The Church 
 
 and 
 
 The Nation 
 
 Sermon by 
 
 Washington Gladden. D.D. 
 
 BV 
 
 2775 
 .G57 
 1905 
 
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 BV 2775 .G57 1905 
 Gladden, Washington, 1836- 
 
 1918. 
 The Church and the nation 
 
The Church and 
 The Nation 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 Preached at the Seventy-ninth Annual Meeting of 
 
 The Congregational Home Missionary Society 
 
 in Springfield, Mass., May 31, 1905 
 
 By Washington Gladden, D.D. 
 
 of Columbus, Ohio 
 
 Moderator of the National Council 
 
 The Congregational Home Missionary Society 
 
 1905 
 
The Church and the Nation. 
 
 ■The spirit of the Lord is upon mc because He anointed me to preach 
 good tidings to the poor; He hath sent me to proclaim release to the 
 captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them thai 
 are bruised. 
 
 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. — Luke iv:i8, 19. 
 
 It is a happy coincidence which has placed the anniversary of the 
 Congregational Home Missionary Society on Decoration Day. Those 
 who know what the Society stands for and what its record has been will 
 feel no incongruity between the two observances. Each may lend some- 
 thing to the other of remembrance and of suggestion. The veterans 
 may help us to recall events that show us the real significance of our 
 work, and we may be able to show them that there are still for them 
 standards to lift up and battles to fight. 
 
 The Congregational Home Missionary Society was known, forty 
 years ago, as the American Home Missionary Society. It was then, as 
 now, the agent of the Congregational churches, but its name was then, 
 I think, even more significant of its real character than it is to-day, for 
 its larger purpose has always been national more than denominational. 
 Its motto might well have been Christo et patricr, for Christ and Father- 
 land. It cares less for making Congregationalists than for making pa- 
 triots and Christians ; it values its denominational specialties only as 
 aids in the building of character which shall serve the Kingdom of God, 
 ;^ whose largest forms appear, not in the church, but in the nation. 
 
 It was the deep consciousness of a great responsibility for the na- 
 tional welfare which filled the hearts of the Congregational people in the 
 middle decades of the last century, and which drew forth the splendid 
 enterprise by which they went out and took possession of the great 
 Northwest. Something made them see that this vast domain was of price- 
 less value to the nation, and that it must be stocked with ideas and influ- 
 ences which would hold it true to the traditions of liberty. When the war 
 broke out the great States of Illinois and Wisconsin and Minnesota and 
 Iowa and Nebraska and Kansas were filled with a population well sat- 
 urated with the ideas that had given New England her influence in 
 the councils of the nation. That the American Home Missionary So- 
 ciety had done all this work must not be claimed, but it had had a very 
 large share in it. Certain it is that the Congregationalists of those great 
 States were at the front in all that conflict. Wherever there was a 
 Congregational church there was a recruiting agency for the army of 
 
 ^ 
 
 -N 
 
the Union, though many of them, as the conflict deepened, were nearly 
 despoiled of their male membership through the absence of their men 
 in the field. The war record of these American Home Missionary 
 churches of the Northwest is one of which we shall never have occasion 
 to be ashamed. If the great Northwest had not been passionately loyal 
 in that conflict, we could never have held this nation together ; and we 
 may safely claim that among the influences which made and kept it 
 loyal, not the least important was the work of this Home Missionary 
 Society. And one who returns, as I have just returned from a journey 
 of nearly three thousand miles through the fertile fields, and the thriv- 
 ing towns and cities of that great Northwest ; one who has been looking 
 into the faces of a good many thousands of these Western Congrega- 
 tionalists and has seen their country planted thick with their schools 
 and colleges and churches, and has felt the thrill of their vital enthus- 
 iasm for righteousness, and has been able to realize how large a part 
 these States must bear in the future life of the nation, will have gained 
 some new impression of the service which has been rendered to the 
 nation by the society whose anniversary we to-day are keeping. 
 
 This anniversary must always take on a patriotic as well as a reli- 
 gious character, and it is therefore fitting that it should occur on this 
 day, and that it should be participated in by the veterans of the civil 
 war. And I desife to draw your attention to certain truths that lie at 
 the foundation of the church and of the nation, truths which we are in 
 danger of forgetting, but of which on this day we may fully be reminded. 
 
