The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-08-14
JEFFREY R. BRACKETT.

| Exclusive Service The Survey Press | BureauO
 Gast week the editor of the Roches- | ter Times told of a successful expert | ment in that city in conducting a
 Peoples Sunday Bvening"a forum for | the discussion of all sorts of timely | social questions. The following article | by MT. Bracket is a defense of the church as an inspirational force in ''rousing men to love mercy and do | justice"
 Opportunities and duties of the Church in social reform are topics heard much today. For several years we have been watching the interesting services of MT. Sickle, representing
 the Presbyterian Church in ministry for 1aboring men. That church now has a-department of immigration, un- der its Home Mission Board, aiming especially to get knowledge of cond1- tions and needs of recent immigrants. The Congregational churches have a national committee on industrial or ganization. The Methodist Federation for Social Service has published it's first leaf1et, an open letter to the church on Unemployment and Relief. The American Unitarian Association has established department of so- aganda, especially to promote co-oper- ation with existing agencies for char ity, ciyics and industrial advance. The last New York diocesan conven- ton of the Protestant Episcopal Church provided permanent social service commission with several local branches, chiefly to bring about better understanding between church and la Dor. employers and employees. The Federal Council of Churches recently held in Philadelphia, representing thirty-three denominations and eight cen million cOmmunicants in the Uni- ted States, adopted with enthusiasm a long list of resolutions for specific re- conditions of living and la bor, for a standing commission on the church and social service. And in Eng land, the great councils of the An- glican communion have spoken strong ly on the duty of the church in So- cial reform.
 At the same time with these stir ring messages, comes the psychothera- peutic treatment by the Church, the of Boston, which has reused interest everywhere, and has spread thence in practice to not a few churches.
 What is the meaning of all this? To what extent is it an awakening to the duty of the Church as understood by the Church's true leaders in all the ages, but not always followed? To what extent is it an answer to the plea that the Church must undertake new duties to justify itself, to answer new demands for a ministry of so- called practical service? How shall we relate all this to the modern move
 
 edge, for differentiation between pro- fessions and expert services? Here are large weighty questions calling for answer.
 Surely, the Church should strive hard to rouse men to more interest in, and more knowledge of, industrial and so- cia1 conditions, to the end that ills may be done away with and progress made. As helps to this. may be mentioned special evening meetings such, for in stance, as have been held in the Church of the Ascension, New York. or in Mt. Vernon Church, Boston, with addresses by 5udicious persons who are familiar with conditions of living and labor, who are fervent for reforms which are, wholly practical Then, there are Sunday noon meetings after. the usual service taking for old CT persons the place of Sunday School. to give information bearing on good citizenship. Little argument should be needed in advocacy of such means of spreading knowledge of conditions and measures of great practical mo- ment for the welfare of human be- ings. But, generally speaking, the Church should not try to become the organ of any political or industrial movement, in defining methods. 1t will do it's part best if it rouses men to try to live religiously-to love mer- cy, to do justice, and to walk humPly with God. That is it's particular work. which is as useful today as ever, and
 
 find no better task than thus serving the Church inspirationally.
 Said a man of much experience and thoughtfulness to the National Confer evils against which we contend, and the suffering which the Conference seeks to alleviate, are due directly or indirectly to unrighteousness of life; and a revival of righteousness would do more to check their growth than all the effort in the way of benevolent work, which we are able to put forth"
 There is one very practical way in social advance-by joining together as a neighborhood and community force in a. fight against manifest evil conditions which aroused public well done, for instance, in particular localities, in opposing the existence or the spread of liquor saloons. Such cooperation may lead to a better ap- neighborhood work in which persons of all creeds and no creeds may join heartily. A good many philanthropic undertakings of individual churches might well be shifted on to that broad CT basis of neighborhood work.
 Modern preventative medicine is teaching, among many lessons, that the warfare against disease is not linn ited to medical men. Thus, if infant mortality is to be checked, many moth- CTS must be interested and instructed to do their part; and further back, em- ployers of working women must be pre- vented from employing them at times when the life of mother and infant may be injured by work. The cam paign against tuberculosis depends largely for its success on the knowl- edge of the man in the street and in the factory. So in the grave matter of hygience of sex there is the duty of the parents, we'll as of family phy- sicians, to give proper instruction to the young. In all such matters as these, the minister has a duty in rous- ing the people to do their duty.
 The Church can also take an inn portant contribution to social advance in taking the right attitude. as to charity. This is matter which may practical. The Church should help to clear away all confusion from charity being thought of merely as aims ma terial. Let a Church leave to char itable agencies cooperating the ma terial aid for persons strangers to it;