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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Social Principles of Jesus by Walter
+Rauschenbusch
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: The Social Principles of Jesus
+
+Author: Walter Rauschenbusch
+
+Release Date: September 5, 2009 [Ebook #29912]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF JESUS***
+
+
+
+
+
+                     College Voluntary Study Courses
+
+                            Fourth Year—Part 1
+
+                      The Social Principles Of Jesus
+
+                                    By
+
+                           Walter Rauschenbusch
+
+       Professor of Church History, Rochester Theological Seminary
+
+ Written under the Direction of Sub-Committee on College Courses, Sunday
+ School Council of Evangelical Denominations, and Committee on Voluntary
+            Study, Council of North American Student Movements
+
+                            The Woman’s Press
+
+                           600 Lexington Avenue
+
+                              New York City
+
+                                   1917
+
+                           Copyright, 1916, by
+
+    The International Committee of Young Men’s Christian Associations
+
+                Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London, 1916
+
+                           All Rights Reserved
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+Introduction
+Part I. The Axiomatic Social Convictions Of Jesus
+   Chapter I. The Value Of Life
+   Chapter II. The Solidarity Of The Human Family
+   Chapter III. Standing With The People
+Part II. The Social Ideal Of Jesus
+   Chapter IV. The Kingdom Of God: Its Values
+   Chapter V. The Kingdom Of God: Its Tasks
+   Chapter VI. A New Age And New Standards
+Part III. The Recalcitrant Social Forces
+   Chapter VII. Leadership For Service
+   Chapter VIII. Private Property And The Common Good
+   Chapter IX. The Social Test Of Religion
+Part IV. Conquest By Conflict
+   Chapter X. The Conflict With Evil
+   Chapter XI. The Cross As A Social Principle
+   Chapter XII. A Review And A Challenge
+Footnotes
+
+
+
+
+
+
+COLLEGE VOLUNTARY STUDY COURSES
+
+
+“The Social Principles of Jesus” takes seventh place in a series of
+text-books known as College Voluntary Study Courses. The general outline
+for this curriculum has been prepared by the Committee on Voluntary Study
+of the Council of North American Student Movements, representing the
+Student Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations and the
+Student Volunteer Movement, and the Sub-Committee on College Courses of
+the Sunday School Council of Evangelical Denominations, representing
+twenty-nine communions. Therefore the text-books are planned for the use
+of student classes in the Sunday School, as well as for the supplementary
+groups on the campus. The present text-book has been written under the
+direction of these Committees.
+
+The text-books are not suitable for use in the academic curriculum, as
+they have been definitely planned for voluntary study groups.
+
+This series, covering four years, is designed to form a minimum curriculum
+for the voluntary study of the Bible, foreign missions, and North American
+problems. Daily Bible Readings are printed with each text-book. The
+student viewpoint is given first emphasis—what are the student interests?
+what are the student problems?
+
+
+    The Bible text printed in short measure (indented both sides) is
+    taken from the American Standard Edition of the Revised Bible,
+    copyright, 1901, by Thomas Nelson & Sons, and is used by
+    permission.
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+This book is not a life of Christ, nor an exposition of his religious
+teachings, nor a doctrinal statement about his person and work. It is an
+attempt to formulate in simple propositions the fundamental convictions of
+Jesus about the social and ethical relations and duties of men.
+
+Our generation is profoundly troubled by the problems of organized
+society. The most active interest of serious men and women in the colleges
+is concentrated on them. We know that we are in deep need of moral light
+and spiritual inspiration in our gropings. There is an increasing
+realization, too, that the salvation of society lies in the direction
+toward which Jesus led. And yet there is no clear understanding of what he
+stood for. Those who have grown up under Christian teaching can sum up the
+doctrines of the Church readily, but the principles which we must
+understand if we are to follow Jesus in the way of life, seem enveloped in
+a haze. The ordinary man sees clearly only Christ’s law of love and the
+golden rule. This book seeks to bring to a point what we all vaguely know.
+
+It does not undertake to furnish predigested material, or to impose
+conclusions. It spreads out the most important source passages for
+personal study, points out the connection between the principles of Jesus
+and modern social problems, and raises questions for discussion. It was
+written primarily for voluntary study groups of college seniors, and their
+intellectual and spiritual needs are not like those of an average church
+audience. It challenges college men and women to face the social
+convictions of Jesus and to make their own adjustments.
+
+
+
+
+
+PART I. THE AXIOMATIC SOCIAL CONVICTIONS OF JESUS
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I. The Value Of Life
+
+
+Whatever our present conceptions of Jesus Christ may be, we ought to
+approach our study of his teachings with a sense of reverence. With the
+slenderest human means at his disposal, within a brief span of time, he
+raised our understanding of God and of human life to new levels forever,
+and set forces in motion which revolutionized history.
+
+Of his teachings we have only fragments, but they have an inexhaustible
+vitality. In this course we are to examine these as our source material in
+order to discover, if possible, what fundamental ethical principles were
+in the mind of Jesus. This part of his thought has been less understood
+and appropriated than other parts, and it is more needed today than ever.
+Let us go at this study with the sense of handling something great, which
+may have guiding force for our own lives. Let us work out for ourselves
+the social meaning of the personality and thought of Jesus Christ, and be
+prepared to face his challenge to the present social and economic order of
+which we are part.
+
+How did Jesus view the life and personality of the men about him? How did
+he see the social relation which binds people together? What was the
+reaction of his mind in face of the inequalities and sufferings of actual
+society? If we can get hold of the convictions which were axiomatic and
+immediate with him on these three questions, we shall have the key to his
+social principles. We shall take them up in the first three chapters.
+
+DAILY READINGS
+
+
+
+First Day: The Worth of a Child
+
+
+    And they were bringing unto him little children, that he should
+    touch them: and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it,
+    he was moved with indignation, and said unto them, Suffer the
+    little children to come unto me; forbid them not: for to such
+    belongeth the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever
+    shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall
+    in no wise enter therein. And he took them in his arms, and
+    blessed them, laying his hands upon them.—Mark 10:13-16.
+
+
+The child is humanity reduced to its simplest terms. Affectionate joy in
+children is perhaps the purest expression of social feeling. Jesus was
+indignant when the disciples thought children were not of sufficient
+importance to occupy his attention. Compared with the selfish ambition of
+grown-ups he felt something heavenly in children, a breath of the Kingdom
+of God. They are nearer the Kingdom than those whom the world has smudged.
+To inflict any spiritual injury on one of these little ones seemed to him
+an inexpressible guilt. See Matthew 18:1-6.
+
+_Can the moral standing of a community be fairly judged by the statistics
+of child labor and infant mortality?_
+
+_What prompts some young men to tyrannize over their younger brothers?_
+
+_How does this passage and the principle of the sacredness of life bear on
+the problem of eugenics?_
+
+
+
+Second Day: The Humanity of a Leper
+
+
+    And when he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes
+    followed him. And behold, there came to him a leper, and
+    worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me
+    clean. And he stretched forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I
+    will; be thou made clean. And straightway his leprosy was
+    cleansed. And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go,
+    show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses
+    commanded, for a testimony unto them.—Matt. 8:1-4.
+
+
+Whenever Jesus healed he rendered a social service to his fellows. The
+spontaneous tenderness which he put into his contact with the sick was an
+expression of his sense of the sacredness of life. A leper with fingerless
+hands and decaying joints was repulsive to the æsthetic feelings and a
+menace to selfish fear of infection. The community quarantined the lepers
+in waste places by stoning them when they crossed bounds. (Remember Ben
+Hur’s mother and sister.) Jesus not only healed this man, but his sense of
+humanity so went out to him that “he stretched forth his hand and touched
+him.” Even the most wretched specimen of humanity still had value to him.
+
+_What is the social and moral importance of those professions which cure
+or prevent sickness?_
+
+_How would a strong religious sense of the sacredness of life affect
+members of these professions?_
+
+
+
+Third Day: The Moral Quality of Contempt
+
+
+    Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not
+    kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
+    but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother
+    shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his
+    brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever
+    shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of
+    fire.—Matt. 5:21, 22.
+
+
+In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus demanded that the standards of social
+morality be raised to a new level. He proposed that the feeling of anger
+and hate be treated as seriously as murder had been treated under the old
+code, and if anyone went so far as to use hateful and contemptuous
+expressions toward a fellow-man, it ought to be a case for the supreme
+court. Of course this was simply a vivid form of putting it. The important
+point is that Jesus ranged hate and contempt under the category of murder.
+To abuse a man with words of contempt denies his worth, breaks down his
+self-respect, and robs him of the regard of others. It is an attempt to
+murder his soul. The horror which Jesus feels for such action is an
+expression of his own respect for the worth of personality.
+
+_How is the self-respect and sense of personal worth of men built up or
+broken down in college communities?_
+
+_How in industrial communities?_
+
+
+
+Fourth Day: Bringing Back the Outcast
+
+
+    Now all the publicans and sinners were drawing near unto him to
+    hear him. And both the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying,
+    This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.
+
+    And he spake unto them this parable, saying, What man of you,
+    having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, doth not
+    leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that
+    which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he
+    layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he
+    calleth together his friends and his neighbors, saying unto them,
+    Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say
+    unto you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven over one
+    sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine righteous
+    persons, who need no repentance.
+
+    Or what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece,
+    doth not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and seek diligently
+    until she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth
+    together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I
+    have found the piece which I had lost. Even so, I say unto you,
+    there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner
+    that repenteth.—Luke 15:1-10.
+
+
+Every Jewish community had a fringe of unchurched people, who could not
+keep up the strict observance of the Law and had given up trying. The
+pious people, just because they were pious, felt they must cold-shoulder
+such. Jesus walked across the lines established. What seems to have been
+the motive that prompted him? Why did the Pharisee withdraw, and why did
+Jesus mix with the publicans?
+
+_What groups in our own communities correspond to the __“__publicans and
+sinners,__”__ and what is the attitude of religious people toward them?_
+
+_What social groups in college towns are spoken of with contempt by
+college men, and why?_
+
+_Is there a Pharisaism of education? Define and locate it._
+
+
+
+Fifth Day: The Problem of the Delinquents
+
+
+    For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was
+    lost.—Luke 19:10.
+
+
+Here Jesus formulates the inner meaning and mission of his life as he
+himself felt it. He was here for social restoration and moral salvage. No
+human being should go to pieces if he could help it. He was not only
+willing to help people who came to him for help, but he proposed to go
+after them. The “lost” man was too valuable and sacred to be lost.
+
+_How does the Christian impulse of salvation connect with the activities
+represented in the National Conference of Charities and Correction?_
+
+_How does a college community regard its __“__sinners__”__?_ Suppose a man
+has an instinct for low amusements and a yellow sense of honor, how do the
+higher forces in college life get at that man to set him right?
+
+
+
+Sixth Day: Going Beyond Justice
+
+
+    For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that was a
+    householder, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers
+    into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a
+    shilling a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out
+    about the third hour, and saw others standing in the marketplace
+    idle; and to them he said, Go ye also into the vineyard, and
+    whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way.
+    Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did
+    likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others
+    standing: and he saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day
+    idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He said
+    unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard. And when even was come,
+    the lord of the vineyard said unto his steward, Call the laborers,
+    and pay them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
+    And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they
+    received every man a shilling. And when the first came, they
+    supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received
+    every man a shilling. And when they received it, they murmured
+    against the householder, saying, These last have spent but one
+    hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, who have borne the
+    burden of the day and the scorching heat. But he answered and said
+    to one of them, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree
+    with me for a shilling? Take up that which is thine, and go thy
+    way; it is my will to give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is
+    it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? or is thine
+    eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the
+    first last.—Matt. 20:1-16.
+
+
+Judaism rested on legality. So much obedience to the law earned so much
+reward, according to the contract between God and Israel. Theoretically
+this was just; practically it gave the inside track to the respectable and
+well to do, for it took leisure and money to obey the minutiæ of the Law.
+In this parable the employer rises from the level of justice to the higher
+plane of human fellow-feeling. These eleventh-hour men had been ready to
+work; they had to eat and live; he proposed to give them a living wage
+because he felt an inner prompting to do so. In the parable of the
+Prodigal Son the father does more for his son than justice required,
+because he was a father. Here the employer does more because he is a man.
+Each acted from a sense of the worth of the human life with which he was
+dealing. It was the same sense of worth and sacredness in Jesus which
+prompted him to invent these parables.
+
+_Do we find ourselves valuing people according to their utility to us, or
+do we have an active feeling of their human interest and worth?_ Let us
+run over in our minds our family and relatives, our professors and
+friends, and the people in town who serve us, and see with whom we are on
+a human footing.
+
+
+
+Seventh Day: The Courtesy of Jesus
+
+
+    And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all
+    the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And
+    the scribes and the Pharisees bring a woman taken in adultery; and
+    having set her in the midst, they say unto him, Teacher, this
+    woman hath been taken in adultery, in the very act. Now in the law
+    Moses commanded us to stone such: what then sayest thou of her?
+    And this they said, trying him that they might have whereof to
+    accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on
+    the ground. But when they continued asking him, he lifted up
+    himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let
+    him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down and with
+    his finger wrote on the ground. And they, when they heard it, went
+    out one by one, beginning from the eldest, even unto the last: and
+    Jesus was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the midst.
+    And Jesus lifted up himself, and said unto her, Woman, where are
+    they? did no man condemn thee? And she said, No man, Lord. And
+    Jesus said, Neither do I condemn thee: go thy way; from henceforth
+    sin no more.—John 8:2-11.
+
+
+Was there ever a more gentlemanly handling of a raw situation? This woman
+was going through one of the most harrowing experiences conceivable,
+exposed to the gaze of a leering and scornful crowd, her good name torn
+away, her self-respect crushed. Jesus shielded her from stoning by the
+power of his personality and his consummate skill in handling men. He got
+inside their guard, aroused their own sense of past guilt, and so awakened
+some human fellow-feeling for the woman. When he was alone with her, what
+a mingling of kindness and severity! Surely she would carry away the
+memory of a wonderful friend who came to her in her dire need. Why did
+Jesus twice turn his eyes away to the ground? Was he ashamed to look at
+her shame?
+
+Such a sudden, tragic happening is a severe test of a man’s qualities. It
+brought out the courtesy of Jesus, his respect for human personality even
+in its shame. _How can we train ourselves so that we may be equal to such
+emergencies?_ Would continued spiritual contact with Jesus be likely to
+make a difference?
+
+
+
+Study for the Week
+
+
+The passages we have studied are inductive material. Can there be any
+doubt that Jesus had a spontaneous love for his fellow-men and a deep
+sense of the sacredness of human personality? Physical deformity and moral
+guilt could not obscure the divine worth of human life to him. To cause
+any soul to stumble and go down, or to express contempt for any human
+being, was to him a horrible guilt.
+
+
+I
+
+
+This regard for human life was based on the same social instinct which
+every normal man possesses. But with Jesus it was so strong that it
+determined all his viewpoints and activities. He affirmed the humane
+instinct consciously and intelligently, and raised it to the dignity of a
+social principle. This alone would be enough to mark him out as a new
+type, prophetic and creative of a new development of the race.
+
+Whence did Jesus derive the strength and purity of his social feeling? Was
+it simply the endowment of a finely attuned nature? Other fine minds of
+the ancient world valued men according to their wealth, their rank, their
+power, their education, their beauty. Jesus valued men as such, apart from
+any attractive equipment. Why? “The deeper our insight into human destiny
+becomes, the more sacred does every individual human being seem to us”
+(Lotze). The respect of Jesus for every concrete person whom he met was
+due to his religious insight into human life and destiny. But how did he
+get his insight?
+
+Love and religion have the power of idealistic interpretation. To a mother
+her child is a wonderful being. To a true lover the girl he loves has
+sacredness. With Jesus the consciousness of a God of love revealed the
+beauty of men. The old gods were despotic supermen, mythical duplicates of
+the human kings and conquerors. The God of Jesus was the great Father who
+lets his light shine on the just and the unjust, and offers forgiveness
+and love to all. Jesus lived in the spiritual atmosphere of that faith.
+Consequently he saw men from that point of view. They were to him children
+of that God. Even the lowliest was high. The light that shone on him from
+the face of God shed a splendor on the prosaic ranks of men. In this way
+religion enriches and illuminates social feeling.
+
+Jesus succeeded in transmitting something of his own sense of the
+sacredness of life to his followers. As Wundt says: “Humanity in this
+highest sense was brought into the world by Christianity.” The love of men
+became a social dogma of the Church. Some other convictions of Jesus left
+few traces on the common thought of Christendom, but the Church has always
+stood for a high estimate of the potential worth of the soul of man. It
+has always taught that man was made in God’s image and that he is destined
+to share in the holiness and eternal life of God.
+
+
+II
+
+
+What effects has this registered on social conduct? Has the Church
+intelligently resisted social forces or conditions which brutalized or
+shamed men?
+
+It is most difficult to estimate accurately the historic influence of
+religious ideas. They are subtle and hard to trace. But we can justly
+reason from our own observations in evangelism and foreign mission work.
+Those of us who have gone through a clearly marked conversion to
+Christianity will probably remember that we realized our fellow-men with a
+new warmth and closeness, and under higher points of view. We were then
+entering into the Christian valuation of human life. In foreign missions
+the influence of Christianity can be contrasted with non-Christian social
+life, and there is often a striking rise in the respect for life and
+personality as compared with the hardness and callousness of heathen
+society. This is one of the distinctive marks of the modern and Western
+world compared with the ancient and the Oriental. Those individuals among
+us who have really duplicated something of the spirit of Jesus are always
+marked by their loving regard for human life, even its wreckage. That
+sense of sacredness is the basis for the whole missionary and
+philanthropic activity of Christian men and women.
+
+It is also an important force in the social movements. Have there been any
+widespread, continuous, and successful movements for social justice
+outside of the territory influenced by Christianity? Was there any causal
+connection between the historic reformation and purification of
+Christianity since the sixteenth century and the rise of civil and social
+democracy? Does the spread of Christian ideas and feelings predispose the
+powerful classes to make concessions? What contribution did the Wesleyan
+revival among the working people of England make toward the rise of the
+trade union movement, the education of stable leaders, and the faith in
+democracy? It takes idealistic convictions a long time to permeate large
+social classes, but they often spring into effectiveness suddenly.
+Certainly a belief in the worth and capacity of the common man is a
+spiritual support of democratic institutions, and where the Church really
+spread the Christian sense of the worth and sacredness of human life, it
+has been a great stabilizer of civil liberty.
+
+Jesus asserted with religious power what all men feel. Sometimes it
+requires the solemn presence of death to brush aside the artificial
+distinctions of society and to make us realize that a life is a life, and
+precious as such. But when we are at our best, we do feel the sacredness
+of human life.
+
+
+III
+
+
+Does our present social order develop or neutralize that feeling in us?
+
+Presumably it works both ways. For those who want to spread the spirit of
+Christ, it becomes important to inquire at what points our social
+institutions cheapen life and take the value out of personality.
+
+The class differences inherited from the past are designed to hedge the
+upper classes about with honor, but they necessarily depreciate the lower
+classes by contrast and neutralize the tie of the common blood. In some
+countries the self-respect of the lower classes is affronted by degrading
+forms of legal punishment reserved for them. Forms of servility are
+exacted from servants and peasants. The practical working of class
+differences is most clearly seen in the relation of the sexes. Love is a
+great equalizer; hence it clashes with class pride. The plot of
+innumerable dramas and novels turns on the efforts of love to overcome the
+laws of social caste. Where class spirit is traditional and fully
+developed, men have a double code for the women of their own class, and
+those of the lower classes. It is a far greater offense for a gentleman to
+marry a girl of the lower class than to ruin her.
+
+It is the glory of America that our laws do not intend to recognize class
+differences. The conditions of life on a raw continent and the principles
+embodied in religious and political idealism fortunately cooperated. Will
+this last, or are the great differences in wealth once more resulting in
+definite class lines and in class pride and contempt? What does the phrase
+“of good family” imply by contrast? What evidence does college fraternity
+life offer as to the existence of social classes? How is immigration
+likely to increase the cleavages by adding differences of race and color,
+religion, language, and manners? What light does the history of
+immigration in America cast on our valuation of human life in strangers?
+
+Political oligarchies have usually defended their rule by the assumption
+that the masses are incapable and the few are superior. The laws made by
+them, however, have usually shown ignorance and indifference as to the
+human needs of the working masses. The same fundamental adjustment exists
+in industry. It is not an expression of the worth of the working people if
+they have no right to organize or to share in governing the conditions
+under which they work, and if years of good work earn a man no ownership
+or equity, no legal standing or even tenure of employment in a business.
+Is the right to petition for a redress of grievances an adequate
+industrial expression of the Christian doctrine of the worth and
+sacredness of personality? Is not property essential to the real freedom
+and self-expression of a human personality?
+
+War and prostitution are the most flagrant offenses against this social
+principle. War is a wholesale waster of life. Prostitution is the worst
+form of contempt for personality.
+
+Does our intellectual and scientific work ever tend to chill the warm
+sense of human values? Do we acquire something of the impassiveness of
+Nature in studying her enormous waste of life? Do we transfer to human
+affairs her readiness to use up the masses in order to produce a higher
+type? Jesus did not talk about eliminating the unfit. He talked about
+saving them, which requires greater constructive energy if it is really to
+be done. It also requires a higher faith in the latent recuperative
+capacities of human nature. The detached attitude of scientific study may
+combine with our plentiful natural egotism to create a cold indifference
+toward the less attractive masses of humanity. We need the glow of
+Christ’s feeling for men to come unharmed out of this intellectual
+temptation.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Doubtless the objection has arisen in our minds that it is not in the
+interest of the future of the race that religious pity shall coddle and
+multiply the weak, or put them in control of society.
+
+But did Jesus want the weak to stay weak? Was his social feeling ever
+maudlin? He was himself a powerful and free personality, who refused to be
+suppressed or conformed to the dominant type. He challenged the existing
+authorities, one against the field. Even in the slender record we have of
+him we can see him running the gamut of emotions from wrath and invective
+to tenderness and humor. It was precisely his own powerful individuality
+which made him demand for others the right to become free and strong
+souls. Other powerful individuals have used up the rest as means to their
+end. What human life or character did Jesus weaken or break down? He was
+an emancipator, a creator of strong men. His followers in later times did
+lay a new yoke on the spirits of men and denied them the right to think
+their own thoughts and be themselves. But the spirit of Jesus is an
+awakening force. Even the down-and-out brace up when they come in contact
+with him, and feel that they are still good for something.
+
+“Jesus Christ was the first to bring the value of every human soul to
+light, and what he did no one can any more undo” (Harnack). But it remains
+for every individual to accept and reaffirm that religious faith as his
+own guiding principle according to which he proposes to live. We shall be
+at one with the spirit of Christianity and of modern civilization if we
+approach all men with the expectation of finding beneath commonplace,
+sordid, or even repulsive externals some qualities of love, loyalty,
+heroism, aspiration, or repentance, which prove the divine in man. Kant
+expressed that reverence for personality in his doctrine that we must
+never treat a man as a means only, but always as an end in himself. So far
+as our civilization treats men merely as labor force, fit to produce
+wealth for the few, it is not yet Christian. Any man who treats his
+fellows in that way, blunts his higher nature; as Fichte says, whoever
+treats another as a slave, becomes a slave. We might add, whoever treats
+him as a child of God, becomes a child of God and learns to know God.
+
+“The principle of reverence for personality is the ruling principle in
+ethics, and in religion; it constitutes, therefore, the truest and highest
+test of either an individual or a civilization; it has been, even
+unconsciously, the guiding and determining principle in all human
+progress; and in its religious interpretation, it is, indeed, the one
+faith that keeps meaning and value for life” (President Henry C. King).
+
+
+
+Suggestions for Thought and Discussion
+
+
+I. _The Ordinary Estimate of Men_
+
+1. How much do we care for a man if he is of no practical use to us?
+
+2. On what basis do we ordinarily value men?
+
+II. _Jesus’ Estimate of Men_
+
+1. Which source passages in the daily readings seemed to put the feeling
+of Jesus in the clearest light?
