tihvavy of Che 'theoloo;ical ^mimvy 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 The Estate of the 
 _Rey. John B. Vfieclinper 
 
 By 652.24 .B52 mT^ 
 Black, Samuel Charles, I869. 
 
 .Building a working church 
 

BUILDING A WORKING CHURCH 
 
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 :si> 
 
 ^/^ 
 
 BUILDING 
 WORKING CHUR 
 
 3 r:-:H 
 
 .^. 
 
 BY 
 
 ^. 
 
 SAMUEL CHARLES BLACK, D.D. 
 
 Pastor Collingwood Avenue Presbyterian Church, Toledo, Ohio; Formerly 
 
 Instructor in Hebrew, University of Colorado; 
 
 Author of Plain Answers to Religious Questions 
 
 Modern Men Are Asking, etc. 
 
 New York 
 
 Chicago 
 
 Toronto 
 
 Fleming H, Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 191 1, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 123 North Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
AUTHOR'S ANNOUNCEMENT. 
 
 THIS book is written for all Builders of the 
 Church, whether they be ministers or lay- 
 men, whether they build on her material or 
 her spiritual side. Perfect or imperfect, the Church 
 is the visible body of Christ, and therefore is de- 
 serving of the highest consideration. The author 
 is convinced that strength and numbers can be added 
 to the Church much more rapidly than they have 
 been in the past, and that it is the supreme duty of 
 Christians now living to make these additions. 
 
 There is not a theory in the book. Experience 
 has been gathered from country and city missions, 
 from churches in villages, towns and cities. Only 
 plans that have proved their value over and over 
 again are included. The author feels safe in guar- 
 anteeing results when the work suggested is en- 
 thusiastically done. 
 
 A church has done only half her work when she 
 has maintained herself. As a man keeps himself 
 in health that he may do his life work, so a church 
 should maintain herself that she may do the work 
 committed to her by her Lord. Beginning at Je- 
 rusalem the whole world must be evangelized. This 
 
aut|at'0 announcement 
 
 is the work of the Church; the church that fails 
 here fails utterly. 
 
 It is the spirit that quickeneth. On every page 
 of the following book the author has endeavored to 
 say some word that would arouse the spirit of Chris- 
 tian workers. Method and plan are very secondary 
 when the soul is on fire with zeal for God and love 
 for men. When the spirit is active, methods will 
 multiply like bubbles on batter quickened by new 
 leaven. 
 
 Work is the need of the Church to-day, just 
 plain, hard, continuous red-blood work. We know 
 enough, but we do not work enough. Never, in all 
 the history of the race, were the people so eager to 
 know the Truth, never were they so responsive to a 
 little genuine interest, a little unselfish service. 
 
 It is the contention of the author that any worthy 
 church that wishes to grow large and strong; that 
 wishes to take the place our common Master in- 
 tended, may do so. This book is an attempt to tell 
 you how. 
 
 S. C. B. 
 
 Toledo, Ohio. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. The World's Need, The Churches Opportunity. 11 
 
 WINNING THE LOCAL COMMUNITY: 
 
 II. a. Forces in the Conflict .... 25 
 
 III. b. The Pastor's Part 38 
 
 IV. c. The People's Part 53 
 
 CONTRIBUTING ELEMENTS: 
 V. a. Missions and the Missionary Spirit the 
 
 Supreme Dynamic 69 
 
 VI. b. The Spirit of EvangeHsm ... 88 
 
 Vn. c. Social Life; The Spirit of Fellowship . 107 
 
 Vill. d. Music in the Sanctuary .... 117 
 
 AUXILIARIES AS FIELDS OF LABOR 
 AND RECRUITING STATIONS: 
 IX. a. The Sabbath School . . . .131 
 
 X. b. Men's Clubs 145 
 
 XI. c. Women's Societies 157 
 
 Xn. d. Young People's Societies . . .169 
 Xm. e. Outside Missions 182 
 
 HOW FOUR NOTABLE CHARACTERS 
 FOUND THE SAVIOUR: 
 XIV. a. Peter; Brought by His Brother . . 195 
 XV. b. Cornelius; While Listening to a Sermon. 208 
 XVT. c. Lydia; While Attending a Prayer-Meet- 
 ing 219 
 
 XVII. d. Saul of Tarsus; By the Direct Interven- 
 
 tion of Divine Power .... 234 
 
 XVIII. A Working Church an Effective Projectile . . 249 
 
THE WORLD'S NEED, THE CHURCH'S OPPOR- 
 TUNITY. 
 
 THE outstanding need of the world in the 
 twentieth century, the need whose cry goes 
 up like the wail of a forsaken infant in the 
 night, is for thousands of pastors and churches of 
 all denominations who, forgetting their differences 
 and forsaking ease, will go forward with the zeal 
 of the spirit-filled Apostles and win the careless, 
 the indifferent and the openly sinful men and women 
 of our day to an atoning Saviour and a life of 
 righteousness. The fact that a few pastors and 
 churches in widely separated communities are doing 
 this thing reveals the fact that it might be done 
 in all communities if the same consecration and ac- 
 tivity were present. It ought to be seen everywhere. 
 It ought to be a commonplace, instead of the strik- 
 ing exception it is to-day. 
 
 A swift review of denominational statistics reveals 
 the lamentable fact that there were scores of 
 churches in America, having pastors and from one 
 to three hundred members, that did not win one soul 
 from sin to righteousness in the last twelve long 
 months; and this not in shrinking populations, but 
 
 11 
 
cfte motive Bttn 
 
 in thriving cities and villages where there are twice 
 as many non-Christians as Christians. In view of 
 the quick and ready response of the human heart 
 to the gripping power of the Gospel persuasively 
 told, how can such pastors and churches go on lay- 
 ing the blame on the sinfulness of the world and 
 praying long, wordy, lifeless prayers that God will 
 build up His Kingdom and drive out Satan with its 
 power? 
 
 How is He going to build up His Kingdom until 
 the dying, ash-coated embers in the hearts of millions 
 of Christians are stirred into a warming, life-giving 
 flame? Until those now claiming to be His shall 
 arouse themselves from lethargy, stop all quarreling 
 and feud-fanning, all seeking of personal glory and 
 advancement, all exploiting of the Church for per- 
 sonal gain, either financial or social, and, getting a 
 vision of a redeemed world by creeping close to His 
 great, throbbing, longing heart, and looking out 
 through His loving eyes, go forth from thence and 
 win, one by one, the boys and girls, the youths and 
 the maidens, the men and the women of maturity, 
 who ought to be His and who will be His, as soon 
 as a little life-giving. Christian leaven touches them? 
 
 It will be entirely apart from the problem, and 
 will only delay its solution, for some very dignified 
 and self-righteous Christians to sit back on reading 
 this and act offended and declare in icy tones that 
 they are not guilty of the charges named. Thank 
 
 12 
 
Ctie C!)urc&'0 ©ppottunftg 
 
 God if you, personally, are not, but the fact re- 
 mains that largely because of these very sins, thou- 
 sands of churches are at a standstill and thousands 
 more are barely maintaining themselves, or are going 
 forward at a snail's pace. The moment the whole 
 body of Christians begins to live right and work 
 faithfully, that moment will our churches be over- 
 crowded with new members, and our treasuries over- 
 flowing with willing offerings. 
 
 Two Common and Unpardonable Mistakes, 
 
 Upon somewhat extended inquiry over a wide 
 territory, it is revealed that many churches owe 
 their continued barrenness to two quite unpardon- 
 able mistakes: The first of these, found even more 
 commonly than the second, especially in the smaller 
 communities, is that a church, whatever its size. Is 
 doing very well if, at the end of each succeeding 
 year, it shows no appreciable loss in members and 
 can close the period with all bills paid. 
 
 How is the world to be saved if all our churches 
 possess only such negative virtues? Self-mainte- 
 nance is not the work of the Church. A man keeps 
 himself in health that he may serve the world and 
 win a competence; he does not consider himself a 
 success if, as the years go by, he simply keeps him- 
 self alive. The church that just maintains itself 
 is a failure as a part of the world-saving force of 
 Jesus. He must have organizations that keep them- 
 
 13 
 
Cfie caJotlO'is: jBeeB 
 
 selves alive, healthy and vigorous, that they may 
 bear fruit to His glory and the saving of men. 
 
 The second unpardonable mistake of many very 
 good people is to feel that a church has done about 
 all it can when it has won to a bloodless sort of 
 Christianity from one-fourth to one-third of the pop- 
 ulation of its community. Some years ago a young 
 and enthusiastic pastor began his work in a small 
 church located in the heart of a thriving commercial 
 city of some fourteen thousand inhabitants. He 
 yearned to win its unsaved men and women to his 
 Master, and began to lay his plan of campaign be- 
 fore his leading officer. The venerable man listened 
 with respectful indifference to the young en- 
 thusiast's recital, and when something was expected 
 from him, said languidly, "My young brother, I 
 do not want to discourage you, but when you begin 
 to work you will soon find, as other pastors have, 
 that this pond is pretty well fished out." 
 
 The young man decided he would see for himself. 
 He superintended a religious canvass of the city, 
 which revealed that of the fourteen thousand in- 
 habitants less than four thousand were professing 
 Christians, and over four hundred of the remainder 
 gave as their preference the small church of which 
 he was pastor. It is a good example of the way 
 most other ponds are fished out. A small, weak 
 church in a populous, unsaved community presents 
 the pathetic picture of a man starving in the midst 
 
 14 
 
^bt Ct)urcft'0 Dpportunftp 
 
 of plenty because he will not go and gather the 
 food. 
 
 Another thing which occasionally reveals this 
 error is for a i-eal, live, spirit-filled evangelist to visit 
 the community. All the work has been done, mind 
 you, all the fruit gathered! As the man of God 
 declares his message in words that pierce the thick 
 coats of indifference, and the hard crusts of sin, and 
 revived, warm-hearted Christians begin to do per- 
 sonal work, sinning men and women, whom the 
 churches have long classed as unsavable, come out 
 from their old lives by hundreds and thousands, and 
 the churches waken up to say: "We have had an- 
 other Pentecost." Well, yes, but the same forces 
 would have produced the same transformations any 
 time in the past fifty years. 
 
 When this thing can be done and is not done, 
 where is the responsibility to rest? Not upon the 
 sinful world. No good work can be expected from 
 it ; but surely upon those men and women who, 
 blessed with a knowledge of the saving power of the 
 Gospel, have done little or nothing to bring the un- 
 saved in their communities to a confession of the 
 Saviour that will yield them spiritual birth and all 
 the joy and strength of Christian righteousness. 
 
 A Consideration of the Need, 
 
 One does not consider the sinful, wretched state 
 of society because it is a pleasant thing to do. It 
 
 16 
 
Ctie motW^ il3eeD 
 
 is much finer to consider the birds and the flowers, 
 the sunlight and the green fields, but just as the 
 victim of a loathsome ulcer, refusing to acknowledge 
 its presence and seek a cure, soon dies from its 
 ravages, so the generation that shuts its eyes to the 
 destructive elements at work in its members and 
 makes no effort to eliminate them, must pay the 
 awful price of its sin. 
 
 The brave man is not he, who, hiding his head 
 like the ostrich, refuses to see, but is one who looks 
 carefully and with wise consideration, and if he sees 
 hurtful elements at work in his own life or in the 
 life of his city or nation, uses the knife with the 
 firm decision of the fearless surgeon, letting poisoned 
 blood if necessary, but saving the better part of 
 him or his people to a stronger, more honorable 
 life. 
 
 When a state of society exists which breaks up 
 one home in every twelve by a scandal in the divorce 
 court; when countless more are ruined by murder 
 or other tragedy, growing out of infidelity on the 
 part of either wife or husband, when indecency in 
 word or action is becoming more than commonplace ; 
 and the selling of virtue, or the ruining of it, is be- 
 coming more and more a matter of coarse jest, it 
 would seem to be fully time for the Church of the 
 Sinless One to gird herself and do valiant battle. 
 When the gambling instinct is fostered and encour- 
 aged by many well-meaning merchants, and by some 
 
 16 
 
Cfte C!)utcj)'0 ©pportunitg 
 
 great and powerful religious organizations; when 
 drinking, card-playing and attendance upon low, 
 passion-arousing theatres are declared to be entirely 
 harmless pleasures in which the young and inex- 
 perienced have every right to engage ; when city and 
 national governments are willing to license the most 
 damning, life-blighting institution the world has ever 
 seen, for the return of a few blood-stained dollars; 
 it would seem there were cause enough to arouse 
 to action any man or woman with a spark of 
 chivalry, or love of purity, to say nothing at all of 
 the Church made up of men and women who claim 
 to be making an honest effort to walk in the foot- 
 steps of Him who hated sin with His whole being 
 and did everything in His power to drive it from 
 the world. 
 
 The Blight and the Blister of Sin. 
 
 How childlike and unworthy it is for the Church 
 to refuse to see the awful need for her aggressive 
 good offices in modem society! The growingly com- 
 mon saying that things are not so bad as reformers 
 are wont to paint them is irrefutably answered by 
 such an incident as occurred only a few days ago 
 in a western city, an occurrence that is matched in 
 some city of our nation as often as once in every 
 twenty-four hours. A young couple who believed in 
 individual license married; each drank a little, just 
 a little, as is allowed by the best society! In due 
 
 17 
 
Cfte motWii jfOeeD 
 
 time children came, then trouble, and the glass of 
 each grew larger. More trouble. The husband 
 wandered away from home; the wife sought other 
 lovers; the husband returned and sought a recon- 
 ciliation, which was declined; enraged, he filled him- 
 self with liquor, his revolver with cartridges ; sought 
 his wife, shot her dead; tried to kill her companion, 
 and, failing in this, turned the weapon on himself, 
 ending his own wretched life. Mere trifles, of course, 
 not to be noticed, these practices called moderate 
 drinking, low theatre-going, loose social customs; 
 but the inevitable fruitage, however unwillingly 
 gathered, forces the confession that the ancient 
 teacher was right when he said: "Whatsoever a man 
 soweth that shall he also reap," and, "The wages of 
 sin is death." 
 
 A young girl of good parentage, rebelling against 
 the restraints of Christian parents and the teaching 
 of the Church, accepted the company of a flashy 
 young man, of low morals, and no character. The 
 pace they went was fierce, and for a few weeks 
 fascinating, and then the awful truth forced itself 
 upon them that their sin would soon make her a 
 mother. At this tragic stage the fine young man 
 disappeared, and the fair girl, unwilling to bear 
 the blight of coming shame, ended her life with 
 strychnine. 
 
 A splendid young man, of fine physical and mental 
 inheritance, entered a great university to complete 
 
 18 
 
Cfte Cburct)'0 ©pportunitg 
 
 his education. Light-hearted, he made friends 
 among a fast set of young fellows who supplemented 
 the somewhat slow festivities of the university town 
 with an occasional visit to a nearby city where, un- 
 observed, they could go to any lengths desired. In- 
 side of sixty days he was going with them. Visiting 
 a physician at the end of his first year for treatment 
 of a supposed trifling ailment, it was revealed that 
 in his revels he had contracted disease that could 
 never be cured; that would more and more weaken 
 his powers and ruin his life ; that precluded a happy 
 home and family. This young man took the pistol 
 route to oblivion. 
 
 Barren Souls Equally Pathetic, 
 
 But among the vast company of wholly respect- 
 able, honest, honorable citizens of America who 
 have never confessed the Saviour to the point of 
 spiritual birth, there is a soul-barrenness that wrings 
 the heart of one who knows what they might be. 
 Young mechanics, merchants and professional men 
 and their wives, by the hundred thousand, who see 
 no higher than the counter or a bread-winning suc- 
 cess ; whose eyes have never opened upon visions of 
 a world redeemed, in part, by their activity; who 
 have not yet learned that "Man cannot live by bread 
 alone," who have never learned the beauty, the 
 power, the sustaining strength of personal contact 
 with the One Man who fully overcame the world. 
 
 19 
 
Cfte motive jOeeD 
 
 A visit was made not long ago to the home of a 
 young couple of the upper middle class. The hus- 
 band, a rising young merchant of limited education, 
 the wife a high school graduate from a middle west- 
 ern village. The young wife held her first baby in 
 her arms, treasuring it as only such a mother can. 
 "No, they never attended church. The husband 
 was so tired when Saturday night came, and Sun- 
 day they slept late and the rest of the day enjoyed 
 the baby. Read books? Well, she should say not! 
 Neither of them had time for such things. About 
 all they ever did do for amusement was to spend 
 one evening a week at vaudeville or a moving pic- 
 ture show. No, they really did not feel a need for 
 the Church or any religious services, and they had 
 no time to help anybody else ; they preferred to re- 
 main just as they were!" 
 
 Shall the Church Try Harder? 
 
 This then is the situation in the average American 
 town and city: from one- fourth to one- third of the 
 people Christian; amongst the remainder sin is 
 rampant or indifference blighting. Can pastors and 
 churches remain quiet and inactive when this con- 
 dition exists? Can they feel that "doing pretty 
 well" will satisfy the Master who commissioned us 
 to win the whole world? "The people that do know 
 their God shall be strong and do exploits," says the 
 Prophet Daniel. (Dan. xi: 32.) An exploit is a 
 
Cfte Cl)utcj)'0 Dppottunftp 
 
 rare or unusual service; something out of the ordi- 
 nary, something better than "doing pretty well." 
 Have we not reached the time when exploits are in 
 order? When unusual successes in soul-winning 
 should not create so much comment? When for a 
 church in a populous, unsaved community to do less 
 than double its membership every two or three years 
 should be looked upon as something of a disgrace? 
 
 Shall the Church Broaden Her Scope? 
 
 The Church is allowing other institutions to do 
 much of the work it is her business to do. Confess- 
 ing that her first work must ever be spiritual, let 
 us not forget that in His gripping parable Christ 
 pictured the Great Judge casting away into outer 
 darkness those who had not visited the sick, min- 
 istered to the needy, extended the cup of cold water 
 in His name. Let the Church speak no word against 
 social organizations that are ministering to human 
 need, to which she has been indifferent. She should 
 be the leader in relief, in reform, in fostering every 
 worthy, uplifting enterprise. Just as the work of 
 the physician and the hospital in foreign mission 
 fields opens thousands of hearts to the Gospel, so 
 the Church at home will find that she will twine 
 spiritual arms around lost souls when she ministers 
 to the betterment of the bodies those souls inhabit. 
 
 The Glory of a World Redeemed, 
 
 If the need of the work does not prod us to action, 
 21 
 
Cfie morID'0 il3eeli 
 
 perhaps a picture of the world redeemed and puri- 
 fied will draw us to it. Fancy picking up a news- 
 paper containing no hint of assault, or murder, or 
 other human wrong ! No police court news, for such 
 courts have died for want of business ; no accounts 
 of prize fights, for men have risen above the beasts 
 and taken the place in God's universe He planned 
 for them; no awful railroad wrecks caused directly 
 or indirectly by the greed and heartlessness of 
 money kings ; no accounts of broken homes or mari- 
 tal infidelity, for men and women are living pure as 
 their newly chosen Master; no injustice on the part 
 of employer, no destruction of property on the part 
 of the employed; churches and schools overcrowded, 
 and no man asking his brother, "Knowest thou the 
 Lord?" for all men know Him, from the least even 
 to the greatest! 
 
 O, yes, it is possible, and what is more, it ic com- 
 ing, and, many of us believe, not so very far away. 
 God does not begin a good work to soon abandon 
 it. Just as sure as He began winning this willful, 
 disobedient, sinning race back to Himself, He is 
 going to keep up the work till His family is com- 
 plete. Will you be indifferent and compel others to 
 drag along your dead weight? Or will you plunge 
 into the conflict like a war-for-liberty hero, and never 
 sheath your sword so long as the world holds a 
 wrong or an unsaved soul? When we have a million 
 such soldiers the conflict will soon end in victory. 
 
WINNING THE LOCAL COMMUNITY. 
 
n. 
 
 FORCES IN THE CONFLICT. 
 
 THE warfare in which the Christian Church is 
 engaged differs from all other in this, that 
 while the weapons and animating spirit of 
 her adversaries must be destroyed, the adversaries 
 themselves must not only be spared, but they must 
 be benefited and then won as friends, and finally 
 as soldiers in the very cause they once withstood. 
 How different this is from ordinary warfare, even 
 from the warfare of the ancient Jewish Theocracy, 
 may be reckoned from the command given to Saul 
 concerning the Amelekites (I Samuel xv: 3) : "Now 
 go and smite Amelek and utterly destroy all that 
 they have, and spare them not, but slay both man 
 and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel 
 and ass." Witness also the many times the enemies 
 of Jerusalem, not content with killing or taking 
 captive all the inhabitants, went so far in their re- 
 lentless wrath as to destroy every structure in the 
 conquered city, plow its area as a field and sow it 
 with salt to signify its utter annihilation. To van- 
 quish an opposing army and yet win its members 
 as friends and supporters of the once opposed cause, 
 
 25 
 
minnins tfie Local Communftp 
 
 requires a magnanimity and tact characteristic of 
 the Saviour himself. It is by no means universal in 
 the Church, and just as an army preparing for 
 sanguinary warfare must spend weeks, and, if pos- 
 sible, months in preparation, so the individual mem- 
 bers of the Church might well take time to cultivate 
 the graces of their Master without which they will 
 be poor soldiers indeed. 
 
 These enemies are not to be wounded ; on the con- 
 trary, the wounds they have already received while 
 living in sin are to be mollified with the oil and wine 
 of God's consolation. If the Christian soldier ruth- 
 lessly tears open the old wounds or heartlessly in- 
 flicts new ones, how can he expect to win the ene- 
 mies of the Lord to the Christ-like life that is the 
 essence of true Christianity? A few months ago a 
 dozen of the inmates of the Girls' School of Correc- 
 tion, a State Institution at Mitchellville, Iowa, re- 
 belled against the authorities in charge, incited the 
 other girls to riot, and caused such disturbance that 
 they were removed to the Polk County jail in Des 
 Moines. Wide investigation was instigated to dis- 
 cover what had led this group of girls to so rebel. 
 It was proved that they had been well housed, well 
 clothed, and well fed. When efforts to discover the 
 cause seemed about to fail one state officer resigned 
 from the Board of Control, and with his resignation 
 published a long statement in which he revealed that 
 certain helpers at the institution were in the habit 
 
 26 
 
jFotces! in tfte Conflict 
 
 of throwing into the faces of the girls their old mis- 
 takes and failures, the misdemeanors that had sent 
 them to the House of Correction, sins they had long 
 since repented of and wished to forget. It was like 
 throwing powder into a flame. It exploded the old 
 nature, making them worse than before. 
 
 The incident holds a lesson for the Church. We 
 will not succeed by continually pointing to the past 
 sins of those we wish to win, but by holding up 
 ideals for the future and helping them blot out and 
 forget the past, by showing them by example and 
 by precept the thing they may become, the life 
 they may live, with the help of God. We are to 
 be wiser than the wisest serpent ; more harmless than 
 the most harmless dove, and so determined to win 
 and not wound that our Master will delight in us 
 as we gather in His lost ones, till not a single 
 prodigal remains away from the Father's house. 
 
 Considering the Opposition. 
 
 Our Master taught that when about to launch 
 an enterprise, the wise man always sat down first 
 and counted the cost. If about to build a house, 
 did he have money enough to finish it? If to begin 
 a war, could he with one thousand soldiers success- 
 fully contend with an adversary who had ten thou- 
 sand.'* In capturing the world for Christ, or the 
 nation, or our own community, for conditions are 
 much the same wherever man is found, what is the 
 
 ^7 
 
mimins m Local Communrtg 
 
 strength of the enemy? What the possibilities of 
 victory? 
 
 Looking the whole field over; considering city, 
 village and rural community, one reaches the con- 
 clusion that in America the opposition outnumbers 
 fully two to one the forces of the Church, and that 
 they may be divided into three quite well defined 
 groups. First, the openly bad. This group is sur- 
 prisingly small by comparison. Not many men and 
 women in any community are so far down in the 
 scale of human conduct as to openly break the laws 
 of God and man. Most of them are in the toils of 
 the law much of the time. A hard class to reach; 
 harder to influence for good, though not so much 
 so as is generally supposed. Mrs. Maud Ballington 
 Booth, and other workers in the Salvation Army, 
 have won thousands of this class during the period 
 of their incarceration for crime, and thousands more 
 have been won by plain spoken evangelists and mis- 
 sion workers who have forced them to think of 
 sacred things. 
 
 Institutions That are Worse Tha/n Men, 
 
 Perhaps a more hurtful element in the opposition 
 than the lives of these openly sinful men and women 
 are the institutions they create and foster; the sa- 
 loon, the gambling hell, the low, passion-breeding 
 theatre. Hurtful to all men, they are rank poison 
 to adolescent youth. Of course they could be 
 
 28 
 
jFotce0 in tfte Conflict 
 
 quickly exterminated if the forces of the Church 
 would act unitedly against them, but since they 
 bring a little revenue to owners of ramshackle build- 
 ings, pay high taxes, even though those taxes are 
 more than eaten up by the extra court and police 
 costs the institutions bring upon the State, they are 
 supported by many good people whose attitude 
 toward them is incomprehensible from the standpoint 
 of the Christ. He made no compromise with sin. 
 He would scorn the blood-money such institutions 
 produce. The human mind cannot conceive of this 
 sinless One accepting any kind of return from an 
 institution that did its utmost to weaken and rob 
 other men, that taught young manhood that it is 
 all right to beat your fellowmen out of their hard- 
 earned dollars if you are sharp enough to do it and 
 escape the penitentiary, or that eternally flaunted 
 in the faces of growing boys and girls, lewd theatre 
 posters and pictures of prize fights that reveal hu- 
 manity at its lowest depths. From these tangible 
 things there issues an intangible influence it is hard 
 indeed to overcome. Just as you must bury the 
 carcass of a dead beast to escape the decaying odors, 
 so these institutions must be killed and buried out 
 of sight before the hurtful influence arising from 
 them can be stopped. 
 
 The second group is slightly larger. It is com- 
 posed of men and women who in the main live moral 
 and honorable lives, but who, through erroneous 
 
 ^9 
 
minnim tht Local Communitp 
 
 teaching or misunderstanding, look upon modern 
 Christianity with distrust, or as a force to be op- 
 posed. Among them will be found many who will 
 hail Christ, but hiss the Church; who declare faith 
 in Him, but do not follow Him and who refuse to 
 fellowship with those making an heroic effort to 
 do so, on the assertion that the effort is not honest. 
 iThe third group comprises the vast majority of 
 those not yet in the Kingdom. It is composed 
 chiefly of men and women who know little, often- 
 times nothing, about Christianity, and who will not 
 take the trouble to inquire; those who give most of 
 their time and strength to making a living and 
 seeking personal pleasure and who do not give 
 Christianity much thought. As nearly as possible 
 they are neither for it nor against it. They have 
 never been forced to think the subject through and 
 reach a conclusion. Most of them, when approached 
 by a wise worker, will say : "Yes, I know I ought to 
 be a Christian, it is the right thing to do, and some- 
 time I intend to take the step." And here is the 
 vital element in it all: Most of these people are won 
 hy the first tactful^ persistent effort to win them 
 that is put forth, a thing which multiplies the re- 
 sponsibility of the Church and condemns every one of 
 us for past inactivity. 
 
 The Accessibility of Our Foe, 
 
 Strange as the idea may seem at first, the Church 
 30 
 
Jfotce^ in tfte Conflict 
 
 is to be congratulated on the fact that the forces 
 against which she must contend are so readily ac- 
 cessible. The traveler through Galilee is shown great 
 caves in the face of a cliff where a band of robbers 
 entrenched themselves when the government was try- 
 ing to rid the country of them. So inaccessible were 
 the caves, the only avenue of approach being open 
 to the death missiles of the bandits, that for months 
 they remained unmolested. At last, however, law 
 and order prevailed. Great cages full of fighting 
 men were let down the face of the cliff from above. 
 With superior weapons and courage they soon over- 
 powered the outlaws and destroyed them. 
 
 No such ingenuity is demanded from the Church. 
 Those we wish to capture are all around us. Some 
 of them beloved children in our homes ; some of them 
 our closest friends, to whom for some strange rea- 
 son we have been afraid to speak; some of them are 
 our business associates with whom we rub elbows 
 every day; some our closest neighbors with whom 
 we talk freely on every other subject under heaven. 
 We may need ingenuity of approach, but the thing 
 we need most is courage. Courage to do the thing 
 nine-tenths of our friends would gladly welcome and 
 quickly respond to ! When the courage of the 
 Church is "screwed up to the sticking point" the 
 race will be quickly won to Jesus. 
 
 31 
 
Winning tbt Hotal Communitp 
 
 The Forces of the Church Considered. 
 
 Many very good Christians are so occupied wor- 
 rying about the power of the opposition that they 
 never think of the power, or the lack of it, of the 
 attacking force. It is entirely possible, if we would 
 strengthen the weak places in our own forces, the 
 power of the opposition would be insignificant by 
 comparison. The attacking force falls also into 
 three groups which it will be our duty to consider. 
 
 First stands the small company of valiant ones ; 
 spirit-jSUed, aggressive, alert; on the spring like an 
 athlete on his marks. They are the workers of the 
 hive, never still, never too tired nor too busy to say 
 a word for Christ when an opportunity opens. They 
 are the steady fruit-gatherers of the Kingdom. 
 Without them the harvest would be small indeed. 
 Without them the most faithful pastor would lose 
 heart. Oh! but they are few! Shamefully few, 
 when they should be commensurate with the mem- 
 bership of the Church. In most communities they 
 can be counted on the fingers of one hand. 
 
 Next to them stands the much larger company 
 who work to win souls to Christ when they them- 
 selves are temporarily stimulated by special services, 
 or some outstanding spiritual experience. When so 
 aroused they do good work, oftentimes remarkably 
 good work. What they do when so aroused shows 
 what they should do all the time. It is difficult to 
 
 S2 
 
4force0 in tfte Conflict 
 
 understand how they quiet their conscience during 
 the idle times. 
 
 Here again the third class is the large one; hun- 
 dreds of thousands more here than in both the other 
 classes put together; the vast company of profess- 
 ing Christians who never do a stroke of face-to-face 
 work for Him. Many are not yet sufficiently 
 aroused to the need of it ; many say they can't ; while 
 a very large company confess, when pressed to the 
 point, that the lives they are living are not suf- 
 ficiently Christ-like to warrant them in trying to 
 move others to begin it. Consider an army whose 
 generals were zealous enough, whose under officers 
 were good fighters when stimulated, but whose rank 
 and file were indifferent or inactive; not worthy to 
 fight for the cause they were depending on to save 
 them ! It would be a very fair picture of the modem 
 Church, so far as proportion of workers to non- 
 workers is concerned. How many victories would 
 you expect such an army to win.? 
 
 To capture any community for Christ it will be 
 necessary that the whole Christian force be stimu- 
 lated to the point of action and kept stimulated 
 until all are won. We have force enough to do the 
 work; the lives to be won are entirely accessible; 
 experience proves that they are readily responsive 
 to the warm heart-call of Christian love. Have we 
 the love, and will we sound the call? Blame not the 
 unsaved when so much fault rests with ourselves. 
 
minnim tfte Local Communitp 
 
 When the Church gets right, the community will 
 be saved. 
 
 The Weapons of Christian Warfare. 
 
 While the lives of the men and women in the 
 forces the Church must meet are to be saved and 
 strengthened, the institutions they have created and 
 fostered must be utterly exterminated. There is 
 absolutely no place for them in a redeemed society. 
 The main weapon with which the Church must ac- 
 complish this destruction is the ballot. We are a 
 law-abiding people in a democracy where the ma- 
 jority rules. Put that ballot into the hands of all 
 normal, enlightened citizens, both men and women, 
 and let them say by honestly counted vote whether 
 these hurtful institutions shall go or stay. No man 
 or woman who votes to keep them should longer 
 march under the banner of Christ. Let them go 
 out and openly join the forces of sin they are sup- 
 porting, and not hide, like hypocritical murderers, 
 under the folds of the Church while secretly they 
 are stabbing her to death. 
 
 How little and how slowly the Church realizes 
 the power that is in her hands ! With her own vote 
 solid and with the many that would vote with her 
 among non-Christians who desire to see purity and 
 righteousness prevail, she would have a majority, 
 in any normal community, against every flagrant 
 evil that exists. Fancy any great general with 
 
 34 
 
Jforce^ in tbe Conflict 
 
 power enough in his hands to destroy an enemy's 
 fortifications, weakly submitting to their existence 
 and even contributing no little amount to their 
 strength! Truly the children of the world are wiser 
 in their generation than the children of light. 
 
 Two other powerful weapons remain with which 
 the Church must accomplish her warfare, and the 
 first of these is enlightenment. The sinfulness of the 
 world arises largely from the ignorance among the 
 masses that better things are possible. The cry 
 which escaped the lips of a youth when asked by 
 an honest physician why he had sinned incur- 
 ably against nature is typical: "Oh, my God! I did 
 not know." Millions of our fellow citizens, born 
 under the curse of sin, have never seen the Light. 
 To them the Sun of Righteousness does not shine. 
 Many, knowing that better things do exist, have 
 no knowledge as to how they may pass from their 
 present position to a higher one. To them the gulf 
 seems fixed. It is a closed door having no knob on 
 their side. 
 
 This magnificent weapon called enlightenment it 
 is the privilege of the Church to use. In conjunc- 
 tion with one other to be mentioned in a moment, it 
 will prove highly effectual in solving the difficulty. 
 Men must know Christ to love Him, must know by 
 observation the glories of the Christ-life before they 
 will be moved to strive after it. To this end the 
 Church must enthusiastically support every educa- 
 
 35 
 
MJinning tfte Local Communitp 
 
 tional force that is Christian in its trend, and must 
 establish more. The Sabbath School must be en- 
 larged in its scope and purpose, and enriched by 
 more of the lives of the strongest, most Spirit-filled 
 men and women of the Church. It must become 
 more and more recruiting station and training 
 ground. The Church must go with her knowledge 
 of the things of God to the people who will not at- 
 tend her formal services. There must be more Hull 
 House and Chicago Commons settlements ; with con- 
 secrated lives and uplifting pictures and stimulating 
 music and clean Christian homes and, above all, the 
 Gospel Story persuasively told, we must, if neces- 
 sary for a time, force a knowledge of Christ and 
 better ways of living upon those who do not know 
 them. No darkness can stand against that light. 
 it conquers all opposition and, while doing so, fills 
 the lives it is conquering with a new and vital joy. 
 Let the Church begin anew to shed this Light. 
 Wisely used, it is the cure-all for ignorance-blighted, 
 sin-cursed lives. 
 
 One should hasten to say, however, that it must 
 never be used alone. The bow that must ever shoot 
 this penetrating arrow is the bow of Love. Sent 
 forth by any other force it may produce a fes- 
 tering wound, but when love is the impelling and 
 attending force its entrance can bring only better- 
 ment to a life. Ancient tyrants, who had no love 
 for their subjects, but wished to hold them as 
 
 36 
 
4Force0 in tfte Conflict 
 
 slaves, denied them learning, for they said, "When 
 these people know that anything else is possible, 
 they will rebel." But wiser, less selfish monarchies 
 said, "Let the people be taught, for when they 
 know our laws are enacted for their good, they will 
 support us all the more." When the Church is 
 prompted by love, when no selfish motive or hope 
 of return is apparent in her reaching after the un- 
 saved, they will come by thousands where they now 
 come by tens, and the Father's house will be filled. 
 "Go out quickly and compel them to come in." 
 But men can be forced only by love. Police power 
 irritates them and makes them rebellious. Love 
 conquers the will and makes them want to come. 
 
 These weapons then the Church may freely use, 
 the ballot, enlightenment, love. The greatest of 
 these is the last. It must be the dynamo that drives 
 all else or the Great Purpose will never be accom- 
 plished. Let the prayer of the Church be from 
 this day forth: "Oh, Master, teach us how to 
 love, — all men, — for Thy sake, Amen." 
 
 37 
 
THE PASTOR'S PART. 
 
 THE capturing of any community for Christ, 
 whether its population be large or small, de- 
 mands that a tremendous amount of hard 
 work be done. Men have never forced their way 
 into the Kingdom and particularly they are not do- 
 ing it in the complex and absorbing life of the 
 twentieth century. Scores of forces are pulling on 
 every life and, other things being equal, the one 
 that pulls the hardest and most persistently gets it. 
 How much genuine pull on men has your life, your 
 church? Will the centripetal overcome the centrif- 
 ugal? In the go and come of modern social move- 
 ments in your vicinity, will the balance most often 
 be in favor of the Church? 
 
