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 | NOV 17 1926. 
 fi Losey sen 
 “BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 By 
 
 A 
 DANIEL MINORT BAXTER, D.D. 
 
 Manager of the 
 A, M. E. Book 
 Concern and the 
 Author of “Chris- 
 tian Tradition and 
 Heathen Mythology’— 
 “Bishop Richard Al- 
 len and His Spirit”— 
 “Has the Negro Freedom 
 Paid” and other works. 
 
 A. M. E. BOOK CONCERN 
 Publishers 
 63! Pine St. Philadelphia 
 

 
 
 Mis 
 hee 
 
Chapter XII, 
 Page 
 14 
 21 
 iA 
 41 
 4? 
 45 
 46 
 48 
 49 
 82 
 89 
 00 
 91 
 C6 
 102 
 113 
 183 
 
 ERRATA 
 Contents 107. 
 
 line 27 
 line 7 
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 line 22 
 line 5 
 line 18 
 line 18 
 line 18 
 line 25 
 line 23 
 line 17 
 line 6 
 line 5 
 line 4 
 line 
 line 19 
 4 
 
 line 
 
 lamented 
 
 heroine 
 
 in open 
 
 Psalm 69:9 not 16 
 Matt. 6:21 not 16 
 trail 
 
 andi 
 
 Matt. 7:12 not 2 
 worst 
 
 believed, was 
 
 its 
 
 virtues — 
 
 speedily 
 
 undefiled 
 
 ballots 
 
 Romans 12:19 
 Psalm 48 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 | in 2022 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/backtomethodism00baxt 
 
«Chapter 
 
 I. 
 
 TY. 
 
 IL 
 
 iV. 
 
 VI. 
 
 WII. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 MARCH OF THE CHURCH—Noah; Abraham; 
 Jesus: Apostles; The Hierarchy; Henry VIII and 
 ENG m ETOLMACLOINy Sciatic th vats cee ani oty Geared feces 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE METHODIST CHURCH— 
 John and Charles Wesley; George Whitefield; 
 The Methodist Church Not Founded in Ignor- 
 
 ance; The Moravians’ Influence upon Wesley.... 
 
 GENIUS OF METHODISM UNIQUE—An Ex- 
 
 perience: Al Messace Ai Zeale A Spiritus. >. 
 
 LAWS OF METHODISM ANALOGOUS TO 
 THOSE OF THE UNITED STATES—A Repre- 
 sentative Form of Government; The Fathers Had 
 No Favorites; The Law of the Church Sheet An- 
 chor of its Existence; The Itinerate System like 
 that of the Apostolic Course; Methodist Zeal to 
 Follow the People; The My'th of the Apostolic 
 ISCUECION Kee tre cnt Or Su een Mn OM Cte we Mice ory | 
 
 FAMILY PRAYER—The Head of every House 
 Responsible for its Doings; Evidence of A Fami- 
 
 wore ee ere ec eee eee ese eee ee eevee reseevezr ee ees eoeee 
 
 CLASS MEETING AND LOVE FEAST—Sel- 
 fishness Disappears in Class Meeting; It Is One 
 Of The Landmarks of Methodism 
 
 WHY WE CELEBRATE THE LORD’S SUP- 
 PER—Its Anniversary: The Passover Compared 
 With The Lord’s Supper; Methodists Should 
 Prepare For Its Celebration; Love reast Pre- 
 pares the Heart for the Lord’s Supper; It Rids 
 PRAT Ctl Ore EO aie <i) Pe ela eee a ha eat Oi lace 
 
 Page 
 
 38 
 
 47 
 
 58 
 
Chapter 
 
 VIIL. 
 
 IX. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 SEEK INTIMACY OF FRIENDLY SOCIETY 
 AMONG YOURSELVES—Friendly Relation 
 Great Strength to Methodism; Friendship Re- 
 ciprocal 
 
 oeeeer err eve eee eee eee eee ee er eee ees ee eee eeees 
 
 TEMPERANCE—Law Punishes After Crime; 
 Religion Stops Motive 
 
 oo 0 6 6 6 6 tle 6.0 v6 .@ 6 ae Ue 0 6s 6 ern ie ei8 
 
 THE BENEFIT OF FASTING—Conflicting 
 Agencies; Old Time Methodists Had Certain 
 Days To Fast 
 
 SOLAS © 8) Ore. .e 68 (0b 6.6 ee ee Gale ee) 6 6.8 wee 8 eee 
 
 EVIL TENDENCIES OF TODAY—United 
 States Government; Marriage and Divorce; 
 Race and Class Hatred; Many Things Better 
 Than Money; Imperialism; Pleasure.... 
 
 ee 
 
 THE USE OF THE TONGUE—Evil Speaking; 
 The Body Made Up of Limbs and Organs for 
 Man’s Health and Pleasure; Only Man Endowed 
 with Power of Speech; Watch an Evil Speaker; 
 Back to Methodism 
 
 @] 6 1 [Re De we Je 0) 6 16-8) pice 6).0.49) 21 6.) DO LS 1a eo ee 
 
 FIGHTING, QUARRELING, BRAWLING—The 
 Great World’s War; War a School Master; 
 Watch the Signs of Time; A Good Request 
 
 Mec on ete 
 
 BUSINESS IN THE CHURCH—Business' in 
 
 the Spiritual Church; Backbone in Ministry; 
 
 Official Board; A Few Rules; Business in the 
 
 Social Church; Business in the Temporal 
 Chrarclecd bik e525 Fee eres cs eee 
 
 Page 
 
 81 
 
 17 
 
 127 
 
Chapter Page 
 
 XV. THE LORD HEALS BACKSLIDING—God 
 Has His Way to Deal with His Creatures: There 
 was no Voice From God for 424 Years; Trouble 
 Brings Repentance; A Privilege to be a Child 
 
 XVI. SOLILOQUIES ON BAPTISM AND ATONE- 
 MizNT—The Tendency of Human Nature to Ex- 
 alt the Sign ahove the thing Signified; Salvation 
 not in Water, but in the Blood of Christ, The 
 Cross Symbolizes the Wisdom and Power of God; 
 
 BS Oye = wlemal od) 6, @. 6, 0116. 0.10) O. 6) 00. 6) |S OP Nelle 81,6) 6B e)-@) 0) 820) (@: O18 Fw) ole 16 (eo he Were. & 
 
 XVII MUSING—Just Thinking; Religion; Music; 
 MISES CONSITL eet oe WaRIern Wie a ei ake ante wt NEE BA Hath e the 
 
 AVITl THE: PROOF OF THE!’ RESURBECTION— 
 The Grandest Event in History; Truly He Did 
 Live; Was He Really Dead? Has He Rigen: 
 Why Prove The Resurrection; Results of Easter 
 PO nere RN ENS ATA cw cn ela we Ne Weheat ee Rea oy 
 
 XIX. —BULWARKS—The Great Celebration; An In- 
 vitation to Examine the Shafts of the Pillars; 
 Faith and the Bible Strong Pillars in Zion; 
 DEE OOO DETOCe! ayn eum peed clin Beck TAM iy CURL, 
 
 XX. BACK TO METHODISM AND PREACH THE 
 WORD—Jesus Greatest Preacher, What is the 
 Word: To Preach Effectively Must Be Con- 
 verted; The Call; Minister Must Keep Well; 
 Don’t Be Lazy; Don’t Cease to Blow the Trum- 
 
 147 
 
 158 
 
 169 
 
 183 
 
: 
 VAR 
 
 wt 
 i“ oh 
 
 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The author having been brought up in a strict 
 Methodist family—his grand father being a Metho- 
 dist preacher—being used to Methodism in its sim- 
 ple plainness, he became convinced in his soul, that, 
 as a Methodist family, many have wandered too 
 far from the genius and foundation of the principles of 
 Methodism as it came forth from the minds and 
 hearts of the founders and was handed down to 
 this generation. 
 
 Notice today, that the old landmarks of faith 
 which used to gain thousands of converts to the 
 cause, are slackened; that the means of grace, which 
 once kept the spiritual fire burning on the altar, 
 are sadly neglected. The private and, family pray- 
 ers, the attendance upon class meeting and the love 
 feast, together with the old time revivals, in a great 
 many Methodist Churches, are almost obsolete. 
 
 Our government each year offers prizes to Ameri- 
 can youths who compose and deliver the best origi- 
 nal essays on the Constitution. Those in authority 
 recognize the great necessity of keeping in mind 
 the instrument which has safeguarded the civil lib- 
 erties which America has enjoyed for 137 years. 
 It is highly essential that next to the Bible, the 
 Constitution be the best and most widely known 
 document among us. No matter how old we may 
 become as a Nation, our perpetuity will only con- 
 tinue as we revere the principles of the govern- 
 
10 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 ment as found written in the Constitution. There 
 have been nineteen amendments to the Constitu- 
 tion since it was written and adopted in 1789, but 
 not one criginal principle has been changed. Every 
 conflict or internal rupture we have had was when 
 some set of self-designers contrived to set the Con- 
 stitution to naught and to substitute something in 
 its stead. The Nullification Act in 1832, caused 
 President Jackson to send a naval force to Charles- 
 ton, S. C to correct the evil, bringing them back 
 to the Constitution. When the Confederates at- 
 tempted to make void the Constitution in 1861, to 
 divide the union, this conflict was again started 
 in Charleston, and for four years a bloody conflict 
 of arms prevailed, until every nook and corner of 
 our comnion country was brought back to the Con- 
 stitution. No attempt or propaganda to annul the 
 Constitution has ever been able to draw the hearts 
 of the American peop'e from the ark of safety in 
 the Constitution. 
 
 What the Declaration of Independence, the Con- 
 stitution, with the Bill of the Rights, are to the 
 United States of America, or the Magna Charter is 
 to Great Britain, Articles of Religion, Catechism of 
 Faith, and General Rules; Right of Trial in the 
 Constitution of Methodism are to the Methodists. 
 Methodism can no more live and keep its identity 
 without those fundamentals, than can the United 
 States Government exist as a free republic outside 
 of the Constitution. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 11 
 
 When we see laxity in adhering to the landmarks 
 of our faith as Methodists, we simply blow the 
 weak trumpet the Lord has given us to sound 
 the alarm ‘Back To Methodism.’ 
 
 I hope none will misunderstand me in this plea, 
 ‘Back To Methodism.’ I do not mean that we 
 should not employ the present day devices which 
 the present civilization has given us, but I do say 
 that the new devices should be employed with 
 the same genius of Methodism given us by the 
 Wesleys, Asbury, Coke, Webb, Barbara Heck, 
 Strawbridge, Allen, Quinn, Payne, Turner and 
 others, who went on foot, horseback, over moun- 
 tains, into valleys and plains. They crossed the 
 oceans, rivers and lakes, aboard sailing crafts, which 
 took them weeks and months to make a journey. 
 We can go in a day’s time the distance it took 
 them a week to go, or in a week what took them 
 several months. Don’t let us change and stop 
 going—let us still be Methodists and go. Because 
 the facilities have increased, we ought to go the 
 more. 
 
 I am indebted to Rev. John Wesley's journal for 
 the inspiration (if there be any) which brought 
 this volume. The Journal is a prize I won in the 
 Seminary, which I have read and re-read, and each 
 time I read it, I drank in more of the soul of 
 the great founder, John Wesley. As he led me 
 amidst the noble men and women of the Methodist 
 Reformation, while, as it were, I walked with the 
 
12 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 fathers of Methodism, I found that they were 
 wrapped up in the Bible, yearning constantly te 
 gain perfection and win souls, that it occurred te 
 me that Biblical text was used by them applied to 
 every rule and practice of life they espoused. Hence, 
 my idea of finding Scriptural Texts for every line I 
 have used from the Discipline. 
 
 Now, I must not forget my dear friend and ex- 
 pastor, Dr. J. M. Henderson, who has reviewed the 
 work and greatly encouraged me along literary 
 lines. 
 
 I send forth this volume in the name of the Lord, 
 trusting that it will have a good circulation and 
 a fair report. 
 
 Now, if I have made any errors, remember [ am 
 human, but I endeavored to give a clean breast of 
 my conviction that we must go back to Methodism 
 and be what we really are. Our faith has outgrown 
 every other Protestant denomination in the last de- 
 cade; but if a man can cut ten cords of wood with 
 a dull axe, give that same man a sharp one and he 
 will cut twenty or more cords with it. If despite 
 our ignoring largely the Constitution and rules of 
 Methodism, we have done so well as a denomina- 
 tion, what might we have done with strict adher- 
 ence to faith? 
 
 Let us g9 back to Methodism and serve the Lord 
 and our feliow man as our fathers did. 
 
 D. M. BAXTER, 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 I have known Dr. D. M. Baxter since his early 
 boyhood and have watched every step of his life 
 thru his struggles, as an orphan, for an education 
 and entrance into the ministry and his progress 
 therein until now, and, to say the least, he has been 
 zealous, studious and apt; not lazy, nor careless, 
 but, painstaking; in all, thoroughly honest and re- 
 liable from the smallest to the largest duty devolv- 
 ed upon him. He has served in our Church from 
 the humblest charge to the Metropolitan pastorage, 
 and has been presiding elder, now business manager 
 of the A. M. E. Book Concern and author of several 
 books. No ground over which he has gone, but 
 that the mark of achievement crowns the spot. His 
 literary works have been well received and highly 
 commended and now he has boldly challenged the 
 critical attention of the entire Methodist Family 
 by giving to the world in book form, his mighty 
 appeal to the heart as well as the concience and 
 intelligence of all Methodists under the forceful 
 title, “Back to Methodism.” 
 
 No one will deny that Methodism as an ecclesi- 
 astical force, in the past, has no peer as an “En- 
 ergetic religious element in the social develop- 
 ment” of our nation. Methodism inspired the 
 American Negro to his first assertion through a 
 religious organization of his consciousness of his 
 
14 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 relation to all men as a MAN and a BROTHER 
 and gave to the Race its first distinctively racial 
 ecclesiastical organization based upon this truth. 
 
 The growth of ecclesiastical Methodism has kept 
 pace with the growth and advancement of the 
 American Nation, but now comes the Rev. D. M. 
 Baxter with a book the very title of which pro- 
 claims that the vast and powerful ecclesiastical 
 body of Methodism, despite its material achieve- 
 ment and present attainments is lacking in some of 
 the vital qualities to which it owes its Past success 
 and present estate, hence his startling cry, “Back 
 To Methodism.” I take great pleasure in introduc- 
 ing this, his latest effort where he pours out his 
 soul and heart to the Methodist Family of the 
 world. 
 
 Can this book call back to us or cause us to go 
 back and seek the “strange warmth of heart” the vi- 
 talization of our theology, the powerful demonstra- 
 tion in our preaching and the influence that spreads 
 like contagion among the people in the glorious 
 day of the Methodism to which the good Dr. Bax- 
 ter would have us go back? 
 
 Let the earnest Spirit of this book touch your 
 Spe a Ie we 
 
 WW, (BECK Hi: 
 Bishop of S. C., and Mississippi. 
 
 Note:—This is the last piece of literary work Bishop W. 
 W. Beckett did; handing the author the introduction 
 in South Carolina a few days before his lemented death. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 15 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE MARCH OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Man has come into life in virtue of the breath of 
 God in his soul. The source of his being is in God. 
 In his origina! creation the soul of man had living 
 connection and kinship with God who is a spirit. 
 Having failen out of this fellowship, and lost this 
 divine life through sin, man may yet find it again 
 through faith in the Son of God, who came into 
 the world for the express purpose of renewing 
 men dead in trespasses and sins. 
 
 In every age of the world God had men picked to be 
 certain leaders and brought them forth at the right 
 time. When Cain slew Abel and Satan thought the 
 church had been destroyed forever, and that wick- 
 edness would reign, God reared up Seth. Then 
 like a gulf stream flowing through the ocean from 
 Mexico to Winnipeg, this line prevailed in every 
 emergency. 
 
 This conception of the possibility of a divine life 
 in man, in any man, is the highest tribute which 
 can be paid to the dignity of human nature. The 
 rich man and Lazarus, the savage and, the civilized 
 man, the high and the low, the bond and the free, 
 without respect of persons, are children of the 
 
16 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 one Father and redeemed by Jesus Christ and may 
 come under the regenerating power of the gospel 
 and be born into the kingdom. 
 
 Methodism is a movement within the Church of 
 God which is especially inspired by this conception 
 of the possibility of the divine life in man. 
 
 God’s Church has been on earth since the Fall of 
 man until this present moment. Since Adam the 
 human race here on earth has been made up of 
 millions and hundreds of millions of distinct beings, 
 each having a soul, a life distinct from all other 
 beings. These myriads of men have lived and mov- 
 ed and had their being here in this world in the 
 different ages, under different conditions, in groups, 
 families, communities and nations. But God is 
 the same yesterday, today, and forever. To fallen 
 man He held out hope, He gave a promise of re- 
 demption. The Church of God came to be among 
 men at the beginning and it is here today. From 
 the days of righteous Abel until now God has had 
 His church in the world. 
 
 Refore the Flood, the Church seems to have been 
 confined chiefly to the family of Seth. They were 
 “the sons of God” in distinction from the ‘“daught- 
 ers of men.” 
 
 Enoch who “walked with God, and was not, for 
 God took him,” was among the children of Seth. 
 It is to the children of Seth that the Bible story 
 of the Church is confined from the fifth chapter of 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 17 
 
 Genesis to the Deluge, even beyond it, for Noah and 
 his family were of the children of Seth. 
 
 When man multiplied and wickedness spread in 
 that the stench thereof went up into God’s nostrils 
 and all flesh became abominable in His sight, He 
 declared His purpose to destroy every living thing 
 from the face of the earth. He reared up Noah 
 and instructed him to build an ark, the pattern of 
 which He handed down from heaven and told him 
 he should have finished it, “Come thou and all thy 
 house into the ark: for thee have I seen righteous 
 before me in this generation. Of every clean beast 
 thou shalt take thee by sevens, the male and the 
 female; and of the beasts that are not clean, by 
 two, the male and the female, of fowls also, of the 
 air by sevens, the male and the female, to keep 
 seed alive upon the face of the earth.” Gen. 7:1-3. 
 “And Noah went in and his sons and his wife, and 
 his sons’ wives with him into the ark because of 
 the flood.” Gen 7:7. And there they remained un- 
 til God’s plans were carried out and every living 
 thing outside of the ark was destroyed and the ark 
 rested on Mt. Ararat. “And he sent forth a raven, 
 which went forth to and fro until the waters were 
 dried up from off the earth. Also He sent forth a 
 dove from him, to see if the waters were abated 
 from off the face of the ground: but the dove 
 found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she 
 returned unto him into the ark for the waters were 
 on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth 
 
18 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 his hand and took and pulled her in unto him into 
 the ark. And the dove came into him in the even- 
 ing, and lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt 
 off. So Noah knew that the waters were abated 
 off the earth.” Gen. 8:7-11. And the rainbow 
 cast a beautiful sign in the firmaments that the 
 world would never again be destroyed by water. 
 Thus, God had saved His Church. Then, a new 
 covenant was made by God with Noah. Another 
 step is taken and man goes forth under the new 
 covenant, but it is not long before we find him 
 building the tower of Babel, trying to secure him- 
 self against another flood making a roadway to 
 heaven with human hands. God scattered them by 
 confusing their language and they were separated 
 into several tribes into different parts of the earth. 
 After the flood the Bible of the Church is centered 
 in Shem and his children down to the time of 
 Terah and Abraham. 
 
 ABRAHAM 
 
 Away over in Ur of the Chaidees, off into the 
 Mesopotamia, there dwelt a man by the name of 
 Terah, who had a son born unto him named Abram, 
 God ordained to keep the righteous line and 
 His Spirit entered into the heart of Abram. Now, 
 the Lord had said unto Abram “Get thee out of 
 thy country and from thy kindred and from thy 
 father’s house unto a land I will show thee: and I 
 will make of thee a great nation and I will bless 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 19 
 
 thee and make thy name great and thou shalt be a 
 blessing and I will bless them that bless thee, and 
 curse him that curseth thee and in thee shall all 
 families of the earth be blessed. Gen. 12:1-3. And 
 he went out by faith trusting in God, not knowing 
 whither he was going, like a ship sailing under seal- 
 ed orders, and came into the land of Canaan, where 
 the Lord led him and where He would make him 
 father of a nation, who, for multitudes, would be 
 like the sands of the sea, or the stars of the heaven. 
 
 Hence, came the great Jewish people, with Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob, their fathers. But Jacob’s 
 sons allowed envy to spring up into their hearts 
 and sold their brother, Joseph, down into slavery. 
 However, this was God’s way to lead His chosen 
 people through the hardships and fit and prepare 
 them for the great work in the world, He ordained 
 they should do. So that down through to Moses 
 whom God raised up to lead the peculiar people, 
 who went into Egypt an enslaved patriarchal 
 family and came forth a mighty nation; hence, 
 came judges, prophets, priests, and kings, and the 
 religion of the one true and only God wielded its 
 spiritual influence until the star of Bethlehem beam- 
 ed over the manger and the Magi of the East 
 brought their precious gifts, while the angels of 
 heaven struck their harps of joy amidst the noon- 
 day light which shone from heaven in the midnight, 
 proclaimed “The Prince of Peace, the Saviour of 
 the world had come.” 
 
20 BACK TO METHODISM 
 JESUS 
 
 Jesus, the mightiest of them all, not only a spiri- 
 tual and moral leader, but foremost in everything 
 for the uplift of mankind and the glory of God, 
 lived among us for thirty and three years, pointing 
 men to the principles of love, to the great rights 
 of God, and the great rights of man—that is, 
 the rights of God are reverence, obedience and 
 worship; to man—right te life, to family, to pro- 
 perty and filial regard. Jesus’ principles are seen 
 in philanthropy, such as Howard, in “Prison Re- 
 form”; Wilberforce and Pitt, in “Abolition of Slav- 
 ery; Halley, in “Orphan Asylum”; and every right 
 charity for the relief of the indigent and suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 March on General Jesus, Thy principles shall 
 continue to spread upon the earth until men every- 
 where shall acknowledge Thee King. 
 
 APOSTLES 
 
 Again Satan thought he had conquered the 
 Church, after Jesus was put to death. But Peter 
 James and John, and the valiant Paul and the other 
 apostles who walked and talked with Jesus, took 
 up where He left off, and preached the 
 Word and wrought miracles and_ suffered 
 like He did and reared up the patriarchs, 
 who went on carrying the Word. Roman 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 21 
 
 Emperors like Augustus Caesar, Nero, Diocletian 
 and Decius, ordered all the churches burnt down 
 and Bishops put to death, and Christians slain in 
 every cruel, torturing, conceivable manner, all over 
 the Empire. But the seed had been planted, and 
 the martyrs, like Paul, whom they beheaded, John 
 on the Isle of Patmos, the girl heirove, Blandina, 
 and Polycarp; all of these martyrs were testimonials 
 that God had His peaks to help bring the world to 
 Christ which no power on earth could swerve or 
 change them from the love of Christ Jesus and the 
 inspiration placed in their hearts to proclaim the 
 Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the 
 world. 
 
 THE HIERARCHY 
 
 As the Church grew in number, the hierarchy 
 was built up, because such metropolitans as Rome, 
 Jerusalem, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and 
 Pisa were advanced over poorer and weaker rural 
 churches, and the council of Nicea approved the 
 same. Rome being the most powerful kingdom 
 during the rise of Christianity, dominated not only 
 the weaker nations, but her bishop was, through 
 her power, raised above all the rest of his peers. 
 When the Greek patriarch of Constantinople pro- 
 claimed himself universal, the Roman bishop toolc 
 exception saying that, only St. Peter’s throne should 
 be considered supreme. Hence the beginning of 
 
Le BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 the split of the Church, dividing itself into 
 occidental and oriental. This, together with other 
 differences, between the western and _ eastern 
 church, completed the schism. The eastern church 
 believed the clergy should marry; the west believed 
 in celibacy; the east believed in iconoclasm (the 
 smashing of images and the hurning of pictures) 
 the west worshipped images and adored pictures; 
 the east, patriarchs were all equal; the west had 
 bishops, archbishops, cardinals and popes. Roman 
 hierarchy had reached its zenith through Hiulde- 
 brand. During all of these disputes which side 
 was right, infidelity, skepticism, agnosticism, and 
 rationalism of most every kind and degree, togeth- 
 er with the Mohammedanism sprung up to divide 
 the minds of the people and to draw them from 
 God, while the Church and clergy were busy seek- 
 ing temporal power and political influence. 
 
 LUTHER 
 
 Up to this state of confusion and almost chaos, 
 Martin Luther, the next picked leader from God, 
 came upon the stage of action, when Roman Catho- 
 licism had built up a dictatorship and dominated 
 the world, both spiritually and politically, then the 
 pope and his cohorts assayed to keep the keys of 
 heaven and earth so that at a word, soul and body 
 could be destroyed from the earth into hell. Mar- 
 tin Luther was brought forth inspired by the Holy 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 23 
 
 Ghost as he visited the vatican and saw the pomp 
 and worldly glory of the head of the church. His 
 democratic spirit revelled within him when he was 
 required to pull off his shoes and walk upon his 
 hands and knees up to Pilate’s staircase. And the 
 words of the New Testament which he had been 
 reading came to him, “The just shall live by faith,” 
 he descended the steps and left Rome and went 
 back to Germany with a different idea in his mind 
 regarding the papacy and the Church. Not long 
 after this, Tetzel was gathering money falsely by 
 selling indulgencies to relieve the souls of the dead 
 from purgatory, and bushels of money were carried 
 from Germany to enrich the papal treasury. Luth- 
 er took a stand against this abuse, and preached 
 and worked, and wrote that only God could forgive 
 sins and that the Pope had not such power. The 
 results were that a mighty reformation like tower- 
 ing waves upon the boisterous sea rolled over 
 Germany and the people were brought to light of 
 serving God according to the dictates of their 
 own conscience, reading the Bible, singing, praying 
 and praising God in their own vernacular. 
 
 This wave in Germany rolled over the Rhine and 
 flowed into France and John Calvin, another great 
 reformer, became to his people what Luther was 
 to the Germans, and Tyndale carried the spirit into 
 England. Thus, the Renassiance (revival of letters 
 and arts) when many discoveries and inventions 
 came forth and much good was done to enlighten 
 
24 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 the world and spread the Christian Religion. Just 
 about this time, Henry VIII came upon the scene 
 with his artful cardinal, Wolsey, and it was not very 
 long before Henry was “poping without pope” and 
 the terrible break between the papacy and the 
 English king and people over the divorce of Cathe- 
 rine of Aragon, so that the king could marry Anna 
 Boleyn. This was the beginnning of the Episco- 
 palian Church of England, and Lutherans, sturdy 
 Non-Conformists, Puritans, Presbyterian, Society 
 of Friends, Methodist, Baptist, and all the other 
 different branches of Orthodox Non-Roman Catho- 
 lic belief, were styled Protestants. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 25 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE METHODIST CHURCH 
 JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY 
 
 We cannot conceive the thought of Methodism 
 without first thinking of John Wesley, its founder ; 
 Charles Wesley, his brother, and George White- 
 field, their companion. In the year of 1725, Charles 
 developed an unusual religious seriousness, while 
 John, his brother, was upon his duty at fellowship 
 at Oxford College. With a group of fellow stu- 
 dents, they resolved to conform strictly to methods 
 of study and practice laid down by the university. 
 
 John became their leader, and the term ‘Metho- 
 dism’ was applied, to them by the students because 
 they agreed to meet three times a week for the 
 sole purpose of inquiring not only about the secular 
 learning, but also prayer and reading of the 
 Scriptures and meditating thereon, and stating to 
 each other how they were tempted, and how they 
 were prospering toward a holy life. 
 
 This continued, and instead of the exclusiveness 
 which characterized their activities, they spread out 
 and became inclusive, seeking the poor children, 
 the sick, and the unfortunate, such as those who 
 
26 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 were out of work and needy, those who were cast 
 in prison—and there were hundreds of such during 
 those days. They obtained permission from the 
 bishop, through the advice of Wesley’s father, the 
 sainted Samuel Wesley, Priest at Epworth, to visit 
 the unfortunate of that diocese, whereupon they 
 collected what pennies they could from among 
 themselves and from other benevolent persons to 
 relieve them. 
 
 There was a seriousness in the soul of Wesley 
 which nothing seemed to satisfy; he thought of 
 himself as a creature lost, and that the only way 
 he could be saved was by a thorough casting off 
 the world and all the environments thereunto, He 
 got that idea of the ancient Jewish Church thar in- 
 stead of its going to the world, the world was to 
 come to it. Wesley thought that the surest way for 
 him to seek salvation was to get away from the 
 world instead of going to the world. He was 
 brought up in a Christian family, by a mother who 
 was methodical in the government of her house- 
 hold, while his father and grandfather before him 
 were priests of the established Church; his mother’s 
 father, Dr. Annesley, was a non-conformist minis- 
 ter. Thus blending in the minds of John and 
 Charles an independent spirit, which like their 
 mother’s made them think largely for themselves. 
 
 King George IT, 1683-1760, was on the throne 
 during this time. He played the role from a “deso- 
 late creature to a shameless clown,” while his wife, 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 2/ 
 
 Caroline, seldom conversed at court or anywhere 
 else, without uttering some coarse vulgarity, shock- 
 ing the dignity and pride of the gathering. The 
 Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, who served King 
 George I, ant was an e1emy to George II, only 
 retained his portfolio because of the incompetency 
 of Compton, whom the king intended to be his 
 prime minister. But when he told him to write 
 the speech which was to anncunce to the privy 
 council his accession, Compton could not do it and 
 applied to Walpole to aid him. The queen, Caro- 
 line, saw this and insisted upon her husband re- 
 taining Walpole as his prime minister. 
 
 Walpole lived in opened adultry nearly all his 
 eareer. Masquerade balls afforded occasions when 
 all regard for decency was lost and nude flagrancy 
 prevailed which neither the clergy could check by 
 spiritual admonition, nor grand jury through con- 
 demnation. These vices were prevalent among the 
 rich and middle classes. The gulf of caste fixed 
 between the poor wage earners who were paid so 
 little for their labors that made them a gang of 
 coarse brutal fiends—outcast without hope for 
 themselves or their children—doomed forever to 
 feudal slavery. Hence, they became  footpads, 
 burglars, sneak thieves, while drinking gin so 
 weakened the nation that the doctors of London re- 
 ported over 14,000 cases of sickness, most of them 
 fatal from drinking gin. Amidst all this confu- 
 sion of vice the church which had turned to stone 
 
28 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 was unable to bring relief in its present form of 
 administration. 
 
 But this mighty peak, John Wesley, whom the 
 Lord raised up, came forth with new evangelism, 
 not to appeal to man’s fleshy self, not to his scien- 
 tific knowledge, but to his heart where rests that 
 germ of religion planted in the realm of the soul 
 from the time man was first created. 
 
 It took several years for Wesley to find himself. 
 He went to Georgia in 1738-39, but at this time the 
 peculiar personal faith and satisfaction he desired 
 to carry to the world, preaching a heartfelt religion, 
 did not come to him. He went to Savannah with 
 a full determination to flee the wrath to come, 
 rather than to carry the gospel to the heathen In- 
 dians, whereupon his trip, as he explains himself, 
 was largely a failure, and he cried out, “I went to 
 America to convert the Indians, but, oh, who shall 
 convert me?” 
 
