Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/635

 THE CHURCH AND THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT 615

who are Christians. Indeed, it is not uncommon to hear men identify socialism and Christianity. But after guarding, as best I can, against prejudice, and judging the two from their most significant elements, if words mean anything and there be any distinction between the two, the position of Christianity seems more capable of producing permanent social betterment than does socialism. The church has chosen the slower and more difficult method; for it is always easier to attempt reform by legislation than by the education and conversion of indi- vidual lives. It would, indeed, be untrue to facts to say that much good cannot be accomplished by legislation that expresses the sentiments of an intelligent and righteous minority, but a study of such reformatory and prohibitive legislation will convince any man that it succeeds in something like the pro- portion of influential men in a community who are in sym- pathy with its objects. There is here not merely a question of regard for law sufficient to lead to its conventional enforce- ment, but also the question as to whether a good law enforced by a part of a community is ideally so desirable as such an ele- vation in the personal character of each citizen as makes such a law unnecessary. If it be replied that the social will must always be in advance of a considerable number of individuals, the origi- nal question is again presented : granted such must be the case, which is likely to be of more permanent social service, a belief that the chief effort should be made to make the individual good through social environment, or to produce such men and women as will themselves constitute a proper society ? It is easy to reply that both are needed, but such an answer leaves the point at issue undecided, and if the alternative be frankly met as it actually exists, the answer seems to favor the philosophy of the church. Its method has one great advantage : to use a printer's term, it does not throw society into "pi" as the first step toward recombinations. Utopias presuppose Utopians, and the church undertakes the production of Utopians.

And in another particular the social doctrine of the church is superior in its practical bearings upon the individual to that of socialism. I know that the socialist will strenuously deny the