Jesus did not demand self-effacement and the suppression of ability. He welcomed evidences of noble self-assertion. His own Messianic call was a summons to the highest leadership. His temptations were the settlement of leadership problems. His final lament over the city of Jerusalem was a burst of sorrow because he had failed to win his people to follow him.

Now, in moving about among men to win them for the Kingdom, Jesus encountered the leaders who were on deck before he came—the wealthy men who controlled the economic outfit; the official groups who held what political power was left to the Jews; and the lawyers, theologians, priests, and zealots who dominated the religious life of a very religious people. These classes overlapped; together they constituted the oligarchy of his nation. Both sides soon realized that there were fundamental antagonisms between them. The conflict grew acute, until it headed up in the great duel of the last days at Jerusalem. His experiences in this conflict with hostile leadership are recorded in the passages which we have studied and others like them.

II

In the fundamental reply to James and John he formulated his observations in a great political generalization: "Ye know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them and their great men hold down the rest by force." In its earlier and cruder forms, the State is a contrivance of a victorious group to hold down the conquered, and exploit them. If anyone has not yet read political history as an account of systematic exploitation of nation by nation and class by class, he has some education still coming to him.

Even where political leadership has not been plainly predatory but rested on real service, humanity has often had a heavy price to pay for it. Successful military leaders were able to perpetuate a royal dynasty and perhaps fasten a race of hereditary incapables on a nation, to be maintained in royal splendor. The feudal nobility performed useful work in the earlier, turbulent times, but it continued to take rent and tribute for centuries after its useful functions had lapsed. Modern business men who have organized public service corporations have often served the nation well, but they now own the highways and fundamental outfit of the nation, and if their descendants or assignees collect tribute, perhaps on inflated capitalization, for generations to come, it looks like rather costly service. The obligations of power have a curious way of getting lost in the shuffle of time, but titles, rank, legal privileges, rent, and interest are carefully groomed. If one man loses them, some other man nurses them, and the people always pay.

The Kingdom of God sets a fraternal and righteous social order against the predatory and unrighteous order which humanity has inherited from the past. The new order must have a new dynasty of leaders, for every social order has its own kind of aristocracy. Jesus does not propose to abolish leadership, but he proposes a new basis for greatness which is sharply opposed to the old: "Whoever has ambition to be a great man among you, let him be your servant; and whoever is ambitious to rank first among you, let him be your bondservant. Just as the Son of Man did not come to have others serve him, but to render service and to give his life as a ransom for many." Ability and ambition are still to lead, but they are to be yoked to the service of all. Not he who kills and subjugates, but he who makes life safe and happy, shall have the statue set up in his honor. Not the great warrior and killer, but the great healer and the man who multiplies the blades of grass and the ears of wheat and the size of potatoes shall be the great names treasured. The higher the honor craved, the more strenuous must be the service; if a man wants first prize, he must get down to voluntary slavery. The old way to leadership was to knock others down and climb up on them; the new way is to get underneath and boost.

III

Jesus put himself under this law of leadership. We see from his words that the cross was the outcome of a consistent principle adopted by him. The rules he laid down for his apostolate were meant to bar out selfish acquisition: "Freely ye received, freely give. Get you no gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses; no wallet for your journey, neither two coats, nor shoes, nor staff; for the laborer is worthy of his food." It is a significant fact that again and again religious leaders who really cared for the condition of the people, have tried to create a genuine leadership for them along the same lines; Francis of Assisi gathered his "little brothers"; Peter Waldus his Bible teachers; Wycliffe his "poor preachers"; John Wesley his local preachers and itinerants; William Booth his ensigns and captains with the big bass drum; and the entire foreign mission propaganda calls for leaders who will go to the people and offers them nothing but enough to live in health. Today practically the entire Christian ministry, one of the most important bodies of men, has come under the law of leadership for service. It was once, at least in its upper-class sections, rich with unearned incomes, pervaded by graft, and domineering in spirit; it is now a clean and plain-living profession; whatever its shortcomings, graft and extortion are not of them.

The question is now, whether other professions will go through the same historical process of cleansing. The religious spirit has pioneering qualities; under its impulse men blaze the trail which broad social movements or historical developments follow later. Greedy leadership first seemed intolerable in the Church; after a time it may become intolerable in politics and business. The trend of civilization is toward intelligent service on plain pay. Educators, judges, scientists, doctors are on that basis now. It has become dishonorable for them to use their positions for a holdup. The great discoverers in the line of sero-therapy might have taken toll in golden streams, but they did not. It would have been contrary to the ethics of their profession. That means that their profession is on a Christian basis. Where graft is taken out of politics, officials become devoted public servants. The reproach has been made against a man of great ability that at the end of his life his name is not connected with any great cause or measure for the welfare of the people. Whether the judgment was just or not, that point of view is the one to take.

Can business be brought under the law of service? Or is commerce constitutionally incapable of it? There are many indications that a conscious spiritual change is coming over those men in business who have enough intellect and character to look beyond immediate needs. The type of business leadership which took millions out of filthy factory towns, wore out women and took the youth out of children, cleared twelve per cent from slum tenements, kept men and women from marriage by underpayment, and kept the cradle empty by high prices and fear of the future—this type of leadership is antiquated. It belongs to a pre-Christian and pagan age. It is only a question whether business leaders will voluntarily turn their back on such misuse of power or have a change forced on them. Those who mark time on the old methods will become moral derelicts, and their wealth will not forever screen their moral obtuseness.

The nation needs leaders who will persuade conservative farmers to use scientific methods; who will teach our wasteful people the value of self-restraint, and the beauty of cooperative buying and selling; who will teach our communities that it is a sin to rob our own children by leaving soil, water, and forests poorer than we found them; who will give the people good housing without taking the unearned increment; who will organize the dangerous industries for safety; who will place the relations of leaders and workers in industry on a basis of justice and goodwill so that industrial peace can be attained. Is such an object satisfying to a young man of business capacity, or does he want to build a million dollar house and populate it with one child? It is confessed that civilization has been succeeding on the technical side and failing on the ethical. The more the machinery of life is concentrated in the hands of a limited group of business leaders, the more important does the social enlightenment and moral objective of these leaders become to society. To which of the two types do we belong?

IV

Will a life of service satisfy the capable and call out their best powers for the service of humanity? Men will play the game according to the rules of the game. If humanity changes the rules, its strong men will still let out their energies, because they can not help it, and they will like themselves all the better for being on the side of their fellow-men. There is no pleasure in being isolated, eyed with resentment, and conscious of hardness. If ten per cent net means long hours, low wages, and repression, and if six per cent would mean good will and contentment, it might pay the leaders of industry to take less in dividends and take it out in the higher satisfactions.

For men of great ability this is the chance for enduring fame. Who will remember the men that did nothing but amass wealth? Who of our presidents are remembered and loved? Those who suffered with and for the people.

The leadership of service validates its rightness by its intellectual results. Predatory and parasitic classes become intellectually sterile and ignorant of real life. A man who wants to serve men, must get close to them. If we carry a load uphill, we have to choose our footing, and will perforce become intimately acquainted with the law of gravitation. Nothing develops the intellect like heading a just cause and fighting for it.

Here, then, we have another social principle of Jesus. The ambition of the strong must be yoked to the service of society. Power and honor must be earned by distinguished and costly service. Progress along this direction marks the progress of the Kingdom of God. Extortionate and domineering leadership must be superseded where the Kingdom of God moves forward.

V

Does the life of our colleges and universities square with this principle? College men and women crave honor from their fellows, or their fraternities crave it for them vicariously. How do the "big men" in college win it? Do they win it by raising the standards of intellectual work for all? By making fun clean and honorable through the power of a clean public opinion? By creating a college spirit which will put manhood into every generation of Freshmen that plunges into it? Or do they win honor by organizing parties, by intoxicating themselves and others with frothy "social" successes, by acting for the gallery to see and applaud, and by wasting the dynamics of youth on shooting rockets that look like stars and come down like sticks? Such men are essentially selfish; even their service is self-seeking and deserves no honor from others. The more talented and attractive they are, the more damage do they do. They perpetuate their kind. If fraternities or honorary societies honor and reward that sort of leadership, they force individuals into futility, and reenforce the natural temptation to shallow work and display by the powerful pressure of socialized public opinion.

