personality, enthused by being possessed with Christ's own purpose to redeem the world and every living soul in it, is the only medium through which the impact of truth can kindle enthusiasm. for subsequent study and effort. Established in this point of view, equipped with this method, and inspired by this enthusiasm for humanity, the church cannot fail to be more completely furnished and strongly impelled for its world-work for the Kingdom.

The suggestions prompted by the review of the instruction offered and the methods employed by the several seminaries are these:

The academic studies of candidates for the theological course should be so directed, by the co-operation of collegiate and seminary faculties, as to insure their special preparation in political economy, economic history, ethics, and physiological psychology. The lack of this basis by a considerable proportion of every class is a serious impediment to the accomplishment of satisfactory results in the brief time which at best can be secured for sociological study in the theological curriculum. To this end, and for the training of the laity in the Christian aspects of sociology, the establishment of chairs of Applied Christianity, such as Iowa College has set the type of, is highly desirable.

The limitations of time, scope, and aim that sociological training may claim in the theological curriculum are to be clearly and definitely recognized in order to the attainment of practical results. More time for this and other imperatively necessary branches can be secured in one of three ways: by offering elective courses, to which from one third to one fourth of all the required hours should be devoted; by lengthening the course to four years, which is yet to be strongly demanded of the seminaries; or by devoting and readjusting the department of pastoral theology so that it may be in name, aim, scope, and method what in fact the new conditions of Christian work demand that it should become, viz., the department of pastoral sociology. Either one of these changes would make it practicable for any seminary to introduce social economics to its training for service. All of them would supply adequate provision for the sociological training of the ministry.

The scope of sociological instruction practicable in a seminary course is limited by the aim of its introduction. The course

cannot comprehend, for example, the thorough study of political economy, although the economic conditions of individual and social development demand study. The theory of wages, landtenure, labor, and currency cannot be exhaustively treated, but the bearings of these problems upon life can and should be understood by the study of the social condition of labor. The sciences of penology, charity, and statistics cannot be mastered, but their relation to Christianity and to the responsibility of the churches for the dependent, delinquent, and defective classes it is almost. criminal not to define. The scientific study of all the philan thropic, reformatory, and labor movements and methods of the day cannot be undertaken, but they may supersede the church if she does not maintain or regain her leadership of them.

It remains to add a word of justification and enter a plea. Against the assumption that the theological bias "incapacitates the mind for the study of sociology," it may be necessary to justify the introduction of this science into theological seminaries. The recognition of any such interference of human or divine volition with social evolution as renders prevision impossible, is declared to be destructive to the existence of any science of society. Theology is supposed to be committed to such a recognition, and therefore indicates "the mental attitude of those for whom there can be no such thing as sociology properly so called." (See "The Study of Sociology," by Herbert Spencer, chapter 2.) It might be sufficient to deny the responsibility of theology for the mental attitude. therein described, which no intelligent student of the Scriptures can justify, but it may be well to be reminded that no such conception of the will is taught by Scripture, or should be inculcated by theology, as denies antecedents to its choices, and the order of sequence to its action, or asserts its liberty to be lawlessness, its freedom caprice, and its autocracy to be absolutely underived, independent of all precedent, and wholly incapable of prevision. God is immanent in nature. His will is law. His Word discloses the natural laws by which man's will works. If it is admitted that "the character of the aggregate is determined by the character of the units," the theological seminary may justify its right to teach sociology by demonstrating the formative influence which Christianity has ever exerted over the individual units, and the determining effect it thereby has upon the social aggregate. It may go further and claim sociology to be the science of the kingdom of

the Son of Man, the formulation and application of which through the ages is the very dynamic of the social evolution of the race. The bias by which Mr. Spencer here and elsewhere is so unmistakably influenced cannot be admitted by any Christian student to have disqualified him from performing the most distinguished service which has yet been rendered society and the church within the domain of sociology. More than to any man, the world and the church will long be indebted to him for the formulation of sociological method, and the observation, classification, and tabulation of data the inductions from which in large part constitute sociological science.

