This judgment rests, of course, against the collective church of the community or the nation, rather than against any local congregation.  It may be that there are a hundred churches in a city, and that ten of them are working efficiently to leaven society with Christian ideas and principles, while the other ninety are content to fill up their membership lists and furnish the consolations of religion to the people who make up their congregations.  The church of that city would probably be a failure, but the ten congregations which had accepted Christ’s idea of the church and were striving to realize it could not be charged with the failure.  They would have done what they could to prevent it.  If the rest had been working in the same way, the results would have been different.

The point on which attention must be fixed is simply this, that the test of the efficiency of the church must be found in the social conditions of the community to which it ministers.  Its business is to Christianize that community.  There is no question but that the resources are placed within its reach by which this business may be done.  If it is done, the church may hope to hear the commendation, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” If it is not done, no matter how many other gains are made, the church must expect the condemnation of its Master.

It must not be gathered from this argument that the church in modern life is a failure.  There may be discouraging signs, reasons for solicitude; but it may appear, after all, that the signs are on the whole encouraging.  We are not maintaining that the social tendencies in modern society are all downward; far from it.  We are simply pointing out that it is only by observing these tendencies that we can judge whether or not the church is fulfilling its mission.

It is greatly to be feared, however, that many of the churches of the present day fail to apply this test to themselves.  Their social responsibility is by no means so clear to them as it ought to be.  Indeed, there are not a few among them that spurn it altogether, declaring that their business is to save souls; that the condition of the social order is no concern of theirs.

There is some reason to believe that phrases of this kind are often used without due consideration of their meaning.  What is meant by the saving of a soul?  Is not the one sin from which souls need to be saved the sin of selfishness?  Is not the death that threatens the souls of men, from which we seek to rescue them, simply the result of the violation of Christ’s law of love?  What is salvation but bringing them back to obedience of this law?  And this law finds expression in the social order—­can find expression nowhere else.  It is the law of our social relations.  What possible evidence can you have that a soul is saved until you see it entering into social relations and behaving properly in them?