STUDIES IN CHRISTIAN LIVING - CHRISTIAN - " CITI ZENS HIP FRANCIS J. McCONNELL UC-NRLt $B 113 SHT Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/christiancitizenOOmccorich STUDIES IN CHRISTIAN OVINC Christian Citizenship An Elective Course for Young People By FRANCIS J. McCONNELL Biahop of the Methodist Episcopal Church Approved by the Committee on Curriculum of the Board of Sunday Schools of the Methodist Episcopal Church THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN NEW YORK CINCINNATI • • • ••' • »•• : • • a • • Copyright, 1922, by FRANCIS J. McCONNELL Printed in the United Statea of America CONTENTS CHAPTER FAOK The Christian and Citizenship 5 I. Why a Social Gospel? 7 II. The Organization Necessary for Social Living 14 III. The Chief Right and Duty 21 IV. Majorities and Minorities 28 V. An Educated Citizenry 34 VI. Physical Fitness and the Public Health 41 VII. Productive Labor 47 VIII. The Patriotic Home 54 IX. The Social Offender 60 X. Americanization 66 XI. Christian Community 73 XII. World Citizenship 80 XIII. Religion Has the Last Word 87 493943 THE CHEISTIAN AND CITIZENSHIP Whebe are the young people who are about to assume the responsibilities of suffrage, or the new voters who have recently begun to exercise their civic privileges to have the opportunity of discussing civic responsibilities in the light of Christian ideals? Where are they to be brought to a keener realization of their obligations as Christians to put the teachings of Jesus to the test of application to the many baflling problems of our civic and political life? Where are they to hear the principles of the prophets and of Jesus interpreted in terms of citizenship in America in the twentieth century, and, in a distinctively Christian atmosphere to be given the opportunity through discus- sion of adjusting their own personal views to Christian ideals ? Is any organization other than the church likely to offer such opportunities on any large scale? Even if scattered groups are brought together under other than church auspices, can the church be content to do nothing in the way of formal instruction to supplement the little that is done by other agencies ? This book is issued because of a conviction on the part of not a few of the leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church that instruction in citizenship ought to be pro- vided by the church, and that textbooks are needed for study and as a means of guiding discussion in definite lines. It is not expected that every young people's group in the church will use this book. It is believed that there are many groups — ^young people's classes in the Sunday school, Epworth League classes, groups brought together on church training night, etc. — in which it may be profit- ably used. Considerable demand had been expressed, especially by young people's classes in our Sunday schools, for special elective study courses. It is in response to this demand that Christian Citizenship and other special study courses have been prepared. 5 />k'kk''C9:'^isTi'A.N^^^ a^d citizenship This book is the first of a series bearing the title "Studies in Christian Living/^ A second will deal with the close, more intimate social relationships of the neighborhood, and a third with the wider relationships of our own nation with other nations. Yet other courses will deal with re- lated subjects of vital interest and importance to young people. The Editoes. CHAPTER I WHY A SOCIAL GOSPEL? Isa. 61. 10 to 62. 1; Amos 6. 1-6; 1 John 3. 16-18 Salvation and the Individual Is Christianity solely individualistic? — At the outset of our attempt to find some Christian principles of citizen- ship we are likely to be told that such attempt is but another path by which we may lose the essentials of Chris- tianity, that Christianity is by nature an affair of the indi- vidual person, that all these modern strokes of emphasis on the so-called social gospel are wide of the mark, that men find salvation as individuals, and not as nations or groups. Admitting the plain fact that nations do need salvation, it is claimed that salvation comes only as indi- viduals in the nations are converted to righteousness. We concede that much preaching of the social gospel to-day does encourage a false belittling of the function of the individual. Some social leaders sneer at the doctrine of personal salvation as old-fashioned and proclaim that if we can get the right group spirit the salvation of the indi- vidual will take care of itself. We are reminded that mul- titudes of individuals do not yet possess enough material goods to make the attainment of spiritual goods possible, that the group spirit is so selfish as to neutralize individual unselfishness, that the relation of groups to one another is, especially in the case of national groups, such as to con- tradict and defy all doctrines of Christianity. Misconstruing facts. — Much of our difficulty in all such discussion comes from not looking at facts as they are. On the one side the individualist talks as if a person lived his essential life apart from society, and on the other side the advocate of a social gospel too often talks as if society were something beyond and above the persons who make up society. But individuals could hardly come to be real 7 •v. : :;: y': JCffiSlSTI^ CITIZENSHIP individuals apart from society. The instruction that society gives a child in the early years of his Life is quite as important as the set of abilities which the child brings into the world with him as his native inheritance; for without the favoring help of society the possibilities of the individual could never flower into expression. Sup- pose a child to be born with an endowment of ability amounting to positive genius : how far would genius carry the child if there were nobody to teach him to talk ? And language is a social instrument. On the other hand, society can consist only of the persons who compose society. I once heard a preacher declare that the chief concern of religion is the question that comes in the depths of a man's soul as the man stands alone with his God. Let the mail be in a deep forest, with no other soul near, or alone in a vast desert, and face the problems of his own destiny if he would enter into religious life. The preacher seemed to forget that if the soul got anywhere in these forest or desert communings, the questions would have to be put in terms of a language taught by society and would have to lead to duties that involve not God alone but man as well. Geoup Eelationships and Christian Pkogress There is no need of abstract debate here. We must admit that we are all born as members of groups, with the claims of national groups especially strong upon us. And the question is not as to an abstract personal gospel or an abstract social gospel but as to what are our duties as Christians set in relationship to these groups. As we raise these detailed and specific interrogations, a good many of our difficulties vanish of themselves. The individnal at the center. — At the center of every social system must admittedly stand the individual. Re- ligious life begins when the individual for himself seeks to link his own will to the divine will. But the individual lives with other individuals, and his religious impulse must find its way out into expression toward those other indi- viduals. The Christian religion puts the divine father- hood and the human brotherhood together as indissolubly joined. Now, the individual person must always be on his guard lest his duties toward other persons revolve in 8 WHY A SOCIAL GOSPEL? too narrow a circle. Obvious elemental duties toward one's neighbor, like truth-telling and honest dealing, have been held up as virtuous almost from the beginning by all manner of moral and religious teachers. Even among Christian believers the injunction to love one's neighbor as oneself is likely to get narrowed down to this rather close set of duties, which are indeed basically important but which are not sujBficiently inclusive. Christian progress comes through bringing more and more of our acts under the sway of the Christian spirit and more and more per- sons under the influence of our expression of that spirit. What advocates of the social gospel after all object to is this narrowing of Christian duty down to a cramped circle and the ignoring of other vital human relationships out- side of that circle. For Christianity cannot stop on the outside of any realms that affect men. All relationships among men are fields for Christian conquest. Where two or three gathered together for any purpose, there the Spirit of Christ is to be in the midst of them if the gathering is to be Christian. The Sanctification of Social Groups The preaching of an overtight personal gospel is some- what to blame for the confusion in which we find ourselves. At the preacher's door must be laid a share of the censure for the distinction between secular and sacred, which has wrought so much harm. The individualist has taken the restricted set of personal duties as the sacred duties and has left the broader social and political realms to the kingdom of the secular ; or, at least, of the religiously in- different. We are not clamoring for any return to a fusion of church and state. The trouble with the fusion which we once had was that the church became secularized rather than the state Christianized. What we seek to-day is not formal and official connection between the larger social groups and Christianity but the sanctification of all these groups by the Christian spirit. The doctrine of sanctification. — The word "sanctifica- tion" is itself suggestive in this connection. When the Wesleyan revival swept England under the leadership of the Wesleys and Whitefield, it was early seen that the goal 9 CHKISTIAN CITIZENSHIP set before Christians in conversion was not enough. Con- version might indeed make a new man, but what was the new man to do ? Conversion might turn a man about and face him in a new direction, but how far was the convert to go in that direction ? The Wesleys began soon to teach the doctrine of entire sanctification, by which they meant that all phases of a man's nature were to be brought into subjection to the Spirit of Christ; mind and heart as well as will were to be transformed by the indwelling Christ life. The misfortune that the Methodists have given this doctrine of entire sanctification so one-sided an emphasis that it is usually thought of in connection with those who profess to extravagantly exalted states of inner purity should not blind us to the fundamentally Christian char- acter of the ideal. For the New Testament teaches an ideal of perfect life like that of God himself. And the struggle for the ideal is to find itself not only in inner sanctification but in outer goodness of conduct. God send- eth rain and sunshine upon the evil and the good. Even- handed impartiality is one of the marks of the perfection of God ; and the implication of the New Testament teach- ing is that it is characteristic of the goodness of God that he recognizes and acts upon obligations to all men, good and bad. If we can imagine a sphere of relations to men which would be indifferent to God we might have valid excuse for stopping outside of some circles of human con- tact, as if these were religiously indifferent to us. The New Testament doctrine of entire sanctification is that we are to carry the sanctifying spirit into all departments of life. If we draw lines beyond which we will not go we must recognize that we are Christians only up to those boundary lines. The war and the gospel. — Suppose we consider a very simple illustration. Look at international war for a moment. Who is there that will call war Christian ? Only a few hardy jingoes or self-sophisticated theorists. The utmost that can be said for war is that it is sometimes the less of two horrible evils. But why has the world been so long in seeing the antichristian character of war? For many causes — one of them just this narrow sphere in which Christian duty has moved. From the beginning 10 WHY A SOCIAL GOSPEL? until now there has never been an attack on war in the sense of the creation of a public spirit opposed to war. War has been accepted as of the natural system of things. Except an occasional philosopher or an individual states- man or isolated religious prophet here and there nobody has — ^until comparatively recently — raised any persistent question about war. And there war has stood, a denial of everything Christianity pleads for, a denial of the father- hood of God and of the brotherhood of man, all without much serious protest. There has not been enough force as yet among Christians to carry the attack into the strong- hold of this antichrist. There are even to-day pious souls here and there who decry preaching against war and against the causes that make for war on the ground that all such preaching gets away from the inner, personal, spiritual gospel. Developing a Righteous Group Spirit Again, the preaching of the gospel in its wide social application is needed not only for the reason that Christian duties are largely duties of men in their relation one to another, but also for the further reason that when men get together they develop a new spirit as compared with that shown when they act separately. A group of men, all of them individually sane, can as a group act insanely. Or, to take the other side, a group of persons individually rather selfish can as a group act unselfishly. Men find loosed within them in groups forces different from those they know when they are alone. The purpose of any gospel that understands itself is to get hold of these group powers and use them for righteousness. Now, it does not make any appreciable difference what we call such an effort, whether a social gospel or a gospel directed toward the release of extraordinary powers in the individual ; the aim is to get hold of all possible human powers and utilize them for the kingdom of God. The spirit of patriotism is largely such a power. It is strongest in its group expressions. Rightly controlled it can exalt a selfish man into unselfish- ness, or left to itself it can pull down the righteous man into selfishness. It can lift up and it can cast down. It is 11 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP the duty of Christianity to get hold of this spirit and turn it for righteousness. The Importance of Coopeeation Again, apart from this spirit that descends upon men in groups as it would never touch them as separate persons, we need a social gospel to emphasize the importance of those duties which men can only perform together. No one man can put away war. No one man can radically change the industrial or social system by his single effort. There must be cooperation. An individual can here and there dramatically arrest attention by making a martjrr of himself, as by going to jail rather than to fight in an un- righteous war. His substantial service even so, however, is in thrusting the question inescapably before the minds of multitudes who will one day vote war out of existence. This series of discussions of ours is to move largely in the realm in which men vote. Is it a condemnation of Chris- tian effort that it seeks to bring the Christian spirit into the realm of voting ? Finish the baking. — But someone will say that this is all well enough where issues are sharply defined in their normal bearings, but that the trouble comes from those who try to import religious tests into vague and undefined territories. For the half-baked social doctrines we, of course, all have scorn. Half-baked doctrines are indeed poor food, but they have value in a sphere where no baking has been done. AH that we have to do with some half- baked doctrines to make them wholesome is to finish the baking. There was a time when men were feeling their way along toward some of those elemental duties which now seem to us self-evident. If the social gospel seems to encourage an exploring spirit in realms hitherto un- touched by Christianity, that is a count not against but for the social gospel. The individual and his environment. — But all this seems to get away from the basis of personal appeal and to rely on so-called "atmospheric" or environmental fac- tors. I ought not to yield to a wrong environment, but neither ought I to create a wrong environment. If I take a false attitude on a social question I am a bad factor in 12 WHY A SOCIAL GOSPEL? the environment of all whom that public action touches. It is my business to correct that attitude. It is my busi- ness to do all I can to capture the immense environmental forces of spiritual atmosphere and public opinion and national sentiment to mold men toward righteousness. In the end, of course, individual men will have to make what they can of these forces for themselves. It is my duty to see that they get a chance to use a force that moves toward righteousness. What a fine thing a vitally holy patriotism would be if we could only have it ! Well, then, let us see what are the marks of such a patriotism. Possibly if we find out what it is we shall be in better position to get it and to hold it fast. The individual personal experience will be wider and fuller if we heed those social principles which make for the Christianization of our group activities. Questions foe Thought and Discussion 1. Is there any contradiction between the individual gospel and the social gospel? 2. Can religion serve God without serving men ? 3. In what sense is it possible for society to be con- verted ? 4. Can an individual live a perfect life in an imperfect environment ? 5. What are the best signs of a wholly sanctified Ufe? 6. It is sometimes said that Jesus discovered the indi- vidual. What does such a statement mean to you ? 7. Is there any sense in which we could say that Jesu8 discovered society ? 8. Name some faults against which the preacher of the social gospel should be on his guard. 13 CHAPTEK II THE OEGANIZATION NECESSAEY FOR SOCIAL LIVING John 10. 10b; Luke 17. 33; Matt. 20. 25-28 Our Aim as Chkistians The aim of Christianity in personal living and in social relationships is that men may have life, and may have it abundantly. From the Christian point of view all forms of social organization are to be judged by the effects on the life of the persons who live under them. By "life" Chris- tianity means the fullest and the best life. The Master in- deed said that he who seeks to save his own life must lose it, and that he who loses his life saves it. No one of us must erect his own personal development into the all-suffi- cient object of his own endeavor. But it is thoroughly Christian to seek for a social organization that will mean the most to the people who live under that organization. The Highest Life of Persons Men above things. — The first purpose to keep firm hold of is to seek the highest life of persons — a chance for men, women, and children to unfold their own best powers as they seek for the common good. The life of persons is the end, and the form of social organization is the means. The organization must give way to improvement or replacement altogether if the needs of the people call for such sur- render. Christianity conceives of the church as a divine institution, but any wise churchman draws a distinction between the church as the body of believers and the church as an organizational scheme. It is the church as the body of believers which has the primary sacredness. Organiza- tional features — rituals, creeds, orders of ministry — these have only a secondary or instrumental sacredness, depend- ing on their efficiency in ministering to the life of the be- 14 THE ORGANIZATION NECESSARY lievers. When churchmen exalt the organization into an end in itself and make the believers subordinate to the organization they sin against that Christian principle which puts men above things. The ideal of the state. — ^If this is true of the church it is much more true of the state. A state is to be judged by what happens to the people who live under that state. This does not forbid that a state may stand for an ethical ideal that may legitimately require particular citizens to give their goods and their lives at a particular crisis. But the ideal must be ethical — one which never loses sight of the betterment of human life. It must not be the ideal of a state as a state existing in its own right as more important than the constituent people. The end of the state. — So far as the old Oriental des- potisms had any theory about themselves at all, it was the theory that the individual person existed only for the des- potism or for the despot. Egyptians laboring by the scores of thousands under conditions which made life almost in- tolerable, simply that a Pharaoh might have a pyramid monument, give us a picture of Oriental despotism. As this idea lost its hold on the human mind there appeared in many quarters the notion that the individual persons should exist for themselves without reliance upon the or- ganizations we call states. But the pendulum is sure, sooner or later, to swing rather steadily around the center that the persons are indeed the main end of states and other social groups, but that these persons come to their best through organization into groups. If it is true to say of the ancient despotisms that the people existed for the despotism, it is at least ideally true to say that the modem state exists for the people. The Means for Achieving Social Welfabb The Christian ideal, then, for a state or any social group is the welfare of the people. A Christian organization would be one that would draw out the possibilities of its citizens toward their highest and best. Of course, "highest and besf ' are indefinite terms. They might be justly defined as life like unto the Christ life. This too is in- definite, but it does give us an ideal toward which we can 15 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP purposely strive. Now, the Christ character in men must be conceived of more and more in positive terms. Any state must of need exercise repressive powers to keep the animal and vicious elements in society from getting ascen- dancy. But a Christian state would try to draw oiit the more