Article February 1, 1913 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from Dean Shailer Mathews

[Dean Shailer Mathews, D.D., in Christian Work and Evangelist.]

If I believed the church of Jesus Christ did not center about its religious message, I would turn to some other form of operation in which such little contribution as I could make might be institutionalized for society; but because we all believe that the churches of Jesus Christ stand for a spiritual message that shall invoke a social passion, that shall lead men out into larger service in which the very nature of religion shall be exploited in terms of brotherhood because founded upon liberty and an experience of the divine paternity, we here together undertake to plan for the great tasks as we face an awakening and a uniting Protestantism. These tasks are intensely concrete and personal. Unless I mistake the drift of the present day, we are face to face with problems that make the issues of the ancient world look almost puerile. We face the issue of whether a civilization that is prosperous can remain religious and moral. Never has there been a prosperous state that has not morally fallen. In the same proportion as idealistic and spiritual forces can contribute to the permanency and power of civilization will civilization be a blessing.

We are face to face with the issue of bringing cooperatively to the non-Christian world not merely a civilization, but an ideal of civilization. If our civilization cannot carry to the people beyond the seas something better than commerce or various forms of government, it is in great danger of being injurious rather than helpful; and if we Protestants do not intend to see to it that the progress of our western civilizations carries to the world our ideals of Christian service, we shall be recreant to the duty to which God calls us.

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