There can be little fruitful constructive effort without hope, and, perhaps, we shall find, when we try to analyze the situation, that it has even more of hope in it than menace.
The aim of the following discussion is, as the title suggests, twofold:
First, to show that in the unrest and confusion of the civilized nations two principles, above all others, are at work; that these two principles are both of them right beyond question; and that the disturbance and alarm so widely felt are both due to the fact that these principles are finding their way into regions from which they have hitherto been largely excluded--to show, in short, that the whole commotion of the world, in the last analysis, is chiefly due to the overflow of the two great Christian principles of democracy and brotherhood.
Second, to point out the only kind of Christianity which is adequate to meet the situation, or in other words, to describe the Christianity which, we may hope, is taking form.
PART I.
THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER
CHAPTER I.
THE OVERFLOW OF DEMOCRACY
The history of the last nine hundred years in one, at least, of its most vital aspects is the history of the development of democracy. Perhaps in no other way can one so accurately discuss and estimate the progress achieved through this almost millennial period than in noting the successive conquests made by that great principle.
The first conquest was in the field of education. Modern democracy began with the rise of universities in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Education had been the monopoly of the clergy, not, indeed, through any such design on the part of the clergy, but through the ignorance of the Northern races which had overrun Southern Europe and almost extinguished its culture, and through the unsettled and harassed condition of Europe which had delayed the growth of a new culture. It was only the clergy who felt that education was necessary.