Sturga-8'
1862- li£e
The church 9
THE CHURCH'S LIFE
A STUDY OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF
THE CHURCH'S MISSION
BY
WM. C. STURGIS, A.M., Ph.D.
NEW YORK
DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY
281 FOURTH AVENUE
1920
PREFACE
This book is the outcome of dire need on
my part. When, in 191 7, I accepted the posi-
tion of Educational Secretary of the Board of
Missions and began work as such, a very seri-
ous difficulty at once presented itself. Al-
though a lifelong Churchman, a member of
the Board of Missions for nearly ten years,
and a leader of men's Bible classes for thirty,
I had only the most rudimentary idea of what
the Church exists for, what the word "mis-
sions" means, and what is the teaching of the
Scriptures on this subject. It was quite obvi-
ous that if, as was necessary, I was at once
to begin trying to make these matters clear to
others, I must first clarify my own mind. For
four months, sleeping and waking, I thought
of little else; and then I became bold enough
to prepare notes and to lead a Summer con-
ference class on 'The Fundamentals of the
Church's Mission." Whether my students re-
ceived anything of value is of little importance.
I did. For three successive years I gave the
same course, always once, sometimes twice,
constantly expanding it under the stimulus of
the Holy Spirit's teaching, and the invaluable
experience of being obliged to think logically
and to express myself clearly. The attempt to
Preface
convince others is the only way to become con-
vinced oneself; teaching is the only road to
learning; one makes the best advance in com-
pany. By this process my brief notes gradu-
ally became sufficiently copious to form the
basis of a volume; and as there seemed to be
a need for such a book — judging at least by
my own abysmal ignorance when I began — it
seemed advisable to place them in that form,
as a textbook for a study of the Church's mis-
sion in the world.
The book, I think, contains nothing new.
Indeed he would be venturesome who dared
imagine that he had discovered anything new
upon this well-worn topic. Still, the point of
view may, in some cases, be found to differ
from that commonly occupied. I do not, for
example, remember having seen in any book
a statement of the objective of the Church's
mission as being the transmission of life from
those who have it to those who have it not.
Certainly "missions," as commonly defined, fall
far short of this, and hence do not appeal to
the average layman.
The reader at all acquainted with the subject
will have no difficulty in tracing my constant
indebtedness to certain notable books, espe-
cially Dr. McLean's, Where the Book Speaks;
Dr. Lawrence's, Introduction to the Study of
Foreign Missions; and Bishop Gore's, The
Sermon on the Mount.
New York, August, 1920.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Failure of a Nation. . i
II. A Chosen Generation ... 25
III. Life More Abundantly ... 53
The Church and Physical Well-
being 64
The Church and Education . 71
IV. The Model Missionary ... 81
V. The Great Charter of the Church no
VI. The Call to Intelligence
VII. The Power in the Church
135
168
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CHAPTER I
THE FAILURE OF A NATION
However much there may be which the
average layman can neither understand nor
explain in religion — whether natural or re-
vealed— one thing seems fairly obvious, i. e.,
that the whole story of both nature and revela-
tion is, to any man who looks about him and
reads his Bible, a record of God's eager desire
to make Himself known to man and to make
man able to learn at least something about
God.
Undoubtedly there are men — often even
students of science — who are so inexpressibly
dull or so hopelessly immersed in things which
they can see and taste and smell, and which
therefore they take to be real, that they can
look up at the sky on a clear night of stars, or
feel the out-poured vigor of the sun, or catch
the odor of flowers fresh blown, or watch the
ebb and flow of life in a microscopic cell, with-
out a thought of the Power hidden behind the
1
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mere things seen. But I imagine that the
majority of men, on the rare occasions when
they really think, get, from the varied aspects
of nature, some inkling of law and order and
beauty, and have occasional fleeting impres-
sions that, hidden away behind material things,
there is something spiritual which is trying
with all its might to get a message across to
them. Many go so far as to think of this
"some thing" as "some One." The impression
is vague and momentary ; it doesn't amount to
much and it isn't of much use. But it repre-
sents a distinct effort on God's part, and it
would have a measure of success— has had, in-
deed, in rare instances, marked success — if
only the man would not immediately proceed to
hide himself from God's search in a fog of in-
difference or laziness, on the ground that, after
all, we are "men in a world of men," that the
daily struggle for subsistence is quite enough
to engage all the faculties of a normal man, and
that the bridge to any other life is to be crossed
when we get there. The truth is that Natural
Religion, as a revelation of God, may make its
appeal to some men all the time and to all men
some time, but, as an adequate expression of
God's passionate desire to convey to man a mes-
sage concerning Himself, it has proved a fail-
ure.
What is there left to be tried? What other
means are possible ? If the heavens themselves
fail to declare to men the glory of God; if men
2
The Failure of a Nation
decline to see, in the ordered course of the
firmament, any evidence of His handiwork; if
sunshine and rain, the ordered seasons, the
majesty of the sea, the infinite accuracy of
created adjustments, give to the average man
no thought of the wisdom and power and good-
ness of God, how can God make Himself
known? What avenue of approach can there
possibly be between pure spirit and that seem-
ingly indissoluble mixture of spirit and flesh
which we know as Man? How can man,
whether evolved from the beast or recovering
from a lapse into beast-hood, rise to a point
where he can see God for himself as not a
stranger?
Faced by this dilemma God brought to light
the greatest discovery of all time — that He
could and must use man as the means for
making Himself known to all mankind; in
other words, that He must find some human
being to whom He could reveal Himself, and
who, in turn, could pass the knowledge on to
others. The man so chosen must evidently
possess two qualifications — first, he must have
some unique spiritual capacity for receiving
God; secondly, he must value the revelation so
highly as to make it his business to tell others.
In the very early dawn of history such a
man appears. Before Abraham's time, there
appear to have been individual cases of men
to whom God was able to make Himself known
in some measure. But Abraham was the first
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who, having come to trust God, was willing to
surrender his life, and to leave home and coun-
try, "not knowing whither he went," in order
to conserve, for the benefit of his race, the
knowledge of God which he had received. He
was already an old man, judged by our stand-
ards; his knowledge of God was fragmentary
and incomplete ; he probably had his eyes fixed
quite as much on the temporal promises made
to him as on the rather vague and long-
deferred blessings predicted for his race; he
was by no means perfect morally; but he had
the one thing which God appears to deem es-
sential in His messengers — a capacity for be-
coming something worth while.
Where the man came from is uncertain, ex-
cept that it was somewhere in that wide region
on the northern confines of Babylonia between
the rivers Tigris and Euphrates and hence
known to us as Mesopotamia. What his ante-
cedents were we know only from a list of
names. But one fact stands out prominently —
he had received and cherished a true concep-
tion of the unity and personality of God.
Amid the polytheism and idolatry of Babylonia
and Egypt, this was a unique revelation. It
came to Abraham with an intensely personal
meaning, so much so that later God, through
the prophet Isaiah, speaks of "Abraham, my
friend." This recognition of the oneness of
God, this realization of God as a personal,
guiding, trustworthy Presence, was what set
4
The Failure of a Nation
Abraham apart from all who had preceded him,
from his contemporaries, and from the tribes
of Canaan among whom he eventually settled.
And because God saw in Abraham a capacity
for conserving this first successful attempt to
reveal His essential nature to a man, and a
further ability on Abraham's part to pass on
this new-found knowledge to "his children and
his household after him,,, in order that finally,
through Abraham's descendants holding fast
to this faith, its blessings should overflow to
"all the families of the earth" — for these rea-
sons God determined to separate this first mis-
sionary of His from the contaminating sur-
roundings of his own land and to plant him in
a distant, restricted and isolated region which,
after being purged of its idolatrous inhabitants,
might become for Abraham and his countless
descendants the fruitful seed-bed for further
revelations, culminating in a complete and final
revealing of Himself which should be man's
salvation to all eternity.
It was a plan in keeping with the all-seeing
wisdom of God; but its success depended abso-
lutely on man's cooperation. For God to reveal
Himself to man is one thing — and always pos-
sible. For God to force man to pass on the
revelation to some one else is quite another
thing — and always impossible so long as man
retains his God-given freedom of will. So it
was with Abraham's descendants. Selected,
isolated, protected, disciplined, enlightened by
5
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God Himself in order that they might become
His missionaries — the bearers of His messages
to the outside nations — the Jewish people saw
in His promises merely a one-sided compact of
which they were the beneficiaries, and in His
protection only the flattering evidence that
they were His chosen people because of their
"righteousness." As a people they seem to
have had no conception of the fact that if they
were really a nation selected out of all the
world, they had been so selected for a definite
purpose in which all nations were included ; or
that if they had been given even a partial
knowledge of God, it was with the sole object
of their sharing that knowledge with the whole
world. Their attitude of mind would appear
incredible were it not that precisely the same
mental attitude is characteristic of the Church
today as represented by the average Christian.
It is interesting to note how patiently God tried
to make His nature more and more clear to
this peculiarly dull-minded people, and how
wise and practical were His methods. First,
selecting one man in the person of Abraham,
He promised him, in return for obedience to
th« point of exile, a secure foothold on earth
and a multitude of descendants compacted into
one nation which should be a blessing to the
world. Between Abraham's immediate family
He made a selection, rejecting Hagar and her
son Ishmael as having no capacity for spiritual
development (a selection justified in the Edo-
6
The Failure of a Nation
mites and in the Midianites and the nomadic
Arabs of today), and choosing Isaac as the
vehicle of further revelation. Of Isaac's two
sons God chose one, and rejected the other,
again because of the fact, justified in the
events, that Esau was distinctly commonplace
and fit only to breed an earthy, unprogressive
race; while Jacob, with all his glaring faults,
did value spiritual things above material, and
was fit to breed a race of God-servers. The
revelation to Isaac is not on a much higher
level than it had been to his father, neverthe-
less so evident was it that he stood in a peculiar
relation with God that even the Philistine
chief, Abimelech, thought it the part of wisdom
to be on friendly terms with one with whom
God was plainly on friendly terms.
With Jacob the revelation proceeds apace.
The promises heard by him at Bethel are, it is
true, still distinctly material; but the impres-
sion made upon him in this vivid experience of
God's presence, as also later at the ford of
Jabbok, wras a profound and lasting one, full
of mysterious meaning but none the less real
for that. To Jacob such an experience as the
dream of a possible approach between heaven
and earth — between God and man — through
man — was a vision of what he — his people — the
world — might attain to through obedience to
a divine friend. To Esau such an experience
would have been merely a nightmare brought
on by over-indulgence in bean-pottage.
7
The Church's Life
In Jacob's large family of sons, some bet-
ter, some worse, appears the first evidence of
the fulfillment of God's promise to make of
Abraham's descendants a great nation, in num-
bers like the stars of heaven or the dust of
the earth, mighty and numerous in order to be
a spiritual force among the less developed peo-
ples of the world. How these sons stand re-
vealed in Jacob's final words to them! Insta-
bility, ungoverned passions, materialism, sloth,
falsity — such are the characteristics appearing
in this extraordinary family. But among the
twelve, two are found worthy of carrying on
the destiny of the race of Israel. Through the
obscure blessing pronounced on Judah — the
lawgiver, the object of praise, the masterful —
shine flashes of prophetic vision pointing to a
far-ofl time when the nations shall be united
in obedience to one divine authority. In the
outpouring of blessings upon Joseph appear the
compensating rewards attending persecution
and suffering borne steadfastly for the truth's
sake.
Both Judah and Joseph are men of force and
vision, but it is Judah alone who is worthy to
plant the stock from which, in the fullness of
time, should spring the supreme and ultimate
Revealer and Messenger of God.
Such was God's plan — such the foundations
on which He built His vast design of a world-
wide revelation of Himself to man through the
obedience, first of an individual, then of a na-
The Failure of a Nation
tion selected and commissioned — His "chosen
people/' Israel. To no race of men had ever
been given so vast an opportunity; no nation
had ever been so trained for an exalted mission
in the fulfillment of God's world-wide plan.
Yet never has there been in all history so tragic
a failure. The very means which God took to
make Himself known to the Jewish people be-
came the rock on which they foundered. His
almighty power revealed in awful majesty on
Sinai was interpreted in terms of protection
for themselves and destruction for their en-
emies. This universal love, of which they were
given countless evidences, was, in their minds,
narrowed and confined lest it might touch
others than themselves. His very presence, re-
vealed to them in glory, was localized ; and the
Creator of the universe, the Lover of all man-
kind, was moulded into the measure of a tribal
god inclosed within the material walls of taber-
nacle and temple to be worshipped and honored
by formal sacrifice and legal obedience, and
only then so long as He proved considerate of
their personal well-being and friendly to their
national aims. And surely this was not the
fault of God. By a great deliverance He had
freed them from bondage; but for what pur-
pose? With food from heaven He had fed
them in their wanderings, and brought them
into the land promised to their forbears and
had given them national greatness; but to
what end? In His love and wisdom He sent
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them messengers — poets, prophets, teachers.
Through these He warned, appealed, besought,
and threatened. But what was the meaning of
it all? It must be confessed that such ques-
tions had no interest for them, except as they
could be answered in terms of personal or
national blessing. Childishly self-complacent,
arrogantly provincial, they turned deaf ears
and blind eyes to the appeals and example of
God's messengers and, refusing to see that
they had been chosen, saved and given power
solely in order to fulfill the mission of making
God known to all the world, they precipitated
the very disasters from which they trusted
their God to deliver them. Time and again,
with unwearying patience, God showed the
Jews the inevitable consequences of their crim-
inal blindness and narrowrness, until at last
with two mighty strokes He drove them out
of their seclusion and dispersed them, agonized
and despairing, among their hated enemies of
Assyria (B. C. 722) and Babylonia (B. C.
586).
For a century and a half the Jews remained
in exile. Meantime Jerusalem had been de-
stroyed, and its walls levelled ; the Temple had
been burned. Thus not only was the center of
Jewish worship laid waste, and Jewish nation-
ality destroyed, but their reliance upon God as
their peculiar protector and deliverer had
proved false. Sad and tragic as the Babylo-
nian captivity was, it seems to have been the
10
The Failure of a Nation
only means by which God could make any im-
pression upon the hardened exclusiveness in
which the Jews had encased themselves. In
one way it worked well. They of the captivity
did come to look with loathing upon the religion
of their captors, and they returned to Palestine
in a chastened spirit, holding fast the concep-
tion of the unity of God, and thereby made fit
to serve once more as the vehicle of God's
further revelation of Himself to all the world.
Once more the phrase, "Hear, O Israel, the
Lord our God is one Lord," became the char-
acteristic expression of Jewish faith; once
more Israel saw itself as the servant and
messenger of the Most High.
The nation returned to its Holy Land to find
the latter a shrunken territory indeed. Galilee
— the ancient kingdom of Israel — had become
largely a Gentile colony ; Samaria to the south
was found to have been occupied by a mixed
race of Jews and Assyrian colonists who won
the bitter hatred of the orthodox by imitating,
in debased forms, the ancient religion of Juda-
ism, and by actually building a rival temple of
their own on Mount Gerizim. To the return-
ing Jews remained only the restricted area of
Judaea ; and here, with devout and concen-
trated energy, they set about restoring their
former capitol, rebuilding the sacred Temple,
and again enforcing the rediscovered Law. It
was as though God had, with undiscouraged
patience, again implanted in the minds of this
11
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recalcitrant people the fundamental truth about
Himself, and had determined to give them one
more chance to make that truth known to a
waiting world.
But history repeated itself. Once more the
Jew gradually returned to his tribal conception
of God, deliberately scorning his God-given
mission. The history of the centuries inter-
posed between the close of the Old Testament
record and the beginning of the New is a dim
and confused story of futile struggles for
Jewish independence and nationality, of selfish
withdrawals into themselves, of deepening
scorn for their neighbors, of steadily increas-
ing religious formality and legalism. The
average Jew of that time could, no more than
the average Churchman of today, see the hand
of God in his training, or hear the voice of God
in his mission, or realize the inevitable result
of his self-centered religion. The Jew, refus-
ing to be set free in order to bear a message,
slowly became forced into physical and mental
bondage. Slowly but inexorably the bonds of
foreign domination tightened about him until,
at the dawn of the Christian era, we find him
the despised subject of Rome, yet willfully un-
conscious of his bondage and of the tragic fact
that the glorious opportunity which was once
his had passed from his grasp forever.*
* See, in this connection, an admirable article by P. F.
Underhill, entitled "On the 'Failure of the Church'," in The
Holy Cross Magazine for June, 1920.
12
The Failure of a Nation
Here it would be well to pause for a moment
and consider the question whether what we
have been assuming as a fact is really so.
Was God's revelation of Himself to the Jews
ever meant to be universal ? Did He really in-
tend them to carry His message into all the
world? Was it in order to assure them of His
favor and goodness toward them that He gave
them the knowledge of Himself, or was it in
order that they might be His means of bless-
ing all the nations of the earth? In a word,
Does God believe in foreign missions, or not?
This is rather a crucial question because, if He
does, there are many Christians today who do
not agree with Him. Let us see, then, what the
great men of the Jewish Church thought about
this.
It is perhaps unnecessary to dwell upon those
prophecies which were at the very foundation
of that one family which God selected in order
to accomplish His purpose for the world. To
Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob Jehovah
promised that the knowledge of God which
had come to them should, through them, be a
blessing to all the nations of the earth (Cf.
Gen. 12:1-3; 26:4; 28:14). He swears by
Himself and by His very existence that the
whole earth shall, one day, be filled with His
glory (Num. 14:21). The poets of Israel,
having in mind the nature of God, are filled
with the glorious assurance that there is no
other possible objective in God's plan. It is im-
13
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possible to read the Psalms * without realizing
that, to the minds of the writers, the supremacy
of God, over-ruling the evil in the world, over-
throwing all opposition to His universal will
and His supreme authority throughout the
whole world, is a dominant note; and, more-
over, that there is equally present to their
minds the fact that this end is to be accom-
plished primarily through a realization, on the
part of the Jews themselves, that the mis-
sionary responsibility rests upon them, and
that they have, indeed, been set apart for that
purpose, through the fulfilling of which alone
they can confidently expect God's mercy and
blessing. "God be merciful to us and bless us,"
they cry; but only "that Thy way may be
known upon earth, Thy saving health among all
nations." Perhaps the most perfect expression
of this all-embracing expectancy is to be found
in the great hymn of Asaph, David's choir-
master, sung at the bringing up of the ark, and
its establishment in the tabernacle (i Chron.
16:8-36). It is the same with the great seers
of Israel. What they see most clearly, and
what they passionately long to make the people
see, is that Israel is intended to be a center of
light for all mankind, and that selfishly to
appropriate that light or carelessly to hide it
is to forfeit all claim to be the chosen of God.
It would be impossible in a brief space to re-
* See especially Psalms 2, 22 (latter portion), 45, 46, 67,
96, 97, 148.
14
The Failure of a Nation
view the message of the prophets, but through
all their writings sounds the eager, dreadful
cry against a people who had forsaken right-
eousness, scorned alike the promises and the
warnings of God, and, in seeking to monop-
olize the grace of God, had blinded themselves
to their high calling as a missionary people.
The Book of Deuteronomy sets before the
people the moral obligation of knowing and
keeping God's law. Its acceptance will inevi-
tably result in the outpouring of God's blessing ;
its rejection is, as inevitably, the source of
every misfortune. It is to be thought about,
talked about, written up in their houses, above
all it is to be taught to the children so as never
to be forgotten. Religious education was to
play a supremely important part in the family
life of the Jew — it was to be one of the greatest
expressions of his mission (C/.#Deut. 6:4-15;
11:18-21). And this was in order that the
active righteousness of the Jewish people might
be an example to all who came among them.
Solomon builds and dedicates a temple for
Jehovah. It is a place of worship primarily
for the Jew, but not alone for him. To it,
Solomon foresees, many will be attracted from
other lands — strangers, not people of Israel;
and for them he asks of God that when these
Gentiles recognize the power and beauty of
God as set forth visibly before them, He will
answer their prayers as He answers those of
His own people, that so "all the peoples of the
15
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earth may know Thy name and fear Thee"
( II Chron. 6 132, 33 ) . Long afterwards Isaiah,
too, sees the attractive power of a people
among whom God is truly worshipped. To
him, as to Solomon, the Temple is the natural
gathering-place for strangers; there they will
be accepted with their prayers and offerings,
"for mine house shall be called an house of
prayer for all peoples. The Lord God which '
gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet
will I gather others to him, beside his own
they are gathered" (Is. 56:7, 8).
Undoubtedly to both Solomon and Isaiah the
attractive power of the Temple and of the
worship of Jehovah had only one objective so
far as Gentiles were concerned. They were
thereby to be converted and brought into the
commonwealth of Israel. But, after all, was
not this ideal perfectly right and logical at the
time ? To the Jews alone of all people on earth
had been given "the oracles of God," they alone
were the chosen of God, only within the Jewish
Church was there safety and light through the
knowledge of God. To convert.the Gentiles to
Judaism was therefore the chief function of
the Jewish- people, and this Isaiah says can be
done and will be done by the manifest loyalty
of the people toward God's law and worship.
To this he urges them, not for themselves
within the covenant, but for the sake of those
outside. It was God's will that all nations
should have been brought to His Israel's light,
16
The Failure of a Nation
if only, alas, she had kept it burning (Is. 60:
1-3). This is the attracting power of loyalty
to God.
But that loyalty must have an out-reaching
expression as well. Not only must outsiders be
drawn in from all nations, but insiders must be
sent out to all nations. This too is part of the
message of the prophets. What is the Book
of Jonah but a parable setting forth the su-
preme obligation of the Jewish people toward
the heathen? God's plan is to draw all men
unto Himself to be united — Jew and Gentile
alike — in one great community over which God
Himself is King. In and through this "new
Israel" shall be given the complete and final
revelation of God. Even this final consumma-
tion the prophets appear to see dimly. It is too
small a task for the coming Messiah merely to
raise up the tribes of Jacob; He is to bring
salvation to the Gentiles throughout all the
world (Is. 49:5, 6). To Him— the "Root of
Jesus" — shall all nations seek (Is. 11:10).
Through Him the glory of the Lord is to be
revealed to all flesh (Is. 40:3-5).
With clear, though doubtless contracted
vision, Micah sees the day when God will be
recognized as the source and center of all law
and light, and when all nations shall seek Him
(Micah 4:1-3). To Daniel is shown a vision
of the time when all the kingdoms of the earth
and all human sovereignty shall give way to
the everlasting Kingdom of God (Dan. 2:44).
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Through Zephaniah, the Lord speaks His ulti-
mate purpose of bringing the peoples of the
earth to serve Him in unity of purpose (Zeph.
3:9). Zechariah pictures Jehovah as a man
arousing himself in order to bring many na-
tions to join themselves to the Lord and to
rejoice in His presence (Zech. 2:10-13).
Again he sees Jehovah as King over all the
earth, while from His presence flow forth, east
and west, His life-giving waters (Zech. 14:
8, 9). Finally, Malachi sees the "one far-off
divine event'' as already present — the ultimate
purpose of God already fully accomplished.
"From the rising of the sun even unto the
going down of the same my name is great
among the Gentiles ; and in every place incense
and a pure oblation are offered unto my name :
for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith
the Lord of Hosts" (Mai. 1:11).
Such is the trumpet-call of the prophets of
Israel sounding in the dull ears of their people;
by such appeals do they strive to arouse the
Jewish Church from its self-complacency and
apathy. Obedience — Loyalty — High Example
— Out-going Activity — Zeal for God and His
Church — these are the notes of their call.
"Mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou
hast prepared before the face of all people;
a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of
thy people Israel." So, in the fullness of time,
did a priest of God sum up the message of the
prophets. "A light to lighten the Gentiles"!
18
The Failure of a Nation
Had the Jews but seen the determinate will and
purpose of God, what glory would have been
theirs today!
Three other features of the prophets' mes-
sage should be noted. The Jew had a respon-
sibility covering not only Religious Education
and World-wide Evangelization, but toward
Social Service as well. For this mission he
had been given the most careful preparation.
His code of moral and social law, his rules of
hygiene, were perfect so far as they went. He
had been taught his responsibility toward all
others of his own race. Nevertheless, by the
time of the prophets, he had forgotten many
of these lessons. As in our own social system
today, pride of wealth and position, oppression,
greed, injustice, had dulled the feeling of
brotherhood. Against these sins the prophets
fulminated. Their warnings have a familiar
sound in our ears. It is vain, they say, to
attempt to serve God acceptably by sacrifices
and offerings and worship, when all the time
injustice and evil-doing characterize your rela-
tions toward one another. The sight of you
among the nations, so far from winning the
Gentiles, can only serve to repel them from
you and from your God. "Seek judgment, re-
lieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead
for the widow." Only so can your scarlet sins
be washed out clean (Is. 1:16-18). Again,
"Make thy shadow as the night in the midst of
the noonday" (how cool that sounds in a torrid
19
The Church's Life
climate !). "Let mine outcasts dwell with thee"
(Is. 16:3, 4). As to formal observances, surely
self-discipline and self-sacrifice are not ends
in themselves. Rather are they the means
which enable you to have time and spirit to
check oppression and to break evil bonds;
ability and desire to feed hungry people and to
provide poor people with shelter (Is. 58:5-7).
It is Isaiah, too, who sees and points out the
merciful character of the longed-for Messiah,
which if the people will only show forth now
they shall be so blessed of the Lord that all
nations shall take notice (Is. 61:1, 2; 8, 9).
Indeed the mercy and righteousness of God,
reflected in the behavior of His people toward
one another, is not for them alone; for all
nations await the reign of righteousness, and
the servant of God shall not fail nor be dis-
couraged until justice is established throughout
the world (Is. 42:1-4). Secondly, we should
note how the prophets emphasize personal re-
sponsibility in the discharge of the world-wide
mission. Perhaps the most solemn of all their
appeals to personal service is voiced by Ezekiel.
The watchman on the walls has an individual
responsibility; in sounding the warning of the
enemy's approach he discharges that respon-
sibility. So when God warns the wicked,
through His watchman, and His watchman is
quick to give the warning, he has performed
his duty; but if he fails, he is guilty of the
death of the wicked. This is the equal justice
20
The Failure of a Nation
of God (Ezek. 33). Isaiah enforces the duty
of personal service in a similar way. Jehovah
has set watchmen on the walls of His city —
they are the "Lord's remembrancers/' to bring
the things of the Lord to the minds of others.
"Take ye no rest, and give him no rest, till
he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a
praise in the earth. " Righteousness going
forth as brightness, and salvation as a lamp
that burnetii — this is the objective of the
Lord's remembrancers, for they have seen His
righteousness ; they have experienced His sal-
vation (see Is. 62:1-2, 6-7). It is to those
who, in personal service, are thus faithful to
their trust that Jehovah promises a glory
never to be dimmed. "They that teach others
shall shine as the brightness of the firma-
ment; and they that turn many to righteous-
ness as the stars for ever and ever" (Dan.
12:3).
Thirdly, Ezekiel saw very clearly a fact
which is quite as evident to us today. At the
time he wrote, the Jews had become widely
scattered. Ezekiel himself, while still a young
man, had witnessed the overthrow of the King-
dom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, and had
been one of the multitude deported to Babylon
where, for the remainder of his life, he shared
the fortunes of the Jewish exiles. As a prom-
inent member of the colony thus placed in the
midst of a heathen population, he had abundant
opportunity to note how inadequately his fel-
21
The Church's Life
low-exiles bore witness to their religion. Had
they shown faithfulness to their God, they
would have proved the "leaven to leaven the
whole lump" of Babylonian idolatry (Cf.
Ezek. 36:23, last clause). As it was, however,
they had proved anything but faithful. Indeed
God's judgment against them is that they had
profaned His holy name to such an extent that
the Babylonians themselves scorned them for
their inconsistency and taunted them and their
God. These, they mocked, are the people
of the mighty Jehovah, a god unable even to
keep them in His own land (Ezek. 36:20,
21). Today Christians are scattered all over
the known world. Colonies of baptized busi-
ness people from a Christian land are to be
found in every great center of heathendom.
Are they faithful in worship and witness ? Are
they conscious of their missionary responsi-
bility, or do they not rather bring scorn, by life
and example, upon their religion, "profaning
the holy name among the nations whither they
went"? No man on earth has quite the mis-
sionary opportunity of the Christian man of
affairs in a heathen country, unless it be the
Christian on his summer holiday in rural dis-
tricts; yet one would almost say that by none
other is the opportunity more fatally neg-
lected. One can only fall back on God's as-
surance through Ezekiel that, notwithstanding
the disloyalty of His own people, He is deter-
mined to sanctify His great name among the
22
The Failure of a Nation
nations, and make them know that He is the
LORD.