 The question is sometimes raised whether this is a Christian nation. 
 It is certainly not a Qiristian nation in any formal or legal sense. 
 Christianity is not established by law, and one of the glories of our 
 Constitution is the provision that religious observances shall never be 
 enforced by law within our borders. Mr. Benjamin Kidd points to 
 that article as the high-water mark of Western Civilization. Indeed, I 
 think we may say that the nation would not be Christian, in the highest 
 and truest sense, if it undertook to enforce by law Christian beliefs or 
 observances. That would be an infraction of a principle that is funda- 
 mental in Christianity. A compulsory faith is a contradiction in terms. 
 
 But if the nation cannot make itself Giristian by legal enactments, 
 it may, nevertheless, be essentially Christian in spirit and in purpose. 
 A nation, as well as a man, may have a Christian character. And while 
 we have no desire to see the establishment of any form of religion by 
 law in this land, most of us would be willing to see the nation in its pur- 
 poses and policies and ruling aims becoming essentially Giristian. 
 
 It is also sometimes questioned in these days whether the church 
 is Christian. Before trying to answer, it might be profitable to ask 
 ourselves precisely what is meant by that great adjective. The church 
 
is certainly seeking to be Christian in its doctrines, in its ordinances, 
 in its confession ; it calls itself by Christ's name ; it professes to believe 
 the truth he taught, and it is, no doubt, in an imperfect way, following 
 him. Yet we must not fail to see that it is not in its doctrines, its 
 ceremonies, or its confessions, but in its character that the church most 
 clearly proves its right to bear the Christian name. The question with 
 the church, as with the man, is not so much whether it professes the 
 Christian faith as whether it lives the Christian life. 
 
 Now there is one test which we have a right to apply to the church 
 and to the nation, to see whether they deserve the Christian name. I 
 will not say that it is the only test; it is not. I think that we could 
 conceive of characters which would meet this particular test and which 
 would yet be unworthy of the Christian name. But while the quality 
 which this test demands is not the only essential quality of a Christian 
 man or a Christian church or a Christian nation, it is one of the essen- 
 tial qualities ; it is not enough to make a Christian, but there can be no 
 Christian without it. What is this quality? It is brought to light in 
 the verses which I have read for a text. 
 
 These words are the first public declaration made by our Lord of the 
 nature of his mission. He had gone, on the Sabbath day, into the 
 synagogue of the village where he had always lived, and after the read- 
 ing of the law and the prayers, the reader had handed to him the roll 
 of the Prophet Isaiah. Taking it in his hands, he read from it these 
 words : "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, ^because he hath anointed 
 me to preach good tidings to the poor ; he hath sent me to proclaim re- 
 lease to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind ; to set at liberty 
 them that are bruised ; to preach the acceptable word of the Lord. And 
 he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down ; 
 and the eyes of all the synagogue were fastened on Him. And he be- 
 gan to say unto them. To-day hath this Scripture been fulfilled in ) our 
 ears." 
 
 It is a most impressive proclamation by the Prince of life himself 
 of the nature of the Kingdom he had come to establish. You may call 
 it his inaugural message, 
 
 Jesus quotes these great words of the prophet as having their ful- 
 fillment in himself. He is the anointed one, the Messiah ; the Spirit of 
 God is upon him ; and the proof of his divine commission, of his Mes- 
 sianic royalty, is seen in the fact that he becomes the servant and the 
 helper of the poor and the unfortunate and the needy. 
 
 It is for this that he is anointed ; this is the meaning of his Messiah- 
 ship. Surely there can be no more explicit or authoritative statement. 
 But he takes occasion more than once to confirm it, notably on that 
 occasion when John the Baptist, in prison, losing heart and hope, sent 
 
 5 
 
his disciples to ask Jesus, "Art thou He that was to come, or must 
 we look for another?" And Jesus told them to go back and tell John 
 what they had heard and seen — that the needy and the helpless and the 
 miserable had found in him a friend, and that the gospel was preached 
 to the poor. 
 
 There can be no doubt, as a matter of history, that these were the 
 people with whom he most clearly identified himself ; it was the re- 
 proach of those who hated him that his friends were among the lowly ; 
 it was the testimony of his companions that the common people heard 
 him gladly. 
 
