Christian social life. Its influence there was necessarily restricted
mainly to individual morality, family life, and neighborly intercourse,
and here it did fundamental work in raising the moral standards. On the
other hand, it failed to reorganize industry, property, and the State.
Even if Christians had had an intelligent social and political outlook,
any interference with the Roman Empire by the low-class adherents of a
forbidden religion was out of the question. When the Church was recognized
and favored under Constantine and his successors, it had lost its
democratic composition and spirit, and the persons who controlled it were
the same sort of men who controlled the State.

The early age of the Church has had a profound influence in fixing the
ideals and aims of later times. The compulsory seclusion and confinement
of the age of persecution are supposed to mark the mission of the Church.
As long as the social life in our country was simple and rural, the
churches, when well led, were able to control the moral life of entire
communities. But as social organization became complex and the solidarity
of neighborhood life was left behind, the situation got beyond the
institutional influence of the churches. Evidently the fighting energies
of Christianity will have to make their attack on broader lines, and
utilize the scientific knowledge of society, which is now for the first
time at the command of religion, and the forces set free by political and
social democracy. We can not restrict the modern conflict with evil to the
defensive tactics of a wholly different age. Wherever organized evil
opposes the advance of the Kingdom of God, there is the battle-front.
Wherever there is any saving to be done, Christianity ought to be in it.
The intensive economic and sociological studies of the present generation
of college students are a preparation for this larger warfare with evil.
These studies will receive their moral dignity and religious consecration
when they are put at the service of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _The Natural Drift_

1. If left alone, which way do we tend? Does a normal and sound individual
need spiritual reinforcement to live a good life?

2. How do you account for the fact that the noblest movements are so
easily debased?

II. _Jesus and Human Sin_

1. Did Jesus take a friendly or a gloomy view of human nature? How did the
fact of sin