THE EXFANSION OF RELIGION 265 



The place of religion in the modern world is not along the shores, but 

 among its vicissitudes and storms. The industrial agitations of the 

 time are a summons to the courage and daring of the Church. What 

 is the fundamental reason for our present industrial discontent? It 

 is to be disco vered in the obvious fact that neither party to the in- 

 dustrial conflict manifests the slightest intention of any application 

 of religion to business affairs. Many such combatants are religious 

 men, but the world of their business appears to lie quite beyond the 

 sphere of their religion; and in this divided life it is inevitable that 

 business should become a mere state of war, and religion should seem 

 to an increasing number formal, technical, or fictitious. One of the 

 most extraordinary aspects of modern industry is the passionate 

 devotion with which thousands have given themselves to a programme 

 of industrial revolution and the abolition of private capital. What 

 is there in socialism which gives it this emotional quality? On its 

 face it involves a mere change of ownership, a new distribution of 

 production. Why is it that men willingly sacrifice themselves for 

 such a cause? It is because it is the nearest substitute they have 

 discovered for a religion. A religion of materialism it may be that 

 the} T have reached, a pathetic substitute for Christian faith; yet so 

 long as the Christian Church regards the world of industry as foreign 

 territory, so long those who are inextricably involved in the indus- 

 trial order will create a new religion for themselves. The growth 

 of socialism is an indictment of religion. It is the working-man's 

 answer to religious provincialism. 



Finally, the same situation presents itself in the political conditions 

 of the present time. In the most unanticipated and dramatic 

 manner the movement toward organization, concentration, and 

 efficiency, which has dominated industry, now controls national 

 progress. The questions which confront the nations are questions 

 of world-politics. Political expansion has become not so much a 

 policy to debate as a condition from which it is impossible to retreat. 

 But what does political expansion indicate as the task of religion? 

 It is often affirmed that it opens the way for the Church to follow. 

 When other agencies have done their work, religion may reap the 

 harvest. Such a view of religion, as technical, specialized, detached 

 from politics and business, is sheer provincialism. Religion cannot 

 be carried to a foreign nation after the politicians and the traders 

 have opened the way. It is in and through the spirit of conquest, 

 and through the conduct of commercial life, that religion must 

 express itself. Its missions will be viewed as mere hypocrisy and 

 formalism unless its rulers, soldiers, and exploiters are honest, just, 

 and merciful. It is not after the statesmen have finished that the 

 Church begins, but it is in that which the statesmen do that the 

 religion they represent is weighed. Politics is not extraneous to 