 We may say, then, that by his own testimony, and the testimony 
 of those who stood closest to him, this was the characteristic of his 
 life and mission — this was the sign of his Messiahship — that he identi- 
 fied himself with the lowly and the needy ; that he was the friend of the 
 weak and the poor and the friendless. 
 
 If this was the characteristic of the Christ, it must be the char- 
 acteristic of the Christian. The man, the church, the nation that rightly 
 bears the Christian name must possess this characteristic. They must 
 have other qualities also, but they must not lack this. No matter liow 
 many other good things may be said about them, if this cannot be said. 
 you must not call them Christians. This is what Paul meant when he 
 said: 
 
 " If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, 
 I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the 
 gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I 
 have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am 
 nothing." 
 
 I think that this study helps us to grasp one, at least, of the essentia! 
 meanings of the great adjective with which we are dealing. And with 
 this meaning in our minds what shall we say? Is this a Christian na- 
 tion? Does it possess a Christian character? Is its life a Christian life? 
 
 I know that there are some who will promptly say, "No; the nation 
 in this sense is not Christian, and we do not want it to be. No nation 
 ought to possess any such character or have any such purposes. It is 
 neither possible nor desirable that a nation should live a Christian life 
 or possess a Christian character. The business of a nation is not 
 charity. Its function is not to practise benevolence, but simply to do 
 justice. It ought to keep people from trespassing on one another ; it 
 ought to preserve the peace, and provide for the common defense ; it 
 ought, so far as possilile, to give every one a chance to exercise his own 
 powers, and there it ought to end." 
 
 I know that much can be said for this theory of the life of a nation, 
 but I doubt whether any considerable number of human beings can be 
 
 6 
 
held together very long upon this basis. I do not believe that political 
 society or industrial society or any other society will endure on a purely 
 individualistic basis. There can be no law of profitable human inter- 
 course of which love is not the heart and the fulfillment. 
 
 If all men were born equal in physical and mental equipment ; if all 
 were started in the race of life with equal powers and opportunities, 
 this rule of laisscz faire might be a practicable rule, but it is not so; 
 there are vast inequalities ; multitudes come into life handicapped in a 
 thousand ways with evil inheritance, and crippling environments, and 
 to fling them all together into the competitive arena and bid them fight it 
 out, is to consign many of them to degradation and destruction. The 
 truth is that this is a world where compassion must be a constant quan- 
 tity ; there is no kind of human association in which it can be spared ; 
 and when the State — that is "all of us" — undertakes to adjust orr 
 human relations, it will not be possible to dispense with compassion. 
 
 In truth this nation has never tried to do any such thing. Its com- 
 passion has always found expression in great public ministries to the 
 defective and unfortunate classes. The nation has sometimes been sel- 
 fish and heathen and cruel ; it is not perfect ; but a great humanity has 
 been constantly revealed in our national life. I remember, many years 
 ago, quoting to Mr. James Bryce, who knows us so much better than 
 w^e know ourselves, a remark of one of our own publicists, that Amer- 
 ican legislation, in the state and the nation, was "ignorant, clumsy and 
 brutal." He answered quickly. "Ignorant? yes ; clumsy? yes, of course ; 
 but brutal? no, that is not true. The legislation of America is full of the 
 most humane intentions." 
 
 I am sure that this has been true. Lowell knew his own motherlantl 
 when he spoke of her as 
 
 She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, 
 
 She of the open heart and open door, 
 
 With room about her hearth for all mankind. 
 
 It would seem to be nearly inevitable that when government is of 
 the people and by the people, and when the people are compassionate 
 and kind, their compassion and kindness will find expression in their 
 national life. That such has been the case, in some good measure, can 
 hardly be denied. It was a great impulse of sympathy with the lowly 
 that drew this nation into its costly struggle with slavery; it is a hu- 
 mane sentiment that has thrown open the door to the millions who have 
 sought our shores from other lands; it is an altruistic habit that has 
 prompted us as a people to interpose when we could in behalf of op- 
 pressed peoples, and to stretch forth our hand of sympathy toward the 
 weak and the suffering. I think that without boasting, we may claim 
 
that this nation, in spite of all its faults and sins, has done more than 
 any other nation of history to introduce into diplomacy and international 
 law a larger sentiment of humanity, and to make possible the coming 
 of the day for which the great Englishwoman so passionately prayed, 
 when 
 
 Each Christian nation shall take upon her 
 
 The law of the Christian man in vast ; 
 The crown of the getter shall fall to the donor, 
 
 And last shall be first while first shall be last, 
 And to love best shall still be to reign unsurpassed. 
 
