but this is a methodological device for control and direction of activity. Ends and means are but aspects of one process of life; the moral virtues are but the habits or ways of action that were useful to achieve certain satisfactions, and the means and ends evolved together and are always relative to each other. We are living under new conditions of material production; we have a great increase and change of the material means, and we need to reconstruct our ends in the light of these material changes. Our ends must be new ends, not merely the old ones over again, and they can get new content only by a careful consideration of the means at hand; and these in turn are means only with reference to the proposed and projected ends. Human values are no more final than are material processes and commodities, and whatever may perchance be the view of the minister as to the direction in which the economic process is tending or should tend in order to give greater efficiency and consequently a higher morality, he will undertake the interpretation of existing conditions under which men and women live and labor and look to him for guidance. He will seek to bring to these problems and issues a wider outlook and a deeper insight that will bring greater meaning to those engaged therein and thereby enable them to live more rational and moral lives.

There is no way the minister can become an interpreter of the religious and ethical significance of the economic life in his community except through an earnest, careful, and intimate study of the economic processes about him as interpreted by a knowledge of the principles of economics and sociology. The existing system of industry is a complicated one; much production is carried on under a system of wages and profits; but production under municipal and state ownership and control is becoming an important factor, and there are great movements of voluntary co-operation. The minister of today lives in a period of experimentation, and all these processes should have his sympathetic attention and interpretation.

"Is the system in which one works for wages and another for profits fundamentally Christian, anti-Christian, or neutral?” The wise minister will probably not deal with systems as such nor with such general terms as wages or profits, but with the actual and concrete conditions that he finds in the industrial world about him. Do profits, for example, include interest on investment, insurance for risk, high wages for exceptional ability, rent for special privileges, a purely speculative gain? The wise minister will find a different moral worth in these different kinds of profits; he will differentiate the profits that arise from marked efficiency in the application of science to production or for outstanding excellence in organization and administration from the profits that come through a corner on special privileges or knowledge, or from conditions so purely speculative as to resemble the gambler's gains.

Then, do wages include the remuneration of the university professor, the salary of the high-priced official, the fees of the professional man, the yearly payment of the hired man on the farm, and the weekly or hourly payment of the factory employee? The moral character of the wage in question will depend in large measure upon the nature of the specific wage contract. Is it a contract that affords stability of employment? Is there insurance for accident or unemployment? Does it provide that the laborer shall have a voice in the determination of the conditions under which he labors? Is his partnership and place in the industry recognized in such a manner as to call out his loyalty and best efforts? Here, again, the discreet minister may not indulge in generalities, but he will understand actual local situations, the present-day movements in industry, and the opportunities for the improvement of industrial and social conditions, and should be able to interpret the industrial situations facing employers and employees in his community with a sympathy and insight that would lead to helpful action and to increase his influence as a moral and social leader.

The true minister will seek to inspire men in every vocation to serve their fellowmen in the spirit of the gospel, to accept their daily work as their greatest opportunity to aid in the establishment in the Kingdom of God. For such a herculean task the minister should be noble of soul, should be given the best training in the social sciences our universities can provide, and should have courage, tact, and sympathy in an unusual degree. If such might in truth become the recognized function of the ministry, what a challenge this vocation would offer to the biggest brains and noblest hearts among us. That this change of emphasis would require a vigorous reorganization of the curriculum of studies for a minister is admitted. But is such a reorganization not inherently desirable?

LAW AND RITUAL IN THE PSALMS

J. M. POWIS SMITH

University of Chicago

ABSTRACT

The Psalter, being a hymnbook, is representative of the thought and feeling of the common people of Judaism. The legal priestly elements were the permanent features of Judaism; prophecy was transitory. The Psalter developed under strongly Babylonian influence amid a rich expression of ritualistic religion and was profoundly affected thereby. The Psalms show that the people who wrote and sang them loved the law and the temple ritual. The Psalms were written in large part for use in connection with sacrifice; they were a rhythmization of ritual. This love for ritual did not exclude genuine piety, but intensified it. It is the mystical and spiritual tone of the Psalms that commends them to modern minds. The original makers and singers of these songs cannot have had a merely materialistic or formal type of religion.

It is a common charge that the Judaism of the postexilic age was a mechanical, formal, and unspiritual type of religion. It is supposed that true religion died with the prophets and was buried with them, not to come to life again till the appearance of John the Baptist and Jesus. The picture of the Pharisees presented in the Gospels is carried back through the centuries and made to do service as a description of postexilic religion. Critical scholarship, however, has discovered the injustice of this interpretation and has sought to reinstate early Judaism in its proper place. From this point of view the present article proceeds.

The Psalter is appropriately called "The Hymn Book of the Second Temple." This covers the fact that most of the Psalms were written in exilic and postexilic times and the further fact that they were sung by the choirs of the temple for the edification of the worshiping multitudes. It is a wellknown fact that hymn books are not available as instruments of publicity for new ideas. They must meet the demands of the masses who use them. We do not find in them our best

poetry, our best thought, nor our purest ethics as a rule.

The hymn book rather presents the point of view of the average man than that of the genius or the saint. The Psalter was not exempt from this requirement and as a matter of fact when compared in any one of these aspects with certain other portions of the Old Testament it must take second place. The problem of suffering is thought out far more thoroughly in Job than in the Psalter. The idea of a worthful life after death finds no sure expression in the Psalter. These spheres of thought were too new and unfamiliar to find place in this book of hymns. Consequently when we read the Psalms we are following the mind of the masses, or at least of the great middle class, and not that of the pioneers of religion and ethics. The ritual of a religion is always one of its most conservative elements and law is never radical. The Psalter was a part of the ritual and makes its attitude to law indisputably clear. Hence in studying its testimony as to the religious value of law and ritual, we shall be getting close to the heart of the religion of the psalmists.

The prophets have captured the imagination and interest of modern interpreters of the Old Testament. Indeed, one of the greatest achievements of modern historical interpretation is the fact that it has brought out the significance and value of prophecy in such a way as to have made the prophet the religious hero of the Hebrew people. This is a recognition of his real worth that has been long due the prophet. But, while granting the prophet his full rights and extending to him our heart-felt gratitude for his contribution to human welfare, we must not make the mistake of minimizing the work or value of other religious agencies in Israel. After all, prophecy was only a temporary phenomenon in Hebrew life. The whole period covered by the prophetic movement was but about six hundred years, and the classical and creative portion of that period includes only about three hundred years. The priest, however, with his law and ceremonial, 1 See chapter i of my forthcoming Religion of the Psalms.