272 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



structed by wisdom, and often the broken English and halting 

 thought of a question from the floor is greater than many flow- 

 ing periods from the platform. Not every audience learns 

 anything from every speaker; but any speaker can learn much 

 from the collective wisdom of any audience. 



AN INTERPRETER'S HOUSE 



In this wise, the forum becomes an Interpreter's House, 

 where each finds his own problems solved by the common ex- 

 perience, his own questions answered by the collective wisdom, 

 and above all where he learns that which saves evolution from 

 revolution that these problems are not new, only new to 

 him ; that others have asked and found at least partial answers 

 that help him to larger answers; that he is bruised with the 

 unconquered hardships of a brutal and savage past; and that he 

 cannot be healed by any self-sought balm, but only by the oil 

 of common sacrifice. 



AN EXPRESSION OF HUMAN RELIGION 



In the forum the still inarticulate religion of humanity is 

 beginning to find a voice. Some forums had orthodox begin- 

 nings, but soon lost them. Many possessed an early piety, but 

 outgrew it as soon as they began to grow at all. But all real 

 forums become increasingly religious, not by intention, but 

 because every human being, stripped of orthodoxy and piety, 

 reveals a naked soul. Many a preacher, heartsick from the 

 Phariseeism of the pew, has been healed by the publican of the 

 forum. Indeed, to many outcast souls the forum is a half-way 

 house from Churchianity to Christianity. 



A QUICKENER OF THE COMMUNITY CONSCIENCE 



Every forum is a quickener of the community conscience. 

 The ethics of Christianity have been individualized through 

 ages of individual effort to escape from a hellward-bound so- 

 ciety to a selfish heaven. The supreme ethical problem of our 

 time is to re-state the social principles of the Hebrew prophets, 