 Pastors must never lose sight of the fact that 
 their pull-work must be done so skilfully as to be 
 well-nigh imperceptible; certainly it must be free 
 from the slightest objectionable quality. Our 
 Master won men chiefly by three elements of power: 
 Sheer force of manhood, keen and fresh intellectu- 
 ality, and heart power. He did not say, "You 
 must come after me or be eternally^ damned," but 
 
 38 
 
Cfte pa0tot'0 Jpatt 
 
 rather, "If any man wills to come after me let him 
 deny himself and take up his cross daily and fol- 
 low me." To be permanent and effectual the com- 
 ing must be a free-will act. When a rubber band 
 is stretched beyond its normal size, it snaps back 
 the moment the compulsion is released. 
 
 Equal Efforts; Different Results, 
 
 In a certain steel mill in the middle states two 
 good men were wont to work. One was the local 
 minister, whose zeal far outmeasured his tact. He 
 tried to force the employees to be churchmen. At 
 the noon hour, from nail keg or idle bench, he 
 would exhort the workmen in strident tones. "They 
 must change their manner of life. They must at- 
 tend his church services. Death and hell were the 
 only portion of those who would not." The men 
 smoked quietly and listened with respect, but they 
 were unmoved. The word had filtered among their 
 number that the minister was none too kind to his 
 own family, that he did not pay his debts, the 
 feeling grew in each heart that his efforts in their 
 behalf were not wholly unselfish. No trout will 
 rise to a fly if he sees a hook! So when it was 
 announced that he would preach in the public park 
 on Sunday afternoon the men sauntered away to 
 the woods. 
 
 The other man of whom I speak was a workman 
 in the mill. He was not ordained to the ministry, 
 
JSBfnttfng tfte Local Communftp 
 
 but often preached. He made no pretenses to ora- 
 tory, but his simple utterances gripped the heart. 
 He had no word of rebuke for the men, but ever 
 held before them high ideals. As the boys came 
 away from simple suppers in his humble home they 
 told their friends of his gentleness to his children, 
 and the perfection of his unostentatious discipline. 
 The word went round that here was a man. After 
 a number had found the Saviour during quiet talks 
 in his bare den, the word went round that here 
 was a Christian, and when the committee in charge 
 invited the humble workman to speak at the park 
 service one Sabbath afternoon, the employees of 
 the mill were there by hundreds, while more fruit 
 was gathered after that service than after any other 
 during the summer series. The feeling is growing 
 among those who watch such things closely that 
 ministers must spend more time cultivating the 
 graces of the Master. We cannot drive men; we 
 must win them. By strength of character, by fresh 
 outlook and utterance, by sympathy and unselfish 
 service. Men so won stay won and become winners. 
 
 Hard Work Wins Here as Elsewhere, 
 
 It is clear that the failure of many churches to 
 gather new members is due to the fact that the 
 work is not pushed. A thousand trifling obstruc- 
 tions arise to keep well-meaning men and women, 
 who as yet lack the zeal of God's house, from tak- 
 
 40 
 
Cfte pa0tot'0 patt 
 
 ing the final step. If the matter is not pressed 
 they will not come. It is common for many very 
 worthy Church officers to stiffen their back just 
 here and say, "Well, if there is not enough to 
 these people to make them overcome the obstruc- 
 tions and come any way, let them stay out. They 
 will not be much help to the Church if they come !" 
 
 Two grievous faults here. We are not trying to 
 win men primarily for the help they will be to 
 the Church, but to save their souls ; the help they 
 render the Church is incidental; and then, wide 
 experience has proven beyond question that many 
 who come into the Church haltingly and reluctantly 
 often become the best workers the Church has when 
 they become permeated with her rich spirit. 
 
 The question of moving a church building to more 
 attractive and serviceable quarters was once under 
 discussion by the board of a city home mission 
 church. One dour elder strenuously objected. He 
 conceded the building was not well located, but it 
 could be found and "if people want to go to church, 
 let them show it by going where the building is." 
 The tactful missionary took the elder on his own 
 ground: "That is exactly the point. The people 
 do not want to go to church, and it is the business 
 of the present membership to make the building and 
 the service so attractive they will want to go." The 
 elder soon saw his error and was the first contrib- 
 utor to the moving fund. 
 
 41 
 
minnine tfte JLocal Community 
 
 Nothing but the most aggressive, persistent work 
 will bring the people in anything like large numbers, 
 and it is the business of the pastor to see that such 
 work is done. 
 
 Routine as a Resource. 
 
 Just as important also is the call for tactful and 
 systematic endeavor. It is the "long pull, the 
 strong pull, and the persistent pull" that ultimately 
 wins. To give an invitation and not follow it up ; 
 to allow one rebuff to silence you; to allow a slight 
 difficulty to remain in the way of one you wish to 
 win, is to commit sins of omission of which the 
 churches should not be guilt}^ 
 
 All too often the spirit of a Christian worker 
 burns low; physical weariness is followed by the 
 deadening thought of "what's the use? People pre- 
 fer to stay where they are, and the most strenuous 
 efforts seem futile." In such an hour but one thing 
 will save a man, and that is a definite system which 
 sends him to his task whether he feels like going or 
 not. Phillips Brooks, speaking before the divinity 
 students at Yale, some years ago, said: "Routine 
 is a terrible master, but she is a servant whom we 
 can hardly do without. ... A strong, wooden 
 structure running through your work, a set of well- 
 framed and well-jointed habits about times and ways 
 of work, writing, studying, intercourse with people, 
 the administration of charity and education, and 
 
Cfie pa0tot'0 part 
 
 the proportion between the different parts of cler- 
 ical labor, is again and again the bridge over which 
 the minister walks when the solid ground of higher 
 motive fails him for a time. Routine as a law is 
 deadly. Routine as a resource in the temporary 
 exhaustion of impulse and suggestions is often our 
 salvation." 
 
 The Loud Call for Leadership, 
 
 All of this but adds to the volume of the loud 
 call for an alert, consecrated, aggressive leadership 
 from our thousands of worthy pastors. The pastor 
 is the key to this complex lock. Never in the world's 
 history was the call so loud and persistent; never 
 was the pastor's opportunity so great. Newspaper 
 assertions that the ministry is decadent are but the 
 effusions of uninformed minds. The man who takes 
 his ministry seriously, who looks upon it as a mag- 
 nificent opportunity to serve God and his fellowmen, 
 who discovers how fruitful an intelligent leadership 
 is, will grapple it to his heart with hoops of steel. 
 
 Let us at once deny the all too prevalent idea 
 that a minister should do all, or practically all, of 
 the work of the church. Referring to the sudden 
 death from overwork of one of the leading New 
 York pastors, a minister of that city said recently: 
 "New York is becoming a grave-yard for preachers. 
 Within two years five of the pastors of her leading 
 churches have died under fifty years of age. For 
 
 43 
 
wanning tfte Local Community 
 
 their deaths the people are largely responsible. They 
 say in substance if not in words : *We are paying 
 your salary and providing sufficient funds ; now go 
 on and do the work'; and the willing pastors, shoul- 
 dering the load, soon fall under its awful weight." 
 
 Christian people must remember that ministers are 
 flesh and blood like themselves, that they grow weary 
 from prolonged overwork, and mental strain; that 
 they can never lock up the shop and leave it to take 
 care of itself while they recuperate, but whenever 
 they are on the field they are on duty, whether it be 
 night or day. 
 
 In the Master's telling figure the pastor is to lead 
 the flock and feed it. That congregation wins im- 
 measurably that allows its pastor to be its leader, 
 that stimulates and encourages him to formulate 
 working plans, and then, with unlimited enthusiasm 
 and consecration, throws itself into working out 
 those plans and making them effectual. 
 
 Strength Against Heart-Break. 
 
 It is a lamentable necessity in the twentieth cen- 
 tury that pastors shall steel themselves against 
 heart-break. So many good people lack the thought- 
 fulness in utterance and magnanimity in action that 
 will save their pastors aching wounds and sleepless 
 nights. To do successful work in the Christian min- 
 istry men must have sensitive natures, and members 
 might well take more care to turn in the raw edges 
 
 44 
 
C6e pa0tot'$ Ipatt 
 
 of their remarks. The rasp of a file may be a good 
 thing to sharpen a hoe, but a cutting remark never 
 yet made a minister a better servant. "Why did 
 the former minister leave this field .'^" I once asked a 
 man who knew concerning a prominent Colorado par- 
 ish. "He left," said my friend, "because certain offi- 
 cers of the church, by unwarranted criticism of his 
 methods, broke his heart." 
 
 It has happened a thousand times and it looks as 
 though it would happen a thousand times more be- 
 fore people come to their senses. When your min- 
 ister shows a little spirit and employs effectual and 
 fruit-getting methods, even though they may differ 
 slightly from past custom, in heaven's name, don't 
 stop him ; let the good man go on, and help him in his 
 work. To call him to do your work and then stop 
 him when he starts is worse than the act of a child 
 who planted a shrub one day and pulled it up by the 
 roots the next to see if it was growing. The Master 
 said nothing about method, but He said much in 
 favor of branches that bear fruit and much against 
 those that do not. If effectual methods employed by 
 your pastor are not contrary to the scriptures, mem- 
 bers have no right to criticise them, to say nothing 
 of the unwisdom of deadening a minister's enthusi- 
 asm. The scriptures abundantly support the effectual 
 man who said fearlessly, "I am become all things to 
 all men that I may by all means save some." 
 
 45 
 
minning tfte Local Communftp 
 
 What the Minister Can Do, 
 
 That the above is not said to excuse the minister 
 for weaknesses or mistake, or to shield him from just 
 corrections will be abundantly evident from what fol- 
 lows. I believe the minister should be one of the 
 hardest workers in his community. I have no apol- 
 ogy for the minister who idles away precious time 
 under any figment of excuse whatsoever. A minister 
 is entitled to one day's rest in seven and a reasonable 
 time for sleep, but no more, and the man who takes 
 more, unless by special arrangement, wrongs the con- 
 gregation that supports him. Some very good men 
 need to remember that, "Not only is he idle who does 
 nothing, but he is also idle who might be better em- 
 ployed"; that a man may be idle dawdling over a 
 book which there is no real reason for reading just 
 as surely as though he sat and twirled his thumbs ; 
 that idleness begins when a man yields less than his 
 maximum possible production. 
 
 The man who would build up his church and make 
 it a creating force must throw himself into his work 
 with his whole heart; must give up once and forever 
 the thought of ease and what was once called "gen- 
 tlemanly leisure." 
 
 "We are not here to play, to dream, to drift. 
 We have hard work to do and loads to lift." 
 
 46 
 
^ite pastot's part 
 
 Gentlemen, if we want our people to give them- 
 selves to us, we must give ourselves to them. There 
 must be no holding back for selfish reasons, no divid- 
 ing of interest; no feeling that a small, comfortable 
 effort will suffice ; no refusal to keep on, though those 
 with whom we work are critical or even worse than 
 ineffectual. "The world wants results ; not good and 
 sufficient reasons why results are not forthcoming." 
 Well, so does the Master. We must not disap- 
 point Him, 
 
 Put the Sermon First, 
 
 And first of all the effectual pastor must make 
 himself a strong, virile, heart-reaching preacher of 
 the word of God. "It has pleased God by the foolish- 
 ness of preaching to save them that believe." The 
 sermon must not be neglected ; its preparation given 
 only the rag-tags of a week of turmoil. How close 
 to the facts Dr. Stevenson was when, during the 
 recent McCormick Seminary celebration, he said: 
 "Many a minister, who has allowed the week to be 
 filled with social and administrative duties, leaving 
 scant time for the preparation of the sermon, pre- 
 sents on Sunday morning a thing of shreds and 
 patches, concerning which he ought to say, as Fal- 
 staff did when introducing his rustic bride, "A poor 
 thing, gentlemen, but mine own !" 
 
 The effectual minister will ever be a prophet; the 
 man who declares to the world; "Thus sayeth the 
 
 47 
 
minnim tfie Hocal Community 
 
 Lord." Like Knox, he must never fear the face of 
 man, and like Savonarola, he must declare to the 
 people that the sword of destruction ever hangs above 
 the sinful. According to divine instruction, he must 
 reprove when the conduct of his people is question- 
 able; he must rebuke when it is scandalous, and he 
 must exhort with all long suffering and patience. He 
 must in meekness instruct those that oppose them- 
 selves in the hope that God will grant them time to 
 correct their errors and be saved. 
 
 The preacher must be the mouthpiece of God ; the 
 pulpit the throne from which the King speaks. When 
 either fails, the people perish. Nothing can take the 
 place of the true prophet's voice. If he forsakes 
 utterance and gives himself to ritual service or even 
 sacrifice, he loses his power and sinks to a mere 
 priest, becoming nothing but a cog in the wheel of 
 ecclesiastical procedure. Therefore, let the min- 
 ister fail elsewhere if he must, but let him not fail 
 to declare unto his people the whole counsel of God 
 with fearless voice and all the eloquence he can ac- 
 quire. To do less is to lose the gi-eatest opportunity 
 for service and influence God ever placed in men's 
 hands. It is to be weak at the one point wherein we 
 must be strong. To do less is to fail of God's ideal 
 for us ! 
 
 Pastor Must Help Preacher. 
 
 Following close on the work of the preacher is the 
 48 
 
Cfte Pa0tor'0 pact 
 
 work of the pastor, the shepherd of the flock. How 
 many good men are to-day drawing back from this 
 task and saying : "If I am to give the time necessary 
 to make strong sermons, I cannot find time to also do 
 pastoral work." Yes, gentlemen, we can and we must. 
 No man can do brain work all the time. I know many 
 fine fellows who, under the delusion that they are 
 getting needed knowledge, read themselves into in- 
 sensibility and when they begin to write, their pro- 
 duction has no spring, no gripping power. If there 
 were no other reason, a man must do systematic and 
 extended pastoral work to be able to declare the word 
 of God with heart-binding power. Let it be said 
 again, "It is the man behind the message" that sends 
 it to the human heart. 
 
 A preacher must know the heartaches and throbs 
 of humanity by meeting his people in the intimate 
 intercourse of their own homes before he can speak a 
 language they understand. Few men ever know the 
 value of personal contact as did the lamented Maltbie 
 Babcock. In conversation, by letter, by telephone or 
 message, he kept in personal touch with his people. 
 They loved him like a father and hung upon his 
 words as a maiden upon the words of her betrothed. 
 
 Furthermore, pastoral work is absolutely necessary 
 if a man desires to win new members in any large 
 numbers. It is while in the homes of his people he 
 learns of members of those families still unsaved or 
 of new residents who may be reached. Seventy-five 
 
 49 
 
limning tfte Local Communitp 
 
 per cent, of the members won by a pastor who is 
 building up his congregation at the rate of two hun- 
 dred a year are discovered while making pastoral 
 calls. Two or three afternoons a week will work 
 marvels, and every man needs that much time out 
 of his study to keep him from going to seed or becom- 
 ing a mere spinner of impractical theories. 
 
 If the Church of which he is pastor publishes a 
 weekly calendar, let the minister print, the Sunday 
 before, the names of the families on whom he will 
 call during two or three afternoons of the week fol- 
 lowing. If no calendar is printed, the names may 
 be announced from the pulpit. Some such para- 
 graph as this may precede the names : "The Pastor 
 will call this week at the following homes. If not 
 convenient to receive his call at the time indicated, 
 please notify him as early as possible. While but 
 one name is given, let it be understood that the call 
 is upon all members and friends of the church who 
 may reside in the home. The Pastor will appreciate 
 it if parents will assist him in meeting their children 
 during these calls ; he will also be glad to meet neigh- 
 bors or new residents who might be drawn to our 
 church. Let us co-operate to make this work of the 
 Pastor yield the largest possible returns to the King- 
 dom." For safety, a marked copy of the calendar 
 should be sent to each family by the first mail 
 Monday. 
 
 The advantages of this method are more numerous 
 50 
 
Cfte Pa0tot'0 Ipart 
 
 than can be named. It forces the pastor to do his 
 calling when the time announced arrives. (People 
 are glad to place unexpected services, marriages or 
 funerals, early or late in the afternoon to enable 
 their eager pastor to get his work done.) A visit 
 anticipated for several days is always appreciated 
 more than an unexpected visit, for which the family 
 may not be ready. A pastor finds his people in and 
 is not compelled to repeat the effort indefinitely. 
 Members of the family who would otherwise be absent 
 stay at home for the pastor's call. Members invite 
 in neighbors and new residents, and many new mem- 
 bers are gathered. The plan is systematic, sensible, 
 sane. Give it a fair trial. 
 
 The Force that Brings Things to Pass, 
 
 Even these two realms do not exhaust the pastor's 
 part in the modern church. In addition to preaching 
 and doing pastoral work exceptionally well, he must 
 be an efficient executive head if his church becomes 
 a producing force. Happy the man who has some 
 good business training before he begins his ministry. 
 He must have a knowledge of forces and how to 
 co-ordinate them. He must know how to secure the 
 highest efficiency from his co-workers from the least 
 expenditure of time and energy; above all he must 
 have the ability to remove inefficient officers without 
 off^ence, retaining their friendship and support, and 
 must know how to develop result-getting men to fill 
 
 61 
 
minning tfte Local Communitp 
 
 their places. He must be able to give the strength 
 of his personality to his countless auxiliaries without 
 too heavy a draft on his strength and time and he 
 must be able to unite the various factors in his 
 church in such a way as to make them a single force 
 for doing the vital work of the Church, — winning 
 souls to Jesus Christ. 
 
 A master of material forces, who handles men and 
 money by thousands, is of the opinion that the crying 
 need of the ministry to-day is virility and a closer 
 contact with the forces that move and mould society 
 in all its stratums. Exactly in line with this is the 
 cry of Phillips Brooks, greatest but one of all Amer- 
 ican preachers, as he sums up a lecture on The 
 Preacher in His Work: "And last of all, be vital; 
 be alive, not dead. Do everything that can keep your 
 vitality at its fullest. Even the physical vitality, do 
 not dare to disregard. Pray for and work for fulness 
 of life above everything ; full red blood in the body ; 
 full honesty and truth in the mind; and the fulness 
 of a grateful love for the Saviour in your heart. 
 Then, however men may set their mark of failure or 
 success upon your ministry, you cannot fail; you 
 must succeed." 
 
 52 
 
IV. 
 
 THE PEOPLE'S PART. 
 
 THE largest and most powerful organization in 
 the world today is the Christian Church. Stat- 
 isticians tell us that her membership is over 
 five hundred millions, or more than one-third of the 
 population of the globe. They tell us also that even 
 this does not even hint at her supremacy and power, 
 for the Christian nations are the most enlightened 
 and powerful of all, and that Christian men and 
 women lead all others in those nations. Most of the 
 wealth of the world, as well as most of the intelli- 
 gence, is in the possession of Christians. Though 
 their actual achievement is quickly measured, their 
 possible achievement is immeasurable. 
 
 As in the world at large, so in the normal Ameri- 
 can town or city, the Church is the largest and most 
 powerful of all organizations. Her membership al- 
 ways includes the leaders in commerce and learning, 
 in patriotism and philanthropy. But the same pro- 
 portion between saved and unsaved holds, one-third 
 against two-thirds. It is clear also that the ministers 
 
 53 
 
minnins tfte Local Communitp 
 
 cannot reverse this proportion alone, though they 
 strive ever so hard. It is a two-fold work. What 
 is the people's part? 
 
 The modern congregation calls to its head, to be 
 God's spokesman and their leader in religious affairs, 
 the minister to whom the Holy Spirit and their own 
 wisdom guides them. If they act independent of or 
 contrary to the divine influence, so much the worse 
 for both. It is a privilege God grants a people, and 
 of which they that are wise always take advantage, 
 to pray and work constantly to increase this man's 
 efficiency and power. No minister worthy the title 
 is as strong as he ought to be or as he wants to be. 
 While here and there may be found a rare individual 
 able to withstand a hurtful influence and grow sweet 
 and strong in spite of it, no man can withstand help- 
 ful influences nor escape their benefit. A congrega- 
 tion can make or mar the average minister's career, 
 at least while he is with them, just as a wife can 
 help or hinder her husband. To help him in every 
 way to reach the point of highest efficiency is not 
 only magnanimous and kind, but it is good judg- 
 ment. It yields large returns. It is a paying invest- 
 ment. It is the act of a wise husbandman who both 
 fertilizes his field and allows no noxious weeds to 
 draw its strength from the growing crops. 
 
 Among the countless things a congregation can 
 do for its minister to increase his value to its mem- 
 bers, two stand pre-eminent. The first is, Increase 
 
 54i 
 
Cfie people'0 part 
 
 his efficiency as a pastor. What a man is while out 
 among his people determines very largely what he 
 can do with and for those people when he rises to 
 speak from his pulpit on the Sabbath day. The 
 words of a preacher whom the people love for 
 kindly and thoughtful pastoral ministrations are al- 
 ways eloquent and moving. They hear his heartbeat 
 in every sentence and feel the warm glow of his sym- 
 pathetic hand-shake. 
 
 Even a cold and unresponsive man can be warmed 
 and enthused by a genuine and persistent hospitality. 
 To be frequently invited to a simple meal with the 
 family, which neither costs the hostess too much to 
 prepare nor the minister too much to digest, pro- 
 vides that intimate acquaintance, especially with the 
 younger members of a family, without which no man 
 can serve a people as he ought. 
 
 But this is only one phase of a pastor's work; he 
 must be informed about new people and made ac- 
 quainted with them, about cases of sickness or sorrow 
 where his presence would be appreciated. A pastor 
 has no magic way of knowing these things. In the 
 multitude of his duties he is apt not to know them 
 unless some watchful member of his congregation 
 tells him. 
 
 A member of a Baptist family in Chicago once 
 fell sick. He grew worse and worse for two weeks 
 and died. Though they had not notified him of their 
 trouble, the family was so angry because their pastor 
 
 55 
 
minnim tfte Local Communitp 
 
 had not called that they sent to a neighboring parish 
 and secured a man whom they had never so much 
 as seen before to conduct the funeral service. Is it 
 any wonder the ready pastor was heart-broken when 
 he learned the facts ? They had called the physician 
 when they wanted him, and neighbors, and members 
 of the lodge, but not one word to the pastor. Thei/ 
 said he ought to have known! How? Why? It is 
 time enough to criticise a pastor when he fails to 
 respond to such cases when notified. Not one pastor 
 in five thousand fails. 
 
 The son of a widowed mother in a Western State 
 came home from the East, and after a short illness, 
 which was kept very quiet, died. He was not a 
 member of the Church and had never shown it the 
 slightest attention. Not one word was sent to the 
 mother's pastor, either by the family or close neigh- 
 bors in the same congregation, though all had tele- 
 phones and, what is more, frequently met him in 
 service or social circle. The young man died without 
 a word with any minister. The mother confessed that 
 the fault was hers, but several of her neighbors, mem- 
 bers of the same congregation, who might have noti- 
 fied the pastor any moment in the two weeks, but 
 who never opened their lips, were so angry because 
 he had not called that they would not treat him civ- 
 illy. Such treatment is very apt to ruin the best 
 pastor that ever entered a field. He is wont to say, 
 "What's the use trying? People are so unreasonable 
 
 56 
 
Cfie people'0 part 
 
 and demand such impossible things. They won't help 
 and yet criticise the slightest shortcoming. I'll just 
 endure the thing and respond when I am called until 
 a more reasonable field opens." 
 
 No good man ever reaches such an attitude until 
 he is driven to it by the unreasonableness of his 
 people. They can prevent it and multiply his value 
 to the parish a thousand fold if they will co-operate 
 with him with notification and hospitality and not 
 openly criticise him for failure for which he is in no 
 way responsible. The people must be the complement 
 of the minister, and without this the pastorate will 
 not be complete. 
 
 The second way a people can benefit a minister 
 is by making him a better preacher. Just now 
 preachers are more needed by our congregations than 
 any other type of servant; men who clearly and 
 forcefully and fearlessly preach the word of God. 
 We sympathize with the minister who, rising to 
 speak in a church but one-fourth filled, said it was 
 the first time he had ever been called upon to address 
 a lumber yard. (It is assumed it was the empty 
 wooden seats he referred to and not the quality of 
 the few listeners who had gathered.) Nothing 
 quickens a man's brain and lends eloquence to his 
 tongue like a crowd of eager listeners. One minis- 
 ter used to say to his people if they only knew how 
 much better he would preach if they crowded the 
 house full, they would come from a purely selfish 
 
 5T 
 
jDainninff tfte Local Communitp 
 
 motive. Help your minister preach by being pres- 
 ent with a responsive countenance when he rises to 
 speak. His quickened power will soon be noticed 
 by neighbors and visitors and the attendance prob- 
 lem will be solved. Being an ordinary human being, 
 your minister will be vastly stimulated as a preacher 
 if you freely commend him for good work. If you 
 really do not enjoy a particular sermon, you may 
 still render him a benefit by using the nice discrimi- 
 nation of a tactful woman in southern Iowa who 
 used to tell her pastor with glowing face how much 
 she had enjoyed the service. The woman's compli- 
 ment did much to make her minister a preacher, for 
 it sent him to his books and study each week with a 
 determination to merit it. 
 
 It is the old story of a word fitly spoken. The 
 encouragement of his people, their expressed appre- 
 ciation of any good work he does, an occasional indi- 
 cation that you are expecting great things from him, 
 that you are going to bring your friends to hear his 
 strong sermons, that the standard of his last sermon 
 was so high you do not see how he can reach it 
 again; all such words when honestly and sincerely 
 spoken will bring large returns to any people, for 
 they make your minister exert himself to the utmost 
 to be a great preacher. 
 
 A Lesson from the First Century. 
 
 When a church wakens to the fact that it is doing 
 58 
 
Cfie people'0 part 
 
 small things for God, even thougH its members are 
 doing large things in every other realm in which 
 they move; when it observes that all around it are 
 men and women unsaved who will remain so unless its 
 members draw them into the kingdom ; when the con- 
 sciousness dawns upon it that there is no need for 
 it to be small and weak when it is surrounded by 
 people who would add their strength as soon as the 
 claims of Christianity were brought attractively to 
 their attention, it may well go back to Pentecost and 
 study the young Church that day and the days which 
 immediately followed it. 
 
 There was an activity that stirs the blood ! Every 
 member speaking with spirit-filled words to every life 
 he touched, and thousands horn into the kingdom in 
 a single day! Without reviewing at length the fa- 
 miliar incident, let us gather a few of its leading 
 messages to us. 
 
 First, it was the Holy Spirit that stimulated them, 
 quickened their old powers and gave them new ones. 
 This Divine Influence is the sine qua non of large 
 fruit-bearing in Christian service. Lives filled with 
 this Imperial Force cannot be restrained and cannot 
 be withstood. They are efficiency personified. Like 
 Goethe after an hour with Schiller, they think, speak, 
 act with tenfold their usual power. Like a heavenly 
 cordial. He fires every fibre of their being and renders 
 them invincible. 
 
 Do not spend your days lamenting the fact that 
 59 
 
minnins tfte JLocal Communitp 
 
 this life-quickening Force has not been given to you. 
 Listen ! "If ye then, being evil, know how to give 
 good gifts unto your children, how much more will 
 your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them 
 that ask Him.'' You can have this stimulating and 
 power-multiplying Force in your own life if you want 
 Him badly enough to ask God for Him and respond 
 to His prompting when He comes. For the Holy 
 Spirit is a person as God and Christ are and He acts 
 upon us much as a great earthly friend does who 
 wishes to move us to better things. He strives to 
 put His spirit into us. 
 
 A young student of American letters was once 
 thrown for a week into intimate companionship with 
 Lorado Taft, the sculptor. They talked on subjects 
 dearest to the heart of each, and when they sepa- 
 rated the youth returned to his home transformed. 
 New ambitions had seized him. His imagination had 
 been quickened, while his mind worked with a rapid- 
 ity and fruitfulness never experienced before. 
 
 Any Christian who will spend a week in such inti- 
 mate intercourse with the Holy Spirit, as He is re- 
 vealed in the Word of God, will find himself similarly 
 quickened, and will return to his work a new man. 
 Call it by what name you will, a new birth, a second 
 blessing, a spiritual quickening, or what not, but be 
 sure you have it and that you respond with all your 
 life to its kindling presence. 
 
 [The second lesson for us from Pentecost is that 
 60 
 
Cfte Ipeople'is; J^att 
 
 it put every member of the young Church to work. 
 That of itself would bring on a Pentecostal revival 
 in any church to-day. It might be working back- 
 wards, but, backwards or forwards, we must get our 
 work done! 
 
 There is nothing so powerful in all the world as 
 a human life, nothing so appealing, nothing so per- 
 suasive. If by any favor of heaven we could get 
 every member of the Church of the Living God to 
 work daily for the conversion of the unsaved, the 
 race would be brought to the foot of the cross in a 
 decade. Think of that, Christians ! It is not over- 
 drawn. All we need to-day to attain what we pray 
 for is that every member shall go to work. 
 
 The secret of the building of the Egyptian Pyra- 
 mids is the vast number of men who worked on them. 
 A hundred thousand men enthusiastically working 
 toward a single project can do such deeds as shall 
 startle the world. The moment the millions now 
 Christian determine to work ceaselessly for the con- 
 version of the world, with the powers they have, it 
 will he accomplished. 
 
 Nothing could strengthen the present membership 
 more than to do this work. We say to weak men, 
 Begin conscientiously to exercise the powers you have 
 and you will soon get strong. Men who voluntarily 
 take on great physical strain like an inter-collegiate 
 boat-race or foot-ball game, spend months before in 
 the hardest kind of work, getting the whole system 
 
 61 
 
Winning tfje Local Communftp 
 
 strong. Commander Peary says that he had so in- 
 ured his body to the rigors of Arctic cold that during 
 the long winter on The Roosevelt just preceding the 
 final dash for the Pole, he did not build a fire in his 
 cabin stove, though the thermometer ranged from 
 zero to sixty degrees below, while the wind shrieked 
 and howled through the rigging like a multitude of 
 lost souls. 
 
 If the Church of Christ wishes to be strong and 
 hardy let her go to work. We have never yet taken 
 hold of this problem of saving the lost as we must 
 if it is accomplished. What are we waiting for? 
 For some other power to do it for us.? That will 
 never occur. The plan of God is that we shall do it. 
 Let us do it now! It will rejoice our God, it will 
 redeem His wandering children; it will strengthen 
 ourselves and the church; it will reform society, it 
 will usher in the millennium. 
 
 We should not overlook the fact that the Pentecost- 
 revived church began at once to work on everybody 
 in sight. "Parthians and Medes, and Elamites, and 
 the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and 
 Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pam- 
 phylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about 
 Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and prose- 
 lytes, Cretes and Arabians," to every one they could 
 reach they spoke the wonderful works of God. 
 (Acts, 2:1-11.) 
 
 One can imagine some of these people being most 
 62 
 
Cfie PeopIe'i8! Jpart 
 
 unlikely material to work on. Doubtless some had 
 said before: "Well, you can never win those Par- 
 thians and Medes. Better spend all your time and 
 strength on the residents of Judea who have heard 
 of Christ's mighty works and who are not so far 
 away." So the Church does to-day and so neglects 
 those who need Him most and who would come over 
 to Him quickest if they were rightly approached 
 and urged to come. Oftentimes in revival hours the 
 hearts the community has always supposed to be 
 most hard, melt first, and melting, become the fires 
 that warm scores of kindred hearts. "God will have 
 all men to be saved." The hardest to reach as well 
 as the easiest — and possibly He works upon the hard- 
 est hearts most, rendering them quickly responsive. 
 Any unsaved man, woman, child, is a worthy and 
 legitimate object of attack, and must not be 
 neglected. When every Christian secures his gift of 
 the Holy Spirit and begins to work on the unsaved 
 life nearest him, no matter how unpromising, the 
 task of saving the world will be half done. 
 
 Adjuncts of Great Value. 
 
 There are numberless adjuncts to the three ele- 
 ments above enumerated; contributing forces that 
 vastly aid in achieving the results desired. Most 
 effective as a dynamic is the small prayer circle. 
 
 "Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
 Unuttered or expressed." 
 
Ji^mning tfie Local Communitp 
 
 Prayer takes hold on God and claims His glorious 
 promises. It was Maltbie Babcock who said we must 
 do our work on the pattern of the try-square; up 
 the perpendicular toward God and out along the 
 horizontal toward men ; that not until we had gone 
 up could we go out effectually. Prayer gives di- 
 rectness to purpose, quickens steps and unseals lips. 
 No man can pray for another long without doing 
 other things to win him. Times without number 
 has a hard man been touched first by learning that 
 a little circle of earnest men were praying for him. 
 The awe and sacredness of divine things seize him, 
 and the thought of being carried by name to the 
 throne of God urges him to strive to be worthy of 
 it. A few bands of men and women, praying regu- 
 larly for the unsaved, will do more than the furnace 
 to keep the church warm and hospitable. The glow 
 of it will soon reach every life. 
 
 There may well be also a number of personal work- 
 ers clubs in every growing church. These meet fre- 
 quently the first few weeks and study H. Clay Trum- 
 bull's "Individual Work for Individuals," or Howard 
 Agnew Johnston's "Studies for Personal Workers." 
 They are full of suggestion, of wise and workable 
 plans. Many fruitless lives have been transformed 
 by them, becoming notable winners of the unsaved. 
 Zeal must be guided by knowledge; willingness may 
 well seek to profit by the experience of others who 
 have gone before ; lives that lack inventiveness may be 
 
Cbe people'0 part 
 
 kindled by learning what others have done. Such 
 bands will make up a list of lives they hope to win. 
 As one after another surrenders and enters the 
 Church, his name gives place to yet another. The list 
 is never exhausted. It rather grows longer, for it is 
 a fact of experience that when such a practice is 
 started, lives appear available who were not thought 
 of before. It will finally include every unsaved life 
 in the community. 
 
 Much use has been made of late of Decision Cards 
 and brief leaflets that may be left with a friend or 
 sent with a kindly note of invitation through the 
 mail. Such printed matter should be easily read, 
 treating only essentials in terse lines or scripture 
 quotations. Argument is not needed and rarely saves 
 a soul. Men know their duty to God and what they 
 ought to do. An arrow of divine truth will often 
 reach their heart when a volume of argument would 
 not get beneath their garments. 
 
 Whether in leaflet or conversation, it is better to 
 get to vital things quickly. Long statements con- 
 fuse the mind and cloud the issue. Quote Jesus on 
 the fact that a new birth is necessary, and John as 
 to how it may be acquired. Dwell less on the sins 
 of men than on the regenerating power of God. All 
 men confess the sin ; few know how to stop it or 
 escape its consequences. 
 
 But the loudest cry of all is for work. Most any 
 plan will do, and even no plan at all, but few lives 
 
 65 
 
minnins tfte Local Communitp 
 
 will be won to Christ in any community until the 
 people in the churches begin to work for them. Not 
 one Christian lives that could not each year persuade 
 at least one other soul to accept the Saviour, if he 
 would set out to do it. 
 
 Picture to yourself the amazing result! Allowing 
 for all shrinkages and failures, the whole race would 
 be won in this our own generation. How it quickens 
 the blood to think of it ! And how we will probably 
 struggle along for centuries because those already 
 Christian will not try to save even one soul a year! 
 Every Korean Christian is striving this year to win 
 at least three. But the Koreans are just out of 
 heathenism and do not know any better! God bless 
 them and crown their efforts with success. 
 
 66 
 
CONTRIBUTING ELEMENTS. 
 
MISSIONS AND THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT THE SU- 
 PREME DYNAMIC. 
 
 IN every age men have sought untiringly for the 
 secret spring of great forces. Ponce de Leon 
 would find the fountain of eternal youth, while 
 ten thousand alchemists throughout the ages have 
 sought the secret of transforming common things to 
 gold. In building great cathedrals men have discov- 
 ered the vital essential to be architectural genius. 
 In erecting great commercial enterprises the desid- 
 erata have been found to be brains and gold. 
 
 The leaders of Christendom have sought for ages 
 for the force that will do most to build up an efficient 
 church; a church that has life in itself; a church 
 that will grow strong by utilizing its own forces and 
 that will become fruit-bearing as well as self-propa- 
 gating. 
 
 Studying the teachings of the great Founder, men 
 have ever held this primary force to be Love. They 
 quote, at the beginning of their argument, "God so 
 loved the world," and at the end, "Love is the fulfill- 
 ing of the law." But twenty centuries have come and 
 
 69 
 
Contributing (Element0 
 
 gone and, while love has done much, many churches 
 and whole Christian nations remain weak and ineffi- 
 cient. They with difficulty maintain themselves, to 
 say nothing of winning the world to their Lord. 
 
 In these later days, the search for the supreme 
 dynamic has been taken up with new vigor. Men 
 have said: It must be found. Out of all their study 
 and experience the same word looms up, big and 
 persistent. The secret of Christian power is Love, 
 but now a new idea attaches itself to the word: It 
 must be Love in action. It is not enough that the 
 love be simply felt; it must be revealed in service. 
 Human suffering must be relieved; ignorance, and 
 especially ignorance of God and possible righteous- 
 ness, must be dispelled; slavery to sin must be abol- 
 ished. 
 