positive and righteous qualities of its citizens. The question then becomes. What organization is best fitted to do this ? Democracy. — For the American the answer is ready at hand. Government should be of the people, by the people, and for the people. Democracy is the charmed word, and by a tacit common consent we seem to assume that it is necessarily a Christian word. The movement of the pres- ent and future will be more and more toward democracy. Since this is true, it becomes pertinent for us to ask how we can make the most of democracy for the highest human welfare. Here, again, it may be well for us not to erect a mere term into something more important than human beings. Democracy to-day has such a fascinating, almost hypnotic spell that many of us are in danger of becoming worshipers of a word. The essential goal always is the welfare of people. A leader who thinks of the welfare of the people and who labors at putting measures into effect which will benefit the people, with the consent of the people themselves, is democratic whether the precise form of the organization under which he works is democratic or not. The Webb Utopia. — Sidney and Beatrice Webb have re- cently published a suggested constitution for a socialistic commonwealth in Great Britain. There can be no doubt as to the public-spiritedness of these two authors. They have probably done as much for the good of the masses of England as any two writers of our time. If any leaders to-day are democratic, the Webbs are. Yet in the pro- posed socialistic commonwealth provision is made for a king and a royal family ! In other words the Webbs pro- pose a democratic organization with the most outstanding feature of monarchy! How absurd it seems! But as a matter of fact we do not have to wait for the Webb utopia to see democracy working under the forms of monarchy. England may to-day fall short of being an ideal democracy, 16 THE OEGANIZATION NECESSAEY but it is not the fact of her having a king which hinders her democracy. The government centers in the prime minister, and he is more directly reachable by the forces of the public will than is the President of the United States. When it comes to getting the public will quickly into effect England is quite likely more of a democracy than is the United States. In Mexico. — On the other hand, look at Mexico during, let us say, the presidencies of Porfirio Diaz. Here is a nation that started out with the deliberate intention of being democratic to the utmost. She adopted a constitu- tion similar to that of the United States, because the Con- stitution of the United States seemed to Mexico the fore- most example of democracy. And Diaz — we mention him as the most outstanding ruler of his type — swayed Mexico as a despot through democratic forms. No, the essential requisite is not just the possession of an organization labeled democracy ; it is rather the purpose with which the organization is used. Representation and Leadership We have said that the duty of the Christian state is to make the utmost of the citizens of the state. It is clear that if the citizens are to reach the highest they must reach that highest through their own efforts. Does this mean that the people are to meet in vast assemblies and transact their own business directly ? That is increasingly impossible. But does not such impossibility force us, then, back to benevolent despots, who do us good by their supe- rior wisdom? That also is impossible. No matter how well-intentioned such despots may be they, in the end, leave no place for the people themselves. The demagogue and the statesman. — ^What, then, is the Christian leadership that we call substantially democratic ? We may find an answer by considering democratic leader- ship that is not Christian, leadership that is selfishly political — in other words, demagogy. How does the demagogue succeed ? He succeeds by reaching the popular mind and by expressing that mind to the people them- selves. He develops the power of making the people feel that when they hear their champion speak they are hearing 17 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP themselves speak. The demagogue does this for his own selfish purposes and often expresses the thought of the people on its lower plane of prejudice or selfishness. The statesman, on the contrary, is one who catches the senti- ment of the people at its topmost range and who expresses that sentiment for the good of the people themselves, and not for his own good. The statesman is the better self of his people in speech or in action. If he can lead the people in this realm of higher ideals, his statesmanship is of the Christian order. Chkistian Democeacy What, now, is Christian democracy? Christian democ- racy is democracy set on Christian aims. We repeat that we are not concerned with details of political organization. It is evident that the highest life for men cannot be reached unless men in some way sanction that life for themselves. So we feel that a Christian state must be fundamentally democratic. An3rfching that stands in the way of the good of the people is not democratic. Mere democratic forms of machinery may be used antidemocratically to thwart the will of the people. Anything that takes decisions out of the hands of the people is not democratic. The function of experts. — But here the Christian thinker must be careful not to fall into confusion. In all the fore- going discussion we have had in mind those broad questions upon which the people can rightly be expected to have an opinion. With people living in more and more congested communities, there emerge more and more duties that must be performed by experts— duties, for example, affecting the public health. We shall have something to say about questions of this kind later. Here we are dealing with those broader moral and human issues upon which groups of per- sons can form and express opinions. The folly of paternalism. — We must never lose sight of the fact that the best results of government are attained as the people themselves move toward the highest ideals. The besetting temptation of Christian leadership is to fall into paternalism. A leader attains to power that he wields for good ends. The temptation then arises to move toward the goal without waiting for the people. It seems odd to 18 THE ORGAOTZATIOIT NECESSARY say so, but such impatience is not altogether Christian. Christianity looks for the full and free response of free men. In the long run the more Christian way is that of full presentation of the ideal and of patiently persuading men to accept that ideal no matter how long the time re- quired. It must be remembered that on first examination democracy always makes a poor showing as compared with autocracy. Autocracy is apparently more effective. The autocrat says to one man, "Do this/' and he does it. That is, he does it for a while, but in the long run the greater efficiency is that of the public servant in an atmosphere where public opinion itself makes it easy and honorable to discharge public tasks. Persuasion takes time, but in the end the persuaded man works better and works longer than the ordered man. Of the dangers that democracy itself may become autocratic we shall speak in a later section. Here we insist that those theories and policies which tend in legislation and administration toward doing the people good, whether the people want the good done or not, are violations of that Christian principle which strives to call out the free response of men in all their activities, includ- ing the voting activities. Two methods in contrast. — There recently came to my knowledge an apt illustration of contrast between auto- cratic and democratic method of doing good to people. I heard of a German colonial governor, of high intentions and consumma,te scientific skill, who had failed to intro- duce right sanitary and agricultural methods into a colony perishing for lack of them because he had sought to estab- lish the new methods by edict. The rawest of raw heathen rebelled against such methods or, rather, refused to co- operate with them whole-heartedly enough to make them succeed. On the same day I learned of the success of an English official in introducing modern medicine and sur- gery into a Chinese city controlled by Great Britain. The governor sanctioned the use of both Chinese and European systems of treatment in the hospital. The patient could choose either English antisepsis and other modern scien- tific treatment or he could take the surgically dirty Chinese method of chasing off devils. In the end the English method prevailed, and prevailed by the wishes of the 19 CHRISTIAN CITIZEl^SHIP Chinese. It took time, but it ultimately saved time and brought the results that last through the longer time. The German method may not have been non- Christian, but it was certainly less Christian than the English method. And the experience in the hospital was an object lesson in democratic procedure good for the world outside of hospitals. Questions for Thought and Discussion 1. Is there any divine right of the people to rule? 2. In what sense is the voice of the people the voice of God? 3. What is the difference between a politician and a statesman ? 4. Can democracy exist under a king ? 5. Is it safe to pass good laws before the people are ready for them? 6. Must we wait till all the people are ready for a good law before we pass it ? 7. Why does autocracy seem more efficient than democ- racy? 8. What is your opinion of benevolent despotism? 20 CHAPTER III THE CHIEF RIGHT AND DUTY Amos 7. 10-15; Mic. 3. 10-12; Luke 8. 16-18 It would be utterly foolish to try to enumerate the rights and duties of citizenship. Life is too short. Not a day but brings some new advantage from men's living together in groups and some new obligation to make the common life richer and fuller. There are, however, some rights and duties that are almost one and the same. Some attitudes and -activities of the members of the group are both rights and duties. It is the obligation of the citizen to die for his country, we often say, and it is also his privi- lege. Much more it is the right and duty of the members of the group to live for the group. Public Opinion and Christian Ideals In a brief discussion like ours it is not wise to wander too far from the controlling centers. Let us say, then, that it is the primary duty of the members of the group to keep the public opinion of the group, on which all group activity depends, moving toward the Christian ideals for men. To do this the individual must first of all free himself from bondage to what James Bryce calls the fatalism of the majority — the feeling that when the people have passed sentence on a matter that matter is settled. This notion rests down upon one of two fallacies — either the fallacy that the will of the people is some vast inevitable force, like the procession of the seasons, against which it is use- less to protest, or the fallacy that when the people speak, their voice is the voice of God. There is indeed something like the sweep of a mighty primeval force in a nation-wide movement of public opinion, and sometimes such a move- ment arises spontaneously; but the whole emphasis on propaganda in recent years shows that such tidal move- 21 CHEISTIAN CITIZENSHIP ments can be, and, indeed, often are artificially produced, though the masses of the people may act in -all integrity and sincerity. And the humblest citizen has the right and duty of trying to move public opinion in the true direction. As for the voice of the people being the voice of God, that all. depends on what the people say. There is nothing im- possible in the voice of the people's being the voice of Satan. To be sure, the voice of the people is more likely to be the voice of God than the voice of the devil, for in public de- cisions the people act more unselfishly than in private decisions. The citizen can look at a public affair in a more impartial fashion than at a private affair; still, it is pos- sible for a thoroughly democratic nation to act in a selfish and cruel manner. Intervention in Miexico. — For some years following the overthrow of Diaz in Mexico there was a campaign fostered by a few powerful financial interests in the United States for intervention in Mexico. The campaign did not suc- ceed, partly because the people knew who were the pro- moters. The people of the United States were not going to war with Mexico just for the benefit of a few financial houses. Now, oddly enough there was more widespread pressure in a certain European democracy to urge the United States to intervene in Mexico than in the United States itself, the reason being that the European country held a large number of shares in Mexican enterprises, and these shares were widely distributed among those who had only modest amounts of savings to invest. It would have been easy to start a popular movement in that nation to support the United States in an attack on Mexico. The Value op Publicity It is the chief business of the citizen in a democracy to keep the streams flowing from his own life into the general current of public opinion pure and sweet, and it is also his right and duty to see that all other contributing streams are pure. This does not mean that it is the Christian duty of the individual citizen to enter upon a fussy inquisition into the lives of his neighbors, but it does mean that, so far as possible, the forces that beget public opinion shall ^work in the Light of full day. Nobody can see far down THE CHIEF EIGHT AND DUTY into the depths of that inner consciousness where the think- ing of millions of persons goes forward, but the processes by which that thinking is controlled and put to work for the purposes of various powerful individuals or groups can be seen. These processes should be lifted into the full light, that the light and air may keep them pure. Publicity and politics. — We have won some victories in America toward the overthrow of evil public servants. The writer of these pages is just past fifty years old. He can remember the various steps by which the professional politician has been reduced to relative harmlessness and has even been made useful. A few attempts at bribery punished by long prison sentences helped clear the air, and the lesson was reenforced by the common knowledge that the public was "dead anxious^' to know the names of all politicians who would give or take bribes. Publicity turned on the politician has helped him. He is not yet the most respectable citizen in the community, but he is better than he used to be. The knowledge he possesses as to how to work political or legislative machinery can serve the public good. If delegates to a Methodist General Confer- ence find themselves lost because of ignorance and inex- pertness through about the first two weeks of a month's session, we can see the advantage of having measurably expert men handling the state machinery — ^if it is aU done in the full light. Publicity and organized wealth. — ^The outstanding dan- ger even in democratically ruled countries is the power of organized wealth. Here again the citizen has the right and the duty of asking for publicity, for if the light is not pitilessly thrown upon the operations of wealth in relation to the public welfare, these operations may one day call forth a wild reaction that will go further than the most extreme social revolutionist in his calmer moments would approve. The one force that selfish greed fears is the force of public opinion, and the force that greed to-day most definitely seeks to control is the force of public opinion. Throwing light on corporate activities. — I am not charging that huge aggregations of wealth deliberately employ money in corrupt ways. There may be outright buying of legislative or administrative support here and 23 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP there, but that is too dangerous. The actual method is quite otherwise. A corporation establishes a mill in a small town. Most of the people in the town work in the mill. Hence, when the town officials are elected they are neces- sarily chosen in considerable part from the mill men. The corporation maintains a good hospital, from which those outside its own employees are not excluded. The cor- poration helps in the support of the church. And so on and on through a story too long to tell. Let the lines of the corporation or corporations reach out to the ends of a state or a nation, and you have a system for the control of public opinion in its relation to that corporation which nothing short of a moral earthquake can upset. Yes, something can break it or hold it to right channels — ^the light of publicity, which brings all this out where we can see and criticize. With all the corporation's actions legiti- mate the less objection the corporation should have to al- lowing its deeds to come to the light. And the question- able aspects of the activities of organized wealth should certainly be pulled up into the glare of the sunlight. I was once summoned to appear before a United States Senate committee to give testimony concerning the activi- ties of a well-known corporation. One of the members of that committee was declared in reputable financial journals of the United States to be among the two or three largest shareholders in the corporation under investigation. Do I mean that the presence of this financier on that committee vras wrong ? Not at all. He may have been just as deeply sincere in getting at the facts as any one else. Only, there should have been the firmest demand for light as to the relation of this committeeman to the corporation. Controlling the News One desperate need of the American democracy is a source where we can get the news upon which to frame just opinions. The corporation has a right to buy the con- trolling shares in newspapers and to say what it pleases in the editorial columns. The danger, however, is not in the editorial columns but in the news columns. And the dan- ger here is not in any deliberate falsification. The news- gatherer, or the city editor, for the corporation-owned 24. THE CHIEF EIGHT AND DUTY newspaper sees from the point of view of the system of which he is a part. He is not dishonest in reporting from his own angle; the trouble is with the angle. When the popular demand "What are the facts ?'' becomes irresistible, the people will get the facts. Then it will appear, not that the newspapers have been lying, but that they have come to the inspection of facts of public significance from the point of view of interested parties, and not from that of public servants. The spy system. — We hold no brief against organized wealth. The world would not get far without organized wealth. But if we believe that in the ordering of the uni- verse people come to their best under a democratic society we must insist that organized wealth purge itself of tiiose elements in itself which work against democracy. Think of the extent of the spy system to-day in American in- dustry. The most prominent business concerns in the United States openly admit — or admit on witness stands — that they hire spies to spy upon their own workmen, that they add to the wages of workmen for tattling on their fellows — about as the despised "teacher's pet" of our school days used to tattle — that they pay detectives to join labor unions and reveal the secrets of those unions to corpora- tions, that they aid and abet lying and deceit in its meanest forms. If industry cannot get on without such methods, we must not be surprised if the radical keeps on asking if this is not too much of a price to pay for the existence of the industry. But the evil is remediable without tearing down the industry. Publicity and the unions. — And now someone says to himself that all this is grossly unfair; that laboring men, organized in vast unions, seek to control public opinion just as truly as does organized wealth. There is no reason why I should defend labor unions. They have done enough wrong, we all know. But anybody who has ever had ex- perience with labor unions knows that with all their misuse of force, and all their reliance on the strike, and all their attempt to control congressional and legislative elections, they are much more open to publicity than the forces of organized wealth. This does not mean that they are neces- sarily any more virtuous than the agents of organized 25 GHEISTIAN CITIZENSHIP capital. The very numerousness of a trade union prevents its plans from being secret. The labor paper is openly and frankly "labor.^^ The trade union is much more open than the jSnancial organization and can be made more open still. Strangely enough, a part of the opposition to unions comes from the very openness with which they work. And they cannot do much with detectives as their agents. The spies of the labor union can hardly get into the inner coun- cils of organized finance. The Chief Right op the Chbistian" Citizeit But to get back to the main point. The chief right of the citizen is to demand that the public opinion that shapes so much of his life shall be substantially Christian, and that is his chief obligation as a citizen. He must ask that public opinion shall aim at the best for men and that it shall not yield to the interests of any one class or group. This applies, of course, to the efforts even of religious bodies to control public opinion by any other methods than open and public discussions. It is just as much a sin for a church, Catholic or Protestant, to seek secretly to manip- ulate the springs of public opinion as for a corporation or a labor union to do so. It is wrong for a church to seek any control except for the interests of the public welfare. Let everything come out into the light. The business of the Christian democrat is to be a light bringer and a light seeker. The control of public opinion which he seeks is that which persuades the people on their own account to move toward the highest life. Questions fob Thought and Discussion 1. President Lowell says that true public opinion must be public and must be opinion. What do you interpret this statement to mean ? 2. What kind of training is necessary before a man can correctly report what he sees ? 