Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/587

 REVIEWS 567

the word " pagan" means a "dweller in the country"? Or is it without sig- nificance that the apostle John saw a redeemed society existing as a city? "And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."

I think all of these things are deeply significant, and the significance is perceived in the expression " civic church," which, like the expression " the city a well-ordered household," gathers up ideals which are animating those who are giving shape to the twentieth-century city. The city is destined to become a well-ordered household, a work of art, and a religious institution Li the truest sense of the word "religious."

The great Italian, Mazzini, said long ago : Every political question is becoming a social question, and every social question a religious question. Until our religion can take in municipal reform, we shall not achieve the best of which we are capable in the way of the city. We must come to have that feeling which the Psalmist had for the great Jewish city, and the promise and power of the present efforts making for civic righteousness are found pre- cisely in this fact, that we are coming to have just that sort of a truly religious feeling. You remember the words of the Psalmist: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth : if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." So we may learn to say indeed, are learning to say : " If I forget thee, O Chicago, O New York, O St. Louis, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth : if I prefer thee not above my chief joy." And because we are learning to say this, we may look forward with the brightest anticipa- tions to the future of the twentieth-century city.

A. W. S.

Americans in Process: A Settlement Study by Residents and Associates of the South End House, Edited by ROBERT A. WOODS, Head of the House, North and West Ends, Boston. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. ix + 389. $1.50. IN the language of the preface :

The indifference of the so-called good citizen is largely because his best effort to produce a mental picture of his city in its essential human aspects results in something altogether vague, scattered, out-of-date. Many of the efforts toward better things reflect this lack of mental furnishing in being piecemeal, casual, and beside the mark. The purpose of this volume, as of its predecessor (The City Wilderness), is to contribute toward building up a contemporary conception of the city, as the groundwork of a type of muni- cipal and social improvement, which shall be accurate in its adaptation to detailed facts, and statesmanlike in its grasp of large forces and total situations.