This, then, is the message of the great poets
and prophets of Israel. God revealed Himself
to the Jewish people not for their own sake,
but in order that, through them, His revela-
tion might be made known to all nations. By
every conceivable means He tried to show them
the glorious opportunity. Time and time
again He showed it to them, but as often as
He showed it so often did they turn their backs
on it.
Then, at last, when His plan for revealing
Himself to man had been thwarted by man's
own will, God put forth the supreme effort of
determined love. "For us men and for our
salvation, He came down from heaven, and
was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin
Mary, and was made man." These are the
words in which you and I express, week by
week, the stupendous fact. That any wholly
human being could serve as the revealer of God
had proved a vain hope, but in the Son of God
become man, the divine and human blend in
one. In His divine nature Jesus Christ per-
fectly apprehends God and becomes the mirror
of God, looking into which we see God; in His
human nature He is one with us, and adapts
His revelation to our capacity to receive it.
Looking upon Him, we know what God is like.
And on this basis God formed a new creation
— a race of twice-born men, possibly as dis-
23
The Church's Life
tinct from and as far above ordinary men in
the scale of being as the latter are distinct
from and above the lower creation. The mem-
bers of this new race derive their life directly
from Christ the Living One; from them God
builds up His Family, His Church. He loves
to call them His "new Israel," for through
them He plans to make Himself known to all
men everywhere. To them He entrusts His
message. To them He gives a mission. "Go
ye," said the Son of God, "into all the world,
and proclaim the good news."
God has done His part, He has taken the
last step possible. It rests with us, the mem-
bers of His Church, as to whether again His
plans miscarry, or whether, faithful to our
trust, we carry our new life to those not yet
reborn, whether close at hand or in the utter-
most parts of the earth.
24
CHAPTER II
A CHOSEN GENERATION
Perhaps enough has been said in the pre-
vious chapter to indicate two facts: first, that
God has a message to man which He is keenly
interested in having delivered; and, secondly,
that, failing natural means, He has resorted
to human agency. The message is no less than
the revelation of Himself. His plan has been
to reveal Himself first to one carefully selected
man of spiritual capacity to receive the revela-
tion; then, from him, to build up a people,
chosen, isolated, disciplined, instructed, blessed;
in order that, through them, the message might
be carried everywhere. The man was Abra-
ham, the people, Israel, God's ancient Church.
The plan proved successful in only small
measure. Abraham and his immediate de-
scendants— Isaac and Jacob — developed great
spiritual capacity, and had their descendants
shown a like spirit, there is no knowing how
far the Jewish people might have progressed
as messengers of God to all the world. Unfor-
tunately the spiritual history of the race proved
an ever-darkening sky in which appear, only
here and there, a few planets of the first mag-
nitude. Such men as Joshua, Samuel, David,
25
The Church's Life
Elijah, a few of the kings, all of the great
prophets — these men shine out as brilliant
examples of faithfulness. But on the whole it
must be acknowledged that so far as the Jews,
as a people, were concerned, they failed to
fulfill the purpose for which God had set them
apart. To this general statement, certain ex-
ceptions should be noted. First, the Jew early
seized upon and held with unshakable tenacity
the conception of the personality and unity of
God; to this fact he testified vigorously and
universally. Secondly, he preserved with scru-
pulous care the sacred writings of his seers,
which writings have come down to us as an
inestimably precious heritage. For these two
facts the world owes to the Jew more than it
can ever repay. Thirdly — most important of
all — there did develop among the Jews a spir-
itual capacity which God could seize upon for
the fulfillment of His ultimate purpose in the
final revelation of Himself to man. The
crowning glory of the Jewish race, as it is the
culmination of its tragedy, is that it was a
people worthy to bring the Christ to birth, but
unable to recognize Him when He appeared
among them.
The New Testament introduces us to God's
supreme venture of love. Again He chooses
a man, but now it is the incarnation of Himself,
in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. To Him
He entrusts the perfect revelation of Himself;
to Him He gives the task of begetting a new
26
A Chosen Generation
race — a new Israel — a new Church — built up,
not as before, from one nation, but from all
nations and tongues, Jew and Gentile, rich and
poor, with no distinctions among themselves,
but distinguished from all others by their son-
ship toward God, their knowledge of Him, and
their determination to make that knowledge
world-wide. So the Christian Church arises
as God's messenger like the Jewish Church of
old, but having this supreme advantage, that
she is born of One divinely human and humanly
divine, able perfectly to receive and perfectly
to impart the complete revelation of God, and
able further to make of His Church a trust-
worthy witness, proclaiming God's message to
all men everywhere, and thus fulfilling her
mission. Such being the case, the mission of
the Church — her reason for existence — be-
comes a matter of very serious concern to
every one of her members. For surely if a
message from God to man is of any value at
all, it is the one thing in human experience
which is really vital, not only for the world to
come but for this world. It is literally, as we
shall see later, a matter of life and death. The
message itself is supremely worth while, there-
fore it is equally worth while to consider very
carefully what that message is and what it
involves. And here let me say in passing that
there are very many people who, though they
have been made members of the Church by
Baptism, are quite unconscious of any special
27
The Church's Life
benefit which has accrued to them thereby and
naturally therefore feel no desire or obligation
toward others in regard to it. Having little
in the way of faith or of the knowledge of
God, which is of any real use to themselves,
why should they want to pass it on? With
such I have no quarrel. Their religion — what
there is of it — is merely a decoration, a super-
fluity, it involves no issues to themselves, it
entails no privilege or responsibility toward
others. Why should it ? They fail to see that
the Church has a mission, they are "not inter-
ested in missions" ; therefore, for them, any
consideration of the subject is dull and aimless.
But there are others to whom God is real,
religion vital, faith uplifting. These have
something worth sharing. Yet, for one reason
or another, largely through lack of thought
and knowledge, they have never been led to see
the enormous significance of "missions." They
have listened to "missionary" addresses; they
have been periodically stirred to give some-
thing— not much — to "missions"; they have
possibly heard of The Spirit of Missions; but
they have never really taken in the fact that
the Church's mission has a very vital relation
to themselves. Their attitude is like that of
the boy at one of our Church Schools. His
father, visiting the school on a certain occa-
sion, met the master of mathematics, and in
the course of conversation remarked, "My
son, I believe, took algebra with you last year."
28
A Chosen Generation
"Yes," replied the master somewhat quizzi-
cally; "but I shouldn't put it that way. He was
exposed to it, but he never took it." It is for
such persons that this book is written. They
should be interested and active in the Church's
mission.
I say "The Church's Mission" rather than
"Missions." And this because the latter word,
whatever it meant a hundred years ago, has
come to mean to the average layman something
far smaller than the cause it represents. A
palm tree and, standing under it, a tall indi-
vidual in black coat, white tie and top hat, and,
in the background, a crouching cannibal — isn't
this the picture that rises before the mind of
the average man upon hearing the word "Mis-
sions"? Similarly a "missionary" is usually
thought of as a peculiar person who feels called
to go and "preach the gospel to the heathen";
the whole conception being based on a mis-
understanding of what is meant by "the gos-
pel," and the equally mistaken idea that, in
order to see a "heathen," what is needed is a
telescope, when, as a matter of fact, the naked
eye, or even a looking-glass may serve the pur-
pose admirably. Then, too, the words which
suit the usual mental picture of "Missions,"
and have had their share in accentuating a
totally inadequate conception, are those of the
familiar "missionary" hymn,
"From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand,
29
The Church's Life
Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand:"
The words are rightly endeared to many people,
but the trouble with them is that while they
mention several places with which most of us
have no conceivable contact, which we have
never seen and never expect to see, they say
nothing of New York or Omaha or San Fran-
cisco or any other place where you and I live,
and where, therefore, you and I, as members
of a Church with a mission, have a message
to give.
The word "Missions" also gives the unfor-
tunate impression that there are all kinds of
missions, and therefore all sorts of messages.
Consequently the average layman has come to
speak of "foreign missions'* and "domestic
missions" and "diocesan missions" and "paro-
chial missions" ; and, worse still, he even picks
and chooses among these, and states, some-
times, as though he were perfectly reasonable,
that he believes in one kind but not in another.
Of course this is stupid, and could have been
largely avoided if only we Churchmen had all
been taught, from childhood up, that the one
Church has one mission, which is to carry a
message received from God and to deliver it
to every man, woman and child within reach —
to John Smith around the corner in my town,
quite as much as to John Chinaman in Hankow,
and vice versa.
Of course it may be said in reply to this,
30
A Chosen Generation
that we have come to use the words "missions"
and "missionaries" in a special sense just as
we speak of the sun's "rising" and "setting,"
though we know perfectly well that the sun
does nothing of the kind. But the two cases
are not parallel. It makes no practical differ-
ence to us whether the sun rises in the morning
or whether the earth turns round to meet it;
we wake up and go to work just the same. But
when we speak of "missions" and "missiona-
ries" and limit the words to a special and pecu-
liar type of far-off work or workers, we pro-
duce a wrong impression, and do practical
harm to the cause of Christ and to the general
sense of personal responsibility toward the
Church's mission.
What, then, is the Church's mission, and
what does it involve ? Let us consider the sec-
ond question first. Suppose I am busy at my
desk and want to see Mr. Jones presently. I
say to my secretary, "I want to see Mr. Jones
of 30 Main Street here or at his office an hour
from now." This is sufficient if my secretary
has ordinary intelligence. He at once does
something — goes, writes, telephones or hires a
messenger-boy. Of course he goes himself in
case other duties permit; but in any case he
doesn't sit still and take no action. He has a
mission to perform, and evidently the discharge
of that mission involves personal activity of
some sort. The word "mission" implies activ-
ity— doing something. When we speak of
31
The Church's Life
activity in connection with the Church's mis-
sion, we do not of course mean only moving
about. There are many kinds of activity other
than physical. One of the most efficient mis-
sionaries I ever knew was a bed-ridden woman.
She read about the Church's work and work-
ers ; she prayed for them ; her hands and brain
were constantly active on their behalf. Her
activity, constantly exercised, was of mind and
hands. I know of another who, in the course
of her latter fifty years, had amassed a for-
tune of 1 08 godchildren, with every one of
whom she kept in touch at monthly intervals
and every one of whom was active in Church
work. Her own activity as a missionary was
of the letter-writing variety, and who can
measure its value ? Again, there is the activity
of putting one's hand into one's purse and
taking it out again with the wherewithal to
further the Church's mission. Very different
kinds of activity, these; but all exceedingly
valuable.
But the discharge of a mission implies some-
thing besides activity. There must also be the
delivery of a message. Mere activity is not
sufficient. My secretary must see to it that by
some means Mr. Jones gets my message and
gets it in time. It would be quite useless for
him merely to walk to 30 Main Street and then
walk back. He must, in some way, either di-
rectly or indirectly, accomplish his object.
32
A Chosen Generation
Secondly, then, a mission implies the delivery
of a message.
These facts are true of the Church's mis-
sion as of every other mission. They apply to
every member of the Church. Every baptized
person has a specific message which he is called
upon to deliver to one specific person or pos-
sibly to many. It devolves upon him to take
some direct action without delay. For it must
be quite plain that if the gospel is really what
it claims to be — good news — much is involved
in its announcement. Thus, in order to be
"news" it must be taken to those who are either
ignorant or unappreciative of it; to be "good
news" it must be news the acceptance of which
adds to the joy of living; and in order to be
of use, as a matter of life and death, it must
be brought in time. A messenger bearing
abundant food to a starving man is of little
use if he delays his mission and arrives only
after the man has starved to death.
Thirdly, if a man has a message to deliver,
it is essential that he know precisely what that
message is. It is not so necessary for him to
determine just how he is to get the message
across; but he must, at least, know what the
message is about.
What, then, is God's message to the world?
The simplest way is to go straight to the Gos-
pels— the record of the Great Messenger Him-
self. A message appears very early in His
active ministry, indeed even before His min-
33
The Church's Life
istry began ; for John the Baptist heralded His
coming by the statement, "Repent ye; for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand. Make straight
the way of the Lord" ( St. Matt. 3 : 1 -2 ; St. John
1:23). This announcement appears to have
been an important one in the mind of Christ,
for as soon as John is no longer able to pro-
nounce it publicly, He adopts it as His own
preliminary message to the world (St. Mark
1:14, 15). And surely there are abundant
signs that the Kingdom of God is today nearer
at hand than ever before in the world's history.
God seems to have used even war to further
His own ends. The determined efforts toward
moral and social reforms throughout Christen-
dom— efforts sometimes ill-directed and exag-
gerated it may be, but none the less earnest;
the suppression of "the people that delight in
war"; the saner forms of social unrest; the
vast swing of all civil government toward de-
mocracy; the growing passion for Christian
unity ; the increasing coordination of Christian
forces ; the rapid spread of the Gospel in pagan
lands, attaining, in some cases, the proportions
of mass movements — what are all these but
steps in the drawing nigh of God's Kingdom?
Never was there a time when that declaration,
made by the great Messenger of God so long
ago, seemed nearer its fulfillment. But, as a
preparation for that fulfillment, God calls man
to repentance. Because the Kingdom is nearer
than ever before, the deeper is the need for
34
A Chosen Generation
men to examine themselves and their motives of
conduct, and, wherever they have offended
against righteousness, to repent and be con-
verted— to turn around and take the opposite
course.
The whole trouble with the world today is,
as it always has been, that the Church is not
producing a sufficient supply of visible and
effective righteousness to go round. This in
turn is due to the fact that there are not enough
Christians working overtime at producing more
Christians. Hence, the coming of the King-
dom of God on earth lags. This might be
illustrated by a simple analogy. We are all
painfully aware of the fact that if we need a
new pair of shoes we have to pay two or three
times as much as we paid for the same quality
five years ago. Why ? Because there are not
shoes enough to go round. But wThy is the
supply so short? One reason may be that the
shoemakers who worked overtime during the
war are now experiencing the let-down that
every worker feels after a period of unusual
energy, and they have made up their minds to
limit their hours of work; therefore fewer
shoes are produced, and up goes the price. It
is much the same with us Christians. The
objective of the war was to overthrow the rule
of might and to substitute for it the rule of
right ; to this end — surely a righteous end — we
all worked overtime. But the moment the
armistice was signed we all experienced a les-
35
The Church^ Life
sening of morale and began to congratulate
ourselves on the fact that we could now take
a rest, or at 'least that we were justified in
diverting our thoughts and energies to the less
serious concerns which we delighted in before
the war startled us into the consciousness that
we were in fearful danger of seeing the law
of might actually put into effect the world over,
and that we must stop the process at all costs.
The blind folly of such an easeful course is
becoming more and more apparent. The war
proved a mighty stimulus to the effort to pro-
duce more righteousness and peace in the
world, but now all sorts of new unrighteous-
nesses are cropping up ; the world is in turmoil
and its peace is threatened in all directions;
wide-spread discontent is apparent, and the
discontented appear to be again prepared to
invoke the old law of might in order to gain
their ends. The truth is that the greatest
dangers inherent in war are not those existing
during the actual hostilities when a great cause
keeps fighters and workers keyed up to high
endeavor and limitless sacrifice, but rather
those characteristic of the aftermath of war
when the stimulus is gone and men are tired
of struggling even for the right. It is the
period of reconstruction, such as that we are
now in the midst of, which really tries men's
souls. What else brought on the war, what
else explains conditions in the world now that
the war is over, except the fact that the visible
36
A Chosen Generation
supply of righteousness has never equalled the
demand — that there have never been enough
real Christians? And the remedy?
Well, in the case of shoes, the remedy for
the inadequate supply is to be found only in
making more shoes. To this end every shoe-
maker must work harder ; he might even devote
part of his time to teaching some one else how
to be a shoemaker. Not shorter hours than
during the war, but longer ; not less work, but
more and of a better quality. Precisely the
same is it with us Christians. The present is
no time for relaxing effort or shirking work.
Righteousness and peace are scarce commod-
ities today, the cost of producing Christians is
high, the supply short. (The crowning trag-
edy of the war was that it destroyed Christians
and non-Christians indiscriminately, thereby
decreasing the already too scanty supply.)
What is needed on the part of Christians is
not less work, but more and of a better quality
than ever; not less determination to make the
law of right supreme, but more. The job of
every Christian at this present moment is
surely to devote part of his time to showing
some one else how to be a Christian. We have
seen the actual good which God brought out
of the war, but let us remember that while God
does overrule and bless man's efforts to pro-
mote His cause on earth, inadequate though
these efforts may be, He cannot overrule for
The Church's Life
good man's sheer indifference and laziness, or
even his "faintness in well doing."
But to return to our theme of God's mes-
sage. However much our Lord, throughout
His ministry, dwelt on the teaching of the
Kingdom, this was rather the result of the
accepted message than the message itself. The
latter is found, in its most succinct form, in
those words which are perhaps more univer-
sally familiar than any others in the Gospel:
"God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him,
should not perish, but have everlasting life"
(St. John 3:16). Could any announcement
open up more marvelous vistas of possibility;
could the divine will for man be more per-
fectly expressed ? Note the outstanding words :
;'God," "loved," "world," "gave," "life." Here
is the clarion announcement of the redemption
of all mankind ; here also is the whisper to the
individual soul — "whosoever believeth."
This, then, is the fundamental, primary mes-
sage of God through Christ. We may be able
neither to understand it nor to explain it, but
we can receive, believe and announce it. In-
deed, as Christians, we can do no less. The
disciples certainly had no conception of its
meaning; it dawned upon them only as the
weeks drew to months and the months to years.
Nevertheless note how their Lord used these
men — untrained, without understanding — as
His messengers. Presently, when the impos-
38
A Chosen Generation
sibility of His reaching large numbers of peo-
ple personally becomes apparent, he chooses
first twelve and later seventy of his followers.
He tells them to proclaim the approach of the
Kingdom, but, more than that, He gives to
these ignorant, uninformed, men spiritual
power to such a degree that the results astound
them. And this, simply because they were
willing to place themselves in His hands, to
step out regardless of their self-evident unfit-
ness, asking no questions, urging no excuses.
Why can't Christian men and women show a
like spirit today? Why will they sit down and
manufacture excuses, when Jesus Christ has
come to them as closely as, for example, in the
Blessed Sacrament, and bids them show at
least some form of activity as His messengers?
For remember, those early disciples, whatever
they lacked, had the one essential quality —
they were "willing in the day of God's power."
Moreover, they learned through their experi-
ence itself. They doubtless expected no great
results in themselves or others; but at their
Lord's command they tried the experiment,
and, like the crew of fishermen later, they re-
turned elated, strengthened and blessed. Try
it you who are shrinking, doubtful of your
own ability, satisfied to remain inactive ! Note
this also for your encouragement: In the case
of the Seventy, at least, the Lord followed
them, going to each place which they visited,
39
The Church's Life
no doubt correcting their mistakes, certainly
reenforcing their message.
But let us go a step farther in discovering
God's message and method. Occasionally be-
fore the close of the Gospel narrative, almost
always later, we find that these messengers
heretofore called "disciples" — learners, are
given a new title — "Apostles" — men sent.
This is significant, for if a man is sent it must
be with a purpose, and if we can find the pur-
pose we shall also probably find the message.
Pass from the Gospels to the Acts, noting by
the way that it was only after Christ's physical
presence was withdrawn from the disciples
that they are commonly called Apostles. It
is as if He knew that He could now depend
upon them to bear the message as He had
borne it, to be sent as He was sent. Indeed He
knew that it was better, for the wider procla-
mation of God's message, that His physical
presence, with its limitations, should be with-
drawn and that they should be left to other
guidance in the task of proclaiming the mes-
sage, increasing the number of messengers,
and building up the Church to accomplish what
He had begun (St. John 16:7-14). What,
then, was the purpose for which the Apostles
were sent ? It is very plainly stated — "Ye shall
be witnesses unto me" (Acts 1:8). Consider
the word witness. It has two meanings as
commonly used. It may have the meaning to
see an occurrence ; or it may mean to bear testi-
40
A Chosen Generation
mony to something known or experienced.
Every lawyer is familiar with this latter use
of the word. I may say, "I witnessed a display
of Northern Lights last night." You may
doubt it. I reply, "But I am ready to bear wit-
ness to the fact that I witnessed it."
Now what was it that these disciples had
witnessed or seen — an event of such a stupen-
dous character that they could not help bearing
testimony at once to the fact? In other words,
what was their immediate message after the
Day of Pentecost, and what relation did it bear
to their Lord's message to the world? The
fact was evidently the Resurrection. They had
seen their Lord done to death beyond all doubt ;
equally beyond all doubt, they had seen Him
risen from the dead. It was an astounding
fact, unique in human experience. If even to
the disciples, duly warned beforehand to expect
the Resurrection, the event appeared beyond
belief, it was doubly necessary that it be abso-
lutely proven for the sake of those who should
come after. No wonder, therefore, that when,
owing to Judas Iscariot's treason and suicide,
it became at once advisable to choose some one
to take his place, only one requirement ap-
peared essential ! It must be one who, like the
Eleven, had witnessed the Resurrection (Acts
i :22). This was the fact to which they were
all to bear witness, and therefore it was this,
rather than repentance, or the coming of the
Kingdom, or even God's announcement of His
41
The Church's Life
love, which became the center and core of their
first preaching. Many deductions were drawn
from this great fact, but St. Peter's first ad-
dress to the people has for its fundamental
theme the certainty of the Lord's Resurrection
and continued life. Their message was that,
in one case at least, and to their certain knowl-
edge, death was vanquished and eternal life
proved possible.
But possibly this case was a unique one. It
may be objected that Jesus Christ rose from
the dead because He was God, and that there-
fore His Resurrection has no significance for
us ordinary men. To this it may be replied
that to the disciples certainly this explanation
never presented itself. They had seen Him
live as a man, be tempted as a man, suffer as
a man, die as a man; and now they had seen
Him rise from the dead as a man. An ordi-
nary man? No. But the kind of man which
every human being has the privilege of becom-
ing when he is made a son of God. While the
writers of the New Testament nowhere teach
the inherent immortality of man as such, they
do teach constantly that eternal life becomes
the possession of every man new-born into
God's family, and kept in touch with the life
of God in Christ.
But there was still another message — an-
other reason for testimony. "Ye shall be wit-
nesses unto me," their Lord had said. Who
was it whom they had seen, and lived with and
42
A Chosen Generation
known through three years of close intimacy?
St. John, the Apostle of deepest insight into the
true nature of Him whom he loved so pro-
foundly, gives the answer. "The Word of
life," he calls Him (i John 1:1). There is no
doubt of whom he is speaking. The phrase
instantly recalls the prologue of his Gospel —
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. ... In
him was life" (St. John i n-4). And turning
again to the epistle, we read, "The life was
manifested, and we have seen it, and bear wit-
ness, and show unto you that eternal life''
( 1 John 1:2). This was the Being whom their
eyes had looked upon, whom their hands had
handled, of whom they had had a personal
experience. It was to Him that they were to
bear witness; and He was "the Word" — the
expression — of God Himself. Was not this
precisely what He had said of Himself in the
days when they had failed to understand?
"He that hath seen me hath seen the Father"
(St. John 14:9). They had seen God in the
flesh; so far as human minds can apprehend
God, they knew, by experience, what God was
like; and, best of all, they could tell others.
Here, surely, was a message worth telling to
men groping for God in the dark, if haply they
might feel after Him and find Him. And how
about ourselves who, though not having seen
Him, yet have believed; who have before us
the record of His life and words ; who can turn
43
The Church's Life
to that record and see in it a perfect picture
of what God is like? Then, having mastered
every detail of that picture, how can we resist
the insistent call to show it to others, even to
one other, and thus dispel the gloom of those
who, consciously or unconsciously, are in that
most desperate and heart-breaking of condi-
tions, "without Christ, having no hope, and
without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12)?
Finally, let us see the climax of the whole
message of those first Apostles. We have seen
how eagerly and insistently they dwelt upon
the message of the Resurrection — of the vic-
tory of life — a message to an ignorant, dying
world. We have seen, too, how, having seen
God in the flesh, having heard Him and lived
with Him and been taught by Him, having
experienced His love and pity and sympathy
and patience and majesty, they were in a posi-
tion to tell all men what God was like. One
thing only remained: from their contact with
the ever-living Christ, they became aware of a
new life in themselves. Somehow the Christ
was able to transmit His own indestructible,
unending life to others. I don't mean to say
that this was realized at once. Indeed the fact,
though witnessed to by every one of them
whose testimony we have, is not fully and gen-
erally grasped even today. Yet the testimony
is perfectly plain. Let us examine it.
To the biologist, one fact is incontrovertible.
No created being possesses inherent life. Life
44
A Chosen Generation
is an endowment of all organized beings, from
the lowliest up to man, but it is a transient
endowment. It may be short, or it may outlast
centuries, but sooner or later death intervenes,
life vanishes, and the creature returns to the
elements of which it was composed. In God
alone — the Source of life — the I AM — the
Everlasting One — is life inherent. What then
is this that Jesus Christ says of Himself ? "As
the Father hath life in himself; so hath he
given to the Son to have life in himself" (St.
John 5 126). It is one of those quiet statements
of fact such as our Lord was constantly mak-
ing about Himself, only to be as constantly
misunderstood because of the implications im-
possible at first to grasp, and therefore, as
many modern teachers would have us believe,
to be explained away somehow. And doubtless
some of His similar statements are open to such
interpretation. "I and my Father are one."
Is there not a sense in which a similar oneness
exists between a truly married husband and
wife? Or take the saying previously quoted,
"He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."
St. John later recognized its full meaning; but,
after all, might it not mean merely that, in
character, Christ more nearly resembled the
imagined divine ideal than has any other
human being? And so with the other claims
of Christ. But how about this, of inherent
life? Read it again. The statement is very
direct; the words perfectly simple. But how
45
The Church's Life
stupendous the claim ! No less than the claim
to have in Himself inherent, indestructible,
communicable life, in the same degree and
measure as has the Eternal God, Creator of all
things visible and invisible. Explain it away
if you can! Reject it if you like! But there
it stands for every Christian to accept with all
its implications. If proof be needed over and
above His own word, it is found in the Resur-
rection. His life had so strong and inherent
a quality as to be invincible even in the pres-
ence of Death.
Nor, as we have just seen, is this all. The
Apostles certainly believed and taught that
this ever-living Christ is able to communicate
to otherwise mortal human beings His own
inherent, indestructible, eternal life. Indeed
He Himself gives this assurance: "Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my
word, and believeth him that sent me, hath
eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but
hath passed out of death into life" (St. John
5 124) . Here is held out, not some future hope,
but a present reality — not "shall have," but
"hath" eternal life— not "shall pass" out of
death, but "hath passed." How well St. John
realized eternal life as an accomplished fact
in himself and others who had touched the
Living One! "God gave unto us," he writes
years later, "eternal life, and this life is in his
Son. He that hath the Son hath the life; he
that hath not the Son of God hath not the life"
46
A Chosen Generation
(i John 5:11, 12). There is no message worth
giving unless Christ rose from the dead (1
Cor. 15:14). The message of the Resurrec-
tion lacks point unless, because He lives, we
also live (St. John 14:19). It was not so
much a proof of His deity as an assurance of
invincible life to all who are in union with Him.
So our Lord sums up the objective of His
mission in words fraught with a glorious op-
portunity for all the sons of men in every phase
of existence — "I came that they may have life,
and may have it more abundantly" (St. John
10:10). No darkest corner of earth is beyond
the reach of that shining message; no aspect
of human life need remain untouched by it.
This is the objective of "missions"; in these
terms we may find the perfect definition of
that ill-used word.
Tremendous as is the responsibility thus en-
tailed upon us Christians, the privilege is no
less. Eternal life is our possession. For us
death has no terrors. Yet all about us are men
and women who have not the life, and who, as
the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews ex-
presses it, are "through fear of death, all their
lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. 2:15).
From the African savage with his fetich
against the ubiquitous powers of evil and death,
to the modern man of super-civilized terror of
germs, the majority of mankind — of our own
acquaintances — exist under the shadow of
fearful death, and spend their hours guarding
47
The Church's Life
against its insidious approach. But for the
Christian there is no death, only a momentary
falling asleep when his limited work is done
and he is ready to continue that work else-
where, free and unhampered; 'Tor the law of
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me
free from the law of sin and death" (Rom.
8:2). Under the power of such an assurance,
other promises of the Master of Life become
realized. Anxiety and worry in the present,
uncertainty and fear regarding the future —
these curses of modern life which drive men
and women into premature old age— are super-
seded by their direct opposites. 'These things
have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be
in you, and that your joy may be fulfilled (com-
plete)" (St. John 15:11). "Peace I leave with
you; my peace I give unto you" (St. John 14:
27). "These things have I spoken unto you,
that in me ye may have peace" (St. John 16:
33). What more could we want? What
greater assurance of happiness could we
imagine? The fear of death gone forever;
life eternal our possession here and now; all
anxiety dissipated ; peace and joy our portion.
