The early age of the Church has had a profound influence in fixing the ideals and aims of later times. The compulsory seclusion and confinement of the age of persecution are supposed to mark the mission of the Church. As long as the social life in our country was simple and rural, the churches, when well led, were able to control the moral life of entire communities. But as social organization became complex and the solidarity of neighborhood life was left behind, the situation got beyond the institutional influence of the churches. Evidently the fighting energies of Christianity will have to make their attack on broader lines, and utilize the scientific knowledge of society, which is now for the first time at the command of religion, and the forces set free by political and social democracy. We can not restrict the modern conflict with evil to the defensive tactics of a wholly different age. Wherever organized evil opposes the advance of the Kingdom of God, there is the battle-front. Wherever there is any saving to be done, Christianity ought to be in it. The intensive economic and sociological studies of the present generation of college students are a preparation for this larger warfare with evil. These studies will receive their moral dignity and religious consecration when they are put at the service of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. Suggestions for Thought and Discussion I. _The Natural Drift_ 1. If left alone, which way do we tend? Does a normal and sound individual need spiritual reinforcement to live a good life? 2. How do you account for the fact that the noblest movements are so easily debased? II. _Jesus and Human Sin_ 1. Did Jesus take a friendly or a gloomy view of human nature? How did the fact of sin in humanity impress him? 2. Why did he condemn so sternly those who caused the weak to stumble? Estimate the relative force of the natural weakness of human nature, and of the pressure of socialized evil, when individuals go wrong. 3. Do you agree with the exposition in the Daily Reading for the Fourth Day? Do men want to be let alone? Is this an evidence of sinful tendency? 4. What personal experiences of Jesus prompted the parable of the tares? Was the conception of Satan in Jewish religion of individual or social origin? When did it have political significance? III. _The Irrepressible Conflict_ 1. Why did Jesus foresee an inevitable conflict if the Kingdom of God was to come? Has history borne him out? 2. Does mystical religion involve a man in conflict? Does ascetic religion? Which books him for more conflict with social evil—a life set on the Kingdom of God on earth, or a faith set on the life to come? 3. What form does the conflict with evil take in our personal life? What reinforcement does the Christian religion as a spiritual faith offer us? What personal experience have we of its failure or its effectiveness?