wise. 
 
 ®lje (Hhnstiatt’a (fklh 
 
 AND THE 
 
 ICttighom 0 Wealth 
 
 In this age of the ‘Square 
 Deal’ let us not forget that 
 Qod also is interested. ” 
 
 /Orr 
 
 ' * lt '•»> »2 
 
THE CHRISTIAN’S GOLD 
 
 AND THE KINGDOM’S WEALTH 
 
 A PLEA FOR INTELLIGENT, DELIBERATE, 
 AND SYSTEMATIC GIVING 
 
 BY 
 
 LUTHER ELLSWORTH LOVEJOY, D. D. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE COMMITTEE 
 
 OP THE 
 
 FIRST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 
 
 PONTIAC. MICHIGAN 
 
“Bring ye the whole tithe into 
 the storehouse, that there may 
 be meat in mine house, and 
 prove me now herewith, saith 
 the Ivord of hosts, if I will not 
 open you the windows of 
 heaven, and pour you out a 
 blessing, that there shall not 
 be room enough to receive it.’ ’ 
 —Malachi iii. 10. 
 
 “Upon the first day of the week 
 let each one of you lay by him 
 in store, as he may prosper, 
 that no collections be made 
 when I come.”—1 Corinthians 
 xvi. 2. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN’S GOLD 
 
 AND THE 
 
 KINGDOM’S WEALTH 
 
 S REGARDS material things, there 
 ~ ^ are two perennial questions in the 
 minds of earnest Christian people. 
 
 What means shall we take for the 
 adequate support of the ever needy 
 church?” “How much ought I to give 
 to the church and its benevolences, and 
 on what principle ought I to base my 
 contributions?” These questions are 
 among the most serious we have to face, 
 and until both are answered there is no 
 settled peace for either Church or 
 Christian. 
 
 I desire to suggest a method of Church 
 Finance which I have personally prac¬ 
 ticed for years, with the greatest of 
 satisfaction, and which has been tested 
 in many churches, with unfailing success 
 wherever given a fair and complete trial. 
 This method of Christian giving which 
 I am about to suggest might well be 
 
called a “short cut” to church pros¬ 
 perity, for I am convinced that it would, 
 if made universal, revolutionize our 
 temporal conditions. All short cuts are 
 rugged and difficult, calling for heroic 
 sacrifice and endeavor. Mine is no 
 exception. But it is ancient and authori- 
 tive. It is “the King’s Highway.” 
 The wisest man of old approved it— 
 “Honor the Ford with thy substance, 
 and with the first fruits of thine in¬ 
 crease.” The last prophet of the Mosaic 
 dispensation thundered its enforcement— 
 “Bring ye all the tithes into the store¬ 
 house.” This is the key to the whole 
 problem. For the temporal part of our 
 worship God asks that we lay aside at 
 least one-tenth of our income and devote 
 it to his service. 
 
 Tet me relieve your minds at the out¬ 
 set by saying that it is not my purpose 
 to impose this rule as an obligation upon 
 this church or any member of it. That 
 I do not think it would be profitable for 
 us to enter into any prolonged contro¬ 
 versy on the subject, but that if any 
 Christian is perplexed as to his personal 
 
duty in this matter, or if any convert 
 desires help in adjusting the obligations 
 of his new life to practical conduct, this 
 method is offered as one which has given 
 universal satisfaction to those who have 
 honestly tried it. 
 
 I shall be met at once with this 
 question: “Is not the law of the tenth 
 a Jewish law, no longer binding upon 
 God's people?” But am not I as good 
 as a Jew? Should my loyalty to God’s 
 kingdom be less than his? Shall a son 
 be less generous than a servant? But 
 the principle of the tithe is not Jewish 
 law alone. It is an ancient and univer¬ 
 sal religious principle. Four hundred 
 years before God spake to Moses Abra¬ 
 ham paid tithes to Melchisedec. A few 
 years later young Jacob, fleeing from a 
 home in which he was no longer wel¬ 
 come, his only possessions a mantle and 
 a staff, met God on the way, in a vision 
 of the night, and promised him: “if 
 thou wilt feed and clothe me, and bring 
 me back again, of all that thou givest 
 me I will surely give the tenth unto 
 thee.” Then when Moses came he 
 
incorporated this principle into Jewish 
 law, and evermore it was the duty of the 
 chosen people to render unto God by 
 tenths,—most of the time paying two 
 tenths, and in some years three. 
 