This seems to me the crowning message of
God, through Christ, to a world in desperate
need of just what the message promises.
If this be true, it follows that what our Lord
says about a new birth, and the expression
used by St. Paul to describe Christians, are
literal facts. "Except a man be born anew
48
A Chosen Generation
(from above), he cannot see the kingdom of
God" (St. John 3:3). "Except a man be born
of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God" (St. John 3:5). "If any
man is in Christ, he is a new creature" (11
Cor. 5:17). This may oblige us to revise our
ideas regarding the ascending scale of created
things. It seems to introduce us to a new order
of beings. Heretofore we have been accus-
tomed to think of the inorganic Mineral King-
dom; next above it the Vegetable Kingdom,
above this the Animal, and, at the summit of
the latter, Man. But how if above Man there is
a higher Kingdom of new-born men — a "new
creation" ? So it surely is ; and this new crea-
tion— the citizens of God's Kingdom — the
members of God's Family — of His Church —
constitutes a new class of human beings, dis-
tinguished from all below it by the fact that
those admitted to it possess a kind of life,
described as everlasting, which is different
from that possessed by ordinary mortals, and
is as much higher in the scale of being as
human life is above that of the lower animals.*
Of course it must be added, with the utmost
degree of emphasis, that, like all analogies, this
cannot be pressed to a purely logical conclu-
sion; for the glory of human beings is the fact
that every one of them has the capacity of
*This will be recognized as the view so convincingly set
forth years ago by Professor Drummond in his book, Nat-
ural Law in the Spiritual World.
49
The Church's Life
being born again into immortality — to rise in
the scale of existence; while the lower animals,
so far as we know, can not. In this tran-
scendent possibility lies your opportunity and
mine. For to us is entrusted this message of
life; and, more than that, we know how the
life may be secured. Jesus Christ said that
unless a man is born anew of water and the
Spirit he has no entrance into the Kingdom of
God; and the implication is that by such Bap-
tism he does obtain the new birth and begins
the new life. This is the door into the King-
dom— we know of none other. It is true that
God may provide other means of entrance.
Who would place limitations upon His infinite
grace? But we are not assured of any other;
we are assured of this. We know, too, both by
teaching and experience, how the new life —
weak and incomplete at first — may be nour-
ished and strengthened. By the careful nur-
ture of the new-born life, by the strength of
the Holy Spirit given with the laying on of
hands in Confirmation, by the receiving of
Christ Himself in the Holy Communion, by
purposeful prayer, by study of God's word —
in brief, by all the means of grace, the new life
develops and expands until it reaches its
earthly consummation and attains unto "the
unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the
Son of God, unto a full grown man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ" (Eph. 4:13). In the whole process,
50
A Chosen Generation
Baptism is the birth, completed in Confirma-
tion ; the Holy Communion is the development ;
likeness to Christ is the objective; eternal life
is the possession. The Church selects these
Sacraments as all-important and, indeed, as
"generally necessary to salvation" (A Cate-
chism. tThe Book of Common Prayer, p. 270).
If it be objected that in thus emphasizing
God's manner of working through material
means trivial in themselves — water, bread,
wine — we are limiting His freedom of opera-
tion, we may reply that, in the first place, we
are not presuming to say what He can or what
He can not do; and, in the second place, that
the consensus of Christian thought through-
out the centuries is our warrant for believing
not only that God works by self-imposed law,
but that the Sacraments are the normal expres-
sion of His law working in the realm of grace.
The liberty of God never degenerates into
license. Since first He moved on the face of
the waters creating life, He has been self-
restrained by law and order. The law by
which the planets revolve in their appointed
orbits, or water becomes wine in the vital pro-
cesses of growth, or the ocean breathes in
rhythmic tides, or bread is transmuted into the
Body of Christ, or consecrated hands become
the channels of grace — in these alike we recog-
nize the operation of Law. If the labors of
scientific men and their consensus of opinion
have sufficed to reveal the laws of God in the
51
The Church's Life
material realm so that we guide our daily
actions by them, even though there may be
operations of law unknown to us as yet; it
would be strange indeed if the mind of the
Church has been led astray when it sought to
discover God's laws in the spiritual realm, and
has failed to formulate them aright, even
though much yet remains to be revealed. The
theory of the freedom of the Holy Spirit apart
from law has its logical outcome in the mad
delusions of the "Holy Rollers." When, there-
fore, we would show men the way of salvation,
we can do so, with assurance and safety, only
as we direct them to Baptism and the whole
sacramental life of the Church.
Such, then, is the message of "good news,"
and it is only that final and complete revelation
of God in Christ which we call Christianity
that brings any sufficient assurance of eternal
life and adds to that assurance the perfect
means of securing and maintaining it. No
other revelation, such as is to be found express-
ed in incomplete forms among all nations, pos-
sesses this assurance or this power. To every
doubting, struggling, fearing son of man, the
Christian can point the way to life and peace
and joy ; to every mortal, it is within the Chris-
tian's privilege to open the Kingdom's gates.
"Here is water; what doth hinder thee to be
baptized ?" "Take, eat ; this is my body." "He
that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood
hath eternal life" (Acts 8:36; St. Matt. 26:26).
52
CHAPTER III
LIFE MORE ABUNDANTLY
We have seen that God's supreme message,
through and in Christ, to us men, is the good
news of life eternal, beginning normally at
Baptism, empowered in Confirmation, main-
tained by constant contact with the living Son
of God through the Eucharist and God's other
means of grace. We Christians are thus re-
born into conditions of existence infinitely
above that of ordinary humanity, and in that
higher realm of being we are maintained with
increasing fullness, if we choose. The funda-
mental characteristics of that plane in the
ascending scale of life are its eternal quality,
its perfect peace and the fullness of joy, quite
irrespective of surrounding conditions. This
is a certainty of common experience. We have
seen, too, that it is our manifest duty, as it is
our privilege, knowing the way of life, to lead
some one else to see and follow it.
It is surely remarkable that, if these are real
experiences, they should have so small a part
in the thought and life of the average run of
new-born people. It is almost impossible, m
most cases, to distinguish them from the lower
53
The Church's Life
order of mortals. Once on Sunday they are
seen to enter the doors of a special building,
but why they do it and what they do when they
get inside, are enigmas to their friends out-
side. Possibly if the latter knew that the new-
born man merely followed a custom of his kind,
and that all he did was to say Amen a dozen
or more times in an hour; repeat, with perfect
unconcern, a formula of life-changing beliefs,
hands in pockets, on his face a vacant stare at
his neighbors ; listen drowsily to some reading
and talking; once a month or even less fre-
quently be given a bit of bread and a sip of
wine — perhaps, if they knew this, they might
wonder still more whether there was, between
the Christian and the non-Christian, any real
difference of such a character as to make in-
vestigation worth while. The Christian has
been re-born into a higher sphere of existence,
yet most of his concern is with affairs in the
lower sphere. Thus the birthday which he
celebrates so joyously is obviously not his real
birthday (though exception might here be made
of the Roman Catholic who, as a rule, does
recall his "name-day" and does celebrate its
anniversaries). When he was baptized, the
Christian was endowed with life unending;
yet, in his more serious moments, he speaks of
the "end of life," and the prospect of "death"
rather appals him. A fellow-Christian passes
over into Paradise, and he says, "Poor fel-
low!"; if the relationship has been a close one,
54
Life More Abundantly
he dresses in somber black and mourns visibly
and at length. Even the religious press has
caught the habit, and prints notices to the effect
that such and such an aged Christian has just
"entered upon eternal life.^
The Christian has vowed before God to be
and to remain all his life a faithful soldier and
servant of Christ, and therefore to obey God,
to fight for His cause against every evil thing,
and to serve in His Name. This he has adopted
as his profession, whatever he may do to get
a living; yet one is forced to acknowledge that
if every soldier fought as half-heartedly, and
every servant gave as inefficient service as does
the average Christian, the world would be
nothing but a hideous caricature of what God
intended it to be. He has probably forgotten
the date of his Confirmation, when the Holy
Ghost came upon him with power, eager to
abide with him forever. To go without his
breakfast is a hardship not easily to be borne,
but to forego his bit of morning prayer or to
oversleep himself and miss the early Eucharist
does not disconcert him much. In a word, this
average Christian seems habitually to think of
life in terms of mortality, and of his relation to
God in terms of unreality. Given the power
to live on a high plane, he is content to exist
most of the time on a lower. One recalls the
clever remark of a famous English actor when
discussing with a certain Bishop the relative
appeal of the stage and the pulpit. "The truth
55
The Church's Life
is," said he, "that whereas we actors present
fiction as if it were fact, you parsons present
fact as if it were fiction. " It is needless to
say that the fault today lies not so much with
the clergy as with the laity. The religion
of the average layman appears to have
little foundation in recognized and valued
fact. The whole matter is exceedingly puz-
zling, if God and everything connected with
Him is more than the vain imaginings of
man.
I am not arguing for a life withdrawn, re-
mote, secluded; but I know that every Chris-
tian needs to make God more real to himself if
he is to make Him real to any one else; in
other words, the Christian needs to model his
thinking and his daily life more literally upon
that of Christ. This by no means implies
separation from the world or from the affairs
of the world. Our Lord never prayed that His
disciples should be secluded. He Himself was
anything but a recluse. He was keenly alive
to the world about Him. He was interested
in people's marriages and funerals, in their
social gatherings, in their fishing, their tax-
gathering, their homely pursuits, their busi-
ness. He knows quite well — He proved it Him-
self— that the possession of eternal life is not
a search-light directed heavenwards only, but
a glowing sun to irradiate every corner of earth
and every phase of human life.
It is important, therefore, to find out just
56
Life More Abundantly
what our Lord meant when He spoke of a more
abundant life. Had He in mind only spiritual
life, and was His message only to the souls of
men, or did "life" mean to Him all its mani-
festations? You and I are conscious, if we
are normal human beings, of three kinds of
life. I walk from my house to my office and sit
down at my desk, thereby showing that I pos-
sess physical life. I write a page of this book;
my mind works; I perceive evidences of mental
life. The Church bell rings, and I find myself
able and glad to pray; I confess my sins, am
assured of pardon, and I receive the blessed
Sacrament; I have come into contact with
spiritual presences and realities, and I immedi-
ately become as conscious of renewed life in my
soul — that is, of spiritual life, as I was, a few
moments before, of physical and mental life;
indeed, in joining in that half-hour's service, I
have exhibited all evidences of life which I
possess — physical, mental, spiritual — body,
mind, soul.
Surely then in promising to men a more
abundant life, our Lord must have had in mind,
not spiritual life only, but every aspect of life.
His actions bear this out. The sight of imper-
fect or maimed bodies drew His instant and
active sympathy — He laid His hands upon
them and healed them. He found in His dis-
ciples a body of ''unlearned and ignorant men,"
and for three years He developed their mental
life until their minds became so abundantly
57
The Church's Life
alive that the product of some of them has lived
through twenty centuries, and shows today
more practical vitality than that of any other
group of philosophers which the world has ever
known. So, finally, with His main objective —
more abundant spiritual life. Oftentimes He
appears to have exerted His healing power on
men's bodies merely as a means of reaching
their souls ; but always He was pouring out His
own richness of spiritual experience and the
abundant vitality of His own soul upon all
who would receive. Thus, His disciples had
been taught to pray all their lives, but seeing
Him in the spiritual activity of prayer, they
realized their own pitiable deficiencies and
begged Him to supply their souls' want (St.
Luke 1 1 : i ) . Thereupon He taught them to
pray in the words so familiar to us. Later,
toward the end, He taught them the very spirit
of prayer, reminding them that hitherto,
though they had learned the outward form of
acceptable prayer, they had never realized what
it meant to pray in His Name or character,
nor could they until His likeness and character
had become more perfectly reproduced in them
(St. John 16:24). Finally, He gave them the
Sacrament of His Body and Blood to be their
spiritual food and sustenance. Thus, by teach-
ing them to worship as He worshipped, and
by giving them the means of coming into the
closest conceivable touch with Him and of
abiding in Him and He in them, He, the life
58
Life More Abundantly
of the soul, shared with them His own abun-
dant spiritual life.
The practical bearing of all this on the
Church's mission in the world today is obvi-
ous. If it be true — as I think it is — that the
Church's business, and therefore that of every
member of the Church, is to touch, with vitaliz-
ing power, every man's life in all three of its
manifestations, then the Church has been right
in these latter years, in going throughout the
world establishing her hospitals and schools,
that through their instrumentality the living
Christ may minister to the bodies and minds
of people everywhere; and, above all, in seek-
ing to transmit life for the soul by providing
for Church extension in the broadest sense of
the term, including evangelization in all its
forms, the teaching and training of converts,
the administration of Baptism, and the erection
of suitable church-buildings where the people
may be taught the dignity of worship and the
beauty of holiness, and where they may receive
the Holy Communion rightly and duly admin-
istered.
Time was when people conceived of the
Church's mission as strictly limited to pure
evangelism, and when they even decried all
social and educational work in connection with
"Missions" as a dangerous departure from an
ideal. With this discussion we need not con-
cern ourselves. All we need do is to discover,
if possible, the manner in which Christ re-
59
The Church's Life
garded His mission and what means He took
to fulfill it. Personally, I cannot avoid the con-
clusion that when He spoke of "life more abun-
dantly" He saw the full round of man's life,
in all its manifestations, as the object of His
expansive and uplifting power — that He was
eager for all men to have "salvation" — abun-
dant health — in body, mind and soul. Yet no
one can fail to recognize that the soul was
always His chief concern, to be reached and
given life and health by any and every means,
and that, consequently, hospitals and schools —
medical practice and education — in fact, all
philanthropic agencies meet their highest ob-
jective, from Christ's standpoint, only when
they are fundamentally Christian, and when
they recognize in all their work, that the appli-
cation of Christ's power to the soul is the one
supremely important and ultimate aim.
If this be true, it will be interesting to con-
sider whether the principle is applicable to the
Church's mission everywhere, and, if so, how
it is to be applied. If the Church represents
the projection of Christ's life in the world,
and the continuation of His ministry to the
world; and if, further, He is our supreme ex-
ample in connection with our mission, it would
appear that that mission should always and
everywhere include hospitals, homes for the
poor and neglected, asylums, orphanages, play-
grounds and other agencies for ministering to
bodily needs ; schools, colleges, seminaries and
60
Life More Abundantly
other means of mental and industrial train-
ing; and, above all, church buildings and an
adequate supply of workers, ordained and lay,
to preach the Word, to administer the Sacra-
ments, to provide opportunity for worship, and
to minister effectively to the spiritual needs of
the community. Evidently these three forms
of missionary activity are expressed today by
the terms, Social Service, Religions Education
and Church Extension. These, together, con-
stitute the full round of the Church's mission,
and those Christians who engage in them are
properly "missionaries."
Two important points, however, are to be
noted in connection with this programme: —
first, that only as philanthropy and education
are permeated with and directed by the spirit
and power of Jesus Christ, are they truly ex-
pressions of the Church's mission; and, sec-
ondly, that every baptized man, woman and
child, as a member of the Church, is bound to
be a missionary, i. e., to take some active part
in Christian Social Service, Religious Educa-
tion, or Church Extension.
How far and in what way this three- fold ex-
pression of the Church's mission is carried
out depends on circumstances. When the
Church enters a heathen or pagan country,
she has to perform her mission unaided by any
institutions about her. It may be that the best
opening is through preaching, the distribution
of Christian literature, or some other form of
61
The Church's Life
making the Gospel known. This is Evangel-
isation. Or it may be that the work of a phy-
sician presents the best opportunity at the mo-
ment; or possibly a hold can best be secured
upon the children, and, through them, their
parents be attracted, by means of a Christian
school. Here are Social Service and Religious
Education. But, however the work starts, it
must eventually include ministry to the whole
of life — Body, Mind and Soul; hence the typ-
ical mission station in the foreign field, when
developed, will include, as a minimum, a church
building, a school and a hospital, or at least
some representation of all of these activities.
In the domestic field the case is somewhat
different, and, while the theory remains the
same, its application may have to be modified.
The controlling factor which obliges the
Church, when establishing herself in a foreign
field, to provide medical service and education
as well as churches, is of course the lack of any
such agencies having a Christian foundation
and motive, and, in many cases of any such
agencies at all. In China, e. g., the first
Christian missionaries found no facilities for
education along useful lines, and Chinese med-
ical practice was worse than useless. The lack
had to be supplied. Modern Japan has estab-
lished an admirable public school system, and
her medical practice is of the very best, but
the Christian motive is, of course, lacking.
Both China and Japan owe their advance in
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public education and medical science to the ex-
ample and teaching of Christian missions, but
in both instances the Christian motive is want-
ing, and I repeat again that if medical science
and education are to fulfil their ultimate aim,
they must be built upon and permeated by the
spirit and power of Christ. Deprived of that,
the doctor is comparatively helpless, the
teacher is without adequate objective. Be-
cause China had neither modern schools nor
hospitals when the Church first went there on
her mission, she had to establish these institu-
tions herself, and this is true of all lands to
which the Church first carries her message.
But in the United States, the Government as-
sisted by private enterprise does provide abun-
dant means for education and health. Schools
are everywhere; the country is, if anything,
overstocked with doctors ; philanthropic works
form a part of the social programme in every
community; and it is a country governed by
ideals which have their source in Christianity.
Under these circumstances, what is the
Church's duty in fulfilling her three-fold mis-
sion— physical, mental and spiritual? Be-
cause the public school system is not definitely
Christian, is she to follow the Roman com-
munion, and establish generally her own
schools; because medical schools are not con-
cerned with the religious belief of their stu-
dents, is the Church to go into the business
of training doctors and nurses herself and plac-
63
The Church's Life
ing them in her own hospitals? Or is there
some other alternative which, under the cir-
cumstances, she ought to adopt? To these
and similar questions there must be some ade-
quate answer which, as members of the
Church, you and I are bound to think out and
reply.
The Church and Physical Well-being
Taking physical well-being as the objective
of social service — hospitals and medical prac-
tice in general, as an illustration — what re-
ply are we to give to the above questions ?
On the whole we would probably agree that
the abundance of first-class hospitals in Amer-
ica, as compared with China, and the admir-
able service rendered by them to the com-
munity, make it unwise for the Church to
duplicate them by establishing hospitals of her
own. Under certain circumstances it may be
advisable for a large institutional parish to
have its own free dispensary, or for the Church
at large to maintain a hospital; and the same
is true of homes for the aged and infirm, or-
phanages, and other philanthropic agencies.
But, as a rule, there are plenty of such insti-
tutions established by the State or through
public or private enterprise. This fact, how-
ever, by no means implies that Church people
are free from responsibility in the matter. On
the contrary, such institutions present one of
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the most fruitful fields for missionary work on
the part of Christians. If Christ, with the
limited and narrow opportunities which His
surroundings presented, was constantly and
actively interested in the physical welfare of
people about Him, it is all the more incumbent
upon us, His followers, with facilities enor-
mously increased, to make every possible use
of those facilities. It is the obvious duty of
the Christian layman to seize every opportu-
nity, with the Lord Himself as his Companion,
to carry to the sick, the suffering and the de-
spondent the encouragement and good cheer
of his own abundant life. Ready access, un-
der proper restrictions, is usually obtainable,
and there is no more useful outlet for Chris-
tian sympathy and helpfulness than frequent
visits to those less fortunate than ourselves;
nor is there any work more richly rewarded.
Such practical mercy "is twice bless'd; it bless-
eth him that gives, and him that takes ... it
is an attribute to God Himself."
There is another approach to this matter
which Christians should carefully consider.
Hospitals, Social Settlements, etc., — even those
established by the Church herself — show a de-
plorable tendency to become secularized or at
least to admit the presence of Christ only on
sufferance, as it were. At least it is rare, ex-
cept among Roman Catholics, to find that
Presence recognized and relied upon to any
great degree, in hospital-management or prac-
65
The Church's Life
tice, among patients or staff. This fact is the
more striking when we consider our Lord's
prominence in healing as in all works of mercy,
and the further fact that practically every
modern philanthropic enterprise owes its or-
igin to the Church, and was at one time re-
garded as a special function of the Church.
It is unnecessary to inquire here how the
Church came to relinquish a work peculiarly
her own ; but it is pertinent to ask whether, in
view of the secularizing tendency in modern
medical and other philanthropic work, and the
development of medical science and practice
on a materialistic basis, a serious obligation
does not rest upon every Christian to bring his
personal influence and example to bear upon
the situation, to the end that Christ Himself
shall walk the hospital wards in the fullness of
His strength and comfort; and, further, that
every prospective medical student be shown
the example of Christ — the Source of life and
health; and his own need of Christ, in the
daily practice of his profession, not only for
himself but for his patients. The Christian
physician or surgeon has opportunities for mis-
sionary service unequalled in any other voca-
tion. Of all men, the doctor has most need to
be a Christian.
But there is still another and most vitally
important aspect of this matter to be consid-
ered, if we are convinced that the practice and
teaching of our Lord and His immediate fol-
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Life More Abundantly
lowers are guides for the Church today. A
full discussion of the direct action of the power
of Christ, through faith, to the healing of dis-
ease may well be left to wiser heads than ours.
But the following facts are plain enough : Our
Lord healed those who were willing to be
healed, and who had faith in His ability (St.
Matt. 9:28-30; 13:55-58; St. Mark 9:22-29).
This was done, sometimes privately (St. Mark
7:32-34), more often publicly (St. Mark 1 :32-
34) ; sometimes with a visible act (St. Luke
13:12, 13 ; St. John 9 :6, 7) ; sometimes at a dis-
tance and with no physical contact (St. Matt.
15:22-28; St. Luke 7:2-10). In some cases an
act of prayer on His part is either stated or
implied (e. g., St. John 11 41-44), though it is
doubtful whether, in His constant life of
prayer, any request for healing power in a
specific case was needed. He recognized, in
certain stated instances at least, that disease
was of Satan, or his agents (St. Luke 13:16;
St. Matt. 12:22, 28. Cf. also 11 Cor. 127);
when He instructed His disciples regarding
their mission, and sent them out, He associated
healing of the sick with the casting out of dev-
ils (St. Matt. 10:8; St. Luke 10:17-20). He
promised His disciples further, that the power
manifested through them should exceed even
that which they had seen in Him (St. John
14:12). After the coming of the Holy Ghost,
as previously, though now in greater measure,
this power became manifest in miracles of
67
The Church's Life
healing wrought through the Apostles and
others working in Christ's Name. It is im-
plied that even their shadow passing over the
sick had a healing effect, and that the same
effect was produced by articles of apparel
which had been in contact with them (Acts
5:15; 19:11-12. Cf. St. Matt. 14:36).
These extraordinary and "special" demon-
strations of power seem to become less fre-
quent as the period covered by the Book of
Acts draws to a close; but as the Church be-
came more fully organized, we find that one
of her many functions was that of healing,
and that this function was concentrated in cer-
tain individuals, especially the presbyters (1
Cor. 12:28; Jas. 5:14, 15). This quotation
from St. James indicates that, by the begin-
ning of the second century, the presbyters
were accustomed to exercise a definite method
of healing through prayer and anointing with
oil, with probably the laying on of hands. This
is quite in accord with what we are told in
the earliest of the Gospels (St. Mark 6:13;
16:18).
This brief survey is sufficient for our pres-
ent purpose, and if we believe that Christ is
actually with His Church today, in the fulness
of His power, the question naturally occurs,
Why has the Church not taken full advantage
of this power? Healing the sick was a nor-
mal expression of our Lord's ministry,, and
was accepted as a normal and ordered func-
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Life More Abundantly
tion of the early Church. Whatever Christ
Himself did on earth should surely be pos-
sible of accomplishment, through all time, by
His Church in which He still lives, "the same
yesterday, today and for ever." If He was
the source of life and health in the first cen-
tury, why not in the twentieth ? Of course He
would be if the Church had retained her active
faith in His power, and if the whole of med-
ical practice were based on the belief in it.
But so long as the Church regards the work
of an accredited, devout and successful agent
of Christ in the ministry of healing as an ex-
traordinary and "pentecostal" thing, rather
than as the normal action of Christ through
His Church, just so long will our Lord be able
to do no mighty work, save healing a few sick
folk; and this, because of our unbelief at which
He marvels (St. Mark 6:5, 6).
But let it be noted here that while the heal-
ing power of God may evidently be transmitted
through any devout and faithful person (for
who would dare limit the grace of God?), yet
in the early Church God's power to heal was
manifested through ordained men and in sac-
ramental form — that is, the "inward and spir-
itual grace" (faith and healing) was signified
by an "outward and visible form" (the touch
of presbyters and the oil of anointing). We
thank God for his rich gifts through any and
every agency, but if we would experience His
power to the full, should we not permit Him to
69
The Church's Life
use His appointed means, rather than oblige
Him to resort to extraordinary ones?
If, again, God in Christ is the source of life
and health, it would seem apparent that med-
ical science and attention to the laws of hy-
giene, though they may indirectly supplement
the work of God and further serve as a warn-
ing against disregard of His laws, can never
supplant His direct action. God has always
taught His people that He works among men
only by man's cooperation, as witness the mi-
nute instructions regarding hygiene given,
through Moses, to the Jews, and resulting in
an extraordinarily high standard of physical
well-being in that race. Who can doubt, also,
that the modern advance in medical science
and surgical skill is the gift of God whose de-
sire is the development of man's mental pow-
ers? But, granting all this, it is a serious
question whether, in view of our Lord's exam-
ple as a healer, the Church today is not disre-
garding a very important part of her ministry,
and whether she is not making a grave mistake
in entrusting the health of her people to those
who tacitly or deliberately eliminate God in
their practice. As a matter of fact the aver-
age medical practitioner of today is a materi-
alist, and is inclined to regard faith in the
power of God to heal as unworthy of serious
consideration in practice. Happily, this whole
matter is now beginning to receive the atten-
tion which it deserves, and it is worthy of
70
Life More Abundantly
note that the communion which has, in the
highest degree, retained the faith and order
of the early Church, is also the one which is
most prominently taking the lead in a possi-
ble return to the practice of the early Church
regarding the healing of the sick. \
The Church and Education
The American type of democracy rightly
demands that there be a sharp boundary be-
tween the function of the Church and of the
State, which neither may pass. Thus public
education is a function of the State, and the
Church, as such, must not interfere. Public
worship is a function of the Church, and with
it the State has no concern.* This is quite as
it should be. Most of us would be absolutely
opposed to intrusting our children to the State
for instruction in matters of religion and faith.
Yet, as Christians, we are agreed that religious
instruction, concerned as it is with ultimate
truth and the soul's well-being, is of far more
importance than so-called secular instruction.
How are American children to acquire it? Of
course one obvious answer is, In the home.
Unfortunately, however, the home as a center
* It may be noted, in passing, that of late years, in times
of epidemic or through a strict interpretation of extreme
regulations regarding the use of alcohol, the State has shown
a tendency to overstep the boundary and to interfere un-
warrantably with the Church in matters of custom and even
of faith.
71
The Church's Life
of religious life, is not what it used to be.
Family prayer, grace before meals, united
reading and study of the Bible — these are be-
coming more and more of a rarity even in
nominally Christian homes. Indeed, the aver-
age Christian parents are too ignorant them-
selves of the fundamentals of religion to give
their children any proper instruction — a fact
which is, in itself, an arraignment of the
Church as a teacher. Hence the Church, in
this dilemma, started Sunday schools, or
Church schools as they are being called today,
to supplement the religious teaching, or lack
of it, in the home. Such as they are, these
schools have served a valuable purpose, but
no one could possibly claim that they have fully
met the need. A present indifferent and ig-
norant laity is the sufficient indictment of the
Sunday school as it has been conducted in the
past. The manner of it is sufficiently famil-
iar. For an hour or less, once a week, those
children who could be induced to come volun-
tarily or who were forced by their parents to
attend, received more or less desultory and
fragmentary instruction from volunteer teach-
ers who were themselves, in many cases, so
ill-instructed that they had to cram up each
lesson in advance or be coached by the rector.
