Christ, the supreme religious teacher, divided mankind into two groups. The one he calls "blessed," and the other, "cursed." The kingdom of man, says the Master, belongs to those who help their fellow-men, and those who will not help cannot share the inheritance. Let us think of each of these groups in turn. Who are the blessed? "I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison and ye came unto me." Feeding hungry people, whether it be by sharing a loaf with an individual or increasing the food supply of a nation, is part of the great humanizing task. The cup of cold water to a child or a reservoir of clear water to a city helps to give man the conquest of nature. The building of a municipal lodging-house, the maintenance of a social settlement, a branch of the Traveler's Aid-all take the stranger in. Many a factory clothes the naked, even as many a bureau of charities. What greater and more efficient ministry could be performed for the sick than that of the modern hospital? And to the thousands shut up in prison go the Prison Reform Association and the Mutual Welfare Leagues of Thomas Mott Osborne, as well as the prisoners' relatives and friends. All the rich and varied forms of social work are forms of ministry; they help men in their hours of need. Christ claims all such helpers of their fellows as the inheritors of his kingdom. He pictures the claim as causing huge surprise to them. "When," they exclaimed, "saw we thee hungry, and fed thee, or athirst, and gave thee drink? And when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in, or naked, and clothed thee? And when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?" His answer was very simple and all-embracing: “Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me." Is not that declaration as surprising to many social workers today as to those folks in the Master's picture? "We are so busy keeping and applying the second commandment," some say, "that we have no time to think of the first commandment; we are so occupied in saving the souls of others that we have almost forgotten our own souls." All such helpers the Master claims without distinction. "Are you helping men? Then you are helping me, whether or not you are aware of it." Is not this a surprise to many? Real religion is usually a refreshing and delightful surprise. It is so entirely different from what men generally think it is. Religion is not one thing more, something that is added to the sum total of human activities. Real religion is the spirit with which all things are done. All the social worker needs in order to become religious is to recognize the fact that in serving men he is serving the Christ. And in this recognition, when it becomes a motive, he gains whatever help and inspiration religion has. When I do the service I am set to do, not because I may have an aptitude for it, or because it is my means of livelihood, not merely because I conceive it to be my duty, but when I do it because I believe God would have me do it, and therefore I will do it because of my wish to serve him and because of love for him, then there is a will to serve, a vigor, and enthusiasm which are matched nowhere else. That motive has been the mainspring of the golden deeds of the world. No man serving his fellow-men need wait unto the end to be surprised by the Master. He can enter into the joy of the Master in the midst of his work. "Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." And now let us turn to the other people whom the Master calls a hard name, "cursed." To our modern ears it has a harsh sound, but the fact behind the word is a harsh fact. There are men who live utterly useless lives; they take everything, and give nothing; they live on others, never for them; they are the parasites and the drones of society. They eat the food which others produce, and wear the clothes which others make, and sometimes keep well by making others sick, and shut up in prison any who question their right to exploit mankind. The kingdom of man is deferred, and at times defeated, by such men. Christ pictures such useless creatures as consigned by the King to outer darkness. And they are told the reason for their banishment: they never fed, clothed, visited, nor came to one of the least of the brothers of Christ and the sons of God. The Master pictures these people as tremendously surprised when they are told that they are useless. They feel that some mistake has been made. "When saw we thee hungry, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?" The King answered that inasmuch as they did it not unto one of the least of their brother men, they did it not unto him. If social workers are surprised today when they are told that their service to man is religion, some other people are due for surprise when they shall be told that their so-called "religious services" are not religion. The story of the Good Samaritan is a perpetual warning to religious people. It was a priest who went down the Jericho road, and did nothing for the man wounded, robbed, and dying by the wayside. Would not that priest be surprised if he were told that he had no share in the Kingdom of the Father? He would have furnished a reasonable alibi today. "Real religion," said a priest recently from a distinguished pulpit, "is theocentric, awed, a thing of beauty and deep humility. We are not to seek it for the sake of preserving civilization, that relatively unimportant incident, we are to seek it because we have lost our way, in a maze of sin and pride; because we are lonely, and life is dull, and the world's gaudy baubles seem like tinsel; because God is our true home." So the priests might have argued in the days of Christ; so they did present religion in preReformation days. It is not the religion of the great prophets of Israel, Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah, who held that religion is justice, mercy, as well as humility. Nor is it the conception of the New Testament, which holds that religion is love, the love of God in the neighbor, and of the neighbor in God. The kingdom of man, fulfilling its destiny, is the Kingdom of God. In the story of the Good Samaritan, the Levite, as well as the priest, was a religious man and a servant of the church, but he passed by on the other side. If he had lived today he might have justified himself as others are doing. Humanitarianism has been called "a mawkish travesty of Christianity which transforms morality by basing it on pity, and transfers guilt from the individual to the state under which he lives. Man is always innocent; the government always guilty." Perhaps the Levite was a humanitarian who held that the state was responsible for robbers on the Jericho road, and that therefore it was the duty of the state to care for the victim of robbers; perhaps he held that pity is not kindness, and that men who stumble and fall in a hostile country need to be taken by the nape of the neck and shoved back into line. Much can be said for both positions. But, according to the Master, the test of a man is not his philosophy, but his deed. The Levite passed by on the other side. Both priest and Levite, had they lived today, might have justified their attitude by a third argument. "Humanitarianism," recently said a distinguished visitor from abroad at Yale University, "is a religion which promises the nations an earthly paradise at the end of a flowery path." True religion, on the contrary, points to progress in the victory of the spirit over the flesh, but promises nothing as prizes of warfare, and pronounces the creed which carries war into the individual soul to be the only