on. Let us make
right laws. The moment the social condition enables a man to
discover the divine things in him, he will live right by preference.
We are no longer to spend eloquence, prayer and time on revivals,
and now and then, here and there, get an individual to live fairly
right in spite of hindering conditions. The sermon of the preacher
should appeal to the law-maker rather than to the law-breaker; it
should arouse men, not to the danger of a hell far off, but to a
hell near at hand, the hell of unjust laws, of sanitary neglect, of
oppression of man by man.

Social redemption! that is the watchword.

Social salvation! that is the crying need.

All this (we are told) is to be accomplished by appealing to the
divine in man, to his hitherto ignored resources. This appeal can be
made of avail only by setting up some human figure in which this
divine life has been fully proved and clearly portrayed. In the
nature of the case, for a modernist Christian, such a person is to
be found alone in our Lord Jesus Christ. By such he is now hailed,
and continually announced, as the advanced man, the quintessent
demonstration of evolution as applied to humanity, the way-shower,
the exemplar and true copy. He is incarnate altruism. His whole life
was self-denial. His daily interest was in social conditions. To him
society was the objective, the individual an incident. His
teachings, when fairly construed, involve the overthrow of the old,
and the bringing in of a radically new society, in which the divine
life in man may have an opportunity to unfold. His doctrines, when
analyzed, are explosive; if practically carried out would be
revolutionary. He is, in short, the true socialist. If we follow him
as such, if we work out his intent, we shall have individual
salvation, but we shall have it as a consequent of social
redemption.

There may be shining worlds beyond this. There may be holy cities
with golden streets. There may be robes of righteousness and trees
of life. What we need to do, as Christians, is to take care of the
world in which we now live, build first-class holy cities here, see
that the streets are well paved, and the sewers in order, put fit
clothing on the backs of the poor, fill the mouths of the hungry
with actual bread, make the hours of labor minimum, and the hours of
personal culture maximum, and thus weave a garment of civic, social
and individual righteousness that shall stand the test of this world
or