tihvavy of tire t:heolo0icd ^tminary PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY Rufus H. LeFevre 5,NZ7 >^ \ wi f ni "t^i FFR 11 1953. ®ttr Mi^n nni ailfm aFaak Addresses and Papers Given at the National Congress of United Brethren Men, Held in Dayton, Ohio, May 5-7, 1914. ^*?xi The Otterbein Press Dayton, Ohio 1914. Copyright, 1914. by The United Brethren Publishint House, Dayton, Ohio. INTRODUCTORY. The National Congress of United Brethren Men, held in Day- ton, Ohio, May 5-7, 1914, in its purpose, program, personnel, spirit, and statement of policy was a meeting of commanding importance in the life and work of the United Brethren Church as it faces the second century since the death of Philip William Otterbein. We are yet too near the Congress to give a proper estimate of its sig- nificance. ITS ORIGIN The General Conference of 1913 put before our denomination great tasks to be accomplished, and elected a Commission on Fi- nance to conduct a comprehensive, educational campaign to give the victories and needs of our united, benevolent work and to intro- duce a weekly system of giving to meet these needs. The new Commission on Finance held its first session July 1-3, 1913, when a resolution was offered that we plan to hold a nation- wide' congress of the representative laymen and ministers, to set forth in a compelling manner our great, united work in the exten- sion of the kingdom of God. The executive committee of the Fi- nance Commission was instructed to consider and report on such a congress. This committee decided to recommend the matter to the Bishops' Cabinet, which convened in Baltimore, in November, 1913. In the meantime the proposition was approved by the confer- ence of superintendents of the Northwest District at a meeting in Chicago. The Bishops' Cabinet considered thoroughly the propo- sition\nd voted to hold the congress in Dayton, Ohio, in connec- tion with the annual board meetings. THE PURPOSE The general committee elected by the Bishops' Cabinet in its call for the Congress, announced the purpose to be as follows : 1. That our denomination may discover its resources in Jesus Christ, and God's will for us in the extension of his kingdom. 2. That we may recount and be grateful for the victories of the past. 3. That the tasks and opportunities now before our Church may be set forth in a comprehensive, constructive, and convincing manner. 4. That we may discover the one hundred and fifty thousand members in our communion now not active, and the means by which they may be enlisted in the work of Christ. 5. That strong agencies may be provided for the instruction and training of efficient leadership, both in our local churches and the general church work, that our entire membership may reach its maximum power in the work of the kingdom. 6. That a workable, inspiring, denominational program and policy may be adopted as we enter the second century since the death of Philip William Otterbein. The response to the call for the Congress was beyond all ex- pectations. Nearly seven hundred business men, lawyers, doctors, mechanics, farmers, pastors, conference superintendents, and Bish- ops were present from forty annual conferences in America and from four foreign fields. These delegates as a rule came at their own expense, and were dominated by a strong purpose to get the full message of the Congress and to carry out speedily its policy and program. From the opening of the first session until the close of the last one, the delegates entered into the work with such promptness, co-operation, and constant intercession as were never before witnessed in any assembly in our denomination. With open hearts and minds the delegates faced their risen Lord, the unmatched opportunities of this hour, and the distinct responsibility of our communion in extending the kingdom of our Lord. Scores of men testified that their lives had been completely transformed. The delegates returned to their homes changed men, to begin the real task of carrying forward our ur.ited work to victory. The Congress voted to put into book form the messages de- livered, that the vision, scope, and power of the Congress may be given to all our people. It is earnestly hoped that every one who reads the important messages of this book will give himself to earnest prayer and a definite purpose to carry into action the policy and program approved. ''The end of the Congress is but the beginning of the enter- prise." (Signed) THE GENERAL COMMITTEE, S. S. HoUiGH, Chairman. Chas. W. Brewbaker. E. L. Shuey. A. C. SiDDALL. Jay M. Cogan. H. C. Cridland^ Secretary. A STATEMENT. npHE desirability of keeping within the -■- limits of a book the addresses and papers of the Men's Congress, has made it necessary to condense many of them, and the editorial committee has sought to do this in away not to detract from the unity and effectiveness of the messages, nor to destroy the style and manner of treatment of each author. In avoiding the duplica- tion of matter there has been omitted from some addresses that which appeared in another. — Editorial Committee CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT Committee on National Congress of United Brethren Men iii THE CHURCH'S RESOURCES, STEWARDSHIP, AND ACHIEVEMENTS CHRIST OUR IvORD— Charles Gallaudet Trumbull, Editor The Sunday School Times, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1 ENTERING INTO THE LIFE THAT IS CHRIST— Charles Gallaudet Trumbull 8 MAN A STEWARD AND CO-WORKER WITH GOD— Bishop H. H. Fout, D.D., Northwest District 15 STRATEGIC ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE PAST CENTURY— Rev. J. Balmer STiowers, B.D., Professor Greek Exegesis, Bonebrake Seminary 22 UNMATCHED OPPORTUNITY OF THIS HOUR THE CALL OF AMERICA— Joseph Ernest McAfee, Associate Secretary, Presby- terian Board of Home Missions, New York 28 THE CHALLENGE OF AN AWAKENED WORLD— Bishop Cyrus J. Kephart, A.M., D.D., Southwest District 36 CO-OPERATIVE PROTESTANTISM IN THE TASK OF THE KINGDOM— Rev. Charles S. MacFarland, D.D., Secretary Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, New York 43 OUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR AMERICA AND THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH TO THE HOMELESS— Rev. R. J. White, D.D., Superintendent Erie Conference, Buffalo, New York 50 THE LOCAL CHURCH CAPTURING ITS COMMUNITY FOR CHRIST— Rev. Charles W. Recard, D.D., Canton, Ohio- 52 WINNING. OUR SHARE OF AMERICA— Bishop William M. Weekley, D.D„ East District, Parkersburg, West Virginia 56 THE OPPORTUNITY AND CHALLENGE IN OUR FOREIGN FIELDS— Bishop Alfred T. Howard, A.M., D.D., Foreign Missionary Bishop 64 UNITED MOVEMENT TO ENLIST THE LOCAL CHURCHES IN KINGDOM EXTENSION EDUCATION AND INSPIRATION NEEDED IN THE LOCAL CHURCH— Rev. A. C. Siddall, D.D., Secretary Church Erection 73 OUR TOGETHER MOVEMENT— ENLISTING ALL IN GIVING FOR ALI^- Rev. J. S. Kendall, D.D., Secretary Commission on Finance 80 BUSINESS IN RELIGION— Mr. L. O. Miller, General Church Treasurer 85 RESULTS INADEQUATE TO OPPORTUNITIES AND RESOURCES— Mr. Ed- win L. Shuey, A.M., Dayton, Ohio 91 A MESSAGE FROM THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH— Hon. O. F. Hypes, Springfield, Ohio 99 A MESSAGE FROM THE METHODIST PROTESTANT CHURCH— Rev. C. H. Hubble, D.D., Secretary Young People's Work, Methodist Protestant Church, Adrian, Michigan 101 A MESSAGE FROM THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST— Rev. A. E. Cory, Secretary Men and Millions Movement, Disciples of Christ 103 CHRIST DOMINANT IN SOCIETY— IN THE CITY AND IN THE STATE THE CALL TO SOCIAL SERVICE— Rev. Warren L. Bunger, Greensburg, Pennsyl- vania 109 TRANSFORMING A CITY— Mr. Frederick H. Rike, A.B., President Greater Day- ton, Association, Dayton, Ohio 116 THE CHRISTIAN IN THE STATE— Bishop G. M. Mathews, D.D., LL.D., Cen- tral District 122 vii LEADERSHIP NECESSARY TO ACCOMPLISH OUR TASK MINISTERIAL LEADERSHIP NECESSARY TO ACCOMPLISH OUR TASK— Rev. Walter G. Clippinger, A.B., D.D., President Otterbein University 131 LAY LEADERSHIP NECESSARY TO ACCOMPLISH OUR TASK— Rev. G. D. Batdorf, Lancaster, Pennsj'lvania 136 AGENCIES NEEDED TO CALL OUT AND TRAIN LEADERS THE COLLEGE AS A FACTOR NEEDED TO CALL OUT AND TRAIN LEADERS— Rev. William E. Schell, A.M., D.D., General Secretary of Edu- cation 143 HOW TO TRAIN ALL THE STUDENTS IN OUR COLLEGES IN THE PRAC- TICAL WORK IN WHICH THEY WILL BE EXPECTED TO BE LEADERS^Rev. Marion R. Drury, A.M., D.D., President Leander Clark Col- lege 148 BONEBRAKE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY— A NECESSARY AGENCY FOR CALLING OUT AND TRAINING LEADERS— Rev. J. P. Landis, D.D., Ph.D., President Bonebrake Seminary ; 152 THE SEMINARY, OUR WEST POINT— Rev. J. E. Fout, D.D., General Manager Bonebrake Seminary 156 HOW TO SECURE AN ADEQUATE FORCE OF MEN FOR THE MINISTRY AND MISSIONARY WORK— Rev. George D. Gossard, A.M., D.D., President Lebanon Valley College 158 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL AND BROTHERHOOD AND LEADERSHIP— Rev. Charles W. Brewbaker, Ph.D., D.D., Secretary Sunday-School and Brother- hood Work 162 THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S SOCIETY A FACTOR NEEDED TO CALL OUT AND TRAIN LEADERS— Rev. O. T. Deever, B.D., Secretary Young People's Work 167 THE POWER OF OUR PRESS— Rev. W. R. Funk, D.D., Publishing Agent 170 THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE— Rev. D. D. Lowery, D.D., Superintendent East Pennsylvania Conference, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 175 HOW REPRODUCE THE NATIONAL CONGRESS IN THE ANNUAL CON- FERENCE SESSION?— Rev. M. R. Ballinger, A.M., Superintendent Sandusky Conference 179 UNITED BRETHREN SUMMER TRAINING SCHOOLS— C. E. Ashcraft, B.D., Dean of York College 181 THE PROBLEM AND OPPORTUNITY OF THE COUNTRY CHURCH THE IMPORTANCE OF THE COUNTRY CHURCH— Rev. C. Whitney, D.D., Secretary Home Missions 185 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY CHURCH A DENOMINATIONAL STRATEGY— Rev. O. D. Wellbaum, New Haven, Harrison, Ohio, R. F. D... 189 LEADERSHIP FOR THE COUNTRY CHURCH— HOW SECURE IT— Rev. W. E. Snyder, Superintendent Indiana Conference 192 HOW TO BRING THE LOCAL CHURCH TO ITS BEST THE LOCAL CHURCH A POWER IN EVANGELISM— Rev. Ira A. Holbrook, Ph.D., D.D., Albia, Iowa 196 GOSPEL TEAM WORK IN EVANGELISM— Rev. George E. Moody, lola, Kan- sas 198 THE RELATION OF BIG TASKS TO SPIRITUAL POWER AND ENTHUSI- ASM IN THE LOCAL CHURCH— Rev. S. T. Daugherty, A.M., D.D., Wes- terville, Ohio 202 THE NECESSARY LOCAL CHURCH LEADERSHIP— HOW SECURE IT?— Rev. George E. McDonald, Seattle, Washington 205 NATIONAL POLICY AND PROGRAM FOR THE UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH PRAYER A SUPREME FACTOR— Robert E. Speer, Secretary Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Church, New York 209 THE PRESENT DAY MISSIONARY OPPORTUNITY— Robert E. Speer 217 FACING THE NEW CENTURY— Bishop William M. Bell, D.D., Pacific Coast District 228 ONE FIXED PURPOSE TO ACCOMPLISH THE TASK— Rev. S. S. Hough, D.D., Secretary Foreign Missions, Chairman of the Committee on National Men's Congress 234 viii THE CHURCH'S RESOURCES, STEWARDSHIP, AND ACHIEVEMENTS CHRIST, OUR LORD BY CHARLES GALLAUDET TRUMBULL Our Heavenly Father, we ask thee, as only thou by thy Holy Spirit canst do it, to show us Christ, our Lord, here this afternoon, and to make him Lord of our lives, so that our lives by his grace shall honor him and witness to his power in zvays that none of usf. yet dare to ask or think. In his name we ask it. Amen. Christ, our Lord ! I was startled into a new understanding of one of the verses of the New Testament awhile ago. Paul, in writ- ing to the Corinthians (L Cor. 12:3), says, "No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit." Now, the Holy Spirit came from heaven to earth to do things that no man can do ; things that only God can do — to work miracles, in other words. And this calling Jesus Lord is a miracle. The empowering of man to do it is the exclusive work of God, the Holy Spirit. I suppose if I were to ask from the platform for all the men present who beHeve that Jesus is Lord to rise, most of you, per- haps every man, would rise. But if I were to ask that every man rise who not only calls Jesus Lord, not only knows that Jesus is Lord, but who is also experiencing the lordship of Jesus in his life, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment; the complete lord- ship of Christ over himself, over the sin within him — I wonder how many would rise ? But I think that is part of what Paul is talking about in this verse. No man can say, Jesus is Lord, Lord of me, absolute monarch, sitting on the throne of my Hfe and in unhin- dered and undisputed and undefeated power, exercising his lord- ship in my life, moment by moment ; no man can say that, declares Paul, except as the Holy Spirit of God works and continues to work in his life. Surely that is a miracle. Is it a miracle that perhaps we have not experienced? 1 2 Our Men and Their Task In another passage of one of Paul's letters, (Rom. 5: 17), he says, "For if, by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one ; much more shall they that receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, even Jesus Christ." There is the direct promise that those who receive the abun- dance of grace may reign, may get on to the throne and stay there. A man w^ho is on the throne one day and off the next, in an earthly kingdom, is not much of a king. That is a poor apology for reign- ing. If the kingdom is to be a kingdom, he must get on the throne and stay there, right through life. So Paul says that if we receive the abundance of grace through Jesus Christ we may reign ; that is, we may get on the throne with Christ and stay there in life and through life. In other words, the Holy Spirit wants us to call Jesus Lord so that we ourselves may share in his lordship. I say it reverently, the Holy Spirit wants us to be one with him as Lord, so that we shall be in the heavenly places, on the throne, with Christ. And, men, is that our common experience? Do we live on the throne, every enemy under our feet, our sinful nature subdued and kept subdued all the time, we ourselves led always in triumph, morning, noon, and night, week days and Sundays, no matter what the circumstances; just a splendid, glorious march of triumph, sharing always in the lordship of Jesus Christ, so that our life is an amazing witness to the power of God? Is that our experience? Or have we come to Dayton, some of us, Christians though we are, hungering to find how such an experience can be had ? You remember that it has been said, "Either he is Lord of all or he is not Lord at all." Because a partial Lord is not a Lord. A fluctuating Lord has no lordship. And have we learned how to let him be Lord of all ? There is many a man who believes with all his heart and soul and mind and strength that Jesus is Lord, he says it, and knows it, and believes it, because he is a regenerated man, and he has surrendered his life to Jesus Christ, but he is living a defeated life. He finds that he is not able to live in supreme and continued victory over the things that he knows are his besetting sins. So that while he can say in the Ploly Spirit that Jesus is Lord, and although he has surrendered to that Lord, for some reason, somehow, he is not triumphantly experiencing that lordship in his Our Men and Their Task 3 own life. And perhaps he has moments of discouragement when he says to himself that he wonders whether Christ is Lord at all with him, because he is not Lord of all. Not that he doesn't want him to be Lord of all. He longs for this ; but he has not found how he can let Christ be Lord of all. In other words, even the sur- render of our life by the act of our will does not always solve the problem of letting Christ be wholly Lord. May I speak of a personal experience? I had the privilege of being born and brought up in a Christian home. I cannot remem- ber the time when I did not believe that Jesus was Savior, the Son of God ; I united with the church when a boy, scarcely in my teens, then coming right along, as so many of you have done, in the Sun- day school and the Christian Endeavor Society ; when I went away to college, keeping on in the Sunday school, and, after graduation, entering into Christian work. But as the years went on I found that I was not gaining in my personal Christian life as I wanted to. I had the privilege of attending conventions like this, and heard some of the most consecrated Christian leaders of our day address their audiences on the secrets of power in life and service, and as my life was set over against theirs, the increasing failure of my life was plain to me. There were three conspicuous lacks in my life, even though I was in Christian service, was reading the Bible, was taking time for prayer, observed the "Morning Watch" — all that sort of thing — yet these three lacks stood out prominently in my life. The first was that of failure before certain besetting sins. I knew what those sins were. I knew that some of them had been characteristic weaknesses of my life as long as I could remember; and it seemed to me as though it ought to be possible for a Christian man to be set free from them, to be given permanent victory. I had victory occasionally, but habitual victory I wasn't getting. I read books on the subject of temptation, books of sound counsel, but somehow or other they didn't meet my needs ; though they helped, they didn't do the thing permanently. I prayed about it, but prayer didn't lead me out. Men whom I heard in gatherings of this sort, and whom I knew as personal friends, I knew must be living a life of greater victory than I in order to do the work that they were doing, and I wondered how they did it. 4 Our Men and Their Task A second lack in my life, conspicuously so, was the uncertainty of my spiritual life, the fluctuations in my fellowship with God. We all know the phrase, ''Get right with God," that is used so powerfully in evangelistic meetings. A Christian may know that he is saved, but he may also know that, as he lives on day by day, things are not as they should be between him and God. He may try to have it different ; he may want to have it different, and pray for power. Is not that the experience of us all in one form or an- other? After attending perhaps, some meeting of this sort, I would be lifted right up on the heights, and go away conscious of my closeness to and fellowship with God; but it would not last. Sooner or later I would lose that closeness of fellowship with God. Yet it seemed to me there ought to be a way by which a man could know a sustained fellowship with God which would be his habitual experience. The third lack that I wondered over was my failure to see results in the lives of others through my Christian service. I was doing a good deal of Christian service in the Sunday school, in other ways, and in personal work ; and while some one would occasionally unite with the church as a result of my appeal, I was not seeing lives revolutionized for Christ through my service; and I longed for it. I saw men who didn't have the education that I had, or the opportunities, or the family training; men who could not speak English correctly, men who were uncouth, perhaps, in their man- ner of life, whom God was using to revolutionize men as he was not using me, and I wondered what the trouble was. It was only four or five years ago that there began to come intimations to me that certain Christian leaders of power had a different conception of Christ from mine. It was very vague and uncertain at first to me, and I rebelled against the idea, because it didn't seem to me possible that any man could have any better con- ception of Christ than I had. I believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and as God himself, as one with God. I believed there was no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. I had received him as my personal Savior. What more could one believe? What conception of Christ could go be- yond that? I didn't know, and 1 wouldn't admit there was any; but I could not get away from the fact that certain other men Our Men and Their Task 5 seemed to speak of Christ in a way that I could not fully under- stand, that was beyond me. I heard a sermon one summer by a famous preacher on the passage in Ephesians where Paul speaks of "the building up of the body of Christ: till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." As he un- folded the meaning of that passage, I was bewildered ; I could not follow him; but I realized that it was the most wonderful sermon I had ever heard. A little later I read another sermon by that same preacher on "Paul's Conception of the Lord Jesus Christ," and as I read I saw that it was the same message and the same Christ. That autumn I met a minister who had had rare power in bring- ing men to Christ. As we talked freely together, he told me that he had found that the secret of spiritual pov;er, his best spiritual asset, was his consciousness of the actual presence of Jesus in his life. He said, too, that Jesus was the home of his thoughts ; that when- ever he was through having to apply his mind in any particular line of thinking, he found that his mind turned to Christ, without any effort, spontaneously and instinctively. It seemed to me a very beautiful idea. I started in to practice it, to make Christ the home of my thoughts, and w^hen I had nothing else to think about I would, by an effort of the will, turn my mind to Christ. It was rather un- satisfactory, and I know now that it wasn't the experience my friend was speaking about, for Christ had not become the habitual, in- stinctive home of my thoughts, though I often loved to think about him. A little later, when in Edinburgh in 1910, attending the World Missionary Conference, I saw that a famous London preacher, whose book on "The Triumphant Life," had helped me greatly, was to speak one Sunday afternoon to men on "The Resources of the Qiristian Life." I went eargerly to hear him. I supposed that he was going to tell us about certain fundamental things, such as Bible study, prayer, service, and so on. But he didn't tell us about any of those things as our resources. Almost his opening sentence was something like this, "The resources of the Christian life, my dear friends, are just Jesus Christ." And my heart beat with a new joy as I heard that word. After the meeting was over I introduced my- self to him, and asked if I could walk home with him, and I tm- 6 Our Men and Their Task folded to him something of my personal needs that I have been speaking about to you. He spoke with me very sympathetically, and among other things he said, "Oh, ]\.'Ir. Trumbull, if we woula only step out upon Christ with a more daring faith, lie could do so much more for us." Two or three weeks after that, in London, I heard a friend of mine preach from Philippians 1:21, *'To me to Uve is Christ." That phrase had always been more or less of a puzzle to me. I had never quite understood it ; it didn't seem quite grammatical. If Paul had said, "For me to live is to be Christ-like," or *Tor me to live is to serve Christ," I could have understood. But Paul didn't say any of those things ; he plunged right beyond all that in the daring claim, "To me to live is Christ." And as my friend preached that Sunday evening on that verse I saw that he was un- folding Christ again as these others had been doing — presenting Christ to us in a way that made me hungry for more, a Christ whom I did not yet know. Yet I had been for twenty-five years a sincere confessed follower of the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior. A few weeks later I was in western Pennsylvania attending a missionary conference of young people, where I had been asked to take part on the program. The first evening I heard an address by a missionary bishop from India on the "Water of Life." He reminded us that Jesus had said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. Lie that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water." And the speaker asked us whether we were having that experience. He told about a little, old woman out in India who had known Christ for only a year, after living a lifetime in heathendom, and yet from whose life were flowing rivers of living water. The next morning I went alone to my room, in the hope that I might be able to pray it through with God. Not that I had not tried to "pray it through" many times before. But I was led that morning to say, among other things, "O God, if there is a concep- tion of Christ that I have not got, and that I need, won't you give it to me?" And he answered my prayer. The Heavenly Father gave me a new Christ, new to me; he gave me a Savior of a sufficiency beyond anything I ever dreamed could be given to any man in this world. Oh, how wonderfully he met those three lacks I have Our Men and Their Task 7 spoken about! He gave me a new fellowship with God. He showed me that it was possible to have victory in a new way over besetting sins. And in the next few months he showed me how Christ could use a man, even like myself, use any man who met the simple conditions for fruit-bearing, for results in the lives of others, that went beyond all the years of my Christian service put together before that time. The new conception of Christ that he gave me that day was this : I came to realize that Sunday morning that the many, many passages in the New Testament that speak of "Christ in you," and you in Christ, "Abide in me, and I in you," were literal fact instead of being figures of speech as I had superficially thought. I had before thought of Christ as an omnipotent Savior, ready to be alongside of me all the time, ready to help me do anything I needed ; but I came that Sunday morning to see that I had a Sa- vior who was infinitely better than that. I saw that he was a Savior who wanted me to recognize that I was literally joined to him as a branch is joined to the vine, and that he and I were one — that he was not my helper, but my life; that he was ready to constitute himself my being, my very self. Just as a certain tree has been constituted into this desk on which my hand is resting, so, just as literally, I came to see that the Lord Jesus Christ had constituted himself my life and my being. I saw what Philippians 1 : 21 meant, and I saw it for the first time in my life: "To me to live is Christ." Not to be Christ-like, no, but "to me to live is Christ/' As a friend of mine, reading that verse, later said, "It means, 'for me to live is for Christ to live.' " That is it. By a mystery that we can never understand in this life, Christ has taken us into literal, organic union with himself. I know now that temptation to known sin need not last one second as it faces the holiness and omnipotence of the Lord Jesus Christ in us. God's life may be our life ; God's throne our throne, our place of abiding, our place of living as we reign in life; the lordship of Christ our lordship. Let me just read you a few sentences that were written in the report of the wonderful Keswick Convention, which stands so triumphantly for the life of victory in Christ. Here are statements that we don't often see; daring claims that we don't often meet. But men, they are true, or else the New Testament is a lie. "From the moment that a man turns with full purpose of heart to the Lord, he is enabled to do God's will as truly as if he 8 Our Men and Their Task had never failed. The past is not suffered by God to exercise any disabling influence on the present. Faith has the force of a habit, and it is a continual experience (we have seen it and know it) that old habits and sins of ill-temper and self-indulgence have been broken in a moment. Old things have passed away. All things have become new. Whoever in the strength of God begins again to follow Christ Jesus, may do so unfettered. Salvation to the uttermost, whether it be taken in respect of time or of temptation, is the believer's privilege. He cannot be saved from the presence of sin, but he can be saved from its pollution. He is always liable to fall, but can always be guarded from falling. Faith lays hold of every piece of armor at once ; receives the fitting grace for every function of life, and brings forth all the fruit of the Spirit simul- taneously." To-morrow we are going to continue this subject and look more in detail, than we have time to now, into this question, how to enter into the fullness of life in Christ. But if there are any men present who are not going to be here to-morrow, let us not think for a moment that we need to leave this entering in until to-morrow. There are but three simple steps : 1. Surrender absolutely and unconditionally to Christ as Mas- ter of all that we are and all that we have. 2. Ask God for this gift of the fullness of Christ as our life. 3. Believe, then, that God has done what we have asked — not will do, but has done it. Upon this third step, the quiet act of faith, all may depend. Faith must be willing to believe God in entire absence of any feeling or evidence. For God's word is safer, bet- ter, and surer than anv evidence of his word. ENTERING INTO "THE LIFE THAT IS CHRIST." BY CHARLES GALLAUDET TRUMBULL "The life that is Christ," is only another way of expressing that marvelous word of Paul's in Philippians 1 : 21, "To me to live is Christ." Christ is life, and only Christ is eternal life. And so the life that we want to live, the life more abundant, is just Jesus Christ. It is one thing to know that, to believe it, and it is another thing Our Men and Their Task 9 to appropriate it. And the practical question before us as Christian men is, how may we appropriate the Hfe that is Christ, appropriate Christ as our life? Because when we do that we have God's own life. We have let him bring to pass in us that daring word of John's (I. John 4: 17), ''As he is, even so are we in this world" — a promise that goes beyond everything that man of himself would dare hope for. Christ offers to enable us to live as God lives. That means that we have the desires of God, that we have the in- terests of God, and, more wonderful still, that we have the freedom of God — his freedom from the power of sin. Not his freedom from the presence of sin, for we shall have sin in us as long as we are in this body; but we may have his freedom from the power of known sin in this Hfe, being as God is, even in this world. And how can this miracle come to pass? Let us remember that victory over the power of sin is not to be attained by a process. It is not to be won by practice. Now, that may be a sharp reversal of what we have supposed all our lives was true. It certainly is a reversal of what I supposed for thirty-eight years was true. I had supposed that victory over my sins had got to be won by practice, by a process ; that one victor}^ meant that I was just so much stronger for another victory, and so, as I continued to fight and to struggle, and by my will-power strengthened by Christ, to con- quer, and conquer, and conquer as year after year the conflict went on, I should be enabled gradually to build up a character, a strength of will, which with the passage of years would bring me into a place of victory that I could never expect to have except through this continued process of practice. There is nothing in the Bible to justify that mistaken idea, even though we do see it in our books and hear it in pulpits until we have come to accept it as true. Victory is not to be won by practice — not the victory that I am talking about, not the life of freedom from the power of sin which God knows. For this victory is a gift from God, not an attainment earned by our efforts. How many people here to-day have been saved from the penalty of their sins by practice? How many won their salvation from the penalty of their sins through the process of years, worked for it day after day, year after year, until finally they said, "Now, I have by practice won my salvation?" Not a man of us. And if there is any man here whose salvation depends on what he has done or practiced, he has not got salvation. Sal- 10 Our Men and Their Task vation is the gift of God; and it does not take long to get it. It may take a long time to come to the point where we are willing to receive it ; but there comes a time in every man's life when he drops down in the consciousness of his helplessness before Jesus Christ, sees Christ as his Savior, accepts him, and then and there by the power of the Holy Spirit is born again and is saved. Salvation is not a matter of practice, though it should determine our practice after we have received it. Salvation is a gift. Well, men, that is only half of salvation, to be saved from the penalty of our sins in the next world. Perhaps it is the greater half; maybe it is more than half in that sense. But it is also true that there is another half, another part of salvation which is for this life. And that is salvation from the power of our sins ; it is that that is victory in this world. And it is just as much of a mistake to suppose that that victory over the power of our sins is going to be won by practice, by effort, by a process, as it is to suppose that salvation from the penalty of our sins can be won by a process, by effort, or by practice. The method of obtaining the two halves of salvation is absolutely identical. And it is the tragedy of the Chris- tian church that it has forgotten the second truth, the second half, the half which means victory over the power of our sins here in this world. This matter is just a simple transaction with God by faith; entered into by faith, and continued by faith. The entering into the life that is Christ is an act of faith; it can be a single step, a single act at a single moment of time; complete, supernatural, glorious in its remarkable changes in every part of our being. The three conditions, or the three simple parts of this one step, as men- tioned yesterday, are very definite. I am speaking now to Christian men, to men who have already received the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior from the penalty of their sins ; after that has been done, there are these three simple steps : 1. Unconditional surrender to the mastery of Jesus. That is something that not every Christian has done. There are many Christians, who necessarily have been born again after having re- ceived Jesus as their Savior, but who are not living in a conscious, intentional, genuine, and complete surrender of their lives to his mastery for this present life. And that is absolutely essential to Our Men and Their Task 11 the life of victory. Christ cannot give us all that there is of him- self until we give him all that there is of ourselves. Just what is meant by unconditional surrender? Well, it is the act of the will that says, "Lord, I am through now with myself. I am through with every attempt to direct my own life. I am through with every habit that is displeasing to you. If there is anything that I have been holding on to, in personal habits of any sort, I now lay them at your feet for you to do away with them if they are displeasing to you. I lay myself at your feet ; I lay all my possessions at your feet; all that I am and all that I have. I give myself to you to be your bondslave for time and eternity, that you may be my Absolute Monarch, my Supreme Commander and King." That is all there is to surrender. It doesn't take very long. A man can do it in a moment if he will. But surrender means not only the yielding up of all our bad habits ; it means the yielding up of our best points as well. That is something we have not always realized. It means that, as we come into the presence of God and see him in his holiness, look upon him in the spirit of the hymn that we just sang, "Holy! holy! holy! Lord, God Almighty," we shall by contrast see ourselves even in our best aspect to be worth- less — absolutely, hopelessly, poisonously worthless in contrast with our Lord. I know a man who has been for many years not only a pro- fessing Christian, but a Christian of rare consecration, rare beauty, and unselfishness of life. He is a man of wonderfully good judg- ment, so much so that when people who know him are in any sort of trouble they go right to him for his counsel and sympathy. For twenty-five years he had been pouring himself out in that way, giving of himself lavishly to others, and using his rare, good judg- ment to counsel others according to their need. A few years ago he and I were talking together about this subject that we are considering together this morning. He had heard that there was a new possibihty of victory in his life, at points that he had not before dreamed were possible. He questioned it at first ; but finally he went to his knees in prayer about the whole matter; and that day, as he was on his knees in prayer, he made a surrender of himself, a surrender of a sort that he had not before even known was nec- essary. And one of the things he said was this: he now saw that this judgment of his — and it was good judgment — had been a 12 Our Men and Their Task matter of pride to him, and had stood between himself and Christ as the supreme Lord ; and he gave up his good judgment that day as worthless. I don't mean to say that from that time forth he was to have bad judgment — far from it. But he recognized that this thing which he had naturally counted one of his best points, must be surrendered, must be counted worthless in the sight of God ; and he gave it up, surrendered it, recognized it as worthless, in such a way that Christ could come in and did come in that day into that man's life in an utterly new way, with a new and supreme power that changed all things for him. Let us therefore surrender our good as well as our bad in yielding up all that we have and all that we are to Christ. This simply means that we recognize ourselves as worthless before God. People are sometimes troubled with the question whether they haze surrendered completely, after they have done all that they can to surrender. This is likely to be a snare that Satan is trying to bring into our lives. After we have conscientiously surrendered everything, so that we can say, "Lord, I know of nothing in my life that I have not given up or am not willing to give up if you will tell it to me," then we need have no more concern about our surrender. It is God's responsibiHty, then, to complete the sur- render, and he will if we let him by trusting him, not ourselves. 