 THE MORAVIANS’ INFLUENCE UPON WESLEY 
 
 The Moravians who had traveled on the _ ship 
 with Wesley going to America, and Peter Bohler 
 and Count Zinzendorf, their heads, wielded a pow- 
 erful influence upon this founder of a new faith, 
 but Wesley was a man with sound judgment, and 
 analytical mind, and with a never weakening de- 
 termination when right conclusions were reached. 
 Methodism was born out of his construction, or 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 29 
 
 what he felt would reach and alleviate the conflict- 
 ing and stultified lethargy which impeded the pro- 
 gress of the great awakening, leading back to the 
 apostolic church ideas. 
 
 However, his visit to Amsterdam, Cologne, and 
 the Rhine to Marienborn, where lived the count, 
 Zinzendorf, who gave him a wide view, not only of 
 the judging the Moravian religion from afar, but at 
 close range at home, at the fountain of their shrine. 
 
 If Wesley had not been a man inspired by the 
 Lord, he would have missed his chance to become 
 the leader of the largest protestant denomination 
 in the world. No wonder he said, “The world is 
 my parish.” Not only was he almost excommuni- 
 cated from the Episcopalian Church of England 
 and denied the use of the pulpit almost everywhere 
 and was more than once threatened with death, 
 often mobbed, but despite all of these battles ot 
 the test of courage from without, there was an 
 inside battle, a more exacting test of faith going 
 on in the hidden resources of the soul. The battle 
 was: Should the Methodists be themselves as to 
 faith and doctrine and polity or were the Moravians 
 to swallow them up with the tenet assurance, or 
 fluctuating personal feeling. Wesley fought the 
 battle well by putting in juxtaposition his idea of 
 assurance which he terminated in that Jesus paid 
 it all. 
 
 Being assured of this fact, he put to one side all 
 superstition, and asked the Moravian brethren these 
 
30 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 questions: “Is not the Count all in all to you? 
 Do you not magnify your church too much? Do 
 you not use guile and dissimulation in many cases? 
 Are you not of a close, dark, reserved temper or be- 
 havior ?”’ 
 
 One sees at a glance that the Lord was in Wesley 
 making him a great leader of a people like unto 
 Abraham, who would have no lords among them, 
 all equal, who would believe that his church was 
 not the only religious body in the world, but God 
 had other sheep who were not of this fold. That 
 the Methodists were to be plain without guile, 
 frank, open hearted, not deceitful, but true and 
 honest to one another, and all mankind in all deal- 
 ings. The Methodists were to walk in the light, 
 their behavior to be decent and bold, and to give 
 utterance as they felt the Spirit. The Moravians 
 to Wesley’s mind had a tincture of spiritual ex- 
 clusiveness which smacked the pretention more 
 damaging than the frankness that should character- 
 ize his new faith. He was right in his contention, 
 for not many days afterwards, we find the Holy 
 Club meeting in Fetter’s Lane London, being the 
 scene of an outright rupture between Wesley and 
 Molther. Molther wanted to impose his doctrine 
 of perfect quietism upon the entire society which 
 was mixed with Methodists and Moravians. 
 
 The Moravians were instructed by their leader, 
 Molther, to wait for the Spirit in quietude and all 
 active means of grace being the immediate gift of 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 3] 
 
 God and that the “Reading of the Scriptures, speak- 
 ing or exhortation, even prayer and the Lord’s 
 Supper were means on which the soul might come 
 to depend and so were not helps, but hindrances to 
 the attainment of faith; while the confirmed be- 
 liever was at liberty to use these and other relig- 
 ious ordinances and exercises, but equally at lber- 
 ty not to use them.” 
 
 Wesley considered this doctrine a dangerous 
 heresy. Notice, that there were two sects in Fet- 
 ter’s Lane meeting house, the Moravians and the 
 embryo Methodists; one led by Molther, the other, 
 by Wesley. But heretofore, they had gone as one, 
 but now, the purpose for which God’s hand was 
 placed on Wesley makes him stand up like Luther 
 did at the Diet of Worms, and almost in Luther’s 
 language, said, “Here I stand, I can do none else, 
 God helping me,” but to check what he saw in the 
 Moravians as the heresy. In the month of July, 1740, 
 Wesley rose in his seat on Sunday after love feast 
 in Fetter’s Lane rooms, London, and read a Paper 
 pointing out his differences with the Moravian 
 brethren, stating that he had tried to convince them 
 of their errors, but that since they could not har- 
 monize and that he felt that he would be searing 
 his conscience to go further, he solemnly declared 
 that he would withdraw from communion with 
 them, and all who believed as he did could follow 
 him. Without another word he left the room and 
 nineteen followed him. 
 
32 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 Thus, forever parted the Methodists from the 
 Moravians, and origin of a separate and inde- 
 pendent movement, the Methodists, came into 
 being. 
 
 God be praised for this movement; it meant so 
 much to the world. It meant a mighty movement 
 would have been stultified with clannishness and 
 isolation and the spiritual activity and itinerate 
 thrift which carried the gospel far and wide would 
 have hovered in a tent of selfishness and inactivity 
 But this did not yet clear away all the difficulties 
 of the little gospel ship, which had many rocks 
 strewn in her path and a skilful pilot must guide 
 
 her out into the wide sea of denominational exist- 
 ence. 
 
 WHITEFIELD 
 
 George Whitefield, a young man, one of Wes- 
 ley’s bosom friends, a mighty preacher and one of 
 the later members of the Holy Club, was a wonder- 
 ful asset in helping to spread the new awakening of 
 Methodism. He preached when only twenty-one, 
 and gained an enviable reputation; Gloucester and 
 Bristol were scenes of his first activities and 
 thousands flocked to hear him. 
 
 Wesley called him to Savannah, as he did his 
 brother Charles, the sweet singer, and while John 
 was returning, these young men went out, but Lon 
 don heard Whitefield before he left and gave him 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 33 
 
 thousands of pounds to build his orphanage. He, 
 like Wesley, was soon banned by the priests of 
 London and said, “If I cannot use your pulpits, Pll 
 preach in open air.” Whereupon he went to Kings- 
 wood, which we are told was inhabited mostly by 
 the most uncouth and degraded population of the 
 kingdom of England, those who never saw inside 
 of a church, nor heard the pleading of a preacher; 
 they were colliers, ignorant, lewd, who despised 
 everything like law and order. But Whitefield, 
 another inspired pioneer, believed in the gospel 
 which says, “If I am lifted up from the earth, I 
 will draw all men unto me.” He went out among 
 them preaching in the open air on Kingswood Com- 
 mon. At first, only about one hundred disgruntled 
 and growling colliers came to hear him, but he 
 preached with so much fervency, with such earn- 
 est appeal, that it is said that tears made white 
 gutters upon their blackened faces and their hearts 
 were melted and the contagion passed until hun- 
 dreds flocked to hear him in the open air. A gentle- 
 man gave him the use of a bowling green in the 
 midst of Bristol where he addressed eight to ten 
 thousands at a time. But his heart’s desire was 
 to carry this new campaign into London. He saw 
 something which was revealed to him by inspira- 
 tion. That is, he was inspired to preach in open 
 air because no pulpits were allowed him, and know- 
 ing that there were thousands of unchurched in 
 London, he saw the field white with a mighty 
 
34 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 harvest to reach sheep who had no pastor. There- 
 fore, he sent for Wesley to come to Kingswood and 
 take charge of those he had gathered and allow 
 him to go to London, and like John going as a 
 forerunner for Christ, preparing the way, he would 
 go before and gather them together and turn them 
 over to Wesley, who had a keener and more gifted 
 mind for organization. But, alas, a break must 
 come between these two friends. The Lord is still 
 purging to make a separate and distinct denomina- 
 tion which would reach the common People, spread- 
 ing to the end of the earth, and Wesley and White- 
 field, so far as the doctrine was concerned, parted 
 the ways. 
 
 Wesley believed and preached the Methodist 
 doctrine, the perseverance of the saints, free will, 
 and going on to perfection, or in short Armenian- 
 ism. Whitefield believed with all his heart in Cal- 
 vinism, in the doctrine of election, for which he 
 became more pronounced in proclaiming, after his 
 association with Jonathon Edwards in New Eng- 
 land. Wesley again asserts him self and stands up 
 for his beliefand hence, the Methodists were purged 
 of every contaminating hindrance, which was not 
 its own springing forth out of the heart of its 
 own inspired leader, the Methodist patron father, 
 John Wesley. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 35 
 
 THE METHODIST CHURCH NOT FOUNDED IN 
 IGNORANCE 
 
 Some call the Methodists ignorant, because they 
 give sanction or witness to the preaching or testi- 
 mony of their brethren. They were never more mi5- 
 taken in their lives than in such an idea. 
 
 The founders of the movement came from some 
 of the most refined and educated people of their 
 day. The Wesleys were from generations of priests 
 on both the paternal and maternal sides. White- 
 field was an Oxford man. In fact, the leaders of 
 the movement were all students in Christ’s Church 
 College and sought the dest in secular and sacred 
 learning. Wesley’s father, Samuel, was one of the 
 first editors and publishers of magazines written in 
 English. 
 
 We think the reason why this slander of ignor- 
 ance is placed on the Methodists is because there 
 are certain churches which feed on proselyting its 
 members. These churches never hold revivals like 
 Methodists. That is, they never go out into the 
 field and hew down the green timber and shape it 
 into a polished shaft to fix it in the temple which 
 they wish to erect, but instead, they wait until the 
 rough work is done by the Methodist and other 
 Evangelical churches and then they come forth to 
 tell the refined timbers, moulded and shaped for 
 service, that the thing which made them is not 
 cultured or educated enough for them. Many weak 
 
36 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 persons believe it and send their children away 
 from the old ship which carried their parents be- 
 fore them into the “Heaven of Rest.” Lots of our 
 children are proselyted through the carelessness 
 of their parents. “A man without a creed,’ some 
 one has said, “is like a ship without a helm.” Every 
 one should be what he is, and it is his duty to bring 
 up his children in his faith until they are grown up 
 and able to choose for themselves. No one should 
 let his child be brought up in any faith other than 
 his own. 
 
 Wesley lived in an age of great men, such as, 
 Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) who dicovered the 
 laws of gravitation; Edmund Halley (1656-1742) 
 who discovered Halley’s comet; John Flansteed 
 (1646-1710) who made a catalogue of the stars and 
 was first director of the equatorial observation; 
 John Mozart (1756-1793) the wonderful musician ; 
 George Handell (1684-1759) who wrote operas at 
 an early age; Eular (1707-1783) the German 
 who wrote letters of physics and metaphy- 
 sics; William Hershel (1736-1822) who gave 
 the world the telescope; Benjamin Frank- 
 lin (1706-1790) the celebrated American prin- 
 ter and Natural philosopher, who with the experi- 
 ment of a kite, 1752, established the transmission 
 of electricity; Prestley (1733-1806) discovered 
 gases; 1776, the American War and Independence 
 of the colonies; the French Revolution, 1792, which 
 stirred the civilized world to its very center 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 37 
 
 and wrought havoc to caste and _ *royal 
 tyranny. Gambol and Whitefield formed 
 the Holy Club. This age was called the 
 “Age of Reason” and the most important event 
 during this famous period was the great revival of 
 the Methodist movement, which not only required 
 heartfelt religion, but tact and brain to cope with 
 the situation and to do the world good. Methodism 
 was indeed a spiritual force which spread not only 
 in England but to the Continent and across the 
 ocean to America, and in steady progress has 
 belted the world from pole to pole. 
 
38 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE GENIUS OF METHODISM UNIQUE 
 
 Methodism came into being at a time when its 
 Unique Genius had a special mission to perform in 
 the world for the benefit of mankind. Not because 
 there were no other church denominations on earth, 
 nor that all the good men had died, but as another 
 has fitly said, “Methodism was not a new doctrine 
 nor a new life, but to England then, it was both. 
 It was Christianity Repeated in Earnest.” 
 
 The fathers of the Methodist movement had a 
 special inspiration to meet a special emergency 
 which, at the time, no other movement, old or new, 
 nor leadership, no matter from whom, was able 
 to serve the special purpose and accomplish the 
 particular aim. Hence the spontaneous birth and 
 the phenomenon growth of the spiritual child of 
 providential destiny. A deep and serious craving 
 struck the hearts of the people to flee the wrath 
 to come, as the Methodists spread the news of the 
 judgment to come and presented the love of God. 
 A revival of religion was born in the breast of 
 every Methodist convert as he rose with a cleansed 
 heart from the mercy seat. 
 
 The fundamentals of Methodism are wrapped up 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 39 
 
 in four cardinal Points, as given by a New Eng- 
 land writer—viz: are Erperience, A Message, 
 A Zeal, A Spirit. First, what does Metho- 
 dism mean by _ experience? To experience 
 the love of God in the heart so that the 
 Methodists required those who joined them to 
 bear this witness. “For with the heart man be- 
 lieveth unto righteousness and with the mouth con- 
 fession is made unto salvation.” Rom. 10:10. A 
 change of heart was the most essential thing with 
 Methodists before starting on their Christian war- 
 fare. To every sinner, their slogan was “Ye must 
 be born again,” and with this they set the world 
 on fire. 
 
 They believed in the mourners’ bench, where the 
 sinner came with tears in his eyes and a heavy 
 heart to confess his sins publicly before God and 
 man, and there the Christians met him and built a 
 wall of spiritual fire around him as they sang and 
 prayed and entreated him to give up the world and 
 let Jesus come into his heart. They kept him there 
 until he experienced the change of love of God in 
 his heart being justified by faith, and could express 
 himself like Job and say, “I know that my Redeem- 
 
 er liveth.” 
 A MESSAGE 
 
 Methodism spreads the news of the love of God 
 experience1 in the soul and manifested that love 
 with a burning message to the unsaved and care- 
 less. Methodism, like our blessed Saviour, was not 
 
40 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 liked by the ecclesiastics and rich, but there were 
 millions of poor, neglected, hungry, fainting souls 
 overlooked by cruel traditions and customs of for- 
 malists, who were longing for the message of love 
 sent by the Lamb of God, who taketh away the 
 sins of the world. The common people flocked to 
 the standard of Methodism because they saw the 
 bleeding hand of the Savior extended to the whole 
 world through it without regard to birth or station, 
 race or creed. As fast as they were converted, they 
 joined cheerfully the procession to carry the gospel. 
 message. All Methodists carried it, both ministerial 
 and lay: they went not murmuring, nor complain- 
 ing, but working for Him in and out of season. 
 No distance was too long, no road too rough, no 
 voyage too danerous; day or night, rain or shine, 
 hot or cold, shod or bare-foot, they were upon their 
 Master’s business. 
 
 This message was in their souls and they deter- 
 mined that it should ring out in clear notes into the 
 ears of backsliders and sinners everywhere. Metho- 
 dism was unique in that it had no money, its fol- 
 lowers were poor people, it had no influence but 
 that from above. It went crying, “Silver and gold 
 have | none, but such as I have I give unto thee” 
 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only 
 begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him 
 should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 
 3:16. And this message of Methodism was not in 
 vain, the world heard it, yea millions in every land 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 41 
 have been added to the fold. Should this diligence 
 manifested by the fathers decline? Should we not 
 keep and work with the same Unique Genius, our 
 birthright, the foundation laid for us in tears and 
 sacrifice? Let us hunger and thirst for the souls 
 of men, rather than for what they have. This was 
 Jesus mission to the world, it was the message of 
 early Methodism, and it won in heaven and on 
 earth. 
 
 A ZEAL 
 
 No one thinks of Methodism without first think- 
 ing of the earnest preaching, hearty Amens and 
 hallelujahs, its enlivening, soul stirring hymns, and 
 fervent extemporaneous prayers, together with its 
 zealous desire for the salvation of men. 
 
 Early Methodists got the most of their inspira- 
 tion and stimulation from reading the Bible, and 
 upon their knees in their closets in secret prayer 
 to God for His assistance to help them to live right- 
 eous and useful lives, and to accomplish their 
 deepest craving which was to lead sinners to Christ, 
 In this way, their spiritual strength was renewed 
 day by day. David said,(Psalm 69:16) “The zeal 
 of thine house has eaten me up.” 
 
 The fathers did everything in their power for 
 the spreading of Christianity and Methodism. It 
 was their special joy and greatest prosperity when 
 they were in the midst of a glorious revival, when 
 sinners were daily crying out, “I have been redeem- 
 
42 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 ed and saved from the power of sin and Satan.” The 
 fathers had a zeal for converts, for they knew to 
 get the man’s heart was to get the whole man, 
 soul and body, time, talent and money, into the 
 service of the Lord. Jesus said, (Matt. 16:21) 
 “For where your treasure is there your heart be 
 also.” If a man treasures the works of the Lord 
 his heart is wrapped up in it and he loves nothing 
 better, and puts nothing before it, to see it succeed 
 is his first concern and last endeavor. 
 
 The Methodists depended on the Scriptures and 
 stayed very close under the shadow of its wings. 
 They loved the Church so well that no duty it 
 placed upon them was too strenous or heavy to 
 bear. When the bell rang for services they were 
 never too tired to go to worship, where they met 
 the Lord and their brothers, sisters and friends; 
 there is where they fulfilled their highest zeal and 
 found abundant pleasure. 
 
 Thus, the spiritual fire they kindled in the breast 
 of one another lasted not only while in meeting 
 house, but it went with them to their daily voca- 
 tions, where they were ready witnesses for the 
 cause of Christ. Their zeal to make their children 
 obedient to law and order and to be useful church 
 members made them good citizens and kept down 
 crime. Their zeal to keep peace in the community 
 made living there a pleasure; the experience 
 or sthe ji love yor God, "any thew heart mmande 
 them bold for Christ, for as the fiery zeal burned 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 43 
 
 on the altar of their hearts, they proclaimed, a risen 
 Savior everywhere without fear or favor. The 
 message they carried was given double power by 
 the earnest way it was presented to the world. The 
 Unique Genius maintained in the highest ideals of 
 the fathers summed up their zealous personality 
 with a poise of certain heights plus a Godly yearn- 
 ing to serve so as to make the faith a telling and 
 marked success for the Master’s cause. If we are 
 lacking in an experience, such like that which used 
 to make our fathers bear witness for God, let us 
 go to their shrine and be reincarnated with the zeal 
 that they had, that we may speak out for God like 
 they did. If the commercial age in which we are 
 living has thwarted and silenced the message Meth- 
 odism carried in days gone by, let us go back into 
 the power house of spirit and zeal and sharpen our 
 tools and come back into the same path over which 
 it went, even if we do not have to travel in ox-carts 
 as they did. Methodism of the United States is 
 living in the greatest mechanical civilization in 
 the history of the world. Night and day spindles 
 are rolling and the raw materials of the earth are 
 being wrought into useful articles for the comfort 
 of man. From the iron ore great ships and river 
 boats are shaped to ply the stream and oceans, car- 
 rying and bringing commodites to feed and clothe 
 the nations of the world. Then there are railroads 
 made from the same materials belting the continent 
 like a great network of nerves, making our land and 
 country almost one continous city. While cables, ra- 
 
44 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 dios, telegraphs, and telephones put us in communi- 
 cation with one another to the longest or shortest 
 distance. Marvelous indeed are these great in- 
 struments to facilitate business and pleasure. No 
 longer is man’s progress impeded by rivers or 
 mountains, because great suspension bridges have 
 been erected and tunnels dug through the highests 
 mountains; even a large belt of the ocean has been 
 bridged by the East Coast Extension, and wheels 
 of the speeding locomotives connect the keys of 
 Florida to the mainland. Subways and elevated 
 railroads are in most large cities, that the laborers 
 who live in the suburbs from the farthest points 
 can reach down town in twenty-five or thirty 
 minutes. Sky-scrapers kiss the blue dome and 
 make other cities in the air. Great factories and 
 department stores, chains of hotels and theatres 
 furnish sources of employment for millions. Large 
 banks and trust companies finance these mammoth 
 undertakings and tremendous newspapers and 
 magazines feed the mind and tell one end of the 
 earth what the other end is doing. The means or 
 the propelling spirit of the age should give us 
 the zeal of our fathers, that we travel in the 
 strength of the Unique Genius of Methodism. 
 
 A SPIRUE 
 
 The last one of the four cardinal points which go 
 to make up the Unique Genius is A Spirit. The 
 founders of Methodism have been gathered te 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 45 
 
 their fathers and in succession the fathers of several 
 generations have come and gone likewise, since the 
 Genius of the faith brought it forth, but one genera- 
 tion after another has lived not on the exact acts 
 of the other, but the Unique Genius of Methodism 
 is the Spirit of it and must live in its midst, or 
 Methodism will sicken and die for the want of 
 that spirit. None will possibly be required to preach 
 on his father’s tomb like John Wesley, or be com- 
 pelled to preach in the streets like George White- 
 field in Bristol and London, because all pulpits 
 were closed against him. None may have to preach 
 on a kitchen table like Jesse Lee in New England, 
 nor walk hundreds of miles and cut cord wood, 
 sometimes hungry and foot sore, rising to preach 
 at 5 A. M. almost every morning for weeks at a 
 time, like Richard Allen, nor to scale the Rocky 
 Mountains blazing a trial to the Pacific like Paul 
 Quinn and Thomas Ward. 
 
 The Unique Genius of Methodism which impelled 
 these fathers on to conflict and victory, the thous- 
 ands of new opportunities we have today to press 
 our claims for the Master, but we need the same 
 spirit the founders had to do it. The job was just 
 as perplexing to them in their day as ours is in 
 our day. Let us have their spirit plus our modern 
 improvements and we will do commensurately 
 what they have done. They had hills to tower 
 over and they were the peaks among the hills we 
 have mountains to tower over, if we are to be peaks, 
 
46 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 we must be much higher than they, or we are not 
 equal to them. If we get less converts and inspire 
 less confidence, if our larger fields are less effec- 
 tively covered we have failed. 
 
 Their spirit, not the way they traveled, should 
 
 be in each succeeding generation, if Methodism 
 is to retain the Unique Genius of its standing in 
 each particular age. This is the continued quicken- 
 ing assurance of Methodism, the sheet anchor of 
 our faith on earth and hope of heaven. Let us 
 search ourselves and if we find that we are lax in 
 the Unique Genius of Methodism, let us call a halt 
 and reincarnate ourselves in its spirit back to 
 Methodism, to life and prosperity, for it is life. 
 The day that this spirit dies marks the end of 
 the faith of the common people. Has this wonder- 
 ful spirit started toward decay in this generation? 
 Mr. Wesley said once, that after a hundred nd 
 fifty years, Methodism would need a new awaken- 
 ing or revival of itself. Are we in the midst of 
 this prophecy? I do not know, but I do know that 
 we have lost many outstanding particular denomi- 
 national features which held together things dis- 
 tinctively Methodist or the spirit of our characteris- 
 tic Unigue Genius. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 47 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE LAWS OF METHODISM ANALOGOUS TO 
 LHOSE OR SUNICE DES TATES 
 
 A REPRESENTATIVE FORM OF GOVERNMENT _ 
 
 The laws of Methodism are largely analogous to 
 those of the United States, a representative form 
 of government. As legislators are elected to make 
 laws for the state, Methodism elects delegates to 
 make laws for the Church. As sacred as the Con- 
 stitution of the Umited States is held by tts cité 
 genry, gust so sacred should the Constitution of 
 Methodism be held by its members. The Presi- 
 dent is sworn to uphold the Constitution of the 
 country; the Bishops are consecrated to uphold 
 the Constitution of the Church. Both of these in- 
 stitutions derive power from the ballot box. There- 
 fore, as long as the Goldeii Rule obtains, there 
 would be no room for autocracy or abuses in either 
 Church or State. 
 
 The discipline contains the Articles of Religion 
 and the Standard or Rule of.doctrine of Methodism, 
 and the fundamental rules as to general superin- 
 tendency; and in accordance with these permanent 
 principles each quadrennium General Conference 
 
48 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 reviews and revises the legislative part of the dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 The only safe rock of perpetuity, for the Church 
 is to obey her constitution and laws like the fathers 
 did. Much disrespect for these become prevalent, 
 the organization which is held together by them 
 is in danger of disintegration. 
 
 No organization can exist without some binding 
 force which holds it together, and this force must 
 not be coercion, but derive its power from the 
 consent of the governed. However, every Church 
 or Nation must have a standard by which it meas- 
 ures a correct rule of living. 
 
 Moses brought down from Sinai’s peaks the crux 
 of law in the ten commandments. Jesus gave us 
 the Golden Rule: “Therefore, all things whatsoever 
 you would that men should do to you, do ye even 
 so to them.” Matt. 7:2. 
 
 We tell the hour of the day by the dial of the 
 clock; we find our way out of the wilderness or 
 across the wide ocean by the points of the compass. 
 All of these instruments are standards for human 
 directions and without which we are bound to have 
 anarchy and chaos. These standards must be 
 obeyed. 
 
 THE FATHERS HAD NO FAVORITES 
 
 The fathers of Methodism greatly feared the 
 Lord and looked to and depended upon Him for 
 everything they wanted to bring to pass, whether 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 49 
 
 for their spiritual, legal, or social welfare. And, too, 
 there were no favorites among them, whatever was 
 good for any one class, was good for the other 
 among them; what was bad and would not be 
 tolerated from one class, would not be tolerated 
 from the other. Their wise legislation and just 
 administration was the pivot of equity, upon which 
 they consented to be governed. 
 
 If one class breaks the law, any other class 
 feels it has the license to do the same. This is 
 being done in some of the Methodist Churches to- 
 day, and every such act, no matter from what 
 source it comes, if not checked, weakens the body 
 politic. 
 
 One of the greatest temptations of the day which 
 did not so largely enter into the minds of the fath- 
 ers in Methodism was the desire for temporal pow- 
 er, which is dangerous in the hands of any person 
 or persons who themselves are not governed by 
 the will of God. God’s will is the only right stand- 
 ard of living; when it is thrown aside, we are in 
 danger of falling into the hands of one of two most 
 selfish extremes—autocracy or democracy. Either 
 one of these tyrants is as bad on the people as the 
 other. Under autocracy the worse abuses imagin- 
 able have occurred, as bondage, oppression, despo- 
 tism, duress and lost courage, hence, submission to 
 wrong, and destitution reign; while democracy is 
 just as bad as autocracy, the only difference is one 
 or a few may be autocratic, while mobism is usual- 
 
50 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 ly the boasted democracy. The moment an auto- 
 crat is overthrown, if the moulders of the new gov- 
 ernment are not careful, democracy takes his place, 
 and the leaders of democracy becomes a worse au- 
 tocrat than the one they destroyed. Any mob takes 
 license to pull down or-destroy; it is generally 
 moved to such action by agitators, or discontented 
 demagogues, who howl because they hear some one 
 else howling, not knowing why they howl, and they 
 carry things thereby into Bolshevism and Anarchy. 
 
 THE LAW OF THE CHURCH SHEET ANCHOR OF 
 ITS EXISTENCE 
 
 The law of the Church is the sheet anchor of its 
 existence. Obedience to it by all, regardless to 
 rank or station, is our only salvation. Henry Clay 
 said, “I would rather be right than President.” 
 Moses said, “And yet, if thou wilt forgive their 
 sins, and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of the 
 Book which Thou hast written.” Both of these 
 statesmen loved the cause they represented better 
 than their own interest, even their lives. When you 
 find a man who does not desire to obey the law he 
 took an oath to uphold, under which he himself is 
 protected and lives, but is full of selfishness and 
 desires to fix unto himself such laws as would 
 serve his own purposes, he is a secret or deadly 
 enemy, gnawing at the very vitals of the govern- 
 ment and threatening the destruction of the house 
 in which we all live. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 51 
 
 Before the World War we heard so much of the 
 despotism of the Czar of Russia and that the peo- 
 ple needed to be free from autocracy. Well, the 
 Czar was dethroned and killed, and the royal fam- 
 ilies exiled, then, democracy came into power and 
 the world today sees poor struggling Bolshevick 
 Russia laboring under starvation, jealousy and 
 hatred, a tool in the hands of the nations, an ob- 
 ject of distrust and pity in the eyes of the world. 
 
 What more reason has a surging mob to act pru- 
 dently, with nothing to sway it than some impulse 
 of fancied wrong heaped upon it? What better is 
 it from an angry autocrat, or vice versa? Both 
 of these are moved by selfishness, for under the 
 delusion one of these extremes is as dangerous as 
 the other. 
 
 France agonized under autocracy for many years 
 until the abuses caused her cup of forbearance to 
 run over by oppression. Then a revolution burst 
 forth like lightning from a clear sky and dreadful 
 indeed, were the sorrow and misery she under- 
 went. But did Robesppierre and his coherts remedy 
 the wrongs with their guilotines, or check the evil 
 with any degree of evenness? No, the pendulum 
 of the clock swung back from the extreme of au- 
 tocracy to that of democracy and as much evil was 
 done in the royal families as was ever suffered by 
 the Plebeians. Two wrongs have never made one 
 right. 
 
 Just a little before that period thirteen colonies, 
 
52 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 so oppressed by the yoke of England that they re- 
 belled from the autocratic rule. But, notice, the 
 cause of the war of independence was not that the 
 American people refused to be governed by the 
 laws of England, but England had left the princi- 
 ples of her own righteous laws and had allowed 
 selfishness and greed to make her become a tyran- 
 nical oppressor, nor did the leaders of the great 
 movement fall from one extreme to another and 
 form a democracy as was tried by Greece and 
 Rome and failed, but they adhered to just principles 
 and formed a Republic. “A form of government” 
 says Lincoln, “of the people, by the people, for the 
 people.” The government founded by the fathers 
 of the republic is a representative government, it 
 is the means between the two extremes. 
 
 In the midst of this terrible cry for democracy, 
 let us stand upon the safe and sane ground our 
 fathers left us and continue our representative 
 form of government and cherish our constitution 
 as the government stands and cherishes its. 
 
 When a nation or society lives under good laws, 
 it gives the people liberty and justice, which vouch- 
 safes their happiness and substitutes arbitration for 
 war, contentment for unrest, progress for reaction 
 and love for hatred; selfishness is forgotten and 
 statesmanship looms up into the breasts of suc- 
 ceeding generations and sacrifice for the whole 
 body is seen more and more as the organization 
 takes root and grows. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM SS 
 
 THE ITINERANT SYSTEM LIKE THAT OF THE 
 APOSTOLIC CHURCH 
 
 The itinerant system of the Methodist Church is 
 taken from that of the Apostolic Church. The first 
 thing the members of the infant church did after 
 its organization was to bring all their worldly 
 goods and lay them at the feet of the apostles to 
 aid the sick, poor and unfortunate, and then, trust- 
 ing God, they scattered themselves in every diree- 
 tion, bearing witness and suffering for the cause of 
 Christ. They had no thought of colonizing or 
 pitching a tent for themselves where they could 
 dwell shut in from the world; had they done so, 
 they would have disobeyed the great commission 
 Jesus gave on Mt. Olive, namely: “Go ye into all 
 the world and preach the gospel unto every crea- 
 ture.” Mark 16:15. 
 