 You observe that I have been putting all these statements about the 
 character and purpose of the nation into, the past tense. And you wish 
 to know whether I mean to suggest this is no longer her character or 
 her purpose. No ; I would not say that. But I do mean to leave the 
 question open whether there are signs that the nation is in danger of 
 falling from this high position. It is not pessimism ; it is simply a wise 
 patriotism which admits such a possibility and bravely faces it. 
 
 It must be confessed that the nation is exposed to perils on this side. 
 When we were all poor, it was easy to think of and care for the poor ; 
 now that many of us are very rich and strong, and more of us hope 
 to be, and most of us want to be, the claims of the poor and the weak 
 seem less urgent. There is a very powerful class which has little sym- 
 pathy with the humble and the weak, which builds up its fortunes, in- 
 deed, by levying tribute upon their earnings ; and there are hundreds of 
 thousands of others who look admiringly upon the exploits of this 
 class and wonder if they may not sometimes be able to imitate them ; and 
 there is a great multitude of others whose interests, in one way and an- 
 other, are identified with the strong and who do not like to antagonize 
 or offend them, so that powerful influences are at work to lower the 
 tone of the national feeling toward the less fortunate classes. The enor- 
 mous accumulations of wealth which have been heaped up in this country 
 within the past quarter of a century have done much to modify the 
 national character and to sophisticate the public conscience. It cannot 
 be denied that this plutocracy tends to become aggressive and oppres- 
 sive; it has often shown but slight regard for the laws which have 
 been enacted to restrain its greed ; it has sought, and often with too 
 much success, to control the legislatures and the courts in its own 
 interests. 
 
 While wealth has been mounting up with gigantic strides, at one 
 end of the social scale, poverty, with stealthy step, has been creeping 
 in at the other. There arc no adequate statistics on which definite state- 
 ments can be based, but a book like that of Mr. Robert Hunter, with its 
 cumulative presentation, makes it all too probable that the number of 
 
those who are always Hving on the verge of want is growing fast. 
 Prosperous people are much inclined either to discredit such statements 
 or to charge all this increasing want to drink or indolence, but the 
 deeper reason is that opportunity is being contracted, and incentive 
 withdrawn, and burdens increased ; while accident and disease which 
 are the direct result of human greed, and which are preventable by wise 
 social regulation, are crippling and disabling many. 
 
 Certain it is that there is increasing discontent among the people at 
 the bottom of the social scale. They believe that they are being burdened 
 and laid under tribute by the combinations of selfish wealth. These vast 
 fortunes have been drawn from the industries to which they are giving 
 the strength of their lives for meager reward, and they feel that the 
 distribution is unequitable. It seems to them that vast power has been 
 conferred upon the few, and that it is used for the oppression of the 
 many. If this is done by law the laws are at fault ; if it is done by the 
 evasion or defiance of law the fault is with those who administer the 
 law.s. In any case the final responsibility rests with the nation — with 
 "all of us." Must we not sorrowfully confess that the nation, drunk 
 with the passion of accumulation, has been growing quite too careless of 
 the interests of its humbler people? Must we not fear that if the nation 
 once possessed a Christian character, she is in danger of losing it ? Can 
 we deny that elements and influences which tend to separate the poor 
 from the rich and to harden the hearts of the rich against the poor, have 
 been gaining too much control in our national life? Must we not say 
 that instead of identifying itself with the fortunes of its humblest people, 
 and making sure, first of all, of their welfare, it has been permitting its 
 power to be used, more and more, by the strong for their aggrandize- 
 ment? 
 
 A philosophic observer, whose home is now in Washington, said to 
 me the other day, "It is appalling to any one who lives at the national 
 capital and watches what is going on, to see the extent to which money 
 rules everything." 
 