2. The second step in receiving Christ as the fullness of our life is just to ask God for the gift of Christ in this new way. We asked Christ to save us when we first received him, and then we said we would accept his salvation. We asked for it, and we must do so here. God does not give to those who do not want to re- ceive. So this second step is just as simple as a little boy going to his earthly father on Christmas morning and asking for a Christ- mas present. 3. And the third step is to receive, to take by faith this which we have asked God to give us. Strange to say, the third step, the act of simple faith, seems to be the hardest step of the three for a great many people to take. Life after life has been surrendered unconditionally to the mastery of Christ, but has even then been a defeated life. Why? Because those who have surrendered could not or would not accept by faith the work of Christ as a finished work, completed for them, which they could have at any time for the asking and taking. Our Men and Their Task 13 One difficulty is that people often expect some consciousness of a change in themselves, to prove that the thing has been done. They are never going to get the blessing that way. This matter is not a matter of feeling, it is not a matter of evidence, it is not a matter of proof, at first. God will give us all the proof, the evi- dence, even the feeling, that we can know what to do with, later. He will give us such proof that our lives will be filled with thanks- giving, if vv'e are willing first to take his Word for proof. But if we say, "Send me the proof, and then I will beheve," we may be kept waiting for the rest of our lives. It is a perilous thing to distrust the Word of God. So this third step is a wiUingness to thank God in blindness, in coldness, in utter lack of feeling, or manifestation, or evidence, or proof of any sort, and say, "God, because thou hast given me thy word in this matter, I believe thy word without any evidence of it whatsoever." Another friend of mine, a consecrated. Christian man, remark- ably successful in business, came to believe that he needed some- thing more of Christ in his life than he had received, a new, com- pleter victory, and he had been for some time groping after it and praying for it. One day he asked me if three of us couldn't pray about the matter together. So he and a friend and I went into my private office and knelt down and prayed. We all prayed. He prayed for himself, very simply. There was no question about his surrender, and there was no question about his hunger for all that God could give him. When we got up from our knees, he said, *T don't see that anything has happened" ; and he seemed disappointed. I suggested, "Don't you think that you had better thank God for what he has done? I don't believe that you can do any more about it. You have done all you can. You have surrendered. You have asked him for this blessing. What more can you do?" And I explained, "If you should loan me some money, I believe you have enough confidence in me to be quite sure that I would pay that money back to you, even if I didn't give you any slip of paper with my name on it as evidence that I was going to pay the money. Now, if you are willing to believe in me without any evidence of that sort, aren't you as willing to believe in God without evidence? Said he, "I believe you are right." 14 Our Men and Their Task 'Then let us kneel down and thank God for having done all that we have asked in your life." And in quiet, unemotional, blind faith he did so; he just thanked God for having done all that he had asked, and he got up and went out from the office, no change in feeling, no difference of any sort that he was conscious of in his life. The next morning early he and I were talking over the tele- phone together, and that telephone wire fairly burned with what he was finding difficulty in saying to me, as he tried to tell me of the evidence that God had been pouring into his life, the change that God had wrought in his life, the way that God had already been using him as a witness. He had received the fullness of the life that is Christ. But, men, he took it before he had any evi- dence of it. He believed in God as Abraham believed God, and that was counted unto him a new righteousness. So let us be clear on that last point : The act of faith, cold faith, if necessary, blind faith if necessary. Take God's word as invio- lable. Let us never — I say it reverently — commit the sin of asking God to prove to us that he is not a liar ! We do not need to think about this whole matter very long, if we have once seen it clearly. I was speaking on the subject one time at Silver Bay, and later one of the Y. M. C. A. secretaries in one of our eastern cities came and told me of his experience. Just after that meeting he had gone out with another man, and they had been talking the thing over. One of them said, **Well, he's got my number all right," referring to what I had said about those three characteristic failures in the Christian life. Said my friend, "What are you going to do about it?" 'T'm going to think it over," was the reply. "What do you do that for ?" challenged my friend. The man looked at him in surprise, and said, *'Why shouldn't I ?" "Why don't you go and take it ?" was the answer. And the man who was telling me of the conversation did just that ; he didn't waste time in thinking it over ; he went and "took it" — Christ as a new Lord and Life, in whom old things are passed away, behold, all things become new. Some weeks later, when back in the city, he called on me, but I was out. I found this note Otir Men and Their Task 15 on my desk, "Back in the same old place, at the same old job, but, praise God, not the same old man !" If there are any here who have been conscious of the need of a new life of victory, of a life led always in triumph, hid with Christ in God, let us take it now, because it is a finished work. Christ finished it on Calvary, as the Son of man. He broke the power of our sins. Read the sixth chapter of Romans and see if it is not all there. "We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? . . . We were buried therefore with him through bap- tism into death ; that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. . . . Our old man was crucified with him, . . . that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin. . . . Reckon ye also your- selves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. . . . For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under law, but under grace." Do not make the mistake of supposing that I am suggesting that we can have a single transaction with God and then say, "Now, I can never fail again." Having entered in, as we can by a single transaction of faith, then we must stay there by continuing that same method, a moment-by-moment trust and surrender, for the rest of our lives. A man can enter gloriously into the fullness of new life in Christ, and he can fail after that tragically. But, praise God, Christ can restore him again. We are not deprived of our power of free will. The sinful man within us is not annihilated. We are not made sinless; we are not made perfect in this life. But having once received Christ in his fullness into our life, we can moment by moment continue to believe in him ; and then he is more than sufficient to free us from the power of sin, and to keep us from its power, moment by moment, until we see him face to face. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. MAN A STEWARD AND CO-WORKER WITH GOD BY H. H. FOUT It thrills my heart to look into your faces, brethren of the Con- gress, and to know the purpose that brings you together. You have come as representatives of the various conferences, and at your 16 Our Men and Their Task own expense, not for pleasure, but for high and serious business. You are here to consider the living problems now confronting the Church, to pray for a clearer vision of duty, and to plan for the larger endeavor and sacrifice demanded by the vision. This Congress marks the greatest day and the greatest event in the history of the United Brethren Church. It manifests the presence of an awakening which is a part of the rising religious consciousness of universal manhood, presaging subsequent and more important victories for our King. THE L0RD''S CALL TO THE HEROIC IN MEN In the beginning of the world conquest campaign, our Lord called men to his standard, put into their hands the great commis- sion, and sent them forth to preach and campaign and organize, and to carry forward the mighty enterprise of evangelizing the world. In his call he appeals to the heroic in men — the very qual- ities that men admire, and that characterize a good soldier. "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." The truly heroic age dawned with the Star of Bethlehem. ''The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." In this heated, rushing life of ours; in this fierce battle, this tremendous grapple of antagonistic principles ; in this unprecedented conflict between light and darkness, between belief and unbelief, the kingdom needs men for its extension more, if possible, than in any other period of the church's history since our Lord called and com- missioned the twelve. This National Congress of United Brethren Men and similar conventions of other communions, are called because Christian men generally, and especially men of official and commanding rela- tionship in the church, need to be aroused to larger initiative and service for the establishment of the kingdom of God in the earth, that the tremendous powers of our Christian manhood might make themselves felt in religion as they are to-day in commerce, and that the work of the church might be of first importance. WHAT THE RECOGNITION OF STEWARDSHIP WOULD MEAN This need will be met in proportion as the stewardship of life is recognized. *'Ye are not your own," saith the Lord. Life is a Our Men and Their Task 17 stewardship. We have, no doubt, always in a way accepted the truth of this principle. It is incorporated in our creeds, hymns, and prayers, but we have often failed in keeping it prominent in the foreground of the field of vision, and especially in making it real in life. The great necessity to-day is that men should bring their lives practically under the dominating influence of this principle, to translate into the practical life our theoretical convictions that all we have is not ours, but our Lord's, to whom we must give account. When the Lordship of Jesus is recognized two thoughts will possess us. One is, that all things we have — life, time, talents, in- fluence, possessions — are committed to us as a trust from him, not to be used selfishly, for ourselves, but unselfishly, for Christ and for others ; the other is, that Jesus is our absolute Lord, our King, our unqualified Emperor. It will be our zeal to exalt him, to make him sovereign of our lives, and to make him sovereign ruler of the whole world. There is but one Master who has the right to reign over and rule our lives, and to rule the world — it is Jesus Christ, "King of kings and Lord of lords." As Matthew Arnold puts it, "He has the air of authority and finality." What would it mean to the men of this Congress, and to the Church we represent, if we might say in very earnest: "No other Lord but thee will we know. No other name but thine confess." We would then fully come to our own in power and efficiency as a church, and be worthy of our place in the vast plan of God. It would mean the discovery and development of latent resources. OUR LATENT RESOURCES Discoveries in the scientific world continually reveal to us forces hitherto almost concealed. There is a similar revelation of latent resources in the business world, the same is even more largely true in the religious world. Latent resources yet untouched, mighty energies that if released and belted up to the machinery of the kingdom would set whirling the wheels of the machinery in all the departments of the work. These are: 1. Life itself. Life is greater than any of its parts. George Elliott well says, "The greatest gift which one can bestow upon his age is the gift of himself." The greatest offering which one can make to God is the offering of himself. The Christian life begins in 18 Our Men and Their Task this confession, made in full and sincere surrender, "Jesus Christ, my Lord." It is the starting point and goal of all true life. 2. Possessions. ]\Ioney is a trust committed to us by Him for which we must give an account as stewards. The tithe is the Lord's, which, if brought into the storehouse, would supply the means to multiply many times the effectiveness of all the agencies of the church. The quadrupling of our means and forces would be perfectly possible if proper apprehension of the stewardship of money can become the impression of the entire membership of the church, and if Scriptural methods can become the regular means for the expression of their religious life. We must see Christ and the kingdom rather than assessments and budgets. Our gifts must be prompted by love to our Lord and the recognition of our steward- ship. They must be made a part of our worship. 3. Talent. For the use of this inestimable gift, no matter what the number, an account must be given. The King's business to-day demands the largest use and investment of the talent, train- ing, and experience, of the business laymen of the church. The urgent need is that Christian business men give the same energy and intelligence to the work of the church that they now give to their own private affairs, that they give themselves as assiduously to the study of the literature of the kingdom as they do to the literature of their own business. 4. Social Influence. Tremendous power for good may be exerted upon men by their associates. Who but God can measure the power of that wonderful something we call personality? As a rule, our office-bearers have not realized their personal obligations to the unsaved, nor grasped life's greatest opportunity in the serv- ice of God. They are pre-eminently the men to influence by per- sonal effort the men of the world to enter the kingdom of Oirist. There is no greater force now within the life of the church. Indeed, it is a grave question whether there is any other force to reach many of them. The secret of all successful missionary work is putting a saved life over against the life that is impoverished. Dwight L. Moody, the greatest evangelist of the century, was brought to Christ through the personal appeal of a business man. Henry Clay Trumbull, the greatest Sunday-school editor of the century, was won to Christ through a letter from a -friend. John B. Gough, probably the great- Our Men and Their Task 19 est leader in temperance reform of the century, was brought to Jesus by Joel Stratton. the cobbler. Savonarola, that boy who had under his brow and in his heart all the possibilities of republicanism and freedom, was brought to Christ by an humble monk from the moun- tains of Italy. Charles H. Spurgeon, that boy who had in him the possibilities of the greatest preacher since the Apostle Paul, was reborn through the instrumentality of an humble missionary en the outskirts of a great city. O men, this courageous, consecrated, conscientious, personal effort in store and office, in factory and street, and everywhere, would solve the increasing problem of how to reach the host of men outside the kingdom of God. It would crowd the door of the king- dom with incomers. 5. Stewardship involves the responsibilities of the home with Christian training in, and the conservation of, child life to the king- dom, and there is none more w'eighty. Around each of a thousand cradles men and w-omen stand daily saying, **What manner of child shall this be?*' To wdiom God answers, saying, ''Take this child and train him for me." Blackstone's Handbook of English Law defines the parent as in loco Dei — "in place of God." The tendency of our busy age to ignore and shift parental responsibility for chil- dren's moral and religious education is perilous. No business in- terest can be of such importance as to justify a man's evasion of the sacred duties which he owes to his family. What will it proht a father if he gain the whole world and lose his own children? "When we allow the Good Shepherd to gather the lambs in his bosom, he will be compelled to make fewer journeys out to the wild and bare mountains that he may recover the lost to the safety and peace of his blessed fold." 6. Time is a trust, a stewardship. We may rob God by with- holding time that belongs to him as well as by withholding tithes and offerings. The call is to give more time to God's worship and work. His w-ork demands a definite and not a subordinate place in the program of each day's duties and obligations. UNDER THE SPELL OF THE SENSE OF I.MMEDL\Cy. The challenge of the present world situation is for Christian men everywhere to come under the spell of the sense of immediacy. This Congress will fail in its purpose if it does not profoundly 20 Owr Meii and Their Task impress the fact that this is a time of rising tides. There are some seas that can only be crossed with the tide, and it is always best to take advantage of a rising tide. Napoleon said the time to bring up the reserves is when the enemy's lines are beginning to waver. Present-day leaders and seers are assuring us that we can do more in the next five years, than we can do in the fifteen years that follow, if we miss this oppor- tunity. Then by every consideration which can give weight with thoughtful minds let us resolve to give ourselves utterly to Him and do it from this instant. We have electric sentences to thrill the world. "England expects every man to do his duty," was the sentence that caused the blood of the English soldier to tingle in his veins. When the great Paul would gather up all his exhortations into one great, splendid burning sentence, when he would put the trumpet to his lips and sound a blast that should stir the hearts of those to whom he was speaking, he gave forth only the one sen- tence, "Quit you like men.'' Boys, don't waste any shots," shouted Andrew Jackson, as he saw the long line of red-coats advancing at the battle of New Orleans. "Make every shot count, we must finish this business to-day!" That is the point. We cannot afiford to be prodigal of our powers. Let us waste neither time nor energy in things of doubtful import. Here is the supreme thing. Let us do it noiv! "Time worketh : let me work, too ; Time undoeth : let me do ; Busy as time, my work I ply, Till I rest in the rest of eternity. "Sin worketh : let me work, too ; Sin undoeth : let me do ; Busy as sin, my work I ply, Till I rest in the rest of eternity. "Death worketh: let me work, too; Death undoeth : let me do ; Busy as death, my work I ply, Tilll rest in the rest of eternity." Our Men and Their Task 21 THE CHURCH PLUS GOD We are not only stewards, but co-workers with God. This fact makes certain the final outcome. He gave the church a warrant of success in executing his world charter when he said : "Lo, I am with you." ''All power is given unto me." The church is human, plus God. Men, he asks us that we put our all into the business. But he asks no more than he gives ; that is all of us for himself, and all of himself to us. Human strength is inadequate. Victory hinges upon our relations to him. My brothers, the need of the hour is not primarily for more eminence of the church as an institution, not more men to proclaim her message and more money to support them. The supreme need is that of a larger manifestation of the super- natural in the whole undertaking. Nothing less than a great man- ifestation of superhuman wisdom, superhuman love, superhuman power can meet the present, unprecedented world situation. All of which is conditioned upon the relation of the church to the source of power. In mechanics, power depends on good connections. The same law holds true in spiritual power as in mechanical. There must be good connections. The power is as free as the sunlight, as mighty as the tides, as abundant as electricity, as omnipotent as God, but the connection must be made. This will bring the revival that will indeed revitalize the church, that will restore the sanctity of the home and the Sabbath, reverence for the church, refinement of con- science, purity of moral judgment; the revival that will build or re- build family altars, that will restore the almost worldwide, forgotten secret of prevailing prayer, and will put the fiery heart of the old apostles into the new occasions of the new century. The church halts — not for an open door — but halts because of the need of the one supreme equipment that will impart power equal to her tasks. We recall a handful of men in an upper room, full of enthusi- asm; but they were reined in from their impulses and commanded to wait for the enduement of power. The church to-day must wait — wait, in the old-time way, for the old-time power. Then the bugles will sound, and the hosts will be gathered for the triumphant march. God of our fathers, give us that equipment ! Only so shall we be able, and worthy to hold in trust what his hand has given ! 22 Our Men and Their Task "God of our fathers, known of old — Lord of our far-flung battle line — Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine — Lord, God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget — lest we forget ! "The tumult and the shouting dies — The captains and the kings depart- Still stands thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart, Lord, God of Hosts, be with us yet. Lest we forget — lest we forget !" STRATEGIC ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE LAST CENTURY BY J. B. SHOWERS While listening to the preceding addresses, I have been wondering whether within these walls there sits a prophet capable of computing the potency of this hour and of foretelling its issues. You are to be congratulated upon being the leaders of this great denomination at such an eventful time as this. May you always remember that the thoughts and hearts of over three hundred thou- sand United Brethren are turned toward you from China, Japan, the Philippines, x\frica, Porto Rico, and the ever-increasingly en- riched fields of America. In turn your thoughts are to go out to them and to the unevangelized portions of the world. I have asked this map to be prepared that during the Congress you might have it before you to carry you in thought to the needy fields of America, Africa, and Asia, whose benighted souls unremittingly call unto you for deliverance. God's challenge to you is the greatest challenge to man. There is an unusual readiness on the part of our people to assume, at your command, the responsibility for their share of the world's conversion. If the task remains unfinished the blame must rest largely at the door of this Congress. Let the piety, sanity, vision, and consecration of Otterbcin and Boehm characterize our present leadership. Lead out vigorously and the laity will yield Our Men and Their Task 23 unwavering allegiance. Let us here reiterate our convictions and declare our purposes. THE NEW CALL TO A NEW CONSECRATION It is well that this Congress opens with a call to a new conse- cration to the lordship of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Peter furn- ishes us the watchword in his First Epistle, chapter three and at verse fifteen. "Sanctify in your hearts Jesus Christ as Lord." This, probably, was the first great confession of the Christian church — as it certainly was of Otterbein and Boehm — and victory has never deserted her banners so long as that lordship has been declared and recognized; but whenever in thought and expression that fundamental doctrine has been allowed to lapse, the dark ages of the church have come. The mind of this age is prepossessed : modern science and discovery have given us a new world, quite as distinct as that of Elizabeth, Raleigh, and Shakespeare, for whose conquest the primary requisite is the acceptance of Jesus' lordship. WORLD CONDITIONS AT CLOSE OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Let us recall the world conditions at the close of the eighteenth century. This section of our country, where we are now gathered, then belonged to the great Northwest Territory, where territorial government and national expanse really began for us. The great Mississippi River was then our western boundary, and when our National leaders contemplated pushing our frontiers westward, mau}^ saw, in such action, our national ruin. College societies and organizations of many descriptions debated the question and decided against such calamitous steps. To-day a vaster empire lies to the west of the Father of Waters than to the east, and now "the day of judgment is our western boundary." If he were alive to-day and standing upon the great hill back of his boyhood home, Otterbein, in vision, would not only see these new conditions in the west, but would be startled by the transformations of Europe. His native land was then divided into small principalities, each a separate state, but now united into a great empire. France was then almost mistress of the world through the unexampled leadership of Napo- leon, whose armies caused Europe fairlv to tremble and Avhose power was not broken until two years after Otterbein's death. Italy was then disunited and the Turkish power was feared. 24 Ottr Men and Their Task The moral and social conditions of the time almost beggar description. Suffice it to say that slavery was then in Russia, Prus- sia, Austria, and America, while now if slavery exists anywhere in the world, it does so in violation of law. Africa was then prac- tically an unknown land awaiting until the year of Otterbein's death for the birth of the man destined to be its great missionary ex- plorer. China and Japan were so securely walled in and closed to western progress that over a half-century passed before their gates swung ajar. When the nineteenth century opened there was not a Protestant Christian in China or Japan, and but a few in India. Europe had been evangelized and had fought the battle anew for Christian liberty of individual conscience, but within the Reformed churches there was no great passion for the conversion of the non- Christian world. Even in America the rehgious conditions were deplorable: men attended divine service by stealth lest they should be known to do so by their unreligious companions. Out of such conditions the Holy Spirit called men to leadership in the spiritual conquests of the world and was not disappointed. THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION AND THE GOSPEL What of the present world situation and the gospel? In America at the beginning of the century there were, in round numbers, three hundred and sixty-five thousand Christians. To-day there are thirty-six millions. Instead of its being an unpopular thing to be a Christian, the unpopular man is he who remains un- identified with a Sunday-school class or church. The greatest con- tributions of life and money for world conquest for Christ come from America. Then, what a change in Asia ! Japan was awakened out of her oriental slumber by the insistent call of Commodore Perry's fleet. Real missionary work began there in 1859, and to-day the Prot- estant Christians number seventy-five thousand. Morrison began his missionary activities in China in 1807 and long awaited the first convert ; but to-day they number over two hundred thousand. The first converts in Korea were baptized Christmas Day, 1887 — within a quarter of a century they number three hundred thousand, and have as their goal a miUion more. India, opened by Ziegenbalg and Carey, now has within her borders a Christian leaven of three and a half million Christians. A revival has recently begun in India Our Men and Their Task 25 when not only whole families, but whole villages and towns have become Christian. Through the great Christian, statesmanlike leadership of Livingstone, Stanley, and Crawford, dark Africa is being effectively opened to the good news of Christ and Christi- anity as in deadly combat with Mohammedanism. The light has come and Africa is awakening to the new day. There are said to be five hundred and forty-six million Chris- tians in the world to-day, two hundred and twenty-six million Mo- hammedans, and eight hundred and eighty-eight millions of other non-Christians. The Sunday schools of the world now have about twenty-nine million scholars and teachers. An army of twenty-five thousand foreign missionaries, plus one hundred and thirty-six thousand na- tive workers are leaders in missionary conquests, while the whole number of communicants in missionary fields is about five millions. Thirty milHons of dollars per year are now contributed for the evangelization of the world. Instead of slavery we have to-day old-age pensions, accident insurance, employer's liability laws, and laws regulating the labor of women and children. In his recent visit to the Orient and near east. Dr. John R. Mott sometimes had an attendance at his meetings of from two thousand in India to five thousand in China. Much has been done, but the whitened fields call loudly for an increased number of laborers. CHRIST''S FIGHT FOR RECOGNITION WITHIN HIS CHURCH The Christian church has won us greater conquest than that of winning the Roman empire for Christianity. Starting with the clear declaration of the lordship of Christ at Pentecost, they had, within three centuries, conquered the classical paganism of Greece and Italy and subdued the mighty antagonism of the Roman Em- pire. From Jerusalem to Nicea is a path made glorious by the con- quests of the earlier church. Within that time the gospel was car- ried eastward. If India and the East are darkened and closed to gospel messengers at this time, the cause is discernible — the false note about the person of Christ. Pautaenus, principal of the Chris- tian College at Alexandria, had been sent to the East by the Bishop of Alexandria upon request from the eastern Christians. This great philosopher and Christian teacher made a profound impression upon those countries, but the Nestorians, with a lowly view of Christ, 26 Our Men and Their Task followed and prepared the way for Mohammedanism and Hindu- ism, which ultimately shut the East to Christianity. From this eastern land came iVbraham and through him the Hebrews and our Old Testament Scriptures and even Christ himself, so that we are now really in process of evangelizing our fatherland, necessitated by the non-recognition of the lordship of Christ. The fact should sober us. During the next twelve centuries the countries of Europe were evangelized and the Reformation necessitated. Then followed a critical pause for two centuries more, when missionary activity was unknown. During the Reformation period, the home conflict was so severe as to call for all the energv' and attention of the Reformed forces; but one cannot help but Vvonder that no missionary work began immediately thereafter. Some explanation is found, how^- ever. in the attitude of Luther and Calvin to the great commission. Luther frankly said that the great commission had already been fulfilled, while Calvin made no call for extended missionary work. But the Spirit of God was at work with men, the issue of which was the Pietistic movement in Germany. In this movement began the missionary activity anew. Ziegenbalg, in 1706, was sent from Copenhagen to India; Schwartz, born in the same year as Otter- bein, was sent out from Germany in 1750; England was aroused, and Carey began his work in 1793 ; while Otterbein came to Amer- ica and founded this great denomination whose achievements at home and abroad are a matter of just pride. America, however, began her missionary work at the beginning of the nineteenth century under the splendid leadership of S. J. Mills. This movement began in the Haystack Meeting at Williams College, issuing in the formation of the American Board of For- eign Missions in 1810. This board has sent out since then, three thousand missionaries and now raises one million dollars yearly tor this work. The great home missionary societies have done a marvelous work in America. But an appalling need still faces our forces within our borders. PRESENT EXTENDED SOVEREIGNTY OF JESUS CHRIST As evidence of the recognition of Christ's lordship are the numerous and powerful organizations of the last century, beginning with the Y, M. C. A., organized under Sir George Williams in 1844, Our Men and Their Task 27 and issuing in the World's Student Christian Federation in 1895. Thus were the Christian young men enhsted for the making of Christian manhood. In 1881 began the movement for the training of the young people of the church in Christian service, and now the Y. P. S. C. E. encircles the globe and numbers four millions. In 1886 began the Student Volunteer Movement for the enlisting of the college men, and through them the whole church, in mission- ary work. Their recent convention at Kansas City had seven thousand delegates. At another prayer-meeting, a hundred years after the Haystack Meeting, began the Layman's Missionary ]\Iove- ment, which has wrought and is working marvelous changes in Christian thinking and giving. All of these organizations have been called into being through the Holy Spirit for the final conquest of the world. THE UNFINISHED TASK The work yet to be done would dismay us were we not encour- aged by the victories of the past and the promises of God. Africa's millions are a mighty problem ; the unevangelized of Asia cause us restless nights ; Afghanistan and Thibet are practically untouched fields ; in our own land, but four States have less than sixty per cent, unchurched ; thirty-three have over sixty per cent., while seven have over seventy per cent. This unfinished task calls for a united campaign. The splendid progress of the past, the present widespread inculcation of Christ's ideals, the value of one hundred years of experience, and the promise of the ultimate triumph of Christianity, call us hopefully and energetically into an enthusiastic campaign for the finishing of the task. The sons of Otterbein must have their share in the victorv. ''We can do it, and we will." UNMATCHED OPPORTUNITY OF THIS HOUR THE CALL OF AMERICA BY JOSEPH ERNEST MCAFEE The United States is the richest nation on earth. Our aggre- gate national wealth is one hundred and forty billions of dollars, which is nearly double that of Great Britain, the next wealthiest nation. Mr. Bryce says that the Republic is as wealthy as any two of the greatest European nations. Each man, woman, and child of us, infant and patriarch, owns fourteen or fifteen hundred dollars, though some may be painfully conscious that they have not entered into full proprietorship. We dig out of the ground in the year ten billions of dollars in food supplies, and leave the soil richer for its larger product the succeeding year. Our mines produce two bil- lions of dollars each year. Our manufactures have reached a yearly output of thirty billions. Our imports from abroad have passed an annual billion and a half. Our exports amount to considerably more than two billions. Thus our commerce with other nations shows us more than five hundred millions of dollars of balance in the year on the right side of the ledger, or did so before the recent tariff changes. The most of this wealth and wealth-producing ma- chinery has been accumulated by a single generation. Indeed, one of our most expert jugglers of figures declares that "during the first two years of this century we saved two thousand million dollars 7nore than all the wealth that had been accumulated in this country from the first settlement down to 1850 — nearly two and a half cen- turies." He further shows that that two years' surplus, which amounted to nine billions, is a clean credit item, over and above current expenditures made upon a scale of extravagance which would have been the despair of kings and emperors two hundred and fifty years ago. All the fortune of Croesus would not furnish pin money for any one of a dozen American heiresses. The other day a woman spent a thousand dollars for a single hat pin ; twenty 28 ^ Our Men and Their Task 29 thousand dollars was paid for a liat, and the infamy of the trans- action is that it was a man's hat. If the facts were all in, however, I venture it would appear that his wife bought it for him — as some wives insist upon doing. THE GREATEST DOMAIN ON THE GLOBE. The United States holds the most serviceable and accessible domain in the world. The world's vacant spaces are still large. But the sort of civilization and the branches of the race which maintain the leadership of the world seek the temperate zone. Vacant spaces are here greatly reduced. The equator cuts immediately through the fat portions of both South America and Africa, with their large, unoccupied territory. Our kind of people do not fancy entangling alliances with equators. The new fields of Canada and Siberia lie for the most part in the arctics and sub-arctics. Such is no more to our taste. The American west and Australia alone ofifer wide opportunity for the expansion of the present dominant civilization in the Temperate Zone, and Australia finds its isolation a persistent handicap to its progress. It is separated from all other lands by wide seas, and lies in the Southern Hemisphere, whereas the world's great land areas and its dominant civilization lie in the Northern Hemisphere. With all of the ardent promotion of Australia by col- onization enterprises the entire population is to-day less than that of the American colonies at the time of their revolt from Great Britain. During the one hundred and thirty-eight years since the Revolution, the American population has multiplied twentyfold and unclaimed land resources yet remain which will make possible within the life of a few generations a population comparable to that of the entire globe to-day. THE MOST VIGOROUS PEOPLE IN THE WORLD The United States claims the most vigorous people in the world. No other land is developing under anything like the condi- tions to promise economic achievement. The vigor of all the na- tions of the earth is being drained off to pour into our population. Our immigration is automatically selected for its vitality and push. All come with the passion for getting on in the world dominating every fibre and impulse of their being. The most aggressive race has always been a blend of races. The x\merican population is the 30 Our Men and Tlie'v Tad; universal blend. It is an epitome of the human race. Our cosmo- politan character insures transcendent vigor for generations to come, even though we continue to commit the folly and wickedness of white slavery, tenement congestion, and rural neglect — all of which may the Lord forbid ! MECHANICAL ACPIIEVEMENT AND ECONOMICAL OUTPUT Not less than ten thousand of our keenest already devote their entire time and talent to devising new methods and machines for increasing economic output or for improving the old. Invention is an American profession. In every fully equipped university, the engineering school is turning out the largest classes, each class hav- ing spent more time and labor upon its specialty and having gone deeper into its science than did its predecessor, \^'e are already far in the lead of the nations of the earth in mechanical achieve- ments. The name "American" is the synonym for inventive genius. The results so far have come of a native bent and have been almost fortuitous. What will be the product of the generation now emerg- ing from our countless technical schools who begin with their in- tricate arts where their predecessors left off, and who supplement an even greater native genius with a scientific equipment of which their predecessors never even dreamed? Having said so much, I must pause to tell you what it is all about. I have reminded you of our natural and vital eminence. We are the richest nation, we have the largest stores of available, un- claimed resource, and we have incomparably the largest fund of the vital elements needed for the production of that complicated mech- anism known as civilization. Yet all this only furnishes the sounding board from which the call to high and holy purposes rings out the louder. Our spiritual ideals — what of them? And our spiritual achievements? Finally, will it not appear that the call of America is the world call? America's fundamental ideals Our two fundamental ideals are, first, to make material values serve spiritual ends, and, second, to vindicate democracy. The American passion is money. The American thinks money and talks money morning, noon, and night ; at his business, during recreation hours, lounging in his home. He eats money, dreams of money in Our Men and Their Task 31 his sleep, wakes to pursue money. The caricature of the .