duct," to as severe a criticism of the churches as one ever hears to-day. Twice in about a page of his Preface he pronounces their ethical condition "relatively low and nerveless." If this seems singular, it can seem hardly less singular that such a criticism has provoked little, if any, contradiction, though made by a man of special distinction as a theologian, a scientist, and a philosopher. It certainly is not a charge of the kind that refutes itself and can be met, as Cotton Mather recommended, with "generous silence and pious contempt."

It happens that Dr. Ladd is not altogether unsupported in his opinion. It is partially, at least, corroborated by Dr. Gladden in his "Social Salvation," and by Dr. Strong in his "The Next Great Awakening," both of them among this year's books. Each of these notes disapprovingly a large element in the churches who ignore the social aspects and duties of Christianity; but the social is the ethical; and this element constitutes, as these writers judge, a serious impediment to the betterment of social conditions, and to the realization of the social—that is, ethical-ideals of Christ.

It is, of course, easy for any to whom such criticisms seem strange or incredible to fancy that they are mere "idols of the cave," the product of pessimistic broodings that have gone astray from facts. But it can hardly be denied that there are facts generally known which seem to justify them.

Commercialism in politics" is a substantial text that has been preached upon by the upright citizen who won the grateful praise of all but those he thwarted in their schemes of plundering the treasury which he guarded as Comptroller of the city of New York. Every one knows what Mr. Coler means by it, and that in many a city and State it has been eating like a cancer into the vitals of the commonwealth, corrupting governments, debauching consciences, pillaging the people. But one may attend the great conventions which the churches hold periodically, and hear much of all kinds of Christian interests, but seldom or never a word of protest or warning against this enormous moral evil poisoning the very springs of our National life. Such a condition certainly answers to Professor Ladd's epithet of "nerveless."

The State of Pennsylvania is by common fame, as for years it has been, the prey of a peculiarly vicious political machine, whose frauds at the ballot-box and whose spoliation of the treasury are facts beyond controversy. It is also a State in which churches, especially of the conservative type, are numerically strong, churches which in their great assemblies show themselves especially zealous for theological orthodoxy, and might be supposed sensitive to public attempts to set aside the Ten Commandments as "an iridescent dream." But if any rebuke of such attempts has been uttered in these assemblies, or if any wide protest of the Christian citizens of Pennsylvania has been made against the moral enormities that disgrace the administration of the State and of its chief cities, it has escaped the vigilance of the reporters for the press. Yet it was just such enormities as the spoliations and frauds perpetrated by political machines whose immorality taints the land to-day, which provoked those spiritual leaders whom we revere as the Old Testament prophets to "cry aloud. and spare not," as in the righteous wrath that glows through the first chapter of Isaiah. Remembering this, one who notes the general lack of expressed indignation under similar provocation, and the apparent acquiescence in evil conditions that prevails among churches that dwell adjacent to "Satan's seat,” finds it hard to dissent from Professor Ladd's description of them as "relatively low and nerveless in an ethical view.

It may be replied that there is more moral sensitiveness than there seems to be; that the seeming apathy indicates merely a sense of helplessness due to the sectarianism that divides the churches, weakening their consciousness of responsibility and their power to give effect to their convictions. But one who remembers how many a pulpit thundered against the plot of fifty years ago to extend slavery into territory that had been set apart as free, and how three thousand ministers of many denominations joined in a petition to Congress against the iniquity of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, can hardly doubt that "where's a will there's a way" to get together on the principle, "Ye that love the Lord hate evil." If the moral foulness that taints our political life to-day,

that is cast in our teeth by European journals as our National shame, that poisons the spring of our republican liberties in the civic conscience-the venal voters in our villages, the venal lawmakers in our councils and legislatures, the alliance of bribe-giving corporations and bribetaking bosses known as commercialism in politics that reduces legislation and administration to an affair of bargain and sale of public interests to private greed—if all this, and more, in a country where church members number nearly one in three of the population, does not rouse an effective number of Christian consciences in pews and pulpits to "find a way or make one" to get together for social salvation, so great a failure can be explained only by the fact that Professor Ladd asserts, a "relatively low and nerveless "ethical condition. Those who have seen these divided churches recently rejoicing over the fact that they could, despite all disagreements, get together in

with the need of a salvation that is social as well as personal; few that seem touched with conviction of a widely diffused moral miasma that depraves the public conscience, and a moral profligacy of civic life engendered by an unchecked commercialism. commercialism. The Christian preacher now needs to hew to the line of social righteousness as closely as did the Hebrew prophets whose divine inspiration his creed asserts. But Christian conference is needed in the present crisis quite as much as Christian teaching. Godfearing men in these United States need now to get together to confer about the common salvation at home, as well as for the salvation of the heathen. They will do well to profit by the cynical remark of an unscrupulous party boss some years ago: "Politicians care nothing about the church vote, but they respect the saloon vote, for that goes solid."

unison the evangelization of heathen, can hardly doubt that they could get together in State Conferences, if not at first in National, to initiate moral reformation at home through moral revival from a torpid moral condition. Torpid, no more than half awake at most, is the Christian conscience, as Drs. Gladden and Strong have pointed out, which observes the personal but disregards the social require ments of Jesus' teaching concerning the Kingdom of God. Without excuse is the Christian citizen who ignores the obligation, laid on him by the fact that he has a share in a representative government, to use that share as a means for representing his Christian principles.