 This tendency does not. indeed, dominate all lives, even in Wash- 
 ington. There are a good many yet who have not bowed the knee to 
 Mammon. There is, I trust, a great multitude of those who do not 
 mean that the nation shall be faithless to her ideals. And among them 
 there is none whose purposes are clearer or whose heart is truer than 
 the man at the head of the nation. It is his chivalrous determination to 
 resist the aggressions of greed, to put an end to the rule of the spoilers 
 and the plunderers and to give "a square deal" to the poor man, as 
 well as the rich man, which has won for our President the love of the 
 people. 
 
 This is the kind of leadership which the nation must follow from 
 
this time forward. It must not sell its birthright for gold. It must be, 
 in spirit and purpose and character, a Christian nation. It must incar- 
 nate the life of Christ in its national life. It must therefore identify 
 itself with the great masses of the common people. It must make them 
 know and feel that it is their country, that their homes are its care, 
 that their welfare is its pride. It must be able to claim the Messianic 
 royalty; it must stand upon the shore of either sea, lifting up their 
 standard and saying, "Behold my divine anointing: I have a right to rule 
 because I free the slave, I lift up the lowly, I protect the poor." 
 
 And now what shall we say of the church ? Is it worthy to bear the 
 Christian name? Is it able to say of itself what its Master said of him- 
 self: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed 
 me to preach good tidings to the poor ; he hath sent me to proclaim re- 
 lease to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty 
 them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord"? 
 Can it confidently quote these words and then call attention to its own 
 life, saying to the multitudes outside its gates, "In these days is this 
 Scripture fulfilled in your ears"? Is it true of the church that this is 
 the characteristic of its life and mission — the outstanding fact of its his- 
 tory — that it identifies itself with the lowly, and the needy ; that it 
 stands forth as the friend of the weak and the poor and the friendless ; 
 that by virtue of the character and work it keeps the hold upon the 
 common people which its Master always had ? 
 
 I do not think that any sweeping answer can be given to these 
 questions. If we speak of the church of history, its record, on these 
 counts, though not faultless, is fair and bright. Its ministries to the 
 poor and the lowly through all the ages have been large and bountiful ; 
 it has broken the fetters of the slave ; it has l>een the helper of tl.e weak 
 and helpless. 
 
 Here, too, in using the past tense, I am not implying that no such 
 signs are to be seen in the present, but I am suggesting, as before, the 
 query whether the church, like the nation, is living up to its ideals. Is 
 there any failure at this point in the 'church of to-day — in our Congre- 
 gational churches? 
 
 I fear that we must confess that there is failure here. I will not 
 say that w^e have Inst our hold on those whom Christ made his closest 
 friends, but our hold is greatly weakened. Our Congregational churches 
 are not, as a rule, the churches of the common people. My own church 
 is not, and it is a grief and shame to me that it is not. We can bring 
 under our care a certain number of the very poor, those wdio are more 
 or less thriftless and who find the friendship of the church profitable to 
 themselves; and these are by no means to be despised or rejected; w^e 
 may be able to help and save some of them — to save them from the hot- 
 
tomless pit of mendicancy, and this is well worth doing : but the class 
 above these — the honest self-supporting, common people — we get very 
 few of them. Many of them are in the Roman Catholic church; that 
 church has the right to call itself Christian, so far as identification with 
 the common people can give the right; and some of our Protestant 
 churches in the cities, and more of them in the villages, succeed in 
 gathering in some of them, but, so far as our Congregationalism is con- 
 cerned, most of our strong churches, our leading churches, have but 
 slight relations with the toiling classes. One of our most thoughtful 
 pastors said to me the other day, "The Congregational church, as a rule, 
 is the church of the employers." It is not a rule to which there are no 
 exceptions ; the church of the minister who made the remark is an ex- 
 ception, and there are others ; but your experience will confirm it as 
 a general truth. Nor is Congregationalism alone in this condemna- 
 tion ; other denominations share it. 
 
 You will remember that in the London International Council of 
 1 89 1, an honored Congregational leader maintained that Congregation- 
 alism was, by its traditions and tendencies, the church of the intelligent 
 and the well-to-do ; that we should recognize that fact and adjust our 
 work to it. Against that proposition there were some warm protests ; 
 nevertheless it indicates a fact, and it is a fact in which we should not 
 glory. 
 