The sessions of the school lacked enforced dis-
cipline; often they presented the confusion of
a menagerie; they rarely afforded the slight-
est opportunity for serious study; their pro-
72
Life More Abundantly
gramme was a picture-puzzle with no time to
put it together. In some great institutional
parish, or through the unaided genius of some
one superintendent, a partially effective Sun-
day school has been developed here and there
— that is, effective as compared with the aver-
age Sunday school, not as compared with any
real educational institution. But on the whole
we are safe in saying that the Sunday school,
for years, has been such an exhibition of in-
competency and haphazard methods that com-
petent people have looked upon the teaching of
a Sunday school class as an activity unworthy
of their energies. Worse still, the children
themselves unconsciously note a contrast.
They see the day school with its obligatory and
universal attendance, its four or five hours of
study daily, its well-trained teachers, its prac-
tical bearing upon the activities of life. The
contrast between this and the conditions pre-
vailing in the average Sunday school is too
glaring to escape the sharp minds of children.
No wonder that to the mind of the average
child, as to that of his parents, religion and
the fundamentals of religious faith and experi-
ence are Sunday affairs only, and that religious
education bears no comparison in importance
with secular education.
This deplorable state of things was per-
mitted to continue, partly because people
seemed to have become dulled to the practical
and every-day importance of a knowledge of
73
The Church's Life
God, especially when imparted to children at
their most impressionable age; and partly to
the fact that while the principles of modern
psychology and pedagogy were rapidly modi-
fying the methods of secular education, there
were very few apparently to whom the possi-
bility ever occurred that these principles might
be equally applicable to religious education.
Perhaps an excuse is to be found in the fact
that, in the main features of the average Sun-
day school, it was difficult to recognize any re-
semblance to an educational institution.
Within the past few years, however, within
the Episcopal Church and largely owing to the
efforts of the General Board of Religious Ed-
ucation, the Church school is developing into
something really worth while. The demand is
becoming insistent that teachers be thoroughly
trained for their task; definite system, care-
fully planned on approved modern lines, is tak-
ing the place of the lack of any system what-
ever; and to the regular instruction in the
school are being added week-day activities as
the logical outcome and expression of the les-
sons taught.
Those who are interested in the religious
education of children should, of course, inform
themselves regarding the so-called Gary Plan,
whereby children in the public schools are per-
mitted, during certain school hours, to receive
religious instruction under the auspices of their
various communions, such instruction being ac-
74
Life More Abundantly
cepted for credit by the school authorities.
But I am interested here primarily with the
Church school as an increasingly attractive and
valuable means of religious education, and one
which is supremely worthy of active coopera-
tion on the part of men and women who are
capable of directing their missionary efforts
along the lines of a more abundant mental life
for children. Naturally, however, such ef-
forts must not be limited to children. For
adults, there is the Bible Class, and all forms
of Mission Study Classes. Possibly the time
may arrive when the Church school shall be-
come so complete an answer to the need for re-
ligious education, and shall so thoroughly com-
mend itself to the common-sense of all Church
people, that attendance will no longer be con-
sidered derogatory at any age, and that the
curriculum will include instruction in the
Church's mission and cognate topics, such as
will be deemed essential to every Churchman's
education. When that time comes we shall
see a development of religious intelligence and
activity undreamed of at present; but, mean-
time, the obvious duty of every Churchman,
if he be, or can be made, capable of it, is to
fulfil one phase of his missionary obligation
through leadership in the Church school or in
connection with Bible or Mission Study for
adults.
I have taken Hospitals and Schools as illus-
trations of Social Service and Religious Edu-
75
The Church's Life
cation — of Christian ministry to the bodies and
minds of men. But this one illustration of
Social Service is manifestly only one. In a
Christian land, unlike a pagan, there are count-
less philanthropic agencies giving an opportu-
nity for definitely Christian cooperation on the
part of every one. But, no more than in the
case of hospitals, does this fact lessen the de-
gree of personal Christian opportunity and ob-
ligation. Not only hospitals, but homes for
the aged and infirm, asylums, orphanages,
agencies for the protection of womanhood, to
say nothing of reformatories, jails and pris-
ons— these, and countless other institutions
are within the field of missionary activity on
the part of Christians. The same reasoning
applies to them in general as we have applied
specifically in the case of the hospital. They
too, tend to become merely "institutional" and
therefore secular and Christless. They too,
need the constant interest and the active co-
operation of sanely Christian people who bring
with them the presence of our gracious Lord.
For we can not too frequently remind our-
selves that He gave Himself to the work of
philanthropy ; He did not turn it over, nor did
He recommend turning it over to an "insti-
tution." And I repeat again that mere philan-
thropy, apart from personal contact with
Christ, always fails of the highest objective
— the ministry to the soul.
Happily in these days, social service of all
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Life More Abundantly
kinds is so well organized that the necessity
for individual initiative in good works, with its
inevitable mistakes and discouragements, is
not as great as it once was. In practically
every community the individual who desires
to serve along these lines will have no diffi-
culty in finding other like-minded people who
are already organized for a similar purpose.
The Associated Charities; the various organ-
izations for Service, patriotic and otherwise;
Immigration Bureaus; Juvenile Courts, and
countless other organizations, national and
local, afford abundant opportunity for Chris-
tian ministry, in association with others, to the
physical and moral needs of the people
about us.
Finally, it should go without saying that
citizenship in a Christian democracy requires
that every citizen be familiar with general so-
cial conditions in his own community. The
housing of the people, the public schools, the
charitable and penal institutions of the town
should be matters of concern, of active interest,
and constructive criticism. To find fault with
existing conditions, purely on the basis of hear-
say, and to blame the city or the State or the
Church for abuses which could be minimized
if individual citizens would first find out the
actual facts and then seek to remedy the con-
dition by intelligent and united action — these
are faults peculiar to a democracy where the
temptation is to regard State and Church more
77
THe Church's Life
or less like two locomotives running on sepa-
rate clear and level tracks, well supplied with
fuel, and with expert train-crews requiring no
watching. It is sometimes forgotten that en-
gines require the best fuel and plenty of it;
that even expert engineers occasionally make
mistakes, that signals are not always set at
"safety," that the destination of the two trains
is the same and that if they were on the same
well-laid track, one pushing and the other pull-
ing up the steep up-grade, they might bring
the train to its objective point on schedule
time.
The term "general social conditions" surely
includes also all questions pertaining to the re-
lation between labor and capital. Nowadays
no one can claim to be well-educated in a so-
cial sense who allows himself to remain ig-
norant of the theories underlying social jus-
tice, and of the conditions which make for the
opposite ; nor can any one be called truly Chris-
tian who is not striving according to his abil-
ity to help the one and defeat the other through
proper legislation, and, more effectively still,
by personal investigation, active example and
individual sympathy. Nor should it be for-
gotten that the evils connected with present
social conditions are not confined to the slums
of our great cities or to the centers of indus-
trial life. The lack of the simplest rules of
morality and decency in many rural parts of
these "Christian" United States is appalling.
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Life More Abundantly
The bulk of the population in vast areas of our
country is as truly pagan as if America were
China. Everywhere there is the need of put-
ting into effect the social teaching of Christ.
The wonder of the principles which He taught
and practiced is that after the lapse of two
thousand years and under conditions so pro-
foundly changed, they yet remain absolutely
practicable. Wherever they have been ap-
plied in even the smallest degree they have,
to that extent, proved to be the best, and in-
deed the only practical solution, of every so-
cial problem — the remedy for every social ill.
It is therefore supremely incumbent upon us,
as Christians, to make these principles our
chief study, and then to apply them with all
diligence and confidence, knowing that only as
we follow in His steps shall we find the dim and
arduous track leading to the City of God.
To sum up our conclusions then: The
Church, as the living Body of Christ, has a
three-fold mission on earth. Her privilege
and her duty are to provide every man, woman
and child with an opportunity to become a
sharer in a more abundant form of life, inci-
dentally for the body and the mind, but pri-
marily and supremely for the soul, wrhereby
man is raised above the plane of mere human-
ity into membership in the Family of God, and
eternal life is imparted and maintained here
and now. This three-fold mission of the
Church is expressed in the terms Social Serv-
79
The Church's Life
ice, Religious Education and Evangelism or
Church Extension. Since Christ Himself is
today — as always — the Way, the Truth and
the Life, no form of philanthropy or of edu-
cation which fails to claim and utilize His ac-
tive and personal cooperation can be com-
pletely effective. It follows that the Church
must see to it that social service is fundamen-
tally and distinctly Christian ; that the impart-
ing of a knowledge of God as revealed in Christ
is one of her chief functions; and that it is her
main privilege to bear the message of eternal
life, through Christ, into every corner of the
earth, especially where the need of His abun-
dant life is greatest. Finally, since the
Church is composed of individual members,
each sharing in the life of the whole, each hav-
ing his special function in the whole Body, each
sharing in a common responsibility toward the
whole, and to all mankind apart from the Body
but capable of union with it, it is manifestly
the duty of every member to become a mis-
sionary through active participation in one or
more features of the Church's three-fold mis-
sion in his own community, and to the world
at large.* Only as every member realizes
this ideal will the Kingdom of God come and
His will be done, on earth as in heaven.
* In this connection, two definitions may be found of value.
Bishop Gore defines "the world" (as that term is used in the
New Testament) as "Society organized apart from God."
The word "Religion" may be defined as "A knowledge of
God influencing the conduct of man."
80
CHAPTER IV
THE MODEL MISSIONARY
We have seen thus far that the message
which Jesus Christ proclaimed to men was a
message of possible life, richer and fuller than
any before known — a life dependent upon
union with Him, the source of life; attained
normally through Baptism; maintained by the
Holy Communion and other means of grace
(literally, channels of gifts) ; powerfully af-
fecting every manifestation of life — physical,
mental and spiritual; and transmissible, pri-
marily and directly from, the Source itself, but
secondarily and indirectly through every new-
born child of God to those about him.
It is important now to consider rather more
in detail the earthly ministry of Christ, in or-
der to see, for our own guidance as mission-
aries, just how He, the supremely successful
missionary, conducted His mission.
First, let us note that while we know little
of the first thirty years — the passive years, as
we may call them of His ministry — what we
do know reveals a character which must have
had a profound influence upon those about
Him.. Obedience to those in immediate au-
81
The Church's Life
thority over Him as a child is a characteristic
of His early years (St. Luke 2:51). Such
implicit filial loyalty and obedience as is im-
plied in the phrase, "He was subject unto
them,,, cannot have failed to impress His play-
mates in the village of Nazareth where every
one knew every one else. He proclaimed, not
in words probably, but in the more persuasive
language of example, the laws which should
govern the lives of children.
Beneath this characteristic, however, and di-
recting it, was a sense of a higher relation-
ship. When, at the age of twelve, He was
taken to Jerusalem for His Confirmation, as
we would say, He had already reached the con-
viction that, for Him, there was a law of obedi-
ence higher than that implied in any human
relationship — an authority divine and supreme.
However we read the words, "Knew ye not
that I must be in my Father's house'' — or,
"about my Father's business" — or, "in the
things of my Father," the meaning is equally
clear. Of course He is speaking not of
Joseph but of God. To God He owes the
obedience of a son. The Temple, where He
delights to remain searching into God's law,
is His heavenly Father's house. It is God's
business that calls for His active cooperation.
As a child is owned by his parents, so He is
owned by God. We may readily grant that
so high a degree of spiritual insight and self-
dedication is rare in boys of twelve; it is not
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unique, however ; it should be a matter of com-
mon experience, prayed for, hoped for, counted
upon.
St. Luke sums up the character of the boy-
Jesus in a few striking phrases: "The child
grew, and waxed strong (in spirit), filled with
wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him.,,
"And Jesus advanced (increased) in wisdom
and stature, and in favor with God and man"
(St. Luke 2:40 and 52). If I had a son whom
I had not seen for many years and from whom
I had not heard ; and a friend, having seen him
recently, should bring me news of him simply
in the terms quoted above, I would desire no
more. I would be assured that, wherever he
was, whatever doing, he was exemplifying to
all about him the normal life of a son of God
— not needing "conversion" but growing nat-
urally and healthfully, increasing in all that
makes men wise, vigorous in character, popu-
lar among his fellows and influencing them for
good, and manifestly directed by the presence
of God. Such a life, however quietly lived, is
the perfect fulfilment of a man's mission.
First, then, let it be noted that even as a child,
our Lord performed a missionary service —
He was a Home missionary. I wonder
whether our Lord's constant attendance upon
the synagogue worship and instruction, not
only as a child but as a grown man, was not
an important factor in His development. He
certainly showed, throughout His life, a mas-
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terly and practical knowledge of the Scriptures
such as few of us possess. If this be so, why
is membership in a Sunday-school class sup-
posed to be rather derogatory in the case of
young men and women today?
The record of His life between the ages of
twelve and thirty is still more meagre. In-
deed, nothing is known regarding those eight-
een years, except that after Joseph's unre-
corded death, He succeeded him as the village
carpenter (St. Mark 6:3). This is enough,
however, to have stamped forever with divine
approval and with dignity the simplest man-
ual labor. And who can doubt but that the
young laborer put into His commonest work
all the skill of which He was capable? No
skimping of a job, with Him; no parsimonious
counting of the hours of work; no mere eye-
service — alert before His employer, indifferent
when not watched; no merely superficial ex-
cellence in His work; no trying to make bad
workmanship or material pass for good! Of
all this we may be sure, knowing His character
as a boy and the integrity of His later life.
Knowing it, we may justly conclude that,
through watching Him, His fellow-townsmen
heard the high call to a more honest perform-
ance of all daily labor, as in the sight of God.
Secondly then, our Lord, even in the seclusion
of a country village, proved Himself an In-
dustrial missionary. Again, Jesus of Naz-
areth was well-known as a regular church-
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goer, sometimes taking the leadership in cer-
tain parts of the Service (St. Luke 4:16). I
wonder if this constant practice was without
its effect on His neighbors; and whether a
similar custom on our part, rigidly adhered to,
rain or shine, hot or cold, at home or on vaca-
tion, convenient or otherwise, isn't about as
telling and effective a form of missionary work
as the average Churchman can perform. At
any rate, our Lord was preeminently a mis-
sionary through Church loyalty.
At the age of about thirty, He left the quiet
of His home; the passive ministry of His early
years was closed ; urged by the insistent needs
of the world, and obedient to His Father's sum-
mons, He entered upon a ministry of extraor-
dinary activity. As we have seen, the idea
of activity is inherent in the word "mission,"
and our Lord found Himself burdened with
a message demanding the most unresting toil
for its delivery.
The Roman province of Palestine was a
small area measured in terms of our own facil-
ities for getting about rapidly and conven-
iently. But in the first century, it was no light
task for a traveller without money and obliged
to do practically all of his travel on foot, to
cover an area measuring 65 miles by 35, or
about the size of the State of Delaware. Such
was our Lord's own home-district of Galilee,
and He made no less than eight circuits of this
district during the three years of His active
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ministry. Besides this, He visited Samaria;
Judaea, at least three times; and the two half-
Gentile regions in the extreme north — Caesarea
Philippi and Phcenice. Truly an Itinerant
missionary, tireless under the spur of His mis-
sion. In this He was in striking contrast with
His immediate predecessor, John the Baptizer,
as well as with that other famous teacher —
Gautama the Buddha — five centuries earlier.
The Buddha and John allowed themselves to
be sought out by men ; Christ sought men out.
The opening chapter of St. Mark's Gospel
will always be one of the most important bits
of writing in existence; for in it is given an
account of a single and complete day in our
Lord's life, from one morning until the next.
Here are given not only His methods of work,
but the principles which underlay His mission-
ary activity. One of these latter is evidently
the covering of as much ground as possible. He
taught briefly in the morning, and allowed
Himself to be interrupted in order to cure a
man apparently insane. The teaching over, He
goes home and, finding His host's mother-in-
law in bed with a fever, He heals her. After
dinner, the news having gone about, He is be-
sieged by sick and insane people until night-
fall. He snatches a few hours' sleep and then,
long before morning, He is off to the hills for
the re-creation of prayer. The crowds follow.
Never was there such need on people's part,
such opportunity for helpfulness on His. Ca-
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pernaum is a place of great importance; the
stage is set for an overwhelming impression;
let Him win that city, and Galilee is His; and
not the Galileans only but possibly more than
one of the official family of Herod himself.
He is immensely popular — His excited follow-
ers call out to Him, "All are seeking thee."
Yet He isn't in the least excited Himself.
"Let us go elsewhere into the next towns," He
says, "that I may preach there also." It was
not that he had definitely accomplished any-
thing in Capernaum, or that He saw no fur-
ther opportunity there, or that the people there
had no further need of Him. No, He worked
by method, and that method was to touch for
good as many people as possible in the brief
time at His disposal. From this very begin-
ning to the bitter end He was an Itinerant mis-
sionary; as was afterwards said of Him — and
an enviable testimony it is — He was the man
who "went about doing good" (Acts 10:38).
We may or may not think that this method of
missionary work is equally adaptable to mod-
ern needs and conditions. That question is
not of immediate concern. All that we are
endeavoring at present to discover is what kind
of a missionary Jesus Christ was and on what
principles He conducted His mission. Cer-
tainly itinerancy was one of them.
It is almost needless to point out that our
Lord was a medical missionary, and that He
thereby put his stamp of approval for all time
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upon Christian medical missions. The chap-
ter from St. Mark's Gospel just referred to is
a record of purely healing work. Indeed, if
the scenes depicted in that record were taken
by themselves, we would conclude that Jesus
of Nazareth was purely a healer with no spe-
cial aim other than mere philanthropy ; yet even
St. Mark does not dwell as does St. Luke upon
this striking feature of our Lord's ministry.
And when He commissions His recently se-
lected Apostles, it is to heal all manner of dis-
ease and sickness (St. Matt. 10:1).
Again it is of value to note that He was a
missionary to all classes of people alike and
without discrimination. Not only was this a
matter of principle with Him — a fundamental
way of accomplishing results — but it seems to
have been His choice as well. St. Luke gives
His statement of the principle, followed at once
by an example of His practice (St. Luke 7:31-
50). We know how constantly He repudiated
the ascetic practice of John the Baptizer, by
accepting social courtesies from the rich ; and,
on the other hand, how gladly and eagerly He
seized every opportunity to meet intimately
those from whom no social return could be ex-
pected. It is well to note, in both cases, that
it evidently gave Him, the keenest pleasure to
meet people of all sorts; that He was quite as
fearless of contamination from social and spir-
itual sources as from physical; he no more
shrank from intimate contact with a despised
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tax-gatherer or a woman of notorious ill-re-
pute than with a person full of leprosy ; He was
quite as much at His ease with a purse-proud,
ill-mannered Pharisee as with a blind beggar.
No follower of His, eager to carry on His
mission, can be either a snob, or one who pur-
posely holds himself aloof from the rich. But
in saying this, one should add that the utmost
emphasis should be placed on our Lord's ob-
jective in all of His social relationships ; it was
never what He could get, always what He
could give. It was this that made all com-
panionships so safe for Him and so valuable
to others.
In considering how easily and naturally our
Lord carried His message to all sorts and con-
ditions of people, and with the same simple
definiteness, it is well to remember that there
wras about Him, notwithstanding His broad so-
cial sympathy and appeal, a very remarkable
aloofness. No one but His enemies ever took
any liberties with Jesus Christ, and then usu-
ally to their discomfiture. His personal dig-
nity was at times overwhelming. None of His
intimates (no one except strangers and the in-
sane) ever, so far as we know, called Him to
His face by the sacred name "Jesus." Even
in prayer He never identified Himself with
His most intimate friends. He taught them
to address God in the words "Our Father,,,
but He never used that prayer with them, nor
did He ever associate Himself with them in
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prayer as one in similar need. People have a
tendency to forget this sometimes, and to
imagine that familiarity in addressing our
Lord is an indication of their intimacy with
Him. In the Gospels, quite the reverse is true.
Another very marked feature of Christ's
missionary activity was His teaching and train-
ing of native workers. Of course it may have
been merely the physical impossibility of cov-
ering the ground Himself which made Him se-
lect helpers, but I am quite sure that there was
a deeper motive than that underlying that ac-
tion. If the future Church was to be a living
organism — the projection, in the world, of
Christ Himself — a living witness to Him, car-
rying on His message of life to the world —
then there was need of men and women, not
only to bear the message, but to transmit the
life. In other words, provision had to be made
then, provision must be made now, for the
building up of a native Church instinct with
the vitality of Christ Himself. It is not
enough for even God Himself merely to be
present in the world; His presence must be
manifested and He Himself made known by
and through His visible Body. Therefore our
Lord trained these workers, and breathed into
them the breath of life in order that, after the
withdrawal of His visible presence, a visible
Body might yet remain to perpetuate His life
and to bear His message. Hence, too, the
Church in these days and through her trained
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The Model Missionary
members goes to heathen lands; there trains
native workers; there establishes a native
Church — missionary because living; and
thence, having accomplished her end, moves
on to other lands, that she may preach there
also, for to this end came she forth.
Finally, and above all, our Lord was a Pray-
ing missionary. Prayer was at the root of all
His work; He planned nothing, He accom-
plished nothing, without it. It was the need
of this that He was continually trying to im-
press upon His disciples. It was quite to be
expected, therefore, that He should give them
a prayer in which to express their fundamen-
tal needs, and that those needs, when formu-
lated in prayer, should be found to be those of
a body of believers whose two-fold desire was
the transformation of the world into the King-
dom of God, and their own increasing fitness to
further that transformation.
It will be useful, therefore, to consider this
great prayer if we are really to be missionaries
in any true sense. It is found in its completest
form in St. Matthew 6:9-13.*
It will be noticed that the prayer consists of
an address to God by name, followed by six
petitions arranged in two groups. A mar-
ginal note in the revised version of our Bible
states that "many authorities, some ancient,
* The following analysis of the Prayer is almost wholly that
of Bishop Gore as given in his book, The Sermon on the
Mount.
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but with variations add" the closing ascription
now in universal use except under certain
liturgical conditions. The prayer may be ar-
ranged graphically in a condensed form as fol-
lows:
Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name-) as fa heayen
Thy kingdom come V sQ Qn earth_
Thy will be done J
Give us daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses.
Deliver us from the evil one:
For thine is the Kingdom.
But before taking up the different phrases
of the prayer, let us consider certain general
features.
First, this prayer is not one among many;
rather is it the model of all prayer, and the
touchstone of efficacious prayer. "After this
manner pray ye," says our Lord, and then He
gives a perfect illustration of what all praying
should be like. It is the model prayer because
it is the great prayer "in the Name of Christ."
We are prone to assume that a prayer "in
Christ's Name" is made by appending those or
similar words to one or more petitions. This
is not so. Everywhere in the Bible "name"
stands for "character." A prayer in Christ's
name is a prayer in His character — that is, a
prayer characteristic of Him and His desires.
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Since this is His own prayer, it is evidently the
one most characteristic of Him; therefore it
is the prayer in His Name and consequently its
petitions are surely to be granted. This is not
true of all our prayers. Often they are not at
all such as our blessed Lord would have of-
fered or for things which He would have de-
sired. The disciples had always been accus-
tomed to pray, yet the Master told them that
they had never learned to pray in a manner
characteristic of Him, that. is, in His Name;
therefore their praying had never reached
great heights of power. But as they grew into
His likeness so they would learn to pray in
His character and then they should receive the
completeness of their joy (St. John 17:24).
A simple illustration may serve to make
more plain the meaning of "in Christ's Name"
as applied to Prayer. A very rich friend of
mine goes abroad, leaving me in charge of his
affairs. He gives me unlimited power of at-
torney, authorizing me to manage his affairs
as, in my judgment, he would have managed
them himself had he been here. Presently a
request is made of my friend through me, in-
volving a large draft on his funds. I decide
that the request would have had his approval,
I draw a cheque to my own or another's order,
sign it with my friend's name, and present it
at the bank to be cashed. The cashier asks by
what authority I make this large draft and
sign my friend's name to it. I show him my
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power of attorney; he is satisfied that I am
making the demand rightfully and the cash is
handed over to me. The bank can do no other-
wise. I have demanded the money in my
friend's name, and I show the authority en-
titling me to do so. So with prayer "in the
Name of Christ." If we draw upon the re-
sources of God in the Name of His Son, and
can prove our authority to do so, our petition
must be granted. "Whatsoever ye shall ask
the Father in my name, he will give it you"
(St. John 16:23). There is our power of attor-
ney, and it is prefaced by the solemn assevera-
tion of our Lord, "Verily, verily, I say unto
you." But just as my friend's trust in me to
the extent of giving me such authority in his
name makes it incumbent on me to consider
with the utmost care how I exercise that au-
thority, lest I use it in a way or for a purpose
not wholly in accord with his desires as known
to me, so in the case of prayer. It is taking a
tremendous responsibility to attach to any pe-
tition the significant words "in the Name of
Christ." I can only do so if I am absolutely
assured that that particular prayer is charac-
teristic of Him, that it expresses a desire of
which He would fully approve. The very as-
surance that it will be granted makes the form
and matter of the petition an affair requiring
most careful thought. It is for this reason,
doubtless, that our Lord, on another occasion,
suggests the advisability of consulting with
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some other Christian before deciding so impor-
tant a question (St. Matt. 18:19). In the
Lord's Prayer, however, this need not trouble
us. It is supremely the prayer in His Name,
the petitions are characteristic of Him, they
all express what He ardently desires; there-
fore we can offer them in the certainty that
they will be granted. This, then, is the first
thing to be noted about the Lord's Prayer:
It is the prayer supremely characteristic of the
Lord Himself, therefore it is the prayer of ef-
ficacy— the test and model of all acceptable
prayer. Our petitions bring power only in so
far as they are evidently consistent with the
petitions of this prayer. "The climax of
Christian growth is to have thoroughly learned
to say the Lord's Prayer in the spirit of Him
who first spoke it."*
The second general point to note regarding
the prayer is the order of its petitions. The
things of God come first; those pertaining to
ourselves, second. This is the reflection of
Christ's mind and desires. Ours are usually
the reverse. Too often really earnest prayer
is, with us, a last resort, to be used only when
driven to it by critical personal need. Then
the personal desire looms large and takes first
place. Not so with the prayer put on our lips
by Christ. Prayer in His Name and, for that
reason, issuing with power and bringing peace
* Gore. Loc. cit., page 130.
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and joy, is prayer which puts first things first.
[That is the rule and order for all our praying.
Thirdly, we are to note the social character
of the prayer. Nowhere are we permitted to
say "my" or "me." Everywhere it is "our,"
"us." It is the prayer of all Christians for all'
Christians. Only as we realize ourselves in
need, but one with all of God's family in that
need, can we really use the Lord's Prayer. It
will be found of great value to use this prayer
from time to time as a meditation, repeating
each phrase in order, slowly and thoughtfully,
pausing after each phrase to let God make its
meaning clear to us.
Think now of the address. "Our Father."
It is to the Father of the family on the part of
the children of the family. It is not intended
for the use of all men indiscriminately, but
was given to God's own children as a special
privilege, and for their peculiar use. This
seems apparent from St. Matthew's account of
the circumstances under which it was given.
It occurs in the "Sermon on the Mount" — an
address made primarily to the disciples though
in the presence of a multitude of other people
(St. Matt. 5:1, 2). In the happy phrase of
Bishop Gore, the Sermon "was preached in the
ear of the Church and was overheard by the
world." This explains much.
The members of the family are taught to call
God their Father. This is a right which they
alone have, and they are given it only by virtue
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of their relation to and union with the only-
begotten Son, Jesus Christ (St. John 1:12).
To them, the Holy Spirit reveals God as their
Father (Rom. 8:14-16). It is only to those
who desire and claim sonship that the "Father-
hood of God" becomes a practical reality.
In passing, it might be noted that the word
"brother" throughout the New Testament ap-
pears to be limited to members of the Christian
community. Our Lord's practice seems to
have been in conformity with this principle.
"All ye are brethren," Jle says to His disci-
ples ; but when He inculcates the duties of the
Christian toward one who has not yet accepted
the privileges of sonship in God's family, He
applies to such the word "neighbor." His an-
swer to the question of the lawyer, "Who is
my neighbor?" is a good illustration (St. Luke
10:29-37). Had one of His disciples asked
him, "Who is my brother?" the answer would
doubtless have been different.
"Father" is a name of great significance in
human relationships; to be permitted to apply
it to God Almighty is an inexpressible priv-
ilege. A child seeks in its father wisdom,
power and love. Any one of the three alone
— wisdom unmitigated by love and power;
power exerted apart from wisdom and love;
love unguided by wisdom and power — these
present only a hideous nightmare of possibili-
ties. The three qualities are essential to pro-
duce confidence. The most perfect of earthly
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parents presents but the barest approximation
to these true qualities of fatherhood. God
exhibits them in infinite perfectness. The
members of God's family are in the hands and
under the care of a Father all-wise, all-power-
ful and all-loving. He can make no mistakes
in the treatment of His children through ig-
norance, weakness or carelessness.