Serious responsibility in the present crisis in morals now rests upon those especially whose sacred calling it is to quicken and instruct the conscience of the Church. Dr. Strong's assertion that many of them fail to realize what is involved in preaci.ing the Gospel of the Kingdom tallies with the observation of others. The changed religious emphasis in books of formative power, upon which The Outlook has recently commented, is not yet observable in current preaching generally. In the multitude of sermons that one hears in the churches or sees in print there are few that are burdened

The extraordinary commercial development of the last few years, the enormous addition to the capital of the world, and the growing strain upon the working power of humanity, constitute a group of phenomena of the very highest importance, about which all manner of opinions are expressed, most of them probably of very small value. small value. The development of man is so irregular, it covers such a wide range of faculties, it is subject to such mutations, that nothing is more difficult than to determine its spiritual value and its ultimate significance at any given period. We are in the very heart of a great commercial development; but whether the world is more commercial in spirit than ever before is an open question. Never in earlier history have such colossal fortunes been piled up; but it is doubtful whether men care more for money to-day than they did two hundred years ago. So many facts must be taken into consideration, the view of the observer must be so comprehensive and his insight so direct, that very few men in any generation are qualified to judge of the ultimate aims of their own time. Thirty years ago Germany was the most uncommercial country in the world, and was held up as a model of devotion to the domestic, the artistic,

and the scholarly. These qualities were supposed to be inherent in the German character. Since the war with France, however, Germany has become a commercial nation, and has shown an astonishing capacity for commercial activity; with the result that German society is now full of newly rich people who are quite as offensive in their materialism as people in similar circumstances among any other race. The German comic newspapers are full of satires upon the gross materialism of the men who have recently come to fortune in that country. It now appears that the Germans were not deficient in the love of money or in the ability of dealing with business enterprises, but lacked the opportunity. With the opportunity has come the development of the ability, and also the revelation of those unlovely sides of human nature which too rapid growth of fortune always reveals.

That society has passed into a new stage of development is clear enough. Old standards have already changed. What were once great fortunes have now become mere competencies; and the capitalist of to-day counts by millions where his predecessors counted by hundreds of thousands.

At first glance it might seem as if this enormous expansion of material energy, this immense addition to the wealth of society, involved a process of materialization. In many cases it does, but it is by no means sure that the making of money in such colossal amounts will not in the future rob money of the peculiar power which it has long held upon the imagination. The wealth-producing capacity of society appears to be illimitable since the introduction of two great elements-co-operation on a scale unknown before in the history of the world, and the application of science in all departments. Sources of wealth are being opened in every direction which were unsuspected and which appear to be inexhaustible. Nothing, apparently, can prevent society from being enormously rich. Given the genius of the human mind in its present development and the immense storage of force and material in the globe about it, and nothing can prevent men from becoming immensely rich.

Mr. Beecher used to say that the supreme test of society was still before it; that test will come when the world ceases

to feel the pressure of the need of daily labor and can devote itself to the things for which it cares most. The real test of a man comes, not when he is compelled by circumstances to earn his daily bread by the sweat of his brow, but when the bread has been earned and the man is free to do what he chooses; then comes a sudden and often disastrous revelation of the poverty of his spirit, the narrowness of his resources. The greatest perils come, not when men are in adversity, but when they are well fed, well clothed, and well housed. That such perils await the whole world no man can doubt; that they are to be specially pressing in this country no one can question.

But it must not be forgotten that, if prosperity has its dangers, so also has adversity. Adversity is often spoken of as a disguised blessing; but, as a matter of fact, it often makes men mean, sordid, and brutal. The English bishop of the last century who said that it was very hard to be a Christian on less than a pound a week put a fact in a very compact and intelligible way. Narrow circumstances often develop the highest traits of character; they often make men patient, enduring, self-sacrificing; but they also often develop the very meanest, hardest, and most repulsive traits of character.

Protection from the perils of great prosperity will not be found by the preaching of poverty. Men cannot become poor without reducing their activities, letting their faculties lie dormant, curtailing their energies; and to none of these things will able-minded and able-bodied men consent. Presently there will come a lessening of speed, a greater repose, larger leisure; but, with the finer development of organization and the higher applications of science, just as much wealth will be produced as the world now produces at full pressure of work. The spiritual interests of society are to be saved, not by urging men to become inactive in order that they may diminish their wealth, but by teaching them the true uses of wealth. The work of the Church to-day is not to preach poverty, but a more vigorous and commanding spiritual life; men cannot be helped by being made poor; they can be saved only by being made strong.

THE PROVIDENCE SPEECH

W

E are passing through a period of great material prosperity, and such a period is as sure as adversity itself to bring mutterings of discontent. At a time when most men prosper somewhat it always happens that a few men prosper greatly, and it is as true now as it was when the Tower of Siloam fell upon all who were under it, that good fortune does not come only to the just, nor bad fortune only to the unjust. When the weather is good for crops, it is also good for weeds. Moreover, not only do the wicked flourish when the times are such that most men flourish, but, what is worse, the spirit of envy and jealousy and hatred springs up in the breasts of those who, though they may be doing fairly well themselves, yet see others who are no more deserving doing far better.

