THE STAKE OF THE CHURCH IN THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT.
THIS paper is not an exhortation to the church to do its duty in social reform. It is not an appeal to conscience, but to the more delicately developed faculty of looking out for our own interest. I wish to show to all who believe that the church has an important function to fulfill in the complex structure of human society, that the future and welfare of this great institution would be impaired by social deterioration and advanced by true social progress.
Churches are institutions rooted in the national life ; they will flourish if their soil is fertile of good ; they will decay if it is barren and parched. Like other institutions the churches not only have duties to perform, but rights and interests of their own to guard. They own property ; they employ men ; they receive and disburse moneys. It stands to reason that anything which affects property, employment, and finances generally will affect the churches too. Of course with the church, more than with any other institution, the question of duty is paramount. If her duty collides with her interest, her duty must be done, though it tear the last shred of property from her naked body. But as long as there is no such collision, considerations of self-interest are legitimate ; most of all if it can be shown that its duty and its self-interest in the wider outlook run parallel.
I shall endeavor to point out the stake which the church as an institution has in various phases of the social movement.
Take first the land question, the fundamental economic ques- tion. In all our occupations we need land, a locus standi. Even the push-cart peddler, who uses the public streets for his busi- ness with nearly as much freedom as if he were a peripatetic street-car company, needs a place to store his cart at night and another to store himself. The request of Archimedes, Ao? TTOV cmw,
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