e has been neglecting her
real business in the world, or making it a secondary concern. When she
gets that truth fully before her mind, and that conviction upon her
conscience, we may hope for better things.

There was, however, one epoch in her history when she came very near
making this discovery. That was the period of the Reformation in the
sixteenth century. What happened then is full of interest for us in
these days; it throws a flood of light on the problems with which we are
dealing.

We have been taught by the historians of the Reformation to think of
that event as mainly a theological crisis, as an intellectual revolt
against certain doctrines imposed by the church upon the faithful, or a
rebellion against the stringency of ecclesiastical discipline. That
issues of this nature were deeply involved in it is true; but these were
by no means the only causes of that uprising. It was largely a social
and economic movement. It was, in its inception, less a reaction against
bad theology than a revolt against unchristian social conditions. What
weighed most heavily on the people who started the uprising that we call
the Reformation was not theological error and confusion, it was their
poverty, their servitude, the miseries and wrongs of their daily life.
They knew something of the Christ of Nazareth, and they could not
believe that he meant to leave them in that condition, and therefore
they began to have a dim sense of the truth that the church which bore
his name was misrepresenting him, and needed to be reformed. This was
the source of the movement known as the Reformation. It was, therefore,
a sharp reminder to the church that she had wholly forgotten her main
business in the world.

One of the latest of the histories of the Reformation, that of Dr.
Thomas M. Lindsay, brings this truth into clear light. His chapter on
"Social Conditions" gives us a vivid sketch of the economic and social
forces which were operating at the end of the fifteenth and the
beginning of the sixteenth century.

It was the time of transition from the old system of home production and
home markets to the era of world-wide commerce. Under the old system,
industry had been largely regulated by guilds, and there was a fair
measure of equality; while trade, though not extensive, was regulated by
civic leagues.

But the end of the fifteenth century brought the great geographical
discoveries and the beginning of a world trade. "The possibil