 That Christ has a very large and a very impor- 
 tant work for His Church in the world His own 
 words and the history of twenty centuries clearly 
 reveal. "Go ye into all the world" implies elaborate 
 organization and tremendous activity, and, since we 
 are to "evangelize all nations," we are assured that 
 our work is important to the last degree. 
 
 It does one good to let the mind swing out to the 
 largeness of this idea. All too many of us live in a 
 narrow and circumscribed world. Our horizon is the 
 nearby limit of our own interests. Our world is all 
 too often the world. 
 
 Here is a conception that leaps all boundaries. 
 70 
 
9@i00fon0 tfte Supreme Dpnamic 
 
 Like the tides of ocean, it cannot be held in check. 
 It will not stop at family lines, or state lines or 
 national lines. Like sunlight, it leaps from continent 
 to continent, from mountain range to mountain 
 range, till every hamlet, village and farm is included, 
 and the whole world is girdled. Man's interests, am- 
 bitions, desires, loves, become world-wide. 
 
 Narrowness and inefficiency are well-nigh synony- 
 mous terms. The man of few interests is the man of 
 small harvests. The institution, whether commercial 
 organization or church, that is selfish and self-cen- 
 tred is also barren of large or lasting benefits to the 
 world. 
 
 To the Master great tasks were congenial. He 
 loved them as the astronomer does his stars. To 
 step, in His beneficent plans, from city to city, from 
 province to province, from nation to nation, until 
 the whole world was reached, was to Him as the joy 
 of a holiday. The labor involved did not check Him ; 
 possible suffering did not daunt Him. To lay a re- 
 deemed world at the feet of a grateful Father was 
 to have all the reward he craved; was sufficient in- 
 centive to drive Him continually to His task. 
 
 O matchless ambition ! No stain of selfishness is 
 here. The flesh, with all its sensuous desires, has 
 been subdued; the full flame of altruistic love bums 
 pure and free; a life has appeared that thinks not 
 of itself, but of the service it can render others ; that 
 is ambitious only to bury itself in one supreme effort 
 
 71 
 
Conttiliutmg OBlemenw 
 
 to buy back a sin-sold race. Such an ambition God 
 can approve ; such an ambition he can bless ; behind 
 such an ambition he does not hesitate to throw the 
 weight of his almighty power that it may be realized. 
 
 In addition to this, Christ knew the value of work, 
 both to the worker and to the object his work 
 affects. He saw that hard work is essential to the 
 largest, fullest life; He saw that only by hard work 
 could the rebellious hearts of rebellious men be won 
 back to God. 
 
 To His followers, therefore. His word was: ''Go, 
 — evangelize, — everybody.'''' For faithful work along 
 other lines He devised many rewards. A quiet heart ; 
 a sense of forgiveness of sins ; an assurance of vic- 
 tory over the world ; but as a reward for obeying the 
 Great Commission He provided the greatest of all 
 returns : Success. "Lo, I will go with you, even to 
 the end of the accomplishment of this mighty task." 
 We are not shoved off to perform a service which 
 our Master is unwilling to do. It is not menial labor 
 with which He is unwilling to soil His hands. Rather, 
 we are to work together. Master and servant side by 
 side, the Master not only instructing and inspiring 
 the servant, but putting His own hand and His great 
 heart to the task until it is completed. 
 
 Man works with greater vigor when he knows he 
 will ultimately succeed. Discouragements cannot 
 chill his heart or weaken his arm. The magnet of 
 
 72 
 
99i00ion0 tfte ©upteme Dpnamic 
 
 assured success draws him on; the promise of a 
 Father's "Well done" makes harmony all along the 
 discordant highway. God has not left his toiling 
 servants without encouragement. 
 
 A World-Encirclmg Task, 
 
 The spirit of Christianity demands that the whole 
 world be saved. It cannot be content with half a 
 race when the other half is lying in sin and misery. 
 Had Christ been willing to stay in the safe retreat 
 of the home at Bethany, saying in His heart that He 
 had done pretty well already, He might have escaped 
 the sufferings of Calvary. The idea did not even 
 occur to Him. To save Himself suffering and even 
 death at the cost of a world's salvation was too base 
 a temptation to touch His noble heart. Since He 
 could redeem a race He would do it at whatever per- 
 sonal sacrifice. It was hy this complete sacrifice, this 
 giving of His whole life for the redemption of the 
 whole race that Christ won his power. The Church 
 is just awakening to the fact that, since all power 
 resides in Him, she may secure that power for herself 
 by obeying Him; that obedience to the Great Com- 
 mission is the supreme dynamic in building a working 
 church. 
 
 The greatest mistake the Church of Christ has 
 made in the past has been her neglect of the weak 
 on the seemingly reasonable ground that she needed 
 
 73 
 
Conttiliuting dBlementt 
 
 all her men and money to maintain and strengthen 
 herself. The mistake has not been confined to the 
 few ; it has been the creed of priest and layman alike. 
 It is incomprehensible in face of the Master's 
 well-known teaching: "He that saveth his life shall 
 lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake and 
 the Gospel's shall find it." 
 
 It is significant that laymen began to notice this 
 thing before the ministry wakened to it. At a recent 
 convention Robert E. Speer quoted Jacob Riis as 
 saying: "Every once in a while I hear some one 
 growl against foreign missions because the money 
 and the strength put into them are needed at home. 
 I did it myself when I did not know better. God 
 forgive me. I know better now; and I will tell you 
 how I found out. I became interested in a strong 
 religious awakening in my own old city of Copen- 
 hagen; and set about investigating it. It was then 
 that I learned what others had learned before me, 
 and what was the fact there; that for every dollar 
 you give away to convert the heathen abroad, God 
 gives you ten dollars' worth of purpose to deal with 
 your brother at home." 
 
 To the contention that other religions are as good 
 for the people who follow them as Christianity would 
 be, the incontrovertible answer is : Jesus did not 
 think so. Confucianism, Brahminism, Buddhism, 
 Taoism, Judaism, had been in the world for centu- 
 ries before He came. If they could have saved the 
 
 74 
 
9^f00ion0 tj)e §)upreme Dpnamfc 
 
 race surely God would have let them do it and not 
 have made the supreme sacrifice He did in sending 
 His own Son to redeem men by the humility of the 
 flesh and the agonies of Gethsemane and Calvary. 
 No, the sacrifice and service of Jesus were neces- 
 sary; they constitute the only sufficient provision 
 for a world-redemption and it is our business to 
 let all men know that this full provision for their 
 salvation has been made. 
 
 Every mile we stop short of the limits of the 
 world, every soul short of the whole race, cuts us 
 off from that much of power that comes from a sense 
 that we are at last doing our whole duty. In the 
 address referred to above Robert Speer said again: 
 "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Him- 
 self. There is one Saviour of the world and only 
 one; therefore, he is the Saviour of all the world. 
 Those whom He has saved must carry Him to those 
 who do not know that He can save. If this is not 
 our gospel, we have no gospel. It is only a gospel 
 for all the world that is a gospel for any part of 
 the world. To narrow the right to the gospel to a 
 race, or to assert any one race's preferential claim 
 upon the gospel, is to destroy the gospel. If one land 
 is Christ's, all lands are Christ's. If Christ is one 
 man's, Christ is all men's. To make all lands His, 
 and to make Him all men's, is the primary duty of 
 the Church."* 
 
 *Robert E. Speer in The World Call to Men of To-day. 
 75 
 
Contriftuting Clements 
 
 Many Church-Favoring Forces, 
 
 Many forces in modern society are favorable to 
 the advancement of the Church. She enjoys favor- 
 able legislation in all Christian countries. Her prop- 
 erty is exempt from taxation; she is granted pro- 
 tection from disturbance in her regularly appointed 
 services ; laws against Sabbath desecration add to her 
 influence on young and old. 
 
 She is helped also by the general interest the 
 Scriptures arouse. Their immense claim attracts 
 men; their rich thought and perfect language draw 
 thinking men to study them, and rarely indeed does 
 an honest student refuse to believe what the Bible 
 teaches. 
 
 An even greater force in pushing the Church for- 
 ward is the splendid consecration of so large a por- 
 tion of her membership. Men give time and money ; 
 women give loving service and substance. The world 
 sees and is drawn to an institution that leads to such 
 devotion. 
 
 But higher than all of these is another force which 
 adds to the Church's power more than they all; the 
 stimulating, arousing. Spirit-getting returns from 
 her missionary activity. The reason why this is so 
 may be a matter of discussion, but not the fact that 
 it is. The churches that are alive to-day; that are 
 growing spiritually and numerically, are the churches 
 that are giving most in lives and money for the 
 
 76 
 
9©i00ion0 tfte Supreme Dpnamic 
 
 evangelization of the world. Generosity abroad 
 means power at home. The reflex value of mission- 
 ary giving is as great as the direct value. When a 
 church comes to realize that it is linked with God 
 in the salvation of the world, that church cannot 
 stand still. It has within it that which refuses to 
 sit at ease, and we have yet to hear of a generously 
 missionary church that is not a rapidly growing 
 church. 
 
 While saying this concerning the reflex value of 
 missions, it must not be understood that we under- 
 estimate their direct value. "The sublimest spectacle 
 which the world presents to-day," says Dr. Ellin- 
 wood, "is that of scores of great Christian bodies 
 working side by side, on all continents, and in the 
 islands of the sea, printing their Bibles in three 
 hundred languages, establishing schools and colleges, 
 hospitals and churches, and demonstrating the fact 
 that the gospel bears the same precious fruits among 
 men of every kindred, tongue and tribe." 
 
 To see a whole people, as, for instance, the inhab- 
 itants of the Fiji Islands, transformed in a quarter 
 of a century from naked cannibals to peace-loving, 
 law-abiding. God-fearing Christians, is to answer 
 forever the carping cry of the critics who say Foreign 
 Missions is a waste of both men and money. No 
 time can be too precious, no money too valuable, if 
 nations can thus be born again in one generation. 
 Society is not many, but one. When one part is 
 
 77 
 
Conttifiutfng (Clements 
 
 lifted all is lifted. If there were no other benefits 
 rendered redeemed men than their new place and rela- 
 tion in society, it would repay all the outlay. No 
 heart that is really Christian can shut itself against 
 the despairing cry of heathen life. It is the wail of 
 an infant for the strong arms of its mother; the 
 cry of the weak for the help of the strong. To refuse 
 to help is to prove to the world that the heart is not 
 yet fully Christian. 
 
 But to turn our eyes again to the benefit to the 
 Church which arises from unselfish missionary en- 
 deavor, we are reminded of the Master's own simile: 
 "Except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and 
 die it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth 
 much fruit." What is that but to say : The church 
 that thinks only of itself and its own welfare; that 
 will not sacrifice its own comfort for the salvation 
 of others ; that will not exercise the spirit of sacri- 
 fice of the Christ, must remain small and weak, but 
 if it is willing to forget itself; to live for others; 
 to deny itself comforts that other men may be saved ; 
 it shall not only arouse its own members to a hitherto 
 unknown measure of generosity, but shall attract 
 scores of lives by its Christ-like spirit, so that 
 whereas before it was small and weak, now it shall 
 be large and powerful. 
 
 Examples that Prove the Doctrine, 
 
 A certain church in the heart of the Golden Com 
 78 
 
99i00ion0 tfte Supreme Dgnamic 
 
 Belt of Illinois was moving along a few years ago 
 at a comfortable and satisfying pace. Congrega- 
 tions were good, money for current expenses was 
 ample, and a few people were uniting with the church 
 each year on confession of faith. Following the now 
 famous Omaha Men's Missionary Convention, the 
 pastor suggested to his good people that they do 
 something more for God along foreign mission lines ; 
 something a little more nearly commensurate with 
 their ability and with what they were doing in com- 
 mercial, social and political life. He proposed the 
 Omaha standard of an average of five dollars per 
 member for the year. It meant something over two 
 thousand five hundred dollars; twice or three times 
 as much as the church had ever given before. 
 Startled for a moment, the people quickly rallied; 
 said they would do it, and that night telegraphed 
 the Board of their substantial advance. It was a 
 great day for the Church. Hearts were stirred that 
 had long lain dormant. The pastor foresaw an up- 
 rising. 
 
 Monday evening he was waited upon by two eager 
 elders. The people, they said, were fired with a new 
 spirit. They wanted some special services, the sooner 
 they could begin the better. The pastor proposed 
 the securing of a trained evangelist. They said. No ; 
 it was not necessary. His own preaching would be 
 enough. The meeting started the very next Sunday ; 
 ran for two. weeks. The people came as never before. 
 
 79 
 
Comriftuting (Element 
 
 They worked for their unsaved friends. At the com- 
 munion following a greater number joined the church 
 on confession of faith than had come in the two 
 years preceding. Audiences increased, money was 
 more plentiful for every other Board. Gradually 
 the church awakened to the fact that it had had the 
 best revival in its history, and all because it had 
 begun to obey the Great Commission and do its 
 adequate share in carrying the Gospel to the whole 
 world. Nothing will so waken the evangelistic spirit 
 at home. 
 
 Perhaps the most celebrated case of quick returns 
 for enlarged missionary giving, considering what has 
 subsequently grown out of it, is that of the First 
 Presbyterian Church of Wichita, Kansas. Respond- 
 ing at last to several urgent requests, the then pastor, 
 Dr. Charles Edwin Bradt, has sent the following 
 account with privilege to publish. It is given here 
 with the prayer that its reading may stimulate still 
 other pastors and churches to put God to the test 
 at the point of His promises. 
 
 Several years ago conditions prevailed in Wichita 
 which made the continued existence of any institu- 
 tion, however free from internal embarrassment, more 
 or less precarious. But the First Presbyterian 
 Church was burdened with many thousands of dollars 
 of debt, with no assets that had any marketable value. 
 [The members, though heroic and generous, had per- 
 
 80 
 
9910010110 tfte Supreme Dgnamic 
 
 sonal obligations and responsibilities which taxed 
 them almost beyond the limit of endurance. These 
 conditions made the problem of a bare existence as a 
 church organization and the maintenance of the 
 stated services of the church a great question. The 
 fact is, such an existence had not been financially sus- 
 tained for some time previous, and in consequence a 
 floating indebtedness, rising higher and higher each 
 year, was threatening to submerge the church and ex- 
 tinguish the lighted candlestick, or cause its removal. 
 When, added to this state, they looked not upon a 
 fair harbor in which they might anchor for a time 
 until the storm was passed, but upon the frowning 
 cliffs and rocks of a large bonded debt of $18,000, 
 for which they had nothing to show, and with which 
 they had no means, apparently, to grapple, it is not 
 surprising that they were well-nigh discouraged. 
 
 At this time, however, the Lord appeared unto the 
 church, as truly as he appeared unto Paul of old, 
 and said to her what he said to Paul : 
 
 "Rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have ap- 
 peared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a 
 minister and a witness both of these things which 
 thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I 
 will appear unto thee ; delivering thee from the peo- 
 ple, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send 
 thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from dark- 
 ness to light, and from the power of Satan unto 
 
 81 
 
Contriftuting OElemenw 
 
 God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and 
 inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith 
 that is in me. 
 
 "All power is given unto me in heaven and in 
 earth. Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all 
 the nations, baptizing them into the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; 
 teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
 have commanded you; and lo, I am with you alway, 
 even unto the end of the world. Amen." 
 
 In the face of these facts the doctrine was 
 preached, that Christ had conditioned His presence 
 and His almighty power, the Holy Spirit, upon 
 practical willingness, on the part of His people, to 
 obey the Great Commission. One cold, bleak January 
 morning the pastor crossed the threshold of the 
 church with this conviction in his heart, prepared 
 with a message for his discouraged people, that their 
 salvation as a church, financially, and every other 
 way, depended upon their taking the little flour they 
 had in the barrel and the little oil they had in the 
 cruse and undertaking to feed first of all the starving 
 millions of heathen souls with the bread of life. 
 From the sacred precincts of the empty pews and 
 galleries of the church that pastor seemed to hear 
 whispers as he passed along the aisles of the church 
 to the session room to meet the elders for prayer 
 before the service. The import of those whisperings 
 
93i00ion$ tfte Supreme Dpnamic 
 
 seemed to be that the pastor had gone crazy, that 
 he had lost his mental balance. But at every step 
 a voice within said, "Lo, I am with thee." And he 
 knew it to be the voice of the Son of God. When 
 he reached the session room he looked in the faces 
 of those men of God for encouragement in the deliv- 
 ery of his message. 
 
 As they prayed eyes were filled with tears, and as 
 the pastor turned his face to the wall to hide their 
 flow, through his tears he saw the Son of God, and 
 again he heard Him say, "Lo, I am with thee." And 
 the Lord did stand with him while he delivered his 
 message that morning, and Christ revealed Himself 
 as a world Saviour to the people. Whereupon this 
 church was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision, 
 but undertook to show unto them of China, as well 
 as at Wichita and of our own land, that they should 
 repent and turn to God and do works meet for re- 
 pentance. That very day the church took for sup- 
 port a missionary pastor on the foreign fields. Dr. 
 Hunter Corbett, of Chefoo, China. And that very 
 year, too, the church closed its books without a deficit 
 in its current expenses, and with its floating debt 
 removed — a condition it had not enjoyed for ten 
 years previous, according to the showing of the 
 treasurer. The next year the Church more than 
 doubled the amount contributed to foreign missions 
 the previous year, and added to its pay roll a home 
 
Contriftutinff (Elements 
 
 missionary, and that year it removed its bonded 
 debt, closing the year with money in the treasury and 
 all financial obligations met. 
 
 The philosophy of the church's salvation at that 
 time was this: The church became enamoured with 
 Jesus Christ and the work for which he gave his 
 life, and in consequence she entered upon a life of 
 faith to give even the little meal she had in the 
 barrel and the oil in the cruse for Jesus Christ, and 
 to go with Christ even unto the uttermost parts of 
 the earth to help save lost men. In consequence 
 Christ verified his promise to be with the church. 
 
 The foreign pilgrimage cost the church during the 
 following ten years about $25,000, with which she 
 sustained four American foreign missionaries and 
 about twenty-five native pastors and assistants, and 
 much other work. The church last year contributed 
 an average of over five dollars a member to foreign 
 missions. 
 
 But the fact that the church went so far away 
 from home in her interests and with such an increase 
 of contributions is not the only thing that has caused 
 comment, or awakened curiosity, not to say wonder, 
 in the minds of some people. This, to be sure, was 
 done at a time when the church was financially em- 
 barrassed at home and her very life and existence 
 threatened. Hence it seemed to some sur ;idal and 
 foolish. But during the very time, by reafon of this 
 same love for Jesus Christ, born of a fresh vision 
 
 84 
 
9@i00ion0 tfte Supreme Dpnamic 
 
 of the Son of God, revealed through His word in the 
 clear light of the Great Commission, the church was 
 enabled to do as much for home missions as for 
 foreign, and upward of $25,000 during those ten 
 years was put upon the altar of God for this work 
 also. 
 
 But this was not yet the most astonishing result 
 of becoming enamoured of Jesus Christ when the 
 church perceived the heavenly vision and received the 
 Great Commission. So greatly was the church 
 wrought upon by the Spirit taking the things of 
 Jesus and showing his attractive beauty unto her, 
 namely. His self-denial for the lost world, that she 
 was enabled to contribute not only thus to further 
 the gospel at home and abroad, but out of what 
 seemed her poverty she brought so generously that 
 during those ten years upward of $75,000 was con- 
 tributed by her to sustain the preaching of the 
 gospel and establish the kingdom of God in Wichita. 
 So that the church had not only no debt, but she 
 maintained in Wichita one of the largest plants doing 
 business for God anywhere in the United States, with 
 a pastor, two assistant pastors, a minister of music, 
 two office assistants, a city missionary, a central 
 church of 1,400 members, a Bible school with about 
 one hundred officers and teachers, and seven hundred 
 scholars, a men's department, with a men's club and 
 two boys' clubs, a girls' industrial department, a 
 girls' club, two Christian Endeavor Societies, two 
 
 85 
 
Contriljuting (Bltmtnt$ 
 
 ladies' societies, a Young People's Missionary So- 
 ciety, a Junior Missionary Society, a Children's 
 Mission Band, a Bible training department, issuing 
 many thousands of pages of printed matter each 
 year, and a missionary magazine. 
 
 A similar story is told by every pastor and church 
 that has tried the experiment. How long we have 
 been in learning a thing which now appears so simple ! 
 Christ knew the needs of the world better than any 
 one else, and what He was willing to reward men 
 most for doing. Many a vision of the world's con- 
 dition had been granted Him. He did not want it 
 as a material possession — that he spurned in the hour 
 of His great temptation — ^but He did crave it as a 
 spiritual possession. Men's soul-suffering appealed 
 to Him. Could He free them from the love of sin? 
 Could He break from their lives the shackles of 
 wickedness? Could He make them see the insignifi- 
 cance of the things of this world as compared with 
 the glory of His Father's Kingdom? That would be 
 a work worth doing ; that would be worth the loss of 
 all things else. Starting to win man back to His 
 Father, He could not be satisfied with less than all 
 men, so, to make their winning more sure. He said 
 to those He left to finish the work He could only 
 begin: "If you will go right on and do this most 
 important work; forget and even deny yourselves 
 in your eagerness to get my plan into the hearts of 
 all men, I will not only go with you and help you 
 
 86 
 
9ii00iDn0 tbt Supreme Dpnamic 
 
 till the task is done, but I will give to you the richest 
 blessings of my Father's Kingdom. For other ser- 
 vices you will get much; for this supreme service 
 you will get most. He that loseth his life for my 
 sake shall find it." 
 
 Now the secret is out. It is becoming better 
 known every day. It is being proved true by more 
 and more congregations willing to try. There is no 
 longer any reason for churches remaining small and 
 weak. They may be large and powerful if they will 
 follow God's plan. "Go and I will be with you." He 
 does not promise to be with churches that refuse 
 to go to the extent, not of their selfishness, but of 
 their ability. The churches that obey suddenly rise 
 up as by a new might. It is the might of God Him- 
 self, which no adversary can withstand and which 
 wins all men. Men and churches that so obey as to 
 win the presence and power of the God-Spirit be- 
 come mighty in both deed and influence. 
 
 87 
 
VI. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF EVANGELISM. 
 
 THE amazingly rapid growth of the Church in 
 the early centuries is found to be due in 
 large part to the spirit of evangelism which 
 animated every member. The heresy that Christian- 
 ity is something a man should get as a personal pos- 
 session and selfishly keep was not yet abroad. It 
 was Good News from a far country, and whoever 
 got it first was not content until he had told it per- 
 suasively to all his friends. 
 
 True, it had not yet been abused. Men had never 
 yet used it as a cloak to hide sin, or a coigne for 
 personal advantage. Not yet did men profess it as 
 a faith only to deny it by their life. It was pure 
 and undefiled, while every life possessing it was so 
 true and strong, so powerful against temptation and 
 so brave in trial, that men on every hand said: "If 
 this new religion can do that for me, I want it." 
 
 Is it not possible for the Church in the twentieth 
 century to take on the fervor of the first .'^ Too long 
 has she been content if she prospered. She has 
 allowed self-maintenance to consume her time and 
 substance. Too long she has left her pastors to do 
 
 88 
 
C6e Spirit of dBtoangelfgm 
 
 the work of soul-winning, content if they brought 
 into the Kingdom a dozen souls a year. Too long 
 she has criticised those pastors for not doing more 
 of that which is her work as much as theirs, and 
 which they can never do completely without her 
 help. It was to the whole body of Christians Christ 
 spoke the parable of the leaven. Until we all begin 
 to impart the Christ nature we have acquired to 
 those we touch, the whole world will not be Christian. 
 No religious organization, however perfect, can 
 be truly called a Working Church that is not pri- 
 marily doing the work Christ set for it; that is not 
 striving earnestly and continuously to win men to 
 Jesus ; that is not shot through and through with 
 the spirit of Evangelism. There is more than grim 
 humor in the explanation of the old restaurant 
 keeper that she could sell ice-cream cheaper than 
 her competitors because she saved the cost of ice 
 by setting her freezers against the walls of a nearby 
 church. A cold church is a libel on the Master. 
 It gives a false picture of Him to the world. It 
 drives men from Him when it ought to draw them. 
 Dignity and formalism are the refuge of small lives. 
 Large ones can afford to be open and hospitable. 
 
 Let the Leader Lead, 
 
 No pastor dare close his eyes to the fact that 
 what he is in this regard, his people are very likely 
 to be. How rarely does a people have greater zeal 
 
 89 
 
Conttifiuting dBIemenw 
 
 in soul-winning than the minister they have called to 
 their head! How quickly do they give it up when 
 the successor to a soul-winner feels that "all this 
 fuss" is unnecessary. There at least it will be "like 
 priest, like people." 
 
 In our day, one confesses with keen regret, many 
 a fine fellow in the ministry has sacrificed efficiency 
 as a soul-winner on the altar of modern scholarship. 
 No sane man can object to the highest learning, but 
 when it cools a man's ardor, obscures an intimate 
 vision of the Master's face, weakens his faith in God 
 or the Bible, it has done the servant of Jesus an 
 irreparable injury. 
 
 "The bird with the broken pinion. 
 Never soared so high again." 
 
 A minister can be forgiven for being ignorant of 
 the latest things in Biblical criticism; he cannot be 
 forgiven if he lacks an intimate personal acquaint- 
 ance with Him whose representative he was ordained 
 to be. No minister need hope to build up a strong 
 working church who has not in his heart the spirit 
 of the evangelist. History is a unit on this point. 
 He may create a perfect social organism, a successful 
 religious club, but it will never be a working church. 
 
 And, therefore, the minister who hopes to render 
 large service to the Kingdom and who has not the 
 heart of an evangelist, must get it. This is more 
 possible to-day than ever before. Summer schools 
 
 90 
 
C6e ©pfrft of (JBtiangel{0m 
 
 and Bible conferences abound, where Spirit-filled men 
 reveal the possibilities of human organs. Hearts 
 that have never been warm, or that have grown cold 
 in the Arctic regions of religious indifference, are 
 made to throb and glow. Men whose ministry has 
 been a function, who have ground out sermons and 
 marriage and funeral ceremonies like nickel-fed au- 
 tomatons, waken to the fact that the ministry may 
 be a live, fruit-bearing thing; that instead of dying 
 with ermuiy they may glow continually with the con- 
 sciousness of achievement. The enthusiasm of twice- 
 born men is contagious. It makes the man, in any 
 way responsible for the transformation, tingle with 
 new life himself and, from a position of weary suf- 
 ferance, he comes to look upon the ministry as the 
 greatest work in the world, the onlz/ work worthy a 
 lifetime of effort. 
 
 Returning from such Christ-Schools the awakened 
 minister goes back to his New Testament. What a 
 fascinating book it has suddenly become ! Before he 
 had hard work to fill the preaching appointments; 
 now he has so many sermons he cannot find occasions 
 enough on which to preach them ! Before, men said 
 of his sermons, "What finished literary productions." 
 Now they say, "What gripping, heart-searching ap- 
 peals." Before they said, "Our church is prosper- 
 ing." Now they say, "Our church is growing — new 
 lives every Sunday." Before they said, "Our minister 
 is a perfect Christian gentleman." Now they say, 
 
 91 
 
Conttffiutfng Clementt 
 
 "Our minister is a power for God, a true servant 
 of Christ, a winner of souls." 
 
 His prayer life also will be transformed. The 
 minister must pray so often for and before his people, 
 there is grave danger lest he cease to pray in secret 
 for himself. Christ never let go His prayer-grip 
 on God. Other things could wait while He went 
 into a mountain apart to pray. When the urgency 
 was great and the issue of universal and eternal con- 
 sequence, he tarried in that soul-quickening com- 
 munion all night. There is many a good man in 
 the Christian ministry to-day who thinks he needs 
 more learning to make him a power, when what he 
 really needs is more communion with his heavenly 
 Father. He knows enough of the things of men, 
 but he knows too little of the things of God. World- 
 knowledge may come through study, but God-knowl- 
 edge comes through "being silent to God" and letting 
 Him instruct us out of His fullness and love. 
 
 The American pulpit has furnished numerous cases 
 in the past twelve or fifteen years of able men who 
 have suddenly changed the whole tenor of their 
 preaching. Brilliant before, they have suddenly be- 
 come powerful; actually preventing serious, heart- 
 searching thought on the part of their hearers before, 
 by keeping them enraptured with scintillating para- 
 graphs, they have suddenly begun to grip men's 
 hearts, make them forget everything but the God's- 
 message that pours at white heat from their lips. 
 
 92 
 
C6e %pitit of (EtoangeUsfm 
 
 One was transformed during a long illness when, 
 walking close by the gates of death, he was made to 
 think of eternal verities and the shortness of time 
 in which to get the race back to God. Another was 
 at length awakened by the barrenness of a really 
 brilliant ministry. He saw the world could never 
 be saved by such ministry, so he went to a new field 
 where conditions favored soul-winning. Across the 
 sea a third, who had laid the world under obligation 
 by his erudite studies in English literature, was 
 driven at length to see that that only is preaching 
 which has in it the evangelistic note. These three 
 men, who before were heard by the few, are now 
 reaching thousands. Men are being born anew under 
 their ministry every week, and they feel that now at 
 last they are true representatives of Him who com- 
 manded us not simply to preach, but to evangelize 
 the nations. 
 
 The Minister's Special Opportimities. 
 
 While the Spirit-filled, soul-hungry minister will 
 not wait for any special time or place in which to 
 work for the salvation of his people, he will take 
 advantage of three special services in which he will 
 persuasively tell the story of the cross and strive 
 to win men to the Christian life ; the Sunday morning 
 preaching hour, the Sunday evening preaching hour, 
 and the midweek prayer service. How shall he con- 
 duct them that they be not simply religious func- 
 
 93 
 
Contttfiuting OBlemenW 
 
 tions, but heart-stirring, soul-arousing, second-birth- 
 begetting, religious meetings? 
 
 In the average church the minister will have his 
 largest audience of the week at the Sunday morning 
 preaching hour. The people have cleansed them- 
 selves from the world's grime, donned fresh garments 
 and presented themselves in the house of God, as 
 nearly new creatures as men can make themselves. 
 Their very thoughts have changed and, if ever in 
 their lives they are prepared to receive a message 
 from God, it is at this hour. True, the majority 
 are often very slow in responding to the spirit of the 
 aroused preacher. One would hardly go so far as 
 John Ruskin and say they must be raised from the 
 dead ; perhaps coma would not be too strong. At all 
 events the people are present, and the minister has 
 his chance with them. What will he do with it? 
 
 There are two or three things he may do. One 
 is, preach a very orthodox sermon on an incontro- 
 vertible text, sing the regulation number of hymns 
 without undue acceleration, suffer an anthem, take 
 the collection, pronounce the benediction, and send 
 the people home on excellent terms with themselves. 
 This is a very easy and a very pleasant thing to do. 
 It saves wear and tear on both pastor and people, 
 and gives rise to few controversies. Many pastors 
 adopt it ; especially those who have ceased to aspire, 
 or who have found that acquiescence often wins more 
 praise than aggressiveness. Such ministers are usu- 
 
 94 
 
C6e ©pirit of (Et3angeU0m 
 
 ally faultless before the people, however guilty they 
 may be before God. 
 
 Some of us are grateful that there is another 
 thing a minister can do when the Sabbath morning 
 opportunity is before him. He can make it a ser- 
 vice when he "feeds the sheep"; he can make it a 
 service when he "preaches to Christians"; he can 
 follow the customary formula of scripture reading, 
 hymn and prayer, but he can put so much of the 
 spirit of God into these that men and women will 
 be alert and eager for some heart-message from their 
 King when he rises to speak. "The newspapers are 
 packed with world-news, and the libraries are packed 
 with literature, so give us a message filled with the 
 Spirit of God, with the promise and the plan of 
 eternal life." That is the plea of the sea of faces 
 now turned toward you, my Christian minister. Will 
 you respond to it ? Or through some mistaken notion 
 that men are tired of the Gospel message, or through 
 selfish desire to astonish them and win glowing en- 
 comiums by brilliant oratory, will you deny your 
 ordination vows and spend this precious opportunity 
 in tickling the fancy of the light-minded or lulling 
 into greater quietude hearts that should be doing 
 great things for God.? 
 
 "I always go to hear Dr. Stultum when I can," 
 said a gentleman to a friend concerning a minister 
 of great learning and piety. "He always sends me 
 home so quieted and at peace with the world." 
 
 95 
 
Conttifiuting OBIement^ 
 
 Yes, but, my dear sir, how about the great host 
 of the unsaved crowded about the very church door? 
 Christ came not to send peace on earth, but a sword, 
 until every enemy of our God is vanquished and 
 peace reigns because all hearts are at one with Him ! 
 The minister may well make some part of every 
 Sunday morning service quieting to troubled souls, 
 and he may well make an occasional service so all 
 through, but he will utterly fail as a representative 
 of Christ if, when he has people before him, he does 
 not rouse them to the point of restrainless enthusi- 
 asm on the subject of winning the lost, of moving 
 the unawakened or the indifferent to active associa- 
 tion with the Christ. 
 
 He cannot do this with half an hour of pious plati- 
 tudes, and the customary hymn — scripture reading — 
 anthem — prayer — sermon — benediction service, car- 
 ried on at the usual poor dying rate. Nothing will 
 more effectually lull a people to sleep. 
 
 The minister who has drunk deep at the fountain 
 of spiritual life will come before his people Sabbath 
 morning determined to stir them to greater love for 
 God and men. He will be so full of his eager desire 
 to see men born again that his spirit will permeate 
 the service, and his people will feel it. He will not 
 start in to quiet them, but to rouse them; he will 
 use all the arts known to proper preaching; he will 
 grind his arrows of truth to cutting sharpness, and 
 
 96 
 
Cfte Spirit of OBtJangelisim 
 
 will see that every one has a barb on it, so that it 
 cannot be gotten out of the life until it has produced 
 an effect. The arrows will be drawn to the head and 
 sent to the heart-target with a bow of earnestness 
 that will bring conviction, both to saved and un- 
 saved; saved to save others and unsaved to save 
 themselves. 
 
 Why should there not be conversions at the morn- 
 ing service? Why should they not be expected and 
 eagerly worked for? A good many customs of the 
 Church will have to be changed before our communi- 
 ties, and so the nations of the world, are saved. If 
 the invitation is not given during the service it 
 should be announced that the pastor and a committee 
 from the officers will tarry in a convenient place at 
 the close of the service to confer with any who may 
 desire to know more of the way of life, or be received 
 into the Church. 
 
 Too long we have earnestly invited people to ac- 
 cept the Saviour, and unite with the Church, and 
 then have sent them home without an opportunity 
 to accept the invitation. In many cases they cannot 
 be present on the time set for formal hearing; in 
 others, though the heart is right, timidity holds 
 them back. It sounds very pious to say, "they should 
 be brave enough to do anything the Church requires 
 to get into touch with the Lord," but it is a sin for 
 the Church to lose them when they are not. The 
 
 97 
 
Contrffiutino: OBlement^ 
 
 shepherd opens the gate wide that the flock may 
 enter the sheepfold. The Church may well follow 
 his example. 
 
 The Sahbath Evenvng Opportunity, 
 
 There is a widespread and very wholesome idea 
 that the Sabbath evening service should be different 
 from the morning. All nature loves variety, and 
 human nature most of all. It is entirely possible for 
 a minister, who cannot draw his people back to a 
 second service by his preaching power, to do so by 
 putting the emphasis on other features. By general 
 consent the evening service may be openly evangel- 
 istic. This gives the pastor the opportunity he needs 
 to be his own evangelist. At least half the sermons 
 any minister preaches should be evangelistic, and 
 while he must not rob his morning service of this 
 soul-winning spirit, most of them will naturally be 
 given at night. Let the people understand that the 
 Gospel message may be heard in some form every 
 Sabbath evening, and then never disappovnt them. 
 
 The best possible preparation for a Gospel sermon 
 is a half hour's hearty singing of Gospel songs, under 
 a good leader. No more attractive feature can be 
 added to a service, nor one that will do more to draw 
 a crowd week after week. The singing must be 
 spirited and full of good cheer. Formal anthems 
 may well give way to Gospel solos and duets, and 
 every song should contain a story that grips the 
 
Ci)e S>pitit of aBtjangeli^m 
 
 heart and contributes to a reverent, receptive spirit. 
 There must be no strained humor or striving after 
 mirth, but if anything occurs to cause a good- 
 natured smile, do not restrain or rebuke it. Smiles 
 and tears are twin brothers and are always found 
 close together. One eminent preacher of the past 
 generation is quoted as saying that if some one could 
 be found to arouse the congregation to wholesome 
 laughter, he would undertake to arouse them to whole- 
 some tears within five minutes' time. Let the people 
 be natural in this service. It will contribute im- 
 measurably to its power and fruitfulness. 
 
