Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/470

 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH AND SOCIAL UNITY.-

To MANY men the faith in an abiding social peace grows hardly more than a dream and a wish. Progress, so far as social soli- darity is concerned, seems leading for the moment to 2. cul-de-sac walled in by contradictions of its own making. Human life has passed from savagery, where that man was safest who was most alone, to the present chaos of relationships. Never was the division of labor so minute and cooperation so imperative. Never was power more synonymous with dependence. 'Never was a theoretical democracy more in evidence. And yet from the evolution the social universe has not yet emerged. The division of labor has not grown cooperative ; democracy was never more in need of guidance ; social classes were never more sensi- tive to each other's prerogatives ; the interests of the individual are not yet always those of society; education has not yet taught our children the art of living together as men ; the church has not 3'et brought about the kingdom of God. To offset this disinte- grating force, to what shall we look ? Economic cooperation, the brute forces of army or police, foreign war, and socialism have had their champions, and to a greater or less degree each has been tried in actual life. Yet, so far as we can judge, the question still awaits an answer, and it must continue to wait

• The substance of this paper was given as an address at St. George's Church, New York, November 26, iSgg, and I cannot help adding a few facts concerning the work so nobly conceived and administered by its rector, W. S. Rainsford, D.D. St. George's Church is on the East Side of New York, in a neighborhood once aristo- cratic, but at present almost entirely consisting of boarding-houses and tenements. From St. George's Year Book for 1899 it appears that 7,521 persons were on the books of the church, only 337 of whom (including domestic servants) lived in private houses; 5,034 lived in tenements. The church maintains, besides a flourishing Men's Club, a Boy's Battalion, various societies for girls and women, a kitchen-garden class, a cottage by the seaside, a sewing school, a trade school for boys, a free library, a gymnasium, a Sunday school of 2,331 members, an employment society, a relief department, a periodical club, as well as an unusual number of strictly parish organizations. The church has an endowment, and in every way is demonstrating the possibilities of a proper conception of the social functions of a church and the use of rational methods in Christian work.

456