Wise laws and fearless and upright administration of the laws can give the opportunity for such prosperity as that we see about us. But this is all that they can do. When the conditions have been created which make prosperity possible, then each individual man must achieve it for himself by his own thrift, intelligence, energy, industry, and resolute purpose. If when people wax fat they kick, as they have been prone to do since the days of Jeshurun, they will speedily destroy their own prosperity.

If they go into wild speculation and lose their heads, they have lost that which no legislation can supply, and the business world will suffer in consequence. If in a spirit of sullen envy they insist upon pulling down those who have profited most by the years of fatness, they will bury

themselves in the crash of the common disaster. It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best laws; but it is easy enough by bad laws to throw the whole Nation into an abyss of misery.

Now, the upshot of all this is that it is peculiarly incumbent upon us in a time of such material well-being, both collectively as a Nation and individually, each on his own account, to show that we possess the qualities of prudence, self-knowledge, and self-restraint. In our Government we need above all things stability, fixity of economic policy, while remembering that this fixity must not be fossilization, that there must not be inability to shape our course anew to meet the shifting needs of the people as these needs arise.

There are real and great evils in our social and economic life, and these evils stand out with ugly baldness during good times, for the wicked who prosper are never a pleasant sight. There is every need of striving in all possible ways, individually and collectively, by combinations among ourselves in private life and through the recognized organs of government, for the cutting out of these evils. Only let us be sure that we do not use the knife with an ignorant zeal which would make it more dangerous to the patient than to the disease.

One of the features of the tremendous industrial growth of the last generation has been the very great increase in large private, and especially in large corporate, fortunes. We may like this or not, just as we please, but it is a fact, nevertheless, and as far as we can see it is an inevitable result of the working of various causes, prominent among which has been the

Urban population has grown in this country, as in all civilized countries, much faster than the population as a whole during the last century, and where men are gathered together in great masses it inevitably results that they must work far more largely by means of combinations among themselves than when they live isolated from one another.

Now, I suppose that most of us prefer on many accounts the old conditions of life, under which the average man lived more to himself and by himself, when the average community was more self-dependent, and where, even though the standard of comfort was lower on the average, yet there was less of the glaring inequality in worldly conditions which we now see in our great cities.

It is not true that the poor have grown poorer, but some of the rich have grown so very much richer that where multitudes of men are herded together in a limited space the contrast strikes the onlooker as more violent than formerly. On the whole, our people earn more and live better than ever before, and the progress of which we are so proud could not have taken place had it not been for the great upbuilding of industrial centers, such as our commercial and manufacturing cities. But together with the good there has come a measure of evil. Life is not so simple as it was, and surely both for the individual and the community the simple life is normally the healthy life. There is not in the cities the same sense of common underlying brotherhood that there is still in country localities, and the lines of social cleavage are far more clearly marked.

For some of the evils which have attended upon the good of the changed conditions we can at present see no complete remedy. For others the remedy must come by the action of men themselves in their private capacity, whether merely as individuals or by combination one with another. For yet others some remedy can be found in legislative and executive action, National, State, or municipal.

Much of the complaint against combinations is entirely unwarranted. Under present-day conditions it is as necessary to have corporations in the business world as it is to have organization among wage

case that they shall do good and not harm. Exactly as labor organizations, when managed intelligently and in a spirit of justice and fair play, are of very great service, not only to the wage-workers, but to the whole community (as the history of many labor organizations has conclusively shown), so wealth, not merely individual, but corporate, when used aright is not merely a benefit to the community as a whole, but indispensable to the upbuilding of the country, under the conditions which at present the country has grown not only to accept, but to demand as normal. This is so obvious that it seems trite even to state it, and yet, if we are to judge from some of the arguments advanced against, and attacks made upon, wealth, as such, it is a fact worth keeping in mind.

A great fortune, if not used aright, makes its possessor in a peculiar sense a menace to the community as a whole, just as a great intellect does if it is unaccompanied by developed conscience, by character. But, obviously, this no more affords grounds for condemning wealth than it does for condemning intellect. Every man of power, by the very fact of that power, is capable of doing damage to his neighbors; but we cannot afford to discourage the development of such merely because it is possible they may use their power to wrong ends.

If we did so, we should leave our history a blank, for we should have no great statesmen, soldiers, or merchants, no great men of arts, of letters, or of science. Doubtless, on the average, the most useful man to his fellow-citizens is apt to be he to whom has been given what the Psalmist prayed for neither poverty nor riches; but the great captain of industry, the man of wealth who alone or in combination with his fellows drives through our great business enterprises, is a factor without which this country could not possibly maintain its present industrial position in the world.

Good, not harm, normally comes from the piling up of wealth through business enterprises. Probably the most serious harm resulting to us, the people of moderate means, is when we harm ourselves by letting the dark and evil vices of envy and hatred toward our fellows eat into our natures.