+
+2. How did the religious insight of Jesus reenforce his social feeling?
+
+3. To what extent is it possible to duplicate his sense of humanity
+without his consciousness of God?
+
+III. _The Valuation of the Individual in Modern Life_
+
+1. List the evidences that modern society values men as such apart from
+economic utility or standing, or show that it does not so value them.
+
+2. Is the tendency in modern life toward a lower or higher valuation of
+the individual? To what extent is this due to the influence of
+Christianity?
+
+3. How do the statistics of industrial accidents agree with our Christian
+valuation of life?
+
+IV. _The Test of History_
+
+1. What widespread and successful movements for social justice have there
+been outside the territory influenced by Christianity?
+
+2. How do modern missions serve as an experiment station for the problem
+of this chapter?
+
+3. What connection was there between the Wesleyan revival and the rise of
+the trade union movement in England?
+
+V. _For Special Discussion_
+
+1. Do permanent class differences necessarily result in a slighter social
+feeling for the inferior class?
+
+2. Describe the class lines drawn in your home town.
+
+3. Did you feel these lines more or less when you entered college?
+
+4. Does college life tend to make us callous or sympathetic?
+
+5. Does life in social settlements seem to increase or decrease respect
+for human nature in college men and women?
+
+6. How would you preserve your self-respect if you were a working man
+placed in degrading labor conditions?
+
+7. Does an honor system build up self-respect?
+
+8. Have your scientific studies, and especially evolutionary teachings,
+increased your regard for humanity in the mass?
+
+9. According to your observation, does religion make a man a stronger or
+weaker personality?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II. The Solidarity Of The Human Family
+
+
+Every man has worth and sacredness as a man. We fixed on that as the
+simplest and most fundamental social principle of Jesus. The second
+question is, What relation do men bear to each other?
+
+DAILY READINGS
+
+
+
+First Day: The Social Impulse and the Law of Christ
+
+
+    And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, trying him:
+    Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And he said
+    unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
+    with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and
+    first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt
+    love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole
+    law hangeth, and the prophets.—Matt. 22:35-40.
+
+
+Which among the multitudinous prescriptions of the Jewish law ought to
+take precedence of the rest? It was a fine academic question for church
+lawyers to discuss. Jesus passed by all ceremonial and ecclesiastical
+requirements, and put his hand on love as the central law of life, both in
+religion and ethics. It was a great simplification and spiritualization of
+religion. But love is the social instinct which binds man and man together
+and makes them indispensable to one another. Whoever demands love, demands
+solidarity. Whoever sets love first, sets fellowship high.
+
+_When Jesus speaks of love, what more than mere emotion does he mean?_
+
+_Is love really the highest thing?_
+
+_What do you think of the epigram of Augustine:_ AMA ET FAC QUOD VIS?
+
+
+
+Second Day: Jesus Craving Friendship
+
+
+    Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and
+    saith unto his disciples, Sit ye here, while I go yonder and pray.
+    And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began
+    to be sorrowful and sore troubled. Then saith he unto them, My
+    soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: abide ye here, and
+    watch with me. And he went forward a little, and fell on his face,
+    and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup
+    pass away from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.
+    And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them sleeping, and
+    saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch
+    and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is
+    willing, but the flesh is weak. Again a second time he went away,
+    and prayed, saying, My Father, if this cannot pass away, except I
+    drink it, thy will be done. And he came again and found them
+    sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And he left them again, and
+    went away, and prayed a third time, saying again the same words.
+    Then cometh he to the disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on
+    now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son
+    of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be
+    going: behold, he is at hand that betrayeth me.—Matt. 26:36-46.
+
+
+Jesus was personally very sociable. He evidently enjoyed mixing with
+people. He liked the give-and-take of life. He had friendships. A group of
+men and women gathered around him who gave him their devoted loyalty. He
+in turn needed them. The denial of Peter and the betrayal of Judas hurt
+him, partly because they were defections from the comradeship of his
+group. In Gethsemane he craved friendship. He prayed to God, but he
+reached out for Peter and John. The longing for friendship and the unrest
+of loneliness are proof of a truly human and social nature.
+
+_In how far is a need for others a sign of strength or of weakness?_
+
+_What connection has the spirit of a team, or the loyalty of a college
+class, with the Christian law of love?_
+
+
+
+Third Day: Restoring Solidarity
+
+
+    Then came Peter and said to him, Lord, how oft shall my brother
+    sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven times? Jesus saith
+    unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, Until
+    seventy times seven.—Matt. 18:21-22.
+
+
+Love binds together; hate and anger cut apart. They destroy fellowship.
+Therefore the chief effort of the Christian spirit must be to reestablish
+fellowship wherever men have been sundered by ill-will. This is done by
+confession and forgiveness. Forgiveness was so important to Jesus because
+social unity was so important to him. In the Lord’s Prayer he makes full
+fellowship with men a condition of full fellowship with God: “Forgive us
+our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors.”
+
+Are there any personal injuries which are beyond forgiveness?
+
+_Think back to any striking experience of forgiving or being forgiven.
+What was the religious and moral reaction on your life?_
+
+
+
+Fourth Day: The Christian Intensification of Love
+
+
+    Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us: and we
+    ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath the
+    world’s goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up
+    his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him? My
+    little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue;
+    but in deed and truth.—1 John 3:16-18.
+
+    Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every
+    one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that
+    loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. Herein was the love
+    of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son
+    into the world that we might live through him.—1 John 4:7-9.
+
+    Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No
+    man hath beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God
+    abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us.—1 John 4:11-12.
+
+
+These are quotations from one of the early Christian writings. They are
+evidence of the emphasis put on love as a distinctive doctrine of the new
+religion. Note how the natural social instinct of human affection is
+intensified and uplifted by religious motives and forces. Which of these
+motives are directly taken from the personality and life of Christ?
+
+_Do you remember any quotations from non-Christian literature in which a
+similar love for love is expressed?_
+
+
+
+Fifth Day: Solidaristic Responsibility
+
+
+    Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty
+    works were done, because they repented not. Woe unto thee,
+    Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had
+    been done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in you, they would
+    have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you,
+    it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of
+    judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted
+    unto heaven? thou shalt go down unto Hades: for if the mighty
+    works had been done in Sodom which were done in thee, it would
+    have remained until this day. But I say unto you that it shall be
+    more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than
+    for thee.—Matt. 11:20-24.
+
+
+We know that by constant common action a social group develops a common
+spirit and common standards of action, which then assimilate and
+standardize the actions of its members. Jesus felt the solidarity of the
+neighborhood groups in Galilee with whom he mingled. He treated them as
+composite personalities, jointly responsible for their moral decisions.
+
+_What groups of which we have been a part in the past have stamped us with
+the group character for good or evil? How about those of which we are now
+a part?_
+
+_What have we learned from the Great War about national solidarity?_
+
+
+
+Sixth Day: The Solidarity of the Generations
+
+
+    Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye build the
+    sepulchres of the prophets, and garnish the tombs of the
+    righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we
+    should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the
+    prophets. Wherefore ye witness to yourselves, that ye are sons of
+    them that slew the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your
+    fathers. Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape
+    the judgment of hell? Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets,
+    and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify;
+    and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and
+    persecute from city to city: that upon you may come all the
+    righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the
+    righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye
+    slew between the sanctuary and the altar. Verily I say unto you,
+    All these things shall come upon this generation.—Matt. 23:29-36.
+
+
+Jesus saw a moral solidarity existing, not only between contemporaries who
+act together, but between generations that act alike. Every generation
+clings to its profitable wrongs and tries to silence those who stand for
+higher righteousness. Posterity takes comfort in being fairer about the
+dead issues, but is just as hot and bad about present issues. The sons
+reenact the old tragedies on a new stage, and so line up with their
+fathers. In looking back over the history of his nation, Jesus saw a
+continuity of wrong which bound the generations together in a solidarity
+of guilt.
+
+_Does the connection consist only in similarity of action, or is there a
+causal continuity of wrong in the life of a community?_
+
+_Is there anything in our personal family history or family wealth and
+business which threatens to line us up with past evils?_
+
+
+
+Seventh Day: Social Consciousness in the Lord’s Prayer
+
+
+    After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father who art in heaven,
+    Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in
+    heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And 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.
+    6:9-13.
+
+
+_Is there anything more solitary than a human soul calling to the
+invisible Presence? Is there anything more social in consciousness than
+the Lord’s Prayer?_
+
+_Where in these petitions do you feel the sense of social coherence as the
+unspoken presupposition of the thought?_(_1_)
+
+_Could Jesus have thought this prayer if the unity of the race had not
+been both an instinctive reality and a clear social principle with him?_
+
+
+
+Study for the Week
+
+
+That man is a social being is the fundamental fact with which all social
+sciences have to deal. We may like or dislike people; we can not well be
+indifferent to them if they get close to us. As Sartor Resartus puts it:
+“In vain thou deniest it; thou _art_ my brother. Thy very hatred, thy very
+envy, those foolish lies thou tellest of me in thy splenetic humour; what
+is all this but an inverted sympathy? Were I a steam-engine, wouldst thou
+take the trouble to tell lies of me?”
+
+Sex admiration, parental love, “the dear love of comrades,” the thrill of
+patriotism, the joy of play, are all forms of fellowship. They give us
+happiness because they satisfy our social instinct. To realize our unity
+gives relish to life. To be thrust out of fellowship is the great pain.
+Many evil things get their attractiveness mainly through the fact that
+they create a bit of fellowship—such as it is. The slender thread of good
+in the saloon is comradeship. (See Jack London, “John Barleycorn.”)
+
+
+I
+
+
+None ever felt this social unity of our race more deeply than Jesus. To
+him it was sacred and divine. Hence his emphasis on love and forgiveness.
+He put his personality behind the natural instinct of social attraction
+and encouraged it. He swung the great force of religion around to bear on
+it and drive it home. Anything that substitutes antagonism for fraternity
+is evil to him. Just as in the case of the natural respect for human life
+and personality, so in the case of the natural social cohesion of men, he
+lifted the blind instinct of human nature by the insight of religion and
+constituted it a fundamental principle of life. It is the business of
+Christianity to widen the area of comradeship.
+
+Common human judgment assents to the valuation of Jesus. Wherever an
+effective and stable form of fellowship has been created, a sense of
+sacredness begins to attach to it, and men defend it as a sort of shrine
+of the divine in man. Wherever men are striving to create a larger
+fellowship, they have religious enthusiasm as if they were building a
+temple for God. This is the heart of church loyalty.
+
+The family is the most striking case of solidarity. It is first formed of
+two units at opposite poles in point of sex, experience, taste, need, and
+aims; and when they form it, they usually have as much sense of sacredness
+as their character is capable of feeling. When children are added, more
+divergences of age, capacity, and need are injected. Yet out of these
+contradictory elements a social fellowship is built up, which, in the
+immense majority of cases, defies the shocks of life and the strain of
+changing moods and needs, forms the chief source of contentment for the
+majority of men and women, and, when conspicuously successful, wins the
+spontaneous tribute of reverence from all right-thinking persons. In using
+the equipment of the home, in standing by one another in time of sickness
+and trouble, and in spiritual sympathy, a true family practices solidarity
+of interests, and furnishes the chief education in cooperation.
+
+Political unity was at first an expansion of family unity. The passionate
+loyalty with which a nation defends its country and its freedom, is not
+simply a defence of real estate and livestock, but of its national
+brotherhood and solidarity. The devotion with which people suffer and die
+for their State is all the more remarkable because all States hitherto
+have been largely organizations for coercion and exploitation, and only in
+part real fraternal communities. Patriotism hitherto has been largely a
+prophetic outreaching toward a great fellowship nowhere realized. The
+peoples walk by faith.
+
+What evidence does college life furnish us of the fact that social unity
+is realized with some sense of sacredness? Why do the years in college
+stand out in the later memories of graduates with such a glamour? Why do
+students devote so much unpaid service to their teams and fraternities? Is
+it for the selfish advantages they hope to get, or because they feel they
+are realizing the best of life in being part of a solidaristic group? Do
+the dangers of college organizations prove or disprove the principle that
+fellowship is felt to be something sacred?
+
+Any historical event in which men stood by their group through suffering
+or to death is remembered with pride. Any case of desertion or betrayal is
+remembered with shame. No group forgives those who sell out its solidarity
+for private safety or profit.
+
+Insurance and cooperation are two great demonstrations of the power of
+solidarity. In insurance we bear one another’s burdens, “and so fulfil the
+law of Christ.” The cooperative associations, which have had such enormous
+success in Europe, succeed only where neighborhood or common idealistic
+conviction has previously established a consciousness of social unity.
+They have to overcome the most adverse conditions in achieving success.
+When they do, the effect on the economic prosperity of the people and on
+their moral stability and progressiveness is remarkable.
+
+
+II
+
+
+Thus the instincts of the race assent to the social principle of Jesus,
+that fellowship is sacred. The chief law of Christianity does not
+contradict the social nature of man but expresses and reenforces it. It is
+the special function of Christians to promote social unity and expand its
+blessings. To do this intelligently we should take note where, at present,
+solidarity is frustrated.
+
+For instance, it is important to inquire how social unity is negatived in
+commercial life. Is competition necessarily unfraternal? Would a Socialist
+organization of society necessarily be fraternal? Is it a denial of
+fellowship to exact monopoly profit from consumers, or to take advantage
+of the ignorance or necessities of a buyer? Is the law of the market
+compatible with a fraternal conception of society?
+
+Where can you trace the principle of solidarity actually at work in
+industrial life? Give cases where you have observed a real sense of human
+coherence and loyalty between employer and employes. How had the feeling
+been promoted in those cases and what effect did it have on the economic
+relations of the two groups? Why is the feeling of antagonism between
+these groups so common? Does the wages system make this inevitable? How
+ought we to value the willingness of organized labor to stand together,
+especially on strike, and what connection does the bitterness toward
+“scabs” have with our subject?
+
+War is a rupture of fellowship on a large scale. The Great War of 1914 has
+been the most extensive demonstration of the collapse of love which any of
+us wants to see. As soon as one nation no longer recognizes its social
+unity with another nation, all morality collapses, and a deluge of hate,
+cruelty, and lies follows. The problem of international peace is the
+problem of expanding the area of love and social unity. It is the sin of
+Christendom that so few took this problem seriously until we were
+chastised for our moral stupidity and inertia. The young men and women of
+today will have to take this problem on their intellect and conscience for
+their lifetime, and propose to see it through.
+
+
+III
+
+
+Does religion create social unity or neutralize it? Does prayer isolate or
+connect? Has the force of religion in human history done more to divide or
+to consolidate men?
+
+Evidently religion may work both ways, and all who are interested in it
+must see to it that their religion does not escape control and wreck
+fraternity. Even mystic prayer and contemplation, which is commonly
+regarded as the flower of religious life, may make men indifferent to
+their fellows.
+
+It is worth noting that the prayer experiences of Jesus were not ascetic
+or unsocial. They prepared him for action. When he went into the desert
+after his baptism it was to settle the principles on which his Messianic
+work was to be done; his temptations prove that. When he went out from
+Capernaum to pray “a great while before day,” it was to launch his
+aggressive missionary campaign among the Galilæan villages. Prayer may be
+an emotional dissipation. Prayer is Christian only if it makes us realize
+our fellows more keenly and affectionately.
+
+It is one thing to praise love and another thing to practice it. We may
+theorize about society and ourselves be contrary and selfish units in it.
+Social unity is an achievement. A loving mind toward our fellows, even the
+cranky, is the prize of a lifetime. How can it be evoked and cultivated in
+us? That is one of the most important problems in education. Can it be
+solved without religious influences? Love will not up at the bidding. We
+can observe the fact that personal discipleship of Christ has given some
+persons in our acquaintance a rare capacity for love, for social sympathy,
+for peaceableness, for all the society-making qualities. We can make test
+of the fact for ourselves that every real contact with him gives us an
+accession of fraternity and greater fitness for nobler social unity. It
+makes us good fellows.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The man who intelligently realizes the Chinese and the Zulu as his
+brothers with whom he must share the earth, is an ampler mind—other things
+being equal—than the man who can think of humanity only in terms of
+pale-faces. The consciousness of humanity will have to be wrought out just
+as the consciousness of nationality was gradually acquired. He who has it
+is ahead of his time and a pioneer of the future. The missionary puts
+himself in the position to acquire that wider sense of solidarity. By
+becoming a neighbor to remote people he broadens their conception of
+humanity and his own, and then can be an interpreter of his new friends to
+his old friends. The interest in foreign missions has, in fact, been a
+prime educational force, carrying a world-wide consciousness of solidarity
+into thousands of plain minds and hones that would otherwise have been
+provincial in their horizon.
+
+A world-wide civilization must have a common monotheistic faith as its
+spiritual basis. Such a faith must be unitive and not divisive. What the
+world needs is a religion with a powerful sense of solidarity.
+
+
+
+Suggestions for Thought and Discussion
+
+
+I. _Solidarity in Human Life_
+
+1. Are comradeship and team-work instinctive, or must they be learned?
+
+2. Do the symptoms of hatred prove or disprove social unity?
+
+3. Does a strong sense of social unity make a vigorous individualism
+harder to maintain?
+
+II. _Christianity and Solidarity_
+
+1. Give proof that Jesus felt a human hunger for companionship.
+
+2. How does the place assigned to love in the teachings of Jesus bear on
+solidarity? How does the duty of forgiveness connect with this?
+
+3. How does the spirit of the Lord’s Prayer prove the place of solidarity
+in Christianity?
+
+III. _Jesus and the Social Groups_
+
+1. Where did Jesus treat communities as composite personalities? Would it
+be equally just today to hold cities responsible as moral units?
+
+2. How did Jesus trace a moral solidarity between generations?
+
+IV. _Solidarity in Modern Life_
+
+1. Where do you see the principle of solidarity accepted and where do you
+see it denied in modern social life?
+
+2. In what way does war outrage Jesus’ principles of social unity? Does it
+ever promote fraternity and solidarity? If so how?
+
+3. Is class consciousness a denial of social solidarity or an approach to
+it? How can group loyalty be made to contribute to the common weal?
+
+4. How should we value the willingness of organized labor to stand
+together, particularly on strike? What light does bitterness toward scabs
+throw on social solidarity?
+
+5. Why is the feeling of antagonism between employer and employe so
+common? Does a wage system make this inevitable? Can a real sense of
+cooperation be secured? If so how?
+
+6. If a manufacturer has a monopoly, how much profit will loyalty to
+Christian principles permit him to make?
+
+7. When is competition unfraternal? Would socialism insure fraternity?
+
+8. Do college fraternities practice fraternity?
+
+V. _Strengthening Solidarity_
+
+1. How can the law of love be made the basis of modern business?
+
+2. Does religion create social unity or neutralize it? How about prayer?
+
+3. How does the Christian law of love bear on the relations of the races
+in America?
+
+4. What have Christian missions done to lead society from the
+nationalistic to the international and inter-racial stage?
+
+5. Can world-wide social unity be secured without the influence of
+Christianity?
+
+VI. _For Special Discussion_
+
+1. To what extent does our present commercial and industrial organization
+furnish a basis for experience of solidarity and education in it?
+
+2. What aspects of modern advertising are Christian and which are
+non-Christian?
+
+3. To what extent is the law of the market compatible with a fraternal
+conception of society?
+
+4. Would a successful socialist organization create a stronger sense of
+solidarity or would divisive interests get in by new ways?
+
+5. Which has the better inducements to loyalty, a college, or a trade
+union? Which has more of it?
+
+6. How does the team spirit go wrong among students?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III. Standing With The People
+
+
+We have found two simple and axiomatic social principles in the
+fundamental convictions of Jesus: The sacredness of life and personality,
+and the spiritual solidarity of men. Now confront a mind mastered by these
+convictions with the actual conditions of society, with the contempt for
+life and the denial of social obligation existing, and how will he react?
+How will he see the duty of the strong, and his own duty?
+
+DAILY READINGS
+
+
+
+First Day: The Social Platform of Jesus
+
+
+    And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and he
+    entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day,
+    and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of
+    the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the place
+    where it was written,
+
+    The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
+    Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor:
+    He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives,
+    And recovering of sight to the blind,
+    To set at liberty them that are bruised,
+    To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
+
+    And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat
+    down: and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him.
+    And he began to say unto them, To-day hath this scripture been
+    fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at
+    the words of grace which proceeded out of his mouth: and they
+    said, Is not this Joseph’s son?—Luke 4:16-22.
+
+
+Luke evidently felt that this appearance of Jesus in the synagogue of his
+home city at the outset of his public work was a significant occasion. The
+passage from Isaiah (61:1f) was doubtless one of the favorite quotations
+of Jesus. He saw his own aims summarized in it and he now announced it as
+his program. Its promises were now about to be realized. What were they?
+Glad tidings for the poor, release for the imprisoned, sight for the
+blind, freedom for the oppressed, and a “year of Jehovah.” If this was an
+allusion to the year of Jubilee (Lev. 25), it involved a revolutionary
+“shedding of burdens,” such as Solon brought about at Athens. At any rate,
+social and religious emancipation are woven together in these phrases.
+Plainly Jesus saw his mission in raising to free and full life those whom
+life had held down and hurt.
+
+“As thou didst send me into the world, even so sent I them.” Must the
+platform of Jesus be our platform and program?
+
+
+
+Second Day: The Social Test of the Messiah
+
+
+    And the disciples of John told him of all these things. And John
+    calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to the Lord,
+    saying, Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another? And when
+    the men were come unto him, they said, John the Baptist hath sent
+    us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that cometh, or look we for
+    another? In that hour he cured many of diseases and plagues and
+    evil spirits; and on many that were blind he bestowed sight. And
+    he answered and said unto them, Go and tell John the things which
+    ye have seen and heard; the blind receive their sight, the lame
+    walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are
+    raised up, the poor have good tidings preached to them. And
+    blessed is he, whosoever shall find no occasion of stumbling in
+    me. Luke 7:18-23.
+
+
+Was Jesus the Coming One? He did not quite measure up to John’s
+expectations. The Messiah was to purge the people of evil elements,
+winnowing the chaff from the wheat and burning it. His symbol was the axe.
+Jesus was manifesting no such spirit. Was he then the Messiah?
+
+Jesus shifted the test to another field. Human suffering was being
+relieved and the poor were having glad news proclaimed to them. Sympathy
+for the people was the assured common ground between Jesus and John. Jesus
+felt that John would recognize the dawn of the reign of God by the
+evidence which he offered him.
+
+What, then, would be proper evidence that the reign of God is gaining
+ground in our intellect and feeling?
+
+
+
+Third Day: The Church, a Product of Social Feeling
+
+
+    And Jesus went about all the cities and the villages, teaching in
+    their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and
+    healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness. But when
+    he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them,
+    because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a
+    shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest indeed is
+    plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of
+    the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest. And he
+    called unto him his twelve disciples, and gave them authority over
+    unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of
+    disease and all manner of sickness.—Matt. 9:35-10:1.
+
+
+The selection of the Twelve, their grouping by twos, and their employment
+as independent messengers, was the most important organizing act of Jesus.
+Out of it ultimately grew the Christian Church. Now note what motives led
+to it. Jesus was relieving social misery. He was oppressed by the sense of
+it. The Greek verbs are very inadequately rendered by “distressed and
+scattered.” The first means “skinned, harried”; the second means “flung
+down, prostrate.” The people were like a flock of sheep after the wolves
+are through with them. There was dearth of true leaders. So Jesus took the
+material he had and organized the apostolate—for what? The Church grew out
+of the social feeling of Jesus for the sufferings of the common people.
+
+To what extent, in your judgment, does the Church today share the feeling
+of Jesus about the condition of the people and fulfil the purpose for
+which he organized the apostolate? Or has the condition of the people
+changed so that their social needs are less urgent?
