THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 161 



attempt to prevent the making of drunkards by means 

 of prohibition. The first method sought, by personal 

 service to individuals man by man, to rescue fallen 

 men, or, as individually, to prevent men from falling. 

 The second method sought to defend a community, and 

 that by communal action, against the presence of temp- 

 tation. Preventive, rather than rescue work, is the 

 supreme social duty of the church. 



Thus we gain the requisite insight wherewith to 

 discern the function of the church in dealing with the 

 rural problem. In her programme there must be no 

 social opportunism. She is not to use palliatives. She 

 is to deal not with symptoms but with causes of dis- 

 turbance, and thus effect a radical cure. 



These principles must guide in her ittempts to solve 

 the city problem as well. Social settlements are im- 

 peratively called for by the present situation, but they 

 will not solve the problem. They deal with proximate 

 but not with ultimate causes of distress. The agencies 

 called for to deal with these clearly lie elsewhere. To 

 point out what these agencies are is a light under- 

 taking; to utilize them, labor indeed. There are two 

 central sources of power which the church must domin- 

 ate for the kingdom in order to solve the city problem, 

 the Directorates and the Unions. Out of these two 

 foci of potency stream the energies that make or mar the 

 city, and the church must claim both of them for her 

 Master. At the annual meeting of one of the great 

 coffee-house companies of London a few days ago a 

 dividend of thirty-seven per cent, was declared. Amid 

 the congratulatory speeches which followed the read- 

 ing of the report the question was asked by one of the 

 shareholders : " What do we pay our waitresses ?" 

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