civic ideals
and the drawing of moral issues in behalf of the higher life of all the
people, will not the male population consider him rather too much
engrossed with the little comforts, sentiments, and futilities of a
religious club?

The entire precedent of the pulpit, both in biblical days and since, is
wholly against such silence. If it is not the minister's business to
know the problems of social ethics, so as to speak confidently to the
situation from the standpoint of Jesus, whose province is it? Must he
dodge the greatest moral problems of the day, all of which are
collective? Has he not time and training so to master his own field that
he will be second to none of his hearers in the possession of the
relevant facts; and does he not presumably know the mind of Christ?

It is idle to say that his hearers will pay no heed, and it is idle to
think that as a champion of justice and a better day he may not get a
scar or so. But the man who has the mind of Christ toward the multitude
and who thinks as highly of little children and their rights as did the
Man of Galilee is going to be significant in making states and cities
what they ought to be; and whatever disturbances may arise in the placid
separatism of the church, the Kingdom itself will go marching on. The
chief ingredient needed by the pulpit of today in order to inspire men
and boys to noble citizenship is courage--moral courage.

But the new citizenship is in training for peace rather than for war,
for world-wide justice rather than for national aggrandizement; and to
this the Christian message lends itself with full force. The rehearsal
of war and strife, the superficial view of history which sees only the
smoke of battles and the monuments of military heroes, give place to an
insight which traces the advancing welfare of the common people. The
minister will inspire his formative citizens with good portrayals of
statesmen, educators, inventors, reformers, discoverers, pioneers, and
philanthropists. He will charm them into greatness at the very time when
a boy's ideals overtop the mountains.

Conducive to the same end will be the rugged and humane ideals and
activities of the Boy Scouts under his control; and all that is well
done in the boys' clubs--the athletics, debates, trials, councils,
literary and historical programs, addresses by respected public
officials, visits to public institutions, the study of social
conditions, especially in the young men