®ut S^enominational 
 Outlook 
 
 Eugustue lb. Strong %%, W 
 
 1904 
 
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 PRINCETON, N. J. \^ 
 
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 OUR 
 DENOMINATIONAL OUTLOOK 
 
 BY AUGUSTUS H. STRONG, D. D., LL. D. 
 
 President of Rochester Theological Seminary 
 
 ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE GENERAL DENOMINATIONAL MEETING 
 IN CONNECTION WITH THE BAPTIST ANNIVERSARIES AT CLEVELAND, 
 OHIO, THURSDAY MORNING, MAY 19, 1004 : : : : : 
 
 A GREAT division of the Clirisiian army halts to-day to 
 hold a council of war. What has our Baptist host done 
 thus far ? Where do v^e now stand ? What is our pros- 
 pect for the future? These three questions, I take it, bring- 
 out the meaning of my subject. I have been asked to speak 
 of "Our Denominational Outlook." I appreciate the honor 
 thus conferred upon me. I appreciate even more my re- 
 sponsibility. Only an inspired prophet could adequately 
 accomplish the task committed to me, for St. Bernard's 
 Rcspice, Aspicc, Prospice — "Look back, look around, look 
 forward," or "View the Past, the Present, and the Future" 
 — seems the demand of the hour. And I am no prophet. I 
 can only remind you of past victories, point out present 
 dangers, and encourage to future effort. Even in this at- 
 tempt to discern the signs of the times, I need your sym- 
 pathy and your prayers, 
 
 I 
 
Yet before I begin to tell what Baptists have done, are 
 doing, and need to do, I must say what a Baptist i^ What 
 The is the essential principle for which we contend? I main- 
 
 Prindple tain that we stand above all things for a spiritual church. 
 a Spiritual 'phg church is the body of Christ. It properly consists only 
 of those who have been renewed by the Spirit of God, and 
 are joined to Christ by a living faith. This conception of 
 a spiritual church carries with it all the other articles of 
 our creed. The word "spiritual" suggests the deity of 
 Christ, whose omnipotent Spirit is the source of the church's 
 life. The word "church" suggests the outward expression 
 of that life in the forms appointed by Christ himself. Thus 
 a spiritual church implies a regenerate church membership 
 on the one hand, and the New Testament ordinances and 
 polity on the other. Dependence on the Scriptures as the 
 sufficient and only standard of faith and practice, and in- 
 dependence of the State in all matters of doctrine and gov- 
 ernment, while they are not the central truths, are yet 
 logical corollaries of the Baptist faith. 
 
 It is the vision of a spiritual church which Baptists have 
 ever had before them. Our insistence upon the proper sub- 
 jects and the proper mode of baptism is not the essential, 
 but only the incidental, of our belief. Because we hold that 
 the church is the body of Christ, we cannot accept the 
 statement of the Westminster Confession that the church 
 consists of those who "profess the true religion, together 
 with their children," for this includes in the church those 
 who give no credible evidence of regeneration. Because we 
 hold that immersion of the body in water was appointed 
 by our Lord as the sign of his death and resurrection and 
 of the believer's entrance into communion therewith, we 
 cannot regard any body as a regularly constituted church of 
 Christ which disobeys or ignores his command by the sub- 
 stitution of any other mode of baptism. But we oppose 
 infant baptism, only because it admits to the body of Christ 
 those who do not belong to Christ; and we oppose sprink- 
 ling or pouring, only because they do not set forth that 
 
entrance into the communion of Christ's death and resur- 
 rection which is essential to a regularly constituted 
 Christian church. The maintenance of a spiritual church 
 furnishes the reason for our existence as Baptists. When 
 we cease to "follow the gleam," we shall die, and we ought 
 to die. 
 
 I. THE PAST 
 
 The church, then, is the body of Christ. It is a spiritual 
 body, rightfully composed only of those who have been re- 
 generated by Christ's Spirit and who have expressed this 
 fact of regeneration in Christ's appointed way. To stand 
 for this central truth in heart and life is to be a Baptist. 
 We can now look backward and inquire what Baptists have 
 been and have done. I can deal only, in a large way, with 
 the facts of the past, and details must be left to others. In 
 general, we must say that Baptist history began two hun- 
 dred and fifty years ago. Before that time there were 
 doubtless churches which held to some of the principles of 
 the Baptist faith. But a clear recognition and confession gaptist 
 of the great truth that the church is to be composed only itgttatagi 
 of those who give credible evidence of regeneration and 
 who have expressed their faith by baptism in Christ's ap- 
 pointed way is not furnished in modern times by any definite 
 and organized body before the year 1640. About that time 
 the Particular Baptists of London, and shortly afterward 
 the General Baptists of England, began to maintain that 
 baptism belongs solely to believers and also that nothing but 
 immersion is baptism. But both these bodies saw in the 
 outward ordinance the sign of a living union with Christ. 
 They wished to build a spiritual church, a church separate 
 from the world, a church after the pattern shown in the 
 mount, a church spiritual because scriptural, a church in 
 which Christ could dwell because it had been constituted 
 according to his laws as they are laid down in the New 
 Testament. 
 
 Other bodies have had the vision of a spiritual church, 
 
 3 
 
but they have not been obedient to the heavenly vision. 
 The New Testament gives us a form as well as a substance, 
 an outward means of expression as well as an inward truth 
 to be expressed. Luther saw clearly that justification was 
 wholly by faith, but he retained infant baptism and thereby 
 admitted to the church those who, if they had faith as he 
 maintained, certainly could give no evidence of it, while 
 he put the government of the church into the hands of 
 princes instead of intrusting it to the whole congregation of 
 believers. The Puritan Fathers aimed at the establishment 
 of Christ's sole authority, but they identified that authority 
 with that of the State, and it needed a Roger Williams to 
 teach them that there could be a church without a bishop 
 and a state without a king. But Baptists first in modern 
 times furnish the example of a spiritual church organized 
 after the New Testament model, self-governing and inde- 
 pendent of the civil power, and expressing in both its 
 ordinances the believer's communion with the death and 
 resurrection of Christ. 
 
 The progress of Baptist principles has shown that they 
 are not only adapted to human nature, but are also pe- 
 culiarly blessed by God. It is doubtful whether any other 
 religious denomination has grown more rapidly — only our 
 Methodist brethren can claim as great a numerical increase. 
 And this comparison teaches us that not simply doctrine, but 
 life, counts in the rolling up of numbers. The heroic labor 
 and sacrifice of pioneers, among Methodists and Baptists 
 alike, were prompted by a vivid experience of sin and of re- 
 demption ; and godly living gave proof that this inward 
 experience was a reality. But we have had an advantage 
 even over Methodists, in that we could always point for 
 our polity to a "Thus saith the Lord," or to Scripture ex 
 ample and precedent. Where we have kept most closely to 
 the New Testament model, we have prospered most ; de- 
 partures from it have been followed by spiritual and 
 numerical decline. Hence our statistics give us both en- 
 couragement and warning. 
 