\merican the world over is a money maniac. At the loveliest he is lean and lank Uncle Sam, his picturesque clothes plastered over with dollar marks ; at the basest he is the great American hog wallowing in a swill which the cartoonist makes to reek with money. Ask the man of another nation to paint the American. His first outline shows the curves of the dollar mark ; if he is an ignorant, gullable peasant of the European or Asiatic hinterland, the American is a gilded prince, revelling in an inexhaustible El Dorado ; if he is a cynic whose own passion for gold has worn itself dull upon the adamant of old-world poverty, he sneers at the fresh and naive money greed for which the American is envied or worshiped or despised the world 'round. Caricature is often the strictest truth. However gross may be certain features of this picture, the portrait is essentially true to life. And the test of the vitality of our spiritual forces will be their attitude toward this essential fact. What are our spiritual agen- cies going to do about and to do with the dominant money passion of Americanism? Deny the fact? Declare that the American is maligned, fly into a rage because we are caricatured? Let us not be foolish, nor permit a deficient sense of humor to betray us into evading the palpable truth. Shall the church, then, fawn upon the rich, and justify the malignant charge that plutocracy has bought it up, body and soul ? I need not ask ; servile as some may have grown under the guise of religion, the power to protest against evil has not been lost to the church. Shall we fly to the other extreme and lash our spirits into a fury over the debasing materialism of our age and of our people, preach long and petulant sermons against filthy lucre — just after we have sent the deacons about among the pews to collect the odds and ends of loose change in the pockets of Sunday clothes? Nothing more travesties religion and destroys its quickening effects upon the American soul than our fierce, homiletic screeds against materialism. All the aberrations of our dull spiritual insights, all the disappointments of our blundering ministry in hal- lowed things, we sometimes lump into one mad fling and let fly at materialism. People will not listen to our preaching; they will not give their money to further our pet church projects ; they would rather go to the nickelodeon than to our prayer-meetings — so, the devil of indifference and materialism take them ! They are past 32 Our Men and Their Task reclaim. They are sodden in their frivolous and materialistic in- iquity. Now ! now ! now ! Could we more openly proclaim our spirit- ual inefficiency and blindness? With all of its masterfulness in the realm of the material our civilization is not materialistic. Systems of materialistic philosophy gain no substantial grip upon our people's souls ; they never have and they show less tendency to do so to-day than ever. On the contrary the shining mark of our American civilization is its ardent zeal and its advancing success in making material forces express spiritual values. There are relatively fewer misers in America to-day than there are or have been anywhere in the world at any time. If our people are great money-makers, they are also great mone)^-spenders — sometimes, alas, even greater spend- ers than makers. What our preaching denounces as frivolity and engrossment in material concerns is often the passionate pursuit of spiritual realities, and the pursuit seems gross only because the spiritual passion is not recognized and intelligently directed by those agencies whose first obligation is its direction. SPIRITUALIZE THE AMERICAN PASSION FOR MONEY Our spiritual energies should be bent upon the glorification of this dominant, American passion. It is essentially holy. It should be hallowed. Our material triumphs should be turned consciously and intelligently to spiritual account. The American people are embarked upon a program which can properly end only in the ob- literation of the wicked and irrational antagonism of the material and the spiritual. Least of all should religion be made party to perpetuating that antagonism. God Almighty never fixed a chasm between the material and the spiritual. He placed them in one realm. What God has joined together, let not blundering, human doctrine rend asunder. The American church has been given a message which should train all the tremendous material forces of our American civilization upon the high spiritual task of ushering our society into the very kingdom of heaven, of making our accu- mulating wealth the minister of universal joy and wellbeing. That is our triumphant faith: the ministry of salvation to all the people here and now, in ever enlarging measure, the kingdom of heaven verily brought to pass here upon the earth. Our Men and Their Task 33 THE VINDICATION OF DEMOCRACY. I defined our other American ideal to be the vindication of democracy. It is thus that we shall bring to the flower the spirit- ualization of the material. Democracy is our business. No true American mistakes that fact. We are the most conspicuous and determined champions of democracy in the world. Where the fa- thers dared with a large faith, succeeding generations of sons have followed with an even stouter determination. Democracy is our birthright and our very religion. That is not a figure of speech. Democracy is wrought into the fabric of our religion. Churches which enthrone and embody absolutism can never thrive in the American commonwealth. No forcing can make them grow health- ily. This people can no more tolerate a pope despot than they can or will a king despot. A doctrine of religion, if the religion is gen- uine, must work itself out in every expression of our individual and corporate life. It requires no argument to show any thoughtful American where our democracy to-day is put to its test. It is in this very realm, where the glory of our achievements shines the brightest. We have yet to achieve the democracy of wealth. The democratiza- tion of the industrial order is the first obligation of every man and every institution in our life. Spiritual agencies cannot thrust it aside as a purely economic concern. The establishment of democ- racy in the economic realm is our first spiritual obligation. This is a part of the necessary reconciliation of the material and the spirit- ual. Lords and autocrats of wealth must be permitted no more than despotic kings and popes in the civic and ecclesiastical realms. Upon the free and worthy reign of democracy in American industry hang to-day every hope and prerogative of our civilization. This must be accepted as the truism of state and church. I am not talking politics, not mere politics. No one here knows what my politics are. I vote in New York. I may be a Tammany Democrat for aught you know — though Tammany Democrats do not ordinarily wear this sort of a smile since the last election. This is not the issue of any one political party or of any one political theory ; it is the truism of current American thought and endeavor. We are still at the business to which the fathers addressed them- selves and which they delegated to us : the glad compulsion is upon 34 Our Men and Their Task us to vindicate democracy, to make it an all-encompassing reality, to show its sufficiency as a system of society, to demonstrate its holi- ness as a religious doctrine and precept. The issue cannot be met by malice or by neglect, by pitting class against class in irrecon- ciliable warfare, nor by glazing over the shocking injustices of the present industrial disorder. The socialists are not going to settle this question, the party of the administration will not settle it, the party of the opposition will not settle or unsettle it. It is not the question of any party or set. It is the question of all of us, and when settled will be settled by all of us. It is alien to no man or institution. The church must preach and apply a doctrine which will meet these issues. The state and every organization of our social life must embody a genuine and thorough democracy. The arena in which these issues are at play compasses our whole national life. It is not merely the question of whether the railroads are justly and wisely handled, nor whether the manufac- ture of phosphorous matches will be permitted to eat away the organs of the workers, nor whether cotton mills shall snuff out the lives of little children, nor whether boys shall be stunted and man- gled upon the coal breakers, nor whether this industry or that is paying a living wage. The issue has no one exclusive phase. It is finally and comprehensively the question as to whether we are to suc- ceed in the supremely important task of spiritualizing the economic order until it shall embody a genuine democracy, an essential broth- erhood of men, the kingdom of heaven on earth. America's world mission. And because this is true, the issue is, of course, larger than our national life. This is a world call. We are assigned a world mis- sion. And the world task is defined in precisely the same terms. It is different from, and I think, larger than the task we commonly define as the foreign mission enterprise of the church. It is dif- ferent in the degree in which the whole organic life of society is dif- ferent from the single institution known as the church, and it is larger in proportion as our corporate life is larger than the indi- vidual life. The task of the church here in America thus takes on a distinct world phase, and gains the compulsion of a world motive as much more imperative than claiming church members out of massed populations as the kingdom of heaven on earth is a more Our Men and Their Task 35 imperious ideal than a scheme of individual salvation which plucks brands from the burnin*;" and leaves the conflagration to rage on. This American world call contemplates making the kingdoms of this zvorld the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. That old ideal is not played with as a pleasant figure of speech, but is intelligently embodied in a program.. The method of this world program is that of immediacy, the corporate method. It does not put its final dependence upon the sending of individuals here and there to preach a doctrine. It util- izes and directs the tremendous impacts of our national life in the fulfillment of the world mission. It does not merely present a theory of social regeneration : it insists upon a demonstration of regener- ated society as the only conclusive gospel. The individual method, Ihe sending of individuals to present a theory shows its limitations as national contacts grow more intimate, and the corporate method becomes ever more imperative to an effective world mission. An American foreign mission of the churches cannot make head against the scandal of a depraved American society and a consci- enceless American commerce. American churches cannot segregate themselves, and successfully preach a gospel which American civil- ization does not practice. Though they send their emissaries to the uttermost corners of the earth, even there will a home civilization which belies their doctrines, find them out and frustrate their pro- fession. If pagan politics are less corrupt than Christian, the in- dividual Christian missionary preaches in shame of face if he dare preach at all. If the introduction of Christian civilization into Japan has carried with it a child labor system where it did not be- fore exist, with what faltering tongue must the individual American missionary in Japan preach a doctrine advocated to banish it? He is himself the representative of a civilization which still harbors that curse. The incongruity of rum and missionaries on the same ship, bound for Africa, has long been the scandal of Christendom. Every throb of the American heart sends out a new yearning toward the new republic of China. But who can preach a gospel which saves republics ? An individual, two of them, ten thousand of them, proclaiming their doctrine as individuals? None but a saved re- public can finally preach that gospel. Only the voice of our whole society speaking as a whole can find an eloquence able to make that message convincing. 36 Our Men and Their Task THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IN THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC Our corporate life, our whole society must speak the final and convincing message of our gospel. By vitalizing American civilization the American church may shape an instrument of spir- itual conquest immeasurably more potent than it itself can ever prove. In redeeming our society, we are proclaiming a message of redemption more eloquent than any number of individual emis- saries can convey, let them be ever so numerous and ever so elo- quent. A failing American church may be only deceiving itself by zeal in an individualistic missionary propaganda. If the American church would succeed in its world task it must see that the kingdom of heaven is set up in the American Republic. How far the church is succeeding in this sublime mission — ah, what our eyes behold, what our ears hear, what fills our nostrils, are these the sights and sounds and odors of heaven? But of what should be the method and aim of the church's endeavor there can be no final question. The logic of the gospel of Christ is too simple and plain for mis- understanding. ''Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth," on earth. Not the niggardly sums spared from the overflow of prosperity are to constitute our missionary budget. Here is call for the rich- est nation on earth to devote its all to a demonstration of the saved and saving community. This is putting the missionary enterprise upon a funded basis of the one hundred and forty billions of dol- lars of to-day's national wealth, and upon the incalculable accretions of the years and centuries to come. The fifty billions of money em- ployed in barter must become our annual missionary budget. Our active missionary force should embrace our one hundred millions of the most aggressive element in the human race. The missionary call of America is not less vocal than this. THE CHALLENGE OF AN AWAKENED WORLD BY CYRUS J. KEPHART There are several avenues of approach to the solution of the problem of the church's obligation and duty. It may be approached, and should be, first, from the side of the authority of Him who imposes the obligation and prescribes the duty; second, from the Our Men and Their Task 37 side of human need ; and, third, from the side of opportunity — which means the side of open doors. I am glad that it is my privilege to speak to you upon this third phase of the subject, for this is indeed an encouraging side. True, the commission of Jesus Christ should itself give encouragement; for surely the mighty God is able to bring to successful completion the task that he has undertaken, how- ever immeasurable its magnitude may be. Surely **He will not fail nor be discouraged." But the encouragement from this side seems to some to be somewhat theoretical and visionary, so that men have seemed to try to discover or invent some interpretation of the divine purpose and promise that would fit the case without claim- ing the full realization of all that the divine assurances seem to indicate. But when doors swing open, when ripe fields of golden oppor- tunity present, when Ethiopia, and China, and Japan, and the isles of the sea stretch forth their hands to God, then comes quickening of faith ; then springs up renewal of courage, enlarging of strength, stimulating of purpose to go forward however great the task, how- ever toilsome the duty. *'0'er the hills the dawn is breaking, Golden day is drawing near, See, the sons of earth are waking. Forward then, and do not fear." THIS AGE THE GREATEST AGE Dr. Campbell Morgan said recently in Pittsburgh, that there is probably good reason for men of every age to say that theirs is the greatest, perhaps the best age the world has ever seen. No doubt the Pharaohs of Egypt, as they looked upon the monumental piles that they had constructed to bear witness to Egypt's greatness, said that theirs was the greatest and best age that the world had ever seen. And, measured by their standards of excellency and in the period in which they lived, this probably may have been true. No doubt the students of Plato and of Socrates, as they sat in the academy or followed in the market place, said the same, and prob- ably with equally good reason. But if the merit of an age is to be measured by its provisions for human betterment, and by the extent of opportunity for the ap- plication of those provisions, then surely we, in the twentieth cen- 38 Our Men and Their Task tury, have reason above all others for claiming that this is the great- est and best era the race of humankind has ever seen. And when I say this, I mean by provisions for human better- ment primarily one — the Gospel, expressive of the living presence of the ever blessed Son of God, and secondarily the various forms and phases of elevating institutions that are themselves the direct product of fruitage of the gospel. I cannot take time here to analyze and show the superiority of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am speaking to Christian men who accept this without question. It is mine, however, to speak of the superiority of our age, and of the greatness of our obligation, as measured by the opportunities presented for the effective promulga- tion of the gospel. DOORS THAT HAVE OPENED IN HALF A CENTURY The past fifty years have effected changes in world conditions such as to place before the church of Jesus Qirist and before every organic division of it, such opportunities for world conquest as multiply its obligations many fold. Not that Jesus Christ is more concerned to-day than he was fifty years ago; but that the oppor- tunities for successful achievement are a thousandfold greater than they were fifty years ago, so that now tasks may be accomplished in a day that then would have taken years of only partially success- ful effort. But little more than fifty years ago Japan was a sealed nation, with imperial edicts of prohibition against Christian effort posted on all her principal highways. To-day, not only are these prohi- bitions forty years in the past, but Japan now gladly welcomes nine hundred Christian missionaries ; her Sunday schools enroll one hun- dred thousand pupils ; she has Bibles by the millions, and with her modern system of education, and her aggressive, commercial spirit, she is reckoned as one of the most progressive of modern nations, and presents a field for and a call to missionary effort of unmeas- ured opportunities and possibilites. Dr. John R. J\Iott, in speaking of his recent visit to Japan tells us of the marvelous awakening of students of the Imperial University and elsewhere, and says, "This is a wonderful moment in Japan ; the educated classes are as ac- cessible as they ever were, while the illiterate classes are more accessible than ever." "Without doubt," savs he, "there has come Our Men and Their Task 39 another of those wonderful days of God's visitation. He is visiting Japan now." Japan, with her decrepit pagan religions ; Japan, with her ma- terialistic tendencies and her drift toward unbelief ; Japan, with her awful social impurity, endorsed to some degree by her native reli- gions — Japan is in awful need of the gospel. But Japan with her ports wide open ; Japan with her aggressive spirit of industrial and commercial enterprise ; Japan with her com- pulsory system of education ; Japan with her twenty thousand col- lege and university students, her two hundred thousand middle- school students, her fifty thousand high-school girls ; Japan with her educated and her uneducated classes alike open to receive the gospel — Japan presents a challenge to heroic devotion and self-sacrifice that should stir the heart of the most indifferent follower of Jesus Christ. If we turn to China, what less do we see ? China, for centuries the sleeping giant; China, with her face for ages turned to the past; China, for centuries worshipping a golden age long past, and mourn- ing a future without hope ! But the sleeping giant has felt the im- pulse and the thrill of a new life, and is awakening. China is turn- ing her face to the future, with the hope that there may be for her yet another golden age. Qiina may yet, as Napoleon said, "move the world." What more important than that her life shall be changed, so that when she moves, it shall be in the right direction? Reflecting upon the tragic scenes of the Boxer War ; remem- bering the stolid and selfish despotism that has ruled China for centuries — with these visions before you, turn to read the story of the recent revolution, which promises at least to transform China from a narrow and oppressive despotism to a liberal republic, with religious liberty guaranteed, and Christianity given an open door of opportunity ; observe the change in her system of education from an antiquated devotion to the Confucian classics to a system of modern, liberal culture ; read Sherwood Eddy's story, as he depicts the growth of Christian influence until the number of Protestant communicants has increased from one in 1814 to one hundred and ninety-six thousand in 1910; read the marvelous story of Doctor Mott's recent visit to that great land, and hear him tell of the thou- sands who assembled to hear the story of the Christ, from Canton to Manchuria and Pekins:; of the Chief Justice, the Minister of 40 Our Men and Their Task Education, himself a Christian, and governors of provinces pre- siding at his meetings and giving him welcome and assistance, and then if possible contrast this condition to-day with that which met Morrison when a hundred years ago he first set foot on China's shores, and you will surely say, "a nation has been born in a day," and the moment is here for the peaceful, Christian conquest of the greatest of the nations. Or turn to the Mohammedan world, the seat of what has seemed to be the strongest antagonist and the most dangerous com- petitor of the Christian system, and see there "what God hath wrought." Mohamm.edanism is a system of religious teaching and practice combined with a despotic system of political government, so that the strength of Mohammedanism has been the sword of the Turk. But in the providence of God, Robert College at Constantinople, and the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut were opened, and be- gan to shed forth the light of truth, with the result that Turkish con- servatism has been forced to yield at least a little to modern en- lightenment, and to-day as never before, Turkey is open to Christian workers, and Christian truth is slowly taking root in the hearts of the people. And now, marvellous to tell, as though God had decreed that Mohammedanism should be shorn of its political support, the Mos- lem world is being broken to pieces politically. Mr. Zwemer said recently at Kansas City, "The past year has witnessed a series of events without a parallel in the history of Islam. The occupation of Morocco ; the loss of Tripoli ; the partition of Persia ; and the disastrous defeat of Turkey by the Balkan Allies followed each other with startling rapidity." The result is, as Mr. Zwemer says, "Pan-Islamism from a political standpoint is dead. The prestige of Islam as a church state is gone; no independent Moslem state ex- ists in Africa." I am sure it cannot be difficult at all for the Christian student of events to see in this a providential preparing of the Mohammedan world for successful conquest by the church of Jesus Christ by means of the peaceful message of di-vine love and power. And what shall I say more? For the time would fail me to speak of Korea, the greatest of all marvels of missionary triumph; and of India, and of Russia, and of Africa, and of the islands of Our Men and Their Task 41 the sea, where by faith men have subdued kingdoms, wrought right- eousness, attained the fulfillment of divine promises, stopped the mouths of wily and of blatant objectors, quenched the violence of fires of persecution, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, put to flight the armies of opposers, and have efifected the permanent establishing of the church of Christ, until indeed it may well be said, speaking from the viewpoint of the man of faith, "It is daybreak everywhere." WHAT DO THESE THINGS MEAN ? Do they mean that the work has been finished ? Let us beware lest we even approach toward making that mistake. Let us not overlook the sin, the vice, the crime, the destitution, the degrada- tion, the debauchery that are yet present in and threatening to turn back the hand upon the dial of human progress in professedly Christian lands. Let us not be deaf to the heart cry of the millions in our own and in other Christian lands, as they with groanings un- uttered plead for the bread of life. Let us not fail to see that in foreign lands, just back of these outposts of such promising Chris- tian achievement, splendid testimonies to the efficiency and power of the gospel — let us not forget that just back of this, in the unpene- trated darkness of pagan superstition and shame, are the unnum- bered millions of the sons of men, that for liberation and for life await the coming of the message and the institutions that bear testi- mony to the life and power of Jesus Christ. No; these things, these hopeful achievements and promising turnings in human afl^airs, mean only that the work has been well begun. The great task is yet to be done. They mean only that the church of Jesus Christ has in its possession the message that will give life and hope, if that m^essage is but published to the race. They mean that the church of Jesus Christ has the key, the true and only key, to the storehouse of divine grace — the storehouse whose supplies are adequate to supply the deepest need, not only of Amer- ica, not only of Europe, but of all of earth's sorrowing and famish- ing millions, and to supply all their needs, and to supply them abun- dantly. "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." They mean that while upon the church of Jesus Christ rests all the responsibility imposed by the command of Jesus, and. while 42 Our Men and Their Task upon it rests all the additional obligation imposed by the world's awful need, there is upon it to-day as never before the tremendously increased obligation imposed by the world-wide, open door of oppor- tunity, such as never appeared in the days of Paul, nor in the days of Otterbein and Morrison, but vrhich does appear in these days of modern missionary enterprise. AN AWAKENING CHURCH FOR AN AWAKENING WORLD It is a greatly encouraging fact that complementing this throw- ing open of doors, this world-wide awakening, there has come and is now in experience a corresponding awakening in the church — an awakening that means both larger appreciation of opportunity and more adequate forces to respond to the call of duty. The great Laymen's Missionary Campaign and the great Men and Religion Movement, the latter the fruit of a United Brethren mind and heart, coupled with great evangelistic campaigns, have resulted in an awakening and a marshalling of the manhood of the church that is to-day evidencing itself in a manly response to the call for Christ and of the church, such as has not been known for centuries, thus giving to the church a force for aggressive effort that she has never had before in her history. And who that is present, who that anywhere finds his heart beat in sympathy with the purpose of Jesus Christ, does not see or hear in all these facts combined, a call to duty — had I not better say, a call to privilege — such as has never before come to the church ? Your presence here in such large numbers, and from such great distances, is a splendid testimony to this fact. I see in the long-distant past a picture — it is Lot, weeping over the befated cities of the plain. He has just learned that for lack of ten righteous men all was lost. And now there rushes upon him the awful consciousness of opportunities unused ! He had lived in Sodom. Had he but done his duty, he might have led more than ten to righteous lives. But now all is gone. He had his opportunity, but he neglected it ; and now, all — property, home, wife, sons, the cities entire — are lost ! To Lot the smoke of burning Sodom must have spelled, "Opportimities unused!" "Cities lost!" The Christian church in every generation has had opportuni- ties greater than it has used. And now this generation, its ears ringing with the call of the waiting world, its eyes entranced with Our Men and Their Task 43 opportunities the like of which have never been seen before, its heart touched by the wail of human grief as never before ; will it respond, or will it, like broken-hearted Lot, look back and mourn privileges unused, open doors unentered, while the race moves on, suffering the awful effects of sin from which it can escape only as the church of Jesus Christ does its duty in giving to men the mes- sage of life. 1 1 1 c No ; the church will not lag. It will arouse to the splendor ot its privileges. It will go forward, conquering and to conquer, until, indeed, "the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, and the desert shall blossom as the rose," until ''every valley shall be ex- alted and every hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain, and the glory ot the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it." CO-OPERATIVE PROTESTANTISINI IN THE TASK OF THE KINGDOM BY CHARLES S. MACFARLAND It becomes, first of all, my gracious duty and privilege to bring to you the greetings of the Christian men of the other twenty-nine constituent denominations of the Federal Council. One of our most startling of modern discoveries is that we have been so sadly and thoughtlessly wasteful. We have wasted our mineral wealth, squandered our forests, and have allowed the mighty forces of our streams to run out into an un-needing sea. We have poisoned, neglected, maimed, and mangled by our inef- ficient speeding up, by our twelve-hour days and seven-day weeks. While we have wasted the forests and the mines, we have also wasted, bv thousands, our human brothers in the mines, have slaugh- tered and despoiled our women, and have consumed our babes be- yond the count of Herod. In our commercial development we have given over our little children to an industrial Moloch with outstretched, iron arms, saying. "Let little children come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Mammon." These enormous wastes have been largely because of a still deeper and more serious prodigality, the wanton dissipation of our 44 Our Men and Their Task moral powers, our finer emotions, and our religious enthusiasm, largely through sectarian divisions, denominational rivalries, and un- restrained caprice, masking itself or deluding itself as a religious loyalty. Let us dare to face the facts. One of our most important Qiristian tasks is that of our home missions, which is nothing less than the conquest and the moral development of a new nation. This work, however, the Protestant churches have recklessly attempted without serious forethought or prearranged plan. And the result, time upon time, has been that, like the intrepid discoverers in the Antarctic seas, religious enterprise has perished within the reach of plenty ; just because it was not reciprocal and social. Three years ago the Federal Council investigated the State of Colorado. One hundred and thirty-three communities were found, ranging in pop- ulation from one hundred and fifty to one thousand souls, without Protestant churches of any kind, one hundred of them being also without a Roman Catholic Church. And they were places of deep need in rural and mining sections. In addition to these there were four hundred and twenty-eight towns large enough to have post- offices, but without any churches, and whole counties were discov- ered without any adequate religious service. The seriousness of the other problem of overlapping is indi- cated by a town of four hundred people in the same State, with four churches, all supported by home mission aid, and this but one of many like it. The sad spectacle of social disorder and human hatred in Colo- rado at this moment, is largely the result of this disintegration of religious forces which was predicted three years ago by the Federal Council in its printed message to the churches of Colorado and of the nation. This investigation was followed by the Home Missions Council in fifteen western States. In one State seventy-five thousand people resided five miles or more from a church. A rich valley with a population of five thousand, capable of supporting fifty thousand people, had but one church. In another State, fourteen counties had but three permanent places in each for worship. One county had a rural population of nine thousand with no religious ministry ex- cept that supplied by the Mormon hierarchy. Another, with a rural Our Men and Their Task 45 population of eighteen thousand had regular services in only three of its school districts. Then, in our foreign missions, we did not bring to the infant vision of the heathen a gospel. We brought gospels. At least so it seemed to them. What wonder that to the uncultivated eyes and ears of the heathen it looked, not like the approach of human love, but, as it certainly did look to them, like the approach of those who could not truly love them, if, as it seemed, they did not love each other ? Meanwhile, the development of a new and complex social order about us was getting ready for the call of a persuasive and effective gospel. New foes were arising on every hand. They were all united, and we found ourselves facing federated vice, the federated saloon, federated corruption in political life, federated human ex- ploitation, and then all these together multiplied in one strong feder- ation, the federation