adequate to the opportunity? Individualism in religion and morals, no less than in economics, is out of date. It is a social gospel which is needed today. Men want to know, not what will save individuals, but what will renew society. The two objects are not mutually exclusive. As society is composed of individuals, and individuals are dependent on society, the improvement of the one is the advancement of the other. It is a question of emphasis and approach. The Kingdom of God as the transformation of human society in all its interests and pursuits must be made the dominant conception, and to that social ideal the individual fact of the new birth must be related. Whether the eschatological view of the teaching of Jesus be right or wrong, it is certain that the moral principles in the Gospels cannot be treated as an interim ethic. There is an insistent demand that these very principles be applied in the solution of social as well as individual problems today. The Jesus of the Gospels, however criticism may seek to recompose his historical reality, makes an appeal to multitudes who are outside of the churches, and to whom the traditional theology has no meaning; it is to what they understand to be his teaching about God and man that they look for the light to guide the steps of society today along the forward path. Such movements as the "Faith and Labor" groups show that there is an approach of men and women of good will in the churches and in the labor organizations toward one another. The danger to be guarded against here is twofold. On the one hand the Christian church must not be identified with any single economic tendency or program. On the other hand the interest shown in economic questions must be a genuine appreciation of their moral importance, and not merely a means used to try to capture the working classes for the churches. It must be made quite clear that the churches are not seeking to advance their own interests, or the advantage of any one class in the community, but only the coming of the Kingdom of God in the individual as in any other sphere. No church can be required to accept and to advocate any ready-made program of reconstruction, even if all labor were agreed upon its terms; but the churches must strive unitedly to formulate a social program to which they can give the authority of the teaching of Jesus and the guidance of his spirit.

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It is only by maintaining this attitude of independence and impartiality that a danger can be exposed, the imminence of which cannot be concealed. In many of the churches the majority of the members belong to the class whose financial interests will be affected by such changes as now appear inevitable. It is easy for a man of business, whose religious convictions and moral principles have been formed by the individualism which prevailed last century, to persuade himself that changes which lessen his control over, or his profits from, his mill, factory, or workshop are themselves morally wrong, and that to defend his own present position is his Christian duty. It is easy for him also to regard his pastor, whose views on economics are more adequate to the actual situation and its urgent necessities, as a mischievous, impractical doctrinaire. The dependence of so many of the schemes of the churches on wealthy givers puts them in a difficult position in formulating the Christian ideal. It will require great magnanimity on the part of many of the supporters of the churches to give their assent to the declaration from the pulpit of principles of reconstruction, the appreciation of which consistently will involve inevitably such modifications of the present economic system as will adversely affect their interests. It will require great courage on the part of ministers to preach what they believe is right, even when they know that by so doing they are risking the loss of a generous supporter. It will require much wisdom, also, if the minister is to avoid giving needless offense by his manner of presenting the truth; if it is the truth itself that offends, he cannot be blamed, for the truth must be freely and fully spoken.

Great as are the dangers, a position of neutrality on all these issues seems now impossible. During the war the churches espoused the course of the nation as righteous and good; and national service and sacrifice were commended as the call of Christ himself. Having assumed this perilous responsibility, the churches cannot now retire and affirm that the reconstruction necessary after the war involves no moral issues on which their testimony must be borne and their influence be used. If to denounce German outrages is a Christian duty, to expose social wrongs cannot be treated as an offense against the body of Christ. When all has been said that

can be said for caution and consideration, for the avoidance of offense whenever possible, it must still be admitted that a challenge to the churches has been made in the existing conditions, opinions, and sentiments, the refusal of which would involve that the churches would lose their moral authority and consequent religious influence and would become private societies for the mutual benefit of the comparatively small numbers of pious persons who would still adhere to them. In the making of the nation they would cease to have any potent influence.

It will be an advantage to express the issue as distinctly as words allow. If the reconstruction of human society after the war is to take place without a class war, a ruinous economic conflict if not a destructive political revolution, Christian principles must be applied to the economic and the social problems, and the Christian spirit must prevail in all efforts at their solution. For this end the Christian churches must bear their testimony and exercise their influence explicitly and directly, and not merely by attending to individual religious experience and moral character. In doing this duty the churches will, however, be compelled to condemn wrongs from which some of their members profit, and to defend changes which will adversely affect the interests of those members. Genuinely good Christian men have a conscience formed more under the influence of the capitalism which has been for their selfadvancement than under the authority of Christ, who demands self-sacrifice from them. It may be that many of the churches as existing organizations may be compelled to sacrifice themselves in order that they may save the nation by securing the dominion of the Christian ideal in the economic and social conditions. Mutatis mutandis, the same sacrifice may some day be required of them to insist that Christian universalism may prevail in international relations. It may be necessary for them to appear unpatriotic that they may be Christian.

