Show MUST TO This Is Task Tak of Religion Today Declares sR y lliam T 1 Brown MATERIALISM IS RAMPANT GRAVEST SOCIAL AND MORAL PROBLEM IN HISTORY The Task of Religion Today was the subject taken by Rev William Thurston Brown for his hla sermon at the Unitarian church yesterday morning Rev Mr Brown covered a very broad broadfield broadfield broadfield field In I his discourse and he lie touched inti intimately intimately j I upon the th worldly condition of men and things today In part he lie said saidI I cannot conceive of a nobler or diviner service than that which challenges the Christian church of today For we are challenged by the task of lifting Into the plane of religion of quickening and In Inspiring Inspiring inspiring with an enthusiasm and hope and anda a Joy which are the very breath of reli religion religion religion gion the common employments the dally daily occupations tho the whole routine of our human world That missionary purpose which the early apostles of Christianity and their successors conceived mainly in a horizon horizontal tal geographical sense 5 nse ItIs I lt Is our business s sto to conceive in a vertical and vital sense and Instead of contemplating c kingdoms emu Ires nations or races as the objects of f our conquests we are to contemplate the whole circumference of human life and human Interests as the immediate ob object object object of our conquest No man of average Intelligence can think of the bearing which industrialism and commercialism have hae on oti the lives of men menon on their bodies s on their minds on their morals on their eon ons of the tho world rn v see seeing seeing seeIng ing that this same industrialism and corn com commercialism c m absolutely controlling human action and it does dividing society into hostile classes and everywhere making It seem as if men and women and children were w re of inferior value as compared with property and profit exercises a power In determining mens morals and even their estimate of life with which our presently conceived religion cannot compete Must Transform Materialism I 1 submit that the task of anything which may claim to stand for human ful rut fulfillment fulfillment tor for the primacy of soul oveY ov r of mind over matter must trans transform transform form that Industrialism and commercial commercialIsm Ism must completely reverse the estimate these put pul on men and make life Ufe every everywhere everywhere everywhere where first and property and profit every everywhere everywhere everywhere where distinctly second All over r our civilized world today men and women of all classes and conditions rich and poor are in the grip of a relent relentless relentless less le materialism The Tue little rise in wages here hero and there and now and then always more than balanced by a greater rise in inthe Inthe inthe the cost of Jiving and the little puny juny at ut attempts attempts tempts at profit sharing do pot touch the fringe of this religious and moral problem problem lem hem This ruthless materialism has brought upon us the gravest social and moral m ral problems the world has ever known Anything that the time of Jesus knew or dreamed of was utterly trivial compared with these And all aU this has come to pass in a world full of churches and Bibles and there is nothing In the theology which un underlies underlies most of the preaching and accounts for all that is called religion that contradicts Tor or Interferes with this rampant materialism The philosophy up upon upon upon on which practically all our religious ef effort effort effort fort has proceeded has not one intelligent or sane word to say In face race ot of the most serious problems that have confronted man since creation So long as religion Is conceived to concern the souls of men In Ina Ina Ina a future world or the rescue of a favored few In this world it must stand weak and impotent before the systematic waste of human life in this world body mind and soul |