 The Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Chal¬ 
 deans, Egyptians, and other pagan 
 nations practiced the principle of the 
 tithe. If godless heathen cheerfully 
 brought tithes to the worship of their 
 idols, what ought the disciple of the 
 Son of God to do? “But did not Paul 
 say, ‘Eet every man give as God hath 
 prospered him?’ ” Yes, over and above 
 his regular contributions,—a “special 
 collection” for the impoverished saints at 
 Jerusalem. “But did he not say, ‘ We are 
 no longer under law but under grace?’ ” 
 To be sure, but isn’t grace a queer 
 weapon with which to rob God? “But 
 did he not say, ‘Not grudgingly, nor of 
 necessity, for God loveth a cheerful 
 giver?’ ” No doubt, but some men can 
 give a tenth cheerfully while others 
 almost suffer nervons prostration if the 
 stewards “pass the hat.” Cheerfulness 
 
and grudgingness depend not on amount 
 but on disposition. 
 
 If the pious old Jew, grubbing away 
 on his rocky hillside, with spade in one 
 hand and sword in the other, could dig 
 out one dollar for God for every nine 
 he kept, what does love demand of me, 
 in this fertile, peaceful, liberty-encircled, 
 sun-kissed, shower-blessed, enlightened 
 Christian land? If faithful Abraham, 
 who had only seven pages of my Oxford 
 Bible for his gospel, if patient Job, who 
 never heard of Jesus, if Jacob, and 
 David, and Daniel, and Ezra, and Isaiah, 
 looking forward by faith alone to a Christ 
 who should come after, felt bound to 
 pay God their tenth; what of me, who 
 have heard the blessed story of the babe 
 in Bethlehem, who have drunk of the 
 water of life, who have met and loved 
 the Good Shepherd, who have read 
 over from childhood, “Let not your 
 heart be troubled. ... In my Father’s 
 house are many mansions,” “Love 
 never faileth,” who have seen by faith 
 Jesus lifted up upon the cross, have 
 seen the Lord arise from the dead, who 
 
have heard the voice of the Spirit saying 
 to my soul, “Son, thy sins are forgiven 
 thee, for his name’s sake?” 
 
 Jesus commended this ancient princi¬ 
 ple. He says: “Ye tithe mint, and 
 rue, and all manner of herb, . . . these 
 ought ye to have done.” The apostles 
 must, certainly, with all loyal Jews, 
 have practiced it, and never, so far as 
 any bible statement indicates, did they 
 revoke it. Does it not seem that if Jesus 
 had intended that so ancient and con¬ 
 spicuous a duty should be abolished he 
 or his apostles would surely have men¬ 
 tioned it? On this very argument we 
 defend the sanctity of the Sabbath, that, 
 though Jesus never mentiones it, he 
 does not revoke it. 
 
 The tithe principle would seem there¬ 
 fore to be as obligatory upon the modern 
 as upon the ancient church. Indeed, 
 for many hundreds of years, history 
 tells us, the church did observe the law 
 of the tithe. But papal abuse, antino- 
 mian lawlessness, and personal selfish¬ 
 ness well-nigh drove it from the face of 
 the earth. In view of all her splendid 
 
achievement in other things, what a 
 backsliding on the part of the church in 
 the matter of her temporal relations with 
 God! Once the ardent convert, perse¬ 
 cuted by the heathen, laughed at by the 
 world, with property and life in danger 
 from mob and torch, came and gladly 
 laid down his tenth at the Master’s feet. 
 Today we go about with a subscription 
 paper, a kind of yard-stick by which 
 each man can measure his own gift by 
 his neighbor’s, or with a mite box, or a 
 bowl of oyster stew, or a saucer of 
 maple syrup, and bid the people from 
 the highways and hedges, come in,—to 
 the gospel feast?—to contribute fifteen 
 cents apiece to help carry on our 
 churches! Oh, how the Master must look 
 down upon Zion with apologetic shame, 
 when he sees her leaders worrying over 
 the outcome of the next ice-cream social. 
 
 Nothing here is to be understood as 
 an attack upon the more social features 
 of church life, when carried on with 
 dignity, if the primary object is a larger 
 social fraternity, even where admission 
 fees are charged and a little surplus 
 
secured. That is another question, to 
 be discussed apart and on its own merits. 
 But, in general, having abandoned God’s 
 plan of church finances, the modern 
 Christian makes it a study to see how 
 little he can give and ease his conscience, 
 and the modern pastor, who is compelled 
 to be a money-raiser, must make it his 
 study to see how much he can get the 
 people to give by working upon the 
 emotions and enthusiasm of his hearers. 
 Over against all this I now make a plea 
 for a Scriptual giving of the tenth on 
 four distinct grounds. 
 
