"work out the beast in men's world and "let the ape and tiger die"? In the early part of last century, the state of our country was immeasurably worse than it is in this, the dawning year, of the new century. And the men of that time slumbered and slept. There has been a great awakenment of conscience. The moral ideal, as has been shown, is higher. The chasm between the ideal and the actual is more vividly perceived, and for the width of this chasm society is arraigning itself as verily guilty. Government is active. Municipalities are active. Science and art are active. The demand is for more and better education; and education is being made ever more comprehensive in its survey, and more ethical in its spirit and aim. Houses are improving. Healthier recreations are provided. The reverence for the person of woman or man which Milton commends is more strenuously inculcated, and many endeavours are made to elevate and purify tastes and habits. All forces, intellectual, social, and religious, are in full operation-the voice sounding through all as the sound of many waters being, "In God's name, let men be free in the freedom of the truth." This awakenment, this consensus of aims, this determination of will, is in itself the most hopeful of features, the most convincing of the signs of a stronger ethical life.

It bids us be of good cheer. It reminds us that, through all the groans and travail of our time, the manifestation of the sons of God is being hastened. As William Watson has sung,

"The new age stands as yet
Half built against the sky,
Open to every threat

Of storms that clamour by ;

Scaffolding veils the walls

And dim dust floats and falls,

As moving to and fro their tasks the masons ply."

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CHAPTER XIV.

THE SOCIAL WORK OF THE CHURCH IN THE PRESENT DAY.

IT has been shown that the problems of modern society relating to the conditions under which vast multitudes live and move and have their being bristle with difficulties whose solution marks the strenuous endeavour of thoughtful and earnest men. We have considered a class of theories which, however they may differ in detail, agree in the demand that the State shall be transformed, and that the present social system shall be revolutionised; and the consideration has indicated a fatal unsoundness in their economic positions, and sometimes a fatal deficiency in moral tone. In the previous chapter, certain social-ethical trends were regarded; but of them it must be said that, whilst they are interesting and significant as exhibitive of the tendencies of influential convictions, their effectiveness depends

The Witness of the Church.

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on the hold that Christian ethics, in its springs, principles, and laws, has of the social conscience. The conclusion at which we arrive is, that the virtue by which the wounds and bruises of humanity can be healed is not contained in any special philosophy or economy: that may do much; but, in order to the stanching of the issue, there must be internal rectifications as well as external readjustments — improved environment, but also regenerated life. This is the witness which the Christian Church is called to bear; and in accordance with the witness is its action to be shaped. It has a temporal, but it has first a spiritual, mission. And the inquiry with which we are now concerned is, How far is it fulfilling this mission, temporal as well as spiritual, in the midst of the clashing views and in the face of the perplexing circumstances by which it is confronted?

This inquiry is forced into prominence by the attacks and insinuations to which reference has

already been made. Saint-Simon gave the keynote for such attacks when he declared, as against both the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Churches, that "they had lost their power simply because they had neglected their great temporal mission of raising the poor, and because their clergy remained absolutely ignorant of the

1

living social questions of the times." Thus he wrote a hundred years ago, and thus men write still. Is the accusation that they hurl justified?

We do not need to borrow the speech of a false humility, but neither have we occasion to assume a pharisaic self-complacency. Many of those who condemn the Churches and the clergy are in dead earnest—men whose self-devotion, intensity, and force entitle them to respect. And, as was remarked in an earlier page of this book, it is not to be wondered at that men of this stamp, into whose souls the iron has entered, feel that there is an atmosphere of unreality about much of the teaching, much in all that bulks most largely in the aspect and business, of the Church. But when this has been said-not for the purpose of turning the cheek to any smiter, but for the purpose of receiving that "reproof of the righteous which is excellent oil"-let us ask whether it can fairly be charged that "the Church has neglected its great temporal mission of raising the poor "?

In former chapters of this volume, it was demonstrated that, notwithstanding all its faults and imperfections, the Christian Church in the nineteen centuries of its history has penetrated into deeper places of human life than all political 1 Contemporary Socialism, p. 218.