+
+
+
+Fourth Day: Jesus Took Sides
+
+
+    And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed are
+    ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that
+    hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now:
+    for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and
+    when they shall separate you from their company, and reproach you,
+    and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. Rejoice
+    in that day, and leap for joy: for behold, your reward is great in
+    heaven; for in the same manner did their fathers unto the
+    prophets. But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received
+    your consolation. Woe unto you, ye that are full now! for ye shall
+    hunger. Woe unto you, ye that laugh now for ye shall mourn and
+    weep. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for in
+    the same manner did their fathers to the false prophets.—Luke
+    6:20-26.
+
+
+In these Beatitudes, as Luke reports them, Jesus clearly takes sides with
+the lowly. He says God and the future are not on the side of the rich, the
+satiated; the devotees of pleasure, the people who take the popular side
+on everything. Ultimately the verdict will be for those who are now poor
+and underfed, who carry the heavy end of things, and who have to stand for
+the unpopular side. In the report of the Beatitudes given by Matthew
+(5:3-12) the terms are less social and more spiritual, and the contrast
+between the upper and lower classes is not marked; but even there the
+promise of the great reversal of things is to the humble and peaceable
+folk, the hard hit and unpopular; they are to inherit the earth, and also
+God’s kingdom.
+
+Would it make Jesus a wiser teacher and nobler figure if he had reversed
+his sympathies?
+
+
+
+Fifth Day: Salvation through the Common People
+
+
+    In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, and said, I
+    thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst
+    hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst
+    reveal them unto babes: yea, Father; for so it was well-pleasing
+    in thy sight.—Luke 10:21.
+
+    For behold your calling, brethren, that not many wise after the
+    flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God chose
+    the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them
+    that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he
+    might put to shame the things that are strong; and the base things
+    of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose,
+    yea and the things that are not, that he might bring to nought the
+    things that are: that no flesh should glory before God.—1 Cor
+    1:26-29.
+
+
+The actual results of his work proved to Jesus that his success was to be
+with the simple-minded, and not with the pundit class. He accepted the
+fact with a thrill of joy, and praised God for making it so. Paul verified
+the same alignment in the early Church. The upper classes held back
+through pride of birth or education, or through the timidity of wealth. In
+bringing in a new order of things, God had to use plain people to get a
+leverage.
+
+_What really was it that Jesus saw in the lowly to attract him?_
+
+
+
+Sixth Day: Jesus, a Man of the People
+
+
+    And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and came unto Bethphage,
+    unto the mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying
+    unto them, Go into the village that is over against you, and
+    straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose
+    them, and bring them unto me. And if any one say aught unto you,
+    ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will
+    send them. Now this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled
+    which was spoken through the prophet, saying,
+
+    Tell ye the daughter of Zion,
+    Behold, thy King cometh unto thee,
+    Meek, and riding upon an ass,
+    And upon a colt the foal of an ass.
+
+    And the disciples went, and did even as Jesus appointed them, and
+    brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their garments; and
+    he sat thereon. And the most part of the multitude spread their
+    garments in the way; and others cut branches from the trees, and
+    spread them in the way. And the multitudes that went before him,
+    and that followed, cried saying, Hosanna to the son of David:
+    Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the
+    highest. And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was
+    stirred, saying, Who is this? And the multitudes said, This is the
+    prophet, Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.—Matt. 21:1-11.
+
+
+Here was a democratic procession! No caparisoned charger, but a
+burro—though a young and frisky one, carefully selected—no military escort
+with a brass band and a drum major, but a throng of peasants, shouting the
+psalms of their fathers and the hope of a good time coming; no costly rugs
+to carpet the way of the King, but the sweat-stained garments of working
+people and branches wrenched off by Galilæan fists. What was he, this King
+of the future, ridiculous or sublime?
+
+If Jesus is ever to make his entry into the spiritual sovereignty of
+humanity, will the social classes line up as they did at Jerusalem?
+
+
+
+Seventh Day: The Final Test for All
+
+
+    But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the
+    angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: and
+    before him shall be gathered all the nations: and he shall
+    separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the
+    sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right
+    hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them
+    on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the
+    kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I
+    was hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me
+    drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed
+    me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came
+    unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when
+    saw we thee hungry, and fed thee? or athirst, and gave thee drink?
+    And when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and
+    clothed thee? And when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came
+    unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I
+    say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren,
+    even these least, ye did it unto me. Then shall he say also unto
+    them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal
+    fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was
+    hungry, and ye did not give me to eat; I was thirsty, and ye gave
+    me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and
+    ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
+    Then shall they also answer, saying, Lord, when saw we thee
+    hungry, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in
+    prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them,
+    saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one
+    of these least, ye did it not unto me. And these shall go away
+    into eternal punishment: but the righteous into eternal
+    life.—Matt. 25:31-46.
+
+
+“Whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” Think of
+it—absolute justice done at last, by an all-knowing Judge, where no
+earthly pull of birth, wealth, learning, or power will count, and where
+all masks fall! By what code of law and what standard shall we be judged
+there? Here is the answer of Jesus: Not by creed and church questions, but
+by our human relations; by the reality of our social feeling; by our
+practical solidarity with our fellow-men. If we lived in the presence of
+hunger, loneliness, and oppression, in the same country with child labor,
+race contempt, the long day, rack rents, prostitution, just earnings
+withheld by power, the price of living raised to swell swollen profit—if
+we saw such things and remained apathetic, out we go.
+
+_You and I—to the right or the left?_
+
+
+
+Study for the Week
+
+
+No one can turn from a frank reading of the Gospels without realizing that
+Jesus had a deep fellow-feeling, not only for suffering and handicapped
+individuals, but for the mass of the poorer people of his country, the
+peasants, the fishermen, the artisans. He declared that it was his mission
+to bring glad tidings to this class; and not only glad words, but happy
+realities. Evidently the expectation of the coming Reign of God to his
+mind signified some substantial relief and release to the submerged and
+oppressed. Our modern human feeling glories in this side of our Saviour’s
+work. Art and literature love to see him from this angle.
+
+
+I
+
+
+His concern for the poor was the necessary result of the two fundamental
+convictions discussed by us in the previous chapters. If he felt the
+sacredness of life, even in its humble and hardworn forms, and if he felt
+the family unity of all men in such a way that the sorrows of the poor
+were his sorrows, then, of course, he could not be at ease while the
+people were “skinned and prostrate,” “like sheep without a shepherd.”
+Wherever any group has developed real solidarity, its best attention is
+always given to those who are most in need. “The whole have no need of a
+physician,” said Jesus; the strong can take care of themselves.
+
+So he cast in his lot with the people consciously. He slept in their
+homes, healed their diseases, ate their bread, and shared his own with
+them. He gave them a faith, a hope of better days, and a sense that God
+was on their side. Such a faith is more than meat and drink. In turn they
+rallied around him, and could not get enough of him. “The common people
+heard him gladly.”
+
+Furthermore, the feeling of Jesus for “the poor” was not the sort of
+compassion we feel for the hopelessly crippled in body or mind. His
+feeling was one of love and trust. The Galilæan peasants, from whom Peter
+and John sprang, were not morons, or the sodden dregs of city slums. They
+were the patient, hard-working folks who have always made up the rank and
+file of all peoples. They had their faults, and Jesus must have known
+them. But did he ever denounce them, or call them “offspring of vipers”?
+Did he ever indicate that their special vices were frustrating the Kingdom
+of God? They needed spiritual impulse and leadership, but their nature was
+sound and they were the raw material for the redeemed humanity which he
+strove to create.
+
+
+II
+
+
+There is one more quality which we shall have to recognize in the attitude
+of Jesus to “the poor.” He saw them over against “the rich.” Amid all the
+variations of human society these two groups always reappear—those who
+live by their own productive labor, and those who live on the productive
+labor of others whom they control. Practically they overlap and blend, but
+when our perspective is distant enough, we can distinguish them. In Greek
+and Roman society, in medieval life, and in all civilized nations of
+today—barring, of course, our own—we can see them side by side. Each
+conditions the other; neither would exist without the other. Each class
+develops its own moral and spiritual habits, its own set of virtues and
+vices. Some of us were born in the upper class, some in the lower; and in
+college groups the majority come from the border line. By instinct, by the
+experiences of life, or by national reflection, we usually give our moral
+allegiance to one or the other, and are then apt to lean to that side in
+every question arising.
+
+Now, Jesus took sides with the group of toil. He stood up for them. He
+stood with them. We can not help seeing him with his arm thrown in
+protection about the poor man, and his other hand raised in warning to the
+rich. If we are in any doubt about this, we can let his contemporaries
+decide it for us. Plainly the common people claimed him as their friend.
+Did the governing classes have the same feeling for him? It seems hard to
+escape the conclusion that Jesus was not impartial between the two. Was he
+nevertheless just? To the æsthetic sense, and also to a superficial moral
+judgment, the upper classes are everywhere more congenial and attractive.
+To the moral judgment of Jesus, as we shall see more fully in a later
+chapter, there was something disquieting and dangerous about the spiritual
+qualities of “the rich,” and something lovable and hopeful about the
+qualities of the common man. Was he right? This is a very important
+practical question for all who are disposed to follow his moral
+leadership.
+
+The perception that Jesus championed the people can be found throughout
+literature and art. Our own Lowell has expressed it in his “Parable” in
+which he describes Jesus coming back to earth to see “how the men, my
+brethren, believe in me.”
+
+
+    “Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then,
+    On the bodies and souls of living men?
+    And think ye that building shall endure,
+    Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?
+
+    “With gates of silver and bars of gold
+    Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father’s fold;
+    I have heard the dropping of their tears
+    In heaven these eighteen hundred years.
+
+    “Then Christ sought out an artisan,
+    A low-browed, stunted, haggard man,
+    And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin,
+    Pushed from her faintly want and sin.
+
+    “These set he in the midst of them,
+    And as they drew back their garment-hem
+    For fear of defilement, “Lo, here,” said he,
+    ‘The images ye have made of me.’ ”
+
+
+III
+
+
+We shall get the historical setting for Christ’s championship of the
+people by going back to the Old Testament prophets. They were his
+spiritual forebears. He nourished his mind on their writings and loved to
+quote them. Now, the Hebrew prophets with one accord stood up for the
+common people and laid the blame for social wrong on the powerful classes.
+They underlined no other sin with such scarlet marks as the sins of
+injustice, oppression, and the corruption of judges. But these are the
+sins which bear down the lowly, and have always been practiced and hushed
+up by the powerful. “Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that oppress the
+poor, that crush the needy.... Ye trample upon the poor, and take
+exactions from him of wheat; ... ye that afflict the just, that take a
+bribe, and that turn aside the needy in the gate from their right.... For
+three transgressions of Israel, yea, for four, I will not turn away the
+punishment thereof; because they have sold the righteous for silver, and
+the needy for a pair of shoes; they that pant after the dust of the earth
+on the head of the poor” (Amos 4:1; 5:11-12; 2:6-7). Micah describes the
+strong and crafty crowding the peasant from his ancestral holding and the
+mother from her home by the devices always used for such ends, exorbitant
+interest on loans, foreclosure in times of distress, “seeing the judge”
+before the trial, and hardness of heart toward broken life and happiness
+(Micah 2:1-2; 2:9; 3:1-2). We cannot belittle the moral insight of that
+unique succession of men. Their spiritual force is still hard at work in
+our Christian civilization, especially in the contribution which the
+Jewish people are making to the labor movement.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Among the Greeks and Romans political and literary life was so completely
+dominated by the aristocratic class that no such succession of champions
+of the common man could well arise. Yet some of the men of whom posterity
+thinks with most veneration were upper-class champions of the common
+people—Solon, for instance, Manlius, and the Gracchi.
+
+In recent centuries the vast forces of social evolution seem to have set
+in the direction toward which Jesus faced. Since the Reformation the
+institutions of religion have been more or less democratized. The common
+people have secured some participation in political power and have been
+able to use it somewhat for their economic betterment. They share much
+more fully in education than formerly. Before the outbreak of the Great
+War it seemed safe to anticipate that the working people would secure an
+increasing share of the social wealth, the security, the opportunities for
+health, for artistic enjoyment, and of all that makes life worth living.
+Today the future is heavily clouded and uncertain; but our faith still
+holds that even the great disaster will help ultimately to weaken the
+despotic and exploiting forces, and make the condition of the common
+people more than ever the chief concern of science and statesmanship.
+
+Jesus was on the side of the common people long before democracy was on
+the ascendant. He loved them, felt their worth, trusted their latent
+capacities, and promised them the Kingdom of God. The religion he founded,
+even when impure and under the control of the upper classes, has been the
+historical basis for the aspirations of the common people and has readily
+united with democratic movements. His personality and spirit has remained
+an impelling and directing force in the minds of many individuals who have
+“gone to the people” because they know Jesus is with them. In fact we can
+look for more direct social effectiveness of Jesus in the future, because
+the new historical interpretation of the Bible helps us to see him more
+plainly amid the social life of his own people.
+
+
+V
+
+
+So we must add a third social principle to the first two. The first was
+that life and personality are sacred; the second that men belong together;
+the third is that the strong must stand with the weak and defend their
+cause. In his description of the Messianic Judgment, Jesus proposed to
+recognize as his followers only those who had responded to the call of
+human need and solidarity. He created the apostleship and therewith the
+germ of the Church in order to serve the people whose needs he saw and
+felt.
+
+How does this concern college men and women? By our opportunities and
+equipment we rank with the strong. Disciplined intellect is armor and
+sword. Many of us have inherited social standing and some wealth; it may
+not be much, but it raises us above the terrible push of immediate need.
+What relation do we propose to have with the great mass of men and women
+who were born without the chances which have fallen to us without
+exertion? Do we propose to serve them or to ride on them? Will we seek to
+gain some form of power by means of which we can live in plenty, with only
+slight and pleasurable exertion? In that case we can hardly return to our
+fellow-men in work as much as we take from them in enjoyment and luxury.
+We shall be part of that dead weight which has always bent the back of the
+poor. Is that an honorable ambition? Or do we propose to enter the working
+team of humanity and to hold up our end? Our end ought to be heavier than
+the average because we have had longer and better training. “To whomsoever
+much is given, of him shall much be required.”
+
+The moral problem for college communities is accentuated when we remember
+that few students pay fully for what they get. Whether our institutions
+are supported from taxation or from endowments, a large part of their
+incomes are derived from the annual labor of society; tuitions pay only a
+fraction of the running expenses and of the interest on the plant. Even if
+a student pays all charges, he is in part a pensioner on the public. The
+working people in the last resort support us; the same people who are
+often so eager for education, and who can not get it. Some of them would
+feel rich if they had the leavings of knowledge which we throw to the
+floor and tread upon in our spirit of surfeit. To take our education at
+their hands and use it to devise ways by which we can continue to live on
+them, seems disquieting even to a pagan conscience. It ought to be
+insufferable to a sense of social responsibility trained under Christian
+influences.
+
+Here is a test for college communities more searching than the physical
+test of athletics, or the intellectual tests of scholarship. Do we feel
+our social unity with the people who work for their living, and do we
+propose to use our special privileges and capacities for their social
+redemption?
+
+
+    “When wilt Thou save the people?
+    O God of Mercy, when?
+    Not kings and lords, but nations,
+    Not thrones and crowns, but men.
+    Flowers of Thy heart, O God, are they.
+    Let them not pass like weeds away,
+    Let them not fade in sunless day!
+    God save the people!”—EBENEZER ELLIOTT.
+
+
+
+Suggestions for Thought and Discussion
+
+
+I. _The Partisanship of Jesus_
+
+1. Did Jesus really take sides with the poor? Prove it.
+
+2. Try to prove the other side.
+
+3. Which would be safer evidence: single sayings, or the total impression
+of his life and teachings?
+
+4. What do you conclude regarding the attitude of Jesus?
+
+II. _The Church and the People_
+
+1. What motives led Jesus to organize and send out the twelve? What was
+the historical significance of that action?
+
+2. When and how did the Church lose its working class character?
+
+3. Does the Church today share Jesus’ feelings about the condition of the
+people? Sum up evidence for and against.
+
+4. What is the true function of the Church in society so far as the poor
+are concerned?
+
+III. _Standing up for the People Today_
+
+1. Is it a superficial or profound test to range a man according to his
+sympathy with the common people?
+
+2. What does it involve to stand up for the people today? How does it
+differ from charity and relief work?
+
+3. Name some men and women in our own times who seem to have stood up for
+them most wisely and effectively.
+
+4. What are the vices of social reformers?
+
+IV. _The Concern of College Men and Women_
+
+1. How can college men and women make a just return for their special
+opportunities?
+
+2. What movements in college and university life in recent years are in
+line with this social principle of Jesus?
+
+3. What part have the university students of Russia, Austria, Germany, and
+England taken in social movements? Have American students ever taken a
+similar interest in working class movements? If not, why not?
+
+V. _For Special Discussion_
+
+1. Is it an advantage or disadvantage to Christianity that it began among
+the working class? What effects did that have on its ethical points of
+view and its impulses?
+
+2. Why did the regeneration of ancient society have to come through the
+lowly? Will it have to come the same way today?
+
+3. Is it ethical to live without productive labor? Is it morally tolerable
+to enjoy excessive leisure purchased by the excessive toil of others?
+
+4. Is there any clear conviction on this question in the Christian Church
+today?
+
+5. Is the fact that a person has sprung from the working-class a guarantee
+that he will have the working-class sympathies?
+
+6. Who seem to have more natural democratic feeling, the men or the women
+of the upper classes?
+
+
+
+
+
+PART II. THE SOCIAL IDEAL OF JESUS
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV. The Kingdom Of God: Its Values
+
+
+_The Right Social Order is the Highest Good for All_
+
+The first three chapters dealt with simple human principles which are
+common and instinctive with all real men. Jesus simply expanded the range
+of their application, clarified our comprehension of them, placed them in
+the very center of religious duty, and so lifted them to the high level of
+great social and religious principles.
+
+In the next three chapters we shall take up a conception which is not
+universally human, but which Jesus derived from the historic life of the
+Hebrew people—the idea of the “Kingdom of God.” A better translation would
+be “the Reign of God.” This conception embodied the social ideal and
+purpose of the best minds of one of the few creative nations of history.
+
+How did Jesus interpret this inherited social ideal? What did the Kingdom
+of God seem to him to offer men? What did it demand of them? What
+immediate ethical duty did this social ideal involve? Our inquiry will
+move along these lines in the next three chapters.
+
+DAILY READINGS
+
+
+
+First Day: The Main Chance
+
+
+    The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field;
+    which a man found, and hid; and in his joy he goeth and selleth
+    all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
+
+    Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant
+    seeking goodly pearls: and having found one pearl of great price,
+    he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.—Matt. 13:44-46.
+
+
+When war was common, property insecure, and safe deposit vaults were
+scarce, it was common for men to bury treasure in time of trouble and to
+forget it when they were dead. Whoever accidentally found it “struck pay
+dirt” and hastened to locate his claim. An extraordinary jewel, too, was a
+bonanza. The infant capitalists of that day were wise enough to liquidate
+their other holdings and invest everything in the main chance. Jesus calls
+for the application of the same method on the higher level. The Kingdom of
+God is the highest good of all; why not stake all on the chance of that?
+These parables were spoken out of his own experience. He was gladly
+surrendering home, comfort, public approval, and life itself to realize
+the Reign of God in humanity.
+
+Imagine that Jesus had surrendered his religious idealism, had gained
+wealth and official standing, and died of old age. Would he have gained?
+What would the world have lost?
+
+
+
+Second Day: The Master Fact
+
+
+    From that time began Jesus to preach, and to say, Repent ye; for
+    the kingdom of heaven is at hand.—Matt. 4:17.
+
+
+The Kingdom of God is a master fact. It takes control. When the Kingdom
+becomes a reality to us, we can not live on in the old way. We must
+repent, begin over, overhaul the values of life and put them down at their
+true price, and so readjust our fundamental directions. The conduct of the
+individual must rise in response to higher conceptions of the meaning and
+possibilities of the life of humanity. Tolstoi has described his
+conversion in the simplest terms in the introduction to “My Religion:”
+
+
+    “Five years ago faith came to me; I believed in the doctrine of
+    Jesus, and my whole life underwent a sudden transformation. What I
+    had once wished for I wished for no longer, and I began to desire
+    what I had never desired before. What had once appeared to me
+    right now became wrong, and the wrong of the past I beheld as
+    right. My condition was like that of a man who goes forth upon
+    some errand, and having traversed a portion of the road, decides
+    that the matter is of no importance, and turns back. What was at
+    first on his right hand is now on his left, and what was at his
+    left hand is now on his right; instead of going away from his
+    abode, he desires to get back to it as soon as possible. My life
+    and my desires were completely changed; good and evil interchanged
+    meanings. Why so? Because I understood the doctrine of Jesus in a
+    different way from that in which I had understood it before.” ...
+    “I understood the words of Jesus, and life and death ceased to be
+    evil; instead of despair, I tasted joy and happiness.”
+
+
+Some seek religion to escape hell and attain heaven; some to attain a
+perfect personality; some to bring in the Reign of God. Give cases.
+Estimate the relative religious and social significance of these different
+spiritual experiences.
+
+
+
+Third Day: Baptism and the New Order
+
+
+    Even as it is written in Isaiah the prophet,
+    Behold, I send my messenger before thy face,
+    Who shall prepare thy way;
+    The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
+    Make ye ready the way of the Lord,
+    Make his paths straight;
+
+    John came, who baptized in the wilderness and preached the baptism
+    of repentance unto remission of sins. And there went out unto him
+    all the country of Judæa, and all they of Jerusalem; and they were
+    baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. And
+    John was clothed with camel’s hair, and had a leathern girdle
+    about his loins, and did eat locusts and wild honey. And he
+    preached, saying, There cometh after me he that is mightier than
+    I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and
+    unloose. I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the
+    Holy Spirit.—Mark 1:2-8.
+
+
+The men who were baptized by John were not looking forward to death and to
+salvation after death, but to the coming of the Kingdom of God and of his
+Messiah. They repented and accepted the badge of baptism in order to have
+a share in the blessings of the Kingdom and to escape the imminent
+judgment of the Messiah. Baptism was then the mark of a national and
+social movement toward a new era, and was a personal dedication to a
+righteous social order. This original idea of baptism was practically lost
+to the Christian consciousness in later times. Every man who today
+realizes the Kingdom of God as the supreme good, can reaffirm his own
+baptism as a dedication to the social ideal and to the leadership of Jesus
+who initiated it. Such a social interpretation of our personal
+discipleship will bring us into closer spiritual agreement with the
+original aim of Christianity.
+
+_Has our baptism ever had a social significance to us?_
+
+
+
+Fourth Day: The Way to Happiness
+
+
+    Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye
+    shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye
+    shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body
+    than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow
+    not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and your
+    heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than
+    they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the
+    measure of his life? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment?
+    Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not,
+    neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all
+    his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so
+    clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is
+    cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of
+    little faith? Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat?
+    or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For
+    after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly
+    Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye
+    first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things
+    shall be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow:
+    for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day
+    is the evil thereof.—Matt. 6:25-34.
+
+
+This is a song of divine carelessness; not the recklessness of a tramp who
+has lost his self-respect and his capacity for long outlooks, but the
+carelessness of an aristocratic spirit, conscious of his high human
+dignity. God has given us life; will he not give what life needs? If the
+birds and the lilies can make a living, can not we? It is pagan and
+low-bred to wear out our souls with worry about minor needs.
+
+The key to this passage lies in the words “your Father,” and “his
+Kingdom.” Man is a child of God, and that dignity gives some calm and
+assurance amid the worries of life. If we set our life toward the Kingdom
+as the supreme aim, all the lesser interests will drop to their proper
+place. In the measure in which the will of God is done and his
+righteousness practiced among men, the satisfaction of the main material
+wants will be easy. The Kingdom, the true social order, is the highest
+good; all other good things are contained in it.
+
+To worry or not to worry, that is the question. _Have we ever tried the
+adoption of a high aim as the way to happiness?_
+
+
+
+Fifth Day: Sunny Religion
+
+
+    And John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting: and they come
+    and say unto him, Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the
+    Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto
+    them, Can the sons of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom
+    is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they
+    cannot fast. But the days will come, when the bridegroom shalt be
+    taken away from them, and then will they fast in that day. No man
+    seweth a piece of undressed cloth on an old garment: else that
+    which should fill it up taketh from it, the new from the old, and
+    a worse rent is made. And no man putteth new wine into old
+    wine-skins; else the wine will burst the skins, and the wine
+    perisheth, and the skins: but they put new wine into fresh
+    wine-skins.—Mark 2:18-22.