 This was the sole aim of the Church to make the 
 disciples to put no other purpose above that—He 
 who entered that army pledged himself to go not 
 where he wanted to go, but wherever God sent him 
 -—and He sent him to find lost sheep everywhere 
 on earth. 
 
 Membership in the infant church meant that 
 one had to leave all to follow Jesus—that the Sav- 
 iour having entered into the heart, His principle at 
 once took possession of every part of the convert 
 and controlled all he had, soul and body. So when 
 Ananias kept back part of that he had pledged the 
 
04 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 Lord and lied about it with his wife Sapphira, by 
 the word of the apostle Peter, they were struck 
 dead. 
 
 Love was the chief virtue which held these 
 mighty heroes of the cross together. They thought 
 of the benefits of the whole Church and not of any 
 selfish gain for the few at the expense of the ma- 
 jority. In fact, the Church was one body contented 
 with the joys or the sorrows of one another. 
 
 When many Jews were converted and joined the 
 infant Church they brought their circumcision and 
 ceremonies into the ranks, and very soon the 
 Church was drifting into the old worn out tradition 
 with Jewish discrimination. They requested Paul 
 to circumcise Timothy before they would admit 
 him to the communion, but they were overruled. 
 
 God intended the Church to be an itinerate agency 
 in the world. So that whenever it tried to settle 
 itself down into a cloister, He sent fierce persecu- 
 tions and scattered the members all over the world. 
 In that way they were made to carry out His aim. 
 Ever so has it been at every stage of apathy or lull 
 in the spiritual tendency of the Church. Those 
 who had His Word planted in their breasts had to 
 proclaim it even if it led to exile or the stake. 
 
 METHODIST ZEAL TO FOLLOW THE PEOPLE 
 
 It must be remembered that at the incipiency of 
 the Methodist Church, preachers were few. But 
 so zealous were the Methodists to follow up the 
 
Lst 
 
 BACK TO METHODISM 5: 
 
 people that Wesley, through the advice of his 
 mother, decided to allow laymen to preach and lead 
 prayer meetings. It was not long before these 
 lay preachers were interchanging pulpits and find- 
 ing new fields, then as many of such who desired 
 to change their relation from local to itinerate were 
 allowed to do so, not without first going through 
 prescribed rules for their conduct and study laid 
 down by Mr. Wesley. Now, we call the same “The 
 Conference Course of Study.” While our local or- 
 dained preachers are generally aged men who 
 function in their local churches and stay there, their 
 age not allowing them to change their relations - 
 to the itineracy. 
 
 If we went back to Methodist laws, this rule would 
 be strictly adhered to in all Methodist Church- 
 es, and the old worn out men who had the bishop 
 to put his hand upon him for local work, wcould 
 never be allowed ta change relations as a good 
 many of them are doing today. When a man has 
 given most of his days to something else there is 
 no room for him to become a successful itinerate 
 minister. God wants the best that is in us, the 
 best of our minds, the best of our hearing, eyesight, 
 and the best of the utterance of our tongues. All 
 of these faculties are stronger, while younger; the 
 feet are more nimble, the hands are more steady, 
 they can travel and endure to the end, that the 
 work taken in hand might prosper and grow. Too 
 many wait to enter the ministry until they are de- 
 
56 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 crepit and have failed in everything else they un- 
 dertook. 
 
 If we would go back to Methodist laws we would 
 reject them and take only those fitted in body, mind 
 and soul to do the Master’s work. This rule has 
 not been regarded in so many cases. 
 
 May the Lord, who has kept the Methodist 
 Church in years that have passed, wake’ every 
 sleepy part of it up and call them back to Method- 
 ist laws which chief aim was not office nor earthly 
 gain, nor pride, nor deceit to obtain an aim, but to 
 save souls and to do good, and to spread the king- 
 dom of God upon the earth. 
 
 In 1784, just before the historical conference held 
 in Baltimore, Mr. Wesley consecrated and set apart 
 Mr. Thomas Coke to be superintendent or bishop 
 of the work in America, and sent him in time to be 
 present at this conference to, in turn, consecrate 
 Mr. Francis Asbury to the same office. However, 
 both of them were first elected by the brethren 
 adhering to the law, before they were recognized 
 as the first bishops of America, and the organiza- 
 tion of the Methodist Church was perfected legally, 
 with the power of authority vested in the annual 
 conference to elect deacons and elders who also 
 elected delegates to the general conferences which 
 elect bishops and general officers. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM Vdd 
 THE MYTH OF THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 
 
 Mr. Wesley’s life was fast coming to an end; he 
 had lived to a good old age and had done wonder- 
 ful things for the Master. Throughout all of the 
 slighting and ridicule heaped upon him by the 
 Episcopal Church of England, he never left it. No, 
 he never left his church—but his church left him. 
 He did not believe in many of the tenets of the 
 Church of his youth, and it seemed, as if he had an 
 idea that he would be able to reform the Episco- 
 palian Church without leaving it. Among some of 
 the things that he renounced was the “Myth of 
 the Apostolic Succession”, he believed no longer 
 in pomp and ceremonies, the method used by the 
 high churchmen. Mr. Wesley had to deal with the 
 common people and they needed a plain order of 
 service without processionals and_ recessionals. 
 without a long ritualistic service. They only used 
 four hymns, rendered an extemporaneous prayer 
 and afterwards, preached the gospel and held an 
 altar service for the benefits of sinners who desired 
 to flee the wrath to come or to reclaim themselVes 
 from backsliding or to announce their transfers 
 from one charge to another. 
 
538 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 FAMILY PRAYER 
 
 THE HEAD OF EVERY HOUSE RESPONSIBLE TO 
 GOD FOR ITS DOINGS 
 
 Prayer is the tallest shaft reared in the temple 
 of the Christian Faith, because it at once acknow- 
 ledges a Supreme Being. One in authority, to whom 
 all creatures must look for the things they need for 
 the body, mind and soul. Prayer is meditation of 
 the soul uttered or unexpressed in confession, 
 supplication, intercession and thanksgiving, when 
 one unburdens himself before a merciful Father, 
 beseeching Him for courage to help reach any 
 righteous goal. Devout Christians pray to God 
 through the Lord Jesus Christ. They believe in 
 God, the Father, and His Son, their Saviour, with 
 the Holy Ghost, the only true and living God. They 
 believe that God has power to inflict punishment for 
 sin, hence, they make confession and beg forgive- 
 ness. Because the Christians believe in God, they 
 believe in the law. There could be no law without 
 a law giver, and there can be no law giver without 
 the power to enforce the law given. If there were 
 no law then there is no need of forgiveness, nor 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 59 
 
 fear of punishment. Such is the logical conclusion 
 of those who do not pray, whether they utter it in 
 the terms of indifference or infidelity, they mean 
 the same thing; when they fail to confess their 
 sins and ask forgiveness for them, they do not make 
 intercession for those depending on them, or give 
 thanks for the blessings they enjoy from the boun- 
 teous hand of God. 
 
 The head of every house is responsible for the 
 doings in it. He who fails to rear an altar where 
 the family is led daily to worship is doing an in- 
 justice to the offsprings God has given him, whom 
 he should send forth to God’s greater altar and 
 larger service true and respectable citizens. 
 
 Family prayer has more power in it for stability 
 of the home than anything else. It keeps down 
 disagreement and keeps concord from day to day. 
 Its example for the children is the beginning and 
 a moulder of good character, and a pious and godly 
 life. No Methodist home should be without family 
 prayer. Our fathers found time for this splendid 
 instrument of spiritual grace. They arose early 
 in the morning, sometimes before sunrise, and 
 awoke all the family and poured out their hearts 
 asking God for protection during the day and in 
 thanksgiving and intercession for health and 
 strength, for food, raiment and shelter. If the 
 father had an occasion to be away, the mother 
 took his place and the altar in the home was never 
 torn down. It is a blessed thing in after years, 
 
60. BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 when one’s locks are hoary and his limbs are feeble, 
 he can look upon his grown children and 
 hear them say, “My parents led us to a throne of 
 grdce all our days and we are not strangers to 
 prayer.” Family prayer was never neglected by 
 old time Methodists, and never neglected by the 
 minister or the class leader who came into the home 
 to visit. During the old days of Methodism, to see 
 one of these cross-bearers enter the threshold of 
 the door meant that the parents would gather the 
 children into the parlor, and after a delightful dis- 
 cotirse upon things religious and the reading of 
 God’s Word, the family altar was approached and 
 the intercessionary prayers were offered for bless- 
 ings from heaven to rest upon the home and in- 
 mates. In those days preachers and class leaders 
 truly went to carry the good news of the gospel 
 méssage into the homes. Idle conversations were 
 never thought of, peace and love were their slogans; 
 their hearts poured out their errand and when they 
 caitie away the family was built up spiritually and 
 the neighborhood was a blaze of religious fire. 
 There is a wood down south called loblolly pine. 
 It has a thick flaky bark and a skin between the 
 bark and the tree. It is water absorbed through 
 and through and it does not burn readily. You can 
 pour kerosene or gasoline on it and light it, and 
 the oil will burn off the wood scarcely touched. by 
 the flames. It will put out almost any ordinary 
 fire ina grate or a stove. When put into a furnace, 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 61 
 
 it will nearly melt away to ashes without giving 
 out much heat. 
 
 EVIDENCE OF FAMILY PRAYER 
 
 You can tell very easily at the Church services 
 those who have a family altar at home, they do not 
 come to Church depending on some one else in or- 
 der to enjoy the services, they bring something to 
 add to that already there. So is the heart of the 
 man who is not attune with God through prayer. He 
 may go to services, hear the gospel, hear others 
 sing and pray, but he will not be responsive to the 
 spiritual atmosphere around him. He cannot catch 
 fire, he will not burn; he is a loblolly soul. 
 
 Prayer mellows the heart. It touches the foun- 
 tain of the soul; it reaches the deepest human sym- 
 pathy and joins the mind to heaven. Prayer melts 
 anger; it scatters deceit; it tunes the tongue to 
 songs of pathos and strikes in the soul harps of 
 joy. Prayer is a friend when all other friends for- 
 sake you, because it is the very key which opens 
 the gates of heaven. When a family kneels in 
 prayer, its desire goes up to God on high like a 
 sweet smelling savor. 
 
 Let us go back to Methodism and tumble down 
 every altar of the strange gods we have erected 
 in our homes, and like Joshua, find Achan’s hidden 
 wedge and remove it; like Josiah, tear down every 
 altar of idolatry. 
 
62 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 We have tried education to make the world 
 better, but we find that education alone cannot do 
 the work. Some scientists of today, as in days gone 
 by, are trying to explain away some of the essen- 
 tials of the Word of God, to replace them with a 
 lot of uncertainties and guesses. The Bible is true 
 and teaches things religious; it presents in the Ten 
 Commandinents and the Beatitudes, the better code 
 of law for the practice of life and well being, than 
 the twelve tables of Rome or the codes of ethics 
 given by any of the philosophers who tried but 
 failed to give man a rule of life. 
 
 Prayer, family prayer, was used by Jesus; He 
 prayed for His little family. His prayer purged 
 the twelve and separated the good from the bad 
 among them. He lost one, but the prayer of the 
 eleven razed kingdoms to the ground, overcame 
 and dethroned emperors and kings. Let us con- 
 tinue to pray, “Let Thy will be done on earth as it 
 is in heaven.” 
 
 We close this meditation on Family Prayer with 
 these recommendations: pray once a day at least 
 with your family, aside from your private devo- 
 tions, if possible, if not, designate some one to take 
 your place, the wife should be that one if the chil- 
 dren are small. Be sure to have prayer Sunday 
 morning, there is nothing like the touch of one an- 
 other around the family altar. When we say pray 
 it is understood we mean a short worship, i. e., an 
 appropriate Scripture Lesson before prayer. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 63 
 
 “And now, O Lord, our heavenly Father, as we 
 send forth this plea for reestablishment of the 
 family altar in the home, grant that Thy approval 
 will go with this volume and that whoever reads 
 it will take its admonition unto him or herself, and 
 from this very day resolve in the heart that in con- 
 cert at the family altar, they will lift up their 
 voices unto Thee, who is our Father, the Giver and 
 Preserver of our lives and all we have. We ask 
 all this in the name of Jesus, our Mediator and 
 Redeemer. Amen.” 
 
64 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE CLASS MEETING AND LOVE FEAST 
 
 These are two of the most important means of 
 grace in the Methodist Church. The class meeting 
 primarily came into existence in 1729 to give an 
 opportunity to its members to tell one another of 
 their trials and temptations, and of their successes 
 and their failures, or in other words, to confess 
 their sins to one another and tell how they con- 
 quered and grew stronger in grace. At first it had 
 only a small group, viz.: Charles Wesley, Robert 
 Morgan, and Robert Kirkham, with one who was 
 styled leader to supervise the affairs of the meet- 
 ing. This place they gave to John Wesley who 
 had returned to the college as tutor. This little 
 membership soon grew to twenty-nine with such 
 strong men as George Whitefield, James Harvey 
 and John Clayton among them. These young men ~ 
 met three times a week “to read over classics and 
 on Sunday some book in Divinity,” and improve 
 themselves both in sacred and secular learning. 
 Many times members of this “Holy Club” met de- 
 spondent, but after they had encouraged one an- 
 other through fellowship they came forth from the 
 class meeting with hearts ablaze, kindled with the 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 65 
 
 fire of assurance by the words they heard from the 
 lips of one another. This first order of things was 
 all good but all selfish. Its only benefit tended to- 
 wards helping those who allied themselves together 
 to go through school as recluses and no deeper sig- 
 nificance was placed on the movement from the 
 outside than that it received the application of the 
 term ‘Methodist’ from their fellow students. 
 
 SELFISHNESS DISAPPEARS IN CLASS MEETING 
 
 However, it was not long before the spirit of 
 selfishness disappeared and the class meeting was 
 not only made a source of spiritual and intellectual 
 benefits for themselves, but the influence spread 
 out working from within, and we find the young 
 men bringing pennies to class meeting to help the 
 city’s sick and poor, and relieve many of the un- 
 fortunate who were cast into prison for trifling 
 debts. They went into the streets and collected 
 what they could from philanthropic persons to help 
 them in the widening of their work of benevolences 
 which they then operated by the consent of the 
 bishop of the diocese. Robert Morgan was the 
 guiding star in the benevolent movement which is 
 one of the highest towers in the temple of Method- 
 ism, for he invited the Wesleys to go with him to 
 the jails and do what they could for the prisoners 
 and to see the sick and poor of the city. This turned 
 their eyes from themselves to others, and that 
 
66 BACK TO METHODISM 
 spirit has caused the Methodists to become the 
 largest protestant body in the world. We con- 
 clude, then, that Morgan’s share in Methodism was 
 to break the reclusive spirit from which its found- 
 ers suffered at first and to lead them out into the 
 broad constitution of the church the brotherhood 
 of all mankind without regard to race or station. 
 The class meeting of the Methodist Church his- 
 torically sprang from the Bristol Society, 1742, 
 when they were discussing their ways and means 
 to lift the debt from their temple. A member pro- 
 posed that each communicant bring a penny to the 
 evening class meeting each week for or from each 
 member. Mr. Wesley said “It struck me immediate- 
 ly, this is the very thing we wanted so long,” and 
 he called together certain ones whom he after- 
 wards styled class leaders and put them in charge 
 of little flocks making them responsible to the body 
 for the behaviour of those under them and also to 
 collect and report once a week what pennies they 
 received for the cause. Hence the class meeting. 
 
 IT IS ONE OF THE LANDMARKS OF METHODISM 
 
 Don’t let us leave the old landmark of our faith, 
 the class meeting, for it is one of the most reviving 
 means of grace to be found in the tenets. 
 
 Man is a communicative being, he is not reticent 
 he likes to talk, he will talk, he is bound to tell some 
 one of his affairs whether they are pleasant or un« 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 67 
 
 pleasant; whether the person he tells is true or 
 false to his confidence, it gives him relief to un- 
 bosom his soul. Many persons would have been 
 saved from the clutches of satan if they had only 
 some righteous confidential person to whom they 
 could have poured out their hearts when the tests 
 of trials pressed heaviest upon them. See the poor 
 girl standing on the brink of deception, down at the 
 water’s edge, when just one word seasoned with 
 the godly spirit would give her new zeal and fresh 
 courage to stand untarnished. But she does not 
 know where to get it. She was brought up a Meth- 
 odist, but her parents did not like class meeting, 
 hence, she drifted away yearning for a friend, off 
 into prostitution and ruin. 
 
 A man who could scarcely keep himself tells ir 
 the class meeting of the evil tendencies which were 
 fast engulfing him, and the leaders reproved him 
 in righteous admonition calling to his remembran- 
 ces his conversion and covenant to follow Jesus, 
 which causes him to collect himself and change his 
 ruinous course. This once firm believer was get- 
 ting weak and was about to backslide. The sweet 
 songs of Zion were no longer tuneful to his ears; 
 the preaching of the Word had lost its charm to 
 him. But when he went back to the class meeting 
 from which he had absented himself—where every 
 one can raise the tune of his heart’s desire, or lead 
 in prayer out of the fullness of his own soul, and 
 gives his own testimony as the spirit directs and 
 
68 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 hear those of others charged with the holy fire 
 burning all around them. When he sees the tears 
 and hears the groans and hallelujahs and amens as 
 the class leaders listen to the trials and victories oi 
 his fellow travelers and in turn, as the spirit gives 
 him utterance sends back inspired words which 
 Jesus gives into the ears which is a balm to heal 
 every affliction, a palm of victory for every moun- 
 tain climbed, while the ring of triumph resounds 
 and fills the class room with a pentecostal shower. 
 The old time Methodists had a burning desire for 
 the class meeting, because it was the place where 
 not only their spiritual but social greetings were 
 exchanged which satisfied them and taking the 
 places of the pleasures nowadays which are most 
 frivolous and dangerous to the soul. How sweet 
 the brotherly and sisterly hearty handshakes, and 
 the exchange of those tender words, “God speed 
 your journey” until we meet at class next week 
 (D. V.) They warm the heart with zeal for God and 
 with love for our fellow man and deepen the de- 
 termination to be a good true Methodist. No class 
 meeting can be much if the pastor does not attend. 
 He is the burning light for his members, a drawing 
 card of punctual service to the leaders. God grant 
 that Methodist ministers will insist on the class 
 meeting in their charges everywhere. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 69 
 
 i 
 LOVE FEAST PREPARES THE HEART FOR THE 
 LORD’S SUPPER 
 
 Shortly after Jesus finished His labors on earth 
 and ascended up on high, the apostles, whom He 
 left down here to carry out His mandates, began 
 to put His principles into vogue. They met in that 
 upper chamber at Jerusalem singing and praying 
 for forty days, because the Saviour had ordered 
 them to tarry there until they were indued with 
 power from on high, before they attempted to be- 
 gin their mission to preach the death and resurrec- 
 tion of the Saviour and redemption thereby to a 
 lost world. When the fire of heaven came down 
 and consumed all the hatred and malice in the apos- 
 tles’ hearts, they caught the spirit of Jesus Christ 
 for the first time and understood what they had 
 heard Him say on the cross, “Father forgive them 
 for they know not what they do.” Peter went 
 down into the streets of Jerusalem and preached 
 of forgiveness and love, and three thousand souls 
 were pricked to their hearts with shame and ac- 
 knowledged that they had helped kill the innocent 
 Lamb of God, so that they were converted and 
 joined the Church and began to help spread the 
 gospel. The disciples met daily in dividing them- 
 selves up into groups teaching in several houses in 
 the city where they did spiritual work and enjoyed 
 a common meal styled ‘agape’ or love feast. This 
 meal always preceded the Lord’s Supper, or in 
 
70 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 other words, it was a kind of porch or a place tos 
 get ready to enter the main body of the house. The 
 old time Methodists used to have love feast tickets 
 or cards of clearance to enter the services showing 
 that the members were at peace with the world. 
 No one went to the love feast table with malice in 
 his heart. If persons were not on good terms or 
 were not speaking to one another their class leaders 
 would be the peacemakers and the sores would 
 be healed for the love feast so that they could go 
 into the congregation at peace with all mankind 
 and be a witness for Jesus and cleanse the heart 
 of every iota of sin and wrong against the neigh- 
 bors. Remember, this forgiving spirit came with 
 religion of the Lord Jesus Christ’ the Jewisk. 
 religion, from Moses down, “was an eye for an 
 eye, and a tooth for a tooth”. Jesus said, Matt. 
 6:39, “But, I say unto you that ye resist not evil, 
 but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, 
 turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue 
 thee at the law and take thy coat, let him have 
 thy cloak also”. If he abuse and rebuke you, don’t 
 rail for rail but give kindness for such and you 
 heap coals of fire on his head”. The love feast is 
 the genius of the Saviour’s spirit which is to con- 
 quer the world. 
 
 IT HELPS TO RID MEN OF THE EGO 
 
 For thousands of years the ego of man had, been 
 filling graves with the spirit of revenge and hatred 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 7\ 
 
 —and there was no voice to call him back from 
 his egotistic, malicious, destructive way. Before 
 Jesus came to earth men sat with a chip on their 
 shoulders to see who would offend them and then 
 the feud began, the fight never ended until death 
 and destruction brought it to a close; no one knew 
 how to amicably settle differences. The voice of 
 Stephen cried when he was being stoned to death, 
 “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”, was the 
 echo of that of Jesus on the cross when He said, 
 “Father forgive them they know not what they do” 
 was the strongest trumpet blown in Israel since the 
 nation was founded and the ten commandments 
 ‘were handed to Moses from Mt. Sinai. 
 
 If more of the forgiving spirit of Christ was 
 manifested in the individual, the family and the 
 nation, there would be less murders, divorces and 
 wars would cease. The Methodists indeed have 
 the plan. God was in the founders’ hearts when 
 they conceived the ancient landmark. Stay on 
 board the old ship they have launched for us amidst 
 many sorrows and affliction, she sails on the seas 
 of the world’s changing ideas of God and religion 
 but she never changes her course. The love feast 
 is a particular means of grace, which counts so 
 much to the peace and prosperity of the Church and 
 community. When there is strife in a charge noth- 
 ing of real value can be done; satan is the father 
 of strife, he fans up every little mistake into a 
 blaze of fury and pricks the pride of the offended 
 
72 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 and hardens the heart of the one who gave the 
 offense not to yield one to the other. We often in 
 our lives hear people say “Before I will ask his 
 pardon, I will die and be lost;” while others say 
 “T will never speak to him or her first”. We of 
 ourselves without the grace of God through con- 
 version can do nothing which requires the humili- 
 ation of our pride, but the Methodist love feast is 
 for that very thing, it strips the converted person 
 of self and shows him the foolishness of his arro- 
 gance by calling him back to the time when he 
 promised his Saviour to bear the cross through 
 evil report as well as good report. The love feast 
 is a useful place to read the rules of the Methodist 
 society to the people and acquaint them with the 
 doctrine and policy of the Church. 
 
 If we went back to Methodism we would take 
 the advantage of all these benefits left us by the 
 . fathers. No man can wear another man’s shoes 
 excepting he wears the same size. Then the only 
 persons we can successfully pattern after are Meth- 
 odists, because we wear the same size shoes. When 
 we bring in other men’s tenets and polities not 
 Methodist and try to fit them into our mechanism, 
 we warp the whole machine and make a botch of 
 the entire affair. We find many who claim they 
 
 are modern, using all sorts of isms and not enough 
 Methodism. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 73 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 WHY WE CELEBRATE THE LORD’S SUPPER 
 IT’S ANNIVERSARY 
 
 “And it shall come to pass when your children 
 shall say unto you, what mean ye by this service? 
 That ye shall say, it is a sacrifice of the Lord’s 
 passover, who passed over the houses of the chil- 
 dren of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyp- 
 tians and delivered our houses, and the people 
 bowed the head and worshipped.” Ex. 12:26-27. 
 
 The book from which our text is taken has 
 special significance to the Church of God. Since 
 Abraham founded the family through faith in God. 
 the children of Israel have been a type of the Chris- 
 tian Church which was perfected in Christ’s 
 works, suffering and death. At all times since men 
 have been making history, whether sacred or pro- 
 fane, there have been certain events from which 
 they have dated their national life or beginning and 
 from these events each nation has celebrated its 
 birthday. 
 
 The United States has its Fourth ot July, the 
 thundering of cannons, the ringing of bells, ban- 
 queting with the best brain and eloquence of the 
 
74 BACK TO METHODISM. 
 
 country, sending forth their powers in rhetorical 
 splendor, indelibly write the significance of the 
 Declaration of Independence upon young America’s 
 heart, generation after generation, telling them by 
 these means what has happened years ago. Eng- 
 land hails the celebration of her Magna Charta 
 with joy because it forever destroyed the despotic 
 power of the king and gave the people the right 
 to make laws by which they are governed through 
 parliament for all times. 
 
 God is fond of celebrations. He created heaven 
 and earth in six periods and, rested on the seventh 
 day from His gigantic labors and hallowed and 
 blessed that day setting it apart as the Sabbath of 
 rest and memorial. So that men everywhere might 
 remember the completion of His works, which be- 
 spoke His wisdom and power and to bow in rever- 
 ence and worship to the Creator of all the universe. 
 The rainbow which God placed in heaven brings 
 to us the sorrowful recollection of the total de- 
 pravity of the race before the flood, and at the same 
 time it gives us consolation that the world shall 
 never again be destroyed by water. 
 
 There was a day in the history of the Jews that 
 was a special interest to the world because it mark- 
 ed the time when the custodians of true religion 
 were to be transformed from a patriarchal family 
 government to that of a great nation carrying pure 
 and undefiled religion into its national life, which 
 was destined to permeate the world with its benign 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 75 
 
 influence and bring all nations to the worship of 
 the only true and living God, Jehovah is His name. 
 
 In 1491 B. C., God said unto Moses, “Come now, 
 therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharoah, that 
 thou mayst bring forth my people, the children of 
 Israel, out of Egypt.” But Pharoah refused to 
 obey God. After this God sent many plagues upon 
 Egypt, exhibiting signs and wonders which were 
 enough to turn any man to bend to His will, whose 
 heart was not hardened. But nothing moved Pha- 
 roah, so virtue ceased, forbearance and the awfur 
 day of vengeance came upon him, and God s'ew 
 the first born of both man and beast cf every Egvp- 
 tian family and brought His people out from among 
 them with a strong hand. 
 
 THE PASSOVER COMPARED TO THE 
 LORD’S SUPPER 
 
 Moses was instructed by Jehovah how to for- 
 mulate and institute the passover which was to be 
 observed forever. On the 14th of April, three thous- 
 and four hundred sixteen years ago, the paschal 
 lamb was to be slain between the hours of three 
 and sunset, and the blood sprinkled upon the door 
 posts of the dwellings of the Israelites, so that the 
 destroying angel who was to come that night would 
 pass over them and spare the first born of their 
 man and beast. God said to them, “After I shall 
 have delivered you and shall have brought you out 
 from among the Egyptians, you shall continue to 
 
70 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 keep this day as a memorial of your deliverance,” 
 and then, in the language of the text, “When your 
 children shall say to you, what mean you by this 
 service, you shall say unto them, this is the Lord’s 
 passover, when He brought us out of Egypt.” 
 
 Let us compare the passover with the Lord’s 
 Supper, that we may see that the paschal lamb was 
 but a symbol of the paschal lamb of God, our Sav- 
 iour, in whose honor Methodists gather regularly 
 once a month around the altar of our Church to 
 commemorate His sufferings and death. The 
 paschal lamb was slain between three and sunset; 
 Jesus Christ was slain between those hours. The 
 paschal lamb was male without spot or blemish; 
 Jesus, the Son of God, our Paschal Lamb, was pure 
 without sin, yet He was human, subject to temp- 
 tation, but He overcame them all; to joy He was 
 merry at the wedding at Cana; to sorrow, He wept 
 at the tomb of Lazarus; to physical weakness, He 
 was overcome bearing His cross up Calvary’s sum- 
 mit; He ate, drank, slept and saw activities, and 
 was born of woman under the law. The blood of 
 the paschal lamb was sprinkled on the door posts 
 to save the first born of man and beast of one peo- 
 ple at one time. Jesus Christ, God’s Paschal Lamb, 
 was to be slain and His blood applied to the hearts 
 of all people for all times. There was no efficacy in 
 the blood of the paschal lamb, the people were only 
 given a condition whereby they might save their 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 77 
 
 souls alive for that one night, while something 
 might cause death the next day. 
 
 But thanks be to God, when the blood of Jesus 
 has been applied to the heart, we are safe if we 
 continue in the liberty wherewith Christ has set 
 us free. The passover marked a change of a small 
 enslaved family and laid the foundation of that 
 which became a free and independent nation. 
 
 The Lord’s Supper marked the end of the Jewish 
 laws and ceremonies and unveiled the holy of the 
 holiest, so that men everywhere by faith may ap- 
 proach God in spirit and in truth. 
 
 Notice again, not a bone of the paschal lamb was 
 to be broken. That was true of Jesus Christ. 
 Picture now, the Lord of heaven on the cross and 
 see the cruel Roman soldiers nailing the iron spikes 
 to His hands and feet. By faith, we can hear the 
 ringing of the hammers, and imagine the intense 
 pain that our Lord felt. Do you wonder at His 
 dying before His legs were broken? Yes, the Scrip- 
 tures must be fulfilled and it has said not a bone of 
 the paschal lamb shall be broken, so when they 
 came to break his legs, they found Him dead. But 
 Romans’ crave for cruelty must be had, so a soldier 
 pierced his side with a spear and from it came forth 
 blood and water which opened a living fountain 
 for the washing and cleansing of sinful men and 
 the eternal cancelling of the great debt that stood 
 against them and making our redemption sure. 
 
78 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 METHODISTS SHOULD PREPARE FOR THIS 
 CELEBRATION 
 
 We, therefore, who are Methodists, should pre- 
 pare ourselves by living in fit manner to always be 
 ready to celebrate-the greatest means of grace, 
 given to the Christian Church. The love feast cham- 
 ber is a dressing room where we fit ourselves to 
 enter the bridal chamber, the Lord’s Feast, the Holy 
 Sacrament. We all acknowledge that we are not 
 even worthy to gather the crumbs under the table 
 and that we do not attempt here to appear before 
 the Lord in any merits of our own. We are sinful 
 beings, living daily upon the grace and mercy of 
 God, but there are places where we can help our- 
 selves to help the Lord keep us in the path of 
 righteous living. No one who calls himself a child 
 of God needs to harbor and continually meditate 
 malice and envy against his brother and sister. We 
 pray daily that the Lord forgive us our sins as we 
 forgive those who sin against us. This prayer 
 means all that it says, that is, just as much as we 
 forgive others, we ask the Lord to forgive us—no 
 more, no less. 
 