3. It is absurd to say that masses of men often go wrong in a public vote because they are deliberately wicked. Name some causes that do lead to mistaken popular ver^ diets, 96 THE CHIEF EIGHT AND DUTY 4. Can you think of any public rights which do not imply corresponding obligations? 6. How would you define propaganda? 6. Can a business corporation or a trade union rightly remain silent before a reasonable inquiry about features of their activity which affect the public welfare ? 7. How can the church help toward making public sen- timent Christian? 8. Can you see any signs that American public opinion is becoming more Christian? 27 CHAPTER IV MAJORITIES AND MINORITIES Dan. 3. 13-18; Acts 7. 51-60 A Menace to Democeacy We have said that the voice of the majority may not, on a particular occasion, be at all the voice of God. But in carrying out its own decrees the majority may be a more dreadful tyrant than any individual despot the world has known. It is said that Bishop Gore, a celebrated leader of the Anglican Church, went home depressed after a visit to the United States in the closing months of the war, exclaiming that the terrible unity of the United States in the war attitude was a veritable menace to democracy. At first glance it might seem that the bishop, assuming him to be correctly reported, had got things topsy-turvy. The United States was fighting a war for democracy. ^ Why complain of her terrible unity? The usual complaint has been that the United States lacks unity. But what the bishop probably meant was sound enough. It is a terrible thing for a democracy to become so unified as not to toler- ate criticism of itself. During the course of the Great War the situation became so tense in the United States that the late Theodore Roosevelt was almost the only citizen who could safely utter even legitimate criticism of the course of the government. If only former Presidents of the United States can utter criticisms of the government in time of war, we are in a bad way. We are not dealing with academic problems now. Assuming that speech moves within the limits of manifest decency and is not aiming at incendiarism, the only safety for democracy is in allowing discussion to go forward unhindered. The reasons for this are manifest at a glance. Minoeities Within a State The rights of higher education. — To begin with let us 28 MAJORITIES AND MINORITIES remind ourselves that there are in every nation organiza- tions that do not include all the nation and are therefore minorities, which have rights as against even the nation itself. Take the higher-educational system of a nation. The obligation of that system is to the truth. The nation should indeed see that the system violates none of the laws of the land. The search for the truth would not be a fair defense for housing students in unsanitary buildings or for exempting them from the common laws against admittedly criminal action. The state has a right also to inquire into the educational efficiency of schools of all sorts and to say what ones are and what are not attaining a recognized scholastic standard. But when the state sets itself up as a censor of teaching it puts itself in as ridiculous a plight as the late Kaiser of Germany when he issued an ultimatum as to what university professors ought to say about the influence of Babylon on shaping the Christian Bible. Without discussing the abstract question of state sover- eignty we are on safest ground when we admit that an institution of high educational standards has a measure of independence as over against any social group whatso- ever. Chnrch and state. — For further illustration we may think of the place of the Christian church in a nation. The relation of church and state is an old, old enigma, many phases of which do not have the slightest interest for an American. We are not interested, for example, in the question of a state church. We concede a measure of state control over churches. If church trustees are to handle property they must act in accordance with the state laws governing property transactions. If churches are to ask people to assemble together they must make the conditions of the assembly such as not to violate sanitary regulations or fire laws which the community has established for its own safety. But the state must recognize the church's liberty of prophecy. If state officials do not like what is said in church pulpits they have a right to say what they please in rejoinder but they have no right to take state action. In general there is adequate recognition of this principle. The only danger just now is that in unofficial ways the state will seek to make the church an adjunct to 29 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP itself. We say "just now/^ We mean rather tlio times of crisis like that of the last war, in which the churches lent themselves to the state as recruiting agencies and as agencies for keeping up the fighting morale. It is the business of the church in general to rebuke war spirit in case the war is one of conquest, however disguised, and to keep the ideals of the conflict as high as possible if the war is one of self-defense. What actually happened was that in their pleas for war three or four years ago the utterances of some church leaders went back to the pre-Christian stage, to the pre-Old Testament stage, to the prehuman stage. The explanation was that an onsweeping wave of public opinion was carrying before it state and church alike and was applauding some servants of the church in unchristian utterance. It is the business of the church to be in the minority against an unchristian majority. How far a Christian churchman should go in criticism of or resistance to a state is a matter for the individual con- science. It is almost funny, for example, for the church- man to raise the cry of "anarchy'' against a conscientious objector and then go to church and sing about the fathers who, "chained in prisons dark, were still in heart and conscience free.'' How inspiring also under such circum- stances to sing, "How sweet would be the children's fate if they, like" the fathers, "could die for Thee" ! Conscientious objectors. — ^We have incidentally men- tioned conscientious objectors to war. War regulations in various countries take account of such objectors and aim not to violate too much the conscience of the opponent to war. But we in America have not an enviable record in dealing with conscientious objectors. There are some wars in which I would willingly fight or in which, being myself above the draft age, I would encourage others to fight. I know, too, that conscientious objectors in the flesh are likely to be disagreeable. Most martyrs are disagreeable. They have sharp angles and ugly corners. Very possibly in the old days of the burning of martyrs many a neighbor of the martyrs, who heartily disapproved of the burnings, was nevertheless relieved when some of the martyrs were gone. No doubt, also, among the so-called conscientious objectprs in the last war there were many cowards, dead- 30 MAJORITIES AND MINORITIES beats, idlers, and fools. But when all this is admitted, it must be borne in mind that there were others, and that those others, who stood conscientiously for what seemed to them to be an absolute ideal of the dignity of a man's life, are among those who make human life, in the long run, worth living. To abuse such a conscientious objector is to abuse one of the true exemplars of what democracy should ever seek to realize. Minorities Opposed to the State Suppose we look now at minorities who challenge even the form of the state itself. This brings us near burning debates of our own day. The only safety is to deal with such challenges by full and free discussion. For the sake of illustration we take a debate that has no special signifi- cance for the United States and which, therefore, is not likely to raise heated argument. We look for a moment at a discussion going on in England. The discussion has to do with the organization of the state itself. One party, under the leadership of men like G. D. H. Cole, insist that the English system of government, based as it is on terri- torial representation, is inadequate for twentieth-century purposes. Cole and his followers insist that the governing body shall be divided into at least two branches, one repre- senting the nation as a group of consumers, and the other and more important representing the producers. A man knows more about his work than about the particular bit of territory in which he lives. Let a man sit in a governing body as a representative of a trade, he contends, rather than as a representative of a community if we are to have efficiency in government. Guild-socialism advocates. — To the honor of England be it said that she allows full discussion of such questions on their merits. Why not ? Well, for one reason, the fore- going proposition has a tincture of bolshevism. There is a suggestion of sovietism in Cole's guild socialism. But the English have not done what they easily could have done : they have not made discussion impossible by shouting "Bolshevism V One of the most able critics of guild social- ism is J. A. Hobson, a liberal of tendencies that in America would probably be called radical. Cole insists that the 31 CHEISTIAN CITIZENSHIP earning of daily bread is to be the chief phase of a man's activity under any form of social organization. Hobson, on the other hand, pleads for such an organization of in- dustry as will make the earning of a livelihood bulk less and less in human life and will leave men more and more free to release other forms of energy; in which case the territorial community might form the ideal unit for human activity. If England had stamped out the discussion with the cry of "Bolshevism/^ men like Hobson would have joined in the protest against such violation of free speech, and Hobson and Cole ^7ould have been classified together. What good there may be in guild socialism would never have had a chance for consideration. As it is, whatever of value there may be in the Cole suggestions probably will one day be fitted somehow into the English system. Extreme radicalism. — But what in the world are we to do about all the wild fellows who talk socialism and com- munism and bolshevism? The question is not mine, but that of the man who lumps all these things together. To begin with we might remind ourselves that there are more than a hundred million people in the United States, and that they are on the whole conservative. They are not likely to adopt any radically changed social system in a rush. So far as the chances of adoption of radical doc- trines by the United States go, we may just as well calm ourselves. And, having calmed ourselves, it may be just as well for us to look any radical system in the face and talk the whole problem out. Then, in that cooler mood, we may be able to see the measure of good there may be in suggestions however radical. Good is good wherever found. We shall certainly not go far bad by recognizing good. Further, if we look at these systems in this discriminating way we shall be able to attack the systems at the point of their weakness. The sad fact is that about as much harm is done by unwise attack on radical systems by ignoramus conservatives as by the positive advances of the systems themselves, for the reason that under these circumstances the well-informed radical wins in the argument, and thereby the belief is encouraged that the intellectual merits of the controversy are with the radical side ; which may be far from the truth. Finally, we must remember that the 32 MAJORITIES AND MINORITIES spirit of protest voiced by radicalism mnst never b« disre- garded. Radicalism of the most extreme stamp has often a value as a red light to keep us on the true path. And extreme radicalism loses its explosive danger when it is brought out of the cellars and attics and put on the soap boxes at the corners of the streets. Those anxious souls among us who object to the soap boxes in the public squares would better remember that it is safer to have the ranting in the public square than in the back aUey, safer to have radicals talking at the top of their voices than talking in whispers. Democracy has no place for whisperings on social questions. And while we are encouraging radicals to speak up with their arguments, let us also encourage the con- servatives to speak up. When a great corporation or other organization in a democracy answers legitimate criticism by cynical silence, it sins against democracy. For when a minority with power in any form sits dumb before just questioning, the critics are likely to resort to more violent methods to attract the attention of that minority. QUESTIOITS FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 1. Name some historic crises in which the voice of the minority has been the voice of God. 2. Name some of the dangers in silencing debate on public questions. 3. What social groups in the United States can be de- pended upon to check movements toward destructive radicalism ? 4. Have you known instances in our country of com- paratively sudden changes of minorities into majorities? 5. What happens to democracy when the majority tramples upon the rights of the minority? 6. What are some of the rights of the minority which the majority should respect? 7. What limits can be rightly set upon freedom of speech ? 8. What limits should a member of a minority set for himself in criticiziiig a majority? 83 CHAPTER V AN EDUCATED CITIZENRY Prov. 8. 1-11; 29. 7, 8; Matt. 7. 21-27; 2 Tim. 3. 16, 17 We have said with wearisome iteration that one power of a social group is that of drawing out the human possi- bilities of the individual members of the group into ex- pression. All social life can be educative in this drawing out the capabilities of the separate persons. But the group can be repressive also, as we have tried to say in the dis- cussion of the sweeping and leveling power of public senti- ment. It is a duty then, if a social group is to achieve the highest and best for its members, to install and carry on deliberate and purposeful systems of education in order to make the most of the educative power of society itself and to guard society from becoming repressive in relation to the individual person. Conserving Human Resources Education and individual genius. — It may not indeed be the business of a public-educational system to discover the individual genius, but we may remark that if a public- educational scheme should occasionally discover a Shake- speare or a Newton or a Darwin or any mind of the first rank, the educational system would by that discovery justify itself in the loftiest degree. Such men become possessions of all of society, and the system is justified which discovers them. A pertinent charge often brought against society as now organized, especially in its industrial fea- tures, is that the system makes for the smothering out of talent, except that talent which teUs directly in industrial success. It is indeed true that genius is likely to find a way to seK-expression ; still, there are some species of genius that a massive social system organized as is ours is not likely to call forth. Genius in art or literature or 34 AN EDUCATED CITIZENRY philosopliy or the rarer abstract thinking may go hand in hand with a lack of that self-assertiveness which can be depended on to report itself under modern competitive conditions. A college professor of recognized standing has recently declared that the mass of workers in English and American industry are getting about what they deserve and are about where they ought to be; that if they knew more or had more will power they would not be where they are: hence an encomium on the virtues of the industrial system as a force in putting men where they ought to be and in keeping them there. All this overlooks the fact that along with poor industrial ability may go extraor- dinary abilities of a much lovelier quality than the com- petitive system of industry can ever produce. The soul richly endowed with sympathy is not obviously destined to succeed in the scramble for this world's goods. Who of us who have worked in mills or on farms does not recall men of power of statement or of artistic expression or of philosophic theorizing that might have come to excellent fruitage if given a chance ? ProTiding opportunity for the poetic mind. — The only course that will save a democratic society from the charge of wasting its priceless human resources will be an educa- tional system that will carry every mind far enough to see what its capabilities are and will provide that any mind of promise gets its chance. The educational world was inter- ested some months ago to learn that Miami University, one of the State universities of Ohio, had announced a fellow- ship for American poetry, the income of the fellowship to be granted year by year to whatever poet or poets the uni- versity might choose, the poet to use the income to aid in securing ampler opportunity for poetic utterance. We had hardly expected this from a State university. We would have more readily expected the university to set aside funds for the discovery of a new earth fertilizer. But Miami has taken the lead in rendering a rare service to a democracy. Much as we deplore the selfishness of old-time kings we must remember that they often rendered social service by making themselves patrons of art and learning. Democracy will one day be judged by the objects it patronizes. 35 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP Teaching the Use of Tools Looking now at broader reasons for a nation's seeking an educated citizenry, we may say that the nation should first of all put the pupil in possession of useful tool studies. Language is a tool. Some processes in arithmetic are tools. Scientific method is a tool. These tools have been fashioned by the efforts of countless generations. They are part of our social heritage. Society wisely takes the child at six years and keeps him out of the world's work for eight or ten years to give him mastery of these tools. The ten years thus devoted will render the remaining four or five decades of the pupil's life more than ten times as effective as they would otherwise have been. Expert service.— The object of this e'ducation is not only to make the child himself a capable tool user but to beget in him respect for all experts who are expert. Mr. Charles E. Hughes once said that one test of democracy's power to survive will be its attitude toward the expert. Political and industrial rulers have never been lacking in their ap- preciation of experts. Democracy must be likewise appre- ciative. Just think of the range of problems coming upon men to-day through the congestion of the world's popula- tion. In the old days we used to sing of the old oaken bucket that hung in the well. In those days all we had to do to tell if the water was good was to see if it was clear. With no neighbors living nearer than a half a mile, the danger of contamination was not great, though moss is always a bad sign on buckets. In these days the con- gestion of population makes wells unsafe. To construct a modern water system the finest grade of expert service is required. To see that the water is safe delicate chemical and bacteriological tests must be utiKzed. If we will not heed experts we shall probably be wiped out with plague as the congestion of population continues. The scientific method consists somewhat in the mastery of in- struments of precision, and only the expert can handle such instruments. We must have a citizenry that will heed experts. Granted that the expert must be judged by his results, the processes themselves must be taken on trust. The old doctrine that any man is the equal of any other in 36 AN EDUCATED CITIZENEY every respect is gone forever. Even the chnrch cannot sur- vive as a socially useful agent unless it heeds the expert and follows the scientific method even in the upbuilding of souls. The Study of Life Ideals But there is something more important than regard for the expert. Society takes youth into the schools not only to give him tool knowledge but also to make him thoughtful as to the aims of life itself. More important than the use of the tool is the reason for that use. Language is not merely a tool study but a study of the ideals that have colored the thinking of the leaders of the race. The control of social movements. — In modern communi- ties we have developed a public opinion that is the greatest social force on earth. How important, then, to have edu- cation go far enough at least to make the citizens thought- ful ! Social changes move to-day with terrific speed. We know how dangerous it is for scientists to invent fast- going machines if they do not at the same time devise ways of stopping them quickly. I was once riding on a railroad train on which the air-brake system gave out. The conductor announced that he would try to make his run using the old-fashioned hand-brakes. The result was that we ran past every station and then had to back up to it, illustrating by allegory what happens to social move- ments when not under control. The speeding up of social action. — It will be a grievous mistake however if we plead for public education only on the ground that reflection of the thoughtful type tends to slow social action down. It is much more important that some forms of social action be speeded up. The reason we do not speed ourselves to the removal of outstanding evils is that we are not thoughtful. To take things just as they are is not the mark of thoughtfuhiess but is sheer sluggish inertia. Better have the overrestless intellects among us prying into everything than to have a social system "caked over,'* as Bagehot would say, with callous indifference. Why should there be so much poverty on earth? Is there no way of getting enough from the earth to keep the vast majority of the race above the mere subsistence level? 