way of peace for the nations. Such is the creed of naked individualism in the field of religion, and it matches the theory of the survival of the fittest in sociology. In national life the fruits of that creed are twelve millions of dead, a burden of debt beyond our imagination to realize, and Christian civilization threatened with destruction. In industrial life such a creed arrays steel magnate against steel worker, dispossesses women and children from company house, and makes it impossible for a workingman to secure justice in any court as against a corporation. Humanitarianism may “not avoid sloppy sentimentality," but it avoids cruelty, neglect, and wrong. Priest and Levite, if alive today, would have fallen back upon a fourth line of defense. This emphasis on the second commandment, to the exclusion of the first, is called today secularized Christianity; love of the neighbor, it is held, means merely an attempt to improve the physical condition of mankind and to make life more pleasant. Whereas one of the vital parts of Christ's teaching is that all good and all evil come from within. Reform begins with the will and conscience of the individual, and proceeds outward. It affects social amelioration by working on the moral character. Make the seed good, say these advocates, and its fruit will be good. Is it true that the man, had he been all he ought to be, would not have fallen by the wayside on the Jericho road? Is it not true that a road infested by robbers was a factor in the case, no less than the individual man who was robbed? Good seed is necessary, so is good soil, if there is to be a good harvest. Good physical conditions are good soil in which character may be grown more easily and generally than in stony ground. I would clear the Jericho road of robbers, and I would then send men down it ever ready to serve their fellows in every way: not only serve their bodies, but serve their minds; not only serve their minds, but serve their whole manhood. "Tis life whereof our veins are scant 'Tis life, not death, for which we pant The supreme task of real religion and true humanitarianism is one and the same. It is to assert the love of man and to keep it from degenerating into the unethical sentiment of charity; it is to assert the love of God and to keep it from degenerating into an other-worldly or antisocial pietism. The ideal of a regenerated human society, the kingdom of man and the kingdom of God, is the inspiration of the religion of human helpfulness. To bring this ideal into life and to try to realize it on earth is the supreme mission of men. They who so strive fulfil their destiny and win from Him who made the vision clear, the welcome, "Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." WHAT SHALL WE DO ABOUT WAR? Sherwood Eddy, Associate General Secretary, National Council, Before speaking about "What Shall We Do about War?" shall we make a brief survey of the situation, as we see it, throughout the world? Omitting China because, however serious things may seem to be there, I believe the present difficulty will prove to be only local, without involving other nations in war, I believe there are four great danger zones today from which there may possibly arise war for the world. First, there is the danger zone of Russia. Any nation which professes to be out for the violent overthrow of existing government and the substitution by force of another social order has embarked on a course that must make for war. Then there is a danger zone in the Balkans. In Bulgaria we see a conflict between the forces of the Red and the White, both equally ruthless, and where there may easily be found an occasion for world-war, as it was found in the Balkans for the last war. Third, there is a danger zone between Germany and France, made all the more acute by the election of General von Hindenburg. I believe he is too good a soldier to think now of warlike measures. I believe he sincerely desires peace, nevertheless his election plays into the hands of the military party. I believe Germany desires peace, but I found at the extreme right a nationalist party, both in Germany and in France, preparing for war and believing in war, 100 per cent suspicious and bitter, each toward the other, and looking forward to war as a possible settlement. Some of you may be surprised, some may challenge the fourth danger zone I shall mention, but millions there are today who look to America as one of the chief danger zones in all the world. Millions in Latin America and millions in Europe are looking to us, the great creditor nation, fearing lest we develop imperialism; looking also, to see what may happen as a result of our exclusion of the Japanese. The fact that there is a demand for increasing our fortifications in Hawaii, and that our fleet go on a costly voyage to Australia, to many this warlike gesture means that we are taking a stand for the white races as against the yellow races. The fact that we profess innocence does not settle the question. In Germany I heard a college professor claim that the Germans were 100 per cent innocent of bringing on the Cireat War, that they never dreamed of using their fleet for warlike purposca. One might wonder if this old man expected they were going to be used for Sunday school picnics. I met many in Germany who felt themselves innocent, but that did not make Germany any the less a danger zone. Take our Japanese exclusion act. I believe no country more than Japan recognizes our right to protect our people from the indiscriminate dumping of undesirable populations upon us, and no country more readily would respect wise immigration laws, but haven't we done the right thing in the wrong way? Suppose we had admitted them on the quota basis. While admitting over 100,000 a year from some countries, we would have admitted only 150 Japanese, about 100 Chinese, and about to Indians a year. More than that are coming by the route of evasion. Our course has not closed our doors, nor settled the question. If we had permitted President Coolidge to call a friendly conference with that friendly nation, how gladly would they have agreed to any arrangement to keep back even the 150. They want their people in Korea and Manchuria. But no. We said, "We will keep them in their place. We will show them where to get off." We have thereby left a lasting and a growing wound in the heart of that people. Would we permit the Japanese ambassador to express the fear that our action might lead to serious consequences, as it already has? For, having driven out Japan, we have driven her into an alliance with Russia, a combination that may easily become significant. Would we permit the Japanese ambassador to tell us that he feared our act would lead to serious consequences? No. And as a result I fear it will lead to very serious consequences. Are America and Japan going to become a danger zone of the world? We are increasing our munitions, our defenses in Hawaii, sending a fleet on this voyage to Australia, lining up against the yellow races, as it seems to them. I hope we shall not become one of the danger zones of the world, but there is occasion for some fear that we may. But over against these four danger zones of Russia, the Balkans, Germany and France, and America and Japan, let me speak of four great movements making for peace, because I believe that greater are the forces making for peace than those that make for war. First, the churches have taken their stand against war. I have not time to read these voluminous resolutions which I hold in my hand, that have been passed by all, or nearly all, of the great religious bodies, |