 The strength of Methodism is largely determin- 
 ed by the number of communicants, as has been 
 said for truth, the bravest man in the world is the 
 man who can ask pardon when he has wronged 
 another. Also, he is brave who has the same cour- 
 age to grant forgiveness of the wrong done him. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 79 
 
 Christian Methodists should live in peace, fellow- 
 ship and good will should reign supreme among us. 
 Some have scruples one way and another about tak- 
 ing the Lord’s Supper. Never mind what these 
 scruples are, they ought to be explained to the 
 pastor and he, if able, should administer to the 
 scrupulous brother, brushing aside the obstacle. 
 But some scruples nothing but the grace of God 
 can move and Methodists should pray for that 
 special grace; say for instance, one does not take 
 the sacrament because he or she says that some of 
 the brethren and sisters who take it are not living 
 right. That is a poor excuse. Who makes any of 
 us judges of another’s heart, only God knows our 
 fitness, after all, and thank Him for His blessed 
 Son, Jesus Christ, who tore away the veils which 
 used to separate us from God when we had to go 
 the Priests to make intercession for us. But the 
 veil has been rent in twain and the glorious light 
 of the gospel of peace now shines into every heart 
 who accepts Jesus, and though that heart may be 
 weak and full of faults, He guides it with His eye 
 and succors it with His grace. Let us, in tears and 
 sorrow for our shortcomings, come boldly to the 
 throne of grace, bringing our gifts to the altar 
 each month and when we come, though faltering 
 and remembering we have aught against our bro- 
 ther, let us leave there our gifts and go back and 
 reconcile our scruples of malice, envy, deceit and 
 selirighteousness with all to whom we have differ- 
 
&0 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 ences. Returning with an empty heart, contrite 
 and yearning to be filled with the spirit of love, 
 and Jesus will meet us at the altar and give us that 
 benediction which will help maintain us until we 
 come back to His table again to eat His blessed 
 body and drink His blood. This was the way.the old 
 time Methodists did things. They never let the sun 
 go down upon their wrath. They were thankful to 
 one another who called attention to their shortcom- 
 ings and sins and rebuked them. 
 
 If we went back to Methodism and walked in the 
 old landmarks of our fathers, the spirit of God 
 would manifest itself more in our work of bringing 
 the world to Christ. 
 
 Let us consider for whom is this celebration of 
 the Lord’s Supper. The paschal lamb was slain 
 for the children of Israel, and that too. only for 
 those who kept to the faith of their fathers and 
 were circumcised. In like manner, the Lord’s Sup- 
 per, the eating of our Paschal Lamb’s bruised and 
 mangled body, and the drinking of His precious 
 blood was never intended for those who have not 
 been born again. But it was meant for those who 
 believed that Jesus came from God and that He has 
 risen again with glorified body and now sitteth at 
 the right hand of God, that we are commemorating 
 His suffering and death until He comes again to 
 spread anew His table in the new Jerusalem where 
 we with all the saints and angels will take it anew 
 with Him at the sacramental table above. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 81 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 SEEK INTIMACY OF FRIENDLY SOCIETY 
 AMONG YOURSELVES 
 
 FRIENDLY RELATIONS GREAT STRENGTH 
 TO METHODISTS 
 
 One of the greatest strengths of the Methodists 
 in former days was the friendly relations the mem- 
 bers sought among themselves. They probably 
 drew this lesson from the Bible, St. John 15:12-13. 
 “This is my commandment that ye love one an- 
 other as I have loved you. Greater love hath no 
 man than this that he lay down his life for his 
 friends.” 
 
 The wor!d was against Jesus and tle few friends 
 He had while He lived on earth.. It did all it could 
 to hinder Him and the principles He taught. This 
 was natural for only those who have like ideas 
 can usually agree to walk together. There is an- 
 attraction in the minds of thuse who think alike, 
 no matter whom they are. Jesus said in this chap- 
 ter, “If ye were of the world the world would love 
 his own.” 
 
 When Jesus and His few friends lived in the 
 world, they were ostracized and ridiculed from 
 
82 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 within and without. From within, by the Jews, 
 their brethren; from without, by the pagans, the 
 rulers of the Jews. The Jews hated them from a 
 religious viewpoint which differed from theirs. 
 They wanted forms and ceremonies with a veil be- 
 tween God and the people, while Jesus called them 
 back to the simple worship of the patriarchs, which 
 rent the veil and led man immediately into the pres- 
 ence of God. The pagans hated Him from a politi- 
 cal viewpoint, upon which they placed the wrong 
 interpretation. His name, King Jesus, inflamed 
 them with the idea that He came to usurp the throne 
 of Caesar; that was why the false accusation of 
 the Jews was readily relieved, and both Jews and 
 Gentiles combined to blot His name and His teach- 
 ings from the pages of history by imprisonment 
 and death to all who owned Him. They did not 
 succeed, Jesus lives today in His former glory and 
 His friends who were few have multiplied by the 
 millions. The few friends who began His struggles 
 with Him, held themselves together with one aim 
 and purpose to do His will. The early Metl.odists 
 believel that to keep worldly company mas to en- 
 danger then'selves by such environments, and 
 hence, to lay themselves bare to the tempiation of 
 the partaking of the worldly pleasures. They did 
 not object to sinners coming amcng them in their 
 churches, when they stated they came desiring to 
 flee the wrath to come. But they did object to 
 their members frequenting worldly places, such as 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 83 
 
 horse racing, bar-rooms, card playing and dance 
 halls. They gave the world the same prerogative 
 they took for themselves, that is, they knew if the 
 worldly came among them often, they would be 
 influenced for good and join them. In like manner, 
 if the Methodists went among the sinners fre- 
 quently without a mind to worship, they would be 
 influenced for bad and backslide. Hence, the rule, 
 “Seek the intimacy of friendly relations among 
 yourselves” is the safest advice for Christians who 
 desire not to make a shipwreck of their faith, but 
 to- overcome the world and win the prize. Any 
 band of true friends with a sincere purpose can 
 accomplish wonders for good. There are so many 
 persons who do not understand what is true friend- 
 ship. 
 FRIENDSHIP RECIPROCAL 
 
 Friendship is a fellow feeling to promote the best 
 interests of ene another or any cause of which per- 
 sons have a common view. The friendship which 
 is not reciprocal is not true. 
 
 Have you ever thought of the bees and, the 
 fiowers, what close friends they are, in so much, 
 that one cannot well prosper without the other? 
 All know bees visit flowers and they do not go to 
 see them just because they have wings and can 
 fly, but they go because the flowers are their 
 friends, and that both the bees and the flowers 
 terive substancial benefits thereby. 
 
84 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 Botanists say that bees get the pollen directly from 
 the stamen and the sugar nectar found at the bot- 
 tom of the corola which serves as food and material 
 to secrete honey. They say, further, that bees 
 could not exist without flowers which would cease 
 to produce pollen and nectar. Since flowers are 
 indispensible to bees, let us see of what benefit are 
 bees to flowers. The bee strikes the corola to get the 
 pollen and the. nectar, and as he does so fills himself 
 with germs which carries from one flower to an- 
 other vitalizing and stimulating one after the other 
 as he makes his rounds. So it is with friends, they 
 never take from one another more than they bring. 
 Friendship is reciprocity. It may be times when, 
 seemingly, one friend has more to give than an- 
 other, but the giver gets just as much joy out of the 
 service he renders to his friend, no matter who 
 gives most. A true friend often rather be the giver, 
 than the receiver. Jesus was poor as far the world’s 
 goods are concerned, but no friends ever enjoyed 
 more complacency of spirit, more tender affection- 
 ate love and service than did His. He was the 
 chief of Friends, He gave all for them. 
 
 The example of Jonathan and David and that of 
 Damon and Pythias, all pale in insignificance before 
 that of Jesus and His friends, who linked them- 
 selves together to undergo hardships and suffer that 
 the world might become better. 
 
 There are lots of things more precicus than 
 money. ‘True friendship is one of these. Money 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 85 
 
 has never bought love; friendship is the medium 
 through which love can be obtained. Friendship 
 is love, and love is self-sacrificing service which at 
 once becomes a duty. Jesus said, “Ye are my 
 friends if you keep my commandments.” All who 
 keep the commandments of Jesus are naturally 
 thrown together in one accord. 
 
 That is another reason why the Methodists de- 
 sire that friendly relations should be sought among 
 the members of the society, not only at _ the 
 churches, but the sweet association of their amuse- 
 ments found every day at home and abroad. 
 
86 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 TEMPERANCE 
 
 LAW PUNISHES AFTER CRIME IS COMMITTED 
 
 Where are the temperance societies which were 
 so prevalent in the Methodist Church? The Metho- 
 dists have always stood out against the use of 
 strong drinks and against the rental or use of any 
 property owned by them for the traffic of liquor. 
 The stand was taken beginning at the family altar, 
 and in the Churches, while Methodists legal rights 
 and orators carried it to the lyceum platform and 
 legislatures of the world. The agitation constant- 
 ly kept before the youth the abhorrence, the evil 
 derived from strong drinks of any kind. Societies, 
 both senior and junior were organized in every 
 charge and the ills of drink were put before the 
 public. Legislation is good, but moral suasion is 
 better it is a hard matter to make a free 
 agent like man do anything against his 
 will. More good for the cause could be done 
 in one generation by a crusade of spirituality con- 
 vincing the boy as he grows to manhood that drink- 
 ing is a ruinous crime than years of legislation 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 8/ 
 
 could accomplish. Spirituality grips the conscience 
 of a man and stops him from committing crime 
 and saves both himself and the person upon whom 
 the crime is committed from much harm. The law 
 can only punish after the crime is committed. When 
 the victim’s wife is a widow and his children are 
 orphans, no matter, if the man who committed 
 the deed goes to the gallows. Why not catch his 
 evil motive and strike the dagger from his hand 
 before he plunges it into his victim and ruins both 
 his brother and himself and leaves his wife and 
 children also upon the mercies of a cold world. To 
 mold sentiment in the Church along these moral 
 lines, is better than any force we might attempt. 
 Still we must not be mistaken as to the stand the 
 Church must take regarding aiding the state in 
 every affort it puts forth to put down wrong of any 
 kind. Whatever else the Church does, its ideals 
 ought to be supreme in recognizing the grace of 
 God. The promotion of temperance and, the con~ 
 demning of intemperance are distinctively a por- 
 tion of the work devolved upon all Methodist 
 Churches. It should, therefore, if necessary, strike 
 out independently, or work in concert with any 
 other means to carry its aim. This problem has 
 presented a manifold demand upon the Church and 
 the state to save the youth and we must remember 
 that it has its legal side, its psycological side, its so- 
 cial side, but all of these should get the impetus to 
 check strong drink from the church. The Church 
 
88 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 should as early as possible, when the children are 
 able to understand right from wrong, impress upon 
 them the great evil of allowing themselves to be 
 controlled by King Alcohol. 
 
 Come back to Méthodism and have the regular 
 temperance meetings in the churches. The things 
 that we are not able to make plain ourselves, let 
 us invite experts, just as a demonstrator would 
 show us the hygienic evil of a fly or other dan- 
 gerous microbes which spread infection or conta- 
 gion, let the experts demonstrate upon the effects 
 of alcohol, also, show us the evils to be derived 
 therefrom. 
 
 Many persons who are adversed to temperance 
 in drinks are like scuttle fish and try to muddle the 
 water with extenuating the word ‘temperance, 
 touching every point of intemperance i.e., to eat too 
 much, sleep too much, neglect to feed the mind by 
 indulgence in frivolous worldly things. All of these 
 evils should be mastered. But let us not confuse them 
 with the main issue that is, the drink habit, this 
 must be largely conquered by the methods of the 
 Church which are prayer, correct teaching of youth, 
 and our stand for Church ideals every where. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 89 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 BENEFITS OF FASTING 
 CONFLICTING AGENCIES 
 
 Wherever there are conflicting agencies, there is 
 a war constantly going on for supremacy. Both 
 sides are exerting every ounce of strength possess- 
 ed to gain the mastery and to rule. Man has a soul 
 and body, or in other words, he is flesh and spirit. 
 These two elements are constantly clashing to 
 over-come each other. Whichever one is strong- 
 er is bound to dominate the whole man and will use 
 him at his will. If the flesh prevails, the whole 
 man becomes fleshy; no spiritual thing has any 
 power in him to do when the flesh rises up. While 
 on the other hand, if the spirit has ascendancy and 
 rules, it commands the body as it does the soul 
 and compels the whole man to obey it. The whole 
 body wants ease and will do anything to obtain 
 its desire. The flesh is of the earth, earthy, and 
 is chief aim is to grovel in the dust. 
 
 When we use the word ‘fleshy’ we have a re- 
 gard to the evil propensities which dwell in the 
 man and may be denominated particular vices, viz: 
 self-indulgence, to lie to steal, give vent to the 
 
90 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 feeling of all bodily lust, to slander, scheme evil 
 plots to destroy, use avarice usury, to dig and 
 oppress the less fortunate, to swindle and black 
 mail; which are some of the legions that dwell in 
 man’s breast, which he must over-come by the spirit 
 or the particular virtures which also dwell in man’s 
 breast side by side with the particular vices. Hence, 
 the war continually being waged, evil against good. 
 
 The mind is the great machine which works on 
 both sides. If it works on the evil side and is a 
 real good mind, the evil that is conjures is attenuat- 
 ed a hundred fold more harmful than the work of 
 a simpler mind. The same is also true concerning 
 the great good that the mind does when it works, 
 all things being equal, on the spiritual side. It is 
 certainly not an easy task for one to keep himself. 
 That innate power within differing from every 
 other sentient being, the soul or the mind, or 
 whatever you may call it, that thing which God 
 has given man aside from the blind instinct given 
 other living things, is the thing that keeps up the 
 war in his bosom to make him choose between the 
 good and evil. “God sent His Son in the likeness of 
 sinful flesh to condemn sin in the flesh that the 
 righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us,who 
 walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.” Rom. 
 8 33-4. 
 
 Now then, since this wonderful aid has been sent 
 to man’s assistance, if he will obey and keep in 
 memory the teachings that Jesus taught and go to 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 9} 
 
 Him day after day for strength to help fight the 
 warring members of the flesh, he can overcome, 
 
 Every army that goes to war endeavors to cut 
 off the food and water supply of the enemy. [If it 
 is successful in this, the victory is more speedy 
 won than by shot and shell. ‘We are told that if the 
 entente powers had had food supply, the allies never 
 could have subdued them. It is here where our 
 country came into largest portion of helping to win 
 the victory on the sides of the allies, while mul- 
 lions of French, English, Russian, Belgian, and 
 Great Britain soldiers fell on the side on which we 
 fought, to say nothing about the millions who fell 
 on the opposite side with Germany, Austria, Hun- 
 gary, and Turkey. Germany, one of the greatest 
 war like nations ever known to the world, versed in 
 military science and in chemical discoveries, launch- 
 ed one of the greatest blockades, by submarines 
 zones, of the age. Her object was to starve her 
 enemy into submission and had not America en- 
 tered the war on the side of the allies with her great 
 number of ships and bounteous food supplies, built, 
 as it were a bridge across the Atlantic, upon which 
 to carry food, they would have been ingloriously 
 defeated by the Entente Powers. We are also told, 
 that the success of the union army in the war of 
 1861-5 was not so much Grant’s or Sherman’s Mail 
 of Arms, as it was the blockading of the Confed- 
 erates in Richmond, Vicksburg and Hilton Head. 
 
 In fact, if we go back into the records of most 
 
92 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 of the wars fought and get the history of their 
 victories, we will find that nearly all of the defeats 
 were obtained by siezes or blockades and starva- 
 tion. No hungry man can fight; he must have food 
 for strength. 
 
 We have said all of this to show how important 
 it is to starve an enemy when you are at war with 
 him. Every Christian is at war with his fleshy 
 self, and the benefits for the good of his soul must 
 come from starving his body sufficiently to keep it 
 under, that his soul may be stronger abound and 
 rule. 
 
 THE OLD TIME METHODISTS FASTED AS THE 
 OCCASION DEMANDED 
 
 The old time Methodists fasted as they felt the 
 need of Spiritual food, particularly on Friday of 
 each week. They knew that by fasting they were 
 bringing the body under subjection, for as they 
 fasted they also prayed for forgiveness of their 
 sins, for more love toward their neighbors, for sin- 
 ners that they desired brought to the throne of 
 grace and converted. In fact, they picked out 
 certain ones whom they took as their immediate 
 charges to lead to Christ. They thought it a privi- 
 iege and a special blessing for them to fast and 
 pray, that the blinded eyes of the sinner might be 
 opened, that he would confess Christ and join the 
 army of the saints. Fasting also helps the body. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 93 
 
 Many of us eat too much. Our stomachs need a 
 little rest which it gets while we are feeding the 
 soul, Fasting. 
 
 Let it not be thought that any such spiritua 
 work as fasting, or special series of prayer, that the 
 individual might enter into, was ever contemplated 
 by Methodists as being any works of supereroga- 
 tion. They were not so impious, rather, they knew 
 while they were trying to bring others to Christ, 
 they were bettering their own spiritual condition 
 and living and drawing nearer to the command of 
 the Lord—working out the soul’s salvation with 
 fear and trembing before His face. 
 
94 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 EVIL TENDENCIES OF TODAY 
 
 UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT 
 
 Before going turther into the subject, we wish 
 to ask the question, Has the United States govern- 
 ment in it, the elements of permanency? Because the 
 government of the home is the great feeder to 
 permanency of the state. But we do not propose 
 to discuss the question, are chemical elements per- 
 manent; or the question, are elemental truths and 
 principles permanent; or the question, are there 
 any elemental and permanent truths and principles 
 recognized and embodied in our government? But 
 this is the question we propose t odiscuss: Is there 
 today a good and sure pledge of permanence in our 
 government? JI say our government, for no one 
 thinks for a moment that the time will come when 
 this land with its ever increasing millions will 
 have no government. But our government not a 
 monarchy, not an oligarchy, but a republic, a gov- 
 ernment of the people, by the people, founded 
 through God as a Christian nation, an asylum for 
 all races. Therefore, the question is, will our pres- 
 ent form of government stand or fall? It is then 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 95 
 
 more important that we consider the character 
 and tendencies of the people than to examine the 
 provisions of our constitutions and the terms 
 of our laws. What are the tendencies of the peo- 
 ple today’ First, there is a tendency to dishonor 
 the family-—The family is the first form of govern- 
 ment God gave to man, and from it sprang city, 
 state and nation. Yes, more, it is the corner-stone 
 upon which the superstructure of a republic rests— 
 to weaken the corner-stone is to endanger the 
 whole superstructure resting upon it. This is what 
 is being done. 
 
 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 
 
 Many marriages are no longer sacred. Some peo- 
 ple marry for wealth and social position, just the 
 opposite to the divine institution. Methodism stood 
 on the purity of family life, regardless to whom 
 it hurt, but in these times we find many loosening 
 the bands and Methodist parents are selling their 
 daughters for social standing, and adding their 
 means to sealthe worldly bargain. The daughters 
 sell themselves to worthless degenerate sons of 
 some supposed uppish family, because they are 
 fashion plates and good dancers. In society if a man 
 is supposed to be rich, no matter if he is bankrupt 
 in character, he is counted a good catch, and the 
 girls and their parents fish for him. 
 
 Marriage should be from pure motives and not 
 
96 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 from any selfish aim. It should promote the mutu- 
 al affections of the couple and secure peace and 
 happiness in the family circle. Nothing but pure 
 love underfiled can induce and enable the couple to 
 bear each other’s short coming, otherwise, without 
 love, when differénces come and contentions arise, 
 steps are immediately taken for divorce. Divorce 
 is almost as common as marriage—for the slightest 
 provocation, the family is broken up and the educa- 
 tion of the children is neglected. Just at the time 
 when the child needs the guidance of both parents 
 to teach it the obligation of true citizenship, and 
 the right use of the privileges it is to enjoy, the 
 parents are separated and untold harm is done to 
 the child and another weak link is placed in the 
 chain of government. Back to Methodism will bring 
 the return of family prayer in the home, and teach 
 patience and moderation in the state. 
 
 Soon after the French Revolution began, 1789, 
 seven years after the guns for the freedom of the 
 American colonies had ceased to thunder forth and 
 the stars and stripes had proudly flown over the 
 thirteen states of opportunity and privilege for rich 
 and poor alike, without title or caste, for five years 
 after the celebrated Christmas Conference, 178, 
 when the Methodist Episcopal Church unfurled 
 her organic banner in America to help shape the 
 religious destiny of the new country; her preachers 
 following the people as they went over rivers, 
 lakes, mountains and »lains, tenting and camping 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 97 
 
 in the lumber forests, the coal, iron, and gold 
 mines to save souls and help build up a nation 
 whose sheet anchor was to be in God’s Word, and 
 its government to be through His righteous guid- 
 ance. We say seven and five years respectively 
 citing two among the greatest epochs in human 
 endeavors. Thea came one of the most terrible 
 human earthquakes ever known to history which 
 shook the continent of Europe from center to cir- 
 cumference. It was the horrible French Revolu- 
 tion that stirred in the souls of men every kind of 
 emotion; scrrow and abhorrence; sympathy, joy 
 and admiration which made men laugh and made 
 them cry as they saw the principles they espoused, 
 triumph or fail. No civil strife ever known to hu- 
 manity has been so destructive to human life and 
 property as this one. It makes one shiver today 
 to read of the Reign of Terror. The slow but sure 
 dreadful sound of the guillotine, the binding togeth- 
 er of men and women, boys and girls, by couples, 
 and throwing them into the river, to be drowned 
 (called state marriage). Large numbers of poor, 
 helpless beings put on scows and carried out into 
 the river when the bottom of the vessel was knock- 
 ed out and the victims drowned like rats. The Lord 
 only knows how many died in the awful catastro- 
 phe, but we are told over 15,000  perish- 
 ed one month to say nothing of the 1,400 
 who were guillotined from June 10 to July 17, 1794. 
 
 During this terrible time of Robesppierre’s reign, 
 
98 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 a law was passed permitting divorces, and in less 
 than three months nearly as many divorces as 
 marriages were recorded and the nation sank into 
 moral degradation, under which spell she is still 
 suffering debasement and ridicule. Then the people 
 had left God and set up the goddess of reason, a 
 
 nude woman appealing to the nations’ sensual appe- 
 tite and made the day of worship the 10th day in- 
 
 stead of Sunday the 7th day. Pollute the spring and 
 
 you pollute the stream which flows from it; dishon- 
 or the family and you degrade the life of the whole 
 nation which flows from it. 
 
 Then we should go back to Methodism and en- 
 
 force strictly our marriage and divorce laws and 
 practice. That is, our boys and girls should be taught 
 as the Scriptures enjoin to be not unequally yoked, 
 but Christians should marry Christians, and mar- 
 riage should be only consummated after fervent 
 prayer to God to endorse the contract in heaven. 
 Then divorces would be fewer and these sacred 
 bands would strengthen the Church and save the 
 nations from their tendency to pollution. 
 
 CLASS AND RACE HATRED 
 
 Another tendency of the people which only the 
 family government can remedy, is class and race 
 hatred. As long as children are taught class and 
 race hatred in a heterogenous nation as ours there 
 is likelihood that religious persecution and malice 
 will grow decper and more serious, and if God does 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 99 
 
 not intervene in some supetnatural way to check 
 this hydroheaded monster, our nation will totter 
 and eventually go to pieces and crumble in the dust. 
 We are taught to regard our national government 
 as our greatest governing power, we pull off our 
 hats and salute the flag. We bare our breasts and 
 bleed and die to protect her honor. But the thing 
 which makes any government secure and every 
 man in it a patriot is his training at the family 
 altar at his mother’s knee to love his God and his 
 neighbors and do justice and equity toward all, 
 whether they are his color, or have his creed, or 
 as fortunate as he, whether learned or unlearned. 
 These principles are not being taught in the aver- 
 age American family. The children are not being 
 taught love and respect towards their neigh- 
 Dors.g) bute rather they are being taught 
 discrimination and class distinction By the 
 time the pure little baby begins to talk and 
 take notice, his parents tell him whom to hate and 
 to disrespect, thus molding a set of citizens con- 
 stantly drifting apart into classes, and cliques and 
 clans, as the families of any republic drift apart 
 that government is gradually, but surely disintre- 
 gating. May we not ask are not the American 
 
 people who have been so_ signally blessed 
 by the Lord in times of peace and wars 
 fast forgetting the ancient teachings of the 
 fathers and founders of this great  na- 
 tion? Is not profligacy becoming more pronounced, 
 a laxness for worship of the true and living God, a 
 
 disregard for things religious: Yes, many are even 
 
100 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 denying the sovereign right of God to rule His own 
 hand-made universe. Infidels and skeptics, an- 
 archists and bandits, swindlers and frauds, forgers 
 and confidence men will black-mail and murder 
 on every side, and the reason for all these crimes 
 is potent, viz: We-have pulled down the family 
 altar, stopped reading the Bible in the family cir- 
 cle, stopped advising, our children to love the good 
 and hate the bad. 
 
 In the balmy day of Methodism, the pastoral 
 visits were a blaze of spiritual illumination where 
 the parents and children were gathered at the fami- 
 ly shrine. If we went back to the Methodist ancient 
 teaching, class prejudice would melt away, rape and 
 arson, lynching human beings would cease, there 
 would be better administration of justice in the 
 courts, more protection for life and property, for 
 every one who dwells under our flag. But because 
 of this backsliding and neglect of duty around the 
 fireside, the girls and boys leave home to establish 
 new homes for themselves, go out with malice and 
 bias against certain groups, so that when a member 
 of one class is brought into the courts, the other 
 class stands full of hatred and revenge to condemn 
 without a decent hearing or fair trial. 
 
 Yes, the entire human or race problem all over 
 the world would be solved in one generation, if 
 the world would accept Jesus’ teaching, “As ye 
 would that men would do unto you, do ye even 
 unto them.’ But if it is ever done, the work must 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 101 
 
 begin and be finished at the fireside. The home is 
 the place to train the boys to respect the virtue 
 of girls, and there is where the girls are to be taught 
 that their virture is more precious than life itself. 
 Too many rob the boy of his rights because he is a 
 boy. Lots of parents do this because the boy its 
 able to earn a few dollars quicker than the girl— 
 CHEAP ECONOMY. Take just as much care to 
 make a boy educated and refined as you do with the 
 girl. Every girl should have a husband, and if she 
 is as educated as the queen’s daughter and has to 
 marry an ignorant, uncouth man, all of her culture 
 is wasted. On the other hand, if a refined boy had 
 to marry a girl below him, he, being the head of the 
 house, could pull her up. These young citizens we 
 are sending from the homes must purify our poli- 
 tics. 
 
 The only redeeming and saving element in any 
 government is in its power and purpose to protect 
 the interests of all classes of its citizens. Every 
 government which has failed to do this has fallen. 
 In such protection there must be pure elections, 
 wise legislation and just administration. We 
 talk about the buying and selling votes, and the 
 stuffing of the ballot boxes to defeat the people’s 
 righteous aim. We talk about corruption in legis- 
 lation, about the trust keeping lobbyist at capitals 
 to get avarice bills passed which enable them to 
 corner all the necessities of life and oppress the 
 poor. We say how public men are controlled by 
 
102 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 party spirit, and that they are simply spokes in the 
 party’s political wheels to help run the machine. 
 The way to remedy all these evils is to teach the 
 boys and girls the sacred trust of citizenship in our 
 homes so that when they are grown, bribes for 
 casting mallots will not contaminate them. 
 
 SO MANY THINGS BETTER THAN MONEY 
 
 Another tendency of people is to get money at 
 any cost. The air is poisoned with the gold fever; 
 men are. selling their reputations, yes, some 
 of them their families and their very souls 
 for the dollar. This mad rush for riches, this 
 love of money and greed of gain has taken pos- 
 session of many of our people in their eager de- 
 sire to get rich. Child labor is one of the examples, 
 for child labor means an ignorant and stunted, man- 
 hood and womanhood, and these mean the weaken- 
 ing and degradation of the nation. 
 
 In this mad rush for wealth, all regard for truth 
 is given up. Dishonesty and deception have enter- 
 ed almost every business and profession, misrepre- 
 sentation and cheating are regarded as simply a 
 business transaction, benevolence is forgotten. Pro- 
 moters sell all sorts of watered stock which has no 
 value when the water is squeezed out of it, selling 
 crops which have never been planted, gold which 
 was never dug, machines which were never put to- 
 gether. Men are too busy with the things of the 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 103 
 
 world, too busy with things that perish to think of 
 the imperishable treasures of righteous character, 
 and character after all is what most enriches a fam- 
 ily or nation and is the surest pledge to its per- 
 petuity. So long as Jesus’ teachings prevail in the 
 home and in the nation we will remain a liberty 
 loving, fair dealing and God fearing people at home 
 and abroad. 
 
 IMPERIALISM 
 
 Let us go back to the first era before Christ and 
 we find Rome mistress of the world, she levied 
 taxes upon every nation of the then known world, 
 and great was her sway. Her iron hand of law and 
 commercial influence went hand in hand with her 
 conquest and the Atlas and the Perenees were the 
 lofty summits from which her will was proclaimed 
 and civilized world obeyed. She became rich from 
 levying tributes, and the spirit of self indulgence 
 and luxury took possession of her people and these 
 vices naturally led to weakness, so that when the 
 hardy Goths came upon her, she fell and her glory 
 faded as a shadow. Had she adhered to Jesus’ 
 teaching, nothing would have happened to her. 
 
 The time its fast approaching when nothing but 
 love will hold us together, force cannot do it; the 
 many strikes and general unrest and lawlessness 
 warn us of our coming danger, for as the Goths 
 were taken into the Roman empire and 
 wrought its detriment because Rome was 
 
i104 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 puffed up and forgot God and had not love but 
 depended on her legions and sword, spears and 
 chariots, and battle-axes, which gave them con- 
 quest, but eventually brought them to indulgence 
 and display of luxury, extravagancies and excesses. 
 Then ideals of purity faded from view and sturdy 
 virtues sickened and died and the nation sank. 
 down in corruption and weakness and became the 
 prey of invading Goths, so also will be the fate of 
 proud America if we fail to keep the corner-stone 
 of our government resting upon the everlasting 
 Rock of Ages-—Jesus Christ. Otherwise, some un- 
 scrupulous man who will raise up a group of un- 
 godly hordes will overthrow our republic and en- 
 throne himself upon her ruins. 
 
 PLEASURE 
 
 This is one of the problems of today—pleasure. 
 Too often it has been put before every other thing, 
 in that proper provisions for it have largely been 
 neglected. The dance halls, cabarets, and in many 
 cases, immoral moving pictures have hindered 
 many of our young people in giving their best to 
 things more inspiring and ennobling. The dance 
 has taken almost control of them and the desire for 
 reading clubs, musical associations, sewing circles, 
 artistic drawing and the old Methodist Church 
 parties have almost completely faded away. If we 
 went back to Methodism and took control of our 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 105 
 
 children, not turning them loose too quickly as 
 men and women in the world, we would be able 
 by placing wholesome environments around them 
 to control their pleasures, even after they are grown 
 It is indeed nauseating and arouses one’s indigna- 
 tion to hear parents say about their twelve and 
 thirteen year old boys and girls, they can do noth- 
 ing with them. Is not that boy or girl yours? Did 
 not God give him or her to you? Don’t you know 
 He will require you to give an account to Him for 
 the child’s early training? 
 
 Susanna Wesley, the sainted mother of John 
 Wesley, the founder of Methodism, says among 
 other things what she called her code of rule for 
 family government, “The will of the child is the 
 first thing to be broken.” The child of yesterday is 
 the youth of tomorrow, and the youth full of ener- 
 gy soon becomes the young man, and he in turn, 
 the settled person and then the old man, so goes the 
 world, so goes life. 
 