 4 
 
In 1640 the General Baptists of England claimed over 
 20,000 members, and there were possibly half that number 
 of Particular Baptists — say a total of 30,000. Macaulay ^^} 
 estimates the population of England at that time as some- 
 thing above five millions. During the century from 1640 
 to 1740 — the century of Charles II. and the Deists, a cen- 
 tury of both ethical and religious declension — Baptists in 
 Great Britain were subject to bitter persecution. They 
 did not greatly increase in numbers, though such Baptists 
 as John Bunyan in spite of fines and imprisonment con- 
 fessed their faith and opposed a barrier to the growing 
 corruption of the times. In 1740 they probably had no 
 more than 50,000 members, though the population had in- 
 creased to eight or nine millions. In 1840, when the popu- 
 tion was 15,914,148, the Baptists numbered at least 150,000 
 — their large growth due to the Wesleyan revival on the 
 one hand, and to the missionary impulse of William Carey 
 and Andrew Fuller on the other. In 1870, with a popu- 
 lation of 22,712,266 in England and Wales, Baptists had 
 increased to 243,395.. In the decades from 1870 to 1900, 
 however, the numbers have been 295,035, 330,163. 365,678; 
 an increase of 21 per cent, in 1880; of 12 per cent, in 1890; 
 and of 10.7 per cent, in 1900; while it is only at the rate 
 of 6.2 per cent, a decade, for the three years from 1900 to 
 1903. In 1890 the population of England and Wales was 
 29,082,585, when the number of Baptists in Great Britain 
 was 330,163. In 1900 the population of England and 
 Wales was thirty-two millions, and the number of Baptists 
 was 365,678. In 1903 with a probable population of forty 
 millions. Baptists number only 372,998. The average rate 
 of increase in population per decade in Great Britain is 
 13.86 per cent, for eight decades.* Before 1880 Baptists in 
 Great Britain increased much faster than the population. 
 But since 1880 there has been a rate of increase slower than 
 
 *In the United States the increase of population has varied from 35.1 per cent. 
 (1800-1810) to 20.7 per cent. (1890-1900). The average per decade (1870—1900) is 25,2 
 per cent. 
 
 5 
 
that of the population, and this decline has gone on until 
 the 14 per cent, increase in population has over against it 
 a Baptist increase of only a trifle over 6 per cent. Two 
 facts are made plain by these English statistics. The first 
 is that times of religious revival, of doctrinal earnestness, 
 and of missionary enterprise, are marked by great acces- 
 sions to our numbers, while laxity of belief, worldliness of 
 life, and indifference to missions are accompanied by nu- 
 merical diminution. The second fact is that the last quar- 
 ter-century has witnessed a comparative set-back, in which 
 the exceedingly rapid growth of the preceding century has 
 been checked, and the figures indicate some deeply working 
 causes of decline. 
 Home What is true of the Baptist body in Great Britain is also 
 
 Statistics t^rue of our denomination in the United States. Our early 
 rate of increase was astonishing, but in later years it has 
 been steadily diminishing. In 1784 we are credited with 
 only 35,000 members, and in 1800 with only 100,000. But 
 by 1880, the number had reached 2,133,044; by 1890, 
 3,065,367; by 1900, 4,181,686; and by 1904, 4,506,747 (es- 
 timated). While the five millions (5,308,483) of population 
 which the country had in 1800 have increased fifteen fold 
 (or to 75,994,575), the number of Baptists has increased 
 forty fold (or to 4,181,686). But I must add that this 
 great increase belongs to the first three-quarters and more 
 exactly to the first nine decades of the past century, rather 
 than to the last ten to twenty-five years. Or to speak 
 more specifically: From 1800 to 1880 our numbers doubled 
 in every twenty years ; and in the single decade from 1 870 
 to 1880 we increased 74 per cent. (74,64; population, 29.74). 
 But from 1880 to 1890 the increase was but 43 per cent. 
 (43.70; population 25,36) ; from 1890 to 1900 only 36 per 
 cent. (36.41; population 21) ; and from 1900 to 1904 we 
 are increasing at the rate, for a whole decade, of only 19 
 per cent. (19.44). 
 Education- Is this check to our progress only a temporary eddy in 
 the current, which can be attributed to the diverting in- 
 
 6 
 
fluence of trade and war? That there has been a pro- 
 gressive diminution for more than three decades seems to 
 indicate some more radical evil ; and v^e are summoned to 
 self-examination with regard to our doctrinal faithfulness 
 and our practical consecration. I would not too hastily im- 
 pugn the soundness or the generosity of the great Baptist 
 host to which I belong. Two encouraging facts may be 
 set over against this relative slowness of increase during the 
 past thirty years. The first is the great additions that have 
 been made to our educational equipment. Whereas in 
 1880 the total property and endowments of our Baptist 
 Seminaries, Universities, Colleges and Academies in the 
 United States amounted to only $16,661,079, and in 1890 
 to $19,659,864, they amounted in 1900 to $39,434,392, and 
 in 1904 to $51,158,368. The world may be challenged to 
 show a like rapidity of increase, and the only drawback to 
 our claim is the fact that so large a part of this increase has 
 been due to the liberality of a single giver. 
 
 The second reason for encouragement is to be found in Missionary 
 the growing interest of our churches in the foreign field, and ^""" 
 in the great success in our home missionary work. In 
 1840 the receipts of our Missionary Union were $65,761, 
 and the members of our mission churches numbered 2,50a. 
 In 1850, we gave $87,537, ^"^ ^^^ 11,958 members; in 
 i860, $i32,z|_26, and had 25,408 members; in 1870, $200,953, 
 and had 46,964 members; in 1880, $290,851, and had 
 85,308 members ; in 1890, $410,974, and had 138,293 mem- 
 bers ; in 1900, $500,455, and had 206,746 members; in 1904, 
 $779,594, and had 226,058 members. During this same 
 period the work of Home Missions has been correspond- 
 ingly prosecuted and prospered. In 1850, the total receipts 
 of our American Baptist Home Mission Society were only 
 $26,443; in i860, they amounted to %S7^777'' i" 1870, they 
 were $183,828; in 1880, they were $192,356, but in 1890, 
 they more than doubled, being $449,444 ; in 1900, they rose 
 to $581,609; in 1903, they again rose to $614,223; and in 
 1904, they are $635,396. Our American Baptist Publica- 
 
 7 
 
tion Society furnishes an exhibit which is an ahnost exact 
 parallel. In 1850, the receipts from all sources were $24,539, 
 in i860, $66,556; in 1870, $304,999; in 1880, $349,564; 
 ii) 1890, $651,605; in 1900, $867,066; and in 1904, $934,923. 
 Our Women's Foreign Missionary Societies were organ- 
 ized so late as 1871, yet their aggregate receipts for a year, 
 as reported in our last Year Book, had reached $188,019; 
 while the Women's Home Mission Societies, organized only 
 in 1877, collected and expended in a single year $134,612. 
 A great new force was called into effective operation when 
 the women of our denomination gave themselves to this 
 missionary work. And so we may believe that an instru- 
 ment of equal future possibilities was raised up when the 
 Baptist Young People's Union of America was constituted 
 in 1 89 1. That over $60,000 should have been paid into its 
 treasury in a single year, when the Union was only twelve 
 years old, gives great promise for the future. 
 
