No church ought to have at first too intricate a program. More can be accomplished by an active pro-virtue program than by one that is all anti-vice, but the church must also be a fighting organization. We must fight evil of every kind. The great struggle of the church against the liquor traffic and against vice has resulted in a vast amount of good. The thing to remember, however, is that the church must not stop simply with its protest and its fight.

The Ultimate End of All Effort. Nothing material or physical is final. We are not to provide social rooms, good healthful surroundings, playgrounds, and other social good things just for themselves, but because these things are essential to the best and highest moral development of individuals. In the last analysis the work of the church is the salvation of men and women. Its work, as has been said, is to put a sky over men’s heads. You cannot save individuals by giving them good physical surroundings, healthful conditions, and by supplying all their physical needs. These are merely the steps to the temple of the spirit. The weakness of most of our schemes for social betterment is found in the fact that many of them would put a man in a fine room, with good light, splendid furnishings, serve a sumptuous meal to him and then start a force-pump and pump all the air out of the room. A man may die in the midst of the finest things with which we can surround him. People must grow, and growth demands atmosphere, and if we give everything else and fail to create the right kind of atmosphere we are failing. “Seek ye first his [God’s] kingdom, and his righteousness; and all the other things shall be added unto you.” By this Jesus did not mean that we were to put less emphasis on right conditions, but that if we get conditions right, then we can work for the things that really are of greatest interest. Above all, he was warning of the danger that faces us to-day, of becoming so much interested in a man’s social welfare that we lose sight of the emphasis which the great Teacher would put upon the qualities which make up humanity.

We must recognize man as a spiritual being, and everything that goes to make him better physically ought to make him better spiritually. The best work of the church, and the work which God alone can do for the community, is to carry humanity beyond physical betterment into the realm of spiritual idealism. This is our task. This is the church’s goal. When this is realized in all society then the kingdom of God will be realized on earth; and the things that men create will be set in right relationship to the men themselves; that is, they will become the adjuncts of every man’s life and will minister to all human happiness.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
A BRIEF READING LIST

The Rural Problem

Bailey, L. H. The Country Life Movement in the United States. 1911. Macmillan Company, New York. 75 cents.

Brunner, Edmund de S. Cooperation in Coopersburg. 1917. Missionary Education Movement, New York. 50 cents.

Brunner, Edmund de S. The New Country Church Building. 1917. Missionary Education Movement, New York. 75 cents.

Earp, Edwin L. The Rural Church Movement. 1914. Methodist Book Concern, New York. 75 cents.

Mills, Harlow S. The Making of a Country Parish. 1914. Missionary Education Movement, New York. 50 cents.

Morse, Richard. Fear God in Your Own Village. 1918. Henry Holt & Co., New York. $1.30.

Vogt, Paul. The Church and Country Life. 1916. Missionary Education Movement, New York. $1.25.

Wilson, Warren H. The Church at the Center. 1914. Missionary Education Movement, New York. 50 cents.

Wilson, Warren H. The Church of the Open Country. 1911. Missionary Education Movement, New York. 40 cents.

Industrial Relations

Abbott, Grace. The Immigrant and the Community. 1917. Century Company, New York. $1.50.

Antin, Mary. The Promised Land. 1912. Houghton, Mifflin Company, Boston. $1.75.

Burritt, Arthur W. Profit Sharing. 1918. Harper & Brothers, New York. $2.50.

Carlton, Frank T. History and Problems of Organised Labor. 1911. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston. $2.00.

Cole, G. D. H. Self Government in Industry. 1918. Macmillan Company, New York. $1.75.

Fitch, John A. The Steel Workers (Pittsburgh Survey). 1910. Charities Publication Committee, New York. $1.50.

Goldmark, Josephine, Fatigue and Efficiency. 1912. Russell Sage Foundation, New York. $2.00.

Haynes, George E. Negro New-Comers in Detroit, Michigan. 1918. Home Missions Council, New York. 20 cents.

Kelley, Florence. Modern Industry in Relation to the Family. 1914. Longmans, Green & Co. New York. $1.00.

Mangano, Antonio. The Sons of Italy. 1917. Missionary Education Movement, New York. 60 cents.

Redfield, William C. The New Industrial Day. 1912. Century Company, New York. $1.25.

Ross, J. E. The Right to Work. 1917. Devin-Adair Company, New York. $1.00.

Ryan, John A. A Living Wage. 1906. Macmillan Company, New York. $1.25.

Shriver, William P. Immigrant Forces. 1913. Missionary Education Movement, New York. 60 cents.

Symposium by seven well-known authors, The Path of Labor. 1918. Council of Women for Home Missions, New York. 57 cents.

Ward, Harry F. The Gospel for a Working World. 1918. Missionary Education Movement, New York. 60 cents.

Ward, Harry F. The Labor Movement. 1917. Sturgis & Walton. New York. $1.25.

Ward, Harry F. Poverty and Wealth. 1915. Methodist Book Concern, New York. 50 cents.

Ward, Harry F. Social Evangelism. 1915. Missionary Education Movement, New York. 50 cents.

Warne, Frank J. The Slav Invasion and the Mine Workers. 1904. J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. $1.00.