The early church began among the very poor; and all through the Apostolic Age the slave and the owner, the poor man and the rich man, met on the plane of equality. There was only one interest for all and that was the life of the Master. It is said that Napoleon and several of his aides were one day walking along the country road. They met a peasant carrying a load of fagots who did not get out of the path as quickly as one of the emperor’s companions thought he should, so stepping up to the rustic he took him by the shoulders and started to push him out of the way. “Stop,” said Napoleon, motioning to his companions to step out of the road while he did the same. “Messieurs, let us respect the burden, even if you do not respect the man.” In the community there are a multitude of burden bearers. The church must be filled with the desire to do what it can to improve the conditions in the community life, and to add to the good of all the people, so that the community relationships will no longer be regarded as matters of indifference to be taken up or laid aside without faithfulness to the gospel. The success of the church must be measured in terms of the community life. [Illustration: Board of Home Missions. Church Extension. Methodist Episcopal Church. The Church of All Nations, Boston, provided a sleeping place in its hall for over five hundred of the unemployed in the winter of 1915.] =Inspiration for Social Effort.= The church is not merely a reform agency. It is not primarily interested in housing, ventilation, sanitation, and labor questions, but is completely interested in the moral aspects of these questions, and their effect upon the life of the community and the life of the individuals in the community. Any church which fails to educate its members to look at all such matters from the moral point of view, and fails to make effective the principles of Jesus in relation to the social life of the community, is falling far short of its duty. It is no wonder that the men and women who are struggling with the evils of society grow impatient with the churches that do not undertake to help humanity. One worker expresses it thus: “The trouble with all social effort is that we have no inspiration for the task. The churches that should be helping us by supplying this inspiration are apparently afraid to take hold of the job.” This is too sweeping a criticism, for there are hundreds of churches that are doing just this thing.