+
+
+Fasting was an important part of piety with strict Jews. It was an
+expression of religious sorrow and self-abasement. Afflicting the body
+intensified this spiritual emotion. The disciples of the Pharisees and of
+John were surprised and shocked by the fact that Jesus and his group
+disregarded this custom. The reply of Jesus shows the religious temper of
+Jesus in a new light. He says his disciples were happy, like guests at a
+wedding; why should they act as if they were mournful? Fasting was alien
+to the spirit which ruled in his company. It would be just as
+inappropriate as to patch a piece of unshrunken stuff on an old garment,
+or to put fermenting wine in old and brittle skin bottles. The religion of
+Jesus, then, was distinguished from other earnest religion by its happy
+and sunny character. See also the sharp distinction he makes between the
+ascetic life of John and his own enjoyment of social life (Matt.
+11:16-19). Yet Jesus was a homeless man, moving toward death.
+
+There seems to be a difference between the self-denial of ascetic
+religion, and the surrender of self to the Kingdom of God. What is it?
+
+
+
+Sixth Day: The Poise of Expectancy
+
+
+    Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, who
+    took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five
+    of them were foolish, and five were wise. For the foolish, when
+    they took their lamps, took no oil with them: but the wise took
+    oil in their vessels with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom
+    tarried, they all slumbered and slept. But at midnight there is a
+    cry, Behold, the bridegroom! Come ye forth to meet him. Then all
+    those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said
+    unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are going out.
+    But the wise answered, saying, Peradventure there will not be
+    enough for us and you: go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for
+    yourselves. And while they went away to buy, the bridegroom came;
+    and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage feast:
+    and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins,
+    saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I
+    say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know not the
+    day nor the hour.—Matt. 25:1-13.
+
+
+The Lord was to return soon and consummate the establishment of his
+Kingdom. The first two generations of Christians took this hope very
+seriously. Expectancy was the true pose of Christians. Under the
+conditions of that time this was their way of declaring that the Kingdom
+of God is the highest good and that all our life should be concentrated on
+it. If Jesus lived today he could find even more effective exhortations to
+look sharp and not get left. But is the constant expectation of a divine
+catastrophe from heaven possible for modern minds? Must we translate that
+expectation into the hope of moral and social development? By doing so,
+can we still have a religious sense of a great and divine future
+overhanging humanity which will give to our life the same value and
+solemnity which the first generation felt?
+
+_Explain what a strong social hope and faith would contribute to a
+person’s life in the course of years._
+
+How do faith and practical social effort react on each other?
+
+
+
+Seventh Day: The Coming Joys
+
+
+    Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
+    Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for
+                they shall be filled.
+    Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
+    Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
+    Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.
+    Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’
+                sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.—Matt.
+                5:5-10.
+
+
+In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus formally outlined his conceptions of
+ethical and religious life as distinguished from those then current. It
+was the platform of the Kingdom of God. We might expect it to begin with
+denunciation. Instead it opens with a spontaneous burst of joy. A great
+good was coming. It would bring a store of blessings to all who had the
+inward qualifications to receive them. All who felt the divine
+dissatisfaction with themselves and the craving for social justice and
+righteousness, would get their satisfaction (v. 3, 4, 6). The higher
+social virtues, gentleness, purity of heart, peaceableness, would get
+recognition and gain ascendancy (v. 5, 7, 8, 9). But the climax of praise
+and promise is for those who propagated righteousness where it was not
+wanted, and suffered for it (v. 10-12). “These words belong to the
+greatest ever uttered” (Hegel). They are pure religion, and they were
+called forth by religious faith in a social ideal.
+
+Have we known men and women who had some of these qualities, who lived
+within the Kingdom of God, and who enjoyed its blessings? If they have
+ennobled our life, let us think of them a moment with a silent
+benediction.
+
+
+
+Study for the Week
+
+
+We see from the passages we have studied that the mind of Jesus was
+centered on a great hope which was just ahead. It was so beautiful that
+even in anticipation it was filling his soul with joy and he knew it would
+bless all who shared in it. It seemed to him so valuable and engrossing
+that a man ought to stake his whole life on attaining it, and subordinate
+all other aims to this dominant desire.
+
+
+I
+
+
+He spoke of this great good as “the Kingdom of God.” Even a superficial
+reading of the first three Gospels shows that this was the pivot of his
+teaching. Yet he nowhere defines the phrase. He took an understanding of
+it for granted with his hearers, and simply announced that it was now
+close at hand, and they must act accordingly. What did the words mean to
+them? The idea covered by the phrase was an historic product of the Jewish
+people, and we shall have to understand it as such.
+
+The Hebrew prophets had concentrated their incomparable religious energy
+on the simple demand for righteousness, especially in social and national
+life. The actual life of the nation, especially of its ruling classes, of
+course never squared with the religious ideal. The injustice and
+oppression around them seemed intolerable to the prophets, just because
+the ethical imperative within them was so strong. So their unsatisfied
+desire for righteousness took the form of an ardent expectation of a
+coming day when things would be as they ought to be. God would make bare
+his holy arm to punish the wicked, to sift the good, to establish his law,
+and to vindicate the rights of the oppressed. This great “day of Jehovah”
+would inaugurate a new age, the Kingdom of God, the Reign of God. The
+phrase, then, embodies the social ideal of the finest religious minds of a
+unique people. The essential thing in it is the projection into the future
+of the demand for a just social order. The prophets looked to a direct
+miraculous act of God to realize their vision, but they were in close
+touch with the facts of political life and always demanded social action
+on the human side.
+
+Plato’s Republic and More’s Utopia are intellectual productions which have
+appealed to single idealistic minds. The Hebrew prophets succeeded in
+socializing their ideal. By the force of religion they wrought the
+conception of the Kingdom of God into the common mind of a nation as a
+traditional conviction which was assimilated by every new generation.
+
+But when a great idea is appropriated by the masses, it is sure to become
+cruder to suit their intellect and their need; and when a national ideal
+is handed on for centuries, it will change with the changing fortunes of
+the people that holds it. When the Hebrew nation came under the foreign
+rule of the Assyrians, Persians, and finally the Romans, its freedom and
+chance for political action were lost, and its political ideals, too,
+deteriorated. The Kingdom hope became theological, artificial, a scheme of
+epochs of predetermined length and of marvelous stage settings. Yet, even
+in this form, it was a splendid hope of emancipation, of national
+greatness, and of future justice and fraternity, and it helped to keep the
+nation’s soul alive amid crushing sorrows.
+
+The people at the time of Jesus in the main held this apocalyptic
+conception of the Kingdom. It was to come as a divine catastrophe,
+beginning with an act of judgment and resulting in a glorious Jewish
+imperialism. Jesus shared the substance of the expectation, but as a true
+spiritual leader he reconstructed, clarified, and elevated the hope of the
+masses. He would have nothing to do with any plans involving blood-shed
+and force revolution. The Hebrew Jehovah became "our Father in heaven" and
+this democratized the Reign of Jehovah. The pious Jew expected God to
+enforce the ceremonial laws; Jesus had little to say about religious
+ceremonial, and a great deal about righteousness and love. Under his hands
+the Jewish imperialistic dream changed into a call for universal human
+fraternity. He repeatedly and emphatically explained the coming of the
+Kingdom in terms taken from biological growth, and his thoughts seem to
+have verged away from the popular catastrophic ideas toward ideas of
+organic development. These changes—if we have correctly interpreted
+them—represent Jesus’ own contribution to the history of the Kingdom
+ideal, and they are all in the same direction in which the modern mind has
+moved. (For a fuller statement of these modifications see Rauschenbusch,
+“Christianizing the Social Order,” p. 48-68.)
+
+
+II
+
+
+So much by way of historical information. Now let us emphasize again that
+this social ideal seemed to Jesus so fair and fine that he gave his whole
+soul to it. Naturally he would. Since he loved men and believed in their
+solidarity, the conception of a God-filled humanity living in a righteous
+social order, which would give free play to love and would bind all in
+close ties, would be the only satisfying outlook for him. He promised that
+all who hungered and thirsted after righteousness would be satisfied in
+the Kingdom, and he was himself the chief of these. The Kingdom of God was
+his fatherland, in which his spirit lived with God; and with that vision
+of perfect humanity before him, he kept its calm and tranquillity amid the
+enmity of men as he sought to win men to its better ways.
+
+The Kingdom of God is the highest good. The idea of God is the highest and
+most comprehensive conception in philosophy; the idea of the Kingdom of
+God is the highest and broadest idea in sociology and ethics. It is so
+high and broad that many find it hard even to grasp the idea. Just as a
+barbaric tribe of hunters or fishermen would find it impossible to
+comprehend the social coherence and the patriotism of a nation of a
+hundred millions; just as the narrow nationalist of today falls down
+intellectually and morally when he confronts world-forces and relations:
+so we who are trained to think in terms of family and State, give out when
+we are to treat the Kingdom of God as a reality. It takes faith of the
+intellect to comprehend a stage of evolution before it is reached. It
+takes faith of character to launch yourself toward a great moral goal
+before its tangible and profitable elements are within reach. It takes
+more moral daring today than for a century past to believe in the
+reemergence and final victory of God’s social order. But this is the time
+for all true believers to square their shoulders and say with Galileo,
+“And yet it moves.”
+
+Any man whose soul is kindled by the conception of the Kingdom of God is a
+real man. Whoever loves the idea, must turn it into reality as far as life
+lets him. Whoever tries it, will suffer. But even if he suffers, he will
+be more blessed and more truly a man than he would be if he did not try.
+In seeking the Kingdom he realizes himself. “He that loseth his life for
+my sake, shall find it.”
+
+
+III
+
+
+Jesus bade us “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,” and
+he obeyed his own call. The main object of his life was the ideal social
+order and the perfect ethic. Now if Jesus is our ideal of human goodness,
+is any goodness good unless it works in the same direction? If a man is of
+flawless private life, but is indifferent to any social ideal, or even
+hostile to all attempts at better justice and greater fraternity, is he
+really good? Even a strong desire for personal perfection, if there is no
+desire for a regeneration of society in it, must be rated as sub-Christian
+because it is lacking in the sense of solidarity and may be lacking in
+love.
+
+
+
+Suggestions for Thought and Discussion
+
+
+I. _The Power of a Great Idea_
+
+1. Did the idea of the Kingdom of God ever play a part in your religious
+education?
+
+2. Did you feel any response to it in studying this lesson? Does it have
+reality?
+
+3. Suppose an entire study group should fail to see anything in it, would
+that prove it valueless?
+
+II. _Historical Changes in the Kingdom Ideal_
+
+1. How did the Kingdom ideal take shape in the minds of the Hebrew
+prophets?
+
+2. Explain the nature of the apocalyptic hope and its divergence from the
+prophetic ideal.
+
+3. What passages seem to throw the most light on Jesus’ conception of it,
+and his feeling about it? What do you think about the Beatitudes from this
+point of view?
+
+4. At what points did Jesus clarify and elevate the hereditary hope of his
+nation? Summarize the conception of the Kingdom as it lay in the mind of
+Jesus.
+
+III. _Present Possibilities of the Kingdom Idea_
+
+1. What value would the preaching of the Kingdom of God have in
+evangelistic work today?
+
+2. How would it affect religious education and the moral outlook of the
+young?
+
+3. How would the possession of the Kingdom faith equip the Church for
+leadership in an age of social movements and unrest?
+
+4. How does the Kingdom hope add to the joyousness of the Christian life?
+
+5. How does Jesus’ conception of the Kingdom of God connect with the great
+social and national hopes of today?
+
+IV. _For Special Discussion_
+
+1. How does a man realize himself in seeking the Kingdom? How does a man
+realize the Kingdom in developing himself?
+
+2. Does the idea seem to offer a religious vehicle for conceptions you
+have derived from sociological work?
+
+3. Does a social concept like the “Kingdom of God” gain anything for its
+practical efficiency today from being ancient, and from being religious?
+
+4. Will such a concept ever be effective with the masses unless it is
+essentially religious?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V. The Kingdom Of God: Its Tasks
+
+
+_The Right Social Order is the Supreme Task for Each_
+
+The perfect social order is the highest good. In so far as it is a gift of
+God, offered to the individual like the fertile earth and the oxygen of
+the air, we must appropriate it and enjoy every approximation to the
+perfect society. But what is the responsibility of the individual toward
+the achievement of the ideal social order? What task does it lay on him?
+How did Jesus see this problem? It is finely stated in the words with
+which Émile de Laveleye closes his book “Sur la propriété”: “There is a
+social order which is the best. Necessarily it is not always the present
+order. Else why should we seek to change the latter? But it is that order
+which ought to exist to realize the greatest good for humanity. God knows
+it and wills it. It is for man to discover and establish it.”
+
+What, then, is the responsibility of the individual with regard to the
+achievement of this highest good?
+
+DAILY READINGS
+
+
+
+First Day: The Kingdom of Hard Work
+
+
+    For it is as when a man, going into another country, called his
+    own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he
+    gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to each
+    according to his several ability; and he went on his journey.
+    Straightway he that received the five talents went and traded with
+    them, and made other five talents. In like manner he also that
+    received the two gained other two. But he that received the one
+    went away and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money. Now
+    after a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and maketh a
+    reckoning with them. And he that received the five talents came
+    and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst
+    unto me five talents: lo, I have gained other five talents. His
+    lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou
+    hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many
+    things; enter thou into the joy of thy lord. And he also that
+    received the two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst
+    unto me two talents: lo, I have gained other two talents. His lord
+    said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast
+    been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things;
+    enter thou into the joy of thy lord. And he also that had received
+    the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a
+    hard man, reaping where thou didst not sow, and gathering where
+    thou didst not scatter; and I was afraid, and went away and hid
+    thy talent in the earth: lo, thou hast thine own. But his lord
+    answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou
+    knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I did not
+    scatter; thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the
+    bankers, and at my coming I should have received back mine own
+    with interest. Take ye away therefore the talent from him, and
+    give it unto him that hath the ten talents. For unto every one
+    that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from
+    him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away.
+    And cast ye out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness:
+    there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.—Matt.
+    25:14-30.
+
+
+Evidently the sympathy of Jesus was with the two men who hustled, and not
+with the fellow who took it out in growling and blaming the boss. Jesus
+would have agreed to the proposition that to live an unproductive life is
+one of the cardinal sins. Evolution and Christianity agree on that. This
+exhortation to do good work was given when Jesus was looking forward to
+his death and his absence. He would leave the Kingdom of God as an
+unfinished task. He wanted his disciples to carry forward their Master’s
+business under their own initiative when he was not there to direct them.
+The new conditions would throw even heavier responsibilities on them.
+
+Can you translate this parable into terms of college life and sketch three
+college students as companion pieces to the three business men?
+
+
+
+Second Day: The Call to Action
+
+
+    And passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew
+    the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were
+    fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will
+    make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they left the
+    nets, and followed him. And going on a little further, he saw
+    James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in
+    the boat mending the nets. And straightway he called them: and
+    they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired
+    servants, and went after him.—Mark 1:16-20.
+
+                  -------------------------------------
+
+    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.—Matt. 9:9.
+
+                  -------------------------------------
+
+    And as they went on the way, a certain man said unto him, I will
+    follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, The
+    foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the
+    Son of man hath not where to lay his head. And he said unto
+    another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and
+    bury my father. But he said unto him, Leave the dead to bury their
+    own dead; but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom of God. And
+    another also said, I will follow thee, Lord; but first suffer me
+    to bid farewell to them that are at my house. But Jesus said unto
+    him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is
+    fit for the kingdom of God.—Luke 9:57-62.
+
+
+The way in which Jesus called his disciples shows that he felt he had a
+big business in hand. It was a call to action, to conflict and loss, and
+there was snap in it. Leaving their boats and nets doubtless seemed a big
+proposition to these four fishermen; but they did it. Matthew had to give
+up a government job with pickings. These five rose to their chance with
+courageous decision, and their names are still borne by millions of boys
+today. The names of the other three are lost to fame. One of them gushed
+and Jesus cooled off his emotions. The second and third wanted to
+procrastinate and hid behind social obligations. Note that epigram about
+the ploughman. It is a splendid expression of intelligent and concentrated
+energy. You can’t drive a straight furrow while you “rubber.” You’ve got
+to “tend to your job.”
+
+Four of the first five are said to have died a violent death. Would they
+have been wiser if they had looked out for Number One?
+
+
+
+Third Day: The Futility of Talk
+
+
+    Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
+    kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is
+    in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not
+    prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy
+    name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I
+    never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
+
+    Every one therefore that heareth these words of mine, and doeth
+    them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon
+    the rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the
+    winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was
+    founded upon the rock. And every one that heareth these words of
+    mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who
+    built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the
+    floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it
+    fell: and great was the fall thereof.—Matt. 7:21-27.
+
+
+Jesus evidently felt deeply the emptiness and futility of much of the
+religious talk. He was interested only in those emotions and professions
+which could get themselves translated into character and action. Words
+have always been the bane of religion as well as its vehicle. Religious
+emotion has enormous motive force, but it is the easiest thing in the
+world for it to sizzle away in high professions and wordy prayers. In that
+case it is a substitute and counterfeit, and a damage to the Reign of God
+among men.
+
+How about our own religious talk?
+
+Would it be better, then, to give up preaching and public prayer?
+
+_What has the utterance of religion done for us?_
+
+
+
+Fourth Day: This Camel Passed Through
+
+
+    And he entered and was passing through Jericho. And behold, a man
+    called by name Zacchæus; and he was a chief publican, and he was
+    rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the
+    crowd, because he was little of stature. And he ran on before, and
+    climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass
+    that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and said
+    unto him, Zacchæus, make haste, and come down; for to-day I must
+    abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down, and received
+    him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, He
+    is gone in to lodge with a man that is a sinner. And Zacchæus
+    stood, and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods
+    I give to the poor; and if I have wrongfully exacted aught of any
+    man, I restore fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, To-day is
+    salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of
+    Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which
+    was lost.—Luke 19:1-10.
+
+
+Zacchæus was engaged in the profitable but shady business of farming the
+Roman taxing system in one of the richest districts of Palestine. He was a
+politician and business man combined, and the kind of man that is “bound
+to land.” Being only five feet one he had no chance amid a crowd in a
+narrow street watching a procession. So he climbed a tree. Imagine a
+corporation president climbing a telegraph post to see Jesus! This spirit
+of determination appealed to Jesus and he promptly made friends with him,
+though he well knew he would lose some more of his reputation by
+identifying himself with a publican. Zacchæus proved his fitness for the
+Kingdom of God by parting with his accumulated graft at a single sweep.
+Fifty per cent of his property given away outright; the balance used to
+make restitution at the rate of four hundred per cent—how much was left?
+Here a camel passed through the needle’s eye, and Jesus stood and cheered.
+
+At what points is the moral energy of college men and women most severely
+tested? Where do they meet their great spiritual decisions?
+
+
+
+Fifth Day: Will in Prayer
+
+
+    And he spake a parable unto them to the end that they ought always
+    to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a judge,
+    who feared not God, and regarded not man: and there was a widow in
+    that city; and she came oft unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine
+    adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said
+    within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because
+    this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest she wear me out
+    by her continual coming. And the Lord said, Hear what the
+    unrighteous judge saith. And shall not God avenge his elect, that
+    cry to him day and night, and yet he is longsuffering over
+    them?—Luke 18:1-7.
+
+
+In most of his sayings on prayer Jesus either objected to the wordiness of
+prayers (Matt. 6:5-13), or he demanded more will and persistence. In the
+story of the widow and the judge the odds were against the widow. Being
+only a widow she had no pull and no vote. The judge was frankly a tough
+case, untouched by religion and conscience, and thick-skinned as to public
+opinion. Yet the widow won out by sheer doggedness. Surely the mind that
+sketched the reiterating widow and the collapsing politician had an
+admiring eye for energy of action. Jesus wanted that spirit and
+determination put into prayer. But note that he was thinking, not of
+personal edification, nor of private benefits to be obtained, but of the
+“avenging of God’s elect”; that is, of straightening out the affairs of
+the world so that the wrongs of the righteous would be redressed. A keen
+social consciousness about the condition of God’s people, coupled with
+“hunger and thirst for justice,” can turn prayer into action.
+
+_Have we any experience of prayer concentrated on great public evils?_ How
+does that differ from prayers centering about our own interests? (See
+Fosdick, “The Meaning of Prayer,” Chapter X.)
+
+
+
+Sixth Day: Twelve against the Field
+
+
+    And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
+    Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out
+    demons: 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. And into whatsoever city or village ye shall enter,
+    search out who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go
+    forth.... And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your
+    words, as ye go forth out of that house or that city, shake off
+    the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more
+    tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of
+    judgment, than for that city.... And be not afraid of them that
+    kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.—Matt. 10:7-11,
+    14-15, 28a.
+
+
+This whole chapter expresses with immense vitality the heroic spirit
+called forth by the Kingdom propaganda. Jesus sent these twelve men
+through the villages of Galilee to duplicate and multiply what he was
+doing. The natural leaders of society, the able, the educated, the
+powerful, were concerned in setting up their own kingdom and enslaving
+their fellows to serve them. So Jesus took what material he had, peasants
+and fishermen, and created a new leadership. He flung them against
+existing society, knowing well that they would have to face opposition. In
+fact, they were destined, one by one, to go to death for their cause. He
+tells them not to mind a little thing like death, but to do their work and
+rally the people around the idea of the Reign of God.
+
+Can the men and women who are today trying to rebuild human society on a
+basis of social justice and fraternity claim any right of succession in
+the sending of the Twelve?
+
+
+
+Seventh Day: Doing All, and Then Some
+
+
+    But who is there of you, having a servant plowing or keeping
+    sheep, that will say unto him, when he is come in from the field,
+    Come straightway and sit down to meat; and will not rather say
+    unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and
+    serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt
+    eat and drink? Doth he thank the servant because he did the things
+    that were commanded? Even so ye also, when ye shall have done all
+    the things that are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable
+    servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do.—Luke
+    17:7-10.
+
+
+Jesus often boldly took his illustrations from the facts of life even when
+they were repellent to him. Here he holds up the joyless life of a Syrian
+agricultural laborer. After plodding all day in the field, this man comes
+home, tired and hungry. Is he promptly cared for? No, he must first cook
+and serve his master’s meal. Then he can eat what’s left. Does he get any
+thanks for working overtime? Not a thank. Now, says Jesus, what this man
+does under the hard coercion of his lot, you and I must do of our own free
+will. After we have done a man’s work, let us go and do some more for the
+sake of the cause, and disclaim praise. That spirit of utter service is,
+in fact, the spirit in which men work when the Kingdom vision gets hold of
+them. They become greedy for work and can not satisfy themselves. The
+strong and inspired men always feel at the end that they have not done
+half they ought to have done. The last words of Martin Luther, scribbled
+on a scrap of paper, were: “We are beggars. That’s true.”
+
+What would Jesus say to a college student who is chronically tired and who
+feels that he is laying his professors and his father under heavy
+obligation by working at all?
+
+
+
+Study for the Week
+
+
+Is it not a strange fate that down to the most recent times art has
+pictured Jesus all meek and gentle, and theology has emphasized his
+passive suffering? Yet he was high-power energy. His epigrams and
+hyperboles crack like a whip-lash. He was up before dawn. He always rose
+to the sight of human need. To do the will of his Father was meat and
+drink to him. His life was a combat. He faced opposition without flinching
+and “stedfastly set his face to go up to Jerusalem” when he knew it meant
+death. Even when he stood silent before the court and when he hung nailed
+to the gallows, he was a spiritual force in action and men were disturbed
+and afraid before him.
