But he faces the question of the part which the Church must play in the world; he faces it with honesty and answers it with shrewdness-- What then is the role of the Church in such a world as this?
Surely it is still what it was before--to be the soul of society, "the salt of the earth." If we, Christ's people, are carrying on, year in and year out, a quiet, persistent witness by word and life to "the things that are more excellent," the unseen things which are eternal, we too shall be "holding the world together," and opening before society the vista of a genuine progress.

This is the supreme and incommunicable task of the Church; this is the priceless service which we can render to the nation.
The position is defensible, for it is one that has been held by the saints, and dangerous indeed is the spirit of materialism in the region of social reform.

But does not one miss from the Bishop's attack upon the social reformer something much deeper than successful logic, something which expresses itself in the works of other men by the language of sympathy and charity, something which hungers and thirsts to shed light and to give warmth, something which makes for the eventual brotherhood of mankind under the divine Fatherhood of God?
Some such spirit as this, I think, is to be found in the writings of Mr.
R.H.Tawney, who, however much he may err and go astray in his economics, cherishes at least a more seemly vision of the human family than that which now passes for civilisation.

Is it not possible that the day may come when a gigantic income will seem "ungentlemanly"?
Is it not a just claim, a Christian claim, that the social organisation should be based upon "moral principles"?
Christians are a sect, and a small sect, in a Pagan Society.

But they can be a sincere sect.