"Who art in Heaven" It is childish to
think of heaven as a place up in the sky where
God lives. There is no route to heaven
through space. One does not have to die to
gtt there.
"Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."
Only as we grow up and lose our childlike-
ness, only as we lose our faith in the unseen,
do we become conscious of a thickening veil
between earth and heaven. Really they are
two interpenetrating realms, and it is not dif-
ficult for the child of God to dwell much in
his "Father's house." Heaven is where God
is, and God is very close to any one desiring
Him so to be.
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"Speak to Him, thou, for He heareth,
And spirit with spirit can meet,
Closer is He than breathing,
Nearer than hands and feet."
Just on the other side of the veil God dwells.
His realm is there — the realm of power and
calm. To some of God's children, whose senses
have become attuned through long practice
to catch the echoes and images of things un-
seen, the veil is always semi-transparent ; to all
of us it is so at times.
There stands upon the altar a bit of bread,
a drop of wine; a power from God's realm
touches these material elements; their value is
changed; and what we receive is not merely
material food fit for our bodies, but spiritual
food to nourish our souls. Indeed, in this
great Sacrament, our Lord comes to us and we
to Him ; we are actually in His presence ; here
the veil is so thin that through it His power
works almost without obstruction and "to our
great and endless comfort."
This is but one assurance of the close pres-
ence of God. Where God is manifest, there is
heaven, — the realm of peace and light and
power. Through the gate of worship we can
enter heaven at any time by realizing the pres-
ence of God; by the practice of His presence
we come to dwell there.
"Hallowed be Thy Name." In heaven the
object of all reverence and adoration is the
Name — the character — of God. It is a proper
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instinct by which the devout Jew never pre-
sumes to pronounce the great Name of God
— Jehovah — the Ever-Existent. Our Lord
teaches us to pray that we may ourselves real-
ize the adorable qualities of God — His holiness,
His justice, His love ; that reverence for Him,
because of these qualities, may become the con-
trolling feature of our religion; that we may
strive to reproduce those qualities in our-
selves ; and that more and more the reverence
which is paid to God and to His essential char-
acter in heaven may be duplicated on earth.
For scholars tell us that the phrase "as in
heaven so on earth" is to be taken as qualify-
ing all three of the preceding clauses. Every
act or word, therefore, indeed every thought
of ours which adds to the reverence in which
God's name and character are held among our
associates here on earth, helps on the fulfil-
ment of this prayer, "Hallowed be Thy
Name."
"Thy Kingdom come — on earth as in
heaven." Reverence is expressed in adora-
tion, but not only so. It is no passive quality.
The most profound reverence is expressed in
active strivings to pattern ourselves after the
person reverenced, or to reproduce his charac-
teristic qualities. (One recalls the familiar
saying, "Imitation is the sincerest flattery.")
Therefore when we have prayed that God's
character may be revered on earth as it is in
heaven, we are led immediately to pray that
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His righteousness (a word which, better than
any other, seems to sum up His character)
may appear to all men everywhere so wholly
beautiful and adorable that they may desire
ardently to show their admiration and rever-
ence not only by emulating it, but also by plac-
ing themselves under God's rule and author-
ity, and by giving to Him their utter obedi-
ence. And note here that righteousness and
morality are not the same thing at all. As a
recent writer has said, "Morality may be the
long story of human behavior; but righteous-
ness is divine. The hope of righteousness in
the world is that the Creator is the Judge"
(C. S. Baldwin, in The Living Church, April
3, 1920. Cf. Acts 17:31; Rom. 3:5, 6). This
recognition of the supreme claim of God to
universal loyalty is the coming of God's King-
dom on earth; and every act of ours, however
slight, which tends to make others realize the
attractiveness of God's character, and which
therefore stirs a desire to imitate it and makes
goodness easier and sin more difficult and life
richer for some one else, helps forward the
coming of the Kingdom of heaven on earth ; for
it is quite as true that where God reigns there
is heaven as that where heaven is there God
reigns. When, through the sum of such slight
individual efforts, mankind as a whole comes
so to reverence God's righteousness as to imi-
tate it in all their inter-relationships, the reign
of God, now established in the heavenly sphere,
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will be manifestly extended to include the
whole earthly sphere as well.
"Thy will be done — as in heaven, so on
earth." In heaven — in the realm on the other
side of the veil, God's holy will is perfectly ful-
filled and joyously accepted. There is no
other desire, for His will is seen to be the high-
est good both in itself and in the ways in which
it is fulfilled. Here, in the earthly realm,
these ways can not but be equally inspired and
directed by the pure love of our Father; but,
too often the fulfilment of God's will is ac-
companied by such painful circumstances that
the splendid prayer, "Thy will be done," has
come to be a common expression of more or
less pious resignation. Of course this is due
to our own short-sightedness. If we could
see the ultimate results attained by God in
completely working out His will in and through
us, we would be astounded that ever for a mo-
ment we should have desired otherwise. So
far from being reserved for moments of pain
and sorrow, whispered in a minor key, and
made expressive of resignation to the inev-
itable, the words should be shouted aloud as
the C major of our lives — the highest conceiv-
able good, glorifying and illuminating every
event. For nothing that comes to us by the
will of God can be evil, and nothing evil can
come to us by the will of God. "We know that
to them that love God, all things work together
for good" (Rom. 8:28). Those four mono-
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syllables — "Thy will be done" — are perhaps the
most complete expression of man's longing for
happiness and contentment that has ever been
put into human speech. Their perfect fulfil-
ment on earth as in heaven would leave noth-
ing more to be desired in the whole universe.
Every joyous acceptance of what comes to us
through the love and power and wisdom of our
Father makes His will more completely done
on earth as in heaven.
This then is the mission to which we new-
born people — members of God's family — are
devoted: to increase everywhere and by every
means the reverence in which God and His at-
tributes of majesty, righteousness, wisdom,
justice, power and love are held; that all men
may loyally acknowledge His authority and
strive to emulate His character, in order that
His kingdom of righteousness may be estab-
lished throughout the world, His will recog-
nized as man's highest good, and earth become
like heaven.
For the accomplishment of this great mis-
sion we need certain things, and our Lord bids
us pray for them. They are personal needs
but they are to be interpreted in relation to the
united work of the Family and of the world's
needs.
"Give us tli is day our daily bread." First,
we need physical strength for our work, and
therefore need bodily food. But note the re-
strained desire expressed in the petition. No
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doubt our Lord uses the word "bread" in a
typical sense, meaning all things necessary to
our physical life; but He certainly means only
necessary things; in other words, only such
things as are essential to the doing of our work
effectively. Moreover, the form of the peti-
tion is in the original, very striking. The pre-
cise meaning is obscure, but the more literal
translation seems to be, "Give us today the
bread for the coming day." Not only is the
request limited to the simplest food and other
necessities of life, but it is limited also to our
immediate need. While, on the one hand, we
are thus limited, in our asking, to bare neces-
sities, we may be quite sure, on the other, that
these will never be lacking, or our Lord would
not have told us to ask unconditionally for
them. David was a person of very wide ex-
perience among people of all sorts, yet he tes-
tifies that in all his varied career, from be-
ginning to end, he had never come across a
case of absolute destitution in the family of a
righteous man who took God at His word.
Doubtless he was perfectly right. Absolute
and unwavering trust in God can never be dis-
regarded by Him. Furthermore we pray,
"Give us" not "Give me" In praying for bod-
ily needs we are to have in mind the whole of
God's Family — all of our fellow-Christians;
and we shall not expect to be provided for in-
dividually unless we are doing our best to see
that all other members of God's Family are
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equally provided for, and protected from want.
"And forgive us our debts as we also have
forgiven our debtors." We have prayed for
physical strength through the supply of ma-
terial food. But something more is required
if we are to do God's work and fulfil our mis-
sion acceptably. For this we need spiritual
food to give strength to our souls. Those
souls are lamentably weak. They have never
been strong enough to bring our bodies com-
pletely under control; we have constantly of-
fended God in His purity, His love, His jus-
tice ; wre have not tried hard enough to be like
Him; measured by the rule of Christ's life,
ours are manifestly crooked. Therefore for-
giveness for past offenses is absolutely essen-
tial to any access of spiritual strength. That
is the reason why forms of confession and ab-
solution are found at the very opening of all
liturgies. We have defrauded God of the
obedience which was His due and have thereby
become His debtors ; we have broken His laws
and thereby become trespassers against Him;
whether as debtors or trespassers we have done
Him a wrong and can only throw ourselves
on His mercy.
Note also the extent to which we may ex-
pect mercy. It is measured by the degree of
our forgiveness toward others — "forgive us
. . . as we forgive" (t. e. in the same propor-
tion) (Cf. St. Matt. 6:15). If we would
know how forgivingly God feels toward us,
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all that is necessary is to see how forgivingly
we feel — not spasmodically or upon some spe-
cial occasion, but habitually — toward people
who have done us wrong. It is a very solemn
petition, involving great issues.
"And bring us not into temptation, but de-
liver us from the evil one" Of all the clauses
of the Lord's Prayer, the meaning of this one
is the easiest to understand and the most dif-
ficult to express. St. James, using the same
word for "temptation," tells us to rejoice in it
as a test of faith (Jas. 1:2), and indeed it is
only by subjecting strength to a strain that
it is increased. Evidently, however, no one
desires strength or resistance to be tested to
the breaking point unless the material is re-
garded as worth wasting in order to determine
that point. Of course that is not so in this
case. What our Lord means us to feel and ex-
press is our well-known and deplorable weak-
ness in the face of temptation. We daren't
pray to be put to the test ; in fact we may even
pray not to be tested, at least not beyond our
strength or unless at the same time the spirit
of watchfulness and prayer be increased in us
so that we are "delivered from evil" (liter-
ally, "from the evil one") (Cf. St. Matt.
26:41). As Bishop Gore has explained (The
Sermon on the Mount, p. 128), "The prayer
may be interpreted by expansion thus: make
us watchful and prayerful, so that we may
never be suffered to fall into temptation as into
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a snare." For deliverance under such cir-
cumstances we may always pray with confi-
dence (Cf. i Cor. 10:13).
The second portion of this clause is for de-
liverance from the devil — not temporarily but
permanently. We are reminded of the clause
in the Litany so often misread by our clergy:
"And finally to beat down Satan under our
feet," where "finally" doesn't have the mean-
ing of "eventually" or "at last," but rather of
"definitively," "now, once for all." So,
strengthened in body and soul, forgiven for all
past offences, at one with God, knowing our
desperate susceptibility to evil suggestions but
knowing also that by watchfulness and prayer
Satan can be resisted, we go forth on our mis-
sion.
And here again it is necessary to notice that
these petitions have no merely individual ap-
plication. Intercession — the praying for oth-
ers, those not yet re-born, as well as our fellow-
members in God's family — this should form,
a large part of all our prayers.
There can be no question about the result.
St. John, on the Island of Patmos, looking for-
ward into the dim future, saw the end with
such absolute certitude that to his eyes it
seemed already present. "There followed
great voices in heaven," he writes, "and they
said, The kingdom of the world is become the
kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ"
(Rev. 11:15). So, some time after the Lord's
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Prayer was written down, the mind of the
Church attached to the prayer a doxology
which was commonly used in connection with
many prayers, but has a peculiarly fine sig-
nificance here. For not only does it give the
reason for our worship of God, but, with su-
perb assurance, it sees the ultimate purpose of
God as already definitely realized. "Thine is
the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for
ever and ever. Amen!' Here is the source
of all our confidence. In weakness and inef-
ficiency the Church struggles forward; but
around her is God Almighty ; unseen, unknown
by the world but infinite in power and glory
and determined to establish on earth His king-
dom of righteousness, yet dependent on man
for the accomplishment of His purpose. To
this high purpose He calls us, and He pledges
His honor that, with our cooperation, mankind
shall be brought in adoration to His throne.
Surely if the messages implied in this great
Prayer fail to stir in us a passionate eagerness
to make them known, something is fatally
wrong with us. God has become our Father;
we have entered upon a relationship toward
Him possible for every son of man. In close
fellowship with Him, we have found heaven
where He dwells as others may find it here and
now. In striving to reproduce His holy char-
acter in ourselves and in others, righteousness
appears on earth. In the perfect fulfilment of
His most glorious will on earth, we find satis-
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faction for ourselves and all mankind. We
have learned that only as a world divided, dis-
tressed, and misled comes to recognize Him as
King can the law of right and justice be finally
established on earth. We have found our-
selves to be the objects of His daily loving
care. Conscious of the debt we owe Him, we
are assured of His forgiveness; more than
that, we are made confident of deliverance
from the powers of evil. For He is the King,
all-powerful, and glorious beyond imagining.
109
CHAPTER V
THE GREAT CHARTER OF THE CHURCH
So long as Jesus Christ was Himself phys-
ically present in the world it was not difficult
for Him to show men that He came with a
message of life from God to man. We have
seen how, with untiring activity, He carried
that message, applying it to the bodies, the
minds and the souls of all whom He could
reach. Even as a child He was plainly con-
scious of a mission. Unconsciously, too, He
ministered through those passive early years.
We have studied the methods which He
adopted during His active missionary career;
and, because all His strength seems to have
been derived from God through prayer, and
also because every clause of the great prayer
which He gave to His Church is instinct with
the missionary message and has but little sig-
nificance apart from it, we have tried to see
what the prayer means.
As the time approached when Christ was to
withdraw His physical presence, it became in-
creasingly necessary to make some provision
for the carrying on of His mission.
There is an old legend to the effect that when
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our Lord ascended to heaven after His earthly
ministry was over, He was met by an angel
who asked Him where He had been. "I have
been to earth," He replied. "What hast Thou
done there?" asked the angel. "I have set up
my Kingdom," was the reply. "What dost
Thou hope for it?" the angel asked. "That
all the world shall be brought into it through
its present citizens," said Christ. "And how
many citizens hast Thou made?" pursued the
angel. "About six score," was the reply. The
angel paused a moment, wondering. Then —
"And with this paltry number, how canst Thou
hope to conquer the world? Suppose they
prove false or disobedient; what other provi-
sion hast Thou made?" "I have made no
other provision," was the calm reply; "I am de-
pending on them."
How our Lord's dependence upon the citi-
zens of His Kingdom in those early days was
justified, we can read in the whole history of
the early Church for two centuries. How far
His reliance upon His Church today is justi-
fied, depends on how you and I interpret His
final command, and on the zeal with which you
and I are trying to obey it. He has made no
other provision to have a work done which you
and I alone can accomplish, and to secure re-
sults dependent upon your message and mine.
For this He is depending solely on us.
It was enough to cause the keenest anxiety
to a mind less faithful and well-poised. He
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trusted in two things; the gradual fruition of
His own teaching, and the coming of the Holy
Spirit into the Church to abide with it as
teacher and director. We shall see later what
absolute reliance He placed on the work of God
the Holy Ghost, and how fully He was justi-
fied; but during the closing months of our
Lord's earthly life, the teaching and strength-
ening power of God had not yet come in full-
ness on the disciples, and until it should come
they were weak, inefficient, timid and igno-
rant. They were, however, the only instru-
ments at hand and they had at least one essen-
tial quality of the missionary — intense love for
their Master, and hence the spirit to do His will
and obey His last commands, however weak
the flesh.
But before proceeding to discuss what these
provisions were, let us see whether our Lord
really considered His mission as world-wide
in possible scope, and His message as applica-
ble to all men everywhere.
We have already seen how God regarded
His revelation of Himself to the Jewish
Church. There can be no question but that He
intended the Jews to carry even that incom-
plete revelation as good news to all the world,
that so all nations might be brought into obedi-
ence to His righteous rule; and mere logic
would lead us to conclude that, with the giving
of a complete revelation to the Christian
Church, God equally intended that Church to
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be His final messenger to the whole known
world. But let us see briefly what Jesus Christ
Himself and His immediate followers thought
about it. It is certainly true that, at first, our
Lord did place limitations upon the scope of
His own mission and that of His disciples.
This is apparent in the explicit directions which
He gave to the Twelve (St. Matt. 10:5-6);
it is implied in the later mission of the Sev-
enty (St. Luke 10:1). He states, at least on
one occasion, that His own mission is simi-
larly restricted (St. Matt. 15:24). In view,
however, of the whole trend of our Lord's
teaching, such a restriction must have been
only temporary, and must be otherwise ex-
plainable than on the theory that the final rev-
elation of God was intended for the Jew only.
It may have been that the desire to see the Jew-
ish people fulfilling their mission was still so
ardent in the heart of Christ, that He deter-
mined to disregard their age-long indifference
to it, to start afresh, and to give them one more
opportunity. He knew that, in the plan of
God, salvation was of the Jews; it was, indeed,
His own to whom He came; by His own that
He was rejected ( St. John 1 : 1 1 ) ; the Kingdom
of God was theirs by right of priority, if only
they would be faithful to it (St. Matt. 21 :43).
Not until every effort had been made, and
all in vain, to open their blind eyes and arouse
their sluggish hearts, did that bitter cry of
disappointed hope burst from our Lord's lips,
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"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killeth the
prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto
her ! Behold, your house is left unto you deso-
late'' (St. Matt. 23:37, 38). A similar hope
stirred His Apostles ; a like disappointment met
them. St. Peter is convinced that the prom-
ises of God are primarily to the Jews (Acts
3 125, 26) ; and even the great Apostle to the
Gentiles never fails to address his message
first to Jewish gatherings in synagogues, on the
ground that it is necessary that the word of
God should first be spoken to them for it is to
them first that the Gospel is to be exhibited as
"the power of God unto salvation" \Rom.
1:16). Only as the Jew rejects the revela-
tion and scorns the message and its obliga-
tions does God divert His messengers from
the Jew to the Gentile, and select the latter as
His agent (St. Matt. 21:43; Acts 13:46;
and 18:6). Is not this the reason why our
Lord at first restricted the scope of His own
mission ? His object may not at all have been
to confine the message within bounds, but
rather to present to God's proper messengers,
once more and for the last time, an opportu-
nity to fulfil their destiny. That the disciples
were at first similarly restricted in the scope
of their mission may be explained on the same
grounds. I like to think also, however, that
our blessed Lord, having due regard to their
unprepared condition, knew that it would be
easier for them to be sent to their own kind
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The Great Charter of the Church
of people; especially since He intended to fol-
low them up in order to correct any mistakes
they might make either through ignorance or
excessive zeal. Moreover, their mental limita-
tions were such that they could not safely be
entrusted with a message to the keener Gen-
tile mind. That had to wait for the appear-
ance of a Saul.
Such, I think, are the reasons for our Lord's
apparent restrictions of His mission. That
He was not Himself bound by them, however,
is quite plain. The woman of Samaria, the
Syro-Phcenician mother, the Roman centurion
whose favorite slave was sick, the Greek prose-
lytes at the last great Passover whose request
to Philip, "Sir, we wrould see Jesus," evoked the
triumphant exclamation, "The hour is come,
that the Son of Man should be glorified/' — all
of these were, racially at least, Gentiles, and
to all of them our Lord ministered of His
abundant grace. Indeed, to the Samaritan
womai., a Gentile and a sinner, he revealed the
higher truths of God even as He did to Nico-
demus, the devout Pharisee. When we come
to His explicit statements regarding the scope
of His mission, and the appeal of His message,
there is no hint of any limitation whatever.
"God loved the world," is His conviction;
"Whosoever believeth" receives life (St. John
3:16). "The bread which I will give is my
flesh, for the life of the world" (St. John 6:
51). "I am the light of the world" (St. John
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The Church's Life
8:12). "Other sheep I have — them also I
must bring" (St. John 10:16). "I, if I be
lifted up, will draw all men unto myself" (St.
John 12 132). "I came to save the world" (St.
John 12:47).
Redemption of the whole creation and sal-
vation made possible for all men are the objec-
tives of the incarnation of the Son of God, and
when He prays for the unity of all the new-
born children of God, then and throughout all
time, it is in order that, through their mani-
fest unity, one with another and all in the
Father and the Son together, the world may
be convinced that in Jesus Christ is seen the
Revealer of God (St. John 17:21).
By His command, His messengers are sent
forth to make disciples ofy and to baptize all
nations (St. Matt. 28:19). The Gospels are
the records of a great Missionary; they were
written by missionaries. The book following
the Gospels in the canon records the acts of
living men engaged in turning the world up-
side down ; bringing in a new social order, not,
as in the case of man's blind and misguided
attempts, by hatred and destruction, but by
the divine method of love and freedom and
life for all the world. The very center and
kernel of the book is found in its opening chap-
ter : "Ye shall receive power" (Acts 1 :8). The
remainder is the record of this power as ap-
plied to the known world of the day. St. Peter
has a narrow range of activities — Judaea,
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i The Great Charter of the Church
Samaria, Galilee — all Jewish or part Jewish —
though he is given proof that the Spirit shall
yet be poured out on all flesh. St. Philip's
mission opens the gateway to a Gentile people
far beyond his ken. But it is to the missionary
activities of St. Paul — ambassador plenipo-
tentiary of God to the whole Gentile world,
East and West — that two-thirds of this mar-
velous book is devoted. Unable thoroughly to
cover the vast field of their activities, the great
missionaries of the early Church have recourse
to letters; the note of every one of the Epistles
is personal responsibility toward keeping and
extending the Faith. The canon of Scripture
closes with the lifting of the veil which hides
the future. Strange visions appear, confused
images succeed one another, voices and thun-
derings are heard, colossal shapes of doom, and
destruction appear and disappear through the
mists; the mind strives in vain to grasp and
hold the meaning of it all. Yet out of the
confusion of image and allegory, like the sun
bursting through clouds, emerge from time to
time distinct visions of what shall be, promises
revealing the consummation of the determinate
counsel of God. Around the throne of the
Almighty stand the elect of Israel; and with
them a countless host of the redeemed from
all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues,
joining with the hosts of heaven in united
fealty to God (Rev. 7:9-12). Great voices
announce the transformation of all earthly rule
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into the everlasting Kingdom of Christ (Rev.
ii 115). Through the arches of heaven rever-
berate, like the roar of mighty waters in flood,
the praises of Jehovah — the Almighty King
(Rev. 19:6). And at the last, we see the river
of living water springing from the throne of
God; and, on either side, that tree of life whose
leaves are for the healing of the nations (Rev.
22 :2). Here is the perfect fulfillment of God's
eternal purpose for man; expressed in the be-
ginning, awaiting man's own consent through
the ages, and now at last completed through
the perfect obedience of the Son of Man. For
in another garden once stood the tree of life,
mercifully guarded from access by a flaming
sword lest man, condemned to mortality
through his sin of disobedience, should eat of
it and live for ever in his guilty state (Gen.
3:22-24). Now, through the obedience of the
perfect Son of Man, the tree of life stands free
to all who are made one with Him; its leaves
spread abroad for the healing of the nations.
"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
And he that heareth, let him say, Come. And
he that is athirst, let him come: he that will,
let him take the water of life freely" (Rev.
22 : 17) . This is the news for which the nations
wait. Not believe in the world-wide mission
of the Church? Alas, poor blinded Christian!
God's eternal plan can never miscarry; but
how will it be with you at the last, if you have
declined all part in its accomplishment — if you
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The Great Charter of the Church
have said to no single thirsty soul, "Come"?
* * *
The last words of a departing teacher and
leader of men are, I suppose, always of peculiar
significance to his followers. At any rate they
were so in this case. Years afterwards, four
of His followers — two of them His own or-
dained Apostles, and the other two relying
upon information received from an Apostle or
a member of His earthly family — put into writ-
ing all that the Holy Spirit (according to His
promise) called to their remembrance concern-
ing His acts and sayings (Cf. St. John 14:26).
Of the first thirty years of Christ's earthly life
they had but little to record. St. Luke, deriv-
ing his information probably from the Blessed
Virgin, narrates the events leading up to and
accompanying our Lord's birth, and His visit
to Jerusalem at the age of twelve. St. Mat-
thew gives, in addition, the visit of the eastern
seers, the attempt on the Child's life, and the
flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. St.
Mark, the earliest of the recorders, depending
much, doubtless, upon what was told him by
his old friend, Simon Peter, is silent regarding
the whole of our Lord's life up to the time of
His baptism. St. John is not concerned with
historical or biographical detail, but records
and interprets the Master's sayings with ex-
traordinarily sympathetic accuracy and under-
standing.
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The Church's Life
One other period of our Lord's life is left
almost equally unrecorded — that is, the period
of the forty days succeeding the Resurrection.
Much instruction must have been crowded into
this period, countless sayings must have been
uttered (Cf. St. John 21 125). They were His
final instructions — His last words; and one
would have expected to find them very fully
recorded. It is not so, however. St. Matthew
and St. Mark have little to say regarding this
period. St. Luke and St. John give only the
briefest records of certain appearances of our
Lord during those forty days and of the say-
ings associated with them. It is as if, with one
notable exception, the last sayings had been
forgotten or had made little impression. That
one exception must have been emphasized in
some extraordinary way, and it evidently left
a profound impression on their minds; for,
years afterwards, when the evangelists attempt
to recall the events of those forty days, only
this one saying remains so vividly in their
minds that all four of them, writing indepen-
dently, record it — one of them twice over.
This is the Great Commission of the Church
— our Lord's provision for the continuance of
His own mission. The form given by St. Mat-
thew is probably the most familiar: "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 com-
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The Great Charter of the Church
nianded yon" (St. Matt. 28:19, 20). This is
an expansion of the command as recorded by
St. Mark: "Go ye into all the world, and preach
the gospel to the whole creation'' (St. Mark
16:15). But all four evangelists record it:
St. Matthew 28:18-20; St. Mark 16:15; St.
Luke 24:46-49; St. John 20:21. St. Luke
records it a second time in Acts 1 :8.
Now this universal recording is very re-
markable, for it is not found in the case of any
of the great events of our Lord's life, even
those which have become enshrined for all time
in the dogmatic utterances of the Church. We
find no such unanimous record of the Birth, the
Baptism, the Temptation, the Transfiguration,
or the Ascension. The Resurrection alone ap-
pears to be regarded as of parallel significance
and to receive similar recognition; and this is
surely noteworthy, since without our Lord's
permanent and decisive triumph over death,
as proved by His Resurrection, there would
have been no assurance of life to form the
substance of the Church's message. The two
are intimately bound up together — without the
Resurrection there would have been no mes-
sage worth delivering; without the message
there would have been for us no assurance of
immortality. No wonder, therefore, that from
the tantalizing silence of the forty days, there
sounds the four- fold trumpet-call — "Go ye"!
It is the supreme thing — the message of life
proven and assured — the commission to the
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The Church's Life
Church always and everywhere. She may for-
get all else, even her Creeds ; but this she may
not forget except at peril of her own life.
Note another emphasis on the Great Com-
mission. One man destined to be an Apostle
was not present when the commission was
given ; in fact, so far as we know, he had never
even seen our Lord. When this man is called,
it is deemed necessary that he, too, receive the
commission from the same source as did the
original messengers. It will be to him at once
the assurance of his membership in the Church
and of his responsibility toward the world. So
on the burning road to Damascus he sees the
Lord Christ, and from those lips he receives
the commission : "To this end have I appeared
unto thee, to appoint thee a minister and a
witness; . . . delivering thee . . . from the
Gentiles, unto whom I send thee" (Acts 26:
16, 17). Now whether we conceive of the
Church as a human organization — inspired by
God, it may be, both in its inception and con-
tinuance, but still analogous to a guild or a
club or a society; or whether we regard it as
a divine organism — a living body — composed
of members united together by an indestruc-
tible bond of common life from a common
source — in a word, as the Body of Christ —
whichever of these two views we accept, one
thing is perfectly certain. An organization
having an officially recognized standing and
purpose must comply with the terms of its
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The Great Charter of the Church
charter. The charter is issued by authority,
and it sets forth the conditions under which
the organization is licensed to do business and
the object for which it is incorporated. The
organization is formed to fulfill some purpose
which the State or other authority acknowl-
edges to be a useful one, and the moment the
organization forgets this obligation and fails
to fulfill the purpose for which it was incor-
porated, as set forth in its charter, that moment
it becomes liable to the withdrawal of its char-
ter, and to consequent dissolution. That this
result is possible in the case of the Church is
abundantly evident. The Jewish Church for-
feited its charter because it was blind to its
mission as a messenger of God to all the world;
a similar fate has always threatened the Chris-
tian Church (see St. Matt. 21:43 and Rev.
2:5). And what is true of the whole organiza-
tion is true of any member of it. A member
who deliberately disregards the purpose for
which his society was organized and chartered
thereby becomes, at the least, a useless and
negligible member and may even be cut off
from the privileges of membership altogether.
