Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1891-06-26

tho solidarity Of all men in Christ,
the supremacy OF righteousness conceived as
love. No mere social legislation, no organ
ization Of men into industrial hierarcbies,
mere social constitution and bylaws will
bring about the new Christian social regime
only the ampifcatou into oil the details
Of life of the great divine principles which
gave to the new regime it's birth and char
acter.
This discussion leads to two practical CON
illusions. The first answers the question as
to the true attitude of the church toward
social reforms. Should the church assume
the leadership in such reforms? Very man
ifestly into the details Of public activities
the church cannot 60 Tho church, the
church, clad in her official robes and speak
ing with divine authority, must not 60 into
caucuses, courts and senates. She must not
assume to regulate labor unions, to control
social or political movements by a syllabus
or pastoral episode. But there is a sense
in which the church ought to put itself for
ward as the leader in social reforms, because
it alone has the true principles which would
actuate such reforms. The church is the
divinely appointed conservator and propa-
gator of these principles. The great failures Of
the church in the past have been due not so
much to her positive errors as to her want
of fidelity to some one or all of the great
truths through which the founder of the
kingdom OF God designed to reconstruct
human society. She has not always with
self-denying and humble zeal proclaimed the
infinite worth of every human soul, the
brotherhood Of all men in Christ, and
the supreme motive Of love. At one timo
she has courted the rich and noble and for
gotten the right of the poor and humble.
At another she has outlawed those who
would not conform to her rigid discipline
and has set up rule Of power and authority
in place of the supremacy Of love. Let the
church but be true to her own divine
mission, let her teach and exemplify
the great principles OF Christ's kingdom
and her main work for society will have
been performed. And the will be a mighty
work, work large enough to occupy all
the energies Of her ministers, a work which
if undone other agency can supplement-,
a work which well done will make easy and
elPectual the Complementary work OF all
other human agencies.
The second corollary is the need society
la. of Christian leadership, because not
| ecclesiastical, for that reason all the more
of Christian leadership. In great crises
everything depends on the inclination of the
| people to choose their leaders, Robes
| pierre and Napoleon, or Washington and
| Lincoln. For the men who move society
and shape institutions are the few thinking
daring men who have this capacity
of leadership, and rarely if ever has our
country had greater need OF statesmen, jur
| lists, magistrates, writers, than in our day
when these great social questions are in pro-
cess of solution. The term Christian states
man unfortunately has been degraded by its
applications but what that term means
fro all mt IL rl4..r
the world most needs now-men who are
profoundly versed in the jural and moral
| principles of Christianity and whose aim is
to re-onact and eXemphfy them in human
! laws and institutions. The greatest oppOr
| tunitcs which the world now oilers t. men
of large gifts and powers are in direct liuo
| with the work of Him who is the prototype
and excmpar Of oil true retormers, the Re
deener of mankind. Society, | say again,
does not need to be revolutionized, tut it
| does need to be redoamed-to be redeemed
from the remains of pagansm, from uuwor
thy views of humanity. from the selfish iso-
| lation of classes from the enthronement Of
| power, from the worship of success, from
! all those wrongs aud evils Of which men
must repent in order that the new regime,
the kingdom Of God, which was at hand,
and is now come may come fully and with
power.
ADDRESS TO TIE GRADUATING CLASS.
1t must be plain to every observer Of
| present tendencies that the coming questions
are to be social questions. l do not moan
that we arc to expect great revolutionary
movements in society. But that there will
be abundant social Torment, that revolt
| tionary schemes will be proposed and dis
cusscd aud to some extent tried, and that
| in S,- xs.fI to, Ia
come famous by lifting up their axes upon
the thick trees OF existing institutions, all
signs indicate. Now it would be conceit TO
imply that every college graduate is going
70 be power in social reform, but
| il is no unreasonable demand upon
educated men and women that they
have sober, intelligent views upon great
questions OF public interest and especially
that they lee prepared to think their way
calmly through the great practical problems
which will from time to time confront them.
One great peril OF such times as ours is
demagogism, that thoroughly selfish spirit
incorporating as philantrophy, which out
of one real grievance asitates hundred
fictitious ones, and then bitches its private
wagon to the movement which such aEitatOr
has created. In this way the one real
grievance gets buried out OF sight the real
]
its false friends aud the reform
gets into the hands of the haser
sort who turn it into private
intrSu. for pelf and power. And yet nc
worse OWL can happen to society than the
prevalence among good men OF spirit OF
disgust toward public affairs induced by the
temporary success Of doma6Os ism. Reac
ton into excessive Conservation, thou8l
natural, would be one of the worst results
OF this condition OF things. Let me urge
upon you rs the duty OF every educated
person TO be in active sympathy with every
movement which upon natural, historic,
and Christian considerations promises ricl
for the improvement of society. Do not be
} easily Disguised or daunted cuJolec
into letting bad men aud ba,
things have their own way; espec
tally avoid the danger Of the scholarly tenn
per, that OF being warped by fuuaticisn
into cynicism For while the dema
gogue is only nuisance TO be abated or q
species to he eXtermnated the fanatic is
being of whom the wise man can learn, anl
whom he can often turn 20 good use.
But as the greatest OF all perils to be-
q dreaded for the future is the absence of tn