 I. 
 
 3 T PAYS GOD. Very few of the 
 members of our churches pay one- 
 tenth of their income to the Ford’ 
 treasury. Suppose now, every member 
 of your average church should begin 
 tomorrow morning to lay aside one- 
 tenth of his income for this purpose. 
 What would result? First, the church 
 would meet all its current expenses 
 promptly, without trouble or embarrass¬ 
 ment. The pastor would be spared his 
 
frequent benevolence “agonies,” but, 
 next Easter morning, for example, after 
 preaching an Easter sermon, he would 
 make the simple announcement, “This 
 is Foreign Missions Day; come and lay 
 your gifts upon this table.” And the 
 thing would be done. No blackboard, 
 no trick, no “springing” a collection on 
 a reluctant congregation. The claims 
 of pastor, district superintendent, bish¬ 
 ops and superannuates would be paid in 
 full, and a large payment made yearly 
 on that ancient debt. 
 
 Let me bring a few facts in support of 
 this. And I shall ask pardon for appeal¬ 
 ing at once to my own experience, for I 
 know most about that. My first charge, 
 a village circuit, had paid to all benevo¬ 
 lences the year before my coming $49. 
 That year it paid $150, and the second 
 year, $200. A large part of this was 
 tithe money. A church to which I was 
 appointed soon after that I found almost 
 hopelessly burdened with a debt which 
 had been contracted in the building of a 
 splendid new edifice. The first year of 
 my appointment there the church, for 
 
the first time in years, paid its full 
 apportionment, the largest in its history. 
 A good portion of this was tithe money. 
 The following year, when the tithing 
 principle was introduced on a larger 
 scale, our Sunday School and Woman’s 
 Missionary Society nearly doubled all 
 former gifts, and our total benevolent 
 offerings far exceeded our apportion¬ 
 ments. The third year the debt, which 
 it had been prophesied by friends and 
 enemies of the church alike, would 
 never be paid and would bankrupt the 
 church, was entirely cancelled, and the 
 church has led a prosperous life ever 
 since. This was not all done by tithing, 
 but tithing made it possible. In the 
 next church I served, where the tithing 
 idea was hospitably received, the general 
 missionary offering increased in four 
 years 1000 per cent. One day a young 
 lady teacher called at my door and left 
 me $2.50 for missions, and a few days 
 later $3.00, and a few days afterward, 
 $3.00 more. And a neighboring pastor, 
 within whose charge she was teaching, 
 told me that she had just paid him $10 
 
for the same object. All out of a 
 country teacher’s wages. She looked 
 very happy, and thanked me for teach¬ 
 ing her to tithe. 
 
 It was at about this time that the pastor 
 of one of Michigan’s leading churches 
 wrote me that his large gift to help 
 cancel the great Missionary Society debt 
 was contributed by two of his tithing 
 members. The pastor of a large church 
 in Western Michigan, where the tithing 
 plan had been introduced, wrote me: 
 
 Our church expenses are being met as 
 never before. A young man came to 
 me the other evening and asked me to 
 direct him to some worthy object of 
 benevolence, as his tithe was accumu¬ 
 lating. At least eight members of our 
 Official Board are now giving a tenth, 
 and others are laboring under increasing 
 conviction on the subject.” I inquired 
 of a village pastor in Northern Michigan 
 how tithing worked in his church. I 
 condense his laconic reply: “A small 
 band of ten per cent, of membership, 
 with average ability to give, last year 
 paid over 25 per cent, total church re- 
 
ceipts. Last year all old debts cancelled, 
 pastor’s salary increased, benevolences 
 400 per cent, in advance of two years 
 ago. This year finances very easy. 
 Stewards rub hands and laugh at way it 
 comes in without work. Benevolences 
 will reach 800 per cent, advance of two 
 years ago. Stewards recommended last 
 meeting to increase pastor’s salary $100 
 to use up surplus funds.” 
 
 One of the secrets of the remarkable 
 success of the late Dr. A. J. Gordon’s 
 Clarendon St. Baptist Church, Boston, 
 was its almost universal custom of tith¬ 
 ing, and the astonishing deliverance 
 from financial despair a few years ago of 
 Wesley Chapel, Cincinnati, the old 
 mother church of Ohio Methodism, by 
 a resort to the tithing principle, is matter 
 of common knowledge today. 
 