 These figures prove that, in some respects at least, we have 
 made surprising progress. They show that the compara- 
 tive apathy in church extension at home has been accom- 
 panied by remarkable increase in our educational facilities, 
 and by a growth both in home and in foreign missions for 
 which it would be hard to find a parallel. 
 Sectional Our gratulations in these two respects need to be tem- 
 Gains and p >j-g(^ by the unpleasing consideration that the growth 
 v\'e have had at home has not been so great in the settled 
 and older States as it has been at the West and at the South. 
 In New England, for example, while the decade from 1870 
 to 1880 shows an increase of Baptists of 16.65 pc^ cent, as 
 compared with an increase of 14.98 per cent, in population, 
 the decade 1890 to 1900 shows an increase of Baptists of 
 14.54 per cent, with an increase of population of 18.96 per 
 cent. ; and the last three years have shown almost no in- 
 crease at all of Baptists, or only at the rate of a half of i 
 per cent, (or .56) for a whole decade. In the Middle 
 States the relative increase in proportion to population has 
 been better kept up, being 25.96 per cent, to 19.37 popula- 
 
 8 
 
tion in 1880, aiid 28.90 per cent, to 20.95 population in 1900 ; 
 yet for the last three years the Baptist increase is reduced to 
 a rate of only 14.12 per cent, for the whole decade. It is in 
 the West and South and on the Pacific Slope that we have 
 most increased in numbers. The Western States show in 
 1880 Baptist increase of 52.04 per cent., to 32.12 per cent, 
 in population; in 1900 Baptist increase 30.08 per cent., to 
 population 17.58 per cent.; but in the last three years even 
 here our rate of Baptist increase has been reduced to 14.12 
 per cent, for a whole decade. The Southern States showed 
 in 1880 an increase of 11 1.29 per cent, as compared with 
 36.88 per cent, in population, and in 1900 of 40.32 per cent, 
 as compared with 24.01 per cent, of population, while in 
 the last three years Baptist increase was at the rate of only 
 11.32 per cent, for a whole decade. The Pacific States 
 have shown the greatest persistency of all. In 1880, their 
 rate was 1 15.15 per cent., as compared with 78.46 per cent, 
 in population ; in 1900, 96.98 per cent., as compared with 
 35.13 per cent, in population ; while, for the last three years, 
 Baptist increase is still at the rate of 48.05 per , cent, per 
 decade. 
 
 In short, our increase has been greatest in the newer 
 and less cultivated fields. In the cities we have not grown 
 so rapidly as in the country, and in New York City, the 
 metropolis of the land, where it would seem that we ought 
 to be strongest, our churches have experienced a relative 
 decline. The causes for this state of things are partly local. 
 Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, have shown that Baptists, 
 with proper management and liberality, can stand at the 
 front. The growth of population at the West, and the in- 
 fluence of foreign immigration at the East, explain to some 
 degree the fact that our victories are more and more to be 
 found where pioneer and missionary work is done. We 
 are encouraged to home missionary work, as we are en- 
 couraged to foreign missionary work, when we see that in 
 Nebraska and in Oregon, as in India and China, the seed 
 sown brings forth a hundredfold, while it brings forth only 
 
 9 
 
tenfold in Pennsylvania and New York. I deny that we 
 are a denomination only of pioneers, or that our mission is 
 simply to the unintelligent or to the poor. If we have the 
 truth of God, that truth should have greatest power where 
 there is most of culture and wealth. And yet we seem to 
 be prospering far away from our centers of intelligence and 
 of business enterprise, while our cause makes less progress 
 where there is most of money and of education. Only our 
 long-range guns seem to be hitting their mark. 
 Foreign I would not be unjust to our Baptist brotherhood, and I 
 would recognize peculiar features of the situation which 
 to some extent explain the slowness of our recent progress. 
 In New England, as well as in several Western and North- 
 ern States, fully two-fifths of the population is of foreign 
 birth or of foreign parentage, in contrast to a very small 
 per cent, of this element fifty or seventy-five years ago. The 
 preponderating foreign element in our great cities, where it 
 ranges from 70 to 80 per cent., must also be remembered. 
 This constitutes a more stony ground for our Baptist seed- 
 sowing than that with which the fathers had to deal. If 
 we could compare our Baptist growth with that of the 
 native American population, the showing would without 
 doubt be more favorable. At the South, moreover, where 
 apparently Baptist growth has been phenomenal, we ought 
 in all fairness to take separate account of the colored Bap- 
 tists, who fifty or sixty years ago cut a very small figure 
 in the religious statistics of the country, but who increased 
 in numbers from four hundred thousand in 1865 to nearly 
 two millions in 1894. It is also true that while in some of 
 the extreme Western States our increase on the percentage 
 basis has been very large, this is due to the fact that twenty 
 years ago the Baptists in the Territory of Washington and 
 in some other Territories were very few. The man who 
 was blessed with a second son was technically right, but 
 he gave a wrong impression, when he declared that his 
 family had increased at the rate of 50 per cent, within a 
 year. In some of the Western States our progress has been 
 
 10 
 
as slow and as difficult as in some of the Eastern States. 
 These considerations do much to equalize our diversities. 
 Yet they cannot blind us to the fact that our general rate 
 of progress has been gradually diminishing for at least 
 thirty years. 
 
 It may be argued that other denominations are as badly ^*^" , 
 off as we ; that the last fifty years have been a period of aations 
 general religious decline; that we are not responsible for 
 the external conditions which have hindered and checked 
 our progress. And it is true that, while the Congregational 
 increase in the United States from 1870 to 1893 has been 
 only 91.67 per cent.; the Presbyterian increase 133.74 per 
 cent. ; the Methodist increase 147.49 per cent. ; and the 
 Disciple increase 248.81 per cent. ; our Baptist increase has 
 been greater than any of these, namely, 254.38 per cent. 
 If however, we take into account only our churches at the 
 North, excluding the South and the Pacific Coast, our rate 
 of increase from 1870 to 1893 has been only 128 per cent.; 
 whicfi is less than that of the Presbyterians, the Methodists 
 or the Disciples, and is only greater than that of the Con- 
 gregationalists. And even if we include the South in our 
 estimate and claim 254.38 per cent, of increase, we find that 
 the Protestant Episcopal Church has outstripped us, for 
 its increase from 1870 to 1903 has been 319.28 per cent. 
 The Disciples and the Episcopalians have grown most 
 rapidly, and we have doubtless given many of our members 
 to each of them. And what right have we to take comfort 
 from the thought that we have prospered more than some 
 of the others, when we remember that times of general 
 religious depression were to our fathers a glorious oppor- 
 tunity, and that Baptist zeal shone out brightest when con- 
 fronted with indifference and opposition? 
 
 We do not get the case properly before us until we re- Vast 
 member the vast increase of our material resources during ^"^^^ 
 the half century that is past. I suppose it is within reason- Resources 
 able limits to say that Baptists during that period have 
 accumulated many thousands of millions of dollars. The 
 
 II 
 
denomination that was once poor has become rich and in- 
 creased in goods. We have probably a hundred times the 
 financial means that we possessed fifty years ago. But our 
 giving has not increased in any such proportion. Instead of 
 being multipHed by a hundred, our gifts have hardly been 
 multiplied by ten. God has bestowed a blessing upon these 
 gifts far beyond our faith or our desert. He seems to have 
 been pointing us to his work in the Far West and the Far 
 East, to stir up more vigorous effort right at home. Yet 
 we have suffered this work at home to languish, and at 
 the present rate of comparative decrease, it will be but a 
 question of time when the sources of supply will be dried up 
 and the work abroad will be hindered or stopped. We 
 who have been floating with the stream do not appreciate 
 how rapidly we are drifting. Our missionaries who return 
 to America after an absence of twenty years perceive, as we 
 do not, that there is a change of position. We do not stand 
 where we once stood. The old zeal for conversions is 
 dying out. Our churches are less careful in their examina- 
 tion of applicants for admission to their membership. We 
 do not realize as we should that men are lost, and that 
 only Christ can save them. 
 
