604 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
settlements, and, as much as in anything, in socialism. In such a ubiquitous and varied movement there are many things to con- demn, many persons insincere. Social settlements and " slum- ming " too often supplant Browning societies as mere diversions of the hour; bescriptured philosophy and crude generalization about the social organism very often masquerade as sociology ; but back of all such conscious or unconscious shams there is a determination to obtain social betterment that is not superficial, but sincere, and even passionate.
I.
At first glance it would seem as if there would be coopera- tion between such a movement and the church as a representa- tive of the social teaching of Jesus, but it must be confessed that the relation of the two, as it actually exists, is one of mutual ignorance and distrust. On the part of the churches there is, it is true, an increasing effort to understand and to sympathize with the movement among the masses. Here and there men with the spirit of Maurice and Kingsley have endeavored to capture socialism bodily for the church. But such efforts have met with only partial success — the difficulty lying quite as much with the clergy as with the labor leaders. And so it has come to pass that the two great altruistic movements of the century have refused cooperation, mistrusting each other today almost as much as in the past; and, in consequence, each has lost the other's aid.
Earnest and noble as is the movement among the masses, it is suspicious, if not the enemy, of the churches. It is, in part, the frank expression of this fact that has caused so much ecclesiastical hostility to social leaders, the churches being con- vinced that no good could come from violent and blasphemous hands. Yet a closer knowledge of the actual attitude of the masses and their leaders might have led to a better understand- ing. The essentials of one age are often the bric-a-brac of its successor. The spinning-wheels and swords which were to our ancestors the symbols of toil and adventure, and even life itself, fill museums and adorn the walls of reception-rooms. Their