+
+
+I
+
+
+He communicated energy to others. He hated mere talk and discouraged
+fruitless theorizing. He praised energetic action when he found it, as in
+the case of Zacchæus, and of the men who climbed the roof with a paralytic
+man and dug up the roofing to let him down to Jesus. He called that sort
+of thing “faith.” Faith, in Jesus’ use of the word, did not mean shutting
+your eyes and folding your hands. He said it was an explosive that could
+remove mountains. He gave three of his disciples nicknames, and they were
+all given to express forcefulness; Simon he called Peter, the Rock; and
+James and John he called Boanerges, the sons of thunder. He sent his
+disciples open-eyed to face trouble; he told them the wolves were waiting
+for them, but to rejoice and be exceeding glad for the chance of lining up
+against them. Let us clear our minds forever of the idea that Jesus was a
+mild and innocuous person who parted his hair and beard in the middle, and
+turned his disciples into mollycoddles. Away with it!
+
+Though the spirit of Jesus has never had more than half a chance in
+historic Christianity, yet it is demonstrable that the total efficiency of
+humanity, the bulk of work done, and the capacity for heroic tension of
+energies have been greatly increased by it. Taking it on the smallest
+scale—every real conversion means a break with debasing habits, with
+alcoholism, with the waste of sexual energies; it means more self-control,
+more responsiveness to duty, more capacity to take a long outlook, and
+consequently better work. We can observe this in ourselves and others. We
+still need the coercion of stern necessity and of public opinion to keep
+us straight, but an inward compulsion is added. A Christian carries his
+policeman around inside of him. Where Christianity gets a really firm hold
+on men or women, especially if there is a basis of natural ability, it
+pushes them on to lead in moral movements and they break away for human
+progress.
+
+When Christianity multiplies such cases, and makes soberness, duty, and
+hard work the habit of entire communities, we have a social fact of
+first-class importance; for the human animal is naturally lazy, sluggish,
+and inclined to live for today. The capacity to subordinate immediate
+gratification for a future good is scarce; the capacity to subordinate
+selfish advantage to a great common and moral good is scarcer still.
+
+We can see this force working on a larger scale on the foreign mission
+field where Christianity is a new social energy. There it is easier to
+disentangle it from other social forces. What are the comparative results
+when it gets a lodgment in a single social class or tribal group? This
+question will bear watching during the next fifty years. The full social
+results of Christianity will not show till the third generation.
+
+We get another demonstration of increased working efficiency in humanity
+wherever Christianity has passed through an internal purification which
+has set free more of its spiritual energies. What, for instance, has been
+the historic connection between the development of capitalistic industry
+in Holland, England, and France, and the sober and frugal piety and
+patient laboriousness created in the Calvinists of Holland, the Puritans
+of England, and the Huguenots of France?
+
+
+II
+
+
+The contributions made by Christianity to the working efficiency and the
+constructive social abilities of humanity in the past have been mainly
+indirect. The main aim set before Christians was to save their souls from
+eternal woe, to have communion with God now and hereafter, and to live
+God-fearing lives. It was individualistic religion, concentrated on the
+life to come. Its social effectiveness was largely a by-product. What,
+now, would have been the result if Christianity had placed an equally
+strong emphasis on the Kingdom of God, the ideal social order? Other
+things being equal, a Christian father and mother are better parents than
+others because they have more sense of duty, more love, and a higher
+valuation of spiritual things. But if, in addition, they have a religious
+desire for a higher social order and realize that noble children are a
+splendid contribution to it, how will that affect their parenthood? A
+teacher, artist, or scientist who is also a religious man, will do
+conscientious work if he works under the motives of individualistic
+religion. But if he has a vision of the Kingdom of God on earth and sees
+the contributions he can make to it, will not that raise the character of
+his output? A business man of strong Christian character will work hard,
+keep his word in business, and deal fairly with employes and customers.
+But would not a new direction be given to his moral energies if his
+religion taught him that he must help to shape the workings of industry
+and trade so that hereafter there will be no fundamental clash between
+business and the morals of Christianity?
+
+What the world of Christian men and women needs is to have a great social
+objective set before them and laid on their conscience with the authority
+of religion. Then religion would get behind social evolution in earnest.
+
+This would be no new and foreign element imported into our religion. It
+would be a modern revival of the doctrine of Jesus himself, which has been
+too long submerged and neglected. One chief reason why it was side-tracked
+is that no despotic State and no society dominated by a predatory class
+ever wanted religion applied to a reconstruction of the social order. The
+idea of the Kingdom of God reawoke with the rise of modern democracy. Now
+is the time for it.
+
+
+III
+
+
+The idea of the Kingdom of God is not identified with any special social
+theory. It means justice, freedom, fraternity, labor, joy. Let each social
+system and movement show us what it can contribute and we will weigh its
+claims. We want the old ideal defined in modern terms, in the terms of
+modern democracy, of the power machine, of international peace, and of
+evolutionary science. But we want to embrace it with the old religious
+faith and ardor, so that we can pray over it.
+
+This great task of establishing a righteous social life on earth embraces
+all minor tasks in so far as they are good. The mother who tries to make a
+good home, the farmer who feeds the people, the teacher who trains them,
+the scientist who gets the facts for all, the merchant, the workingman,
+the artist, the leader in play—they are all contributing to the Kingdom,
+provided they view their work so, and are trying to put an evolutionary
+_plus_ into it which will lift the total nearer to the divine will. The
+Kingdom is the supreme task, and all small tasks are part of it. That
+gives every man a place in it who works—where is the idler’s place in
+it?—and it hallows all good work with religious glory.
+
+It may seem as if this social aim of religion may depreciate the aim of
+developing our own personality and of saving our souls. It ought not.
+Sometimes it does for a time. But we are each so enormously important to
+ourselves that we are not likely to forget ourselves, and the practical
+struggle with temptation and sorrow will teach us to seek strength for our
+personal needs from Christ. In time we shall learn to say with Jesus, “For
+their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified.” In time
+surrender to the Kingdom ideal, toil for it, self-denial for it,
+cooperation with others for it, will have the strongest kind of reactions
+on ourselves and our moral fiber. Gymnasium work is all right, but real
+work in the open is better. We are most durably saved by putting in hard
+work for the Kingdom of God.
+
+In every great task a religious man is consciously thrown back on the aid
+of God—most of all in the greatest task of all. Eternal powers are
+cooperating with our puny efforts. That alone guarantees that our work is
+not wasted. We plant and water, but unless God’s sun shines upon it, our
+work is nothing. He is a fool that is not reverent and humble. We sorely
+need this faith in the collaboration and patience of God today when so
+much of the best spiritual achievement of mankind is swept away, and we
+seem far away from a kingdom of love. “As the heavens are higher than the
+earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your
+thoughts.”
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Here, then, we have another social principle of Jesus. A collective moral
+ideal is a necessity for the individual and the race. Every man must have
+a conscious determination to help in his own place to work out a righteous
+social order for and with God. The race must increasingly turn its own
+evolution into a conscious process. It owes that duty to itself and to God
+who seeks an habitation in it. It must seek to realize its divine destiny.
+“Thy kingdom come! Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven!”
+This is the conscious evolutionary program of Jesus. It combines religion,
+social science, and ethical action in a perfect synthesis.
+
+What has this to say to students? Everything, it seems.
+
+First, whatever is to be our particular job, we must relate it to the
+supreme common task at which God and all good men are working. Unless we
+see and assert that relation, we are mere day-laborers or slaves, with
+neither intelligence nor enthusiasm.
+
+Second, anyone who, instead of loyally relating his life-work to God’s
+work, pursues his own ambition at the expense of the Kingdom and damages
+it to make profit for himself, is like a man who takes pay to damage his
+country. He makes the work harder for all who are more faithful than he,
+and their blood will be upon him.
+
+Third, “_noblesse oblige_.” If we belong to the republic of learning and
+education, something extra is justly due from us. Here, for instance, is
+the evangelization of the world in this generation. An organization has
+been created to accomplish it. Heroic pioneers have died, preparing the
+way for larger forces. Is our life fit and good enough to put into that?
+Here is the Christianization of the social order in the next two
+generations. What have all our social studies been for in the design of
+God? To fit ourselves for exploiting our fellows or to show them the way
+to the Kingdom of God?
+
+
+
+Suggestions for Thought and Discussion
+
+
+I. _Our Untapped Reserves_
+
+1. How far is a person who produces nothing, of use to the community? Is
+increase of productive efficiency the test of progress?
+
+2. Does religion help to call out reserves of energy in human nature?
+
+II. _The Energy of Jesus_
+
+1. How far did Jesus give evidence of audacity and high power energy? Has
+the Christian Church realized this? How about the portrayals of him in
+art?
+
+2. Furnish evidence that Jesus demanded sincere work. How was this
+connected with the Kingdom of God in his mind?
+
+3. Give proof that he demanded heroism of his followers as a commonplace
+thing.
+
+4. How did this temper affect his view of prayer?
+
+III. _Christianity and Work_
+
+1. Has Christianity ever promoted idleness? If so, what type of
+Christianity was it?
+
+2. Taken as a whole has Christianity increased the amount of work done, or
+lessened it? Give historical proof.
+
+3. Would it raise the economic efficiency of an African tribe to become
+Christians? Would it raise the efficiency of the Mexican people if they
+adopted a purer type of Christianity? How?
+
+4. Where is the idler’s place in the Kingdom of God?
+
+IV. _The Reenforcement of Christianity by the Kingdom Ideal_
+
+1. Is a call to be converted a call to enjoy spiritual peace or to exert
+spiritual energy?
+
+2. How has the idea arisen that Christianity is a "dope" to make people
+contented amid wrong conditions?
+
+3. How would the Kingdom faith give religious quality to the plain man’s
+job?
+
+4. Other things being equal, has a religious man more or less fighting
+energy against wrong than a non-religious man?
+
+5. If a man passes from an individualistic to a social conception of
+religion, what change will it make in moral action?
+
+6. To what extent is the enterprise of the Kingdom of God a dynamic
+expression of accepted sociological principles?
+
+7. What is the special obligation of college men and women to the Kingdom
+of God?
+
+V. _For Special Discussion_
+
+1. Is the Kingdom of God to be brought about by an act of God in the
+future or by the work of men in the present? Does the one exclude the
+other?
+
+2. Does our social order call out the full energy and intelligence of the
+working people?
+
+3. Can an overworked and underpaid workman feel that _he is working_ for
+the Kingdom of God?
+
+4. Does the Kingdom of God necessarily involve elements of social
+readjustment and change?
+
+5. Would a predatory governing class in the past have allowed the
+preaching of a social conception of the Kingdom of God?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI. A New Age And New Standards
+
+
+_As the Kingdom Comes Ethical Standards Must Advance_
+
+Every approximation to the Reign of God in humanity demands an advance in
+the social relations of men, that is, an advance in ethics. Every really
+epochal advance must have it or slip back. There must be, first, better
+obedience to the moral principles already recognized and accepted by
+society; second, an expansion of the sway of ethical duty to new fields
+and wider groups of humanity; and third, a recognition of new duties and
+the assimilation of new and higher ethical conceptions.
+
+To what extent did Jesus appreciate these supreme needs?
+
+DAILY READINGS
+
+
+
+First Day: Living up to the Old Standards
+
+
+    In the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came
+    unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came into
+    all the region round about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of
+    repentance unto remission of sins; as it is written in the book of
+    the words of Isaiah the prophet,
+
+    The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
+    Make ye ready the way of the Lord,
+    Make his paths straight.
+    Every valley shall be filled,
+    And every mountain and hill shall be brought low;
+    And the crooked shall become straight,
+    And the rough ways smooth;
+    And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
+
+    He said therefore to the multitudes that went out to be baptized
+    of him, Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the
+    wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance,
+    and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our
+    father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to
+    raise up children unto Abraham. And even now the axe also lieth at
+    the root of the trees: every tree therefore that bringeth not
+    forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.—Luke 3:2-9.
+
+
+The ABC of social renewal and moral advance is for each of us to face our
+sins sincerely and get on a basis of frankness with God and ourselves.
+Therefore Christianity set out with a call for personal repentance. If we
+only acted up to what we know to be right, this world would be a different
+place. But we fool ourselves with protective coloring devices in order to
+keep our own self-respect. Take our language, for instance; it reeks with
+evasive euphemisms intended to make nasty sins look prettier. We call
+stealing “swiping” and cheating “cribbing.” When we have been drunk we say
+we were “squiffy.” As soon as we face the facts, we realize that what we
+call peccadilloes in ourselves are the black sins that have slain the
+innocents and have hag ridden humanity through all its history. That is
+the beginning of social vision. Personal repentance is a social advance.
+
+What equivalent have college men and women for the plea of the Pharisees
+that they were Abraham’s children and had a pull with God?
+
+
+
+Second Day: Expanding the Area of Obligation
+
+
+    And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and made trial of him,
+    saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he
+    said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And
+    he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
+    heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with
+    all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him,
+    Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he,
+    desiring to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my
+    neighbor? Jesus made answer and said, A certain man was going down
+    from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, who both
+    stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
+    And by chance a certain priest was going down that way: and when
+    he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And in like manner a
+    Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on
+    the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came
+    where he was: and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion,
+    and came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on them oil and
+    wine; and he set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn,
+    and took care of him. And on the morrow he took out two shillings,
+    and gave them to the host, and said, Take care of him; and
+    whatsoever thou spendest more, I, when I come back again, will
+    repay thee. Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neighbor
+    unto him that fell among the robbers? And he said, He that showed
+    mercy on him. And Jesus said unto him, Go, and do thou
+    likewise.—Luke 10:25-37.
+
+
+A meaty story and a famous one. The lawyer found his own answer
+uncomfortably simple when it was taken up in such a matter-of-fact way. It
+was suddenly up to him to act on his own advice. He tried to hedge by
+raising a new question: “Love my neighbor? Certainly. But who is my
+neighbor?” Who is within the cordon of fraternal fellowship with me? All
+men of my people and religion? Or only the good and desirable people?
+Where do you draw the line? Follows the story of the Good Samaritan. “Your
+neighbor? The alien and the heretic.” The logic of the reply demanded that
+some good Jew would be shown caring for a wounded Samaritan. Jesus gives
+it a smashing effectiveness by reversing the role and showing the hated
+Samaritan as the heroic lover of his kind. To get the situation we must
+remember the historic enmity between the Jews and the half-breed aliens
+who had stolen their land and their religion while they were exiled. If we
+substitute Spaniard and Moor, Kurd and Armenian, Serb and Bulgar, we may
+get the tension.
+
+_Who are our American Samaritans?_
+
+
+
+Third Day: Raising the Standards
+
+
+We must live up to what we know is right, and we must expand the area of
+ethical obligation to take in even men of alien race and hostile religion.
+But beyond that, we need a conscious advance in the ethical standards
+themselves. Jesus worked out this principle with perfect clearness in a
+part of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:17-48. He states the need, and
+then shows in six cases how such an advance would work out. We shall take
+these up in their order. Matthew has introduced scattered sayings of Jesus
+which serve as corollaries, but which do not bear directly on the real
+course of the argument; for instance, Matthew 5:23-26; 29-30. In our
+quotations in this and the following days we shall confine ourselves to
+the main line of thought in order to concentrate attention on that.
+
+
+    Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came
+    not to destroy, but to fulfil.... For I say unto you, that except
+    your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes
+    and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of
+    heaven.—Matt. 5:17, 20.
+
+
+Apparently conservative Jews soon felt the spiritual freedom and force in
+the teachings of Jesus. He seemed to them to be attacking the sacred Law,
+the foundation of morality and religion. Jesus mentions the charge but
+denies it. His purpose was not destructive but constructive. He demanded
+not less righteousness but more. The lines of right living needed to be
+prolonged. The traditional standards were no longer adequate. A man might
+obey them and yet not be a good man. The scribes and Pharisees were the
+model church members of Judaism and experts in piety, yet they were not
+qualified to enter the Kingdom of God.
+
+_Are we also good people who are not good enough?_
+
+
+
+Fourth Day: The Sins of Hate
+
+
+    Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not
+    kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
+    but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother
+    shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his
+    brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever
+    shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of
+    fire.—Matt. 5:21, 22.
+
+
+The Law of Moses forbade murder; a man-slayer was amenable in the ordinary
+court. Was this an adequate expression of the sacredness of human life and
+personality? It never even scratched a man or woman who assaulted the soul
+of another with anger and curses. Jesus proposed that these sins be
+restandardized. Plain anger ought to be valued about as murder used to be.
+And if anybody went so far as to revile a brother and deny his moral or
+intellectual worth, the Supreme Court and Gehenna would be about right for
+him. The lawyers’ gauge of culpability can not get down to the subtler
+expressions of lovelessness which break the prime law of the Kingdom.
+
+_By what methods is contempt expressed in our own social life?_
+
+_How highly do we rate the moral value of self-respect?_
+
+
+
+Fifth Day: The Sins of Sex
+
+
+    Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
+    but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust
+    after her hath committed adultery with her already in his
+    heart....
+
+    It was said also, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give
+    her a writing of divorcement: but I say unto you, that every one
+    that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication,
+    maketh her an adulteress; and whosoever shall marry her when she
+    is put away committeth adultery.—Matt. 5:27, 28; 31, 32.
+
+
+These two cases deal with sex. The old law forbade adultery, the
+infringement of family life, and stopped there. Jesus goes back of the act
+to the lustful imaginations and the wandering eye, which may lack
+opportunity but which are the real spring of all uncleanness. He runs the
+line of ethical obligation farther back.
+
+The law of divorce (Deut. 24:1), especially as interpreted by the scribes,
+was very comfortable—for the male. He could divorce his wife for almost
+any cause. Her only protection was that a formal paper had to be given her
+which enabled her to marry again. As a woman’s economic and social
+standing in that age depended almost wholly on her family relations, she
+was at the mercy of the man. Jesus demanded more protection for her. To
+him the relation was indissoluble. The Mosaic provision for divorce was a
+concession to the low moral level of the people. The ideal was the “one
+man, one woman” provision of the Creator. (See Matt. 19:3-8). The
+disciples ruefully remarked that such a strengthening of the bond did not
+add to the attractiveness of marriage—for the male (19:10).
+
+Where do we draw the line between the rightful, natural desire of sex and
+lawless predatory lust?
+
+
+
+Sixth Day: The Sins of Words
+
+
+    Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou
+    shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine
+    oaths: but I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by the
+    heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is
+    the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of
+    the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, for thou
+    canst not make one hair white or black. But let your speech be,
+    Yea, yea; Nay, nay: and whatsoever is more than these is of the
+    evil one.—Matt. 5:33-37.
+
+
+Current morality had reached the point of insisting on truthfulness when a
+man was under oath. Solemnly to call God to witness a statement and yet to
+fool your neighbor by it, was downright wicked. But it was very handy. So
+they developed a joyful lot of casuistical distinctions as to which kind
+of oaths were binding and which didn’t count. See how Jesus ridiculed this
+(Matt. 23:16-22). Here he proposed that the obligation of veracity be
+extended to all statements. A truthful man needs no oaths to assure a
+doubting world that this time he is really telling what is so. Oaths are a
+device of the devil to limit the amount of truth in the world.
+
+How about oaths for legal purposes? Could they be dispensed with? Have
+they done more good or harm?
+
+
+
+Seventh Day: The Sins of Strife
+
+
+    Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for
+    a tooth: but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil: but
+    whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other
+    also. And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away thy
+    coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee
+    to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him that asketh thee, and
+    from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
+
+    Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and
+    hate thine enemy: 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. For if ye
+    love them that love you, what reward have ye? do not even the
+    publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do
+    ye more than others? do not even the Gentiles the same? Ye
+    therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is
+    perfect.—Matt. 5:38-48.
+
+
+The Law restricted the natural desire for revenge to the limit of a strict
+equivalent. If a man knocked out your tooth, you could knock out one for
+him, but not two teeth, nor all he had. Of course retaliation never heals
+a feud. Jesus proposes to limit revenge still farther and to retaliate
+only by acts of kindness. That is, in fact, the only way to end a quarrel
+completely and victoriously. It reestablishes fellowship and kills an
+enemy.
+
+The Law called for love for one’s neighbors; the scribes had added the
+permission to hate one’s enemies. Jesus raises the standards of good-will.
+The law of love applies to all. There is nothing great in loving those who
+love us. Anybody can do that. Heroic love begins where no love comes to
+meet it. Those who can win that triumph show the true family likeness of
+God, and are now living in his Kingdom.
+
+_What are our personal experiences as to the utility of revenge?_
+
+_What is the difference between the non-resistance which Jesus proposed,
+and cowardice?_
+
+_Is there such a thing in fact as loving your enemies?_
+
+
+
+Study for the Week
+
+
+I
+
+
+The Hebrew religion was an unfinished religion. That is one of the best
+proofs of its divine inspiration. The prophets had the forward look. Great
+things were yet to come. As one of the most daring expressed it, the old
+and hallowed covenant, made by God at the Exodus, would be superseded by a
+new and higher relation; God would write his law into the hearts of the
+people; the old drill in outward statutes would disappear, for all men
+would know God by an inward experience of forgiveness and love (Jeremiah
+31:31-34).
+
+Jesus not only shared this expectation of a new religious era, but set it
+in the center of his teaching. Religion to him was not static. He lived in
+a moving world. A new age was coming, and he would be the initiator of it.
+“From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of God suffereth
+violence, and men of violence take it by force.” John had been the
+greatest of the prophets; with him a new swift movement had begun; but
+something far greater was coming; even the least in the new age would have
+an advantage over John (Matt. 11:11-19).
+
+The popular conception expected the new age to come by divine miraculous
+interference simply. The Messiah would descend from heaven with angelic
+legions, expel the Romans, judge the nation, punish the apostate Jews, and
+then the new Jerusalem, which was already complete and waiting in heaven,
+would descend from above. That was the Utopia of Jewish apocalypticism.
+Jesus never eliminated the direct acts of God and the significance of
+divine catastrophes from his outlook. But in his parables taken from
+biological processes (see especially Matthew 13) he developed a conception
+of continuous and quiet growth, culminating at last in the judgment act of
+God. The Kingdom of God, he said, is like a farmer who sows his grain and
+lets the forces of nature work; he goes about his daily tasks, and all the
+time the tiny blades come up, the ear forms and gets heavy, and then comes
+the harvest (Mark 4:26-29). Jesus was working his way toward evolutionary
+conceptions. They were so new to his followers that he put them in parable
+form to avoid antagonism.
+
+Such a conception of the Kingdom brought it closer to human action. It was
+already at work; it was in one sense already present (Luke 17:20-21). It
+was possible then to help it along.
+
+The most obvious duty was for every man to clean up his own backyard and
+repent of his sins. Every one should approximate the life of the Kingdom
+by living now as he would expect to live then. But, as we have seen from
+his sayings, Jesus went far beyond this. He demanded an elevation of the
+accepted ethical standards. It was not simply a matter of erring and
+lagging individuals, but of the socialized norms of conduct. He had deep
+reverence and loyalty for the religion of his nation, and never told his
+followers to break with it. But he asserted boldly that the customary
+ethics of Judaism, based on the Decalogue and its interpretation by the
+Jewish theologians, was not good enough. It was good as far as it went,
+and he had no destructive criticism of it, but it needed to be “fulfilled”
+and to have its lines prolonged.
+
+We have studied the six sample instances which he offered in order to
+explain his principle of moral and social progress. In each case he
+accepts the law as it stood, but asks for more of the same thing, more
+respect for personality, more reverence for womanhood, more stability for
+the home, more truthfulness, more peacefulness, more love. Thus he
+combined continuity with progress, conservatism with radicalism.
+
+
+II
+
+
+The platform for ethical progress laid down in the Sermon on the Mount is
+a great platform. When Tolstoi first realized the social significance of
+these simple sentences, it acted as a revelation which changed his life.
+Even men who reject the supernatural claims of Christianity uncover before
+the Sermon on the Mount. Yet its fate is tragic. It has not been “damned
+with faint praise,” but made ineffective by universal praise. Its
+commandments are lifted so high that nobody feels under obligations to act
+on them. Only small sections of the Christian Church have taken the
+sayings on oaths, non-resistance, and love of enemies to mean what they
+say and to be obligatory. Yet all feel that the line of ethical and social
+advance must lie in the direction traced by Jesus, and if society could
+only climb out of the present pit of predatory selfishness and meanness to
+that level, it would be heaven.
