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ion to its need, nor hold the attention and allegiance of those already enrolled. Are these things true? If so, how may better things be brought to pass? To share in the civilization that has come from nineteen hundred years of the work of the Church, and to be unwilling to l

and hope. If we look out over the colleges, business enterprises, periodicals, agriculture, manufacturing, and shipping of the world, we find everywhere one story-growth, impetus, courage, resources, vigorous and bounding life. Beside these things the average church services to-day are both stupid

meant to possess vigor, decision, insight, hope, and intellectual power. But before it can accomplish its high and holy work, a great reconstruction mus

from the Church that spiritual guidance and inspiration which should be its right to give. One of the things that is a monumental astonishment to me, is that when we need

s of men. Its moral significance is patent. We are called upon, not only to import provisions, clothing, and household and industrial goods into our new possessions; we are called upon to develop a higher sense of honor, truth, honesty, and every-day morality. Scholars, working-men, business men, farmers, and merchants are being consulted in regard to different phases of our national advance, and e

ds. The result is a most wasteful expenditure of force. Movements are not only duplicated, but reproduced a hundred times in miniature, in one denomination after another; special talent is restricted to a narrow field; buildings and church-plants are multiplied, but lie largely disused; sects and communities are at loggerheads on unessential points; all this-and the world is not being saved

d be a more adequate equipment for this work. All other enterprises need, without question, stationery, stenographers, literature for distribution, office-rooms, office-hours, and a general arrangement looking toward enla

w to quick mobilization of energy in any direction most needed. What would a general do, who, in looking over his troops, should find two hundred and fifty-six provincial armies, not at

e times are ripe for a successor of Peter the Hermit, of Luther, Knox, Calvin, Zwingli, Savonarola, Whitefield, Finney, Moody. Whether a great preacher, theologian, or evangelist, he will certainly be

nions. There has been a distinct division between these two bodies, much mutual suspicion, jealousy, and antagonism: it is

o waste energy and spiritual strength in contending for mastery over each other, but for them to unite in changing and bettering the condition of our island peoples. What is past is past. Our present duty is to bring peace, industry, intelligence, high ideals, and spi

the leadership of brains. A primary step, in a far-reaching ecclesiastical policy, is to endeavor to draw into both ministry and membership the most active and intellectual class. All earnest souls can work, but not all can work equally effectively. Particularly in the ministry, north, south, e

o well for towns in the west or elsewhere in Alaska. He must be a man who, when night overtakes him, will be thankful if he can find a bunk and a plate in a miner's cabin; he must travel much, and therefore cannot be cumbered with extra trappings-must dress as the miners do, and accept their food and fare. He

statesmen and society men and women, as well as one who can live and work among the humblest folk who lodge in leaf-thatched huts along the roadside or far on lonely hills. Representative men of ability, health, culture, and courage are being chosen to carry on governmental work: it is idle to send provincial men to the Church. What is locally true of the Church in Porto Ri

business "candidating" is! No scheme for the right placing of men can be devised which does not place a great deal of power in the hand of a few leading men. This power may be abused, but ought not to be, if it were really looked upon as under divine direction and inspiration. Cannot a great leader be inspired to the choice of a man, as well as a great author to the choice of a word, a rhyme? Comparatively few men thoroughly understand how to rate other men, and to these few men, as in all other great enterprises, m

work so retrogressive and so sad. He lives to serve others, but this vow of service is greatly imposed upon. If he is to lead in intellectual and spiritual matters, he must be given fewer errands to run, the financial burden of his church must be taken absolutely from his shoulders, he must have a

nything requires a great deal of time. It cannot ordinarily be "tossed off," and help men's souls. Only an occasional inspiration, the result of a lifetime of thought and experience, is born in this sudden way. Usually excellence is the result of long and careful labor. The way to help this would seem to be a constant interchange of preachers, not only in one denomination, but among the various denominations, so that a really fine sermo

ng of a flibbertigibbet. His sermons do not take hold, because they have not the roots to take hold with. How many ministers possess, for instance, a scholarly knowledge of human nature or of the deeper aspects of r

usand-fold. Hence there should be a definite arrangement by which a certain portion of the preaching time of the really able preachers shall be placed each year in some small and remote place. Several scattered country churches might unite for these services. Let such a man also make helpful suggesti

ffair, who cannot afford it, but his spiritual insight might save the impending church quarrel. People come and go in the churches, and many, I am convinced, drift away because they are never asked for anything but money for the support and interest of the Church. In no other sort of organization is this true. Even in the summer camp or mountain hotel or Atlantic liner, when any pastime or entertainment is suggested, the first thing to discover is, What can each one do? One, who has the gift of organization and mana

in prayer or speech-making, formal or social occasion, pastor or people, do we often bring our very deepest, tenderest, most inspiring emotional or intellectual life? It is not a whit more spiritual to be stupid

es whole communities, there is only one real burden upon the heart of earnest men and women: it is our own inadequate representation of Christianity,-the disheartening difference be

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my name to a church-roll? I mean, Why give myself, my powers, my ed

elves. To attract our service, there must be in the

ligion embodied in it, should be left out. What would we then lack? We would lack the greatest works of Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Francesca, Botticelli, Murillo; we would not see the cathedrals of Milan, Strasburg, or Cologne; we would never read the poems of Caedmon, Milton, or Dante. The hamlet would be without a spire; philanthropy would be almost unknown; there would be neither night-watch nor morning-watch of united prayer. We should have no processional of millions churchward

