bible Classes, Christian Associa- tions, Social Study Groups, etc. i6mo, cloth, net 50c. In a series of twenty studies, the teachings of Jesus are ap- plied to specific social sins and needs of to-day, such as poverty, pleasure, war, the drink traffic, etc., and shown to be the sure and only solution of the problems of society. ROBERT FREEMAN The Hour of Prayer Helps to Devotion When Absent from Church. I2mo, cloth, net 75c. "A volume of reverent purpose designed especially for those who wish some form of Sunday observance, or who, by 6tress of circumstances, are prevented from attending serv- ices in the churches. To shut-ins, mothers with young chil- dren, nurses and others who are unable to attend public wor- ship, the book will particularly appeal." — Buffalo Express. SERMONS— LECTURES— ADDRESSES in. i ..i i ,, , i .i xa JAMES L. GORDON, P.P. Airs Love Yet All's Law i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. "Discloses the secret of Dr. Gordon's eloquence — fresh, and intimate presentations of truth which always keep close to reality. Dr. Gordon also seems to have the world's litera- ture at his command. A few of the titles will give an idea of the scope of his preaching. 'The L,aw of Truth: The Science of Universal Relationships'; 'The L,aw of Inspiration: The Vitalizing Power of Truth'; 'The Law of Vibration'; 'The L,aw of Beauty: The Spiritualizing Power of Thought'; The Soul's Guarantee of Immortality." — Christian Work. BISHOP IRANCIS J. McCONNELL Cole Lectures Personal Christianity Instruments and Ends in the Kingdom of God. i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. The latest volume of the famous "Cole Lectures" delivered at Vanderbilt University. The subjects are: I. Ihe Per- sonal in Christianity. II. The Instrumental in Christianity. III. The Mastery of World- Views. IV. The Invigoration of Morality. V. The Control of Social Advance. VI. "Every Kindred, and People, and Tongue." NEWELL P WIGHT H1LLIS, P.P. Lectures and Orations by Henry Ward Beecher Collected by Newell Dwight Hillis. i2mo, net $1.20. It is fitting that one who is noted for the grace, finish and elequence of his own addresses should choose those of his predecessor which he deems worthy to be preserved in a bound volume as the most desirable, the most characteristic and the most dynamic utterances of America's greatest pulpit orator. W. L. WATKINSON, P.P. The Moral Paradoxes of St. Paul l2mo, cloth, net $1.00. "Th«se sermons are marked, even to greater degree than is usual with their talented preacher, by clearness, force and illustrative aptness. He penetrates unerringly to the heart of Paul's paradoxical settings forth of great truths, and il- lumines them with pointed comment and telling illustration. The sermons while thoroughly practical are garbed in strik- ing and eloquent sentences, terse, nervous, attention-com- pelling." — Christian World. LEN G. BROUGHTON, P.P. The Prodigal and Others i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. "The discourses are vital, bright, interesting and helpful. It makes a preacher feel like preaching once more on this exhaustless parable, and will prove helpful to all young people —and older ones, too. Dr. Broughton does not hesitate to make his utterances striking and entertaining by the intro- duction of numerous appropriate and homely stories and illus- trations. He reaches the heart." — Review and Expositor. ESSAYS, STUDIES, ADDRESSES PROF. HUGH BLACK The New World i6mo, cloth, net $1.00. "The old order changeth, bringing in the new." To a re- view of our changing world— religious, scientific, social — Hugh Black brings that interpretative skill and keen insight which distinguishes all his writings and thinking. Especially does he face the problem of the present-day unsettlement and unrest in religious beliefs with sanity and courage, furnishing in this, as in other aspects of his enquiry, a new viewpoint and clari- fied outlook. S. P. GORDON Quiet Talks on John's Gospel As Presented in the Gospel of John. Cloth, net 75c. Mr. Gordon halts his reader here and there, at some pre- cious text, some outstanding instance of God's tenderness, much as a traveller lingers for refreshment at a wayside spring, and bids us hearken as God's wooing note is heard pleading for consecrated service. An enheartening book, and a restful. A book of the winning Voice, of outstretched Hands. ROBERT F. HORTON, P.P. The Springs of Joy and Other Addresses i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. "Scholarly, reverent, penetrating, human. The product of a mature mind and of a genuine and sustained religious ex« perience. The message of a thinker and a saint, which win be found to be very helpful." — Christian Intelligencer. BISHOP WALTER R. LAMBUTH Winning the World for ChrisT: A Study of Dynamics. Cole Lectures for 1915. l2mo, cloth, net $1.25. This Lecture-Course is a spirited contribution to the dy- namics of Missions. It presents a study of the sources of in- spiration and power in the lives of missionaries, native and foreign, who with supreme abandon gave themselves utterly to the work to which they were called. FREDERICK F. SHANNON, P.P. The New Personality and Other Sermons i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. Mr. Shannon, pastor of the Reformed Church on the Heights, Brooklyn, is possessed of lofty ideals, is purpose- ful, more than ordinarily eloquent and has the undoubted gifts of felicitous and epigrammatic expression. This new vol- ume by the popular preacher is a contribution of distinct value to current sermonic literature. PROBLEMS OF W AR AND PEACE, Etc. 1 ' ■ ■ ~ i i ' ■■ ■ r aasa FREDERICK LYNCH, P.P. Secrttary Church Piact UnUn The Last War A Study of Things Present and Things to Come. i2mo, cloth, net 75c. "A passionate and intelligent plea for world peace. It is sane, thoughtful, well balanced and convincing. Shows that the Christian churches have a duty to perform at this crisis in the world's history." — Watchman-Examiner. PETER AINSL1E, P.P. Christ or Napoleon- Which ? A Study of the Cure for World's Militarism and the Church's Scandal of Division. i2mo, cloth, net 50c. "A searching and powerful answer to this question. It shows how that divided Christianity is a failure and how even the church itself is penetrated by the roots of this military spirit. Mr. Ainslie is always a pleasing and interesting writer and he has fully met every expectation in this book. It will do you good to read his splendid message." — Louisville Herald. SIPNEY L. GULICK, P.P. The Fight for Peace i2tno, paper, net 30c; cloth, net 50c. "A valuable and comprehensive text-book on the subject of securing world peace by means of the advocacy of Christian principles by the churches. Many facts are given. Correct principles are stated. Earnest appeals are made. A well- written little volume." — Herald and Presbyter. NEWELL P WIGHT HILLIS, P.P. Studies of the Great War What Each Nation Has at Stake. Cloth, $1.20 net. "Dr. Hillis' volume will rank at once with the best of those already available from his pen. He would not have Germany crushed; he would have it simply restrained to its proper field of development. So with the other nations. It would be hard to find a more complete summation of the facts of the history, progress and present position of all the nations involved than in this volume." — The Continent. PROF. FRANKLIN HENRY GIPPINGS The Western Hemisphere in the World of To-morrow i2mo, boards, net 35c. The professor of Sociology and History of Civilization in Columbia University, addresses himself to the problem of the future as it specifically relates to America. He examines her traditions, heritage, ideals and program, and proceeds to out- line her possible place and influence in the reconstructed world of to-morrow. Theological SWHMJX 7 1012 01092 2740 Date Due FMNtfHfe* I ! "Z i j r 1QQ£ 1 5 > yyD JMN t 5 1" j PRINTED IN U. S. A.