economic problems of our social and industrial order. Dean Brown, in
_The Social Message of the Modern Pulpit_, and Dr. Coffin in _In a
Day of Social Rebuilding_, have so enriched this Foundation. Moreover,
this is, at the moment, an almost universally popular treatment of
the preacher's opportunity and obligation. One reason, therefore,
for not choosing this approach to our task is that the preacher's
attention, partly because of the excellence of these and other
books and lectures, and partly because of the acuteness of the
political-industrial crisis which is now upon us, is already focused
upon it.

Besides, our present moment is changing with an ominous rapidity. And
one is not sure whether the immediate situation, as distinguished from
that of even a few years ago, calls us to be concerned chiefly with
the practical and ethical aspects of our mission, urgent though the
need and critical the pass, to which the abuses of the capitalistic
system have brought both European and American society. In this day of
those shifting standards which mark the gradual transference of power
from one group to another in the community, and the merging of a
spent epoch in a new order, neither the chief opportunity nor the most
serious peril of religious leadership is met by fresh and energetic
programs of religion in action. In such days, our chief gift to the
world cannot be the support of any particular reforms or the alliance
with any immediate ethical or economic movement. For these things at
best would be merely the effects of religion. And it is not religion
in its relations, nor even in its expression in character--it is the
thing in itself that this age most needs. What men are chiefly asking
of life at this moment is not, What ought we to do? but the deeper
question, What is there we can believe? For they know that the answer
to this question would show us what we ought to do.