 II. THE PRESENT 
 
 So the review of the past leads me to questions of the 
 
 tion prt^sent. Do we Baptists still hold to the belief and prac- 
 
 cf the tice of the fathers, or have we departed from the faith and 
 
 Vtaaa turned aside to a science that is falsely so called? My 
 
 reply must be a qualified reply. I maintain that the great 
 
 Baptist body still holds to Jesus Christ its head ; still stands 
 
 for his deity and his atonement ; still insists that the church 
 
 shall be composed of regenerate persons ; still claims that 
 
 the constitution and ordinances of the church shall visibly 
 
 picture and express the inward union of believers with 
 
 their divine Lord. But I hold at the same time that there 
 
is progress in our Baptist apprehension of the truth ; that 
 it is duty to accept the new light that true science gives ; 
 that the formulas of the past need some revision in order to 
 satisfy the demands of the present time; yes, that the 
 impulse to this revision is itself divine, an impulse from 
 Christ himself, whose Spirit is promised to guide us 
 into all the truth. It is our advantage that we have no 
 authoritative creed to define our theology once for all ; and 
 this ensures us freedom and right of development. A creed 
 expresses one age and set of thought; the Bible is of many 
 ages, minds, purposes. Accepting it as authority, we still 
 afSfirm the duty of bringing out of that treasure things new, 
 as well as old. A Baptist theology must continually seek 
 the truth, must keep abreast of public intelligence, and must 
 be a progressive theology. The guarantee that it will not 
 ultimately run to wild extremes is furnished in the total 
 teaching of the written word, and in the continued intiaencc 
 of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The chief source of change and improvement in our thcologfca; 
 modern thought has been the discovery of the immanence Chacg:es 
 of God in his universe. Yet this is not so much a new doc- 
 trine, as it is the new recognition of an old one. The ancient 
 Hebrews knew of it, and it was taught by Paul and John. 
 But deism had obscured it. God was thought to be far 
 away, in some distant heaven. We have learned that he is 
 near ; that in him we live, and move, and have our being ; 
 that he is the soul of our soul, and the life of our life. We 
 take seriously the omnipresence of God ; we recognize in 
 Christ the only Revealer of God ; we believe his assurance 
 that he is with us alway even unto the end of the world. 
 The idea of Christ in the universe and Christ in humanity is 
 gradually transforming our theology and bringing it into 
 closer accord with the New Testament. There is no better 
 illustration of the wrong view than is found in John Bun- 
 yan's Pilgrim's Progress. In that immortal work, Christian 
 does not have Christ with him on his journey ; there is no 
 divine companionship in his toils and struggles; he hopes 
 
 13 
 
to meet his Savior only after he has crossed the flood. 
 Nature, in a similar manner, was conceived of as under the 
 dominion of the evil one ; since the world is ruled by Satan, 
 and not by Christ, all natural processes and even all natural 
 beauty — literature, art, and all the joy of life — were re- 
 garded as hostile to Christ. 
 
 But Christ is greater than the Puritan theology thought. 
 ^^^ He is the acting God; the Creator, Upholder, Governor of 
 the Universe ; the Life of nature and of humanity. Law is 
 only the method of his regular working; gravitation and 
 evolution are only the habits of Christ. We need not fear 
 either science or philosophy, for these are men's efforts to 
 interpret the ways of him to whom all authority is given in 
 heaven and in earth. The historical Christ only "shows the 
 hid heart beneath creation beating" ; and "he that hath seen 
 him hath seen the Father." So we have the key with which< 
 to unlock the chief secrets of the world ; we have a divine 
 Companion and Friend to accompany our earthly pilgrim- 
 age; we have a living Interpreter of Scripture and of his- 
 tory. And, of all denominations of Christians, Baptists 
 should be most ready to concede the possibility of a pro- 
 gressive theology, since Baptists from the beginning have 
 believed in a spiritual church, in which Christ dwells and 
 reigns. 
 
 Think now of the light which this conception of an im- 
 manent God and an omnipresent Christ throws upon the 
 doctrines of sin, of the atonement, of the church, and of 
 the Scriptures. As we note the changes that have come 
 Old and over our ways of thinking, we may see exaggerations which 
 New View j^^^g weakened our faith and have checked our progress. 
 Take for example the old and the new view as to sin. Our 
 fathers believed in total depravity, and we agree with them 
 that man naturally is devoid of love to God and that every 
 faculty is weakened, disordered and corrupted by the selfish 
 bent of his will. They held to original sin. The selfish bent 
 of man's will can be traced back to the apostacy of our first 
 parents ; and, on account of that departure of the race from 
 
 14 
 
God, all men are by nature children of wrath. And all 
 this is true, if it is regarded as a statement of the facts, apart 
 from their relation to Christ. But our fathers did not see, 
 as we do, that man's relation to Christ antedated the Fall 
 and constituted an underlying and modifying condition of 
 man's life. Humanity was naturally in Christ, in whom all 
 things were created and in whom they all consist. Even 
 man's sin did not prevent Christ from still working in him 
 to counteract the evil and to suggest the good. There 
 was an internal, as well as an external, preparation for 
 man's redemption. In this sense, of a divine principle in 
 man striving against the selfish and godless will, there 
 was a total redemption, over against man's total depravity ; 
 and an original grace, that was even more powerful than 
 original sin. i 
 
 The great Baptist body has become conscious that total 
 depravity alone is not a sufficient or proper expression of 
 the truth ; and the phrase has been outgrown. It has been 
 felt that the old view of sin did not take account of the 
 generous and noble aspirations, the unselfish efforts, the 
 strivings after God, of even unregenerate men. For this 
 reason there has been less preaching about sin, and less 
 conviction as to its guilt and condemnation. The good im- 
 pulses of men outside the Oiristian pale have been often 
 credited to human nature, when they should have been 
 credited to the indwelling Spirit of Christ. I make no doubt 
 that one of the radical weaknesses of our denomination at 
 this present time is its more superficial view of sin. With- 
 out some sense of sin's guilt and condemnation, we cannot 
 feel our need of redemption. John the Baptist must go be- 
 fore Christ ; the law must prepare the way for the gospel. 
 My belief is that the new apprehension of Christ's relation 
 to the race will enable us to declare, as never before, the 
 lost condition of the sinner ; while at the same time we show 
 him that Christ is with him and in him to save. This pres- 
 ence in every man of a power not his own that works for 
 righteousness is a very different doctrine from that "divinity 
 
 15 
 
of man" which is so often preached. The divinity is not the 
 divinity of man, but the divinity of Christ. And the power 
 that works for righteousness is not the power of man, but 
 the power of Christ. It is a power whose warning, invit- 
 ing, persuading influence renders only more marked and 
 dreadful the evil will which hampers and resists it. De- 
 pravity is all the worse, when we recognize in it the con- 
 stant antagonist of an ever-present, all-holy, and all-loving 
 Redeemer. 
 The ^^ must acknowledge also that our conceptions of 
 
