THE MAN IN THE STREET.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143781, 3 May 1912, Page 7

THE MAN IN THE STREET.

A very arresting book has just boon published, which calls upon tho average man, tho man in the street, to change his way of life. It shows in a most striking way tho urgency of tho case—why he should do it; what his refusal menus for himself and society of tho world. It shows that tho man in the street is the problem of the day, and that the making of him a superman—with liis brothers—is the only solution for our social problems, and the only way to realise tho purpose of tho world. The man in the street never had a finer or more inspiring task set for him. The writer of this notable book is the Lev Richard Roberts, of the Crouch Hill Presbyterian Church, and one of the ablest men in his church. The book is called “The Renascence of Faith.’ “The average man, otherwise the man in tho street,” says the author, “one morning awoke to find himself famous. Overnight a certain exalted person had discovered' him and constituted him into a supremo court of appeal. The man in the street is in sober truth tho outstanding challenge to religion and modern civilisation. To educate him iuto ail intelligent, vivid souse of personal and public responsibility were to transform the face of the earth. The man in tho street is the modern problem—for the preacher, tho politician, and the social reformer. The waste of good human material at both ends of tho social scale is only possible because the man in the street cannot bo persuaded to mend his ways. The social reformer cries aloud for a more equitable distribution of wealth; and in the end it is not Dives, but the man in tho street who hinders it. A great deal of energy and eudeavour lias been spent in reclaiming tho human debris which is strewn so prodigally about all great populous centres; much of it had been better spent in inducing the man in the street to see the folly of maintaining a scheme of things which will go on producing human debris so long as it is permitted to exist. It is far too readily assumed that tho social problem begins and ends with tho submerged tenth. The disease ramifies through the whole structure of society; and tho point at which the remedy is to bo applied is the man in the street. His vote determines elections; his voice is public opinion. To quicken his conscience, to compel him to think, to awaken him to a souse of social responsibility, to give him faith—that is the central problem of our age. And this is not merely the simplest and directest, but the only road to the city of God.”