What has just been said applies to the inner life of the college group during its brief command over young men and women. But meanwhile the outside life is waiting for them. Society creates and finances the colleges and universities from the social fund created by those who work. A college man who toys with his work and fights those who want to make him work, ought to be demoted and his chance given to some workingman who has intellectual hunger and would use it. But even of the able and efficient college men society has a right to inquire whether it is training enemies and exploiters or friends and leaders. This question will be asked more and more insistently by democracy as it becomes intelligent. Christianity anticipates this inquiry by its appeal to the individual conscience. Every college man and woman should choose the principle on which he proposes to exercise leadership in case he wins it. Are we willing to gain wealth by impoverishing others? Are we willing to get pleasure by degrading others? Are we willing to gain power and freedom for ourselves by making others powerless and unfree? Jesus distinguishes three kinds of men who are interested in the sheep—the robber, the hireling, and the shepherd. You can tell the presence of the robber by the death of the sheep; the hireling by his cowardice; the true leader by his valor and love.

A special word should be said to college women. In her book on "Woman and Labor," Olive Schreiner has pointed out that as families rise to wealth, the women slip into parasitism more readily than the men. They cease to do productive work, accept the luxuries of life as their right, and fall in with upper-class pretensions. The means of leadership—time, wealth, social resources—are at their command. How will they use them? The number of women with unearned incomes is increasing rapidly in America. Now, if much is given them, much will be required. Can they produce enough social values to justify what they consume? The least we can do is to give as much as we get. Anything less is immoral.

What kind of influence do college girls exert on able young men who turn toward them in love? Nothing will shrivel the idealistic conceptions of life in a young man as thoroughly as love for a selfish woman. The world is full of eyeless Samsons, grinding the money-mills, and whipped to a quicker pace by smiling grafters—who would not recognize this description of them if they saw it.



Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. The Need of Leadership

1. Does the need of leadership diminish with the spread of democracy? With the growth of education?

2. Do we need leadership more or less in America today than fifty years ago?

II. Jesus on the Problems of Leadership

1. Give proof that Jesus consciously confronted the problem of social leadership.

2. What elements did he condemn in the old leadership of his nation?

3. What principle of leadership did he lay down for the new social order?

4. What body of leaders did he create, and what standards of special honor did he impose on them?

5. What do we think of the historic effectiveness of the leadership he created? What is the true interpretation of Judas Iscariot?

6. What evidences are there in Jesus' career that he was true to his ideals of leadership?

III. The Problem of Leadership in History

1. How have the great leaders in the field of religion attacked the problem of leadership in the Church? What does the Protestant Reformation signify from this point of view?

2. How have the landed aristocrats of the past met the Christian test of leadership?

3. Give examples from history and from modern life of men who exercised power in the way Christ condemned. Give examples of others who exercised it according to Christ's law.

IV. The Problem of Leadership in Modern Life

1. In what professions is ambition now securely tied up with service, so that a man must serve well in order to rise?

2. In what positions can a man still gain power and wealth by exploiting society?

3. Is the consciousness that they are public servants spreading among business men? If so, to what is this due?

4. Is society paying too big a price for the leadership of the industrial aristocracy today?

5. When the interests of the stockholders are set over against the health of women and children, and the safety of employes, which consideration determines the wages paid?

6. How have the social leaders of the past mortgaged the economic resources of nations to their own families? To what extent is this true of our country?

7. How can society protect itself against exploitation under present conditions?

V. For Special Discussion

1. A corporation has averaged 24 per cent to its stockholders. It pays twelve dollars a week to its ordinary workmen. Would you call this predatory leadership? Where do you draw the line?

2. Does the salary of teachers in our country indicate that we give honor according to service rendered?

3. How does the increasing size of business undertakings and their importance for public welfare emphasize the ethical importance of right leadership?



Chapter VIII. Private Property And The Common Good

Private Property Must Serve Social Welfare

A glance across history or a simple acquaintance with human life in any community will show us that private property is at the same time a necessary expression of personality and stimulator of character, and, on the other hand, a chief outlet and fortification of selfishness. Every reformatory effort must aim to conserve and spread the blessings of property, and every step toward a better social order will be pugnaciously blocked by its selfish beneficiaries.

What were Jesus' convictions about private property?

DAILY READINGS



First Day: The Rival Interest

And he spake to them many things in parables, saying, Behold, the sower went forth to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the birds came and devoured them: and others fell upon the rocky places, where they had not much earth: and straightway they sprang up, because they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And others fell upon the thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked them: and others fell upon the good ground, and yielded fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.... When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the evil one, and snatcheth away that which hath been sown in his heart. This is he that was sown by the way side. And he that was sown upon the rocky places, this is he that heareth the word, and straight-way with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but endureth for a while; and when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, straightway he stumbleth. And he that was sown among the thorns, this is he that heareth the word; and the care of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. And he that was sown upon the good ground, this is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; who verily beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.—Matt. 13:3-8; 19-23.

This parable was intended to explain to the disciples why the Kingdom was not coming with a rush, as they expected. The story embodies the practical experiences of Jesus in his propaganda. He saw his work as a duplication of the sower's work on a higher level. The success of both depends on the receptiveness of the soil. The sower encounters hard trodden ground, rocky patches, and spots where hardy thorns or thistles drain the soil and where his work produces only empty ears and futile beginnings. So Jesus met the stolid conservative and also the emotional type. But the climax of his difficulties was a mind preoccupied by property worries, or lured by the illusions of wealth. He early found, then, that devotion to property is likely to be a rival to the higher interests and the common good.

How do modern social groups line up when measured by spiritual receptiveness?



Second Day: The Accumulator

And one out of the multitude said unto him, Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me. But he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you? And he said unto them, Take heed, and keep yourselves from all covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. And he spoke a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully; and he reasoned within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have not where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry. But God said unto him, Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.—Luke 12:13-21.

Most men today would have no fault to find with this man. He was only doing what the modern world is unanimously trying to do. Having made a pile, he proposed to make a bigger pile. Meanwhile he slapped his soul on the back and smacked his lips in anticipation. To Jesus the fat farmer was a tragic comedy. In the first place, an unseen hand was waiting to snuff out his candle. To plan life as if it consisted in an abundance of material wealth is something of a miscalculation in a world where death is part of the scheme of things. In the second place, Jesus saw no higher purpose in the man's aim and outlook to redeem his acquisitiveness. The man was a sublimated chipmunk, gloating over bushels of pignuts. If wealth is saved to raise and educate children, or achieve some social good, it deserves moral respect or admiration. But if the acquisitive instinct is without social feeling or vision, and centered on self, it gets no respect, at least from Jesus.

Unlimited acquisition used to be considered immoral and dishonorable. How and when did public opinion change on this?



Third Day: Quit Grafting

And the multitudes asked him, saying, What then must we do? And he answered and said unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath food, let him do likewise. And there came also publicans to be baptized, and they said unto him, Teacher, what must we do? And he said unto them, Extort no more than that which is appointed you. And soldiers also asked him, saying, And we, what must we do? And he said unto them, Extort from no man by violence, neither accuse any one wrongfully; and be content with your wages.—Luke 3:10-14.

The social teachings of John the Baptist were so close to those of Jesus that we can safely draw on them in this passage.

John told the people that a new era was coming and they would have to get a new mind and manner of life as an outfit for it. The people asked for specifications. John's suggestions ran along two lines. He encouraged the plain working people to be neighborly and friendly, and share with a man who was hard up. With powerful individuals, like hired soldiers and Roman tax-farmers, he insisted that they must quit using their physical force and legal power as a cinch to extort money. In other words, they must quit grafting. In the Kingdom of God the "big, black book of graft" will be closed, and men will no longer eat their protesting fellow-men. The more we realize that some form of graft is at the bottom of most easy incomes, the more good sense will we see in this kind of evangelism.