 “But your scheme of a tenth is narrow 
 and formal,” someone objects. “My 
 property is all the Lord’s; I am just his 
 steward.” Very good. I salute you. 
 But surely, if all your money is God’s, 
 you won’t object to letting him have the 
 use of a tenth part of it, will you? 
 
Many of the Lord’s stewards like to use 
 his money mostly for their own comfort. 
 God likes to have his money in circu¬ 
 lation. He can use one dollar better in 
 his own possession than he can his whole 
 ten in the bottom of your pocket. 
 
 On a careful estimate of the aggregate 
 income of the people of one of my early 
 churches—and that during a period of 
 financial panic—I discovered that uni¬ 
 versal tithing would pay all our current 
 expenses, even when increased by many 
 percent., which was greatly needed, pay 
 all interest, double our benevolences, 
 and pay from $1,000 to $2,000 yearly on 
 our debt. 
 
 How God’s ancient and simple plan 
 would relieve us of the grinding burdens 
 of church finance. And have we treated 
 him fairly until we have tested his plan? 
 How our stewards, relieved of the 
 eternal agony of current expenses, could 
 spend their time looking after the spirit¬ 
 ual interests of Christ’s flock. How 
 our godly women could give their ener¬ 
 gies to the Master’s service, if they could 
 be relieved of doughnuts and embroid- 
 
ery. Oh, when I think of the tremen¬ 
 dous waste of holy energy necessitated 
 by our infidel methods of church work, 
 my heart burns within me. 
 
 II. 
 
 3 PL,EAD for the tithe, secondly, 
 because it pays me. A glance at 
 the national history of the Jews reveals 
 the fact that, just as they observed the 
 law of the tithe, they prospered. But 
 when Jehovah was forgotten, and his 
 Sabbaths used for traffic, and his treas¬ 
 ury robbed for self and idol gods, then 
 disaster and desolation came, and the 
 locust, and the palmer-worm, and the 
 alien arm3 r , destroyed their fields and 
 cities. Would it be a sure symptom of 
 fanaticism to believe that the Father, 
 who numbers the hairs of our heads, 
 also gives a special care to those who 
 keep his law? A wealthy layman of 
 Chicago has for years published a pam¬ 
 phlet in which he gives hundreds of 
 testimonials from business men all over 
 the country showing that they have been 
 specially cared for and prospered since 
 
obedience to this principle. 
 
 And there is a natural reason for all 
 this. How much stronger is a man for 
 business with a clear conscience. When 
 a man can step out and face the world 
 and say: “I’ve tried to do my duty to 
 God and man,” he can defy men and 
 devils to overthrow him. He can say: 
 “if I rise, I rise with a clear conscience; 
 if I fail and go to the poor-house, I go 
 as a king.” It adds buoyancy to his 
 spirit and courage to his endeavors. 
 Tithing compels system in family 
 finance and saves its cost by cultivating 
 thrifty and economical methods. So that 
 tithers more than once have told me that 
 their nine-tenths go farther than their 
 ten-tenths used to do. 
 
 A very intelligent young lady told me 
 five or six }^ears ago that her salary had 
 been increased nearly every year since 
 she began tithing. And less than a 
 week ago one of my trustees told me 
 that twelve years ago, early in his busi¬ 
 ness career, he promised to pay God the 
 tenth, and that nearly every year since 
 that time his salary had been increased, 
 
while the last raise, just granted, had 
 almost doubled anything before received, 
 affording a splendid income. I said to 
 one of my stewards one hard winter: 
 “The tithing system would save our 
 debt-burdened church.’’ “it is saving 
 me,” he quickly replied. “I wouldn’t 
 dare ask God to bless my factory unless 
 I dealt justly with him, and though 
 these hard times have paralyzed my 
 business, I have had twice as much as 
 my competitor.” Another steward told 
 me, after I had preached on tithing: “I 
 never had the faith to practice this 
 before, though I have believed in it, but 
 we began last Monday morning, and 
 this has been, financially, the happiest 
 week of my life.” 
 
 Yes, and it pays spiritually as well as 
 temporally. It leaves one’s glad heart 
 free for service. It increases capacity 
 for devotion. It forbids a paralysis of 
 generosity, and makes it impossible to 
 narrow down one’s gifts to God, as so 
 often happens when one increases in 
 wealth and its absorptions. One could 
 Jtardly grow covetous, or forget his God, 
 
while he paid each week his tenth into 
 the Lord’s treasury. 
 
