INTRODUCTION

Western civilization is passing through a social revolution unparalleled inhistory for scope and power. Its coming was inevitable. The religious,political, and intellectual revolutions of the past five centuries, whichtogether created the modern world, necessarily had to culminate in an economicand social revolution such as is now upon us.

By universalconsent, this social crisis is the overshadowing problem of our generation. Theindustrial and commercial life of the advanced nations are in the throes of it.In politics all issues and methods are undergoing upheaval and re-alignment asthe social movement advances. In the world of thought all the young and seriousminds are absorbed in the solution of the social problems. Even literature andart point like compass-needles to this magnetic pole of all our thought.

The socialrevolution has been slow in reaching our country. We have been exempt, notbecause we had solved the problems, but because we had not yet confronted them.We have now arrived, and all the characteristic conditions of American lifewill henceforth combine to make the social struggle here more intense thananywhere else. The vastness and the free sweep of our concentrated wealth onthe one side, the independence, intelligence, moral vigor, and political powerof the common people on the other side, promise a long-drawn grapple ofcontesting forces which may well make the heart of every American patriot sinkwithin him.

It is realized byfriend and foe that religion can play, and must play, a momentous part in thisirrepressible conflict.

The Church, theorganized expression of the religious life of the past, is one of the mostpotent institutions and forces in Western civilization. Its favor and moralinfluence are wooed by all parties. It cannot help throwing its immense weighton one side or the other. If it tries not to act, it thereby acts; and in anycase its choice will be decisive for its own future.