37 CHEISTIAN CITIZENSHIP Granting the inequalities of endowment and opportunity, which we have to admit, why should there be so much in- equality? Possibly some of the questions are insoluble, but there is some value in finding out if a question is un- answerable. Much of the progress of the race has come through putting questions that have proved insoluble. He who finds that there is no thoroughfare in a given quarter may be a benefactor. His failure may help others to the true path. The instant men begin to think hard, that instant some degree of social progress is assured. Here at least is part of the rejoinder to the charge often heard that educational systems, colleges and universities especially, fall under the control of the so-called possessing classes to the harm of society in general. Sympathizing as I do with all effort to make the educational system the servant of the people, I must say that this objection, pertinent as it is in part, overlooks some facts. The truth is that it is impossible to begin seriously to study the vital questions without some light breaking on the mind of the student. The charge is better raised in another form — ^that an avowedly reactionary school will provoke to ill-considered radicalism. I once knew a theological institute that sought to lock out all progressive thought. Its theory was that there is enough in theology on which there is agreement to make it wise to teach only the subjects on which there is slight possibility of debate. That school was marvelously successful in producing radicals, but they were of the ill- informed, all-or-nothing type. Other schools, which with open eyes faced the facts, sent students forth in the better sense conservative — that is to say, anxious to conserve the truth wherever found. Training for Character But one word more about any educational system that aspires to be called Christian : Character cannot be left out. We cannot afford to have a group of trained thinkers turned loose on us if they have not force of moral nature enough to use their learning and skill for an unselfish pur- pose. We are hearing to-day of the discovery of destructive forces to be used in war — deadly gases that can wipe out 38 AN EDUCATED CITIZENEY a regiment in the twinkling of an eye, poisons that can in an hour annihilate a city. If these get into hands of na- tional leaders who cannot use them aright, civilization is doomed, and it ought to be. Any civilization that unlocks forces like these with a purpose to conquer in war deserves to be caught and choked out in its own gases. Schools of social living. — There is no reason for despair, however. Wise educators to-day are trying to make schools into ideal social communities — common schools, high schools, colleges, and universities, all striving to embody in actual living together these principles which should govern social contact. There is hope here. Let schools be spheres of laboratory practice in fine social living. The greatest schools have always aimed to be such, though the ideals have not always been of the wisest. So far as pos- sible let schools be units in training for living together, with loyalty, of course, to truth as the basic virtue. And to that add mutual respect founded on regard for human worth, and to that sympathy, and to all regard for the common good. In such atmosphere the handling of knowl- edge would be socially safe, and the power of thought would not work toward tearing down but toward building up. If aristocracy in England could fashion a university whose atmosphere for centuries tended to conserve the best in aristocracy, there is no reason why democracies every- where should not fashion schools to conserve and expand the best in democracy. Questions foe Thought and Discussion 1. What is the difference between instruction and educa- tion? 2. Why does democracy insist upon compulsory and uni- versal education? 3. Name some of the responsibilities that come with knowledge. 4. Is it socially safe for society to train intellect alone without training moral character ? 5. Who is more dangerous to a community — an ignorant good man or an educated bad man ? 6. Is the church an educational institution ? If so, what 39 CHEISTIAN CITIZENSHIP is the difference between her task and that of the public school ? 7. Does thonghtfnlness always tend to deliberateness of action ? 8. Do you think that education should be chiefly voca- tional ? 4d CHAPTER VI PHYSICAL FITNESS AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH John 9; 1 Cor. 6. 19,20 Bible Teachings About Health Jesus healing. — In nothing is the advance of social sen- timent more definitely revealed to-day than in the emphasis on the public duty of private health. It would be folly to say that no one has a right to be sick, but it is not folly to say that we are all under obligations to keep ourselves as well as possible for the sake of the public good as truly as for our own sake. Religious agencies are reenforcing the social demand for widespread good health. In this emphasis such agencies are getting back to that Scriptural atmosphere out of which Christianity came. Jesus did not indeed make the healing of the sick his main work, but he did heal the sick and thereby he gave his sanction to works of healing. It is, we all know, true that some of the most notable victories of Christian faith have been won in the chambers of pain, but the practice of Jesus seems to have been to get men into bodily wholeness before making at- tempt to give them the largest spiritual truth. That won- derful passage in John about the healing of the man born blind is the story of the way Jesus opened not only the physical eyes but the spiritual sight as well. The account begins with the command to go and wash in the pool of Siloam, — and the blind man must have had considerable initial faith to obey — ^but the final stage in the miracle is the winning of the restored man's confession that Jesus is the Son of God. A revelation to the healthy. — Accounts of healing apart, the more central truth is that the spiritual revelation was a revelation made to a healthy people living a vigorous and energetic life. The Bible is an out-of-doors book. The revelation came to a vitally aggressive people toughened 41 CHEISTIAN" CITIZENSHIP by years of outdoor toil and by nomad hardship in a wilder- ness. There are not many Old Testament heroes who are sickly. It is true that in the book of Job the problem of physical pain is heroically faced, and the attitude of trust indicated for all time; but the mention of Moses and Samuel and David and Amos and Isaiah does not suggest anything spiritually or physically puny. Jesus does not seem ever to have been sick, nor were the disciples often confined to their beds. Paul, indeed, had a thorn in the flesh, but it did not prevent his being one of the most over- whelmingly active lives known in history. The religion of a sound mind and body.— There is a reason underlying all this. If popular self-government is to survive, it must stick close to reality. Other things being equal, the physically sound man is better adjusted to the world in which we live than is the sick man. If there is a wrong physical adjustment to the world, there is sure to be, sooner or later, a wrong spiritual adjustment. I once knew a church in an extreme altitude among moun- tains which was always hindered in its work by the per- formances of cranks and fanatics. I was long puzzled to know why the church was thus so afflicted until a shrewd scientific friend called my attention to the fact that more people were there lying awake at night, unable to sleep be- cause of the altitude, than in any other city of the size in the country. The physical environment did not make for soundness. To refer to the Scriptures again it is interest- ing to note that the old Mosaic regulations were intended to make a whole people clean. Is it fanciful to suggest that the work of Moses in striving after physical soundness for his followers and in protesting perpetually against the licentiousness of the nations round about is, in part, re- sponsible for the thoroughness with which the Jewish people became a channel for the revelation of the divine will ? This is not to reduce the religious life to the out- come of physical antecedents. We shall say later that a wholesome religious ideal makes for physical health, but the return of spiritual soundness from the Jewish search for physical soundness was amazing. Consider the free- dom of Israel from reliance on the unhealthy occult — sorcery and witchcraft. Consider the difference between 42 PHYSICAL FITNESS the visions of the prophets and the trances of the heathen priests, and we discern one difference between the religion of the sound mind and that of the half-sickened mind. Professor C. F. Kent has laid us aU under lasting debt by calling attention to the far strides the old Israelitish reli- gion made toward democracy. Democracy cannot* well thrive without revelations that come in the broad sunlight rather than in the dark. The Chuech and Health The church, to be Christian, must lend the support of its inspiration to anything that helps on widespread health. It must aid especially in attacking plagues that now and again decimate the populations of whole nations. If Christ were to come to earth again he probably would soon find his way to the laboratories where heroic and unselfish scien- tists are hunting for ways to kill the germs that make for typhoid and tuberculosis and bubonic plague and yellow fever. The searchers for these germs are working for Christ and the people whether they know it themselves or not. And Christ would also soon find his way to the offices of those striving to give men better houses, more fresh air, more healthful shop and factory ventilation. Getting at the roots. — After all, Christianity is radical in the sense of getting down to the roots of things. Jesus discussed in a parable two types of radicalism — that of the ax and that of the spade. There is in the teaching of Jesus a place for the radicalism of the ax, but only after the radicalism of the spade, which would loosen the earth around the roots, has been tried. As Christians we must listen to those rather fierce prophets who tell us that the poor health of masses of people comes out of the industrial system in which we live. But before borrowing the ax of such prophets let us see if a Christian public sentiment cannot do a little spading around the roots of the institu- tions. Wages and health. — We agree that there can be no high social life without fair health on the part of the mass of persons in the society. Let us insist, then, that industry shall more and more make place for a living wage, not a mere existence or subsistence wage. If we are to get down 43 CHEISTIAN CITIZENSHIP to the taproot of widespread weakness we find it to be due to the fact that food is insufiicient, clothing not quite warm enough, houses not fully heated, surplus money not sufficient to warrant calling the physician for those "colds'' out. of which serious illness comes. So we often have among laborers in all industries and in all walks of life that ^^under par" condition which means a citizenry not likely to be aroused to great national issues. Those scientists probably overstate the case who say that the downfall of Kome was caused by malaria of a virulent type; but one thing is sure: even if the malaria was not of a virulent type, if it was just enough to give the mass of Eomans a dragged-down, washed-out feeling, they would not long care whether Eome fell or not. Hours and health. — Or take the effect of fatigue from too long a working day. Who can labor twelve hours a day for six days a week and be interested in anything ex- cept just to get to bed after the day? We must not be misled by the examples of those who have risen to eminence through such hours of work. Ordinarily such persons are dowered with exceptional survival powers, and tiiey are not always especially attractive characters after they have survived. They carry too many marks of the struggle through which they have passed. Should we be deceived even by the preacher who tells us that he works sixteen hours a day ? There is no work on earth more interesting than that of the preacher. A manufacturing magnate once replied to a friend of mine who was urging an eight-hour day for heavy monotonous labor that he himself, the mag- nate, worked sixteen hours a day — sixteen hours a day in a comfortable office, with new and fascinating questions up for solution, with the excitement of the stupendous game as a stimulus, with trips all over the world as part of the work! leisure and health. — If the commonwealth on earth is to be at all a preparation for the commonwealth in the heavens, there must be chance for leisure from heavy, ex- hausting toil, and leisure not for the rest of dead slumber but for the rest of changed activity, for recreation that gives the unused faculties a chance, for brooding that lets the worker get hold of ideas that put meaning into his toil. 44 PHYSICAL FITNESS In aU this, however, we must be careful to keep the bal- ance. The Christian doctrine of good health is indeed obedience to God's physical laws, out of which good health comes, and reliance upon healthy bodily processes to bring healthy mental and spiritual processes ; but the other side must never be forgotten — the effect of the spiritual state on the physical state. Current mental healing is too often an exaggeration to aberration of a principle familiar enough since the days of the Old Testament shrewd ob- server who said that a cheerful heart is a good medicine; and, apart from the cheerful heart, the mental healer is right in insisting that we can get rid of some ailments by ignoring them — at least better than by bemoaning a lot of trifling inconveniences. But beyond all this the physically strengthening power of a noble ideal is part of gospel truth. The old explorers used to say that if a traveler through the woods, bent on a momentous errand for his country or his king, would take with him as companions a dog and an Indian, the dog would weaken first, the sav- age next, and the mess&nger of the king last, assuming all in fairly good condition at the start. The inner forces of the higher type of intelligence would give the king's messenger the advantage in the physical race. Health fob the World This problem of public health grows more and more acute with the passing of the years. The world is rapidly becoming a vast community, and bad physical conditions in one nation soon affect aU nations. Even if there were no problem of eternal destiny involved, the nations of the world would sooner or later be forced to adopt some points of view essentially Christian just for the sake of the conquest of an evil physical situation. Close observers tell us that the physical disorders of the mass of the people in India have both physical and mental roots. There are the terrific pressure of the population on the land and the resulting handicap in getting a livelihood, all issuing, finally, in deadly fatalism. The problem must be attacked on all sides, by no means overlooking the necessity of spiritual at- tack on the fatalism. The religions of India, so far as an outsider can judge, are narcotic, hypnotic, soporific. The 45 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP theology is of value chiefly as an anaesthetic, and no won- der when the circumstances of actual Indian existence come to view. If a Christian outlook upon life could thoroughly be introduced, the new dignity of the human being would lead to new thought of family and child life, to a reduction of the pressure of population and to sounder physical existence. Of China also it is said that five gen- erations are brought forth upon a land that should be ex- pected to sustain only four during that period. The Chris- tian viewpoint would give China better medicine, better living conditions, and a better thought of the meaning of a human life. The Christian doctrine would make against ancestor worship and the overdemand for sons, against too early marriage, against concubinage, against sexual pro- miscuity. The birth rate would fall, but the worth of those born would rise. And the physical conditions would make not so much for sheer endurance as for positive achieve- ment in high living. Questions for Thought and Discussion 1. In what sense is it a Christian duty to be physically well? 2. Why do we advise men to call in a doctor for a "cold'' while we tell them to forget their minor ailments ? 3. Name some dangers that arise from preaching that sound religious views always come from sound bodily states. 4. In what sense is good health contagious ? 6. Name some instances of the power of mind over the health of the body. 6. Now that we have won the battle over alcohol, are there still other forms of intemperance against which we should fight? 7. Have you ever known religious doubt to come from preventable melancholy ? 8. Can a church rightfully neglect health conditions among its people ? 46 CHAPTEE VII PEODUCTIVE LABOK Neh. 4. 15-23; Matt. 20. 1-16 If we are to consider adequately the problems of a Chris- tian commonwealth we must ask as to the self-preservation of that commonwealth. We are not thinking of an army or a navy but of the ability of the nation to use its labor power productively. For an individual person to consider how to get the most return of wealth for his own selfish use is indeed to be condemned, but there is nothing wrong in one's asking how a nation can so work as to get the best harvest from the utilities at its disposal. One test of the success of our social systems is the amount of goods pro- duced by them — that is, if the chief purpose of production is the welfare of men. Other things being equal, the Chris- tian democracy that does not bring as much material wealth into use as other nations stands condemned beside those systems. Anything that puts better tools into man's hands, that makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before, that makes the struggle for bread easier, marches in line with the purposes of Christ. The inventor, the scien- tist, the industrial organizer, all can help on the coming of the kingdom of God. Making Laboe Moee Peoductivb The problem of unemployment. — ^We are not now con- cerned as much, however, with the part to be played by individual specialists as with that to be played by a correct public attitude toward broad social questions in making labor more productive. To begin with, think of the im- portance of curing the evil of unemployment, which is such a terror in the mind of the working man to-day. What a tragedy that men anxious and willing to work, men able to work effectively, should stand in the market place all the 47 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP day without being hired ! The responsibility here is social : It is not just a case of a free-for-all race — every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. The social harm that will result if large numbers of men work with the devil of unemployment always at their heels will be in- calculable. The one boon that the laborer to-day seems always to desire above others is security of employment. It is the duty of society to insist upon the solution of this problem, hard as it no doubt is. We are not now bothering ourselves about the lazy or incompetent but about the eager and competent. If a seasonal trade like that of the garment workers can spread its work out through the major part of a year instead of congesting itself into a few feverish months, perhaps other extensive trades can do the same if public opinion says so. If, because of world-wide fluctuations, there is now and again a halt in all trades, there is nothing unreasonable in the demand that at such periods the public itself employ at least some of the men in useful public works. If this is not possible, there is nothing alarmingly destructive in the idea of unemploy- ment insurance. Whatever the plan, there is nothing un- christian in the attempt to make others besides the work- ingman share the heaviest burdens of unemployment. The parable of Jesus about the men hired at the eleventh hour is suggestive. It is, we know, not possible to make the teachings of Jesus a literal guide in intricate modern in- dustrialism, and this particular parable raises a good many puzzles; but Jesus certainly teaches that there is nothing inherently unjust in paying laborers for the time they have not worked if they have been willing to be hired. Before anyone gets scared at this let him reflect that payment dur- ing an unemplojrment period is conmaon enough in some forms of activity to-day. The work of salaried men, espe- cially in the higher positions, is not often evenly spread out through the year, though the pay is. Lawyers accept retaining fees, holding themselves in readiness for services that may never be called for. Very frequently the man who pronounces crazy a plan to carry laborers without pay through a season of unemployment raises a frightful outcry if interest on his loaned money ceases. He wants his money to get its hire whether it renders service or not. 48 PEODUCTIVE LABOE This entire problem is one for the earnest consideration of a Christian commonwealth anxious to make all labor as productive as possible. The problem of drudgery and monotony. — A second con- sideration that a Christian nation will keep before itself in its struggle for increased control over the forces of nature will be that not only of keeping men employed all of their time but of employing more of the personality of the in- dividual laborers. That is to say, there should be public sentiment against so using laborers as to degrade them into mere cogs in a machine. When some tell us that laborers prefer work that does not require more than the utilization of a few movements of the body, which can become almost automatic, they tell us that men prefer the monotonous to the interesting. This can only be true with rather sub- normal men or with those whose hours are short or whose life outside the shop is varied and attractive. Science has for the most part devised means, in Western lands at least, for lifting the burdens off the backs of men and loading them upon steel muscles. Almost as important are the in- ventions that turn over to machinery the processes that have become monotonous. When a process