SPIRITUAL DYNAMITE AND SOCIAL SERVICE

language, the expression and agent of
human unity and advance, and the
surest index of history as progress.
"Those matters which spring directly
from man's common reason are also those
most capable of universal application in
ameliorating his life and strengthening his
powers. The constitution and legal sys-
tem of a country-tho in these, too, uni-
fying tendencies become more and more
prominent must to the end remain dis-
tinctive and national. But the science of
biology is universal, and a new medical
treatment based upon it is at once adopted
everywhere, subject only to minor differ-
ences of race and climate, while the ap-
plications of physical science are absolutely
unrestricted in their generality. . . . There
has been for the last two hundred years
infinitely more science, more service to
mankind, more internationalism, in en-
gineering than in diplomacy."

Within the historic centuries we may

trace lines of communication which
have ensured that the heritage of knowl-
edge, sympathy and collective effort has
come down enlarged to our own day.
History is seen as progress as soon as
the growth of the common factors in
humanity is realized. Mr. Marvin's so-
ciological hope is thus phrased:

"That this growth is real-has taken place and will continue—is as demonstrable as any other fact in the world of obstruct it, is equally patent, when men life and things. That we may delay and deliberately spend life and wealth in manufacturing hatred and means of destruction against other men. But towards the future this juster estimate of the social forces of the present and the past will give us an unconquerable hope. We shall see that beneath the turmoil of conflict, the outbreaks of savagery, and the just certainty of heavy retribution,

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there are uniting forces still at work, stronger than ever in the world, and a closer texture of international unity in science, commerce, and the arts of life, which may be torn but cannot be destroyed. We shall no more believe that a great war can permanently or even long delay the onward march of the common cause and collective strength of mankind, than we can think that the loss of one or two great ocean liners will seriously check communication and transport round the globe. Science will grow and fellowship will spread. The temporary losses, the check to certain causes in certain places, will make the mass of men set their faces more firmly towards the light, and they will see that what man has achieved in the millenniums of his growth, often unconsciously, or against the odds of a hostile nature or a perverted human will, is a permanent and supreme thing, guiding and ruling us above the impulses of the individual agents or the passing hour."

T

THE QUARREL BETWEEN SUPERNATURAL AND
SOCIAL SERVICE RELIGION

O DABBLE in social service is not the real business of the church. Such work is done more efficiently by other agencies. Unless the church has supernatural spiritual aid for struggling men what excuse for existence has it? Thus sharply does Dean Bernard Iddings Bell of the Protestant Episcopal cathedral at Fond du Lac take issue, in the Atlantic Monthly, with the social service trend of what he calls neo-Protestantism. This new Protestantism is as different from the old-time Protestantism of Calvin, Luther, Knox and Campbell as their religion was different from Roman Catholic Christianity, according to Dean Bell. The extreme to which the church has been led he describes acutely:

"Time was when the success of any church was estimated according to the number of souls who humbled themselves before the heavenly Father and became citizens of that Kingdom which is eternal. Nowadays, however, when churches seek to justify their existence they tell of the number of social clubs, penny lunches for working girls, gymnasium classes, men's clubs, kindergartens, penny savings banks, children's story hours, sewing schools, manual training classes for little boys, and so forth, housed under their roofs, managed by their clergy and lay workers and financed by their people. Instead of sermons dealing with the eternal verities we are apt to hear from the pulpits of the really 'advanced' churches continual treatments of local politics, the vice question,

This attitude Dean Bell considers the
natural outgrowth of non-supernatural
beliefs: that man is by nature good,
and that the main business of the
church is to help along a natural evo-
lution which in the course of ages will
produce bit by bit a perfected human-
ity. Good as such ameliorative activ-
ities are, to the supernaturalist they
are not the church's real business. He
waxes wroth that many churches whose
real purpose is "to sow spiritual dyna-
mite and to encourage men to explode
it," should be found substituting "a
combination of inexpert sociological
teaching and usually inefficient social-
settlement activity."
might as well admire the spectacle of
Joan of Arc forsaking her place at the
head of France's armies while she de-
voted her time to mending her soldiers'
hosiery":

He says, "One

"In the opinion of the believer in supernatural religion, the imparting of spiritual assistance to man, whereby he may be transformed from a creature merely of environment, a mere product of the world, into a creature of spirituality, who shares with that Christ who overcame the world, is the true function of the church. As a cure for the sordid selfishness of man, which is the cause of all of those social festerings which 'social service' seeks to mollify, supernaturalism holds aloft a crucified Christ, despised by the world but glorified by God, murdered by the world but raised to eternal life and alive for evermore. It bids man touch his radiant personality, in prayer, in sacrament, and from Him derive strength to go out into prison reform, and so on. It used to be the world and defy it, battle with it, thought that a guild-house was an ex- master it, revolutionize it. It says to him, cellent adjunct to a church. Now it is 'Here you touch perfect humanity and quite commonly assumed that possibly a manifest divinity. Go forth, and in God's church is a right pretty thing to have at- name let your lives show it, in your feartached to a guild-house." lessness, in transcendental fire, in burn

ing love that brooks neither cant nor injustice, in revolutionary zeal.'”

