10. A GREAT SPIRITUAL CRISIS

these the choicest souls of the community." This observer asks, as any one naturally would ask when confronted by facts so startling, "What is the meaning of this new phenomenon? What are the causes at work behind it?"

We are not concerned at this point with the explanations suggested by Dr. Broda. These will be considered later on; but it is pertinent here to note that he thinks "the great changes in the economic condition of the people have had great influence in this respect," thus recognizing the influence of industrialism upon religious thought.

In another important volume of the day,¹ the writers, speaking only of the nominally Christian lands, say:—

"A great spiritual crisis, which did not begin to-day, but has to-day reached its culminating intensity, troubles all the religious bodies of Europe — Catholicism, Lutheranism, Anglicanism."

We reserve the details of these great and world-wide religious movements for consideration later on, and would here merely note the undeniable fact that there are everywhere in progress religious changes of an unprecedented nature and on an unprecedented scale. Again we would ask the pertinent question, In what direction are these great currents of religious opinion setting, and what will be their final outcome?

¹ The Programme of Modernism.

THE RELATION BETWEEN ECONOMIC AND RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS

But at this point another question arises, namely, Have the industrial movements of the day any relation to, and anything in common with, the co-temporaneous religious movements? Are these movements converging? and if so, in what sort of a system or social order are they likely to eventuate? This question is one of thrilling interest and of vital importance to mankind.

If we were to interrogate those who are prominently identified with these great movements, they would, for the most part, assure us that these mighty currents of thought and action are carrying humanity forward to conditions vastly better and happier than have ever yet been experienced during its long voyage across the ocean of time. The industrial leaders generally assure us of a coming period of abounding and universal prosperity; and the religious leaders and prophets predict the happiest consequences as sure to result from the fact that religious men are everywhere laying aside old prejudices and narrow theological ideas,—ideas which were imposed upon mankind in the days when the human reason was shackled and the Bible was held to be Divine and authoritative, but which are offensive to, and have been wholly rejected by, the modern mind. To such persons the meaning of these mighty religious move-

MONOPOLY DISPLACING COMPETITION 35 ments is that mankind, in the exercise of its new-found intellectual freedom, is sweeping rapidly forward to a great unification or brotherhood, which shall embrace and blend all shades of religious opinion into one harmonious system. This is the vision which many prophets of the day are beholding with rapt attention, and are describing with glowing words.

FEATURES COMMON TO THE TWO SETS OF MOVEMENTS

The industrial movements and the religious movements, when scrutinized closely, are seen to have certain conspicuous features in common, however different the movements themselves may be in name and form. Some of these prominent features are the following:—

1. A Common Ideal—A Great Consolidation.

In both the economic and religious fields of human activity the prominent ideal is CONSOLIDATION, and the controlling impulse is to combine interests and enterprises wherever competition has hitherto existed and its harmful results have been experienced. Under the transforming influence of this ideal and this impulse, the era of fierce and wasteful COMPETITION is rapidly giving way to one of MONOPOLY.

Mr. Alexander Graham Bell, the distinguished inventor of the electric telephone, says: "We have arrived at a critical point in our history. Competition as an element in business is going out, and monopolies, which are opposed to competition, are coming in."¹

In the economic field the general method whereby this result is being accomplished is the merging of several small concerns engaged in the same industry into a single large one, and the absorption by the large concerns of smaller ones; but the failure and disappearance of small industries, without being either merged or absorbed, also contributes largely to the same end. Competition is thus in course of being eliminated, and human society is advancing rapidly, in its industrial career, towards the formation of a single vast system, a gigantic syndicate, a monstrous merger, monopoly, or "trust," which shall be worldwide in its sphere of operations, and which shall control the production, distribution, and sale of ALL commodities.

Whether or not we are prepared to believe that such a system will ever be established on earth (and most probably the effort to establish it will encounter great and perhaps even violent resistance), it is at least an undeniable fact that the tremendous industrial developments of our times are heading straight in that direction. The effort of our captains of industry, in every department of the manufacture, transportation, and selling of merchandise, is to substitute for the many concerns

¹ World's Work for March 1909.

CONSOLIDATION A RELIGIOUS IDEAL 37 which at one time competed fiercely and destructively therein, a single concern or monopoly, which shall make, transport, or sell without competition, and which shall hence "control" the particular operation, or set of operations, in which it is engaged. Indeed, this consolidation of economic interests does not stop when it has succeeded in uniting a number of enterprises once competing in a particular line of industry; but it goes on thence to the grouping together of industries not naturally related. The existence of such "Industrial Groups" of unrelated industries is one of the strange phenomena of our day; and their significance in relation to the ultimate formation of an all-embracing industrial system is very apparent.

This same ideal of Consolidation pervades the atmosphere of the great religious organizations. Indeed, the modern world of business has to a large extent imposed its standards, ideals, and aspirations upon the professing Church, and this process has been going on unobtrusively for some time past. Now, however, it is very conspicuous in its workings. The "Modernists" speak openly of the "ideals which govern the activity of THE WORLD to-day, and which are Christian in substance." Thus, in the very last place where we would expect to find it (that is, in the conservative sphere of Romanism), there is in progress an organized movement whose leaders openly avow its purpose to be to master the aspirations, ideals, and language of "the modern world, and to effect the reconciliation of the old catholic tradition therewith"; and who say of their inspiring motives, "We have come to dream of a GREAT UNIFICATION."

Dr. Broda gives it as the conclusion of his own extensive review of the entire situation, that while the new religious movements will take different forms according to the diverse needs of the various peoples, the latter will, however—

"more and more come to see that their lines of development run parallel, and be therefore induced to federate themselves into ever greater and greater unions, until at last the time must come when a single world-federation of religion, the CHURCH OF MAN, will rise out of the ruins of the ancient faiths, when the great religious crises of the world will be at an end, and the strife between the logical necessity of the modern scientific world-concept and the psychic necessity of religion will be solved in the ultimate harmonization of both."

In the religious field we may also clearly see the operation of the principle of combining or merging smaller into larger aggregates, although matters have not advanced so far in this direction in the religious as in the commercial field. Religious bodies are not