re
wrecked because they assailed socialized evil or graft. How does this
differ from the fate of the prophets?

2. Are the sacrifices of prophetic leaders ever useless and actually
ineffective? Do you feel an inward protest against that? On what ground?

3. To what extent is the call to be a Christian a challenge to vicarious
suffering? What social significance, then, would Christian baptism have?

4. Is there anything wrong with a Christian life which does not incur
suffering?

5. Would suffering be normal in the religious life of the young?

6. Why does this social principle apply especially to college men and
women?

IV. _For Special Discussion_

1. What qualities constitute a man a prophet?

2. Are there embryonic prophets? Or spent prophets? Is a prophet
necessarily a saint?

3. Do prophets arise where religion deals with private life only? What is
the social value of prophetic personalities?

4. Name men in secular history and literature who have the marks of the
prophet. Any in recent times?

5. Does learning create prophetic vision or blur it?

6. Does the ordinary religion today put a man in line for the Cross or for
a job as a bank director?

7. Can you think of anything that would bring the Cross back into the life
of the churches today?

8. Would vicarious suffering diminish if society became Christianized?

Chapter XII. A Review And A Challenge

_The Social Principles of Jesus Demand Personal Allegiance and Social
Action_

DAILY READINGS

First Day: The Social Mission of Christians

Ye are the salt of the earth.... Ye are the light of the
world.--Matt. 5:13, 14.

"Jesus speaks here with the consciousness of an historic mission to the
whole of humanity. Yet it was a Nazarene carpenter speaking to a group of
Galilean peasants and fishermen. Under the circumstances, and at the time,
it was an utterance of the most daring faith--faith in himself, faith in
them, faith in what he was putting into them, faith in faith. Jesus failed
and was crucified, first his body by his enemies, and then his spirit by
the men who bore his name. But that failure was so amazing a success that
today it takes an effort on our part to realize that it required any faith
on his part to inaugurate the Kingdom of God and to send out his
apostolate."(7)

If the antiseptic and enlightening influence of the sincere followers of
Jesus were eliminated from our American communities, what woul