 III. 
 
 jtf ECAUSE it is pleasant I plead for 
 15* the tithe plan. Many a man of my 
 acquaintance could tell you today how 
 precious has become that quiet corner in 
 the house where the little tithe box is 
 kept. It makes the house sacred when 
 you have somewhere hidden in it a little 
 ark of God containing' his treasure. It 
 makes your ledger a holier book when 
 one page is a God-page. It gives a new 
 worth to your check-book when every 
 now and then a stub records your loyalty 
 to the King. How cheerfully, too, one 
 pays out his tenth when he recalls that 
 for every dollar that he uses for God, 
 God has given him nine for his own use. 
 This plan lifts our giving far above all 
 emotional, impulsive, or selfish motives 
 for doing our duty. And how pleasant 
 to have the financial success of God’s 
 work shifted from our shoulders to his. 
 If the minister or the benevolences fall 
 short our conscience is clear, if we have 
 
done our full duty. God then becomes 
 responsible for results. 
 
 It is pleasant because it is fair, fair to 
 rich and poor alike. “But would you 
 expect the poor to tithe?” Why not? 
 The worst thing we can do for the poor 
 man is to rob him of the joy of a whole¬ 
 hearted and self-sacrificing service of his 
 God, or to pauperize him by paying for 
 his gospel. If God owns the “cattle 
 upon a thousand hills” He can manage 
 to furnish the poor man enough extra 
 money to be honest with himself and 
 the Kingdom. But the objections are 
 not from the poor. I never yet heard a 
 poor Christian find fault with this plan, 
 though often the question of how it is to 
 be done is serious. The wealthy are 
 often the ones who find the scheme so 
 difficult to comprehend and to practice. 
 And you can see the reason; as men 
 grow wealthy their tenth becomes so 
 large it becomes more and more difficult 
 to part with it. Oh, if men could once 
 learn the joy of a large gift. Think of 
 the luxury of laying down $500, or 
 $1,000, or $10,000, as your tithe, and 
 
then standing off one side and waiting to 
 see what glorious things can be done 
 with it. 
 
 How many noble Christian men, per¬ 
 plexed as to duty, ask themselves daily, 
 
 ‘ What ought I to give? How much 
 can I afford this year?” The tenth plan 
 furnishes the solution. This may ex¬ 
 plain in part the rapid growth of the 
 tithe idea. Twenty years ago tithing 
 was looked upon as a freak, and it 
 required a courageous man to confess it. 
 Today I could find you scores of promi¬ 
 nent laymen, and scores of ministers,— 
 poor ministers on our northern circuits, 
 prominent ministers in our city pulpits, 
 who practice from year to year the tenth 
 plan. In the Christian Endeavor Society 
 is the great Tenth Eegion; in the Ep- 
 worth Teagues of the world the Christian 
 Stewardship Enrollment. All are pledged 
 to the principle of the tenth for God. 
 
 This way of giving is pleasant because 
 it is dignified, and wholly worthy of the 
 Christian church. It would do much to 
 drive pauperism and beggary from our 
 midst. How much of pleading and 
 
scheming, and campaigning, how much 
 shameful humiliation and compromising 
 with the world it would banish from the 
 church! 
 
 IV. 
 
 HIS way of paying our debt to God 
 Vtr thus becomes the way of duty. 
 The golden grain of the mission fields, 
 ripe for the holy harvest, is left to rot 
 upon the ground for want of reapers. 
 The dense populations of our great cities 
 are crying for light and God. Yet our 
 churches are loaded with debt, finan¬ 
 cially embarrassed, and our Christian 
 communities honey-combed with pauper¬ 
 izing methods of church finance. We 
 can afford to travel all over the conti¬ 
 nent, all over Europe, to attend con¬ 
 ventions, buy phonographs and auto¬ 
 mobiles, build fine houses, wear princely 
 raiment, make costly presents, but we 
 can’t afford to be honest with God. 
 
 “I would begin to tithe if others 
 would,” you say, “but it isn’t fair for 
 only a few.” I know it, but why deny 
 yourself a great joy, or God his much- 
 
needed portion, because others do? “But 
 I’m in debt. Ought a man to give 
 before he pays his debts?” Well, do 
 you buy Christmas or birthday presents 
 before you pay your debts? Or candy 
 for the children, or valentines, or 
 souvenir post-cards, for your friends? 
 And would you refuse to help a starving 
 neighbor until all debts were paid? 
 Indeed, by managing to keep a little in 
 debt a man could justify himself in 
 refusing all charity, and all religious 
 obligations, his whole life long. 
 
