37° 



The Review of Reviews. 



April 10, 1906. 



The Rev. S. Pearce Carey. M A. 



REV. S. PEARCE CAREY, M.A. 



(COLLIXS-STREET B..\PTIST ChURCH, MELBOURNE.) 



" This is the age 

 of the Social Ques- 

 tion," says Prof. 

 Peabody, of Har- 

 \ard, in his latest 

 \i/lunie. " Christian 

 ■invocations, which 

 were once pre-occu- 

 pied with definitions 

 ijf orthodoxy and 

 refutations of here- 

 >\ . are now discus- 

 sing the relation of 

 ,e Church to the 

 i.imily, the duty of 

 the Church to the 

 iiard workers, the 

 application of the 

 Church to phil- 

 anthropy, the mis- 

 sionary opportunity 

 of the Church. . . 

 The mighty wind of 

 the Social question 

 has swept through 

 the Church, as 

 through the world, with cleansing and re- 

 freshing force, and has swept away the bar- 

 riers which once divided worship from work, 

 the single life from the social order, the 

 love of God from the love of man, the salvation 

 of the soul from the salvation of the world. It is 

 the age of the Social question." Now this contrast 

 of the Professor's may be less than just to earlier 

 Christian centuries, but it certainly strikes the true 

 note of the temper of to-day. As Drummond put 

 it, it is " not so much the Pilgrims as the People's 

 Progress '' that concerns us now. 



This is the study of chief interest to-day — Has 

 Jesus Christ anything to say in the way of Social 

 Ethics and Dynamics? and what has He to say? 

 Has He anv effective contribution to make towards 

 social deliverance and the common weal ? Can He 

 build for us a juster and a happier social order? 

 Xo inquiries are more urgent, more vital. Other 

 times have sought other salvations at His hands : 

 our time seeks social wisdom and impulse. Aye, 

 and seeks it not in vain. He has manv things to 

 say. He has much that He can do. It is amazing 

 how the Gospels respond to the century s appeal. 

 Truth-seeds of His, which have waited long for 

 germination, reach their climate and their hour at 

 last. His social teaching is contemporaneous. He 

 moves with regal freedom in the midst of all our 

 modern problems, and He speaks with authority. 

 He is indeed Messiah, living Divine Messenger and 

 Message to our latest epoch. '• There are many 



paths," says Peabody again, '■ which lead to the 

 understanding of Jesus; but the path of His social 

 teaching is, for the present age, the path which is 

 most open. Here is where the thought of the time 

 happens to be. The foreground of human interest 

 is for the present occupied by social problems, and 

 the way to any contemporarv" interepretation of the 

 Christian religion is not to be found by going round 

 the social question, but by going through it.'' 



I believe this true with all m\ heart. The Church 

 that knows and loves and obeys Christ best will most 

 bravely study His social teaching, and will give 

 itself the most along His lines to social redress. 

 The Church will increasingly be Judged, I am cer- 

 tain, by its zest or its slackness in such social effort. 

 Ever) Church in quiet ways does something already 

 for the maimed and the widowed and the orphaned 

 and the out-of-work. Some Churches do much. 

 But more, far more and on a bolder plan and with 

 a clearer purpose, must be attempted. The Church 

 must win for Christ the kingdom. The supreme 

 Christian evidence must be social service. '■ To 

 make cities — that is what we are here for. To 

 make good cities — that is for the present hour the 

 main work of Christianity." ■' When Christianity shall 

 take upon itself in full responsibilitv the burden and 

 care of cities, the Kingdom of God will openly come 

 on earth.'' So Drummond, and they were not empty 

 words with him. He strove to turn them into deeds. 

 Christ's love of the people, Christ's compassion for 

 the hungry, and the naked, and the sick and the 

 imprisoned — it is this we need to catch. Christ's 

 wisdom for the building of the New Jerusalem, the 

 New Melbourne — it is this we need to learn. I 

 wish we were more in earnest and alert to acquire 

 this wisdom and to entertain this sympathy. We 

 are all too guiltily apathetic and asleep. Prof. Pea- 

 body's '■ Jesus Christ and the Social Question " and 

 "■ Jesus Christ and the Christian Character " are the 

 two books I would have even' Christian read. 



THE REV. ROBERT PHILP 



(Ex-President Methodist Chltrch of Victoria.) 

 It would be manifestly unfair to underrate the 

 work which the Church has done in the past, and 

 which she is now doing along the ordinary lines. 

 Nor must we forget that all that is best among us 

 we owe to Jesus Christ and His religion. More 

 than many know, more than some will acknowledge, 

 Christianity has changed society from its surface to 

 its deepest depths, turning its current, sweetening its 

 waters and bordering them with fertility. It has re- 

 formed education, employments and governments. 

 It has relieved distresses, redressed wrongs and cor- 

 rected abuses. It is the best secularism, the best 

 socialism, the best religion of humanitv. In its sub- 

 lime ideals we have that which gives inspiration and 

 hope to the race ; in its prophecies we have the 

 re\'elation of a golden age yet to come ; and in its 

 promises and assurances the guarantee of the 



