lized religion. But I had caught only the pure
essence of its spirit; I had not thought to apply it to the social
problems of today. Indeed, I was not aware of the existence of such
problems. My whole approach to the question of truth and experience
up to that time, had been along the lines of speculation in the
field of theological, as contrasted with political or social,
thought. In the second year of my ministry, however, I read Henry
George's "Progress and Poverty"; then followed the writings of Henry
D. Lloyd and Prof. Walter Rauschenbusch; then came the deep and
prolonged plunge into the waters of socialism. For several years
after I came to this church, I was in a state of intellectual and
emotional upheaval impossible for me to describe. At last came a
conviction which was a complete reversal of all my former ideas. I
was as a man converted; I was as one who had seen a great light.
Henceforth I was a social radical; and religion, pre-eminently not a
testimony to theological truth but a crusade for social change. Of
course, my interest in theology has persisted; but its place in my
life has tended to become ever more subordinate to other and more
directly practical interests. You know how the character of my
preaching has changed since I first entered the Messiah pulpit. You
know with what [8] waxing intensity of expression I have moved to
the left of our various divisions on the social question. You do not
know, hence I must tell you, how this intensity of radical
conviction is destined to continue in the years that are now before
us. For the war has accelerated the social crisis beyond all
forecasting. In two years has transpired what fifty years could not
have consummated under more normal conditions. Three great
empires--Russia, Germany, Austria--and several newborn countries,
like that of the Czecho-Slovaks, have been captured by the
Socialists; and the British Empire seems promised to the British
Labor Party in not more than another decade or two. The social
revolution long prophesied, long hoped for, long feared, is here;
and this means in countries like our own, still untouched by change,
such a "sturm and drang periode," as makes even the Great War pale
into insignificance. Now in these years which are before us, I
propose to speak and serve for the speediest and most thoroughgoing
social reconstruction. I am committed both by conviction and
temperament to the program of the British Labor Party and its p