Crowds of new phenomena are now demanding entry into the divine city of religion. There is, first of all, science, undertaking to present us with a morality conforming to the Gospel teachings, which it claims have become a dead letter. But if twenty centuries of Christianity have not transformed human nature, neither has science. Materialism and commercialism have failed just as the Church, with her spirit of exclusion and domination, has failed. The fact that all these have worked separately and in hostility to one another is perhaps the reason, for mutual understanding and respect, once established between them, might well result in a new revelation worthy of the new humanity which shall emerge from this tragic age. A superior idealism, at once religious, social and scientific, must sooner or later bring new light and warmth to the world, for a world-crisis which has shaken the very foundations of our existence cannot leave intact its logical corollary, faith, in whose vicinity threatening clouds have long been visible. As at the dawn of Christianity, the whole world has seemed to be rent by torturing doubts and by the menace of an approaching end. After having been preserved from destruction by Christ for two thousand years, it suddenly found itself in the throes of the most appalling upheaval yet experienced, with the majority of its inhabitants engaged in a murderous war. The dream of human brotherhood, glimpsed throughout the centuries, seemed to be irretrievably threatened, and once more arose the age-old question as to how the Reign of Love was to be introduced upon earth.
The present era shows other striking analogies to the early days of Christianity, as, for instance, in the democratic movement tending to establish the sovereignity of the people. But it is no longer exceptional men, like prophets, who proclaim the dawn of the age of equality, but the masses themselves, under the guidance of their chosen leaders. In the book of Enoch the Son of Man tears kings from their thrones and casts them into Hell; but this was only an isolated seer daring to predict misfortune for those who built their palaces "with the sweat of others." The old-time prophets desired to reduce the rich to the level of the poor, and a man denuded of all worldly goods was held up as an ideal to be followed. This naturally necessitated mendicity, and it was not till some centuries had passed that the Church herself became reconciled to the possession of riches. Our own age, however, desires to uplift the poor to the level of the rich, and a more generous spirit is manifested, in accordance with the progress made by the science of social reform. Still it is, at bottom, the same spirit of brotherhood, enlarged and deepened, which now seeks to level from below upwards instead of from above downwards. Distrust and suspicion are directed chiefly towards the "New Rich," products of the war, who have built up their fortunes on the ruin and misery of others, and to these might be addressed the words of Jesus to the wealthy of His time--"Be ye faithful stewards"--that is to say, "Make good investments for the Kingdom of God in the interests of your fellow-men."