 But as these several changes are made and new 
 conditions confront each of these characters in their 
 new sphere of life, hour by hour, as the child grows 
 deeper responsibilities and larger opportunities are 
 placed upon its shoulders. 
 
 It is a sad fact that so many parents place veils 
 over their children’s faces, which is foolish love, 
 hiding from their gaze the part they must sooner 
 or later play upon the stage of action, and is also 
 damaging to the child and society alike. 
 
106 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 God made this world for all of His creatures, and 
 the parent who thinks his child the only one in the 
 world, aud that its every desire or whim has to be 
 pacified at the expense of everybody else in the 
 world, is making a sad mistake; he is simply rear- 
 ing one who, when he becomes a man, when his will _ 
 is brooked, will commit murder or arson, or any 
 other heinous crime to carry out that which his 
 parents taught him was his to have and to hold, 
 tegardless of the man next door. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 107 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE USE OF THE TONGUE 
 
 METHODISM WARNS AGAINST EVIL SPEAKING 
 
 St. James, in the third chapter, the first ten verses 
 of the New Testament, gives one of the best 
 descriptions on the use of the tongue, setting forth 
 some of the most valuable moral receipts intended 
 to help the life of Christians. 
 
 The Methodists caught the clue to the splendid 
 moral taught to warn against the evil of too much 
 speaking, especially speaking evil of ministers 
 and magistrates, or those who are intrusted with 
 the spiritual or temporal rule. Evil speaking of 
 anyone or anything for the benefit of the people 
 largely comes from covetousness and jealousy, and 
 is the most dangerous enemy in the struggles of 
 human endeavors. Evil speaking breeds strife and 
 bitter hatred, and makes people wish one anothec 
 all manner of harm; it goes further and dispossess- 
 es one of his real self and pushes him out into the 
 sea of intemperance, for it almost invariably hatch- 
 es profanity or leads to the indulgence of every 
 other vice; therefore, the bad use of the tongue is 
 
108 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 the mother of all strife and disorder. Evil speak- 
 ing inflates the mind to foolish pride and over- 
 bearing arrogance and hands down myths to gen- 
 eration after generation. It draws from the ser- 
 vice of God, and deteriorates one’s faith in the 
 Saviour. : 
 
 Therefore, James spoke of the power of the 
 tongue and laid special emphasis upon the use and 
 control of it. These are great days of investiga- 
 tions, when everything is being tested—one can 
 scarcely speak without the most minute descrip- 
 tion or detail of the proposition he sets forth. Men 
 are mixing things with too much evil speaking— 
 comparing science with religion, or in other words, 
 comparing reason with faith, or matter with spirit, 
 or the infinite with the finite; both of these are real, 
 both have their places in the realm of human ex- 
 istence, only one is physical and the other is spirit- 
 ual; one is an enigma, and the other a mystery. All 
 things human can be figured out, all things spiritual 
 must be revealed—God and all of His wonderful 
 works are the mysteries we cannot figure out. 
 Jesus said, “It is not that which is in the man de- 
 files him, but that which comes out of him.” 
 
 We take into us as we come into contact with 
 the outside world, effective things which touch all 
 of our faculties, or what we hear, see, smell, taste 
 or feel, all have mediums inward to reach the 
 soul. But the power of speech from one’s self lets 
 out all and takes in nothing. Therefore, a man can 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 109 
 
 ruin himself or others quicker through the medium 
 of the tongue than through any other one of the 
 faculties he possesses. St. James says that a little 
 rudder governs a ship, and that the tongue is to the 
 body what the rudder is to the ship. This is a beau- 
 tiful figure, and many to whom he was speaking 
 knew how easily a ship is turned about by the 
 slightest touch of the helm. So is the whole char- 
 acter of a man sometimes turned about by the 
 slightest word which comes out of his mouth, or 
 the mouth of a slanderous person, or a deceitful 
 enemy. Let us draw another figure from St. James 
 The body is the ship, the tongue is the rudder, and 
 the conscience is the captain. Then, it depends on 
 the kind of captain one has on board his vessel to 
 determine its destiny. 
 
 The Methodists had keen insight for the benefit 
 of the world when they adhered to this splendid 
 lesson on the use of the tongue, and gave a solemn 
 warning to her members and adherents to eschew 
 evil speaking. The course over which the figura- 
 tive ship must sail from earth to glory is full of 
 shoal places—rocks are strewn on every side, and 
 slander is in the mouth of every harbor, so that if 
 the captain is not touched by the Master Pilot, Jesus 
 Christ, and the reefs and dangers pointed out day 
 by day by Him, the ship will be dashed to pieces on 
 the rocks of ruin. 
 
110 BACK TO METHODISM ¢ 
 
 THE BODY MADE OF LIMBS AND ORGANS FOR 
 MAN’S HEALTH AND PLEASURE 
 
 God has given us every member of the body to 
 be used to His own glory and the benefit of our 
 fellowmen. Speech is one of our greatest faculties 
 and the most capable of doing good or evil. 
 
 The tongue is that little member of the body 
 
 which has several functions to perform for the use 
 and happiness of the human family. The body is 
 
 made up of many limbs and organs all working 
 together for the health and pleasure of the unit. 
 Still each member has its own duty to perform, 
 and no part of the whole can be inactive where full 
 results are to be obtained. Certainly there are 
 greater and lesser members of the body, as there 
 are greater and lesser lights in the universe. The 
 eye is the organ of sight; it opens to our view 
 things around us and enlightens the mind in vari- 
 ous delightful ways. The sight of the beautiful 
 blue dome with the shining sun by day, the silvery 
 
 moon, with the glittering stars by night, the scene 
 of vegetation, in trees, fruits and flowers, canopies 
 
 to the earth, with its mountains and valleys and 
 plains covered with the carpeted green grass, with 
 the living creatures roving over it, and then, the 
 rippling rivers and dancing lakes, and the wide 
 ocean. and the creatures which ply them are all 
 brought to our minds by the sight of the eye, and 
 we enjoy the splendor and should give God the 
 glory. The ear is the instrument of hearing, trans. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 111 
 
 mitting sound to the soul, either for its delight or 
 its horror. Hearing is warning, for often if we 
 were not warned by sound, whether by spoken 
 voice or otherwise, our entire body would be de- 
 stroyed. But because we can hear the whistle of 
 the locomotive, we rush from the track before we 
 are huried therefrom into eternity. We are elated 
 with the preaching of God’s word and other ora- 
 tory which edifies us—what a wonderful gift is 
 the sense of hearing. Feeling is that faculty that 
 puts us in direct communication with heaven and 
 earth, the beautiful sounds that we hear, the scenic 
 rapture that we experience, the supererogation of 
 
 taste, and the sense of smelling, which tells us 
 whether our environments are wholesome or other- 
 
 wise. All of these work together in unity as one 
 piece of machinery to operate for mari’s benefit. 
 
 ONLY MAN ENDOWED WITH POWER OF SPEECH 
 
 God gave other creatures the power of the senses 
 
 i. e., to see, to hear, to feel, to taste, to smell, but 
 He gave man the power to speak, that gift no other 
 
 creature has, with which he can communicate out 
 of the depths of his soul. God never intended that 
 man should be alone, is the reason why He gave 
 him a tongue, so he can express his wants and de- 
 sires to one another. He gave him a tongue par- 
 ticularly to praise Him and to do all the good he 
 
112 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 can with it. Why then oppose God’s desire, and go 
 from house to house, church to church, society to 
 society, up and down the streets and in the byways 
 and highways, everywhere kindling strife and using 
 the instrument the Lord gave for a blessing, to 
 make men miserable, discontented, angry and even 
 sometimes to the point of casting away the soul. 
 Why not live in peace as far as possible? You 
 cannot separate yourself from the world; you are 
 in it and a part of it, you will have to live and die 
 amid your fellowmen. And then, in eternity, you 
 will not be the only spirit who will inhabit your 
 place of abode. The Methodists’ ancient teaching 
 was to govern the tongue and live in peace. When 
 you hear people quarreling, they don’t sound like 
 human beings, but like beasts of the field growling 
 ‘6éver their prey. When you hear the tongue utter- 
 ing unbecoming language you can understand at 
 once the state of the person’s heart out of which 
 it proceeds. People often speak evil of one an- 
 other from false conception; others do so from jeal- 
 ousy. One may be in error and should take the 
 time to get the right conception of anything before 
 he speaks evil of his brother. There is not anv 
 remedy for the jealous man but regeneration. 
 There are some people in the world who think 
 they own the universe and all others must do just 
 as they say or all is wrong. This class thinks it 
 must illtreat and dictate to others at its will and 
 there must be no affront taken therefrom. We 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 113 
 
 sometimes find those with a little more learning 
 speaking disparagingly of the brother less fortu- 
 nate; on the other hand, we find some who are 
 jealous of those who have had a little better oppor- 
 tunity along these lines. There should be no such 
 feeling existing; there should be no such hints ut- 
 tered, both of these persons are classes that go to 
 make up the world. What good is learning to any 
 man if he has no one to teach; what good can be 
 derived to the one in darkness if he rejects the one 
 who brings him hight? God made us brothers and, 
 as it were, links of chain depending on each link 
 for the good of the whole. The greatest good of 
 all creatures is man. Why then, place the feeling 
 of God’s greatest creature on the level of a brute 
 and pour out violent language upon him? Some say 
 they do it because he is bad. Who made any of us 
 judges? “Vengeance is mine. I will repay.” saith 
 the Lord. (Romans 12:1). 
 
 WATCH AN EVIL SPEAKER 
 
 Again, the Methodist discipline says that the ac- 
 cused and the accuser should be brought face to 
 face. No one should be adjudged guilty before he 
 has been proven so. It is criminally wrong for one 
 to just take the words of another against a brother 
 without also taking the time to establish the truth- 
 fulness of them. We are certain that when a good 
 many talebearers would come to bring us news, if 
 
114 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 we would just say, “Wait a minute, brother,” and 
 call the brother against whom he speaks to hear 
 what he has to say, we would not have so many 
 
 quarrels and fights and bad, blood continually boil- 
 ing in our hearts for one another. It is wrong and 
 
 dangerous to take what we hear, and do not give 
 the person that is the victim of the hearsay an op- 
 portunity to prove whether he was quoted correct- 
 ly or not, we should not just grow cold on him and 
 eventually entirely fall out sometimes with our 
 best friends, at the bottom of which was only the 
 hissing in the ears of a poisonous serpent, that evil 
 speaker who has accomplished his aim to separate 
 friends and, as he thinks, makes himself larger in 
 the eyes of both for the iniquitous service he se- 
 cretly rendered. One cannot defile his neighbor 
 with falsehocd without ultimately defiling himself. 
 An old adage runs: “Keep away from the chimney 
 sweeper,” for if a girl dressed in immaculate white 
 hugs him, she is blackened, or if he hugs her, the 
 same results. Watch an evil speaker, she or he 
 comes to bring you no good news. If you will al- 
 low him to entwine your affections, he will blacken 
 your disposition and leave you suspicious, thinking 
 that every one who holds a secret conversation is 
 speaking about you, thus, sending you through life 
 crippled, bias, and selfish. Regard your brother’s 
 good name as you would your own. Shakespeare 
 says, “He that stealeth my purse, stealeth trash, 
 but he that robs me of my good name takes that 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 115 
 
 which enriches him not, but makes me poor in- 
 deed.” 
 
 When you speak evil of any one you are trying 
 to destroy his reputation and you are taking away 
 from him that which you cannot replace, even when 
 your malicious spirit is gone and your reason re- 
 turns. Be careful how you sow the seed of dissen- 
 sion, for when you have repented and desire to 
 cease from your evil way, you are unable to stop 
 the tide you started flowing. In this way you often 
 lead persons out from churches or other good en- 
 vironments, then you repent and return to the or- 
 ganization from whence you went. But how about 
 those you led out? Maybe some of them will never 
 recover from the evil blow of your leadership. A 
 good tongue is a blessing in every community, it 
 elevates and enlivens and inspires the soul of all 
 who hear it. To have a good tongue is to rely on 
 Jesus to keep the door of our lips each day. When 
 we find our hearts more inclined to speak evil than 
 good, it is because we are too far from Jesus and 
 the governing power of Methodism. We take into 
 our hands matters we should take to our Saviour, 
 and we fail. When we meet, no matter where, if 
 we were to speak of the plan of salvation, instead 
 of conversing with one with evil intent, we would 
 have so much more power for good in the world. 
 In this we would find ourselves more able to fight 
 wrong, the temptation of the wor!d, and to over- 
 come. 
 
116 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 Read the life of Jesus through, thoroughly, and 
 you will find no time where He ever held a trifling 
 conversation. Read biographies of the greatest 
 men of the ages; they did not have time to speak 
 evil of one another, rather, they were too busy 
 adding their little mite to the world with deeds and 
 words of uplift. Mud slingers, faisifiers, double 
 dealers have reached no place of honor in the an- 
 nals of human history. The Methodists saw these 
 truths and handed them down to their children. 
 
 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 We are simply calling back to Methodism, as- 
 sured that if we may follow these examples we 
 will find ourselves improving in all things. We 
 hope none will understand us by this call 
 ‘Back to Methodism’, that we, as it were, are to 
 close our mouths and only open them when we 
 are going to read the Bible, or pray, or talk about 
 something religious. We mean no such thing; all 
 of the creatures of God are good; God gave us all 
 our faculties, our tongue included, to make us hap- 
 py and to supply our needs. We are not happy if 
 we do not use it to build up and not to tear down, 
 we are to use it for wholesome speech, ard not 
 abuse or slander. We are to use pure language, not 
 profanity which pollutes and debases the soul and 
 ruins the body. Condemn wrong in the spirit of 
 love wherever you find it, but be sure you are 
 right before you start your complaint. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 117 
 
 May the rules of Methodism ever live; may there 
 never be a time when they shall perish from the 
 earth. Back to Methodism to the landmark of our 
 fathers, for decency and order should be the watch- 
 word coming from every tongue. The Methodists 
 laid special emphasis upon evil speaking for Christ- 
 ians guidance, while the admonition also speaks 
 with equal force to all men to bridle the tungue, for 
 unbridled, it causes more trouble than any cther 
 member of the body. Evil speaking is responsible 
 for more prisoners in cells, more homes wrecked, 
 more churches torn up, more societies ruined, more 
 wars and bloodshed, than from any other instru- 
 ment known to man. 
 
 Let us go back to Methodism and use the tongue 
 rightfully, that is, if you cannot say something 
 good of a person, keep silent. God will bless you, 
 men will revere you, and your conscience will give 
 you peace. 
 
118 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 FIGHTING—QUARRELING—BRAWLING 
 THE WORLD’S WAR 
 
 “From whence come wars and fightings among 
 you, come they not hence even of your lusts that 
 war in your members, ye lust and have not, ye kill 
 and desire to have and cannot obtain, ye fight and 
 war yet ye have not, because ye ask not.” St. 
 James 4.1-2. 
 
 St. James is asking the question that now puz- 
 zles the world concerning the wars which caused 
 so much trouble. We have gotten different ac- 
 counts from the nations of the ages who have been 
 involved, but none have gotten a sufficient reason 
 for all the terrible sacrifice of human life. 
 
 Take the great World’s War for instance, this 
 is the way the controversy began and the results 
 in blood and carnage have been appalling, to say 
 nothing of the suffering which followed from hun- 
 ger, disease and bereavement. 
 
 On June 29, 1914, Archduke Ferdinand and his 
 wife were assassinated by a Servian in Bosnia and 
 the Austrian government demanded _ satisfaction, 
 styling it a plot and a murder to which the Servian 
 government was a party. Servia’s reply was that 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 119 
 
 she warned Austria to keep her royal blood out of 
 her territory, because the Servians are a different 
 blood and the disposition from Austrians and that 
 if they were not kept separate invariably, trouble 
 would ensue. And, furthermore, the Servian Gov- 
 ernment had nothing to do whatever with the com- 
 mon case of murder, but that the guilty party would 
 be brought to justice and punished for the crime. 
 
 Nevertheless, Austria declared war on Servia 
 and Russia moved troops on Austria’s froiutier. 
 Germany sent an Ultimatum to Russia demanding 
 that she cease mobilization in twenty-four hours, 
 or she would declare war on her. 
 
 Negotiations by telegraph were carried on be- 
 tween the Czar and the Kaiser and King George, 
 but the dove of peace had flown and the lust for 
 greed and gain—the desire to allow the smoulder- 
 ing volcano of militarism to burst forth was great- 
 er than the satisfaction to punish the culprit and 
 loose the tension and let peace prevail. Germany 
 declared war on Russia, whereupon France began 
 to mobilize and Germany declared war on her. Ger- 
 many must have had her campaign mapped out for 
 years how she would attack France, knowing that 
 the French frontier was armed to the teeth, she de- 
 sired to go through Belgium and asked her per- 
 mission, but Belgium refused because she was 
 neutral with both Germany and England, guaran- 
 teeing her neutrality. 
 
 Germany declared war on Belgium, Py england 
 
120 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 declared war on her for breaking her promise to 
 keep Belgium neutra] as they both agreed to do. 
 England, also, declared war on Austria, being Ger- 
 many’s ally. 
 
 Japan, England’s ally, sent an ultimatum to Ger- 
 many demanding that she withdraw all her troops 
 from the far east and surrender Kiao Chow, the 
 territory she leased from China. Germany refused 
 and Japan declared war upon her; Austria de- 
 clared war on Japan. “Whenst come wars and fight- 
 ings among you, come they not hence even of your 
 lust that war in your members?P” 
 
 War makes angels bow their heads in grief and 
 shame, and causes devils to exalt, when men who 
 especially call themselves christians, butcher one 
 another that thousands of dead bodies lay unbur- 
 ried in the trenches and their blood soaks the ground 
 and runs like water until it makes a river bed in 
 its course to the sea. The groans of the wounded 
 and limbless are heard above the rattling of the 
 bayonets, or roaring of the cannons. Sherman has 
 said, “War is hell.” 
 
 We have given you a short epitome of the cause 
 of the World’s War, but who can give a sufficient 
 cause of all the suffering and blood shed? Germany 
 puts it on England and says that the English were 
 jealous of her commercial prosperity, and_ that, 
 even she and France were bringing all sorts of 
 barbarians to crush European civilization and cul- 
 ture. Of course it was an easy matter for Ger- 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 12) 
 
 many and France to go to war because there was 
 an old jealousy existing between them since 1870, 
 when Germany mercilessly crushed the very soul 
 of France. Revenge is sweet to some, and France 
 thought this her chance while there were so many 
 strong nations against her common enemy. Aus- 
 trians are of German blood, and Servians are of 
 Russian blood, blood is thicker than water. 
 
 Moses was in the king’s palace, but when he saw 
 an Egyptian smiting an Israelite, his brother, he 
 slew him and fled to the land of Media and remain- 
 ed there until God called him and told him to return. 
 to Egypt and bring his people out of bondage. 
 
 What was the cause of the war? The text is the 
 only answer, that is, their own lust brought all this 
 misery and woe upon themselves. The nations 
 left God out of their arrangements. They called on 
 God for a sham, meaning nothing, then, too, they 
 all call on the same God for success. God is the 
 God of right, He does not change. Whatsoever is 
 right will ultimately prevail. Only His spirit of 
 justice and equity can set the world at peace. 
 
 We should pray for peace, still if our prayers are 
 directed from the manifestation of the teachings 
 of the great teacher, Jesus Christ, they possibly 
 would be more profitable than for the immediate 
 cessation of the European strife. 
 
 When this comes every man will be treated as a 
 brother but as long as justice and tyranny and un- 
 called for discrimination prevails, quarreling and 
 
122 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 fighting, brother going to war with brother, and 
 even wars will continue. James says men’s lust 
 causes war, that is, when men’s sins arise so high 
 that they become an abomination to the Lord, He 
 sometimes permits them to use the sword upon 
 themselves, which is just as convenient to Him as 
 an epidemic or a siege or a drought. 
 
 WAR A SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 Recall the great wars of the Romans, who were 
 school masters, to bring the world to Christ. Re- 
 member, the great Civil War of this country when 
 the prayers of the slaves went up to God on His 
 throne and the blood from their backs cried out to 
 Him from the ground. Were not God’s hands in 
 these wars? Was it Roman’s supremacy, or Lin- 
 coln’s union that prevailed? No. In the case of 
 Rome, it was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. 
 “Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain 
 and hill shall be brought low and the crooked shall 
 be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made 
 smooth and all flesh shall see the salvation oi 
 God.” 
 
 With the war of 1861-65, it was the repeating of 
 God’s message to Pharaoh, which said, “Thus saith 
 the Lord God, let my people go.” There were no 
 arms to stop the conquest of Rome, nor the final 
 victory of the Union forces, for God was with them. 
 “They stood at Armageddon anid battled for the 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 123 
 
 Lord.” And the Lord discomforted Sisera and all 
 his chariots and all his hosts with the edge of the 
 sword before Barak, so that Sisera lighted down 
 off his chariot and fled away on feet.” Judges 4:15 
 
 What then is the logical cause of the war? Euro- 
 pean arrogance over the dark skin races of the 
 world has been a long reign of exploitation. They 
 have used every race not white as slaves in some 
 manner in the name of civilization, and taken away 
 their lands and compelled them to dig their own 
 silver and gold and diamonds. They made them 
 make their products and load European ships with 
 them—thus, pouring their wealth into European 
 treasuries. Those who failed to do as much as 
 these great tyrants expected or desired were maim- 
 ed or imprisoned, or even killed. This reign of 
 cheating and cruelty has been going on for hun- 
 dreds of years. 
 
 WATCH THE SIGNS OF THE TIME 
 
 China’s eyes are coming open and she has hun- 
 dreds of millions of subjects. Japan has already 
 taken her place in the arena of nations and refused 
 to be called white. India is fast awakening, she, too, 
 has hundreds of millions of people. A little piece of 
 leaven has been planted in Africa, the Republic of 
 Liberia, to yet spread and leaven the whole lump 
 of the teeming millions of black men. There are 
 yet some American Indians and dark skin races in 
 
i24 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 South America, and the Isles of the sea, and Chris- 
 tianity and education will of natural consequence 
 be carried to them more and more each day. The 
 races of color, the giants who have been sleeping 
 for centuries, will soon awaken and join hearts and 
 hands with God’s leaders for the spiritual redemp- 
 tion of the world when justice shall reign and then 
 shall peace flow like a river from ocean to ocean. 
 
 Let the dark skin races draw nearer and nearer 
 to God and stand still and see His hand turn the 
 swords of the gods of the earth upon themselves. 
 “And they stood still every man in his place around 
 the camp, and the Lord set every man’s sword 
 against his fellow, even throughout all the host.” 
 Judge 7 :21-22. 
 
 The dark skin races have, as a rule, been free 
 from burdens and responsibilities for centuries with 
 no strain upon their brains, nor profligacy to weak- 
 en their bodies, therefore, they are sound in body, 
 and like a child, fresh in mind. While on the other 
 hand, the white race from long years of thinking 
 with all accesses and characteristics of civilization 
 are like the Romans, growing weak and nervous 
 and irritable and quick to spill blood. Many of their, 
 pulpits, exhortations, and the Hague peace temples 
 are becoming a “sounding brass anda_ thinkling 
 symbol” and they are destroying more of them- 
 selves than any outside force at this time is able to 
 do and thus making themselves weaker and fewer 
 for the great day of reckoning. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 125 
 
 They have killed other races and retribution 
 came and the hands which spilled so much blood 
 were turned upon themselves and the living were 
 unable to bury the dead. They killed in the name 
 of civilization and that same_ civilization went 
 through Belgium pillaging and laying waste and 
 tumbling down her magnificent churches and leav- 
 ing her beautiful walls, her science halls and art 
 museums levelled with the ground. That same 
 civilization has burnt homes and slaughtered old 
 men, women and children. 
 
 March with her through northern France and 
 Galicia and witness her wake of ruin. Fly with her 
 in the mid air and see her drop bombs upon the 
 sick and dying, in hospitals and residences of non- 
 combatants. Go with her under the sea and see 
 her rush hundreds of inocent human beings without 
 a moments notice into eternity. 
 
 This is indeed a reflexive civilization, it kills men, 
 so it says, to tame them, and then kills itself to re- 
 compense for its wrongs. “Whom the gods destroy, 
 they first make mad.” 
 
 A GOOD REQUEST 
 
 The president. governor and mayor asked us to 
 make Oct 4, 1914, a day of prayer and exhortation 
 for peace. A good request indeed, and God grant 
 that every voice that cried to Him for universal 
 peace desired, was heard. But no peace can be 
 lasting and firm until the hearts of men are changed 
 
126 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 from wickedness to righteousness, from selfishness 
 to benevolence and the strong cease to oppress the 
 weak. No peace will be permanent until the rights 
 of all men, no matter how humble, are respected 
 and the mandate of God. “Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself” is fulfilled. 
 
 As long as greed and gain aid the desire to fleece 
 the poor and deter them by force, men will go to 
 war. Our present economic system is based on dis- 
 crimination and is all wrong and nothing but right 
 can bring peace. Jesus said, “Behold, I come not to 
 bring peace but a sword upon the earth.” Jesus 
 alone can bring peace out of confusion, can calm 
 the troubled sea, and still the boisterous winds. 
 
 Thou only can touch the hearts of men with Thy 
 spirit. Place thy banner of righteousness upon 
 
 every fort, every battle field, upon every man-o- 
 war, and every soldier and sailor’s heart, who thun- 
 der forth death and destruction of their fellowmen. 
 Let truth this day prevail; let pride and arrogance 
 sicken and die, and let the beauty of the Lord shine 
 forth as the noonday sun. Let the kingdoms of 
 the earth become the Kingdom of the Lord, and 
 then will (Is. 2:4-5) come to pass, which says, “And 
 He shall judge many nations and they shall beat 
 their swords into plowshares and their spears into 
 pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up swerds 
 against nations, neither shall they learn war any 
 more.” 
 
 “OQ, house of Jacob, come ye and let us walk in 
 the light of the Lord.” 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 127 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 THE BUSINESS IN THE CHURCH 
 
 This subject is of vital importance in running a 
 church. When we see the great struggles many 
 churches are having for existence and the mud- 
 dies which unbusinesslike transactions are con- 
 stantly bringing upon them, it is time to get to the 
 bottom of things and see where the fault lies, 
 whether in the people or in the lax business methods 
 of the pastor and his officials. 
 
 Have the people a natural desire for running their 
 churches witn a sorry mendicant method or have 
 the pastors and their officials failed to put things 
 before them in a plain, clear cut businesslike way? 
 In fact, every Methodist denomination should have 
 a financial system uniformly running through and 
 through the connection. 
 
 Nothing can run itself. Everything must be sys- 
 tematicaliy planned and guided, and through strict 
 execution worked out to perfection. 
 
 In the Methodist Church there are several de- 
 partments depending on one another for a success- 
 ful whole. 
 
 We plan this little talk to mention the business 
 side of each department of the church which we 
 
128 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 style under these captions: The Spiritual Church, 
 The Temporal Church and the Social Church. 
 
 SPIRITUAL CHURCH 
 
 The Spiritual Church was founded by Christ in 
 His own blood, and its chief aim is to bring men 
 back to God. All other things in the Church 
 should be subservient to this sacred end. 
 
 Jesus came to earth to do business for His Fath- 
 er, and He did not idle away any of His time; 
 every moment was used in planning, laying the 
 foundation, bringing results as the superstructure 
 of His everlasting Church was reared—He neg- 
 lected no part of His work. One part was as im- 
 portant as another. 
 
 It is profitable business to preach the gospel of 
 good health in the congregation, also to have lec- 
 tures from doctors and dentists and trained nurses 
 and domestic scientists to take part in platform 
 services. The Church should also teach good citt- 
 zenship. Jesus sent Peter down to the sea to get 
 a penny out of the fish’s mouth to pay their taxes. 
 Thus the spiritual Church stands for health, love, 
 obedience, law and order. 
 
 Throughout Jesus’ life from the manger to the 
 cross, every act was a business act, so that the 
 apostles and fathers who immediately followed 
 Him like their Lord were also strict business men. 
 Real effective progess was made in the Church 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 129 
 
 when the apostles divided the work into districts, 
 that there would be no confusion as to jurisdic- 
 tion. Peter went to Asia Minor; Paul to the Gen- 
 tiles; John to the general church. They believed 
 that anybody’s business was nobody’s business, 
 but that some one should be responsible for some 
 special duty entirely devolved on him. Each per- 
 son in the early Church knew his place, what he 
 ‘had :to do in it, that is why the church was 
 strong and progressed and grew despite the com- 
 bined powers of the pagan and Jewish world 
 against it. 
 
 Every step made for the church was thrown on 
 the trestle board before it was made. The plights 
 and plunderinys, sufferings and martyrdom of the 
 saints were all calculated to rear this spiritual 
 heritage, despite the times when an apathy fell 
 upon her, and selfish designers neglected the King’s 
 business, no matter when these dormant listless 
 torpers pervaded God always had a Moses’ who 
 awoke her from her hibernation to revivals and 
 saving souls. 
 
 BACK-BONE IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 The pastor and his officers are God’s business 
 men in the spiritual church. It was a great advant- 
 age to have the spiritual work done in a business- 
 like way, never putting the temporal work before 
 the spiritual. The spiritual work will give life 
 
130 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 and success to all the rest. We give an instance. 
 At a Church we pastored, debtors were crowding 
 upon us. We had just gone to the charge; the 
 people were dunned and discouraged—and even 
 threats of shcriff seizure had come to them. The 
 officers were on their tiptoes to hear what plans 
 the new pastor had to raise some money to meet 
 the immediate necessities, when to their surprise 
 and disgust, he announced from his pulpit on Sun- 
 day, “I believe in God and His protection. I believe 
 what Jesus said, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of 
 heaven, and all things will be added unto you.’ We 
 are going to have one week of prayer prepara- 
 tory to a revival meeting in this Church, beginning 
 immediately after the first Sunday in February.” 
 We wish vou could have heard the serious objec- 
 tions from the trustees and their sympathizers; it 
 took only divine backing to stand the storm of pro- 
 test which foliowed. We told the stewards what 
 we had planned and more than half of them agreed 
 with the trustees that a rally at that time was more 
 important than a revival. As Paul said, “None 
 of these things moved me.” We proceded with 
 the spiritual plans which the Lord wonderfully 
 blessed and three hundred souls were added to the 
 church. While the meeting was going on we called 
 the men together on a Monday evening and asked 
 them to loan sufficient money to meet the press- 
 ing needs—so anxious were they that the splendid 
 spiritual meeting not be stopped that one brother 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 13} 
 
 and friend—God rest his ashes (F. J. Acosta)— 
 placed $1000 in our hands for the church to be used 
 as long as we needed it; another broad-hearted 
 brother—also lamented (J. M. Glass) loaned $500 
 to be returned whenever we could pay. Lots of 
 other loans from $18.00 to $250.00 were made. All 
 who could not loan (and we took nothing  be- 
 low $15.00) were permitted to give this emergency 
 fund. Many gave $5.00 and $10.00. However, we 
 raised over $4500 on one Monday night. Thus 
 the meeting went on and we had money too. After 
 the meeting was over we put on a rally and raised 
 sufficient, and over, to pay all who had loaned us, 
 we never stopped rallying until thousands of doliars 
 were raised. Our church was completed and all 
 mortgages were paid as well as floating debts. 
 Keep the Spirit in the church, money will come. 
 We pastored another church where the officers ob- 
 jected to us running revival on Saturday, saying it 
 would interfere with their business, many of them 
 being merchants. We told them that we were go- 
 ing to carry on our meeting if no one but the pas- 
 tor, his wife and the sexton attended. They took 
 us at our word and Saturday night no one was in 
 the church but wife and I. The sexton lighted the 
 church and left. She and I sang and prayed and just 
 when we were going to take our text, and preach 
 for the edification of ourselves, determining we 
 would not be ovtdone, since the devil did not close 
 up for us on Sunday, just here a young married 
 
132 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 woman came in and sat by my wife. She was 
 unconverted. We preached from the text, “What 
 think ye of Christ?” She was happily converted 
 as we sang, “Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.” She 
 was a real Methodist, and testified so loudly for 
 the Lord that the church was crowded with people 
 in a short time. From that effort of standing up 
 for the spiritual side of the church more than one 
 hundred and seventy-five souls were brought to 
 Christ. We had no more trouble in that charge to 
 do spiritual things over those temporal. The Church 
 and parsonage were renovated and all debts paid 
 and some breaking general days for benevolence 
 were observed. 
 