 Atonement Christ's atonement have suffered some change. Yet that 
 change has been in the nature of a more fundamental un- 
 derstanding of the meaning of atonement, and its necessity 
 as a law of universal life. To our fathers the atonement 
 was a mere historical fact, a sacrifice offered in a few brief 
 Iiours upon the Cross, It was a literal substitution of Christ's 
 suffering for ours, the payment of our debt by another, and 
 upon the ground of that payment we are permitted to go 
 free. Those sufferings were soon over, and the hymn 
 "Love's Redeeming Work is Done," expressed the believer's 
 joy in a finished redemption. And all this is true. But it 
 is only a part of the truth. The atonement, like every 
 other doctrine of Christianity, is a fact of life ; and such 
 facts of life cannot be crowded into our definitions, because 
 they are greater than any definitions that we can frame. The 
 atonement is a substitution, in that another has done for us 
 what we ought to have done but could not do, and has suf- 
 fered for us what we deserved to suffer but could not suf- 
 fer without loss of holiness and happiness forever and ever. 
 But Christ's doing and suffering is not that of one external 
 and foreign to us. He is bone of our bone and flesh of our 
 ilesh ; the bearer of our humanity ; yes, the very life of the 
 race. The life that he lived in Palestine and the death that 
 he endured on Calvary were the revelation of a union with 
 mankind which antedated the Fall, Being thus joined to 
 us from the begininng, he has suffered in all human sin ; 
 in all our affliction he has been afflicted ; so that the Psalmist 
 
 i6 
 
can say: "Blessed be God, who daily beareth our burden, 
 even the God of our salvation." 
 
 So we add to the idea of subslitntion the idea of sharing; Sobstita 
 and see in the Cross, not so much the atonement itself, as t^o" ^^ 
 
 Sharing 
 
 the revelation of the atonement. The sufferings of Christ 
 take deeper hold upon us when we see in them the expres- 
 sion of the two great truths : that holiness must make pen- 
 alty to follow sin ; and that love must share that penalty with 
 the transgressor. And we are subject to that same law of 
 life. We who enter into fellowship with our Lord fill up 
 that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ for his 
 body's sake which is the church ; and the Christian church 
 can reign with Christ only as it partakes in his suffering. 
 The atonement becomes a model and stimulus to self- 
 sacrifice, and a test of Christian character. But it is easy 
 to see how the subjective effect of Christ's sacrifice may 
 absorb the attention, to the exclusion of its ground and 
 cause. The moral influence of the atonement has taken 
 deep hold upon our minds, and we are in danger of forget- 
 ting that it is the holiness of God, and not the salvation of 
 men, that primarily requires it. When sharing excludes 
 substitution; when reconciliation of man to God excludes 
 reconciliation of God to man ; when the only peace secured 
 is peace in the sinner's heart and no thought is given to 
 that peace with God which it is the first object of the atone- 
 ment to secure ; then our whole evangelical system is weak- 
 ened, God's righteousness is ignored, and man is prac- 
 tically put in place of God. I doubt not that this has been 
 the effect, in Baptist circles, of some recent journalism and 
 some recent teaching. We need to stay this incoming tide 
 of anti-scriptural theology. We can do so, not by going 
 back to the old mechanical and arbitrary conceptions of 
 the atonement, but by going forward to a more vital appre- 
 hension of the relation of the race to Christ. A larger 
 knowledge of Christ, the life of humanity, will enable us to 
 hold fast the objective nature of the atonement, and its 
 necessity as grounded in the holiness of God; while at the 
 
 i1 
 
same time we appropriate all that is good in the modem 
 view of the atonement, as the final demonstration of God's 
 constraining love which moves men to repentance and sub- 
 mission. 
 
 I perceive some change in our ideas of Christian fellow- 
 C^^» ship. Our fathers lived in a day when simple faith was sub- 
 iect to serious disabilities. The establishments frowned upon 
 dissent, and visited it with pains and penalties. It is no 
 wonder that believers in the Xew Testament doctrine and 
 polit}- felt that they must come out from what they regarded 
 as an apostate church. They could have no sympathy with 
 those who held back the truth in unrighteousness and per- 
 secuted the saints of God. But our doctrine has leavened 
 all Christendom. Scholarship is on the side of immersion. 
 Infant baptism is on the decline. The churches that once 
 opposed us now compliment us on our steadfastness in the 
 faith and on our missionary zeal. There is a growing spirit- 
 uality- in these churches, which prompts them to extend to 
 us hands of fellowship. And there is a growing sense 
 among us that the kingdom of Christ is wider than our own 
 membership, and that loyalty- to our Lord requires us to 
 recognize his presence and blessing even in bodies which 
 we do not regard as organized in complete accordance with 
 the Xew Testament model. 
 
 If I am asked whether Baptists still hold to restricted 
 J^ communion. I answer that our principle has not changed, 
 cfan but that many of us apply the principle in a different man- 
 ner from that of our fathers. We belicA^e that baptism 
 logically precedes the Lord's Supper, as birth precedes the 
 taking of nourishment, and regeneration precedes sanctifica- 
 tion. We believe that the order of the ordinances is an im- 
 portant point of Christian doctrine, and itself teaches 
 Christian doctrine. Hence we proclaim it and adhere to it. 
 in our preaching and in our practice. But we do not turn 
 the Lord's Supper into a judgment-seat, or turn the officers 
 of the church into detectives. We teach the truth, and ex- 
 pect that the truth will win its way. We are courteous to 
 
 i8 
 
all who come among us; and expect that they in turn will 
 have the courtesy to respect our convictions and to act ac- 
 cordingly. But there is danger here that we may break 
 from our moorings and drift into indifferentism with regard 
 to the ordinances. The recent advocacy of open church- 
 membership is but the logical consequence of a previous con- 
 cession of open communion. But I am persuaded that this 
 new doctrine is confined to very few among us. The 
 remedy for this false liberalism is to be found in that same 
 Christ who solves for us all other problems. It is this 
 Christ who sets the solitary in families, and who makes of 
 one every nation that dwells on the face of the earth. 
 Christian denominations are at least temporarily his appoint- 
 ment. Loyalty to the body which seems to us best to repre- 
 sent his truth is also loyalty to him. Love for Christ does Unity 
 not involve the surrender of the ties of family, or nation, or Empna- 
 denomination, but only consecrates and ennobles them. Yet 
 Christ is King in Zion. There is but one army of the living 
 God, even though there are many divisions. We can em- 
 phasize our unity with other Christian bodies, rather than the 
 differences between us. We can regard them as churches 
 of the Lord Jesus, even though they are irregularly consti- 
 tuted. As a marriage ceremony may be valid, even though 
 performed without a license and by an unqualified admin- 
 istrator; and as an ordination may be valid, even though 
 the ordinary laying-on of hands be omitted ; so the or- 
 dinance of the Lord's Supper as administered in pedo- 
 baptist churches may be valid, though irregular in its ac- 
 companiments and antecedents. Though we still protest 
 against the modem perversions of the New Testament 
 doctrine as to the subjects and the mode of baptism, we hold 
 with regard to the Lord's Supper that irregularity is not 
 invalidity, and that we may recognize as churches even those 
 bodies which celebrate the Lord's Supper without having 
 been baptized. Our faith in the larger Christ is bringing 
 us out from our denominational isolation into an inspiring 
 
 19 
 
recognition of our oneness with the universal church of God 
 throughout the world. 
 