 I fear that it must be said of the Protestant churches generally, that 
 they have been becoming, more and more, the churches of the employers, 
 and those industrially and socially affiliated with them, and less and 
 less the churches of the plain people who work with their hands. I 
 have been loth to believe this — in fact, I have more than once disputed 
 it; but the truth has been forced upon me. It is a fact which cannot 
 be denied, which must be faced. What does it mean? What shall we 
 say about it ? What can we say but this, that it indicates some lament- 
 able lowering of the Christian ideals? A church which, for any cause 
 whatever, is permitting itself to be separated more and more from the 
 toiling millions is in danger of losing its right to the Christian name. It 
 ought to be asking itself very earnestly whether it bears the character of 
 its Master and is filled with his spirit. The tests which he applied to 
 himself, by which he insisted that his claims to the Messiahship should 
 be judged, are the tests which the church of to-day must apply to itself. 
 If the church cannot meet them, there is something wrong with tha 
 church. 
 
 It may be said that the fault is with those who have gone out or 
 who have not come in ; that they are self-exiled : that bad leaders have 
 filled them with suspicion and enmity. But whatever truth there may 
 be in this, it is a confession of incompetency. The church has no right 
 
to shield itself behind such a plea. When two are estranged the heavier 
 blame must rest on the stronger. The presumption is that he, with his 
 larger knowledge, and ampler spiritual resources, could have overcome 
 suspicion and disarmed enmity. If such an alienation as this has 
 taken place the church must be mainly to blame for it. We have no 
 right to admit that any kind of ill-will can resist the appeal of patient, 
 resolute, self-sacrificing love. We ought to believe that the love of 
 Christ, abiding in his people, is invincible. If we have failed to over- 
 come the tendencies to the alienation of the common people from the 
 church we have failed to use the power entrusted to us. 
 
 Let us not belittle this failure. It means much to us, more than most 
 of us are ready to acknowledge. It has weakened the church in a vital 
 part. It has set in motion tendencies which, if they are not arrested, 
 will end in degeneration and decay. Something may survive but it 
 will not be the church for which Jesus Qirist gave his life. 
 
 Consider, for a moment, what will happen, if tendencies now at 
 work are not arrested. The day is not far distant when the church 
 will be the representative of the wealthy and well-to-do people, and of 
 those affiliated with them; of the merchants, the manufacturers, the 
 professional people, the teachers, the salaried men and women ; and 
 when the mechanics, the operatives, the hand-workers in general, and 
 the common laborers will be practically outside of it. Is that a result 
 which any one can contemplate with equanimity ? Would not the doom 
 of the church be registered in such a condition as that? What must 
 be the relation of Jesus Christ to a church which is suffering itself 
 to drift into that condition, or anything approximating to it? 
 
 The church and the nation are thus together confronting a serious 
 question. It is the question whether they are in danger of losing the 
 right to bear the Qiristian name. It is the question whether the char- 
 acter of each is passing through a transformation which tends to make 
 it something quite other than once it was. 
 
 It should not be necessary to prove that the Christian church can- 
 not expect to live and flourish when it ceases to represent in its char- 
 acter and life that which was essential in the character and life of 
 Christ. 
 
 There may be some question as to whether the nation is in equal 
 peril from the same cause. It may be said that the nation makes no 
 profession of faith and cannot be punished for apostasy. But this is 
 not a question of profession. It is a question of life and death. There 
 is a way of life for nations, as for men, and that is the Christian way. 
 Mr. Kidd. in a great historic generalization, points it out, in philosophic 
 terms. There is a "cosmic process," he tells us, "which is everywhere 
 triumphant in human history. There has been no suspension of it. 
 
