moral
sense to reprove and denounce this iniquity. What is worse, the church
had not had enough moral sense to make these men see beforehand that
such an act was infamous.

Undoubtedly they would have promptly justified themselves. "Such
transactions," they would have said, "are occurring every day; what the
law does not forbid, and what everybody else does, cannot be wrong. The
property was ours, and we had a right to put our own price on it, and
sell it for what it would bring. The business was ours, and we had a
right to do what we pleased with it, to keep it running or shut it down
when we got ready: it is a free country: do you think you can compel a
man to go on doing business when he prefers to quit? We never guaranteed
permanent employment to these people: we paid them their wages while
they worked for us, and that is the end of our obligation to them."

Some such answer they would, no doubt, have made to any one who called
in question their conduct; and by such an answer they would have
revealed the failure of the church to which they belonged to bring home
to them their social obligations.

The existing social order can never be redeemed unless a fire can be
kindled on the earth in whose clear shining light such deeds as these
can be seen in all their deformity, and in whose purifying flame such
excuses as these will be utterly consumed. We must have laws to make
such wrongs impossible; but behind the laws must be the moral insight
and the social passion which shall make them effective, and it is the
business of the church to furnish these. When this is done we shall have
made a good beginning in the work of social redemption.

But it will be only a beginning. The work of John the Baptist comes
first, but one mightier than he must follow. The voice of one crying in
the wilderness is but the prelude of that larger revelation which is
made upon the mountain top. To bring home to men the obligations of the
law, and to show them wherein they are failing to obey it, is the first
duty of the church in the present crisis; but it is the gospel with
which she is primarily put in charge.

Clearer teaching about social morality is fundamental, but the great
need, after all, is the vitalization of morality. The moral code, no
matter how accurate may be its precepts, tends to become a dead letter,
unless it is constantly revivified by the spirit of religion.

The Sermon on the Mount is often conceived of as purely e