strife of nineteen Christian centuries is punishment enough for the crime of the cross. It is time for the star of Bethlehem, so long eclipsed by the shadow of the cross, to shine forth once again through the gloom and mist of ages, and teach the wise men and women of the world where to look for the Christchild and the holy family; teach them to bring their gifts of wealth and wisdom to the humblest child and the poorest family; teach them to give as Jesus taught mankind to give if they would find salvation and gain the kingdom of Heaven, -"unto the least." I would that over every church and temple might float the white flag of the Universal religion of peace and good-will, blazoned with the guiding star of truth. and light and love, bearing above it the prophetic birth-song of the angels, Peace on earth, good-will to men; and beneath it the motto of Jesus Unto the Least. For the salvation of the world depends on following that guiding star. star of Bethlehem was the star of destiny, the birth-star of a new civilization, the rising star of a new epoch in human history — just because it went and stood over the humblest family, instead of standing over palaces and the houses of the rich, as the stars of destiny had always done before. And that guiding star is standing to-day over the poorest tenement in the city, over the humblest shack in the mountains of the South, over the humblest home in all the world. Individual salvation, social salvation, the salvation of the world, comes from following that star and giving as the wise men gave. There is no other way whereby men and nations can be saved.

That

Therefore let us substitute for the gloomy symbolism of the cross, the beautiful and inspiring symbolism of that wonderful Christmas story of the Star, the Christ-child, the holy family, the wise men, and the angelic prophecy of the coming on earth of the heavenly kingdom of peace and good-will. For the star of Jesus must carry on and complete the unfinished work which the cross of Jesus interrupted.

Jesus was loyal to his own natal star. He came "to bear witness to the truth"; and he followed the star of truth and love even though it brought him to the cross, fervently as

he prayed the cup of martyrdom might pass from him. For he knew, as we now know, that the salvation of the world does not depend on crucifying prophets and saviours, but on having prophets and saviours who are willing to be crucified if need be. Therefore follow the star - as the wise men did, as Jesus did, as the wise and good and strong must learn to do and teach the world to do, if men and nations and civilizations are to be saved. Follow the star, even though it bring you to your cross.

This is a dying world; and if you approach the problem from the point of view of the sociological student, you are impressed with the thought that it is a terribly real death and peril that we are facing. Our civilization, like the civilizations of the past, is doomed unless it can somehow find the law of life which they did not find, unless it can answer the riddle of the Sphinx that age after age they have tried to answer and failed to answer. Roman civilization died and Greek civilization and other civilizations died; they died of strife, they died of selfishness; they died because they did not not know that the kingdom of Heaven, the family kingdom, was at hand; – because they did not know that there is no individual salvation apart from the salvation of the great Family; because no one proclaimed to them the gospel. Our Christianity has not understood or proclaimed the saving and redeeming truth all these centuries. And we shall perish miserably, as the civilizations of the past have perished, unless we learn the great truth, proclaim the truth, live by the truth, and make the spiritual kingdom of Heaven come, the family kingdom of Heaven come, and make the law of that family life the supreme law.

It is the great family law of the devotion of the strong to the weak. Yes, division of labor; yes, co-operation; but above all, that devotion of the strong to the weak, which prevents weakness, makes the weak strong, and the strong stronger, and the whole world better and better. That is the law of progress, of evolution. You can follow the course of that evolution in the vertebrate species from its beginnings in the family of fishes up until you come to man; then on

through the clan family and the tribe family and the State family and the national family to the great family of nations which is now forming, as the highest phase of social evolution. To help the formation of that great international family is part of our religious programme; it is a part of the programme of evolution. We belong to all these families; but above all, to the great inclusive family of families, the divine family of humanity, that throws the bond of peace and goodwill around the national families and the State families and the municipal families and the private families, and shows them all the way of salvation in obedience to the supreme spiritual family law.