It is probable that very few even of the leaders of the Christian churches see the issue so clearly defined, and this is itself a danger. Nation and churches alike may "muddle through" into some sort of condition in which there will be a slight improvement in the economic and social order and the churches will appear at least to hold their own; but neither will society be refashioned according

to the Christian ideal, nor will the churches have the share in the making of what the nation will become, that they should desire. A great opportunity may pass, and a more bitter disillusionment within and without the churches may follow. What would avert such a calamity would be (and is it too great a thing to inquire of the Lord?) such times of refreshing from His Presence by His Spirit that the churches, ministers and members alike, would rise to the height of their calling and would do and dare, whatever the interests of the Kingdom might require. As Pentecost followed the certainty of the Risen Reigning Lord in the primitive community, so the enthusiasm and the energy of such a revival and reformation can only come as faith gains an ever firmer grasp of the eternal reality of God in Christ Jesus the Lord; and there is a promise, if not marked, that the churches are recovering faith, and that many pulpits sound forth faith's certainty.

ALFRED E. GARVIE

NEW COLLEGE

LONDON, ENGLAND

The Religious Activities of Undergraduates.-The Christian Union of the University of Chicago, an organization concerned with the whole religious life of the University, has made a survey of the activities of the undergraduates in religious and social service. The work was carried through by a group of undergraduate students with the direction of the Chaplain of the University. The period surveyed was the academic year 1919-20.

The principal means employed, although this was supplemented by other investigation, was a questionnaire passed to every student at chapel. The undergraduates attend chapel once a week in four groups on four different days. Each group consists of about six hundred. The chapel exercise occupies twenty minutes. During the week when the questionnaire was presented, the Chaplain explained each day the character of the survey and asked for the co-operation of the students.

The investigation was made at the end of the spring quarter when 2,800 undergraduates were in attendance. Of these, 295 were excused from chapel for various satisfactory reasons. A small number would be absent each day for specific reasons. Two thousand and sixty-five questionnaires were properly filled out. There were thus 440 who either did not attend chapel that week or failed to answer the questions. It is probable therefore that while 74 per cent of the students actually

furnished the information, the results are good for nearly the whole number.

Eighty-eight per cent of the students reporting stated that they were members of some religious body, distributed as follows: 67 per cent, Protestant; 12 per cent, Jewish; 8 per cent, Catholic; 1 per cent, miscellaneous. Of the 2,065 students, 1,268 were men and 797 women. The Protestants and Jews were about the same proportion for men and women, but of the men, 10 per cent were Catholic, of the women, less than 5 per cent. A surprising fact developed that there were more women than men without religious affiliations-15 per cent as against 9 per cent.

Every student attends chapel once a week and they were asked to state how often they attended some other religious service. It appeared that 92 per cent were accustomed to go to church at least once a month and 45 per cent were regular attendants every Sunday. It is questionable whether any other group of 2,000 persons in the United States would present a more satisfactory condition.

It was desired to find out how far the students are taking part in less formal religious exercises. One hundred and eighty-five or 14 per cent of the men attended a class for religious education or a Young People's Society at least once a month, 119 of them being regular weekly attendants. Of the women, 163 or 20 per cent attended once a month and 110 regularly each week. Thirteen per cent of the students were engaged in some form of religious work such as Sunday-school teaching, president of young people's societies, actual pastoral work, Gideons, choir directors and soloists, assistants at missions and with the Salvation Army, and directors of shop meetings. The women were strongly represented in missionary societies, as pianists and organists and as leaders in churchwelfare agencies.

The survey was concerned to discover the extent of the social service work of students other than that which was performed in the churches. Seven per cent of the students stated that they were members of a community-service organization. Thirteen per cent were engaged in definite social service work. The disproportionate number of women was very marked, 24 per cent of the women as against 6 per cent of the men. The particularly efficient work of the Y.W.C.A. in placing about 200 women in social work helps to account for this. Some of the activities mentioned were United Charities case work, boys' clubs, sick visitation, care of children in social settlements, teaching English to foreigners, (and one Chinaman who reversed the order and put it "teaching Chinese to English"), Red Cross work, girls' clubs, work in police stations, legal aid, directors of Americanization courses.