 The sermon must be full of human interest. 
 Hearts are not won by abstractions. What wins at 
 Water Street and Pacific Garden missions is the 
 testimony of redeemed men. The minister may tell 
 of these redemptions. Such stories as Harold Begbie 
 gives in Twice-Born Men are interest-compelling. No 
 audience can remain indifferent under them. Nor 
 do the people ever tire of a fresh and timely telling 
 of the conversions and experiences of Bible char- 
 acters. Let the imagination play within reasonable 
 bounds and do not spend too much time with your 
 thoroughly good commentary. A commentary may 
 do very well as a guiding star, but if the preacher 
 uses it as wind and fills his sails more than once from 
 its contents the people will quickly recognize old 
 friends and give their attention to their own 
 thoughts. An audience once lost is rarely ever re- 
 
 99 
 
Contributins ©lement0 
 
 gained. As the air loses its freshness, tired flesh is 
 sure to assert itself. The man of power is quick to 
 notice any slackening of interest, and is ready with 
 an apt and stimulating story that keeps attention at 
 flood. 
 
 Invitations to accept the Saviour and enter upon 
 the Christian life should either close the sermon, being 
 pressed with earnest and tender solicitude, or an 
 after-meeting announced, the singing of which begins 
 in the front of the church or in a convenient lecture- 
 room the moment the benediction is pronounced. 
 Personal workers must supplement the pastor's invi- 
 tations, going with penitents to the altar or inquiry 
 room. Without this aid at least fifty per cent, of 
 the possible harvest will he lost. 
 
 A right minister will expect results from every 
 sermon he preaches, if not in open conversions, at 
 least in secret convictions which will soon appear on 
 the surface. Go after the people. Determine to 
 win them. Make resistance impossible. The Master 
 said, "Compel them to come in." It must, of course, 
 be the compulsion of a surrendered and ready will, 
 drawn irresistibly to the Saviour. Only after such 
 services will the minister have full right to sing the 
 precious song of the fathers: "One More Day's 
 Work for Jesus." 
 
 Reviving Our Most Valuable Service, 
 
 The third opportunity referred to is now almost 
 100 
 
Ctie Spirit of (2Bt)angeU0m 
 
 lost to the church. Prayer-meeting no longer starts 
 a spirit in the average follower of Jesus. In his 
 philosophy he needs money and social intercourse, 
 and physical relaxation, so much more than he needs 
 prayer, that to give an evening to waiting before 
 God and communing with Him is considered unneces- 
 sary if not indeed absurd. On the part of those 
 familiar with the Churches needs, this is recognized 
 as one of the chief sources of her present weakness 
 and inefficiency/. Not so much that a midweek pray- 
 er-meeting is not kept up, but that the spirit of 
 prayer no longer permeates the life of the Church. 
 Christians neglect to nourish their religious life on 
 communion with God, a thing as necessary to its 
 healthy growth as food is to the body. 
 
 One feels sometimes that the ministers themselves 
 are largely to blame for this. Thousands of the 
 splendid fellows have considered and talked about 
 the prayer-meeting as a subordinate service. They 
 have made little or no preparation for it and have 
 had no scruples against leaving it in the hands of 
 anybody, however unfitted, who could be induced to 
 **lead." A few random songs, a lengthy scripture 
 Jesson, read not for itself, but as a space-filler; a 
 rambling exhortation or a blundering apology about 
 having no time to prepare, many "volunteer" pray- 
 ers and a few time-worn testimonies, can we wonder 
 greatly that the "lecture-room" has not been over- 
 crow'ded ! 
 
 101 
 
ConttitJUting OBIemenw 
 
 The two incidents following are typical. The 
 pastor of a large church visited a friend on a strug- 
 gling city mission field. When prayer-meeting even- 
 ing came there was a good crowd present and the 
 missionary worker gave evidence that he had given 
 as much time and care to preparation as many do to 
 their Sunday morning sermon. The visiting pastor 
 was impressed, but on the way home said to his 
 friend: "I enjoyed your prayer-meeting, but I 
 think I ought to warn you that you are making a 
 mistake. You cannot afford to give so much time 
 to this unimportant service as you must have given 
 to speak as you did to-night." 
 
 Why? and why unimportant? The greatest need 
 the Church has to-day is to spend more time in 
 intimate communion with God. No time, no effort, 
 is too great for the minister to spend on his midweek 
 prayer service. He had better neglect his Sunday 
 morning sermon, so far as the welfare of the church 
 is concerned. 
 
 A very wealthy member in one of our great city 
 churches invited her pastor and one or two influential 
 members to a grand opera box-party on a Wednes- 
 day evening. The flattered pastor, with an all-too- 
 common disregard of his midweek prayer-meeting, 
 accepted the invitation, trusting to Providence to 
 take care of His own. One of his yet more wealthy 
 members graciously refused the invitation, saying 
 that she had a permanent engagement at the church 
 
 102 
 
C&e ®pftft of (JBtjangelfem 
 
 prayer-meeting on Wednesday evenings. The party 
 was called off, and the embarrassed pastor left to 
 make such explanations as he could. When our 
 pastors think more of the prayer-meeting the people 
 will. Here again the leader must lead. 
 
 There is no reason why Middle Ages methods 
 should be continued in the modern prayer-meeting. 
 Let the pastor determine and announce to his people 
 that the midweek service is to be raised to its rightful 
 place. Let him prepare a Bible Study that has 
 blood in it, and that can be given by careful hus- 
 banding of moments in about twenty of them. Let 
 him use a live, spiritual Gospel song book. Let the 
 accompanist be as good as the church affords and, 
 if he be not a good leader of music himself, let the 
 minister see that the best available is on hand. Let 
 there be nothing hap-hazard about the service. A 
 Gospel solo by a sweet soprano voice, some bright 
 thoughts by leaders in the world's religious life, 
 abundant opportunity for every heart that will pray 
 to do so. 
 
 ( It would seem that personal testimonies that have 
 been in circulation, say for more than seventeen years 
 last March, might, out of consideration for all con- 
 cerned, be withdrawn. It is a fair question whether 
 some other form of edification should not now be 
 given an equally fair trial.) 
 
 And now for two innovations that have been found 
 of incalculable value to one Church builder. When 
 
 103 
 
Contrfftutfng dBlemettW 
 
 the regular features of the prayer-meeting have been 
 spiritedly put through, announce that as a part of 
 the service, and before the benediction, the company 
 will rise and have five or eight minutes of social 
 intercourse. Strangers will be welcomed and new 
 acquaintances made. Many will use the time for 
 tactful personal work among the unsaved. 
 
 (Oh, yes, there will be strangers and unsaved also 
 in such a prayer-meeting as here outlined. The 
 people are not so much afraid of prayer as some 
 very good men seem to think.) 
 
 When the time announced for the social greeting 
 has elapsed, and not a moment later, have the organ- 
 ist strike the chords of a familiar hymn. This will 
 draw the attention of the people, and while they 
 remain standing, wherever they chance to be at the 
 moment, let the minister complete his announcements, 
 concluding with the statement that after the benedic- 
 tion the pastor and officers would be happy to meet 
 any who care to inquire further about the Christian 
 life. Here again the invitation to the Christian life 
 should be immediately followed by an opportunity to 
 accept it. Pastors who have never tried the plan 
 will be amazed how many worthy people will take 
 advantage of it, especially if he and his personal 
 workers make good use of the social period. 
 
 "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto 
 myself." Distinguish, brethren, between lifting up 
 the minister and lifting up the Master. Jesus alone 
 
 104 
 
Cfte Spirit of (Kt3angelf0m 
 
 has drawing power and he has so much that, if 
 persuasively presented, few hearts can withstand His 
 appeal. After every such service there will be some 
 wishing to learn more of the Way of Life. 
 
 The Personal Interview. 
 
 In addition to the three opportunities above out- 
 lined, there remains one of almost, if not quite, equal 
 value, — the personal interview. It is amazing how 
 few modern ministers grant it, or know aught of its 
 peculiar value. Few burdened or questioning souls 
 are able or willing to speak of their real difficulty in 
 a public meeting or even privately to a personal 
 worker in an open inquiry room. Natural timidity 
 interferes or the intimate nature of the trouble. 
 Oftentimes an hour or a whole evening is necessary 
 to lead the penitent to unburden the heart that 
 hidden difficulties may be removed. 
 
 The wise minister therefore will let it be under- 
 stood that at certain hours several days in the week, 
 say from one-thirty to two-thirty, each afternoon 
 from Tuesday to Friday (there should be at least 
 one evening hour for the convenience of those who 
 must work all day), he will gladly meet for quiet 
 talks on personal problems, at his home if possible, 
 any of his people who desire to meet him. When the 
 time arrives and pastor and inquirer are face to face, 
 the pastor may easily and quickly come to close 
 quarters : "Let me see, — what is it that is troubling 
 
 105 
 
Conttifiuting Clemenw 
 
 you?" or "Now tell me frankly all that is in your 
 heart." 
 
 In nine cases out of ten the minister will be 
 amazed at the simplicity of the difficulty and the ease 
 with which it may be swept away. When men seek 
 a personal interview they are not far from the King- 
 dom, and the earnest pastor will be able to open its 
 doors quickly. While austerity is to be avoided, 
 the interview should be as impressive as possible. 
 Ordinarily it should not close without bended knees 
 and earnest prayers and a hand-grip that will send 
 the inquirer away with rich memories as well as an 
 awakened soul. 
 
 And so the earnest pastor will go on from service 
 to service, from ministry to ministry. He will be 
 modern, patriotic, full of sunshine and good cheer, 
 while at the same time he will have as a precious 
 burden on his heart the conversion of every life he 
 touches. If the right Christian should be in a con- 
 tinual attitude of prayer, the right pastor should be 
 in a continual attitude of evangelism. Like his 
 Master, his business is to seek and to save souls that 
 are lost, and that day is barren indeed that does not 
 show some soul born anew or some definite progress 
 made toward that most vital consummation. The 
 pastor-evangelist is the most valuable and the most 
 welcome man in the ministry to-day. 
 
 106 
 
VII. 
 
 SOCIALi LIFE; THE SPIRIT OF FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 HOW much shall moulders of Church customs 
 concede to the fact that man is a social being 
 and that, if he does not find congenial social 
 intercourse in connection with his Church life, he will 
 seek it elsewhere? Very many eminently respectable 
 Church members in our day insist that the simple 
 fact that another is a member of the same congrega- 
 tion entails no social obligation whatever. All such 
 are represented by that president of the Ladies' Aid 
 who, when asked if a certain woman to whom she had 
 coldly nodded on the street were a friend of hers re- 
 plied: "O dear, no, simply a Church acquaintance." 
 On the other hand stands the fact that a human being 
 cannot lay aside his social nature when he happens 
 to want to attend Church, and, if he finds no response 
 to this nature when he enters the house of God, is 
 apt to consider it cold and unchristlike. 
 
 Should one stop to discuss the point raised by 
 some that, the Church being a religious institution, 
 it should be kept wholly for the service of the soul? 
 They would have worshippers enter in funereal pro- 
 cession and retire when the service is ended without 
 
 107 
 
Contrifiutfng (ClemenW 
 
 so much as a glance of recognition toward their 
 friends. One has much sympathy for those who 
 speak against using the time immediately before and 
 after the service for loud general conversation which 
 touches upon everything from the baby's new tooth 
 to the latest fashion in hats or the batting averages 
 of the stars in the major leagues! It would seem 
 only decorous for the congregation to leave the house 
 of God without the gayety and babble of an afternoon 
 tea. But that there should be no interchange of good 
 wishes, no warm hand clasps, no quiet meeting of new 
 friends, no earnest invitations to return, would hardly 
 seem to be the mind of the Master who always used 
 the place and the time for furthering His Father's 
 business. 
 
 The New Commandment : Love One Another. 
 
 There being no plain utterance from the lips of 
 Christ or the early founders of the Church on the 
 subject of social life among members of a congrega- 
 tion, one must draw conclusions from the general na- 
 ture of their teaching and the customs that prevailed 
 among themselves. The first point may be gained 
 from the fact that it was the plan of Jesus that a 
 very intimate relationship should exist between those 
 who confessed Him and entered His Church. This 
 was unmistakable from the fact that as He was giv- 
 ing directions for their new life in Him He said: "A 
 new commandment I give unto you that ye love one 
 
 108 
 
Social Lffe 
 
 another." That members of His Kingdom on earth 
 could obey this new and last commandment and at the 
 same time treat other members with coldness or in- 
 difference is unthinkable. If we have the spirit of 
 the Christ, we will be open, hospitable, genial. 
 
 Further evidence that social life in the Church rela- 
 tion is to be fostered may be gathered from the fact 
 i that the early Christians were much in each other's 
 company and generally preceding the Lord's Supper 
 met together for a friendly meal. The author of the 
 book of Hebrews goes even further, saying: "Be not 
 forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some 
 have entertained angels unawares." St. Paul told the 
 Romans to be "given to hospitality," and while some 
 of this would be to strangers, most of it would be to 
 other holders of the Christian faith. It can be safely 
 said that the whole trend of the New Testament is 
 toward allowing our social nature to have full swing 
 in our Church relations. 
 
 One may now go to the other side of the question 
 and ask if it would do violence to our Christianity 
 if we should be gracious and unselfish and culti- 
 vate social relationships with members of our own 
 churches and with Christians generally. The answer 
 of every sane reader must be an emphatic and un- 
 qualified "No, it would be the Christ-like thing to 
 do." Few know how lonesome other lives are; not 
 many in comfortable circumstances know the ache 
 a thoughtless snub may cause a sensitive and lonely 
 
 109 
 
Contrifjuting ^lemettW 
 
 heart. If we salute our friends only, how are we 
 better than publicans? They love those that love 
 them. We are supposed to be an a higher plane. Will 
 we live up to it? 
 
 Attention That Warms the Heart of Strangers, 
 
 The testimony of strangers or chance visitors to 
 services in our churches is not often in praise of our 
 cordiality. Confessing that the fault is partly the 
 visitor's for not throwing himself on our necks, the 
 fact remains that for a stranger to be allowed to 
 enter and leave a church with only the decorous serv- 
 ice of an usher, proclaims a lack at a point where 
 improvement could be easily made. 
 
 The plan of having ushers who keep a careful 
 watch over the congregation, noting the entrance and 
 exact sitting place of everyone who is not a regular 
 worshipper, is to be highly commended. His services 
 may well be supplemented by a "key man," who has 
 in charge, say, the three pews immediately in front 
 of him. Into the hand of this watchful one the 
 usher may slip a card, as he goes up or down the 
 aisle, on which he notes that a stranger is in the sec- 
 ond pew in front, third sitting to the right or left. 
 
 The "key man" will see that the stranger has 
 hymn-book and Testament, and, when the service is 
 over, will make it a point to grasp his hand, get his 
 name and address if he seems willing to give them 
 up, introduce him to one or two others and, if the 
 
 110 
 
Social Life 
 
 visitor responds sufficiently to justify it, find out his 
 Church relation and induce him to meet the pastor. 
 It will often be a real service if the worker have a 
 card or leaflet giving a few facts concerning aux- 
 iliaries and their time of meeting, the basic require- 
 ments for membership in the church and when new 
 members will be again received. Such hospitality 
 may be easily and inoffensively extended, and after 
 such treatment the visitor will feel that he is really 
 welcome and that he has friends there who will greet 
 him with a smile when he next appears. 
 
 It should be ever kept in mind that the ultimate 
 winning of men and women to the Christian life is 
 vastly aided by social intercourse. Wholesome ac- 
 quaintance generally precedes the confidence which 
 gives an invitation to the Christian life drawing 
 power. When the richness of Christian character is 
 revealed by Church members in gracious intercourse 
 with strangers and friends, those strangers and 
 friends can be led to think seriously of becoming 
 Christians themselves. Never forget that it is what 
 the Christian does and not what he says that draws. 
 
 Human Contact the Secret of Influence, 
 
 From the above New Testament teachings and 
 from reasonable deductions it may safely be said 
 that, while it must never have first place, there should 
 be a measure of social life in every congregation. 
 The spirit of fellowship should be everywhere and all 
 
 111 
 
Contributing (BUmtnM 
 
 the time in evidence. Without it a church is cold 
 and cheerless indeed. Without it the new member 
 and the stranger feels that instead of being among 
 warm-hearted Christians he has fallen in with a 
 school of icebergs. With the spirit of fellowship 
 abounding, every part of a service may be second rate 
 and still the worshipper will feel fully repaid for his 
 journey to the House of God. 
 
 Human contact! Therein lies the secret of in- 
 fluence and power. Let life touch life. If it be 
 wholesome life it will have its wholesome influence 
 and the Church of Jesus will gain friends in- 
 numerable. 
 
 Let the spirit of fellowship show itself in hospi- 
 tality extended to all who worship at your church, 
 whether they be members or strangers. There 
 should be a good comfortable seat for the stranger 
 who drops into a service, even if the member who 
 pays for the seat has to stand. , One of the few 
 things for which a pastor may be ashamed of his 
 people is when they refuse, or grudgingly give, a seat 
 in their pew to some stranger who, directed by an 
 usher or no, finds his way there. To make him feel 
 that he is intruding, to make him sorry he came, to 
 make him question the genuineness of the Christian 
 profession, is to commit a well-nigh unpardonable 
 fault. If, to carry out the Master's spirit, the in- 
 habitants of the by-ways and hedges are to be com- 
 pelled to come in that his house may be full, it can 
 
 112 
 
Social Life 
 
 hardly be to the credit of the pew holder that he 
 snubs a stranger when, without a stroke of work 
 on the member's part, he, of his own desire, comes 
 into the Father's house. 
 
 The Place of the Church Supper, 
 
 Three or four times a year every congregation 
 should come together at the church for a purely 
 social evening. At such times there should be no 
 charge for entrance or any refreshments that may 
 be served. Such may be provided by the Official 
 Board as a sign of gratitude for the honor shown 
 them, or by housewives, who are always glad to help 
 the cause along. According to the judgment of this 
 writer, refreshments in a church should never be 
 elaborate. A cup of tea and a wafer, or coffee and 
 sandwich; just enough to talk over. "If any be 
 hungry, let them eat at home," is the injunction of 
 the Apostle. Here the people have come to get better 
 acquainted with each other, to entertain strangers 
 and to hold that communion which should be much 
 more common among saints than it is. Little food 
 is necessary ; just enough to suggest the social board. 
 The introduction of music, readings, and, where there 
 is a suitable room apart, games for the children, 
 will more than make up for the lightness of the re- 
 freshments ; and, because the money question is not 
 prominent, will prove of infinitely greater value in 
 advancing the spirit of fellowship. Furthermore, it 
 
 113 
 
Contritiming (Elements; 
 
 will do much to develop and give confidence to young 
 musicians and readers whose talents will be valuable 
 to the church on other occasions. It will give op- 
 portunity for officers and pastor to speak those in- 
 formal words concerning the life and work of the 
 church which often have more to do with cementing 
 the membership into an effectual working force than 
 all things else. 
 
 If there must be "sociables" for money raising let 
 them be as few and far between as possible and the 
 fee as low. The all too common "Church fair," which 
 often is a bare-faced steal, wherein chances are sold 
 on bed-quilts and hand-painted punch-bowls, and 
 "the handsomest young lady" is discovered by the 
 spendthrift tendencies of the biggest fool, must 
 surely be an abomination unto the Lord, and they 
 have no more right in a Christian Church than a 
 roulette wheel. Gambling is gambling, for big stake 
 or for little ; whether the proceeds enrich a scoundrel 
 or a Church. A good name is always sacrificed to 
 such riches. 
 
 The Sabbath school, with its annual or semi-annual 
 picnic; the Young People's Society's socials; the 
 Men's Club suppers, where, if there is a fee at all, 
 it is small as compared with the service rendered, 
 will furnish all the other opportunities for such gath- 
 erings needed, and any further social intercourse 
 should be had in the homes of the people. Happy 
 the congregation which, when building its church 
 
 114 
 
Social Life 
 
 home, found it possible to provide social rooms en- 
 tirely apart from auditorium, Sabbath school or 
 prayer meeting rooms. These may thus be kept for 
 their sacred purposes and the young may never come 
 to treat them as play-rooms. Let the House of God 
 be, as absolutely as possible, a house of prayer. 
 
 Seek Out Hidden Virtues, 
 
 The more fully the spirit of fellowship can control 
 the intercourse of Church members when away from 
 the church, the more naturally it will be entered upon 
 there and the greater its results. There ought to 
 be, and, according to the Master's plan, there should 
 be, a more intimate relationship between Christians 
 than between Christians and non-Christians. "Ye 
 are my disciples if ye love one another," said the 
 Master. Having so many things in common; the 
 same Master to love and serve, the same Father to 
 worship, the same virtues to attain, the same Heaven 
 to anticipate and work toward. Christians should find 
 the association of Christians sweet indeed. Every 
 man has hidden virtues, which reveal themselves only 
 after long acquaintance or deep search. Christians 
 may well seek for the virtues in each other and, find- 
 ing them, make them known to the world. 
 
 We always love the man who insists that his wife, 
 his boy, his house, his city is the best ever. They 
 are to him. He is perfectly honest. The secret is, 
 he has hunted out their virtues which others may not 
 
 115 
 
Contnfluting dementi 
 
 see, and which he does not see in others because he 
 has not sought. It will be a happy day when Chris- 
 tians, having acknowledged the easily seen, and hav- 
 ing searched out the hidden virtues of other Chris- 
 tians, shall call them best of all and shall proclaim 
 their virtues wherever occasion shall allow. Then 
 shall Christendom be a great Brotherhood and the 
 ideal of Christ be realized. 
 
 ii« 
 
iVIII. 
 
 MUSIC IN THE SANCTUARY, 
 
 THAT music has a rightful place in the life of 
 the modern church every worshipper will at 
 once concede. Many lips that have never 
 uttered a prayer have continually communed with 
 God in song. Even though the song be without 
 words, it may nevertheless breathe a prayer, for 
 music has a substance all its own and has power to 
 lift the soul of man up toward its God. Its wings 
 may be invisible, but they are none the less power- 
 ful. Gossamer and gold, like the wings of fairies, 
 the pinions of harmony waft the soul of man on high. 
 To some chord of music every human life is attuned, 
 and when the soul finds that chord it is : 
 
 "Like the sound of a great Amen." 
 
 It expresses its hopes, its aspirations, its desires. It 
 utters its gratitude, it is its song of profound thanks- 
 giving. To many in a public service, if it be wisely 
 chosen, the music will mean more than the Scripture 
 lesson, more than the sermon even. With the tran- 
 quillity and soul satisfaction produced by right music 
 
 117 
 
Contributing aEIemcnt0 
 
 many a life will go to its home lifted and revived, 
 with the feeling welling up large and strong that it 
 has been well to go into the house of the Lord. 
 
 If music holds such possibilities in its gentle em- 
 brace, what shall be said of the church or the min- 
 ister who treats it as a secondary or subordinate part 
 of the service? The minister who looks upon music 
 as an intrusion, who gives it only scraps and frag- 
 ments of time and thought, or, worse yet, leaves it 
 entirely to some one else who knows nothing of the 
 end he is trying to reach with Scripture lesson and 
 sermon, is throwing aside the greatest contributing 
 force at his command. Nothing is unimportant that 
 may aid the preacher, even in the smallest degree, 
 in reaching the hearts he is after and melting them 
 into love for Jesus Christ. One song, breathing the 
 sweetness and warmth of the Gospel story, will often 
 do more to win indifferent hearts than all the brains 
 and eloquence at the preacher's command. The min- 
 ister who says, with that superior and self-gratula- 
 tory air not wholly uncommon in his class, that "he 
 keeps his hands off of the music" is hardly entitled 
 to the glory he thus takes. It is rather a confession 
 of inability, or unwillingness, to cope with a problem 
 that is difficult, to be sure, but, when wisely handled, 
 is capable of yielding immeasurable contributions 
 to the very thing he should be striving to accomplish. 
 
 In the average modern church the music will be of 
 three kinds: Instrumental, such as Prelude, Offer- 
 
 118 
 
09u0ic in tfte ©anctuarp 
 
 tory and Postlude; congi'egational singing, in which 
 hymns and chants will predominate, and choir music. 
 In reference to the first of these, one is moved to 
 speak extravagantly of the modern pipe-organ. 
 Surely no nobler instrument was ever conceived, or 
 one capable of producing a more definite and help- 
 ful effect on man. If, this moment, it speaks in tones 
 of thunder, reminding one of Mount Sinai, the next 
 it may whisper with voice as gentle as angels, wooing 
 man away from the world into the quiet atmosphere 
 of heaven. 
 
 The Minister Should Control His Service, 
 
 Difficult as it may be to manage, the minister must 
 see to it that, during his preaching services at least, 
 the organ is not used to display the extraordinary 
 skill and musical ability of the organist. The 
 temptation is great, and few will withstand it unless 
 the minister, who must carry the responsibility for 
 the general effect of the whole service, reveals a 
 strong hand. He will not do this offensively. Let 
 him take the organist into his confidence, letting him 
 know exactly what he is trying to accomplish by the 
 music, and any worthy musician will at once co- 
 operate. 
 
 The minister has every right to insist that the 
 Organ Prelude lead the people into the service ; that 
 it produce a worshipful and reverential spirit, and 
 that, far from being distracting or calling attention 
 
 119 
 
Conttftiutfng (Clemettt0 
 
 to itself, it shall merge in with the service in hand 
 until the people are unconsciously prepared for 
 Scripture and sermon. That this effect may be pro- 
 duced the people must do their part. To use the 
 time during the Organ Prelude for neighborhood 
 gossip or the interchange of social felicities is not 
 only an offense against the organist; it is a graver 
 offense against the house of God and the service 
 which is to follow. If worshippers do not enjoy 
 sacred instrumental music, it reveals a lack which is 
 far from praiseworthy. They might better give this 
 time to the cultivation of the taste they should 
 possess. Important as the social life of a church 
 is, it must not be furthered at the expense of the 
 spiritual life, a thing which, apparently, many very 
 worthy Christians have yet to learn. 
 
 If an Offertory is played, as often as possible it 
 should be a variation on some well-known and be- 
 loved hymn. The audience will follow the tune with 
 the words and be further prepared for the message 
 that is to follow. When, in the heart of the service, 
 the mind follows the rich tones of the organ with 
 
 "Jesus, the very thought of Thee 
 With sweetness fills my breast, 
 But sweeter far Thy face to see 
 And in Thy presence rest." 
 
 or 
 
 "Sweet the moments rich in blessing. 
 Which before Thy throne I spend." 
 
 the heart of all true worshippers is ready and will 
 
 120 
 
00u0fc in tfte ©anctuatg 
 
 instantly respond to whatever phase of the Gospel 
 story the preacher persuasively proclaims. 
 
 While many organists seem to think so, the Post- 
 lude is not introduced at the close of a service for 
 the purpose of clearing the church in the shortest 
 possible time. On one or two visits to modern city 
 churches when, before the Amen of the Benediction 
 had ceased reverberating, the quick-step march of 
 the organist has crashed on the ear like the clanging 
 cymbals of a railway dinner call, the writer has in- 
 voluntarily looked for the sexton to rush out and 
 begin to sprinkle sawdust and sweep as fast as the 
 people withdraw toward the door! 
 
 Valuable as time is, it would hardly seem necessary 
 to do this or for the people to shuffle into rubbers 
 and wraps during the singing of the last hymn or 
 the pronouncing of the Benediction. It is all a part 
 of the unpardonable haste with which we have come 
 to do things in the house of God, and we are paying 
 for it dearly in lack of reverence for sacred things 
 and the manners of which civilization is wont to 
 boast. 
 
 The very best plan yet entered upon is for the 
 audience to remain seated during the singing of the 
 last hymn, and then, with bowed heads, receive the 
 Benediction. The people remain in silent prayer for 
 a moment while the organist begins his Postlude with 
 quiet strains, which may grow louder as the people 
 rise and move reverently toward the door. 
 
 121 
 
Conttifiuting (Element0 
 
 Handled thus the instrumental music will do its 
 share toward an effectual and up-lifting service and 
 not be a hindrance to be overcome, a nightmare to 
 be forgotten before any value can be had from the 
 service. 
 
 Let the People Sing, 
 
 Next in order come the hymns to be sung by the 
 whole congregation. Originally these supplied all 
 the music there was m a religious service, and it will 
 be so yet in many churches. It is the privilege of 
 the minister to know the contents of every hymn in 
 the book used by his congregation, and, if he be 
 musical, to know the tunes also. An occasional hour 
 with his organist, going over new hymns, will prove 
 most valuable. 
 
 We hear much in our day about the selection of 
 hymns that "fit" the sermon. To be sure, yet 
 there is room here for much wise caution. That 
 minister is hardly tactful who selects hymns that 
 allow the people to sing the main thoughts of his 
 sermon before he preaches them ! The hymn follow- 
 ing the sermon may well bear directly upon the 
 theme; the ones before, while doing their share to 
 prepare the people for the coming message, should 
 never speak it. 
 
 For example, when a man is about to preach a 
 patriotic sermon, in which he means to touch upon 
 the country's foes, to urge peace, to mention the 
 
 122 
 
Q^mit in tfte ©anctuars 
 
 crops gathered and growing, it would hardly seem 
 a stroke of genius to have the freshness all taken off 
 of his theme by having the people sing immediately 
 before the sermon the hymn including the stanza : 
 
 "O guard our shores from every foe, 
 With peace our borders bless; 
 With prosperous times our cities crown. 
 Our fields with plenteousness." 
 
 Excellent after the sermon; such a hymn has no 
 place before. If one were going to preach on the 
 Holy Spirit, a hymn in which His gracious work 
 and leading characteristics are detailed had better 
 come after the sermon. How faulty the method 
 therefore of leaving this all to some one else who 
 knows nothing about the theme to be discussed or to 
 one who does, but does not have these really im- 
 portant elements in mind. 
 
 When Dr. Henry Van Dyke left the Brick Church 
 in New York a few years ago one good woman was 
 heard to remark that the chief thing she feared 
 was that they could never get another man who knew 
 the value of the right hymns and who could make 
 them contribute so much to the services. Imagine 
 her relief when the successor turned out to be Maltbie 
 Babcock, whose sense of the fitness of things in 
 music was proverbial throughout the Church. 
 
 The moment a minister knows what themes he 
 is going to preach upon the following Sabbath, which 
 
 123 
 
Conttffiutins €Iement0 
 
 every wise man will settle by Tuesday or Wednes- 
 day in ordinary cases, he may well begin to think 
 about the hymns he will use in each service; does 
 he wish minds quieted, or does he wish them aroused? 
 Would he have them thinking of God the Father, 
 Christ the Son, or the Holy Comforter? Let the 
 hymns contribute their large share. 
 
 The subject of congregational singing is forever 
 alive. Whatever a church has by way of a choir, 
 some good singer should act as precentor on the 
 hymns. It will add vastly to the general effective- 
 ness of a hymn if choir and congregation be singing 
 somewhere on the same staff at the same time! It 
 seems surprising also that people who are so eager 
 to get away when the service is over should prolong 
 the service as they do by singing all the hymns to 
 the time of Old Hundred! It might not be a bad 
 custom for publishers to print at the head of every 
 hymn : "Accellerato ! Sing this hymn a half faster 
 than you intended to." Even then the precentor 
 would have his place, and in addition to indicating 
 the time, would do his share toward keeping the 
 various sections of the house in a more or less inti- 
 mate relation with the leaders. 
 
 The greatest problem of all is, by common con- 
 sent, to get the people to sing — all of them, on every 
 hymn, as if they really meant the words they were 
 uttering — meant to worship God with the voice and 
 with instruments of music. Few churches in Chris- 
 
 124 
 
90u0ic in m ©anctuatp 
 
 tendom equal Saint Georges Free Church in Edin- 
 burgh in the effectiveness of their music. Here the 
 large choir is seated on a platform directly in front 
 of the pulpit and nearly in the heart of the large 
 congregation. The platform is raised only sixteen 
 or eighteen inches above the floor of the auditorium, 
 and thus the whole congregation hears and feels the 
 force of the leaders. Every worshipper is supplied 
 with a hymn-book, a provision in which the average 
 American church is sadly lacking, the opinion ap- 
 parently prevailing here that one book to every 
 three or four worshippers is quite enough. If one 
 should judge from the volume and enthusiasm mark- 
 ing the congregational singing in Saint Georges, it 
 would seem to be a point of honor for everybody to 
 sing. Even the selection rendered by the choir alone 
 was in the book in the pews and the whole congrega- 
 tion followed the words while the choir sang. Thus 
 that particular part of the service was intelligible 
 and not the baffling mystery common with us. 
 
 Choir Music: To Be or Not To Be? 
 
 How much the average anthem by the average 
 choir contributes to the worship of the average 
 church service, is becoming more and more a mat- 
 ter of question. Many are admitting a measure of 
 gratitude when they find a congregation here and 
 there that has omitted it. As a space-filler it has 
 considerable value. One remembers having been cut 
 
 125 
 
Contributing (Elements 
 
 down to twelve minutes for the sermon by a choir 
 that interjected three long selections in one morning 
 service! As a revealer of voices and voice culture, 
 or at times, the lack of it, the anthem may also be 
 lauded. If it be not introduced for these purposes 
 but as a contribution to the service, then it is a fair 
 question whether it should not be omitted. The 
 words are seldom understood by the audience and 
 few singers are so filled with the Spirit as to be able 
 to lift the people without them. 
 
 More and more are the people inclining toward 
 Gospel solos and duets, sung by sweet young voices 
 not too much "improved" by the ordinary culture. 
 Such a song warms and lifts the heart, preparing 
 one for the message that must evermore be the great 
 thing in a life-stirring service. Let it be a simple, 
 not an ambitious effort and the people will be com- 
 fortable and grateful. All this is said without the 
 slightest reflection upon, or undervaluing of, genuine 
 musical culture in either organist or choir singers, 
 to whose ministrations the author is deeply indebted. 
 The above criticisms and suggestions will apply 
 chiefly to churches in rural communities, where the 
 too ambitious efforts of untrained musicians often 
 mar rather than beautify a service. Let the effort 
 be suited to the culture and all will be well. 
 
 The principle that must underlie Church music, 
 as well as everything else introduced, is that it shall 
 contribute to the effectiveness of the service in lift- 
 
 126 
 
^n^ic in tfte ^anctuarg 
 
 ing the people nearer to God. Music that does not 
 do this, however perfect it may be in itself, has no 
 place in a religious meeting. Let it be enjoyed in 
 its own time and place, which this lover of music be- 
 lieves to be large, but let the music introduced into 
 Church services be simple, quiet and reverential, 
 doing its full share in making the people glad when 
 it is said unto them, 
 
 "Let us go into the house of the Lord." 
 
 irr 
 
AUXILIARIES AS FIELDS OF LABOR AND 
 RECRUITING STATIONS. 
 
 AUXILIARIES.^THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 
 
 THE Sabbath School has not only demonstrated 
 its right to be; it has proven itself the most 
 valuable auxiliary of the Church. The day 
 for treating the Sabbath School enthusiast with an 
 indulgent smile has passed; the day for seeking him 
 out and pressing him into service is here. Ministers 
 and laymen are realizing as never before that this 
 auxiliary is not only the training ground for Chris- 
 tian soldiers, but that it is also the best recruiting 
 station. Here congregate the crude materials out 
 of which saints are made. They come by hundreds, 
 by thousands ; they may give little promise of per- 
 fection when iSrst they enter, but the grace of God 
 is sovereign, and when this plastic clay has been 
 treated by the skilful hands of chosen workmen, 
 when the help of the Spirit has been invoked and 
 received, when the all-powerful Word has been ap- 
 plied and reapplied a score of times, out of the most 
 unpromising material there emerge lives that enrich 
 all Christendom and cause rejoicing in heaven. 
 
 It is the purpose of this chapter, therefore, not 
 to present methods of conducting, so much as to 
 
au5eiliane0 
 
 lay emphasis upon the need of fostering and pro- 
 moting the Sabbath School. Splendid methods have 
 been prepared by able writers of vastly wider ex- 
 perience, but it is the profound conviction of modern 
 observers that not one in ten of our pastors and 
 Church officers has ever awakened to the possibilities 
 of the Sabbath School as a factor in building a 
 working church. 
 
 The Practice and Experience of One Pastor, 
 
 Concrete examples surpass theory as the sunlight 
 the candle. The following experiences will, there- 
 fore, carry their own appeal for adoption. During 
 a ministry of some twelve years, covering four pas- 
 torates in widely varying communities, it has been 
 the practice of the writer to conduct, always once 
 and sometimes twice a year, a catechumen, or Pas- 
 tor's Instruction Class, in connection with the Sab- 
 bath School. He has tried every conceivable time 
 and plan, but has concluded that, all things con- 
 sidered, it is best to start the class about seven weeks 
 before a communion service, and to teach it during 
 the usual study period of Sabbath School. The 
 plan is to have the scholars meet with their regular 
 classes as usual, and there report to their regular 
 teacher, attendance, lesson study and offering. To 
 go to the pastor in his study, or other place ap- 
 pointed, for the study period only, returning to the 
 class for the closing exercises. 
 