Have we ever been a victim of extortion? How did it feel? Did it sour the milk of human kindness in us?



Fourth Day: God versus Mammon

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where thy treasure is there will thy heart be also. The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.—Matt. 6:19-24.

Acquisition may operate on different planes. A man may accumulate material stuff, or he may acquire spiritual faculties, memories, and relations. In a balanced life the two work side by side in peace, and each may aid the other. But the experience of all spiritual teachers shows that practically the acquisition of property often becomes a passion which absorbs the man and leaves little energy for the higher pursuits. Most men who have used up their life to acquire wealth look back with homesickness to some idealistic aspiration of their youth as to a lost Edenland. Jesus felt the antagonism of private wealth and the Kingdom of God so keenly that he set God and Mammon over against each other, and warned us that we must choose between them. Placed in this connection, the saying about the darkening of the inner light seems to refer to the influence of money-getting on the higher vision of the soul. This entire passage is fundamental and will explain other sayings which follow.

Do God and money come into flat collision in college life?



Fifth Day: The Divisive Influence of Riches

Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day: and a certain beggar named Lazarus was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table; yea, even the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and that he was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom: and the rich man also died, and was buried. And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things: but now here he is comforted, and thou art in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that they that would pass from hence to you may not be able, and that none may cross over from thence to us. And he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house; for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. But Abraham saith, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one go to them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise from the dead.—Luke 16:19-31.

Why does Jesus send the rich man to hell as if it were a matter of course? No crimes or vices are alleged. It must be that a life given over to sumptuous living and indifferent to the want and misery of a fellow-man at the doorstep seemed to Jesus a deeply immoral and sinful life. Jesus exerted all his energies to bring men close together in love. But wealth divides. It creates semi-human relations between social classes, so that a small dole seems to be a full discharge of obligations toward the poor, and manly independence and virtue may be resented as offensive. The sting of this parable is in the reference to the five brothers who were still living as Dives had lived, and whom he was vainly trying to reach by wireless. See verse 14 in explanation.

Is it fair to call the relations between the selfish rich and the dependent poor "semi-human relations"?



Sixth Day: Get a Plank for the Deluge

And he said also unto the disciples, There was a certain rich man, who had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he was wasting his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, What is this that I hear of thee? render the account of thy stewardship; for thou canst be no longer steward. And the steward said within himself, What shall I do, seeing that my lord taketh away the stewardship from me? I have not strength to dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. And calling to him each one of his lord's debtors, he said to the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, A hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bond, and sit down quickly and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, A hundred measures of wheat. He saith unto him, Take thy bond, and write fourscore. And his lord commended the unrighteous steward because he had done wisely: for the sons of this world are for their own generation wiser than the sons of the light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when it shall fail, they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles.—Luke 16:1-9.

This is one of the wittiest stories in the Bible and must be read with some sense of humor. The tenant farmers of a great estate paid their rent in shares of the produce. This elastic system offered the steward a chance to make something on the side. He was found out and discharged, but while he was closing up his accounts he still had a short spell of authority. Things looked dark. He did not care to blister his white hands with a hoe-handle, nor his social pride by begging. So he grafted one last graft, but on so large a scale that the tenants would be under lasting obligations to him. The scamp was a crook, but at least he was long-headed. Jesus wished the children of light were as clever in taking a long look ahead as the children of this world. In that case men would get ready for the new age, in which mammon loses its buying power, by making friends with it now, and their friends would take them in as guests after the great reversal.

How do you like the humorous independence of Jesus?



Seventh Day: Stranded on His Wealth

And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, even God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor thy father and mother. And he said, All these things have I observed from my youth up. And when Jesus heard it, he said unto him, One thing thou lackest yet: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. But when he heard these things, he became exceeding sorrowful; for he was very rich. And Jesus seeing him said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to enter in through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.—Luke 18:18-25.

A fine young man, of clean and conscientious life, but with unsatisfied aspirations in his soul. Jesus invites him to a more heroic type of excellence, cutting loose from his wealth and devoting himself to the apostolate of the Kingdom of God. It was a great chance for a great life. He might have stood for God before kings and mobs, and ranked with Peter, John, and Paul as a household name. He did not rise to his chance. What held him? Jesus felt it was his wealth. A poor man would have had less to leave, and might have left it cheerfully. So Jesus sums up the psychological situation in the saddened exclamation that it is exceedingly hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom where men live in justice, fraternity, and idealism.

Have you noticed that in recent years an increasing number of this man's grandsons are trying to cut loose and find the real life, eternal life? Can you name any?



Study for the Week

Evidently the dangers connected with property were much in the mind of Jesus. He seems to have emphasized them more fully and frequently than the evils of licentiousness or drunkenness. The modern Church has reversed the relative emphasis. Why?

Of course we must not look for the methods or viewpoints of political economy in his teachings. His concern was for the spiritual vitality and soundness of the individual, and for the human relations existing among men. He was interested in property only in so far as it corrupted the higher nature or made fraternity difficult. But let no one underestimate the importance of these considerations. These things are the real end of life. All the rest is scaffolding. We should be farther along if the economic and social sciences had kept these fundamental questions more sternly in sight.

I

Plainly Jesus felt that the acquisitive instinct, like the sex instinct, easily breaks bounds and becomes ravenous; there is even less natural limit to it. It absorbs the energies of intellect and will. As with the rich fool, the horizon of life is filled with chances to make the pile grow bigger. Life seems to consist of money, and the problems of money.

People are valued according to that standard. Marriages are arranged for it. Politics is run for it. Wars are begun for it. Creative artistic and intellectual impulses are shouldered aside, fall asleep, or die of inanition. Property is intended to secure freedom of action and self-development; in fact, it often chains men and clips their wings. This is what Jesus calls "the deceitfulness of riches" and "the darkening of the inner eye."(2)

In addition to the blight of character, wealth exerts a desocializing and divisive influence. It wedges apart groups that belong together. Dives and Lazarus may live in the front and rear of the same block, but with no sense of solidarity. Dives would have been deeply moved, perhaps, if one of his own class had punctured a tire in the Philistian desert and gone for two days without any food except crumbs. The separation of humanity into classes on the lines of wealth is so universal and so orthodox that few of us ever realize that it flouts all the principles of Christianity and humanity.

In the case of the young ruler Jesus encountered the fact that wealth bars men out of the world of their ideals. The question was not whether the young man could get to heaven, but whether he could have a share in the real life, in the kingdom of right relations. It is hard to acquire great wealth without doing injustice to others; it is hard to possess it and yet deal with others on the basis of equal humanity; it is hard to give it away even without doing mischief.

We have seen that Jesus believed profoundly in the value and dignity of human life; that he sought to create solidarity; that he was chiefly concerned for the saving of the lowly; and that he demanded an heroic life in the service of the Kingdom of God. But wealth, as he saw it, flouted the value of life, dissolved the spiritual solidarity of whole classes, and kept the lowly low; the wealthy had lost the capacity for an heroic life.

This is radical teaching. What shall we say to it? Jesus is backed by the Old Testament prophets and the most spiritual teaching of the Hebrew people, which condemned injustice and extortionate money-making even more energetically than did Jesus. Medieval Christianity sincerely assented to the principle that private property is a danger to the soul and a neutralizer of love. Every monastic community tried to cut under sex dangers by celibacy, and property dangers by communism. This was an enormous misinterpretation of Christianity, but it shows that men took the teachings on the dangers of private property seriously. The modern Christian world does not. It has quietly set aside the ideas of Jesus on this subject, lives its life without much influence from them, and contents itself with emphasizing other aspects.

