The world of dollars is more real to one, not because of any intrinsic quality in dollars, but because of a relation to dollars which this man sets up by his own valuation-reaction toward them. In precisely the same way, the painting gets another kind of reality for another kind of man. So it falls out that what the world shall mean to us depends upon what we make it mean. We are not passive beings upon whom the world merely stamps itself; we are part-creators of the world; the world is in process of becoming; it is plastic. There is no statue in yonder mass of clay, we say; and yet the clay becomes a statue to him who knows how to make the proper reaction. What is this world, we ask; and the real answer that each one of us makes lies in our effort to mould the world into some ideal form. This is not to deny that there is some kind of reality in electrons and ions, in radium and helium, and the other elements. There is some kind of reality there, and it has its own way of going on whether we will or no. Nevertheless, there is nothing final for us in the physical universe unless we choose to take it as final. A scientific man is never forced by his science to be a materialist. If he stops with mere matter, it is because he chooses to stop there. He might make other demands than those of the laboratory; he might institute moral and spiritual experiments, he could always strive to penetrate into things a little deeper. If he stops with the physical aspect of the world it is because he will stop there, not because the facts require him to do so.

I am talking, of course, of faith, and I am hoping to make clear the ancient statement that faith gives substance to things hoped for, it makes that our real world. The Gospel message is first of all a call to have faith, that is, to adopt as our active, working attitude and policy the standpoint of the highest moral and spiritual values, and this message grows directly out of what Jesus was; it grows out of His practice primarily. For Jesus had senses with which to perceive physical things; He had desires by which to appreciate pleasure, and power, and all that wealth can buy; He had feelings that were touched, Oh how keenly! by the suffering and sin of the world that makes so many men doubt whether there is a good God. Jesus had and felt all this, but He had strength of will to demand a better world. He would not accept the world of mere things, and the world of evil and pain as final, and He would work to abolish it. He dared risk the working assumption that the best conceivable is practicable, and that our highest needs express the innermost nature of reality. So, He looked up and said "Father," and He looked upon narrow, unspiritual, selfish men and said "Brother." Do you say that these things were real to Him because He enjoyed a peculiar mode

of intercourse with God? Do you fancy that He could not doubt as we can? Yet, if we may trust the record, He did doubt, for He cried, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" and there is every reason to suppose that He described His own experience when He declared that the way to know the truth is first to will to do God's will. No, the kingdom of God was real to Him primarily, because He took life that way and went to work on that principle.

Precisely this is the issue between faith and unfaith - not what we think of the Bible, not what we hold regarding the doctrine of the Trinity, not what we think of the church, but whether we will take as our real world the kingdom of God and then go to work to make it effective. This is the message as far as it has to do with faith in Jesus or in His message. We have faith in Him whenever we join Him in taking the kingdom of God as our real world, and membership in the kingdom as our real life.

But what is this kingdom of God? It is primarily the fellowship of all who make love the principle of their life, a fellowship that includes both God and men, both this life and that which is to come.-Thou shalt love God; thou shalt love men; where love is, there is God, for God is love- that is the whole story. Work it out into details and apply it to any concrete situation, and there you have the kingdom of God; there the gospel is accepted and believed in. Where this is not, there faith is lacking, there the name of Christian is out of place, no matter what else may be there. This is the simple center of Jesus' own life and of His desire for us. Possibly, as some hold, He had an idea that the kingdom was shortly to be set up through some cataclysmic stroke out of the sky, just as His countrymen believed that the Messiah would come. But if so, this was nothing more than the incidental form of His great idea. However the kingdom comes upon the earth, whether it comes down like a sudden shower from the sky, or whether it grows up like a mustard seed, its nature as a fellowship of those who love is precisely the same.

