but to fight the native Baalism which the Hebrew nation had inherited from the Amorite side of its ancestry. The struggle between Yahwism and Baalism was vastly more than a mere conflict over the question whether the Hebrews should bow down to this or that god. It was the form in which the great underlying moral and economic struggle of classes came to the surface of history.

There have been moral aspiration and endeavor among every people under the sun. There have been struggles between rich and poor in all nations. The Hebrews had no patent on ethics, and no monopoly of economic agitation. But the struggle which at last came to a burning focus around Yahwism and Baalism was the religious expression of the unique political development of the Hebrews. The peculiarity of the entire Old Testament situation, then, lay not in its moral and economic aspects, but in the uncommon political development of society. This is not at first clear to those who have not completely assimilated the sociological point of view. The secret lies in the close connection between Church and State, Religion and Politics, throughout the ancient world. While other nations have had economic and moral struggles, no national development has ever taken exactly the same political form as that of Israel.

This is made clear by the use of a number of illustrations. The Israelite conquest of Canaan may be compared with the Kassite conquest of Babylonia, the Hyksos conquest of Egypt, or, to come nearer home, the Norman conquest of England. The Normans, the Kassites, and the Hyksos, when going into the lands they conquered, found national group-organizations already formed. But in the case of the Hebrews, on the contrary, the previous inhabitants of the land had no general government. The Amorites were broken up into city-states, or provincial bodies. And it was the invading Israelites who eventually supplied the framework of national government and

religion. The Hebrew kingdom began in the time of Saul, as a movement among the Israelite highlanders. The older, Amorite population of the land was at length incorporated in the monarchy under the House of David; and the god Yahweh became the national deity of the entire group. In this way, a divinity of the wilderness and the hills was introduced with comparative abruptness to an ancient civilized people. Although the Amorites mingled their blood with the newcomers', took the name of Israel, and lost their identity as a race, the Amorite standpoint and the Amorite Baals remained as powerful factors in the life of the Hebrew nation. Here, for the first time in history, we encounter a nation in which the struggle of classes takes the form of a consistent warfare between the gods of the nation itself. The Amorite Baals became the dark villains of a tremendous moral drama; while Yahweh became the Mighty Hero of a long struggle against "the iniquity of the Amorite," and then at last the Redeemer of the World. The religion of the Bible is, in truth, a new thing. The political variation of Hebrew history from that of other peoples generated a new "variety" of religion. The contact between the cult of the wilderness and the cult of civilization produced a "cross-fertilization of culture" which led to the birth of a unique religion. A new body of spiritual thought was born which avoided the religious evils of civilization and nomadism, and combined their virtues. As already observed, the "substance" of Hebrew history was like that of other nations; but its "form" opened a new channel for the working of the human mind, suggesting thoughts that had never before flashed through the brain of man. The imagination of Israel's prophets took fire, and blazed up in a great spiritual flame that has pierced through the ages and illuminated the history of the world. These considerations, together with the evidence on which they rest and their bearing on present-day problems, will occupy us in our sociological study of the Bible.

The book is practically a general thesis on the religious phase of civilization, approaching the development of human society from the standpoint of religious interests. It aims to show that the Bible may be taken as a point of departure for investigation of the entire process of social evolution. It contends that the Bible is not a strange thing, let down into human history from regions lying outside the pale of common interests. It views the Bible as an organic item of human life, identified in its nature and purpose with the Reality that underlies the history of the world. Accordingly, the book is an inductive work, based not only on a direct study of the Bible itself, but on the examination of evidence lying outside the field usually regarded as "Bible-study." Sociological study of the Bible is interested not only in the process by which the religion of the Bible was born; it is interested in the social circumstances under which that religion propagated itself onward in ancient, mediaeval, and modern history; and it is also concerned with the social aspect under which the religion of the Bible exists in the world now. The facts of religious experience are best appreciated when the religious phase of civilization is viewed as one process. Setting out from this principle, we cannot limit the sociological study of the Bible to the age that produced the Bible. Only when the Scriptures are viewed in the light of general history can a study like the present be made to yield the largest benefit.

It is believed that the book will be chiefly serviceable in two ways: First, by cultivating a scientific outlook upon the social problem in ancient history, it aims to encourage a similar attitude with reference to the social problem now pressing upon us. As the student "observes the evolution of political and social life in Bible times and sees the consequent evolution of moral and religious ideals, it becomes perfectly natural for him to employ in the attempt to understand the life of his own day and generation those very principles which have proved to be

fruitful in the understanding of the Bible. He is thus prepared in spirit to make a positive and efficient use of the help which social science and history furnish in the analysis and solution of our own moral problems."

The other way in which the sociological study of the Bible should be of service lies in demonstrating that the church organization of today should not identify itself with political and economic programs. The present awakening of religious people to the social side of religion brings with it a real peril. The reaction from the former one-sided emphasis upon "individualism," and "personal wrongdoing," seems to be taking us over toward the opposite extreme. More and more we hear it said that the church machinery should put itself behind projects of social reform-such as liquor legislation, child-labor laws, unionism, socialism, etc. If the church should lend itself to social reform, it would have to take up some definite position with regard to politics and economics. But men have always differed about politics; and if this view of church life prevails, those who do not favor the particular program adopted by their church cannot support the organization; and this would convert the church into a political party. Our chief guide here must be the testimony of experience. The witness of history is in favor of the complete separation of Church and State. The Church may be compared to a great electric dynamo. The function of a dynamo is to "generate energy," and convert "power" into a useful form. Any proposition that seeks to turn the Church away from its function as a generator of moral and spiritual energy looks back to the troublous times when religion was a political issue.

Two books, dealing with special aspects of our main theme, have been published by the author of this work. The book now issued considers the problem in a general and systematic way. It is a recasting of a number of papers which have

'Editorial, The Biblical World (Chicago), October, 1909, p. 222.

appeared in the American Journal of Sociology at various times during the last ten years. The material has also been worked over in lecture courses at the Ohio State University; the Plymouth Congregational Church, Columbus, Ohio; the First Congregational Church, Columbus, Ohio; the Abraham Lincoln Center, Chicago, Illinois; and in a private correspondence course given to students in the United States and other countries.

The material has been examined, in one form or another, by several persons to whom the writer is under various obligations. If any of these are not included in the list that follows, the omission is unintentional: Professor William F. Badè, of the Pacific Theological Seminary; Professor George A. Barton, of Bryn Mawr College; Professor George R. Berry, of Colgate University; Professor Walter R. Betteridge, of Rochester Theological Seminary; Professor Charles Rufus Brown, of the Newton Theological Institution; Professor Shirley J. Case, of the University of Chicago; Professor Arthur E. Davies, of the Ohio State University; Professor Winfred N. Donovan, of the Newton Theological Institution; Professor Henry T. Fowler, of Brown University; Rev. Allen H. Godbey, Ph.D., St. Louis, Mo.; Dr. Thomas W. Goodspeed, of the University of Chicago; Rev. Edward A. Henry, of the University of Chicago; Professor Albert E. Hetherington, of Columbian College; Dr. Daniel D. Luckenbill, of the University of Chicago; Professor Shailer Mathews, of the University of Chicago; Professor George F. Moore, of Harvard University; Professor Lewis B. Paton, of Hartford Theological Seminary; Professor Ira M. Price, of the University of Chicago; Professor Edward A. Ross, of the University of Wisconsin; Professor Nathaniel Schmidt, of Cornell University; Professor Albion W. Small, of the University of Chicago; Professor Henry Preserved Smith, of the Meadville Theological School; Professor John M. P. Smith, of the University of Chicago;