Has the teaching of Jesus on private property been superseded by a better understanding of the social value of property? Or has his teaching been suppressed and swamped by the universal covetousness of modern life? "Our moral pace-setters strike at bad personal habits, but act as if there was something sacred about money-getting; and, seeing that the master iniquities of our time are connected with money-making, they do not get into the fight at all. The child-drivers, monopoly-builders, and crooked financiers have no fear of men whose thought is run in the moulds of their grandfathers. Go to the tainted-money colleges, and you will learn that Drink, not Graft, is the nation's bane" (Edward A. Ross, "Sin and Society, an Analysis of Latter-day Iniquity," p. 97—the italics are his).

II

The machinery for making money which Jesus knew, was simple, crude, and puny compared with the complicated and pervasive system which the magnates of modern industry have built up. There was probably not a millionaire in all Palestine. What would he have said to our great cities?

We need a Christian ethics of property, more perhaps than anything else. The wrongs connected with wealth are the most vulnerable point of our civilization. Unless we can make that crooked place straight, all our charities and religion are involved in hypocrisy.

We have to harmonize the two facts, that wealth is good and necessary, and that wealth is a danger to its possessor and to society. On the one hand property is indispensable to personal freedom, to all higher individuality, and to self-realization; the right to property is a corollary of the right to life; without property men are at the mercy of nature and in bondage to those who have property. On the other hand property is used as a means of collecting tribute and private taxes, as a club with which to extort unearned gain from laborers and consumers, and as the fundamental tool of oppression.

Where do we draw the line? Is it true that property created by productive labor is a great moralizer, and that property acquired without productive labor is the great demoralizer? Is it correct that property for use is on the whole good, and property for power is a menace?

What is the relation between property and self-development? At what point does property become excessive? At what point does food become excessive and poisonous? At what point does fertilizer begin to kill a plant? Would any real social values be lost if incomes averaged $2,000 and none exceeded $10,000?

To what extent does a moral purpose take the dangers out of acquisition?

Is any life moral in which the natural capacities are not sincerely taxed to do productive work? If a man's wealth is destined to cut his descendants off from productive labor, is it a blessing? What is the moral difference between strenuous occupation and labor? How large a proportion of our time and energy can be devoted to play and leisure without softening our moral fiber?

At what points does private property come to be anti-social? If we could eliminate the monopoly elements and the capacity to levy tribute, would there be much danger in the remainder?

Does private property, in the enormous aggregations of today and in control of the essential outfit of society, still correspond to the essential theoretical conception of private property, or have public properties and public functions fallen under private control? "Much that we are accustomed to hear called legitimate insistence upon the rights of property, the Old Testament would seem to call the robbery of God, and grinding the faces of the poor" (The Bishop of Oxford).

III

The religious spirit will always have to call the individual farther than the law can compel him to go. After all unjust and tainted portions have been eliminated from our property, religion lays its hands on the rest and says, "You are only a steward over this." In the parables of the talents, the pounds, and the unjust steward, Jesus argues on the assumption that our resources are a trust, and not absolute property. We manage and control them, but always under responsibility. We hold them from God, and his will has eminent domain. But the will of God is identical with the good of mankind. When we hold property in trust for God, we hold it for humanity, of which we are part. We misuse the trust if by it we deprive others of health, freedom, joy, hope, or efficiency, for instance, by overworking others and underworking our own children.



Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. The Love of Money

1. Define graft. What is wrong in it? Where do we see it? Where are we myopic about it?

2. Why did Jesus have so much to say about money and so little about drink? Why does Paul call the love of money "the root of all evil"?

II. Jesus' Fear of Riches

1. On what ground does Jesus fear the influence of riches and of their accumulation?

2. Summarize Jesus' teachings regarding wealth.

3. In what respects is his attitude different from the ordinary viewpoint of the modern world?

4. Was Jesus opposed to the owning of farming tools or fishing smacks? Where would he draw the line between honest earnings and dangerous wealth?

5. Was his teaching on wealth ascetic? Was it socialistic?

6. To what extent should we recognize his insight on this question as authority for us?

III. The Problem of Wealth in the Modern World

I. Are the "master iniquities" of our age located in sex life, politics, or business?

2. Distinguish between "property for use" and "property for power."

3. What are the moral evils created by mass poverty? By aggregations of wealthy families?

4. Why has the modern world set aside Jesus' teachings about wealth? To what extent have we substituted a better understanding of the social value of property? How far should we be satisfied with our present adjustment of the property question?

5. What methods of money making are condemned by the common sentiment of the Church? Is there anything which ought to be included in this condemnation? If so, what?

IV. The Christian Attitude Toward Property and Wealth Under Modern Conditions

1. At what point does the amassing of private property become contrary to the principles of Jesus?

2. What legalized property rights are antagonistic to Jesus' principles?

3. How can society accumulate wealth without the injustice and social divisions which now accompany the amassing of private fortunes?

4. If a man has an invested income, has he the right to live a life of leisure? When is it right to be a non-producer?

5. How rich has a Christian a right to be? In a Christian society what is the minimum limit of income?

6. Would economic democracy eliminate or enforce the doctrine of stewardship?

7. How can we pluck the sting of sin out of private property?

V. For Special Discussion

1. Are millionaires a symptom of social disease or a triumph of civilization?

2. Should social science reckon with the influence of wealth on personal character?

3. What moral conviction is expressed in the condemnation of usurious interest and of rack-rent? Should excessive profit be included?

4. How could industry be financed if there were no wealthy investors with accumulations?

5. When is a college student a parasite?

6. If college communities had less money would they breed better men and women?

7. How have the successes of predatory finance affected the outlook and morality of college students?



Chapter IX. The Social Test Of Religion

Religion Must be Socially Efficient

The teaching of Jesus dealt with three recalcitrant forces, which easily escape from the control of social duty and become a clog to spiritual progress: ambition for power and leadership, and the love of property, have been considered. How about religion? Is it a help or a hindrance in the progress of humanity? Opinions are very much divided today. No student of society can neglect religion as a social force. What did Jesus think of it?

DAILY READINGS



First Day: Worship is not Enough

What unto me is the multitude of your sacrifices? saith Jehovah: I have had enough of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; new moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies,—I cannot away with iniquity and the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary of bearing them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.—Isa. 1:11-17.

Wherewith shall I come before Jehovah, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old? will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?—Micah 6:6-8.

These two passages are classical expressions of a note which runs through all the prophetic teaching of the Old Testament. There was a fundamental antagonism between those who saw the service of God in the inherited ritual and sacrificial action, and those who felt that the essential service of God is righteousness of life. The prophets wanted a religion that would change social conduct, and repudiated religious doings that had no ethical value. They held that worship alone is not enough. God wants life and conduct.

Suggest parallels from the history of the Christian or the non-Christian religions.



Second Day: The Test of Social Value

And it came to pass, that he was going on the sabbath day through the grainfields; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears. And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? And he said unto them, Did ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was hungry, he, and they that were with him? How he entered into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the showbread, which it is not lawful to eat save for the priests, and gave also to them that were with him? And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man; and not man for the sabbath: so that the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath.

And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there who had his hand withered. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him. And he saith unto the man that had his hand withered, Stand forth. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful on the sabbath day to do good, or to do harm? to save a life, or to kill? But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their heart, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he stretched it forth; and his hand was restored.—Mark 2:23-3:5.

The Mosaic law intended the Sabbath to be a haven of rest for all who were driven, the slave, the immigrant, even the cattle. It was a precious institution of social protection. But the strict religionists of Jesus' time had made a yoke of tyranny of it, so that hungry men could not rub the kernels from ears of grain without being charged with threshing, and Jesus could not heal a poor paralytic without getting black looks. A fine institution of social welfare and relief had been turned into an anti-social regulation. Jesus fell back on the fundamental maxim of the prophets, "I desire kindness and not sacrifice," and laid down the principle that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." The religious institution of the Sabbath must have social value; this is the essential test even in religion.

Is the Sabbath more useful to society now than in Puritan times?

From which do we suffer more today, from excessive strictness or excessive looseness in Sabbath observance?

How is the social value of the rest-day frustrated for the working class?