There has been no tendency of suspension." What is this process? 
 It is "the emancipation and the raising of the lower classes of the peo- 
 ple." Now there is no compulsion by which a nation can be forced 
 to organize its Hfe in harmony with this process. Some nations, Rus- 
 sia, for example, have obstinately refused to do so. But cosmic pro- 
 cesses do not halt or turn aside for the greatest nations ; the nations 
 go down before them, as Russia is going down to-day. The United 
 States did organize its life in harmony with this process, of which 
 Jesus Christ is the concrete embodiment, and incarnation. If it swerves 
 from this high ideal, if it suffers itself to become careless of the in- 
 terests of those with whom he identified himself, the cosmic process will 
 go on. For though the kings of finance set themselves, and the trusts 
 and the grafters take counsel together against the Lord and against 
 his anointed, saying, 'Let us break their bands asunder and cast away 
 their cords from us,' He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the 
 Lord shall have them in derision. When any nation suffers its power 
 to fall into the hands of those who plunder the poor for their enrich- 
 ment, the ominous fingers will be seen writing upon the wall, "Thou 
 art weighed and found wanting." 
 
 It cannot, of course, be conceived that the church should emerge 
 unharmed from the wreck of the nation. The life of the two is indis- 
 solubly joined together. The church is the soul of the nation, if the 
 nation has a soul. The nation's faithlessness is proof and consequence 
 of the church's infidelity. If the church were alive with the life of 
 Christ neither the church nor the nation could perish. 
 
 Therefore there comes to-day a mighty call to the church to save the 
 life of the nation in saving its own life. Of the seriousness of this 
 juncture there can be no question. I am content to be called an alarm- 
 ist, if you will. There are times when the watchman must blow the 
 trumpet and warn the people. I believe that my habit is sufficiently 
 optimistic, but optimism is treachery. It is not well with the church, 
 this day ; it is ill with the church. Her grip is loosening, her energies 
 are flagging ; there is a perceptible slackening in her progress. Some- 
 thing is wrong and every thoughtful man knows it. 
 
 Something is wrong with our evangelism. What is it? Is it the 
 Higher Criticism and the New Theology? Read Dr. Brown's sober, 
 searching, candid review of the Chapman meetings in Oakland. AH 
 the churches, of every name, co-operated most cordially; these churches 
 were crowded — with church members — every day for weeks ; the the- 
 ology of all tlie preaching was above suspicion : the Hisfher Triticism 
 was put to shame, and sociology was not so much as mentioned ; but 
 the great outside multitude, the multitude of the unchurched, was prac- 
 tically untouched. This is the testimony. 
 
 13 
 
Is it the newer thinking that is needed? Well, we had that, in its 
 most persuasive and attractive form, in Columbus, just before Easter; 
 when Dr. Abbott in a series of the most luminous sermons, set forth 
 the truth as it is in Jesus so clearly and winningly that it seemed as if 
 no rational man could resist the appeal : and though the church was 
 crowded every night to the doors, there was but slight response to the 
 call for enlistment. 
 
 Something is wrong here. This great society, with its magnificent 
 record behind it, with a strong hold upon the affections of Congrega- 
 tionalists, with great obligations upon it and great opportunities before 
 it, finds itself confronting a crisis in its history, crippled by its debt, 
 doubtful of its resources, and anxiously 'challenging the future. In 
 other societies there is solicitude and uncertainty. 
 
 What does it all mean? I believe, my brethren, that we have seen, 
 this evening, something of what it means. The church has so far for- 
 gotten its essential character, that it has lost no small measure of its 
 power. Its alliance is mainly with the prosperous. Its hopes are cen- 
 tered upon the strong and the influential. I do not say that it has 
 wholly lost its interest in the poor ; that is nowhere true ; but that in- 
 terest has ceased to be, in too many cases, the central and commanding 
 interest. It is not an apostate church ; God forbid that I should say 
 any such thing ; but it is a 'church of whom He that holdeth the seven 
 stars in His right hand is saying: "I know thy works, and thy toil and 
 thy patience : . . . nevertheless I have this against thee that thou 
 didst leave thy first love." Thy first love — the love that thou didst 
 learn at the feet of the Master, — the love of the humblest and the 
 neediest. They are not to thee what they were to him ; thou canst not 
 say what he said, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath 
 anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor." Therefore it is that 
 when thou goest forth with the g6od tidings there is a deepening and 
 widening gulf betwixt thee and those to whom thou art sent : therefore 
 it is that thy high enthusiasms are chilled and the pulses of thy life 
 beat feebly, and thy treasuries are empty, and thy heart is filled with 
 fear. Thou hast been looking for help to the prosperous and the power- 
 ful : thou hast forgotten whence thy strength must come. 
 