reaches a place where a man's muscles can perform it while the man's mind may be far afield, it is time to allot the task to the machine altogether. Some industrial leaders, in dealing with monotonous processes that cannot yet be taken over by ma- chinery, arrange to shift the men who do such work from one kind of job to another, so that there may be some change even in monotony. They do this for the sake of the morale of the shop. The morale of an entire industry is likewise a proper object of concern, not for employers alone but for the entire public. The Oeganization of Wage Eabnees It is not our purpose to take up one after another de- tailed projects of reform in the labor world; we deal with a few questions that the citizen has every now and then to face in his thought of wise public policy. The query as to the spirit abroad among the so-called laboring class is to-day one of the foremost in the attention of all public- 49 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP spirited men. Suppose we glance at the debated theme as to the wisdom of organized efforts among wage earners — collective bargaining, shop control, etc. Now, be it said at the outset that there is no need of our talking about the possibility in America at least, of wage earners' taking over the industries of the country by revolution and run- ning them. An industry is run not merely by wage earners but by skilled engineers and of captains capable of organiz- ing and by far-seeing leaders who think and plan in terms of years. When aU the workers, from the wage earners to company president, link together to run an industry, it can be run. About the only form the question would then take would be as to whether they were going to run it for them- selves or for the common good. The talk of wage earners' control in this country is either a dream or a bogy. The recognition of organized labor. — But that does not mean that the wage earners should not be heeded when they ask for the privileges of organization and of representation through agents of their own choosing. This may make trouble for a time, but the forces of democracy and of Christian self-realization are on the side of such recog- nition of organized labor. This is not to be taken neces- sarily as wholesale indorsement of contemporaneous union- ism, but as a statement of Christian principle. There are some things that men can best do for themselves; and if they do these things best for themselves, in the long run the social outcome will be best, stated even in terms of material productivity. The right of a group to speak through a spokesman of its own choosing ought to be regarded as axiomatic in a democracy. And, of course, the employer exercises such a right. He speaks ordinarily through a paid attorney. It is, in the main, well for employers that they do so. Some of the completest exhibitions of sheer puzzleheadedness have come as employers have tried to state their own case in a labor controversy. The fundamental right, though, is the right of laborers to join together in group procedure for the sake of making the most of themselves. It wiU make trouble in the short run but it will be fine in the long run. When the Great War broke out, the allied nations saw that they could not 50 PEODUCTIVE LABOR hope to win without the purposeful cooperation of laborers acting collectively. One day it will become equally clear that the noble victories in the conquest of physical nature in peacetime will have to be won in the same way. Group consciousness. — But does not this encourage stratification in American society ? It might if we intro- duced the notion of higher and lower ; but suppose we stick to the idea of group consciousness. Are organizations of professional men undesirable? Shall we rail against our legal and medical associations? Are Methodist confer- ences antisocial? The fact is that the group activities — that is to say, the activities of the minor groups in a state — may be part of the glory of the state. Wage earners have a right to like associations. And if they use their asso- ciations to discuss the foundations of society and if they aid in the establishment of workers^ schools to educate laborers to a keener appreciation of the laborer's place in society, what harm is done if it all goes on in the open? Understand now, our sole intention is for the better con- quest of the earth for the better life of man and for the enlargement of the lives of those who serve society by feeding and clothing and housing society. Rent^ Interest^ and Pkofits It remains to say a word about the place in the common- wealth of those who do not directly earn their living — those who receive rent, interest, and profits. This field has not yet been accurately enough surveyed to make pos- sible a final moral judgment. A few suggestions, however, from the point of view of the public welfare may be in order. How acquired? — The socialists will have it that in the socialistic realm rent, interest, and profits will go by the board. But socialism has not yet arrived. Meantime we must make shift to do the best we can for all concerned under the present system. If rent, interest, or profit is dishonestly acquired it belongs to him from whom it was taken. If it represents service on the part of the man who receives it, it belongs to that man. If it, in any part, is a social creation, it morally belongs to society. 51 CHEISTIAN CITIZENSHIP legitimate reward. — There can be no doubt that many holders of income from these sources earn what accrues to them. If the rent comes from farms, they take personal interest in the farm and its cultivation. They furnish part capital, such as seeds and fences and barns. They are entitled to reward for such service. The receivers of inter- est may have saved their money by self-sacrifice and thrift. Capital means tools. They have made possible the tools. They are entitled to reward when someone borrows the tools. But — there is much costless saving in the business world — credit extended which represents no actual money saved. Is it right that this should be so heavy a burden upon industry ? As to profits we must recognize under the present system legitimate taking of risk for the sake of industrial expansion. The man who takes the risk is en- titled to reward. But there is too much profit that repre- sents no service whatever. A social product. — In the last analysis much of the return we know as rent, interest, and profit is a strictly social product. The pressure of population, for example, makes economic rent possible. The rent belongs to society. But society does not choose to take it. It rather guards the right of the private owner to keep the rent. What, now, shall the public-spirited Christian citizen do with such income ? There is no reason why he should pay it out in increase of wages if the wages have already been just. The wage earner did not earn that rent. There is only one answer: A citizen anxious to serve as a Christian must use such income under a heavy sense of social responsi- bility. He can use it to make himself as socially worth while as possible, but he cannot spend such money ethically and spend it with the thought of self uppermost. Probably he can to-day do more good for society with the money than if he gave it into some public treasury. How he should serve is left to himself. But the obligation to serve is upon him in a weightier sense than on him who receives wages or salary or fees in direct return for services specifically rendered. The best practical solution is to do with such money all the social good one can during life and at the end leave the principal to some institution work- ing directly with an aim at social betterment. 52 PRODUCTIVE LABOR Questions for Thought and Discussion 1. How can a man earn money that is given to him ? 2. Can we always estima,te what a man is worth to so- ciety in money terms ? 3. Can a man be a producer who does not produce mate- rial goods? 4. Are ideals for which a man stands among the more or less useful products? 5. How can the church help overcome the monotony of men's daily work? 6. Is labor inherently an evil? 7. If we allow capitalists to organize should we forbid laborers to do so? 8. Do you think the problem of unemployment is in- soluble ? 53 CHAPTER VIII THE PATRIOTIC HOME Deut. 6. 4-9; Luke 18. 15-17; Col. 3. 18-21 The Place op the Family in a Democbacy The family as a minor group. — The family is to-day being attacked by two classes of agitators in the name of democracy. The first type insists that democracy means that there is to be only one all-inclusive group — the mass of the people themselves — and that no smaller groups are to be given sacredness as over against that supreme group. Such agitators claim that the family becomes a center of privilege against the welfare of the whole. In so far as the objection is against the existence of minor groups in a national group it is fast disappearing into the limbo of wornout arguments. A nation is not to be a huge, amor- phous heap but an organism of finer and finer adjustments among minor groups. And the place of the family group in a democratic nation will appear as we proceed. The family as a life-giver. — The second type of agitator is that of the protestant against any infringement of liberty. To such a man marriage seems like bondage, and nations exist to give their citizens liberty. When this ar- gument is sincerely brought forward it means that the ob- jector has not taken account of the fact that what may seem like the formal assumption of a bmid may be an approach toward larger liberty. No douhl many detailed changes in particular marriage laws can b^ made to advan- tage, but our discussion now concerns the institution in its largest, most distinctive features. We have said that the goal of all social organization should be the enlargement and enrichment of the life of the persons composing the organization. The state should encourage all such life- bringing groups, especially when out of the smaller groups stream those influences which make for the more abundant effectiveness of the larger group as a life-giver, 54 THE PATRIOTIC HOME Two achievements of the family. — Despite all objections to the institution of the family it is quite within reason to say that it is, on the whole, the noblest social success of the human race. Take just two of its achievements. It has been the most effective means for controlling and idealiz- ing the physical relations between the sexes. This has been an incalculably stupendous achievement. Granted that the amount of immorality to-day even in so-called Christian lands is appalling, we still have to concede the success of the family in controlling and moralizing the sexual nature. The second achievement is that of conserv- ing and developing the other-regarding feelings. A family cannot exist long on the basis of sheer selfishness. A large amount of personal selfishness will ruin a family. The family stands for unselfishness, at least within the family circle. John Fiske has insisted upon the morally significant part played in human progress by the length- ening of the period of infancy, of the dependency of young on the parents, or, possibly in prehistoric times, on the mother. The deepest other-regarding feeling was at the beginning quite likely that of the mother toward the child, but the father's feeling lagged not far behind after a grow- ing moral sense stirred the father to awareness of his re- sponsibilities toward his child and the mother of his child. As soon as any family organization arose, the other-regard- ing feelings began to get a chance: hence the Scriptural blessing upon the family. From long ages of human ex- perience we can say that the family is the recreator and re- in vigorator of society at the ranges of its best life. The Christian Ideal of the Family Equality in the home. — The Christian ideal for the family as a social force implies at the start a fundamental and complete equality between husband and wife — ^the equality of rational and moral persons. A good deal of dangerous and unchristian nonsense has been uttered in times past about the man as the head of the house, woman as bound to obey the head, and so on and on. The notion even of the dependence of the wife on the husband is not ideal. We should welcome that growing opportunity for A5 CHEISTIAN CITIZENSHIP women in fields outside the home which makes it possible for the woman not to have to consider the economic ques- tion in thinking about accepting an offer of marriage. The best homes come of unions that do not have to be based on anything except mutual affection. With the union once established there should be no dependence but that of mutual friendship and partnership. The patriotic home in a Christian democracy is one in which the relation be- tween husband and wife is democratic. It is possible for a husband and a wife to be in love with one another without attaining the plane of partnership and friendship. Open understandings openly arrived at is a good rule for the family. And the foe of much friendly partnership is often the desire of the husband to make a pet or favorite of his wife. Let love go to the extreme to show itself, but if it ends in vulgar ostentation it spreads the seeds of social destruction. One potent cause of revolutions in human history has been the gaudy display of women bedecked by men. From the days of Amos, who denounced the kine of Bashan, and of Isaiah, who poured wrath upon the hair- dresser's masterpieces of round tires like the moon, down to the days when in many a city the Easter parade rouses the bitter ire of aU who detest the exaltation of the animal above the human, public decoration of women by men has been a contributing cause and abettor of radical revolution. Children in the home. — But a democratic ideal for the family breaks down, does it not, when it comes to the rela- tion of parents to children ? It does if the rule is that of an issued dictatorial command on the one hand, or in sheer, unrestrained indulgence of children on the other. But there is no reason why there should not be mutual confi- dences between parents and children, why the reasons for commands should not be given, why the family should not become a partnership of all members. John Wesley used to say that the parent should break the child's will in order to save its soul ; which reveals the wisdom of that fate that denied children to Wesley. Why should anyone's will be broken ? Wills should be controlled, but a broken will is a ruined will. The old, indeed, deplore what seems like utter lawlessness on the part of the younger generations, but we must not forget that the weakening of growing wills by 5^ THE PATRIOTIC HOME overexacting parental solicitude or even by too much par- ental advice is also an evil. Patriotism in the home. — The attitude toward the state especially will be shaped in the home. The type of national ideal set before the growing mind in the household will be influential in the after days. We hear much to-day about the fostering of a spirit of patriotism that will do away with war. To attain effectiveness that spirit will have to work vigorously in the home. The generation reared just after our Civil War was brought up to see pictures of generals on the walls and in the books on the family table. During the same period the city of Washington was so crowded with equestrian statues of military heroes as to look, in the words of a distinguished critic, "like a cavalry charge.'* And one of the haraiful results of the Civil War — a result that does not seem likely to follow from the Great War — ^was the filling of the land with colonels and majors and captains. Now, all this has its humorous aspect, but it is very serious if it means that the military leader is held before a rising generation as an ideal of surpassing worth. The military man is entitled to full credit for all services rendered, but his character is not sure to be of the loftiest, however necessary his service may have been. Moreover, of all the blind specialists on earth the military specialists are the blindest to all concerns except those of their particular art. War may be neces- sary in self-defense, but there is no way of idealizing actual war except by lying about it. The final test. — There is no call for an attempt at de- tailed listing of those patriotic virtues which the Christian home should seek to inculcate. In a word it may be said that the best way the home can help the state is by making the most of the children in the home. The surest invest- ment the home can make for the state is in the education of the children. It should be looked upon as a duty both to the country and to the kingdom of God for parents to give the children the finest education they can afford and the children can take. Children as ends in themselves. — But in this there is a danger — the danger of the state's looking upon children as a sort of investment, to repeat the word we have ourselves 57 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP used. This is of course barbarous when we think of chil- dren as possible cannon fodder. It is also wrong if we get to thinking of children as instruments. They are persons, ends in themselves. Even in the home their worth consists in what they are in themselves, and not what they are to become. The doctrine that a child is worth while on his own account is most important for a nation. What the child is as a child, what he thinks as a child, what he speaks as a child, is inherently and intrinsically of worth. An apple orchard in blossom time has a beauty all its own apart from the promise of harvest. The same considera- tion should apply to that problem of dependency in the state which arises out of the abandonment of children by the death of parents or by the break-up of homes or by desertion by parents. From one angle the state does face here the problem of investment in future citizens ; but the more fundamental question is that of the intrinsic worth and dignity of the child himself. The attack on the prob- lem of child dependency should start with the intention of making the most of the person as a distinctive and valuable end in himself. This is indeed a counsel of perfection, not very well met by orphan asylums and overstandardized schools, but worthy of practical consideration nevertheless. Eegard for old age. — An old commandment says that children are to honor father and mother, that the days of the children may be long in the land. The commandment is given with a national purpose. One test of democracy will be its regard for the old. The rush and strain of an industrial type of organization tends to push the old aside or to make workers old at an early age. Men are not to be honored just because they are old, but one count against the new social organization is that it thwarts a natural old age. It is just as wrong socially to sanction forces that make for a strained and unnatural old age as to sanction those which make for a strained and stunted childhood. In the Christian family regard will be shown to those going on into years, the regard taking the form of respect for the aging life as such. Just as it is inadequate to think of childhood from the point of view of its future, so it is inadequate to think of old age from the point of view of its past. Old age should be looked upon for what it is in 58 THE PATRIOTIC HOME itself. Outside of the care provided for the old by those of the family to which the aged belong lies the question of old-age pensions. The problem here has its practical aspects and cannot be handled in offhand fashion. The difficulty is to preserve the self-respect of the pensioner — an important consideration. But the entire theme must be kept down on the basis of the worth and dignity of the human being as such. In a life that has grown old natu- rally, without haunting fears, there comes a quiet which catches some glories of the upper sky which the younger life cannot see. Or the aging life is like a wooded landscape in winter when the leaves are fallen. With the leaves gone the outline of the hills is clearer, and sight reaches farther. Questions foe Thought and Discussion 1. Can you think of any institution that is more effective in developing unselfishness than the family ? 2. Can we have a Christian state without Christian homes ? 3. Name some great patriots who attributed their patriotism to their mothers' influence. 4. Does democracy in the home mean that the children are to be allowed to run wild ? 5. I once knew a mother who said that she would never "correct" her children because she preferred to rule them by love — ^by which she meant letting them do as they pleased. Is such love of the Scriptural type ? 6. Can you think of any ways in which regard for the old conduces to national stability? 7. Which is better — parental authority or parental in- fluence ? 8. How can a father best set forth the fatherhood of God to his children? 59 CHAPTEE IX THE SOCIAL OFFENDER Psa. 146. 7-9; Matt. 25. 34-40; Luke 4. 