the man who possesses the wealth-tool cannot be allowed to use it or even to brandish it in such fashion as to endanger the unfolding of human ideals. It is only through the enforcing of these ideals that the Scriptures can be adequately apprehended. Until a social kingdom of God comes on earth the light of revelation cannot shine in its full brightness. Any social preacher of larger human rights is working for the dawn of a new day of biblical understanding. Some one will ask, however, why we single out one type of evil as especially thwarting the understanding of a biblical revelation. Why not speak of the evils of appetite and of envy and jealousy? The answer is that such evils, devastating as they are toward the spiritual faculties, are so definitely personalized in individuals that their nature is quickly recognized. The difference is that under present organization the evils of materialism are preeminently social. There is everywhere the heartiest condemnation for the man who personally is conspicuously greedy. A social evil can manifest itself in outstanding startlingness in a single person, but the plain fact is that under modern industrial organization we are all caught in the same snare. We are all tarred with the same stick. Great as is the improvement of our present system over anything that has preceded it, nevertheless the distribution of this world's goods is so unequal that we walk in the presence of injustice on every hand. The poor man often does not receive the product of his own work. Large material prizes go to men who toil not. Now no one in particular is to blame for this social plight. Nobody has yet arisen to show us the way out. We cannot act except as we all act together; and it is doubtful even if one nation could act alone. If, however, we should all recognize the evils of the present system, if we should condemn the wrongs of that system instead of trying to justify them, we would be on much better spiritual ground, for the attempts to justify the system lead to uneasy consciences, and to the searing of those consciences, and to the softening down of harsh truths, and finally to an inability to see things as they are. Though we have come far along the path toward industrial justice, there is still very much in the system under which we live that makes for an inability to understand some of the most elementary phrasings of Christian truth. The only way out is to see the system as it is and to take such steps forward as can be taken now. Only thus can we keep our souls saved, and only thus also can we follow the flashes from above.