 132 
 
Cfte S)ab6atJ) ©cftool 
 
 It is announced clearly that the purpose of the 
 class is to teach its members the fundamentals of 
 the Christian faith and to prepare those who desire 
 it for Church membership. It is made clear also 
 that coming into the class is not a pledge to unite 
 with the Church, but is simply an expression of 
 willingness to learn more about its requirements and 
 privileges. It is made plain that when the six 
 lessons are over an opportunity to unite with the 
 Church will be extended to all, but that no pressure 
 will be brought to bear; that each one will come or 
 not as he himself shall choose. When the starting of 
 the class follows Decision Day, and this is highly 
 recommended, a special effort to get every member 
 making the decision into the class should be made. 
 
 The topics treated in the six lessons will vary ac- 
 cording to the denomination and inclination of the 
 pastor, but certainly they should include the fol- 
 lowing: God, studying Him as Father, Son and 
 Holy Spirit; Sin, its Punishment and its Forgive- 
 ness; Salvation, and How it is Secured Through 
 Faith in Jesus Christ ; The Church, a Human and a 
 Divine Institution; The Duties and Privileges of 
 Church Membership ; The Sacraments, Baptism and 
 the Lord's Supper. 
 
 No age limit has been put upon membership in 
 the class, and, while it is primarily for those not yet 
 Church members, these have not been excluded. The 
 class had numbered from twenty-five to one hundred, 
 
 133 
 
aunliarie0 
 
 and an average of seventy-jive per cent, of the mem- 
 bers have been welcomed into the Church at the 
 Commwnion following. The opposition of one or two 
 superintendents to taking scholars out of their reg- 
 ular classes for the six weeks has always vanished 
 when he saw the immense benefit they have received. 
 In a case or two, where a whole class has wished to 
 follow the lessons, the teacher has met them at an- 
 other hour during the week for the study of the 
 International Lesson. 
 
 Applicants put through such a course of instruc- 
 tion have proven to be the best prepared of any who 
 knocked at the Church doors, and the churches that 
 have been creeping along with half a dozen acces- 
 sions on profession a year have suddenly leaped up 
 to half a hundred or more. Pastors may set this 
 down as demonstrated: The larger the Sabbath 
 School, the larger the Pastor's Instruction Class; 
 the larger the Instruction Class, the larger the num- 
 ber uniting with the Church on Confession of Faith; 
 and the larger the number so coming, the greater the 
 life and efficiency of the Church. Therefore the pas- 
 tor, ambitious to develop a working church, must 
 give much more time and thought and work to mak- 
 ing large and strong the Sabbath School. 
 
 Another equally fruitful source of the best Church 
 membership is the gathering of little children, even 
 members of the Cradle Roll, into the Sabbath School, 
 as the first step in winning their parents to the 
 
 134> 
 
Cbe ^abbatl) ^cbool 
 
 Church. The ease with which this may be done has 
 been proved too often to need argument. There 
 can be no more legitimate method for building up a 
 church. The children are gathered for their own 
 sakes. Every possible effort to build them up in 
 Christ Jesus is put forth by pastor and teacher. 
 One child is worthy the best efforts of the whole 
 Church force ; but the fact that their child is receiv- 
 ing such attention and benefit will attract the most 
 indifferent parents. It gives the tactful pastor suf- 
 ficient reason for frequent calls. By and by the 
 child will wish to unite with the Church. As natur- 
 ally as he chooses friends from companions of long 
 standing, he will choose the church whose Sabbath 
 School he has attended, and the start is made. See- 
 ing the child interested the parents will be glad, and 
 if they have not other strong preference, will go 
 with their child when they unite with the Church. 
 
 The Boy Who Brought a Family. 
 
 In a western city a young boy was gathered into 
 her class by a faithful teacher. She had seen him 
 on the streets Sabbath mornings, and knew he had 
 no regular place. He was the son of well-to-do par- 
 ents, who were neglecting the Church. The mother 
 had joined another denomination in girlhood, but the 
 father had never made a confession. There was an- 
 other son, still younger, who soon followed his 
 brother to the Sabbath School in question. 
 
 135 
 
aunliarfeg 
 
 After some two years of faithful attendance the 
 older son asked his parents if he might unite with the 
 Church. They felt it to be unnecessary, but offered 
 no objection, and at the next communion the con- 
 fession was made. The pastor then began to call at 
 the boy's home and found the mother glad her son 
 had taken the step he had. She then told the pastor 
 of her fragile relation to another denomination, but 
 said frankly: "Since Harold has joined your church, 
 if I ever enter the Church again I will go with him." 
 This gave the pastor his opportunity. He said he 
 could not suggest that she change denominations, 
 but he was profoundly convinced that it was the duty 
 of parents, and especially of mothers of growing 
 boys, to have a church home and lead their sons as 
 deeply as possible into the religious life. She agreed 
 with him, and said that if the husband and father 
 would go she would unite at once. 
 
 To reach the father was not easy. He was a pros- 
 perous business man, absorbed by the gathering of a 
 fortune. He had lodge and club memberships that 
 quite satisfied the demands of his social nature. His 
 spiritual nature had not yet been awakened. The 
 pastor brought the case before his elders, asking their 
 counsel and prayers. In the meantime the mother 
 became more and more regular in Church attendance, 
 and frequently reiterated her willingness to come into 
 the Church as soon as her husband would accompany 
 her. And now a strange thing happened : The hus- 
 
 136 
 
Cfte ©abliatft %>ttool 
 
 band was thrown upon his back with a severe illness. 
 For weeks his life was despaired of. He was too ill 
 to see anyone and the pastor could only pray in 
 silence. Finally, during the man's slow convalescence, 
 the minister ventured to send to the house a pamphlet 
 treating in modern fashion the fundamental questions 
 of the Christian faith. This the convalescent read 
 and re-read many times. When at length he could 
 receive visitors he asked for his son's pastor, made a 
 clear and genuine confession of faith in the Saviour 
 and the next communion was received, with his wife 
 and younger son, into the Church, one of the happiest 
 Christians in his state. So happy is he in his new 
 relation to the Kingdom that, though a most sensi- 
 tive man, his pastor is sure if his eyes ever fall upon 
 this printed narrative of his experience, he will not 
 be offended, but be glad in the hope that the story 
 thus revealed will stimulate other pastors and 
 teachers to more faithful w^ork in winning and 
 nurturing Sabbath School scholars whose winning 
 may lead their families to the Saviour. This ex- 
 perience has been repeated with only slight varia- 
 tions a score of times in one pastor's ministry. It 
 covered two years, but how the end justified the 
 patient and persistent effort! 
 
 Methods That Have Proved Their Value. 
 
 One active pastor in the heart of Illinois added one 
 hundred and seven new members to his church in a 
 
 137 
 
au5eflfatfe0 
 
 single year by working along the following lines : 
 He went into each class in his flourishing Sabbath 
 School and secured the names and addresses of all 
 families whose children were in his school, but who 
 were not members of his church. He was amazed 
 to find how many there were. He began to call upon 
 them. He found them most responsive to his invi- 
 tation. Many of them had not come into the Church 
 for want of this very invitation. They were ready 
 and anxious to come. Others required but a small 
 measure of urging. They came so readily he was 
 both surprised and ashamed. He realized at last that 
 while he had been mourning because of the small 
 number that came into his church in response to 
 his public appeals, he had allowed this rich mine to 
 lie all unworked. It revealed a new world to him. 
 His experience aroused others, until that one pastor's 
 application of a new idea to a very old condition 
 resulted in the gathering in of thousands. Here is 
 a field well-nigh unworked by the average pastor. It 
 is the point of least resistance and greatest promise 
 in building up a large and aggressive church. 
 
 A similar idea of great fruitfulness is for the pas- 
 tor to provide each teacher in his school with a blank 
 form, preferably a card suitable for filing, on which 
 the teacher will give him immediately the name and 
 address of each new scholar entering his class. In 
 addition to these bare facts, he will give as much 
 more as possible. How many members in the family.'' 
 
 138 
 
Cf)e Sabbat!) @)CbooI 
 
 Have they just come into the community? Are 
 any of them, especially the parents, members of the 
 Church? If so, of what Church? Would a call 
 from the pastor probably be welcomed? If so, any 
 particular time more convenient than another? 
 
 The pastor of a flourishing school will find from 
 one to five of these cards coming in every week. The 
 teacher had better deliver them direct, so that any 
 personal word may be added. Live pastors will make 
 it a point to call on these new families within a week. 
 Dead ones will never know of their existence ! Noth- 
 ing is easier than to lead to full Church membership 
 parents who are interested enough in their children 
 to help them enter and attend a live Sabbath School. 
 The pastor who does not do it proclaims his own in- 
 efficiency. 
 
 It will seem at once from the foregoing that the 
 larger the school the larger the normal constituency 
 of the church of which it is a part, and this leads 
 one to urge upon all pastors and Church officers 
 that they give much thought and time to building up 
 the membership of their schools. I know the hue and 
 cry about "no time" and "so many duties," but to 
 neglect or refuse to help here is to turn from as 
 fruitful a field as confronts a servant of the Master. 
 It is like turning the back on diamonds to pick up 
 rubies. Rubies are valuable, but less than half as 
 much so as diamonds. 
 
 159 
 
aujBiIiatie^ 
 
 A TMnking Head and Throhhing Heart. 
 
 Back of every school there should be a strong, ag- 
 gressive, executive force that meets not less often 
 than twice a month to plan for its growth and con- 
 duct. If an evening cannot be given to this, let the 
 luncheon hour be chosen. Here will meet the pastor, 
 the superintendent and his assistant, the superinten- 
 dent of teachers, if he be different from one of these, 
 the superintendents of departments, if the school be 
 so modernized; not always the same, but at each 
 meeting let one or two of the regular teachers also 
 be present. Current gossip is barred when such a 
 gathering is set. Let time and energy be given now 
 to the matter in hand. 
 
 No outsider can give rules for the building up of 
 a particular school, but such meetings of an executive 
 head will quickly solve the problem. Experience 
 has, however, revealed certain factors that are uni- 
 versal, without which no school need hope for large 
 growth. 
 
 The first of these is that indefinable something 
 which nobody can see, but all can instantly feel, and 
 which may be called the spirit of the school. For 
 this the superintendent is largely responsible. He 
 must have the spirit himself and he must impart it 
 to his assistants, his teachers, the leader of the 
 music, and, in some part, to the scholars themselves. 
 A large element in the creation of this subtle spirit 
 
 140 
 
Cfte Siafiftatl) ©cftool 
 
 is a genuine, genial, warm-hearted interest in every 
 life that crosses the threshold of the school, whether 
 it be young or old. No life can withstand the draw- 
 ing power of genuine interest. Witness the young 
 lad who walked from the distant suburbs, past a 
 score of inviting doors, to attend the Sabbath School 
 connected with Moody's Church, Chicago. Ques- 
 tioned by a policeman as to why he made the long 
 walk when so many excellent schools were nearer, 
 the lad replied, ^'Because they love a fellow up 
 there.'* Every school that has this spirit will be 
 crowded to the doors. 
 
 A second vital element is the type and quality of 
 teachers who gather and preside over the classes. 
 In this the pastor may vastly aid the superintendent. 
 Character and equipment are both vital in a really 
 valuable teacher. A third and hardly less important 
 element is genuine interest and a willingness to do 
 the Lord's work necessary to gather and hold while 
 one instructs and enriches a class. The busiest pas- 
 tor can well afford to give an hour some late after- 
 noon or early evening in each week to the instruction 
 of a group of choice young men and women whom 
 the superintendent plans to use as teachers. It is 
 general, rather than particular, instruction they 
 need. Let the pastor enlarge their vision, let them 
 know the importance and value of personal work 
 even on the most unpromising material; let him give 
 them large glimpses of divine truth, revealing the 
 
 141 
 
Similimitsi 
 
 Master's plan; then, after a few weeks of such in- 
 struction, let the superintendent give them small 
 classes with the appeal to gather in more scholars 
 and make them large ones. Such a process cannot fail 
 to greatly raise both the attendance and standard of 
 any school. 
 
 The appeal of Gospel music must not be neglected. 
 Such a fruitful factor should no more be left to the 
 chance of the moment than the teachers. The best 
 musicians the congregation affords should be at the 
 instruments. The piano or organ may well be sup- 
 plemented by a few well-played horns and violins. 
 A leader should arrange and direct the songs whose 
 very presence is a stimulus and benediction. He 
 should be a master in the art of getting every voice 
 to sing; or, if they cannot sing, as one leader is 
 wont to put it, let them make a noise in harmony 
 with those who do! Three or four ringing songs 
 with occasionally one or two voices to sing the 
 verses alone will constitute a drawing power not to 
 be disregarded. It will also develop the vocal 
 ability of your future Church members. 
 
 An Occasional Membership Contest. 
 
 While it should be begun with caution and 
 pursued with care, a special effort for the gathering 
 in of new members should occasionally be entered 
 upon. The custom of dividing the school into two 
 groups : the Reds and the Blues, or the Boys and the 
 
 142 
 
Ciie ^abbatt) %tbool 
 
 Girls, has been found most practical. The reward, 
 beyond the thanks and congratulations of pastor and 
 officers for having done such excellent and important 
 work for the Master, should be small; possibly the 
 best is to have the whole school entertained at supper 
 by the side bringing the fewest new members, with 
 the winning side as Guests of Honor. 
 
 The difficulty is not in winning new scholars, but 
 in holding them, without which, of course, the spe- 
 cial effort is worse than valueless. To accomplish 
 this will require all the skill and grace of teachers, 
 superintendent and pastor. To quickly develop in 
 the new scholar such a love for the Bible and the 
 house of God, the religious service and the compan- 
 ionship of Christian people as to lead him to regular 
 attendance, is a task to tax the ingenuity, patience 
 and grace of the most favored workers. The secret 
 lies in making the whole service attractive and in 
 keeping the individual classes small enough so the 
 teacher can give much personal attention to each 
 recruit. Few drop out after half a year of attend- 
 ance. The difficulty comes the first few weeks and 
 months, and during the time no effort or time must 
 be counted too great or precious to give to the ce- 
 menting of the new relation. 
 
 Pastors, Church officers. Christians who are at all 
 interested in the strengthening and building up of 
 the Church, give more attention to the Sabbath 
 School! Each new life brought in means greater 
 
 i4d 
 
Zmiliatiz^ 
 
 power in the future Church ; it often means, if rightly 
 followed up, the immediate gathering in of parents, 
 older brothers and sisters, and sometimes, friends 
 and neighbors. The promise, "A little child shall 
 lead them" is oftener fulfilled through the Sabbath 
 School than anywhere else. It is the privilege of 
 pastors and Church leaders to make its fulfilment a 
 possibility in every non-Christian home. Interest in 
 the child creates interest in the parent. Few fathers 
 and mothers can stand out against the uttered or 
 silent appeal of their children that they go with 
 them into their Father's house. 
 
 144 
 
X. 
 
 MEN'S CLUBS. 
 
 IN past years the Church has been shamefully 
 guilty of allowing to lie dormant the forces that 
 were nearest at hand and most powerful. The 
 cry of over-organization has been sounding for the 
 last half century; was loudest just before the begin- 
 ning of Men's Clubs, the most powerful and promis- 
 ing of all religious organizations after the Church 
 itself. Just as men hold the reigns of government 
 and commerce, so they may and should hold the 
 reigns in ecclesiastical affairs. With all possible 
 appreciation of the good work women have done 
 and will do, it should not be lost sight of that Chris- 
 tianity was delivered to men, and men were com- 
 manded to carry it into all the world. 
 
 The prominence of women in Church affairs arose 
 undoubtedly from their greater spirituality and de- 
 votion, and their greater freedom to give time and 
 thought to religion. Men are beginning to realize 
 that they have lost more than they have gained by 
 allowing the world to absorb them and are beginning, 
 through the regular auxiliaries and new organiza- 
 tions, to come into their own. When the men of the 
 
 14.5 
 
auxiliaries 
 
 Church are as fully organized and as hard at work 
 as the women, the power of the Church will be 
 quadrupled. 
 
 What Form Shall the Organization Take? 
 
 The most fruitful type of men's organization yet 
 discovered is the Club or Brotherhood, especially 
 when a Bible Class is at its heart. It does not seem 
 to matter greatly what the form of organization is. 
 Two things only seem essential, that it have the de- 
 votion to Bible study of the Presbyterian Brother- 
 hood, the enthusiasm for personal work for men of 
 the Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip. Of course, 
 there will be more or less social and literary life, but 
 without the two above mentioned, no organization 
 of men in the Church will long retain even the sem- 
 blance of life. 
 
 Methods That Win. 
 
 The only way to permanently interest men in a 
 church organization is to be absolutely open and 
 honest with them. Many a church has found to its 
 sorrow that if its ultimate object is to win men to 
 the Christian life, it is a grievous mistake to invite 
 them to smokers and banquets, giving out the im- 
 pression that the affair is purely social. If men who 
 have accepted an invitation to a church banquet 
 under the impression that it is a purely social affair 
 find that your real and now undisguised purpose is 
 
 146 
 
#en'0 Clufig 
 
 to land them in your ecclesiastical creel, they will 
 not rise to your next cast. The most successful 
 men's organization in an Illinois church a few 
 years ago put its purposes on every invitation card 
 thus: First, to study the Bible; second, to win men 
 to the Christian life; third, to promote the spirit of 
 fellowship between all men. 
 
 Men love methods that are manly. One had as 
 well try to catch tarpon with a gaudy trout fly as 
 to "take alive" a really worthy man by deceit or 
 subterfuge. A member worth having or who is 
 benefited by his coming, is one who has considered 
 the whole matter carefully, who has come knowing 
 requirements as well as privileges and who finds that 
 the Church is better than represented. There is no 
 reason why the social privileges and benefits of 
 Church membership should not be emphasized in our 
 invitations to men to join with us; but let them be 
 given their right place and relation. They are not 
 first or second, but really very minor as compared 
 with the spiritual benefits and privileges of genuine 
 Christianity. 
 
 Press Forward the Bible Class, 
 
 As a recruiting station for strong men the 
 Brotherhood Bible Class cannot be surpassed. A 
 few years ago a pastor in a live county seat town in 
 Illinois led his Brotherhood in the establishment of 
 such a class which met in the county court room 
 
 147 
 
au5Eiliarie0 
 
 Sabbath afternoon at four o'clock. An average at- 
 tendance of fifty men was maintained throughout the 
 winter. They studied the International Lessons, 
 which that year started with the creation narrative 
 in Genesis. Two-thirds of the men were Church 
 members ; the others were young men about town, 
 careless or indifferent men of middle age whose 
 Christian friends persuaded them to try again to 
 find in the Bible what they found there; some were 
 very old men. Before six weeks had passed the 
 pastor-teacher began to see that the Word was hav- 
 ing its customary effect. Young men said : "I never 
 understood this matter before," and old men con- 
 fessed they had held erroneous ideas. Invitations to 
 Church membership were given in due time and some 
 of the strongest young men of the town came freely 
 and gladly. The number coming was not great 
 enough to cause surprise, but being the men they 
 were did. The manhood of the town was stirred. 
 When the cleansing symbol was administered and 
 those young men took the vows of the Church, strong 
 men used their handkerchiefs with unwonted violence, 
 and tender women frankly wept for joy. Many of 
 those thus coming are now leaders in the Church 
 life of the town. The effect of that one Bible class 
 will remain for generations. 
 
 The Sabbath Evening Attendance Problem Solved. 
 Splendid fruitage is often obtained also by utiliz- 
 ing the force of the Men's Organization in building 
 
 148 
 
09en'0 Cluli0 
 
 up and maintaining attendance upon the Sabbath 
 services from which new members come in the regular 
 course of Church work. A church in the Western 
 States had largely attended morning services, but 
 the evening service was small. The pastor plead with 
 his Brotherhood, then over one hundred strong, to 
 put itself under the evening service and make it go. 
 They agreed. A plan of cooperation was adopted. 
 The pastor was to preach special sermons, each one 
 of which, however, was to contain some phase of the 
 Gospel message; the men were to attend, with their 
 families and friends, together with every associate or 
 acquaintance they could persuade to come with them. 
 An abundant supply of Gospel song books was se- 
 cured ; a large Brotherhood chorus organized to sup- 
 plement the regular choir. 
 
 Attendance jumped from two hundred to six hun- 
 dred the first week, and was maintained at high tide 
 all through the winter. Scores of lukewarm mem- 
 bers were aroused, and by persistent personal work 
 many new members were gathered. The pastor de- 
 veloped the habit in his men of bringing their un- 
 saved friends down to meet him at the close of the 
 service. He took their name and address ; asked 
 if they had a Church home ; started an acquaintance 
 which led to frank conversations and many regener- 
 ations. 
 
 Nothing stirs a congregation more than to see 
 one or two hundred strong men at work; to see a 
 
 149 
 
auxiliaries 
 
 chorus of twenty-five supplementing the choir; to 
 see leading men usher and receive the offering. Noth- 
 ing cheers them more than to see a Bible class for 
 men attended by from fifty to three times that num- 
 ber; to see men fill a pew at the preaching service 
 with young men friends. Men respond to the solici- 
 tation of men. If all male members would go to 
 work, the churches would soon be full. 
 
 Recognize Man*s Social Nature, 
 
 While, as is emphasized above, we believe the ulti- 
 mate object of all such work should be kept frankly 
 in the foreground, and men should be made to under- 
 stand that you were working for their ultimate salva- 
 tion, as an introduction to it all, social life may well 
 be fostered. Intimate acquaintance usually precedes 
 effectual personal work. Laymen will render their 
 pastors and the Kingdom immeasurable service if 
 they will take every opportunity to further acquaint- 
 ance between the minister and the men in whose sal- 
 vation they are deeply concerned. Even yet there 
 prevails among business men the feeling that min- 
 isters are a very impractical, unsocial guild; that 
 they do not and cannot understand the peculiar prob- 
 lems of a business man's life; that they are for use 
 only on Sundays, at funerals and weddings. 
 
 Fortunately this is true of very few men now in 
 the ministry. A few have not yet escaped the thrall 
 of mediaeval ecclesiastical absurdities, but the ma- 
 
 150 
 
9@en'0 Cluli0 
 
 jority have a right generous measure of common- 
 sense. Many wise laymen are solving the problem 
 by bringing minister and business friend together at 
 the luncheon hour at down town club or restaurant. 
 In smaller towns they meet at the laymen's board. 
 When a few find out that the minister is a mem be- 
 fore he is a minister, and a good fellow whose ac- 
 quaintance is well worth having, the welcome news 
 quickly spreads. The remark becomes common "on 
 the curb" that the man at the North Street Church 
 is all right; a gentleman and a man who believes in 
 his work. While the new acquaintances are not ready 
 to give immediate assent to his doctrines, they believe 
 him sincere and begin to drop in at his services. 
 Some day, by the grace of God, he lets go a shaft 
 that finds their hearts. It holds there and rankles 
 until they cry to God for mercy, and when the Holy 
 Spirit heals their wounds they are saved men. 
 
 On a larger scale, social life may also be fostered 
 by the Men's Club by concert, lecture or banquet; 
 by picnic, athletics or Booster Club. Do not dis- 
 guise your ultimate object, but neither should you 
 untactfully press it on every chance coming together. 
 'A club of Christian men should stand for the best in 
 everything they touch. If they assay athletics, let 
 their conduct be clean and above reproach ; if musical 
 or literary programme, the highest standards of art 
 should be maintained ; if a banquet, the best food and 
 the best service obtainable. If men find the highest 
 
 151 
 
aunliatie0 
 
 grades of these things in their lodges and lower or 
 indifferent grades in the churches, the latter will 
 lose in the contest with the former so far as the social 
 element is a factor. 
 
 There can be no question but that great good often 
 flows from a rightly conducted men's banquet. We 
 hear of one where some two hundred men sit down 
 together every second month. Only three-fourths 
 are Christian men, but they are rapidly making 
 Christians out of the balance. Guests are placed at 
 table with the tact and skill of a housewife. 
 Strangers sit by men whose acquaintance and spirit 
 will do them the most good. Service and cuisine are 
 unsurpassed. Music often accompanies the meal. 
 When it is over there are a few crisp, timely speeches, 
 some of them telling of the work of the club and 
 some breathing the Gospel message. The invitation 
 to the Christian life is never pressed, but always im- 
 plied. Without question many a start toward the 
 Christian life is made in that banquet hall. 
 
 Solving the Fincmcial Problem, 
 
 Another point at which the Men's Organization 
 can do much, if not most, is solving the financial 
 problem of their local church. Most churches have 
 a financial problem because the men have never taken 
 hold of Church finances in earnest. In their lodges 
 and clubs they show master hands. They could do 
 greater work here. 
 
 15« 
 
99en'0 Clu60 
 
 As a primary element in the procedure there 
 should be a campaign of education. Few congrega- 
 tions know what the real financial condition of their 
 church is. Through long and shameful neglect, the 
 idea is accepted as one of the seven facts of history : 
 that a church must be poor and, most of the time, 
 in debt. The smaller the pastor's salary the more 
 probable is it that it is slowly paid. Because he 
 is patient and gentle of speech, he is taken advantage 
 of. Where he is anything else, he either gets his 
 salary or hunts a new field. 
 
 Now by universal consent this is an unpardonable 
 situation. Everybody rails at it and ends by say- 
 ing: "But what can we do?" Well, the men could 
 immediately change it if they would. The problem 
 is not unsolvable. It requires mainly attention, but 
 also business sagacity and persistent effort. After 
 resolving to correct the unhappy condition, let your 
 people know by personal conversation and by printed 
 matter exactly what the situation is ; church debt, 
 current expense deficiency and ever3rthing else. 
 Nothing is ever gained by withholding the facts from 
 the people. They have a right to know. 
 
 When the situation is thoroughly understood, the 
 solicitation done by the deacons or trustees may be 
 supplemented by further and more complete solici- 
 tation on the part of a large committee from the 
 men. No one need be given more than three or 
 four families, and they should be ones with whom 
 
 153 
 
auiiliatieg 
 
 he is on the best of terms and has most influence. 
 The subscription and weekly contribution method 
 should be urged for current expenses and benevolent 
 offerings. Few families will contribute their fair 
 proportion if compelled to pay it all at one time. 
 The practice of regular contributions at public serv- 
 ices should be everywhere encouraged. This puts 
 the money in the treasury as it is needed and the 
 pastor will not need to go about in the alleys to 
 avoid irate creditors. When the men of the Church 
 take hold of its finances with the same energy they 
 show in their own business affairs, the perplexing and 
 embarrassing problem will be solved. 
 
 In the Realm of Citizenship. 
 
 There are certain problems in social and political 
 life in which the men of the Church must ever be 
 vitally interested. While Church and State have no 
 legal relation, being composed of the same men, they 
 must ever have a very practical relation. Men of 
 the Church can never be indifferent to the moral 
 welfare of their communities. Whatever affects the 
 manhood of their vicinities must receive their atten- 
 tion. Committees on Christian Citizenship will there- 
 fore be appointed. They will strive to prevent im- 
 pure theatres and moving picture shows from allur- 
 ing the young ; they will fight against the open saloon 
 and pool-room; against gambling and excessive in- 
 dulgence of every kind. Oftentimes the determined 
 
 154 
 
99ett'0 Clu60 
 
 protest of a few prominent men changes the policy 
 of a whole city administration on such matters. 
 
 Two points on which the influence of men's clubs 
 had been brought to bear with great force in recent 
 years are Sabbath Observance and the Saturday Half 
 Holiday. When office, store and shop employees are 
 permitted to visit ball-game and park on Saturday 
 afternoon, they can be much more easily persuaded 
 not to visit them Sunday afternoon. The wearied 
 human body cries out for the open, for "God's out 
 of doors"; and should have it. Let the influence of 
 all Christian men be on the side of opening the way 
 for this during the week, and the privilege will not 
 be long withheld. "You can have no conception of 
 what that Saturday half holiday means to us," re- 
 cently said a faithful glove-counter employee in a 
 great Denver department store. "From eight o'clock 
 until six every week-day in the year I never see any- 
 thing but the faces before this counter and the gloves 
 with which I work. Standing so long benumbs my 
 whole body so that when the time comes to start home 
 I can hardly walk. But since the store began giving 
 us part of Saturday it is very diff^erent. We get out 
 in the parks or in the mountains and see and breathe 
 enough to help us all through the week. Then 
 going to church on Sunday is a pleasure instead of a 
 burden as it was before. It really makes life worth 
 living." 
 
 The whole argument for the value of men's work 
 155 
 
Zmiliatit^ 
 
 in the Church may be summed up in the pregnant 
 words of the Secretary of the Presbyterian National 
 Brotherhood : "Men do whatever else they undertake, 
 even to the cutting of continents asunder and the 
 uniting of oceans that creation divorced. What will 
 they not be able to do when they seriously assume 
 their responsibility for the Christian conquest of the 
 world?" 
 
 156 
 
XI. 
 
 WOMEN'S SOCIETIES. 
 
 WHAT can a mere man say on the subject 
 of Women's Societies in the Church? 
 How unpardonable that he should lay his 
 profane hands on a matter of such delicacy! How- 
 useless, too, for has not the last word on the sub- 
 ject been said by charming and efficient sisters who 
 have a right to speak! 
 
 Granted all! This man at least will not attempt 
 to tell capable and consecrated women either what 
 they may or what they should do; they knew both 
 before he was born. (Horrors, no! not the present 
 generation; their grandmothers!) But does he dare 
 assay a compliment? 
 
 What he started to say was that the Church owes 
 more to the consecration and self-sacrificing service 
 of her women than to any other earthly factor, not 
 excepting the ministry. No labor has been too hard, 
 no time or talent too precious, for Christian women 
 to give to keeping churches open and the torch of 
 divine truth aflame. Last at the cross and first at 
 the open sepulchre, women have ever been the cham- 
 pions of Christ and the chief promoters of His King- 
 
 157 
 
aunliatie0 
 
 dom. Without their zeal and consecration, the 
 Church would not be half so far along in its conquest 
 of the world. 
 
 Importance and Value of Women's Organizations. 
 
 Instead of attempting to tell Christian women how 
 to organize or do their work, it is the purpose of this 
 chapter to arouse pastors and Church officers to the 
 value of women's societies and to point out a few 
 ways in which their power may be used in making 
 more efficient the Church. 
 
 As a preliminary suggestion therefore let it be 
 said that every pastor should let the women of his 
 congregation know that he is in the most thorough 
 and absolute sympathy with them in all their efforts 
 to advance the Master's Kingdom. This sympathy 
 should be evidenced continually and in unmistakable 
 ways. It will not be possible for him to attend all 
 the meetings, even if it were desirable that he should. 
 He can, however, attend occasionally; can be ready 
 to counsel or advise when called upon, and, if the 
 experience of one man has been at all normal, he 
 will find that good suggestions from him will be 
 warmly received and quickly acted upon. Many a 
 pastor has found his Women's Societies not only his 
 "right hand man," but his left also, and sometimes 
 his head and his heart. Wise pastors therefore will 
 give thought and time to the multiplying and 
 strengthening of Women's Societies in their churches. 
 
 158 
 
tQDmen'0 S)ocietie0 
 
 A Case Demanding Courage and Tact, 
 
 The experience of one earnest man in a middle 
 western State will have its value for others. He ac- 
 cepted the call of a good-sized church whose reports 
 indicated a healthy condition. Arriving on the field 
 he found the preaching services poorly attended ; the 
 spirit of fellowship hardly discoverable, and that few 
 new members were being received from year to year. 
 
 Setting himself to the solution of the problem he 
 first reached the conclusion that better preaching 
 and pastoral work on his part were the elements 
 needed. With an abandon of zeal and consecration 
 he threw himself into his work, but at the end of an 
 anxious year he saw no improvement. One ex- 
 pedient after another was tried, and while each gave 
 momentary promise, as soon as the first flush of en- 
 thusiasm had worn away the situation sagged again 
 and became more hopeless than before. 
 
 Very reluctantly the pastor was forced to the con- 
 clusion that the women's organization of the Church 
 was at fault. Only when he could no longer doubt 
 did he confess the facts to himself, and this is what 
 he discovered: The society had been organized more 
 than a quarter of a century before. Its constitu- 
 tion and general policy had been then adopted and 
 had never been changed. The leaders now were 
 charter members and all well-to-do. The annual 
 membership fee was high and must be paid each year 
 
 159 
 
auiiUarie0 
 
 before the privileges of the society were extended. 
 In addition, certain social requirements and further 
 expenditures were demanded of every member. What 
 the pastor found was that in spite of the perfection 
 of this organization and its splendid work in further- 
 ance of the Kingdom in general, it was a stumbling- 
 block and rock of offence in the local church. 
 
 Many zealous women were kept out by the high 
 dues and other expected expenditures ; and many 
 others who could well pay the money somehow felt 
 they were not wanted. Every time they ventured 
 a suggestion touching change of policy, they re- 
 ceived a rebuke they did not soon forget. A kind 
 of "let newcomers know their place" attitude pre- 
 vented the new life from expressing itself. Receiving 
 this kind of treatment in the Women's Society, new 
 women did not offer themselves for a snub in the 
 public services. The church got the name of being 
 cold, and hence, while seemingly progressing, it was 
 in reality standing still, trembling on the brink of 
 retrogression. 
 
 Difficult as the situation seemed, the ingenious 
 pastor found a way out without civil war. He sug- 
 gested the organization of a new society among 
 women who had been in the Church less than jive 
 years. There were no dues, and contributions were 
 wholly voluntary. While the chief objects of the 
 new society were Church Aid and Missions, much 
 time and thought were given to social life and, espe- 
 
 160 
 
iaomen'0 Societies 
 
 cially, to calling and the furtherance of acquaint- 
 ance between the church and new residents. A new 
 spirit was evident at once. A spirit of fellowship 
 pervaded the services. New members multiplied. 
 The old society was unbroken until God in His 
 Providence took several of the oldest members home 
 and the remainder united with the new society under 
 its modem constitution. 
 
 Women the Social Force of the Church. 
 
 All this leads to the ready acknowledgment that 
 women are the social force of the modem Church, 
 and the sooner this is recognized and utilized the 
 better for the kingdom. We are social creatures, 
 and though we may loudly proclaim that our treat- 
 ment at the hands of others can have no effect on 
 our religion, we had as well confess that it does 
 have everything to do with our Church life and the 
 enjoyment we receive from public services. More 
 complaint is heard against women than against men 
 to-day for not extending the hospitality of the 
 Church to visiting strangers. Men have awakened 
 more quickly to their duty and privilege in this 
 regard than women. Reception committees of men 
 are large and frequently meet. Rarely indeed is 
 there a woman among them. 
 
 If women cannot overcome timidity enough to 
 welcome strangers in the Church, let them be the 
 more zealous in calling upon all, whose addresses 
 
 161 
 
aunliarie0 
 
 can be secured, at their homes. Here, after all, is 
 woman's kingdom, and a genuine friendship formed 
 here will reach over into the Church. 
 
 And let it be emphasized that it is not "Church 
 calls" that are wanted. Nothing will do more to 
 chill a new resident's enthusiasm over a delightful 
 call than to learn at the first meeting of the Women's 
 Society that she was one of thirty that were dashed 
 off in an afternoon, and that she is ticketed and 
 tagged for a similar call by an equally industrious 
 committee two weeks hence. The admirable tact re- 
 vealed by women in purely social affairs may, with 
 infinite profit, be brought into play in Church affairs. 
 
 Genuine Interest the Needed Dynamo. 
 
 Genuine interest must prompt to neighborhood 
 calls, or they had better not be made. Lack of gen- 
 uine interest, however, will not excuse the indifferent 
 from doing their duty. Our Master reminds us of 
 the vast possibilities in every life and His desire 
 that every living soul be brought into the Father's 
 family. It is our privilege to see in every sinning 
 man and woman material for a redeemed saint. If 
 we lack genuine interest in strangers it would be a 
 Christian virtue to cultivate it and, having it, strive 
 with tact and persistence to win them to the Master 
 and His Church. 
 
 A small and very judicious committee from the 
 Women's Society may well secure, at frequent inter- 
 
 16^ 
 
jaomen^0 Societies 
 
 vals, from the pastor, from a similar committee in 
 the Men's Club, and from every other source avail- 
 able, a list of new families and individuals who have 
 moved into the parish. When all the facts obtainable 
 concerning a family have been secured, the committee 
 is ready to slip an intelligent Card of Information 
 into the hand of some near-by member, with the 
 request that an early call be made and an invitation 
 to the services of the church extended. If there are 
 children not yet in Sabbath School, the privilege of 
 calling or sending some one for them before the next 
 session should be secured. Eyes should be sharp 
 on Sundays following, and when the invited ones 
 appear, they should be welcomed and persuaded to 
 tarry and meet the pastor after the service, and 
 such others as may be near. Such calling has real 
 value. It brings large returns and may well be 
 fostered and encouraged by every pastor. 
 
