THE SOCIAL REFORMER 5 



"grand Perhaps." Many people divine, and to most of 

 the more thoughtful it is as certain as mathematics, that 

 the issues of the present life do not all lie on the sensible 

 surface. Hedonism in ethics, Deism in religion, Indi- 

 vidualism in social practice satisfy us no more. Man's 

 duty to man is duty to God, and there is no higher way 

 of obeying God than that of serving man. "Inasmuch 

 as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my 

 brethren, ye have done it unto Me." " Religion_is being 

 moralised, and morality |s^being^ socialised." 



Many causes have concurred to bring about this funda- 

 mental change of attitude towards life and its problems ; 

 and that change, as yet, is more a new disposition of the 

 heart and leaning of the mind than a formulated creed. 

 The Church has helped to produce it, but to do so was 

 not amongst its conscious purposes. The new times have 

 come unobserved, and there was none to cry " Lo here," 

 or " Lo there." But the Church feels the change. Its 

 sympathies have become wider and its task has grown in 

 its hands. It knows that its own destiny hangs upon its 

 power to grasp and guide the moral and social tendencies 

 which have appeared amongst us. But its understanding 

 or them is imperfect. It believes that theproblems of 

 sg^ietyare, jn^thekst resort, problems^ o character, and, 

 in that sense, spiritual 1 problems. They can be solved 

 only by a spiritual agency, by the associated will of good 

 men, which is what the " Church " ought to mean. Only 



1 " Character " is a spiritual fact. But the word " spiritual " has to be 

 relieved more completely of supernatural associations. Nothing is 

 spiritual except that which " spirit " is and does, and spirit is that and 

 that alone which thinks, feels, and wills. It is the best word we have 

 for that which performs all these functions. 



