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the chief factor in originating some of the current movements of municipal reform, in all of which Christians should join capitalists, with civil service reform, municipalism, pure elections, and law enforcement, as the four planks of a platform on which all good citizens of all national parties could and should stand together, and upon which they could and should win

25.

Suffrage and Civil Service Reform.-Advocates of moral and industrial reforms have both treated civil service reform as of secondary importance until recently industrial reform has discovered that "the spoils system" is the chief obstacle in the public mind to the Government management of monopolies. From the standpoint of patriots, if not from the purely moral view, the dependence of one hundred thousand voters and their families for their very support on the continuance of a party in power, is an element of practical bribery to be removed as more than sufficient to turn some of our close national elections. As to suffrage, it is a good time to proclaim by law that no more ignorance and vice will be enthroned in voting lists in the new century just at hand.

26. Immigration and Race Problems.-Race prejudice is not a sectional but a well-nigh universal sin. In the United States, four sons of race prejudice divide the land. On the Pacific Coast one cries, "The Chinese must go." In the Rocky Mountains another shouts, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." In the South another says, "The white man must rule." And in the North and East a smaller brother says, "America for Americans." Let us all say rather, "America for American institutions," one of which is the Declaration that " all men are born equal" and have "rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," not including, however, any right to do wrong.

Immigration discussions show too much dependence on exclusion laws, which if improved and enforced to the utmost would not more than tithe the immigration. Deducting the proportion of immigrants who make average citizens, there remains about half as many foreign-born residents in the United States as evangelical Christians. Surely two to one in

such a match, with a Gospel that can save to the uttermost, ought to be able to save the country by saving the immigrants.

27. Church and State.-The American theory is that the Church should not lord it over the State, as Rome has sometimes done; and that the State should not lord it over the Church, as is done in some Protestant countries where the minister has a "living," not a "calling." calling." But the mutual independence of Church and State does not in the United States forbid the union of Christianity and the State. The oft quoted Tripoli Treaty, written by Washington's Secretary of State, in which a Mohammedan power was assured, in substance, that the United States is not a Christian nation, is wholly exceptional, and is outlawed as a precedent by the later contrary decision of the National Supreme Court. The report adopted by the United States Congress, years ago, adverse to stopping Sunday mails on the ground that such legislation was unduly religious, is also side-tracked as a precedent by the more recent act of the same body closing the World's Fair on the Sabbath. On the other hand, it is generally agreed that sectarian appropriations, by Congress or State legislatures, such as Protestants as well as Roman Catholics have asked and accepted in the past, are, if not a union of Church and State, a dangerous approach to it. Protestants are therefore refusing such appropriations, and asking constitutional amendments that will impartially cut off appropriations from Roman Catholics also, and will further prevent the division of the public school fund with parochial schools, which has already been done to a considerable extent by local school boards.

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Christian Remedies of Social Ills to be Applied by Christians Individually.-As in rebuilding Jerusalem, whose ruin was caused by idolatry, intemperance and Sabbath-breaking, every man was set to rebuild "over against his own house,' so in building the new Jerusalem of justice on the ruins that selfishness and lust and appetite have made, the largest results are to be achieved by every Christian building over against his own door, removing the nearest evil, promoting the near

est reform, by personal word and deed, by persuasion and prosecution. Personal effort can be extended to legislative results, to a remarkable degree, by the faithful and frequent writing of letters to legislators. The ballot box needs to be supplemented by the mail box. It is hardly more the duty of a legislator to write laws than it is the duty of his constituents to write letters to him in regard to legislation about which he has no official instructions in the party platform. Only thus can "Government of the people, by the people " become something more than a pretty saying.

Letters are far more effective than formal petitions, and in any case should support them. Christian churches and societies should be represented in the third house, not by letters only but also by personal representatives who can watch and defeat corrupt lobbyists, and promote worthy legislation, by personal work.

29. Remedies for Social Ills to be Applied by the Local Federation of Churches.-There are duties which the Christian church owes to society which cannot be done by individual Christians, not even when they unite in unofficial Christian societies. The church is the divinely appointed agency, not for social worship only, but also for charity and reform, and should not leave the work and the credit to voluntary societies, whose very establishment, in some cases, proclaims the church's neglect. To outside societies may very properly be left such movements as are in advance of average Christian convictions, but such evils as Sabbath-breaking, the drinking usages, gambling, impurity, and harmful reading, including unwholesome daily papers, and such matters as relate to charity should surely be looked after in each community by official committees appointed by the churches unitedly.

30. Christian Remedies to be Applied by State and National Federation of Churches.-So far as the writer knows there is but one among the State and National and International reform societies that was officially organized by the churches, this one exception being the official institution, at his suggestion, of the American Sabbath Union, by fourteen evangelical denominations, through official votes at their national confer

ences. As no money was appropriated to enable the charter members thus appointed to attend the annual meetings of the Union, it was left wholly dependent on individual benevolence and individual direction, and this case is, therefore, only a suggestion of how such a society ought to be begun.. Some day it is to be hoped the churches will be shamed or aroused to undertake a united campaign against social evils in some more effective way than by the paper bombardment of mere resolutions. An official national federation of Christian churches in a strong and well supported National Bureau of Reforms might be a most effective form of home missionary work. WILBUR F. CRAFTS.

Pittsburg, Pa.

THE CIVIC FUNCTION OF THE CHRISTIAN

CHURCH.

It seems a good time for asking whether the Christian church possesses any civic function? and, if so, what it is? It not only seems a good time but it appears necessary to ask these questions. Undeniably we are entering times of great agitation and much change. The spirit of unrest not only abundantly characterizes, but is more fully to mark the closing years of the nineteenth century. The end of some things, at least, is at hand.

All the great forces of civilization are being appealed to and besought to enter the lists, appealed to by "all sorts and conditions of men." The Christian church is one of the great forces of civilization, one of the most potent, marshaling millions of followers, possessing billions of wealth, awakening the love or arousing the hatred of uncounted human beings. It is not strange, then, that her aid should be earnestly sought by the different and contending schools of political, social and industrial thought. Reformatory, or deformatory, movements abound and each either seeks to enlist the sympathy of the Christian church, or, perhaps failing in that, arraigns her indifference, characterizes her as a fossilized relic of past ages, and prophesies her speedy destruction along with all outworn superstitions and evils.

What part should the church play amid all these contending hosts? Should she ally herself with this party? or with that? or with none? Should she act as a mediator between labor and capital, or not? Should she interest herself in questions of taxation, municipal government, nationalization of industries, etc.? Or should she utterly ignore present inequalities, and tell the world of a coming future settlement of wrongs at the general judgment? Shall she interest herself in tenement house problems, or shall she content herself with

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