 But, after all, this tithing is not giv¬ 
 ing, it itself is debt-paying. Whom do 
 you owe first of all? Hasn’t God a large 
 account against you? Who advanced 
 your capital, your life, your talent, your 
 health, and the favorable conditions 
 which have enabled you to make money? 
 “It is God that giveth thee the power to 
 get wealth.” Why not make Him a 
 “preferred creditor?” “But I may not 
 have my income after this year.” Very 
 well, when you don’t have it, you won’t 
 have to tithe it. Oh, Brother, remem¬ 
 ber who gave you the skill, the educa- 
 
tion, the genius, that has made your 
 success possible. “How much owest 
 thou unto my Ford?” 
 
 “But,” you say, “I am not a member 
 of this church, my membership is off 
 yonder in another town.” That’s handy, 
 isn’t it? But does that cancel your 
 obligation to God? Has he ceased to 
 be good to you? “But we don’t expect 
 to live here much longer.” Indeed, 
 you won’t; you’ll soon be in another 
 world. Did you know that a church 
 letter, or the prospect of moving away 
 sometime, is a most convenient device 
 for dodging God? When the Father 
 refuses longer to give you food, when he 
 ceases to send his rain and his sun upon 
 you, when he no longer answers your 
 prayers, when he snatches from you the 
 hope of heaven, and when Jesus an¬ 
 nounces from the sky that his atoning 
 blood no longer avails for you, then you 
 may say: “I have no debt to God.” 
 Till then you owe him your life, your 
 breath, and all the joys you have. 
 
 Tithing, being a duty, is practicable. 
 “But how shall I determine my tenth? 
 
My business is such that I can’t tell 
 exactly what my tenth is?” It may 
 be difficult, but it can be done. Suppose 
 some rich friend should say to you: 
 “Keep a strict account of your business 
 and at the end of a year I will make 
 you a Christmas present equal to one- 
 tenth of your income.” Do you think 
 you could figure? Count out your tenth 
 as fast as it comes, and lay it aside 
 before it is spent. It’s the spent dollar 
 that’s hard to give to God. Call it no 
 longer yours, but His. Say: “This is 
 my Master’s; I have no more right to it 
 than I have to my neighbor’s money.” 
 You say you could not live on what 
 would be left. Suppose your salary or 
 wages should be cut ten per cent. You’d 
 live. But God lets you have the whole 
 ten-tenths for your income. Count this 
 your extra earning ability, and thank 
 God for it. Then do not hoard it, keep 
 it circulating. 
 
 Then so readjust your habits of thrift 
 and economy that you can pay your 
 tithe without embarrassment. This 
 may demand sacrifice. But oh p in this 
 
day, when the sacrifices of the Christian 
 are so small, compared, with the days of 
 the apostles and martyrs, and his social 
 
 l 
 
 and spiritual privileges so great, is God 
 asking too much when he pleads for just 
 one little tenth of our abundance for his 
 service? Is it not time that the Christian 
 church began to put a difference between 
 itself and the world? The world goes 
 on, spending its money, strength, and 
 intellect in a mad scramble after fad and 
 fashion, straining every nerve to keep 
 up appearances, and the church rushes 
 pell mell after the world, and sometimes 
 even exceeds it in the lust for place and 
 prominence. Let the church once turn 
 about and for ten years forget the fren¬ 
 zied superficialities of the world, devot¬ 
 ing her strength to a supreme effort to 
 usher in Messiah’s Kingdom,—the world 
 would be astonished at the regeneration. 
 The church, too, would be astonished at 
 the turn of the tide toward godliness. 
 Pomp, and pride, and luxury, and com¬ 
 petition would give place do humility, 
 charity, industry, temperance, fraternity. 
 The world has caught the church by the 
 
hand, and is leading her a merry dance, 
 but, oh, before God’s kingdom shall 
 come, and his will be done on earth as 
 in heaven, the church must take the 
 reins, assert her divine right to guide 
 the world, and set the fashion of 
 righteousness, obedience, and conformity 
 to the will of God. 
 
 “When I survey the wondrous cross 
 On which the Prince of glory died, 
 
 My richest gain I count but loss, 
 
 And pour contempt on all my pride. 
 
 “Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
 That were a present far too small; 
 
 Love so amazing, so divine, 
 
 Demands my soul, my life, my all.” 
 
 (Preached in the First Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, Pontiac, Mich., May 9, 1909.) 
 
Copies of this Leaflet may be 
 obtained by addressing the 
 Christian Literature Commit¬ 
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