The great difference in the religious world, asserts Dean Bell, is between Roman supernatural religion, both Catholic and Protestant, and natural He quesreligion, neo-Protestantism. tions whether the world of men is further along toward perfected humanity than it was four thousand years ago. That man needs supernatural grace ever to develop to the heights of personality or perfection of humanity he holds to be still at least a debatable position.

"The demand that the churches dabble in social service is not nearly so general as many of the neo-Protestant ecclesiologists suppose. There is among us today a great soul-hunger. Let the churches cease their dilettante concern with sociological minutiæ, and, as did the prophets, as did the Christ, let them once more lift their mighty voice in a cry for spiritual regeneration and revolution. Let them reason once more of 'righteousness and

temperance and judgment to come,' and it is just possible that the world, like Felix of old, will cease to yawn and begin to tremble."

On the other hand a vigorous brief for "The Social Mission of the Church" by another Episcopalian, John Howard Mellish, rector of Holy Trinity, Brooklyn, follows Dean Bell's article in The Atlantic. Here we read: “The church is shifting its basis from the Christ of tradition and heaven to the Christ of

science and social redemption. . . . Su

pernaturalism, the expectation of something or other which is to come down from the stars, should be consigned by all socially-minded men and women to

GLIMPSES OF THE SPIRITUAL POSSIBILITIES OF

the purpose of performing social service; and yet the laws of business are such that a man must render service to the community or the community will have none of him. It is 'good business' to be "Couple with the big interests the stock honest, and to play fair, and to make or

PATENT MEDICINE ALCOHOL IN THE CHURCH

sell a real commodity and at least to lead the people to believe that one is in business to serve them. If one's needs are only selfish and he is thinking only of how much more he can get out of the community than he puts back, the people will soon find it out. . . . The underlying principle of any successful business is the power to inspire confidence that just value is given for value received. And there can be no establishment of confidence aside from the spirit of the Golden Rule. If a business does not serve some social need it is uneconomic and useless and will soon be cast aside."

We sometimes forget that the dishonesties of misrepresentation are not the stock in trade of successful business; they are the resort of the unsuccessful. And this minister cites many

checks upon the abuse of power: "Busi-
ness itself has made rules for its own
protection, the State has made laws to
protect the small competitor and the
common man, workmen have organized
for collective action, and, more potent
than all, public opinion has changed so
that no modern man will dare to say,
'I shall do what I please with
my busi-
ness.' All forms of business are being
regarded as public service."

263

a man has a genius for business let him think of that as a call to a field of activity in which he can help many to find a larger, richer life. . . . Religion is imbedded in all ideal striving, in all disinterested striving, for all such striving implicates faith in something beyond the immediate. . . . When men understand that a religious life is not something different from the good life, but is just living it more abunBusiness ideals of democratizing in- dantly, straightway they will become dustry to conserve human values, to- more religious. .. They may have gether with the scientific demand for dropped away from the church," says perfection in the quality of what is Dr. Strayer, "but it was only because produced (note the corresponding re- the program of the church has not ligious demand and quest for reality) been big enough and heroic enough to do not leave business men far from the captivate their imagination and hold kingdom, according to Dr. Strayer. "If their allegiance."

J

ALCOHOL IN PATENT MEDICINE PRECIPITATES A
METHODIST CHURCH CONTROVERSY

OHN A. PATTEN, chairman of the book committee of the Methodist Episcopal Church, said to have occupied the most influential position, officially or otherwise, of any layman in the church, has resigned in view of attacks upon him as president of the Chattanooga Medicine Company. The book committee is the important supervisory body of Methodist publishing interests. The medicine company makes and sells Wine of Cardui, a woman's tonic. Mr. Patten has begun legal proceedings for libel against The Journal of the American Medical Association (Chicago) for the criticisms which were first made by that publication and against Harper's Weekly, which has also attacked him. His resignation from the book committee and other general church boards is made to relieve the church of embarrassment pending the justification he seeks in the courts.