Third Day: Natural Duty above Artificial

And the Pharisees and the scribes ask him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with defiled hands? And he said unto them, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

This people honoreth me with their lips, But their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.

Ye leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men. And he said unto them, Full well do ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your tradition. For Moses said, Honor thy father and thy mother; and, He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death: but ye say, If a man shall say to his father or his mother, That wherewith thou mightest have been profited by me is Corban, that is to say, Given to God; ye no longer suffer him to do aught for his father or his mother; making void the word of God by your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things ye do.—Mark 7:5-13.

Contemporary Jewish religion was full of taboos, defilements, and purifications. Read Mark 7:1-23. Jesus was so indifferent about the religious ablutions that he was brought to book for it by the pious. He replied that these regulations were not part of the divine law, but later accretions the product of theological casuistry, and that they tended to obscure the real divine duties. He cited a flagrant case. By eternal and divine law a man owes love and support to his parents. But the scribes held that if a man vowed to give money to the temple, this obligation, being toward God, superseded the obligation to his parents, which was merely human. To Jesus this seemed a perversion of religion. Ecclesiastical claims were made to stifle fundamental social duty. To Jesus the latter had incomparably higher value. Religion had become a social danger through such teaching.

Give proof from modern history that religious institutions may become injurious to social morality and welfare.



Fourth Day: Religion Which Obscured Duty

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone. Ye blind guides, that strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel!

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full from extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the platter, that the outside thereof may become clean also.—Matt. 23:23-26.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves.—Matt. 23:15.

The great invective of Jesus against the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23) deals wholly with the perversions of religion. In these verses he emphasizes the fact that the solemn importance attached to external minutiae turned the attention of men from the really fundamental spiritual duties, such as justice, mercy, and good faith. As the blood was supposed to be the sacred element of life, it had to be drained off in butchering, and a drowned animal could not be eaten. Jesus wittily describes the Pharisee filtering out drowned gnats from the drinking water, but bolting some camel of a sin without blinking. The outside of the cup was kept scrupulously scoured, but the inside was filled with the products of rapacity and the material for luxurious excess. When religion had become of such a sort, even missionary activity became an actual damage, for the converts were turned into fanatical sticklers on trifles. In all this we can see him striking out for a kind of religion that would result in righteous conduct and have social value.

Have we had any experience of religion which obscured duty to us? Have we had any experience of religion which revealed duty to us?



Fifth Day: Religious Wonders and Social Realities

And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and trying him asked him to show them a sign from heaven. But he answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the heaven is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day: for the heaven is red and lowering. Ye know how to discern the face of the heaven; but ye cannot discern the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of Jonah. And he left them, and departed.—Matt. 16:1-4.

This demand for a miracle pursued Jesus all through his teaching activity. He settled with it on principle in his desert temptation; he would not leap from the pinnacles of the temple, or do anything to turn his work into a holy circus. But the demand followed him to his death: "If thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross." A good, stunning miracle seemed a short cut to faith, the most convincing way of furnishing proof of his divine mission. Also, it would be mighty interesting. But he never catered to the demand. His power was only for the relief of suffering. He tried to keep his acts of healing private. In this passage he advised his opponents to use their intellect in more useful directions than stargazing for signs from heaven. They were weather-wise. Let them read the signs of the times. Storms were brewing on the horizon. Forty years later Titus destroyed Jerusalem and broke the back of the Jewish nation. The prophetic mind of Jesus saw it coming (Luke 19:41-44).

If they had accepted his teaching of peace instead of getting intoxicated by the visions of revolutionary apocalypticism, the doom might have been averted. He was trying to bring their feet to the ground, turn their mind to realities, and make their religion socially efficient.

Would the sight of a miracle have effected a moral change in a Pharisee?

How would religion be affected, if miraculous demonstrations could be furnished at will?



Sixth Day: When Religion Separates Men

And as Jesus passed by from thence, he saw a man, called Matthew, sitting at the place of toll: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.

And it came to pass, as he sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Teacher with the publicans and sinners? But when he heard it, he said, They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice: for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.—Matt. 9:9-13.

The Jewish community, religious at the core, had a fringe of people who had failed to live up to the requirements of the Law. They came under the condemnation of the respectable people and of their own conscience, and drifted into the despised and vicious occupations. These were the "publicans and sinners," the "publicans and harlots," to whom the Gospels refer. A socially efficient religion would have prompted the good people to establish loving and saving contact with these people. Actually religion so accentuated the social divergence that the Pharisees were shocked when Jesus mingled in a friendly way with this class and even added one of them to his traveling companions. The parables of the lost coin, lost sheep, and prodigal son were spoken in reply to the slur, "This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them" (Luke 15). The elder brother of the prodigal pictures this loveless and censorious religion.

Jesus crossed the line of demarcation and established social contact and friendliness, through which salvation could come to these religious derelicts. He quoted again the old saying of the prophets, "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice." God was not as much concerned about correct religious performances as the Pharisees thought, and a great deal more concerned about mercy for the fallen, and the simple human qualities which bring the strong and the weak together.

What experiences have we had of refusal to associate? Was the cleavage along lines of race, wealth, education, morals, or religion?

Has religion with us been an impulse toward men, or away from men?



Seventh Day: Be Useful or Die

And he spake this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit thereon, and found none. And he said unto the vinedresser, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why doth it also cumber the ground? And he answering saith unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit thenceforth, well; but if not, thou shalt cut it down.—Luke 13:6-9.

Jesus evidently had some interest in scientific agriculture. Both the owner and the vine-dresser in this parable were out for agricultural efficiency. The owner hated to see soil and space wasted; the vine-dresser was reluctant to sacrifice a tree, and proposed better tillage and more fertilizer. Taking this parable in connection with what precedes, we see that Jesus was concerned about the future of his nation and its religion. Both would have to validate their right to exist; God could not have them cumber the ground. They must make good. This is the stern urge of the God whom we know in history and evolution, with the voice of Christ pleading for patience. But it is agreed between them that ultimately the law of fitness must rule. Religion can not bank on claims of antiquity alone. Every generation must find it newly efficient to create the social virtues then needed. Remember that this was spoken by a Jewish patriot and the supreme exponent of the Hebrew religion.

Give historical instances of the permanent downfall or decline of nations. Trace the connection between their fate and their religion.



Study for the Week

Jesus Christ was the founder of the highest religion; he was himself the purest religious spirit known to us. Why, then, was he in opposition to religion? The clash between him and the representatives of organized religion was not occasional or superficial. It ran through his whole activity, was one of the dominant notes in his teaching, culminated in the great spiritual duel between him and the Jewish hierarchy in the last days at Jerusalem, and led directly to his crucifixion.

I

The opposition of Jesus was not, of course, against religion itself, but against religion as he found it. It was not directed against any departure from the legitimate order of the priesthood; nor against an improper ritual or wrong doctrine of sacrifices. In fact, it did not turn on any of the issues which were of such importance to the Church in later times. He criticized the most earnest religious men of his day because their religion harmed men instead of helping them. It was unsocial, or anti-social.

The Old Testament prophets also were in opposition to the priestly system of their time because it used up the religious interest of the people in ceremonial performances without ethical outcome. It diverted spiritual energy, by substituting lower religious requirements for the one fundamental thing which God required—righteousness in social and political life. They insisted over and over that Jehovah wants righteousness and wants nothing else. Their aim was to make religion and ethics one and inseparable. They struck for the social efficiency of religion.

At the time of Jesus the Jewish sacrifices had lost much of their religious importance. During the Exile they had lapsed. They were professional performances of one class. The numerous Jews scattered in other countries perhaps saw the temple once in a lifetime. Modern feeling in the first century was against bloody sacrifices. The recorded sayings of Jesus hardly mention them. On the other hand the daily life of the people was pervaded by little prescribed religious actions. The Sabbath with its ritual was punctiliously observed.(3) There were frequent days of fasting, religious ablutions and baths, long prayers to be recited several times daily, with prayer straps around the arm and forehead, and a tasseled cloth over the head. The exact performance of these things seemed an essential part of religion to the most earnest men.