 There have been changes in our Baptist view of the 
 View Scriptures. When the Reformation dislodged the Church 
 ^3l from the place of ultimate authority, the Bible was sub- 
 stituted for the Church. It was forgotten that the only ulti- 
 mate authority is Christ, and that he has never so con- 
 structed Scripture" as to dispense with his own personal 
 presence and the teaching of his Spirit. Nowhere does 
 the Bible speak of itself as "the word of God." That 
 phrase designates the truth, of which the Bible is the record. 
 And modern investigation is teaching us that there is a 
 human element in that record; it has grown up in ways 
 analogous to those in which other literatures have origin- 
 ated ; and it is to be interpreted in the light of its history. 
 And yet, in spite of imperfections, its authorship is divine, 
 as well as human ; it brings us a divine revelation ; its many 
 biblia constitute one Bible. It is not intended to teach 
 physical science or secular history ; but it can lead us 
 to Christ and the truth. When taken together, and in- 
 terpreted by the same Spirit who inspired it, it is able to 
 make us wise unto salvation. 
 
 We cannot, even if we would, escape or ignore the results 
 of modern criticism. That criticism is sometimes skeptical and 
 destructive, but it is not necessarily so. It may be, and it 
 often is, constructive and illuminating, and in that measure 
 it is only a new means by which Christ himself is throw- 
 ing light upon the record of his past revelations and enabling 
 us the Better to understand them. The miraculous element 
 in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament the virgin 
 birth and resurrection of our Lord, are only made more 
 indisputable facts of history, when they are shown to be not 
 violations of law but extraordinary workings of law; and 
 inspiration becomes only more credible, when it is recognized 
 as an intensification of natural powers under the special 
 influence of the Spirit of God. But in this new method of 
 thought there lie obvious dangers of exaggeration ; and in 
 
 20 
 
some quarters we may observe a tendency to sink the divine 
 in tfie human, and to divest the Bible of all authority. Let 
 us beware of this tendency, for our Baptist doctrine and 
 polity are founded upon the New Testament. If this New 
 Testament is not the common law of the church, then our 
 separate existence as a denomination is impertinence and 
 schism. How shall we steer our bark so as to clear both 
 the Scylla of bibliolatry and the Charybdis of rationalism? 
 Ah, there is ever the one and sufficient answer: Jesus 
 Christ, the same yesterday and to-day and forever. He is 
 the only ultimate authority; and he abides, by his omnipo- 
 tent Spirit, in his people, opening to them the Scriptures 
 even as he did to those disciples on the way to Emmaus, 
 showing them the things concerning himself, enabling them 
 to compare spiritual things with spiritual, and so leading 
 them gradually but surely into all the truth. 
 
 III. THE OUTLOOK 
 
 And now, last of all, with this past history behind us, and 
 with this present attitude in respect to faith and practice, Building: 
 what is our outlook toward the future ? Will Baptist prin- "'^ 
 ciples stand the test of advancing intelligence, and of the 
 tremendous march of culture and civilization ? I reply : 
 They are the only principles that can stand the test. For 
 they build on Christ, the solid Rock, and on that conception 
 of a spiritual church, against which he himself has said 
 that the gates of Hades shall not prevail. In that one con- 
 ception of a spiritual church, we find our strength, our 
 warning, and our inspiration. If we hold to that, we cannot 
 fail to grow and to triumph. We may be very weak and 
 ignorant in other respects, but this principle ensures success. 
 When I think how little Peter and James and John, on the 
 banks of the Jordan at the beginning of Christ's ministry, 
 knew about Christian doctrine, I am amazed that they should 
 have been counted among his disciples. If you had asked 
 them about the deity of Christ or about his atonement, they 
 
 21 
 
would not have understood the meaning of your words. But 
 they heard his command : "Follow me !" and they obeyed. 
 In that act of obedience was latent the whole Christian 
 scheme. They knew nothing of the deity of Christ? But 
 what right had they to submit themselves unreservedly to 
 him, if he were a mere man like themselves? Their follow- 
 ing him was an implicit and unconscious confession of his 
 deity. They knew nothing of the atonement of Christ ? But 
 were they not conscious sinners, who had submitted to 
 John's baptism of repentance and of faith in him who was 
 to come, and, in following Christ, did they not show that 
 they looked to him as the promised Messiah, the Lamb of 
 God that taketh away the sins of the world ? All Christian 
 doctrine was implicit in their obedience. That doctrine was 
 vague and undefined, unconscious and unformulated, but it 
 was none the less real. It was like solid matter in a state 
 of solution, so transparent as to be invisible, yet ready at 
 a shock to be precipitated and crystallized into definite forms 
 of belief, as when Peter afterward made his great confes- 
 sion : "Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God." 
 So our Baptist principle of a spiritual church contains, 
 The latently and logically, all the substance of Christianity, and 
 
 Conquering j^. j^^^g power to regenerate the world. That is, it has all the 
 power that truth alone can possess. But we need ever to 
 remember that truth, apart from Christ, the Spirit of truth, 
 is an abstraction, and not a power. Here is the danger of 
 some modern theories of Christian education. They give us 
 statistics, to show that the age of puberty is the age of 
 strongest religious impressions; and the inference is drawn 
 that conversion is nothing but a natural phenomenon, a 
 regular stage of development. The free will, and the evil 
 bent of that will, are forgotten, and the absolute dependence 
 of perverse human nature upon the regenerating Spirit of 
 God. The age of puberty is the age of strongest religious 
 impressions ? Yes, but it is also the age of strongest artistic 
 and social and sensuous impressions, and only a new birth 
 from above can lead the soul to seek first the kingdom of 
 
God. Our people have believed in the converting power of 
 God; and just in proportion as they have given and prayed 
 and labored, the Spirit has been poured out upon them and 
 their witness to the truth has been followed by great in- 
 gatherings. 
 
 When we think of the proper expression of the truth, as 
 of importance only second to the having of the truth to Demand 
 
 be expressed, may we not learn some lessons from those (?'°^'^"^ 
 ... ... . , , . . Worship 
 
 denommations which seem of late to be outstnppmg us in 
 
 the race? It is the Disciples on the one hand, and the 
 Episcopalians on the other, who have drawn most upon 
 our numbers, especially in the older and more cultivated 
 portions of our country. I think we cannot doubt that, as 
 education advances, there is a demand for decorum in wor- 
 ship and attention to outward order, which the earlier stages 
 of religious life tend to neglect. The aesthetic instinct may 
 be overcultivated, and may become a hindrance to piety. 
 But, with increasing culture, there is a growing disposition 
 to express religious thought in impressive forms. The arts 
 of music and of architecture may become helpers to re- 
 ligion. The Puritan worship was bare and hard. It took 
 little account of the love of God or of the beauty of his 
 works. The ritualistic churches of our day are making 
 headway, partly at least because they clothe the truth in a 
 fitting garb, and appeal to the heart as well as to the head. 
 Taste is a divine gift ; the bride in the Messianic psalm had 
 garments of needlework ; the New Testament appropriates 
 all that was vital and beautiful in the Old ; the worship of 
 the New Jerusalem has in it a responsive and even a liturgi- 
 cal element. We give over to the minister too much of 
 our public service; he should be rather the leader of the 
 congregation. We can keep our young people more easily, 
 if we add to our worship more of dignity and impressiveness, 
 and if we make our places of worship beautiful as well as 
 homelike. Christ is the Master of the universe ; he will 
 make even the arts to serve him ; regard for outward form 
 is not incompatible with the humble and contrite heart, and 
 
 23 
 
with the indwelling in that heart of the living Redeemer. 
 Our Baptist concern that the religious spirit properly ex- 
 press itself in the constitution of the church and in its or- 
 dinances may well lead us further, namely, to making that 
 church and those ordinances thoroughly tasteful and at- 
 tractive. 
 
