ntral
and seminal sin of modern civilization that the church must assail with
all the weapons of the spiritual warfare. "Covetousness is idolatry"--so
St. Paul testifies; and a grosser or more debasing idolatry has never
appeared on earth than the worship of material gain. Unless the bonds of
that superstition can be broken, the race must sink into degradation. It
is the one deadly enemy of mankind. And the church of Jesus Christ is
called to lead in the battle with this foe. Against no other social evil
was the testimony of Jesus so trenchant and uncompromising. Nothing more
clearly evinces his unerring vision of moral realities than his judgment
upon this encroaching passion. In his day it was an evil almost
negligible compared with what it is to-day. It was because he foresaw
the conditions which prevail to-day that his words were so hot against
the rule of Mammon. The church is face to face with the danger which he
discerned, and she must meet it in his spirit and with the energy of
his passion. To make men see the hatefulness and loathsomeness of this
greed of gain is the first duty of the church. When that is accomplished
the worst evils of the business realm will disappear.

It means, fourthly, the extirpation of social vice. When covetousness is
conquered, the procuring cause of much of this kind of evil will be cut
up by the roots. The greed of gain is the motive which breeds and
propagates social vice. But there are animal propensities to which these
incitements make their appeal; and some way must be found of quickening
the nobler affections, so that the spirit shall rule the flesh and not
be in bondage to it. To fill the thoughts and wishes of men with
something better worth while than the joys of animalism is the radical
remedy for these degradations. And the church ought to be able to supply
this remedy.

The redemption of society means, in the fifth place, the purification of
politics. The dethronement of Mammon will go a long way toward this
also; most of the corruptions of our political life spring from the love
of money. Graft is the first-born of covetousness. But the love of
power also plays a part in the debauchery of citizenship; and the
central sin of using men as means to our ends is exhibited here on a
stupendous scale. This is the vocation of the boss and the briber and
the political machinist; and a deadlier way of destroying manhood it
would be hard to find. It is not only the interest of ot