DR. HOWARD KELLY’S APPEAL FOR CHURCH CIVIC SERVICE
The demands for a better trained ministry and membership in the churches are being strongly emphasized by such statements of what the community expects of them as Dr. Howard A. Kelly of the Johns Hopkins University medical faculty recently made in an address at the annual meeting of the New York Probation and Protective Association. In giving his consent to print some of his remarks, he writes, with special reference to his efforts against the social evil:
“I feel as though my own work in this field were to bring the churches together for neighborhood social interests. If we do not get the churches actively to work, I believe all the social developments of the last thirty years are destined to failure. I fully believe that a few strong men, say five or six in a city like Baltimore, can effectively put persistent effort into the work of amalgamating our churches for the expression of the Christian life in the active service of their fellow men.”
In his address in New York, after stoutly combating, from his professional and public points of view, the policy of segregating vice, he declared that the social work of the church is indispensable to progress, and that it is the duty and the opportunity of the church to fulfil the need in this direction. He spoke substantially as follows:
“The most effective of all agencies in breaking down the strongholds of vice and in building up the national character is the church. For some reason unknown and unfathomable, some of my associates in this beneficent work who don’t go to church fight shy of discussing any enlistment of the churches everywhere. Not a few who have never had any personal interests in the church even stand ready to declare, with a distinguished head of our public libraries, that the church represents the largest outlay of capital for the smallest return in interest the world has ever seen.
“The utility of the church in the social field is best defended perhaps by citing an investigation of over 1000 social workers of all kinds showing that over 90 per cent are church people, and I venture confidently to affirm that if the inspiration of the church direct and indirect is taken away from our various social movements, they will die outright in short order. I can furthermore now aver what I could not have said twenty years ago, of a group of splendid humanitarian workers who have no church affiliations, that this indefatigable but weary band has at last come to realize that unless the church comes to the front and does her duty this great purifying work will never be done.
“The difficulty has been that our churches have been too much afflicted with myopia, seeing little beyond the confines of their own four walls. They have also one and all slipped into the easy ways of formalism, and worse still, the laity have thrust the burden of their religious obligations onto the shoulders of a groaning, overladen clergy, trusting to discharge their own personal responsibilities on a cash basis by check. I am sure that the clergy are well aware that there is much to be desired in the social relations of the church to the community and I believe no set of men will show themselves more ready to advance on new lines if they can see that the movement is really a spiritual one and that a large service can thus be inaugurated.
“There are many reasons why the churches must be depended upon as the backbone of any morals movement:
They are ideally distributed among the people.
They have the intelligence and the means.
They have a source of continuous inspiration needed in dealing with chronic distressing problems.
They alone can guarantee perpetuity of effort.
“In utilizing the church, the minister must be the organizer and leader of his people. A new relationship between pastor and layman will ensue, and laymen, once drawn into a local work, will soon branch out into all forms of civic work for the weal of the community. Again, the churches possess the community buildings so much needed. The only other similar institution capable of a similar co-operation on a large scale is the public school which, while valuable and necessary in this movement, has not the independence and lacks the great inspiration.
“What, then, is the specific program for the church? First, of all, she must not abate but rather increase her dependence upon God. She must never yield to temptation to abandon the one really valuable quality she possesses by relegating to the background the living fountains of inspiration she holds in God’s word, for a mere mundane horizontal social Gospel which makes a religion of the human activities which are but its appropriate outward expression. First a glance upward, then outward to God for the life, and to the human arena for the sphere in which the life must be manifested. This does not hinder but quickens the impulse to effective service.
“The profounder my faith, the more am I able to work in affectionate association and harmony with the many who do not see eye to eye with me here on earth; I cannot, however, continue to work with any who demand as the price of their help that I shall stifle all outward expression of my faith. He who walks in the light must sing of the light lest the light he has shall fade into darkness, and he too shall be left to flounder along the dead level of merely human self-guided impulses.
A PRAYER FOR EFFICIENCY
O God, as to an earthly father, we bring thee each our yearning confession of failure to realize to the full the powers thou hast given us as laborers in thy kingdom on earth. May we learn through this, our mutual prayer, to be charitable to one another’s shortcoming. Teach us, by love if it may be, by bitter rebellion, if it must be, that our prayer may be answered only as we are firm to lend a hand in mutual aid and sympathy to the less fortunate. Let each in strength supply his neighbors’ weakness, and build up in him the efficiency which is his birthright.
Thus, in humility of heart, we pray for justice to our overstrained and blighted brothers who never catch up, who grind their lives into sieves of despair and deficit, each grist the harder because there is less of life to spare. Think upon the handicapped in body and in soul, for whose backwardness we are jointly responsible through our inefficiency. May we give them health and leisure and knowledge and so joy and inspiration so that, restored to themselves, they may in free good will repay them a hundredfold, in deeds of brotherly gratitude and justice to others, for thy sake.
And chiefly we pray for those in whom we have put our trust; that their strength may be equal to the temptations of the power we have given them from thee. May they realise that not their own gain, but social justice, must measure the efficiency of their efforts. Bring home to their minds and hearts the far-reaching power, for evil and for good, of industry and government, of church and press; let them remember vividly the remote effects of indifference and negligence in the web of modern life.
May the getters of gold give justice to its producers; may its earners have charity toward its spenders; may the givers of gold be gifted with wisdom and courage; and may all social workers feel the weight of an especial responsibility; that the surplus wealth of which they are guardians may be husbanded for its true purposes and not be betrayed, nor delayed, nor wasted in their hands; that thou mayst have gratitude in turn toward all, for thy children’s sake. Thus may thy kingdom grow on earth into fuller and more abundant life for each and all.—AMEN.
“The church must be a great, perennial fountain of spiritual and moral energy to the whole people in all the avenues of human interests. She must realize her obligation to champion the cause of the oppressed, whatever the cause and whoever the oppressor, whether in her fold or out of it. She must watch to prevent the rich from grinding the faces of the poor. She must when necessary provide for every legitimate desire of the people. If politics are corrupt, then she must enter aggressively into the field of politics, only for purity and not for party. She must fight all saloons and organize neighborhood opposition to their continuance, but provide too for some form of social life to replace them.
“The rich churches most be big sisters to the poor, providing means and sending talented workers wherever they are needed. If the church needs money for neighborhood enterprise, let her lop off her choirs and stained glass windows and bells, expensive altars, and put the money saved into human lives. She must discourage all extravagances which give the poor just cause for bitterness and arouse envy and set up unworthy standards. Let the church make a map of neighborhood conditions. This will serve as an object lesson and as a basis for action. In weekly classes she should then study such social problems as:
Social teachings in the Bible.
Tuberculosis in our city.
Prostitution.
Housing the poor.
Amusements.
Wages paid in department stores and factories.
Near town places of recreation.
Hotels, saloons and rathskellers.
The laws of city and state affecting social questions.
Our prison system—what help have the men?
Our various relief agencies—how far do they co-operate?”
ONE OF DAYTON’S MENACES
A heap of dead horses awaiting skinning and rendering at the fertilizer plant