put facts above formulæ, and subordinate creeds to reality, then the church will have a hearing in a scientific age. But if the church, in the spirit of the "big stick," says to people, "You must swallow what we put into your mouth, without winking," which is the "big stick" idea of authority, then the church will receive an increasing — what shall I say? -neglect? The world, which is moving, will move by. The church will stand still, and may continue to scowl and say: "This is not religion, and that is not religion," but the world will continue to advance. And so the plea is for a re-interpretation, a re-expression, from the view-point of to-day; for people insist on beginning where we are, and not beginning from the vision-point of the people of the Middle Ages. There must be this progress in vision, this reinterpretation; there must be a re-birth of doctrine as well as the re-birth of experience.

The third and most important thing that I shall say and I must gallop along and not amplify these things, but simply throw them out in the way of suggestion is that there must be not only a re-birth of religious experience, and the reinterpretation of religious truths, the re-birth of doctrine, but in a similar manner there must be a re-birth of application of religion, a re-birth of ethics. Just as doctrine is a progressive thing, and orthodoxy an advancing thing, — not a static thing, but a dynamic thing, so we find ethics progressive, advancing. One need not go far to find illustrations. Take, if you will, the subject of slavery We did not think much about the evil of slavery, even here in New England, in the days of our great-great-grandfathers. If it had paid, I suppose we should have gone on holding slaves. But to-day it is an unbearable thought. I know they say that over in the Congo the slave traffic is on; but just as soon as the Christian governments of the world satisfy themselves that these charges are true, just as soon as they can sift the evidence and find out whether it be a fact or the prejudice of missionaries, then I for one am satisfied that the nations of the earth will say to Leopold and to his servants, "This thing must stop; it cannot go on; we are done with slavery." The conscience

of the world has moved on, and the thought of chattel slavery, the thought of a person being owned by another person, is an intolerable thought, because we have felt the growing pangs of sympathy, that most intolerable of pains and noblest of pains, the pain of sympathy, the valuation of a person, the Christian valuation of personality.

Or you might take war, for example. How different are our minds to-day from what they were three hundred years ago, as Mr. Emerson illustrates by the case of Lord Cavendish. Lord Cavendish headed an expedition, and in the report to his sovereign of his doings he began something like this: "It has pleased Almighty God to enable me to enter so many ports and burn so many ships, and to set fire to so many houses and take so much spoil." Just think of it to-day. Why, if a man should start out on an expedition like that, every fleet in the world would be marshaled on the high seas, and piracy of that kind would stop, because the customs, the ethics even, of war have passed on and upward. We have gone so far that we can see that the history already made is prophetic of the history that is to be. We are to go on and consummate the utter elimination of war.

We might go on and illustrate in a great many ways this progress in application, progress in ethics. General Walker had this policy- I think it was what made him the brilliant, dashing leader of men, the great administrator that he was. General Walker would mortgage the buildings of Technology, and then by great effort raise money enough to raise the mortgages. They would then own the new buildings and the new land for which the old buildings had been mortgaged. Then some bright morning General Walker would get the trustees together and say, Gentlemen, we are now out of debt, and are ready to get in again." That is what made him the brilliant, the dashing, the unrivaled man that he was. But that is just the way the world goes on. We hold up some new ideal, and say to the church of Christ, to this"; and there is great soul-searching, there is great travail of conscience and the new ideal is born. As an English writer has said, we do the old things, but after the

"Come up

lifting up of the new ideal we do them under protest of conscience. A certain reform is achieved. We are out of debt; we now have measured up to the elimination of slavery, and are measuring up to the elimination of war, and we are holding up new ideals and are ready to go into debt to the newer and finer and diviner things that are coming to light in the world. Where shall we begin in this application? I tell my people that the place to begin is where the need is strongest, where the pressure is fiercest, where the burden is most intolerable. Begin anywhere. If it be in the temperance problem, put your pressure right into the center of that. If it be the war problem, the peace ideal, bring all the batteries of ideal right to the center of that problem. If it be the industrial problem, the world problem, then let the ideal of the Prince of Love point an application right at the center of things.