 Another instance for standing up for the spiritual 
 church occurred this way: A sinner died who was 
 never a member of the church, but would curse 
 churches and church people, preachers not excepted. 
 He died a drastic death, being killed by electricity. 
 Because he was a member of a secret society they 
 wanted him brought into the church and a big dis- 
 play made over him. We objected and some of 
 the officers and members thought us horrible to re- 
 fuse to let a man like Mr. A’s body be brought 
 into the church. They decided not to pay the pas- 
 tor’s salary. it being the first Sundav, pastor’s day. 
 The pastor said, “If you desire, I will go down to 
 the undertaker’s parlor and funeralize his body for 
 you, but he shall not come into this church.” They 
 yielded and the pastor went to the undertaker’s 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 133 
 
 parlor and did his duty. He held his morning’s 
 services which were slimly attended, but at night 
 the church was packed to hear the great fall off of 
 salary threatened all day long because he did, not 
 allow the great Mr. A’s body in the church. Here is 
 what really happened. A band of sinners got to- 
 gether, raised more money for the pastor that first 
 Sunday than he ever received from that charge 
 during his pastorate there of three years. The 
 amusing thing about it was when the Christians 
 saw what the sinners had done, they, too, gave 
 more liberally than ever before. 
 
 God has all the money; it was here when we 
 came; it will be here when we are gone. Back- 
 bone in the ministry is one of God’s gifts. Coward- 
 ice, fearing they will cut off your bread, unfits any 
 man to do business for God. The constitution of 
 the spiritual church was written in heaven and 
 handed down to Moses from Mt. Sinai and was 
 ratified and sealed by Jesus Christ on Mt. Calvary 
 where He perfected His wonderful plan of salvation. 
 The pastor and his stewards are God’s business men 
 sn the spiritual church. 
 
 It is a great advantage to run the spiritual church 
 in a businesslike way. For instance, no Methodist 
 Church, no matter how large or small, should neg- 
 lect to hold official board. 
 
134 BACK TO METHODISM 
 OFFICIAI. BOARD 
 
 The official board is not what some think it is. It 
 is not the place for wrangles and venting of old. 
 spite and petty jealousies. It is not the place to try 
 anybody, it is the place where exhorters and local 
 preachers can exercise their gifts and graces by 
 opening the same with religious worship each 
 week. It is the place where the class _ leaders 
 report the condition of their classes, as to who 
 is sick and needs the attention of the pas- 
 tor; who is walking disorderly and will 
 not be reproved; who has left the society 
 with or without certificate; what has been collected 
 by the class leaders for the support of the pastor, 
 presiding elder, the sick and poor. Here the leaders 
 pay same over to the stewards, one of whom is 
 secretary of the official board. If the board does 
 not have an hour to open and one to close, much 
 valuable time will be lost. In wirter 7:30 to 9:30 
 P. M.; in summer 8:00 to 10:00 P. M. are appro- 
 priate hours. With good executive ability on be- 
 half of the pastor, who is chairman, all business 
 can be done in these two hours—if not, the board 
 should adjourn anyhow. As all experienced pastors. 
 know if one sticks to the questions and answers 
 per discipline, there is scarcely anything left over 
 from one board meeting to another. Maybe when 
 you first begin to do real business, they would 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 135 
 
 either fall in line with your plans or drop out of the 
 board. 
 
 We know a pastor who held official board meet- 
 ing in a church which had fifty-two classes in forty- 
 five minures and afterwards held small institutes 
 each week tc enlighten the brethren intellectually. 
 They read short papers on current and religious 
 topics and had open discussions on them to the 
 edification of all. This method drew crowds not 
 members of the board to be entertained and the 
 class meeting became equally as important and 
 large. Quarrels were things of the past. A love 
 feast prevailed at all meetings. 
 
 It is aiso a good thing to have some system classi- 
 fying the local days of church. You will find that 
 your service will be of more value by so doing. In 
 Methodism the General Church tells of the several 
 days it wishes observed which no one has the right 
 to change; anyone who does so is a lawbreaker. 
 The days not specified by the general or annual con- 
 ference may be used at the discretion of the pastor 
 and his officials to facilitate the work of their 
 church. 
 
 A, FEW RULES 
 
 Have a local children’s day one Sunday in each 
 month, when you preach to the children and baptize 
 all infants. The congregation will look for this 
 and prepare their children to that end. Do not 
 
136 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 baptize any child at the church until then; if the: 
 child is sick baptize it at home. A busy pastor can. 
 save himself and his stewardesses much annoyance 
 in this way from those who bring their children to 
 be baptized without notice, often when you are 
 about to sing doxology. 
 
 Don’t forget to speak to the Christian Endeavor 
 the Sunday afternoon that you spoke to the Sunday 
 School in the morning. Too little attention is paid 
 to our children and youth by the pastors and of- 
 ficials. 
 
 Begin your service on time and end in the same 
 manner, so that those who attend services will 
 know when to come and when they will be dis- 
 missed. This has been one of the things which has 
 killed night services in so many churches. Good 
 manners do not permit some people to leave ser- 
 vices before closing, so rather than appear rude 
 they stay away when they know they are to be 
 kept late. 
 
 BUSINESS IN THE MID-WEEK MEETINGS 
 
 Don’t depart from Methodism. Let one of the 
 leaders with a local preacher open the class meeting 
 each week, until each one has had the opportunity 
 to serve. It was lay spiritual fire which helped to 
 set Methodism into a flame. But make a rule and 
 see to it that all obey it, that the hymns, Scripture 
 lesson with short comment, all must be done in a 
 half hour. If the brother attempts to take longer, 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 137 
 
 he should be stopped that the rest of the meeting 
 may go on and en! on time. 
 
 In coming to the communion table, all should 
 come up on one side of the church and go down on 
 the other side. No wild unsystematic rush should 
 be tolerated, but order and symmetry should 
 characterize the sacred celebration of the suffering 
 and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Really, there should be no ‘sunday funerals at the 
 church. They ruin the Lord’s day and_ stop the 
 worshippers who when the funeral is over are too 
 tired to attend other services. If, however, you 
 do have Sunday funerals never have any in the 
 morning. Let them occur between the hours of 
 1:00 to 4:00 P. M. The man or woman who lived 
 a Christian life does not need to encroach on the 
 Lord’s Day services to draw a crowd to his or her 
 funeral. Real business will sometimes make you 
 say, yes or no—the Lord help the minister and his 
 officers who have no moral courage. The pastor 
 and his stewards are the spiritual fathers of the 
 church. All inside the altar rail is their territory. 
 The steward is to the pastor what the pastor is to 
 the presiding elder and what the presiding elder is 
 to the Bishop; each in his sphere is a kind of body 
 guard to his superior and is indispensable to the 
 success of the Methodist Church. A steward should 
 be consecrated to his work as the ears and the eyes 
 of the pastor in the congregation. 
 
 Any steward who is not in harmony with the 
 
138 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 spiritual plans of the pastor, should get out of his 
 cabinet. If he fights Godly plans for the advance- 
 ment of the Church and will not resign, he should 
 be left out of the pastor’s nominations at the prop- 
 er time if he can be borne until then. On the other 
 hand, the pastor should remember that these mer 
 are his advisors and have a perfect right to advise 
 in the meeting of the stewards’ board. Every sensi- 
 ble pastor will listen to what the stewards say 
 even if he over-rules the board on some of the 
 issues, which he has the perfect right to do. The 
 stewardesses are the creatures of the pastor and 
 his stewards; they are members of the official board 
 and quarterly conference--sacred indeed are their 
 duties—attending around the communion table and 
 assisting the stewards rendering service to the pas- 
 tor as he administers the Lord’s Supper and bap- 
 tism. 
 
 There is a tendency among some of the brethren 
 to have from two to four stewardess boards in the 
 Methodist Church, which is all wrong, there can be 
 but one such board, numbering three, five, seven or 
 nine, not more than nine women. There may be 
 an assistant stewardess board. But remember, only 
 ene board can function at a time, per discipline. 
 
 Deaconesses are twelve consecrated women and 
 only the women who are set aside for the office by 
 the bishop of the diocese. They are like the Dorcas 
 of old, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked. and 
 comfort the poor and distressed in their communi- 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 139 
 
 ties. They are members of the quarterly confer- 
 ence. These women if active, are also a spiendid 
 business asset to the church, for when a kind act 
 is done for an unfortunate person, and he recovers 
 and gets upon his feet, he remembers the bridge 
 over which he crossed and often large sums have 
 been given these women to build and maintain 
 Deaconess Homes and aid others through such 
 persons. 
 
 Missionary ladies when active are also great helps 
 to the church. They should report every quarterly 
 conference what they have collected for missions. 
 These kind of missionary women are useful to the 
 church. 
 
 A worthy local preacher who wishes to enter 
 the ministry is always on hand to be used by the 
 pastor. He never tries to be pastor and run things 
 or pouts if his will is brooked, but all local 
 preachers, regardless of their rank, know their bus- 
 iness is to assist the pastor, not boss or lead him. 
 The pastor is to take charge of the members of his 
 church, preachers not excluded. 
 
 The pastor is the official head of the choir; no 
 body shall be put in or taken out without his con- 
 sent (per discipline). No person who is uncon- 
 verted should sing in the choir. Socrates says, 
 “One must feel what he says to make others feel it.” 
 
 There is a minister not far removed from this 
 writing who preached at a Metropolitan Church 
 on one Sunday morning, and all said the services 
 
140 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 were full of the Spirit, but upon opening the doors 
 of the church, the pastor asked the chorister to 
 designate some one to lead the song, “I dream- 
 ed of the great judgment day,” all joined in the 
 chorus. The effort to get any one to join the 
 church was a complete failure. No sooner than the 
 services were over the pastor’s wife said to him, 
 “Why did you kill that beautiful altar service by 
 allowing that rank sinner to sing to sinners?” My 
 Lord, how true. Why should one who needs to be 
 sung to herself, be allowed to sing to sinners? The 
 pastor explained to his wife that he did not know 
 that an unconverted person was going to sing. 
 Maybe not, but what was she doing in the spiritual 
 choir, where only awakened persons should be? 
 Don’t have unconverted singers in your choir. The 
 minister who preached for this brother disbanded 
 a large choir and made it over, in order to get two 
 unconverted persons out of it. When the chorister 
 objected he was dismissed. It was the salvation 
 of the choir and new life to the church. 
 
 BUSINESS IN THE SOCIAL CHURCH 
 
 The minister and the officials must put some busi- 
 ness into the social side of their church. In these 
 times of vast allurements as the theatres, moving 
 pictures and dancing halls, and what not, to entice 
 the young people, if something is not done to off- 
 set these influences, the church cannot hope to hold 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 141 
 
 them. Notwithstanding, you may stand up in your 
 pulpit and decry these things in the strongest lan- 
 guage, yet, many people will leave you if you don’t 
 have something to offset these antagonistic influ- 
 ences. Divide your church up into as many clubs 
 as you have members, that is, do not allow any 
 one to be idle in the church. See to it that each club 
 is reguiarly organized. 
 
 We organized clubs in a church we once pastor- 
 ed, excepting deaconess and stewardess boards 
 which met once a month, all other clubs met once a 
 week. Such clubs as the Lady Ushers, Pulpit Aid, 
 Auxiliaries, 1, 2,3 and 4, Christian Endeavor League 
 Board, Sunday School Board, all held social func- 
 tions from house to house, when literary and musi- 
 cal programs were rendered and repasts served. 
 Wherever the meeting was held, that member was 
 the hostess. So spiritually good were those meet- 
 ings that several persons were converted upon their 
 attendance, while they kept the young people of 
 the church from many evils. In a rally these 
 boards laid on the table in one effort $1938.76; thus 
 a social effort was here turned into business for 
 both the temporal and spiritual church. The min- 
 ister and his officers who never find time to give to 
 this important branch of the church work, will find 
 his lack of zeal bad business. 
 
142 BACK. TO METHODISM 
 
 BUSINESS IN THE TEMPORAL CHURCH 
 
 God gave man three forms of government, viz: 
 the monarchial, oligarchial and democratic forms. 
 Hence, our several church polities, each specify- 
 ing its modes of running the different denomina- 
 tions and civil governments. Every country places 
 its requirements upon its citizens, and no foreigner 
 can be naturalized and receive the protection of 
 the flag and be given the rights and privileges as 
 those to the manor born, without first their taking 
 the oath of allegiance and subscribing to the laws 
 and promising to defend the flag of his adopted 
 country. None of the secret or benevolent societies 
 will allow one to receive benefits without conform- 
 ing to the rules and regulations governing them. It 
 is the business of the emperor, king or president, 
 to see that all comply with these requirements. 
 After conversion and our confession to Almighty 
 God, we enter the spiritual church, and then we 
 promise to be cheerfully governed by the discipline. 
 Thus we come into the temporal church. 
 
 The pastor and the trustees are the fathers of the 
 temporal church and should make quarterly reports 
 to the people of the collections and expenditures of 
 their funds. They should outline the work to be 
 done at the beginning of the year. Every busi- 
 ness man knows whom he owes and who owes him; 
 so should the church know who owes it and whom 
 it Owes. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 143 
 
 Remember there is a difference between duty and 
 benevolence or between paying dues and charity. 
 What you give to education, missions, the sick and 
 the poor is benevolence. You have not given a cent 
 when you pay your dues. There should be kept 
 an individual record of each member of the church, 
 giving him a financial statement on which is print- 
 ed al! dues for the stewards indicated above—be- 
 sides which there shall be a leader’s report blank in 
 duplicate, stating all monies here received from 
 the members each week for any cause 
 of the church which is signed by the lead- 
 er, read before the body, and a _ copy turned 
 over to the secretary of the steward board 
 The trustees should lift all of their assessments by 
 envelopes, with space for name of the donor, which 
 results should also be recorded by the secretary of 
 their department. In this way, you can easily see 
 what every member owes the church for any 
 cause whatever, so that at each quarter, just before 
 the presiding elder comes, you should send out 
 statements to all delinquents asking them to pay 
 up and begin the new quarter afresh. Don’t destroy 
 the legal boards made by the general church. The 
 steward and the trustees board have different func- 
 tions and each should operate in its own sphere 
 without being hindered by the other. Run the church 
 on a business basis as a good business man runs 
 his private affairs. If the pastor and his officers will 
 take the lead the members will follow them. When 
 
144 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 you do real business you prove to the church who 
 loves her. An open book business is the only hon- 
 est pian. The old expression. “This is trustees 
 and stewards business, you have nothing to do 
 with it” will hinder you. Wherever a man puts 
 his money it is his business to know how it is spent. 
 Let the people know what you are doing with their 
 money and they will put it where you can get it 
 when you need it: otherwise the doors of gene- 
 rosity will be closed against you in the most needy 
 time. The pastor should get around him the best 
 informed officials he can gather in his church. 
 
 For the Lord’s sake don’t use the men who are 
 unfitted for the work just because they will say 
 yes to everything you say—it is poor business. It 
 is good to have an honest difference of opinion 
 upon any vital issue. 
 
 The ministry has always had in its ranks some 
 of the strongest men of all ages, artisans and geni- 
 uses of every handicraft, who like the apostles 
 ieft all to follow the lowly Lamb. Talk is cheap—- 
 theories are fanciful, but shams will not do. No 
 matter what your field of labor only real practical 
 success 1s what the world wants and will have. 
 One of the greatest helps to the success of any pas- 
 tor is to get and keep the confidence of the congre- 
 gation. 
 
 To do this, brother pastor, don’t handle the peo- 
 ple’s money other than that the stewards pay to 
 you for salary, but see to it that every cent is 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 145 
 
 spent rightfully. Don’t try to run the church alone, 
 let the officers help you. The laymembers are 
 glad to aid the pastor who will give them the 
 chance. The pastor who thinks he can run the 
 church alone, will find that he will run it in the 
 ground. 
 
 The business pastor will not only preach the gos- 
 pel and administer to the sick and bury the dead, 
 but he will take absolute charge of his church. He 
 will direct, per his discipline, a central government 
 in his church and in it have men and women of value 
 to himself and the people they represent. They 
 must be all around business men and women—social 
 peers and spiritual lights for the congregation and 
 communities. In this age of the material graft and 
 worldly gain the business pastor and his officers 
 help to save many weak persons from pitfalls and 
 disgrace. Because business is the true record of the 
 doings of the church generally, but more particu- 
 larly that of the temporal affairs of the church, so 
 handle the affairs of the church that all may know 
 what comes in and what goes out. 
 
 Be square with your people, hide nothing from 
 them, regarding their money; pay out nothing 
 without a voucher, which means wherever it is 
 practical have a bank account in the church’s name 
 and draw the funds by check. 
 
 You doubtless notice through this little business 
 talk that the strain was on the square deal, each 
 to his fellow; no flim-flam business will profit; in 
 
146 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 the long run, only honest dealing will count. If 
 tricks and schemes would prosper, they should 
 have no place in the church or its affairs. If you 
 cannct go to the church for a square deal, then, 
 please tell me where to find it. , 
 
 We have written on business in the church from 
 personal experience. This chapter may be called 
 a short discourse in pastoral theology. Whatever 
 it may be called, the writer had but one aim, that 
 is, that there should be real business in God/s 
 Church. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 147 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 TOES WOR DSMIEATLSY BACKSLIDING 
 
 GOD HAS HIS OWN WAY TO DEAL WITH HIS 
 CREATURES 
 
 667 
 
 Phen will I sprinkle clean water upon you and 
 ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from 
 all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart, also, 
 will I give you and a new spirit will I put within 
 you, I will take away the stony heart out of your 
 flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will 
 put my spirit in you and cause you to walk in my 
 statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do 
 them, +ze.936::25-27. 
 
 In the year 587, B. C., the Jews were in Baby- 
 lonian captivity. Several years before this, they 
 were in dreadful afflictions, because of their sins 
 and disobedience to God. Now we find them scat- 
 tered all over the Assyrian Empire, where they 
 hung their harps on the willow trees by the rivers, 
 Chebar and Euphrates, drooped in sackcoth and 
 ashes mourning their calamity. 
 
 God has his own way to deal with His creatures, 
 meting out justice and mercy, reward and pun- 
 ishment to them according to their works. To the 
 good He gives peace of conscience and constant 
 
148 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 protection, long life and happiness, whether an 
 individual, city or state, the results are just the 
 same; to the profligates who spurn His will and 
 protection and withdraw themselves from Him, 
 whether the individual, the city or state, He often 
 sends upon them a large fire, an earthquake, famine, 
 pestilence, violent epidemic, or even the sword to 
 purge them and bring them back to their senses, 
 or utterly destroy them. If we change the figure 
 and carry the physical into the spiritual realm by 
 metonymy the person stands for the individual, 
 the city stands for the class, the congregation for 
 the state and the nation for the denomination in 
 Methodism. 
 
 The wicked, unconcerned individual seals his own 
 doom daily, whether he is in or out of the Church. 
 Such a class in the Church dwindles away because 
 the spiritual fire, conscience and duty, in a live 
 congregation, soon consumes it. If the Church it- 
 self has no God in it, it will only stumble clumsily 
 along and eventually pine away and die. If the de- 
 nomination fails to perform its duty and betrays its 
 trust to God, God in turn will bring many evils 
 upon it and even permit devils to creep into it, 
 that it may be either cleansed through inward con- 
 flicts or its continual abuses will sound the knell of 
 its final ruin. Let us hold Methodism sacred. The 
 Israelites were God’s favorite people. He took 
 special pleasure in supplying them with their every 
 need. ‘When He planted them in Palestine He 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 149 
 
 intended that they should pitch there a true, re- 
 ligious tent. In that tent He desired them to light 
 a candle and keep it burning so that the nations of 
 the globe might see the way to Zion’s Hill and go 
 up there to dwell in the light of the Lord where 
 the sceptre was to remain in Judah’s hand until 
 ‘Shiloh came. But Israel sinned first as individuals, 
 and then, as a nation, and their sins wrought havoc 
 and the tent was tumbled down and the light extin- 
 guished and they remained in darkness from the 
 prophet Malachi (397 B. C.) to John the Baptist, 
 (27:A. D.) who came crying, “Repent ye for the 
 kingdom of heaven is at hand.” There was no 
 voice from God for 424 years. 
 
 DANGER AHEAD 
 
 God intended the Jews to be a nation whose 
 throne would be in heaven, but they went opposite 
 and yearned to be like the heathen about them, with 
 kings, horses and chariots, and these soon gave them 
 desire to make idols and serve strange gods. It 
 was the thing which made the Lord angry and 
 provoked Him to swift and relentless judgment 
 against Israel. They served Him when they were 
 in trouble but as soon as their afflictions were 
 passed and prosperity returned they forsook their 
 first love and went after strange gods who had 
 done nothing for them, and could do nothing but 
 lead them to destruction. 
 
 To tell the whole truth in a few words, no wicked 
 
150 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 family, Church or state can stand long in the sight 
 of God. The Israelites became ungrateful despite 
 all God did for them, and He did more for them 
 than for any other people up to their establishment. 
 Let the Methodists watch this point of Israel’s 
 life and see to it that their stumbling block is not 
 theirs also. 
 
 We need not go through their whole history. 
 The Lord planted them as a little vine in Canaan 
 and nourished and guarded them through all their 
 dangers even from Egyptian bondage to the glory 
 of the grandeur of Solomon’s vast dominion where 
 peace and prosperity reigned from Dan to Bethshe- 
 ba. Remember that all of these blessings did not 
 come to them for what they had done for the 
 Lord. The Lord is independent, He owns the 
 universe, none of His creatures can add anything 
 to His honor nor take anything from it. He is sepa- 
 rate and apart from all His creatures and what He 
 does for them, He does because He loves the works 
 of His hands and not by any force or compulsion 
 whatever. The prophets’ hearts and souls are here 
 poured out ta God in this passage of Scripture for 
 His gracious to an ungrateful people. 
 
 TROUBLE OFTEN BRINGS REPENTANCE 
 
 The children of Israel had sinned and were pun- 
 ished by the Lord in various ways—they had often 
 been stricken with famine. Let us draw a little 
 picture of an eastern famine. These seasons are 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 151 
 
 ushered in by a long drought; the rain which furn- 
 ishes drink to men and beasts and waters the crops 
 is stayed, not even the midnight dew comes to 
 kiss the thirsty scorched earth and withered trees. 
 On goes this cruel slayer of all sentient beings and 
 vegetation. 
 
 Look! see the frogs leaving their dry ponds to 
 perish, and the fish dying and stinking all around 
 in the dried up rivers and lake beds; the birds flying 
 in the search of water and dropping in their weak- 
 ness and dying and helping to increase the already 
 overbearing stench. See, the cattle upon a thous- 
 and dry hills, no shade trees, no water, no green 
 herbs, their tongues hanging out. Listen to their 
 pitiful beliowing as they sink under the burning 
 sun and die. These are terrible times, there is mo 
 oil in the cruse, no corn in the crib, no wine in the 
 cellar; men are leaving their homes to seek a land 
 where the windows of heaven are still open and 
 health and life are still secured. But thousands 
 die on the way before they reach their goal and He 
 spreads the length and breadth of the famine to 
 accomplish His purpose of destruction. 
 
 Often when trouble came upon the people they 
 repented and begged God’s forgiveness and His 
 bowels of compassion melted and He sprang to 
 their relief so often that they began to mock Him. 
 For as soon as their pitiful cries were heard and 
 prosperity returned, they forgot all the wonder 
 He had wrought for them and idolatry took the 
 
152 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 place of true worship and pride and indifference 
 that of meekness and zealousness. 
 
 Mark this: As long as the Israelites lived true 
 to God, no people stood before them, but instead 
 all nations feared and. respected them. But the 
 moment sin became their national weakness, the 
 most insignificent people arose against them and 
 prevailed, while the mighty nations as Babylon lay 
 waste, and pillaged the sacred things of their land 
 and spoiied the temple and carried away the proud 
 daughters of Israel into captiv‘tv and defilement. 
 At this period the Israelites were not at home, 
 but in Babylon under hard taskmasters and from 
 the presence of God. All over Babylon their cries 
 were heard, this now distracted people prayed for 
 mercy, but they were answered with hardships and 
 abuse. They were now at the lowest water mark 
 with no human relief available, with the anger of 
 the Lord kindled against them. Some of them 
 were even strangers to God, unable to speak their 
 mother’s tongue; the ancient worship their fathers 
 used was forgotten. 
 
 Apostacy had visited them and afflictions one 
 after another, until captivity here seemed to seal 
 their doom and thorough ruin. Those whose ways 
 and gods the Lord’s people had envied and never 
 rested until they had become like them are now 
 their masters and laugh at their calamity, saying, 
 aha, aha! We decoyed you and pulled you out of 
 your rock of defense from the God of your security 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 153 
 
 and caused you to forsake Him and now your land 
 is spoiled and yourselves in bondage. 
 
 In like manner, this will happen to the Methodists 
 when we change our mission to the world. As long 
 as Methodism lives in her own house, there need 
 be no fear for her perpetuity. “God of our fathers, 
 be with us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget.” 
 
 Don’t envy the wicked, don’t try to be like them, 
 never bow your knees to them; stand strong for 
 it is the chief traits of the unrighteous to trap you 
 that they may do their evil deeds with none to 
 condemn them. The enemy has many agents in 
 human forms and are in every walk of life. They 
 present all kinds of inducements, failing this way. 
 they manufacture malicious and ruinous slander to 
 blind the eyes of the world to their sinful deeds, 
 while placing their guilt upon some innocent per- 
 son saying, there are no good people, but all like 
 themselves, had. 
 
 No, no, do not let them decoy you, let them say 
 what they will, you live in the light of the gospel. 
 you strive to imitate your Saviour’s examples. 
 Tell them there are not enough of Satan’s agents 
 on earth to stop your onward move, despite all, you 
 are going to serve Jesus. 
 
 But foolish man, what benefits would you derive 
 if you trap and drag in to your net the whole 
 world? Your being the instrument that wrought 
 others’ damnation would only make hell hotter 
 for you. As the Christian will add stars to his 
 
154 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 crown for bringing souls to Christ, so will the 
 wicked add plagues to their misery in leading others 
 to Satan. 
 
 After every other human effort had failed, the 
 people realized that no other arm than God’s was 
 able to save them. So all over Babylon, whither 
 the L.ord had scattered them, they asked God to 
 remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob once more 
 and lift from their lips the gall of bitterness. 
 
 A PRIVILEGE TO BE A CHILD OF GOD 
 
 It is a good thing to be a child of God and to 
 know Him as a sin forgiving sympathetic Lord, 
 who will hear the prayer of His repenting children. 
 See to it that you have been converted and know 
 God as your father. Don’t be as the man who en- 
 tered the marriage supper, without having on the 
 wedding garment. 
 
 God hears the driver’s whip, He sees the stripes 
 he inflicts: He hears the cries of the innocent, 
 mingled with the guilty repentant rebels, there- 
 fore, He concludes to try them once more _ for 
 David’s sake, so He warms up the soul of Ezekiel, 
 and tells him of the gracious deliverance of Israel, 
 He is soon te bring to pass. Cease your mourning, 
 { have heard you, I will sprinkle you with clean 
 water and reconsecrate you as a holy people with an 
 invincible God. 
 
 Notice, God uses the mode of sprinkling here 
 while He goes on to show that the other deeds 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 155 
 
 which must follow are the ones where the true 
 efficiency or the seat of right motives and true 
 Christianity lie. Water then, no matter how ap- 
 plied, whether sprinkled, dipped, poured or im- 
 mersed, is an outside sign of an inside cleansing. 
 Bear in mind, too, that the water does not do the 
 work of regeneration, nor is it done until God 
 takes out the heart of stone in us and gives us in- 
 stead, a heart of flesh, for the heart is 
 the council chamber of the whole man. As 
 fast as our brains conceive the thought which 
 flashes through our mind, it is conveyed to the 
 heart where it is either dismissed or harbored to 
 the good or evil of our future life. 
 
 God, therefore, puts a new heart into the con- 
 fessed, sprinkled, washed sinner and removes his 
 old heart stone. A fleshy heart makes you love 
 God’s Church and His cause and your sisters and 
 brothers. To this God tells the prophets, He will 
 add a right spirit. 
 
 The world has all kinds of spirits in rt. Still, 
 there is but one right spirit, and that is the Spirit 
 of Jesus Christ. That is the trouble with the Church 
 today, there are too many spirits in it. The out- 
 side enemies are not half as perilous to the Church’s 
 progress as the hypocrites in her miast. 
 
 Does it require your life today to say you are a 
 Christian; are there any courts of inquisition con- 
 stantly seeking out our places of worship, that we 
 may be led away to bias judges, who have ever list- 
 
156 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 ening ears repugnant to the word ‘Christianity’ who 
 stand ready to condemn us and cast us to the wild 
 beasts and flames? Are we any longer compelled 
 to go away down in the bowels of the earth, like 
 the early Christians who went into the catacombs 
 of Rome, or in some deserted places on the moun- 
 tains to own the Saviour? No, thank God, no, 
 but now, in the deep valleys, on the high hills, upon 
 the sea, to the ends of the earth, the strains of 
 Jesus, the Name high over all, is heard and there 
 are none to say, nay. Has the infidel’s propaganda 
 today any more bearing upon the peoples’ minds, or 
 the skeptics doubts, with any more complacency 
 heard to the injury of our Saviour’s cause in the 
 land, than the former time? Have the philosophers 
 any charm for the students, or their science any 
 arguments which have been refuted by equally as 
 learned heralds of the cross to the satisfaction of 
 all? Where, then, are the dangers of the outside 
 enemies’ stumbling block to the Church? Why, 
 then, do the fastidious waste any more of their 
 precious time discussing old dead issues long ago 
 established as truisms? 
 