We have seen how Jesus collided with these religious requirements and on what grounds. If men were deeply concerned about the taboo food that went into their bodies, they would not be concerned about the evil thoughts that arose in their souls. If they were taught to focus on petty duties, such as tithing, the great ethical principles and obligations moved to the outer field of vision and became blurred. The Sabbath, which had originated in merciful purpose toward the poor, had been turned into another burden. Religion, which ought to bring good men into saving contact with the wayward by love, actually resulted in separating the two by a chasm of religious pride and censoriousness. A man-made and artificial religious performance, such as giving toward the support of the temple, crowded aside fundamental obligations written deep in the constitution of human society, such as filial reverence and family solidarity.

Other reformers have condemned religious practices because they were departures from the holy Book or from primitive custom. Jesus, too, pointed out that some of these regulations were recent innovations. But the real standard by which he judged current religious questions was not ancient authority but the present good of men. The spiritual center on which he took his stand and from which he judged all things, was the Kingdom of God, the perfect social order. Even the ordinances of religion must justify themselves by making an effective contribution to the Kingdom of God. The Sabbath was made for man, and its observance must meet the test of service to man's welfare. It must function wholesomely. The candle must give light, or what is the use of it? The salt must be salty and preserve from decay, or it will be thrown out and trodden under foot. If the fig-tree bears no fruit, why is it allowed to use up space and crowd better plants off the soil? This, then, is Christ's test in matters of institutional religion. The Church and all its doings must serve the Kingdom of God.

II

The social efficiency of religion is a permanent social problem. What is the annual expense of maintaining the churches in the United States? How much capital is invested in the church buildings? (See U. S. Census Bulletin No. 103, of 1906.) How much care and interest and loving free-will labor does an average village community bestow on religion as compared with other objects? All men feel instinctively that religion exerts a profound and subtle influence on the springs of conduct. Even those who denounce it, acknowledge at least its power for harm. Most of us know it as a power for good. But all history shows that this great spiritual force easily deteriorates. Corruptio optimi pessima.

Religion may develop an elaborate social apparatus of its own, wheels within wheels, and instead of being a dynamic of righteousness in the natural social relations of men, its energies may be consumed in driving its own machinery. Instead of being the power-house supplying the Kingdom of God among men with power and light, the Church may exist for its own sake. It then may become an expensive consumer of social wealth, a conservative clog, and a real hindrance of social progress.

Live religion gives proof of its value by the sense of freedom, peace, and elation which it creates. We feel we are right with the holy Power which is behind, and beneath, and above all things. It gives a satisfying interpretation of life and of our own place in it. It moves our aims higher up, draws our fellow-men closer, and invigorates our will.

But our growth sets a problem for our religion. The religion of childhood will not satisfy adolescent youth, and the religion of youth ought not to satisfy a mature man or woman. Our soul must build statelier mansions for itself. Religion must continue to answer all our present needs and inspire all our present functions. A person who has failed to adjust his religion to his growing powers and his intellectual horizon, has failed in one of the most important functions of growth, just as if his cranium failed to expand and to give room to his brain. Being microcephalous is a misfortune, and nothing to boast of.

Precisely the same problem arises when society passes through eras of growth. Religion must keep pace. The Church must pass the burning torch of religious experience from age to age, transmitting the faith of the fathers to the children, and not allowing any spiritual values to perish. But it must allow and aid religion to adjust itself. Its inspiring teaching must meet the new social problems so effectively that no evil can last long or grow beyond remedy. In every new age religion must stand the test of social efficiency. Is it passing that test in Western civilization?

Religion is a bond of social coherence. It creates loyalty. But it may teach loyalty to antiquated observances or a dwarfed system of truth. Have you ever seen believers rallying around a lost cause in religion? Yet these relics were once a live issue, and full of thrilling religious vitality.

Society changes. Will religion change with it? If society passes from agriculture and rural settlements to industry and urban conditions, can the customary practices of religion remain unchanged? Give some instances where prescientific conceptions of the universe, embodied in religion, have blocked the spread of scientific knowledge among the people. The caste distinctions of Hinduism were the product of a combination between religion and the social organization of the people; can they last when industrialism and democracy are pervading India? The clerical attitude of authority was natural when the Catholic clergy were the only educated class in the community; is it justified today? Protestantism won the allegiance of industrial communities when the young business class was struggling to emancipate itself from the feudal system. It developed an individualistic philosophy of ethics. Today society tends toward solidaristic organization. How will that affect religion and its scheme of duty? Thus religion, by its very virtues of loyalty and reverence, may fall behind and lose its full social efficiency. It must be geared to the big live issues of today if it is to manifest its full saving energies.

How does this problem of the efficiency of religion bear on the foreign missionary movement? How will backward or stationary civilizations be affected by the introduction of a modern and enthusiastic religion?

We may feel the defects of our church life at home, but there is no doubt that the young men and women who go out from our colleges under religious impulses, are felt as a virile and modernizing force when they settle to their work in Turkey or Persia. Christian educational institutions and medical missions have raised the intellectual and humane standards of young China. Buddhism in Japan has felt the challenge of competition and is readjusting its ethics and philosophy to connect with modern social ideals. The historical effects of our religious colonization will not mature for several generations, but they are bound to be very great. The nations and races are drawing together. They need a monotheistic religion as a spiritual basis for their sense of human unity. This is a big, modern, social task. It makes its claim on men and women who have youth, education, and spiritual power. Is the religious life of our colleges and universities efficient enough to meet the need?

Here are the enormous tasks of international relations, which the Great War has forced us to realize—the prevention of armed conflicts, the elimination of the irritant causes of war, the protection of the small nations which possess what the big nations covet, the freedom of the seas as the common highway of God, fair and free interchange in commerce without any effort to set up monopoly rights and the privilege of extortionate gain, the creation of an institutional basis for a great family of nations in days to come. These are some of the tasks which the men and women who are now young must take on their mind and conscience for life, and leave to their children to finish. What contributions, in your opinion, could the spirit of the Christian religion make to such a program, if it were realized intelligently and pressed home through the agencies of the Christian Church? In what ways has American religion shown its efficiency since the war broke out?

Christianity has been a great power in our country to cleanse and fraternalize the social life of simple communities. Can it meet the complex needs of modern industrialism in the same way? It can not truthfully be claimed that it has done so in any industrial country. Its immense spiritual forces might be the decisive element, but they have been effectively organized against a few only of the great modern evils. On the fundamental ethical questions of capitalism the Church has not yet made up its own mind—not to speak of enforcing the mind of Christ. Nor have the specialists in the universities and colleges supplied the leaders of the Church with clear information and guidance on these questions. We can not make much permanent progress toward a just social order as long as the masses of the working people in the industrial nations continue in economic poverty and political helplessness, and as long as a minority controls the land, the tools, and the political power. We shall linger on the borders of the Inferno until a new accession of moral insight and spiritual power comes to the nations. How will it come?

III

What could the churches in an average village community accomplish if they intelligently directed the power of religion to foster the sense of fraternal unity and to promote the institutions which make for unity? How could they draw the new, the strange, and the irregular families into the circle of neighborly feeling? In what way could they help to assimilate immigrants and to prevent the formation of several communities in the same section, overlapping, alien, and perhaps hostile? How would it affect the recreational situation if the churches took a constructive rather than a prohibitive attitude toward amusements, and if they promoted the sociability of the community rather than that of church groups?

With the rise of land prices and the control of transportation and markets, the rural population is moving toward a social crisis like that which transformed the urban population in the industrial revolution. Agriculture will become capitalistic, and the weaker families will drop to the position of tenants and agricultural laborers. Cooperation is their way of salvation. Its effectiveness has been amply demonstrated in older countries. It requires a strong sense of solidarity, loyalty, and good faith to succeed. It has made so little headway in America because our national character has not been developed in these directions. What could the churches do to save the weaker families from social submergence by backing cooperation and developing the moral qualities needed for it?

