Excerpt from The Redemption of Society For purposes like these, institutions, doctrines, and means of grace are provided, and while there is much reason to confess many derelictions of duty, and much shameful coldness of heart, yet the Church knows her duty with regard to these matters. If sheep wander from the fold, she understands the business of seeking and restoring them. If, however, the question of the salvation of society is brought under consideration, the whole institution of the Church seems to be inadequate and lacking in equipment, both of thought and of institution. Concerning the way of salva tion we are, comparatively speaking, agreed, but there is no such agreement about the way of social life. There is a great paucity of institutions by means of which the mind of the Church as a whole can be ascertained or uttered, and when an attempt is made to speak to society, instead of finding itself equipped with a definite message which it has received from God, and dealing with a conscience that is already on its side, the Church is brought into the field of argument and debate and lacks its customary assurance that what it speaks is the very word of God's salvation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.