432 RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE: SOCIAL 



We live our highest lives when we turn all our cultivated powers 

 and gifts in the direction of thinking and doing God's will. We 

 may know more and more of him, as we grow older, by the study 

 of his work, and the history and thoughts of his children. The true 

 scientist is working on and on, in the belief that while he may never 

 see the relation of this fact and that, in the fullness of time, through 

 the patient labors of a multitude of workers through the ages, ulti- 

 mate truths and laws will be discovered as they exist in the thoughts 

 of God. In other words, he believes that everything in the universe 

 is under a great, well-ordered, and harmonious plan, and the maker 

 of it we call God. We may know something of him through the 

 studies and thoughts of the greatest and best men of the world, the 

 sages of profane and sacred history; but, most of all, those who receive 

 and obey will find in their own hearts and minds the power of know- 

 ing what is that perfect good for them. " The kingdom of God is 

 within you." By prayer, by divine patience and endless watchful- 

 ness, and by consecration, we may hear and know what is our path- 

 way, and realize the spirit of God, and love him with all the power 

 of heart, and mind, and soul which he has given us. This command- 

 ment is personal, not social. It is addressed to the needs and desires 

 of the individual soul. 



The second commandment, " Love thy neighbor as thyself," is 

 social. It is only as we come more and more to follow the law of 

 the second commandment that we grow in knowledge and fulfill the 

 first. 



The capitalist who fails to remember who is his neighbor in dealing 

 with labor lays up trouble for himself and others, because he violates 

 a law of life. The second commandment, which is like unto the 

 first, means that in every act and thought and purpose in our lives, 

 and in their administration; in all public as well as private affairs, 

 we should seek to confer true benefits upon our fellow men. It 

 means that the man who professes to love God and attempts to 

 deceive men in regard to the real value of railroad stock or any other 

 property, that he may coax their money into his pocket, is a hypo- 

 crite and a liar. It means that the man who oppresses the hireling 

 in his wages is no Christian, whatever may be his declaration to the 

 contrary. 



I believe most of our social evils would be much alleviated if first 

 we better understood the second commandment, and second, acted 

 on the knowledge which we possess. 



Washington Gladden says: " The fact that one man can no more 

 be a Christian alone than one man can sing an oratorio alone is a 

 fact that men have not clearly apprehended. The failure to realize 

 this truth results in the highly unsocial conduct on the part of many 

 whose piety is unquestioned. Their defective conduct comes from 



