which I declared myself a Socialist. Forthwith all the Labour platforms were thrown open to me. When the New Theology controversy broke out in January of the present year these were almost the only platforms I had left. All my Free Church Council engagements were cancelled by the Churches themselves, as were most of my preaching appointments with other ecclesiastical organisations. Even where they were not cancelled the situation was, as a rule, to say the least of it, somewhat strained. At the present moment I am in the position of having been quietly excluded from an active share in every Nonconformist organisation with which I was formerly connected, with the exception of the City Temple itself. I do not complain of this; it has done me no harm whatever; but it is as well for the public to know the facts. I work now in the confident expectation that with the rise of a younger generation of able men in the Churches themselves-men of liberal outlook in religion, and inspired by the social consciousness-I may live to see the time when the Socialist movement, realised from the spiritual point of view, will have laid hold of Nonconformity as it is already laying hold of the Anglican church. The present official heads of Nonconformity cannot expect to boycott a movement for ever by the futile expedient of boycotting this man and that among its representatives. The time will come when the wider theology and the Socialist gospel will be seen to be one and the same, and until it does come I offer myself, with all the little power I possess, to the service of every young man who is trying to make his way against the tide of prejudice and obscurantism with which this joint movement is at present assailed. It is but little that one man can do except to help where opportunity affords, in the true spirit of comradeship, the causes that most need helping. One cannot do more, and would not willingly do less. CONTENTS PAGE II. THE KINGDOM OF GOD: I. IN JEWISH HISTORY III. THE KINGDOM OF GOD: II. IN PRIMITIVE 47 89 CHRISTIANITY AND THE SOCIAL ORDER CHAPTER I THE CHURCHES AND THE MASSES We are to-day confronted by the startling fact that in practically every part of Christendom the overwhelming majority of the popula- The decline tion is alienated from Christianity as of churchrepresented by the churches. In our going. own country nearly seventy-five per cent. of the adult population remains permanently out of touch with organised religion. Broadly speaking, it is true that only a section of the middle class ever attends church at all; the workers, as a body, absent themselves; the professional and upper classes do the same. Not so very long ago, attendance at church was held to be a social necessity, a sort of hall mark of respectability; it is not so now. A professional or business man can be just as sure of success without church-going as he can with it; no stigma |