 Yet I confess that my greatest concern for the future is 
 hi Oi°**K ^^^ concern lest we should cease to be a untnessing church, 
 and so should cease to be a true church of Christ. For a 
 spiritual church means, as we have seen, two things: first, 
 the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ in regenerate souls ; 
 and secondly, the outward expression of their union with 
 Christ in his death and resurrection. We express our re- 
 lation to Christ by the New Testament organization and or- 
 dinances. But we need also to express it by holy lives, and 
 by actual oral testimony. To a considerable extent, and 
 especially in our older and more educated communities, we 
 have fallen into the sacerdotal notion that our ministers 
 are to do our preaching for us ; forgetting that, in the 
 early church when Christians were scattered abroad, they, 
 and not the apostles, went everywhere preaching the word. 
 Not sermons, but individual voices of private members of 
 the church, are to evangelize the world. When the Romans 
 shortened their swords, they lengthened their territories. 
 Wherever and whenever we have done this hand to hand 
 work, our increase has been great. When we cease to be- 
 lieve that men around us are lost, cease in private to urge 
 them to come to Christ, the glory will depart from us. The 
 church that ceases to be evangelistic will soon cease to be 
 evangelical ; and the church that ceases to be evangelical 
 will soon cease to exist. 
 
 Why is it that those Mediterranean lands where the 
 Hwt be gospel was first preached have been given over to infidelity 
 Hlsdonary and to barbarism ? Why has the candlestick that once burned 
 so brightly been removed out of its place? Simply be- 
 cause it quenched its light and refused to shine ; simply 
 because it shut in its rays, like a dark lantern, and had no 
 
 24 
 
compassion upon those who were sitting in darkness. While 
 the early churches were missionary churches and sent the 
 gospel abroad, they continued to prosper at home. When, 
 like the ancient Jews, they came to fancy that the oracles 
 of God were given to them only for their individual and 
 national salvation, God scattered them through the world, 
 and gave their possessions to others. And so it will be 
 with us. If we settle down in ease and idleness, content to 
 enjoy the fruits of Christianity without giving our Chris- 
 tianity to others, we too will be dealt with as were those 
 wicked husbandmen who failed to render returns to the 
 ovner and whose vineyard was taken from them. 
 
 We have been a democratic people, and the masses have jhe 
 
 flocked to us. Now that we are gaining wealth and social Christian 
 ..... , , ,, r i , * FubUc 
 
 position, there is danger that we shall forget the poor and Spirited 
 
 the oppressed. We need more fully to recognize, not only Citizen 
 our unity with all Christians, but our unity with all men. 
 We are our brothers' keepers, and nothing human should 
 be foreign to us. The Jaisse::-faire or let-alone principle is 
 only a surviving selfishness and barbarism. We are bound 
 to moralize competition, and to bring men out from their 
 isolation into community and brotherhood in Christ. I do 
 not mean that churches should take sides in labor agitations 
 or in political campaigns. But I do mean that church-mem- 
 bers should listen to the exceeding bitter cry of the sub- 
 merged classes ; should demand protective legislation for 
 those to whom heartless capitalists will not grant a living 
 wage. In the saloon that entices to drink, in the crime 
 which that drink causes, and in the lawlessness which 
 lynches the criminal, Christian men should see their Mas- 
 ter's call to stand for the weak against the strong. We 
 have been losing ground because we have been too intent 
 upon our own concerns to care for the interests of our 
 neighbor. A true Baptist should be a man of public spirit. 
 He should not only strive to rescue individual men from 
 the slough of vice, but he should devise measures for drain- 
 ing that slough and making that vice impossible. In other 
 
 25 
 
words, he should labor for the coming of the kingdom of 
 God in society, as well as in the church. 
 
 Our faith, moreover, is measured by our giving. Judged 
 Faith by our numbers and by our wealth, our Baptist gifts, how- 
 U^iM ^^^^ large they may seem, are pitiably small. Our total 
 gifts to home and foreign missions are not one cent a week 
 for each member. The church is like Dives in the parable, 
 clothed in fine linen and faring sumptuously every day, 
 while the sick and hungry world at its doors, like Lazarus, 
 receives only the crumbs from the bountifully provided 
 table. In the time of the great Indian famine there were 
 relief agents to whom were intrusted great sums of money 
 with which to feed the hungry, but who kept that money 
 for themselves, while hundreds of starving creatures died 
 under their very eyes. God has given us wealth, that we 
 may relieve the spiritual famine of the world. He has made 
 us stewards of his bounty ; and for every dollar intrusted 
 to us he will require us to give account. Shall we keep for 
 ourselves, or spend upon our own pleasures, what belongs 
 to the perishing? What should we think of the professed 
 Christian who, when the bread was passed to him at the 
 Lord's Supper, should keep it all for himself, and refuse 
 to pass it on ? When the Lord multiplies the loaves to feed 
 the five thousand, shall the apostles keep the loaves to them- 
 selves, and pile them up till they form such a barricade that 
 the five thousand are hid from sight? And shall John be 
 excused from distributing, simply because Peter will not 
 do his part ? Ah, my brethren, this is a matter between each 
 one of us and Christ ! Each one of us is charged with 
 maintaining and extending a spiritual church, by our giving, 
 as well as by our witnessing and teaching. And not our 
 brethren, but only Christ, is our Example, our Lawgiver, 
 and our Judge. 
 
 For he cometh, for he cometh, to judge the earth ! The 
 judgment of nations takes place in time; for nations be- 
 long only to the present order of things, and have no eternal 
 existence. Denominations also are judged in this world ; 
 
 26 
 
since the divisions between them are incidents of our pres- 
 ent imperfect knowledge, and when that which is perfect is 
 come then that which is in part shall be done away. Mean- 
 time, we are held individually responsible for the forward 
 march of the denomination which to us most fully em- 
 bodies and represents the truth of Christ. A retrograde 
 movement of that denomination may be the consequence of 
 our illiberality, our laxity, our indifference. We cannot 
 say with the heedless French monarch : "After me the 
 deluge!" The judgment which comes to a denomination in 
 time comes to the members of that denomination in eternity. 
 If we confess Christ and his truth before men, Christ will 
 confess us before his Father and before the holy angels. 
 If we deny him, he also will deny us. 
 
 The faith in a second coming of Christ has lost its hold The 
 upon many Baptists in our day. But it still serves to stimu- ^'^f? 
 late and admonish the great body, and we can never dis- 
 pense with its solemn and mighty influence. Christ comes, 
 it is true, in Pentecostal revivals and in destructions of 
 Jerusalem, in Reformation movements and in political up- 
 heavals. But these are only precursors of another and 
 literal and final return of Christ, to punish the wicked and 
 to complete the salvation of his people. That day for 
 which all other days are made will be a joyful day for those 
 who have fought a good fight and have kept the faith. Let 
 us look for and hasten the coming of the day of God. The 
 Jacobites of Scotland never ceased their labors and sacri- 
 fices for their king's return. Their passionate devotion to 
 his cause led hundreds of them to exile and to death. They 
 never tasted wine, without pledging their absent prince; 
 they never joined in song, without renewing their oaths of 
 allegiance. In many a prison cell and on many a battle 
 field they rang out the strain: 
 "Follow thee, follow thee, wha wadna follow thee? 
 
 Long hast thou lo'ed and trusted us fairly : 
 Chairlie, Chairlie, wha wadna follow thee? 
 
 King o' the Highland hearts, bonnie Prince Chairlie !" 
 