of commercialized injustice, vice, and iniquity. All of these were bound together in a solemn league and covenant, and the reason they so confidently faced a derided church was be- cause they knew they faced a divided one. On the one hand were the federations of labor and on the other hand federations of capital, girding themselves for their terrific con- flict, waiting the voice w^hicli should speak with power and influence, that should quell their human hatreds. They are waiting to-day in West Virginia, in Colorado, in Michigan, where, we must sadly admit, the voice of the church has been either unheard or absolutely disregarded. Problems of social justice w^ere looking to us with beseeching voice, and we found ourselves obliged to face them, or, worse still, to shun them, with shame upon our faces and with a bewildered consciousness, because we had no common articulation of a code of spiritual principles or moral laws. Our spiritual au- thority was not equal to our human sympathy, because it was di- vided. We spoke with many voices, but not with a mighty voice. What wonder if we have lost, not only our Sabbath as a day of worship, but our Sunday as a day of rest! What wonder that we have lost our civic virtue ! Why are we surprised that we have lost not only our temperance laws, but also our temperate ways? Why should we be astonished that with the loss of these we have also lost our sons and filled our houses of refuge with our daugh- ters? Why should we wonder that the rich have left us for their 46 Our Men and Their Task unrestrained, unhol\ pleasure and the poor because we have no united sense and power of social justice to restrain an industry that devoured widows' houses and that bound heavy burdens grievous to be borne, especially when this was sometimes done by those who for a pretense made long prayers ? The age became a migratory one. The family left one city for another. It drifted, by the necessities of industry, from place to place, and because we had no provision for shepherding the sheep that left one fold for another, they w^andered about just outside some other fold. In our cities, we have to-day whole sections religiously dying and socially decaying because they are without any churches, while other sections right beside them die because they have too many churches to be supported. Effective distribution is as yet, in every city, either an undiscovered art or at best a feeble effort. The so- called rural problem as a social perplexity has arisen almost entirely from the disunity of our religious forces, and we might as well ad- mit it. In some places the churches are still dying of that worst of diseases, "sick with their brother's health." Then, for many years we had fervently prayed that God would open the doors of the heathen world and let us in to take care of the heathen as "our inheritance." God not only did that, but he opened our doors and poured the heathen in upon us. When the immigrant came he became, as often as not, an American patriot before there was time for him to become an American citizen. He assimilated everything except our religious impulse. He learned the language of our daily speech because we have only one language to be mastered. But our religion presented to him too many tongues. Why should we wonder that he could not distinguish be- tween them? He found a united democracy and he became a part of it the day he landed. He saw the unity of ideal in our public in- stitutions, and he made it his own. And if we had met him with a united brotherhood of the church, he would have felt the mass impact of religion as he felt everything else and he would have yielded to it. To be sure there was a little getting together. The ministers separated themselves off from their churches, or assumed that they were their churches, formed ministerial associations, and listened sometimes to papers on the authorship of the fourth Gospel, some- Our Men and Their Task 47 times on the question as to whether or not there were one or two Isaiahs (in all probability the local politician in the community had never been impressed by them that there was even one Isaiah). But only occasionally did they consider, with very serious intent, the common problems of their community life. We had to begin this way because we were afraid of bringing the churches them- selves together. Every once in a while, generally not oftener than once in four or five years, the wave of evangelistic power would strike the com- munity. The evangelist came, rallied the united forces of the churches for a week or two, then went away, and we strangely sup- posed that what it was perfectly clear could be begun only by united action, could be kept up and developed without it, and the churches fell apart, sometimes a little farther than they were before. Meanwhile every force, every movement, every single group gathered to oppose the church was making its common compact, with its common stock and its evenly divided dividends. So much for the facts of history. Let us now seek the vision of prophecy. The first serious movement toward federation was in the foreign field. The missionaries began to send back word that they could not make their way by using such confusing tongues. I learned in 3'Our foreign missions' meeting this morning, that the United Brethren Church contributes thirty-five cents per capita for foreign missions, and something like eight dollars per capita for the work at home. There were those in the meeting who felt that the contrast was disproportionate. There is this to be remem- bered, however, that the thirty-five cents in the foreign field may go about as far in bringing about effective action as the eight dollars does at home, because over there they are working with economic efficiency through unity. Christian unity is in the nature of a reflex action and is a part of our reward for what we have been sending all these years to the foreign field. As Mr. McAfee has so strikingly and eloquently told us, the main point, upon which we are finding our most common approach, is in the new emphasis which we are giving, because we are forced to give it, to the portentous social problems of our day. Here, at least, we find no true reason for differentiation. No one will argue that there are Methodist Episcopal saloons, or that there is such a thing as Baptist child labor, or Congregational! st vice, or Presby- 48 Our Men and Their Task terian sweatshops, or Episcopal Tammany halls, or United Brethren gambling houses. How on earth can there be any jot or tittle of difference between saving one man at a time or saving two? Be- tween regenerating an individual and sanctifying a whole city full of individuals? The only difference between a true social evangel- ism and what we used to consider by that word is that the mourn- ers' bench and mercy seat are full. We come, not one by one, but all are on our knees together. One of the most foolish discussions which were ever allowed to be perpetrated upon us was the discussion relative to individual and social religion. Is it any less holy to crush out a den of vice than it is to regenerate a vicious man? Go to commercialized vice and to industrial injustice and say to them, "We will make the laws tighter," and they will answer, ''Very well, we will find ways to break them." Go and say to them, "We will make our courts stronger," and they will answer, to themselves, if they do not to us, "The political power of our money is stronger than any court of justice." But suppose you could go to them and say, "The churches of this city — all of them have gotten together — are thinking, plan- ning, and moving as one man to crush 3'ou." They might doubt it; but if they did not doubt it, they would fear it as they have not feared even the Almighty himself. The spirit of Christian unity is in the air. Whatever may be the future, the first step is co-operative denominationalism. It is sometimes quite easy to get the churches into Christian unity if you can prevent them from discussing Christian unity. In other words, if you simply show them the task and say, "There it is ; it must be done, and it can only be done by all moving and working together." As a matter of fact, if 3^ou want to get a real har- monious gathering in which you may be sure there will be no in- vidious or divisive utterance, you are not so likely to do it by getting the representatives of one denomination together, but in a body like the Federal Council, in which it is almost impossible to extort a divisive or inharmonious expression. In other words, the more of these different bodies you can get together, the more harmony you get. I believe I am also right, although I am sometimes disputed, when I say that there is less differentiation and less distance between the two remotest denominations in the Federal Council than there is between the two wings of any one denomination. Our Men and Their Task 49 The Federal Council is the attempt to realize the divine law of unity with diversity ; unity that is not uniformity, and diversity that is not divisiveness. One thing I want to ask of you men. I do not ask you to for- get your great denominational tasks and duties, but I do ask that this Congress shall send forth, from the men of the United Breth- ren Church, the finest, sweetest, strongest, and most unhesitating message that your committee can prepare, to the men of all other evangelical churches of this nation, telling them that you wish to vv'ork together with them for the coming of the kingdom. Finally, then, brethren, the creative work of home missions can be conceived, to-day and to-morrow, only by a Protestant Church with the social vision and impulse, and can only be performed by unity and comity. And only by these selfsame tokens can the heathen lands be redeemed ; the heathen of those lands who come to us be shaped into a Christian democracy; the Christian Sabbath be saved ; the Christian home preserved in sacred purity ; our boys delivered from the hosts of sin ; our girls delivered from the lust of men; the people redeemed from injustice and oppression. Two things the church must gain: the one is spiritual au- thority ; the other is human sympathy. And be her human sympathy ever so warm and passionate, if she have not her spiritual authority, she can do little more than raise a limp signal of distress with a weak and pallid hand. But if, on the other hand, she assumes a spiritual authority without a commensurate human sympathy, she becomes what her Master would call ''a whited sepulchre filled with dead men's bones." But the church can gain neither of these two things except as she unites her moral and spiritual forces. The law by which the thirty denominations of the Federal Council are coming together, is what the poet has called "the Law of the Jungle." "Now this is the law of the jungle: as old and as true as the sky, And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die; As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back. For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack." OUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR AMERICA AND THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH TO THE HOMELESS BY R. J. WHITE It is my privilege to call your attention to a very practical prob- lem. I wish that Dr. W. H. Washinger, who was to have addressed you on this subject, were here. He is an expert on this subject, having given his attention to a study of the rnatter, being a trustee of the Quincy Orphanage. This problem has been thrust upon the Church during the past few years. We have been thinking about it, praying over it, and our Church has not faltered, and something has been accomplished. We know of the home at Quincy Pennsylvania, for the care of or- phans. It is located on a very fertile farm of one hundred and seventy-five acres of land. Not far away is the Home for the Aged, with thirteen acres of land and some buildings. There is the Ot- terbein Home, near Dayton, Ohio, with its 4,005 acres of rich land. Then there is the Baker Home, at Otterbein, California, with twenty acres and some buildings. We have made a fine beginning. All of these homes furnish great opportunities for doing good, but there are still great require- ments and demands for sacrifice and labor. Better equipment and more monc}^ are needed to make these homes accomplish the work they are capable of doing. We have made a good start. Some of the very serious questions that come to every one who begins to think upon this problem are : To what extent should the care for the homeless be left to Christian civilization, to a Christian state? To what extent should the Church burden itself with the care for the homeless ? Who should be admitted into these homes ? Should we make an effort to care for all of the homeless in the community or should we simply care for those who are members of our own fold ? Can we care for all the poor within the membership 50 Our Men and Their Task -^1 of the Church and provide for them a home? Are we to provide homes simply for the needy ministers and their families? These are some of the problems that confront us. There is one word of the Master that is of very great impor- tance, "I was a stranger and ye took me in." We have the stranger with us. He comes to our door. Ever since Cain went forth as a vagabond, a wanderer, there have been the wanderers, the homeles.*^ ones, and we certainly have a duty to perform, a mission for the homeless. Some of these strangers have been forced out by misfor- tune, by sickness, by death; many of them by sin; many of thern by the ceaseless, grinding complication of our present civilization. They have found it impossible to survive. '1 was a stranger and ye took me in." It seems to me it is our duty as a Christian church to do everything in our power to remove the causes that produce the stranger. That is simply a self-evident fact that all will accept at once. Wherever these causes can be removed, the Church should set itself earnestly and vigorously to remove, if possible, these causes. We all realize that the one great cause is drink. I remem- ber being in Kansas at the General Conference, and a gentleman remarked to me, *Tn this county we have an empty poor-house and an empty jail." For years that county had been delivered from the curse of strong drink and from the saloon, and that was the cause of the empty poor-house and the empty jail. Christ said, 'T was a stranger and ye took me in." The man who comes to your door, who asks for something to eat and a help- ing hand, is a representative of Jesus Christ. That is Christ's own way of putting it. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me." Sometimes it is difficult when you realize that these strong, able-bodied men come to you with marks of dissipation upon their faces and ask for a little help. Sometimes you feel like the conductor that was on the train yester- day. They had just such a character aboard and the conductor was trying to get rid of him, and did. "Why," he said, "such men as that haven't got any soul ; they are not fit to live.'* If that is true, they are not fit to die, and still, bad as they are, in some way they represent Jesus to you and to me. I want to emphasize that word "took." "I was a stranger and ye took me in." We are to give him a place, the poor, homeless one that is adrift. We are to seek to find for that man an anchorage. 52 Our Men and TJieir Task I don't know, friends, that that really means that we are to have spare beds and accomniodate all that come to our door, but some way, somehow, we should provide a chamber for the stranger. *'I was a stranger and ye took me in." Christian society has become aware of this fact. \\'e must care for the homeless, and the man who pays his taxes cheerfully docs som.ething to care for the poor in his county and State ; he is, in a measure, carrying out the com- mand of Jesus. We rejoice in what is being done by the State, and we rejoice in what is being done by all of the charity organiza- tions. But, friends, as a Church, we realize that we have those among us who have become homielcss perhaps on account of sick- ness or death, of being poorly supported by the Church for which they have labored. What is our duty to them? I rejoice in what we are accomplishing, and I pray that the dear Lord may give to the Church a vision of its dut\- and privilege respecting the orphan and the aged. THE LOCAL CHURCH CAPTURING THE COMMUNITY FOR CHRIST BY CHARLES W. REGARD I have a new policy for the recent years of my ministry, which I would like to share with this Congress. I have eliminated from my religious vocabulary the word "problem," and substituted in its place the word ''opportunity." When God's servants cease this restless and terrible struggle at the solution of problems, and begin, with the inspiration of heaven upon them, to investigate the oppor- tumty which the day affords, we will be ashamed that we were ever guilty of small talk concerning problems, and we will thank God eternally for the big day upon earth we were permitted to use in the work of his kingdom. The other day, in a meeting of our evangelistic commission, it was revealed that we have more than five hundred churches which did not add a single member each on confession of faith during the year. I have been reflecting a bit upon this awful situation, and have tried to form some kind of a concept of a pastor of one of these churches, and I can only see him standing forth in the stately pathos of one apart from fellow- Our Men and Their Task S3 ship with Jesus Christ and bereft of any soul-passion to drive him to the rescue of dying souls. A few years ago when I entered upon my mission work in the city of Lorain, and H. A. Bowling went to my home town at Ash- land as pastor, I wrote him a letter charging him to look well after the flock of which some of our kin were members. In closing his letter of reply he said, 'The old Ashland church is looking up." And then in great, splashing parentheses he added, "She is on her back and cannot look in any other way." INGLORIOUS PARENTHESES IN THE CAREER OF CHURCHES It may be a good thing sometimes to be sufficiently helpless in spirit that we cannot look any way but upwards, yet I hold that the devil is responsible for a lot of the inglorious parentheses into which many modern churches have fallen. It is my earnest prayer that this Congress will do a fine job in knocking the devil's brackets off of every local church which does not add a single soul on confession in a whole twelve-month. I believe it was Lord Kitchener's sub- ordinate who came to the great general and undertook to explain the reasons why he failed to carry out certain orders. Kitchener listened to the soldier with gravity and tenderness of heart until the whole excuse was tabled before him, and then replied: "The reasons you have given for not obeying orders are the best I have ever heard. Now, go and carry out the original orders !'' Brethren, is it possible that we spend a good part of our time in the presence of our Great Commander trying to explain why it is that we have not discharged the commission ? Jesus listens to our little story in patience and pity, and then, when we are through, he repeats the original orders. He says, "Go and do it. Go ye and capture the community for me, and I will be with you until the job is finished." This is not the "Authorized" version ; only a perti- nent, up-to-date paraphrase. WPIAT IT TAKES TO CAPTURE THE COMMUNITY In tlie brief time allotted me I v/ant to indicate the main lines along which the church must move in her efforts to capture the community for Christ. L Pastoral Leadership Paramount. 2. Power to Fight. 54 Our Men and Their Task 3. Passion to Weep. 4. Purpose to Pay. Too many preachers seem contented with small programs. Wc clamour for big fields for our pigmy plans. We somehow glory in mock battles and in limited and partial conquests. We never plan to swing the whole army of God at our command against the bulwarks of the enemy for a sweeping and decisive victory. Our failure here actually belittles God in the eyes of the enemy. God never fails ; we fail him. I think it was Drummond who once said that unless a man undertakes to do more than he possibly can do, he will never do as much as he possibly can do. I have observed it, how that God can draw out and multiply our force and even sur- prise the weakest of us when we undertake a task that appalls and almost overwhelms us, and we wonder whether it is ever to be made possible. At such a juncture as this I often cry out. Oh, my God, how big art thou?" and then go forward believing that the Almighty has sense enough — and I say it reverently — never to put a task upon a child of his without multiplying his strength suffi- ciently to fulfill it completely. Now, a pastor isn't much. Only a voice in the community to direct the army to the conquest. Every time the doors of the church swing open after worship it should lead out from the camp- fire and council of war to take the community for Jesus Christ. Too many churches are wanting ''business managers" for pastors, when what they need is hot-blooded prophets of the heroic type who can lead the forces to war. FIGHT THE DEVIL The church is still a militant body and she cannot succeed \\ ithout a fight. I sometimes think that we have sheathed the sword of the Spirit and hung it away among the traditional relics in the •museums of our day. We are on better terms with the devil than we used to be. We shake hands with the old chap and assure him that we are not seriously disposed to do him personal injury. We have instituted a little "The Hague" court somewhere in which we fix up our troubles with his arch-majesty by peaceful arbitration. We almost seem to wish him God-speed as he slouches away, prom- ishing to behave like an angel. The old liar! The fact is, brethren, we have almost deified the devil by the way we welcome and sane- Our Men and Their Task 55 tion certain vices of which he is father. We must unsheath the old sword of the Spirit and declare war against the whole scheme of the devil. Try to make your Christianity a concrete corrective and you will have to fight for standing ground. Jesus was painfully accurate in his fire against the citadels of sin. He dealt definitely with the enemy. So must we. ~ TRACKED BY THEIR TEARS Power to fight and passion to weep. The church terrible, and the church tender. When Peter ceases to weep over his own fail- ures we will have little hope of him. You can track the best sol- diers of Christ up the heavenly way by puddles of tears. A lot of us need to take a walk with the Master up to the hill-top and look down over the city and the community with breaking hearts and weeping eyes. There are too many dry-eyed revivals. When sin ceases to crush Christian hearts, as it crushed the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ, salvation will cease its supreme appeal. Christians are largely to blame for the modern, soft emphasis upon the nature of sin. It is no longer a savage beast, but a fondled pet. It must be an awful demon to draw blood from the heart of the Son of God! The ministry of Christ-like tenderness captures the com- munity for our Lord. MODERN WARFARE COMES HIGH Neither can you capture the community for Christ without money, a purpose to pay. Gypsy Smith says you cannot save hu- manity on cheap lines. Modern warfare comes high. You cannot discharge a gun without destroying a fortune. When our religious batteries are supplied with the munitions necessary to carry on the mightiest warfare that God has ever launched, it is going to cost the community something to proceed with the battle. The penny- act may serve well for a pop-gun campaign, but the big guns of the kingdom cannot be discharged without immense treasures. The collection basket could tell us some strange stories. Great soul- tragedies have been enacted over against our Lord's treasury. The rich young ruler wanted to be religious at the minimum cost. Jesus told him to bring the cash along. His greed was lac- erated and he went back on his sorrowful way to hell, lugging his vile dirt with him. The Holy Ghost has detected robbers in the 56 Our Men and Their Task very house of God ! Ananias and Sapphira make poor mouths as they try to explain how generous they have been, with a big wad of goods kept back. God may not strike them dead to-day, but their souls are choked and smothered to death under such trappings of hypocrisy. I am glad to be a volunteer in the army that is to capture not only the community, but the world for Christ. I think it was Dr. Joseph Parker, who said in his last sermon : ''As long as the church of God is only one of many institutions, she will have her little day. She will die. But just as soon as she gets the Spirit of Jesus until the world thinks she has gone stark mad, then we shall be on the high road to capture this planet for Jesus." "Oh, it is great to be out where the fight is strong, To be where the heaviest troops belong. And to fight for man and God. Oh, it seams the face and it dries the brain, It strains the arm 'til all is pain. In the fight for man and God. But its great to be out where the fight is strong." WINNING OUR SHARE OF AMERICA BY w. M. wp:ekley When we consider America in its relation to the rest of the world, it becomes clear that it is the most important of all mission fields. So Dr. F. B. Meyer, of London, thinks. Recently a reporter in Baltimore said to him, "Mr. Meyer, you have just traveled around the world studying missions; what, in your view, is the greatest mission field in the world?" Immediately he replied, 'The United States, because you have here all nationalities of the world cen- tered." And such is the opinion of Bishop Hartzell, of the Meth- odist Episcopal church, long a missionary in Africa. He says, "The greatest single mission field on the face of the earth is the United. States." America's strategic position in the world For various reasons our position in the sisterhood of nations is unique and pivotal. All eyes are upon us. Our every act is Our Men and Their Task 57 critically and mercilessly analyzed. When America speaks, all lands stop to listen ; every time her heart throbs, they feel the vibration ; every time she lifts her foot, they hear the thunderous tread of her onward march. Her long arms of commerce reach out and touch all civilized and semi-civilized countries, and thus she is linked with the rest of mankind. Men interested in religion, science, education, sociology, civil government, and the great productive industries, are pouring'in upon us from every quarter to study our spirit, methods, and outlook, and especially our democracy, which guarantees to every man liberty of conscience, the right of free speech, and the protection of life and property. The coming of a million aliens yearly to our shores to live, the most of whom are un-American and non-Protestant, and are likely to so remain, is a fact of tremendous significance, and gives a new aspect to our national life and importance as a world-power. This foreign element, for the most part, is so controlled by selfish pol- iticians and unscrupulous ecclesiastics as to make it a determining factor in our municipal, State, and Federal affairs. The indications now are that the immigrants to our shores for the present fiscal year will break all records— reaching the enormous figure of one million, five hundred thousand. Of this number, six hundred thousand will be classed as illiterates. If the usual number return to their native countries, we will have this year a net in- crease of one million, one hundred and fifteen thousand foreigners, of whom four hundred and fifty thousand will be unable to read and write. I have no time to comment on these figures, except to say that they represent a condition which makes the work of the churches and of the National Government more difficult and prob- lematical as the years come and go. No other nation ever had such a task on its hands. I am wondering if we are even half awake to the seriousness of the situation. Are we aware of the place we occupy on the map of the world? Do we in any adequate sense recognize the possibilities and responsibilities which the position brings ? God help us to see the religious significance of America in the great family of nations, and to realize that when she comes to fully recognize Jesus in all her affairs, spiritual, commercial, and political, and is ready to put the crown on him, the very ends of the earth will hasten to join in the fimal coronation. Some one states the matter tersely : "America is to be either the tomb in which 58 Our Men and Their Task the hopes of the world will be buried forever, or a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night to lead the world into the light and glory of a millennial day." 'The future of the world," declares Doctor Storrs, in the same strain, "is pivoted on the question whether the Protestant churches of America can hold, enlighten, and purify the people born or gathered into its great compass." A PROTEST AGAINST MISLEADING CHURCH STATISTICS Now, if we, as a Church, are to be a factor in the saving of America, the question arises. How much, or what part of the work are we to assume? What is our just proportion of the population? I am sure we never can reach a satisfactory answer by merely figur- ing out our relative numerical strength among the thirty-seven mil- lion church communicants scraped together by Doctor Carroll, our great statistician ; for the more church members this country has of a certain type, the worse off it is. In his last annual report, Doctor Carroll exults over a gain in religious adherents of 655,108; but all such reports, in my judgment, are misleading and mischievous in so far as they attempt to set forth the religious state of the na- tion and the Christian agencies emplo3^ed in its salvation. For ex- ample: He counts 13,099,000 regular Catholics, with an increase last year of 215,000; and I am morally certain that in proportion as Romanism flourishes and becomes a dominating influence, Amer- ica's pace toward paganism will be accelerated. This is as true as mathematics, if papal history in other countries is to be considered of any significance. Then we have 438,500 Eastern Orthodox Cath- olics, 296,000 ^lormons, 200,000 Spiritualists, and 85,000 Christian Scientists. To these may be added the membership of more than one hundred small organizations, including Buddhists, the Theo- sophical Society, and the Society for Ethical Culture, that do nnt amount to anything, never did, and never will. Doctor Carroll gives in one table the increase of all the churches numbering one hundred thousand and upward, since 1900, and shows a net gain of 9,679,422. "Wonderful growth !" some of you are ready to shout. "The per cent, of church members, com- pared with the increase of population, is climbing up all the time," so we are informed. But let us pause a moment before any one goes into spasms of ecstacy. Out of this gain of 9,679,422, the Catholics are credited with a net increase of 5,050,689. That is to Otir Men and Their Task 59 say, in thirteen years their gain has been 421,844 more than that of all the other churches put together. And this tremendous growth, mark you, is found in an organization that is the most colossal foe the nation ever had. So far as I am concerned, brethren, no church (so called) that stands against an open Bible, against our free school system, against our country's flag, against free speech, a free press, and liberty of conscience ; that goes to Rome rather than to Wash- ington for its orders, and that condemns and consigns to an eternal perdition all who refuse to put their necks under its accursed yoke, shall ever be put in the same category with the United Brethren, and other great evangelical bodies of this country. No church (so called) that believes in and practices polygamy; that degrades wo- manhood ; that defies civil law in the perpetuation of its dirty life, shall ever go down on the same white page where the name of my Church is recorded along with the names of the other God-honored Christian bodies of the world. Please heaven, I will shout my pro- test to the last moment against any pretended church denying the deity of Jesus Christ going into the same list of redeeming agencies that my own Church stands with. THE UNITED BRETHRExN" CHURCHES SHARE OF AMERICA I suppose the number of church people represented in the I'ederal Council of Churches — about 16,936,233 — would constitute a reasonable ground on which to base our relative strength, and to approximate the proportion of the nation's population for which we are responsible, for outside the thirty churches composing this council, not much is being done to save America. We have, in this country, about one hundred million ])eopIc. l'\)ur years ago the census showed ninety-two millions ; so, allowing for a gain of two millions a year is not putting the figures too high, if high enough. If I am correct in this, then our share of the country's population is approximately two millions, or one million, six hundred and seventy-five thousand more than we have in our membership. If for the next decade the increase averages two and a half millions yearly, our additional proportion will be fifty thou- sand, which, if properly cared for, will require annually the organ- ization of at least seventy-five new churches, and the erection of as many meeting-houses to supply their needs. To build these places of worship, and support fifty additional pastors, will mean an in- 60 Our Men and Their Task creased expenditure of not less than a half-million dollars. Mark you, I am speaking of the church's new work and increased outlay. But are we measuring up to what God and our country require of us? Are we satisfied ourselves with what we are doing? I answer, Not by any means. But I do affirm that since we have eyes to see the immense field before us, and ears to hear the Macedonian calls for help, and sensibilities to feel the touch of duty, we will be guilty before high heaven if we hesitate to assume our full share of respon- sibility in redeeming America for Christ. WE MUST USE MORE MONEY To rightly discharge this tremendous obligation, three things are needful: First, We must have more money. The expenditures at present for the home work, and especially for domestic missions, are utterly inadequate to meet the demands of the hour, and abso- lutely out of proportion to the Church's ability to give. Think, will you, of a church considerably more than three hun- dred thousand strong, setting apart $56,250 for general home mis- sions ; and if the full budget is not raised, this insignificant sum will be diminished at the rate of twenty-five cents on every dollar not collected. If this condition continues we shall not be able to hold our own, much less to undertake the new work from year to year which a growing population will make necessary. In a multitude of cities and towns where we have not yet gone. God has a mission for us among the neglected and fallen. The great centers in the East and South are just as needy and important as are like cities in the West, and their appeals for help come to us. in ringing tones ; but the territories most inviting are to be found west of the Mississippi River, and in some portions of the South. Among the increasing millions of these sections there are legions who must get God's message through the United Brethren Church, if they get it at all ; and to us he would have them look for the bread of life and spiritual oversight. But how slowly our home missionary work goes ; and no wonder ! We are only asking the church to pay the paltry sum of nineteen cents per member for the use of the Home Mission Board. Did you get the amount? Nineteen cents. At this rate, how long will it take to gather in the sixteen hundred thousand, and more, Our Men and Their Task 61 beyond our pale ? And to what extent will we be able to provide for the extra fifty thousand who are to come to us yearly? I bring- the complaint that the United Brethren Church has never been fully awake to the importance of home missions, as her record clearly indicates. Our conce])Lion of the work has been to extend it just as a few local preachers could carry it on. This has especially been true in the West. Some of the other churches were wise enough to support their missionaries, and to aid in building- places of worship. Such men gave prestige to their cause, and not only gathered their own, but largely garnered the results of the labors of our itinerant farmers. The church first in a community to save souls, to aid in erecting a house of prayer, and to otherwise administer to the people, will most likely win and hold them, and so it should. And this theory holds good when expanded into a county or State. T have in mind a certain great commonwealth in the West, entered by United Brethren pioneers in the middle fifties when it was yet a poor territory. We were among the first to carry the good message across its sun-scorched, wind-v/hipped prair- ies to the scattered homesteaders who had gone thither to live. But our work was imperfectly done. Not because the pioneer heralds lacked devotion and courage, for they did not. Their names were written among the stars, and deserve to be there; but they had no material support worth speaking of except what they earned by the toil of their hands. Under such limitations they could not succeed in the best sense. Another denom.ination went in at the same time, but its missionaries were so well cared for that they could give all their time to preaching, visiting, and holding revivals. They cared for their converts, and for many of ours as well ; they found their way into the homes of the