+
+Do you and I believe in it? Do we believe that it is not enough to keep
+out of the spiritual hell and damnation of adultery, but that a clean mind
+would be the most efficient and cheerful mind? Do we believe that a man
+who forgives and keeps sweet is happier and safer than a man who always
+resents things and stirs the witches’ caldron of hate in his soul? If a
+man loved his enemy and turned the other cheek, would he be everybody’s
+door-mat or everybody’s temple of refuge?
+
+Suppose we mark for the present those parts which we are willing to accept
+as our own standards of action. If there are portions which do not seem
+practicable, let us post them in our minds as debatable propositions, as
+points to be tested by the experience of coming years, or as working
+hypotheses in the science of living.
+
+But whatever we may think of single points, let us stick to the leading
+thought of Jesus, that every advance toward the Kingdom of God, that is,
+toward the true social order, involves a raising of the ethical standards
+accepted by society. This is a principle of social progress which every
+leading intellect ought to know by heart.
+
+
+III
+
+
+When Jesus offered his six sample cases of ethical progress, he had no
+intention of exhausting the principle of advance which he laid down. There
+was more to say about the Jewish law. It is now for his followers to treat
+the inherited ethical conceptions of traditional Christianity with the
+same combination of reverence and courage with which he treated the Jewish
+law.
+
+From the beginning Christianity taught self-control and the mastery of the
+spirit over physical desires. It always condemned drunkenness. But ancient
+Christianity never demanded abstinence from fermented drink. With modern
+methods of manufacturing alcoholic drinks and modern capitalistic methods
+of pushing their sale, the danger has become more pressing. With modern
+scientific knowledge the physiological and social problems of drink have
+become clearer. Modern life demands an undrugged nervous system for quick
+and steady reactions. It was said of old time, “Thou shalt not get drunk”;
+but today the spirit of Christianity and modern life says, “Thou shalt not
+drink nor sell intoxicants at all.”
+
+In every case in which the interests of woman came before Jesus, he took
+her side. At that time woman was the suppressed half of humanity. The
+attitude of historic Christianity has been a mixture between his spirit
+and the spirit of the patriarchal family. Today Christianity is plainly
+prolonging the line of respect and spiritual valuation to the point of
+equality between men and women—and beyond.
+
+From the beginning an emancipating force resided in Christianity which was
+bound to register its effects in political life. But in an age of
+despotism it might have to confine its political morality to the duty of
+patient submission, and content itself with offering little sanctuaries of
+freedom to the oppressed in the Christian fraternities. Today, in the age
+of democracy, it has become immoral to endure private ownership of
+government. It is no longer a sufficient righteousness to live a good life
+in private. Christianity needs an ethic of public life.
+
+It was said of old “Thou shalt not commit murder.” It is said to us, “Ye
+shall not wear down life in the young by premature hard labor; nor let the
+fear of poverty freeze the fountain of life; and ye shall put a stop to
+war.”
+
+It was said of old, “Thou shalt not steal.” It is said to us, “Ye shall
+take no unearned gain from your fellows, but pay to society in productive
+labor what ye take from it in goods.”
+
+
+IV
+
+
+This matter of raising the moral standards of society is preeminently an
+affair of the young. They must do it or it will never be done. The Sermon
+on the Mount was spoken by a young man, and it moves with the impetuous
+virility of youth. The old are water-logged physically. They are mentally
+bound up with the institutions inside of which they have spent a lifetime,
+and they want to enjoy in peace the wealth and position they have
+attained. We shall be just the same forty years from now. But while we are
+young is the time to make a forward run with the flag of Christ, the
+banner of justice and love, and plant it on the heights yonder. We must
+not only be better men and women than we are now. We must leave a better
+world behind us when we are through with it. Whatever we affirm in our
+growing years will work out in some fashion in our years of maturity and
+power. If fifty thousand college men and women a year would range
+themselves alongside of Jesus Christ, look at our present world as
+open-eyed as he looked at his world, see where the social standards of
+conduct are in contradiction with his spirit and with modern need, and
+work to raise them, the world would feel the effect in ten years. And
+those who would strive in that way would live by faith in the higher
+commonwealth of God and have some of its nobility of spirit.
+
+
+
+Suggestions for Thought and Discussion
+
+
+I. _Living Up to the Old Standards_
+
+1. What would happen if a college community began to live up to the
+standards of work and honor which all acknowledge?
+
+2. Does human nature welcome a moral advance?
+
+II. _The Ethical Program of Jesus_
+
+1. What advance does Jesus’ program make necessary? State the main
+principle in Matt. 5:17-48, and the six applications made by Jesus
+himself. How was this principle connected with his idea of the Kingdom?
+
+2. Can we agree with the principle? How far can we go with Jesus in his
+application?
+
+3. Would a man get more or less satisfaction out of life if he obeyed
+these maxims in private life?
+
+4. How far could a man hold his own if he obeyed them in a reasonable way
+in business or in public life? If a man loved his enemies and turned the
+other cheek, would he be everybody’s doormat or everybody’s friend and
+refuge?
+
+III. _Raising the Standards Today_
+
+1. On what ethical questions have we come to the point where the moral
+standards accepted by society can be and must be raised?
+
+2. If you could purchase one single advance by your life, what would you
+choose?
+
+3. How does an expansion of the area of full social obligation operate to
+raise the standards of conduct? Who is my neighbor, and who is not?
+
+IV. _For Special Discussion_
+
+1. A new intellectual age has opened with the rise of modern science; what
+new moral standards should be the result of our new knowledge?
+
+2. A new economic age opened with the invention of power machinery and the
+social organization of labor; what new moral standards should have been
+the result of the new wealth of civilization?
+
+3. A new political era opened with the rise of democracy; what new moral
+standards should be achieved in the life of States and cities?
+
+4. A new era began in world-wide relations with the beginning of
+steam-carried commerce; what new standards are needed for international
+and inter-racial relations?
+
+
+
+
+
+PART III. THE RECALCITRANT SOCIAL FORCES
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII. Leadership For Service
+
+
+_Ambition Must Get Its Satisfaction by Serving Humanity_
+
+The Kingdom of God was an ideal. If it was to be turned into concrete
+realities, it would encounter the recalcitrant and stubborn instincts of
+human nature and the conservative forces of society. Where did Jesus
+locate the obstacles? At what points was he aware of resistance? Did he
+realize the force of ambition and the love of power? Did he gauge the pull
+of the property instinct? Did he feel religion as a help or a hindrance in
+realizing the Kingdom of God? These questions we shall follow up in three
+lessons.
+
+DAILY READINGS
+
+
+
+First Day: The Trustee
+
+
+    And Peter said, Lord, speakest thou this parable unto us, or even
+    unto all? And the Lord said, Who then is the faithful and wise
+    steward, whom his lord shall set over his household, to give them
+    their portion of food in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom
+    his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto
+    you, that he will set him over all that he hath. But if that
+    servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and
+    shall begin to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to
+    eat and drink, and to be drunken; the lord of that servant shall
+    come in a day when he expecteth not, and in an hour when he
+    knoweth not, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint his portion
+    with the unfaithful. And that servant, who knew his lord’s will,
+    and made not ready, nor did according to his will, shall be beaten
+    with many stripes; but he that knew not, and did things worthy of
+    stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. And to whomsoever much
+    is given, of him shall much be required: and to whom they commit
+    much, of him will they ask the more.—Luke 12:41-48.
+
+
+The preceding verses (v. 35-40) dealt with the faithfulness of the rank
+and file; this parable deals with the responsibility of official position
+and sketches the alternative of selfish and serviceable leadership. The
+head steward had charge of a great estate, directing the labor of workmen
+and maids, dealing out supplies, and controlling the welfare and happiness
+of all. The absence of the master made his authority for the time
+absolute. Would he use it for the good of all? If so, wider scope and
+higher honor would come to him. Or would he become intoxicated with power,
+take things easy, boss his fellow-servants around, and become a petty
+tyrant? If so, he would get what was coming to him. Every man’s duty is
+measured by his knowledge and by his power. If, therefore, a man rises to
+leadership, and finds his elbow-room enlarging, let him stiffen his sense
+of duty to correspond, or there will be trouble. Degeneration by power is
+written all over history.
+
+The functions of a head steward belong to the age of great landowners. How
+would you modernize this parable to express the same ideas?
+
+
+
+Second Day: Preparing for the Use of Power
+
+
+    Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be
+    tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty
+    nights, he afterward hungered. And the tempter came and said unto
+    him, If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become
+    bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live
+    by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth
+    of God. Then the devil taketh him into the holy city; and he set
+    him on the pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou art
+    the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written,
+
+    He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and,
+
+    On their hands they shall bear thee up,
+    Lest haply thou dash thy foot against a stone.
+
+    Jesus said unto him, Again it is written, Thou shalt not make
+    trial of the Lord thy God. Again, the devil taketh him unto an
+    exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the
+    world, and the glory of them; and he said unto him, All these
+    things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
+    Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is
+    written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt
+    thou serve.—Matt.4:1-10.
+
+
+The baptism of Jesus was an act of dedication to the coming reign of God,
+and it brought him a deep spiritual experience. He came out of it with the
+sense of an immediate mission, of being called to a supreme leadership,
+and with the consciousness of power to correspond with his destiny. At
+once he confronted the question: How would he employ his Messianic power?
+By what means would he obtain leadership? In the desert his mind was
+concentrated on these problems. This story displays the temptations of a
+leader, and sums up his settlement on three points: first, he realized
+that he must not swerve aside for personal gratification, but must serve
+the will of God only; second, he must not debase his power by playing for
+popularity by means of spectacular, miraculous display; third, he must not
+win his leadership by methods that would mortgage him to the prince of
+this world, for instance by the use of force.
+
+How would these points apply to a young man seeking political office,
+intellectual eminence, or artistic achievement?
+
+_Have we ever had a time of religious concentration to consider the
+problems of our future leadership?_
+
+
+
+Third Day: The New Principle of Leadership
+
+
+    Then came to him the mother of the sons of Zebedee with her sons,
+    worshipping him, and asking a certain thing of him. And he said
+    unto her, What wouldest thou? She saith unto him, Command that
+    these my two sons may sit, one on thy right hand, and one on thy
+    left hand, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know
+    not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I am about to
+    drink? They say unto him, We are able. He saith unto them, My cup
+    indeed ye shall drink: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left
+    hand, is not mine to give; but it is for them for whom it hath
+    been prepared of my Father. And when the ten heard it, they were
+    moved with indignation concerning the two brethren. But Jesus
+    called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the rulers of the
+    Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise
+    authority over them. Not so shall it be among you: but whosoever
+    would become great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever
+    would be first among you shall be your servant: even as the Son of
+    man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give
+    his life a ransom for many.—Matt. 20:20-28.
+
+
+This passage is fundamental for our subject. It is the clearest
+formulation of the social principle involved in leadership. It contrasts
+two opposite types of leadership throughout human history. Salome and her
+sons thought Jesus was going to Jerusalem to inaugurate his Kingdom. They
+asked for an advance pledge assuring them of the chief place. Jesus
+replied that that place would not go by favoritism. There is a price to be
+paid for leadership in his reign, and God alone will allot the final
+honors. He felt in their request a relapse into conceptions that he
+detested. In all political organizations he saw the tyrannical use of
+power over the people. There must be an end of that in the new social
+order. Ambition must seek its satisfaction by distinguished service, and
+only extra-hazardous service shall win honor. He himself proposed to be a
+leader of that new type, and to give his life as a ransom for the
+emancipation of the people.
+
+Our Master here offers each of us the conscious choice between two
+principles of action. _Have we made our choice?_
+
+He offers a norm for estimating the real value of men in public life.
+_Have we ever tried to apply it?_
+
+
+
+Fourth Day: The History of a Governing Class
+
+
+    Hear another parable: There was a man that was a householder, who
+    planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a
+    winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen,
+    and went into another country. And when the season of the fruits
+    drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, to receive his
+    fruits. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and
+    killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants
+    more than the first: and they did unto them in like manner. But
+    afterward he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence
+    my son. But the husbandmen, when they saw the son, said among
+    themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and take his
+    inheritance. And they took him, and cast him forth out of the
+    vineyard, and killed him. When therefore the lord of the vineyard
+    shall come, what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto
+    him, He will miserably destroy those miserable men, and will let
+    out the vineyard unto other husbandmen, who shall render him the
+    fruits in their seasons. Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read
+    in the scriptures,
+
+    The stone which the builders rejected,
+    The same was made the head of the corner;
+    This was from the Lord,
+
+    And it is marvellous in our eyes? Therefore say I unto you, The
+    kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to
+    a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And he that falleth on
+    this stone shall be broken to pieces: but on whomsoever it shall
+    fall, it will scatter him as dust. And when the chief priests and
+    the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of
+    them. And when they sought to lay hold on him, they feared the
+    multitudes, because they took him for a prophet.—Matt. 21:33-46.
+
+
+A delegation of the chief priests, lawyers, and elders challenged the
+authority of Jesus to act as he did. He replied by challenging their
+authority to act as they did. The vineyard parable sums up his view of the
+moral history of the governing class in his nation. It was like a group of
+men who had rented a vineyard on shares, but took advantage of the owner’s
+absence to embezzle his share, insolently to beat up his representatives,
+and to put themselves in possession of the farm. Every demand of God for
+righteousness in the history of Israel had been resisted by those in
+power. What title, then, did they have to the rights they claimed? Unless
+they fulfilled the function of true leaders, why should they not be put
+out of power and brought to justice? In this passage, then, we have a
+characterization of leaders who take the profits and honors of leadership,
+without performing its higher duties to God and humanity.
+
+Is there any connection between this challenge of Jesus, and the
+functional theories of society and the evolutionary conception of history?
+
+
+
+Fifth Day: An Indictment of a Governing Class
+
+
+    Then spake Jesus to the multitudes and to his disciples, saying,
+    The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, all things
+    therefore whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe: but do
+    not ye after their works; for they say, and do not. Yea, they bind
+    heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s
+    shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their
+    finger. But all their works they do to be seen of men: for they
+    make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their
+    garments, and love the chief place at feasts, and the chief seats
+    in the synagogues, and the salutations in the marketplaces, and to
+    be called of men, Rabbi. But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is
+    your teacher, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father
+    on the earth: for one is your Father, even he who is in heaven.
+    Neither be ye called masters: for one is your master, even the
+    Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
+    And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled; and whosoever
+    shall humble himself shall be exalted.
+
+    But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye
+    shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter not in
+    yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to
+    enter.—Matt. 23:1-13.
+
+
+The invective against the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 23) is a
+characterization of selfish leadership in the field of religion. Its
+fundamental elements have remained the same in all religions and through
+all history: fine talk and little action; religion turned into a law and a
+burden, in order to hold the people in obedience to the interests of the
+leaders; pride and ambition exploiting religion to get honors. Jesus tells
+the people to revolt against the titles in which this domination had found
+decorative satisfaction. He demands democracy, humility, brotherliness.
+
+Does this description justly apply to the Christian ministry today, or has
+there been a great historical change by which that profession has become a
+profession of service?
+
+Where in modern social life would the invective of Jesus against selfish
+leadership still be true?
+
+
+
+Sixth Day: The Lost Leader
+
+
+    And in these days Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren, and
+    said (and there was a multitude of persons gathered together,
+    about a hundred and twenty), Brethren, it was needful that the
+    scripture should be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spake before
+    by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who was guide to them that
+    took Jesus. For he was numbered among us, and received his portion
+    in this ministry. (Now this man obtained a field with the reward
+    of his iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the
+    midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all
+    the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch that in their language that
+    field was called Akeldama, that is, The field of blood.) For it is
+    written in the book of Psalms,
+
+    Let his habitation be made desolate,
+    And let no man dwell therein:
+
+    and,
+
+    His office let another take.—Acts 1:15-20.
+
+
+The character and motives of Judas remain an unsolved riddle. The Gospels
+leave no doubt that money played a part with him. But could a man whom
+Jesus selected and trusted be actuated by so sordid a motive alone? Was he
+perhaps embittered because he had staked his ambition on the Galilean
+Messiah and Jesus failed to act the part assigned to him? Was he hoping to
+force him to revolutionary action? We may be sure that Judas was no
+slinking thief only. In Rubens’ picture of the Last Supper at Milano Judas
+has a strong and noble face, but troubled and restless eyes, telling of a
+hurt soul. The other disciples were deeply impressed by his betrayal of
+the Master and of the common cause. Judas is the type of the lost leader.
+“Just for a handful of silver he left us, just for a ribbon to stick in
+his coat.” Some leaders blunder and learn better; some sag to lower levels
+but plod on; some sell out. Judas could not bear to live. Read James
+Russell Lowell’s “Extreme Unction.”
+
+Have you known of cases today of men who have abandoned or betrayed a
+cause to get office or income? Any who abandon humanity itself to get
+thirty pieces for themselves?
+
+
+
+Seventh Day: The New Order of Leaders
+
+
+    And Jesus went about all the cities and the villages, teaching in
+    their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and
+    healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness. But when
+    he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them,
+    because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a
+    shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest indeed is
+    plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of
+    the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest.
+
+    And he called unto him his twelve disciples, and gave them
+    authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all
+    manner of disease and all manner of sickness.
+
+    Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: The first, Simon,
+    who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of
+    Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas,
+    and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphæus, and Thaddæus;
+    Simon the Cananæan, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed
+    him.—Matt. 9:35-10:4.
+
+
+We have studied part of this passage before as an expression of the social
+feeling of Jesus. Note now that it was their leaderless condition which
+impressed him. Plenty of priests, lawyers, and experts on the Bible, but
+no friendly shepherds for the people. When he created the apostolate, he
+initiated a new order of leadership, a band of men who would serve and not
+exploit. Read the instructions he gave them (Chap. 10), and see how
+carefully he fences out selfish gain. Service versus exploitation, that is
+one of the tests of all who claim leadership in his name. We realize that
+in the field of religion. But why should not the same test be made in
+professional, political, and business life? Predatory action may not be as
+glaringly shameful there, but is it any the more moral?
+
+_Now what about you and me?_
+
+
+
+Study for the Week
+
+
+I
+
+
+The desire to lead and excel is natural and right. Because men are
+gregarious, they need leadership for their social groups, and social
+progress depends largely on securing adequate leaders. Those who have the
+natural gifts for leadership—and also those who merely think they
+have—usually have a keen desire for its satisfactions. College life is a
+miniature world of criss-cross ambitions and of contrivances for trying
+out leaders.
+
+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
+minutiæ 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.
+
+We have learned to read the sordid trail of the drink and vice traffic in
+American communities. There is another kind of organized evil, even more
+ancient, pervasive, and deadly, which few understand, though it has left a
+trail sufficiently terrible.
+
+Wherever we look in the history of the older nations, we see an alignment
+of two fundamental classes. The one is born to toil, stunted by toil, and
+gets its class characteristics by toil. The other is characterized by the
+pleasures and arts of leisure, is physically and mentally developed by
+leisure, and proud and jealous of its leisure. This class is always
+class-conscious; its groups, however antagonistic, always stand together
+against the class of toil. Its combination of leisure and wealth is
+conditioned on the power of taking tribute from the labor of many. In
+order to do this with safety, it must control political power, the
+military outfit, the power of making, interpreting and executing the laws,
+and the forces forming public opinion.
+
+Before the advent of industrialism and political democracy, it secured its
+income by controlling the land and the government of nations; and the
+effects of its control can be read in the condition of the rural
+population of Russia, Austria, Eastern Germany, Italy, France before the
+Revolution, England, and especially Ireland. The development of industry
+has changed the problem of economic and political control; but the
+essentials remain, as we can see in the condition of industrial
+communities and the history of labor legislation.
+
+The fundamental sin of all dominant classes has been the taking of
+unearned incomes. Political oppression has always been a corollary of
+economic parasitism, a means to an end. The combination of the two
+constitutes the largest and most continuous form of organized evil in
+human history.
+
+Jesus used the illustration of pegs maliciously driven into the path to
+make men stumble and fall. It would require some illustration drawn from
+modern machinery to express the wholesale prostration of bodies and souls
+where covetousness has secured continuous power and has been able to get
+in its full work. Anyone who has ever looked with human understanding at
+the undersized and stupid peasants of countries ruled by their landlord
+class, or at the sordid homes and pleasures of miners or industrial
+workers where some corporation feared neither God nor the law, ought to
+get a comprehension of the power of evil that has rested like an iron yoke
+on humanity.
+
+We think most readily of the children of the poor as a product of
+exploitation; underfed and overstimulated, cut off from the clean
+pleasures of nature, often tainted with vice before knowledge has come,
+and urged along by the appetites and cruel selfishness of older persons,
+they are a standing accusation against society itself.(5) Jesus would have
+felt that the children of the rich are an even worse product of
+exploitation than the poor. When “society” plays, it burns up the labor of
+thousands like fireworks. The only possible justification for the
+aggregations of wealth is that the rich are to act as the trustees and
+directors of the wealth of society; but their children—except in
+conspicuous and fine exceptions—are put out of contact with the people
+whom they must know if they are to serve them, so that it takes heroic
+effort on the part of noble exceptions to get in contact with the people
+once more, and to discover how they live. In all nations the atmosphere of
+the aristocratic groups drugs the sense of obligation, and possesses the
+mind with the notion that the life and labor of men are made to play
+tennis with. The existence of great permanent groups, feeding but not
+producing, dominating and directing the life of whole nations according to
+their own needs, may well seem a supreme proof of the power of evil in
+humanity.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+If evil is socialized, salvation must be socialized. The organization of
+the Christian Church is a recognition of the social factor in salvation.
+It is not enough to have God, and Christ, and the Bible. A group is
+needed, organized on Christian principles, and expressing the Christian
+spirit, which will assimilate the individual and gradually make him over
+into a citizen of the Kingdom of God. Salvation will rarely come to anyone
+without the mediation of some individual or group which already has
+salvation. It may be very small and simple. “Where two or three are
+gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” That saying
+recognizes that an additional force is given to religion by its embodiment
+in a group of believers. Professor Royce has recently reasserted in modern
+terms the old doctrine that “there is no salvation outside of the Church,”
+calling the Church “the beloved community.” Of course the question is how
+intensively Christian the Church can make its members. That will depend on
+the question how Christian the Church itself is, and there’s the rub.
+
+The Church is the permanent social factor in salvation. But it has cause
+to realize that many social forces outside its immediate organization must
+be used, if the entire community is to be christianized.
+
+In the earliest centuries Christianity was practically limited to the life
+within the Church. Being surrounded by a hostile social order, and
+compelled to fence off its members, it created a little duplicate social
+order within the churches where it sought to realize the distinctively
+Christian social life. Its influence there was necessarily restricted
+mainly to individual morality, family life, and neighborly intercourse,
+and here it did fundamental work in raising the moral standards. On the
+other hand, it failed to reorganize industry, property, and the State.
+Even if Christians had had an intelligent social and political outlook,
+any interference with the Roman Empire by the low-class adherents of a
+forbidden religion was out of the question. When the Church was recognized
+and favored under Constantine and his successors, it had lost its
+democratic composition and spirit, and the persons who controlled it were
+the same sort of men who controlled the State.
+
+The early age of the Church has had a profound influence in fixing the
+ideals and aims of later times. The compulsory seclusion and confinement
+of the age of persecution are supposed to mark the mission of the Church.
+As long as the social life in our country was simple and rural, the
+churches, when well led, were able to control the moral life of entire
+communities. But as social organization became complex and the solidarity
+of neighborhood life was left behind, the situation got beyond the
+institutional influence of the churches. Evidently the fighting energies
+of Christianity will have to make their attack on broader lines, and
+utilize the scientific knowledge of society, which is now for the first
+time at the command of religion, and the forces set free by political and
+social democracy. We can not restrict the modern conflict with evil to the
+defensive tactics of a wholly different age. Wherever organized evil
+opposes the advance of the Kingdom of God, there is the battle-front.
