Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/637

 THE CHURCH AND THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT 617

teachings as to the supreme worth of each individual soul in God's sight and any form of oppression, whether ecclesiastical or economic. A Christian man has no excuse for corrupting legislatures or for stealing property, by whatever euphemistic synonym such acts may be described. He cannot be true to the Christ he serves if he wantonly neglects the rights of others, whether competitors or employes.

But to say this is not to give up the church, nor to despair of the salvability or the fundamental justice of a regulated com- petition. It is simply to say that justice and goodness are supe- rior to business success ; it is but to paraphrase the words of Jesus, " Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness," " Make friends through the mammon of unrighteousness." It is high time that the historic church already crowned with cen- turies of beneficence ; which, however slowly, has for centuries been molding economic life to the pattern of its Master ; which has produced the only stable material out of which socialism can hope to build a new socie|:y, should challenge socialism to say why it arrogates to itself a monopoly of love for the masses, and challenge it again to say whether, instead of the Christian nation of kings and priests, its social regeneration through eco- nomic comfort will produce anything better than smug, selfish respectability, a comfortable but heroless mediocrity.

V.

The church can aid all efforts at social betterment by pro- ducing religiously regenerate lives. A church does not, it is true, regenerate a man, and were the purpose of this paper theologi- cal, it would be necessary to make the language more exact. But, however more exactly it might be expressed, the duty of the church remains. Its office is not that of a school, but of a home into which new sons and daughters are continually being born. It, and it alone, of all social institutions is capable of fur- nishing the individuals out of which a good society can be built.

The Christian ideal of the individual is social. A man can- not conform to the example of Jesus unless his life be joined consciously to others. The spontaneity with which Chris-