Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/331

 THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 3 I 7

subject and abject races is reviving the unfit so as to be fit to survive. Their faith in the living God and the living people, as expressed in their fearless dependence upon a polity without ecclesiastical authority, and a creed which finds its only authori- tative symbol in the current confessions of ever-present belief, is the very democracy of the kingdom. The practice of this present faith in the present God and the present people is the crowning service which the free churches can render the king- dom, the church, and the world. But the very weight of their crown is their cross. For what has been said of modern democ- racy is as true of it in church as in state : " It lays on the will the

heaviest tax of all The sincere believer in democracy must

have a dogmatic conviction that the principle of individuality shall sometime have the widest possible spread. His right to be an individual himself puts him under the highest conceivable obligation to create individuality in others. He is a gentleman in a true democratic sense just in the measure that he has the art of finding himself in an ever-growing number of persons of all

sorts and conditions He must carry the campaign against

caste into larger issues. He must face all that is disagreeable and problematic in democracy, concealing nothing, blinking nothing away. And at the same time he must keep his will strong and tempered, so that its edge shall never turn. To meet all his social obligations heartily, to pay all his political debts joyously, never to throw a glance over his shoulder at the monas- tery — this is a mighty day's work." '

To fulfill this their social function let our free churches go triumphantly hence into the century of social democracy, the dawning of which admonishes us to examine ourselves, and take heed that we take not the sacrament of the people's service unworthily.

DISCUSSION.

Rev. Philip Moxom, U.D.: The heart of our religion is involved in this problem. In a long experience, in which I have tried to keep myself close to the essential elements of the work of the church, no question more

' Professor H. S. Nash, Gentsis of tht Social Conscience (New York : Macmillan Co.), pp. 303, 304.