+Wherever there is any saving to be done, Christianity ought to be in it.
+The intensive economic and sociological studies of the present generation
+of college students are a preparation for this larger warfare with evil.
+These studies will receive their moral dignity and religious consecration
+when they are put at the service of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.
+
+
+
+Suggestions for Thought and Discussion
+
+
+I. _The Natural Drift_
+
+1. If left alone, which way do we tend? Does a normal and sound individual
+need spiritual reinforcement to live a good life?
+
+2. How do you account for the fact that the noblest movements are so
+easily debased?
+
+II. _Jesus and Human Sin_
+
+1. Did Jesus take a friendly or a gloomy view of human nature? How did the
+fact of sin in humanity impress him?
+
+2. Why did he condemn so sternly those who caused the weak to stumble?
+Estimate the relative force of the natural weakness of human nature, and
+of the pressure of socialized evil, when individuals go wrong.
+
+3. Do you agree with the exposition in the Daily Reading for the Fourth
+Day? Do men want to be let alone? Is this an evidence of sinful tendency?
+
+4. What personal experiences of Jesus prompted the parable of the tares?
+Was the conception of Satan in Jewish religion of individual or social
+origin? When did it have political significance?
+
+III. _The Irrepressible Conflict_
+
+1. Why did Jesus foresee an inevitable conflict if the Kingdom of God was
+to come? Has history borne him out?
+
+2. Does mystical religion involve a man in conflict? Does ascetic
+religion? Which books him for more conflict with social evil—a life set on
+the Kingdom of God on earth, or a faith set on the life to come?
+
+3. What form does the conflict with evil take in our personal life? What
+reinforcement does the Christian religion as a spiritual faith offer us?
+What personal experience have we of its failure or its effectiveness?
+
+4. What is meant by evil being socialized? In what ways does this increase
+the ability of evil to defend and propagate itself?
+
+5. What are the most dangerous forms of organized evil today? How do they
+work?
+
+6. What are the most disastrous “stumbling blocks” today for working
+people? For business men? For students?
+
+7. The Church sings many militant hymns. Is the Church as a whole a
+fighting force today?
+
+IV. _For Special Discussion_
+
+1. How should an individual go about it to fight concrete and socialized
+evils in a community?
+
+2. How can a church get into the fight? Should the Church go into
+politics? Why, or why not?
+
+3. Would Christianity be just as influential as a social power of
+salvation if the Christian Church did not exist?
+
+4. Will the fight against evil ever be won? If not, is it worth fighting?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI. The Cross As A Social Principle
+
+
+_Social Redemption is Wrought by Vicarious Suffering_
+
+DAILY READINGS
+
+
+
+First Day: The Prophetic Succession
+
+
+    And he began to speak unto them in parables. A man planted a
+    vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a pit for the
+    winepress, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and
+    went into another country. And at the season he sent to the
+    husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of
+    the fruits of the vineyard. And they took him, and beat him, and
+    sent him away empty. And again he sent unto them another servant;
+    and him they wounded in the head, and handled shamefully. And he
+    sent another; and him they killed: and many others; beating some,
+    and killing some. He had yet one, a beloved son: he sent him last
+    unto them, saying, They will reverence my son. But those
+    husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us
+    kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And they took him,
+    and killed him, and cast him forth out of the vineyard. What
+    therefore will the lord of the vineyard do? he will come and
+    destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto
+    others.—Mark 12:1-9.
+
+
+The vineyard parable was meant as an epitome of Jewish history. By the
+servants who came to summon the nation to obedience, Jesus meant the
+prophets. The history of the Hebrew people was marked by a unique
+succession of men who had experienced God, who lived in the consciousness
+of the Eternal, who judged the national life by the standard of divine
+righteousness, and who spoke to their generation as representatives of
+God.(6) The spirit of these men and the indirect permanent influence they
+gained in their nation give the Old Testament its incomparable power to
+impel and inspire us. They were the moving force in the spiritual progress
+of their nation. Yet Jesus here sketches their fate as one of suffering
+and rejection.
+
+Have other nations had a succession of men corresponding to the Hebrew
+prophets?
+
+Are there any in our own national history?
+
+
+
+Second Day: The Suffering Servant of Jehovah
+
+
+    Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we
+    did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was
+    wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities;
+    the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes
+    we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned
+    every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on him the
+    iniquity of us all.
+
+    He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he opened not his
+    mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that
+    before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. By
+    oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his
+    generation, who among them considered that he was cut off out of
+    the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom
+    the stroke was due?—Isaiah 53:4-8.
+
+
+In the latter part of Isaiah are a number of sections describing the
+character and mission of “the servant of Jehovah.” Whom did the writer
+mean? A single great personality? The suffering and exiled Hebrew nation?
+A godly and inspired group of prophets within the nation? The Christian
+Church has always seen in this servant of Jehovah a striking prophecy of
+Christ. The fact that the interpretation has long been in question
+indicates that the characteristics of the servant of Jehovah can be traced
+in varying degrees in the nation, in the prophetic order, in single
+prophets, and preeminently in the great culminating figure of all
+prophethood. Isaiah 53 describes the servant of Jehovah as rejected and
+despised, misunderstood, bearing the transgressions and chastisement of
+all. It is the first great formulation of the fact of vicarious suffering
+in humanity.
+
+Why and how can the sins of a group fall on one?
+
+
+
+Third Day: A Contemporary Prophet
+
+
+    And as these went their way, Jesus began to say unto the
+    multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness
+    to behold? a reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out to
+    see? a man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft
+    raiment are in kings’ houses. But wherefore went ye out? to see a
+    prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet. This
+    is he, of whom it is written,
+
+    Behold, I send my messenger before thy face,
+    Who shall prepare thy way before thee....
+
+    But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto
+    children sitting in the marketplaces, who call unto their fellows
+    and say, We piped unto you, and ye did not dance; we wailed, and
+    ye did not mourn.
+
+    For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a
+    demon. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say,
+    Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans
+    and sinners! And wisdom is justified by her works.—Matt. 11:7-10;
+    16-19.
+
+
+To Jesus prophetism was not merely an historic fact, but a living reality.
+He believed in present-day inspiration. He and his contemporaries had seen
+one great prophet, fearless, heroic, with all the marks of the type, a
+messenger of God inaugurating a new era of spiritual ferment (vs. 12, 13).
+But John had to bear the prophet’s lot. He was then in prison for the
+crime of telling a king the truth, and was soon to die to please a
+vindictive woman. The people, too, had wagged their heads over him. Like
+pouting children on the public square, who “won’t play,” whether the game
+proposed is a wedding or a funeral, the people had criticized John for
+being a gloomy ascetic, and found fault with Jesus for his shocking
+cheerfulness. There was no way of suiting them, and no way of making them
+take the call of God to heart. Long before electricity was invented, human
+nature knew all about interposing nonconductors between itself and the
+truth.
+
+_Have we ever noticed students interposing a general criticism between
+themselves and a particular obligation?_
+
+Can it be that one of the uses of a higher education is to furnish greater
+facility in fuddling inconvenient truth?
+
+
+
+Fourth Day: Looking Forward to the Cross
+
+
+    And it came to pass, when the days were well-nigh come that he
+    should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to
+    Jerusalem.—Luke 9:51.
+
+    In that very hour there came certain Pharisees, saying to him, Get
+    thee out, and go hence: for Herod would fain kill thee. And he
+    said unto them, Go and say to that fox, Behold, I cast out demons
+    and perform cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I am
+    perfected. Nevertheless I must go on my way to-day and to-morrow
+    and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet perish out
+    of Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets,
+    and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have
+    gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her own
+    brood under her wings, and ye would not!—Luke 13:31-34.
+
+
+Jesus early knew that the decision was going against him. He saw the cross
+on the horizon of his life long before others saw it. Painters have
+pictured him in his father’s carpenter shop, with tools on his shoulder,
+gazing down at his shadow shaped like a cross. He accepted death
+consciously and “stedfastly set his face to go up to Jerusalem,” though he
+knew what was awaiting him. Jerusalem had acquired a sad preeminence as
+the place where the struggles between the prophets and the heads of the
+nation were settled. He saw his own death as part of the prophetic
+succession. He went to it, not as a driven slave, but as a free spirit.
+That jackal of a king, Herod, could not scare him out of Galilee. His time
+was in his Father’s hand. Today, tomorrow, and the day following, he would
+work, and then he would be perfected.
+
+
+
+Fifth Day: New Prophets to Follow
+
+
+    Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye build the
+    sepulchres of the prophets, and garnish the tombs of the
+    righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we
+    should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the
+    prophets. Wherefore ye witness to yourselves, that ye are sons of
+    them that slew the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your
+    fathers. Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape
+    the judgment of hell? Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets,
+    and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify;
+    and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and
+    persecute from city to city: that upon you may come all the
+    righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the
+    righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye
+    slew between the sanctuary and the altar. Verily I say unto you,
+    All these things shall come upon this generation.—Matt. 23:29-36.
+
+
+This is the climax of the great invective against the religious leaders of
+the nation. The last count in the indictment is that they were about to
+complete the record of their fathers by rejecting and persecuting the
+prophets of their generation. The fact had sunk into the public mind that
+former generations had been guilty of this. “If we had been in the days of
+our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood of
+the prophets.” Jesus promises to make a test of this and foretells that
+they will go the old way and so declare their spiritual solidarity with
+the sins of the past. We see here that he thought of his disciples as
+moving in the prophetic succession.
+
+
+    “Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand,
+    Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against the
+                land?”
+
+    “Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed
+                by.”
+
+
+
+Sixth Day: The Cross for All
+
+
+    From that time began Jesus to show unto his disciples, that he
+    must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and
+    chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be
+    raised up. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be
+    it far from thee, Lord: this shall never be unto thee. But he
+    turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art a
+    stumbling-block unto me: for thou mindest not the things of God,
+    but the things of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any
+    man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his
+    cross, and follow me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose
+    it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find
+    it.—Matt. 16:21-25.
+
+
+When the tide was turning against Jesus, he tested the attitude of the
+inner circles of his disciples, and drew from Peter on behalf of all a
+ringing declaration of faith and loyalty (vs. 13-16). “From that time”
+Jesus began to share with them his outlook toward death. Peter expressed
+the shock which all felt and protested against the possibility. The
+vehemence with which Jesus repelled Peter’s suggestion gives us a glimpse
+of the inner struggles in his mind, of which we get a fuller revelation in
+his prayer in Gethsemane. But instead of receding from his prediction of
+the cross, he expanded it by laying the obligation of prophetic suffering
+on all his disciples. Their adjustment toward that destiny would at the
+same time be the settlement of their own salvation. When the Kingdom of
+God is at stake, a man saves his life by losing it and loses his life by
+saving it, and the loss of his higher self can not be offset by any amount
+of external gain.
+
+_Looking ahead to the profession which we expect to enter, where do we
+foresee the possibility of losing our lives by trying to save them, or of
+saving our lives by apparently losing them?_
+
+
+
+Seventh Day: The Consolations of the Prophet
+
+
+    Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye
+    therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of
+    men: for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their
+    synagogues they will scourge you; yea and before governors and
+    kings shall ye be brought for my sake, for a testimony to them and
+    to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up be not anxious how
+    or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that hour
+    what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit
+    of your Father that speaketh in you.—Matt. 10:16-20.
+
+    Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read the scriptures,
+
+    The stone which the builders rejected,
+    The same was made the head of the corner;
+    This was from the Lord,
+    And it is marvellous in our eyes?—Matt. 21:42.
+
+    Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’
+    sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men
+    shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil
+    against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad:
+    for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the
+    prophets that were before you.—Matt. 5:10-12.
+
+
+These three passages express three great consolations for those who share
+prophetic opposition with Christ. They will have to face great odds;
+numbers and weight will be against them. But there will be a quiet voice
+within to prompt them and sustain them: “It is not ye that speak, but the
+Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.”
+
+The second consolation is that the higher court will reverse the verdict
+of the lower. The stonemasons may look a stone over and conclude that it
+will not fit into the building; but the architect may have reserved that
+stone for the head of the corner. The prophet rarely lives to see his own
+historical vindication, but faith knows it is inevitable.
+
+The third consolation is contained in the last of the Beatitudes. Those
+who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake may well rejoice for the
+company they are in, for the Leader whose name they bear, and for the
+Kingdom of God which is now and ever shall be their heritage.
+
+Imagine two classmates in the same profession, reaching the end of their
+career. The one has attained success, wealth, eminence, together with a
+reputation of never having done a courageous and self-sacrificing action,
+and with the consciousness that his soul has grown small as he has grown
+old. The other has been a fighter for the right, a conspicuous man, but
+has kept out of office, tasting poverty and opposition with his family,
+yet with the consciousness that he has had the salt of the earth for his
+friends and that he has put in some mighty good licks for righteousness.
+_Which would we rather be?_
+
+
+
+Study for the Week
+
+
+Christian men have differed widely in interpreting the significance of
+Christ’s suffering and death, but all have agreed that the cross was the
+effective culmination of his work and the key which unlocks the meaning of
+his whole life. The Church has always felt that the death of Christ was an
+event of eternal importance for the salvation of mankind, unique and
+without a parallel. It has an almost inexhaustible many-sidedness. We are
+examining here but one aspect. We have seen in the passages studied this
+week that Jesus himself linked his own suffering and rejection with the
+fate of the prophets who were before him and with the fate of his
+disciples who would come after him. He saw a red line running through
+history, and his own life and death were part of it. He himself
+generalized the social value of his peculiar experience, and taught us to
+see the cross as a great social principle of the Kingdom of God. He saw
+his death as the highest demonstration of a permanent law of human life.
+
+
+I
+
+
+Evil is socialized, institutionalized, and militant. The Kingdom of God
+and its higher laws can displace it only by conflict. “Truth forever on
+the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.” This clash involves suffering.
+This suffering will fall most heavily on those who most completely embody
+the spirit and ideas of the Kingdom, and who have the necessary boldness
+to make the fight.
+
+In most men the eternal moral conflict gets only confused understanding.
+Sometimes they are aroused by sentimental pity or indignation, but soon
+tire again. If their own interests are affected they fight well. But there
+are men and women whose minds have been made so sensitive by personal
+experiences or so cleansed by right education and by the spirit of God
+that they take hold of the moral issues with a really adequate
+understanding. Living somehow on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Heaven,
+they have learned to think and feel according to its higher ways, and when
+they turn toward things as they now are, of course there is a collision;
+not this time a collision of interests, but a clash of principles, of
+justice with wrong, of truth with crafty subterfuges, or of solidarity
+with predatory selfishness.
+
+The life and fate of these individuals anticipates the issues of history.
+This is the prophetic quality of their lives. Working out the moral and
+intellectual problems in their minds before the masses have realized them,
+they become the natural leaders in the fight, clarify the minds of others,
+and thus become, not only forerunners, but invaluable personal factors in
+the moral progress of the race. “The single living spirits are the
+effective units in shaping history; all common tendencies working toward
+realization must first be condensed as personal forces in such minds, and
+then by interaction between them work their way to general recognition”
+(Lotze). Lowell’s “Present Crisis” is perhaps the most powerful poetical
+expression of the prophetic function in history.
+
+
+    “Count me o’er earth’s chosen heroes—they were souls that stood
+                alone,
+    While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,
+    Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline
+    To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,
+    By one man’s plain truth to manhood and to God’s supreme design.
+
+    "By the light of burning heretics Christ’s bleeding feet I track,
+    Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back,
+    And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned
+    One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath
+                burned
+    Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven
+                upturned.”
+
+
+II
+
+
+During the centuries when the Church was herself in need of redemption and
+her purification was resisted by the dominant ecclesiastical interests,
+such prophetic spirits as Arnold of Brescia, Wycliffe, Huss, and
+Savonarola were most frequently found battling for the freedom of the
+Church from the despotic grafters inside and outside of the hierarchy, and
+for the purity of the gospel. The Church was a chief part of the social
+order, and the reform of the Church was the preeminent social problem.
+Today the Church is on the whole free from graft, and as openminded as the
+state of public intelligence permits it to be. Therefore the prophet minds
+are now set free to fight for the freedom of the people in political
+government and for the substitution of cooperation for predatory methods
+in industry, and the clash is most felt on that field.
+
+The law of prophetic suffering holds true as much as ever. Probably no
+group of men have ever undertaken to cleanse a city of profit-making vice
+without being made to suffer for it. In the last thirty years this country
+has watched eminent men in public life in various great cities making a
+sincere drive to break the grip of a grafting police machine, or of a
+political clique, or of public service corporations. For a while such a
+man has public sentiment with him, for all communities have a desire to be
+moral. But when it becomes clear that he really means what he says, and
+that important incomes will be hurt, powerful forces set on him with abuse
+and ridicule, try to wreck his business or health, and sidetrack his
+political ambitions. An eminent editor in the Middle West, speaking before
+the Press Association of his State several years ago, said: “There is not
+a man in the United States today who has tried honestly to do anything to
+change the fundamental conditions that make for poverty, disease, vice,
+and crime in our great cities, in our courts and in our legislatures, who,
+at the very time at which his efforts seemed most likely to succeed, has
+not been suddenly turned upon and rent by the great newspaper
+publications.” A volume of truthful biographical sketches of such leaders
+would give us a history of the cross in politics, and would tell us more
+about Christianity as an effective force in our country than some church
+statistics.
+
+
+III
+
+
+Jesus took the sin of throttling the prophets very seriously. It is sin on
+a higher level than the side-stepping of frail human nature, or the wrongs
+done in private grievances. Since the Kingdom of God is the highest thing
+there is, an attempt to block it or ruin it is the worst sin. Our hope for
+the advance of the race and its escape from its permanent evils is
+conditioned on keeping our moral perceptions clear and strong. Suffocating
+the best specimens of moral intelligence and intimidating the rest by
+their fate quenches the guiding light of mankind. Is anything worse?
+
+Jesus held that the rejection of the prophets might involve the whole
+nation in guilt and doom. How does the action of Caiaphas and a handful of
+other men involve all the rest? By virtue of human solidarity. One sins
+and all suffer, because all are bound together. A dominant group acts for
+all, and drags all into disaster. This points to the moral importance of
+good government. If exploiters and oppressors are in control of society,
+its collective actions will be guided and determined by the very men who
+have most to fear from the Kingdom of God and most inclination to stifle
+the prophetic voices.
+
+But the same solidarity which acts as a conductor of sin will also serve
+as a basis to make the attack of the righteous few effective for all. If
+the suffering of good men puts a just issue where all can see and
+understand, it intensifies and consolidates the right feeling of the
+community. The suffering of a leader calls out passionate sympathy and
+loyalty, sometimes in a dangerous degree. In the labor movement almost any
+fault is forgiven to a man who has been in prison for the cause of labor,
+and death for a popular cause will idealize the memory of very ordinary or
+questionable characters. But if the character of a leader is pure,
+suffering accredits him and gives him power. The cross had an incomparable
+value in putting the cause of Christianity before the world. It placed
+Jesus where mankind could never forget him, and it lit up the whole
+problem of sin and redemption with the fire of the greatest of all
+tragedies.
+
+
+    “The cross, bold type of shame to homage turned,
+    Of an unfinished life that sways the world.”
+
+
+IV
+
+
+But not all righteous suffering is socially effective. A good man may be
+suppressed before he has won a following, or even before he has wrought
+out his message in his own mind, and his suppression leaves only a few
+bubbles on the waters of oblivion. In that case his life has failed to
+discharge the redemptive force contained in it. It only adds a little more
+to the horror and tragedy of a sinful, deaf, and blood-stained world. Many
+of the men whose lives ebbed away behind the cruel silence of the walls of
+the Spanish Inquisition, were such men as Spain needed most. What saving
+effect did their death exercise? The uncounted patriots whose chains have
+clanked on the march to Siberian exile, have not yet freed Russia from its
+blind oligarchy. Our faith is that their lives were dear to God, and that
+their sorrows and the bitter tears of those who loved them are somehow
+part of an accumulating force which will one day save Russia. But this is
+religious faith, “a conviction of things not seen.” We can not prove it.
+We can only trust.
+
+Meanwhile it is our business to see that no innocent blood is wasted. Pain
+is a merciful and redemptive institution of nature when pain acts as an
+alarm-bell to direct intelligent attention to the cause of the pain. If
+pain does not force the elimination of its own cause, it is an added evil.
+The death of the innocent, through oppression, child labor, dirt diseases,
+or airless tenements, ought to arrest the attention of the community and
+put the social cause of their death in the limelight. In that case they
+have died a vicarious death which helps to redeem the rest from a social
+evil, and anyone who utilizes their suffering for that end, shows his
+reverence for their death. We owe that duty in even higher measure to the
+prophets, who are not passive and unconscious victims, but who set
+themselves intelligently in opposition to evil. The moral soundness of a
+nation can be measured by the swiftness and accuracy with which it
+understands its prophetic voices, or personalities, or events. The next
+best thing to being a prophet is to interpret a prophet. This is one of
+the proper functions of trained and idealistic minds, such as college men
+and women should possess. The more the Kingdom of God is present, the less
+will prophets be allowed to suffer. When it is fully come, the cross will
+disappear.
+
+
+V
+
+
+The social principle of the cross contains a challenge to all who are
+conscious of qualities of leadership. Let the average man do average
+duties, but let the strong man shoulder the heavy pack. It is no more than
+fair that persons of great natural power should deliberately choose work
+involving social hardships. At present the theory seems to be that the
+strong have a right to secure places where they will be freed from the
+necessity of exerting themselves, and can lay their support on the
+shoulders of the poor. That is the law of the cross reversed. Our
+semi-pagan society has always practiced vicarious suffering by letting the
+poor bear the burdens of the rich in addition to their own. Instead of
+encouraging the capable to hunt after predatory profit and entrusting
+public powers to those who have been most successful in preying, we ought
+to encourage solidaristic feeling, and give both power and honor to those
+who are ready to serve the commonwealth at severe cost to themselves.
+
+What has the principle of the cross to say to college men and women? If
+they have an exceptional outfit, let them do exceptional work. A knight in
+armor was expected to charge where others could not venture. A college
+education entitles a Christian man to some hard knocks. It seems
+contemptible for us to walk off with the pleasures and powers of
+intellectual training, and to leave the work of protecting children and
+working girls against exploitation to men and women without education,
+without leisure, and without social standing, who will have to pay double
+the tale of effort for every bit of success they win. In some European
+countries foreign mission service has been left mainly to men and women of
+the artisan class. In our country college men and women have volunteered
+for it. That is as it ought to be. On the other hand, in the struggle for
+political liberty the European universities have taken a braver and more
+sacrificial part than has ever fallen to our lot.
+
+Those who are conscious of a prophetic mission have a redoubled motive for
+a clean, sober, and sincere life. Especially in its initial stages an
+ethical movement is identified with its leaders and tested by their
+character. A good man can get a hearing for an unpopular cause by the
+trust he inspires. His cause banks on his credit. The flawed private
+character or dubious history of a leader is a drag. It is worse yet if a
+man whose name has long been a guarantee for his message, backslides and
+brings doubt upon all his previous professions. Cases could be mentioned
+where noble movements were wrecked for years because a leader forfeited
+his honor. Constant fighting against evil involves subtle temptations. To
+stand alone, to set your own conviction against the majority, to challenge
+what is supposed to be final, to disregard the conventional standards—this
+may lead to dangerous habits of mind. If we propose to spread a lot of
+canvas in a high wind, we need the more ballast in the hold. Through the
+thin partitions of a summer hotel, a man heard Moody praying God to save
+him from Moody. Imagine what it must be to lose standing and honor among
+your fellow men by secret weakness. Imagine also the poignant pain if your
+disgrace pulls down a cause which you have loved for years and which in
+purer days you vowed to follow to its coronation.
+
+
+
+Suggestions for Thought and Discussion
+
+
+I. _Vicarious Suffering and Social Progress_
+
+1. Does suffering benefit humanity? Titus crucified thousands of Jews
+during the destruction of Jerusalem. Did their death have any saving
+effect?
+
+2. What is the connection between vicarious suffering and social
+salvation?