This, then, is the content of the good news: God the Father, whose care extends even to sparrows and field lilies, Who holds no grudges, Who finds the reality of His life in the society of those who love; every man God's child simply because the Father loves him so; the duty and privilege of every man to put in his life where Jesus and his Father put in theirs, namely, in building forward the kingdom of love. This is the everlasting content of the message. It is adapted to childhood and to manhood, to lower races and higher races, to family life, to social life, to industrial and economic life, to international relations. It is the message

for a world of sin. For where will you find a law so self-evidencing, so inexorable, so searching, so rebuking to every sin as the law of love? Where will you find a motive for repentance as strong as that which grows out of the contrast between love in the life of God and of men and all that is involved for one's self and for others in self-will and self-indulgence? What can so transform the life as just the consciousness that somebody finds us worth loving and trusting?

This is the everlasting message; but what is its special point of contact with the men of to-day? I answer, the new sense of humanity that is taking possession of men's minds. Men are coming to feel that humanity is the one thing really worth while in this world-not a part of humanity, but the whole of it; not a royal family or a favored class; not my political party as against the whole people; not my nation as against other peoples; not even my precious self, but humanity. I do not foresee or fear any such revolution as some persons foretell, but I do foresee a redistribution of power, a redistribution of the control of the material conditions of existence, and a shift of emphasis in legislation, all in the interest of humanity. I believe that these changes are as inevitable as that the race should continue to progress at all, and I believe, further, that the present task of Christianity is to lead this humane impulse to its true goal. That impulse will find its ultimate meaning, its final outcome, just where Jesus found a meaning in life, in a divinehuman fellowship that includes all the means of existence, all the institutions of society, all that is meant by time and by eternity.

The Gospel can interpret this movement to itself, and lend it the power of the greatest moral conviction that ever took possession of men. Let us not think that the Gospel consists in a "don't," or that its primary function in this time of agitation is to cool down the people. The Gospel is nothing of the kind. It is first of all a great positive principle which is bound to reconstruct society, bound to produce changes in the distribution and application of power which will give effect to the people's revolt against special privilege and against the exploitation of the many in the interest of the few. It does not command us to submit, or to wait, but to take a hand in the forward movement.

What would happen if the institutions that call themselves Christian should accept this view of the message of Jesus for our day, and should uncompromisingly espouse the cause of humanity in all its industrial, social, and political phases? Perhaps some of these institutions would quickly become poor, even like Him who had not where to lay His head; perhaps they would lose half or more of their members; undoubtedly many individuals in official position would suffer martyrdom in some

of its modern forms; very likely the world would say, See how Christianity is failing, just as it was said to Jesus, "Physician, heal thyself"; yet, for all that, might not one hope that, even through humiliation, suffering, crucifixion by the powers that be, the followers of Jesus would obtain a double portion of His own power to save?

OUTLINES ON LIFE PROBLEMS

(Suggested Bases for Round Table Discussions.)

WALTER M. WOOD

MANAGER OF INSTITUTIONAL WORK, THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF

CHICAGO

INTRODUCTION

Groups of Outlines.

The twenty-four outlines are presented in two distinct groups. The first twelve outlines, of a distinctly religious nature, suggest a progressive discussion of a Young Man's Inquiry into Christianity, while the second twelve, more of an educational nature, suggest the discussion of Problems of Personal Progress, and may be used as a consecutive series of twelve, or as two independent series of six each. If the second series is thus divided, outlines I. to VI., inclusive, may be used under the captions, "Personal Habits," or "Factors in the Successful Life." Outlines VII. to XII., inclusive, under the caption, "A Working Man's Means of Growth."

Nature of Material.

Every outline, as submitted in its final form, is the result of its actual use by the author from three to twenty times as the basis of formal addresses, shop talks or round table discussions. No pretence is made that the outlines as stated give either a comprehensive or a necessarily accurate treatment of the various subjects. They do reflect the author's personal judgment and magnify the things that popular approval seems to have indicated as most acceptable and profitable.

Method of Use.

Life problems should be given a free round table discussion under a well balanced leader and no single statement or view concerning any topic should be pressed as the final truth by one who assumes the role of an authoritative teacher. The outlines here given are therefore to be used not as lessons to be taught or learned, but as the basis of a brief introductory statement by the leader to be followed by round table discussion based on the general questions suggested for use with each outline, or the leader's introductory statement may be omitted and each member of the group with the outline and questions in hand may proceed at once to discussion.