That the religion of Jesus begins here, in the heart of the individual, cannot be questioned.  And it must never be forgotten that there can be no sound social construction which does not build on this foundation.  But it is well to remember also that here, as everywhere, a foundation calls for a building, and is useless and unsightly and obstructive without it.  The foundation of Christianity is the reconciliation of individual souls to God, and the establishment of friendship between these individual souls and God; but what is the structure for which this foundation is laid?  It is the establishment of the same divine friendship among men.  That is the building for which the foundation calls.  If the building does not go up, the foundation is worthless.  If the building does not go up, the foundation itself will crumble and decay.  The only way to save a foundation is to cover it with a building.

Fault might be found with the figure, but the fact which it imperfectly illustrates is beyond gainsaying.  The right relation to God, which Jesus always makes fundamental, cannot be maintained except as it issues in right relations with men.  Here is the apostle John’s blunt way of putting it:  “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen.  And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.”

The commandment is, in fact, only the statement of a logical necessity.  How could any human being enter into a loving communion with that great Friend whose love is always brooding over our race, who is seeking to do us good and not evil all the days of our lives, who is kind even to the unthankful and the evil,—­and not be a lover of his fellow men and a servant of all their needs?

It is evident, therefore, that a religion which has no room in it for social questions cannot be the Christian religion.  The social question is the one question which Christianity—­genuine Christianity—­never ceases to ask.  The first thing it wishes to know about your religious experience is, how it affects your relations with your fellow men.  It insists that your relations must first be right with God, but in the same breath it declares that there is no way of knowing whether or not your relations are right with God except by observing how you behave among your fellow men.  Faith is the root, but faith without works is dead, being alone; and works concern your human relations.

These principles enable us to determine what is the business of the church.  Its business is to foster and propagate Christianity, and Christianity exists to establish in this world the kingdom of heaven.  The church is not, therefore, an end in itself; it is an instrument; it is a means employed by God for the promotion, in the world, of the kingdom of heaven.  The kingdom of heaven is not an ecclesiastical establishment;