tion of the social question from the Christian religion. By many ways of utterance, by attempted imitation of New Testament economics, by works of philanthropy, by words of prophecy, by research, by organization, and by political methods, the Christian life of the modern world has maintained its right to interpret and direct the social agitations of the time. When one recalls, however, all these varied expressions of Christian responsibility, he cannot help remarking that one form of inquiry, which would seem to be of fundamental importance, has had but meagre attention. Behind all that may be urged of the duty of the Christian Church, and all that may be demanded of social life in the name of Christianity, there lies, for all followers of Jesus Christ, the preliminary question concerning his personal teaching. What did Jesus himself have to say of the various spheres of social duty? What is the social doctrine of the gospel? By the answers to such questions the practical conduct of a loyal disciple of Jesus must be largely determined. It is most surprising, therefore, that in a period of such extraordinary social interest on the part of Christian believers, and in a time when the watchword "Back to Christ!" has become so familiar, there should have been undertaken so few systematic or scientific inquiries concerning the nature of his social teaching. Incidental treatment of the relation of Jesus to problems of social life may be found, of course, in the elaborate studies of the life of Christ, of which,

since the days of Strauss and Renan, there has been such an abundance; and chapters also in the text-books of Christian ethics; but in few such instances is disclosed any appreciation of the intense eagerness with which the present age desires to learn the social teaching of the gospel. The theological and philosophical interest of the life of Jesus has for the most part quite overshadowed his human and social significance. It has seemed more important to determine the relation of the person of Christ to the mystery of the Godhead than to determine his attitude toward the secular problems of the modern world. In fact, to many minds the personality of Jesus bears so wholly a superhuman and other-worldly aspect that there appears to be something like impiety in discussing his social doctrine at all. It is a striking fact that the creed which to millions sums up the essence of Christian discipleship devotes its attention so exclusively to the supernatural aspects of the drama of redemption that it makes no allusion whatever to any incident of the human life of Jesus; as though, for the essentials of a Christian faith, it were unimportant to recall anything that happened between the miraculous birth and the suffering death of Christ.1 Even so profoundly reverent and appreciative a study of the life of Jesus as was presented in the epoch-making book known as

1 See the striking article in New World, June, 1899, p. 299 ff., F. A. Christie, "The Influence of the Social Question on the Genesis of Christianity."

"Ecce Homo," was regarded by many of its earlier critics, because of its emphasis on the human and ethical aspects of the life of Jesus, as bringing grave dishonor on his nature and mission, and was described by the excellent Lord Shaftesbury as "the most pestilential book that has ever been vomited forth from the jaws of hell." A German theologian of the highest rank, being lately asked to explain this dearth of literature concerning the relation of Jesus to the social question, gave it as his opinion that it was the risks of ecclesiastical discipline which had driven German theologians to think of safer themes.1 It would probably be more just to refer the phenomenon to the habits of isolation and traditionalism which beset the theological mind. The interest of theological studies is so independent of the shifting issues of the world, and tends so often to detach the mind from the passing incidents of social life, that the theologian may find himself at last thinking of one series of questions while the world about him is interested in quite another series, and there may come to be hardly any contact between his professional researches and the human needs of modern life. This, at least, is the impression made on multitudes of plain minds by the discussions which to the theologians appear most vitally interesting. These

1 Compare, however, the new expression of responsibility in "Verhandlungen des 1oten Evang.-soz. Kongresses," 1899, s. 12 ff., "Das Verhältniss der lutherischen Kirche zur sozialen Frage," by Professor Kaftan; and remarks by Professor Harnack, s. 32.

subtle distinctions and acrimonious ecclesiastical differences are simply without interest to persons who are struggling with the tragic problems of modern poverty, social service, and political morality; and to such persons the Christian Church takes on a look of unreality and misdirected energy, as though it were concerning itself with little more than what Coleridge called the problem of "superhuman ventriloquism," and existed only to exercise the ingenuity of its ministers and occupy the leisure of its adherents.

Nor is this all that is likely to happen when a Christianity of dogma is confronted by an intensely practical and ethical age. The person of Jesus Christ, it is soon discovered, cannot be thus excluded, even by the preoccupation of the theological mind, from the world of the social question. No sooner does one open his New Testament than he finds Jesus teaching of social duty with the same authority with which he discourses of Divine love. The story of the life of Jesus moves through a world of human relationships, and he scatters on either side of his path words of refreshing and deeds of blessing for the poor, the humble, the weary and the heavy laden, the burdened and blind and sad. His gospel, as he expressly says, is twofold, and one half of it is a social message, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." What wonder is it then, that, when attention is recalled to the neglected aspect 1 Matt. xxii. 39.

of the person of Jesus, this unmetaphysical, unecclesiastical, human, pitying friend of man, stooping to serve the lowly and quick to rebuke the proud, there should be a quick swing of the pendulum of opinion, and, instead of the Christ of the creeds, there should seem to be discovered a new Messiah, the Saviour of the toiling and destitute masses of men? What was the young man Jesus, it is asked, but a carpenter at his bench? Who were his companions but men of what is now called the proletariat? What words were oftener on his lips than, "Woe unto you that are rich,”1 "Blessed are ye poor" ?2 What, then, is the teaching of Jesus, when it is stripped of the theological interpretations which have obscured it, but the gospel of a working-man's movement, | the language of a social agitator, the historical anticipation of the modern programme of social democracy? Here is the inevitable reaction from a metaphysical Christology. The new time recalls such words as "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" "Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor "; the attack upon the property-holding classes is fortified by the thought of Dives in hell and of Lazarus contented; and instead of a supernatural Christ, sitting at the right hand of the Father in another world, the figure which wins fresh loyalty is that of the Carpenter, the poor man's Advocate,