280 GENERAL RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 



of formal or ecclesiastical religion. Indeed, the social aspiration and 

 the sense of social law that utter themselves in this struggle are 

 being substituted by a large proportion of the populace for the sense 

 of divine law and divine love. 



Religious education for the whole people, and that alone, can bring 

 the social movement to its own. It is necessary to raise up a genera- 

 tion conscious of the divine element in the social consciousness and 

 instructed in the truth that all the real progress of society is progress 

 toward and within the kingdom of God. It is idle to think that en- 

 thusiasm for humanity can be propagated through the generations 

 under any theory that looks upon humanity as a succession of flashes 

 of consciousness drawn from unconscious nature only to be extin- 

 guished in the darkness whence they come. To the human conscious- 

 ness, with its inherent impulse for unity and completeness, the end 

 of life cannot be found in humanity unless man contains within 

 himself something more than mere process, something of finality. 

 The only adequate basis for social progress that could be found for 

 us men would be some kind of meeting together of humanity and 

 divinity; or in other words, a society that already possesses the 

 eternities and infinities. Therefore, a special and needed function of 

 religious education in our day is to interpret the social consciousness 

 to itself in terms of religion. 



That such education is already an urgent practical necessity is 

 evident from existing political, social, and industrial conditions. 

 In this time of rapidly changing ideas and modes of life, a very 

 unusual strain has been put upon the bonds that protect property, 

 family relations, and personal rights. Now and then we are made to 

 shudder at the discovery of how slender these bonds have here and 

 there become. At such a juncture there is peculiar reason for asking 

 what conception of life the rising generation is acquiring, and what 

 will be the fruitage from to-day's seed-sowing. The conviction 

 appeal's to be general that neither in quality nor in amount is the 

 religious education of to-day adequate to meet the practical prob- 

 lems of our time. Not only the children of the neglected poor, but 

 also those of the neglected rich; not only the children of emigrant 

 parents, but also those of native stock; not only the children of the 

 unchurched masses, but also the children of the church all are 

 suffering from neglect. 



Practical considerations like these have had much to do with the 

 starting of the present movement for religious education and 

 the organization of the Religious Education Association. Yet the 

 movement is not a passing expression of any alarmist sentiment; 

 it does not proceed from utilitarian considerations alone; nor does 

 it aim to meet any merely temporary exigency. Its reason for 

 existence is rather the eternal truth of religion. It is a call to look 



