In his final book of sermons (released a decade after Weighed and Wanting, in 1892), MacDonald would articulate this differentiation between man’s spiritual and temporal need in his powerful address, “Salvation from Sin.” He speaks pointedly about those who would “wage war on the evils” around them, declaring it impossible that the world can “be righted from the outside.” MacDonald was not deaf to the crying needs of humanity. He simply recognized the clear dividing line between eternal and temporal.

I presume there is scarce a human being who…would not confess to having something that plagued him, something from which he would gladly be free…Most men…imagine that, free of such and such things antagonistic, life would be an unmingled satisfaction…Perhaps the greater part of the energy of this world’s life goes forth in the endeavour to rid itself of discomfort…

However absurd the statement may appear to one who has not yet discovered the fact for himself, the cause of every man’s discomfort is evil, moral evil—first of all, evil in himself, his own sin, his own wrongness, his own unrightness…Foolish is the man, and there are many such men, who would rid himself or his fellows of discomfort by setting the world right, by waging war on the evils around him, while he neglects that integral part of the world where lies his business, his first business—namely, his own character and conduct. Were it possible—an absurd supposition—that the world should thus be righted from the outside, it would yet be impossible for the man who had contributed to the work, remaining what he was, ever to enjoy the perfection of the result…The philanthropist who regards the wrong as in the race, forgetting that the race is made up of conscious and wrong individuals, forgets also that…no evil can be cured in the race, except by its being cured in its individuals…There is no way of making three men right but by making right each one of the three; but a cure in one man who repents and turns, is a beginning of the cure of the whole human race…

The one cure for any organism, is to be set right—to have all its parts brought into harmony with each other…Rightness alone is cure. The return of the organism to its true self, is its only possible ease. To free a man from suffering, he must be set right, put in health; and the health at the root of man’s being, his rightness, is to be free from wrongness, that is, from sin. ²

During the socially-active years of MacDonald’s writing career, many middle and upper-class women were tiring of drawing room boredom and wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. The suffrage movement had not yet come into full flower. Yet women were exerting themselves upon society and British culture in ever-expanding and visible ways. Women like the MacDonalds’ friend and social activist Octavia Hill, founder of the National Trust, were on the front lines fighting for better living conditions for the poor.