The strong religious life of our people might be more effective if the churches were less divided. Their economic and human resources are partly wasted by useless competition. Our denominational divisions are nearly all an historical heritage, imported from Europe, and coming down from a controversial age. Their issues all meant something vital and socially important in the midst of the social order of that day; but in many cases the real significance has quietly crumbled away, and they are not really the same issues that deeply engaged our forefathers. We are all "tithing mint, anise, and cummin," and forgetting the weighty matters, such as social justice and Christian fraternity. Everybody is ready to acknowledge this about every denomination except his own. We need a revaluation of our religious issues from the point of view of the Kingdom of God. That would bring us into harmony with the judgment of Jesus. Nothing else will.

IV

The social efficiency of religion—what call is there in that to the college men and women of this generation? Shall they cease to worship and pray, seek the salvation of society in ethics and sociology, and abandon religion to stagnation? Or shall they seek a new experience of religion in full sight of the modern world, and work by faith toward that reign of God in which his will shall be done?



Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. When the Salt Loses its Savor

1. What is the individual to do when religion becomes a hindrance to religion?

2. What types of revolt against inherited religion have you met in college?

II. Prophetic Religion Against Traditional Religion

1. What did the prophets criticize in the religion of their day?

2. What was Jesus' test of religion?

3. Give instances in which he found religion to be a hindrance to the highest welfare. How did religion obscure duty?

4. What was the essential cause of the clash between Jesus and the religious leaders of his day?

III. The Historic Reformation of Religion

1. In studying history, what sins or failures of the Church have impressed you most?

2. What did the Protestant Reformation contribute to make religion efficient?

3. Has the Church been a rival or a feeder of the Kingdom of God?

4. Give historical examples of the failure of religion to meet the changed requirements of a new epoch.

5. What contributions has the Church made to social progress?

IV. Religion Today

1. What have Christian missions done to change the social conditions in non-Christian countries?

2. How do you rate the social service value of a first-class minister in a community? On what does his value depend?

3. Of what social value to a community is a costly and beautiful church building?

4. What investment in capital and annual expenditure does the maintenance of the churches in your community entail? Does the social return to the community justify the investment?

5. Are the issues which divided the Protestant denominations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries still vital enough to justify the continuance of the divisions? Summarize the evils of the divisions and their counter-balancing good.

6. Is the ordinary criticism of the churches fair? Are ministers overpaid or underpaid? Do the churches graft? How do the churches compare in social efficiency with other similar social institutions?

V. For Special Discussion

1. Why did the reformation of the Church historically precede the reform of politics and industry?

2. Do the unsolved social problems of Christian nations prove the social inefficiency of religion? Could religion alone change the maladjustment of society?

3. Why has religion been more effective in the field of private life than of public life?

4. If you had full control of the churches in a given country or village community, on what aims would you concentrate their forces?



PART IV. CONQUEST BY CONFLICT



Chapter X. The Conflict With Evil

The Kingdom of God Will Have to Fight for Its Advance

The great objective is the Kingdom of God. In realizing the Reign of God on earth three recalcitrant forces have to be brought into obedience to God's law: the desire for power, the love of property, and unsocial religion. We have studied Christ's thought concerning these in the foregoing chapters. The advance of the Kingdom of God is not simply a process of social education, but a conflict with hostile forces which resist, neutralize, and defy whatever works toward the true social order. The strategy of the Kingdom of God, therefore, involves a study of the social problem of evil.

DAILY READINGS



First Day: The Consciousness of Sin in the Lord's Prayer

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.—Matt. 6:12, 13.

The Lord's Prayer expresses the very mind and spirit of the Master. It begins with the Kingdom of God; it ends with the problem of sin. As we stand before God, we realize that we have loaded up our life with debts we can never pay. We have wasted our time, and the powers of body and soul. We have left black marks of contagion on some whose path we have crossed. We have hurt even those who loved us by our ill-temper, thoughtlessness, and selfishness.

We can only ask God to forgive and give us another chance: "Forgive us our debts." Looking forward we see the possibility of fatal temptations. We know how fragile our power of resistance is. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Thus the consciousness of sin is written across this greatest of all prayers.

Is a sense of unworthiness an indication of moral strength or of weakness?

Where do we draw the line between a normal and abnormal sense of sin?



Second Day: Evil Embodied in Character

Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by its fruit. Ye offspring of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. The good man out of his good treasure bringeth forth good things: and the evil man out of his evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. And I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.—Matt. 12:33-37.

Character is formed by action, but after it is formed, it determines action. What a man says and does, he becomes; and what he has become, he says and does. An honest and clean-minded man instinctively does what is kind and honorable. But when a man for years has gone for profit and selfish power, you can trust him as a general thing to do what is underhanded and mean. Since selfish ability elbows its way to controlling positions in business, politics, and society, the character reactions of such men are a force with which the Kingdom of God must reckon. They are the personal equipment of the kingdom of evil, and the more respectable, well-dressed, and clever they are, the worse it is.

What man or woman of our acquaintance would we single out as the clearest case of an evil character?

Why do we so judge him?



Third Day: The Social Pressure of Evil

And he said unto his disciples, It is impossible but that occasions of stumbling should come; but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were well for him if a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.—Luke 17:1, 2.

A sex story lodging in a young mind, an invitation to companionship and a drink, a sneer at religion which makes faith look silly—such things trip us up. They are stumbling-blocks, like wires stretched across a path in the dark. Just because we are social and easily influenced by friendship, admiration, or persuasion, one man's suggestion or example draws the other man on. Jesus knew that social solicitation and pressure toward sin was inevitable. It is the price we pay for our social nature. But, all the same, it is a terrible thing to contaminate a soul or steer a life toward its ruin. This saying about the millstone is one of the sternest words ever uttered.

"Three men went out one summer night, No care they had or aim, And dined and drank. "Ere we go home We'll have," they said, "a game."

Three girls began that summer night A life of endless shame, And went through drink, disease, and death, As swift as racing flame. Lawless and homeless, foul they died; Rich, loved, and praised the men; But when they all shall meet with God, And justice speaks—what then?"

Let us enumerate to our own minds cases where others drew us into wrong, and cases where we were a cause of evil for others. About which do we feel sorest now? Why?



Fourth Day: Moral Laziness

No man having drunk old wine desireth new; for he saith, The old is good.—Luke 5:39.

This is a chance remark, but a keen observation. In wine-raising countries an expert tongue and nice discrimination between the fifty-seven varieties is one of the most coveted talents. A man who would prefer some recent stuff to the celebrated vintage of 18—, would commit intellectual hari-kari. It is said that in some of the celebrated vaults of France they breed spiders to cover the bottles with webs and dust to convey the delicious suggestion of antiquity. Jesus uses the preference for old vintage to characterize the conservative instinct in human nature. This is one of the stickiest impediments to progress, one of the most respectable forms of evil-mindedness. "The hereditary tiger is in us all, also the hereditary oyster and clam. Indifference is the largest factor, though not the ugliest form, in the production of evil" (President Hyde). Men are morally lazy; they have to be pushed into what is good for them, and the "pushee" is almost sure to resent the pushing. The idea that men ardently desire what is rational and noble is pernicious fiction. They want to be let alone. This is part of original sin.

Was the above written in haste, or will it stand?



Fifth Day: Satanic Frustration of Good

Another parable set he before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man that sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away. But when the blade sprang up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. And the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence then hath it tares? And he said unto them, An enemy hath done this. And the servants say unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he saith, Nay; lest haply while ye gather up the tares, ye root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn.—Matt. 13:24-30.