 Correctors of Error; Scatterers of Truth, 
 
 Many ministers are learning nowadays that 
 Women's Societies are the best distributors of in- 
 formation in the world. And this is said without 
 reference to the time-worn jest touching woman's 
 loquacity. Successful pastors have discovered the 
 value of the right understanding of Church doctrines, 
 for example; the plans of the Church touching be- 
 nevolences, requirement for Church membership and a 
 hundred other things that have so larg;e a part in 
 
 163 
 
Zmiliatit^ 
 
 ecclesiastical life. Not infrequently they ask the 
 privilege of meeting the Society and explaining one 
 of these things to them. After the brief explana- 
 tion, questions are answered and the request made 
 that the women tell what they have learned to their 
 families or neighbors, who may not know, or have 
 erroneous ideas. One pastor took this method for 
 correcting the widespread impression that his Church 
 believed in "infant damnation." The results were 
 most gratifying, resulting in a better feeling toward 
 the Church and many new members. 
 
 Woman as a Soul Winner. 
 
 But the highest work of all which a society of 
 Christian women may enter upon is Personal Evan- 
 gelism. It is a fine thing to contribute money to 
 Home and Foreign Missions, that others may go 
 and work for the conversion of souls ; it is a finer 
 thing to do the work yourself. Is it not tragic that 
 many a good woman who has spent a lifetime in 
 furthering Foreign Missions does not know posi- 
 tively that she ever led a single soul to Christ? 
 One woman in the City of Brooklyn was seized with 
 this thought a few months ago. It almost stifled 
 her. She said to her heart: "I will not let another 
 day pass without trying at least." That evening 
 she invited an unsaved young girl to spend the night 
 with her. Before they slept the visitor had given 
 her heart to God. The next night another girl and 
 
 164 
 
momtn'^ @ocietie0 
 
 the third another. At end of one week she knew 
 she had helped seven women find the Saviour, and 
 she felt that her life work had really begun. 
 
 No power on earth can be compared to that of 
 consecrated Christian women in the work of saving 
 souls. Their own life of purity and self-sacrifice; 
 the genuineness of their faith; the persuasiveness of 
 voice and spirit; their greater freedom in talking of 
 religious things, all combine to make the greatest 
 force in the world for winning the unsaved. Many 
 have never realized their power and some are wont 
 to deny that they have it. Let them begin to work 
 in earnest and the truth will quickly be known. 
 
 A Notable Exam'ple. 
 
 When a mother sets herself earnestly to bring 
 about the conversion of her growing children she 
 gloriously succeeds. The mother of Phillips Brooks 
 is a notable example. They were members of the 
 Episcopal Church and her reverence for another 
 human soul made her hesitate to enter its sacred 
 precincts. As each son approached years of dis- 
 cretion she began to pray more and more earnestly 
 that the Spirit of God would lead his heart to con- 
 fess the Saviour. To the older sons already con- 
 firmed, or to the trusty pages of her personal jour- 
 nal, she would utter her heart's cry. With reference 
 to the conversion of her son George, which did not 
 come until he was twenty-three, and after he had 
 
 165 
 
au]eiliane0 
 
 enlisted as a soldier in the Civil War, which awful 
 struggle was to claim his life, the biographer of 
 Phillips says : "For many years she had prayed and 
 agonized and waited for this event. She could not 
 know happiness until it had been accomplished. She 
 had availed herself of every appeal that she could 
 bring to bear; for years she besought Phillips in 
 her letters to use his influence, but all seemed in 
 vain. She continued to hope, to pray, and to strug- 
 gle, and when after long delay the consummation 
 was attained, it threw into the shadow of the unim- 
 portant all other events and circumstances, even 
 the sad parting when he embarked for the war. She 
 could let him go with composure, for the one tran- 
 scendent issue of life had been met; he had been 
 reborn into the spiritual and had become the child 
 of God." 
 
 A glimpse into this great mother-heart may be 
 had from the pages of her journal in which she 
 wrote : 
 
 "September 28, 1862, Sunday evening. What a 
 happy, blessed day this has been to me! My dear 
 George, for whom I have prayed and longed and 
 agonized for so many years, has to-day confessed 
 his Saviour in Trinity Church, at the age of twenty- 
 three years, before he leaves for the war. My de- 
 sires and prayers have been granted. My eyes have 
 seen the blessed sight so ardently longed for. I want 
 never to lose the vivid impression of that beautiful 
 
 166 
 
iDOomen'0 Societies 
 
 scene. ... I will never cease throughout Eter- 
 nity to praise Him for this last great mercy, and 
 for all the wonderful works He has done in my 
 family. Four of my dear children are now safe in 
 His fold, and, oh, may the dear remaining ones 
 be speedily brought in ! And for this, and all this 
 goodness, I will praise His bles«ed name forever 
 and ever." 
 
 In the belief that the attitude of this mother 
 toward the conversion of her children may help 
 other mothers in determining what their attitude 
 should be, one more entry from the precious journal 
 is added: 
 
 "October 5, 1862, Sunday evening. 'Tis done, 
 the great transaction's done. O happy day! I 
 have had the infinite joy of taking the Holy Sacra- 
 ment, side by side with my dearest George. God 
 has at last in His own good time answered my 
 prayers and accepted the offering of my child, which 
 I have for so long laid on His altar, and I have 
 been able to say to-day: Here, Lord, am I and the 
 child thou hast given me. How great and good God 
 is to answer my prayers so wonderfully, and to 
 make the poor dead heart of my child to seek his 
 blessed Saviour! This blessing shall never grow 
 old. It shall always be fresh as on this blessed 
 day, and I will never forget to praise Him for it. 
 I will begin now to sing my eternal song of praise 
 on earth that I hope to sing with all my dear chil- 
 
 167 
 
aurilfatfe^ 
 
 dren, and the heavenly choir, before the throne 
 throughout eternity. 
 
 "And now I will commit him to the care of his 
 Covenant God, who will never forsake His child who 
 has fled to Him in time of danger. May he ever 
 be near him, shield him in the day of battle, sur- 
 round him with His blessing, and bring him safe 
 through every danger, to his dear home and anxious 
 friends again. And the praise shall be His forever. 
 But if he fall in battle or die e'er my eyes behold him 
 again, oh, may his Saviour grant him an abundant 
 entrance into His heavenly kingdom, to dwell with 
 Him in glory forever. Heavenly Father, wilt Thou 
 grant a mother's prayer for Thy dear Son's sake.'' 
 Amen." 
 
 Do not all readily confess that if pastors could 
 develop such a longing in the heart of all mothers 
 for the conversion of their own children, the race 
 would be quickly won to God? No woman could 
 feel so toward her own and not have much the same 
 longing toward other children, toward every un- 
 saved friend and neighbor. One is much interested 
 in seeing in the annual reports of Women's Socie- 
 ties, so many dollars given to Foreign Missions, so 
 many to Home Missions, so many socials held, so 
 many calls made. Would it not be great, stirring 
 the heart to its depths, if it would also include, "so 
 many souls won to Christ by personal work".? It 
 will be so when such societies reach the ideal. 
 
 168 
 
XII. 
 
 YOUNG PEOPLE'S SOCIETIES. 
 
 STATISTICS of the most reliable nature reveal 
 that fully seventy-five per cent, of present 
 day Christians made the confession of Christ 
 and came into the Church between the ages of twelve 
 and eighteen years. The information should assist 
 pastors in deciding on the field of greatest promise 
 and the one in which their greatest force should be 
 spent. 
 
 To say that youth is the impressionable age is 
 to state but half a truth. Youth is impressionable, 
 but it is also quick to perceive truth, merciless in 
 its rejection of error, responsive to everything that 
 is great, noble, inspiring. Not even yet is the 
 Church giving youth the place to which it is entitled, 
 and she has not begun to utilize its power. 
 
 The Church's Need of Youth. 
 
 One ventures to assert that no one thing is needed 
 by the Church of to-day more than the strength, 
 hope, courage, and willingness to labor and endure 
 of her young people. Youth is venturesome; age 
 is cautious and calculating. These very virtues keep 
 
 169 
 
auiiliatfeie; 
 
 many churches at a standstill, whereas the enthusi- 
 asm and daring spirit of youth would drive them 
 forward. Better make a few mistakes in an honest 
 effort to redeem the world than to sit still in life- 
 less, fruitless perfection. Michael Angelo's statue 
 of Moses has never made a mistake, nor has it ever 
 rendered the world a service. The living Hebrew 
 erred constantly, but he led a nation out of bondage 
 and lifted every member nearer God. 
 
 A little wholesome daring for God is the one thing 
 lacking in many a worthy but lifeless church. It 
 would come if youth were given a freer hand, or, 
 better, if it were encouraged to come forward and 
 take its rightful place. One thoroughly agrees with 
 that master of logic and physiology who said: 
 "Young men are the backbone of the Church. 
 What we need to do is, Develop that backbone and 
 bring it to the frontj^ 
 
 Of all classes to whom a minister speaks, he finds 
 young people the most responsive. If a speaker 
 holds them, he need not fear for the rest of his 
 audience. One who has had many university students 
 in his audience declares that they are a perfect 
 thermometer on the question of the interesting qual- 
 ity and value of the matter he is delivering. Let 
 him do anything well and they listen with ears, heart 
 and soul. Let him do poorly and they instantly show 
 their disapproval in no uncertain way. 
 
 They are prodigious workers, Not being cum- 
 
 170 
 
gpung people's! Societies 
 
 bered with the world's cares, both their hands and 
 their heads are free. Dr. F. B. Meyer bears wit- 
 ness that one of the hardest tasks he ever encoun- 
 tered was to find enough work to keep going a 
 Pastor's Aid Committee appointed by one of his 
 Endeavor Societies. They literally clambered at his 
 door for work ! 
 
 Youth the Age of Greatest Activity, 
 
 A rather startling phrase was overheard recently 
 on the streets of one of our great cities. Two 
 mature business men were talking. One of them 
 raised his voice to say: "When a man has reached 
 thirty-five he is a has-been. He won't dig any 
 more." This out-Oslers Osier! Is the time coming 
 when we will do our best work in our cribs? The 
 serious part of it all is that the world's work is being 
 largely done to-day by young people, and the Church 
 may well give them harder tasks. Let children carry 
 flowers and messages ; give young men and women 
 some good hard work to do. 
 
 Effective Personal Evangelists. 
 
 Pastors who have not tried it will find that they 
 make the very best personal workers. Not to work 
 among older folks perhaps, although here they will 
 bear much fruit, but among those of their own age 
 and among younger children. Their own innocence 
 and purity make a strong appeal. If they have not 
 
 171 
 
^mlliatits^ 
 
 fought and won many battles, their reputations are 
 free from scars and those sought cannot rebuke 
 them on the ground that the sinner is living about 
 as pure a life as the saint. 
 
 Much is gained by gathering young people of 
 fifteen or sixteen and older into a Personal Workers' 
 Class. The pastor will be the instructor if he is 
 alive to his opportunity. Time? Take the time 
 just as you do to sleep and breathe. Such books 
 as H. Clay Trumbull's Individual Work for Indi- 
 viduals or his son's abridgment of it, or Howard 
 Agnew Johnston's Studies for Personal Workers, 
 mentioned in an earlier chapter, will be found of 
 immense value. They not only give methods, they 
 give examples, which are of infinitely greater value. 
 While the studying is being done the class should 
 meet as often as every fortnight. In addition to 
 methods and examples it will be the privilege of the 
 pastor to implant a love for human souls, a sense 
 of their value and preciousness in the sight of God 
 and the idea of utilizing every opportunity which 
 presents itself or can be worked up to tactfully 
 present the claims of the Gospel. 
 
 After six or eight lessons the members of the 
 class will begin to feel their new power. Let pastors 
 remember it is quite as important to generate a love 
 for personal work as it is to teach a young Christian 
 how to do it. This is where the minister must come 
 in strong, 
 
 172 
 
From numerous glorious experiences one pastor 
 is convinced that, if rightly trained, young Chris- 
 tians will get their keenest joy from soul winning. 
 He remembers encountering a young business man 
 a few years ago who stopped him on the street to 
 say: "That young Matson of your church is a 
 marvel. I met him just a moment ago. His face 
 was beaming and his eyes sparkling. He looked like 
 I think I should had I just made ten thousand 
 dollars. *Matson,' I said, 'you look happy.' With 
 glowing countenance he replied: *I should say I 
 am happy. I haven't felt so jubilant for months. 
 You know Sam Andrews, lives out by the Base Line 
 School House .f^ Well, I have just been out to see 
 him, and Sam and his wife, his daughter and two 
 boys have agreed to come into our church next 
 Sunday morning. Ain't that great.'* Once get Sam 
 started, we'll win that whole community. I'm going 
 after Nick Johnson to-morrow. Don't you want to 
 go along?' " It is a pleasure to that young man's 
 pastor to testify that his enthusiasm and love for 
 souls did more than any other one thing to cheer 
 him up and keep his heart warm during a pastorate 
 of eight years. 
 
 The Glory of Consecrated Youth, 
 
 Some twelve years ago, in the City of Chicago, a 
 young man became prominent in Christian Endeavor 
 
 173 
 
ZmiUatit$ 
 
 work. At first president of his local society only, 
 he was soon at the head of a large district. He was 
 not better educated than other young men, had no 
 special advantages from birth or relationships, but 
 the Christian forces of Chicago were quick to per- 
 ceive that here was a new force, and they pushed him 
 more and more rapidly to the front. When after 
 five or six years of glorious Christian service a 
 sudden illness ended his earthly labors, the whole 
 city was in mourning, and even to-day the name of 
 Frank White is reverenced in hundreds of homes 
 made happier by his service. 
 
 The secret of his great life and marvellous success 
 may be gathered from a remark he made to the 
 writer concerning Christian Endeavor, shortly be- 
 fore his death: "Black, this is the greatest work 
 in the world ! To lead young people to the Saviour ; 
 to see them awaken to His greatness and power; to 
 watch them consecrate themselves to Him ; to snatch 
 them from Satan's arms and give them back to 
 Christ ! I hurry through my work every day that I 
 may give the long evenings to some troubled soul or 
 struggling society. I would not take ten thousand 
 dollars a year for my right to work for Jesus." 
 
 Wrong Standards Need Correcting. 
 
 Every pastor should put into the hands of his 
 young people, both boys and girls, that marvellous 
 book of Robert E. Speer's, "Young Men Who Over- 
 
 174 
 
goung JPeople'jB! S>ocietie0 
 
 came." Here are given the life stories of a dozen 
 or fifteen young men that will stir the most sluggish 
 blood. They make Christian service heroic and put 
 to shame the vanity and false pride of the average 
 youth. No greater service could be rendered the 
 young manhood and womanhood of any city than 
 for the Christian young people of the Church to 
 correct certain false ideas. At present the notion 
 prevails that the highest achievement for youth is 
 to be swell, dead game, bizarre. Young men must 
 smoke, bet, swear, and, above all things, never appear 
 without a half dozen reefs in their trouser legs. 
 Young women must build out their hair to three 
 times its normal size; wear much jewelry; go with 
 arms bare, no matter how ugly they may be, and 
 wear very high-heeled, Frenchy shoes. 
 
 "Mabel," said an anxious mother recently to one 
 of these modem Venuses, "you must wear your 
 rubbers this morning. You know you are not well 
 and the walks are very wet." "Mamma Smith," 
 replied the irresistible, "you darling old silly, do 
 you think I am going to make myself a fright? 
 The girls would simply die laughing. Rubbers are 
 for the mud-sills from the Way-back. . . . 
 Well, suppose I do get pneumonia, that would be 
 rather romantic. Everybody would be talking about 
 me. ... I don't care, I'd rather die than be 
 laughed at all day by girls who know how to dress." 
 
 A young man in the Middle West, whose noble 
 175 
 
aunliarie0 
 
 father had died when his boy was scarcely ten years 
 old, left school at seventeen and, taking a position as 
 collector for a mercantile establishment, started in 
 to help his mother rear and educate the rest of the 
 family. He had united with the Church at twelve 
 and for many years had been regular at Sabbath 
 School and dutiful to his widowed mother. Coming 
 in contact with the working young men of the city 
 he soon grew to despise his old way of life. How 
 slow and pokey it had all been ! His first move was 
 to visit the pool-rooms, where a jolly lot of fellows 
 congregated nightly. At first he blushed at the lewd 
 stories current there, and the sneer at things he 
 had always reverenced, but that soon passed. He 
 began to play a little; had to, of course, or be con- 
 sidered a Rube. Then he began to bet a little, just 
 enough to make the game interesting. Taking his 
 salary check with him one week-end, he staked it 
 all on a game and lost. That night he told his 
 mother he had not been paid; his first black lie. 
 But they came easy after that. When his mother 
 noticed he did not have the gold watch his dying 
 father had given him, he said he had lost it while 
 playing ball. When other pieces of jewelry disap- 
 peared, he said they had been stolen. 
 
 One Saturday night he came home saying he was 
 not well and had been given a two weeks' lay-off. 
 Questioned about his salary, he seid he had used it 
 all paying for some new clothes. Sunday morning a 
 
 176 
 
deputy sheriff called with a warrant for the boy. He 
 was fifty dollars short in his accounts. It developed 
 also that instead of a two weeks' lay-off he had been 
 discharged in disgrace. His trial brought out the 
 facts. On a small salary he had tried to enter "high 
 life," thinking that only thus could he take a place 
 among men. The pool-room had robbed him of 
 money, jewelry and even clothes. One night he had 
 bought whisky of a prominent saloon keeper. When 
 a Vigilance Committee had the liquor dealer arrested 
 for selling to a minor, the misguided youth confessed 
 that he had bought, but to hush the matter up and 
 save his position agreed to pay the law-breaker's 
 fine. Not having the money, he had stolen from his 
 employers, though of course he was soon going to 
 pay it back. And so from a position of respectabil- 
 ity and honor, the young man had gone down step by 
 step while all the time he thought he was winning 
 an enviable place among men. 
 
 If the young people of our Churches would take 
 it upon themselves to correct these false standards, 
 to prove by word and by example that the only 
 things that will give a youth a place either in society 
 or the business world are truth, sobriety, industry 
 and kindliness ; that nobility of character goes far- 
 ther than cigarettes or false hair, they would render 
 a real service to the kingdom. 
 
 m 
 
^milintit$ 
 
 The Willing Pastor* s Opportunity, 
 
 These instances will reveal to the willing pastor, 
 that the more he can give himself to his young people 
 the better. He need not spend precious time edu- 
 cating their heads ; the world and the schools will 
 take care of that; but he does need to help educate 
 their hearts both for right living and for Christian 
 work. A youth in whose heart is a love for humanity 
 and a craving to see men saved will not follow the 
 false ideals of modern society. When the heart is 
 full of love for Christ and His lost ones, it cannot 
 be full of selfishness and love of evil. 
 
 Societies of young people in the Church may be 
 made, first of all then, training grounds for Christian 
 workers. The future leaders of the Church are here. 
 They need to learn the Scriptures, to learn to take 
 part gracefully and helpfully in public services; to 
 learn the fine art of winningly extending the hos- 
 pitality of the Church to visitors and strangers. 
 But the society that goes no farther in training its 
 workers will fall far short of the ideal. In the fol- 
 lowing paragraphs additional fields are indicated. 
 
 In the young people's societies our boys and girls 
 should be taught the importance of supporting the 
 local church both by attendance and by contribu- 
 tion. A danger from auxiliaries is that they take 
 the place of the Church. Attendance upon their 
 meetings is held by many to discharge one's religious 
 
 178 
 
gounff people'0 Societies? 
 
 duty. One pastor overcame this by getting his so- 
 ciety interested in the question of attendance at the 
 Sabbath evening service. He threw the responsi- 
 bility of a good audience on them. He emphasized 
 the influence they had on others. He asked them 
 to organize a supplemental choir of twenty-five to 
 fifty voices to help lead the Gospel singing. The 
 young men did the ushering and received the offering. 
 The young ladies helped in making every worshipper 
 feel at home. Their church soon became known as 
 The Young People's Church, and its success was 
 prodigious. Tied thus to the welfare of the parent 
 organization while in the young people's society, 
 these workers moved out to other religious work as 
 naturally as a bud becomes a rose. The future of 
 the church was secure. 
 
 Men with a vision of world-wide redemption will 
 not neglect to train their young people in the grace 
 of giving to Missions and developing in their hearts 
 a great, soul-engulfing love for the unsaved world. 
 From young people must come our missionary re- 
 cruits, and without patient and careful instruction 
 our boys and girls will not know enough about the 
 great non-Christian world to feel drawn to it or to 
 consecrate themselves to its christianization. The 
 time is not far away when the pastor who does not 
 have a number of missionary volunteers and students 
 for the ministry will feel that his ministry is failing. 
 On the fidelity of the pastor in instructing and train- 
 
 179 
 
auxiliaries! 
 
 ing depends in large measure the number of workers 
 who volunteer from his field. 
 
 But, most of all, emphasis will be laid upon Per- 
 sonal Evangelism, and every effort will be made to 
 develop youth and maiden alike into personal work- 
 ers. If the eight or ten million young Christians of 
 America could be made soul winners, the redemption 
 of the world would be quickly accomplished. What 
 is being done already indicates what glorious things 
 can be done when all are thoroughly awakened. No 
 better conclusion to this chapter could be written 
 than the inspiring poem written by Amos R. Wells 
 on the twenty-ninth birthday of Christian Endeavor, 
 the parent, and one of the largest branches of the 
 young people's movement. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR VINE. 
 
 "The marvel of the world of thought, of matter and of deed. 
 All promises and potencies lie hidden in a seed. 
 And this of ours, in wintry soil laid prayerfully away. 
 How has it grown and spread abroad since that fair-omened 
 day! 
 
 How deep its roots have pierced the ground, how far its ten- 
 drils run. 
 
 How broad the shadow of its leaves beneath the circling sun! 
 
 To north and south, to east and west, the glorious vine ex- 
 tends. 
 
 Around the sweep of all the earth its gracious fruitage bends; 
 
 Till China feels its hopefulness, and India owns the spell. 
 
 And all the islands of the sea its gladsome praises tell, 
 
 And Europe'Si lordliest of lands, and Africa's distant plains, 
 
 180 
 
goung People's! ©ocietie0 
 
 And where the tropic splendors glow or Arctic stillness reigns, 
 By all of Heaven's sunshine cheered, by all its nurture fed. 
 Wherever men have built their homes this noble vine has 
 spread. 
 
 The clusters of its glowing fruit are full and fair and free. 
 And hanging low where all the world may haply taste and see; 
 And some are prayers, some are words of helpful kindliness. 
 And some are deeds of loving hearts that quicken, heal, and 
 bless. 
 
 For He who is the living Vine, whose life in all its veins 
 Was beating in the earlier days and yet in strength remains. 
 He planted it, He nourished it, and He will tend it still. 
 The flower of His perfect love, the fruitage of His will!" 
 From The Christian Endeavor World. 
 
 181 
 
XIII. 
 
 OUTSIDE MISSIONS. 
 
 IT was not the thought of Jesus that any church 
 would be contented to serve itself alone. He 
 knew the hesitancy of the poor and needy to 
 come, on their own initiative, into places of promi- 
 nence; to mingle with those whose education and 
 material circumstances enabled them to enjoy un- 
 usual advantages. By direct word as well as by 
 parable he told his followers to go where the masses 
 of the people were; "into the byways and hedges," 
 and compel them to come in. It was a dominating 
 principle with Him that the fortunate should share 
 his good things with the unfortunate ; that the strong 
 should bear part of the burden of the weak. 
 
 The Church Must Go to the People, 
 
 This two-phased principle lies at the base of all 
 city mission work; of all Sabbath School work in 
 rural districts or wherever the local strength or 
 spirit is not sufficient to keep the lamp of divine 
 truth burning. No Christian dares to sit back and 
 say: "If people want religious services, let them 
 come to the church. We keep it lighted and heated, 
 
 182 
 
fl)ut0iDe 0@i00tDni5 
 
 with a good preacher in the pulpit. That is all 
 that should be asked of us." 
 
 The distressing truth is that the very people it is 
 our business to save, the sinning and the unbelieving, 
 do not want religious services. They prefer to be 
 left alone, to spend the Sabbath day in pleasure and 
 feasting ; to acknowledge no responsibility to God ; to 
 live selfish, self-indulgent lives. The Master said of 
 all these : "Go out and compel them to come in that 
 my house may be full." 
 
 At the very outset therefore it must be said: 
 Such Missions should be conducted for the benefits 
 they yield the individuals and communities they 
 reach. If all the individuals who have been led to 
 Christ in Mission Sabbath Schools were brought 
 together, the one hundred greatest buildings in the 
 world could not hold them; if all the lives that 
 have been enriched by Bible knowledge gained in 
 Mission Schools could be counted, their number would 
 astonish the Church; if all the churches that have 
 grown out of such schools could be known, they 
 would be found to number fully one-half of all that 
 bless the globe. 
 
 Bread Cast upon the Water Returns. 
 
 Some fifteen years ago a Sabbath School was 
 started in a rural community in Illinois by zealous 
 workers from an active church, some seven miles 
 away. The community had a bad name. Most of 
 
 183 
 
aunliatiejB! 
 
 the families were indifferent to religion and the men 
 they hired to assist them on the farms were drinking, 
 carousing men. At first the school had a hard time. 
 Few attended and those who did lacked reverence 
 and respect. One winter, when the men were idle, 
 the promoters of the Mission secured an able leader, 
 and held a series of evangelistic services. That 
 turned the tide. A dozen of the best families joined 
 the church and the school began to flourish. Farm 
 hands who would not give up their old ways were 
 discharged; families that would not go into the 
 church began to give up their farms. Christian 
 men bought them. Before ten years had passed the 
 character of the community, as well as its reputation, 
 had completely changed; it was observed at length 
 that unconverted men entering the community soon 
 did one of two things : they either became Christians 
 or they moved away. 
 
 But this splendid record does not complete the 
 story. Soon the well-to-do farmers began to sell 
 their places and move into the near-by town. Because 
 of the reputation of the community. Christian men 
 bought their farms, and because they were Christians 
 they at once entered the city churches, and began 
 to give them their power. The quality of their 
 Christianity was superior to any the city churches 
 possessed. Their faith was so simple and firm, their 
 devotion so absolute, their interest in the welfare of 
 others so genuine. The bread the city had cast upon 
 
 184 
 
a)ut0iDe 9@i00ion0 
 
 the waters a dozen years before had now returned to 
 it a hundredfold. 
 
 Progress in City Evangelism, 
 
 It is universally admitted by the well-informed, 
 not only that the slums and many of the suburbs 
 of great cities could have no Protestant services if 
 Missions were not fostered, but that they would soon 
 become intolerable as places of abode to respectable 
 people. Miss Jane Addams and her able co-workers 
 are rapidly transforming one of the worst sections 
 of Chicago with Hull House and its ministrations, 
 though her services are not religious. At Chicago 
 Commons, Professor Graham Taylor is doing even 
 a greater work, for while he relieves ignorance and 
 distress, and builds good citizens, he also opens the 
 gates of the heavenly city and leads men back 
 to God. 
 
 For three years the writer labored in a Presbyte- 
 rian Mission in the extreme southern part of Chicago, 
 in the neighborhood of steel mills, ship-yards, coal 
 docks and great grain elevators. Life there was 
 hard. Everybody worked at the severest kind of 
 physical labor. Wages were low, the cost of living 
 constantly increasing. At that time there were no 
 playgrounds or bathing places. The mills burned 
 oil for fuel and the smell was nauseating. The air 
 was never free from it. A cloud of smoke hung over 
 that section of the city from year's end to year's 
 
 185 
 
^milintit$ 
 
 end. Half the population were foreigners, who 
 seemed perfectly contented to live in squalor and 
 filth. The families of a few prosperous merchants 
 and professional men were huddled together on the 
 best street, but they could hardly escape the influence 
 of their environment. Nothing was favorable to the 
 highest life. There were no libraries, no art gal- 
 leries, no lecture courses and comparatively few 
 churches. 
 
 The amazing thing about it all was that the Pres- 
 byterian Mission, in common with several others of 
 other denominations, was like the proverbial white 
 lily at the mouth of the coal mine. Every Sunday 
 morning there gathered a vast group of clean-faced, 
 freshly-dressed children to study the Bible, and an 
 equally attractive audience an hour later to enjoy 
 the sermon. While there was little homogeneity, 
 each individual or family standing well-nigh alone, 
 the standard of Christian life was high, the Mission 
 Church an object of deep interest and rare devotion. 
 
 Watching the community for ten years since his 
 own work closed, the writer has rejoiced to see one 
 after another of the young people of this Mission 
 rise to positions of prominence and influence. Many 
 are now the leading business and professional men 
 of the district; several have taken high honors at 
 the University of Chicago, and are now leading 
 educators in high schools and colleges ; others have 
 gone high as teachers in the public schools of the 
 
 186 
 
fl)ut0iDe 0if00fon0 
 
 city, while another is prominent in a great business 
 college. Faithful women have kept the Mission alive 
 and scores have been bom from above at its various' 
 meetings. Discouraging as such work seems at times, 
 the long vision reveals that it is valuable beyond 
 computation and is doing its large part in winning a 
 lost race back to God. 
 
 The Strength That Comes From Serving, 
 
 But apart from all of this, and even if such rare 
 benefits did not accrue, wise observers are convinced 
 that such Missions are worth all they cost for the 
 returns they yield the promoting church as a train- 
 ing place for Christian workers. There is only one 
 way to learn to do Christian work, and that is to 
 do it; the harder the circumstances, the more rapid 
 the returns. 
 
 A small group of Christian workers used to hold 
 street meetings Sabbath afternoons on The Strand, 
 a short street of saloons, pool-rooms and low board- 
 ing houses facing the entrance to the steel mills at 
 South Chicago. We went in a wagon for convenience 
 as well as for safety. Half a dozen good singers 
 who were also personal workers always accompanied 
 the speaker. We would stop at a promising point 
 and begin to sing. Out from saloons and dens would 
 burst a turbulent mass of humanity, men and women 
 in various stages of intoxication or sobriety. Second 
 
 187 
 
aujiHatfe0 
 
 story windows would quickly fill with heads. A few 
 would join in the singing, which revealed that they 
 had learned the songs in childhood. Noise and con- 
 fusion continued until the leader began to speak, 
 then all were respectful and silent. They acted as 
 their own police force; self-appointed custodians 
 frequently removing with considerable violence ob- 
 streperous youths who would not keep still. The 
 talks were always brief and to the point. No call 
 for oratory or rhetoric here. Some phase of the 
 Gospel Story clearly and persuasively told. A warm, 
 strongly pressed invitation to accept the Saviour's 
 cleansing and forgiveness, and the service was over. 
 
 Whatever may have been the benefit of those 
 meetings to those who heard them, their value to the 
 men and women who conducted them can never be 
 measured. Many of them learned for the first time 
 the power of the Gospel over human lives, no matter 
 how full of sin and shame. Not one meeting was 
 held that did not issue in the coming out of from 
 one to five of those sin-engulfed souls. Young 
 women would come, with hot tears staining their 
 soiled cheeks ; young men, stirred by song or story 
 to thoughts of home and innocency, would break 
 down in the sight of all and, bewailing their condi- 
 tion, beg to be helped back to friends and respecta- 
 bility. Many would accept the invitation of the 
 workers to attend their church services, and there 
 make the confession. They were convinced of the 
 
 188 
 
©uwiDe 00f00fon0 
 
 truth of Christ's claim: "And I, if I be lifted up, 
 will draw all men unto me." 
 
 These workers learned also how powerless to save 
 souls everything but the atoning sacrifice of Christ 
 is; stories of the beautiful life of the Christ-man 
 fell on indifferent ears. ^Life was not hard with 
 him as it is with us." Appeals to come out and be a 
 man by the exercise of their own will power were 
 answered with looks of despair. Only when we said : 
 "Stop trying in your own strength; cast yourself 
 just as you are on Jesus; confess your sins; tell him 
 you want to begin again, to start anew, and that you 
 will make an honest effort," would bring any results. 
 The most fruitful song of all was : 
 
 "Just as I am without one plea, 
 But that Thy blood was shed for me. 
 And that Thou bidst me come to Thee, 
 O Lamb of God, I come, I come. 
 
 Just as I am and waiting not. 
 
 To rid my soul of one dark blot. 
 
 To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, 
 
 O Lamb of God, I come, I come." 
 
 My Word Shall Not Return unto Me Void, 
 
 A third important thing these young Christians 
 learned was that if you do personal work earnestly 
 and unselfishly, there will always be results. The 
 great lack in Christendom to-day is actual face-to- 
 face work for Jesus. Thousands will say it must be 
 
 189 
 
3u5Bfliatfe« 
 
 done, and even pray that it may be done, to one 
 who will really get out and do it. The thing that 
 surprised them was the readiness with which sinning 
 men and women yield to the Saviour when they are 
 earnestly labored with. Few human beings in normal 
 surroundings but will gladly escape from the quag- 
 mire of sin if some one, in whom they have confi- 
 dence, will show them the way. 
 
 And so the place to lay the emphasis in Christian 
 work was learned by those young Mission workers, 
 not in Theological Seminary or Teacher Training 
 Class, but in an honest effort to do a bit of practical 
 work for the Master. The advice of the writer is 
 that every church, whether in city, town or country, 
 shall conduct one or more Missions and that, where 
 circumstances of unusual nature do not forbid, as 
 many of the young people of the church as possible 
 be put to work in them. Out of these early efforts 
 will grow the power to do large things for God in 
 years of maturity. 
 
 Missions m Rural Communities, 
 
 As recruiting stations for new members. Missions 
 conducted by town churches in farming communities 
 will be found to yield larger results than Missions 
 in cities. Here differences in circumstances, educa- 
 tion and social customs will often make the Mission 
 convert feel ill at ease in the Mother Church. They 
 get greater benefit from services conducted in their 
 
 190 
 
©ut0iDe 0@i00ion0 
 
 own communities, but in rural communities adjoining 
 smaller towns these conditions do not prevail. Farm- 
 ers and their families in America are often better 
 educated than townspeople. They are perfectly at 
 home in the small town church. 
 
 Here is an appeal to every pastor in churches that 
 are in towns surrounded by farming communities ; 
 start as many Sabbath Schools in farming sections 
 where there are none, as you have workers to man. 
 This may be only one, or it may be three or four. 
 Not only will this develop your own workers, but it 
 will give the Gospel to those who otherwise might 
 never have it and almost immediately you will begin 
 to gather in large numbers of farmer members who 
 make the most reliable and altogether satisfactory 
 Church men of any class in America. 
 
 The same results are not accomplished by merely 
 visiting them in their homes, though this will do 
 much. Many a small town church, struggling with 
 the financial problem and lack of workers, would 
 save its own life and solve its problem if it would 
 begin to obey the Great Commission with reference 
 to near-by regions. Judea and Samaria were to be 
 evangelized as well as the uttermost parts of the 
 earth, and the promise touching one is just as fuU 
 as touching the other: "Lo, I am with you." Not 
 when we sit idly by complaining, but when we "go" 
 has the Saviour promised to be with us. 
 
 The Outside Mission has, again and again, proved 
 191 
 
auiiliane0 
 
 to be the salvation of the parent Church. Condi- 
 tions are often discouraging, but overcoming these 
 often makes giants, and, after all, the harvests are 
 glorious. The more men and women we can per- 
 suade to study the Bible and meet Christ face to 
 face, the more wandering children will be brought 
 back to the Father's house. Pray ye therefore the 
 Lord of the harvest that He will thrust forth laborers 
 and see to it that you yourself are among them. 
 
 19S 
 
HO.W: FOUR NOTABLE CHARACTERS 
 FOUND THE SAVIOUR. 
 
XIV. 
 
 PETER; BROUGHT BY HIS BROTHER. 
 
 JESUS CHRIST, the Son of God and the 
 Saviour of the world, means to be easily 
 accessible to all men. He is at once the most 
 open and ready of all men who have in any large 
 way affected the course of the world's events. No 
 armed guard stands before His door and no obscur- 
 ity clouds His simple utterances. The great of 
 earth may find Him, but not more easily than the 
 small; the rich, but not more readily than the poor; 
 the intellectual, but not more freel}"^ than the simple 
 and childish-minded. It was of the Life He came to 
 give men He spoke when he said: "Ask and ye shall 
 receive; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall 
 be opened unto you." 
 
 Notwithstanding this ready accessibility, men find 
 the Saviour in widely different ways. Birth, environ- 
 ment, education, temperament, all have an influence 
 and oftentimes, and particularly in our day, oppor- 
 tunity proves to be the largest factor. 
 
 Finding the Saviour is not like finding any other 
 character or power. It has its distinctive differences. 
 Its effect is so large and its consequences so far- 
 
 195 
 
iI3ota6le Cftatacterg 
 
 reaching. If it were the simple coming into the 
 presence of a great man, as, for example, the Presi- 
 dent of the United States, the procedure would be 
 much the same in all cases. One would find out 
 where he was at the moment ; secure an introductory 
 letter from some prominent friend who knew him; 
 seek the home, present the letter and, in a moment, 
 be face to face with the man you were seeking. The 
 business for which the interview was sought being 
 transacted, the incident would be closed, except for 
 certain pleasant memories, or temporary effects on 
 one's earthly life. 
 
