Speech 5
THE CHURCH AND OUR INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS

PROM AN ADDRESS AT AN OVERFLOW MEETING ON THE OCCASION OF THE CENTENNIAL OF PRESBYTERIAN HOME MISSIONS, IN NEW YORK CITY, MAY 2O, 1902

A GIANT work looms up before the churches in this country, and it is work which the churches must do.  Our civilization has progressed in many ways for the right; in some ways it has gone wrong.  The tremendous sweep of our industrial development has already brought us face to face on this continent with many a problem which has puzzled for generations the wisest people of the old world.  With that growth in the complexity of our civilization, of our industrialism, has grown an increase in the effective power alike of the forces that tell for good and of the forces that tell for evil.  The forces for evil, as our great cities grow, become more concentrated, more menacing to the community, and if the community is to go forward and not back they must be met and overcome by forces for good that have grown in corresponding degree.  More and more in the future our churches must realize that we have a right to expect that they shall take the lead in shaping those forces for good.

I am not going to verge on the domain of theology, and still less of dogma.  I do not think that at the present time there will be any dissent from the proposition that after all in this workaday world we must largely judge men by their fruits; that we can not accept a long succession of thistle crops as indicating fig trees; and that we have a right to look to the churches for setting the highest possible standard of conduct and of service, public and private, for the whole land; that the church must make itself felt by finding its expression through the life work of its members ; not merely on Sunday, but on week days; not merely within these walls, but at home and in business.  We have a right to expect that you will show your faith by your works; that the people who have the inestimable advantages of the church life and the home life should be made to remember that as much has been given them, much will be expected of them; that they must lead upright lives themselves and be living forces in the war for decency among their surroundings ; that we have a right to expect of you and those like you that you shall not merely speak for righteousness, but do righteousness in your own homes and in the world at large.