ill we seek to
gain some form of power by means of which we can live in plenty, with only
slight and pleasurable exertion? In that case we can hardly return to our
fellow-men in work as much as we take from them in enjoyment and luxury.
We shall be part of that dead weight which has always bent the back of the
poor. Is that an honorable ambition? Or do we propose to enter the working
team of humanity and to hold up our end? Our end ought to be heavier than
the average because we have had longer and better training. "To whomsoever
much is given, of him shall much be required."

The moral problem for college communities is accentuated when we remember
that few students pay fully for what they get. Whether our institutions
are supported from taxation or from endowments, a large part of their
incomes are derived from the annual labor of society; tuitions pay only a
fraction of the running expenses and of the interest on the plant. Even if
a student pays all charges, he is in part a pensioner on the public. The
working people in the last resort support us; the same people who are
often so eager for education, and who can not get it. Some of them would
feel rich if they had the leavings of knowledge which we throw to the
floor and tread upon in our spirit of surfeit. To take our education at
their hands and use it to devise ways by which we can continue to live on
them, seems disquieting even to a pagan conscience. It ought to be
insufferable to a sense of social responsibility trained under Christian
influences.

Here is a test for college communities more searching than the physical
test of athletics, or the intellectual tests of scholarship. Do we feel
our social unity with the people who work for their living, and do we
propose to use our special privileges and capacities for their social
redemption?

"When wilt Thou save the people?
O God of Mercy, when?
Not kings and lords, but nations,
Not thrones and crowns, but men.
Flowers of Thy heart, O God, are they.
Let them not pass like weeds away,
Let them not fade in sunless day!
God save the people!"--EBENEZER ELLIOTT.

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _The Partisanship of Jesus_

1. Did Jesus really take sides with the poor? Prove it.

2. Try to prove the other side.

3. Which would be safer evidence: single sayings, or the total impression
of his life and teachings?

4. What do you conclude regarding the atti