The medical journal charged that Wine of Cardui "is a vicious fraud, that the business is a public nuisance, and that its exploitation has been vicious and fraudulent," that the advertising was "vile, loathsome and indecent,' and that the medicine belonged to that class known as "bracers," "booze" or "tipple." It was argued that its chief sponsor should not be permitted to head the big business of the Methodist Church. Harper's Weekly returns to its attack, which is made not so much because of the amount of alcohol in the preparation, as because Mr. Patten, so it claims, "was preying upon the fears of the womanhood of the country, alarming young girls and terrifying wives through newspaper advertizing that was as false as the nostrum it exploited. Expert analysis reports that the essential drug in Wine of Cardui is alcohol and that it is the only

drug demonstrably present in sufficient
quantities to give any appreciable ther-
apeutic effect. Yet this advertizing
in bold disregard of the decencies, lays
bare every detail of female ailment,
sex mystery and sex relations, and
blandly promises miraculous remedial
effects."

Many columns in the various Chris-
tian Advocates published by the Meth-
odist Church under the authority of the
book committee are devoted to reviews
of "The Patten Case." Within the
church it took the early form of ex-
onerating reports by official investigat-
ing committees, accusations by unsatis-
fied critics that the church press was
muzzled because columns were not
opened to submitted articles, and lastly
the raising of a specific issue by thirty
members of the Illinois conference, in-
cluding seven district superintendents,
one theological professor in one of
Methodism's largest schools, one presi-
dent of a prominent Methodist college,
and other pastors of leading Methodist
Episcopal churches. The issue is stated
thus:

"The question for the Methodist Episcopal Church to decide is whether it desires in place of high leadership a man who is selling a medicine consisting of one-fifth pure alcohol; nay, more, who is urging through large advertizing the buying of this medicine. The outcome of the suit has nothing to do with the answer of the Church to this question.

"Even if he (Mr. Patten) should gain the suit and recover $300,000, it would not change in the least degree the fact that he has been making money by encouraging the use of a so-called remedy which contains twenty per cent. alcohol-an amount of alcohol double the amount contained in champagne, or three times the amount contained in the heaviest beer sold in the market."

Mr. Patten defends the legitimacy of

his business, says the character of advertizing has been modified since he came into control, and declares that by repeated experiment it was found that 20 per cent. of alcohol was the least amount which would preserve the therapeutic qualities of other ingredients. He further claims that the medicine is intrinsically unfit as a beverage.

The Northwestern Christian Advocate (Chicago) says:

"A very pertinent inquiry, and one which must be understood, is: In what situation does the church find itself as a result of Mr. Patten's voluntary withdrawal? The issue has been greatly simplified by Mr. Patten's action in withdrawing from official position in the church. The signatories of the communication published last week used Cardui as a text to propound a general question as to the church's attitude on patent or proprietary medicines of large alcoholic content, sold indiscriminately, persistently used and administered upon self-diagno

sis. The editor of the Northwestern does not feel called upon to step beyond that phase of the question. But that question has been brought squarely before the church. The men who were back of the Illinois deliverance have disentangled this question from the claimed libelous fea

tures of the case and hold it before the church for an answer. That answer must be forthcoming irrespective of the outcome of the approaching libel proceedings.

That is why the Methodist ministers of Chicago, on the morning of February 8, adopted unanimously a deliverance pledging themselves to a definite propaganda of enlightenment in this matter."

The Western Christian Advocate (Cincinnati) takes a similar position, quotes certain percentages of alcohol prescribed for compounds by the United States Pharmacopoeia, and says:

"The church, like the Anti-Saloon

League, is pledged to the abolition of the beverage liquor traffic, but that has not been understood to outlaw the maker or seller or buyer of liquid medicinal preparations which can only be prepared and preserved with alcohol.

"However, a satisfactory judgment in the subject is not easily obtained. Indeed, science and ethics would seem, at least to some minds, to stand in open opposition. In order to be consistent on one side by the exercize of private judgment,

we are liable to compromize ourselves on another side. The question cannot be settled categorically. Accredited authority must be relied upon when the individual cannot form his own judgment on technical subjects."

The Central Christian Advocate (Kansas City) comments in part as follows:

"Personally, we do not believe in selfmedication-but millions of people do.

Men and the medical profession judge medicines 'by their fruits.' Regular physicians prescribe Wine of Cardui. Our point is, we do not believe in prescribing for oneself. First the doctor, then the drug store.

