inform these with that spirit. This alone means the full rule of God in his life.

Considering the scope of God's kingdom, we note next that God's rule is not limited to individual life. As a matter of fact, there is no such thing as a purely individual life with man. There is, of course, individual consciousness and individual responsibility, but our actual life is always lived in relations. It is not simply that man has duties to his fellows; the social fact is larger than that. A large part of human life, covering man's highest experiences, is not possible to the individual as such at all; it is lived by men together. We have emphasized in evangelical circles the Christian life as an inner experience and as a direct relation to God. That is all needful, but quite as significant is the life which men lead not as individuals but as groups. Work, play, love, and worship (What Men Live By, Dr. Richard C. Cabot calls them in the title of his fine work)—these activities at their best and highest all belong to men in groups. They are expressed in friendship, family, community, church, industry, and all the narrower and larger forms of political life. These are man's real life,

Now, the rule of God

not something external to it. must extend to these just as truly as to that part of human life which is expressed in a mystical experience or an offered prayer. We easily forget that the Old Testament is almost wholly concerned with the group and the group life, set forth here in the people Israel. And we forget that this group life of Israel, with which law and prophets are concerned, included industry and state as well as worship. Human life is not yet sanctified if men remember God when each prays alone and

forget to inquire his will when they plan and work together.

Two errors must be avoided here. It is wrong to suppose that if all individuals were to become Christians, then our social life would at once be Christian and all our problems be solved. What endless examples we have had of Christian nations that suffered grievous evils, and suffer them still, and of "good men" who have been slow to see what was unbrotherly and unrighteous and unjust in the business which they shared and the social order which they supported. Such men and nations are not forthwith to be called Pharisees and hypocrites. They are Christian, but still in the making. It is not a simple matter to see what the will of God means for all the complex life of our modern day, for health, for education, for industry, for government. And it is harder still in patient toil and experiment, in subjection of self and large-hearted cooperation to embody the will of God in the social institutions of humanity.

The second error, which also we found in premillennial circles, is that "gospel salvation is purely individual.” "Regeneration," says Dr. Griffith Thomas, "is never used in the New Testament in connection with society, but always and only in regard to the individual" (Christian Workers Magazine, October, 1916). As a matter of fact, the word occurs but twice in our English Bible, and the one reference in the Gospels (Matt. 19. 28) is clearly not to the individual, but to the world as a whole. But such questions are not settled by verbal references. The simple fact is that human life, if it is to be saved at all, must be saved in its various social relations and

institutions, for it is in these that it lives. The "spirituality" which supposes that a man's "soul" is an entity that can be saved by itself and apart from all this life is alike intellectually shallow and morally false. We need to-day the Christian man who will face the fact that he is a part of this human society, of this industrial order which means oppression or justice, of this state which wages selfish war or stands for righteous peace, of this nation which knows no end but its own profit and glory or which bears with patient strength its share of the burden that there may be a new world order. These sins are our sins, these tasks our tasks. For the sins we must pray the forgiveness of God, for the tasks we must have his help. The new life can come only as he gives that life. And this is social redemption. For all these institutions and relations there is a will of God and a help from God as truly as for my individual life. Each day we are seeing it more clearly: these questions are at bottom all of them moral questions. The principles of Jesus which command our individual conscience to-day must rule these relations to-morrow. The technical task may be difficult in industry or international relations, but the guiding ideals are clear. Reverence for humanity, a passion for justice, a spirit of service, a sense of solidarity, a will to work together-this is the world's way of life, and this is the spirit of Christ. And here, as everywhere else, salvation is at once the gift of God and the task of man.

THE KINGDOM AS A NEW AND FREE HUMANITY

In its highest meaning, then, the kingdom of God on earth is God's moral control of human life not by outer

compulsion but through the freedom of an indwelling spirit. The rule of God, which begins with the law of necessity in the natural world, becomes in this human world just God's gift of himself, with the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling presence of God, as its very heart. On God's side it thus becomes inseparable from redemption, and, indeed, coextensive with it. For redemption is simply displacing the sway of evil with the presence and power of a higher life. Or we may compare this growing rule of God with his work of creation. A traditional theology has made the work of creation end with the existence of a physical universe. It were better to call this its beginning. As a matter of fact, we have learned to see that physical creation is itself a process, not the work of a moment but of long ages in which God has been pouring his life into the world and steadily realizing his purpose. If, now, we look at humanity we must use the same words. You may call it redemption or creation: God has been making a human race. He has been giving himself to it; he has been pouring his life into humanity. Where truth has appeared in man's mind, where love has come into his heart, where righteousness has come to rule his life, there God's creation has appeared. And creation is always the same, a giving of life, God pouring his own life into the world. What Paul says of the individual Christian in calling him a new creation (2 Cor. 5. 17, margin), that we say of the new world of God's kingdom which is coming on earth.

One word more must be added. Always it must be remembered that this new world, which from God's side we have called kingdom, creation, or redemption, is

in every part man's life just as truly as it is God's gift. That must be made clearer later, but needs this reference now. It is through and through moral life. God's control is not external, God's gift is not some external force, some thing that is not ourselves. It is not repression of human life, but man's life at its highest: man's vision of truth, his discernment of duty, his confident trust, his free obedience, his loyalty and love and passion for righteousness. The Spirit of God in man becomes the new man. The new world is the new humanity.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE OUTER WORLD One of the elements in the Old Testament view of the coming day of God's rule is that it will bring a transformed earth. Not only will there be abundance of harvests, but nature herself will be transformed. Waste places will become fertile, desert lands will be transformed by springs and streams of water. The beasts will lose their ferocity and will dwell together in peace, and man will enjoy length of life (Isa. 11. 6-9; 35; 65. 17-25; Ezek. 47. 6-12). Have these elements any place in the Christian hope?

We must say, first of all, that the underlying principle here is wholly sound. It is the same principle that we express to-day in the thought of the unity of life. It is a mistaken spirituality which professes indifference to physical conditions. Unwholesome physical surroundings are a drag upon spiritual development. Wrong conditions of toil are a threat to all higher progress. When a man's work is marked by long hours and a dreary monotony of toil, the tendency will be to find diversion in unwholesome excitement or