 Rather, let us, both pulpits and pews, turn our 
 attention to one of our Saviour’s main texts, viz: 
 Physicians, heal thyself, and then tell others of 
 their infirmities.” Truly, friends, we have to a 
 great extent, as the Methodist Church, moved away 
 from the old time customs and usages; when men 
 used to be sorry for their sins and demonstrated it 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 157 
 
 in tears and confessed Christ before they were tak- 
 en into the Church. | 
 
 The Church has more to fear from devils who 
 have crept into her folds than from any outside 
 power of Satan. While the ministers and people 
 are busy contenting themselves with beautiful cath- 
 edrals, high social sway, and large rallies, the gay 
 city life, with its temptations and seductions are 
 luring our strong youth from the rural districts 
 and from under our very noses, our homes and 
 Sunday schools and leading them to ruin. 
 
 The Church needed defenders in the early days of 
 Methodism and the fathers stood up for her. She 
 needs them worse today to fight traitors who have 
 gotten into the ranks. Will you stand up? This 
 rule that suggests these remarks gives us the 
 blessed assurance that Jesus will help us as God 
 helped Israel to become cleaner and better each day. 
 Through prayer and faith we can break down every 
 idol in our hearts and draw nearer to the perfection 
 of His love. 
 
 May God inspire us as Methodists to still be- 
 lieve in the heartfelt religion which will change 
 every stony desire to that of flesh and spirit and 
 life. 
 
158 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 SOLILOQUIES ON BAPTISM AND THE ATON- 
 MENT 
 
 TENDENCY OF HUMAN NATURE TO EXALT THE 
 SIGN ABOVE THE THING SIGNIFIED 
 
 “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach 
 the gospel, not with wisdom of words—lest the 
 cross of Christ be made of non-effect.” I Cor. 1:17. 
 
 The apostle Paul who wrote these words was 
 eminently a man of one subject and that was 
 Christ, in His person, works, and office—this he 
 proved by preaching the gospel directly after his 
 conversion, and throughout his life, Christ was 
 his theme at Jerusalem and Antioch—in the syna- 
 gogues and in the jail at Athens and at Rome, to 
 the sages and to the princes, to the philosophers 
 and theologians, as well as to the strict Jews and 
 the unlearned Gentiles. He devoted His chief 
 thoughts to the life and works of his Saviour to 
 learn more and more of Him, that as an apostle 
 commissioned to preach to a lost world, he would 
 make the law of Jesus and His cross the greatest 
 theme in his life. Paul wanted his converts to 
 receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost and to know 
 that their sins were washed away by the blicod of 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 159 
 
 Christ; of so little value was baptism to him that 
 he hardly knew whom he had baptized. He thought 
 it was his business to preach the glad tidings of 
 peace and_ reconciliation to God through Christ 
 which he said was the sum and substance of the 
 whole matter. Christ’s crucifixion, the foundation 
 of the hope and the salvation of all believers 
 regardless to their creed or Church polity. 
 The Jews desired signs and wonders,  sea- 
 sons, feasts and fasts. All religious forms 
 and ceremonies, which they thought worship more 
 than a lowly contribute heart. 
 
 The tendency of human nature is to exalt the 
 sign above the thing signified. Many who have 
 adopted the literal cross as an emblem of the suffer- 
 ing Christ, are ignorant of the real Christ. 
 
 SALVATION NOT IN WATER, BUT IN THE BLOOD 
 OF CHRISE 
 
 The real salvation of the race lies not in the 
 waters of baptism but in the blood of Christ. Some 
 think to be baptized is to be regenerated, but God 
 _is a Spirit and he who comes to Him must come 
 in spirit and truth. So that the essential thing 
 with Him is to receive the baptismal fire and works 
 among our fellowmen. When Christ said on the 
 cross, “It is finished”, He meant the full measure 
 of His words—He meant that the atonement was 
 completed, that nothing could be added to the cross 
 
160 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 when we try to add to it, we cover and belittle its 
 grandeur and power. 
 
 Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the 
 gospel, to proclaim the best news the world has 
 ever heard to bind, up its broken heart, to loose the 
 captives, and to carry light to those who sit in 
 darkness. Preach Christ no matter what men say, 
 preach as He Himself preached when He was with 
 us on earth; let men make their creeds and form 
 their modes of worship, but tell them, “Behold 
 the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the 
 world.” This news is so good that Christ, said, 
 “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to 
 every creature.”. Do not wait for them to come 
 to you, but go to them; go because the world needs 
 you; go because I send you; go in my Spirit, go 
 in my humility; go in my power and in my com- 
 pany, “for lo, I am with you always.” Preach the 
 gospel for it is your distinct office—preach it as 
 T have taught you to preach it—preach it not as a 
 gospel, but as the gospel of glad tidings, eminently 
 more gladdening than all the tidings ever heard. 
 Many people of today are disputing about creeds 
 and mode of baptism, others are arguing whether 
 Calvin or Aminius, whether Luther or Malanthan, 
 whether the Protestant or the Roman Catholic 
 Church is right—what Jesus requires is a clean 
 heart and righteous living, no matter what your 
 creed o* theology, for all of these are supplement- 
 ary modes of physical temperament and varied, ac- 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 161 
 
 cording to the light these mortals have conceived. 
 But Christ tells us to preach the gospel and not 
 try to prove it, it will prove itself as sunshine 
 proves itself. All heaven exalts us to preach it, and 
 the earth anguishes to hear it. Let us stop arguing 
 whose creed is right and turn that force so wasted 
 on Satan and sin. Everybody knows what you are, 
 and God help you if you are not something. A 
 man without a creed is like a ship without a helm. 
 While we are discussing modes of baptism and 
 liturgy, our sons and daughters are dying out of 
 Christ. Preach the gospel as salvation from sin, 
 from sorrow and death. One of the worst backsets 
 the gospel has had in heathen lands came from the 
 different denominations contending that their creed 
 was the only true creed and the only religion recog- 
 ized by the Lord. Just think of a man living in dark- 
 ness, bowing down to wood and stone, finding him- 
 self in the midst of several creeds and dogmas, 
 such as we find surrounding us all, or each telling 
 him this ts right and condemning the others and 
 still trying to teach the poor heathen that our God 
 is one God, with one faith. 
 
 Listen, the trouble is not in that every man 
 should not be persuaded by his own belief when it 
 comes to church polity with the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of Christianity, the essential thing is to 
 know that you have been converted, tf you have 
 been converted and know that you have passed 
 from death unto life, join any church you please 
 
162 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 and be baptized in any mode you desire, water will 
 not take you te heaven, you simply, through this 
 sign, show the world what has been accomplished 
 inside. Let your conscience be your judge and the 
 deed is done. Preach the gospel to the rich and 
 to the poor, let the learned and the unlearned catch 
 its strain alike—tell them there is mercy, sing it, 
 pray it, and then, wherever you find a man bound 
 with sin, with one stroke of the gospel hammer 
 he shall be free. 
 
 THE. CROSS “SYMBOLIZES THE “WISDOM AND 
 POWER OF GOD 
 
 Again the apostle in this text suggests that the 
 cross preaching should be done in a certain way— 
 lest is should be made of non-effect. 
 
 The cross symbolizes the wisdom and power of 
 God and the atonement of Jesus Christ, and these 
 may be made of non-effect by rhetorical wisdom 
 
 of the world. The Corinthians thought themselves 
 a literary people—they had been inclined to dis- 
 
 count the teaching of Paul because he did not use 
 fine rhetoric, like some of the Grecian orators. 
 They were thinking more about how they said 
 things, than what was said, for they desired to 
 hear the words which sounded wise measured by 
 profane standards; but Paul avoided any such dis- 
 play he was afraid to present them a rhetorical 
 bouquet, lest they would look at the faded flowers 
 and not the everlasting cross. Words are not to 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 163 
 
 cover the cross, but to exhibit it. Therefore, what 
 the Corinthians needed was not a golden dipper to 
 drink from, but the water of life, regardless of 
 the vessel conveying it to their mouths. Who 
 doubts that Paul under the guidance of the Holy 
 Spirit could have written a whole treatise on rhe- 
 toric and used such phrases therein that would have 
 made the most fastidious Corinthian applaud, but 
 he was showing the cross and it needed no dis- 
 play. 
 
 O, this cry for worldly wisdom. God, has chosen 
 the weak to confound the strong—when the Jew- 
 ish priest and the Sanhedrin court had failed to 
 give ease to guilty conscience, our Saviour took 
 twelve unlearned fishermen and trained them for 
 three vears and then told them to tarry at Jerusa- 
 lem until He sent them the Holy Spirit. And when 
 the day of pentacost had come and they were in 
 the upper chamber, God’s first power house on 
 earth, they received the Holy Ghost and they des- 
 cended and went into the bloody streets of Jerusa- 
 lem, and three thousand happy souls were convert- 
 ed and joined the church, which caused a fire of 
 the gospel to kindle and burn from city to city, 
 from country to country, joining in the cry of 
 triumph, age followed ages of the awakening, 
 marching to the mighty strain until its music re- 
 sounded from pole to pole. 
 
 O, Greece, where is thy wisdom? Speak, Socra- 
 tes! Speak, Plato! Speak all you divinities of science 
 
 \ 
 
164 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 and philosophy! Alas! the ministerial are no 
 more! Thy laurels, O Athens, have long since crum- 
 bled and mingled with the dust, and the voice of 
 thy fame is a fainting echo of the long past! But 
 in every land over every wave, the cross of Christ 
 is preached and kings and their thrones are for- 
 gotten in the lustre of the crucified One, for here 
 the power of God is wrought and the wisdom of 
 God is understood. 
 
 We admit that science has done much for the 
 race, but all it brought to light came through 
 the knowledge of God handed down to man. Hip- 
 pech found longitude and latitude trying to measure 
 the distance of the stars apart. Galileo found the 
 pendulum of the clock investigating the movement 
 of the sun. The rocks tell that God exists, bat 
 still all of these leave a veil between us and God. 
 Only the Saviour and the preaching of the Word, 
 bring us face to face with our Maker. Then the man 
 is wise who will leave off all of these things he 
 knows and go to the cross and study there the plan 
 of human redemption. Be what you may, astrono- 
 mer, geologist, or philsopher, but you must yield 
 place to the Christian student who comes to the 
 cross with a contrite heart to learn from Christ 
 that worldly wisdom will not suffice in the valley 
 of the shadow of death. If wisdom of the world 
 could have saved man, Christ would have written 
 a treatise on science, when He stood on Mt. Olive 
 and wept for the daughters of His people—but 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 165 
 
 science could not save souls, neither could chaste 
 ‘speech nor anything but the blood of Christ, told 
 am the simplest language could do the work. The 
 “qro@ss 1s God’s apology for love and His criticism 
 e& sin. The cross is God’s great battle ground and 
 Christ His mighty captain of salvation. Can man by 
 searching, find out God to perfection? The ages 
 cry out, no! But the cross reaches God in His 
 perfection. 
 
 , wonderful love on Calvary’s summit! See Him 
 2 spectacle for heaven and earth—I hear the in- 
 <puiry, was He wounded before? And eternity an- 
 swered, no. Another inquiry, where did He re- 
 ceive His wounds? Immensity replied, on earth, 
 tor no other orb has known the dripping of His pre- 
 cous blood. Still another voice, why was He woun- 
 dled ? And the earth responded, He was wounded for 
 man’s transgressions and by His stripes we are 
 healed. 
 
 The cross may be rendered ineffectual by com- 
 glaint, that it is lower that God. They paint Christ 
 as the highest type of humanity and devotion and 
 amselfshness, but this is only a half truth, and a 
 half truth is more deceiving than a whole lie. It 
 deceives the worshipper and covers the cross in 
 sts fullness and efficacy. Christ as He worked 
 among men, was an example, but as He went to 
 the cross, He was an atonement, for no man was 
 able to bridge the great gulf between God and His 
 creature man, none but Christ could do this work, 
 
166 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 None but Christ could satisfy justice; heaven, hell 
 and the earth were searched, but only Jesus the 
 eternal son of God could go to Calvary’s cross. 
 Christ the only atonement for man able to change 
 his sinful nature, therefore, man had to coime to 
 God through Christ.” 
 
 If blazing stars and burning suns could have done 
 the work of salvation, God would have used them. 
 If fallen angels could have accomplished the mighty 
 task, they would have been assigned to it. If sim- 
 less angels were more equal to the emergency, 
 God would have delighted in trusting it in their 
 hands and thereby save the apple of His eye, Jesus 
 Christ. If God Himself, could have done the work 
 there would have been no Calvary’s blood summit 
 in God’s plan, none but Jesus could do the mighti- 
 est work of works. 
 
 What a criticism on sin when the only begotten 
 Son of God was required to leave His throne of 
 power and dominion to come to a sin cursed world 
 to save rebellious man. ‘Therefore the smallest 
 sin can damn the greatest man. 
 
 Just think what a black world we are living in, 
 despite the preaching and teaching of Enoch, Abra- 
 ham, [saae and Moses. Of all the prophets and iudg- 
 es of the Christ an 1 His apostles; ef al! the saints 
 and martyrs, sin is still more prevalent than right- 
 eousness. What would have been the scene of hu- 
 man history if these good men had not lived. If sin 
 so blackened the world despite all of this, the picture 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 167 
 
 would have been indeed unfit to look upon, with- 
 out these spots of light upon the pages of these 
 dark records. By the cross God says sin is the 
 worst enemy to both God and man. 
 
 WHERE WILL YOU GO TO SHOW ME THE EVILS 
 OF SIN AND THE GOODNESS OF GOD 
 
 Where will you go to show me the evil of Sin? 
 i will take you to a murderer‘s cell. I stop not 
 there, but take you to a drunkard’s grave. I stop 
 not there, but take you to the cross and point you 
 to my Saviour. I remember that He is God and 
 mman hanging on a tree, and I say how great must 
 have been man’s sins that none but God’s son could 
 atone for him. 
 
 Where will you go to show me the goodness of 
 God? Some will carry me to their well-fitted 
 homes and show me their splendid gardens and 
 cattles and grown up children and say here is love 
 of God—but I stop not there. I go to Calvary’s 
 eross and see my Saviour bleeding for my redemp- 
 tion and I| say here is the greatest proof of God’s 
 love. Did Jesus ask why God had forsaken Him, 
 it was justice driving that last nail, which must be 
 dene while Christ yet lived for death could not 
 realize the meanings of these sublime words which 
 meant so much to heaven and earth. It is finished 
 ~—do you wonder that the sun veiled his face from 
 the sixth to the ninth hour, when He who made 
 the sun and kept it turning in its orbit was being 
 
168 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 crucified-—no wonder he drew aside to mourn. The 
 love Christ exhibited on the cross can never be 
 told in human language. Therefore, the cross shal} 
 be the theme in time and eternity. It has made 
 labor sweet and the earth beautiful. Paul gloried 
 in the cross, preached it, suffered for it and died: 
 defending it. The blood stained cross stands in the 
 centre of all human history. Yes, all history con- 
 verges on it, and all progress comes from it benigm 
 influence. It has changed cells of sin to places o% 
 joy—it stands behind the earth’s greatest discover- 
 ies and inventions. It has changed the love feast 
 chamber at Jerusalem to a palace as wide as the 
 world. irom the twelve have come millions. The 
 world today is crowning the cross as the orb of 
 light, all science and philosophy, all governmer 
 and knowledge and progress are placing flowers at 
 
 the base of the cross, still the great day of triumph 
 of the cross on earth will come when denomina- 
 
 tional strife will cease and the one opinion of the 
 cross and the Lamb will sing “All hail the power of 
 Jesus’ name.” 
 
 Brethren, soon, very soon, every being in the umt- 
 verse will confess that Christ’s blood was not sheet 
 in vain. But what is your relation to the crass> 
 Is the bleeding Saviour your personal friend? Is 
 the sweet song of redemption your song? Will the 
 hallelujah chorus be your blissful share? Bring all 
 your controversies and doubts and place them at. 
 the foot of the cross. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 169 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 MUSING 
 JUST THINKING 
 
 Do you know it is a good thing to think, and that 
 the best way to cause you to think is to read other 
 peoples’ thoughts? No one should read to be a 
 glagiarist, but he reads that the thought he sees 
 might flash through his mind, and like throwing 
 water into the mouth of a pump which is sucked, 
 amd pumping it brings up the deeper water at the 
 bottom of the well. 
 
 Every good thought which comes into one’s mind 
 amd is nurtured and wrought out with the hands 
 Becomes an artificial personage and joins in the 
 world’s activities of things to make tangible ma- 
 terials and history and comfort the race. 
 
 Say what you will, a thought is a thing, initiated 
 mm the realms of the senses of a moral being but 
 writl die there if not allowed to be born and develop- 
 ed into usefulness. Thought conceived, the gigan- 
 tm: suspension bridges which span our great rivers 
 and cut the Panama Canal connecting the Atlantic 
 amd Pacific Oceans, saving ships thousands of miles 
 tavel around Cape Horn. Thought dug the tunnels 
 mader the great towering mountains and harnessed 
 
170 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 the powers of the tremendous cataracts of the thun- 
 dering falls to light cities and to bear burdens 
 miles away. Thought lifted man from the caves 
 he once crawled into, to the mansions into which he 
 now dwells. Brawn is good to have, but it is noth- 
 ing left alone but misdirected force. The diggers 
 of the gold and silver, of the coal and iron, the 
 separation of the precious metal from the dross 
 are all directed by thought. 
 
 Tgnorance spells so much inconvenience and poy- 
 erty, while enlightenment with the right use of such 
 powers, means at least, you have it in your hands 
 to keep the wolf from the door. What J mean is 
 this, ignorance and poverty can never cope with 
 intelligence and means. If one thinks his thoughts 
 will be about his children while he is able to make 
 
 a few dollars and will lay aside some of his earn- 
 ings for them that they may not be hampered in 
 
 their training to become useful men and women. 
 When one does not think, he lives only in the now 
 
 -—he has no past experience to spur him to future 
 endeavors, nor does his mind cast any shadows 
 
 before him te help prepare him for his inactive 
 hours. 
 RELIGION 
 
 Then religions and the worn out codes of ethics 
 and mythologies came to me. I thought of Brah- 
 manism, the worshippers of the gods of nature, of 
 
 Ra the sun god, of Zoroaster the fire god, of 
 Confucius and Buddha and Lao-Tsze who blended 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 171 
 
 astrology and philosophy into the latest Confucious- 
 ism. One of these codes runs thus: “Learning un- 
 
 digested by thought is labor lost ; thought unassist- 
 ed by learning is perilous.” I thought of Jugger- 
 naut, the celebrated god of the world of Shintoism. 
 the religion of patriotism to the Mikado implicit 
 obedience to him whom the Japanese claimed drop- 
 ped from the heaven. Of Fetishism, the lowest 
 form of idolatry. Fetishism and witchcraft go hand 
 in hand: the Fetishes are supposed to keep away the 
 witches, hence the dime around the ankle, the 
 little black bag with several articles around the 
 neck, the lucky stone or rabbit foot in the pocket 
 are the relics of Fetishism. All of these strange 
 ereeds and idol gods passed before my view; as I 
 thought I examined them and not even Judaism, 
 with its monotheistic god measures up to the re- 
 ligion of the Lord Jesus Christ, which gives the 
 highest expression of the soul, and lifts and cleans 
 the body. To read His works and deeds and see the 
 spirit He has left behind Him in good men and the 
 Bible, It is thought so simple yet so _ profound, 
 which produces such chaste diction in the language 
 of the times, yet altogether classical and logical 
 today. It is beautiful because it directs thought 
 towards the highest Being. The nearer one gets 
 to the infinite Almighty, the higher he thinks of the 
 immortal, the sublime. 
 
172 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 MUSIC 
 
 Music is the science of harmonious sounds which 
 may be produced by the human voice or bells or 
 pipes or strings. The Stabat Mater and the Cre- 
 ation and the celebrated oratorios were the divime 
 intuition that illuminated the thoughts and rang 
 in the ears of such great masters as Jocabine da. 
 
 Todi, Bach, Haden, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven and 
 Mendelsohn and directed their finders as they were 
 
 inspired to place the interpretations of their souls 
 with dots upon lines and spaces which notated 
 rythmic melody and dynamonics or height, depth 
 and power of sounds. I was just thinking about 
 the music of the bells, how their chimes have denot- 
 ed both joy and sorrow. St. Peter at Rome joined 
 in the festivities of the vatican and call the Cath- 
 olic world to reverence and devotion. Notre Daimne 
 at Paris, where Gracia placed the bells in 1162 has 
 rung many changes of the French nation. It was 
 here Napoleon was crowned and baptized and 
 crowned his son, King of Rome, while the bells 
 
 chimed. In busy London, West Minister Abbey 
 chimes every fifteen minutes to call the unthinking 
 
 attention to the great dome pointing men to God 
 amidst the mad commercial rush. Old St. Michael’s. 
 Church bells at Charleston, S. C., called President 
 George Washington to worship over a _ hundred 
 years ago. It still chimes, “Ding, Dong bells,” like 
 Liberty Bell which was cracked telling the natiow 
 that the Declaration of Independence was signed 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 173 
 
 and the colonies had cut the rope between them and 
 England, the mother country. I also thought about 
 the bells which were worn on the skirts of the Jew- 
 ish priests, how solemn they must have sounded as 
 they officiated around the altars. I was thinking 
 how serere the blast of the trumpets must have 
 sounded in the ancient days when they called men 
 to be crowned kings and priests and to rush into 
 battle and inspired them to victory or defeat and 
 death. Even in these times the bugle has a solemn 
 sound as it blows taps to the last resting place of 
 the soldier. Was there a clarinet player in your 
 neighborhood as there was in mine, who sent out 
 early Christmas morning the sweet nctes from his 
 instrument, ‘rloly Night?” which sounded heaven- 
 ly and serene? 
 
 David’s sweet harp which charmed kings and 
 princes was reechoed in old Bull celebrated vio- 
 lin. The pipe organ is supposed to blend all the 
 means of making music in one, to hear the great 
 organ at Oberlin College, or at Wanamaker’s store 
 in Philadelphia, would cause you to believe the ef- 
 fort was not too far fetched. After all, music is the 
 production of thought; blend all of the means of 
 making music together, and hear a great hallelu- 
 jah chorus accompanied by horns and bells and 
 strings and the thought of God will burn the soul. 
 
 Then I thought of the old time Methodists, and 
 in my mind’s eye, pictured John and Charles Wes- 
 ley, Francis Asbury, Richard Allen, Paul Quinn, 
 
174 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 Daniel A. Payne and H. M. Turner, as they went 
 from place to place singing the sweet old Method- 
 ist songs, ard preaching the doctrine of saving 
 grace, my soul is illuminated. 
 
 I wonder why today that we do not glory so 
 much in Methodist hymns. Let us go back to 
 Methodism. We havé a ritual, we should use it. 
 Every Methodist pulpit the world over, should have 
 the Methodist services. After all we may say and 
 do about it, we will not be able to make much im- 
 provement in any way on the order of services in 
 the worship of Methodism. The old time class 
 meeting and love feast songs that fired the heart 
 of our fathers and mother will still fire ours. Let 
 the welkin ring; let the people sing; lead them not 
 away from the landmarks astray. 
 
 Back to Methodism—sing her songs—send up 
 her extemporaneous prayers. I have just been 
 thinking of the sweet inspirations that have flown 
 into my heart from Methodist simplicity and se- 
 renity. 
 
BACK TO METHODISM TAS 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 PROOF OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 
 THE GREATEST EVENT IN HISTORY 
 
 “The Lord is risen indeed.” Luke 24:34. 
 
 We gather every Easter morning to celebrate 
 the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is 
 the greatest event the world has ever known. It 
 was heralded by angels; foretold by prophets; poets 
 sang its praises; the Jewish priests spoke of it in 
 symbolical language for two thousand years; and 
 heaven was waiting when it came to pass, to join 
 in the hallelujah chorus. At the crucifixion three 
 malefactors were put to death; but the one hung 
 in the middle of them was the most mysterious per- 
 sonage ever clothed in mortal flesh. Crucifixion 
 was the common mode of inflicting death upon 
 those who committed civil or religious crimes wor- 
 thy of death and Jesus was charged with blasphemy. 
 Generally, such criminals were put to death and 
 shortly forgotten, but not so with Jesus. He had 
 been of too much use to all classes of people; had 
 all thought He would break the Roman yoke and 
 done so many marvelous deeds and complied so 
 closely with the description of the Messiah, that 
 set Israel free. But despite all His philosophical 
 
176 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 speeches and the many precepts He gave by ex- 
 amples, He refused to be made King, while He sub- 
 mitted to insults, was arrested, abused and scourg- 
 ed, convicted of the most despicable crime and died 
 the meanest death—these facts made Jesus a stumb 
 ling block to the Jews, and foolishness to the 
 Greeks. No wonder of such, for truly Jesus was a 
 mysterious Being. 
 
 TRULY HE DID LIVE 
 
 For thirty-two years He had been going through 
 the length and breadth of Palestine, doing one sur- 
 prising thing after another. He was the centre of 
 all human thoughts from the manger to the cross. 
 The last week He was on earth, He left us enough 
 to save us, if all of the other part of His life was 
 left unrecorded. In this week He prophesied the 
 destruction of Jerusalem; administered the last 
 supper to His disciples; told of His betrayal, death 
 and resurrection. He rode triumphantly into Je- 
 rusalem, entered the temple and scourged and dis- 
 charged the money exchangers; rebuked the sloth- 
 ful fig tree; silenced the Pharisees and Scribes for 
 all times. Then came His arrest and sentence and 
 crucifixion; and with this, the probability of His 
 resurrection which was the theme of the discourse 
 between the two disciples, who were going from 
 Jerusalem to Emmaus when Jesus approached them 
 and inquired why they held such a sad conversation 
 
\ 
 
 \ 
 
 BACK TO METHODISM 177 
 
 _ one with the other, they told Him they were talk- 
 \ing of Jesus, a prophet indeed, and mighty in the 
 
 works whom the rulers recently put to death, and 
 were surprised at His ignorance of not being in- 
 formed upon so important a matter. However, 
 they said, this is the third day since He has been 
 dead, and some of our company went to His tomb 
 early this morning, and have reported to others of 
 us that they saw a vision of angels, and that the 
 Lord is risen, indeed! Here Jesus turned, the table 
 upon them, and showed that they, instead of Him- 
 self, were ignorant, for the Scriptures from Gene- 
 
 sis to Malachi say that He must suffer and be cruci- 
 fied, but on the third day He would rise again from 
 
 the dead. By this time they had reached their home 
 and invited this affable stranger to spend the night 
 with them. Now when supper was ready and they 
 had sat down to eat, Jesus took bread and when 
 He gave thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, 
 and immediately their eyes came open, and they 
 saw Jesus, who, as quickly, disappeared. So good 
 was the sight to them, ard delightful the com- 
 munion they had with him, they straightway re- 
 turned to the city to tell the other disciples that 
 they hed seen Jesus. But on entering the house 
 where they were, before they could tell their pleas-- 
 ant experience, the whole assembly burst forth in 
 one acclaim, shouting, “The Lord is risen, indeed.” 
 
 Here evidence meets evidence, but since this is 
 all internal evidence, let us consider some external 
 
178 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 evidence. All, both friends and foes, admitted that 
 Jesus was a natural person, for many were alive 
 
 who knew Him from His youth up. He ate and 
 drank, laughed and wept with them; He handled 
 others and they handled Him. He had all the sus- 
 ceptibilities common to mankind, and was subject 
 to all the laws of nature—hence, His public trial, 
 conviction and execution. 
 
 WAS HE REALLY DEAD? 
 
 Yes, He was put to death on Friday, receiving 
 five bloody wounds, after which He was taken 
 from the cross and tightly bound in linen cloth from 
 head to foot, and was placed in a stone tomb, where 
 His body laid for three days. If there was a spark 
 of life in Him when taken from the cross, it would 
 have gone out because of the suffocating condition 
 natural to an airtight compartment. Of course He 
 was dead before He was taken from the cross—the 
 earth acknowledged it and quaked—heaven saw it— 
 and the sun hid his face, and darkness enveloped 
 the earth at noonday. 
 
 WAS HE ARISEN e 
 
 The angels say, yes; the prophets say, yes; the 
 Roman soldiers said, “Truly this is the Son of God.” 
 
 Then the resurrection is probable, it is possible, and 
 is actually in the Bible. Jesus spoke of it before 
 He died, and proved it by raising Lazarus and the 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 179 
 
 widow’s son from the dead.. The Pharisees be- 
 lieved it possible and went to Pilate, and requested 
 him to piace a guard at the sepulchre to defeat this 
 last, but most imnertant aim of !fesus, to establish 
 His religion in the hearts of men. Every precau- 
 tion was taken. The tomb was sealed with the 
 Roman eagle, and sixty-five well armed and dis- 
 ciplined soldiers were placed on duty day and night 
 to keep watch. Then that unreasonable tale which 
 the Jews told that the disciples came by night and 
 stole the body while the soldiers slept, is absurd. 
 Think of a few unlearned, dreadfully frightened, 
 powerless and greatly despised Gallilean fishermen, 
 
 who were momently waiting with abated breath and 
 palpitating hearts to be arrested and share Jesus’ 
 
 fate, going to a tomb just outside of the city at that 
 time of the year when crowds came from every- 
 
 where to celebrate the passover (insomuch, until 
 the inns were unable to accommodate them) so 
 that the suburhs of the city were white with tents 
 
 of campers, while the moon shone as brightly as 
 day, as sixty-five valiant Roman soldiers were sen- 
 tinels; or was it possible for sixty-five persons to 
 sleep at once while a crowd of men walked over 
 them and rolled away a huge stone from the mouth 
 of the sepulchre, and take away the body without 
 the noise awakening any one of the number? Or, 
 
 why were not the soldiers tried for neglect of duty? 
 Since it was as serious a crime to sleep on guard 
 
 as to commit a high treason, which meant sudden 
 death to a Roman soldier. Matthew was right 
 
180 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 when he said the soldiers were protected by Jew- 
 ish bribes and given money to spread the infamous 
 lie that the disciples came by night and stole the 
 body of Jesus, and said He rose from the dead, 
 which never occurred. Truly, the soldiers slept but 
 it was not natural sleep, it was the sleep of fear 
 which fell upon them.from heaven. 
 
 When God swung wide the portals, and sent a 
 great convoy of celestial messengers down to earth 
 to escort His victorious Son back to His shining 
 courts above, the noise was too terrible for their 
 ears, the light of their countenance too bright for 
 their eyes, these heavenly armed soldiers struck 
 them with awe: they fell as dead men while the 
 mightiest work of works was being done. 
 
 Space will not allow us to give further proofs of 
 the resurrection in this short discourse, but those 
 cited are sufficient to show that Jesus indeed lived, 
 suffered, died and arose again from the dead. 
 
 But upon this single fact rests the hope of im- 
 morality. But the Lord is risen indeed; and our 
 doubts and fears are dispelled, and joy and gladness 
 take their places. The Lord is risen indeed! And 
 with the resurrection comes the newness of life 
 to the whole universe. Nature welcomes it and 
 puts forth her best efforts to gladden the occasion. 
 