sick, and where hovered the raven wing of death. In other words, they had but one work, and to that was given every ounce of their strength, and everv day of the week. In this particular field we have expended possibly seventy-five thou- sand dollars of missionary money, and probably loaned as much to aid in starting church buildings, while the other church has put into it three-quarters of a million in hard cash to aid its men; has given two hundred thousand dollars outright to help erect houses of worship, and loaned a half-million for the same purpose. Results, do you ask? Here they are in cold figures — cold enough to almost chill the blood in our veins. We have eighteen 62 Our Men and Their Task thousand members, while the sister church has fully one hundred and twenty-five thousand, with church edifices and parsonages worth five million dollars. The same thing is true in other States in the West. It is no pleasant thing, I assure you, to speak of our failures in other years, but if a church never sees its mistakes, it can hardly be expected to correct them. Our blunders along this line have not grown out of our theology, nor out of our general gov- ernmental policy, for these were such as to recommend the church ; no better can be found anywhere beneath the heavens ; but we were led into error through a false philosophy respecting the process of building up a strong denominational life. But having seen the fal- lacy of our course, are we going to change our methods of oper- ation along the line of our extension work and determine hence- forth to make good, Avhatever the cost ? Immense fields are opening everywhere, both in city and country, and United Brethren are going to them by thousands. Shall we pursue the policy of bygone decades, whine over our helplessness, and simply look on as these members are absorbed by other denominations? Or shall w^e heed their calls, provide the helpful agencies they need, and consider it a God-send that we have such devoted. Christian characters around whom to build in fields so big with promise to the church? ^lany of the conferences are striving heroically to enlarge their local w^ork. I know this to be the case on the East District, and it is just as true in other portions of the Church. Some of them get no help, whatever, from the parent board ; others very little ; and all because the board, much of the time, is next to bankrupt. It could put every dollar it receives into Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Col- orado, or into Washington, Oregon, and California, and then not spend nearlv so much as some other churches appropriate to these fields. To see wide-open doors of usefulness forever closed against us ; to hear our people w^ho have been saved at our own sacred altars, plead for preaching, and not be able to give it to them ; to see local churches disorganized in promising localities, and our membership wholly lost to us, and yet feel utterly unable to prevent such things, is an experience that makes the heart sick. Some one may suggest: "Let our people who move into the cities and new country districts where we are not, go to some other good church ; w^hat's the difference anyhow ?" But I say it does Our Men and Their Task 63 make a difference. If a rol)ust, aggressive, denominational exist- ence is to be preserved and fostered, we must, as far as possible, conserve the fruits of our toil ; we must gather what we have sown. :Vnd this is not selfishness or bigoted sectarianism, but religion and good common sense. I persist in the inquiry: Are we going to pursue the policy of other years? Are we to keep on playing at home missions, and doing journey work for sister churches? I say. No; a thousand times, no. And I think the whole Church is ready to give hearty assent to what I here say. The clock of time is now striking the hour of a new era in our history, and arousing in us, I trust, a self-consciousness and sense of obligation that will mightily intensify our purpose to help win America for Christ. THERE IS NEED OF MORE AND BETTER PREACHERS Second, We need and must have more and better preachers. The conception that any old stick will do for our mission fields is a delusion, and will put a handicap on any church that permits itself to be thus deceived. In far too many instances we have used such men to our serious detriment. The experiment of employing cheap labor has proved exceedingly costly to the United Brethren Church. The truth is, we need our strongest and best equipped men for the new fields we enter. I can see how an old charge with a large, influential membership, and with the prestige of years back of it, might get along, at least for a time, with an ordinary pastor, but in our mission work, where the Church is comparatively, or alto- gether unknown, a man to properly represent us is the greatest need ; for if a church starts wrong, if the people of the community get an unfavorable impression of the preacher, who really stands for the church, it takes a long time to wipe the slate clean for a new start. Every argument urged for sending well-prepared men to foreign fields applies with equal force to the home work, because of its difficulties and world-wide significance. And because of this need, and our anxiety to supply it, we are duty bound to encourage and make strong and inviting our schools of training through which the ministry of the future must largely come. 64 Our Men and Their Task PREACH AND LIVE THE OLD-TIME GOSPEL Third, We need to preach, with increased emphasis, the old- time gospel, live the old-time religion, and constantly "look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith." When Henry M. Stanley was about to start in search of David Livingston, who had long been in Africa, James Gordon Bennett, of the Nezv York Herald, telegraphed him, ''Draw on me for a thousand pounds ; if that will not do, draw on me for another thou- sand; and if that is not sufficient, continue to draw on me until Livingston is found and rescued." God keep us from forgetting that in Jesus Christ our resources are infinite, for "He is able to supply all our needs according to his riches in glory." Moreover, "He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. This is enough to make the head swim. Thinking of Jesus — of his eternal fullness — is like thinking of space. However far our concep- tions travel, there is still infinite beyond. And to-day this same Girist, of infinite supplies, speaking down to us from the throne of heaven, says, "Draw on me for all the grace and wisdom and strength you may need, and keep on drawing on me until America is rescued and redeemed." THE OPPORTUNITY AND CHALLENGE IN OUR FOR- EIGN FIELDS BY ALFRED T. HOWARD I like the ring of the subject, "The Opportunity and Challenge in Our Foreign Fields." I like the thought suggested in the word "challenge," with the underlying idea of equality. The mountain does not challenge the mole-hill to battle, and the challenges that are ofifered to you men during these days are great because you are great and because you represent great possibilities. So it is no impossible dream we are presenting here wdien these five foreign fields are held up before you, because any one who considers the forces you represent will know that you men and those with whom you are associated are able to discharge the entire obligation that is laid on our Church abroad. Our Men and Their Task 65 RAILROADS BETTER THAN ROMAN ROADS First of all, these fields and the cause with which they are associated are a challenge to our wonder. We sometimes read in the history of St. Paul of the conditions which, converging, made his labors effective. We see how the old Roman roads stretched from one end of the great continents to the other. In this we pro- fess to see providential dealings in the beginning of the Christian church. If convenient means of communication were regarded as providential in St. Paul's time, how our wonder ought to be excited when we see the means that God is placing in the hands of the Christian church at the present day. Within the past year and a half, as I have gone over our work in the Philippine Islands and China and the other fields, the acces- sibility of these people is one of the features that surprises me. In that section of the Philippine Islands where our Cliurch is operating, one can now travel from north to south by rail or in convenient automobiles, a fact that was not true even three years ago. All parts of our Chinese field are accessible by boats that are fairly comfortable, even if none too clean. Our territory in Japan is as accessible as the Miami Valley, though even Japanese roads are probably surpassed by the fine, new highways in Porto Rico. Then, when one remembers what travel was in Africa fifteen years ago and then considers how much more easily he can get about there to-day, we can only wonder, I say, at these new means that God has so very recently placed at our disposal. We are now talking about the completion of the Panama Canal. Well, the next great achievement to talk about after that will be the completion of a railway that will extend from Cairo to the Cape, a distance of five thousand miles. Another great railway runs eight hundred miles north in Nigeria. North of Sierra Leone, a French line pene- trates four hundred miles into the interior where connection is made with a line of steamers that goes four hundred miles further eastward, and the purpose is to push this line still farther east until it crosses the great continent. In Sierra Leone, in which we are particularly interested, with a railway running across the colony and a branch reaching out to the northeast, one can now travel in fairly com- fortable railway trains, whereas a few years ago he could, by the severest exertion, travel only fifteen to twenty miles a day, and suffer every sort of hardship. 66 Our Men and Their Task INCREASING WEALTH OF FOREIGN PEOPLES Again our wonder is challenged by the latent wealth of our people. You will pardon me if I speak this morning more from my experience in Africa than from other fields. A few years ago the African people \yere commonly regarded as poor, perhaps might always remain poor, but it is being discovered that not only is Africa rich in certain natural resources, but that many of her peo- ple are becoming prosperous. The development of the gold and the diamond mines in South Africa reads like a new chapter in Arabian Nights, and in East Africa, too, great rich mines and territories are being developed. In Nigeria one thousand tons of tin per month are being placed on the market, and great cattle men from South Africa are transferring their interests into Nigeria. Men who have lived there a number of years regard it as second only to India in importance among the British colonies. In a colony called the "Gold Coast," there are mines that are enriching Euro- peans, while cocoa in the same colony is making the common peo- ple prosperous. But in Sierra Leone, on the west coast, with which we are more closely associated, the palm kernels are bringing the people a larger and more certain income. These palm kernels produce an oil that is used by the shipload in Europe for the manufacture of soaps, imitation butter, and olive oil. Nearly every Sunday morning I observed from five to seven vessels in the harbor of Freetown, almost every one of which was loaded down with this palm oil. While the natives of Sierra Leone are already obtain- ing large returns from the oil, the men who are engaged in the purchase of these kernels tell me that last year more than ninety million dollars' worth of the nuts went to waste in that one colony because they were so remote from a navigable river or railway as to make it impracticable to market them, although men will carry a bushel or two of kernels six or seven days' journey on their heads in order to get them to market. And yet, valuable as these trees are, they are only self -planted, and a hundred times as many trees could be grown as are standing there now. Thus these peo- ple in West Africa are going to be moderately well-to-do, and any one who knows the negro race knows this, that if they have money they will give it to the church. Though Africa is the home of the black men, they have few political privileges there. Only in the church do they have anything like self-government, therefore Our Men and Their Task 67 the church is their one idol. So we ought to rejoice at these evi- dences of increasing wealth in the hands of these church-loving people. ADMIRATION FOR WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING Then there is a challenge to our admiration of what other societies are doing. About three years ago I was in Yokohama and saw thirty-five new missionaries going out to West China for the Canadian Methodist Church. What a magnificent contribution that was for one church to make in one year. Then we are inspired by the work that is being done by the United Presbyterian Church in Egypt. I think about ten years ago this church was spending something like thirty thousand dollars for educational work there, but in ten years they have increased this appropriation to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Coming home, one of my fellow passengers on a German ship was a missionary from the Gold Coast in Africa. His society (the English Wesleyan Meth- odist) has been working in that section for about seventy years. They have now a membership of sixteen thousand, and those six- teen thousand persons, with adherents, gave last year over one hun- dred and twenty thousand dollars to the work of the church. Dur- ing the past ten years the Presbyterians have done probably the most phenomenal work of all in Africa in carrying out a definite, ten-year policy. At one time seven thousand persons met in one place to celebrate the holy sacrament. In ten years their native force increased from 55 to 257 and their contributions from $1,400 to $14,000. THE UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH IN THE FOREFRONT Again the progress we have seen in our own work abroad challenges our gratitude. Not only is God working through these other great denominations, but he is using those agencies that have been developed by the United Brethren Church also. I am glad and grateful myself for the fact that we have been providentially associated with practically all the great non-Christian religions of our time. In West Africa we have an opportunity to present Jesus Christ to people who know no Savior, but live ever in the fear of legions of devils. There, too, we are having a part in presenting our God as a loving, heavenly Father to Mohammedan believers 68 Our Men and Their Task who know him merely as a hard, loveless God. On the other side of the world we are face to face with reviving Buddhism in Japan, Confucianism in China, and with decadent Romanism in our Span- ish-American colonies. THE church's training AGENCIES ABROAD We have reason to be grateful for the training agencies that have been developed. I presume a great many of you read, during the past year, that remarkable book by Mr. Eddy, ''A New Era in Asia." As one closes this book he can only be grateful to God that such great leaders as Dr. Mott and Mr. Eddy have been raised up, yet on second thought there is regret that men who are able so to move the hearts of people of India and China and Japan find it necessary to go elsewhere. Perhaps if they could always remain there they could move the masses more rapidl)^ than others have been able to do. It is therefore necessary to raise up training agencies that will develop great men who will stay in the country and help, by constant association with the people there, to solve the problems that are presented. And so a man w^as raised up to estab- lish the Clark Training School in Africa years ago. Later on wdien it was felt necessary to have a school of higher grade, a gentleman gave the Church the funds for the Albert Academy. Though the Miller Seminary does not yet have a proper home of its own, it has made annually a fine contribution to the womanhood of Qiina, and similarly the Deaconess Training School in San Fernando is doing an important work in training leaders among the women in the Philippines. In addition to these strictly denominational schools, our Church has had a part in co-operating with other churches in training strong leaders in three union theological schools ; one, the Doshisha, in Japan, one in South China, and one in the Philip- pine Islands. The men who have graduated from these schools are not only well trained intellectually, but they are willing to bear the yoke. A native's sacrifice and power Not all the sacrifice and work for foreign missions are done by people on this side of the water. One of our men in Africa, whose name most of you know, is Mr. Thomas Hallowell. He has been connected with our work for a good many years and is a man whom his fellow-workers love and trust. A couple of years ago an oppor- Otir Men and Their Task 69 tunity came to him to go back to his own native town and take an appointment as a sub-chief, a position that would have brought to him wealth and comfort. Financially it would have been about as great a promotion as for a man who received five hundred dol- lars or seven hundred dollars a year in the ministry here to accept a position at five thousand dollars or six thousand dollars, but he turned down this proposition. Do you wonder that God honored his sacrifice by one of the greatest evidences of the Holy Spirit that has been seen in Sierra Leone for a half-century? Native men who had long lived in gross sin, fell on the floor crying for mercy. It cannot be said that this was hypnotic suggestion, because none of them had ever seen any such manifestations of repentance before. I believe that Brother Hallowell's victory over the offer of worldly honor and money was one of the causes at the back of this remarkable meeting. And then in Africa we had the greatest victory last year that has ever been won in any single year along financial lines. The advance in contributions for missions was about thirty per cent, over the previous year; one hundred and twenty-five per cent, in pastors' salaries; one hundred and thirty per cent, for church erection and expenses, so that our people in Sierra Leone, those black people who have so very little in their own homes, gave over five dollars per member to the support of the church. RUM AND RACE PREJUDICE Then, friends, we are challenged to a conflict with great foes to those friends of ours in other lands whom we are endeavoring to uplift. Look at the increasing consumption of rum in Sierra Leone. The importation has doubled within the last four years, one-half the income of the colony coming from spirituous liquors. No true friend of the African can behold that dark tide by which those primitive people are being engulfed without dismay and a determination to fight the trade and the use of liquor to a finish. Then there is the great barrier of race prejudice to overcome if we are ever to go far in extending the kingdom of God on the earth. We can hardly understand how deeply seated this race prejudice is and how very seriously it aft'ects our work. In a cer- tain town in Africa just two or three evenings before I was there, a new District Commissioner, walking out, met a native man who 70 Our Men and Their Task did not take off his hat to him. I am not sure that the native had any way of knowing that the European was the District Commis- sioner, but this representative of British justice and honor knocked the man down and then beat him with his stick. Not only was the man thus brutally treated, angered, but the whole community was inflamed by this injustice. In Porto Rico the chief industries are the production of sugar, tobacco, and coffee, and if the rich Amer- ican owners go down there in a lordly sort of way and disregard the feelings of the Porto Ricans, even the poorest and humblest of them, we may look for trouble in that little island. Only the Christian church with her message of love preached to both the Americans and the people of Porto Rico can secure in that beau- tiful island conditions that we desire to see. Again we are challenged by the significant opportunity of this hour when in every one of these lands with which we have to do, people are losing faith in their old religion. When their faiths are crumbling is it not of the highest importance that we go with a definite message of a personal vSavior and lift him before those of whom it can be more truthfully stated than ever before that they are indeed feeling after God? THE CHALLENGE OF THE TASKS Then we are challenged to face actual facts. We must to-day either advance or retreat. Let me ask you men, what you would do if you had been providentially associated with foreign missions as a life work? We find that our fathers, after prayer, opened these various missions in these different fields. They opened the missions when the Church was only half or two-thirds its present size and when the wealth of the Church was far from its wealth at the present time. Though no new territory has been added for fifteen years, yet we find ourselves to-day facing great needs in those foreign fields our predecessors saw good reasons for opening. Our most remote outposts are the Kono country in Africa and the Mountain Province in the Philippine Islands. Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Todd are the only missionaries to the Kono peo- ple, and Mr. and Mrs. Widdoes are standing at the door of the Mountain Province, where live races of men, head-hunters, whom the Roman Church for four hundred years neglected. No, we can not retreat. We nuist go forward. And yet it is quite impossible Our Men and Their Task 71 to go forward and meet these definite and reasonable obligations without the gathering of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for new schools, hospitals, chapels, and residences abroad. In addi- tion to that there must be a fifty per cent, increase in our appro- priations for current work. Does any one say, "Too great an advance"? Why, in the one country of Japan, the number of Christian pastors must be increased fourfold in order that there may be one pastor to every ten thousand people. I know that I am speaking to fair-minded men and that you believe this program for our part of the non-Christian world ought to be carried out. Does this mean that our congregations must hear the cry of money, money, money more frequently than ever? Let us strike a deeper note than that. Oh, friends, the only alternative for the cry of money, money, money is loyalty, loyalty, loyalty to Jesus, Savior and Lord. Loyalty is indeed the soul of religion, \vithout which in intense form there can be no progress either at home or abroad. Our young people have shown their loyalty. Some of the choicest of them have dedicated their lives to this task. I tell you, men, the young people in our Church or some other are going to change the color of that map of the world. When our young men and women give their lives, will we withhold an average gift of fifty cents per member to provide for their sup- port and equipment? These young people expect the Church at home to give them a square deal. The men who have been years on the field, who, by hardship are growing prematurely gray, wait eagerly for news of an advancing tide on the part of the home Church. Our churches abroad that have been nurtured by home agencies have a right to expect that the church from which they sprang will go forward from conquering to conquer. You men can hardly realize how intently the eyes of these fellow-Christians in other lands are fixed on you. You expect them to do the heroic thing, but mind you, they expect us to do the heroic thing and to continue to lead them leagues in advance of where they are. SOME IMMEDIATE NEEDS Fortunately, Africa is not asking for any especially expensive equipment at this time. Porto Rico requires $3,500 for our part in a union theological school, and $7,000 for a church in Yauco, an up-to-date little city, the center of a large and important district. 72 Our Men and Their Task Five thousand dollars are needed for a lot in a permanent location in Manila where, in rented quarters, Mr. Pace and his associates are making a church home and a social center for the twenty-five thousand Ilocano people in Manila. It would be difficult to over- state the possibilities of a good church with certain institutional phases for that colony. The task of the church in China is even more distinctly seen to-day than it was two years ago. Then jt seemed that the young reformers might be able to carry forward many of the phases of work that had hitherto been maintained by the Christian church. Now, it seems that there is so much inertia to be overcome, so much ignorance, such a nation-wide, Tammany- like system of graft that patriotism, justice and integrity cannot be permanently secured by any Simon-says-thumbs-up decree. There must be more strong Christian leaders, hence more Christian homes, more Christian schools, more Christian literature, more of all that has been a brace to us in our social, church, and national life. A multitude of voices cry, "Come over and help us." The hour in Japan is not less critical. Never did great conditions converge as they do now to make the Christian church serious, alert, deter- mined. There is a frank recognition of moral need. Aid is ex- pected from the church. There is the most serious study of the message of the church that has been given for twenty years at least. The churches are acting together for the largest possible good. At a time like this, no one suggests sounding a retreat. No one suggests for a minute that the little children in our Foundlings' Home should be thrown back on the streets and the doors closed. No one approves of closing the doors of our dispensaries in Africa, where Doctor Griggs and Miss Landis treated seven thousand peo- ple last year, and in China where Doctor Bigler had twenty-two thousand interviews. No one who has been inspired by good liter- ature advises shutting down our printing presses in Africa, Porto Rico, or the Philippines. With the cry for leaders, leaders every- where abroad, surely we cannot close our schools. And with our growing churches and Sunday schools we cannot lock the doors of these sanctuaries because the infant churches, while doing hero- ically, are not yet able to bear all their expenses. I have spoken long enough — perhaps too long. In the lan- guage of Lincoln, men will forget what we say here, but pray God they may not be able to forget what you men determine to do here. UNITED MOVEMENT TO ENLIST THE LOCAL CHURCHES IN KINGDOM EXTENSION EDUCATION AND INSPIRATION NEEDED IN THE LOCAL CHURCH BY A. C. SIDDALL Are we here simply to hear of big tasks and to experience a few thrills of oratory and to hurrah a little under the conviction that the enemy will covertly retire and permit us to have the field without a struggle ? No, we are here rather to take cognizance of the impending conflict and to devise ways and means for the de- velopment of leaders adequate to such an issue, and discover how to mobilize the entire United Brethren division so that we may fling our forces like a solid phalanx against the powers of super- stition and darkness. It will be our supreme business while here to discover the chief strategy. We cannot afford to be deceived as to where the issue really lies. Does success or failure to do our part, as a Church, lie with our foreign missionaries? They themselves are dependent upon the churches at home for support and sympathy. Does the issue lie with our heroic band of home missionaries? They, also, ;are j'dependent upon the support of the stronger churches in waging a vigorous campaign. Will our failure be attributable to lack of opportunities? We are Hterally bewildered by the abun- dance of opportunities at home and abroad, and it is with greatest difficulty that the departments can restrain themselves from going into debt in order to meet the great need. Will we fail because our general church machinery is not well organized? I cannot believe it; our departments of home and foreign missions, church exten- sion, education, Sunday schools, and Young People's work are all in splendid condition to move forward. Will our failure be that we do not have a good financial system ? It certainly will not be at that point, for Ave have a system that is n 74 Our Men and Their Task scriptural and business-like and the more I study it the more I am convinced of its inherent goodness and that we ought to stand by it and make it win. No, our issue is not with our far-flung battle lines in China, Japan, Africa, Porto Rico, or the Philippines, nor is our issue with our one hundred and twenty-five home missionaries who have gone to the front at the command of the Church. The battleground in this campaign is in the local church. Our problem is to bring such inspiration and information to the local church as will set it on fire for God and bring back again that holy hunger for conquest. All the benevolent interests of this denom- ination are involved in a budget of two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, humiliatingly small for a church with a member- ship of three hundred and fifteen thousand, and one wholly inade- quate with which to do our legitimate share in the conquest of the world for Christ. We are far from being assured at this time that even this amount will be forthcoming. The days right ahead will tell whether this Church has statesmanship of sufficient caliber not only to arouse our churches to meet a budget of two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, but to push those figures up to the million mark, and whether we shall have the right to proclaim our- selves an aggressive church. INSPIRATION Somehow we must bring to the local churches the inspiration sufficient to advance the work of the kingdom with enthusiasm. The local church is so far away from much of the work of the Church that unless we link them up closely by a great educational campaign, there is constant danger of a loss of interest, and this loss of interest means defeat to the general work of the Church. There are two sources from which a local church draws its inspira- tion, and to these sources we should give immediate consideration. First, the church draws inspiration from its own victories over its own immediate problems. I cannot here adequately discuss any one of these problems and can only briefly call attention to one or two. The conquest of the community for Christ and the church is a mighty inspirational force. When the evangelistic fires are burn- ing, and the people are being saved and the community is coming Our Men and Their Task 75 to be enrolled in the Sunday school, then it is that the local church is most daring to undertake great things for the Master's sake. Nothing so discourages a local church as to be continually defeated in its own field. Nothing is more needed just now than a great evangelistic campaign. Last year there were five hundred United Brethren churches that did not have a single accession on confession of faith, and five hundred and twenty-six others had only one such accession. This makes one-third of our churches in this deplorable condition. No wonder that hundreds of our churches are hard to interest in our general enterprises. In many, many places our Sun- day schools are dragging along at a poor, dying pace in the midst of millions of unchurched people. We can stand a Sunday-school campaign that will put fifty thousand net gain in our schools for a quadrennium. Last year v/e actually lost in our enrollment. Give the local church victory in soul-winning and Sunday-school growth and you have gone a long way in lifting them into an atmosphere where they will grip the work of the kingdom with tremendous earnestness. Another local problem which vitally affects our local churches is the management of their finances. Local churches that have vic- tory here are ready for the call to advance. But once let the pas- tor's salary fall greatly in arrears and the janitor be unpaid, and no money in the treasury, and you find a condition in which it is difficult to get a church to look up. Our appeal for benevolences finds but little response. Our most immediate duty is to bring to such churches a system that will give them victory and set them free from this discouragement. I have been associated with churches enough to know what an inspiration it is to a church to have victory at this point. Again, the local church is inspired zvhen it learns of victories achiezed by our denominational agencies. We cannot expect the local church long to respond to the home mission appeal when they never hear of any good being accomplished, but once let them know of the thousands being won to Christ through this channel, and their response is continuous and hearty. INFORMATION Information is the handmaid of inspiration. It is the food upon which inspiration feeds. It is the foundation upon which perma- 76 Our Men and Their Task nent growth in the church is built. We can sometimes seem to make headway by the excitement of a moment, but it is certainly clear that the church that will make permanent and substantial de- velopment will do it out of an intelligent conception of all the facts involved in the extension of the kingdom of God. I am personally convinced that the one serious problem confronting us at this time is how to get the proper kind of information and instruction to our people. This informational propaganda should follow three lines: 1. Our churches need instruction and information on the ques- tion of stezmrdship. I submit if this is not vital to the efficacy of all other knowledge ! We are not apt to be moved greatly for the spread of the gospel, although we may know there are millions perishing for the bread of life, until we recognize ourselves the stewards of the manifold grace of God. I have been seriously won- dering whether we may not become so engrossed with the budget system that we will overlook this first question of stewardship. Our pastors everywhere should plan for a church-wide cam- paign for stewardship, in the broadest sense. Not so much the technical discussion of the question of tithing; that certainly, but more definitely the stewardship of the whole man. I can see how we might tithe and yet have an extremely limited idea of the Bible conception of stewardship, but if once led to receive the Bible con- ception of stewardship, then tithing is but a step. Our pastors will not make it a hobby and defeat themselves, but it certainly is in- cumbent upon us to preach on stewardship in a large way. There should be made available for distribution a splendid as- sortment of stewardship literature. I believe our Finance Com- mission would do really a strategic thing to provide financially for the preparation and dissemination of an abundance of such liter- ature. Might there not be organized classes for the study of Christian stewardship? Splendid textbooks are now available for such work in the churches. I have attended fifteen annual conferences and twenty-five group conferences, and not in a single instance has this feature been emphasized, although we have suggested classes in many branches of the work. 2. We must foster in every local church a campaign of educa- tion along the line of the great enterprises of the kingdom in which Our Men and Their Task 77 our Church should be interested. We need not expect our people to do beyond their vision of need. The fact is, most of us fall far below this standard and if this denomination expects our people to rally to the support of our general interests on a scale larger than our present attainments, it will have to greatly advance the vision of our people by giving them a view of the field. Indeed, it is a grave question if we can reach our present budget without this campaign of education in the local church. It is revealing no secrets when I say that the great bulk of our people have a very insufficient knowledge of our work. Eighty per cent, of our local churches have never conducted a mission study class, and are consequently lacking in the information to fire them with zeal for our home and foreign missionary work, and I feel that this campaign of education will most certainly eradicate this condition. Doctor Kendall tells me that after thorough investigation, it is his conviction that not more than one in four of our people have been regular contributors to our benevolences. Suppose we make it one in three and that leaves us two hundred thousand United .Brethren who must be aroused to action. They are good people and have millions of money and can send this Church on at a greatly accelerated pace if we can reach them. It is evident, therefore, to every one that this cam- paign of education must be carried into every local church. May I suggest some things that should be done ? First, Let there be organized in every local church a Wo- man's Missionary Society or a chapter of the Otterbein Guild. Just why pastors and conference superintendents should have ever been lukewarm, if not antagonistic, to this pioneer educational society, is beyond me. Long before any one in our Church began to think of organizing mission study classes in our churches, the Woman's Missionary Association was at the work. Fifteen years ago I had my new birth into mission study work by conducting a class for the local society in "Via Christi," and each year since, as pastor, I have had from one to five such classes with finest results. At this time they are organizing annually more for- eign mission study classes than the Foreign Mission Society is. They are also organizing annually more home mission study classes than the Home Missionary Society is. Second, We must give much more attention to our young peo- ple. We must have a Young People's Society in every church, and 78 Oiir Men and Their Task every Young People's Society must have a mission study class. We have eighty thousand of our young people now organized and should they give five cents per week for our benevolence budget, it would mean $208,000; a large amount but entirely within the bounds of reason and the key to unlock this storehouse is informa- tion. Can we organize twenty thousand more in our Church ? We certainly can. These one hundred thousand young people in a few }ears can be brought to the average of five cents per week for the kingdom of God under proper educational stimulus. Third, The men of our Church present a wonderful opportunity along educational lines. W^e have now nine hundred and sixty-one organized men's classes and one hundred and forty chartered Broth- erhoods in our denomination and every one of these classes should pursue the study of some book each year. These mission study books are usually put up in eight chapters and we can surely get the men of our churches to give one night each week for eight weeks to such a purpose. A whole lot of our men's classes and brotherhoods are dying of dry rot and nothing under heaven will save them like a live mission study class. Some pastors say it can not be done. I know it can be done. I have seen it done and they are doing it now. Let us go back to our churches and enlist our men in this important work. Fourth, If the mission study class seems for the time imprac- ticable, then let there be organized in every church, including men, women, and young people, a mission reading circle. This is done by having some of the people to purchase a mission study book and agree to read it through in their homes. After they have read it through, the pastor will assign each member of the circle a par- ticular part of the book to review carefully, and some Sunday even- ing or morning, these persons are to speak five minutes on the parts assigned. Missionary hymns are sung; some of the little peo- ple give missionary recitations and the pastors give a red-hot ad- dress on the book read and you have interested the people in some phase of missionary study. Try it. Fifth, This educational work in the local church must not leave the Sunday school out of consideration. I am convinced that here is virgin soil for a great work. Many of our schools are making offerings to our missionary and benevolence causes, but only a very few schools are giving missionary instruction, and one of the real, Our Men and Their Task 79 burning needs of our Church at this time, is the enlistment of our three thousand Sunday schools in a campaign of missionary edu- cation. Nor is this for want of materials and plans for such work. In no department have the plans for missionary training been more thoroughly worked out than in the Sunday school. Correspond- ence with the General Secretary of this department will bring the necessary information. Sixth, This educational propaganda in the local church will never be complete until we secure a wider circulation of our church papers, including the Telescope, Watchword, and Woman's Evangel. The Telescope is a mighty factor in our united work and we can greatly extend its usefulness by increasing its circulation. It now goes into twenty-five thousand homes, and if we count five members to the family, then not more than one hundred and twenty-five thousand of our people come in contact with the Telescope which leaves almost, if not quite, two hundred thousand entirely un- touched. Do you want to greatly increase the output of this Church, then double your circulation of the Religious Telescope. 