for us to forget that man is, in some real sense, the goal of the whole physical universe, containing within himself the promise of endless progress. And men have dared to dream that, in this evolution, physical, individual, and social, they could even catch the trend of the ages, the direction of the mighty ongoing of God's purposes. Is thy God adequate to this evolving world?

And once more, with the emphasis of the whole of modern science on the conception of law, men look in upon themselves and out upon the universe with other eyes; for the perception of law means discernment of the ways of the universe, means, therefore, insight into its secrets, and power to use its exhaustless energies. It means insight into economic and social law, into laws of personal relations, into the modes of activity of God himself. The idea of law brings, thus, the glorious promise of world-mastery and self-mastery, of conquest of our highest ideals - hope hitherto unimagined. Is thy God adequate to this great world of law?

We men of the modern time, who live in this enlarged world, in this unified world, in this evolving world, in this law-abiding world, are forced, thus, to enlarge our conception of God and of his will, if we have not already done so, to match this greater vision of the world and of men; for we shall not long believe in a God who is not greater than his world.

And when we think of the enlarged world of our time, we shall not be able to make the measure of the will of God petty projects of any kind or order. Here is reason for hope.

And when we think of the unified world so necessary to our modern thought, we shall not be able to doubt that the will of God cannot be shut up to small fragments of life or to small fragments of the race, but

must be inclusive of all goods and of all men, and consistent throughout. Here is reason for hope.

When we think of the mighty evolving world, in the midst of which we see ourselves placed, we cannot but believe that the will of God is in it, working out great purposes that we can at least dimly discern, and in which, intelligently and triumphantly, we may share. Here again is hope.

And when we think of the will of God, laid down in the laws of nature and of human nature, we find it no longer possible to think of him as mere on-looker in the drama of life; for he is sharing in our very life, and we in his. For, in another's words, "Even the agony of the world's struggle is the very life of God. Were he mere spectator, perhaps he too would call life cruel. But, in the unity of our lives with his, our joy is his joy, our pain is his." Here, too, is hope, great and abiding.

Under these convictions, it is not too much to say, the ambitions of men to-day have taken on a titanic quality that he must be quite blind who does not see financial and economic enterprises, world-wide in their out-reach; social projects and the pursuit of social ideals that concern not one nation alone, but all nations, and that go deep down into the heart of all living; missionary movements that, in their very nature, cannot be carried out without affecting the entire personal and social life of every race touched thereby, and changing the very face of nature.

Every profession is sharing in this enlarged vision of positive achievement. The physician has begun to dream of a race physically redeemed, through the triumphs of preventive, not merely remedial, medicine. The lawyer is beginning to think he need be no mere attorney, but a servant of the public weal, put in trust with the great heritage of law. The extent

to which various callings are already holding their members, at certain points at least, to the full sweep of Christ's severest requirements-to hate one's life, to lose one's life to save it—is enough to send the blood tingling anew with hope through the arteries of this gray old world of ours. The physician, who recognizes that in his profession he has a trust from society and from God, and that he may not leave the plaguestricken town to save his own life; the locomotive engineer, or the ship captain, who knows that he must face his own endless self-contempt, as well as the contempt of his fellows, if he deserts his post, while service can be rendered-these are but examples of standards that are being rapidly extended to all callings, and to all points in all callings.

We seem to ourselves to be just awaking out of sleep, and out of dull lassitude of will. Now we see what life means. We live in an infinite world, and in that world we have our part to play. We live in a unified world, and, just on that account, we may work effects wide as the universe of God. We live in an evolving world, the direction of whose progress is not wholly hidden from us; and into the very plans of God, therefore, it is given us to enter. We live in a lawabiding world, in which God himself is immanent; and he works in us, both to will and to work of his own good pleasure. Is it any wonder that the ambitions of men of the present day, when seen thus in the large, seem to dwarf all previous aims of common men? We build again, and with eager hope, our heavenscaling tower, but on foundations laid by God himself; and the confused tongues give promise of changing into a higher harmony in the unity of the will of God.

Now, one cannot so see these mightily enlarged ambitions of men without a great deepening of this

always sufficient prayer, "Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth."

But, in order that into that prayer we may put ourselves with confidence and hope, there must underlie it that three-fold assumption of Christ, of the personal will of the heavenly Father, of the heavenly life, and of the will of God pledged to the bringing of heaven to earth. For only he can see thus greatly his own ambitions, who is able to gird and undergird his own will by faith in the eternal and all-sufficient will of God. He must know he attempts no hopeless task. And the more nearly men approach that rational, ethical democracy, which seems to be the goal of all our earthly endeavor, the more clearly will they see, in Nash's words, that "every form of polity lays a certain tax upon the will. But democracy lays the heaviest tax of all. The vital relationships into which the individual should enter are far more numerous than under any other form. And with each one of them he must go deeper. So the tax levied upon the earnest will is exceeding heavy. It cannot be paid, year in, year out, and paid with increasing gladness, unless the individual be assured that the resources of eternal good are at his back. And this certitude only possesses and pervades him when he has been made whole by trust."

He who has come into this mighty faith of Christ's in the eternal personal will of the Father, is evermore capable of mighty convictions, mighty surrenders, mighty endeavors. And in this identification of his purposes with God's eternal purpose, it must seem to him that he catches a glorious vision of sons of God, come for the first time into their heritage.

Thus conceived, the ideals and ambitions of our time are so great, that they not only are not opposed to the thought of the heavenly life, but rather culminate

Surely, he who

Dare to believe
Doubt not, as

naturally only in the immortal hope.
dares so much may well venture more.
in the splendor of the plans of God.
Browning suggests in his "Easter-Day," that far be-
yond all the exhaustless beauty of nature, past all the
wealth of art, past all the reach of "circling sciences,
philosophies, and histories,"
histories," past even all tender
ministries of human love, stretches the reach of the
will of God. These all are but the glories of "the
earth, God's antechamber."

"The wise, who waited there, could tell
By these, what royalties in store
Lay one step past the entrance door."

THE UNIVERSITIES AND THE SOCIAL

CONSCIENCE

FRANCIS G. PEABODY, D. D.*

PROFESSOR HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

The most characteristic and significant discovery of the present age is the discovery of the social conscience

the recognition, in a degree unprecedented in history, of social responsibility; the demand, with an unprecedented imperativeness, for social justice; the substitution, on an unprecedented scale, of social morality for the creed of individualism. Never in human history were so many people, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, wise and otherwise, concerning themselves with social amelioration, dedicating themselves to philanthropy, organizing for industrial change, or applying the motives of religion to the problems of modern life. It is the age of the Social Question. A new phrase, the Social Organism, becomes the description of human society. A new

*President, 1908, The Religious Education Association.