lecture considers
one of the consequences of this primary fact: namely, the humanitarian
desire to take advantage of this scientific control of life so to
change social conditions that mankind may be relieved from crushing
handicaps which now oppress it. For the growth of scientific knowledge
and control has been coincident with a growth of humanitarian
sentiment. This movement for human relief and social reform, in the
midst of which we live, is one of the chief influences of our time. It
has claimed the allegiance of many of the noblest folk among us. Its
idealism, its call to sacrifice, the concreteness of the tasks which it
undertakes and of the gains which it achieves, have attracted alike the
fine spirits and the practical abilities of our generation. What
attitude shall the Christian Church take toward this challenging
endeavour to save society? How shall she regard this passionate belief
in the possibility of social betterment and this enthusiastic
determination to achieve it? The question is one of crucial importance
and the Church is far from united on its answer. Some Christians claim
the whole movement as the child of the Church, born of her spirit and
expressing her central purpose; others disclaim the whole movement as
evil and teach that the world must grow increasingly worse until some
divine cataclysm shall bring its hopeless corruption to an end; others
treat the movement as useful but of minor import, while they try to
save men by belief in dogmatic creeds or by carefully engineered
emotional experiences. Meanwhile, no words can exaggerate the
fidelity, the vigour, the hopefulness, and the elevated spirit with
which many of our best young men and women throw themselves into this
campaign for better conditions of living. Surely, the intelligent
portion of the Church would better think as clearly as possible about a
matter of such crucial import.

At first sight, the devotee of social Christianity is inclined
impatiently to brush aside as mere ignorant bigotry on the Church's
part all cautious suspicion of the social movement. But there is one
real difficulty which the thoughtful Christian must perceive when he
compares the characteristic approach to the human problem made by the
social campaign, on the one side, and by religion, on the other. Much
of the modern social movement seems to proceed upon the supposition
that we can save mankind by the manipulation of outward circumstance.
There