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ciples of Jesus Christ if they are indifferent to this call. And they can not meet this responsibility unless they unite. This is the summons to the organization of the municipal church, which must include all who call themselves Christians. Something which might thus be described ought to exist in every Christian community. The responsibility of this body for the care of the needy and the helpless can not be gainsaid. No creed is needed for such an organization; it should be simply " the union of all who love in the service of all who suffer." (4) In many communities the nucleus of such an organization already exists. There is a " Federation of the Churches," or a " United Brotherhood," which holds occasional union meetings, but sometimes finds it hard to justify its existence. Let it envisage this task. Let it assume the responsibility for the philanthropies of the city. (5) When it is manifest that the churches are united for this purpose, it will not be difficult to bring the local charities into cooperation. Most of the workers in these local charities are members of the churches and they will recognize the right of the municipal church to take charge of this business. Thus the entire field would be covered, every section of the city would be supervised, and the work would be so divided among the churches and the other organizations that there would be no overlapping, and no failure to reach and relieve cases of real need. (6) The administration of outdoor relief would thus be made intelligent and adequate; the churches by uniting would recover for themselves that sacred and vital function which through their divisions they have so largely permitted to lapse, and they would regain the opportunity of exercising that friendship which is the primary reason for their existence. How- greatly this would strengthen their hold upon those portions of the community which are now largely alienated from them needs not to be said. The financial burden, if all the churches shared it, would be very light; the actual amount of money needed for the relief of want in American communities is not large; the help that is needed is moral, rather than material. Every poor family needs a friend, and in the majority of cases the less there is of financial assistance the better for all concerned. (7) This municipal church would also put itself into closest sympathetic relations with all the voluntary philanthropic institutions of the city which are studying these problems, and seeking to make their service more intelligent and efficient. All these institutions are dependent on the churches, and there is great need that their relation to the churches be made more vital and organic. The municipal church would have a committee in charge of the interests of each one of them, watching its work, giving sympathetic counsel and support, and reporting its needs to the churches. (8) The municipal church would also establish helpful relations with the municipal charitable and reformatory institutions, with hospitals, children's homes, work-houses, juvenile courts, jails, and prisons. Over all the unfortunate in these places it would exercise a watchful care. There would be an efficient committee over each of them observing the conditions, studying the problems,

and keeping the Christian community thoroughly informed respecting them. It is not to be assumed that this supervision of public institutions would be necessarily critical or inquisitorial; it would normally be sympathetic and helpful; it would only seek to bring the good-will of the Christian community into close and practical relations with some of its neediest members.

It is a deplorable fact that the organizations which represent Jesus Christ in our modern communities have no methods of keeping themselves in touch with the inmates of these public charitable and correctional institutions. They have passed all that business over to the State, and have divested themselves of responsibility for it: It is a faithless performance. In that impressive parable of the judgment the Son of man arraigns those who are brought before him, because, as he says, " I was sick and in prison and ye visited me not . . . . Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it not to me." Until the Christian Church in every city or town has put itself into relations of practical friendship with all these classes, it is resting under a heavy condemnation.

Such are some of the pathological phases of the philanthropy which the Christian Church in the modern community may be expected to practise.

But the true philanthropy is not 6. The merely remedial. It seeks to discover

only a message of redemption but also a message of regeneration. It must cleanse the sources from which want and sickness and vice are flowing. It is futile to go on relieving all these social maladies and leave untouched the causes which constantly produce them. And the municipal church, when it has once fairly grappled with its great tasks, will feel that its most important work, after all, is to give us a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. (1) It will discover that the sickness and physical debility to which it is trying to minister are in considerable part the result of bad housing-conditions, of unsanitary tenements and overcrowding, and it will turn the light on these conditions and stir up a public sentiment which shall abolish nuisances and pestilence-breeders, and secure healthy habitations for the people. (2) It will bring home to the Christian conscience of the community the fact that in most of our cities multitudes of children have no accessible playgrounds but the streets, and that the conditions there surrounding them are unfavorable to the development of sound character. Abundant evidence shows that the streets are the seminaries of vice and crime. Little that is normal in the life of a child is permitted in them; the tendency of the associations of the street is toward that which is abnormal and criminal. Safe and wellregulated playgrounds are a vital need of city boys and girls and far less costly than the reform schools to which so many of them are later sent. A few intelligent men and women have discovered the importance of this provision and are working to