If one tries to discover the Church's charter
or act of incorporation, it would obviously be
looked for in some outstanding statement on
the part of its supreme Head, addressed to the
whole society immediately before its organiza-
tion. Such a statement we actually do find in,
and only in, the Great Commission. Even if,
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then, we think of the Church as merely a
divinely inspired human organization, disre-
gard of Jesus Christ's final command, whether
by the Church as a whole or by any individual
member of it, involves very serious conse-
quences. This is not a remarkably high mo-
tive, I grant — fear of consequences never is;
but it is a motive. To risk forfeiting a share
in the mercies of God, covenanted or uncov-
enanted, is a very hazardous proceeding; to
minimize or misinterpret our Lord's last com-
mand is a very disloyal one. If we conceive
of the Church as an organism — the Body of
Christ — representing Him here on earth,
carrying on His life and work; and we our-
selves as "very members incorporate" in that
Body, surely the function of every Christian
is perfectly evident. The supreme objective of
every living organism is to propagate its spe-
cies by the handing on of its own life. Every-
thing is adapted to that end; nature exhibits
the most astonishing ingenuity in attaining
that end. An organism unfitted to reproduce
is an abnormal thing; one unwilling to repro-
duce falls short, as a rule, of its highest pur-
pose. Self-preservation and reproduction are
the two dominant factors in the organic world ;
and, of the two, the latter is possibly the more
deep-seated and inherent. That is, the instinct
to hand on the collective life, rather than the
mere fear of losing individual life, is probably
at the root of the instinct of self-preservation.
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The Great Charter of the Church
Apply this to the spiritual organism — the
Church. The Church was born and put into
the world to act as Christ did; to serve as He
served; to proclaim, by life and word, a mes-
sage from God as He proclaimed it ; but, above
all, to transmit the more abundant life which
she has received from the living God in Christ.
So you and I were made members of Christ in
Baptism for one main purpose only — to hand
on to others the life which we have received so
abundantly, whether it be physical, mental, or
spiritual. For this reason we pray, as pre-
viously noted, "God be merciful unto us and
bless us, (in order) that Thy way may be
known upon earth, Thy saving health among
all nations." Whenever we ignore our mis-
sionary, life-giving calling, and to the extent
that we ignore it, we cut ourselves off from
the living Body of Christ, or, if not cut off, we
become useless and possibly a menace to its
health.
Of course if we regard ourselves as purely
individual Christians, and our relation to God
as a purely personal matter, the case may be
different; but if we recognize definite relation-
ships either to an organization or to a living
organism, we must, in the one case, help ful-
fill the aim for which our organization was
chartered; or, in the other, reproduce the life
entrusted to us for that purpose. In either
case, we must do it with all our might and
125
The Church's Life
with settled determination, or face the risk of
losing either our fellowship or our life.
I have applied this reasoning to every fol-
lower and member of Christ. But you will find
many persons (possibly a mirror will show you
one) who tacitly assume or actually state that
our Lord's command was given only to His
Apostles and therefore that, by implication, He
intended to limit the Great Commission to a
body of men set apart for the purpose. I re-
member once hearing a deaconess whose life-
work lay in a busy down-town parish, say that
she had never worked in the mission-field — an
astounding statement from one who passed
every day of her life in just such a field. But
she was only voicing the very common and
pernicious idea that to be a "missionary" in-
volves going away somewhere. Suggest to an
average Church boy that he become a mis-
sionary, and he immediately shows you that,
in his opinion, you have proposed to him an
extraordinary and abnormal career; and this
because he has imbibed, from all that he has
seen and heard, the strange misconception that
ministers always have to be ordained men, and
that our Lord entrusted His mission to them
alone in the person of the Apostles. Presently
the average boy becomes the average layman,
still imbued with the deep-rooted idea that he
has united with others in hiring an ordained
man to act for him as parish priest, preacher
and pastor — in other words, to do all the "re-
126
The Great Charter of the Church
ligious work" in the community — and that oc-
casionally God calls one of these men, or per-
haps even a layman like himself, to become a
"missionary," and to be regarded henceforth
by him with a sort of wondering aloofness as
an extremely peculiar person dedicated to the
task of "converting the heathen." It never
seems to occur to this average layman that he
himself is a missionary by the very terms of
his membership in the Church; that his mis-
sion is to the bodies and minds and souls of
every one in need right where he is ; and that,
unless he has spent his life in solitary confine-
ment, he has been brought up all his life in' a
mission-field, and in the very midst of the
heathen. This is simply because he has never
really read the Book of the Acts.
If we turn to that record of the life of the
early Church, we find that it was some time
before the members of the Church began to
realize that the Lord's command was intended
for every one of them and that "all the world"
meant something more than Jerusalem or even
Judaea. Small blame to them perhaps; cer-
tainly less than to us nowadays ! For they had
been told to wait in Jerusalem until the Day
of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Ghost
with power ; then they had immediately found
abundant opportunity to exercise their new-
found powers right where they were. The
Church in Jerusalem grew with astonishing
rapidity, and was held in awed repute by the
127
The Church's Life
city crowds; the Supreme Court and other
rulers threatened, it is true, but the members
of the Church had abundant evidence that the
powers of God were on their side; money
poured into their common treasury, enabling
every Church-member to be comfortably pro-
vided for; and everything was favorable in
Jerusalem.
But evidently the Church was too much "at
ease in Zion" to suit the plans of God. If she
declined to follow the missionary Christ of her
own free will, she must be driven to. To ac-
complish this result God sacrificed one of His
ablest servants — a man who apparently had a
great Christian career before him and who
could be ill spared from any work contemplat-
ing missions to the Gentiles, even though he
was not an Apostle. Stephen — a "Grecian"
Jew, a deacon, and a man "full of grace and
power" — fell a victim to the mob and was
stoned to death. So God worked His will for
the Church, for "there arose on that day a
great persecution against the church which was
in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered
abroad . . . except the Apostles" And they
"that were scattered abroad went about preach-
ing the word" (Acts 8:1, 4). Who were these
peopfe who went about preaching? Only a
single ordained man is mentioned by name;
the vast majority of them must have been lay
people, and the only members of the Church
not thus forced to exercise their "missionary"
128
The Great Charter of the Church
calling were those very Apostles to whom
alone, according to our average layman, Christ
had committed His mission and who were
therefore properly to be called "missionaries."
This was undoubtedly a stern method by
which to arouse the members of the infant
Church to their duty, but apparently none
other was adequate at the moment. At any
rate it suffices to show us today that our Lord's
command was intended to apply to every mem-
ber of His Church, clerical and lay, ordained
and not ordained ; and that every Christian is
bound to take a personal and active part in
fulfilling that command. Indeed, the same two-
fold obligation rests upon every member of the
Church today, as in those early times : "They
continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching
and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and
the prayers" (Acts 2:42); and they so con-
tinued in order that they might "go into all
the world and preach the gospel to the whole
creation" (St. Mark 16:15). These two say-
ings present a very fair definition of what it
means to be a Christian. The first represents
Christians as those who are something, that
is, steadfast in accepting the doctrine which
the Apostles taught and transforming it into
daily practice; steadfast in maintaining, to-
gether with the Apostles, their fellowship and
unity in the Body; steadfast in recalling and
confirming that unity by the constant receiv-
ing of the Holy Communion; and steadfast in
129
The Church's Life
joining in a form of common worship peculiar
to the Christian Church. There was nothing
else to distinguish those early Christians from
their fellow-Jews. They lived like Jews, they
held to Jewish customs and observances, they
maintained their relations with synagogue and
temple, there was no sharp break with Juda-
ism; but in the mass of Judaism they formed
a little nucleus, and, by noting their loyalty to
one another, their meetings together for spe-
cial forms of worship, and, above all, their con-
sciousness of a new life thrilling and trans-
forming them, it was easy to tell who were
Christians.
The second saying represents Christians as
those who are doing something. Not only
were they living a different life, with new
motives, new courage, new understanding,
new ideals; but they were going everywhere,
"preaching the word" — not orally always, but
by example, by evidences of power; and, fur-
thermore, in expressed obedience to a command
from God. They had witnessed a stupendous
event ; they had shared in a resurrection ; they
knew a power capable of turning the world
upside down and transforming it into a King-
dom where the righteousness of God should
inspire and control every act of man ; and this
good news each one of them felt bound to
announce, this transformation each one felt
bound to promote. "We cannot but speak the
things which we have seen and heard" — this
130
The Great Charter of the Church
was the real compulsion which persecution
merely made effective. For this, no ordina-
tion was essential. The layman, whatever
business or occupation he might pursue, felt
the demands of one great profession — that of
the missionary, and he would have been beyond
measure puzzled if he had found among "the
prayers" such an one as that with which many
modern Church people are familiar, containing
the petition, "We commend to thy fatherly care
all whom thou hast called to take part in the
missionary work of thy Church. " For, in the
only Christian community which he knew any-
thing about, every one was a missionary, keen
to tell what he himself had seen and heard
and experienced; and the kind of prayer with
which he was becoming most familiar was,
"Now, Lord, grant unto thy servants to speak
thy word with all boldness, while thou stretchi-
est forth thy hand to heal" (Acts 4:29, 30).
It was by these marks, then, that an observer
in the first century could readily distinguish a
Christian from other people: the Christian was
seen to withdraw himself frequently into the
fellowship of his beloved community, there to
meet his Lord in prayer and in the blessed
Sacrament; and hence he was seen to issue
eagerly to apply to the needs of all men every-
where the principles of the Life which he had
received, the Truth which had been revealed
to him, and the Way which led to the Father.
If this was true of the first century, why not
131
The Church's Life
of the twentieth ? Where shall we find a tetter
or simpler definition of the much-defined noun
"Christian" than this: one who continues
"steadfastly in the apostles' teaching and fel-
lowship, in the breaking of bread and the
prayers"; and who "goes into all the world,
preaching the gospel to the whole creation"?
No matter what his avocation, this surely is
the profession of every Christian, for "Bap-
tism doth represent unto us our profession;
which is, to follow the example of our Saviour
Christ, and to be made like unto him" (Book
of Common Prayer, p. 251).
And what is true of the individual Christian,
is equally and even more evidently true of the
whole Church. For she is the bodily Presence
of Christ on earth and therefore must, in the
very nature of things, have aims and do works
identical in every respect with His. She is a
life-saver to bring life to dying souls. She is
a militant body, to fight everywhere, in Christ's
name and as He did, against disease and ig-
norance and sin.
Apply this, if you like, to your own parish!
What reason for existence has your parish
church with its body of believers? Of course
the building is there for the use of all who
desire to unite in the common worship of God;
it is warmed and lighted and otherwise made as
comfortable as is thought necessary; it is en-
riched and beautified as is fitting for a place
set apart as a temple consecrated to God's
132
The Great Charter of the Church
presence and use ; everything is done to insure
that His true and living Word may be effec-
tively set forth and His holy Sacraments be
rightly and duly administered, that so the body
of believers may be nurtured in the Faith
and their souls continually strengthened. But
surely this is not all. Is it, indeed, more than
a means to an end? A life-saving station has
its comfortable quarters for its men where they
can be drilled and exercised in order to keep
fit; its well-appointed life-boat scrubbed and
neat, brass-work polished, everything in place.
But what for? No sensible person would
dream of saying that the men were cared for
in order that they might become types of phys-
ical perfection, or that the boat was kept in
perfect condition in order to be looked at. No,
all this is in order that boat and crew may at
every moment be ready for the service of peo-
ple in desperate need. Everything must be
made subservient to this ; nothing must be per-
mitted which will in any degree detract from
the most instant and perfect service. During
the winter, in many of our life-saving stations
along the coast, the crews are exhausted, the
boats worn and battered. All honor to them !
These are the evidences that they have nobly
served their purpose. There is, on the other
hand, many a parish so neat and well-ordered
and self-satisfied and forgetful of the reason
for its existence, that it avoids any active serv-
ice for fear lest, in aiding stricken humanity,
133
The Church's Life
it might spring a leak itself or get its paint
scratched. Better founder in service than rot
in disuse!
So the function of any militant body is to
fight the common enemy. I recall the case of a
family who for years had housed and cared for
a self-centered relative, hipped on himself and
generally useless, but still an object of solicit-
ous care. The children had been taught that
"Uncle George'' must be deferred to, spared
all unnecessary steps and saved in every way.
Finally one of the youngsters of the family,
on being told for the hundredth time to run an
errand for Uncle George because his uncle
"must be saved as much as possible," blurted
out the natural question, "Mother, what in the
world is Uncle George being saved for?"
It might be well for the parish which re-
joices in its financial safety and well-being,
or the individual who believes himself to be
"saved," occasionally to ask, "What am I saved
for?" Happy the church, the parish or the
individual so conscious of unity with Jesus
Christ that the one aim and object of existence
is felt to be the daily meeting with Him in His
inner sanctuary in order to go out with Him
to all the world even at the cost of being
scarred and bruised and worn as He was, and
bearing the honorable marks of His service.
"He saved others, Himself he cannot save,"
must always be the mark of the Christian.
134
CHAPTER VI
THE CALL TO INTELLIGENCE
I spoke, in a previous chapter, of obedience
to our Lord's last command as one of the in-
centives to Christian activity. We can not
with impunity evade or minimize the obliga-
tion of those solemn words, "Go ye into all the
world," even though our "going" may, by the
circumstances in which God Himself has
placed us, be restricted in area or confined to
the activity of intelligent praying, intelligent
giving, etc.
We have seen how the Lord's Prayer — the
prayer so perfectly characteristic of Him and
therefore so truly "in His Name" — is a prayer
the central and dominant note of which is
missionary activity on the part of the mem-
bers of God's family toward every human
being as yet outside that family. I hope, too,
that whether we regard the Church as a mere
organization to be split up and re-formed at
man's will, or whether we regard it as a liv-
ing organism not to be torn in pieces except
with agony and loss of power, we have also
seen that the final command of Jesus Christ
is in the nature of a charter which can not be'
135
The Church's Life
ignored if the organization is to continue, and
that obedience to it is an evidence of life which
no member can surrender and yet remain as
other than a useless or harmful portion of the
Body.
To the loyal soldier and servant, disobedi-
ence is a cardinal sin; to the living member of
a body amputation spells death. There can be
no question but that God can not abide either
an inactive Church or an inactive member of
His Church. Perhaps the most striking exam-
ple of this was the violence with which, as we
have seen, He drove the early Christians away
from Jerusalem.
The objection will at once be raised that the
disciples could not have felt very strongly —
no more strongly in fact than most of us do —
the mandatory quality of their Master's last
command, if a catastrophe was needed to im-
press it upon them. To this it may be replied
that many circumstances combined to make
them temporarily forgetful of it. There was
evidence of the desperate need of the good
news where they were ; they were meeting with
phenomenal success; the new spirit of brother-
hood had produced in the Church a condition
of ease and well-being hard to relinquish;
parochialism had seized upon them. No won-
der that they postponed literal obedience to
the Lord's command and forgot the way in
which He once turned His back on the bitter
need of His fellow-townsmen of Capernaum
136
The Call to Intelligence
in order to carry His message to the "next
towns" as well! One must remember also that
it was not many, even of the original disciples,
who had heard His imperious missionary com-
mand. It had doubtless been repeated to others
by those who had heard it, but it had not yet
become part of a written gospel, the common
property of all, read and known by every one.
The moment, however, that they were forced
out of Jerusalem, they showed the same eager
spirit, as bearers of a good message, which
they had shown within the walls of Jerusalem.
What they had been doing intensively, they
now did extensively. They had found the way
of life — nay, they had found Life itself, and
they couldn't keep it to themselves. No mere
command to carry the good news was neces-
sary; they felt what a modern writer has ex-
pressed— "He who has what the world lacks
is a debtor to the world/' It was not obedience
to an outward command so much as the inner
compulsion of a joyous assurance which made
these early Christians "go everywhere, preach-
ing the word/' when once they had been forced
to look beyond the bounds of their own neigh-
borhood. They unconsciously imitated the
Christ without consciously obeying His com-
mand; and the more they saw of the world's
need, the farther they went bearing the answer
to it. Obedience to the Lord's command, then,
is not for us, any more than it was for them,
a primary incentive to missionary interest and
137
The Church's Life
activity. His commands, however, are neces-
sary in order to stimulate some of us to such
activity, and it may be well therefore to ex-
amine what He said further by way of com-
mand along this line.
I wonder if any one ever became really in-
terested in any great cause without knowing
something about it? A certain author has, I
believe, recently written a book or an article
with the title, On the Ad oral Obligation of
Being Intelligent, It is a striking phrase be-
cause it is true. The more a project or a cause
involves distinctly moral issues, the more a
man is morally bound to learn all he can about
it in order to give or withhold his support on
intelligent grounds. It was surely so in the
case of the recent war. If the American
Government had been content merely to an-
nounce casually that there was a war going
on somewhere in Europe; that people at all
interested could read something about it in the
Congressional Record; that it had some ill-
defined relation to this country; and that if
any one cared to take an active part in it, there
was a recruiting station somewhere — if such
had been the course followed, the German
Kaiser would today represent the only power
in the world. Fortunately, things were not
done that way. Our public men were deter-
mined, from the outset, that, however we might
individually regard war in itself, we should
not be allowed to remain unintelligent re-
138
The Call to Intelligence
garding this war. The press got busy; dis-
tinguished authors wrote books; the cables
brought news which was at once published;
every single man of us, when he came down to
breakfast, instantly seized the paper to scan
the war-news; to every nook and corner of the
land went information as to what the war was
about, which side had temporarily the upper
hand, and what dangers threatened in case
Germany should win out. The consequence
was that interest in the war and in our share
in it was aroused in every quarter ; and though,
in the opinion of many, the United States
might have gone in earlier, it is certain that
when we did go in, we did so intelligently,
knowing perfectly well why we were doing it.
To have been unintelligent in the matter would
have been immoral, since the issues at stake
were moral issues. Having become intelligent,
we bent our backs to the huge task, and we did
it thoroughly. We sent our sons to undergo
rigorous training preparatory to facing hor-
rors and death; every pair of hands debarred
from fighting was busy in one or more of in-
numerable ways, all with a view to winning
the war ; we prayed and studied and read ; we
were elated by news of victories and depressed
by news of defeats; all this and more we did
because we were intelligently interested.
Perhaps it is needless to draw a comparison
between this attitude of mind toward the
European War and the attitude of the average
139
The Church's Life
Churchman toward the far greater war, in-
volving vaster issues, in which the Church is
engaged. Regarding this, the ordinary run
of Church people are absolutely unintelligent.
They read little about it and study less; they
know nothing about where it is being waged
or what are the strategic points; they are ig-
norant of the great leaders, even their names;
they have only the vaguest idea of what it is
about; victory and defeat alike leave them cold.
Of course, under these circumstances, the sug-
gestion from one of their sons that he is con-
sidering, as his career, the hard life of an
active fighter, whether in the ranks or as an
officer, is usually met with the barest tolerance,
if not with all possible discouragement.
"There's nothing in the ministry, my boy, for
a man who really wants to get on." How
familiar it sounds! And when it comes to
giving to his central board of strategy the
money necessary in order that the war may be
prosecuted to a successful end, no wonder that,
for years past, the average communicant of
the Episcopal Church has been content with a
gift of less than three cents a week! He has
no conception of the magnitude of the cause
he is asked to give to, or of the tremendous
issues involved. The trouble is that he is
guilty of the sin of willing stupidity; he is im-
moral because unintelligent toward the su-
preme objective for which the Church is work-
ing and fighting.
140
The Call to Intelligence
Long ago, our Lord put to His disciples a
most searching question: "What do ye more
than others?" (St. Matt. 5:47). The varied
activities mentioned above, in connection with
the war, had no distinctively Christian charac-
ter ; every one — Christians and non-Christians
alike — joined in them. What distinctively
Christian efforts toward victory were made by
us; what did we Christians do more than
others? If the war was really fought to bring
in peace and righteousness on earth, is not this
the very objective of the Church's warfare
always ? What are we doing more than others,
to attain this object? We rejoice that we are
members of a Catholic and Apostolic Church;
what do we more than others ? We occupy a
certain position in the Church; what do we
more than others? It is no general average of
intelligence or interest or activity that is im-
plied in our Lord's question, for He follows it
at once with the statement, "Ye therefore shall
be perfect." Whatever others may do or leave
undone, "What is that to thee? Follow thou
Me."
Now our Lord's first command regarding
missionary activity is in the line of acquired
intelligence. He never approved of an unin-
telligent ordained or unordained ministry ; still
less of a ministry based on anything other than
a knowledge of the world's need, so far as it
could be seen. His first command, therefore,
is "Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields"
141
The Church's Life
( St. John 4:35). The circumstances which gave
rise to this command were rather interesting.
He had just succeeded in piercing the hardened
conscience of a despised Samaritan woman.
His disciples, who had left Him outside of the
town in order to get some food, were not a
little scandalized, on rejoining Him, at finding
what He had been about — actually conversing
familiarly and at some length with a woman
with whom they, for many reasons, would have
had no dealings whatever. The woman had
returned to town somewhat hastily, and now,
there she was coming back again along the
dusty road, and with her a train of white-clacf
townspeople. Here are foreign missions ap-
proaching, led by rumors of good news brought
by a woman. "Lift up your eyes and look/'
says our Lord. "See the need — the oppor-
tunity." And the result? The need is made
evident even to those Jewish men; prejudice
and indifference vanish before it, and for two
days they actually take up their quarters
with the hateful Samaritans — working among
them? Perhaps — but at least watching their
Master as He shows them His saving power.
More than this. When, months afterwards,
Philip goes to that same city proclaiming what
these Samaritans had before only dimly seen,
the results are simply marvelous, and all be-
cause other disciples had followed their Mas-
ter's first missionary command in taking the
142
The Call to Intelligence
trouble to lift up their eyes and look on one
small fraction of the world's need.
It was quite the same in Christ's own home-
mission field. Throughout the neighborhood
of Capernaum He sees the pitiable needs of
the multitude, physical and spiritual (St.
Matt. 9:36, 37)- It stirs Him profoundly, and
He just begs the disciples to note it, too — the
desperate need — so little to meet it with.
This, then, is the command which precedes
all others, on which in fact depends the effec-
tiveness of the others ; and it was this command
which, of late, the American Church obeyed
for the first time in all her history. General
Convention, in 1919, gave its sanction to a
Survey which had been previously undertaken.
That survey was hardly more than a glance at
the opportunities at home; it covered overseas
only those limited areas in which the American
Church is in some measure attempting to ful-
fill her mission; it naturally could not even
mention the activities of other Christian com-
munions much larger than her own. But it did
afford a glimpse, and through it every Church-
man had an opportunity to lift up his eyes and
look on the fields in order to judge intelligently
of the opportunity and to act accordingly.
If he took this means of becoming intelligent,
which the Church provided, it is difficult to see
how he could have been other than driven to
fulfill our Lord's second missionary command.
The need is staggering; so much he must have
143
The Church's Life
realized. No human being can look at it with-
out feeling his impotence in face of it. "There-
fore," says the Master, "pray ye the Lord of
the harvest that He send forth labourers into
his harvest" (St. Matt. 19:38). More and
better Christians — that is what is needed ; more
intelligent zeal; a deeper sense of the joy of
giving money wisely and seeing it work; a
more manifest giving of personal service to
meet a definite need.
It is odd how instinctively I apply the prayer
for laborers to almost any one but myself. As
pne of our bishops wittily said, "The average
Christian answers God's call to service much
as Isaiah did, only with the change of one
pronoun, 'And I heard the voice of the Lord,
saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for
us ? Then I said, Here am I, send him! " It
is quite time that we realized that when a man
prays God to send forth laborers, one of those
laborers must assuredly be the man himself.
It is a prayer for increased activity in personal
service, and it makes little difference where or
how that service is given, whether in New
York or Shanghai, so long as it is deliberately
intended to meet a specific need, and is most
liberally given where the need is seen to be
greatest.
It might be added that in these days the
sending of laborers to fields where the need is
greatest involves a considerable expenditure
of money. Many a man keeps a laborer in his
144
The Call to Intelligence
pocket-book ; all that is needed is to let him out.
So our Lord adds to "looking" and "praying"
a third missionary command, "Freely ye have
received, freely give" (St. Matt. 10:8). He
was referring, of course, to power — the power
to heal, to exorcise, to give life; but, after all,
is not money a form, of power? Of this the
disciples had none, and naturally they couldn't
give what they didn't have; but always they
did as they had been told to do. "Such as I
have give I thee." What they gave was much
more valuable than "silver and gold" of which
they had none ; but, equally with them, we have
power and the means of setting power free to
act. Offer this power to God and all of it will
be used; keep it yourself and much of it will be
abused. Again, the command to give is closely
connected with the command to pray. It is a
poor prayer which counts on God's activity and
not at all on our own. What of good a man
desires for himself or others, he can never be
content merely to pray for; he must also give
whatever he has to give. To pray for the
Church's mission and at the same time to give
to it only a minute proportion of our money
is a form of mocking God. Prayer, too, is an
essential means of increasing our desire to
give. Indeed, St. Paul considers liberality as
a grace — as a gift from God — like love and
faith and hope and other Christian graces.
Those who find it hard to give freely (usually
the rich) should read the eighth and ninth
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chapters of the Second Epistle to the Corin-
thians, and see how St. Paul, in urging- liber-
ality, refers to it not as an inherent quality
or as one easily acquired, but as a direct gift
from God, to be prayed for and earnestly culti-
vated. Possibly the trouble with the average
Christian is that while he has prayed for mercy
and forgiveness and holiness, he has never
asked God to give him willingness to part with
his money freely, gladly, and intelligently. It
is a grace which comes with praying and in-
creases with use. Only after the disciples had
obeyed the commands to "Look," to "Pray,"
and to "Give," were they fully prepared to re-
ceive the final command to "Go." Evidently
much preparation is required for intelligent
activity in the Church's mission. We have
already discussed sufficiently the meaning and
the mandatory character of the Great Com-
mission. Llere, therefore, let me merely point
out that in attempting to fulfill the command
to get busy, without any definite knowledge of
the needs which call for our activity and with-
out any prayer for increased willingness to
offer ourselves with whatever we may have
besides, the chances are that we shall merely
make a botch of it and get in the way of those
who are really working intelligently. God has
joined together zeal and discretion; let no man
put them asunder.
So much for the incentive of our Lord's
commands to us concerning the mission of His
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Church to all the world. That obedience is a
primary motive in the mind of a soldier and
servant, no one, I suppose, would deny. But
it is difficult to believe that mere obedience to
a "Thou shalt," is ever the highest motive for
a soldier of Christ; it is doubtful if the early
Christians would ever have given this as the
incentive to ,their activity. No ! What drove
them out was a remarkable experience which
they had had — an experience which had made
new men of them, and regarding which they
simply couldn't keep still.
A few pages back, I tried to picture the un-
intelligent, unsympathetic attitude of the aver-
age Churchman toward the Church's war, and
I contrasted it with his well-informed, alert,
indomitable activity in the European war. I
think the picture was a fair one — the analogy
measurably warrantable. There can be no
question but that the prevailing attitude of
mind, on the part of Christians, toward the
cause of Christ and the coming of God's King-
dom on earth ; and, above all, toward their own
personal experience of the saving power of
Christ, of the new life born in them, and of
their glorious destiny as sons of God, is one
of haziness and half-hearted acquiescence, and
a sort of formal, matter-of-course acceptance.
What it lacks is reality and dynamic. How
vastly different was the attitude of every mem-
ber of the early Church toward the Church's
mission. They knew for themselves what
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Jesus Christ — the Captain of their Salvation —
had done for them ; they felt in themselves the
surging pulsation of a new life; they saw only
forces of destruction in a world ignorant of
their Lord ; and every fibre in their being was
stirred with the determination to bear Him
and His message to a world for which they
knezv, out of their own experience, that there
could be no other possible redemption. This,
I take it, is the highest motive of missionary
activity and its most powerful incentive. "We
cannot but speak the things which we saw and
heard," was the answer by which the Apostles
justified themselves for continuing their work
even in the face of legal restrictions. So, later,
St. Paul refused any credit for preaching the
Gospel, since his whole personal experience of
it forbade silence regarding it (i Cor. 9:16).
It must be the same today. It is inconceivable
that any man who has really had the full per-
sonal experience of Jesus Christ can keep it
to himself. He has become a son of God — a
member of Christ; through union with Christ
he has entered the Kingdom of Heaven in
which unending life and joy and peace have
become his rightful possessions; he is min-
istered to and fed by Christ Himself; all un-
certainty and fear regarding the future are
removed; in the peace of God he walks in the
way of Christ. Even if this full experience
has, as yet, been denied him, surely his mem-
bership in the family of God must mean some-
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The Call to Intelligence
thing to him ; he must find in it some advantage
which the man next him needs. Take a simple
illustration. You have come across a medicine
which claims to be a sure cure for every
physical ailment. You try it for a headache
and experience its virtue ; it has done you good.
