466 RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE: SOCIAL 



As something cannot be obtained from nothing, in order to sustain 

 the activities of animal life countless living cells are constantly 

 consumed, the loss of which is supplied by new cells constantly 

 formed. Thus, in the animal kingdom, we find not only the law of 

 service, but also that of sacrifice. 



When we rise to the social organism, we find the laws of service 

 and of sacrifice in fullest operation: if they were suspended, society 

 would perish; but their operation at the present stage of social 

 evolution is not normal and healthy, hence social restlessness, 

 soreness, and disease. In the individual organism, organ and cell 

 have no power to refuse service and sacrifice, but in the social organ- 

 ism, man the social cell is endowed with will, and hence may obey 

 or disobey the vital social laws of service and sacrifice. We have 

 service, but much of it is that of the slave, we have sacrifice, but 

 much of it is that of the victim; hence social discontent; arid hence 

 the added social law of love, which makes service a joy and sacrifice 

 a privilege. Love transforms the slave into a freeman and the 

 victim into the hero. 



But these three vital laws of the social organism are precisely 

 the three social laws which Jesus revealed for the government of the 

 kingdom of God. Social health, therefore, will come through 

 the acceptance of the social teachings of Jesus, and only through their 

 acceptance. 



Increasing wealth, which is now an increasing peril, would then 

 become, not the means of luxury, but the instrument of service, 

 thus saving the rich from the corruption of wealth and the poor 

 from the envy of it. 



It would solve the municipal problem by substituting the official 

 possessed by the spirit of service and intelligence to serve for the boss 

 who, to use the brutally frank confession of one of the class, " is 

 in politics to fill his own pocket, every time." It would transform 

 the duel between capital and labor into a duet, and organize them 

 together for the service of society. 



The world industry which is rapidly being organized is creating a 

 new world life, a new world consciousness, and a new world conscience 

 to which the accepted social teachings of Jesus would give new world 

 ethics, and a new world diplomacy, which would substitute the 

 Golden Rule for that of Machiavelli, " Not to depart from good if 

 the ruler can help it, but to know how to do evil if he must." 



We are in an age of transition. There have been other transitional 

 aegs, but never before was the revolution in the world of thought 

 accompanied by a radical revolution in the physical world. The 

 coincidence of the application of the scientific method to the investi- 

 gation of truth and of the application of steam and electricity to 

 the physical world has precipitated a double disturbance, which 