What will be the result? Ah, the result will be that your religion, which you have forgotten to think about for a while because you are so busy applying it, will come as a new experience, a re-birth. As Mr. Robert A. Wood, of our city, says to you, it will give to you a contemporaneous, dynamic actuality, namely, enthusiasm. That is what the religion of the world is lacking to-day- enthusiasm. It does not seem real enough to be worth dying for, and the thing that will make it seem real, the thing that will make it seem a joy to die for it, will be to apply it to these great central, commanding problems that God has given to us to bring out our chivalry, to enable us to enjoy the cross of redemptive suffering.

Sometimes I dream. I dream of the Christian of to-morrow, and in my dream he is a threefold man. He is first the mystic, the saint, the man who knows God at first hand, as an old master-thinker said, "Not a grandson, but a son, of the Holy Spirit." He is, secondly, the statesman, the scholar, the man who knows history, who knows books, the man who knows humanity's mistakes, the man who has felt humanity's aspirations, the man who can build for to-morrow, the man who can think ahead of his fellows, the man who can tell his fellow-beings in what direction the world is moving, in what

direction evolution and God are making, in what direction he must go if he would go with God and succeed in evolution. And, thirdly, he will be not only the man of mystic vision and high religious experience, not only the broad-visioned and cleareyed man, the statesman and scholar, but he will also be the brother - he will be the servant of the Lord's servants. And this threefold man, this new Christian, this new incarnation of the Holy Ghost, it seems to me, will be God's fitting expression in the church of to-morrow, to which the church of to-day is looking- saint, statesman, servant.

I am not afraid to study any problem that bears upon human welfare. I am not afraid of anything that promises a remedy; I am not afraid of any challenge that the world can offer to a real religion. I am not afraid of any tag that a scoffing world may put upon my back. I am not afraid of an economics that is imported from Germany or from Australia. I say, give me the truth. [Applause.] Let me have the laboratory method. Let me experiment, and if my old notions are incomplete or untrue, show me the larger, show me the more complete, show me the more accurate, and I will discard the impediment of the less perfect, and will thank you for giving me the larger and the finer and the truer. So God is saying to us, by the great challenge of the industrial problems and the other great problems of to-day, this great problem that the working people of the world are working at, — is saying to us, "The music sets the march step; forward, then!" [Applause].

THE PRESIDENT. One common lament in connection with this general thought is that "people don't go to church as they used to." That is a hard thing for a man to settle by personal impressions. I was for some time in Washington this winter and attended various churches- Unitarian, Con

I found them all crowded.

When

gregational, Methodist. ever I go over to New York and go to any church where there is a vital voice or a real message, be it from Mr. Jefferson or Dr. Parkhurst or Mr. Richards, I find the church filled. One reason why we have asked Dr. Conrad, our next speaker, to come here to-day is because he represents a church where people go to church. That was so in Worcester; that has proved so, to the gratification of many of us, in Boston. Many of us have been anxious, not entirely I must confess for religious reasons, about Park Street church; and when it was in doubt what its future would be Dr. Conrad was invited there, and it has certainly become impossible for people to say, "People don't go to church at Park Street." We are glad to hear from one who has not only come to us from the heart of the Commonwealth, but who stands for the stalwart gospel touching social and political duties which is being preached at Park Street church. I present Dr. Conrad. [Applause.]

ADDRESS BY REV. A. Z. CONRAD, D. D.,
OF BOSTON

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a matter of great satisfaction to enter in these days into a discussion of problems which cannot fail to fascinate all men and women who are concerned for the betterment of society. I am glad to be here not alone as coming from "Brimstone Corner" [Laughter], although a gentleman said to me when I came into the room, "We are always interested in anybody who comes from Brimstone Corner.'" "The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." I must say that I accept with great satisfaction, and have increasingly enjoyed, the appellation which obtains with respect to the corner of Park and Tremont Streets. I do not know of any of the navies of the world that would do much without explo