been awakened for the values they aim to conserve, are foredoomed to failure. How often zealous prophets of a new day, lacking the steadying power that might have been derived from a better knowledge of history, have gone down to defeat chiefly in consequence of their determination to save the world by their favorite program in their own generation! But the mills of the gods grind slowly in the making of history as in the administration of justice.

Although history may not yield authoritative norms for future conduct, has it no prophetic function? Does it not reveal laws that enable one to forecast the destiny of man from the handwriting on the walls of time? Having at the outset relinquished the privilege of appealing to metaphysics, the historian is unprepared to affirm that there is an abstract theological principle governing the progress of social evolution. He hesitates also to posit for history a mechanistic order of development fashioned after the analogy of biological laws. He recognizes that social progress moves forward by the method of trial and error, so to speak, and that the course of development is on the whole determined by forces inhering within the social order itself, but to predict the exact way in which these complex factors will combine to produce the society of the future is too venturesome an undertaking for the historian.

Even though he aspires to no prophetic function, the modern student of history is not without his faith in the future. To be sure, adherence to his scientific principle of empirical research makes him unwilling to seek guaranties beforehand either in a metaphysical theory or in a biological analogy, but he is gravely impressed with the stately progress of society's evolution throughout past ages. Man is seen keeping step with the rest of the universe-nay, leading the van-in the procession of the ages. And that confidence which is born of faith in the future of the cosmos carries with it faith in the future of society. Thus derived, the laws of history are laws of the universe, and the laws of the universe are laws of God.

THE RELIGIOUS BREAKDOWN OF

THE MINISTRY

GEORGE A. COE

The Union Theological Seminary, New York City

Does not the Christian ministry of our country show signs of breaking down religiously? The emphasis of this question is upon "religiously" quite as much as upon "breaking down." We often concern ourselves with external obstacles to ministerial success, and occasionally with the defects of ministers, but we seldom raise the fundamental question whether in the first and distinctive matters of their calling they are on the right track. Suppose they should succeed in ministering to us precisely as they desire to do: in what sense and to what extent would this be a Christian ministry?

This theme does not invite to fault-finding, but to something far more thoughtful. Finding fault with ministers is an old amusement, but it requires so little in the way of either intelligence or skill-for there are no rules of the game-that it can hardly be regarded even as good sport. On the other hand, criticism, in the more technical sense, is distinguished by care both in choosing standards and in weighing performance or product. Moreover, serious criticism itself has several possible levels, and many methods. We might, for example, pass judgment upon the status of a profession by first assuming an arbitrary standard of perfect performance and then showing at what point between this and zero the average or median individual stands. The details might be handled after the manner of bookkeeping, the strong and weak points being recorded, added, and subtracted. A critic who employs this method takes the standpoint of an outsider; at his best he would be like a judge of a court, who must have no financial or family connection with any litigant. The churches

and the ministry have been subjected to much criticism of this general type, but how much they have profited by it one cannot say with confidence.

A far different approach is possible, one in which the critic endeavors to think with the minister, not merely about him. By thinking with him is not meant hunting for extenuating circumstances, but rather seeking a clear definition of purposes and of relative values, and then a corresponding evaluation of the policies that are pursued. One who had printed a critical and largely unfavorable review of a certain book received from the author of it a letter saying, "Such a review as yours helps a thinker to understand himself." It is not offering incense to strange gods, then, if one asks whether we Christians, even in what we call Christian, have grown conventional and therefore dull in our appreciation of what is central in our religion. We do not bring into question the sincerity, devotedness, or ability of our leaders, if we inquire whether they really know where the sharp edge of Christianity is, and whether their present policies can bring us to the goal of our Christian hopes. Such inquiries are a form of co-operation.

In our part of the world the Christian religion has been free to utter itself for several generations. It has placed ministers in almost every community; preaching-plenty of it has been accessible to nearly the entire population, and has had a rather general hearing; evangelism, moreover, has constantly gone outside the stated church services in order to reach the masses; enormous use has been made of the press; millions of children are constantly under the tuition of the churches; almost everybody has a "church affiliation”—in short, the religion of our ministers has had abundant opportunity to make itself known to a population that is counted as, on the whole, intelligent. Would there be anything unfair in the assumption that this population must by this time have caught the main point: that what our religion is fundamentally for and fundamentally against must be clear? As clear, for

example, as the popular apprehension of the antagonism between the steel trust and organized labor? I have in mind nothing that requires historical insight, or systematic thinking, or even ability to state an article of a creed, but only rudimentary apprehension of any central issue that the ministers have actually pressed upon the conscience of the people. Surely spiritual clarity in the pulpit and in the guidance of religious instruction could hardly result in spiritual ignorance and confusion. Let us remember that our ministers have had a fair opportunity to make themselves understood, and that they have had a remarkably large direct hearing besides being able to guide the teaching activities of multitudes of laymen. Yet who does not know that the populace is ignorant of any specific, sharp issues for which the clergy as a whole stands? The English and American reports on conditions in the armies1 have awakened little or no surprise on the part of those of us who have approached our religion from the educational point of view. We have known that spiritual illiteracy abounds in the churches themselves, and we have repeatedly pointed out some of the reasons for it. Among the seasoned leaders in the reform of religious education there is a widespread conviction that the greatest single obstacle to this reform is the inertia of ministers. This inertia is present in what is certainly central and crucial in our religion. Everybody knows that ministers stand for goodness in general, and against wickedness in general, and this is no slight ground for praise. But what is the Christian view of wickedness and of goodness? What is the main point? Wherein should we expect a Christian to differ from anybody else? On vital points like this the ministry as a whole has not spoken so that the populace can understand.

If we hesitate to place so much stress upon the state of the popular mind, let us limit our inquiry to members of the churches. Suppose we were able to ask of them, What do you

The Army and Religion. Association Press, New York, 1920. Religion among American Men. Association Press, New York, 1920.

judge that the ministry stands for with life-and-death seriousness? We should learn much, no doubt, of the amiability of the clergy, of their high character, of their sympathetic helpfulness, of their general support of conventional ethical standards. But the names of many of them would call up no focalized message, and, for the rest, the issues that would come to mind are, with occasional exceptions, such as these: some view, orthodox or otherwise, of the Scriptures or of dogmas; some ideal of churchmanship, or the promotion of church enterprises; some reform, as temperance, or some sin, as worldly amusements; some mode of piety, mystical or other; the conversion of sinners. The importance of these interests is not here called into question, least of all the last named. The conversion of sinners might be so conceived as to offer us the great characteristic issue for which we are looking. But until there is far sharper definition than now prevails of what we are to be converted from and what we are to be converted to, even a life-and-death purpose to win converts will remain, like the evangelism that we know, as only one item in a miscellany of ends that have no obvious co-ordinating or central principle. The members of the churches themselves cannot tell what dominant issue the ministry as a whole stands for.

Another approach to the same phase of our problem may be put thus: What have the members of the churches been led by their pastors to understand as the meaning of church membership? Let not this question be confused with popular flings at the inconsistencies of Christians. The point concerns their conscious standards of the Christian profession and life, not their successes and failures as measured by these or any other standards. Here, surely, is a perfectly fair test of ministers. For, before a candidate is received into full membership in a church the minister instructs him or sees to it that he is instructed in the meaning of the step, and then examines and approves him. Moreover, though the minister