 But coming to the Saviour is a far larger thing. 
 It involves the whole man and, particularly, that 
 part of him not involved in meeting the President, 
 the soul, with its vast outreach and Eternal existence. 
 Coming into His pure presence also will bring its 
 own rebuke of sin, as a sinful man is rebuked in the 
 presence of a pure and innocent maiden; it will 
 involve a change in the whole course of life, if that 
 life has been away from God, and it will mean, not 
 the recognition of a brother man by the eye of flesh, 
 but the acknowledgment and acceptance of the God- 
 man by the eye and the heart of faith. 
 
 This thing of eternal consequences then, which 
 must be passed through by each life that is saved 
 for eternity, that will involve a different experience 
 according to the circumstances and environment of 
 each one coming, that must be achieved in an indi- 
 
 196 
 
peter 
 
 vidual way, may well be studied by us in a few con- 
 crete cases if, happily, we may find some general 
 rules that will open the way to those who have not 
 found Him and suggest ways of service to those who 
 wish to win their unsaved friends. 
 
 The Begvrming of Personal Work, 
 
 In this first study we are to consider the conver- 
 sion of Peter, the Galilean fisherman ; how did he find 
 the Saviour? It is conceded by all that the conver- 
 sion of this man meant more to the young Church 
 than that of any other, save Saul of Tarsus. By 
 sheer force of character he became the leader of the 
 Apostles. There was no appointment to such an 
 office; it was never even acknowledged during the 
 life of Jesus, but, nevertheless, he bulks so large in 
 the recognition of Christ by the world and the found- 
 ing of the Church, that his leadership must be at 
 once confessed. 
 
 Remember that before his remarkable meeting with 
 the young Rabbi from Galilee, Peter had never been 
 heard of. He was one of hundreds who gained a 
 scanty living by netting the plentiful fish from the 
 little inland sea that holds for a few hours, as if for 
 a respite in its gentle embrace, the fresh waters of 
 the turbulent River Jordan. He lived in a small and 
 simple world. 
 
 Added to this he was quick-tempered, emotional, 
 headstrong. He had allowed himself free speech as 
 
 197 
 
jQotable Cl)aractet0 
 
 well as free action. From later evidence, it may 
 be gathered that an oath was often on his lips. 
 Like all such natures he loved to gratify the senses, 
 and this led him into open and flagrant sin. How 
 shall such a nature find the Saviour, the meek and 
 lowly, the pure and sinless one.'' It is clear he will 
 never seek Him out himself. Some outside force 
 must lead him ; some friend that loves him and knows 
 his possibilities ; some lover of Jesus who sees the 
 impetuous fisherman, not as he is now, but trans- 
 formed by the magic touch of the God-man. 
 
 It was right at this point that personal work for 
 souls began. Peter had a brother. We do not know 
 much about Andrew, but what we do know puts him 
 at the head of the world's soul-winners. He was a 
 native of Bethsaida, the half agricultural, half fisher 
 village at the northeast corner of the Sea of Galilee. 
 That he was religious by nature is evident from his 
 following of John the Baptist. When this sturdy 
 herald pointed out to his followers the Lamb of God, 
 Andrew left John and followed Jesus. In a few days 
 or weeks he had satisfied himself that the claims of 
 the young Jew were well founded, that He was the 
 Christ, the Son of the Living God. His first thought 
 was of his emotional, quick-tempered brother. If 
 he could only get him to Jesus, get his conscience 
 wakened, get his active mind working in the right 
 direction, get his hot heart in love with the Messiah, 
 he knew there would be no limit to the good he 
 
 198 
 
^tttt 
 
 could do. We do not know how long he worked 
 with him, what tactful means he employed, what per- 
 suasive appeals he made, what earnest prayers to 
 God for guidance and power. John's record of the 
 event is simple to the point of terseness : "One of 
 the two which heard John (the Baptist) speak, and 
 followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. 
 He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto 
 him, We have found the Messiah which is, being 
 interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to 
 Jesus:' (John 1: 40-42.) 
 
 The Rich Fruits of Personal Solicitation. 
 
 Peter found the Saviour by being brought to Him 
 by another who loved them both. It was not in a 
 revival meeting, not in a preaching service, not in 
 the midst of excitement or excess of feeling, but in 
 a quiet, personal conversation, perhaps under the 
 shade trees on the banks of the Jordan, that Peter 
 found his Lord. He probably never would have 
 found Him but for the good offices of Andrew. He 
 knew Andrew, had confidence in his integrity, knew 
 he had no selfish motive in urging him to the step, 
 felt sure that he had investigated carefully and knew 
 what he was talking about. Such men as Andrew 
 can bring such men as Peter to the Saviour every 
 time they try! 
 
 Through the lapse of years this noble act of 
 Andrew's speaks to the followers of Jesus in the 
 
 199 
 
il3ota6Ie Ct)atactet0 
 
 twentieth century. There is a note of gentle rebuke 
 in it: "Why have you not been bringing your 
 relatives, your friends, your business or social ac- 
 quaintances to Jesus all the years of your Christian 
 life?" There is a note of entreaty in it: "Will 
 you not begin now to bring them and keep it up 
 till all are won?" 
 
 This act of Andrew's may be called the keynote 
 in God's scheme for man's redemption. He does not 
 expect to accomplish it without the personal touch. 
 "Go ye therefore." Scores of individuals are doing 
 personal work to win our loved ones to evil. Shall 
 we hesitate another moment to do personal work to 
 win them to the Saviour? 
 
 Examples That Stir the Blood. 
 
 An experience in the life of Dwight L. Moody, 
 the thing in fact which swept him out of the business 
 world into the work of the Christian ministry, is 
 told in a note of autobiography. Since his own 
 conversion he had done all he could to bring the 
 unsaved within hearing of the Gospel, but, though 
 he filled five pews in a Chicago church Sabbath after 
 Sabbath with young men from the streets, and though 
 he was conducting a Bible School every Sunday 
 afternoon with an attendance of over one thousand, 
 he never did any personal work to lead individuals 
 to accept the Saviour. 
 
 One day a man came to the store in which Moody 
 200 
 
Peter 
 
 worked, in great distress of body and mind. He 
 was the teacher of a class of young girls in Moody's 
 Sunday School, and had just been told by a physi- 
 cian that he had but a few weeks to live. He must 
 leave the raw winds of Lake Michigan and go back 
 east where milder elements would probably enable 
 him to live long enough to get his business affairs 
 straightened up. He was resigned to his own lot, 
 but he came to tell Mr. Moody that the one thing 
 he could not stand was the thought of leaving that 
 class of young girls without having led one of them 
 to the Saviour. 
 
 Mr. Moody suggested that he get a carriage and 
 go to see them that very afternoon. He would go 
 with him. They would see if the girls could not yet 
 be won. With the marks of coming death already 
 on the sick man's features, they went that very day 
 from house to house. The eager teacher told each 
 girl of the burden on his heart. Then he would 
 pray that God would win the hearts of his scholars 
 to Himself. One after another they yielded, and 
 before ten days were passed, the whole class was in 
 the fold. Mr. Moody called them all together for a 
 prayer-meeting. The teacher read the Fourteenth 
 Chapter of St. John, and with broken voices they 
 sang "Blest Be the Tie that Binds Our Hearts in 
 Christian Love." They knelt to pray. The teacher 
 carried every ransomed heart to the throne of God, 
 and before they rose every girl had prayed for her 
 
 201 
 
Botahlt Cl)aractet0 
 
 teacher. As he went from that informal prayer- 
 meeting, the prayer of Mr. Moody's heart was : "Oh, 
 God, let me die rather than lose the blessing I have 
 received to-night." 
 
 For the first time he had seen the possibilities and 
 power of personal work for Christ. Before this his 
 absorbing ambition had been to be a successful busi- 
 ness man ; now the passion of his heart was to repeat 
 the experience of that Sabbath School teacher, and 
 win the unsaved by personal appeal. He was con- 
 vmced now it could be done, and he saw in it the 
 secret of the world's conversion. He soon gave up 
 business that he might devote his whole time and 
 strength, his undivided heart and powers, to work 
 for God. Hear the exultant cry of this hero of the 
 faith, a man who, the commercial world says, might 
 have been another Marshall Field and who, the mili- 
 tary world says, might have been another Ulysses S. 
 Grant; "Oh, the luxury of leading some one out of 
 the darkness of this world into the glorious light 
 and liberty of the Gospel !" 
 
 How much the Church of Christ owes to the per- 
 sonal work of its faithful Sunday School teachers in 
 following in Andrew's footsteps and leading their 
 own scholars to the Saviour, will never be fully 
 known. Let it not be forgotten that Mr. Moody 
 himself was so won. Think of all he has led to 
 the Saviour and all that they in turn have won, and 
 then try to estimate the value to Christendom of the 
 
 202 
 
Ipetet 
 
 efforts of the humble teacher who by a little personal 
 work led the young boy to the Saviour! The teach- 
 er's name was Kimball, Edward Kimball. Moody 
 was clerking in a shoe store in Boston and attending 
 Sabbath School in the Mount Vernon Congregational 
 Church. For weeks the teacher led the young clerk 
 to a fuller knowledge of God's plan of salvation, but, 
 realizing that this in itself would never save him, 
 determined to have a personal interview. In the hope 
 that his experience may help others who feel they 
 should do the same thing, it is given here in his own 
 words, taken, with the incident which follows it, from 
 the life of D. L. Moody by his son. "I determined," 
 says Mr. Kimball, "to speak to him about Christ and 
 about his soul, and started down to Holton's shoe 
 store. When I was nearly there I began to wonder 
 whether I ought to go in just then during business 
 hours. I thought that possibly my call might em- 
 barrass the boy, and that when I went away the 
 other clerks might ask who I was and taunt him 
 with my efforts in trying to make him a good boy. 
 In the meantime I had passed the store, and discover- 
 ing this, I determined to make a dash for it and 
 have it over at once. I found Moody in the back 
 part of the building wrapping up shoes. I went up 
 to him at once, and putting my hand on his shoulder, 
 I made what I afterwards felt was a very weak plea 
 for Christ. I don't know just what words I used, 
 nor could Mr. Moody tell. I simply told him of 
 
 203 
 
il3ota6Ie Cfiatactersi 
 
 Christ's love for him and the love Christ wanted in 
 return. That was all there was. It seemed the 
 young man was just ready for the light that then 
 broke upon him, and there, in the back of that store 
 in Boston, he gave himself and his life to Christ." 
 
 A most remarkable thing about this bit of personal 
 work is that seventeen years later, when Mr. Moody 
 was conducting a mission in Worcester, Mass., the 
 young son of this same Edward Kimball tarried 
 after one of the services and introduced himself. 
 
 "What!" said Mr. Moody, "are you the son of 
 Mr. Edward Kimball, of Boston.? What is your 
 name.''" 
 
 "Henry." 
 
 "I am glad to see you. Henry, are you a Chris- 
 tian.?" 
 
 "No, sir, I do not think I am." 
 
 "How old are you.?" 
 
 "I am seventeen." 
 
 "Henry, when I was just seventeen, and you were 
 a little baby in the crib, your father came to me and 
 put his hand on my shoulder and asked me to be a 
 Christian, and he was the only man that ever came 
 to me and talked to me because he loved my soul; 
 and now I want you, my boy, to be a Christian. 
 Henry, don't you want to be a Christian?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, I think I do," said the boy. 
 
 They sat down together, and Mr. Moody opened 
 his Bible. The boy listened attentively to the words 
 
peter 
 
 that impressed him more and more, till at length 
 they brought him to where their speaker had been 
 himself led so long ago. 
 
 Oh, the power of the personal touch! There is 
 nothing like it in all the world. Students may bring 
 their classmates, men may bring their business asso- 
 ciates, women may bring those of their little social 
 circle, parents may bring their children. Dr. J. 
 Wilbur Chapman says if any influence led him to 
 decide for Christ it was the sweet, consistent living 
 of his mother. 
 
 Rev. Sam P. Jones gives the credit for his conver- 
 sion to his father. His story is full of tragedy and 
 heartache. His own mother died when he was nine 
 years old. During the Civil War his father was 
 away from home and the step-mother, though a 
 worthy and faithful woman, was unable to restrain 
 his youthful excesses. He contracted most of the 
 habits of extravagant young manhood and at twenty- 
 one "was physically and morally ruined." On his 
 father's return from the war he straightened up 
 somewhat and, studying law for a year, was admitted 
 to the bar. Shortly after this he married. Although 
 his law practice opened auspiciously, with every 
 promise of large future success, he soon began to 
 drink again and the bright prospect vanished. His 
 poor wife suffered all the tortures known to wives 
 of drinking husbands. In spite of all entreaty, Jones 
 went on in his life of dissipation until in August, 
 
 205 
 
iSotafile C6atactet0 
 
 1872, his father lay on his death bed. Parental 
 anxiety welled large in his heart as he bade his dis- 
 solute son good-by. He determined to make one 
 more effort to win him to the Saviour, and his life 
 seemed to be prolonged while he did so. At length, 
 when the life-tide ebbed low, the contrite son prom- 
 ised the dying father that he would accept the 
 Saviour, live the remainder of his days on earth a 
 Christian, and meet him in heaven. "No man," says 
 the evangelist, "could feel what I felt or see what I 
 saw in that death chamber, as father almost literally 
 shouted his way out of this world, without crying 
 out from the depths of his heart : 
 
 'I yield, I yield! 
 
 I can hold out no more; 
 
 I sink, by dying love compelled 
 
 And own Thee Conqueror."* 
 
 Christian parent. Christian neighbor. Christian 
 student. Christian business man. Christian minister, 
 what others have done you can do. Human influence 
 continues a dominant factor in society. It cannot 
 be withstood. The moment we become Andrews in 
 our eagerness to bring, our friends will become 
 Peters in their willingness to come. Personal work 
 is the keynote to progress m the world* s redemption. 
 Write that on the tablets of your heart and respond 
 *See "What Led Me to Christ," edited by C. H. Gootie. 
 
 we 
 
peter 
 
 daily to its promptings. Then, and hardly till then, 
 will we have a right to pray : "Thy Kingdom come, 
 Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." 
 
 «0T 
 
XV. 
 
 CORNELIUS; WHILE LISTENING TO A SERMON. 
 
 IT is permitted men to occasionally speak, with 
 due humility, of the work in which they them- 
 selves are engaged. It is permissible also for a 
 man to set up ideals which he himself is only striving 
 after and which he has small hopes of ever com- 
 pletely attaining. I am taking advantage of that 
 permission when I speak here of the proclamation 
 of Divine Truth. 
 
 Comparatively few ministers seem to be yet con- 
 scious of the fact that the most powerful organ in 
 their hands to use for the conversion of men is the 
 sermon. More hearts are touched by a plain, grip- 
 ping statement of the truth than by all other forces 
 put together. It must be considered sooner or later 
 if the life is to be any force in the religious world, 
 or is even to remain true. An aroused conscience 
 and a penitent heart may carry a life into the 
 Church, but there will be small growth and no prog- 
 ress until he considers the great fundamental truths 
 of Christianity, fights his battles of doubt and un- 
 certairty and reaches conclusions that all the tur- 
 moil in the world cannot shake. Emotions pass; 
 
 £08 
 
Cornelius! 
 
 truth abides. Conscience quiets down; an aroused 
 heart increasingly lives. A settled belief is the hidden 
 anchor that holds the life-ship safe on the troubled 
 sea of human existence. 
 
 Opinion is by no means uniform on the value of 
 the sermon in religious work. In some of our largest 
 and most powerful churches it is relegated to a 
 subordinate place. Ritual and informal instruction 
 take its place. One wonders how the custom ever 
 grew up, since there is not the slightest New Testa- 
 ment warrant for it. Christ sent His Apostles 
 forth to preach: He Himself went about "preach- 
 ing and teaching in their synagogues," and Paul com- 
 manded Timothy to "preach the Word : do the work 
 of an evangelist." 
 
 It is openly conceded that the eras of progress in 
 the Church have been the eras when great preachers 
 appeared. Savonarola first gripped the people of 
 Florence by his powerful sermons in St. Mark's and 
 the Duomo. John Knox stirred all Scotland by his 
 sermons. The Wesleys and Whitefield were great 
 preachers. Jonathan Edwards and the Tennants 
 stirred America by their powerful preaching of the 
 old Gospel. When a human life takes the Truth of 
 God into itself; grasps its mighty significance and 
 bearing and, out of an unselfish desire to have all 
 men profit by that Truth, gives it out in formal 
 utterance from a Christian pulpit, it must have a 
 mighty effect. 
 
 W9 
 
Botable Ct)aracter0 
 
 The second most powerful thing to the personality 
 of God is the personality of a Spirit-filled man* All 
 other forces, however good in themselves, must be 
 forever secondary. An earnest, honest man, whose 
 warm, unselfish heart is throbbing with the love of 
 God for all men, who is sure he knows the way by 
 which wandering men can get back to their Father, 
 have the stains of sin washed away, and life restored 
 to its highest possible estate ; when such a man rises 
 to preach there are always men who hear him gladly 
 and always some who believe his story and begin to 
 follow it. 
 
 A Seeker Who Found His Lord, 
 
 In the study before us we have the incident of the 
 first man from the Gentile world who found the 
 Saviour through listening to an earnestly preached 
 sermon. 
 
 Somewhere between the years A. D. 30 and 40, 
 during the days of Roman domination over the 
 Holy Lord, there was sent from Rome to Cassarea, 
 the political capital of Palestine, a scion of the an- 
 cient and honorable family of the Comelii. He 
 came as a military officer, being captain of the 
 Italian band, and was from all accounts a most re- 
 markable man for his age and occupation, and one 
 whose life, in connection with its contact with 
 Christianity, will richly repay careful study. His 
 
 210 
 
Corneliui^ 
 
 history is contained in a single chapter of the Sacred 
 Book called "The Acts of Apostles," while with 
 characteristic brevity his leading qualities are quite 
 fully given in twenty-four small words. 
 
 In this amazingly brief biography of a truly great 
 man, Luke the sacred historian, begins very logically 
 with the quality which is a fertile garden for all 
 Christian virtues : "H^ was a devout man,'* A man 
 steady and sincere in his life, earnest and thoughtful, 
 though by no means a hermit or an ascetic; a man 
 who had pleasure in his life, but who took pleasure 
 in the best things, in the highest and most approved 
 ways. A man whose working motto was the Golden 
 Rule ; not grasping and avaricious, but whose policy 
 was to let others live while he lived and to do some- 
 thing daily to gladden and brighten lives less for- 
 tunate than his own. In a word he was a positive, 
 affirmative and always-to-be-relied-upon factor in the 
 vicinity in which he lived, a help to every man whose 
 life touched his. 
 
 You have known such men as Cornelius. They 
 are not so rare as we sometimes fear. Every com- 
 munity has its quota, and the truer our own life 
 is, the more of them we find. We make one of our 
 greatest mistakes to-day in roundly condemning 
 many a truly worthy man because of some trifling 
 characteristic of which we may not approve, regard- 
 less of a noble spirit that earnestly strives to save. 
 
 It is right enough to ask of good men that so far 
 211 
 
Jl3otabIe Characters 
 
 as possible they avoid acquiring habits of life that 
 are repulsive, but it is quite as reasonable to ask of 
 observers that they see the mountain of a good man's 
 service rather than the mole-hill of his objectionable 
 eccentricities. 
 
 The strength of Cornelius' character is truly Her- 
 culean when considered as existing in the early half 
 of the first century. Outside the families of Israel 
 there were few heavenly-minded men, and those who 
 were so, at least the great majority of them, were 
 devout only so far as their own souls were con- 
 cerned. The spirit of brotherhood, now giving birth 
 to so much missionary activity, to so much effort 
 on behalf of the sick and the afflicted, to the founding 
 of so many schools and colleges for the education 
 and equipment of those in limited circumstances, 
 had not taken possession of many lives. But Cor- 
 nelius, the Roman centurion, a man in whom we 
 hardly expect to find it, had caught its spirit, and 
 so fully and perfectly that he not only desired his 
 servants and soldiers to share his religious life with 
 him, but so embellished its principles by his spotless 
 and splendid life that they desired to he as he was, 
 to worship as he worshipped. 
 
 O lofty and rare accomplishment! How quickly 
 would the religious problem of the world be solved 
 if all Christians would so adorn the doctrines of 
 their religion, that "all their household," both ser- 
 V£ints in the kitchen and servants in the field, ser- 
 
 212 
 
Corneliu0 
 
 vants in the office and servants in the store, not only 
 took notice of it as they were invited to share their 
 devotions, but who were so moved by their sincerity 
 and strength, so convinced that their profession was 
 true, so drawn to them and to their religion by reason 
 of their spotless characters and their faithful per- 
 formance of all duties arising from their profession, 
 that they were not only drawn to them, but were led 
 to adopt their religion as their own, in the hope and 
 belief that what it had done for their employers it 
 would surely do for them. And yet, this is the 
 height to which we, as Christians, should every one 
 attain. 
 
 "Cornelius was a devout man," says his biog- 
 rapher, "one that feared God rdth all his house," 
 The religion of Cornelius, however, added to its spirit 
 of devotion a very practical turn. It not only had 
 great faith in God, but it showed its faith by its 
 works; "he gave much alms to the people," The 
 missionary work of the first half of the initial cen- 
 tury of the Christian era had not progressed far be- 
 yond the home field. Peter was at work and Paul 
 was visiting the Churches adjacent to Antioch in 
 Syria and had taken one offering from the Gentiles, 
 for the poor saints at Jerusalem, but for the most 
 part the work of this nature of which the Roman 
 world could boast was done face to face. The amount 
 of such work was not large, but the generous heart of 
 Cornelius could not see want unrelieved, and he gave 
 
 ns 
 
jl3otable Cftaracter^ 
 
 much of his substance that suffering might be 
 stopped, that hunger might be appeased. 
 
 Saying nothing of the worthiness of those upon 
 whom he bestowed his munificence, the effect upon 
 Cornelius was glorious, enlarging his sympathy, soft- 
 ening and enriching his heart, widening his knowl- 
 edge of human nature, deepening and strengthening 
 his character. He found out as fully as any man 
 that ever lived the full significance of the Saviour's 
 words, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." 
 
 The five words concluding the terse setting forth 
 of the virtues of Cornelius would be considered by 
 most men a fitting capstone to a devout and worthy 
 life: ^^He prayed to God alwayj* "What shall we 
 add," says one earnest questioner, "to a life so 
 reverent, so trustful, so confident that God hears 
 and cares for his children, that it is in a continual 
 attitude of prayer before Him? And, indeed, Cor- 
 nelius had gone as far as he could. The sacred 
 biographer brings no charges of shortcoming against 
 his noble subject. He had been an earnest seeker 
 after religious truth, and as he found it, it became 
 a part of his life principle, and he was controlled by 
 it. One asks the question with some show of reason, 
 "For what would such a man as Cornelius pray?" 
 We must go to the answer given almost immediately 
 to know the content and burden of this earnest 
 seeker's prayer. He wanted more and clearer light;, 
 he wanted assurance of forgiveness of sin ; he wanted 
 
 ^14 
 
Cornelius 
 
 the fulness and freedom of holy living, which no 
 alms, no good deeds alone, can work within us; he 
 wanted many doubts and difficulties solved ; he wanted 
 to be closer to God, with a consciousness of His 
 love, and presence and care ; he wanted to know more 
 about the hfe to come." (Peloubet, "Notes," 1897.) 
 
 Can you conceive of any soil more promising into 
 which to sow new religious truth.'' If the unsaved 
 men and women of any city were anxious enough 
 about the future, about their own relation to their 
 Creator, about His purpose in them and in the world, 
 to go in the light they have to His throne in fervent 
 prayer, they need no longer remain in doubt or un- 
 certainty. No prayer for light has long remained 
 unanswered. 
 
 In the case of this noble Centurion a most remark- 
 able answer was given to his earnest life and his 
 prayer of faith. He himself told Peter what it was 
 when he had reached his home in Caesarea, after a 
 hasty trip from Joppa, "Four days ago I was keep- 
 ing the ninth hour of prayer in my house, and behold 
 a man stood before me, in bright apparel, and said, 
 'Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are 
 had in remembrance in the sight of God. Send, 
 therefore, to Joppa, and call unto thee Simon, who 
 is surnamed Peter ; he lodgeth in the house of Simon, 
 a tanner by the seaside.' " 
 
 315 
 
iSota&Ie Cbatactet^ 
 
 The Sermon that Broke the Jewish Wall, 
 
 And Peter opened his mouth and said, "Of a truth 
 I perceive that God is no respecter of persons ; but 
 in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh 
 righteousness, is acceptable to him." Continuing his 
 wonderful sermon, this fervent messenger, himself a 
 recent convert to the larger plans of God, preached 
 the Gospel of Jesus to the waiting and anxious Cor- 
 nelian household. He preached to them "Jesus 
 Christ, the divine Saviour from heaven ; His appoint- 
 ment by God, and enduement with the Holy Spirit; 
 His life, devoted to good works and words, expressive 
 of His character, and of the Father who sent Him; 
 His victory over the powers of evil; His atoning 
 death on the cross; His resurrection abundantly 
 proved by chosen witnesses, who saw him, not far 
 away as in a vision, but who ate and drank with 
 him, touched him, and knew He was the same Jesus 
 who died. The one duty and privilege to believe on 
 Him, as the necessary condition of salvation, the 
 means by which men are made holy and fitted for 
 heaven." (Peloubet, "Notes," 1897.) 
 
 These truths, so earnestly preached by the great 
 Apostle, fell upon the ready heart of Cornelius and 
 his household like a benediction. They could not 
 withstand them. With all doubts dissolved, with 
 the way made plain, with duty outlined, they yielded 
 to the Gospel appeal, accepted the cleansing and 
 
 216 
 
CotneHuis; 
 
 sealing ordinance of baptism, and were at once en- 
 rolled as members of the young Church that was to 
 do so much for the world. 
 
 There is then in this Christ-age something to be 
 added to the most perfect life that is built upon a 
 purely human foundation; something that gives it 
 form and substance, power and continuance; some- 
 thing which satisfies the longing of the human heart 
 and makes it rest content, confident that it is a factor 
 in a great plan of God. It is the religion of Jesus 
 Christ, without which there is no remission of sins. 
 
 How high have you gone, O man of earthly origin, 
 in your struggles toward a perfect life.'* The story 
 of Cornelius teaches us assuredly this lesson: How- 
 ever high we may have gone by our own power, how- 
 ever devout and almsgiving and praying we may 
 have become, there is something else, higher than all 
 these lofty things, more significant, more vital as 
 regards eternity and the will of God. It is the full, 
 the ready, the open acceptance of Jesus Christ as 
 the Son of God and Saviour of the world. 
 
 Glorious capstone of a beautiful building and yet, 
 if necessary, such is the providence of God, it may 
 be and most often is also foundation on which the 
 perfect structure is builded; an inexhaustible mine 
 from which all desirable jewels are freely gathered. 
 
 It was Paul, the preacher, who said: "I am not 
 ashamed of the Gospel ol Christ ; for it is the power 
 of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." 
 
 217 
 
iQotable Cftatactet^ 
 
 (Romans, 1: 16.) Are you ashamed to preach the 
 Gospel of Christ? 
 
 "Jesus, and shall it ever be, 
 A mortal man ashamed of Thee? 
 Ashamed of Thee whom angels praise. 
 Whose glory shines through endless days." 
 
 If you are ashamed of it, ashamed of its simplicity 
 or homely ways, ashamed of its open rebuke of sin, 
 or its call to open righteousness, then your place is 
 not in the Christian ministry. But if you appreciate 
 its power to save the most sin-burdened lives, if you 
 believe it to be the only power of God unto salva- 
 tion; if it commends itself to you as the solver of 
 society's evils, and the one arm that can lift a wan- 
 dering race back to God, then preach it with all the 
 power of your fully consecrated life ; turn not to the 
 most fascinating subjects in literature, science or 
 philosophy, but taking the precious words from the 
 lips of the Master, preach them so long as God gives 
 you breath! 
 
 218 
 
XVI. 
 
 LYDIA; WHILE ATTENDING A PRAYER-MEETING. 
 
 THE coming of woman into Christianity has 
 been the greatest human factor in its prog- 
 ress. With her inherent innocence and pur- 
 ity, her warm and responsive heart, her larger faith, 
 she has clung to Christ's religion through evil report 
 and through good and, as mother and neighbor and 
 friend, has ever been busy persuading others to adopt 
 it. True it has done more for her than, with all her 
 devotion, she can ever do for it. To be lifted out 
 of obscurity and semi-bondage, to be given a place 
 by man's side instead of beneath his feet, to be made 
 an entity apart from her relationship with man, and 
 to be assured of an individual standing with God; 
 who can measure or repay such benefits? 
 
 The wonder, to one who knows the facts, is not to 
 see women within the Church, but to see any with- 
 out. They are not by nature ungrateful. It is the 
 disposition of woman to more than repay any bene- 
 fits received. Surely the women who refuse to give 
 their lives and choicest service to Christ and His 
 Church must be ignorant of what He has done for 
 them. Its significance has never laid hold on their 
 
 219 
 
lOotafile CtiatactetiBi 
 
 hearts. If all could take a journey through non- 
 Christian countries; see child-marriage and widow- 
 hood in all their heathen horrors, see women as beasts 
 of burden, supported for their fertility alone and 
 valued only for their power to work and to bear 
 sons ; see them ignored in public worship and granted 
 a soul only as they are related to some man; they 
 would surely come home to give their lives to making 
 strong the Church and spreading abroad the Gospel. 
 Those who have embraced Christianity have done 
 so, in the main, with whole hearts and have begun 
 at once to work for others. Rarely indeed does a 
 woman come into the Kingdom alone. She has many 
 ties binding her to children, to relatives, to friends, 
 and to these she talks much of her joy and satisfac- 
 tion in the Christian life. She does not hesitate to 
 talk of the tenderer, more sacred things of life. 
 They are meat and drink to her. She longs to 
 throw around the lives of those she loves the strong 
 arms of the Christian faith; the helpful, restraining 
 influences of the Saviour. And so it is a common 
 thing for women to come to the pastor with children 
 or friends, encouraging them while they knock for 
 entrance at the doors of the Church. Without this 
 aid and solicitude on the part of woman the Church 
 would never have attained one-half the strength she 
 glories in to-day. 
 
 leao 
 
Europe* 8 First Convert a Woman, 
 
 In this chapter we are to study ihe conversion of 
 the spiritual progenitor of all the Christians of 
 Europe and America, Lydia, a woman of Thyatira, 
 a seller of purple vests. At the time of her conver- 
 sion this unusual woman was in business in Philippi, 
 had a home there and was undoubtedly prospering. 
 Paul and Silas, on the second great missionary jour- 
 ney, had been moved, by special call, to go over into 
 Macedonia. Philippi can hardly be said to have 
 welcomed them with outstretched arms. The few 
 Jews had no synagogue, but every Sabbath they held 
 a prayer-meeting outside the city, on the river bank, 
 and on this prayer-meeting, Lydia, a proselyte "who 
 worshipped God" was wont to attend. 
 
 It was most natural that Paul and Silas, hearing 
 about this weekly prayer-meeting, should be moved 
 to attend it. To them prayer was the Christian's 
 daily bread. They knew that only in prayer could 
 they lay hold on God; that only in prayer could 
 they feel such relation with Him as would help them 
 in their work for men. They did not underestimate 
 the value of work, as is everywhere evident in their 
 history, but neither did they underestimate prayer, 
 the Christian's vital breath. Within a few hours from 
 some one of these public meetings they were praying 
 and praising God from the inner recesses of a loath- 
 some Philippian prison. Fortunate or unfortunate, 
 
 221 
 
iQotalile Cftatactets; 
 
 sick or well, they must pray, and thereby link them- 
 selves anew with God. 
 
 One can well believe it was not the river on whose 
 banks they met that kept that prayer-meeting from 
 being dry ! All the vitality of the great missionary's 
 life would be thrown into it. In his fervid appeals 
 he would seem to carry the whole needy world up to 
 the throne of God. All hearts were touched, and 
 Lydia's so profoundly as to move her to an open 
 acceptance of the Saviour and the dedication of all 
 that she had to His service. Lydia fotmd the Saviour 
 in a prayer-meeting. The service is still common in 
 the Church, but in most communities has lost its 
 power. Can that power be recovered? This and 
 other kindred subjects may well occupy our minds 
 as we pursue the story. 
 
 Christianity Calls to Prayer, 
 
 The Christian religion being so largely spiritual, 
 and spiritual experience being so essential to growth 
 and development therein, it would be natural to sup- 
 pose that the prayer-meeting would be the most 
 largely attended and the most highly esteemed of all 
 the services of the Church. Here the people would 
 throng; here they would take most fervent part; 
 from this service they would the most reluctantly 
 depart. To point out that this is not so is to call 
 attention to the element of greatest weakness in our 
 work of Christian culture. 
 
JLpDia 
 
 A certain measure of formality can hardly be 
 avoided, if it were desired, in the services of the 
 Sabbath day ; it seems to be entirely in keeping with 
 the spirit of awe and reverence that is at the heart 
 of all true worship. The service must be largely in 
 the hands of the minister who will take advantage 
 of the presence of many people and their freedom 
 from week-day duties to declare the Evangel and to 
 expound the Scriptures. The freedom of an informal 
 week-day service is impossible. Even if it were, it 
 is a long time from Sabbath to Sabbath for hearts 
 that truly love the Lord. There is surely a loud 
 call for a service of a different nature somewhere 
 between Sabbaths, and by common consent the 
 prayer-meeting should be that service. 
 
 It is with keen regret one notes the neglect that 
 has been shown this midweek opportunity by the 
 masses of our Christian people. Victims of an In- 
 dian famine have never yet neglected the opportunity 
 to take food when it came to them, but souls leaner 
 than their emaciated bodies will pass by the door of 
 a prayer-meeting to attend the theatre or a motion 
 picture show. Let us confess that the fault may not 
 all be with the people. The minister usually deter- 
 mines the nature of the service and some very good 
 men conduct prayer-meetings it would require an 
 Amazon to moisten ! Surely the plan of conducting 
 a prayer-meeting, followed by our grandfathers of 
 the tenth remove, is not so valuable that it must be 
 
 22S 
 
jl3ota6le Cbaractet^ 
 
 retained while everything else they did has long since 
 been abandoned. A Christian experience, for ex- 
 ample, is valuable the first or second time it is heard, 
 but when one has, as the leading prospect of a coming 
 meeting, the hearing of the same experiences he has 
 heard for a decade, he may be pardoned for not 
 being feverishly anxious to attend. One rejoices 
 also in the prayers of the saints, but one modern 
 has, as a boyhood memory, a prayer made every 
 week by a self-esteemed Church officer, of a very sel- 
 fish and otherwise questionable nature, that was 
 drawled in such a nasal twang, was so full of inap- 
 propriate words and wretched grammar, as to rob 
 the prayer-meeting memory of half its sweetness. 
 He does not remember one bright or attractive thing 
 that ever occurred in the service. He went because 
 his saintly mother said it was his duty to go. 
 
 No Sm to Make Prayer-Meetmg Attractive. 
 
 Can any good reason be advanced why a mid-week 
 prayer service should not be bright, interesting and 
 attractive? Any reason why it should not partake 
 of the modern spirit of light and life? Any reason 
 why it should not provide the people with new 
 ideas and plans instead of sending them home bur- 
 dened with a sense of its insufferable dulness? We 
 hear a good deal of pious cant among a certain 
 type of ministers about not taking the prayer-meet- 
 ing away from the people. The truth is that when 
 
 ^24 
 
ILpDia 
 
 not more than two or three per cent, of a church's 
 membership ever think of attending, the people have 
 gone away from the prayer-meeting. They must be 
 won back to it; the prayer-meeting must be made 
 so attractive they will want to attend it. 
 
 Without in any way denying the people an oppor- 
 tunity to take part, the minister can so throw him- 
 self into the service as to make it bright, interesting 
 and full of helpfulness. It is the profound con- 
 viction of many observers that the modem prayer- 
 meeting is failing because the minister slights it. 
 The pastor of a large but not over-active church, 
 after a self-indulgent afternoon with old college 
 friends, was heard to remark at half past ^\e o'clock : 
 "You really must excuse me now; this is prayer- 
 meeting evening and I must have half an hour to 
 prepare for it." No one was surprised when, at 
 the meeting following, only a dozen or so of the 
 saints were present; that the pastor said not one 
 bright or helpful thing throughout the service ; that 
 when he saw the meeting was being a dismal failure, 
 he got up and made a very flatulent, platitudinous 
 exposition of a passage of Scripture of whose rich 
 teachings he seemed entirely ignorant; or that at 
 the end of the failure he lied, saying he had been so 
 busy with pastoral duties during the week he had 
 not had time to prepare. So long as pastors take 
 that attitude toward their prayer-meeting, it will be 
 a failure and bear no fruit. Worse than that, it is 
 
 SS5 
 
iSotable Cftaracterisi 
 
 a hindrance, for when the unsaved of a community 
 hear of such a prayer-meeting, they feel there is 
 little or nothing in the Christianity which puts such 
 a slight upon prayer. 
 