3. Our campaign of education and information in stewardship and the great enterprises of the kingdom must be accompanied with instruction as to method in the local church.. I will not dwell on this thought, but let us not presume that our people grasp easily our systems of financing our general interests. I am doubtful if over ten per cent, of our people, not including pastors and general officers, understand our present system. It is not complex, but any system requires patient perseverance, ''line upon line; here a little and there a little." Instruction on how and when to make an every- member canvass ; how to use the envelopes ; hov/ to keep the rec- ords; how to divide the money; how, where, and when to send the money, are not trivial things, I assure you. I conclude as I began; our battleground is the local church. I hail every educational agency, but they must lead us finally to the local church if success is to come to our work. 80 Oitr Men and Their Task OUR TOGETHER MOVEMENT— ENLISTING ALL IN GIVING FOR ALL BY J. S. KENDALL Ex-President Elliott, of Harvard University, once said that the word "together" in the next decade would be the most signif- icant word in the English language. This prophecy is coming true. The industrial world has taken the initiative. The church is rap- idly awakening to the significance of this movement. Our own benevolence boards have caught the spirit and have joined in a ''together movement" for the financing of the depart- ments of the Church which they represent. This campaign is now on, and we desire to have it conducted in the most sane and busi- ness-like way possible for the glory of God and the salvation of men. This united movement contemplates a more adequate support for both the local church and the benevolences. Never before in the history of our denomination have all the forces entered upon a to- gether effort to meet the tasks and improve the opportunities which confront us at home and abroad. Never before has the financial program been related in such a way that the greatest efficiency of the church can be realized. The plan is simple, easily understood, and practical. It is appealing to our people when properly presented, and is meeting with most encouraging success. We are not in it for the boosting or developing of any one department, but are endeavoring to relate all our activities in such a way as to develop each as it relates to the whole task of the Church. It would be of little value to develop and enlarge our work abroad if we did not at the same time develop a constituency that would be able to sustain it and provide the equipment needed in the way of missionaries, churches, schools, hospitals, etc. It would be folly to turn our resources toward home missionary extension unless we were able to house the fruitage and care for it after it is gathered. So with our home missionary propaganda must go the developing of our Church Erection Society in order to provide permanent and adequate places of worship. All this will be a poor investment and of little value unless we have trained men to put in the pulpits of these churches. Hence, the importance of the proper development of all the training agen- Our Men and Their Task ^1 cies of the Church. You will readily see that the task before us is a great one. It is the purpose of our united work program to present these various interests to the Church, not on the basis of their real needs, but on the basis of their needs as related to the entire work of the Church, in the light of the present giving of the Church. This to- gether movement was launched for the symmetrical development of our denominational life. I. REASONS FOR THE UNITED WORK PROGRAM Our first task is to get the leaders of the Church to realize its importance. The success of this together movement lies in the en- listing of the key men in the various conferences, both in the laity and ministry. We are anxious to have the co-operation of these men, because this plan will — First. Put the benevolent work of the Church on a stable basis. It will prevent spasmodic giving to any department, thereby lending encouragement for enlargement where there is no basis for it. Second. It will unify our activities and co-ordinate the several departments around the central purpose of the Church. Third. It is the most effective method of securing the max- imum of efficiency with the minimum of machinery and expense. It will eliminate the duplicating of agencies and correspondence. Fourth. It will eventually mean a membership with a vision. One that is informed and contributing to the entire benevolent work of the Church. Fifth. It has for its purpose the enlisting of every member of the Church in the support of both the local and general work. This may take years, but we believe it is His will and should be done. Sixth. It will eventually mean the strengthening of every organization connected with the Church. In a sentence, this whole together movement means the whole force of the Church at the whole task. It is, therefore, of vital importance that this Congress put this movement before the Church in such a way that the entire member- ship will have a true conception of the work, not as it may appear from the viewpoint of the general secretaries, but from that of laymen. 82 Our Men and Their Task II. ESSENTIALS TO THE LARGEST SUCCESS Here there may be some difference of opinion, but I am sure that to succeed there must be some well-thought-out educational policy. A policy broad enough to cover the entire work of the Church. There are a few points in which we must be specific. First. Systematic instruction of the people in Christian stew- ardship. It is just beginning to dawn upon a few of our people that we are not owners of our wealth, but trustees, and what we con- tribute is not ours. It is a trust committed to us for which we will have to render an account. I tremble for the mass of the church members to-day in this particular. Second. The world-wide responsibility of each Christian in making Christ known. Our vision will have to be enlarged. We have lacked faith to make plans large enough to meet the greatness of the task, or to enlist men of large vision. So far we have dealt in the retail business in the matter of propogating the faith. It is now time for us to enter upon the task on a much larger scale. We are living in an age of big things. The commercial world does not falter at big tasks. The Pennsylvania Railroad does not falter at one hundred million dollars for terminal facilities in New York City. The great educational institutions of our land ask for and receive enormous sums for the care of higher education. The time has come for the Church to catch this spirit and plan her work on a much larger scale. Third. An educational policy covering the work and need of each of the boards of the Church. This must be pushed with vigor, securing the very closest co-operation of the executive heads of the various boards in their educational propaganda. Fourth. The next essential is the work and needs of the local church. It must have a larger place in the lives of many of our fel- lows who see the work of the kingdom in a clearer light than the rank and file of the Church. Fifth. The fifth essential is a weekly offering for both the cur- rent expense and benevolent work of the church. The reasons for the weekly system are: It is scriptural, educational, business-like, promotes more prayer, enlists more givers, replenishes the treasury regularly, and helps givers to realize how small a portion of their income they really give. Our Mcji and Their Task 83 Sixth. An annual, every-member canvass. I know this is ques- tioned by many who claim to be up-to-date, but I see many advan- tai^es in an annual, every-member canvass. There have come to our office such reports of awakened interest as a result of this can- vass, that I am enthusiastic in recommending it. The following are some reasons why it should be made annually: 1. It intensifies the missionary and stewardship campaign in the local church, which should be promoted annually at least. 2. It brings to each individual anew his responsibility to the Church and the work his church is promoting. 3. It sends different canvassers to different persons, thereby promoting a spirit of fellowship. 4. It reaches any who have refused to pledge, or whose pledge was inadequate, also those who have been opposed to the plan. 5. It will enlist new members. Here many churches make their most serious blunder. They receive new members into their fellowship, but fail to explain to them their responsibility to the Church and her dependencies, at a time when the most lasting im- pression could be made. 6. It discovers and develops many new workers. ]\Iany churches have found this the greatest service of the every-member canvass. 7. It will often reclaim lapsed members. The pastor of a large Lutheran church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, says that by the every- member canvass in his church, two hundred lapsed members have been restored to the church. 8. It stimulates church attendance. We have had the most encouraging reports along this line from every section of our own Giurch, where the canvass was made last autumn. 9. It insures to each individual, at least once a year, a report of the progress of the work of the Church, and at the same time gives an opportunity to answer objections that may have arisen during the year. 10. It is an invaluable spiritual help to the canvassers. Many most encouraging reports have been made along this line. III. AGENCIES IN GETTING THE JOB DONE The getting of this thing done is a man's job and a job for all the year. The organization of the Church should be carefully planned. 84 Our Men and Their Task First in importance to success, I place a pastor who leads. The pastor is the key man to the situation and he should be acquainted with the latest and best methods of bringing missions and other nec- essary information to the congregation. I leave for the various departments the telling of how this can best be done. The Church as a w^hole must be informed and aroused. This task rests largely with the pastor.' He should remember that arous- ing the individual is first of all a spiritual problem. The great problems of the Church will be solved only as Christ is crowned within the life yielded to his service. The pastor must direct the forces and keep in constant touch with all the plans and methods which are used. He may at any time have to step to the front and do the work himself. He, above all others, can prepare the church for the new plan by giving the scriptural authority as well as the needs of the various boards. People usually wait for the pastor to lead the way ; if he is slow, indifferent, or comes to it hesitatingly, he will find the same spirit in the people. The success or failure of the system depends largely on him. A personal letter setting forth the method of procedure and the needs of the various boards will aid in preparing the way for the every-member canvass. Second, an official board that co-operates. Third, a benevolence committee. The new plan of finance provides for a benevolence committee in each local church, who, in conjunction with the pastor, are to arrange for the benevolence budget and provide for an every- member canvass. This committee should be wisely chosen. The most deeply in- terested persons who have the elements of leadership should be chosen. They should be as representative as possible, men of prom- inence and influence. The chairman should be a man of wide in- formation and deep desire for the kingdom of God, living a life of close communion with God. This committee should have all necessary data at their command. It would be helpful to have a chart prepared for the last con- gregational meeting, indicating the following: 1. Number of members in church. 2. Number of contributing members in church. 3. Amount given preceding year for current expense. 4. Amount given preceding year for missions in America. Our Men and Their Task 85 5. Amount given preceding- year for missions abroad. 6. Amount given preceding year for all benevolences. 7. Per capita gifts for all benevolences provided for in the budget. It also might be well to have this data written on a card for distribution. So far, we have spoken only of the organization needed to carry forward our together movement ; to stop here would provide only the machinery necessary. I am constrained to ask, Is the Church in her present condition sufficiently equipped with the ele- ments necessary for success ? Is she facing seriously the task before her? I am inclined to think she is really loafing on her job. If the Edinburgh conference had any meaning, it disclosed a situation so serious that nothing less than a tremendous spiritual awakening will be adequate for the present situation. It is apparent that the church has not sufficient force for the tremendous task to which it is called. This situation may be humiliating to us who are leaders, but it should, nevertheless, prompt us to heroic endeavor. This state of the church, I fear, is the outgrowth of a disre- gard for the supernatural. The tendency of our day is to brush aside as antiquated and superstitious amthing that cannot be ac- counted for from a natural and scientific basis. A revival of faith in the supernatural is needed in the church of our day; a revival that will give Christ the place of supremacy in our lives ; a revival that will call forth the consecration of our whole being to God ; a revival that will lead us to live for him, denying self and worldly lusts, living righteously and godly in this present world ; a revival that will make his fellowship our highest joy ; one that will free us from sin and worldly ambition, and that will develop a spiritual at- mosphere so that Jesus Christ may live anew in the hearts of all his followers, and through them have his life go forth to all the world. Nothing short of a mighty Pentecostal awakening will en- able us to attain the goal set before us in our together movement. BUSINESS IN RELIGION BY L. O. MILLER A few years ago I was in Atlanta, Georgia, to aid in adjusting a church matter which had gotten into the courts. As I sat in the 86 Our Men and Their Task private office of a member of one of the leading law firms of that city, the attorney took from the top of his desk a large, limp-bound, topically-arranged Bible, and, pointing to a splendid law library, said, "Gentlemen, here is a book I rely upon more than any statute book on those shelves." That remark startled me. It started a new trend of thought. If a lawyer w^ould place so much dependence upon the Bible for success in his profession, there must be some connecting link be- tween the laws of religion and the laws of business. Why not a minister make some such use of a volume of Blackstone to further the ends of his preaching and the laws of applied Christianity? When General Benjamin F. Butler was governor of Massa- chusetts he was accosted on the street one day in Boston by a couple of gentlemen, who said, "Governor, we have been arguing as to who is the greatest lawyer in Massachusetts, and we can't agree. Seeing we were about to meet you, we concluded to leave it to you." "Oh, that is easy," said the governor, "I am the great- est lawyer in the State of Massachusetts." One of the men said, "Now, governor, that is all right, but how are we going to prove it?" Mr. Butler was really a great lawyer, and, being fully con- versant with the rules of evidence, replied, "Oh, you don't have to prove it, I will admit it." It is only too true that in things religious — especially religious finances — the church has suffered ignominious criticism because she has neglected the plain, simple rules of practice that must govern in the business world. Like Governor Butler, we do not have to argue the case, we do not have to prove it; we are compelled to admit it. THE BUSINESS CREDIT OF THE CHURCH Business credit is established only by a strict adherence to faithful, honest, and prompt payment of every financial obligation. The late J. P. Morgan said he would risk loaning millions to the progressive, industrious, poor man who was possessed of character, honesty, and promptness, while he would withhold the same mil- lions from the millionaire who lacked these qualities. The signif- icance of Mr. Morgan's basis of credit extension is just as certain of application to the church as it is to the individual. Our Men and Their Task 87 A crisis is upon the United Brethren Church. It is passing through a transition, and its financial credit and honor are involved. Our boards have planned large things because of the demands upon them by the Church itself. Financial obligations have already been assumed which must be met. But how are these obligations going to be paid? How are we going to change conditions and bring a new order that will accomplish the desired result? Some of us have thought we knew the way to do it. Statistics show that only about one in every five of the membership enrollment of the vari- ous Protestant churches is actively and aggressively engaged in God's kingdom at home and abroad. The most of us have reason to know that ratio will apply to the United Brethren Church. How are we to secure the interest and co-operation of the present dor- mant energies of the indifferent four? What would become of an army in battle if four out of five who had sworn loyalty to the flag were to lie down and cease to fight? Then, think of a marching army in which one man out of every five had to drag four along and carry their burdens also. There is something radically wrong. We must apply business methods in religion, or bankruptcy will be the inevitable result. Listen to me, men. It will not be financial bankruptcy alone, but something far more serious. It will mean the bankruptcy of many a human soul. Let me be understood in this. I do not mean to emphasize simply financial duty. The business corporation that succeeds best is the one whose entire working force is in perfect harmony and unity of action. I plead for the co-operation of every member, not so much for the financial side — that is the material side — but there is something better, nobler, and higher that should control our purpose to enlist every member. It is the spiritual side, and when we have reached that in its highest degree of perfection we will not need be everlastingly pleading for money. Waken every member to feel a personal interest in the salvation of the race, an interest in church work, for the work's sake, and finances will take care of themselves. Many are not paying to-day, not because of an inability to pay, but because they are indifferent, because they lack a keen interest in religion itself, and thus are in danger of spiritual bankruptcy. The bugle blasts have been calling every man to arms and action. The cry has been taken up, "Onward, Christian soldiers, 88 Gur Men and Their Task marching as to war." Men doing team work at the annual confer- ence sessions, and later at conference institutes, carried that battle cry, and an effort was made to awaken every member. They have continued to sing, and with pleading, "Onward, then, ye people; join our happy throng." THE BUDGET SYSTEM IS GOING ; DO NOT STOP IT The budget system of finance will not work automatically, but the budget system, emphasized by an every-member canvass, will not only save us from financial dishonor, but will put new life into many an indifferent heart. I feel constrained to quote from a layman of another church, who said, 'T believe the every-member canvass will secure the in- terest and co-operation of the four not now interested in the task, as firmly as I declare that *I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,' and the rest of the Apostles' Creed." Many of us believe the every-member canvass, if carried intel- ligently and prayerfully to every member, into every home, will solve the problem. The call has been coming for many years to save the heathen across the seas. That call means to finance the church and the kingdom of God abroad. It is my humble opinion that we can never do this in any successful degree until we have financed the Church at home. But, the plan has had a splendid setting. A momentum has been gathered which we hope will carry us to victory. Not long since a gentleman was in Boston, hurrying on foot to make the South Boston Station. He approached a colored coach- man, and said, "Can you get me to South Boston in ten minutes ?" "No, sah, I fear not, mistah. Dis am an oV a'my boss." "An old army horse!" exclaimed the pedestrian, "Let me get in and take the lines." Acting upon the impulse, he seated himself, grasped the lines, and in an emphatic tone exclaimed, "Charge!" Down the street flew that steed, and in a little less than ten minutes they were at the station. "Halt!" cried the traveler, and the horse obeyed. The gentleman tossed a coin to the driver as he jumped out over the wheel to make his train. A few days later the same driver was accosted by a gentleman who named his destination and asked if he could drive him there in fifteen minutes. "I think I can, sah. Get in." Then came again, but this time from the coachman, the Our Men and Their Task 89 well-remembered command, "Charge !" and away the animal went at splendid speed. Reaching the destination, the driver became confused, and turning to his patron said, ''Mistah, you will have to jump while we is goin' ; I forgot the w^ord that means stop." We have made the charge. Let us all forget the word "Halt." There may be those who will oppose the plan, but many have said that it is the right plan. If men will deliberately lie down be- fore the chariot of progress, then it becomes a question of either stopping the chariot or running the risk of an accident or a fatality. In such event, would we not be justified in the risk of its being only a slight accident? RELEASE PASTORS FOR GREATER EFFICIENCY One-third of the efficiency of the pastors of our Church and a number of others, is spent in bondage to financial necessities. Let us plan in some manner, by more systematic methods, better organized efforts, to have the active, business laymen change con- ditions and release the entire pastoral efficiency to the ministry and the' work to which God has called him. Give him a chance for better preparation of his message for the Lord's Day, and for bet- ter service among the sick, and better still, that he may have more time to save our boys and girls before sin has so hardened them that the church may never get them. Many denominations have been asking in recent years, why there is such slow numerical growth. Is it not possible that one strong factor in this problem is that ministers have been spending too much time in raising benevolences and budgets, rather than do- ing the work for which they were ordained? Recently I read this epigram, in bold-faced type, on the front cover of a business magazine, "Go to work every day as though it was your first day on the job and you had to make good." What a world of meaning in that brief epigram. Induce every church member to apply this in Christian toil and service, and see what a revelation will come. A BIT OF OFFICE EXPERIENCE Permit me to give you a bit of office experience, and bring to you something of a realizing sense of what it means to the man who handles your general benevolences. About a fortnight ago the tele- 90 Our Men and Their Task phone bell on my desk rang, and this message was given me by one of the banks of the city, "We have a draft on you for five thousand dollars." A few days later another telephone call announced, "We have a draft on you for eighteen hundred pounds — eight thousand, seven hundred and sixty-six dollars." Only a few minutes later, another, "We have a draft on you from the United Brethren Mis- sions for two thousand dollars." Those drafts had come from across the seas on the strength of letters of credit on file with banking institutions in foreign lands. They had to be paid, and before three o'clock, or go to protest. If you good fellows think it a happy sensation to have such a mes- sage hit you every little while, with all the other demands upon a meager treasury, then accept the treasurership, and see how soon your nerves will be at their highest tension, and your nights be nights of nightmare, nights of many an anxious, sleepless hour. Not a day passes but that a signature is attached to checks which deplete the bank balance, often in the hundreds and thou- sands. The membership of the United Brethren Church is not doing its duty. We have lots of company, to be sure, but the one prob- lem for us is our own. The fault is not our inability to do, but the lack of a quickened conscience. Our people have the means ; they need education and information. We have a membership of over three hundred thousand, and all we have asked of them for general benevolences is $225,000. I can name three single churches in Ohio and Pennsylvania with a total membership of less than two thousand, which have that much invested in their church buildings. Tell me not that $225,000 is the limit of the ability of this denom- ination for its general benevolences. But listen ! Even this sum is not forthcoming as it should be. We are facing retrenchment in every department. We must not permit it. We owe a duty to a portion of the human race. God is coming some day — we know not how soon — to claim this world and call it to judgment. Brethren, conference superintendents, and laymen, I appeal to you to help save the credit and honor of our Qiurch. Systematic giving and systematic remitting, every month, and every dollar due the general treasury is the only thing that will save the thousands now spent as interest on loans. Onr Men and Their Task 91 The gospel chariot wheels need constant lubrication. The cost of oil, like almost everything else, is increasing, but God demands the toll, the tithe. Apply the one business principle of God's king- dom, tithing, in religion, and in the twinkling of an eye the Chris- tian churches will produce a gospel dynamo that will send a reli- gious current to the uttermost parts of the earth. Be diligent, be faithful in your service, enlightening your peo- ple, that the storehouse may be filled, and we do our part in bring- ing the world to our Lord. RESULTS INADEQUATE TO OPPORTUNITIES AND RESOURCES BY EDWIN L. SHUEY The subject for this study suggests that certain, definite re- sults are expected of the Christian church, and particularly of our part of it. The question just now is not so much, "Is the Christian church doing what it ought to do to obey the Master's com- mand," but 'Ts the United Brethren denomination — a clearly organized part of the kingdom, with more than one hundred years of endeavor behind it, and with more than three hundred thousand members within its congregations — doing its work in such a way that the Master may commend it, and using its power as should be expected of such a company of Christian people ?" The theme given also suggests that these results are to bg measured by the opportunities before us and the resources behind us, and intimates that we have not done our duty — have not ob- tained the results that fairly might be expected of us. The study is to be largely one of our own Church, not because we are worse or better than others, but because this is a self-study, in which there is little time for comparison with other organizations seeking to do work similar to ours ; of some of the opportunities you have been hearing constantly — they are at every hand, calling us to grasp them. I need not even mention them. RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED OF THE CHURCH What are the results for which the Master and the world have a right to look in our Church life and work ? May we not say, first. 92 Our Men and Their Task that it may be expected that the Church will lead the world to be- lieve that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life"? The world will believe this only as his followers repeat the teachings of Jesus and practice them in their business ; and the business of Christian men is not simply farming or mer- chandising or manufacturing or professions — Christian men should do these things only to pay expenses ; their real work should be car- rying the gospel of the IMaster to all the world and being witnesses to the uttermost parts of the earth, beginning at Jerusalem and Ju- dea, but staying there only long enough to be endued with the Holy Spirit. As Bishop McDowell has so graphically expressed it, "It is not simply a changed religion, but a changed life that the world needs, in Christendom and out of Christendom." This was the burden of our Savior's message and this must be the burden of the Church's message to-day. Is it? Another result that may fairly be expected is that the church — meaning Christian ministers, business men, professional men, arti- sans, all, individually and as an organization — so fully permeate every side of life in our own country that men at home and abroad recognize its earnest, intelligent, sympathetic, Christ-like influence in the industrial, social, educational, moral, and political questions of our time — that the world really recognizes us as a Christian nation. Are we doing it? Do men to-day look to the church — b\- this I mean men and women of our churches — for leadership in the great social, phil- anthropic, and civic movements ? Are we, as a united church, doing our duty in the temperance question ; in the teaching of foreigners in our cities ; in the study and solution of the questions of labor — not labor and capital, for in our country it is labor for all ; in the evils arising from false relations of men and women; in the home and family ideals that must be maintained ; in the training and higher education of our youth to strong faith and active partici- pation in the afifairs of the community in which they are placed? If not, and you know how often we are charged with failure, then in this country of ours are the results inadequate to our oppor- tunities and we are failing in our tasks. More than this, and most important of all, because funda- mentally, God himself has a right to expect of us, his followers, such Our Men and Their Task 93 a faith in his promises as will prove our claim to be his sons. Are we trusting him by our prayers? Are we a church of praying men? Are we ready to prove God by bringing into his storehouse all our tithes? What are our beautiful homes and comforts if they are ours at the cost of obedience to his will ? What are our great temples, calling men to the church, if they are built at the cost of the Christian training our children should have in our colleges, of the missionaries who should be carrying the messages given us by Jesus to the ends of the earth, or the church or school or shop that should stand in any one of the thousand places in the land that is ours to reclaim for God? Ave we trusting him — working for him? In short, whether we will or not, the church is to-day being measured by its ability to take a broad and wise part in the man- agement and readjustment of the world relations. This is our opportunity. Are we as United Brethren taking our part in doing what three hundred thousand earnest followers of Christ ought to do? Am I wrong in believing that until we have put all our ma- terial as well as our spiritual life before him we are not as a Church doing his work or assuring such results in his kingdom as God and man have a right to demand of his church? SOME FIGURES TO MAKE US THINK For attaining such results, what are our resources and how are we using them? One hundred years ago the United Brethren in Christ were 10,000 people ; 40 years later they were 47,000 people ; in 1893 they were 208,000; in 1903, 252,000, and ten years later, 310,000, scattered throughout this entire country, with a fair rep- resentation in the great non-Christian lands of Africa, China, Japan, and the Philippines. In the last ten years our growth was twenty- three per cent. What would a business man say whose business grew only two per cent, per year ? If we may measure the income of the membership in our Church as is usually done in this country, the material income of United Brethren last year was at least sixty millions of dollars, one-tenth of which at least belongs to the Lord. How far short of six millions have we come? In 1913 we had 3,244 church buildings, not so many as we had ten years ago, but their value had grown from $6,318,000 to 94 Our Men and Their Task $11,636,000, an increase of eighty-four per cent. Evidently, we liave grown rich and proud in material things. In 1893, we had 1,649 ministers, to whom we paid $573,000 and added $469,000 for local church expenses, making an average of $5.01 for each member of the Church to keep up our home base. In 1903, we had 1,990 ministers, to whom we paid $780,000 salary and added $652,000 for churcb expenses, a total of $1,432,700 for local leadership and expenses, or $5.68 for each member — a growth of eleven per cent. Ten years later, in 1913, we had 1,969 ministers, a smaller number than ten years before. They received $1,113,000 in salaries (55 per cent, increase) ; we added $1,120,000 for church expenses, a total of $2,229,000 (55 per cent, increase), exclusive of our foreign work, or $7.30 per member — an increase of twenty- eight per cent, in ten years. A study of a few of our larger conferences makes some of these statistics even more noticeable. One of our largest confer- ences has fewer church houses in 1913 than ten years before, but its church property has increased in value nearly 125 per cent. Another, which has increased its church buildings only three per cent., has almost doubled the value of the churches. Still another, not far from where we are met, which has increased the number of its church houses eleven per cent., has increased their value 118 per cent. The conference which shows the largest increase in num- ber of new church buildings, having added 83 per cent, in ten years, has increased their value 209 per cent. All this is commend- able, if along with the increase of assets there has been a corres- ponding increase in provision for carrying out the direct command- ments of the Master. Let no one quote the writer as objecting to any of these amounts. Let us make them greater where needed, but do not make the needy in Africa, China, or Japan pay for them. If in this church business we are increasing our capital, both material and personal, it may be expected that we will increase our income, which means, naturally, those who are a part of the king- dom. Are we doing it? In 1913, five hundred and sixty churches, some of them among our large churches, received one member each on profession of faith. Two hundred and sixty-two churches show a decrease in membership. Four hundred and seventy-nine congregations had no accessions on profession of faith. In the year preceding, one hun- Our Men and Their Task 95 drcd and sevenly-nlne congregations, with twenty thousand mem- bers, did not add a single member on profession of faith, and these were not all of them among the small congregations. In the same year four hundred and eighty-five congregations, one-eighth of all our number, with seventy thousand members, representing three- tenths of all our membership, had less than ten additions each on profession of faith during the entire year. Do we wonder, then, that in the last year 21,690 members were lost, even though we had a net increase of 7,428 members? Included in these lists are some of our largest congregations — prosperous, generous — but, men, are the results such as our Father can approve ? With a view to securing real results in our work, we have our church departments. How are these resources of ours being used for them, and how generous are we in meeting the commandment of the Master as compared with the care we give to ourselves ? Begin with that which comes nearest to us, the Sunday school. We have to-day 139 schools fewer than ten years ago, but there is an increase of 118,000 in number of pupils. On the other hand, the past year shows a decrease of seven Sunday schools and of 14,400 scholars. To support the work of this department of the Church we are to-day expending an average of 2.5 cents per member per year, less than half the cost of a single week's favorite paper; yet this is the foundation upon which the church of the future must be built, and the church whose Sunday schools are small and decreas- ing can hardly hope to find an increased power in the generation to come. Do we mean what we say when we urge the proper training of children and youth in Bible knowledge? Not less important than other departments is that of assist- ance to new organizations and new churches. In 1912 and 1913 we gave to our Church Erection Society $15,467, while in the year just closed we have given only $12,600, about 4.6 cents per member per year — the cost of a single ride on a street car in one of our cities. It would require, so the secretary tells us, $60,000 more to supply the demands of this year alone. And while giving this $12,- 600 for the General Board, we have kept $18,600 for our "Con- ference Extension" funds, which looks much like narrowing our view and encouraging ''Conference Church Selfishness." One of the broadest and most far-reaching of all the Church activities is our educational work. Are we supporting our colleges. 