16-19 The right to restrain evil conduct. — ^We have again and again said that Christian society should encourage and develop the largest and best life of the members of the society. In the name of the good of the whole, society has a right to interfere with any individual conduct that harms the pubUc. The individual can say all he pleases about personal liberty, but such speech will not long avail if per- sonal liberty leads to action that the experience of the race has shown to be harmful to society. A rabid defender of personal liberty, speaking of drunkenness, once said that any individual has the right to go to the devil — if he does 80 as an individual. It is a question as to how much going to the devil can be done strictly on the individual basis. Even a spectacle of a man's going to the devil is socially harmful. Society has a right to restrain the individual in devilward courses. Principles in Dealing With Offendees Punishment must be just. — Keeping in mind, however, the human aim, which is the justification for social or- ganization, there are fairly clear principles that must govern society's dealing with offenders. The first is that the punishment must be just. Society is not the final dis- penser of rewards and punishments to moral agents — that prerogative belongs to a higher court — ^but society must not be unjust in any punishment it inflicts. We say this be- cause in times of excitement, like war fevers, the courts go wild in sentencing offenders whose crime has been against the prosecution of war or against public opinion. James Ford Rhodes, in his history of the United States, severely criticizes Abraham Lincoln for allowing the frequent use of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus during the 60 THE SOCIAL OFFENDER Civil War. If Lincoln offended, what shall we say of recent sentences of twenty years or more for hasty unpatriotic ut- terances, of deportations without adequate chance for the deported to be heard, of withdrawal from newspapers of liberty to print before offense has actually been committed ? Punishment must indeed fit the crime ; but when the pun- ishment is too big for the crime, harm is done in that law is brought into contempt. A cure should be sought. — Again, if the human values are to be kept sacred, society must be careful to ask whether an offender has a wicked will or a diseased one. In the old days insane persons were treated with violence that would hardly have been permissible if they were being punished for crimes they had intentionally committed. This made a bad situation worse by making it inhuman. We all know now that many demented minds are demented in only one direction, and that if they can be kept from harm in that direction they may live fairly contented and measurably useful lives. In no quarter is the spirit of Christ showing itself more determinedly than in the attempt to deal wisely with social offenders whose offense may have a root in a sick mind. I once knew a boy of seventeen to be sentenced to a State prison for more than thirty years for repeated incendiarism that was manifestly of the insane stamp. That boy should have been confined, possibly for life, but he should not have been placed among criminals. Human qualities must be conserved. — Once more, no punishment should be inflicted upon an offender, no matter how guilty he may be, which overlooks the fact that the offender is a human being and can never be anything else. Here, moreover, the effect of a brutalizing punishment on the man who inflicts it and the public that sanctions it must not be slurred over. I believe that society has a right, for example, to resort to capital punishment in certain ex- treme crimes. But have we often enough reflected on the effect of capital punishment on the mind of the public exe- cutioner, assuming the executioner to have ordinary human sensibilities ? We may well ask whether society has a right to accept from a citizen any service that leaves the citizen less human than before. But to get back to the criminal himself: society has of course other anxieties besides the 61 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP care of criminals. It does not seem fair to ask society to look out more sharply for the welfare of sentenced crim- inals than for that of honest men. But society cannot, without harm to itself, long tolerate systems of punishment which release men from prison less human than they went in. To put young, first-offense lawbreakers into contact with hardened criminals is social outrage. Society must prevent prisons from becoming schools for instruction in crime. What social good is done if the youth who went to prison after one offense, committed in hot blood or heed- lessness, comes out knowing all that the most experienced expert in crime can teach him? Prisons are not estab- lished as institutions to set forth abstract justice; they exist for the good of society, and the social good is not well served if they become centers of instruction in crime. Dangers in the Administration of Justice Inequality of rich and poor. — A further consideration of wide human welfare has to do with the inequality of rich and poor before the law. Until there is state-furnished legal resource placed at the hands of the poor, this inequal- ity is practically irremediable. The plight of the poor man seeking his rights before the law is too evident to need comment. And even this is not so serious as the power of rich groups over the law as compared with that of the masses of ordinary citizens. We do not mean to disparage lawyers. Many of them have the most exacting social ideals. In the foremost law schools in the United States there is more emphasis on social spirit than in some churches. We must not forget, however, that control over immense sums of money makes possible the manipulation of the law for the benefit of possessing classes. We admit that the question here is most complicated. It used to be said that guilt is personal, that back of every wrong act there is a wrong man. This is sun-clear, of course, with purely personal offenses. But it is possible to make out a different case for the head of a vast corporation. He may be a good man personally. He is acting as the agent of others. He is a representative looking after the interests of the investing widows and orphans. Ah, those widows and orphans I What would modern industry in a tight 62 THE SOCIAL OFFENDER place before the law do without them? We cannot send the widows and orphans to jail. And so it goes! Huge organizations defying the law ! Mighty corporations flout- ing the suggestions of the President of the United States ! College professors rising up to declare that government has no right to interfere in business ! And the primary duty of regard for law in a democracy pretty badly damaged in the eyes of everybody. Suspending civil processes. — But wealth is not the only offender. Even more dangerous than the power of organ- ized wealth is the impetuous rush of a popular sentiment that itself forgets the law. The laws of a people are their promises to all having dealing with them — the rules of the game which they have established. Now, nobody can deny that when the life of a nation is at stake, departure from the letter of the law may be the best way of obeying the spirit of the law. There may be promises made in one set of circumstances which cannot be kept in another set. There may be stages in the game when the rules will have to be set aside. Any nation has implied rights upon which it can fall back for its own salvation. But we are here on a very slippery and dangerous footing. It seems almost sacrilege to criticize the words of Abraham Lincoln, but Lincoln once gave utterance to a sentence, oft quoted, which carries with it hidden perils. Meeting objection to his suspension of civil rights during wartime, Lincoln said that the objection, claiming as it did that if people got used to having rights suspended during wartime they would be willing to have them suspended during peace, was just as reasonable as to say that because a man had to take emetics when he was sick he would contract such a liking for emetics that he would keep on taking them after he got well. Lincoln's main point was well taken; but, after all, he dealt rather summarily with a veritable peril. If the nation were just one huge person, Lincoln's word would be unexceptionable. The one huge person would soon be sick of emetics. But a nation is composed of majorities and minorities. The majority makes the minor- ity take the emetic. And the majority may contract such a fondness for giving a minority an emetic that it may be hard to break the majority from the emetic-giving habit. 63 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP The Christian Ideal Eliminating temptations. — All that we have said thus far is rather negative. It remains to insist that there is a more positive course for a Christian commonwealth in dealing with offenders, that course being the study of nature and of human nature to reduce offense to the mini- mum. It ought to be at least theoretically possible to strive for a state in which men would not care to be offenders. We know that such a utopia will not come in our time, but that is no reason why we should not con- template the ideal. The ideal would imply, on one side, the elimination of as much temptation as possible. Temp- tation is inevitable in this world, but not all forms of temptation are inevitable. Take the current practically world-wide attack on the sale of alcoholic liquors for bev- erages. A fascinating writer — a woman, by the way — ^re- cently protested in the columns of a foremost American magazine against prohibition on the ground that it took away from her son the possibility of achieving moral strength by resisting the saloon. Very likely the woman did not have a son — or had one merely for rhetorical pur- poses. For anything more unreal it would be hard to find than the view of life lying back of such talk. As if a purely artificial temptation had to be devised and kept going — at whose expense the writer does not say — to pro- vide a field of moral struggle for growing youths ! By the way, the more one hears of the argument of those bereft of liquor in favor of its return, the more reason there is to suspect that the mental damage by moderate drinking has been greater than we had estimated. Encouraging wholesome activity. — On another side the state would encourage all those human activities which make life interesting and attractive. If Satan finds much for idle hands to do, the problem of unemployment has a bearing on the commission of crime. If some crimes come out of poverty, and others out of ignorance, and others still out of desire for revenge against society itself, poverty and ignorance and social injustice should be attacked as evils threatening the state. Conserving unselfish impulses. — ^We have said that men 64 THE SOCIAL OFFENDER have self-regarding motives and other-regarding motives. It is easy to condemn those offenses which come out of the self -regarding motives; but how pathetic it is to contem- plate those temptations which arise out of the other-regard- ing motives I The struggle of Jesus in his temptation seems to have come out of his regard for others. He was tempted to rely on merely physical means, or political means, or supernatural means for the sake of most quickly bringing the kingdom of God, not to himself but to others. Jesus had a power of resistance which we do not have. How terrible it is for a mother to have to steal not for her- self but for her child ! How tragic that a husband will do wrong for the sake of granting the desire of his wife ! If the problem of offense were just that of dealing with those who have sinned selfishly, we might be very severe; but offenses come quite often from those who sin for others. Now, the other-regarding feeling is the base on which the state rests. There ought to be some way for Christian statesmanship to conserve unselfishness and to gratify it more extensively through lawful channels. We cannot rid the world of temptation, but we can so organize society as to give the best impulses of men their lawful chance. With more effort at such reorganization — or such regenera- tion — many specific problems of crime will take care of themselves. Questions fob Thought and Discussion 1. What should be the aim of punishment in Christian communities ? 2. Can you think of any offenses for which the com- munity itself is partly to blame ? 3. What happens if a punishment is clearly too severe? 4. Name some ways in which society can prevent crime. 5. Name some social advantages from the establishment of juvenile courts. 6. What do you think of suspended sentences? of paroles ? 7. Is it ever just or wise to allow men in prisons to live in idleness ? 8. What should be our attitude toward men who have served prison terms? 65 CHAPTER X AMEEICANIZATION Exod. 22. 21; Ruth 2. 10-12; Luke 22. 24-30 One of the most widely discussed subjects before the American public to-day is that of the Americanization of the immigrant from foreign lands. Before entering upon the more important phases of the debate we may ask why Americanization should be restricted in our thought to im- migrants. The Americanization worth while must be that of the inculcation of a lofty public ideal. The American who is an American by birth may be a more alien element in a community than an immigrant from abroad. The worst pagans are the pagans born in Christian lands — Christians only in name. So the most utterly non- Ameri- can elements are Americans born in America who have never been responsive to American ideals. The Restkiction of Immigkation A national right. — Let us agree forthwith that a nation has a right to prohibit from its shores those out of sym- pathy with or callous to the ideals of human life for which the nation stands. For group life — smaller group or larger group — there must be such a measure of homogeneity of thought and purpose as will make the likenesses in the group stronger than the differences. A nation may indeed be divided into majorities and minorities, but the nation ceases to be truly a nation as soon as the cleavage between majorities and minorities becomes so wide that the minor- ity will not acquiesce in the vote of the majority but seizes arms to fight; or so wide that the majority rides roughshod over the minority ; or so wide that any degree of cooperation between the various groups of the nation is impossible. The national group has a right to say that alien elements shall be received only in such numbers as 66 AMERICANIZATION" will make it possible to assimilate them reasonably quickly to the national standard of living, type of life, and form of ideal. A scientific plan for the regulation of immigration in America might limit the number of newcomers from any outside country to a certain per cent of the number of those already received from that country. Eestriction not unnatural nor unjust. — To be sure, there are those who say that any restriction or limitation is un- natural and wrong, that changes for good have resulted from the migrations even of whole peoples into new lands ; but it must be remembered that such migrations have been sheer conquest where the ideals of the land into which the peoples moved have not been taken into account. And where the ideals have counted they have counted because they have had a chance to take root. For example, one of the surpassing triumphs of Christianity was the extent to which the successive waves of peoples rushing into North- ern and Western Europe upon the downfall of the Roman Empire were, after the centuries, found to have been in- fluenced by Christian conceptions. It was as if a heap of material thrown on a fire with every prospect of smother- ing out the flame should, after a time, be found itself in a blaze. There are indeed some who maintain that even if the yellow peoples were to overflow the United States and Europe, they would in the end be found to be Christianized by the power of Christian institutions which they might at first seem to have smothered. But this is a speculation hardly to be expected to pass into actuality in a day when, more and more, the world-wide social forces are being brought under open-eyed, purposeful control. The believer in the Christian system can find abundant warrant in the Scriptures for the struggle of a nation to hold itseK intact against outside influences in the name of a spiritual ideal. The Jews indeed sinned through overexclusiveness, but if they had not stubbornly stood for their own beliefs to an extent that finally led them to a hatred of foreigners they might never have prepared the way for Christianity. There is a fallacy underlying much of our boasting about the degree to which modern communication makes for the blessing of civilization among all nations. There is a physical nearness in this world which does not necessarily 67 CHEISTIAN CITIZENSHIP tend toward the nearness of mutual understanding and sympathy. The closer some persons come together the more they hate one another. And so it may be with peoples. For the sake of holding intact an ideal it is ethically per- missible for a nation to limit the numbers of the new- comers to those that it can assimilate to its type of national standard. There is nothing more immoral in this than for a school to decline to admit students beyond the possibility of teaching them effectively. When the argument loses force. — ^We have put the argu- ment for the control of immigration as strongly as we can. Observe, however, that we are writing from the point of view of the ideal. The argument has value only if the national aim is toward a worthy humanity. If the dwellers in a land look upon the land itself and its material possi- bilities as so much good material stuif that they are to enjoy for themselves, the argument loses its moral force. Moreover, we ought not to be everlastingly calling in the national ideal to justify selfish courses. We have been say- ing much in the last few months about the civic virtues of the Pilgrim Fathers, much of our oratory rather suggest- ing that the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers have in- herited the virtues of the Pilgrim Fathers. Very con- ceivably if the Pilgrim Fathers could again visit this land they would be willing to take another Mayflower voyage to get away from many of their own descendants. Amekicanizing the Immigeant The alien element. — Now, after the statement as to the ideal, let us see what we must regard as helps to the ad- mitted immigrant in lifting him up to the standard. Some things tolerated in America must go by the board at once if we are to exalt any respectable national ideal. A dis- tinguished officer of the foremost industrial organization in the United States has testified before a United States Senate Committee that many foreigners come into this country, single men without families, with no intention of becoming American citizens, anxious only to earn and save what money they can and then to return to the lands from which they came. This industrial leader added that hia corporation had no objection to this as long as the men did 68 AMERICANIZATION their work satisfactorily. But anyone interested in the right type of national life does object. Such workers are an altogether alien element. Unless the local authorities in the towns or cities where they work are alert, the room- ing quarters of these single men will only feebly suggest the habitation of anything human, and moral degradation will follow not far behind the physical heedlessness. To say that these men work so hard that they do not have time for immorality is to betray the most colossal ignorance of how physical conditions breed immorality. The land of promises. — Again, in the specific problem of immigration tjiat confronts the United States, it may be well to remember that the immigrant thinks of the United States not merely as the land of promise but as the land of promises. Multitudes of immigrants in this country are here because of the bids of individual concerns for cheap labor and because of the competition of steam- ship lines for transatlantic passengers. Promises have been made to the newcomers, or, at least, specific expecta- tions aroused. "None of our business,^' we say; "the in- dustrial concerns did thaf But a nation is responsible for the type of industrial life which it fosters and, to a degree, for the fruitage of that system. There is obligation enough here to make it incumbent on the nation as such to be the immigrant's friend. The American standard of living. — ^We have spoken of high wages. The wages ojffered immigrants are high as compared with what they have received in their own lands ; but they are not high enough in many, many cases to put the laborer upon a plane where he can enjoy what we call the American standard of living. It is no reply to this to say that many foreigners do not care for the American standard, that if it were not for the school laws they would not even send their children to school, but would regard them as industrial assets and set them to work. If this is true, it is exactly what we are protesting against. This is what makes recruiting grounds for the strike breakers when other laborers are fighting for a decent standard of living. But the existence of this class is overemphasized. There is another class of foreigner who does desire to be an Ameri- can citizen. He sends his children to school. He would 69 CHRISTIAN CITIZElSrSHIP learn English and study American history himself if he were not too tired at the end of the day's work, or if that American barbarity, the twelve-hour day, left him any time for study. And Americanism means an exalted type of family life as well as of qualification for citizenship. Just what family life is possible with the father and often the mother dead tired is a mystery. We concede the right of a nation to keep out any class of foreigners it thinks wise ; but, having admitted the foreigner, the nation must within reason throw around him those conditions which make for growth toward the American ideal. Individual initiative. — Here someone declares that an essential in the American ideal is the development of pri- vate initiative, that America is indeed the land of oppor- tunity — of opportunity to every man to make the most of himself. We insist, and rightly, that America is not the land of social stratifications. We declare that the lands of the Old World, with their social classes, their tight lines between manual laborers and more skilled craftsmen, know nothing of the inspiriting vigor of the free race that any man can enter in America. The race, we are told, develops that invigorating spirit of individual initiative which is one of the glories of Americanism. The limits of opportunity. — All this sounds fine. Much of it is true, but it was more true formerly than to-day. The situation assumed by this oratory is that of the old days when the West held out its promise of free land to the pioneer. That West is gone. Instead of getting free land to-day just by taking it we have to improve the land we have. The frontiers to-day are of a different order. They can be seized only by the trained minds. And in the second generation children of immigrants in plenty are found in schools, preparing to seize these frontiers. But for the actual laborer from abroad the race that seems so bracing from the point of view of editorial and magazine- article writers is rather a grim affair. Only a few get prizes. For the rest it is a daily and yearly plodding. To tell the ordinary immigrant that he can become rich in America (using the word ^'rich'^ for its current meaning) is about like telling a schoolboy that he can become Presi- dent of the United States. The proposition is abstractly 70 AMERICANIZATION true, but likely to lead to some disappointment if taken concretely. A challenge to trade unions. — No, the vast mass of im- migrants — of those who actually come from outside — ^will remain day laborers to the end of their days. It is their children who will get the chance. For the laborers them- selves the largest chance is through collective effort in some form of labor organization. Must we repeat again that this book holds no brief for trade unions as such? Admit for the moment all the faults alleged against trade unions. The most severe critics of unions as they actually are concede their ideal possibilities. Looking, then, at their better possibilities, may we say that an ideal union would be a marvelous instrument for the Americanization of the foreigner? With that much conceded perhaps the church could, by taking a little interest in labor organiza- tions, encourage the better style of leadership among them and keep them from falling down into a materialism not only unchristian but un-^^erican. Immigrant possibilities. — Considerable experience with immigrants convinces me that they are, in the main, among the finest of human stuff. Any man who, for any motive, will tear away from his foreign home to come here has a deal of initiative to start with. Most of the incomers are of hardy vigor. Most of them are drawn at least in part by the gleam of American freedom and they put up with much to win a foothold in America. Witness their patience during the antiforeign frenzy of the recent war. The dan- gerous "radicalism'^ among them is negligible — dangerous only when driven to cover. For the most part the foreigner comes believing in the America of his dreams. He cuts the early ties completely and desires, like Abraham of old, that his son shall not go back to the father's land. Handled in any spirit of Christian brotherhood, he brings to the new home and gives to that home more than he personally is ever likely to get. Questions foe Thought and Discussion 1. Is the desire to come to America for a better living necessarily an unworthy motive? 