PRESIDENT Wendte. The audience will find in the seats reports of the recent congress of the Federation of Religious Liberals, held at Rochester, New York. That congress was distinguished, among other things, by a series of presentments, from members of ten different religious communions in the United States, of the contribution to religious liberty and progress made by their several churches. Among these there was none, I think, more interesting and instructive than the one given by Professor Walter Rauschenbusch, of the Baptist Theological Seminary in Rochester; a man who combines in a rare degree the spirit of reverence in religion and the enthusiasm for humanity displayed in social reform and reconstruction. It was a wonderful picture which he drew for us of the contributions made by the Anabaptists of Europe and the Baptists of America toward the great individual and social ideals of the race, vindicating liberty of prophesying and the supremacy of the moral element, the individual conscience in men. And so it seemed very natural, when we asked ourselves whom we should invite to represent in our symposium to-day the appeal to the individual sense of responsibility and duty as one of the great factors of religion, that we should turn to the

Baptist communion. I think no church has ever made a more heroic witness than the Baptist to these great inner spiritual principles; and we are privileged to-day to have with us on the platform a representative of that church, Rev. Woodman Bradbury, D.D., of the Old Cambridge Baptist Church, who will now address you on this subject.

A STRONGER SENSE OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

REV. WOODMAN BRADBURY, D.D.

Mr. President and Friends:

After this introduction I share with you, as well as with the President, the disappointment that Professor Rauschenbusch is not here. It is one thing to be a humble member of a large body, and another thing to be a great leader, like that particular man.

As one looks at the Programme to-day and sees these different topics, he realizes that, after all, they are but separate aspects of one great subject; no one of us in a brief address can cover the whole truth, nor is he intended to. What each one says is not antagonistic to the other, but simply supplementary to it, and in that way we hope to get a wellrounded truth.

Undoubtedly, what the last speaker has said has found response in our hearts. It is a day in which we are rightly placing emphasis upon the social. The great ideal of Jesus, the kingdom of God on earth, is undoubtedly a social ideal, and we are trying to live together as brothers and as children of the same heavenly Father, and to make conditions here on earth such that they will naturally bring forth that kind of society.

And yet, is it not quite possible-I put the question to you that in this social emphasis we are in danger of overlooking the individual? When, for instance, we lay so much

stress upon organization; when we think, if we can only get proper committees and a large society well organized, that the machine so constructed will go on of itself quite apart from the human material directing it and the human material upon which it works, are we not in some danger of undervaluing personality? Again, when we discuss conditions rather than units, are we not overlooking the individual? When we speak of drunkenness and do nothing about the drunkard, or of white slavery and remember not the unfortunate individuals; when we discuss misery and overlook les miserables, is it not true that we forget the tree in contemplation of the forest? And not alone when we overlook the individual in contemplation of the masses we are trying to help, but also when we overlook the individual social worker, we are in danger of mistaking the point of view; for one cannot do large social service unless he himself is a large type of man. Personality will count there. Character is the chief asset of society, as it is the most potent force for making the nobler society. So at all points we must be on our guard against yielding to the temptation to overlook the individual.

There comes to my mind a parable in the Old Testament, in a book little studied to-day, "The Song of Solomon," where a person says, "They made me the keeper of the vineyard, but mine own vineyard have I not kept." Now, it seems to me that the writer, with fine sarcasm, is showing the kind of man who is devoting himself to public service of a very good sort, and yet himself is impoverished. He is doing good so feverishly, bustling about from one activity at six o'clock in the morning to another at midnight, that there has actually been no chance for poise, for personal growth, for that higher form of individualism in which we do our best work. For it seems to me only as we get the mote from our own eyes can we remedy the trouble with other people's eyes, and that he, after all, is the best public agriculturalist whose own vineyard is best cared for.

Believing in that, as we all do, we then see that we are not trying in any way to minimize the social emphasis, but only to bring out this eternal truth: the pre-eminent worth of the