2. What, then, do we seek?

a. We seek Christian ideals in politics and in the administration of public affairs. What are these? "Seek good, and not evil . . . establish justice in the gate. Let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."-- Amos. "Loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free." -Isaiah. "Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy." - Psalms. "Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor. . . . Do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow." -Jeremiah. "Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates."- Zechariah. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." - Jesus. We are the subjects of a heavenly king. "The government shall be upon his shoulder." What is the character of His government? "Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end . . . to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever." Listen to our warrant: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." This is more than a prayer — it is a commission to bring in the rule of God on earth. Politics is one of the agencies of the kingdom. It is concerned with the ways of living together in a Christian society. It is our duty to establish the Christian society, the ideals of which are righteousness and love. Do you think our society and government are yet Christian? Have we fulfilled our commission? Is the administration of public affairs Christian when a governor like Hughes is thwarted and defeated in his knightly battle for the people and honest government? Where were the Christian men who should have stood with him? Do you think our government is Christian if seats in our highest legislative body can be bought at so much apiece? Is our economic order Christian with millions on the edge of poverty while a few squander in luxurious sins what would give a cityful comparative comfort?

Far from it. Hungry thousands and exploited millions are the condemnation of our unchristian system. Poverty, suffering, and depression are not excusable or tolerable because they can be charged to defects in economic system, to our political acci

dents or to our unjust legislation. Any system which levies tribute upon the blood, bread, and opportunity of multitudes is unchristian in spirit and method. It is our duty, heroic duty, to lift up the ideal of a Christian society and go to work to establish it..

b. We want Christian men in politics. We want Christian men in the lead. They should be back of and in the caucuses and primaries and at the polls. They ought to be our leaders. Political scheming should be taken out of saloon back-rooms and conducted in schoolhouses and other public buildings. The slate-makers of criminal interests, high or low, can be put out of business when men of Christian principles take hold of political machinery. We want Christian men in politics all the way from every hamlet up to the seats of the mighty in Washington. We want our politics managed by men under the leadership of the King of kings, instead of by men under the dictation of Wall Street. We want our cities ruled by men of Christian ideals instead of Tammany's. We want men who can be independent of parties when parties are wrong. We want men fearless and sacrificial enough to hold office and administer without fear or favor; men who are willing to be poor, to be persecuted, in order that public affairs may be directed so as to promote the peace, prosperity, and happiness of all the people. We want men who are willing to work to work all the time. We want men who are willing to fight — to fight all the time for clean government and social justice.

c. Let Christian men unite. Here is the strength of evil. It is unified. Wicked men act together for selfish ends. Cannot those who are Christian act together for good ends? If we will move forward together from Maine to California, from Dakota to Texas, we can secure political integrity or anything else that is needed. Here is an ounce of loose powder. Throw a spark into it and what is the result? A flash and a little smoke. But pack it into the rifle barrel behind a bullet and then flash your spark into it! If decent men all over this country would act together, we could close the saloon and drive the liquor power out of politics, and three fourths of the crime and misery out of the land. If we would rally and act and vote together, we could drive organized vice into a corner and choke it to death. If Christian and all decent men would vote and work together,

we could drive the political crook and his millionaire boss out of politics.

Christian men ought to unite in the support of good men and good measures. Here is where we fail. Occasionally, by a spasm of enthusiasm, we elect a high-minded man to office and then leave him to fight alone. Whom is he fighting? The gang. They camp down beside him and never leave. They wait for him in the morning and dog his footsteps home at night. They seek special favors for themselves or the interests they represent. They plead, they promise, they bulldoze; they offer bribes and they threaten and they never leave him. If Christian men in Minneapolis had stood together, they might have reëlected for mayor Percy Jones, one of the knightliest men who ever entered public life. If Christian men after putting Hughes in the governor's chair had stood by him, he would not have been defeated in his fight for the people and decent politics. Now public administration loses, to the seclusion of the Bench, one of the brainiest, cleanest, most self-controlled men of our generation. Vain are spasms of public virtue that die out at the polls. Stand by your servants in city councils, legislatures, in Congress, and in public administration. It's the steady current that pulls the load, not the sudden flash that burns out the motor and leaves the car stalled half way up the hill.

d. Let us act openly. We have nothing to conceal. Our cause will commend itself to enlightened public conscience. Indeed, this is the way to develop an enlightened social conscience. Bring the battle for righteousness out into the open. Publicity for public business is the only right method. Draw the evildoers out where the people may see their hideousness. Expose their nefarious schemes and vicious designs. Seven thousand volts of invisible energy, made luminous, turns night into day. Turn on the light! It makes rats and rascals run!

Here is our platform for political integrity and social righteousness. Bring religion into politics. Purge politics of bad men and vicious methods. Restore its true dignity by giving it the ideals of the kingdom of God. Let Christian men enter political activities. Let them take office. Let decent men everywhere unite and move forward like an army with banners.

Let them act openly. Inform the public and call for public support.

Men have tried to measure and harness the mighty energy of Niagara to the wheels of industry. They mourn this "waste of power." Behold the vast potential energy of Christian manhood going to waste in this land of the free. Harness it to the machinery of government and then shall "justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."

SOCIAL EQUITIES.

GEORGE LUTHER CADY, D.D., DORCHESTER, MASS.

We speak to-day of problems, but the problems are one, the problem of an unrealized democracy. The history of social and political evolution is the history of the struggle between aristocracy and democracy, between special privilege and the common rights of all, between the men who are clothed in fine linen and fare sumptuously every day and the multitude who have nothing but the crumbs which fall from the aristocratic table. For some one has said that history divides men into two classes, those who are booted and spurred and ready to ride, and those who are saddled and bridled and ready to be ridden. The utterly pagan words classes and masses lie at the basis of all social revolutions. In every age, however worded, "Equal rights for all and special privileges to none" has been the slogan of the disinherited, and slowly they have been wresting back from special privilege their rights. It was this that forced the agrarian laws from the hands of the patricians of old Rome; it was this that wrested from the reluctant hands of John the Magna Charta; it was this that gave a "solar plexus" to aristocratic pretensions at Runnymede; it was this that fired the shot at Lexington that was heard around the world; it was this that pushed the pen of Lincoln to set a million slaves free; and it is this which is sweeping over America, forcing men out of old party lines into new, and overturning the calculations of those who thought the crown sat securely on their heads; and it is this which will necessitate the appointment of a committee on the introduction of strangers in the next Congress, and it is this which has shot the bolt into the iron grating behind the backs of many a millionaire and politician who are still trying to figure out how it all happened." That which has happened to them is what happened to Louis XV of France and George III of England and Abdul Hamid of Turkey they have struck the ever-moving tide of democracy which is crying to-day, as ever, "Special privileges to none and