71 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP 2. How far back in your family line do you go before you find an immigrant ancestor? 3. If I accept the hospitality of a country, what must be my obligations toward the ideals of that country ? 4. If I insist that immigrants accept American ideals, what should be my own attitude toward my nation^s ideals ? 5. Do you think any large proportion of immigrants are socially dangerous characters? 6. What exceptions would you make to the expectation that every immigrant learn the language of the country to which he comes? 7. Can you think of some qualities which you may well try to learn from the newer immigrants? 8. Who makes the better American citizen — an immi- grant drawn by American social ideals or a native who has never troubled himself with those ideals? 72 CHAPTER XI CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY Isa. 65. 17, 21-23 ; Acts 4. 32-35 It may seem as if the title of this chapter should be "A Christian Community/^ But there are some principles governing the idea of community as such which can better be discussed under the more general theme. The Rights of the Individual Individual life sacred. — We have been saying that we are trying to set forth ideals that will make human life in groups mean the most. May we repeat once more that the group life has for its justification the development of the welfare of individuals ? So now we say, paradoxical as the expression may sound, that community must, in a Chris- tian order, make the most of the separate lives. There is an inalienable sacredness about an individual life. The group must guard that sacredness. It must not transgress upon the holy precincts of that which is distinctly personal. A socialistic writer once pictured a psychic island upon which a shipwrecked traveler was cast. At every effort of the traveler to speak to the native islanders those islanders burst into loud laughter. They finally made the traveler comprehend that they were laughing at the absurdity of his trying to make himself understood on their island. The island was a psychic place where the thoughts of every man lay open and exposed to every islander without speech or sign. Every thought everywhere was instantaneously read by everybody as soon as it entered the mind of the thinker. The individnaFs holy of holies. — Be it said that this could not be a picture of Christianity. There is in Chris- tian thinking — or in the implications of Christian think- ing- — a holy of holies in the life of the individual into which no outsider has a right to enter except by invita- 73 CHBISTIAN CITIZENSHIP tion of the owner. Even heaven would not be heaven under the conditions of this imagined psychic island. Some of my thoughts are strictly my own business. To put the matter rather roughly, we cannot have full social develop- ment unless the individual citizen has a right to insist that some affairs are his own business and to tell other people to mind their own business. Limits to individual action. — It might be said that the best tendency in social progress is to make it possible for a man to attend strictly to his own business by insisting upon common action in thoee realms where groups can better act together. It is best to do cooperatively the things that we can best do together. Some plans cannot be weU carried out by individuals acting separately. If these plans are carried through cooperatively, the individual has then a better chance to mind his own business — to make, in paradoxical words, the social contribution that he can best make as an individual. Spurious individualism. — One condemnation of the modern competitive system is that though it calls itself individualistic it so terribly sins against individualism. The trend away from the separate dwelling house to the crowded tenement is away from the privacy without which the family and the individual cannot morally exist. What- ever else it may be, overcrowding in industrial centers is not individualism. The system of community life for which we plead will make the most of that individual sacredness which must stand at the heart of everything that claims to be Christian. The goal of the social in Christianity is the individual. Community Effobt The aim of community effort. — The fundamental ques- tion in all such discussions as this is how far the conunu- nity effort should go in a given situation. We insist that it ought not to thwart the individual life, but we must keep in mind that the benefit of the greatest numbers of indi- viduals is the aim. We should not stop short of socially doing whatever will release individuals from burdens that hinder their proper growth. And let us not be scared off 74: CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY from this task by any hue and cry about socialism. Men have been acting socially from the beginning. The ques- tion for the future has to do with the extent to which this social effort wiU be carried. A road, a highway, is to-day a social enterprise. There was a time when roadmaking and road upkeep were the duty of individuals. Did the individuals flourish any better in that day than in this, when a highway is distinctly a community enterprise ? An illustration from roadmaking. — ^When I was a boy I lived for a time in a country district where the roads were not fully socialized, as being a concern of the whole community as a community. Individuals were "warned out'' to work on the roads, and the work was done under a sort of overseer. But the emphasis was still on the citizen's working the roads nearest his home. Gentle reader, you should have seen the roads when we got through "working" them ! All any of us amateurs could do was to throw the earth up as near the middle of the road as possible and let the passing wheels wear it down again. The proposal finally won for taking the roads seriously as a community responsibility, centralizing their administration, employ- ing expert roadbuilders paid from a central treasury. There was mighty protest against all this in the name of individual liberty. But under which system did the indi- vidual have the most liberty? The better roads gave the individual more opportunity to get about, released him from cares which interfered with his own sowing and reap- ing, and in the long run cost him no more than in the old days. Other community activities. — Another familiar sphere in which the social impulse has been at work for genera- tions is the public-school system. It is theoretically pos- sible to attack the public school as socialistic, but does it or does it not make for the larger individual liberty? So with sanitary regulations. All such procedures socially interfere with individual liberty, just as the school inter- feres with the boy's liberty — and with the parents' liberty, for that matter — but in the end they make for better in- dividuals. And so also with social regulations interfering even with food and drink. A heated pleader for the repeal of prohibition laws recently cried out: "Better a nation 75 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP free than a nation sober.'* As if a nation could be free if it were not sober ! Interfering with business. — Community life aims at bet- ter individual life. If the community activities transgress so as to cramp the growth of distinctive individuality or if they deaden and stifle individual initiative they are to be condemned. This question becomes most acute in the realm of business. We are told that if government interferes in business it will stamp out initiative. If such individual initiative is stamped out, we know the whole social system will suffer. Experts must find out for us just what projects do promise most for individuals without imperiling the legitimate initiative of other individuals. But let us not talk as if government interference in business were any novelty. We are not arguing against a protective tariff, but if a tariff is not governmental interference in the natural course of trade and industry, it would be hard to tell what is. A Question of Social Motive The other-regarding spirit. — This chapter, however, would not keep close to the Christian basis if it did not re- turn always to the question of social motive. More im- portant than the specific details of any system is the spirit back of that system. We have said much about the sacred- ness of the individual life, but the most sacred individual life must look out toward the common good. It is no doubt too much to say that the spirit back of a system will solve all problems. The spirit back of profit seeking might be an other-regarding spirit. A man might seek profits not for himself but for others. He might wish to make money to found hospitals or schools or to convert the heathen. And in the name of such unselfishness he might protest against anything that would interfere with business. An unselfish motive in the conduct of business must not be used to block community efforts looking toward the better- ment of human lives. Social responsibility. — ^We may avow our belief, how- ever, that if business were conducted more with a feeling of social responsibility, long strides could be at once taken toward the betterment of the business machine. For if a 76 CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY man were sincerely anxious about the public welfare, he would soon be thinking of that welfare in general terms covering the effect of his method of conducting business upon the total Hfe of the community. It would now ap- pear that there are ways of helping communities quite as important as accumulating money to be spent even in philanthropy. We do not retract, however, our statement of our belief that in the end the industrial system must be judged by its material productivity. Only, we believe that a widespread social spirit among employers and labor- ers and general public will in the end make for bigger material productivity. Examples of unselfish service. — ^If there are those who insist that society cannot run without unremitting em- phasis on the money motive, let them remember that society itself has fostered the growth of some institutions that do not appeal primarily to the money motive. Let us not in- deed be led astray by any glorification of war, but the appeal to soldiers has not in modern times been a money appeal. The appeal in the Great War was to make the world safe for democracy. In the safeguarding of cities from fire, again, the appeal is not to the money motive. City fire fighters take risks constantly that no money in- ducement would warrant. It is interesting, too, to notice the ethical strenuousness of the codes that bodies of physi- cians and teachers and engineers formulate for themselves. Some of the points in these codes seem to us to be over- refined, but back of all is a social motive. The most thor- oughly trained minds in our nation are to be found, in large part, in the three professions named, yet to bring a charge of selfishness against these professions would be in the last degree absurd. Teachers are notoriously and scandalously underpaid ; if physicians and surgeons charge large fees, most of them use these to make possible service for which no charge is made; the engineers of the United States have, twice within a year, made reports (one on the twelve-hour day in industry and one on economic waste) which must have been actuated by social motive. While the war fever was still on the United States, twelve of the foremost legal authorities of the country signed a protest against the illegal acts of the attorney-general of the 77 CHEISTIAN CITIZENSHIP United States when every selfish consideration wag on the sidt of their holding their tongues. Shaeing Higher Goods Sharing that does not impoverish. — Far above all, there can hardly be Christian community until we think more about sharing the higher goods. There are some forms of goods that have this for their peculiarity — ^namely, that the more the owner gives them away the more they become his own. What can be truer riches than thought itself ? The thought of the thinker is more deeply his own than any external possession can be; yet the instant the thinker seeks to communicate his thought, the more intimately it becomes his own. The very expression of the thought sinks it anew into the mind of its author with fresh power. So with any form of expression, philanthropic, artistic, scien- tific. It is in this realm of the communication of spiritual treasures that the splendid joys of life are found. Here is a realm of mutual sharing in which giving does not impov- erish, and in which receiving makes fuller giving possible. For he who shares the thought of the thinker makes an atmosphere in which the thinker is spurred on to further achievement. Take even a scientific discovery like the wireless telegraph. The first glimpse of the new possibility requires indeed the keen discernment of the mind of the first order, but once the discovery is announced it can be grasped by the minds of boys of fifteen, and the grasping minds of hosts of students make possible the manifold im- provements of which no one man could think. And a new current quickening all minds runs through the social body itself. Incorruptible treasures. — Purple and fine linen, sump- tuous food, gorgeous palaces, cannot well be shared. But all the higher goods, which make possible the kingdom of man and of God, can be shared. When we reach the day of enough food and clothes and houses to go round we shaU be blind if we do not see that these are only the first steps in the kingdom whose real treasures moth and rust cannot corrupt. Nor can thieves steal higher riches, for they are of the heart and can only be seized by spirits akin to those 78 CHEISTIAN COMMUNITY who already have them. And the sharing impoverish^ no one but makes all givers and receivers alike richer. Questions for Thought and Discussion 1. Does Christian community warrant intrusion into another's affairs? 2. What if those "personal affairs'* are harming the com- munity ? 3. What justification is there for the common remark: "I intend to run my business as I please'' ? 4. Are there many forms of business which are just the business man's own business ? 5. Name some forms of goods which we can give away and yet keep. 6. Have the greatest inventors been most anxious about money remuneration ? 7. If a physician should discover a cure for tuberculosis and then insist upon using it solely for his personal profit, what would you think of him? 8. Are physicians more bound by the law of service than the others of us? 79 CHAPTER XII WORLD CITIZENSHIP Isa. 2. 2, 3; Matt. 6. 9-13 In considering world citizenship the Christian must keep in mind the same goal that is to determine all his social thinking — the fullest and best life for actual persons. The purpose is not to build up any huge world state as an end in itseK; the intent is to do good to people. The Value of National Gkoups National self -feeling. — World citizenship must found it- self on the worth of the national groups composing a brotherhood of nations. The man who declares that he is above all countries and a citizen of the world is not as use- ful as the man who says that he belongs to a national group that is a constituent element in a brotherhood of nations. For as long a distance as we can see ahead democracy will tend toward ever-widening federations of groups. National self-feeling is one of the mightiest actual forces in the world to-day. It is all very well for socialists to say that the suddenness with which governments acted in 1914 pre- vented the international feeling, which is above all par- ticular nations, from asserting itself against the prosecu- tion of the war; the truth is that the national feeling asserted itself in more forceful form than the international feeling. If internationalism expects to win by stamping out nationalism there is no hope for us. The lengths to which groups will go under the nationalist feeling can hardly be measured. Witness Ireland. Conserving this value. — Now, the Christian internation- alist may just as well face this feeling. And he may as well admit that the feeling should be corrected and con- served and strengthened. No internationalism is worth while which seeks for a dead level of uniformity among 80 WORLD CITIZENSHIP nations. True internationalism desires the conservation of whatever is of value in national groups. The Path to War and the Path to Peace Peace depends on international cooperation. — It is be- coming increasingly evident that the preservation of such worth-while social elements will be possible only in some international organization. We hold no brief for any par- ticular scheme of organization, but some scheme there must be if the nations are not all to sink together undei the cost of arming against one another. These shopworn and time- worn arguments about the humiliation of surrendering any jot or tittle of a nation^s dignity will have to go to the rubbish heap. The path of national liberty now leads straight to some plan of international cooperation. Some bonds lead to freedom. Some surrenders lead to victory. Some narrow paths lead to broadening landscapes. The United States is now paying for wars, past and future, ninety-two cents out of every dollar raised from taxation — and a heavy taxation at that. Suppose that mutual under- standing among the nations should reduce the possibility of war so that eight cents only out of the dollar raised by taxation had to be set aside for war, and the ninety-two cents could go for schemes of social betterment. In which direction then would liberty lie ? The leveling influence of war. — The fault has been, not in the national self -feeling itself, but in the shape that has been put upon that feeling, making it an instrument for war, in utter oversight of the fact that war is one of the most leveling forces in the universe. It does not tend to national distinctiveness; it grinds out the distinctiveness. For all except a few leaders war is the death of that initia- tive out of which all progress comes. And, taking the world over, armies in the mass are pretty much alike. The path to war is the path of sameness — a sameness of pre- dominance of the lower human faculties. A nation's destiny. — But is not every nation at some time seized with the frenzy of belief in its own manifest destiny, and do not wars come out of such frenzy? Un- doubtedly they do, but undoubtedly also the impulse should lead in exactly the opposite direction. Destiny is surely 81 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP a poverty-stricken conception if it can be phrased only in material terms. A nation does not have to be huge in size to develop thinkers, and what the world has needed has always been thinkers. A military nation does indeed de- velop a high type of specialized intellect, but of that purely instrumental stamp which we shall aU be glad to forget as soon as the need for it has passed away. The military intellect never rises to the height of producing anything that stands out as an end in itself before the contemplation of the human mind. An economic argnment. — But another says that wars arise out of the pressure of the population of the nations upon supplies of foodstuffs and raw materials. As these supplies are limited, there will always be conflict for what supplies there are. This argument assumes that organized societies will never have sense enough to face a fact situa- tion or to deal with it when they do face it. Assume for the moment that there is this limited supply of material goods over against a human demand greater than the sup- ply. Let us look at a purely economic illustration. A generation ago there were in some parts of the United States too many railroads for the freight and passenger service required by the community. The result was what was called cutthroat competition — competition that would literally have cut throats if the law had allowed. Rail- roads were ruined — ^until out of the ruins more far-reach- ing systems were built up, which merged the competing elements into harmonious wholes, or agreements were reached among the roads themselves as to division of traffic. This did not necessarily increase the amount of goods or people to be hauled, but it did stop the war. Under a system of such unified management the carriage of some roads was decreased, but the community on the whole was better served. Even if the economic is the de- termining factor in shaping the courses of nations, is there any reason why the nations cannot come to agreements that will do away with war ? And if they could once get rid of war, they might so turn their energies upon the conquest of the earth as to increase vastly the returns from the earth. More than that, relieved of the burden of war, the nation might do something to control population increase itself. 82 WOKLD CITIZENSHIP It is entirely conceivable that a humanized race might keep the race itself within the bounds that the earth could sup- port by perfectly unquestionable methods, such as the growth of moral self-restraint and a high standard of family life. Pigs in a trough. — If the international contracts are nothing but the scuffing of pigs around a trough, there ought to be some way of making the pigs see that the fight- ing spills much of the provender; that if the strongest would forego shoving just a little, the weakest would not always be raising such an ear-splitting outcry. Even the scuffle around a trough can be made less fierce by the exer- cise of no more sense than a pig is supposed to have. Gentlemanly statesmanship. — But this illustration is distressingly vulgar, though no more vulgar than the facts of international conflicts themselves. In truth, when we take into account the lying of diplomats, the perversion of public thought, the horrors of international killings, the advantage is with the pigs as over against the human beings. Suppose, however, it becomes possible for the nations of the earth to assemble around a table, not as pigs, but as gentlemen. What is necessary before the interna- tional contact can be that of a body of gentlemen? To answer this question will give us some marks of Christian world citizenship. The first requisite would be an honest determination by all to tell the truth. Just how it is pos- sible for men to think that a lie told a nation is a victory of statesmanship while the same lie told an individual would be the sign of a knave is one of the international mysteries. The second requisite around an international table would be that of mutual respect. To secure the respect of others a man must have self-respect. So with a nation. Let the nation come to the international table with self-respect, but with self-respect that leads to sin- cere respect for other nations. Here, again, we stumble upon a mystery. As gentlemen meet around a table we can know that their self-respect will make them willing to respect others. Again, the man who respects his own family most has the most respect for other people's fami- lies. But in the international sphere the alleged patriot is often the one who talks loudly about the virtues of his own 83 CHEISTIAN CITIZENSHIP land and berates other lands. This could not be if the ideal of the gentleman held as the ideal of international dealing. When the day of international gentlemanliness dawns, it will be possible for an American to know and to say that in some respects England is a better democracy than the United States, and that in some other respects France is a better democracy than either the United States or England, without being looked upon as tainted with at least potential treason. After such recognition advocacy of the strong points in United States democracy wiU be all the more effective. Christianity means mutual appre- ciation between persons. To make international contacts Christian the same mutual appreciation will have to come into being. It takes the world a discouragingly long while to learn this lesson. The Scriptures have been trying to teach it from the days of Isaiah, but men have been slow beyond all description. The family of nations. — We take one further step up- ward and express the hope that some fair day the nations of the earth may meet, not Just as gentlemen around a table, but as members of a family around the table. Then all thought of fighting for food will have disappeared. The stronger will willingly give for the protection of the weaker. This may seem to be beyond the possibilities of human nature, but let us remember that there was a time in the history of the race when any seer who could have looked ahead and have seen the measure of success which the race has now with the family would have been pro- nounced a lunatic. If it is replied that that was a long while ago, the rejoinder must be that as men see what they can do and deliberately set themselves to the doing, events can be made to move with tremendous speed. The ideal of the family of nations is not at all absurd. Nonadult nations. — One of the questions on whose solu- tion the safety of the world depends is that of the relation of the so-caUed higher nations to the so-called backward nations. The favored expression now, as we contemplate some less favored peoples, is "nonadult'' peoples. Now, the only conception that we can safely use in dealing with nonadult peoples is that of the family. If the less favored peoples are nonadult, we may well ask ourselves how we are 84 WOELD CITIZENSHIP to treat them so that they may be helped along toward adult life. The expression '^nonadulf was probably coined with the idea of stamping the less favored nations as in- ferior, but the expression has implications possibly unfore- seen by the maker of the phrase. We do not deal with nonadults by shooting them or by robbing them or by sub- jecting them to constant humiliation, nor do we treat them on the assumption that they are always to be nonadults. It is true that nonadults sometimes need guardianship or trusteeship, but always such measures are temporary if we are dealing with normal human beings at all. The rela- tions of the so-called higher races with the so-called lower races have been up to date an almost unrelieved horror. We are dealing here with perhaps the darkest stain on the history of the human race. Let us take the word "non- adult," not as a euphemism to cover up the evil of the forced labor of Africans, for example, or the seizure of lands of uncivilized peoples, or the denial of manhood rights to Negroes in our own lands, but as a Christian ideal for the guidance of the more favored peoples in their rela- tion to the less favored. A wise economist has said that with the modern struggle for supplies of raw materials the world is not safe unless three ideals govern the dealings of favored with less favored nations: first, the ideal of the good of mankind as a whole; secondly, the ideal of the good of the backward people; thirdly, the ideal of the good of the particular nation dealing with the backward people. And we may say that the contact is not Christian until this trio of ideals governs in the plans of internationalism. Questions foe Thought and Discussion 1. Is patriotism compatible with admiration for other countries than one's own ? 2. Do you think God is less interested in international righteousness to-day than he was in the days of Isaiah ? 3. Have you ever read the book of Jonah with its inter- national teaching in mind ? 4. How much force is there in the claim that war toughens the fiber of nations ? 5. How can nationalist feeling be utilized for good? 85 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP 6. Is any people good enough to be the ruler of another people without the other people's consent? 7. Should the same codes of morals hold in the contacts of nations as of individuals? 8. Can a nation which is exploiting the riches of a non- Christian land for selfish purposes effectively preach the gospel in that land ? 86 CHAPTEE XIII EELIGION HAS THE LAST WOED Mic. 6. 6-8; 1 Cor. 15. 20-28; John 14. 7-9 We began this series of discussions by saying that there can be no legitimate contrast between an individual gospel and a social gospel. By the necessary law of its life the individual gospel must expand. It cannot remain shut up within itself. If it does it dies. If it is to expand it must push out into that realm which we call the social. On the other hand, the expansion of religion thus outward urges upon us the need of ever increasing the force at the inner center. The more ground religious practice is to cover, the more intense must be the power at the center, so that the evangelists and teachers and pastors who labor to deepen that inner spring of religious purpose must in the last analysis be those to whom we look for the power which will bring about social regeneration. The Social Value of the Negativb It is the custom in some quarters to criticize the personal religious ideal as negative. So much emphasis is put on moral purity, we are told, that religion becomes sterilized and barren. May we remark that there is a negative achievement in religious experience which has social value ? The citizen to-day wields instruments of vast social im- port. Even if the citizen himself does not wield his ballot, let us say, with very positive political purpose, the fact that he does not vote with a mean or selfish purpose is of social significance. The surgeon to-day wields the sharpest knives that science can make, but these edges can spread disease instead of cure if they are not scientifically cleansed. Now, cleansing an instrument in boiling water, let us say, seems like a negative surgical process ; but if that negative process is neglected, the sharper the knife the deeper it will carry 87 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP an infection. It would not be safe to allow these instru- ments in the hands of a filthy practitioner. It is dangerous for the ballot to be in the hands of men who vote with un- clean purposes or selfish aim. Or the selfish voter is like the disease carrier who through his lack of personal cleanliness spreads the seeds of epidemic through the community. The carrier himself may not be sick in any alarming degree, but he makes in- evitable the death of others not so immune as himself. So the citizen who announces selfish views of government or politics is a source of danger to minds less trained or more sincere than his own. The advice such a citizen gives may cause an epidemic of political sin or folly. It would be of prime value, then, if we could have all the voters absolutely cleansed from the impurity of selfishness, and all impurities are at bottom phases of selfishness. Still, the work must not stop there. At the heart of the righteous life stands the will to do right, and doing right is posi- tive. Any institution that strengthens that central pur- pose to do right is of social value of the first order. The church, for example, may not be able to tell in a particular situation just what the right course is, but it can mightily reenforce the efforts of men to find that right course by developing the will to do right. The obligation to the good wiU — this is fundamental in Christianity, and Christianity must ever strengthen and develop that will. The Social Value of the Doctkine op Immortality Suppose now that we look at the social value of one or two ideas of Christianity which are often characterized by social workers as too dogmatic and too personal. Take the idea that makes one type of social worker most impatient — the Christian emphasis on a belief in immortality. The critic at the start resents the dogmatic nature of the preaching of immortality ; then he declares that it distracts men's minds from remediable situations on earth by divert- ing their attention to another life ; finally, he is offended by the selfishness of the belief in immortality. These argu- ments have been so often repeated that there is no need of elaborating them here. Suffice it to say they are held valid by scores upon scores of sincere social workers. 88 KELIGION HAS THE LAST WORD Faith, not proof. — As to the dogmatic preaching of im- mortality we wonder if anybody these days, outside of mediumistic and spiritualistic circles, preaches immortal- ity dogmatically. Any intelligent preacher admits that there is no direct proof of immortality. The belief anchors itself down upon the Christlike character of God. Of course, we are moving here altogether in the realm of faith. The believer in immortality has a right to remind his op- ponent, however, that while there is no direct proof, there is also no disproof. The field is open for belief, and the battle is between beliefs. The belief not selfish. — And the objection to the selfish- ness of belief in immortal life is not especially well taken. All social effort bases itself on the idea of the service of our fellow man as a high aim in itself. Just what selfishness there is in desiring a continuance of opportunity for human service beyond this life is difiicult to say. As we look upon the noble efforts of many servants of mankind and contemplate the joy they manifestly find in the service we could desire nothing better for such knightly souls than that they should have infinite and endless field for the revelation of the fineness of their own spirit. The worth of eternal life all depends on the qualify of eternal life. A good deal depends, if we may speak in terms of the econ- omist, on whether we are thinking just of a consumer's heaven or a producer's heaven. If eternal life is con- ceived of as a field in which we are passively to receive, we rather resent such an eternity; but if eternal life is conceived of as opportunity for unlimited self-expression in good-willed activity, we have a problem of another order. We may admit that the human imagination has not yet pic- tured any concrete heaven worth going to aside from the promise of human and divine fellowships in full-orbed activities. But that promise is enough. Boes the belief discourage social effort ? — The argument that the belief in immortality slows down activity looking to the betterment of earthly conditions is entitled to more serious consideration. We must remember, though, that we are now talking from the point of view of the worth of beliefs, and not from that of the logical reasons for belief. The debate, then, is between the varying worths of beliefs 59 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP stated in social terms. There is altogether too much reason for the statement that the belief in immortality slows down social activity. Booker Washington used to say that the Southern Negro's song "Take the world but give me Jesus'' provided a practical platform on which the South- em white man was entirely willing to stand. In the last war it was particularly inspiring when profiteers, who were making millions overnight out of war munitions, urged the preachers to say more about the consolations of immortal- ity to soldiers going forth to die. The dignity of mankind. — But such considerations do not squarely settle the issue. The winning force in the end will be the more worthful idea of the dignity of men. The mighty power in the Christian Scriptures as a socially recreative agent has been the joined idea of the dignity of man and of the moral nature of God. Even if they are creatures of the day and vanish with the coming of an early night men are indeed worth while in themselves. The notion that if men are not immortal we need take no particular interest in them is unworthy of a human being. It does not follow that because men are mortal we are not to hold before them the finer values. But simply as a mat- ter of common sense we find a new sky over our heads if we can believe in men as inheritors of eternal life. The doctrine need not be dogmatically preached. It need not occupy any extended place in preaching at all. But it makes a difference in the background of the social thought and effort. A statesman once said that it is well for us to take long views even if we have to act on short views. The long view of which we speak adds to our thought of the dignity of man here and now. And that conception of dig- nity seems to us to have more social worth than the opposed view. The Social Value of Belief in the Cheistlikb God Seeing Christ as a human ideal. — ^Look at another view — ^that which in some unique way connects the life of Christ with God. There has never been a time when men have been more willing to concede the value of the teaching of Jesus as a solvent of social distresses than to-day. Men who reject outright the creeds and the organizations of 90 RELIGION HAS THE LAST WORD Christianity believe in the ideals and the spirit of Jesus. In those horrible days of 1914-18, when some Christian preachers were dressing Christ in khaki and making him a hurler of gas bombs, other men, who denied Christianity, saw Christ in his truer light as the foe of war itself, and took a more loyal attitude toward Christ than did the pro- fessed ministers of Christ, affirming that it was better to admit that the ideal of Christ is at present too high for us than to lower the ideal itself. But when we begin in any way to speak of Christ as the revelation of God, these same foes of Christianity, some of whom are Christians in spirit, cry out against introducing an age-worn debate about the divinity of Christ. "Christ stands in his own right,'^ they say. "Let us cherish him just as he is without raising any of these metaphysical questions about the likeness of Christ to God.'' An inspiring belief. — We have no desire to be meta- physical. We are now in the realm of belief, not of proof. We are speaking of those beliefs which are most likely to be of social benefit. And we say that the important ques- tion just now is not whether Christ is like God but whether God is like Christ. We are not pleading for any particular theological statement whatever. If the social leader says that he is inspired in his work by the conception of a scien- tific law that binds all the universe together, why can he not be even more inspired by the thought of a moral pur- pose that runs through the universe? If the God of the universe is like Christ, we may indeed be yet in the dark as to the meaning of many things, or even of most things ; but we have light enough with which to work with all our energy. It is splendid for a social leader to stand out and defy a hopelessly cruel universe, though we have a right to ask him for his proof that the universe is thus hopelessly cruel. Can defiance toward the universe, however, draw forth the energy that will respond to the ideal of a friendly universe? If we genuinely care for men, it would seem that we ought to be willing to accept aid from any quarter, even the theological quarter. And if we can reenforce our social efforts by prayer to the Christlike God, why in the name of the humanity we are striving to help should we not do so? The critic replies that we cannot prove that 91 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP such a God exists, and that, therefore, we are deceiving ourselves. We reply that we are not talking of proof but of belief. And let the critic remind himself that in the present sphere of existence we cannot prove anything worth proving. Even mathematics is saturated with assumptions. The Leaven of the Eeligious Spieit A decisive voice. — ^We spoke a word in the introductory chapter about the limitations put upon Christianity by those who will not think of it in any but closely personal terms. We had in mind that definite type of Christian who deliberately insists that religion shall be kept within such narrow limits. As we draw to the close we may say that the prevalence of the religious spirit in the hearts of thou- sands who have no opportunity for direct social leadership is the back-lying force that comes to expression when the leader has cleared the way. For, as soon as these thousands see social questions in their moral and human bearings, they speak, and their voice is decisive. The masses as a conserving force. — May we say too that the existence of these people is the conserving force when actual governmental and social leadership is lacking or goes wrong? I once knew a church in which the official leadership was selfish and worldly. But there were scores of good people in that church who, without regard to the leadership, lived godly lives and helped keep the com- munity life sane and sweet until worthier leadership could be brought to the fore. So in the large social groups the masses of well-intentioned people keep things steady in days of ineffective or selfish leadership until the time is ripe for a change. It is upon such right spirit in the hearts of the people that all social construction and re- construction must build. These people are those who say ^^amen" to leadership when it appears. Questions fob Thought and Discussion 1. How does the deepening of inner personal piety affect the outreach of the social gospel? 2. What effect should labor for the social gospel have on inner piety? 93 EELIGION HAS THE LAST WORD 3. Are the prayers of the New Testament largely per- sonal, or social, or both? 4. Why should the worker for society support the evan- gelist who is seeking to convert individuals? 6. How does it happen that so many fine-spirited social workers who do not accept Christianity express disappoint- ment in social work? 6. Can good social work be done in merely routine fashion ? 7. From what secret springs is Christian social enthu- siasm fed? 8. Can we believe in the God of Christ and be indifferent to effort aimed at social betterment? THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. APfi 3 1935 l4Nov'52B^" }0> ^5^*^* fEB 3*64 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY