Regeneration Conversion—Reformation 3 7 Christianity. The Buddha was a reformer. Confucius was a reformer. Zoroaster was a reformer. Mahomet was a reformer. Kings and priests have been reformers, while knowing nothing of the life of God in the human soul. A Christian man is a reformed man, though his reformation may be far from com plete and may need a great many reforming impulses. The most glaring and fatal mistake in the religious world today is the effort to reform men and reform society by making the reformation a substitute for regeneration. The social life of today is full of devices and expedients for bettering the physical condition of individuals, families and communities, while yet the soul-life is untouched. Human devices are taking the place of the Divine ideal, and those who cannot reach the inner life are contenting themselves, if they can reach and better the outer life, the mere incident of being. We have civic organizations without number, each of which has for its highest object the betterment not simply of worldly conditions, but of the character of the brotherhood. An argu ment for the existence of many of these organizations is that they may make better men by reason of the confidence and fraternity secured by the contact effected, by the oaths and vows taken, and by the cultivation of the social life. A will ingness to learn and to receive instruction is a condition of initiation into the order. That reformatoiy agencies are good and accomplish good is not denied. Each has its good points and helps to elevate the tone of society in the aggregate. But a fatal mistake is in the notion that the elevation of society, the eliminating of its miseries, is conducive to a religious life and promotive of Christianity. Perhaps the greatest hindrances to the con quest sought by Christianity today, in civilized and nominally Christian countries, are the various agencies intended to reform society. They are improving the exterior, veneering and polishing the outside, while the inside is no better than before because the heart remains wicked and sinful. “Now —
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