To reform is not to rush through the slums, and then preach a sensational sermon about bad places in the slums, of which most people never knew before!  To reform is to know something of the conditions which produce the slums—­it is not to scatter the slum-people broadcast elsewhere in the town; it is not alone to give them baths, playgrounds, circulating libraries of books and pictures, dancing-parties, and social clubs.  To reform the slums is to set up a new ideal of God, and of righteous conduct in the heart of the slum-dwellers.  One must know something of the slow processes of social change, of social assimilation, growth, and stability, to have an intellectual perception of the problem, as well as a spiritual one.  One does not make an ill-fed child strong by stuffing five pounds of oatmeal down its throat!

The reformer must not only be a man of energy, he must be a man of patience.  Great reforms come slowly.  As man has advanced, idleness, indolence, brutality, tyranny, drunkenness, cant, and social scorn are gradually being cast out.  But behind these simple words lie hid centuries of strife and endeavor, and limitless darkenings of human hope.

To fly against vice is merely to invite enmity and opposition.  To present a pure and noble ideal, to breathe forth a holy atmosphere for the soul, are constructive works.  The trouble is not, that the ministers preach on social themes—­all themes that concern the life of man are social themes.  It is that they do piece-work and patch-work of reform, instead of plain, direct upbuilding work in the souls and consciences of men.  To preach upon horse-stealing is one thing.  The horse-stealer may be impressed, convicted, made penitent, and return the stolen horse.  But not until his heart is imbued with a spiritual conception of honesty, as the law of God, will he steal a stray horse no more.  Hence the first questions in reform are not:  How many groggeries are there in my parish?  How many corrupt polls?  How many hypocrites on my church-roll?  The question is:  How is my parish society in enmity to the highest spiritual ideal I know?  Many men preach about saloons, when they ought to be preaching about Christ.

The force of this reform-energy is uncomputed.  We hear of occasional great reformers, but forget that there has been a prevailing influence extending over the ages, of holy men of God, who have preached and taught and prayed; who have preserved our social institutions of spiritual import, and have been a mighty and continuous force working for righteousness and peace.

Missions are a higher form of politics.  To further missions is to further government, international comity, world-peace.

4.  His rule is over creed.  He is inevitably a teacher of doctrine.

What is doctrine?  Doctrine is spiritual truth, formulated in a systematic way.  It is also, in church matters, a system of truth which has been believed in, and clung to, by a body of believers constituting some branch of the catholic Church.