+
+II. _Prophetic Suffering_
+
+1. What was the fate of the Old Testament prophets? What was their
+influence in the life of Israel? To what extent is Mark 12:1-9 a fair
+epitome of the treatment of the prophets by the Hebrew nation?
+
+2. What is the significance of Isa. 53:4-8? Why and how can the sins of a
+group fall on another?
+
+3. Where did Jesus see the continuity of prophetic suffering in his own
+times?
+
+4. What place did he give to vicarious suffering in the life of his
+followers and in the conquest of the Kingdom? How does the law of the
+Cross connect with the fact of solidarity?
+
+5. In what respects was Christ’s Cross unique? In what respects does it
+express a general spiritual law?
+
+III. _Vicarious Suffering Today_
+
+1. Give instances of persons in public life today whose careers were
+wrecked because they assailed socialized evil or graft. How does this
+differ from the fate of the prophets?
+
+2. Are the sacrifices of prophetic leaders ever useless and actually
+ineffective? Do you feel an inward protest against that? On what ground?
+
+3. To what extent is the call to be a Christian a challenge to vicarious
+suffering? What social significance, then, would Christian baptism have?
+
+4. Is there anything wrong with a Christian life which does not incur
+suffering?
+
+5. Would suffering be normal in the religious life of the young?
+
+6. Why does this social principle apply especially to college men and
+women?
+
+IV. _For Special Discussion_
+
+1. What qualities constitute a man a prophet?
+
+2. Are there embryonic prophets? Or spent prophets? Is a prophet
+necessarily a saint?
+
+3. Do prophets arise where religion deals with private life only? What is
+the social value of prophetic personalities?
+
+4. Name men in secular history and literature who have the marks of the
+prophet. Any in recent times?
+
+5. Does learning create prophetic vision or blur it?
+
+6. Does the ordinary religion today put a man in line for the Cross or for
+a job as a bank director?
+
+7. Can you think of anything that would bring the Cross back into the life
+of the churches today?
+
+8. Would vicarious suffering diminish if society became Christianized?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII. A Review And A Challenge
+
+
+_The Social Principles of Jesus Demand Personal Allegiance and Social
+Action_
+
+DAILY READINGS
+
+
+
+First Day: The Social Mission of Christians
+
+
+    Ye are the salt of the earth.... Ye are the light of the
+    world.—Matt. 5:13, 14.
+
+
+“Jesus speaks here with the consciousness of an historic mission to the
+whole of humanity. Yet it was a Nazarene carpenter speaking to a group of
+Galilean peasants and fishermen. Under the circumstances, and at the time,
+it was an utterance of the most daring faith—faith in himself, faith in
+them, faith in what he was putting into them, faith in faith. Jesus failed
+and was crucified, first his body by his enemies, and then his spirit by
+the men who bore his name. But that failure was so amazing a success that
+today it takes an effort on our part to realize that it required any faith
+on his part to inaugurate the Kingdom of God and to send out his
+apostolate.”(7)
+
+If the antiseptic and enlightening influence of the sincere followers of
+Jesus were eliminated from our American communities, what would be the
+presumable social effects?
+
+
+
+Second Day: The Great Initiator of the Kingdom of God
+
+
+    At that season Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father,
+    Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from
+    the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes: yea,
+    Father, for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight. All things have
+    been delivered unto me of my Father: and no one knoweth the Son,
+    save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son,
+    and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him. Come unto me,
+    all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
+    Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in
+    heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is
+    easy, and my burden is light.—Matt. 11:25-30.
+
+
+This is one of the most thrilling passages in the Bible. It has always
+been understood as a call to intimate religion, as the appeal of a
+personal Saviour to those who are loaded with sin and weary of
+worldliness. But in fact it expresses the sense of a revolutionary mission
+to society.
+
+Jesus had the consciousness of a unique relation to the Father, which made
+him the mediator of a new understanding of God and of life (v. 27). This
+new insight was making a new intellectual alignment, leaving the
+philosophers and scholars as they were, and fertilizing the minds of
+simple people (v. 25). It is an historical fact that the brilliant body of
+intellectuals of the first and second centuries was blind to what proved
+to be the most fruitful and influential movement of all times, and it was
+left to slaves and working men to transmit it and save it from suppression
+at the cost of their lives.
+
+Then Jesus turns to the toiling and heavy laden people about him with the
+offer of a new kind of leadership—none of the brutal self-assertion of the
+Cæsars and of all conquerors here, but a gentle and humble spirit, and an
+obedience which was pleasure and brought release to the soul.
+
+These words express his consciousness of being different, and of bearing
+within him the beginnings of a new spiritual constitution of humanity.
+
+When individuals have really come under the new law of Christ, does Jesus
+make good?
+
+Would he also make good if humanity based its collective life on the
+social principles which we have studied?
+
+If the choice is between Cæsar and Christ, which shall it be?
+
+
+
+Third Day: The Kingdom of Truth
+
+
+    Pilate therefore entered again into the Prætorium, and called
+    Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus
+    answered, Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee
+    concerning me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and
+    the chief priests, delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?
+    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. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?
+
+    And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and
+    saith unto them, I find no crime in him.—John 18:33-38.
+
+
+All kingdoms rest on force; formerly on swords and bayonets, now on big
+guns. To overthrow them you must prepare more force, bigger guns. Jesus
+was accused before Pilate of being leader of a force revolution aiming to
+make him king. He claimed the kingship, but repudiated the force. To his
+mind the absence of force resistance was characteristic of his whole
+undertaking. Instead, his power was based on the appeal and attractiveness
+of truth. When Pilate heard about “truth” he thought he had a sophist
+before him, one more builder of metaphysical systems, and expressed the
+skepticism of the man on the street: “What is truth?” But Jesus was not a
+teacher of abstract doctrine, whatever his expounders have made of him.
+His mind was bent on realities. If we substitute “reality” for “truth” in
+his saying here, we shall get near his thought.
+
+Which is more durable, power based on force, or power based on spiritual
+coherence?
+
+
+
+Fourth Day: A Mental Transformation
+
+
+    I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to
+    present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
+    which is your spiritual service. And be not fashioned according to
+    this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
+    that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will
+    of God.—Rom. 12:1, 2.
+
+
+In the first century the Christians were a new social group, confronting
+the social order of the Roman Empire with a new religious faith, a
+revolutionary hope, and a powerful impulse of fraternity. Those who had
+come out of pagan society still felt the pull of its loose pleasures and
+moral maxims, and of its idolatry. Paul here challenges them to submit
+fully to the social assimilation of the new group. It involved an
+intellectual renewal, a new spiritual orientation, which must have been
+searching and painful. It involved the loss of many social pleasures, of
+business profit and civic honor, and it might at any time mean banishment,
+torture, and death. The altar symbol of sacrifice might become a scarlet
+reality. Yet see with what triumphant joy and assurance Paul speaks.
+
+If a student should dedicate himself to the creation of a Christian social
+order today, would it still require an intellectual renewing?
+
+Would it cramp him or enlarge him?
+
+
+
+Fifth Day: The Distinctive Contribution of Christ
+
+
+    There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man,
+    coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made
+    through him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and
+    they that were his own received him not. But as many as received
+    him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to
+    them that believe on his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of
+    the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the
+    Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory,
+    glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and
+    truth. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came
+    through Jesus Christ.—John 1:9-14, 17.
+
+
+Here is the tragedy of the Gospel story, seen from a long perspective and
+stated in terms of Greek philosophy. The Light which lighteth every man,
+the _Logos_ through whom God had created the _kosmos_, had come to this
+world in human form, and been rejected. But some had received him, and
+these had received a new life through him, which made them children of
+God. They had discovered in him a new kind of spiritual splendor,
+characterized by “grace and truth.” Even Moses had contributed only law to
+humanity; Christ was identified with grace and truth.
+
+How would you paraphrase the statements of John to express the attitude of
+nineteen centuries to Christ?
+
+What has he in fact done for those who have received him?
+
+What would be the modern equivalent of “grace and truth” to express the
+distinctive contribution of Christ to human history?
+
+
+
+Sixth Day: The Master of the Greatest Game
+
+
+    Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great
+    a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which
+    doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race
+    that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter
+    of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the
+    cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the
+    throne of God. For consider him that hath endured such gainsaying
+    of sinners against himself, that ye wax not weary, fainting in
+    your souls.—Heb. 12:1-3.
+
+
+The man who wrote the little treatise from which this is quoted saw the
+history of humanity summed up in the live spirits who had the power of
+projection into the future. Faith is the quality of mind which sees things
+before they are visible, which acts on ideals before they are realities,
+and which feels the distant city of God to be more dear, substantial, and
+attractive than the edible and profitable present. Read Hebrews 11. So he
+calls on Christians to take up the same manner of life, and compares them
+with men running a race in an amphitheatre packed with all the generations
+of the past who are watching them make their record. But he bids them keep
+their eye on Jesus who starts them at the line and will meet them at the
+goal, and who has set the pace for good and fleet men for all time.
+
+What is the social and evolutionary value of the men of “faith” in the
+sense of Hebrews 11?
+
+_Have we left Jesus behind us by this time?_
+
+
+
+Seventh Day: The Beginning of the Greatest Movement in History
+
+
+    Now after John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee,
+    preaching the gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled,
+    and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the
+    gospel.
+
+    And passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew
+    the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were
+    fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will
+    make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they left the
+    nets, and followed him. And going on a little further, he saw
+    James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in
+    the boat mending the nets. And straightway he called them: and
+    they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired
+    servants, and went after him.—Mark 1:14-20.
+
+
+Here we have the beginning of organized Christianity. This is the germinal
+cell of that vast social movement of which foreign missions, the
+establishment of the American Republic, and the modern labor movement are
+products. It began with repentance, faith, and self-sacrificing action,
+and it will always have to advance by the same means. To those four men
+Jesus was an incarnate challenge. He dared them to come, and promised to
+put their lives on a higher level. He stands over against us with the same
+challenge. He points to the blackened fields of battle, to the economic
+injustice and exploitation of industry, to the paganism and sexualism of
+our life. Is this old order of things to go on forever? Will our children,
+and their children, still be ground through the hopper? Or have we faith
+to adventure our life in a new order, the Kingdom of God?
+
+
+
+Study for the Week
+
+
+Has our study of the “Social Principles of Jesus” revealed a clear and
+consistent scheme of life, worthy of our respect?
+
+
+I
+
+
+We have seen that three convictions were axiomatic within Jesus, so that
+all his reasoning and his moral imperatives were based on them, just as
+all thought and work in physics is based on gravitation. These convictions
+were the sacredness of life and personality, the solidarity of the human
+family, and the obligation of the strong to stand up for all whose life is
+impaired or whose place within humanity is denied.
+
+It can not be questioned that these convictions were a tremendous and
+spontaneous force in the spirit of Jesus. That alone suffices to align him
+with all idealistic minds, to whom man is more than matter, more than
+labor force, a mysterious participant of the spiritual powers of the
+universe. It aligns him with all men of solidaristic conviction, who are
+working for genuine community life in village and city, for a nation with
+fraternal institutions and fraternal national consciousness, and for a
+coming family of nations and races. It aligns him with all exponents of
+the democratic social spirit of our day, who feel the wrongs of the common
+people and are trying to make the world juster and more fraternal.
+
+The best forces of modern life are converging along these lines. There is
+no contradiction between them and the spirit of Jesus. On the contrary,
+they are largely the product of his spirit, diffused and organized in the
+Western world. He was the initiator; we are the interpreters and agents.
+Nor has he been outstripped like an early inventor and discoverer whose
+crude work is honored only because others were able to improve on it.
+Quite the contrary; the more vividly these spiritual convictions glow in
+the heart of any man, the more will he feel that Jesus is still ahead,
+still the inspiring force. As soon as we get beyond theory to life and
+action, we know that we are dependent for the spiritual powers in modern
+life on the continued influence of Jesus Christ over the lives of others.
+
+
+II
+
+
+We saw in the second place that Jesus had a social ideal, the Reign of God
+on earth, in which God’s will would be done. This ideal with him was not a
+Utopian and academic fancy, but the great prize and task of life toward
+which he launched all his energies. He called men to turn away from the
+evil ways of the old order, and to get a mind fit for the new. He set the
+able individuals to work, and put the spirit of intense labor and devotion
+into them. He proposed to effect the transition from the old order to the
+new by expanding the area of moral obligation and raising the standards of
+moral relationships.
+
+By having such a social ideal at all, he draws away from all who are
+stationary and anchored in the world as it is; from all who locate the
+possibility of growth and progress in the individual only; and from all
+whose desire for perfection runs away from this world to a world beyond
+the grave.
+
+By moving toward the new social order of the Kingdom of God with such
+wholeness of determination, he is the constant rebuke for all of us who
+are trying to live with a “divided allegiance,” straddling between the
+iniquities of force, profit, and inhumanity, and the fraternal
+righteousness of the Gospel we profess to believe. Jesus at least was no
+time-server, no Mr. Facing-both-ways, no hypocrite; and whenever we touch
+his elbow by inadvertence, a shiver of reality and self-contempt runs
+through us.
+
+
+III
+
+
+We saw in the third place that Jesus dealt with serious intelligence with
+the great human instincts that go wrong.
+
+The capacity for leadership and the desire for it have fastened the
+damning institutions of tyranny and oppression on humanity and tied us up
+so completely that the rare historical chances of freedom and progress
+have been like a tumultuous and brief escape. Yet Jesus saw that ambition
+was not to be suppressed, but to be yoked to the service of society. In
+the past, society was allowed to advance and prosper only if this advanced
+the prosperity and security of its ruling classes. Jesus proposed that
+this be reversed, so that the leaders would have to earn power and honor
+by advancing the welfare of society by distinguished service at cost to
+themselves.
+
+The desire for private property has been the chief outlet for selfish
+impulses antagonistic to public welfare. To gain private wealth men have
+slaughtered the forests, contaminated the rivers, drained the fertility of
+the soil, monopolized the mineral wealth of the country, enslaved
+childhood, double-yoked motherhood, exhausted manhood, hog-tied community
+undertakings, and generally acted as the dog in the manger toward
+humanity. Jesus opposed accumulation without moral purpose, the inhumanity
+of property differences, and the fatal absorption of money-making. Yet he
+was not ascetic. It is probably safe to say that he would not be against
+private property in so far as it serves the common good, and not against
+public property at all.
+
+Like ambition and the property instinct, the religious impulse may go
+wrong, and subject society to its distortions or tyranny. Jesus always
+stood for an ethical and social outcome of religion. He sought to harness
+the great power of religion to righteousness and love. With a mind so
+purely religious we might expect that he would make all earthly and social
+interests subservient to personal religion. The fact that he reversed it,
+seems clear proof that he was socially minded and that the Kingdom of God
+as a right social organism was the really vital thing to him.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+We have seen, finally, that Jesus had a deep sense of the sin and evil in
+the world. Human nature is frail; men of evil will are powerful; organized
+evil is in practical control. Consequently social regeneration involves
+not only growth but conflict. The way to the Kingdom of God always has
+been and always will be a _via dolorosa_. The cross is not accidental, but
+is a law of social progress.
+
+These conceptions together seem to shape up into a consistent conception
+of social life. It is not the modern scientific scheme, but a religious
+view of life. But it blends incomparably better with modern science than
+the scholastic philosophy or theology of an age far nearer to us than
+Jesus. It is strange how little modern knowledge has to discount in the
+teachings of Jesus. As Romanes once pointed out,(8) Plato followed
+Socrates and lived amidst a blaze of genius never since equalled; he is
+the greatest representative of human reason in the direction of
+spirituality unaided by revelation; “but the errors in the dialogues reach
+to absurdity in reason and to sayings shocking to the moral sense.”
+
+The writer of this little book has come back to an intensive study of
+Jesus at intervals of years, and every time it was like a fresh
+revelation, leaving a sense of mental exhilaration and a new sense of joy
+in truth. Never was there a feeling that Jesus was exhausted and had
+nothing more to say.
+
+For a true valuation of his intellectual contribution to mankind we must
+remember that we have not a page of his own writing. We are dependent on
+the verbal memory of his disciples; so far as we know, nothing was written
+down for years. The fragments which survived probably had to stand the
+ordeal of translation from the Aramaic to the Greek. Simply from the point
+of view of literature, it is an amazing thing that anything characteristic
+in Jesus survived at all. But it did. His sayings have the sparkle of
+genius and personality; the illustrations and epigrams which he threw off
+in fertile profusion are still clinchers; even his humor plays around
+them. Critics undertake to fix on the genuine sayings by internal
+evidence. Only a mind of transcendent originality could win its way to
+posterity through such obstructions.
+
+But we ought not to forget the brevity of our material when we try to
+build up a coherent conception of his outlook on society. There is little
+use in stickling on details. The main thing is the personality of Jesus,
+his religious and ethical insight into the nature and needs of the social
+life of mankind, the vital power of religious conviction which he was able
+to put behind righteousness, and the historical force which he set going
+through history.
+
+From the indirect influences which Jesus Christ set in motion, no man or
+woman or child in America can escape. We live on him. Even those who
+attack the Christian Church, or who repudiate what they suppose Christ to
+stand for, do so with spiritual weapons which they have borrowed from him.
+But it does make a great difference whether the young men and women of our
+day give their conscious and intelligent allegiance to Christianity or
+hold aloof in misunderstanding. Without them the Christian movement will
+mark time on old issues. With them it will dig new irrigation channels and
+string the wires for new power transmission.
+
+In return, Christianity can do more for students than they themselves are
+likely to realize in youth. Men grow tired. Their moral enthusiasm flags.
+Scientific sociology may remain academic, cold, and ineffective. We need
+inspiration, impulse, will power, and nothing can furnish such steady
+accessions of moral energy as living religion. Science and the Christian
+faith combined are strong. Those who succeed in effecting a combination of
+these two without insincerity or cowardice are the coming leaders.
+
+If a student’s mind has given inward consent to the teachings of Jesus in
+this course of study, that constitutes an appeal for personal
+discipleship. Can we go with Christ in living out these principles, and
+meanwhile draw on his spiritual wealth to build up our growing life? If
+there is a student who can not at present affirm all that the Christian
+Church holds concerning the nature of Christ, why should he not approach
+him as the earliest disciples did, by personal love and obedience,
+following him and cooperating with him in the business of the Kingdom of
+God, and arriving in time at full faith in his Messiahship? A great and
+firm faith is the product and prize of a lifetime of prayer and loving
+action. “Light is sown to the righteous.” As we gather the wisdom of life,
+and find that while we move from knowledge to knowledge, we are also
+advancing from mystery to mystery, many of us will be ready and glad to
+join in the highest affirmation of faith about Jesus Christ, in whom we
+have learned to see God.
+
+
+    “If Jesus Christ is a man,
+    And only a man, I say
+    That of all mankind I cleave to him,
+    And to him I cleave alway.
+
+    “If Jesus Christ is a God,
+    And the only God, I swear
+    I will follow him through heaven and hell,
+    The earth, the sea, and the air.”
+
+    —RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
+
+
+If Christianity henceforth is to discharge its full energy in the
+regeneration of social life, it especially needs the allegiance of college
+men and women who have learned to understand to some degree the facts and
+laws of human society. The development of what is called “Social
+Christianity” or “the social gospel,” is a fusion between the new
+understanding created by the social sciences, and the teachings and moral
+ideals of Christianity. This combination was inevitable; it has already
+registered social effects of the highest importance; if it can win the
+active minds of the present generation of college students, it will swing
+a part of the enormous organized forces of the Christian Church to bear on
+the social tasks of our American communities, and that will help to create
+the nobler America which we see by faith.
+
+Christians have never fully understood Christianity. A purer comprehension
+of its tremendous contents is always necessary. Think what it would
+signify to a local community if all sincere Christian people in it should
+interpret their obligation in the social terms which we have been using;
+if they should seek not only their own salvation, but the reign of God in
+their own town; if they should cultivate the habit of seeing a divine
+sacredness in every personality, should assist in creating the economic
+foundations for fraternal solidarity, and if, as Christians, they should
+champion the weak in their own community. We need a power of renewal in
+our American communities that will carry us across the coming social
+transition, and social Christianity can supply it by directing the plastic
+force of the old faith of our fathers to the new social tasks.
+
+Jesus was the initiator of the Kingdom of God. It is a real thing, now in
+operation. It is within us, and among us, gaining ground in our
+intellectual life and in our social institutions. It overlaps and
+interpenetrates all existing organizations, raising them to a higher level
+when they are good, resisting them when they are evil, quietly
+revolutionizing the old social order and changing it into the new. It
+suffers terrible reverses; we are in the midst of one now; but after a
+time it may become apparent that a master hand has turned the situation
+and laid the basis of victory on the wrecks of defeat. The Kingdom of God
+is always coming; you can never lay your hand on it and say, “It is here.”
+But such fragmentary realizations of it as we have, alone make life worth
+living. The memories which are still sweet and dear when the fire begins
+to die in the ashes, are the memories of days when we lived fully in the
+Kingdom of Heaven, toiling for it, suffering for it, and feeling the
+stirring of the godlike and eternal life within us. The most humiliating
+and crushing realization is that we have betrayed our heavenly Fatherland
+and sold out for thirty pieces of silver. We often mistake it. We think we
+see its banner in the distance, when it is only the bloody flag of the old
+order. But a man learns. He comes to know whether he is in God’s country,
+especially if he sees the great Leader near him.
+
+
+
+Suggestions for Thought and Discussion
+
+
+I. _The Social Principles of Jesus_
+
+1. Sum up the social principles of Jesus which we have worked out in this
+course.
+
+2. Do they seem incisive? Would they demand far-reaching social changes?
+What changes?
+
+3. What conceptions acquired in philosophical and social science studies
+connect fruitfully with the principles of Jesus? Do any scientific
+conceptions conflict with the essential ideas of Jesus?
+
+II. _Social Salvation_
+
+1. What is your frank estimate of the value of the social principles of
+Jesus as a religious and ethical basis for the regeneration of society?
+
+2. Does the spiritual development of modern life tend toward the position
+of Jesus or away from it?
+
+3. What opportunities and methods does modern life offer for carrying out
+these principles in our social order?
+
+4. If society cannot be saved under the spiritual leadership of Jesus, how
+can it be saved?
+
+III. _The Leader_
+
+1. As this course proceeded, has our respect or reverence for Jesus Christ
+increased or diminished? In what ways?
+
+2. Would it be possible to join the forward Christian forces in working
+for the Kingdom of God even if the theological questions are still
+unsolved in our minds?
+
+3. What seem now the best methods of carrying out these principles in our
+own community and in the world?
+
+IV. _For Special Discussion_
+
+1. Does the salvation of society seem to make the salvation of the
+individual unnecessary or trivial? Have you lost interest in it?
+
+2. How should social and personal salvation connect?
+
+3. What would a loyal religious dedication to Christ and Christianity mean
+to our scientific social intelligence?
+
+4. What would it mean to the course of our life?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+    1 Rauschenbusch, “Prayers of the Social Awakening,” p. 15, on “The
+      Social Meaning of the Lord’s Prayer.”
+
+    2 See the chapter on “The Tragedy of Dives” in Rauschenbusch,
+      “Christianizing the Social Order,” p. 291.
+
+    3 Edersheim, “Life and Times of Jesus, the Messiah,” Appendix XVII,
+      give a detailed account of Sabbath regulations.
+
+    4 See, for instance, Begbie, “Twice Born Men.”
+
+    5 See Jane Addams, “A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil.”
+
+    6 Why not give a fresh reading to the Hebrew prophets? Read them as if
+      they had just been dug up in the East. Read them with the insight
+      into social life developed by economic and sociological work in
+      college. Read them with the critical social and political situations
+      in mind. Read entire books at a sitting to absorb the spiritual
+      valor of the prophets and their sense of God and of righteousness.
+      George Adam Smith’s “The Book of the Twelve Prophets” has fine
+      social understanding, and gives the necessary historical background.
+
+    7 “Christianity and the Social Crisis,” p. 415.
+
+    8 G. J. Romanes, “Thoughts on Religion,” p. 157.
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF JESUS***
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