Article August 2, 1913 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from Lathan A. Crandall, R. J. Campbell

[Lathan A. Crandall in The Standard.]

The awakening of the church to the privilege and duty of social ministry is one of the most significant features of our modern life. The wonder is that the followers of him who "went about doing good" should have failed for a single hour to give themselves to the relief of human distress. Strangely enough, Christians have sometimes made such a din denouncing one another that the cry of the needy and the suffering has been unheard. Eyes that have failed to see the Christ in the little ones of earth, have sought for him in vain in the heavens above them. Now "social service" has become the watchword of the hour, and in the forefront of the battle for human betterment stand the representatives of the Christian church. This is not only as it should be, and as it must be if we share in the spirit of him who told the story of the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and spoke the scorching words recorded in the twenty-fifth chapter of the gospel of Matthew, but it greatly increases the power of the church's appeal. It serves to bring religion out of the clouds; it makes it clear to all that Christianity is not a theory about life, but life itself, and that helpfulness is the automatic expression of the truly Christian temper. Because of this new attitude toward the ills of society, religion is becoming naturalized among legitimate human interests, and those who were wont to look at it askance, as having no real value for the present order, are learning that it is the most practical and powerful of all the forces making for the well-being of man.

[The Outlook.]

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