To justify the sociological training of the ministry before the bar of Christian judgment is fast becoming a work of supererogation. For the churches are realizing as never before that to fulfil Christianity's mission to the individual it is more and more necessary to Christianize the social conditions which so largely and inevitably shape or modify every human life. The consciousness more and more possesses the mind, heart, and effort of the whole church that Christianity finds its divinely purposed earthly consummation in the redemption of human society and the restoration of this world to the ideal whereunto God created it, and Christ died, lives, and reigns to redeem it.

Sociology and social economics, therefore, are interwoven with the terms of the church's great commission to "disciple all nations," and "preach the gospel to the whole creation." Read in the light of these world-terms of the church's charter the Bible becomes a new book. Its Genesis is found to be the most original literary source for the study of social origins. Its primitive customs are seen in the process of crystallizing into law. Its ancient law formulates the most fundamental yet ideal principles of legislation capable of universal application. In the rise and growth of its social and political institutions the evolution of the organic structures of contemporary life is illustrated. Its ancient history lives again to light up the problems of the modern world. Its fundamental tenets of one divine fatherhood, the brotherhood of all men; the immanence of God in natural law and human life through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the redemptive atonement offered by the God-man, and the sacrifice of self in service. to be made by all men, the regeneration of the soul and of society by the dynamic indwelling of the Spirit of God,-these old and

yet ever new facts and forces are to be recognized if history is to be understood, if the dark problems of the life of to-day are to be solved, and if "progress "is to maintain or increase its movement toward the goal of perfected life, individual and social. Theology, too, is humanized, yet all the more deified when viewed from its relation with and application to the whole organism of human life. It becomes all the more truly a "body of divinity" by including the body of the humanities. The church, built upon and operated from this view of its vital relations to human society, is seen to be identified with the commonest interests of men. Its Sunday worship is exalted by its week-day work. It saves more souls for the other world by saving more men in this one. It saves the soul more surely and to more that makes it worth saving by saving society from its sins. It shuts the mouth of hell and opens the door of heaven as it centres hope and effort upon bringing the kingdom of God to earth. To occupy the sociological point of view in its teaching and application of the gospel of the Kingdom is the quickest and surest way of bringing society to the Christian conception of its high and holy ideal and function.

The plea based upon all that precedes is:

1. For the establishment of sociological departments of equal status and share of time with the other professorships in the theological seminaries, and with liberty of independent development.

2. For field work which shall be what the clinic is to the medical school, what the laboratory is to the scientist, where the student may be under the supervision, restraint, and impulse of a practical and experienced specialist.

3. For library equipment with original sources of information. such as government reports of the census and of special investigations, the treatises of specialists, the proceedings of scientific bodies, etc.

4. For personal representation in the societies of specialists, involving occasional leaves of absence for attendance upon their meetings and the necessary travelling expenses.

5. For the co-operation of seminaries with each other and the colleges in promoting the sociological training of the ministry and membership of the church for social service.

6. For the extension of this instruction and training to those at work on the field by university-extension methods.

7. For the use of the church as the centre of social unity and the agency of the broadest social service.

Sociology was born of the church. It is the science of her old Kingdom. The gospel of the Kingdom is sociology with God left in it, with Christ as the centre of unity, with the new birth of the individual for the regeneration of society, and the indwelling Spirit as the only power adequate to fulfil its social ideal. For this kingdom of the Son of man the whole earth is space, the weary heart of man has place, every nation will make room, each community will welcome its humblest herald, all else must make way. The history of the English people began when upon the tomb of a forgott en hero might have been inscribed the words which Charles Kingsley wrote over his name: "Here lies the first of the new English, who by the grace of God began to drain the fens." So it is said the imperial supremacy of the English people dates from the time the nation went home from Waterloo to attend to her own housekeeping, to work for her daily bread, to care for her women and children, to build roads, shops, and schools, to cleanse houses and streets, and care for her sick. And the church and seminary that will train a ministry for this world-work of the Kingdom will begin to write a new and glorious page in the history of the commonwealth of Israel, and the covenants of promise.