 The Prayer-Meeting Should Promote Fellowship, 
 
 The church does not exist that does not need more 
 of the spirit of fellowship among its people. While 
 his own spirit will do much, the minister can not 
 promote this to any great extent at the preaching 
 services. The prayer-meeting is his opportunity. It 
 may well be called: The Mid- Week Social Service 
 for Prayer and Bible Study. The minister should 
 give all his study time the day on which it is held 
 to preparation. It is not particularly stimulat- 
 ing or encouraging to a people to see the leader 
 frantically hunting for hymns, as we have seen 
 some pastors do, after the service has begun, 
 while they are singing one, or while some member 
 is praying. The spirited singing of half a dozen 
 Gospel hymns (at least half of these should have 
 been written within the last one hundred years!) 
 will often put the people in just the frame of mind 
 the pastor needs to make a lasting impression with 
 his message. Before the Scripture lesson and exposi- 
 tion let some sweet soprano voice sing a Gospel 
 story. The accompanying instrument should be 
 played by the best musician the congregation 
 affords. 
 
 226 
 
The music itself will do much to warm hearts and 
 quicken brains, but five or ten minutes before the 
 service closes the minister should announce that be- 
 fore the benediction and as a part of the service a 
 few moments would be given to social intercourse. 
 He should ask the people to rise and greet their 
 nearest neighbors and then move freely about the 
 room speaking to strangers and introducing them 
 to other members. No person should ever be allowed 
 to go from a prayer-meeting burdened with lone- 
 someness or with a feeling that the Church of Christ 
 is cold and selfish. When the period is up, let the 
 organ sound the key-note of a familiar hymn in 
 which the people, pausing where they chance to be 
 and still standing, will join, before the benediction. 
 When this is pronounced, the social intercourse will 
 continue and all will go home stimulated and happy. 
 A stranger or new resident in the community drop- 
 ing into such a prayer-meeting will feel acquainted 
 from that time on. He will feel that the people of 
 the church are warm-hearted, and, it is worthy of 
 note, there will always be enough people at such a 
 service to take the chill off, and make the visitor 
 know the church is alive. This plan, mentioned in 
 the chapter on The Spirit of Evangelism, is elabo- 
 rated here and its adoption urged because of the 
 large returns it has yielded in the writer's ministry. 
 
 227 
 
il3ota6Ie Cftatacter^ 
 
 The Pastor's Address. 
 
 How much time a pastor should use in a prayer- 
 meeting and what he should do during the time has 
 long been a matter of dispute. This may be set 
 down as vital: Whatever he does should be the 
 very best of which he is capable. It is not a time for 
 rambling, extemporaneous speech. The people need 
 most of all the Bread of Life, and the minister may 
 well take time to break it to them. The most helpful 
 and fruit-bearing plan seems to be to take a short 
 passage from the Gospel Story and, leaving the obvi- 
 ous things for the people's own quick minds, present 
 some of the richness that has been found only by 
 hard study. What new phases does the original lan- 
 guage present? What helpful messages grow out of 
 a consideration of the historical situation or con- 
 nections? At what points does the passage under 
 consideration impinge on modem life and its 
 problems ? 
 
 Sometimes it may be best to raise questions and 
 leave them for the people to answer. If they are 
 slow in starting, a few questions tactfully put to a 
 safe man or woman may quicken things. Nothing 
 ever interests people more than a frank and easy dis- 
 cussion of the problems of human life. How to meet 
 the problems of childhood; how to be neighbor to 
 those in need; how to draw comfort from the Scrip- 
 tures in the hour of disappointment or sorrow. The 
 
 228 
 
very informality demanded in such a discussion draws 
 hearts together, and, when one after another sees 
 how honestly their neighbors are striving to live the 
 Christ-life, animosities will be softened and petty 
 quarrels will cease. 
 
 The Prayer-meeting Should Develop and Reveal 
 Talent. 
 
 No minister knows of half the power lying latent 
 in the lives of his people. They come and sit silent 
 during the preaching of the Sunday sermons and no 
 sign of power escapes them. And yet every one has 
 power; the Church should be getting the benefit of 
 it; the prayer-meeting offers the opportunity of 
 drawing it out. Perhaps it is the social quality ; the 
 ability to meet strangers tactfully and make them 
 feel at home; perhaps it is quick insight into situa- 
 tions or relations, such as most women possess. It 
 will be most valuable when you are applying the 
 Scripture lesson to modem life; possibly it is musi- 
 cal talent. Why should not the best be used for the 
 glory of God in the prayer-meeting? Perhaps it is 
 the power to draw other souls to the Master. You 
 need this most of all in this informal service. A 
 wise pastor will call out these powers from week to 
 week, not only making them stronger, but giving the 
 Kingdom the benefit of them. 
 
 229 
 
il3otalile Cftaractetisi 
 
 The Prayer-meetmg a Soul-wmning Service, 
 
 Most of all, as the spirit of evangelism grows in 
 the Church, are men feeling that the mid-week service 
 should yield many lives for the Master. It must be 
 so conducted that our children and unsaved friends 
 will love to attend it, and when they do, they should 
 be led to understand His claims upon their lives and 
 given an opportunity to respond to them. The 
 doors of the Church of Jesus should be always open 
 so that when some wandering child comes home he 
 may find no obstacle in the way of his walking 
 straight into his Father's arms. 
 
 Most pastors are quite amazed when they hear 
 one talk of the prayer-meeting as a place for soul- 
 saving. There are never any unsaved people in their 
 prayer-meetings! Well, why? One says: "Prayer- 
 meetings are for the building up of the saints." So 
 they are, but is the company of the saints so dis- 
 agreeable that no unsaved friends will ever attend 
 with them ^ The heart of the matter is, most prayer- 
 meetings are so unattractive to the unsaved, and to 
 the saved for the matter of that, that they rarely 
 attend them. 
 
 The meetings conducted by our great city Missions 
 and the Salvation Army, night after night, through- 
 out the year, are in reality prayer-meetings, but they 
 have so much of human interest in them and bear so 
 hard upon the problems men and women are com- 
 
 230 
 
pelled every day to face, that thousands attend them 
 who are not yet saved, but who are certain to be 
 before many weeks pass. No man can long hear the 
 Gospel story persuasively told and not yield to it. 
 "I," said the Saviour, "if / be lifted up, will draw 
 all men unto me." 
 
 A Modern Prayer-meeting Conversion, 
 
 It was in a prayer-meeting in Jerry MacAuley 
 Mission in New York that the Hadley boys, S. H. 
 and H. H., two of the most persistent soul-winners 
 America has ever seen, found the Saviour. The 
 story of the latter's experience is heart-gripping and 
 heart-cheering, for it shows what can be achieved. 
 It has been told by Mr. Hadley himself all over the 
 country, but it will bear a thousand repetitions. He 
 was well bom and raised in a quiet country home in 
 Ohio, but contracted the habit of drink while in the 
 army. The habit fastened its awful fangs into him, 
 and he could not shake it off. He went into busi- 
 ness and failed because of drink. He started to prac- 
 tice law, but failed on account of drink. He started 
 a newspaper in New York, but was failing here also 
 on account of drink. Life was becoming unendur- 
 able. He had married a patient and devoted wife, 
 and now had six beautiful children, but he was dis- 
 gracing them all and breaking their hearts. One 
 night he decided he would end it all by plunging 
 into East River. 
 
 231 
 
Il3ata61e Cfiatactet^ 
 
 Something held him back till he should see his 
 brother again, who had been converted and was then 
 conducting Water Street Mission. Without any 
 thought of personal release he entered the Mission 
 and sat down to wait till the meeting should be over, 
 and he could have a last talk with his brother. As 
 the service progressed, his heart was stirred. The 
 songs cheered him; the prayers seemed to take hold 
 on God. Finally the testimonies began. One after 
 another told how the Lord had saved him. A Scotch 
 printer arose and, pointing with pride to his well- 
 dressed wife and child, told how he had abused and 
 neglected them till they were compelled to leave him, 
 but since the Lord had saved him from the curse of 
 liquor they had come back and now theirs was the 
 happiest of homes. 
 
 "All at once," says Mr. Hadley, "it occurred to 
 me that possibly I might be saved, too, if I were to 
 stop trying to do it all myself, and follow Jesus and 
 trust Him. And I determined right then to test His 
 power and love." He stood up and told the condi- 
 tion he was in, then, going forward, he fell down on 
 his knees and prayed to God for mercy and forgive- 
 ness. Gradually the sense of forgiveness and cleans- 
 ing came over him. He clung to God as a drowning 
 child would to his earthly father. He went out of 
 the meeting a saved man, and from that day forward 
 was free from the awful craving for liquor that for 
 half a life-time had mastered him. With a zeal rarely 
 
 232 
 
witnessed, he gave the remainder of his life to saving 
 others, and it was in prayer-meetings most of his 
 work was done. 
 
 Let the precious opportunity of the mid-week 
 service be rescued from its present place, next the 
 grave. European Christianity started in a prayer- 
 meeting, and it may be vastly furthered by laying 
 the emphasis on such meetings to-day. Their pos- 
 sibilities are infinite, limited only by the willingness 
 of pastor and people to throw themselves into them. 
 Rightly conducted they may become the Church's 
 chief source of power and the recruiting ground for 
 countless new members. 
 
xvn. 
 
 SAUL OF TARSUS; BY THE DIRECT INTER- 
 VENTION OF DIVINE POWER. 
 
 THE forces that lead human hearts to the 
 Saviour are found to be almost as numerous 
 as men. Rarely are two lives effected by ex- 
 actly the same power or combination of circum- 
 stances. Here it is a mother's prayers; there a 
 father's admonitions and appeals. In one case it is 
 a letter from a distant friend; in another the quiet, 
 persistent invitations of a companion. In some 
 cases man seems the larger factor ; in others the "still 
 small voice" that will not cease its appeals. The 
 Spirit seems to say, as St. Paul himself did, in the 
 early days: "All things to all men if by all means 
 I may save some." 
 
 The most gratifying of all facts that confront 
 the student is that in response to some force men are 
 coming to the Saviour every day; that no sun sets 
 without having shone upon the conversion of many 
 of God's children. The race is being saved. Not so 
 rapidly as we could wish, but as rapidly as men can 
 be brought into contact with Jesus ; as rapidly as 
 they will yield their hearts to Him. If you are not 
 in the company it is your fault, not God's. He does 
 
 234 
 
^aul of Cat0u$ 
 
 not wish any to perish, but will have all men to be 
 saved. 
 
 The Master Christian Converted. 
 
 In the study before us we are to consider the con- 
 version of the master Christian of the ages, the man 
 whose coming into the Kingdom has meant more to 
 its progress than the coming of any other; the Jew 
 born with the rights of Roman citizenship, Saul of 
 Tarsus. That we may spend the more time on his 
 later life, his early years will be passed by. On the 
 threshold of his young manhood he found himself a 
 leader. His education had been the best his day 
 afforded. To sit at the feet of Gamaliel was to put 
 the crown on the highest education ; it was like a post 
 graduate course at Yale or Princeton. Added to 
 this the young student was religiously a Pharisee. 
 This left nothing to be said regarding his admiration 
 of the Mosaic law or his allegiance to it. As he 
 himself said of the Athenians at a later day, he was 
 "more than others respectful of things divine." There 
 are evidences that he was a member of the Sanhe- 
 drin, the central governing body of the Jewish nation. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that Saul was on the thres- 
 hold of a great career, whether in the Church or in 
 the Roman state. Providence had decreed him a 
 leader; it only required a few years of experience to 
 give him the power and presence such leadership de- 
 mands. It can be easily imagined that the young 
 
iQotable Cl)atacter0 
 
 leader's friends would say to each other: "The one 
 thing that threatens the career of Saul is his unrea- 
 sonable and curbless hatred of the new sect called 
 Christians. Such violence has spoiled many a prom- 
 ising career before, and he may not hope to escape 
 its ravages. Hatred grows by what it feeds upon. 
 It might lead him to murder and unpardonable 
 crime." 
 
 It was at about this time that the young Pharisee 
 had an experience that sobered him. The young 
 Church of the Christians had grown so fast new 
 officers were necessary. Among those appointed was 
 Stephen, a man full of faith and good works, who 
 strove so mightily for God as to arouse the jealousy 
 of the narrower Jews, and who was so powerful in 
 argument for the claims of Jesus as to leave them no 
 foot to stand on. He must be gotten out of the way, 
 and the simplest course, in view of his impassioned 
 zeal for the Messiahship of Jesus, was to charge 
 him with blasphemy and, whether proved or not, 
 stone him to death without the city wall. The 
 farcical trial was hurried through and the devout 
 Stephen dragged to the place of martyrdom. That 
 a bloody and groundless murder was about to be 
 committed no one familiar with the facts could dis- 
 pute. No matter, let it go on. These up-start 
 Christians must be checked. That they might be 
 the more free to perform their nefarious work the 
 murderers drew off their loose outer garments and 
 
 ^36 
 
%ml of Cat0U0 
 
 threw them over the arm of Saul, the young student 
 from Tarsus. He was watching the procedure with 
 more than usual interest. His hatred of all Chris- 
 tians made him a willing witness of Stephen's 
 slaughter, but something held him back from casting 
 a stone at him. One cannot escape the conviction 
 that when the martyr's face shone with the glory of 
 heaven's own light, and the victory of dying for his 
 Lord wrote itself on every feature, that such a 
 student of human nature as Saul was would be 
 moved. For the moment his hatred would be checked 
 and admiration for the heroic Christian would take 
 its place. Did Saul get his first glimpse of the 
 Saviour here.? 
 
 If he did he seems to have done his utmost to 
 throw off its effects. A man under deep conviction 
 will oftentimes plunge deeper than ever into sin. 
 Saul set himself to exterminate the Christians. Going 
 boldly to the high priest, he obtained authority to 
 seize, bind, scourge and imprison any of them he 
 found, whether on the streets or in their own homes. 
 Like an instrument of death he went from house to 
 house, hailing innocent women and children and cast- 
 ing them into loathsome dungeons. Jerusalem did 
 not satisfy him. He must go through other cities 
 likewise until no vestige of the hated sect should be 
 left alive. 
 
 One stands amazed at times at the evil God per- 
 mits in the world, at the lengths He will allow evil 
 
 237 
 
iQotafile C{)aractet0 
 
 men to go before lifting His hand to stop them. Was 
 He giving Saul an opportunity to see the error of his 
 way that he might turn back of his own accord? 
 Was He waiting until the enormity of his offence 
 would make his redemption all the more impressive? 
 Truly His ways are past finding out. 
 
 But the time had come. This monster persecutor 
 must be turned into the master Christian. Nothing 
 but the power of Christ himself would be sufficient. 
 And so, at a moment no man suspected, when Saul 
 was cursing Him and vowing double vengeance on 
 all who followed Him, Christ struck the blasphemer' 
 to the ground and changed his heart. Here is the 
 most astounding event since the tragedy on Calvary. 
 If Jesus there passed from life unto death, here Saul 
 passed from death unto life. The man who rose to 
 his feet was the same man, as to his physical being, 
 who a moment ago fell under the blinding light, but 
 all else was changed. A new soul, a new heart, a new 
 attitude toward the Nazarene and toward all man- 
 kind. "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" Be- 
 fore, a persecutor; now a protector. Before, a re- 
 viler; now a devout proclaimer. Before, determined 
 to stamp out the new sect ; now determined to plant 
 it in every city that all men might benefit by its 
 mighty power. 
 
 The Effectual Work of God. 
 
 The first thought that detaches itself from tKe 
 
 S38 
 
Siaul of Cat0U0 
 
 surging mass that arises in contemplation of this 
 world-significant event is that God did it. No 
 human element had any part in the conversion of 
 Saul of Tarsus. The event silenced forever the ex 
 machina theory of deity. He does at times, if not 
 at all times, put His hand upon the affairs of men 
 and turn them to suit His measureless purposes. No 
 man is beyond His power, no man is so far away 
 from Him that he cannot be brought back in an in- 
 stant of time, no man is so deep down in sin that 
 he cannot be transformed and changed in the twink- 
 ling of an eye. Do not lose sight of this fact, O 
 doubting men of the world. The world has not got 
 beyond the control of its Maker, the children of 
 men beyond the reach of the God who made us all. 
 Some day He may speak to you as unto Elijah in 
 the hour of despair : "What doest thou here ? Arise, 
 go and anoint kings and appoint successors that My 
 work may not cease." It may be as unto Abraham: 
 *'Get thee out of thy country and from among thy 
 kindred and I will make of thee a great nation." 
 
 You who silence the inner voice and crush down 
 conscience and refuse to listen when voices cry in 
 language the soul understands, you may be turning 
 a deaf ear to God who is speaking to you after His 
 custom in our day as surely as He spake to Abra- 
 ham and Elijah and Saul. If the Second Person of 
 the sacred Trinity spoke to Saul, the Third may be 
 speaking to you this moment, as these words enter 
 
 239 
 
iQotafile Cf)aracter0 
 
 your consciousness : "My child, my child, why do you 
 persecute me? Why refuse the life I offer? Why 
 dwell in darkness and misery when you might be 
 dwelling in the light of my love, with a sense of for- 
 giveness and pardon flooding your soul?" 
 
 Your call to conversion may never he stronger or 
 louder than this. If you refuse to respond now, 
 it may never sound in your ear again. It is not 
 God's general plan to break down the will of men. 
 He leaves them free to make their own choice, but, 
 just as a mother leaves her beloved son free to make 
 his own choice of a life work, while all the time she 
 prays and pleads with God to lead him into the min- 
 istry, so God leaves you free to choose your own 
 course in hfe, but longs toward you with greater 
 love than that of a mother, hoping daily that you will 
 turn his way. 
 
 Once Begun, God*s Work is Always Completed. 
 
 A second striking thing about the conversion of 
 Saul is the completeness of it. God does not begin 
 a work and then abandon it when half done. With 
 Him to begin is to complete, and He has never yet 
 been apprehended in a poor piece of work. The 
 change in Saul was absolute. There is no slipping 
 back into old habits or language, as in the case of 
 Peter; no longing for old luxuries as in the case 
 of Israel. If ever a man was born again by the 
 power of the Holy Spirit, Saul was. Hate was 
 
 240 
 
%)aul of Car0u$ 
 
 taken from his heart; the tenderest and most con- 
 siderate love took its place. His proud pharisaism 
 departed in an instant, never to return. What 
 agony of soul he must have endured for his part in 
 the murder of the innocent Stephen ! What remorse 
 for giving his vote against devout followers of Jesus 
 when they were being falsely tried by the Sanhedrin ! 
 These wrongs of his former life may have been a 
 factor in his determination to spend the remainder 
 of his life and all his powers in building up Chris- 
 tianity and relieving the distress of Christians. 
 
 The completeness of Saul's conversion is not with- 
 out parallels in modern days. H. H. Hadley says 
 that at the moment of his conversion in the old 
 Water Street Mission in New York, God not only 
 took the love of sin out of his heart, but he took 
 the taste for liquor out of his mouth, so that he 
 could never again bring himself to taste a drop of it. 
 He caused him to turn with loathing from his former 
 haunts and associations and made him love the pure, 
 the clean, the innocent. 
 
 The Glory of the Second Birth. 
 
 In his heart-gripping book, "Twice-Born Men," 
 Mr. Harold Begbie tells us of a hardened criminal 
 whom he calls Joe. Joe was born in the slums of 
 London and showed criminal instincts from infancy. 
 At nine he was flogged and imprisoned for theft, 
 and at fourteen was sentenced to fifteen months' im- 
 
 241 
 
jQotable Ctjaracterisi 
 
 prisonment for burglary. He was the terror of his 
 neighborhood, watched constantly by the police. Out 
 of the first thirty-four years of his life seventeen 
 were spent in prison. 
 
 One of the early companions of this criminal, a 
 prize-fighter, was suddenly coverted one night in 
 the Salvation Army barracks. He began at once to 
 work for others and centred his efforts on Joe. But 
 the criminal was hardened and would not listen. One 
 evening the converted fighter took the unconverted 
 criminal to his home. It was the first happy home he 
 had ever entered. From that night on Joe prayed, 
 but it was not a prayer for personal pardon. It was 
 a prayer that God would send him a good woman for 
 a wife. 
 
 Few women ever realize the influence they might 
 have over men's lives if they would always live pure 
 and innocent, true and unselfishly, as God intended 
 they should. When the average man marries he 
 looks upon his wife as little, if any, less than an 
 angel. Such reverence for womankind has God 
 planted in the masculine breast. If the woman shat- 
 ter this ideal and live down to unforgivable levels, 
 the man who hoped to be saved by her will conclude 
 there is nothing good in the world and will fall to 
 depths untouched before, and have small desire for 
 recovery. 
 
 This criminal prayed God for a good woman to 
 save him. He was soon in prison again, and every 
 
@aul of Car0U0 
 
 night for the months of his term he sent up the 
 same fervent prayer. When released from imprison- 
 ment his old friend, the prize-fighter, was waiting 
 for him. He urged him to go straight to the Salva- 
 tion Army meeting, but the criminal refused. He 
 went instead to a public house. Here he was quickly 
 in trouble and went out to settle his quarrel with 
 fists. It was an awful fight. Joe nearly killed his 
 opponent, but he himself had his head broken and 
 his face cut and marred beyond recognition. He 
 went straight from the fight to a surgeon, and had 
 the wounds dressed; and straight from the surgeon, 
 his head swathed in bandages, to the Salvation Army 
 barracks. When the invitation to go forward was 
 given he was the first to respond. Loving workers 
 prayed for him and he prayed for himself, this time 
 for pardon and peace. He remained at the bench 
 for hours, but when he rose to his feet again he felt 
 that he was a saved man. 
 
 Naturally everybody doubted the genuineness of 
 his conversion. How could a life-long criminal be 
 regenerated in a moment? Every watcher said he 
 would probably fall again, and even his faithful 
 friend, the prize-fighter, thought he should have 
 another dip. But he did not fall. He testified that 
 when God saved him that night, he took away his 
 desire to steal and gave him strength to withstand 
 the temptations that immediately crowded upon him. 
 Before, he despised work and had never earned a 
 
 ^4S 
 
iQotafile Cl)aractet0 
 
 dollar by honest toil. Now he took the humblest 
 task and did it gladly, feeling that at last he had 
 gotten started right in life. While, of course, he 
 had not the education or the experience to undertake 
 large Christian work, his conversion was as complete 
 as St. Paul's. "Neither is His arm shortened that 
 He cannot save." The God that completely re- 
 generated Saul of Tarsus and Joe, the life-long 
 criminal, of the London slums, can as completely re- 
 generate any sinner of the twentieth century. Do 
 not imagine your case is too hard. God loves hard 
 tasks and never fails in them. 
 
 In an interesting foot-note the author of Joe's 
 story tells us that the prayer of his prison days 
 was soon answered. One day he was painting a 
 buggy wheel and suddenly looking up through the 
 spokes, he saw the smiling face of a young woman. 
 He felt instantly that his prayer was at last an- 
 swered. Cultivating the young woman's acquain- 
 tance, he told her his story and that he was sure God 
 had sent her to him in answer to his prayer. He 
 begged her to marry him. It had been a short time 
 since his conversion and she was afraid, but said at 
 last if he would join the Salvation Army, and come 
 out openly into the Christian life, she would take 
 the chance. Joe met the conditions at once, and 
 they were soon married. He secured a good posi- 
 tion. Children came into their home, and in all Lon- 
 don none are happier or more grateful to God. The 
 
%)aul of Car0U0 
 
 deep student is right : "One power and one alone can 
 make the habitual criminal a good man in the loftiest 
 and only lasting sense of that term, and that power 
 is religion." 
 
 Will God Regenerate on Request? 
 
 Out of all this testimony there arises another ques- 
 tion which bears directly upon the men of the twen- 
 tieth century: Will God work as freely and as 
 completely in regenerations that are asked for, as 
 He does in those entered upon on His own initiative ? 
 The answer must be a positive and triumphant Yes. 
 The witness of the ages may be our answer. Ninety- 
 nine per cent, of the conversions in the lives of men 
 come when men ask for them. If God has never 
 regenerated you on His own initiative, you may rest 
 assured He is eager to render you this infinite service. 
 But it is not the plan of God to break down a man's 
 will and force him into the Kingdom. He waits for 
 men to decide for themselves that they want to come. 
 If you are tired of sin ; if the lees of life are bitter ; 
 if you long to be free from a guilty conscience and 
 have a sense of duty performed to men and God, 
 seek the Father's pardon; confess that you have 
 sinned and pray to have those sins forgiven, and the 
 stain of them washed away. God will not fail you 
 and His work will be complete. 
 
 You need not wait for the intervention of some 
 human factor; you may go straight to God your- 
 
il3ota&le Cl)atactet0 
 
 self. He will listen to you as quickly as He will to 
 any man for you. There is no favored class with 
 Him; every man is on speaking terms with God. Go 
 to Him frankly, make an honest confession of all 
 past sins; ask to have them forgiven and forgotten. 
 Tell Him you want to live right; that you want to 
 quit sinning and live the white life; that you are 
 going to make an honest effort, and you want His 
 help. He will not fail you ; all the goodness of God 
 will flow out toward you and you will have your 
 desire. 
 
 MS 
 
A WORKING CHURCH AN EFFECTIVE 
 PROJECTILE. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 A WORKING CHURCH AN EFFECTIVE PROJECTILE. 
 
 IN our boyhood days, when we were preparing 
 the old single-barrel muzzle-loading shotgun for 
 deadly execution, everything, we were told, de- 
 pended on the load and the way it was put in. The 
 weapon had two leading characteristics : One was the 
 recoil, better known to youngsters as the "kick," 
 which, memory says, varied from the velocity and 
 killing power of an angry mule's heels to those of 
 exploding dynamite. The other was its disposition 
 to scatter the shot so widely that a quail or rabbit 
 of any agility could safely slip through the charge 
 in half a dozen places with nothing worse than the 
 loss of a few feathers or a trifling bunch of fur. 
 
 The skill of the hunter showed itself in loading the 
 gun. There must be just so much powder; you 
 could measure it to the grain in the hollow of your 
 trembling hand. There must be just such a wad; no 
 more and no less. These were to be driven home 
 until so hard that the steel ramrod, striking the 
 charge, would bound clear out of the barrel. In- 
 comprehensible as it was, the way the powder was 
 put in and "rammed down" had more to do with 
 
 249 
 
a iKaotWng Cimth 
 
 subsequent scattering or not scattering than the 
 measure or the placing of the shot. The latter was 
 secondary; a good round handful, with the wad just 
 well down on the load and you were ready to adjust 
 the cap. 
 
 Oh ! the eagerness ! If the game had been generous 
 enough to sit quietly by, waiting its own obsequies, 
 while this turmoil was going on, your hands shook 
 with anxiety till you could hardly get the cap in 
 place. All else was like a dream; rest the heavy 
 weapon on the stake-and-rider fence nearby; pull 
 the gun tight against your shoulder to minimize the 
 damage to your own anatomy, point the muzzle 
 somewhere in the direction of the game, shut your 
 eyes, and FIRE ! 
 
 If, for any reason, the agility of the game failed 
 it at the critical moment, there it lay, when the 
 smoke cleared away and you had recovered from the 
 awful jolt of the recoil, waiting to be added to your 
 hunting bag, already beginning to bulge as a result 
 of your newly acquired skill in loading the gun. 
 
 As I look back from middle life at this youthful 
 exploit, in connection with bringing this work to a 
 close, I see a strange analogy. The Church too is a 
 kind of weapon and unsaved men rightful quarry. 
 The work a church does is the charge that wins or 
 fails to win these men; and the way that work is 
 done corresponds to the loading of the old shotgun. 
 When the gun was well loaded and the shot brought 
 
 250 
 
an etfectftoe 89to/ectfte 
 
 down the game, there was ever an approving smile 
 from father, and when the Church so does her work 
 as to be effectual, when she builds character and 
 wins large numbers to the Christ-life, she has upon 
 her evermore the blessing of the Father of us all. 
 
 Efficiency the Modern Need, 
 
 Efficiency has come to be the master word in the 
 business world. Nothing will take the place of it. 
 Men may be handsome and well dressed, and suave 
 and chivalrous, but if they do not get their work 
 done before the sun sets, the active world has no 
 place for them. No more stimulating word was ever 
 uttered or one more worthy of constant repetition 
 than that of William Allen White when he said in 
 his excellent article on General Funston : "The world 
 wants results; not good and sufficient reasons why 
 results are not forthcoming." 
 
 Thousands of fine fellows are failing in the min- 
 istry because they let a good excuse for not doing 
 a piece of work stand in the place of doing it. "I 
 intended to make a strong sermon for Sunday, but 
 so many calls for pastoral work came in I could not 
 get to it." "I intended to call every day last week, 
 but my wife's cousin came to visit us and I did not 
 get out a single day." "I had made all arrange- 
 ments to call on the sick last Tuesday afternoon, but 
 a bad headache came on and I had to give it up." 
 And so it goes, year after year, good excuses satis- 
 
 261 
 
a MJotbing Cfiutcf) 
 
 fying men when the only thing that should satisfy 
 them is getting their work done and gathering large 
 and rich harvests to the Master's cause. 
 
 Efficiency must become the master word of the min- 
 istry and of the Church, as well as of the business 
 world. We need results worse than business enter- 
 prises do. Every worthy man must relentlessly put 
 to himself the questions : "Am I making good ? Am 
 I making full proof of my ministry ? Am I fulfilling 
 the desires and the plans of Christ for my life?" 
 The men who die from over-work are not one in a 
 thousand to those who die from over-resting, from 
 over-eating, from over-sleeping, from over-yielding 
 to every little hindrance that comes up to keep them 
 from getting fruitful work done. 
 
 Work That Demands Admiration. 
 
 Gentlemen, we must disprove the charge that of 
 all professions the ministry is the most inefficient. 
 It is absolutely unpardonable that the charge should 
 ever have been made. Every stroke of work we do 
 honestly will contribute to our efficiency. If we read 
 good books and have large experiences that we may 
 prepare powerful sermons, we cannot escape the bene- 
 ficial effects of reading the books and doing the 
 work; if we extend sympathy and love and care to 
 the afflicted and the needy, and do it unselfishly, 
 that is, without seeking to be glorified and lauded 
 
an (Bfttttiu ptofectfle 
 
 for it, the results will show in stronger and richer 
 character. 
 
 The vein of the world's pity for inefficient religious 
 workers has pinched out. The man who sniffles and 
 whines about his work being very hard and the people 
 unresponsive, arouses only contempt. When the 
 business world finds hard conditions it overcomes 
 them and is stronger for the eff^ort. The ministry 
 will have to learn to do the same. Ask no man for 
 pity. Do a class of work that will command every 
 man's admiration and the world will gladly give you 
 a place and a name. 
 
 Examples from Nature and Society, 
 
 As I write this word, high on the side of the 
 Rocky Mountains, a tiny red ant is struggling past 
 me with a load three times its size. I judge the load 
 to be a bit of straw it is carrying to a home so dis- 
 tant that I cannot locate it. Other ants of the same 
 family are all around, but the determined worker is 
 not stopping to ask any of them for a lift. Stones 
 and weeds block the way continually, yet I venture to 
 say that if some sympathetic one should force help 
 on this tiny hero there would be a fight. He does 
 not want pity or help. He is straining every muscle 
 to do this work alone. Perhaps there is a king or 
 queen somewhere whose approval he craves. I can 
 just see him now as he disappears over the crest ten 
 feet away. He is working as though under a time 
 
 ^53 
 
9 SiQatktng Cf)utc{)' 
 
 limit. In the half hour I have been writing and 
 watching, he has not stopped an instant to rest, nor 
 loosened his hold on his heavy load. I cannot hold 
 my pen back from writing here the scriptural in- 
 junction: "Go to the ant . . . consider her 
 ways and be wise." 
 
 At the foot of the clifF on which I write nestles 
 a busy city. In the railroad yards the switch en- 
 gines are steaming here and there shunting cars on 
 side-tracks and making up trains ; in a new addition 
 to the city a large force of men is at work cutting 
 and filling new-laid streets. When rocks interfere 
 they blast them out and use the fragments for filling 
 the valleys; the campus of a great university is 
 visible. On two new buildings swift workmen are 
 making marvellous progress while the broad walk is 
 thronged with students hurrying to library or class- 
 room; on the streets of the city pedestrians and 
 vehicles are hurrying this way and that, all bent on 
 the accomplishment of some necessary task. The 
 lesson from it all is: The great world is getting its 
 work done and everybody is doing a lion's share. 
 
 Do Important Things i/n Private or in Public, 
 
 Unfortunately the very work of the ministry sug- 
 gests seclusion. What a man does when he shuts the 
 door of his study on a work day morning, only he 
 and God know at the moment, but his people know 
 the next Sunday, and his little world knows in a 
 
 254 
 
an (Effectrte projectile 
 
 few months or years. Idleness or dawdling over 
 magazines and novels is enormously expensive. Mil- 
 lionaires can hardly afford it, and yet many a min- 
 ister who is whining about the low salary he is re- 
 ceiving does. Even in the ministry a man can coin 
 time into money if he has the energy, and the gov- 
 ernment will not prosecute him for counterfeiting! 
 
 It is no longer enough to be simply working at 
 something; we must be working at the thing that 
 means most to our cause at the moment. Work for 
 its own sake has a value, but work for the accom- 
 plishment of some definite purpose has an infinitely 
 higher value. I once knew a man who spent three 
 whole days painting some card-board signs to be 
 used at the church picnic when a painter would have 
 done the work for a quarter and have done it in- 
 finitely better. Yet that man was greatly offended 
 when a bold member suggested that they would wel- 
 come a little better sermons and urged me to help 
 him get a new field, for these heartless people were 
 working him to death ! 
 
 A man must choose even between tasks that are 
 worthy. It will be impossible to do them all. Which 
 ones are the most important .f* Which ones will con- 
 tribute most to the great object you have taken 
 vows to accomplish? Settle this in advance, early 
 in the week or in the day, and then get the work 
 done, no matter what arises to interfere. 
 
 UB 
 
a motkins Cliurcii 
 
 Onl^ Focused Rays Burn. 
 
 To return to the figure of our title, we must make 
 our church one solid force and send it irresistibly 
 toward the mark it is our business to reach, the 
 redemption of our communities, and, ultimately, of 
 the whole world. Nothing less will satisfy the Mas- 
 ter; nothing less should satisfy us. The scattering 
 of modern Church work is the jest of the business 
 world and ought to be the distress of every Christian 
 worker. How can we turn all our streams into one 
 channel.'^ How can we focus all our rays until they 
 burn ? 
 
 It can never be done in the local church until the 
 head is efficient and indomitable. Then it cannot be 
 done until the people are willing to recognize this 
 man's power and position and let him lead. Let 
 him lay his plans large and fair ; let him so manage 
 the various parts of the church's work that they 
 will converge toward his high purpose ; let him prove 
 the rightness and value of his plans by the abundant 
 fruitage his perfect machine gathers ; by the straight- 
 ness with which his projectile goes to the eye of the 
 target; by the regularity with which the quarry is 
 taken. Success is the argument with which to silence 
 complaint and opposition. "Try my plan for re- 
 ceiving Benevolent Offerings once," said a man sure 
 of his methods to an objecting Church officer: "if 
 it does not prove its value I will never urge it again." 
 
 256 
 
an (BUtttiu Ig^tpjectile 
 
 When the new plan brought in twice the money with 
 half the effort of the old plans, the critic was si- 
 lenced. Probably better plans for doing Church work 
 than have yet been tried will soon be discovered, but 
 until they are, work the plans we have that have 
 proved themselves valuable and work them with an 
 enthusiasm hitherto unknown. 
 
 To those who have had the patience to follow this 
 work through, it is now clear that it is a loud call 
 to the ministry and to the Church to gird loins 
 anew and reenter the fight for the conquest of the 
 world for God with a determination to win no power 
 on earth can check. We have the greatest work in 
 the world; its returns for time and eternity are im- 
 measurable; it makes giants of the men and women 
 who do it honestly and unselfishly and thus the world 
 is doubly enriched ; it compels the admiration of man ; 
 it wins the approval of God ; it is the only work that 
 will win a wandering race back to its Father. Gen- 
 tlemen, with coats off, sleeves rolled high, muscles 
 tense, let us do an honest life's work for God. 
 
 «67 
 
Date Due 
 
 £L12 
 
 Mifli^inyyfiWBg 
 
m r