96 Our Men and Their Task our educational institutions of every grade, our Seminary, as they ought to be supported? Are we really in earnest in looking for re- sults in education? Why do we not hear more about a goal for educational work? Why is it that so often nothing is said by Bishops or Conference Superintendents regarding the needs of our colleges in our Church life ? It is difficult to secure exact facts, but it looks as if we thought that the price of a glass of soda water or a good cigar was enough for each of us to spend per year for Christian education, for our average through our conferences last year was eight cents per member. How^ eager we are to protect and educate! Is it not true that without our colleges in the past twenty-five years we would have been almost without missionaries for our fields at home and abroad ? What would we do to-day with out the fire and devotion of the volunteers in all our institutions, and what hope is there for the future of our Church if we do not put into this department greater zeal, more of our material wealth, and more of our spiritual life? And what are we doing with these resources of ours to def- initely fulfill the Master's commission to be witnesses to the end of the earth ? In 1893, we gave $73,000 for Home and Foreign Mis- sions, an average of thirty-five cents per member. In 1905, the year of the separation of the two boards, we gave $90,000, the average remaining the same — thirty-five cents per member. In 1909, the year of the largest gifts, the amount was $164,000, an average of fifty-seven cents per member. Then, as if weary, in 1912 we gave $144,000, an average of forty-six cents per member, and in the year just closed we have even fallen below this. Note, then, that when we were spending $5.01 per member for the ''home base," on the principle that we need a strong home foun- dation to make possible the missionary effort, we gave thirty-five cents per member to extend the kingdom outside of our own con- gregations. As we increase our home resources, ought not the Master to expect us to increase our effort for his kingdom at large? In 1913, we spent $7.30 per member for ourselves, an increase of forty- eight per cent., and we spent forty-six cents per member on the whole world about us, an increase of thirty-one per cent in ten years. Do we think we are obeying Christ's commandment when Our Men and Their Task 97 we use our resources in this way ? Are we honest or only pretend- ing to believe in missions? CONCLUSIONS Do not think, I beg of you, that I am unmindful of the great work done by our Church as a denomination in all its years of history, or that I have not given due regard to the growth and to the thousands of saved men. You and I know that if the only per- son saved in many of these churches in a year was our boy, we would think it was a good year's work. I thank God for the thousands brought to know Jesus through our Sunday schools ; for the Christian training in our Church insti- tutions of learning; for the growing power of brotherhood in all the denomination, and its increasing realization of its place in the social problems of our day ; for the new fields opened and the new temples built, for every one is an added evidence of faith; and I praise God for the triumphs of the gospel at home and abroad. Every step is an evidence of the truth of our religion. But may I say frankly, yet kindly, sincerely and regretfully, that I believe that a business house which did not show larger re- turns for the investment and labor put into it than does our denom- ination and others, would be put into the hands of an expert on efficiency to make good plans for its conduct. We are no longer a poor Church; God has blessed the mem- bers of this denomination in material things. We are no longer a weak Church ; three hundred thousand active, determined Christians are no mean factor in the Christian army. We are no more, if we ever were, a provincial Church, for we are represented in every part of our native land and in the great fields God has given us to cultivate. If this be true, can we longer stand before our God doing less than he has the right to expect of us? Is giving two or three or five or even ten per cent, of our increase each year returning to the Lord that which he has given ? Is adding to our number five thou- sand, ten thousand, twenty thousand, or thirty thousand each year an adequate expression of our earnestness, even assuming that all these are brought for the first time to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord ? Is sending out annually a half-dozen or more missionaries into the frontier or foreign field, which we acknowl- 98 On7' Men and Their Task edge as our parish, a real attempt to fulfill divine commandments? Are we through all these organizations, so well manned, in any true sense, meeting our obligation to the kingdom and taking our part in training our youth and manhood and womanhood in Chris- tian life? It is not necessary to dwell long upon the question of respon- sibility for results, or lack of them — the more important question is as to our duty and the true means of improvement. In passing I may say that I believe that the first responsibility lies with the ministers, from Bishops to the youngest pastor, that they do not more fully instruct and enlist the people. Whether we acknowl- edge it or not, we laymen are largely influenced by our pastors and leaders, and follow their training and example. Too many pastors limit their horizon by their congregation or their conference instead of lifting up their eyes to see the whole field already white to the harvest. None the less do I believe that as great responsibility for fail- ure lies with the laity, for in this day they have no excuse for neglecting to know their duty, and in this manner we are allowing ourselves to be influenced by the doubt and selfishness and love of ease and luxury that exists not alone in our cities, but also in our towns and country. We know our duty — woe to us that we do it not. But I cannot close without suggesting what has grown to be a deep conviction in my own mind and heart regarding, not only our own work, but that of all other parts of the kingdom. You will recall that Dr. John R. Mott reminds us that the great need is not more money, not more organization, not even more workers — that "the fundamental need is more Christlike intercessors." "It is my belief," says he, "two hundred men — yes, one hundred men — of pure heart, unselfish motive, and unwavering faith in the integrity, omnipotence, love, and present-day working of the living God, could through intercession usher in an era like unto that vital age, the age of apostolic Christianity." What would come to our Church if the hundreds of men gath- ered here went out from this sacred occasion to become every man of us a new man of prayer? If seeing our shortcomings and re- penting of them, taking God at his word of promise that he will abundantly answer those who come to him, we turn from our self- Our Men and Their Task 99 reliance and become indeed a Church of praying men, how will he not use us in the salvation of men and the extension of his kingdom ? And for what shall we pray? Not that God will make us a Qfreat denomination in numbers and in wealth ; not that we mav have an organization to be compared with those of the larger de- nominations whose methods we are too often inclined to imitate ; but that he will make us a company of devoted, consecrated, self-sac- rificing Christians, working for the coming of the whole kingdom and willing to give life and all for its hastening; and these prayers will go up not only in our churches and our great gatherings, but in our homes, in the secret places of our lives, on our farms, in our stores and offices — all of which will thus become consecrated to his service. When we have come to pray, to be real intercessors, when we have the vision which such intercession brings of the world to be brought to Jesus Christ, then we will forget our self-interests and our congregational, or conference, or district boundary lines, and then we will have strength and wisdom adequate to our opportun- ities and to our resources, as well as to the tasks that fall to us as a part of the working force of the kingdom of God. A MESSAGE FROM THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CPIURCH BY 0. F. HYPES My brethren, it is a great pleasure and privilege to be able to salute you this afternoon on behalf of your brethren of the ]\Ieth- odist Episcopal Church. Occasions such as this Congress, that brings you together to- day, is not only educational and inspiring, but one of the most hope- ful signs of the times — men from every walk in life, leaving their daily rounds of duties ; some of you traveling great distances, com- mg together that you may consider the things that make for the kingdom of Christ, to study ways and means how you can render larger service to your Creator and to your Church and how you may enlist the men outside of the Church. Upon a similar mission, your Methodist brethren met in the city of Indianapolis. 100 Our Men and Their Task Part of the policy adopted there contemplates a program of personal evangelism in all lines, especially an annual minimum in- crease of ten per cent, in every church. It seeks further to render larger social service in every community, and to inspire the spirit of stewardship that you have been talking about so much this after- noon. Of course, it provides, too, for the every-member canvass and the weekly offerings, the duplex envelope system, and all that. And do you know John Wesley outlined this whole plan a great many years ago ? The rules that he laid down for his societies were these, "All at it, always at it, altogether at it." All at it, the every- member canvass ; always at it, the weekly offering ; altogether at it, the enlarged results that come from unity of eft'ort all along the line. The Methodist program contemplates a campaign of education all along the line of church activities. It purposes to lay upon the heart of the church its vital relation to the social, to the civic, to the industrial, to the educational, and to the great missionary — not prob- lems — but opportunities of our day. For that purpose they have en- listed the press. The press of Methodism is now more efficient, more largely circulated and read than ever before in its history. I heard one of your speakers saying something about the lack of subscrip- tions to the Religions Telescope. I wouldn't give very much for the loyalty of a church man who didn't take his church paper. Did you ever look through a telescope — through the wrong end of the telescope? If you didn't, perhaps you have looked through a pair of opera glasses. If you look at a dollar through a pair of opera glasses, you will see the full-sized dollar, but you reverse the opera glasses and look at that dollar at the other end, and how small and shriveled up it becomes. I thought, as I sat here and heard your speakers, how your Religions Telescope not only sweeps the States of America, but reaches out over this whole world, and what it receives on its lens it sends out to you men. How are you going to meet the opportunities that are presented, if you are going to reverse the telescope and look at it through the other end? I want to speak just a moment as to our financial plan. At the last session the General Conference created the Commission on Finance. That commission is represented on its membership by members from the various benevolent boards. They secure the reports of all these benevolent boards, classify, condense, and send Our Men and Their Task 101 them out to the churches through the conference, by districts and churches. Co-operating with this Commission on Finance are rep- resentatives from the Board of Bishops and the Laymen's Mission- ary Movement. Added to this body, or bureau, are some five hun- dred and fifty superintendents, and, the most important factor of all, the local pastors. In the last analysis, brethren, however im- portant it is for you men to get back of all these movements that have been outlined here to-day, isn't it true that the activity of the average church is going to be gauged very largely by the zeal and the spirit and labor of the minister in charge? A MESSAGE FROM THE METHODIST PROTESTANT CHURCH BY C. H. HUBBLE This crowd looks good to me. It is a sure sign of the efficiency of the United Brethren Church. And if by any stretch of your imagination I can look as good to you, I will be abundantly satis- fied and gratified. What I have to say regarding the purpose and principles of the Methodist Protestant Church regarding benevolences will be in a figure. We are entitled to call the church the body of Christ. A body must have a brain and a mind. I think sometimes, in our zeal, we have forgotten that the body has a mind, and when a man is really saved, I think he is saved clear through, I think a man that has religion in the right way has better sense than the man who has not. I think a man that is saved has more sense after he is saved than he had before, and I think this fact is an ample guar- antee and ample authorization for the educational system that you have in your Church and which we have in our own. In the second place, the body must have not only mind, but hands and feet. What are the hands and feet of the church ? They are all these benevolences of every name whatsoever, every means by which the church is giving to men near and far ; its foreign mis- sions and home missions, and everything that stirs the soul and stirs out the money of the men and women of the Church. And I submit, therefore, we ought to have ready hands and big feet, and the bigger our feet are the more ground we will cover, and the more 102 Our Men and Their Task space we will occupy and the quicker we will get there. Big feet mean a larger missionary program. And then, in the next place, the body must have a heart — mind, hands and feet, and heart. Do you know how long you are going to live ? You are going to live as long as your heart beats ; that is all. That is the center of power and vitality. What is the life of the church ? What is the heart of the church ? The boys and girls, the young people. How long will the United Brethren Church live? As long as you take care of the boys and girls, and not a generation longer. The church that doesn't take care of its own boys and girls is committing suicide and is derelict to the mission of the future. We have got to make the heart strong and fibrous and send the blood out to the uttermost parts of the body. In order to get the heart live, strong, and vigorous, we have got to have this young life trained and nurtured. How can we realize this? How can we have a church that has a strong mind, a willing hand, big feet, and a vigorous heart ? Spirit and substance — God's Spirit and your substance ; the goodness of God and your goods. The two put together will make the thing go. John D. Rockefeller gave a ride to a group of children whom he picked up. He said, ''Don't let me take you by your house." A little girl said, "Mister, where are you going?" He said, "I am going to heaven, Httle girl; do you think I will get there?" And she looked at him a moment and said, '*No, mister ; you haven't got enough gasoline." I submit to you the thing that is the matter with the Methodist Protestant Church, and perhaps yours, we have had too much gas and too little gas- oline. I wouldn't cut down on the gas, but I would run up on the gasoline — a little more of the filthy lucre, a little more cash, a little more C. E., that is, cash expected. I heard about a woman who came into the church ; she put in her offering ; she started toward the front and stopped and drew back ; she got the usher at the rear seat and said to him, "Give me my cent back ; I am in the wrong church." The man who puts the cent in the box is on the wrong scent. God isn't going to evangelize the world on the cent basis. Our church has an executive committee. This committee meets once a year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Dayton, and there goes over the whole benevolent budget of the church- - the claims, the needs, the demands, the outlook, the opportunities. They parcel out for each board what they think that board should Our Men and Their Task 103 receive, and that whole amount is prorated among the various an- nual conferences. This plan is in its third year of operation and it is working splendidly. We raise more money. The board I rep- resent has gained sixteen per cent ; sweet sixteen, you may be sure. And so we are doing our best to make this plan thoroughly prac- tical, and I believe the day of larger things is here. When we realize where this power is and how we can touch it and that a man's living is really with God, we will see the church gain with leaps and bounds. A MESSAGE FROM THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST BY A. E. CORY It is difficult always to talk about ourselves. It is difficult al- ways to bring a message about something which you have had a part in. But I want every man in this presence to know that in bringing this message of the achievements of the Disciples of Christ, there is not a single word of praise for ourselves, because every man who has had anything to do with this movement which I am recounting to you realizes this fact, that we are telling the story of God's movement in our midst, and that whatever has been done has not been done because of us, but rather in spite of some of us. It is now some three years ago since one of our missionaries was taken sick in China with typhoid fever. I have never been able to decide in my own mind whether God made that man sick or not. I. will leave that to the theologians, but at any rate God used that man's illness in China, and this man, when he was finding his way back to a long convalescence, thought over a number of things in his mind ; he had the burden of China on his heart and the need of our missions there, which had been very great indeed. I remember one day when I went in to this man, and he looked up at me, calling me familiarly by my first name, and said: "Abe, I want to say something to you. We have been getting about eight thousand dollars a year for buildings in China for the last number of years. In the next five years we must have forty thousand dol- lars every year, or two hundred thousand dollars for buildings." I remember I looked at him and said, *'Huh," and he said it over again. My thought was that the typhoid fever had gone to his 104 Our Men and Their Task head, and I went out of the room and said to Mrs. Cory, '*Do you know the typhoid fever has gone to Alex's head, and do you know what he is talking about?" She said, ''No; what is he talking about ?" I said, "He says we must have two hundred thousand dol- lars for buildings alone in the next five years in Central China." She said, "I don't see anything wrong with that." I looked down at her, and I said, "Well, what's the matter with you?" Do you know that man there in his room, on his back, took it up with our missionaries in China and talked it to everybody in China whom he could reach, and converted everybody except me? But I kept looking very wise and saying, "Oh, no, we must not go too fast ; we must be wise ; we must consider everything that enters into it." That is the way the devil gets a man. If he cannot get him any other way, he makes him conservative on a great move- ment. So that was the way with me. He had me pulling back, and I could pull back harder than twenty-five men could pull forward ; but God was in it. I have a high-sounding title in China, called the dean of a Bible school, and I have been working in a college about as good as the average garage in America. I am not kicking on the garage, but on the college. One night a woman wrote me, "Mr. Cory, I have decided to give you six thousand dollars for the building of a Bible college." This man who had been ill was convalescing at the time. You cannot know the joy that was in my heart when I read that word. I just ripped open the front door and went upstairs, four steps at a time, and when I got up there I showed the letter to this man. He said to me, as he looked at it with tears standing on his cheeks, "This is of God." When I found that God was in the game, I got into it, too. But we were not right yet. The mission seemed to think that was a stupendous task. We were driven to our knees every day. For four weeks we went down on our knees in prayer, and whatever I shall recount to you as having happened after that, has been absolutely because of the power of prayer. Time went on and one of our secretaries came around the world, and we put up this two-hundred-thousand-dollar story to him, and he looked at us very wise and said: "Men, I have been thinking for a long time that there was something wrong with you fellows. I know what it is now : you are going crazy." Three days later that secretary came to us in a little town in China and said, Our Men and Their Task 105 **Men, I can't eat and I can't sleep for that crazy idea of yours ; talk to me some more about it." We poured out our heart's story to him, and he said: "It is a great idea. There is only one thing the matter with it, and that is that it is for China. What about India; what about Japan; what about the islands of the sea?" He wakened me up in the night and said : "What we have got to do is to pool our interests and raise a great sum of money. It would take one-half million dollars." He said : "It is of God. Let us go out and do it." We decided to go out for half a million dollars, a;nd out there in China that seemed to be a pretty big sum of money. I was asked to lead in the enterprise, to come home and raise that amount of a half-million dollars. I went to the Philippines ; I went to Japan; I went to the other fields preparing for the task; but the missionaries said to me, "Mr. Cory, you must make it more than a half-million." I said, "No ; that is all you are going to get." And then I came home, friends, and began to study methods and consulted Mr. Mount on their great campaign. I had heard what the Canadians had done in raising money for their home and for- eign missions. They told me up there I must make it a million dol- lars. I said, "You don't know our folks ; they haven't got a million dollars to put in there." And so I went to tell the story of half a million dollars. I went to two business men in New York, and the first thing they said was that it did not strike them. I said to them, "Don't you beheve in doing a great thing for God?" "Yes." They said, "But that is just what you are not doing." Then one said, "I will give you two hundred dollars for half a million, and one thousand dollars on the milHon." The other said, "I will give three hundred dollars on a half a million and one thousand dollars on a million." I said, "I don't believe we can do it." I met a man in Iowa working on a salary, not a rich man in the ordinary sense of the term. This man said to me in some surprise, "What are you doing at home?" I told him the half-milHon story. I never said a word about the million dollars. With a good deal of energy he said, "I won't give you a cent on it." He said : "You are not talk- ing the language of this age; this is a million-dollar age. I will give you a thousand dollars on a million." I scratched my head and said, "Maybe it will be a million dollars; I don't know." So I went out and asked a hundred business men and a hundred 106 Our Men and Their Task preachers of our church this question, ''Shall we make it a million dollars or keep it a half-million ?" Every one of our preachers said keep it half a million, and every one of the business men said make it a million. Now, men, I just want in a brief word to tell you how this task was accomplished. Back of it has been the mighty power of prayer. We have kept our methods subject to change, like a railroad company's time-table, depending upon the Word of God and the power of God. A little over a year ago we went out after that million dollars, and I am happy to say that within the next five years more than one million dollars have been assured. You want to know some of the things that have been accom- plished. I went into the office of a business man in the State of New York, and when I wanted to talk to him I stood before him and he did not even ask me to sit down, and so I started in and talked right in that fellow's face for ten minutes, and he said, ''You are in a hurry," and I said, "It is you who are in a hurry," and he said, "Come into my inner office and let us bow in prayer." Men, dozens of times in the great offices of railway men and of bankers and corporation lawyers I have gone down on my knees in prayer with them, and never once at my request. I have come to this be- lief to-day, that men want to hear God talked about in a man's way. People say to me, "How do you get at these people?" We do not get at them; we let God do it. I want to put that to you again and again, and not in any pietistic way. We went into one town and had a little supper with the people. One man got up and said, "I move that this town raise five thousand dollars for this movement." (Afterward the town raised twenty-five thousand dol- lars.) When we were going out of that building that night, a little woman met me and said, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, asking this town for five thousand dollars." I went home wonder- ing if we had asked too much and were going to put the people to the poorhouse. I was a little surprised the next morning when that woman called me up on the telephone and said, "I want you to come and see me." I went, and she said, "Mr. Cory, I am going to give you five hundred dollars. I have not slept very much, and I am going to make that much of a contribution." I thanked her, and asked if she wanted to sign. She said, "No, I may change my mind." I did not ask her further. That afternoon I got a note Our Men and Their Task 107 to come and see her. When I went into her presence, she said, "I have changed my mind." I said, ''Why are you not going to give?" She rephed: "Who said I am not going to give? I am going to give you one thousand dollars." I never said a word to her about signing. When you get a woman going in that direction, let her go. I was not at all surprised the next morning when the telephone bell rang again, for I knew she was on the other end of the Hne. She said, ''Come over here." I went as quickly as I could. When I went into the presence of that woman I felt I was going into the presence of an angel. Her face was radiant with the presence of God. She said: "For two nights I have been in prayer. My hus- band was a doctor. I want to build a hospital on the banks of the mighty Congo that will bear his name." I could tell you of dozens of people who with the power of God working on their hearts, have been led to do great things. In no public meeting have we asked for money, and seldom in a private meeting. We have had but one theme, the power of God in the world. You know when a man is doing a great task a good many temptations come to him. When we got to the half-million dollars the temptation was to stop for a while. But I went into a business man's office in Oklahoma City, and on his office door was this motto, "The man who stops on third base to congratulate himself never makes a home run." We never stopped, but went on and went on until the task was completed. But as it was nearing completion, I thought we were going to stop at the million dollars. I felt Hke saying, "Lord, let Thy servant depart in peace." That was the only thought in my mind. But down in a banquet in southern Cal- ifornia, a man got up and said, "I will be one of one hundred men to give another million," and he launched at that moment another million-dollar campaign. That million-dollar campaign carried with it a thousand workers for America, and it went to $2,500,000. A quiet, conservative business man asked me, "Are our col- leges included?" I said, "We cannot include them; this is just the missionary task." He said, "It seems to me that education and mis- sions ought to be linked up in some way." I went to my room, but not to sleep, and all that Saturday night I battled with that question. Fifty times I decided to ask him for a million dollars, and then I said, "No." The next morning, after a great prayer-meeting in the early hours of the morning, at which he was present, I decided not 108 Our Men and Their Task to do it; but somehow it was impressed upon me to ask him for a million dollars. I went to him and I said in a quivering voice, "After an all night of prayer, God has laid it upon my heart to ask you to give one million dollars and unite our colleges and missionary enterprises." He reached out his hand and said, "Say no more; I will not say 'Yea,' and I will not say 'Nay,' but I will answer you in thirty days.'' Finally his proposition was that if our church would raise five million dollars he will give one million in the next five years. The impression upon my heart when he made that statement was, "Be still and know that I am God." A great many men have given sums like that in their wills, when they could use it no longer. I believe that God is using that man to challenge the whole kingdom of God to do greater things for him. There are a multitude of things that I would like to say to you. I would like to tell you about the campaign for one thousand men. I will tell you this one story. A Methodist woman in Los Angeles telephoned me to come and see her. When I went, she said, "I am going to send my daughter to China." I said, "I would like to meet her." She came in, a beautiful girl, a graduate from one of the great colleges of America. I asked her age. She was twenty-three. I turned to her mother and I said, "How long have you had it in your heart that this daughter should go to China?" Looking me squarely in the face, she said, "For nearly twenty-four years ; from the time that girl was, she belonged to China." God is challenging us from the very hour of their being to give our children to the world task. Do you ask me about the influence of this world move- ment on our church? I want to say that money is the least of all. It has united our church, and the church can never be united by doc- trine or theology, but only by a great task for God. It has united us in a mighty movement of prayer. We shall fail if we go out to get five or six miUion dollars unless we have created a great wave of spirituality in the church. Men of God, I ask you to-day, as we go to this greater task, that you will unite your prayers with ours, and I can assure you that our prayers will be united with yours and we shall all go for- ward, taking this world for God and his Christ. CHRIST DOMINANT IN SOCIETY, IN THE CITY AND IN THE CHURCH THE CALL TO SOCL\L SERVICE BY WARREN L. BUNGER "Jesus was the inspiration and the dynamic of his life." In those ten words a recent writer who knew, summed up the great character and life program of one of God's noblemen and a lover of men, David A. Sinclair. That sentence is the key to all that is in my heart on the call to social service. This discussion proceeds on the assumption of a fundamental fourfold basis: 1. Knowing the mind of the Master is essential. 2. The universal longing for communion v/ith God and for friendly human associations. 