 O Daughter of my people, that thou mightest know, in this thy 
 day, the things that belong to thy peace, before they are hidden from 
 thine eyes ! For it is He who is the incarnation of the Eternal Wisdom 
 who is calling unto thee, "Whoso findeth me findeth life," and thou 
 knowest where to search for him : with what sort of people he is always 
 identified ; in what company he may be found. 
 
 This is the message for the churches, for all the churches. It is 
 their life that needs to be replenished ; when they have found him, there 
 
 14 
 
will be resources enough for all their work. Brethren, I take this word 
 home to myself, the reproach of it, the shame of it. I know that this 
 is what my church needs more than anything else — a closer identifica- 
 tion with the life of the common people. It has lain heavily on my 
 heart many days, and I have been seeking for ways of bridging the 
 chasm which separates us from those who would, we know, be Christ's 
 closest friends if he were here. I am persuaded that this is the one 
 great need of all our churches, to break down the barriers that separate 
 us from tliem. to overcome their suspicions and their fears, to make 
 them believe that we love them, that their interests are dear to us, that 
 the brotherhood of man is not to us a phrase, but the central fact of 
 our lives. I do not believe that our evangelism will accomplish any- 
 thing until we can solve this problem ; when it is solved, a flame of 
 sacred love will be kindled that will run like prairie fire all over the 
 land. 
 
 It is your message, too, brethren of this society — yours, no less than 
 ours, ycurs because it is ours. On the frontiers, in the hamlets, in 
 the swarming, polyglot populations of the cities, you must make friends 
 with the poor. They are your strongest allies. Win their love and all 
 is well with you. You may get the co-operation of all the plutocrats 
 in the country and it will do you no permanent good ; your treasury 
 will be quickly drained and your debts will accumulate, but if you can 
 make the poor people, the common people, believe in you and love you, 
 your cause will not fail nor will your springs run dry. The Lxjrd must 
 love the poor people, the common people, said Mr. Lincoln, for he has 
 made so many of them. He does love them ; they are very near to him ; 
 and it is therefore well worth while to have them for our friends. 
 
 The cities, the great industrial centers, the mining districts, are full 
 of these people who are outside the churches — and who, though most 
 of them are not in want, and need no charity, are, in a spiritual sense, 
 "distressed and scattered, as sheep having no shepherd." It was to 
 such as these that the heart of the Master went out in compassion ; it is 
 to them that we must go. 
 
 You say that you have been trying to reach them ; yes. we have all 
 been trying. — about half trying ; but we have not put into our endeavor 
 the passion of consecrated purpose which a Christly love would inspire. 
 
 I am persuaded that this is the underlying reason of all our em- 
 barrassments and perplexities, as a society. There may have been errors 
 of policy, faults of management, but the conditions that disturb us 
 to-day have a deeper origin ; they will not be cured by any new ad- 
 justments of machinery. They spring from a cooling enthusiasm, a 
 waning love in the hearts of the people of our churches. We are out 
 of touch with the sources of our power. We have lost the Messianic 
 
 15 
 
fire. It will never be rekindled until with all our hearts we return to 
 Him who said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath 
 anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor," — and who, under the 
 shadow of Gethsemane, prayed ; "As thou didst sent me into the world, 
 even so sent I them into the world." 
 
 If all this is true, doubtless it will call on us all for some deep 
 searchings of heart, some changes in our methods of work, some new 
 alignment of our' forces, some simplification of our lives, some broaden- 
 ing of our friendships to include many with whom we have had, 
 hitherto, but little in common. But all these sacrifices will bring in 
 their own 'compensation. And I trust that to some of us, at least, there 
 may appear a vision of what the church of Jesus Christ might be, in this 
 day and generation, if she would gather into herself the resources that 
 belong to her, — even the weak and despised things — ^the things that God 
 hath chosen, — and thus replenished and equipped would go forth to do 
 battle for her Lord. To such a church there could come no dream of 
 defeat, no fear of failure ; the Kingdom and the greatness of the King- 
 dom under the whole heaven would be hers, and in the name of her 
 Lord she would enter in and take possession. 
 
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