You meet a friend, suffering as you did, and
the first thing you do is to tell him of the new
medicine. The chances are that you put your-
self to some trouble to search out people who
are in similar need ; you may conceivably make
rather a bore of yourself through your enthu-
siasm. It is an unworthy illustration, but the
case is the same with everything which benefits
you. Instinctively you recommend it to others
— you advertise it. And this you do, not neces-
sarily by talking — indeed you often gain more
by not continually talking. Merely your con-
stant use of a certain cereal at breakfast, or a
special kind of physical exercise, is your best
advertisement of that particular thing among
your friends. They see that you enjoy and are
benefited by it, and they are easily led to try
it for themselves. So with a man's Christian-
ity. If it means anything to him personally, he
instinctively shows it to his neighbors. He is
not always "talking religion'' — God forbid! —
but he is, at least to some extent, an illustra-
tion of what Christianity does. We have
spoken before of a Christian as a "witness."
It must be remembered that witnessing is not
necessarily done in words, or the giving of
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testimony by talk. Indeed, "Actions speak
louder than words" — a saying peculiarly appli-
cable to the Christian. One's life and example
at home, in church, at school or in one's office
is stronger evidence for or against what one
professes to believe than any amount of talk.
I remember being present on one occasion at
the session of a certain Church School. When
the time came to repeat the Creed, the children
sprang to their feet and stood at "attention" —
heels together, arms straight at their sides,
chests out, heads up ; then with one voice they
made that splendid statement of the faith. It
was enormously impressive. One felt that the
Creed was the one thing that mattered — the
one statement of absolute truth, and that those
children would have said it equally boldly if
they had been lined up in front of a firing-
squad, and told that if they dared to repeat it
to the end they would instantly be shot. Every
child was, at that moment, a potential mis-
sionary, for I am quite sure that had an un-
believer listened to the Creed as they said it,
he would have been convinced that here was
something worth inquiring into.
There is, however, another side to this need
of bearing witness to a personal experience.
Unless the experience has been a personal one,
it hasn't the smallest value as convincing testi-
mony. You can talk till doomsday about the
virtues of a certain medicine, but the inevitable
question will be, "Have you tried it yourself
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The Call to Intelligence
and found it good?" It is not so much a matter
of the quantity of one's experience as of its
quality. A man may be able to say with assur-
ance no more than the opening sentence of the
Creed. Very well ; then let him try to make the
one fact of the Fatherhood of God mean some-
thing of worth to himself first, then let him
make it in some way influence his visible
actions, and then let him tell another man
what the belief has meant to him. Or perhaps
the benefits of church-going are, for you,
summed up in the pleasure of hearing good
music or a thoughtful sermon; even this is
worth something to you, an invitation to a
friend to go with you and share what pleases
you might conceivably result in his getting
more than you have. But for heaven's sake
and your own soul's sake avoid recommending
anything which you haven't tried, and beware
of even giving the impression that you know
anything of belief and spiritual life beyond
what you have personally experienced. On
the other hand, and equally for your soul's
sake, never hesitate, when opportunity offers,
to recommend what you have experienced.
Obedience, Personal Experience — these are
two compelling incentives to missionary activ-
ity. A third is to be found in a realization of
the world's need. It is difficult to see how any
one can look abroad on the world today and be
satisfied that all is as it should be because all
is as God wishes it to be. The tragedy of war
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is in its aftermath. If people could but realize
what misery follows in the track of war, no
justifying cause for it would be allowed as
sufficient. Truly a "Pentecost of Calamity"
swept the world for four years. Death robbed
the nations of millions of their bread-winners,
and of thousands of their leaders in all the
high adventures of the human mind; the rav-
aged fields were left unsown, and children cried
for bread in vain ; famine and disease ran riot,
and no means were at hand to check them ; the
wheels of industry moved slowly, if at all, for
lack of material; oppression arose in new and
unprecedented forms; Christians had been
killed by Christians and non-Christians alike
until there were actually fewer men and women
to carry on the Church's mission than there
had been before the war broke out. It is true
that the torture of the world aroused the spirit
of Christian sympathy and generosity to a de-
gree far in excess of anything that the world
had ever before experienced; but, in so vast
a mass of agony and despair, all that could be
done in alleviation was but a drop in the ocean
of human need. Yet, after all, the war merely
concentrated, in time and space, conditions
which had before escaped notice because so
widely spread. I suppose that the poverty,
and consequent suffering, of the common peo-
ple in every non-Christian land is absolutely
inconceivable in this rich land of ours where
day-labor receives thirty times what it does in
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The Call to Intelligence
China. To bitter poverty must be added the
pangs of constant hunger verging on starva-
tion. When five millions of people in one
country starve to death in a single year in
India, the fact hardly attracts our notice.
This, it is true, was the result of an exceptional
famine-year in India; but it is a menace from
which the people of Asia and Africa are never
free. It has been stated that in those lands,
two hundred million people go to bed every
night hungry, and half that number absolutely
shelterless. Such conditions breed disease, es-
pecially when accentuated by ignorance and
disregard of the simplest laws of sanitation
and hygiene. Epidemics take their toll of mil-
lions every year. Many portions of Asia are
veritable plague-spots, and it is only by taking
the utmost precautions that Europe and Amer-
ica are kept, to a certain degree, immune. One
recalls the experience of a certain traveler who,
visiting the docks at San Francisco, noted sev-
eral tramp steamers from the Orient moored
to the dock by hempen hawsers on each of
which was strung a tin disc. On inquiring the
object of the latter, he was horrified to learn
that they were placed there to prevent the rats,
possible carriers of the germs of bubonic
plague, from crawling to the shore and infect-
ing the people of San Francisco.
The death-rate in every pagan land is simply
appalling ; not merely the death-rate from dis-
ease, but that due to the passive neglect of
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The Church's Life
childhood, and the active perils to which it is
subjected. "In most Oriental towns the death-
rate is estimated at over 45 per 1,000. In
Bombay, the infant death-rate was 593 per
1, 000." (Quoted by Murray, from Paget's
"The Claim of Suffering") Closely asso-
ciated with this is the degradation of woman-
hood which is everywhere a characteristic of
paganism.
The picture is a dark one. That I grant.
But its colors are dark because we Christians
do not will to have them changed. The colors
which have produced the somber picture are
ignorance, immorality, hopelessness, fear, su-
perstition, the exploitation of the many by the
few. And these colors are the very antithesis
of those which Jesus Christ uses; hence the
profound difference between this picture and
the one presented by every land where His
Gospel has been applied in any degree effec-
tively. Not for one single day need that pic-
ture of the Orient remain as dark as it is;
only our own indifference keeps it so. Nor is
there any other reason for the hunger, the
misery, the want which still mar the beauty of
our own land. The smallest effort on our part
— even so slight a one as the merciful Lord
illustrates by "a cup of cold water only" — will
serve to that extent to change existing con-
ditions.
But it is not only physical need which cries
aloud for alleviation the world over. We have
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The Call to Intelligence
been accustomed to think of our own land as
one in which illiteracy was almost unknown;
but the war served to shock us into the discon-
certing realization that four and a half mil-
lions of Americans over twenty years old are
unable to read or write any language what-
ever; ten per cent of the men drafted into
the war were similarly handicapped. Startling
as these facts are, the conditions in the world
at large are still more so. The vast majority
of the world's population is sunk in densest
ignorance. No less than eighty per cent of
all human beings can neither read nor write.
This means stagnation; for it is a fact proved
by experience that only in those lands where
the written or printed page is intelligible to
the majority of the people have enlightenment
and progress been made possible. Inability to
read on the part of the very people to whom
the Church needs most to minister hampers
her in the discharge of her mission ; for where
her representatives reach hundreds with the
spoken word, they might reach millions were
these able to read the written word. Illiteracy
in a democracy is an intolerable menace ; in the
world at large it is an offense to the God of
all wisdom and power. As literacy increases
and education advances, it becomes more and
more essential that the latter be used to reveal
God; otherwise all that is acquired is merely
knowledge; wisdom remains as far off as ever.
This is the task of the Church at home and
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overseas, for it expresses one great need of
the human race, which the Church alone is able
adequately to supply. Again we must be
warned that world-wide ignorance exists and
brings with it its train of misery, only because
we Christians are not determined to have it
otherwise. More than this: We must make
up our minds that wherever secular education
has advanced, there it is our business to see
that Christian education makes similar prog-
ress. If Christians are content to watch im-
passively a pagan land in the process of devel-
oping a system of education which ignores God,
then they must be prepared to face the inev-
itable menace. One illustration may suffice.
There can be no question but that Japan, by
sheer force of energy and by extraordinary
adaptability, has come to occupy a position of
dominance in the Far East. Her ideals are
bound to impress themselves on her neighbors.
Can she be safely trusted with so vast a respon-
sibility? Certain facts and figures recently
published indicate a negative answer. Thus,
for example, a recent Japanese writer is
authority for the following: "It is not any
exaggeration to state that, as regards the labor
condition of women, Japan maintains the worst
record known to the civilized world." (The
Japan Review, Vol. IV, p. 87, 1920.) Has this
any connection with the fact that, while Japan
has developed a remarkable system of educa-
tion, it is a system having no place for God and
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The Call to Intelligence
His righteousness? I think that the connec-
tion is a close one. If so, the following figures
are significant. There are, in the Imperial
University of Tokyo, about live thousand
students — men who ten years hence will be
guiding the destinies of the Empire and her
neighbors. Of these 5000 young men, 8 en-
rolled themselves as Shintoists, 50 as Bud-
dhists, 60 as Christians, 1500 as atheists,
and 3000 as agnostics. In so far as these facts
and figures reflect the spirit of modern Japan,
they indicate the desperate straits in which she
finds herself. Happily, signs are not wanting
to show that she is beginning to realize her
need. She is groping for a religion which can
keep her straight. There was never a time
when the Church had a greater opportunity to
meet an educational need than at the present
moment, and with these eager, virile neighbors
of ours.
But in thinking of the need of pagan lands
for education, and Christian education, let us
not forget our own portentous lack of the lat-
ter. The teaching of Christianity is rightly
placed in the hands of the Church rather than
in those of the State; that is not a debatable
question. But it is a very serious question
how the Church is meeting this responsibility.
We have discussed this in a previous chapter
and need only emphasize here that, while the
proportion of Christians to the whole popula-
tion of the United States is deplorably small,
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the proportion of Christians who can give any
intelligent reason why they are Christians is
smaller still; while almost infinitesimal is the
proportion of Episcopalians who are prepared
to give any adequate, or even self -satis lying,
answer to the question, "Why are you an
Episcopalian rather than a Baptist or a Roman
Catholic ?" And this, be it noted, not because
there are no adequate answers or that the
necessary information is not readily accessible.
No ! The truth is that most Christians must be
classed as religious illiterates, and the blame
lies with those of us who are indifferent to
the world's intellectual needs and who have
not enabled the Church to fulfill her mission
to the minds of men.
Nor, again, are the needs of the world ex-
pressed merely in physical or mental terms.
Indeed, these are the least of all. What the
world needs in order to be satisfied is Jesus
Christ. Nothing less will serve. It is incon-
ceivable that any Christian man can face with
equanimity the fact that out of a world-
population of nearly seventeen hundred mil-
lion human souls, hardly more than one-third
have even received the news of the blessings
of God's complete revelation of Himself in
Christ, or of their redemption by Him, After
twenty centuries, during which God has been
calling upon the Christian Church to fulfill
her mission, more than one thousand million
souls are still awaiting the life-bringing news.
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The Call to Intelligence
I am not unaware that there are those,
usually of the kind that delight to speak of
themselves as "hard-headed business men"
(too often "bone-heads," indeed, regarding the
Church's mission) who, while they profess to
be Christians, and even Churchmen, are yet
so callous to all that Jesus Christ has brought
to them that they have even succeeded in per-
suading themselves that a partial revelation is
"quite good enough for the heathen." "The
dim light brought to the world through
Buddha or Confucius is," they say, "all that
the Oriental needs. He is accustomed to it ; it
has produced saints; why disturb him with
longings for anything higher?" Oh, the ig-
norant selfishness of such Christians! They
have simply never had their eyes opened to
the fact that Christianity is not one religion
among many, but rather the climax of all re-
ligion. We are on dangerous ground when we
allow ourselves to think of Judaism, Moham-
medanism, Confucianism, etc., as separate
"religions" ; for we are thus led to regard one
"religion" as inherently suitable for one nation,
another for another; and thereby we not only
fall into error, but we minimize one of the great
incentives to the spread of Christianity.
Revelation is always a progressive and de-
veloping work of God. "The path of the
righteous is as the shining light, that shineth
more and more unto the perfect day" (Prov.
4:18). Always there have been devout souls
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The Church's Life
who, earnestly seeking righteousness, have
discovered God. "In every nation he that
feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is
acceptable to him" (Acts 10:35).
But while God has thus been revealed dimly
to men of rare capacity in all ages and lands,
it is as true of pagan lands now as it was in
the days of Isaiah, that "darkness covers the
earth and gross darkness the peoples. " What-
ever of high ideal and moral excellence has in
the past attached to the great ethnic religions
in their purest forms, their appeal has never
been to other than the few; while, even to
them, they have proved merely pointers of the
way, with no divine power to enable man to
reach the goal destined for him of God. For
the perfect light is Christ. In Him is the com-
plete revelation of God, embracing all that
man in his present state can possibly conceive
of God, and capable of answering every need
of every man and of all human relationships
the world over. "The gospel/' writes Dr.
Jowett, "covers the whole bleak field of human
need. There is no single human necessity
which cowers and shivers outside the priv-
ileged pale." It is true that a more complete
revelation still is possible. It may be that
there is yet to be developed on earth a race of
men with greater capacity to receive and to
apprehend God; it is certainly true that a far
more perfect revealing of God awaits us when
at last we are relieved of the blinding burden
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of the flesh (i St. John 3:2; Rom. 8:18-23; 1
Cor. 2:9, 10). But, for us here, and for all
men now, Christ is the one true light which,
coming into the world, lighteth every man.
For Him wait the nations now sitting in dark-
ness and the shadow of death. By their own
confession, none else can satisfy them. Their
partial light is failing, and now God relies upon
His Church to rekindle whatever of brightness
there was in that light, and to use it as a
means of revealing to all, "the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ/' We dare not wait; for though
God may have provided some way of approach
to Him other than through Christ the Way;
some other source of life other than incor-
poration in His living Church through Bap-
tism; some other means of union with Him
other than through the gift of the Spirit in
Confirmation and the constant power of the
Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ —
though God may, by His infinite grace, have
provided a means of salvation for those who
seek righteousness by the light they have; yet
of all this we have no absolute assurance ex-
cept as we trust in the uncovenanted mercies
of God. Nor need these matters greatly con-
cern us. Not the perils of ignorance and un-
belief, but rather the unmeasurable blessings
of faith — these form the message of God to
man. The need of the world is desperate; we
have the means of relieving it, in its every as-
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pect. No partial revelation has proved able
to stand the stress of complex modern life; the
complete revelation is ours to give if we will.
For us, and therefore for all, there is but One
who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We
are assured that nothing less than His Presence
can satisfy the insistent needs of men, because
that alone has satisfied ours. To see the need
is to be stirred to activity, unless indeed we be
"dead to the world." With pitying eyes, Jesus
Christ looked upon the multitudes about Him.
He saw them as sheep distressed and scattered,
having no shepherd (St. Matt. 9:36). But
mark! What He felt was not mere pity. "He
was moved with compassion for them." There
is a vast difference between pity and compas-
sion. The former is a natural human emotion
which we delight to gratify. We go to the
theatre and see a play depicting the pathos of
a young girl betrayed. Tears spring to our
eyes for very pity, but that is all; we rarely
leave the theatre determined to see the reality,
to meet the need and to remove the causes. So
with the Greeks of old. The people of Athens
thronged to the great tragedies of /Eschylus
and Sophocles; they gave free rein to their
excited emotions, they were moved to tears;
but history fails to tell us of any case where
their emotionalism stirred any profound deter-
mination to remove the causes of such deeds
as had just excited their pity. Pity is a more
or less pleasurable emotion; only when the
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emotion is translated into terms of remedial
action can it be termed mercy or compassion.
Nowhere, in the New Testament, are we told
that God feels pity for us; it is God's mercy
that we are taught to pray for, and by which
we benefit practically.
When, therefore, we become intelligently
alive to the appalling needs of our neighbor-
hood, of our fellow-citizens far or near, of the
world groping for God in the shadows, we dare
not be content with pitying. In such a case
mere pity is worse than useless ; by every means
in our power we must, in mercy, try to relieve
the need. I wonder if it is necessary to repeat
that, in these days, no man has any excuse to
remain in ignorance of the needs of the world
as they are related to the Church. They are
everywhere apparent to any man who will
think or read. "Lift up your eyes and look!"
"When He saw the multitudes, He was moved
with compassion for them." Here, then, are
three mighty incentives to activity on the part
of every loval Christian : The Lord commands
us; experience constrains us; Human need
compels us. These motives should be sufficient,
yet there are other incentives which should stir
the modern man. For example, there is the
fact that the world is contracting with startling
rapidity; God is compressing all the nations of
the earth into a neighborhood. In our contacts
with nations once far distant, time and space
are being almost eliminated. China is today
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The Church's Life
nearer to New York, even in terms of travel,
than was New Orleans a hundred years ago;
communication with China is a matter of
minutes only. Every modern invention seems
aimed at making the world smaller, and con-
tacts between nation and nation more inevi-
table. The very words "far" and "near" are
ceasing to have much practical significance for
us. The Orient is perilously close when, as we
have seen, the proximity of its diseases can
be measured in terms of a tin disc eight inches
in diameter and a thirty-second of an inch thick
strung on a ship's hawser to prevent the swarm-
ing of infected rats.
With equal ease our commodities, good and
bad together, pass to the Orient; with equal
difficulty — nay, with more, because ignorant
of the menace — can the Orient protect itself
against our evils. It is idle to say, as so many
do, that the natives of other lands should be
left to their own customs and "religions."
Commerce will not have it so; trade demands
an entry. And where commerce goes, bearing
evil things as well as good, there the Church
is bound to follow if only to counteract the one
and to reenforce the other. It is not the
Church in her mission overseas which is dis-
turbing the placid calm of the Orient and
arousing a spirit of unrest; commerce, with
her myriad hands, is touching and awakening
oriental life to countless new desires, and
among these is the demand for western learn-
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The Call to Intelligence
ing which, to the observing Oriental, has given
to the occidental nations their dominion in
world affairs. The Church can not, with
safety to herself or in justice to the Orient,
fail to take advantage of the doors which com-
merce is flinging wide open. The rapid spread
of knowledge in this narrowing world is an-
other powerful incentive to missionary activ-
ity. We know more of central Africa today
than our forebears in New England knew of
Colorado. We read at our breakfast-table
events which occurred in the Balkans or in
New Zealand a few hours previously. Infor-
mation regarding world needs from the Chris-
tian standpoint is the easiest possible thing to
acquire in these days.
This knowledge is disarming racial preju-
dices and destroying illusions. It is utterly
impossible today to regard the Chinese or the
Japanese as inferior races. If our illusions
with respect to them are disappearing, so are
theirs with respect to us. On both sides is a
growing recognition of common virtues as
well as of common defects. One of the tragic
results of mutual intercourse between East and
West has been the utter disillusionment which
has come over young students from China and
Japan when they have seen the conditions
actually permitted to exist in this so-called
Christian land and have experienced the care-
less discourtesy with which Christian people
have met them. We, for our part, have been
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led by our growing knowledge of oriental peo-
ples to the conviction that in certain spiritual
qualities they far surpass us. Indeed it seems
certain that Christianity, given first to an
oriental people, later transmitted to Europe
and interpreted in forms of occidental thought,
now needs to be given back again to the Orient
for reinterpretation by enlightened oriental
thought. However that may be, the increas-
ingly close physical contact between East and
West is something to be carefully noted in con-
sidering the incentives to missionary activity
overseas. No one, for example, can measure
the effect upon the heathen mind of having
seen the great Christian nations of the world
engaged in bitter war. The employment of
thousands of Chinese laborers in France dur-
ing the war can not fail to have produced, even
on their dull minds, entirely new and extraor-
dinary impressions — impressions which they
will have carried back with them, for better or
worse, on their return. They said little — these
ignorant coolies — but doubtless they did a lot
of thinking which may yet — who knows? —
have a vast influence in China's future.
Very dreadful will be the day when that
nation of four hundred millions of people — a
Republic embracing one-quarter of the world's
population — fully arouses herself under the
goad of international contacts, if she be al-
lowed to note in those relationships, as they
affect her, only the threat of diminishing boun-
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The Call to Intelligence
daries, and resources exploited for the benefit
of foreigners! Very glorious for the world
will be that day if the Church is able then to
show America to China, not merely as a shrewd
purveyor of material goods, but as a Christian
people lifting up on high the Christ, that so,
according to His most sure promise, all men
may be drawn to Him for the building up of
His Body.
"To seek missing members for the perfect-
ing of Christ's Body" — is not this the aim of
the Church's mission; can we not find in this
objective our sufficient incentive?
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CHAPTER VII
THE POWER IN THE CHURCH
We considered in previous chapters the in-
centives which should stir Christians to mis-
sionary activity. Obedience to our Lord's
commands — obedience based on an intelligent
view of the whole field and every aspect of it —
this is a somewhat stern incentive, but in a
measure fundamental.
Careful thought upon, and deep appreciation
of, the innumerable benefits which we our-
selves have received as members of God's
Family through Christ — this should be a
supreme and compelling incentive. "We can-
not but speak the things which we saw and
heard" must ever be in the mind of the Chris-
tian. The Methodists used to speak freely of
experiencing religion. This is, perhaps, what
we Churchmen need.
Then there is the incentive which always
comes from an intelligent outlook upon con-
ditions in the world — the realization of peo-
ple's desperate need of Jesus Christ to make
them children of God, to give them abundant
life, to move them to righteousness, to turn
their chaos into order, to establish among
them His joyous rule. There is no conceivable
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The Power in the Church
reason for the world's remaining in its present
state a single year longer, except the cruel and
faithless indifference of us Christians. Pity
for those deprived of our blessings, mercy in
enabling them to share, this is what is needed.
These are the people for whom our Lord longed
— other sheep, not yet of His fold, but neces-
sary to complete His flock. Yes, necessary for
the completing of His Church. Let us again
define to ourselves the Church's mission: "To
seek missing members of Christ's Body."
We have considered, too, certain lesser in-
centives— the decreasing size of the world
when measured in terms of communication;
the closeness of international relationships ; the
often menacing proximity of less advanced
peoples; mutual disillusionment, and mutual
understandings as well, due to our close con-
tacts ; the opening of new opportunities through
trade; the protection of the less powerful
against the strong — all these considerations
must inevitably stir us to activity if only as a
means of self-protection.
But in order to be active something more
than incentive is necessary. A paralytic may
have every incentive in the world to get up and
walk, and yet be hopelessly inactive. What he
needs is power. This is the tragedy of every
partial revelation of God — of all religions short
of Christianity. They may provide every in-
centive to righteousness but they leave their
votaries powerless to attain it.
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The Church's Life
Now this is precisely what the early Church
had and what the modern Church appears to
lack. The power behind the missionary activ-
ity of the Apostles was so enormous that what
they did by means'of it seems miraculous. It
was not miraculous in the least. Given the
same source of power, we could accomplish
precisely the same results. It is a rather start-
ling thought and worth investigating. What,
then, was the power behind the early Church
when she began her mission?
So long as our Lord was physically present
with His disciples, His word, His example,
He Himself, was the power. He appoints the
Twelve and later the Seventy; He sends them
off to do things, and somehow He and they
become identified, and they find themselves
working with a degree of power surprising
even to themselves (St. Matt. 10; St. Luke
io;i, 16-20). I suppose that it is quite im-
possible for us to put ourselves in their place
and realize what they must have felt. They
had never dreamed of anything like it in their
lives. They had seen Him — their Master —
heal sick people; but it is doubtful if, as yet,
they had seen any signs of His greater power;
and, anyhow, He was the Lord and Master,
they merely the humble friends and admirers;
what reason had they to suppose that they,
poor stupid disciples, could ever be able to
exercise the smallest fraction of His power!
But they started off at His command, and they
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The Power in the Church
tried what He told them to try; and, to their
astounded joy, they found that His power had
actually become theirs, and that they could
duplicate what, with curious awe, they had
seen Him do. Peculiarly vicious or stubborn
cases did baffle them at times. We recall one
such case especially (St. Mark 9 114-20). They
had been left alone for a time, even Peter and
James and John had gone up into the hills with
their Master, and a very gruesome case of deaf
and dumb epilepsy had been brought to them.
Moreover, the disease was of long standing,
and, at the moment, was in terrifying activity.
The very sight of the boy in convulsions, wal-
lowing in the dirt and foaming at the mouth,
unnerved them. They felt that here was a
horror which no power could reach, certainly
not theirs. Then the Master came, and, after
deliberately inquiring into the matter, calmly
gave the needed relief, and went home followed
by the crestfallen disciples. ''Why could not
we cast it out?" they ask; and He assures them
that the failure is entirely in themselves. More
earnest prayer, more undoubting faith — that
was all they lacked. One can imagine them,
after that, clinging to Him more eagerly than
ever, unwilling to be separated for a moment
from the source of their power. How abso-
lutely inconceivable to them, then, must have
been the strange statement with which He an-
nounced His approaching departure (St. John
16:7). He was preparing to leave them ; never
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The Church's Life
again would they look into His face, or hear
His words, or feel His hands in blessing, or
see His power working through them — all this
was intolerable even to think of. Expedient —
better — for them? Preposterous! Yet He
had just said it. Why? What comfort could
be theirs if He were to leave them ; what power
could they possibly find except in His presence?
Well, He tells them. "If I go not away, the
Comforter — the Helper — will not come unto
you; but if I go, I will send him unto you" (St
John 16:7). It is doubtful if they had any idea
what He meant, or if they recalled another of
His sayings, "Verily, verily, I say unto you,
He that believeth on me, the works that I do
shall he do also; and greater works shall he
do; because I go unto the Father" (St. John
14:12). But to us His meaning is plain.
Abundant compensation for the withdrawal of
our Lord's physical presence from His disci-
ples was to be found in the coming of the Holy
Ghost, the Comforter and Strengthener. He
was to be their new source of strength ; it was
through His power that they were to do even
greater things than their Master had done.
Our Lord could not, in His physical body, be
with His disciples always in all places ; but He
would send to them a spiritual Presence, no
less real and personal than He had been, but
able to be with them for ever (St. John 14:16).
It was indeed expedient for them that the Holy
Spirit should come to carry on and bring to its
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The Power in the Church
final goal the work which Christ had begun
in His disciples during His earthly life. It
would be well worth our while to read again
carefully the fourteenth and sixteenth chap-
ters of St. John's Gospel in order to realize
just what our Lord guarantees that the blessed
Spirit shall do in and through those who re-
ceive Him and allow Him to dwell in them.
The urgent need of His presence will thus
become evident, for He alone can bring home
to the world a sense of its sinfulness apart
from Christ, of its redemption through Christ,
and of the defeat of evil by Christ (St. John
16 :8-io) . It is only through His teaching that
we learn the truth about Christ and become
able to interpret His teaching aright (St. John
16:13).
But just here a word of caution is necessary.
We must remember that truth is too big for
any one man to grasp wholly. There is no
promise that the Holy Spirit will reveal all
truth to men singly. It was to the whole body
of the disciples united that our Lord gave the
promise, "Ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free" (St. John 8:32).
The whole round of truth is for the whole body
of the Church. Paul had received a measure
of truth, so had Apollos, so had Cephas; but
if their respective followers imagined that to
each had been revealed the whole truth, or if
others fancied that they alone had the truth
as Christ embodied it, the result could be only
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The Church's Life
endless contentions and divisions (i Cor.
1:11, 12). It is in the whole united body of
baptized believers that the Spirit of Truth
dwells; in His communion and fellowship the
truth is made known.
It is in the person of the blessed Spirit that
God abides in us with power. He it is who
teaches us and bears witness to Christ in us
and through us (St. John 15:26). He is the
Spirit of Life — "the Giver of Life" as we
assert in the Creed — by Whom we are made
free from the law of sin and of death (Rom.