 27 
 
So they sang, so they invited him, until at last he came. But 
 that longing for the day when Charles should come to his 
 own again was faint and weak compared with the longing 
 of true Christian hearts for the coming of their King. 
 Charles came, only to suffer defeat, and to bring shame to 
 his country. But Christ will come, to put an end to the 
 world's long sorrow, to give triumph to the cause of truth, 
 to bestow everlasting reward upon the faithful. 
 
 "Even so. Lord Jesus, come! 
 Hope of all our hopes the sum. 
 Take thy waiting people home ! 
 
 "Long, so long, the groaning earth, 
 Cursed with war and flood and dearth, 
 Sighs for its redemption-birth. 
 
 "Therefore come, we daily pray, 
 Bring the resurrection-day. 
 Wipe creation's curse away !" 
 
 I rest my Baptist faith upon the New Testament demand 
 The Basis for a spiritual church ; and I rest my Baptist hope upon the 
 and Horc ^^istoric fact of our past faithfulness to this fundamental 
 principle. "If any man serve me, him will my Father 
 honor," These words are as true of the denomination, as 
 they are of the individual Christian. And what is meant by 
 serving Christ, our Lord himself intimates when he requires 
 that "all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the 
 Father." We have tried to honor Christ, and Qirist has 
 honored us. Our future as a denomination, if we are but 
 faithful to Christ's word and to our past history, is as sure 
 as the promises of God. It is not a question whether our 
 principles are correct, so much as it is a question whether we 
 are true to our principles. I believe that the great body of 
 Baptists still are true, and therefore I believe that our 
 denominational outlook is still promising. Though we have 
 
 28 
 
suffered a comparative check in our onward movement and 
 our increase is not what it once was, the very knowledge 
 of the fact which this council of war gives to us may, by 
 the help of Christ's Spirit, be made a stimulus to such labor 
 and liberality and prayer, that we shall press forward as 
 never before. We were once but a little flock, yet it was the 
 Father's good pleasure to give us the kingdom. If we are 
 only meek, we shall yet inherit the earth. 
 
 If we are to meet our King in peace, we must do the The Open 
 work of the immediate present. And what an opportunity Baptist 
 stretches before us ! Here in this land is the greatest field, Principle 
 and the most widely opened door, that the Baptist principle 
 has ever known. Never before in human history was so 
 vast an area devoted to free trade, unrestricted by inter- 
 state duties and taxes. Never before in human history was 
 so vast a population possessed of the means of education. 
 Never before in human history was there so complete and 
 successful a system of self-government. Our Baptist faith 
 and polity inculcate the right and the duty of private judg- 
 ment, and so commend themselves to intelligent freemen. 
 We believe in democracy, and we are fitted to succeed in a 
 democratic country. We ought to take possession of Amer- 
 ica in the name of Christ. But more than this. We are 
 citizens of the world. We have access to the other nations 
 as never before. The industrial and educational and demo- 
 cratic leadership of America gives us advantage over every 
 other people, in the conduct of religious work. American 
 Baptists ought to girdle the whole earth with their mis- 
 sions. Let past success embolden us to worldwide effort \ 
 The principle for which we contend is divine and eternal. 
 Christ himself is with us. He will not fail nor be dis- 
 couraged, till he has made his spiritual church contermin- 
 ous with the whole human race for which he died. 
 
 Not many days ago President Roosevelt touched a gold Faith and 
 
 button in the East Room of the White House at Washing- f/^^" the 
 
 Unifying' 
 ton, and set in motion all the machinery of the great Forces 
 
 World's Fair at St. Louis. How came it that a single man 
 
 29 
 
of finite powers could bridge over that great interval of 
 space and could accomplish results which a thousand giants 
 could not produce? Only because of the all-encompassing, 
 all-pervading forces of electricity and magnetism which 
 bind together, not only St. Louis and Washington, but all 
 places and all times. These forces are but other names for 
 the intelligence and will of God. The God in whom we 
 live and move and have our being connects all human souls 
 as well as all material things, and, weak and ignorant as we 
 are. the least of us may be mighty through God to the pull- 
 ing down of strongholds. God has invested each one of us 
 who believe, with authority, greater than that of President 
 Roosevelt, by faith and prayer to touch the springs of 
 human action, and to inaugurate movements in human his- 
 tory compared with which the starting of that machinery 
 at St. Louis was but child's play. We are not presidents, 
 but we are more than that — we are kings and priests unto 
 God, instruments through whom Christ works, endowed 
 with his power. Even the grain of faith that is like the 
 mustard-seed for smallness can remove obstacles that stand 
 like mountains in the way of progress of Christ's king- 
 dom. Let us then betake ourselves to prayer as well as 
 to labor. And let us begin here and now. Let us pray ! 
 
 PRAYER 
 
 Lord Jesus, if we have faltered and suffered defeat, it is 
 because «v have forgotten Thee. We repent of our un- 
 belief and sin, and we come back to Thee. Reveal Thyself 
 to us once more as God omnipotent, with Thy people al- 
 way even to the end of the world; as God omniscient, with 
 Thine attention concentrated everywhere and even upon us; 
 OS Go\d omnipotent, with infinite power ready to act in our 
 time of need. Thy holiness demands that we recognise 
 Thy presence. Thy knowledge. Thy power. Thy love as- 
 sures us that Thou wilt give even the faith which qualities 
 us to appropriate Thy gifts. What tve cannot do of our- 
 
 30 
 
selves Thou canst eatable us to do, by the bestowment of 
 Thy Holy Spirit. We appeal to Th^ee to help us. Our 
 fathers trusted in Thee: they trusted, and Thou didst de- 
 liver them. They bore Thy cross, and suffered death, be- 
 lieving that their death should be made the means of 
 establishing Thy truth. Remember their prayers, we be- 
 seech Thee. Remember Thy faithful ones, who in all Thy 
 churches still call upon Thy name and witness for Thee. Look 
 dowii from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine, and the 
 stock which Thy right hand planted, and the branch which 
 Thou madest strong for Thyself. So shall we not go back 
 from Thee: quicken us, and we will call upon Thy name. 
 Turn us again, O Jehovah Jesus; cause Thy face to shine, 
 and we shall be saved. Fulfill Thy promise, by giving to us 
 here and now the Holy Spirit; and by sending us out, indi- 
 vidually and collectively, empowered to proclaim Thy gospel 
 in Sikh a way that, as of old, men maxy be moved to surren- 
 der themselves to Thee, to lead holy and unworldly lives, 
 and to labor and give for the triumph of Thy cause. Bring 
 the resurrection of faith and love which Thou hast promisM. 
 Make Thy servants again willing to die for Thee, nay, to live 
 for Thee at home, or to go for Thee, if Thou dost bid, to the 
 uttermost parts of the earth. Bring again the days of great 
 ingatherings ; show the scorners and th\e faint hearted that 
 Thou art mighty to save; set up Thy throne where Satan 
 now rules, Thou Prince of the kings of the earth! Thou 
 who didst love Thy church and give Thyself for it, be not far 
 from us; for if Thou be far from us, vue shall be as those 
 who go down into the pit. Make Thy church what Thou 
 didst design it to be, the fulness of him thai filleth all in all. 
 For Thou art the Son of the living God; all authority in 
 heaven cmd in earth has been given unto Thee; to Thee 
 equally with the Father and the Holy Spirit we give honor, 
 and praise, and glory, and blessing; and in Thy name, O 
 Christ, we ask and offer all. Amen. 
 
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