Twenty-five years ago the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions was just beginning, and a Social Service Commission for the churches would have been considered as something having no part in the churches’ work. In fact, at that time the men who were the prophets of the new social order were looked upon as dangerous leaders. There were only a few books that dealt with the social aspects of the teachings of Jesus, and these were theological and theoretical rather than practical. At that time institutional churches were novelties, and the efforts that were being directed toward the solution of the social questions by the church were very often efforts in the wrong direction. The institutional church was not a complete success because it attempted to do for people instead of inspiring people to do for themselves. The institutional church and the modern socialized church have the same relationship to each other as the old alms-giving societies have to the modern charitable organizations. Legislation in the interests of women and children was considered totally out of the realm of Christian interests. “The church was put in the world to save souls and not to dabble in politics,” was a favorite definition of the church’s sphere. There was little church unity or coordination of effort. The churches were more busy fighting each other than they were fighting the common foes of the community. There were only one or two professors in our theological seminaries who were teaching sociology, and of one of these men an eminent authority in the church of that time said: “He ruined a lot of good ministers and made a lot of poor socialists by turning the attention of the young men who came under his teaching to merely humanitarian interests.” The church leaders knew nothing about the labor movement; in fact, at that time, the modern labor movement as represented in the American Federation of Labor was just beginning to gain strength. The church made no special efforts to interpret the spirit of Christ in terms of international relationship.