 The air is clear, the sky is bright, the sun sends 
 forth his golden rays by day to awaken all things 
 
 from their benumbed hibernation; the moon and 
 her countless number of starry companions shed 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 181 
 
 their silvery lights from a beautiful back ground of 
 blue dome, which fell majestically upon the earth, 
 as they shouted for joy over the victory of the 
 Lord. The earth is beautifully carpeted with green 
 grass, the trees are putting out their leaves and 
 blossoms, the shrubs and vines are seen on every 
 
 side; while flowers in abundance fill the air with 
 sweet fragrance. Amidst this scene of magnifi- 
 
 cence and grandeur, the hum of the honey bees is 
 heard, end the songs of mocking birds and larks 
 float on the zephyr. The beasts of the field, and the 
 
 creeping things of the ground and reptiles of the 
 earth, join in the glad awakening and come out 
 
 from their dens, caves and lairs to warm in the 
 Easter sun, and to feed upon the pastures of the 
 Eastertide. Man sees all of this and greets the 
 season with the hope of abundant harvest when his 
 summer toils are over and his barns are filled and 
 his soul satisfied. 
 
 RESULTS OF EASTER TO THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 To the Christian, Easter reminds him of the hope 
 of the soul when it shall triumph over death. The 
 resurrection is our greatest hope and expectation; 
 no other success or achievement is so real and last- 
 ing. Heroes, patriots, statesmen, poets, orators, 
 philosophers, philanthropists and saints have pass- 
 ed away; the scenes of their wars and hardships— 
 their sacrifices and spiritual conflicts, their councils 
 and eloquence, they leave behind them. It may be 
 
182 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 a long and lasting memory and an imperishable re- 
 nown, but they, themselves, are taken away from 
 all conscious and direct living intercourse, even 
 with their dearest friends and most devoted adher- 
 ents. Imaginaton and memory may linger upon 
 their words; their praises may be rehearsed in eulo- 
 gies and songs; their likeness may be recalled in 
 sculptures by painting, avd in poetry; their deeds 
 may be transmitted from father to son in long and 
 grateful traditions, but their loving personal pres- 
 ence is neither felt nor seen. Jesus in contrast with 
 them is not only a historical personage as these 
 mighty sages were, but we believe in Him and feel 
 His living presence in our hearts. We meet Him 
 each day as a trusted personal friend, and look to 
 Him for succor, wisdom and strength. His pres- 
 ence at the right hand of His Majesty on high 
 greets the eye of faith as it looks upward. In hours 
 of contest, in anguish and death, we see the loving 
 eve, and lean upon that mighty living arm. We 
 hear that sweet voice making constant intercession 
 to the Father for us. He is willing and able to 
 save all that come to Him, because he has power 
 in heaven and on earth, “Because He lives, we shall 
 live, also.” 
 
 Hallelujah, praise ye the Lord—wipe away your 
 tears, cease from sorrow, lift up your voice, shout 
 for joy in your hearts; for the Lord is risen indeed 
 and Justice asks no more. 
 
 “O, grave where is thy Me a i death, where 
 is thy Bane" Pa 
 
 i 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 183 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 BULWARKS 
 THE GREAT CELEBRATION 
 
 “Walk about Zion and go round about her tell the 
 towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, con- 
 sider her palaces, that ye may tell it to generations 
 
 following.” Psaim 18:12-13. 
 Our text is taken from this psalm which was 
 
 sung by the sons of Korah to express joy and rever- 
 ence to God upon festal occasions. It seems that 
 the occasicn which brought forth this burst of jubi- 
 lant and steadfast faith in Jehovah was when the 
 kings of the heathen nations around them contrived 
 to destroy Zion and failed, the Lord struck them 
 with fear, and the ornaments and privileges of the 
 church were exhibited in their eyes. 
 
 In song, Zion is extolled and the people avowed 
 Jehovah to be their God forever. Thus, the im- 
 pression conveycd to cur minds through such 
 
 acts is that it is impossible to destroy the Church of 
 God. But for fear there may be some who do not 
 
 understand the supernatural power wrapped up in 
 Holy Zion, an invitation is extended to all, regard- 
 ess to creed or no creed, to examine the founda- 
 tion and the shafts of the pillars upon which the 
 
184. BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 Church of God is reared. We come, then, to stand 
 at the gates of the great superstructure of Zion, 
 resting on her beautiful hills which conceal the 
 destiny of man’s salvation. God has placed the 
 keys of it in our hands that we might go in and 
 examine it and see for. ourselves the ground upon 
 which the temple of truth and faith is erected, and 
 the materials which hold together its everlasting 
 structure. 
 
 Every great celebration brings together large 
 crowds of people for one purpose and another. Some 
 come that they might pay homage to the occasion; 
 others come to criticise and pick flaws. However, 
 at this celebration none are rejected; all are invited 
 and every one is entreated to unlock the outer and 
 inner gates of the courts and walk in and go round 
 about her, and tell the towers thereof, and mark well 
 her bulwarks that they might tell it to generations 
 following. 
 
 Methodism, our branch of Zion, has been in the 
 midst of the world for 185 years. Varied and 
 tedious has been the journey over which she has 
 travelled. Many bishops have presided over her, 
 many presiding elders and pastors have come and 
 gone; while the old members who founded it have 
 long since crossed the Jordan. But she still stands 
 in the world dispensing good will and charity from 
 the heart of the Saviour. Many enemies have 
 done all they could to impede her progress, but 
 she stands here today in her spirit, with more in- 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 185 
 
 fluence and power than ever before. Some who 
 have wasted their lives trying to hinder God’s 
 cause are still on the outside of His grace and 
 favor and wrapped up in mystery and reasoning 
 why the plans they thought so sure would have 
 carried, fail, and the Church continues to go on, 
 gaining converts, reclaiming backsliders, marrying 
 and baptizing, and burying the dead. Zion has no 
 enemies, rather she pities them who hate her and 
 extends to every class an invitation to enter her 
 courts and survey her wall and compass her 
 ground, that they might see why she succeeds 
 while they fail. 
 
 AN INVITATION TO EXAMINE THE SHAFTS OF 
 Pee PiL VARS 
 
 Come in, all of you, the infidels, the sceptics, the 
 agnostics, the polytheists, deists, and heritics. Let 
 the worldly wise man with his philosophies and 
 isms, codes of morals and fastidious new thoughts 
 and phantoms come in, who is trying to gain 
 worldly applause which will fade away with them. 
 while their bodies molter in the clay. But before 
 you enter, promise to leave all biasness on the 
 outside and rid your minds of prejudice and envy, 
 and promise to give credit where it is due. 
 
 The infidel says there is no God, that this vast 
 creation came by chance. “Ex nihil nihil fit’ —From 
 nothing nothing is made. No dead thing can beget 
 
186 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 a live one, there must have been some first live 
 cause to spread life in the universe. Man himself 
 is too marvelously made to be a machine put to- 
 gether by chance. A thing made by chance could 
 be first one thing and then another, our hands, 
 by chance, would be where our feet are 
 and our eyes where our ears are sometimes. By 
 chance with no providential guidance, sometime 
 the sun would rule the night and the moon the 
 day, there would be no seed time, no harvest, no 
 even season, no time for the birds of the air to 
 hatch their brood, or the beasts of the field to 
 bring forth their young. A chance universe would 
 not mean any special species of living things, but 
 by chance, a conglomeration of everything, man 
 or beast, or bird or whar not, as the thing might 
 chance to happen. 
 
 Tom Payne and Rouseau and Hume, stood on 
 the outside of the temple and howled against the 
 Bible like the dog barked at the moon until it was 
 too late, then Payne spoke for them all when he 
 said, “I am making a tremendous leap in the dark. 
 Y am lost.” A man who calls himself an infidel, 
 does not believe himself because he has some sense 
 of deeper inner self, a germ, seed of religion 
 wrought in the realm of the senses with prospec- 
 tive and retrospective thoughts which ring in his 
 heart sorrow for his sins and wonder for the fu- 
 ture well being. 
 
 The sceptics say they do not know whether there 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 18/7 
 
 is a God or not. Come into the gates of Zion and 
 compare the things wrought in her courts, with 
 those on the outside. They: say they don’t know 
 and the reason is because they have tried to mix 
 true an undefiled religion with all kinds of mytholo- 
 gies and heathen philosophies. The cloud gathered 
 from this mixture will leave any one in doubt. 
 Why not drop these mystic enigmas and strip your- 
 self of worldly knowledge, and reason from the 
 source of your own being, tracing the moral and re- 
 ligious nature within you so that you can lft your- 
 self from the flesh unto che spiritual elevation 
 where the deep Godlike symptoms dwell and doubt 
 would fade away from you like chaff before the 
 wind. 
 
 The polytheists say there are many gods. They 
 get their false belief from the many ideas they 
 have allowed their hearts to conceive regarding the 
 true and living God. Come into the courts of Zion 
 and go round about her that you might see how 
 strong and well protected is the city. All of the 
 gods of mythology carved from gold and silver, or 
 adopted from nature have died with the nations 
 and peoples who brought them out of their becloud- 
 ed and wicked imaginations. But Zion and her 
 God wax stronger as the age rolls on into the ages. 
 Let the heretics also come in, this is examination 
 day. 
 
188 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 FAITH AND THE BIBLE STRONG PILLARS IN ZION 
 
 Since the coming of the Church artful schemers 
 have been trying to wreck her from within by ac- 
 cepting a half truth. Mohammed tried to swallow 
 up Jesus as one of His: prophets when he said there 
 is but one God and Mohammed is his prophet. All 
 other prophets, including Jesus, were subordinate 
 to him. Arius fought very hard at Nicea, 325 
 A. D.)\to (iteke trom) i Jesus!) His 4) divines) aes 
 ture, but Athanasius stood like a_ stone 
 wall defending both the divinity and hu- 
 manity of Jesus, and the council upheld him. Many 
 strong men in and out of the Church have tried to 
 destroy her, but none have prevailed. Persecution 
 began with the murder of Abel and down through 
 the generations amidst scourging and pillage and 
 death it has come thick and fast, but all have only 
 made converts and broadened the stakes and 
 stretched the cords of Zion. He watches over her 
 every act. Some have even assayed to say the 
 Church is losing her power. This may be 
 true of some Church congregations or even 
 denominations where the people congregate 
 without God. But God’s Chutctt;4si) tae 
 fleshy part of His people’s hearts, who have 
 been truly converted and will never perish from the 
 earth, because when form and fashion superceed 
 spirituality and benevolence, He destroys that 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 189 
 
 congregation or denomination and rears up another 
 like Ezekiel’s dry bones, to serve Him. 
 
 Faith is one of the strongest pillars in Zion. By 
 it we see our Saviour dying on Calvary, also hear 
 Him saying on Mt.Olive after He arose from the 
 dead, “All power is trusted in my hands, in heaven 
 and in earth. Go ye into the world and preach the 
 gospel to every creature.” Mark 16:15. 
 
 The Bible is another pillar in the temple of Zion. 
 Let us contrast this pillar with men’s ideas. Men 
 are polytheistic; the Bible is monotheistic; men are 
 idolatrous; the Bible is intensely anti-idolatrous; 
 men are earthly and the Bible is celestial; men are 
 self-complacent; the Bible is condemnatory; men 
 are inquisitive and communicative; the Bible is 
 wonderfully reticent. The Bible is from God, be 
 cause of the truth it teaches concerning man’s 
 destiny; because of the redemption it offers; be- 
 cause it certifies in itself the highest expression 
 of the soul and it is worthy of God because Christ 
 is dominant and central all through it. When God 
 created the world it had all the elements it has 
 today. But as to what they were and the right 
 use of them man was ignorant, so that it took 
 man many generations to find and bring to light the 
 things which were always with him, and no doubt, 
 the field over which he has yet to go is larger by 
 far than that he has already travelled. Gravitation 
 has always been with us, but it took Newton to 
 give us the facts and the laws about it. The earth 
 
190 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 has always moved, but it took Galileo to tell us so. 
 We know now that the atmosphere is a mixture 
 of nitrogen and oxygen gases in fixed proportions, 
 and that the air is suitable for life and congenial 
 for health. We know now that the whole earth, 
 all the rocks, minerals and substances of all kinds 
 are combustible, still some spurn the idea of the 
 world being destroyed by fire, chemical truth has 
 not only dispelled hygenic ignorance, but has 
 brought thousands of useful articles to man which 
 are good for his health and pleasure. 
 
 SEALED BOOK OPENED 
 
 Now, the analogy which we wish to draw is that 
 just as the physical universe was closed up in a 
 sealed book, and had to be opened by the diligent 
 study of scientific truths, by men of all ages, so 
 also is the Bible full of spiritual truths, which can 
 only be revealed to those who study it. The pro- 
 fane world can boast of great philosophers like 
 Socrates and Plato, but only a few have been able 
 to understand their teaching. But in Zion are Mo- 
 ses and Elijah who were types of Christ who receiv- 
 ed their charges from the mouth of God, and fed 
 millions of poor fainting and hungry souls on spiri- 
 tual manna. Confucius and Buddha left splendid 
 codes of ethics, but Jesus, and Paul’s logic reasoned 
 with God for the souls of men beyond the grave. 
 Mohammed’s sword dripped with blood, Peter’s 
 sword was the weapon of prayer used on Pente- 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 191 
 
 costal Day, when three thousand souls were pierced 
 to the heart, believed the gospel and were saved. 
 
 The flames of persecution burned all over Europe 
 and the Spanish Inquisition and the reign of bloody 
 Mary brought back the days of Rome, when they 
 slayed the saints in every cruel manner conceivable. 
 
 We gather at our altar to praise God for Zion, 
 that most precious gift given to man through His 
 Son, Jesus. Let us bring our hearts and lay them 
 at His feet. 
 
 We close with the full satisfaction that we have 
 walked about Zion, we have gone round her and 
 have told the towers thereof, and have marked 
 well her bulwarks and considered her palaces, and 
 we found her doctrine sound, her faith firm, her 
 hope anchored in Jesus Christ, the chief corner- 
 stone of the temple of God’s eternal Kingdom. 
 
 My dears, our fathers have stood and spoke for 
 God, let us take up where they left off and keep 
 the fire burning on the altar until God sounds out 
 time and and sounds in eternity. 
 
192 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 BACK TO METHODISM AND PREACH THE 
 , WORD 
 
 JESUS THE GREATEST PREACHER 
 
 Jesus was the greatest preacher who ever came 
 to the earth, that was the reason why the greatest 
 crowd of people ever gathered, flocked to hear Him. 
 He lived so near to God and men that He could 
 touch men’s very souls, regardless into what sphere 
 of life they lived. He went about three years 
 preaching of the coming of the kingdom of God. 
 He used His environment to press home the truths 
 He wished to convey. When He spoke to His dis- 
 ciples calling them from the world to His side to 
 carry the Word, the majority of them being fisher- 
 men, He said, “Follow me and I will make you fish- 
 ers of men.” Mark 1:17. When He spoke to the 
 farmers, He said, “Hearken; Behold, there went 
 out a sower to sow.” Mark 4:3. When speaking 
 to lawyers who desired to confound Him. He said, 
 “Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things that are 
 Caesar’s, and unto God the things that the God’s 
 Matt. 22:21. He did not discuss subjects too far 
 reaching for His hearers, nor did He fail to measure 
 up to the requirements of the most fastidious or 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 193 
 
 learned, He became all things to all men. He set 
 the plans to put the world in perfect order because 
 He spoke from the heart the things of God, condu- 
 cive to man’s salvation. He was uncontaminated, 
 nor was He subsidized by the allurements of the 
 world. He came from heaven to speak the things 
 of heaven and to lift up as many as would hear the 
 Word and obey it. 
 
 WHAT 1S THE WORD 
 
 Jonn says “In the beginning was the Word, and 
 the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” 
 Before the material things of the universe were 
 created, visible and invisible, whether animate 
 or inanimate, the Word existed in God from all 
 eternity. The Word is God to the manifestation 
 and expression of Himself to those outside of Him- 
 self. He is His own infinite absolute spiritual 
 personage, the ground and cause of all that exists. 
 God, then is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipo- 
 tent. One in essence, Three in divine personage, 
 the Ifather, the Word and the Holy Spirit. Jesus 
 said no man has ascended up to heaven, but he that 
 came down from heaven, even the Son of man, who 
 upon His departure sent us the Comforter, the Holy 
 Spirit. And what if ye shall see the Son of man 
 ascend up where He was before. Christ or the 
 Word was not merely super-angelic, but He was 
 the first of all beings excepting the Father, with 
 whom He is equal, for His name shall be called 
 
194 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 the mighty God. J] am ‘alpha’ and ‘omega,’ J am 
 the first and the last, besides me there is no God. 
 
 Preach the Word—tell the wisdom, power, and 
 love of God to men everywhere. Tell how Jesus 
 laid aside His princely honors in glory and came 
 to the world, suffered and died and won the victory 
 over death, hell and the grave. Ye are commission- 
 ed to tell this true story. St. Augustine said, “What 
 else is the imposition of the hands, but a prayer 
 over a man?” But hands do not do the work. It must 
 be done in the heart by the power of God. 
 
 Our discipline provides that our candidate for 
 ordination must first be elected by the annual con- 
 ference, and the bishop alone shall lay his hand on 
 the deacons, but the elders shall be set apart by 
 the bishop and the elders, comprising the commit- 
 tee of the fourth year class. This is the highest 
 and last ordination in our ministry. Bishops are not 
 ordained bishops, but elected to the office and they 
 are consecrated to its service by the general con- 
 ference. But even after consecration or ordina- 
 tion and setting men apart for the duties of the sup- 
 erintendency of the Church; if a man is a bad man 
 he will be a bad man still after his election, hand 
 cannot purify him, only God’s grace and the Holy 
 Spirit can do the work. But if the Holy Spirit has 
 been planted in his heart before he came to be 
 ordained by the bishop, or consecrated by the gen- 
 eral conference by the laying on of hands upon 
 their heads it will sink deeper the work of the min- 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 195 
 
 istry in their hearts and make them regardless to 
 office, thirst after God’s Word and cause them to 
 use public and private prayer for the redemption 
 of mankind and to help the sick and poor and to 
 spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. 
 
 MO PREACH ;EBRPECTIVELY, (BE VSURE: YOUGAKE 
 CONVERTED 
 
 Brethren, we are not called into any easy place 
 when we are called to follow Jesus and preach the 
 Word. It means that we have entered the army 
 like when one enlists in the army of his country-- 
 the only difference is the ea:thly scldier eulists in 
 the army of his country for a number of years, 
 while the minister of the gospel has entered Jesus’ 
 army to fight until he is called from labor to re- 
 ward. A call to the ministry of the gospel is not 
 one of an ordinary calling, but rather, he is an 
 ambassador of the Lord commissioned from above 
 to help save the world for Christ. His work is 
 distinctively different from every vocation. All 
 other worldly vocations get their elections or ap- 
 pointments from earthly powers and is limited to 
 the fleeting perishable contingencies of human life. 
 The Magna Charter curbs the power of the king; 
 the Constitution of the United States limits that 
 of the president; charters of banks and corporations 
 tell the duties devolved on their officiais and any 
 acts they perform beyond such is called ultra virus 
 or exceeding their legal bounds which may run from 
 
196 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 imal-administration to treason, punishable some- 
 times with impeachment or imprisonment and even 
 death. But the man who is sent to preach the 
 Word is commissioned from a higher and more 
 powerful government than those of the United 
 States or England. ~He is called and sent from 
 above. 
 
 liave you pondered over the seriousness of the 
 step you have taken in the deepest recesses of 
 your heart, and do you feel that your acts are in- 
 spired from above? Have you been truly convert- 
 ed, I mean born anew, regenerated, passed from 
 death unto life with the witness in your breast, 
 which causes you to feel the warmth of the Holy 
 Ghost in your heart, telling you that there is no 
 mistake about your calling, and that you are a 
 true born child of God washed in Jesus’ blood? 
 You cannot make it in the Methodist ministry ex- 
 cept you know the Lord in the pardoning of your 
 sins. We lay stress on conversion because it is 
 the foundation of the temple upon which the min- 
 isters’ career rests. The minister needs abundant 
 patience; no unconverted person will long endure 
 the persecution, inconvenience and slander he some- 
 times will have to undergo. If he is not converted 
 he will resort to earthly weapons to avenge him- 
 self when he imagines a wrong has been done him. 
 The minister will sometimes be foot sore, hungry 
 and friendless, then, the unconverted will put down 
 the Lord’s work and seek other means to supply 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 197 
 
 his earthly needs and avenge himself. The con- 
 verted minister has a soul longing desire for con- 
 verts, but no man can kindle the fire of the Spirit 
 in the breast of another man except he himself has 
 been touched with Spiritual fire. When you see a 
 man going for years in the ministry and no one 
 converted through his preaching there is something 
 wrong with him. Don’t understand me when I 
 speak of the Spirit, that I only mean outward 
 demonstration of the emotions only so that when 
 the temporary blaze which provoked the excite- 
 ment and sometimes contortion subsides, there is 
 nothing remaining of real value, rather, I am speak- 
 ing of the illumination of the soul by the Holy Spirit 
 that quickens the sensibilities and gives an impulse 
 to the will to fight greater battles and achieve 
 grander deeds in the service of the Lord. I mean 
 the Holy Spirit that comes into the heart and makes 
 you love everybody, strips you of selfish interest 
 and gives a clean conscience that makes you tell 
 the truth, makes you fair and sympathetic, that 
 makes you pay your just debts and causes you to 
 Ilve as becoming a real ambassador for Christ in 
 your community. “By their fruits shall ye know 
 them.” 
 
 THE CALL 
 Ye are called to carry His name to the Gentiles 
 
 and kings and children of Israel. How then will 
 you know whether you are chosen or not without 
 
198 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 some fruits of your labors? Do men like to hear 
 you expound the Word? Do any accept Christ by 
 vour life and preaching? Does your church grow? 
 Do you tind yourself submissive to those who have 
 the Godly rule over you? Are you willing to be 
 sent wherever the Church directs you go, or, are 
 vour worldly interests so great in one place that 
 vou are willing to quit preaching before you would 
 leave that city, county or state? Methodism cov- 
 ers the world, and every Methodist preacher is 
 pastor of that parish. 
 
 Let me entreat you, young men, who have re- 
 cently entered the ministry—Don’t be carried away 
 with all these new fads and phantoms in the air, 
 forgetting the good old way which took our fathers. 
 and mothers home to glory—men coming up deny- 
 ing the virgin birth and the resurrection and the 
 Bible story of the creation using the subtility of 
 Satan, trying to blind the eyes of the Church peo- 
 ple with that vain and empty cry of higher criti- 
 cism and then saying that they desire to have no 
 longer the rule or government of the church over 
 them and still call themselves Methodists. As they 
 took their ordination and consecration vows, they 
 said before God and man that they would be cheer- 
 fully governed by those who have authority over 
 them. Remember, that Methodism is an Episco- 
 pal form of government to which all who enter its 
 courts must subscribe. The class leader is responsi 
 ble for his class, the pastor for his church, the pre- 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 199 
 
 siding elder for his district, the bishop for his 
 diocese and the quarterly, annual and general con- 
 ferences for all, respectively. All cannot be bish- 
 ops, general officers, presiding elders, or metropoli- 
 tan pastors, there must be some privates in every 
 army. Don’t try to destroy the system of the 
 church, you may be a head in it some day. If there 
 is a rotten bough on the tree, saw it off, but don’t 
 destroy the whole tree to get after the defective 
 limb, prune the tree but let it live. 
 
 MINISTER MUST KEEP WELL 
 
 Next, a minister must keep well, no sick man is 
 fit for the active pastorage any more than he is 
 fit for active military service. The government 
 will not take him after he is thirty-five; the church 
 will take him until he is forty; the government 
 requires an absolute sound body and will turn him 
 down if he is the least defective; The church is not 
 so strenuous, she leaves it to his sense of honor; 
 the government requires a physical examination by 
 a medical doctor and nothing is taken for granted; 
 the church takes the word of the candidate as to 
 his health and age. But he may be called to walk 
 many miles through the country to carry the gos- 
 pel and to be caught in all kinds of weather, hail 
 and sleet, rain and cold, thunders and lightnings, 
 in the hot beaming sun and the malarial stricken 
 districts, he must go to the bedside of sufferers ill 
 
200 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 from all sorts of dreadful diseases; only a healthy 
 man with a consecrated heart and true courage 
 will or can do it. Are you ready to muster at the 
 sound of the bugle and march at the tap of the 
 drum? 
 
 I tell you brother, if you came into the ministry 
 for what you expected to get out of it materially, 
 you would better had stayed out. Don’t understand 
 me that the ministry means the stamp of pauper- 
 ism; not at all, the holy writ says those who preach 
 the gospel shall live by the gospel, and that the 
 laborer is worthy of his hire, but I do mean that 
 the ministry is no place to come to commercia- 
 lize with the sole purpose to get money regardless 
 of the consequence. 
 
 Are you well? If so, keep so by regular habits, 
 eat sufficient well balanced iood, but not tco much, 
 take plenty of exercises, and use lots of clean water 
 ‘in and outside of the body. Don’t forget to be 
 pleasant, an affable person gains many friends, 
 while a grouchy being turns many away from him. 
 
 DON'T BE: LAZY 
 
 The ministry is no place for a lazy man. You 
 must get up in the morning and get busy. Still, 
 it 1s no use to be smart without the smartness is 
 turned to good use. To get up early and go di- 
 rectly to some store or barber shop and enter into 
 some senseless debate until time to get your dinner 
 then go home overload your stomach and go to the 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 201 
 
 railroad station or some street corner to waste the 
 balance of the day is worse than if you had laid 
 in bed all day. You must not be vainly employed; 
 vain employment is as bad as no employment, if not 
 worse. One may not be lazy, but he may lose so 
 much energy doing nothing that it amounts to the 
 same thing. If the main belt is off the driving 
 wheel in a factory, the steam may be exhausted 
 and the driving wheel might turn with just as much 
 rapidity as usual, but the machinery stands still 
 and no work is done until the belt is replaced on the 
 pulley that makes the mill go. Just so is wasted 
 energy of non-effect. 
 
 Do you see what I mean? I mean when you 
 are not employed for the uplift of mankind, either 
 engaged in bringing souls to Christ, or doing some 
 social service work, as relieving the sick, visiting 
 the jails, etc., you should be in your study prayfully 
 meditating upon the Scriptures and such other help 
 as will enable you to rightfully divide the Word 
 of God to your people who come to you each Sun- 
 day to hear what the Lord has to say to them 
 through you out of His Word. 
 
 DON’T CEASE TO BLOW THE TRUMPET 
 
 Don’t cease to blow the trumpet that the Lord 
 has given you, blow you gospel trumpet in season 
 and out of season, whether they regard your 
 preaching reasonable or unreasonable, you preach 
 the Word as you find it in the Bible, some will hear 
 
202 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 you. Just as a fountain flows on, though none may 
 drink from it, you preach on; or a river flows on, 
 though none may bathe in its stream or sail 
 upon its bosom, it runs on and_ serves the 
 purpose for which it was made, you preach 
 on, proclaim His mame, thus performing your 
 duty. Paul may preach and appollos may 
 water, but the increase comes from God. You 
 must do your part preaching His Word, in prayer, 
 in song, and in service for your fellowman. Preach 
 not only when it is easy and convenient for you 
 to do so, but when it is inconvenient end hard, 
 preach when it is night as well as in the day, in 
 danger as well as in safety, in prison when doomed 
 to death, so to speak, as well as when free, not only 
 when you have a church. The brother who is 
 called to preach, if he has no church should make 
 himself one. There are thousands of men and wo- 
 men all around who are dying to hear the Word 
 of God and to be gathered into the fold. Don’t 
 wait for them to come to you, you go to them, 
 preach everywhere on all occasions. Whenever 
 and wherever the Lord directs you. Preach it, 
 live it, so that your preaching will break men’s 
 hearts and melt their eyes to tears, convince them 
 of their sins, make them feel the need of Jesus 
 with all long suffering and doctrine. Convince 
 them that Jesus is the Christ, the only begotten 
 Son of the Father, the triune God, the Maker and 
 Ruler of all things. The God who out of the bosom 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 203 
 
 of His love sent forth His Son into the world to 
 die the shameful death of the cross to redeem men 
 and breathe on them the Holy Spirit and assure 
 salvation to as many as believe the preaching of 
 the Word of His birth and death, the resurrection 
 and ascension of King Emanuel. Don’t mind the 
 worldly wise who have crept into the ministry, 
 who are leaving all the essential things of spiritual 
 life and growth to appear learned, reaching after 
 old worn out arguments which were settled 
 thousands of years age by minds far more superior 
 to theirs in every particuar. They can tell you of 
 the things above heaven and things beneath the 
 earth, but they have never been able to learn the 
 art of real preaching or to get any souls converted 
 to Christ or to have them determine to live better 
 lives. Some of them set themselves up as exem- 
 plars in preaching, and would assay to tell you 
 how to run your church and to preach. Let no fail- 
 ure tell you anything. If you want to get advice 
 about preaching and running your church consult 
 Jesus and men who have done effective work, both 
 living and dead. Preaching is to get at, get out, and 
 to give out the meaning of God’s Word. No man can 
 interpret God’s Word who does not know Him; 
 there is but one way to know Him and that is 
 through a changed heart, faith and humble prayer. 
 To preach is to proclaim the gospel as a herald with 
 trumpet sounding out in clarion notes the approach 
 of the enemy, one who preaches the Word as 
 
204 BACK TO METHODISM 
 
 Paul exhorted Timothy to preach it, must also be a 
 pastor as well as a preacher. A preacher is an 
 index finger on a sign board pointing out the road 
 which leads to righteous living on earth and ends 
 in heaven when the battles of this life are over. 
 
 A shepherd is a gutde, a leader of his flock, who 
 goes before them and protects them at the peril 
 of his own life. Many shepherds have returned to 
 the fold (when they did return alive) bleeding and 
 wounded and torn by lions and bears and wolves 
 from whence they have gone out into the desert 
 to find a lost sheep. You must not only tell the 
 sheep committed to your care where to go, but you 
 must lead them through the valley, on the moun- 
 tain, In joy, in sorrow, in health and in sickness 
 and administer to them when they are crossing the 
 cold stream of Jordan. 
 
 Preach then like our fathers preached. Let us 
 go back to Methodism and hold revivals, not doing 
 away with the mourners’ bench. Men should be 
 sorry for their sins. Remember, my friends, the 
 conversion of a sinner is an act of God, justifica- 
 tion is that act, whereby God forgives sin, no man 
 has that power—only God. But we must hold up 
 the most blessed text in the Bible and make it plain 
 to the sinner that ye must be born again, we 
 must not put words in his mouth, let him 
 seek the Lord until ‘he finds. Him’ ‘of his 
 own free will and accord, and confess Him 
 with his mouth and then, having done all, 
 
BACK TO METHODISM 205 
 
 you will hear the voice of Jesus say: “Well done 
 good and faithful servant and enter thou into the 
 joys of thy Lord.” 
 

 

 
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 = 
 5 oa 
 
 fhe rrt 
 
 Ee 
 
 es 
 eh - Sit odie yee ee 
 aes a 5 
 er 
 isha Sat ene 
 ot. . 
 axe = 
 : - - 
 ey 
 Caterer bebe 
 
 mee gigs ene 
 Sree 
 : ry 
 
 2 
 =" 
 
 ee