8:2) — free to serve God. On His assurance
alone we hold fast to the fact that God can
make men His children — adopting them into
His Family (Rom. 8:15, 16). Above all, He
comes to give us power in God's service. "Ye
shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is
come upon you," said our Lord, "and ye shall
be my witnesses . . . unto the uttermost part
of the earth" (Acts 1:8). As has been said
before, the remainder of the book is no more
than a record of how that power was applied.
No sooner had the Holy Ghost given sign of
His presence with the Church on the Day of
Pentecost than the Apostles began to show evi-
dence of a vital transformation. Less than
two months ago, in that same city of Jerusalem,
they had seen their Master done to death with-
out venturing a word of protest; two only had
dared to be present at His trial, and one of
these had denied Him openly through sheer
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The Power in the Church
cowardice; even after His Resurrection, they
were found trembling in an upper room for
fear of the Jews. But look at them now ! It
is Peter himself — the faint-hearted denier of
his Lord — who takes the lead in publicly de-
nouncing the members of the dreaded San-
hedrin as "men without the law," in that they
had crucified a man approved of God. A few
days later Peter and John face the same mob
which had before demanded the death of the
Righteous One, and plead the power of His
Name; and the next day, standing trial before
the very judges who had condemned the Christ,
it is Peter who tells them with biting scorn
that it was their Messiah whom they had cruci-
fied; adding that in Him alone are salvation
and power. What has happened to Peter?
Simply this, that the Holy Ghost has come
upon him, and has transformed Simon the
trembler into Peter the rock.
But in the great sweep of the Church's
progress, one dominant figure stands out —
the greatest miracle of all. Note him — Saul,
the cultivated gentleman of Tarsus, aristo-
cratic, learned, intolerant, bigoted, implacable
— as his cold eyes watch the brutal murder of
Stephen, the Christian witness. See him as
he pursues his relentless way to Damascus to
crush out the hated sect. Then listen to Paul,
the slave of Jesus Christ, counting all his past
as worthless if he can only gain Christ; fast-
ening eager eyes on the prize of the high
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The Church's Life
calling of God in Christ Jesus ; glorying in his
very infirmities that the grace of God may be
more evident in him; suffering all things for
the Gospel's sake, and, in utter humility, seeing
himself at last as the chief of sinners in the
growing light of the vision of God (Phil. 3:
7-11 ; 13, 14; 11 Cor. 12:9, 10; 1 Tim. 1 115).
Again, recall how blind to their Lord's real
nature and mission these first Apostles had
been a few weeks previously; how ambitious
and self-assertive; how regardless and forget-
ful of His teaching; how slow to understand
and to believe His promises. Now, on the
other hand, they see with perfect clearness that
Jesus of Nazareth was the very Christ of God;
that death could never, in the very nature of
things, have had dominion over Him ; that He
is the ever-living Saviour of the world.
And then these astonishing men proceed to
form a brotherhood among themselves on lines
unknown to the world before — a brotherhood
in which each offers what he can for the good
of all, and in whose membership there are none
who strive which should be the greatest (Acts
4:32-35). Whence came the sudden enlight-
enment, this new spirit of love? Surely from
none other than the Holy Ghost, bringing to
their remembrance all that their Master had
said to them, and taught them.
Note, too, how simply these men who, not
so many months before, had been puzzled to
know how really to pray, now turn to God in
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The Power in the Church
their specific need and draw down power from
on high (Acts 4:24-31). Boldness, enlight-
enment, the power of prayer — these were the
gifts of Him who had now come to take the
Christ's place on earth, to abide forever with
the Church, and to enable her to fulfill her
mission.
It will be noted that this power was mani-
fested in extraordinary ways; the birthday of
the Church was celebrated strikingly. By the
grace of the blessed Spirit — though just how,
we can not be sure — people of various tongues
were enabled to receive the initial message ; the
Apostles were able to deliver their message
with results never attained even by our Lord
Himself; thousands responded to the message;
the sick were cured; the lame were made to
walk; even the dead were raised. Threatened,
the Church prays; and again the Spirit is
poured out upon her in power and a sense of
unity and brotherhood. Falseness within the
blessed community is recognized as a sin
against the Spirit and is punished accordingly
(Acts 5: 3 and 9). He is the joint-witness,
with the Apostles, to the saving power of
Christ, the Messiah (Acts 5:32). He it is
who fills St. Stephen with wisdom and power
so that none can withstand him. "Ye stiff-
necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears,"
he thunders, when all his pleading eloquence
has proved unavailing, "ye do always resist
the Holy Ghost" ; and then He whom they had
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The Church's Life
resisted gives to His servant the supreme re-
ward of steadfastness — the vision of his Lord
in glory (Acts 7:55).
Now take the Book of Acts and follow the
rushing course of the Spirit.*
The disciples are driven out of Jerusalem
and the Church is scattered; but the presence
of God the Holy Ghost remains with her.
Philip, the deacon, goes down to Samaria — the
Lord's own foreign mission field — and there
he preaches and baptizes and heals. Word
goes back to the Apostles that the Samaritans
are now baptized and prepared to receive the
Holy Ghost; and the leaders hasten down to
fulfill their office, laying their hands upon them
in Confirmation. So in every phase of Church
extension, the Spirit demands His share.
Philip is further made His instrument for
planting the Church in Africa. He drives
Peter, the ultra-conservative Jew, to see the
needs of Gentiles and to respond to them. (No
"foreign mission" of modern times demands a
more utter laying aside of prejudice than did
this.) He orders the Church of Antioch to
select Saul and to send him, accompanied by
Barnabas, on a great adventure all planned by
Him beforehand.
No less interested is He in the practice of
the Church than in its extension. The mes-
sage from the council of the Church in Jeru-
*Acts VIII: 5-8, 14-17, 27-39; X; XIII: 1-3; XV: 28;
XVI: 6-10; XIX: 5, 6; XX: 22, 23; XXI: 11.
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The Power in the Church
salem regarding the great rite of circumcision
in its application to converts bears the impri-
matur of the Holy Ghost; the matter has been
decided by Him in council with the Church.
From Antioch, St. Paul, this time with Silas
as his companion, starts on his second journey
intending to cover central Asia Minor. No
thought of Europe has apparently entered his
mind. He plans to go as far north as the
Euxine Sea, passing through the Roman prov-
ince of Asia; but the Holy Ghost forbids him
to preach there. Bithynia — the most northerly
province — perhaps that is the goal ! No ! The
Spirit forbids that. Where then? What is
the meaning of this constant upsetting of
plans? Hastening westward, the Apostle fin-
ally comes to the narrow sea separating Asia
from Europe. There at Troas — close to mem-
orable Troy — the objective of the Holy Ghost
is at last made plain in the vision of the man
of Macedonia, the cry of Europe — "Come over
and help us." Here, too, it seems that the
Holy Ghost had provided for St. Paul the
much-needed friend and physician in the per-
son of St. Luke.
On his third journey, St. Paul comes to
Ephesus, and here, upon a few uninstructed
disciples, the Holy Ghost comes with power
through the laying on of Apostolic hands, and
the new-born Church of Ephesus is estab-
lished. On his journey home, it is the Holy
Ghost who warns him of what he yet has to
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The Church's Life
suffer in order that the Church may reach
farther and farther still. And, finally, it is the
plan of the Holy Ghost that His servant shall
be delivered over to his enemies in Jerusalem,
that so at last the Gospel shall reach Rome —
the center of the civilized world.
Such was the irresistible course of the
Church under the mighty driving power of the
Holy Ghost. Very fittingly are the recorded
sayings of the Second Person of the Blessed
Trinity during His ministry on earth imme-
diately followed by the recorded doings of the
Third Person of the Trinity who now abides
with and in His Church — the Body of Christ.
Now let us go back for a moment and see
how and where the impetus to missionary activ-
ity started. Turning to St. Luke 24:47, we
find that it was our Lord's will that the Church
should begin to fulfill her mission in Jerusalem,
and that the disciples, instead of returning to
their homes to begin work, should stay where
they were and await further events. There
were doubtless many reasons why the work
was to begin in Jerusalem. It was always
God's will that His message should be delivered
to the Jews first of all. Jerusalem was the
center of Judaism, and the present opportunity
was quite unique. During Llis annual — pos-
sibly more frequent — visits there, the Prophet
of Nazareth had become a familiar figure in
the city ; His teaching and His claims had been
such as to arouse popular interest ; during the
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. The Power in the Church
week preceding the last Passover of His life,
He was probably the most-talked-of man in
town. When the Apostles later addressed
great crowds and spoke of "Jesus °f Naz-
areth," every one in the crowd knew whom
they were talking about, and was familiar with
the tragedy of the past few days. Being Jews,
they were also able to understand the interpre-
tation of those events as set forth by such men
as St. Peter and, later, St. Stephen. Moreover,
the Passover and the Feast of Pentecost had
brought to Jerusalem a great concourse of
Jews from many regions. It was an extraor-
dinarily cosmopolitan crowd that faced St.
Peter when he made his first announcement
on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2 :g-i 1 ) . Rep-
resentatives of no less than fifteen countries
distributed over three continents received 'the
first message of the Christian Church. The
opportunity was unprecedented, for most of
those visitors to Jerusalem were returning
home presently and could not fail to talk of
those things which had so deeply impressed
them.
Again it was in Jerusalem, or its immediate
neighborhood, that the events upon which St.
Peter based his message had recently occurred,
and, as has been said, every one present was
familiar with them.
Then, too, it was the severest possible test
of their new-found courage, for the Apostles
to be required to testify to Christ before the
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The Church's Life
very people who had rejected Him a couple of
months before, and had condemned Him to the
shame and horror of crucifixion as a common
malefactor. It would have been far easier for
them to have returned quietly to Galilee, and
there, among those who still cherished the
memory of His gracious Presence, spread the
good news of life in His name; but God would
not have it so.
Was there no further reason for beginning
at Jerusalem? I remember putting this ques-
tion once to a group of students, who there-
upon proceeded to search for some abstruse
reason. Having at last dug up and announced
those given above, profound silence ensued
until one youngster remarked quietly, "Wasn't
it, perhaps, because it was where they hap-
pened to be at the time?" Of course; but, as
so often is the case in Bible study, it was the
obvious which had escaped notice.
This reason always holds good. It is seldom
advisable, and more rarely is it necessary, for
a man to look far afield for his opportunity to
bear witness to Christ and the new life by
example and word. God put him where he is,
and the chances are that just where he is is the
place where God means him to begin his activ-
ities. This applies to the man not only when
he is at home, but wherever he happens to be
at the moment. As a matter of fact, not one
of the Apostles lived at Jerusalem; they were
there only temporarily. So with Saul and
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The Power in the Church
Barnabas. One of them lived at Tarsus, the
other on the island of Cyprus; but they were
both at Antioch when they began their joint
work. In Saul's case, he had gone to Damas-
cus at first with no intention whatever of
preaching Christ — far from it. But when he
got there, "straightway in the synagogues he
proclaimed Jesus, that he is the Son of God."
Now turn back once more to our Lord's
command as recorded by St. Luke. The King
James version gives the wording, "beginning
at Jerusalem" ; but it is worthy of note that the
Revised Version alters it to, "beginning from
Jerusalem." The change of a preposition
seems a slight matter ; but the propulsive force
of the command is thereby immensely in-
creased. The Church had no excuse for re-
maining indefinitely in Jerusalem, whatever
the need or however great the success. She
had her source at Jerusalem, but she could no
more be wholesomely and usefully confined
there than can a stream be dammed up at its
source without becoming a stagnant and force-
less pool. So the Church, impelled and guided
by the Holy Ghost, and bursting all barriers,
flowed forth on her world-wide mission.
The result is astounding. At the period
when the Book of Acts opens, the Roman Em-
pire embraced an area of two million square
miles (two-thirds the size of the United
States) ; it contained upwards of four thou-
sand cities; it included a population of one
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The Church's Life
hundred million, of all peoples and tongues.
The Church was composed of about five hun-
dred persons (Cf. i Cor. 15:5-6), most of them
ignorant and poor ; their means of travel were
limited; their message had to be delivered al-
most entirely by word of mouth; the revela-
tion of God which they had received and which
they endeavored to pass on to others had been
given in terms which were offensive to the
religious Jew, a scorn and derision to the cul-
tured Greek, and intolerable to the governing
Roman. Yet in two centuries and a half
Christ, through His Church, had conquered
the Roman Empire. The conversion of Con-
stantine in A. D. 312 made Christianity the
accepted religion of the civilized world. Of
all miracles, this is the greatest. How was it
accomplished ? Simply enough. Every Chris-
tian was a missionary; the whole Church was
full of the Holy Ghost and of power. The
blessed Spirit eagerly desired that the message
from the Father through the Son should be
proclaimed in every corner of the earth and to
every child of man. The holy, blessed and
glorious Trinity is interested in missions.
What stupor has come over the Church to-
day? Since that great Pentecost which sig-
nalizes her birth, nearly twenty centuries have
passed; yet two-thirds of the whole earth's
population are today without Christ, millions
of them never having even heard His name.
How many in your own neighborhood are in a
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The Power in the Church
like pitiable case? I have no doubt but that
every one, if he so desires, can find a multitude
of plausible reasons for the striking contrast
between the first three centuries and the fol-
lowing seventeen; but the fact remains that,
during the former period, the Church con-
ducted successfully a campaign of enormous
proportions, and this, with comparatively no
facilities within her reach; while, during the
latter period, with every facility increasingly
at hand, the Church militant wins only local
victories, and in many parts of the field, barely
holds her own.
To my mind, there are two fundamental
causes of this state of things: First, the dele-
gation to certain chosen individuals among us,
of the glorious opportunity provided for every
one of us ; secondly, the disregard of God, the
Holy Ghost, as the sole motive power in our-
selves and in the Church at large. Unless
these two defects can be remedied, and until
they are, the Church will remain sluggish and
ineffectual, requiring to be prodded and goaded
along the path of her high calling by "drives"
and "campaigns" and devices of all sorts, which
can do little more than galvanize her into a
fleeting semblance of life. The Holy Spirit
comes as a guest where He is invited ; He stays
so long as the need of Him is recognized; He
abides forever where He is forever welcomed;
He leaves the dwelling where His presence is
politely ignored. It may be mere coincidence,
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The Church's Life
it may be a hint of a profound truth, but in
any case, it is worthy of note that the two
Christian bodies which have been the greatest
missionary influences in the world, before and
since the Reformation — the Roman Catholics
and the Methodists — are also those which lay
most stress upon the presence and office of the
Holy Ghost. One would almost conclude that
God is willing to overlook aberrations in mat-
ters of faith and order within His Church, if
only her members recognize the one Source of
Power and draw upon Him eagerly for the
accomplishment of His purpose in the world.
For in things pertaining to faith and order,
supremely important though they be, He can
overrule man's errors; but in matters which
involve man's will to see and to obey, He can
do little so long as He leaves man the free
agent which He has made Him.
It is interesting to us Churchmen to recall
that in the whole Book of Common Prayer
there are but three prayers addressed directly
to God the Holy Ghost: The Veni Creator
Spiritus in the Ordinal; the prayer beginning,
"O God, Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of the faith-
ful," in the rarely-heard Office of Institution
of Ministers, and the brief address at the open-
ing of the Litany. It is true that three days
in the Church's year are devoted to the Holy
Spirit, but how little is made of them! It is
surely a hopeful sign that the proposal has
recently been made to change the name of
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The Power in the Church
Whitsunday to Pentecost, and of Trinity Sun-
day to "The First Sunday after Pentecost,
commonly called Trinity Sunday," and to num-
ber the succeeding Sundays, not after Trinity,
as at present, but after Pentecost. Should
this change be effected, the mind of the Church
will be directed, for half of the year, to the
presence and work of God the Holy Ghost.
A book which deservedly excited wide-
spread interest a few years ago was Allen's
Missionary Methods, St. Paul's or Ours. We
are often so at our wits' ends to devise methods
of stirring up the Church, and are, withal, so
obsessed with the idea that modern methods
are the only practical ones, that we are apt
to forget that the things of God are governed
by different laws than those of man, and are
not amenable to the same treatment. It is
possible that the methods by which the Church
was extended during the first century were
better than those pursued in the twentieth.
Anyhow, the results were so far superior, that
both are worth considering as a possible case
of cause and effect. Let us therefore compare
the Church of the first century with that of
the twentieth, in these respects.
(i) In the first place, as we have already
seen, most Christians were, in those early days,
tremendously conscious of the new life into
which they had been born, and they were cor-
respondingly eager to transmit it without de-
lay. They went far and fast. Much of their
187
The Church's Life
most important work is unknown and unre-
corded. There were Christians in Damascus
before Saul of Tarsus arrived there; he was
the first of the Apostles to reach Rome, yet
he found the Church already there ; in Britain
and Gaul there were Churches long before we
have any record of a mission to those countries.
Who founded these Churches ? No one knows
with certainty; we can only conjecture that the
zeal of some humble disciples knew no limits.
No religious activity in modern times is com-
parable with this, except that of the Moham-
medan. He prays without ceasing; he is a
propagandist everywhere and always.
(2) Then there was the constant telling of
the good news by those to whom it meant
everything. Today we hire certain people to
preach to us, and occasionally send some one
on our behalf to preach to others at a distance;
but among ourselves Jesus Christ is a person
to be spoken of only with bated breath, and
our experiences of Him only in the strictest
moderation and privacy. A dumb spirit seems
to possess us — the kind of spirit which our
Lord drove out of people. The "Gift of
tongues" was, at the outset, a powerful help
and witness, but surely less so than the in-
numerable translations of the Bible into nearly
every tongue known to man today, and the
increasing preponderance of certain languages
the world over. The difficulties of a confusion
of tongues, such as rendered extraordinary
188
The Power in the Church
measures necessary, are almost done away
with today. An American can preach to a
Chinese through the proxy of the printed page.
(3) Undoubtedly absolute unity of purpose
and organization within the early Church
helped her incalculably. At least, this unity
gave to the Holy Spirit an opportunity to be
heard. The Body of Christ today is torn into
innumerable fragments; unity of aim is prac-
tically lacking, unity of organization largely
so. Not since the ninth century has the voice
of the Spirit been heard in a united Church;
amid the babel of modern sects it is hopeless
to expect Him to be heard intelligibly. With
all its good results, the Reformation opened
the way for further division. Congregation-
alism arose in 1568 as a schism from the
Church of England; the Presbyterians became
a separate body a generation later; then fol-
lowed the Baptists in 1633, and the Methodists
in 1784. Since then, the divisions have sub-
divided and the process has been fast and
furious. Even the three great divisions which
have retained the Faith and Order of the prim-
itive Church are at odds between themselves.
Not until the whole Church is once more at
unity within herself will the authoritative
voice of the Holy Spirit be again heard in full
measure and unmistakably.
(4) The great bond of union in the early
Church was the Holy Communion, duly ad-
ministered and rightly received at least once
189
The Church's Life
a week. By this, the members of the Church
were made one body in Christ, and acted as
one body with manifold functions. They were
baptized into life, endued with the Holy Ghost
through the laying on of apostolic hands, fed
by Christ with His body and blood. How
could they have been other than a mighty body ?
With good reason has the Church always asso-
ciated Baptism and Confirmation and the Holy
Communion as steps in a continuous process;
for the life received in Baptism is empowered
by the Holy Ghost in Confirmation and main-
tained by ever-renewed union with the living
Christ in His blessed Sacrament.
To speak of a baptized person's "joining
the Church" in later life is to misunderstand
the meaning and effect of Baptism. It is true
that at Confirmation the baptismal vows are
personally reaffirmed, but the essence of the
rite is the gift of the Holy Ghost through the
laying on of hands by the Bishop, that so the
confirmed person may have grace and power
to keep his vows. Then follows the Holy Com-
munion through which he is kept in union with
Jesus Christ. All three are steps in the normal
development of the child of God, from his birth
into the Family, until he attains "unto a full-
grown man, unto the measure of the stature
of the fulness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13). In-
deed, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Bap-
tism is immediately followed by the rite which
corresponds to Confirmation, the latter being
190
The Power in the Church
properly regarded as the completion of the
former.
As yet no lesser forms of common worship
had developed. For many years the Jewish
Christians maintained their connection with
the synagogue, and joined in the Sabbath ob-
servances; and it was only very much later,
when the Christian Church had finally parted
with Judaism and had established its own dis-
tinctive places for Christian worship, that
there developed also distinctive forms of Chris-
tian worship other than the Eucharist. These
originated as informal meetings for prayer,
largely composed of devout women, held either
in private houses or in the churches. The
leadership of these meetings gradually passed
into the hands of the clergy, and with the rise
of monasticism, the prayers and reading of
psalms, etc., became crystallized into the form
of definite offices which, with certain variations
in different localities and with general conden-
sation, were used daily in the monastic estab-
lishments at certain fixed hours : Matins (mid-
night), Lands (sunrise), Prime (6 a. m.),
Terce (9 a. m.), Sext (noon), None (3 p. m.),
Vespers (sunset), and Compline (9 p. m.).
This was the basis of the Roman Breviary,
and it was selected portions of the latter which
were used in compiling the Daily Offices
(Morning and Evening Prayer) in the Book
of Common Prayer.
Meantime the Sunday worship, connected
191
The Church's Life
exclusively with the Holy Communion, also
became crystallized into definite form, and was
known as the Liturgy. The precise form
which the Liturgy took varied somewhat in
different localities, so that scholars today rec-
ognize six main groups of ancient liturgies,
four Eastern in origin and use, two Western.
The latter (the Roman and the Gallican), re-
vised and combined in the eleventh century by
the Bishop of Salisbury, was known as the
Saram (Salisbury) Use, and is practically the
Liturgy as contained in the Book of Common
Prayer. The origin of the other portions of
the Prayer-book is a less important matter.
The interesting point is that not only have the
Daily Offices of the monks come to be regarded
by us as the proper Services for Sundays, but,
rather generally, they have been allowed to
supplant the Service which, in the early Church,
was regarded as the special glory of the Lord's
Day; with the indirect result that many lay
people prepare themselves and are content to
receive the Holy Communion only once a
month, or possibly only once a year. I am not
arguing either one way or the other; but it is
surely important for us to note that, on the
one hand, the early Church — which was, in all
her members, a mighty missionary witness and
force — did lay great stress upon the Holy Com-
munion as the Sacrament of the union of her
members in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit;
and, on the other hand, that the modern Church
192
The Power in the Church
tends to substitute other forms of Sunday wor-
ship and fellowship, and is a disrupted and in-
effective missionary witness and power, espe-
cially when working under conditions which
demand primarily the welding, teaching and
witnessing power of the Holy Ghost, i. e., in
the foreign field.
(5) That "miracles" of healing were a con-
stant witness to the power of Christ in the
early Church, and that they played an impor-
tant part in her missionary effectiveness can
not be questioned. That they occupy no such
position in the Church at large today is equally
evident. Either Jesus Christ is dead, or He
has lost His power, or men have lost their
faith in Him, or God has substituted some
other healing agency. We have discussed this
matter in a previous chapter; it is only neces-
sary, therefore, to add that while the great
advance in knowledge regarding the human
body, and in medical and surgical skill, is un-
questionably according to the purpose of God,
yet the practice of healing based on this can
be regarded only as a supplementary means.
It is foolish to argue that God has delegated
His healing powrer to agents who generally dis-
regard lis cooperation. This w^ould be most
unlike Him. When the medical profession
comes universally to believe in and to seek the
action of God, through His chosen agents, and
when it recognizes all material means of heal-
ing as merely supplementary to that action and
193
The Church's Life
in their nature sacramental, it will then be time
to argue that "miracles" of healing are no
longer necessary as a testimony to our Lord's
power. But when that time comes, such works
will no longer appear "miraculous," since they
will be recognized as the normal action of our
blessed Lord in and through His Church. This
is a missionary method in respect to which the
modern Church has deviated enormously from
primitive practice.
Such seem to me the principal methods ap-
plied of old by the Church in the fulfillment of
her mission in the world. It may be that we
shall find, in our own deviation from, or
abandonment of, them, a cause of the Church's
present comparative lack of success.
There are features of the early Church
which have a further bearing on this matter,
but which may be reviewed more hurriedly,
either because they are duplicated today, or
because they were evidently consequent upon
more important features.
(6) The association with the Apostles of
other duly ordained men, thus forming a three-
fold ministry of a sacramental nature for the
transmission of sacramental grace, was a
prominent mark of the early undivided Church,
and continues today to distinguish those com-
munions which, together, embrace by far the
largest proportion of Christians. These are
the Roman, the Greek and the Anglican
Churches. The case is somewhat analogous
194
The Power in the Church
to a national army which consists of regular
troops with officers trained and commissioned
under the auspices of the Government, but
which may be supplemented by irregular troops
of various degrees of training and under dis-
cipline variously administered. These irregu-
lar troops may do admirable service; under
certain conditions they may be more effective
than the regulars; and they certainly fight in
the same cause and under the same oath of
allegiance. They are parts of the army, but
not of the regular army, that is, of an army
permanently organized according to duly au-
thorized and established usage and discipline.
(7) In the early Church, efficiency was also
obtained by apportioning among the members
various kinds of work to be done according to
the ability of each (see Acts 2:42; 1 Cor.
12:8-11, 28-29; Eph. 4:11-12). We have de-
parted far from this ideal. The third order of
the ministry has, in the Anglican communion,
become practically limited to those few who
find in it merely a necessary stepping-stone to
the priesthood ; the perpetual diaconate is tend-
ing to become a grace descending in the female
line only. The rector of a parish is supposed
to be at once a priest, a preacher, a pastor, a
parish visitor, a teacher, and a financial man-
ager ; while, meantime, there lies at hand inert,
unaroused and unused, a vast accumulation of
lay energy which the few existing organiza-
tions barely touch.
195
The Church's Life
(8) As rapidly as the Gospel entered new
fields and won adherents, the latter were at
once organized into autonomous Churches (not
"denominations"), each in active union with
the Church at large through their local Bishops,
and bound together by sacramental ties. Pres-
ently these Churches became themselves cen-
ters of missionary activity, and so the Church
grew in orderly fashion, and the voice of the
Holy Spirit could be heard in her councils.
It would seem that only as the whole Church
Catholic — "the blessed company of all faithful
people" — wills to return to the Faith and Order
of primitive times, can she recover her mis-
sionary zeal and duplicate her early victories.
(9) Among the Churches so organized, the
Apostles and their companions made frequent
visitations; often letters had to take the place
of visits, but into these letters the Apostles
poured their souls, directing, admonishing,
praising, warning, encouraging, threatening.
Surely much more might be made today of
epistles addressed by our Bishops to groups
of Churches of whom God has made them over-
seers.
(10) Finally, the method of the early
Church was for every member to contribute
money liberally and gladly in order that the
Word of God might be free to spread through-
out the world. They prayed for and cultivated
this grace; therefore they gave to the utmost
limit of their ability and beyond it, placing no
196
The Power in the Church
petty obligation of tithing as their bounds.
They gave spontaneously, cheerfully deliber-
ately. They rivalled one another in their giv-
ing; money given appeared a safe investment;
it was an expression of their unbounded grati-
tude as the redeemed of the Lord — sacramental
indeed — the outward and visible sign of an
inward and spiritual grace. And they thus
gave because they first gave their own selves
unto the Lord" (see n Cor. 8 and 9). A com-
parison between early and modern practice in
this regard is tragic.
So we bring to a close our study of the great-
est cause on earth — the mission of God's
Church. We have tried to see in it the pas-
sionate longing of God's heart for the sons of
men. We have considered the appealing mes-
sage, and the all-sufficient power of it. We
have seen the Christ stand watching in pity
the desperate needs of mankind, and in active
mercy satisfying those needs through the
power of His own abundant life. We have
followed His beloved community as it set
forth, in the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, to
fulfill its divine mission of embodying the
Blessed One, perpetuating His life on earth,
bearing: His sacramental grace to every hungry
and thirsty soul, and baptizing the nations into
the Family of God. We have seen the results
attending that mission; and we have noted
197
The Church's Life
carefully the methods pursued, in order that
we might see wherein our own are defective.
It will be of the utmost value if we have come
to see clearly that the objective of the Church's
Mission is to give to every man, woman and
child in this fair land of ours an opportunity
to share in a more abundant life for body,
mind and soul; and, further, to establish in
every land and among all peoples an organized,
autonomous, self-supporting and missionary
branch of God's One Holy, Catholic and Apos-
tolic Church. To this end God calls us "to
present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable to God, which is our reasonable
service; . . . that we may prove what is the
good and acceptable and perfect will of God"
(Rom. 12:1, 2).
[the end]
1 Ed. 10-20. 5M. L.&I. PL
198
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