We do not find intellectual equality of souls. We see each man or woman differently circumstanced, differently gifted, differently trained. Yet each may say, I am spirituall

e go through the world without allying ourselves to something than we can go through it and live nowhere. If the object of our allegiance be a high one, if the ideal be a grand one, our lives are in a constant proce

iance to a Higher is one of the trumpet-calls of the world. It has been the rally of all armies, of all legions, of all crusades. The great commander is, by his very position, a grouper of other men, the ruler of their thought

others, and to create new works which shall be inspired by their ideals. Thus he acknowledges their control of his own powers. Such control over the spirit of man is that of the Church over the social body; it stirs the spiritual aspiration of man, it

been a dream of the heart. But how inaccessible is virtue, with a past of unforgiven sin! The height of our ideal of redemption is conditioned upon the depth of our realization of sin. To the shallow, redemption

but redemption from sloth, from indifference, from lack of purpose, and from low aims. Redemption looms up as the great economic force of Time-that which inspires a

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Church is a body of allies, whose work is the upbuilding of the kingdom of God. We do not realize how great a bond this is. We have our own church centre, our own denomination, our own local interests. But by and by a great occasion arises-a revival which sweeps the country, a reu

from shore to shore with steeple-towers, And

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dreams; each has his endowment of talent and of opportunity; each has his aspirations and supreme hope. The joys of one are the joys of all. The sorrows of one are the sorrows of all. The triumphs of one are the tr

individual needs and longings are offered up. Alone, it asks for blessings on the individual life and work. But the personal life is only a fragmentary part of the life universal. Above the ages rings an Over-song of praise. From shrines and cat

le hosts of the Church on high. We enter a company which shall never be disbanded nor dismayed. Something subtle and eternal seems to lay hold of our spirits, and to lift them even to God's Throne. For this Time has been, and for

In each community the church is like a living thing! How every stone grows significant and dear! How the lights and shadows of its arches, the dim, faint-tinted windows, the carvings and tracings, the atmosphere and coloring, all sink into the heart, and make a backgro

, silent and hidden, is subtly acted upon by persuasions and convictions that rule the heart amid the fiercest storms and temptations of the world. The church is a sanctuary and shield; it is an emblem of strength and peace. Three angels stand before its altar: Life, Love, Death! Hither is brought

ur moral powers? In what work shall they centre? From what point shall they di

istribute the spiritual vitality of the world. It rouses the moral emotions and affection

ife-deep happiness of spirit. Praise is an appreciation of the greatness and mercy of the Infinite. Worship is the outpouring of the whole nature, an ascription of bless

pline of life. Abélard is said to have attracted thirty thousand students to Paris by his teaching. But the Church to-day calls into its assemblies fully one-third of the millions of the world. They are held by its tenets, guided by its ideals, thrilled by its hopes, and set to its wo

its fellowship, to make known everywhere its ideals, and to share with all living a spiritual inheritance? "The

siness energy, executive ability. It is a common saying, that business men are not interested in the Church, and do not work well in it. Why? Becaus

is waiting for business men to do. Business to-day takes intellectual grasp and insight-promptness,

rom the Church. They have somewhat indulgently regarded it as one more historic institution for preserving myth and legend. To them the Christ-life has meant little more than the Beówa-myth, the Arthur-saga, the Nibelungen c

rise of faith in the universities. Like the incoming of a great tidal wave at sea is the wav

point the theologian needs assistance from the man of science. Philosophy, psychology, ethics, history, literature, sociology, language, natural science, and archaeology are all bound up in an ol

theology and the latest word of science. The Church cannot afford to be without the scientific thin

up a hymnology which shall be noble and poetic in expression; it is to contribute a great religious literature to the world. It is the work of educated men and women to add their insight, their zeal for truth, their scholarship, their trainin

many of the comforts of the race. The man of labor knows the root-problems of the industrial world. While all his industry and skill, all his courage, heroism, and strong-armed life are so largely alienated from the Church, the Church i

pen? Would there not be at once a return to more simplicity of life? There are two currents at work always in society-emulation and sympathy. Rightly u

one can grow. More and more the Church is lifting the standards of a noble, proud, pure, and rejoicing married life. Its ideal of human love is sacred, because founded on the deeper love of the soul in God. The Church is drawing hosts of young people under the shelter of its teaching, and

Church militant that its conquests are spiritual and its victories are eternal. Its fight is chiefly against the inner, not the outer foe-against sin and wrong-doing, impatience, strife, anger, clamor, meanness, evil-speaking, wrath. It is the foe of tyranny and its heel is upon the head of the oppressor and t

ve risen, and nations have decayed. States, once prominent, have passed into the oblivion of the years. Plato and Pericles, Socrates and Sophocles, Philip and Alexander, the Caesars, the Georges, and the Louis have passed away. Their politics have passed from our following; their empires are no more. But through these centuries of change, the Church of God has risen stronger, more powerful ye

re any other processional in the world's history which, numbering such millions and millions, began with only one? When the Christ enters the arena of history, He comes as one to lead myriad deep-lived souls! Next, there follow twelve. They, two by two, take up the marching

gregations, elders, deacons, members, ministers and missionaries, young people, and workers in every phase of enterprise and reform. These all communicant on earth are the Church militant, whose work is to keep alive the traditions of the past and to march onward to an endless victory and to an unceasing praise. Who, looking upon that processional, filing through the ages of the years of man, would say that there may be a parliament of religions? A parliament of boasts and pomps, of good precepts and queries, of misuses and half-truths, of superstitions and infinite idolatries, no doubt; but there is but one religion, though it be perverted in many ways and rightly revealed at divers times; and there is but one God, infinite, true, holy, just,