I. Introduction
No other political event of the past year has awakened so great interest and hope as the calling by President Harding of the Conference on Limitation of Armaments and Far-Eastern Questions. The greatest statesmen of Europe, America, and the Far East have avowed their belief in the supreme significance to world civilization and political and industrial progress of such a conference, and the sincerity of their statements is proved by the caliber of their representatives.
Secretary Hughes has expressed the desire that leading Christian bodies in the United States be active in presenting their views to the public and to the members of the conference, in the hope that thereby the influence of a powerful public opinion may be exerted along the noblest lines. It seems peculiarly fitting, therefore, and in full accord with the spirit of the Bross Foundation, that an attempt be made to search out the bearings which the teachings of the founder of the Christian religion may have upon the solution of these most important political problems. Moreover, if we are to be just and helpful, his teachings must be analyzed and treated not as religion and therefore sacred, but as psychology and political or social science, as are those of Aristotle or Kant or Herbert Spencer.
Any careful student of the New Testament recognizes at once that however deep Jesus laid the philosophical foundation of his life-work in human nature, his teachings dealt directly with the day-by-day practical activities of the individuals with whom he talked. His direct appeals to his hearers were so to change their outlook upon life as to make of them new creatures. They were to do their life-work in a new and better way, and the final outcome of this changed, wiser, and loftier mental and spiritual attitude on the part of great masses of people was to be a new type of society, a better world which he designated the Kingdom of God.