The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-06-22
I'm TWRELIGIOUS WORLD
What the Church Folk Are Thinking About and
Doing. Religious News From
Elsewhere

congenial. Only a new inner motive
can do that. There is not a contract
that can be created to compel men to
fulfill the full measure of obligation
to each other. Only the spirit Of
honor and love can do that. The
most advanced socialists in the world
might write all of sOciety's laws with
out improving conditions any, unless
human nature itself was first i'm
proved. only the Golden Rule can
bring in the Golden Age"
The New Social Sense.
We think that these are wonderful
times in Which we live because ct last
we are getting some slight grasp of the
conception that the teachings Of Jesus
are q working principle for society.
Each for all and all for eacn' is &C
claimed as a new slogan OF progress.
Really il is a direct return to he
teachings of Christianity. We are
simply showing thai the ideals of
Jesus are working out in the minds
of men. The law of neighborliness
which is now creeping into political
platforms was basic With the early
Church. 1t is at that truth that Paul
is h~amlnering in the present lesson. A
few evenings s / sat with a com
mittee of men to promote social
cohesion in their community. The
gathering was not the result Of adj
Vertisement or agitation, and no re-
mark was made about it afterwards:
it was merely the working out of the
teachings of the life of Jesus which
these men had been studying in a
Bible class. For when the mind of
Christ is given play, as the early
Christians SedulOuSly endeavOred to
give it play, it expresses itself in an
exaltation of human relationships.
The old gospel makes new neightor-
hoods. The social sense of our day
is hnf a h~Qpinnino of an nnQrcpnfin
of the genius of the gospel.
Here is where the days teaching
applies to temperance,-fOr this is
designated as a temperance lesson
this new social impulse Of brother
Illness, this constant endeavor to pay
the debt of love, is the most insidious
foe to the use Of and traffic in strong
drink. Their is a worldwide and
irresistible movement toward temper
ance, because temperance is inextri-
cably bound up with the social health.
The liquor men may hire renegade
preachers to o their aus they
may organize national leagues for
the reform of their own business; and
in panic they may pour limitless treas
ure into their legislative "defence
fund. But it is all in vain. The
stars in their courses are fighting
against the unneighbOrly saloon. 1t
is doomed in an enlightened society
because it hurts manhood and the
community life. The war against the
saloon is one with the var against
tuberculosis; and a specialist remarked
recently that within fifteen years tu-
~berculOSlS would be as as
smallpox. There is so much of the
mind of Jesus in the world today that
these social anachronisms cannot be
tolerated.
Expulsion and Tmpuis,on.
n attitude Of the twentieth cen
fury world is hOspitable to the new
teaching which Paul was enunciating
TO the early converts in Rome. Men
are reader to listen to the doctrine
of u~nselfishness. for they have seen
the bitter truth Of the practice Of the
contrary teaching. When people get
busy about loving they have no time
for s~elfishness and ~sordidness, and low
self-indulgence. When any commune
ty is permeated with the ministering
spirit Of Jesus a great deal besides
strong drink will be driven out by the
impulsion Of that strong mind. Put
ye on the Lord Jesus Christ" as Paul
~counseled. and a great many other
things will be put off. Darkness and
light cannot abide in the same room.
The spirit of Jesus and the spirit tina
erects saloons and Sweat shops and
u~nSanitary tenements and permits
child labor and the other evils of our
time. must fly as the night before
the dawn.
To bring this to pass is the mission
of the gospel. 1t is after a new soci-
ETY.. which Jesus called the Kingdom
of Heaven. That kingdom consists of
men and women who live by the love
law. His disciples are disciplined to
sel~f-forgetting services of their fell
low men. Their allegiance to him is
proved by their attitude toward their
neighbors. In his train enter a new
order of men and women-sober, self
restrained, self-sacrificing and society
serving. No thought Of temperance
is adequate which does not look for
ward to a social order where men
walk becOmingly. as in the day
whose every action will stand the test
Of the white light Of the will of God.
Put We on the Lord Jesus Christ