Here we encounter the devil. There is more in sin than our own frailty and stupidity, and the bad influence of other individuals. There is a permanent force of organized evil which vitiates every higher movement and sows tares among the grain over night. You work hard on some law to reform the ballot or the primary in order to protect the freedom and rights of the people, and after three years your device has become a favorite tool of the interests. You found a benevolent institution, and after you are dead it becomes a nest of graft. Even the Church of Jesus was for centuries so corrupt that all good men felt its reform in head and members to be the greatest desideratum in Christendom. Evil is more durable and versatile than youth and optimism imagine. The belief in a satanic power of evil expresses the conviction of the permanent power of evil. In early Christianity the belief in the devil was closely connected with the Christian opposition to the idolatrous and wicked social order of heathenism. In the Apocalypse the dragon who stands for Satan, and the beasts who stand for the despotic Roman Empire, are in close alliance.

What are the satanic social forces today?

The parable of the tares grew out of a personal experience. Has our observation ever furnished anything similar?



Sixth Day: The Irrepressible Conflict

Think not that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law: and a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that doth not take his cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.—Matt. 10:34-39.

Into a world controlled by sin was launched the life of Christ. The more completely he embodied the divine character and will, the more certain and intense would be the conflict between him and the powers dominating the old order. He accepted this fight, not only for himself but for his followers. It would follow them up into the intimacies of their homes. Any faith that takes the Kingdom of God seriously, has its fight cut out for it. Unless we accept our share of it, we are playing with our discipleship. But when the fight is for the Kingdom of God, those who dodge, lose; and those who lose, win.

Which involves more conflict, a life set on the Kingdom of God on earth, or a faith set on the life to come?

Does the idea of a fighting faith attract us?

Would this serve as a "substitute for war"?



Seventh Day: Militant Gentleness

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you; that ye may be sons of your Father who is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.—Matt. 5:44, 45.

Render to no man evil for evil. Take thought for things honorable in the sight of all men. But if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.—Rom. 12:17, 20, 21.

Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.—John 18:36, 37.

When we call out the militant spirit in religion, we summon a dangerous power. It has bred grimness and cruelty. Crusaders and inquisitors did their work in the name of Jesus, but not in his spirit. We must saturate ourselves with the spirit of our Master if our fighting is to further his Kingdom. Hate breeds hate; force challenges force. Only love disarms; only forgiveness kills an enemy and leaves a friend. Jesus blended gentleness and virility, forgiving love and uncompromising boldness. He offered it as a mark of his Kingdom that his followers used no force to defend him. Wherever they have done so, the Kingdom of heaven has dropped to the level of the brutal empires. His attack is by the truth; whoever is won by that, is conquered for good. Force merely changes the form of evil. When we "overcome evil with good," we eliminate it.

What did Paul mean by saying that acts of kindness to an enemy heap coals of fire on his head?

How about moral crusades that aim to put joint-keepers and pimps in prison?



Study for the Week

All great religious teachers have had a deep sense of the power of evil in human life. Jesus apparently was not interested in the philosophical question of the origin of evil, but accepted the fact of evil in a pragmatic way, and saw his own life as a conflict with sin and wrong.

Some facts, as we have seen, were clearly written in his consciousness: the frailty of our will; the consolidation of evil in men of bad character and the automatic output of lies and distortions coming from such; the power of social pressure by which the weak are made to trip and fall; and the pervasive satanic power of evil which purposely neutralizes the efforts leading toward the Reign of God.

The fact that Jesus realized evil in individuals and society, that he reckoned with it practically, and that he set himself against it with singleness of purpose, constitutes another of his social principles. Any view of life which blurs the fact of evil would have seemed to him an illusion. He would have foretold failure for any policy based on it. His great social problem was redemption from evil. Every step of approach toward the Kingdom of God must be won by conflict.

Modern science explains evil along totally different lines, but as to the main facts it agrees with the spiritual insight of Jesus. Psychology recognizes that the higher desires are usually sluggish and faint, while the animal appetites are strong and clamorous. Our will tires easily and readily yields to social pressure. In many individuals the raw material of character is terribly flawed by inheritance. So the young, with a maximum of desire and a minimum of self-restraint, slip into folly, and the aging backslide into shame. Human nature needs a strong reenforcement to rouse it from its inherited lethargy and put it on the toilsome upward track. It needs redemption, emancipation from slavery, a breaking of bonds.

I

Evangelism is the attack of redemptive energy in the sphere of personal life. It comes to a man shamed by the sense of guilt and baffled by moral failure, and rouses him to a consciousness of his high worth and eternal destiny. It transmits the faith of the Christian Church in a loving and gracious God who is willing to forgive and powerful to save. It teaches a man to pray, curing his soul by affirming over and over a triumphant faith, and throwing it open to mysterious spiritual powers which bring joy, peace, and strength beyond himself. It sets before him a code of moral duty to quicken and guide his conscience. It puts him inside of a group of like-minded people who exercise social restraint and urge him on.

When all this is wisely combined, it constitutes a spiritual reenforcement of incomparable energy. It acts like an emancipation. It gives a sense of freedom and newness. The untrained observer sees it mainly in those cases where the turn has come in some dramatic form and where the contrast between the old and new life is most demonstrable. But the saving force is at work even when it seeps in through home influences so quietly that the beneficiary of it does not realize what a great thing has been done for him.

The saving force has to attack the powers in possession. Only those who have helped in wresting men free from sin can tell what a stiff fight it often is. Here is an intellectual professional man who goes off for a secret spree about once in sixty days; a respectable woman who has come under the opium habit; a boy who is both a cigarette fiend and sexually weak; a man who domineers and cows his wife and family; a woman who has reduced her husband to slavery to supply her expensive tastes; a girl who shirks all work and throws the burden of her selfish life on a hard-worked mother; a college man whose parents are straining all their resources and using up their security for old age to keep him at college, and who gambles—complete the catalogue for yourself. To make these individuals over into true citizens of the Kingdom of God and loyal fellow-workers of their fellow-men means constructive conflict of a high order. It has been done.(4)

II

The problem of evil becomes far more complicated when evil is socialized. The simplest and most familiar form of that is the boys' gang. Here is a group of young humans who get their fun and adventure by pulling the whiskers of the law. They idealize vice and crime. Leadership in their group is won by proficiency in profanity, gambling, obscenity, and slugging. The gang assimilates its members; there is regimentation of evil. It acts as a channel of tradition; the boy of fifteen teaches the boy of twelve what he has learned from the boy of eighteen.

How is the problem of evil affected when the powers of human society, which usually restrain the individual from vice and rebellion, are used to urge him into it? Should the strategy of the Kingdom of God be adjusted to that situation? It is not enough to win individuals away from the gangs. Can the gang spirit itself be christianized and used to restrain and stimulate the young for good? Has this been done, and where, and how? Is Christian institutional work sufficient to cope with the problem? What readjustments in the recreational and educational outfit of our American communities are needed to give a wholesome outlet to the spirit of play and adventure, and to train the young for their life work? Would such an outfit do the work without personal leadership inspired by religion?

Christian evangelism in the past has not had an adequate understanding of the power of the group. In what connections has the Church shown a true valuation of the social factor in sin and redemption? At what points has its strategy been ineffective in dealing with socialized evil? What contributions can social science make to the efficiency of evangelism? Would a correct scientific analysis of the constructive and disintegrating forces in society be enough to do saving work?

III

The bad gangs of the young are usually held together by a misdirected love of play and adventure. The dangerous combinations of adults are consolidated by "the cohesive power of plunder." That makes them a far more difficult proposition.

Any local attack on saloons and vice resorts furnishes a laboratory demonstration of socialized evil. The object of both kinds of institutions is to make big profit by catering to desires which induce men to spend freely. Music and sociability are used as a bait. The people who profit by this trade are held together by the fear of a common danger. Since the community uses political means of curbing or suppressing the vice business, the vice group goes into politics to prevent it. It seeks to control the police, the courts, the political machines by sharing part of its profits. Lawyers, officials, newspaper proprietors, and real estate men are linked up and summoned like a feudal levy in case of danger. Drugstores, doctors, chauffeurs, messenger boys, and all kinds of people are used to bring in trade and make it secure. The exploded fictions of alcoholism are kept circulating. Like a tape-worm in the intestines, these articulated and many-jointed parasitic organizations of vice make our communities sick, dirty, and decadent.