"We do not believe in a medicine with a strong alcoholic base. The twenty per cent. of alcohol in Wine of Cardui means under two-thirds of a teaspoonful of alcohol in every so-called tablespoonful of Wine of Cardui. . . . Would it accord with sound therapeutics to reduce the percentage of alcohol when everybody knows that, throughout the whole range of our pharmacopoeia, the amount of alco

hol used is arbitrarily determined by the

character of the drug. Check this up by

your nearest pharmacist.
however, is as stated.

Our position,

"We disapprove absolutely of advertizing methods which are improper. At the same time, will anyone furnish a specimen of proprietary medicine which is not accompanied with matter which interprets diagnosis? Is not such printed matter implied in the fact that the medicine is sold without a physician's prescription? Wine of Cardui is prepared for certain complaints. What else than those complaints can it touch in its printed matter?

"We disapprove of its flamboyant advertizing. But if Wine of Cardui is the poor man's medicine, if it is a valid prescription, to advertize it as widely as possible is regarded by some as a boon. The question involved should be carefully and

fully weighed and then decided. This is the conclusion to which reason and fair play impel us, and it is the conclusion which it would seem would influence the world, certainly the church, before the guillotine is brought into action.”

The New York Christian Advocate, the most prominent of the Methodist church papers, handles the case editorially under the caption "For Thoughtful Consideration" as follows:

"Elsewhere in this issue we present documents bearing on the business of John A. Patten, who has proffered his resignation from the 'general church positions' which he has been occupying. These communications provide a sufficient basis for arriving at a sober judgment concerning the relation of this case to the interests of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which is the only aspect of the matter which can with propriety be discussed in the denominational press while Mr. Patten's several libel suits are pending in the courts. We assume that our readers are intelligent enough to form an opinion on this subject without editorial advice."

S

SOME GENTLE MEDITATIONS ON THE SUBJECT
OF VOTES FOR WOMEN

TATES like New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, where votes on constitutional amendments this year will determine whether suffrage is to be extended to women or not, are flooded with statistics and arguments pro and con. Both vocal and printed pleas reassemble and reiterate the fighting claims of advocates and opponents familiar to those who have followed previous campaigns elsewhere. At such a time of strenuous agitation our attention is attracted by a call to meditation. It is addressed to "the American gentlewoman" and comes in the subtle disarming form of good humor characteristic of the author of "The Gentle Reader," Samuel McChord Crothers.

The "table of matters" on which we are asked to meditate by this little volume of "Meditations on Votes for Women" (Houghton, Mifflin Co.), offers, instead of chapter titles, such bits of food for thought as these:

"That women have existed since the beginning of the human race, and that they have always taken part in human development .

"That theories are sometimes several sizes too large for their practical applications.

"That equal suffrage is not the first step in an impending revolution, but only a necessary adjustment to the results of a revolution that has already happened "That the driving power of the move

ment for equal suffrage is not Femi- the argument. To change sides, as he nism but democracy .

"That agitators sometimes deliberately
endeavor to make themselves disagree-
able and that they frequently succeed
beyond their expectations.

points out, is an awkward and perilous. maneuver, like changing seats in a canoe. In order to preserve the equilibrium of the discussion we must keep our original place. On the other hand, in meditation we are free to consider one side and then the other without embarrassment:

"If we change our opinion because the weight of evidence has shifted there is no one to exult over us and make us ashamed. If we recognize that we have been mistaken in our assumptions there is no one to say 'I told you so.' We

"That in dealing with high-spirited people
we should remember that the question
of right must always be settled before
a question of expediency is considered
"That husbands have some political rights
that their wives are bound to respect
"That a voter does not vote all the time,
but is allowed a number of days off in
order to attend to his private business.
"That these meditations do not remove
the weighty practical difficulties in the quietly make the necessary adjustments
to ever-changing reality, and go on with
way of woman suffrage .
our business of thinking. We are not re-
quired to reach any predetermined con-
clusions.

"That most women do not take large and
disinterested views of public questions
"That most men including crowned

...

"When we meditate we sometimes change our minds. This is a beneficent achievement, for it renders it unnecessary for us to spend all our strength in attempting to change the order of the universe and the whole direction of human progress, in order to get a sense of the fitness of things."

Extension of the right of suffrage to women, Dr. Crothers observes, seems to offer peculiar enticements to controversialists. "So much can be said for and against it, and so easily." Moreover, “a citizen who gets the notion that the Woman Peril threatens to overwhelm all things holy may see it smiling at him across the tea-table." Hence

MEDITATIVE OBSERVATIONS OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE