children of the poor might have the same chance as the children of the well-to-do. Now in many states. we have free text-books and free medical attention, and we are passing compulsory school laws, and we are saying to the shiftless and the ne'er-do-well that whether they will or no, society will protect itself by community action against ignorance, which otherwise would fill the jails and penitentiaries and asylums, and increase the burden of taxation. This again is a task that never could be accomplished by narrow individualism or a selfish separateness.

So under this same spur that comes with the consciousness of community interests, we are combining to fight poverty. This battle is no longer to be left to widows and orphans and the physically and mentally incapable, and other Les Miserables who have been wounded and left half dead. Society as a whole is taking up the battle for them, and the best minds in the world are planning the campaign. Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in England, has pledged his great gifts of mind and heart to this cause. There is a crusade for you-a crusade that is worth while, not to capture an empty grave, as in the old days, but to keep a multitude of graves empty that would be too early filled by the pinch and grind and pain and peril of poverty. There is a sure-enough Knight Templar, plumed and helmeted and gone forth to battle in behalf of all the poor. In our own country great leaders are pledged to this cause, and great political parties emblazon it on their banners and make it an issue. We are coming to see that this question of poverty is not exclusively a question for the poor, but that it is a question

for everybody. We are coming to see that this problem of poverty may have other factors in it besides the factor of individual delinquency; that our industrial system, with its conscienceless grinding competition, may be a factor in it; that unjust and unequal laws may be a factor in it; that our tariffs and our taxes may have something to do with it, and so we are coming to think that perhaps somebody else is to blame besides the individual who suffers; that maybe society as a whole is to blame. We are thinking that there may be some way by which it can be made easier for all who toil and try, to have enough. If you ask me how this is to be done, I may answer you that I am not sure that I know, but we have solved other difficult problems, and we are now at least trying to solve this one, and I believe in my soul we can solve it. As sure as God lives and loves and leads, we will find some way to quarantine against involuntary poverty.

We are surely on the right road, and are making some progress, though for one I am far from being satisfied with the pace. I know that much remains to be done. I am thinking of the heat and the hate of the sweatshop, of the strain of conflicting forces, of the tendency on both extremes to have a solution of the problem that leaves God out of it. But I do believe that we are coming into a new and better day, and that we are coming to a truer interpretation of the will and words of the Son of Man, and that He leads the way. Back of every quarantine, back of every public school, back of every industrial reform, is the social consciousness, the Christian conscious-ness of solidarity and brotherhood, and back of this

social consciousness stands Jesus, the elder brother, who, though he was the Son of God, became the Son of Man, that all the sons of men might become sons of God.

Delivered before Vanderbilt Biblical Institute, June 19, 1913.

SERMON

REV. R. K. MORGAN, FAYETTEVILLE, TENN.

"Prepare to meet thy God." (Amos iv. 12.)

Man is not qualified by nature to meet any great emergency. To be a companion with the great and good requires the development of the qualities that make one great and good. It is peculiarly strange that one needs to be urged to make preparation for great emergencies. It seems that it ought to be the dominant desire of every man to find the greatest thing in human experience, or within human possibility, but such is not the case. The best is not acquired, or even sought, without much urging and entreaty on the part of those who have either failed to find the best and do not wish others to reap the same fate, or by those who have found the greatest good and unselfishly desire others to do so. The first impulse for humanity is to dodge great issues. We are great shirkers. The great majority of men believe in the imminence of God, but only a few practice it. If men would live up to the idea that God is everywhere it would make a different world, but the greatest weapon in the hands of evil is to believe that evil can be done and kept a secret. "Be sure your sins will find you out" ceases to live forever with them and they go on in the belief that they will not be caught. We hide things even from men. We do not attempt to hide them from beasts, but we

dodge men. Why is this? It is because there is something divine in man. There is a God image in man. If you remove the divine image from him I think we will not fear him. It is God then of whom we stand in awe. Can we get away from God? Gladly would we hide from Him with our sins if we could, but that we cannot is shown by the Psalmist who tried to the utmost of his ability and his final conclusion was that "If I make my bed in hell Thou art there." It seems to me that the hardest part of hell would be that God is there and that what I might have been would gnaw my conscience forever. If I am to meet God the question of when and where is of supreme importance. Most men think of meeting him at death. I think it is the creative purpose of God to reveal Himself to men here. In creation I think God recognized the fact that men are more than animals; that while they are of the dust, that they are of God. It seems to me that in creation the beautiful comes before the useful. I do not contend that this necessarily proves anything, but it is suggestive. Days before there is an ear on the stalk we find the graceful blade, the rich silk and the beautiful tassel. God could have grown the ear on a thing as ugly as a locust post, but he did not. He might have left off the beauty of the clover field and apple orchard. He might have made the world with no oceans or mountains, but he did not. He lifts the mountains heaven high that the soul of man occasionally may leave the dull, dead level of the practical. God spreads an ocean out before us whose waves lash themselves with foam and fury that the soul of man may see again the sublime things and