3. The supremacy of the spiritual in man. 4. Abiding faith in God, the Church, the fourfold message — spiritual, mental, physical, and social — for sadng society and the world, not by elimination but by redemption. SOCIAL SERVICE AND FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST I have a deepening conviction that once any man has an in- telligent conception of Christ's person and program, Christ's spirit and method, that man's life current and life objectives are de- termined. The call to social service is first of all and primarilv the call to fellowship with Christ. The first advocates of renewed emphasis upon the social gospel were Josiah Strong, Richard C. Ely, and Washington Gladden. Orthodoxy looked askance at them. We are in a new day. I shall never forget hearing Doctor Gladden say three years ago, "I never expected to live to see this day, when the one gospel of individual salvation and social redemption is preached from the same platform." The Men and Religion Forward Move- ment made it orthodox in the church. The land is full of preachers, lay and clerical, who delight to talk about it. 109 110 Our Men and Their Task Peril lies in the way now that it has become a popular conven- tion theme and men give read\- and easy assent to facts stated and theories proclaimed, and straiglitvv'ay forget what manner of com- pelling command for a cross-controlled life there lies in this way. Unless we are willing to start in the way of obedience to his call to social service we would best not talk much about it here nor seek a more intimate fellowship with him, for that is the way in which he leads to-day, and his call from the fore is complemented by a force which Graham Taylor is pleased to name ''the push from behind and the thrust from about." Once when our Lord was going about the cities and villages teaching and preaching and healing, seeing the distressed and scat- tered throng, he was moved with compassion for them, and then and there asked his disciples to join him in Christianity's first and most approved program. It was a program born in a compassion that compelled prayer, built up in unselfish intercession that per- severed, and finished in prayer-fused service. Julia Ward Howe once asked Charles Summer to her home to meet a personal friend, and Summer replied, "I am losing my interest in individuals and becoming interested in the race." Know- ing our Lord, you will fully appreciate Julia Ward Howe's entry in her journal that night: "By the latest accounts God Almighty has not got as far as this," SOCIAL SERVICE A PASSION FOR FOLKS Jesus could not be disloyal to truth, but his passion was for personality. Problems oppress us ; men concerned him. Only bet- ter men can do better work. Doctor Peabody tells the truth when he says, ''The more intricate is the machinery of the world, the more competent must be its engineers." We do well to follow Christ in his pursuit of folks. One night last winter the volley ball game in our gymnasium prolonged itself an hour past closing time. The men against whom we played would not know when they were beaten. On his way home, one of our men found two fellows in need of a friendly hand, and he led them through our open door into the warmth and light of our office, where many a man has fought and won a moral bat- tle. And a battle faced us that night. Jack Patton and his pastor, in gymnasium attire, spent that night with those men and the Sa- Our Men and Their Task 111 vior, in conference, Bible study, and prayer. With the coming of the dawn's gray came soberness, steadiness, and peace, and with trustful determination while on their knees with uplifted hands they pledged God and each other never to drink again. Remaining on their knees, they requested me to pour the remaining contents of the bottles in the sewer. One of them returned to his church and pastor and renewed his vows; the other became a member of our church the next Sunday and remains faithful. In no environ- ment was Christ ever more real. Surely it will be a sorry day whenever we lose our interest in folks in the midst of our problems, real problems, about the race. THE UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH AND SOCIAL SERVICE The call to social service is nothing more than tlie call "to fraternize the conditions of life and labor, to Christianize the frame- work and spirit of the community, to humanize religion for the pro- motion of these ends." And it is certainly nothing less than that. The behef and purpose of our denomination is declared in these plain but far-reaching words, 'The Church of the United Brethren in Christ stands for a new emphasis upon the application of Christian principles to all life relations." That principle is as old as our holy religion, but we had forgotten its emphasis. Now, our task is to place the religious emphasis upon social service and the social emphasis upon religious work. To fuse the life, the spirit, the motive, the compassion, the good sense, the win- ning power of our Christ into every corner of all our complex life is the demand of the hour. To give a hungry man only a piece of bread ; a shivering body only a coat; a dirty man only a bath and a clean shirt; a storm- beaten man only a sheltering roof and a bed — though every hungry, cold, dirty, storm-beaten man ought to be ministered unto — may infatuate the giver but can never satisfy the soul hunger of any man in whom remains one ounce of self-respect nor the just de- mands of our Lord, Christ. "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor but have not love it profiteth nothing." SEPARATED INTO OPPOSING CAMPS At this point we Christians have separated into opposing, crit- ical, unsympathetic camps, and we've gathered our holy garments 112 Our Men and Their Task about us a bit closer as we've shouted, "Oh, society needs more than a new grandmother and a bath and improved sanitation," and we've satisfied our poor selves when we've asked men to come to pray. God save us from that camp ! Or we've stood over against, so busy about many things, that we've forgotten, if we ever knew, that men cannot live by bread alone, and while we've stood apart defending the half-truth on whose edges we dwell, Christ tarries and weeps and the kingdom waits and men and women and little children suffer and die loveless and alone. Society wants the worst of neither camp; it needs the best of both. The best of each is available whenever the middle wall of partition melts away under the fusing, leavening influence of God's own love and purpose. God save us from carping criticism of each other. God save us from scolding one another, though each has needed it betimes ! HUMAN-MADE PLANS FOR SOCIAL REDEMPTION Seventy-five years ago Emerson wrote Carlyle, "Every reading man has a plan for the new community in his vest pocket," and added, "we are a little wild with our schemes for making the world over." The church is coming into her own heritage of prestige, leadership, and power in the rediscovery of our Lord's social serv- ice program. The church has always supplied the motive, the money, and the workers, but in administration she has taken little or no part. Sometimes she has been discredited before the eyes of the bene- ficiaries of her ministry and her bounty. Without God and the Bible and the church and Jesus Christ there is no salvation, social or individual. Australia is the one outstanding example in all the world of a nation seeking by its welfare laws to make its people comfortable, happy, and good. Raymond Robins was overwhelmed, on a recent visit to that continent, with the magnitude of the welfare legisla- tion. Approved, advanced, welfare legislation ought to be enacted in very Christian land. Australia has an eight-hour, universal labor law which applies to all, from the bank cashier to the domestic. At Melbourne a shaft, the only one of its kind in the world, bears high upon its top, "8 — 8— -8" typifying the daily hours for sleep, labor, and recre- Our Men (Did Their Task 113 ation. There is a minimum wage law, with hoards to determine what is a living wage; stringent laws for protection in operating dangerous machinery ; an old-age pension law ; laws for the protec- tion of health in mills, shops, stores, and mines; compulsory edu- cation; no child labor; Wednesday and Saturday afternoons are half-hoHdays ; there is not a tenement on the continent. Mr. Robins says that there is no other place where wages are so uniformly good, living conditions so favorable, and prices so moderate. Fred B. Smith declares, ''Notwithstanding all this, Australia's record for intemperance, gambling, and impurity is black and ap- palling." Australia's welfare laws were made largely without ref- erence to the church. A while ago Jane Addams said, "While the conviction of sin could be made through an objective and economic investigation, the regeneration which was supposed to follow, must, of course, de- pend upon spiritual forces." Whatever of the good work that is going on now in our com- munities that was done formerly at all, was done originally by the churches. We are now in the good day of a mighty trend of healthy sentiment and great events back to the church. It is pre- eminently the charge of the church to provide an atmospheric pres- sure that will protect and promote right living. Pray, do not cut the nerve of any approved movement for social betterment by an attempt to divorce reHgion from it. Churchmen must co-operate with every agency, inter-church, social, civic for the general good. THE LOCAL CHURCH IN THE COMMUNITY Every congregation has a distinct responsibility to the entire city, town, or community which can be met only in co-operation with inter-church or other general agencies, but no church dare, no church can bury itself and lose its identity in any general move- ment. Superlative importance attaches to the place of each church in its own parish, improving its own opportunities, meeting its own responsibilities. The program of the average local church must be broadened so that it can minister to the spiritual, mental, physical, and social nature and needs of every parishioner. The building must be unlocked, aired, warmed, lighted, used. It must actually be made the parish center. 114 Our Men and Their Task That Jesus meant Christians to adopt and follow a program as diversified and as broad as the sweep of all the needs of the life of man is easily seen in his own striking word picture of the last judgment. Read that again, won't you, and after it, Walter Rauschenbusch's little booklet, "Unto Me." An interested professor said to me in a recent note: "For some time I have been interested in the seven-day church propo- sition and the seven-day religion to fit it. We must have some- thing to offer in the way of construction before we can begin the work of destruction. Our church, led by our progressive pastor, has organized the Boy Scouts, the Camp-fire Girls, an Inter-Sun- day-school Basket-ball League, and we have plans for playgrounds this summer." Some phases of the institutional or open church ought to be inaugurated in every parish where a church ought to exist. The church that serves the community best is sure to be best served by the community. Bishop Anderson asked Doctor Edward Jud- son to characterize in a word or two the chief features of the in- stitutional church. Doctor Judson replied, *Tt is simply a church of organized kindnesses to the individual." SALVATION NOT BY PROXY, BUT BY PROXIMITY Certainly religion belongs in every phase of our life, family and community, industrial, political, commercial, but it will never be applied to any phase of our life by proxy. A soul is saved by proximity and needed changes in society are wrought by the close, impinging, sympathetic touch of Christ-filled personality. A pastor who seeks to share the life of his parishioners, after having been shepherd and friend in a time of deep sorrow to "a man who was a sinner," received a letter from him from which I quote: *T do not know that I am under any special conviction of sin, but I do long to associate with good and Christian men and women. I am starved for that association. If I could have it 1 believe I would soon be willing to leave it all to God. You can hardly imagine the darkness, almost despair, that at times I have been in. But for years I have had no one to talk with as I now do with you, and I have had to bear all, alone, without human help. Words cannot tell you how I long to be out from all low and wrong associations." Oil?' Men and Their Task 115 I believe that "human creatures, almost as much as they re- quire light and warmth, need the sense that others are thinking- and feeling like themselves." A note which I received from the superintendent of a suc- cessful and growing business will illustrate. Said he, ''Often when I think of the Sunday school, of the church, and of you, I wonder if it can really be I, because I certainly had lost all my interest in church and things pertaining thereto. I want to thank you most sincerely for reviving that 'something' which is in all of us, even the v/orst of us, that 'something good.' You have done me so much good, I wish I could tell you how much." Though he had not been in church for years, he, with his wife, is an interested, working member of the church. The first point of contact was the medicine ball and the gymnasium. It might have been any one of a number of things available in any church, too little used to re-introduce men to God. Still another writes, "I do not beheve I could hold down the kind of a job I do if it were not for the good I get out of my church and the bracing up that comes through the channels of its spiritual and social Hfe." I could multiply indefinitely similar expressions from hungry- hearted men who long for God and healthy, human fellowships which they ought to find in any church that has a right to live. Frank Mason North's prayer hymn voices the plaintive plead- ing of the multitude of men, women, and children on whose life need he looks with his old but never-failing compassion, he and they waiting the while for the belated compassion of a tardy but an awakening church. "Where cross the crowded ways of life, Where sound the cries of race and clan, Above the noise of selfish strife. We hear thy voice, O Son of Man. *Tn haunts of wretchedness and need, On shadowed thresholds dark with fears, From paths where hide the lures of greed, W^e catch the vision of thy tears. 116 Our Men and Thrir Task **From tender childhood's helplessness, From woman's grief, man's burdened toil, From famished souls, from sorrow's stress, Thy heart has never known recoil. "The cup of water given for thee Still holds the freshness of thy grace; Yet long these multitudes to see The sweet compassion of thy face. ''O Master, from the mountain side, Make haste to heal these hearts of pain ; Among these restless throngs abide; Oh, tread the city's streets again ; "Till sons of men shall learn thy love, And follow where thy feet have trod ; Till glorious from thy heaven above. Shall come the city of our God." The call to-day is the call to leadership in making a keen, re- sponsive, social conscience keep pace and step with the unprece- dented social consciousness of this age. It is Christ's call to fellowship with him in social service, the open-house program, a church whose members love each other, a shepherd ministry and evangelism which cannot be separated, but all, all used as the unfailing means of finding the sure paths to God for the feet of modern men. TRANSFORMING A CITY BY FREDERICK H. RIKE I am supposed to tell you men who come from abroad, some- thing of the experience we have had in Dayton in changing from the old to the new form of government, which differs from that of the average American city. Dayton was misgoverned — probably not any more than hundreds of other American cities, and not on ac- count of the fact that men intentionallv meant to be dishonest, but Our Men and Their Task 117 the opportunity was there for dishonesty. There was the oppor- tunity for the gratification of the selfish interests of men. We will make no further accusation than that. It was only a condition ; the men were not to blame. Wrong conditions must be remedied, and it is the duty of the church to take all conditions that lead to dishonesty and corruption and change them. That is your business and mine, and if you and I are not doing our duty in these things, then we are not living up to our opportunities or doing the things that should make a churchman different from the man who does not belong. Let us consider for a minute the American city. More than one hundred and thirty-five years ago, our forefathers — all honor to them — threw off the reign of England. They were opposed to taxation without representation. They did not have many cities at that time — our population was mostly in the country — but they had gained an abhorrence of kingly rule, and so the city government was planned after the Federal Constitution, and became known as the "Federal Plan." Thus were our cities ruled, and so we went along. Then changes came about. Labor-saving machinery was in- vented, our population grev/, our manufacturers prospered, and we became a great United States of producers, exporters, and im- porters. Thus was the population driven into the cities, and from these great aggregations of people, together with the fact that there were many nationalities and kinds of citizenship, there developed a complexity of life and a multitude of problems that developed a cankerous sore at the root of our democracy, which has been grow- ing deeper and deeper until something had to happen. THE BBlGINNING OF THE COMMISSION PLAN OF CITY GOVERNMENT Fourteen years ago, down on the Gulf of Mexico, a great tidal wave rolled over the city of Galveston, leaving in its wake, death and destruction. After the storm had passed, the city was power- less. It had no credit; its form of government offered no means of relief or rehabilitation. The authorities were compelled to issue script, and the outlook was gloomy indeed. In this great emer- gency, three lawyers devised the commission form of government, and it provided a way out of their distress. This form of govern- ment spread north through Texas, to Dallas and Fort Worth. Later an attorney from Des Moines, Iowa, visited in Texas and saw what 118 Our Men and Their Task they were doing in the way of municipal government, and was so impressed with what he saw that he took the commission form back to Des Moines and there they improved it and adopted it. Thus this form of government spread until three hundred cities in the United States had adopted commission form of government, and nowhere, once adopted, has any city gone back to the old plan. dayton's commission-manager government And Dayton, operating under the old Federal plan, felt the ne- cessity of making a change, and, having been given the authority by the home rule provision of the new Ohio State Constitution, it said to itself, "We are going to have a change of form of govern- m.ent." The Chamber of Commerce appointed a committee of five men, who, after careful study, evolved a plan of city government which they believed an improvement over the old commission form. This new plan was presented to the people and adopted. The plan was the commission-manager, or city manager, form of government. When our forefathers fought the battles of the Revolution, there was back of them the force of the idea that they would not stand for taxation without representation ; when we fought the Civil War, the North was inspired by the idea that our Union must be kept one and inseparable ; and in the city of Dayton the force back of the movement for the new form of government was the idea of the separation of the administrative and legislative functions. This idea found its expression in the new form of government, as follows: A commission of five is elected, who devise and pass all legislation; that is, they exercise all legislative functions. This commission further elects a city manager who has all administra- tive functions. COMMUNITY WELFARE THE OBJECTIVE And in addition, I desire to impress upon you men that this charter was written with the conception that it must provide for the community welfare. And the conception of community welfare goes back to the things and ideas that come from the Book that lies here on this stand ; you cannot get this idea from anything else ; and so it was the conception of community welfare that inspired this charter. Our Men and Their Task 119 We thought that a city to be bigger must be better. Henry Burere, who is probably the best authority on commission govern- ment in the United States, and whom Mayor Mitchell of New York has made city chamberlain, sets up community welfare as the chief standard for all forms of city government, and enumerates five phases of this standard. First. City Planning. This is provided for in the new gov- ernment for Dayton. We have a Department of Welfare, whose duty it is to study the housing conditions that exist in the city ; to study the health of our people; to find what are the conditions as to poverty, crime, and education ; to consider all such subjects and more, and report to the commission conditions as they really exist, with proposed legislation for improving these things. There are other phases of city planning — transportation, water, garbage, heat, light, power, all physical conditions. The city must also pro- vide adequately for the future, taking into account conditions as they shall probably exist fifty or one hundred years in the future. We formerly have been planning for present conditions and for next year or the year after; but what a city needs, and what our new charter provides, is a plan that takes care of the future for fifty or one hundred years. This will eliminate mistakes Hke the city of New York made when they built the great East River bridges ; they forgot about the future and the congestion of popula- tion and how they would want to get over into Brooklyn and Long Island, and the bridges were not placed correctly. Millions in- vested, and still the bridges are inadequate, chiefly because no pro- vision was made for a comprehensive city plan. Second. The next phase of the question to which Mr. Burere calls attention is the form of city government, and in the city man- ager form of government, we are convinced that we have the most advanced kind of municipal government in the United States. Our opinion is corroborated by the approval of municipal experts all over the country. It provides for the short ballot, the ehmination of all party designations, the initiative and referendum, the recall, the protest, and all progressive forms. Third. The third division is method, or, what might be styled 'method management." In my own business, what I most desire is method management; and in our Church I wish we had method management, so that the thing which is to be done does not get done 120 Our Men and Their Task haphazardly. If the city of Dayton has a contract for work to be let, or wants to buy merchandise, or employ anybody, the method by which it is to be done is prescribed in the city charter, and even incompetent men cannot go wrong. O men of the church, that is what we. need in the church ! We need method management, and the sooner we get it, the more we will get out of it. Fourth. The personnel of the city officials. Our five com- missioners are business men. They never held political office, and did not want this position, but for the sake of service to their com- munity they were willing to make the sacrifice. These men em- ployed a city manager to administer the affairs of the city, a man who is trained and knows his work. The heads of departments em- ployed by him are trained men, and that is the way it should be done, and the way the city of Dayton is doing it to-day. Fifth. The last phase is an efficient citizenship. I want to say to you that it does not matter what plan of government is used, how perfect or complete it is, without efficient citizenship it must fail. That was the idea that was back of the conception and or- ganization of the Greater Dayton Association. The men of Dayton felt that back of this government and the men who were to admin- ister it must be thrown the force of an organized public opinion ; and so within the city of Dayton there are seven thousand men and women who are members of a great civic commercial association, called the Greater Dayton Association, whose aim is community welfare, the stability of the new government, and its success. The Association is interested in whatever is best for the city of Dayton, to make it an ideal place to live and work and bring up one's children. Oh, I tell you, the really dangerous citizen is not the agitator — the really dangerous citizen is the man who refuses to think, who refuses to vote, who will give nothing of himself in service ! Just think of conditions as they existed in the State of Ohio when it came to passing the constitutional amendments! Only fifty per cent, of the voters cast their vote. Over at Columbus yesterday they adopted a new charter. There was a small registration, and yet only forty per cent, of those registering voted at all. Dr. William H. Allen, head of the Bureau of Municipal Re- search in New York City, made what is to me a very remarkable statement: "The men and women identified with religious work Our Men and Their Task 121 could abolish misgovernment if they would work together for def- inite, visible ends in their community." Oh, what an opportunity for you and for me, by uniting with other men and other denomina- tions, to work to aboHsh misgovernment! We, the citizens of Dayton, did a remarkable thing after the flood had almost destroyed us; we rallied and gave two million dollars voluntarily for flood prevention work. The first day the flood prevention funds were due and payable at the Dayton Savings and Trust Company, there was a double line of men and women from the inside of the bank out to the sidewalk, waiting to give their money away. I stood in the bank that morning and looked at that double line, and I tell you I was thrilled as I never had been thrilled before — men and women waiting to give their money away ! And yet, men of the United Brethren Congress, would it not be a more inspiring sight if we could see men and women iden- tified in church work waiting to give themselves for the vindication of democracy, for the redemption of the community in which they live and where they bring up their children and where they are do- ing their business. Oh, it certainly would be a fine thing! And yet, a man's ability to do that sort of thing depends upon his social view. THE CHURCH WITH THE SOCIAL VIEW We have heard a lot about social service, social view. What is it? It depends upon our ability to love people, and I want to say to you that my conviction is firmly fixed that a man cannot have the social view, or love people, without definite religious convic- tions. And so that is what the church has got to do — to give to the people of the community in which it is located, a "love of people" and a "definite social view." President Wilson says, " 'Righteousness exalteth the nation' and 'peace on earth good will to men' are the only foundations upon which can be built the lasting achievements of the human spirit." Cities do not grow, they are not transformed by chance; they are built; and the measure of the strength of a city is the measure of the strength of its inhabitants. The measure of the intelligence of a city is the measure of intelligence of its citizens. The meas- ure of the efficiency of the community in which you live is the 122 Our Men and Their Task measure of the interest and enthusiasm and zeal and service that you give to your community's needs. Did you ever read Kipling's "Human Jelly Fish"? You re- member that Tomlinson was up before St. Peter, and the call came, ''Stand up, stand up now, And answer, loud and high. The good ye did for the sake of men And ever ye came to die !" And TomHnson stood on one foot and then on the other, and scratched his head and tried to think of something he had done for the good of his fellowman, but he could think of nothing. All at once he said, "I have got a friend down there, a priest, a preacher ; ask him and he will remember the testimony I offered and the ex- periences I related." But St. Peter would not accept this as a pass- port, and again Tomlinson was asked to ''stand up, and answer, loud and high," and tell the good he had done for the sake of man before he came to die. And again he scratched his head and again he said, "I know all about it; I have read what ought to be done" ; but that did not suffice. Men of this conference, do not be human jelly fish. Let us not only just have a feeling in our hearts about these things ; let us not have it only in our heads, but let us go together into our commun- ities, resolved that we are going to be men, and men interested in real community welfare. THE CHRISTIAN IN THE STATE BY G. M. MATHEWS Daniel Webster enunciated a fundamental truth when he de- clared that Christianity is a "part of the law of the land." This nation is Christian. It stands for religious liberty. Our fore- fathers did not write the word "God" into the constitution, but they incorporated in it the principles of freedom, justice, and equality, taught by Christ. Our nation was born out of a struggle for con- science. The Christian in the state has a twofold relation and responsi- bility. The Christian, as such, stands related to the church of Christ; the citizen, as such, stands related to the state. Plence the Our Men and Their Task 123 discussion of this theme involves the consideration of the church and state in their relation to each other. Both the church and state are separate entities, but have a common origin. Both are ordained of God, but each has a different function. Both seek the same ulti- mate end, namely, the moral welfare and happiness of the people. The church seeks to make men good ; the state aims to protect good men in doing good, and to restrain wicked men from doing evil. The motive of the church is love; that of the state is distributive justice. Both the church and state unite in the building up of good citizenship. This is a great achievement. The glory of the nation is not in the extent of its territory, or the riches of its soil, or in its material resources, but in the character of its citizens. Men, not things, make a nation. As her citizens, so the state. When President Angell was asked by the Sultan of Turkey whether he could buy such guns as Admiral Dewey used at Manila, he replied, "Yes ; but what you cannot buy are the men behind the guns." Said Pericles, "Men, not walls, make a city." Humboldt once remarked, "Government, religion, property, books are nothing but scaffolding to build a man." Referring to the power of personality, Wendell Philips said of America, "You may build your capitol of granite and pile it as high as the Rocky Mountains, if it is founded on or mixed with iniquity, the pulse of a girl will, in time, beat it down." The loud call to American Protestantism is to build up an American nation that is Christian, with an individual, social, and national conscience that shall stand for all that is clean and just and righteous in the republic. THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE Christian citizenship in this republic does not allow for any essential conflict between church and state, such as has existed in other lands. History reveals the humiliating fact that in other coun- tries the church has laid its hands on the power and resources of the state, while the state has laid its hands on the privileges of the church in the exercise of religious liberty. Our fathers came to America to escape from this evil and injustice. The colonial stock of America was composed of Scotch-Irish, Swiss, Dutch, German, English, and Huguenot. These elements came ircin nortbern Eurone and were of the better class. They were 124 Our Men and Their Task predominantly Christian. These elements entered into the founda- tion of our nation's fabric. They came to escape from the union of church and state, because they believed it was a misinterpretation of the will of God in human affairs. The Federal Constitution established the fundamental sepa- ration of church and state, and is hostile to all ecclesiastical inter- ference with civil government. On the other hand, the church has no political power or functions. It seeks to promote man's spiritual welfare. Its authority is limited to the will of its constituents who choose to remain in its communion. The church may appeal to the state for protection, but not for material aid and resources. This principle of separation in favor of religious freedom is sacred in this republic, because it is in harmony with the teaching of Christ and Christian conscience. Jesus recognized this funda- mental separation when he said, "My kingdom is not of this world," and, holding up a coin bearing the image of a Roman ruler, he gave the wisest answer of the Christian centuries and taught obedience to civil law in secular affairs and obedience to God in sacred things in the words, "Render unto Csesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." Peter and Paul, while acknowledging that all civil authority is ordained of God and should be respected, made the sharp distinction that when civil authorities make demands of the Christian contrary to religious duties and obligations, they should be denied. Peter boldly declared that in these things "we ought to obey God rather than man." This principle took deep root in the virgin soil of America. Let us thank God for the heroism of our forefathers who stood, at great cost, for the principle of civil and religious liberty. This principle is the glory of our republic, and it is up to the Christian citizens to guard and defend it. It is too sacred to be trifled with. Let every Christian citizen in this nation say to any and all enemies of this God-given privilege, "Hands off, now and ever- more." No form of worship shall receive state endorsement. No church shall have state support. No ecclesiastical body shall lay hold of the power and resources of the state. THE INTER-RELATION OF CHURCH AND STATE And yet the church and state are so interrelated and inter- penetrated that they touch each other at many points. Their intex*- Our Men and Their Task 125 ests are interlocked. The church is in the state, but not of the state. This relationship is intimate and mighty, in all that pertains to our common welfare. The Christian, therefore, assumes a high and responsible position in the state because his influence inter-pene- trates society in the various relations, activities, and enterprises of public life. This responsibility is tremendous, and should be dis- charged in the fear of God. Christianity has reached a crisis in its relation to the solution of the political, social, economic, and moral problems of our com- plex life. The forces that are working evil in the state can only be counteracted by Christian influence and sentiment. Ten right- eous men could have saved Sodom, and ten million righteous men can save America. God is still on his throne. Christ is the King of kings, and his power is being felt in America. Christianity is being put to a severe test as to whether her representatives, as personal units, . shall stand for the principles of righteousness, equity, and fairness in ail individual, social, commercial, and governmental affairs. This is no time to bow at the shrine of greed, or wink at demagogism, or temporize in the presence of patriotic duty. The new day is upon us for higher and better things, both in the church and the state. With a Christian in the President's chair, a Christian in the State Department, and many in the national Congress and guberna- torial chairs, the imperative call of the new day is for every Chris- tian citizen to rise above political manipulations and party domina- tion, and seek to set aside the unscrupulous demagogue, and put righteous men who fear God in the high places of authority and power. THE PREACHER IN POLITICS The Bible now, as never before, comes to the Christian in this country with a distinct message concerning the responsibility of Christian citizenship in its broader application to human society. It furnishes a broad program for social and civic service. It teaches not only the necessity of personal salvation, but also the possibility of the realization of the kingdom of heaven on earth. It enforces not only the sanctification of the individual, but also the purifica- tion of social relations and the promotion of civic righteousness. Upon this broad platform the Christian of to-day should stand. He should define the moral ends of society and expound the moral principles upon which human rights are based, which principles 126 Our Men and Their Task should govern human conduct in all organized moral and economic effort and movements in this country. In other words, the Chris- tian in the state should be a positive, personal unit that counts for all that makes for social and national righteousness. He is under moral and patriotic obligation to help make his fellow men and so- ciety better by his participation in clean politics. At this view some men seem to be shocked, and insist that no Christian preacher or Christian layman should engage in politics, basing their assertion upon the principle of separation of church and state. But separation of church and state does not imply that indi- vidual Christians shall not engage in political affairs and form vol- untary and interdenominational organizations for social reform and civic righteousness. The Christian has sovereign rights as well as the politician. In the solidarity of human society each Christian is a unit related to every other unit, with evident responsibility of conduct. They are all involved in a common weal or woe, and the wise, practical preacher and layman will keep both feet on the earth and work for individual, social, civic, and moral welfare of the nation. CHRISTIAN MEN AND REGISTRATION DAY The Christian has a right to insist that a public office is a public trust, and in the higher sense, a trust from God. The Christian voter is responsible to God for the exercise of the right of franchise. He cannot, without responsibility and dereliction of duty, absent himself from the primary and keep his name from the registration list, by which he may register his conviction against evil and in favor of the right. Why should he not insist upon voting for men that are honest and trustworthy? Why not demand of the state, through its official representatives, the enactment and enforcement of laws that shall prevent exploiters of vice from tempting men and making them bad, and thus degrading society ? Why not count mightily for ethical standards and moral principles, as applied to all the affairs of men? Says Doctor Batten, in 'The Social Tasks of Christianity" : *Tn the United States there are over thirty-four million church members — over thirty-four per cent, of the population — all pro- fessing faith in Jesus Christ and all praying for the coming of God's kingdom. Suppose these people were united in their efforts to abol- ish some of the great wrongs of the world, such as child labor, the Our Men and Their Task 127 liquor traffic, the red-light district, city slums, the desecration of the rest day, municipal corruption, and corporate oppression; suppose they should join hands in their efforts to secure justice for all, to provide playgrounds for children, to save boys and girls from a life of vice, to widen the door of opportunity for all, to build more san- itary cities, to give every life a true inheritance in society — to create a better and more moral social atmosphere for all — how long would it be before the wrongs would be abolished ?" Suppose it were understood that it is the function of Christian- ity to unite men into one great fellowship of love and brotherhood and service, and then mobilize them into one army for a campaign for the kingdom. Suppose Christian men realized that their supreme business is to organize and create a just, fraternal, happy, Christian state on earth, how long would it be before the streets of the new city would be laid and the walls of the holy city would begin to appear? THE STATE AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION Now, in the building up of a vigorous, intelligent citizenship, the state must assume its share of responsibility. First, the state must assist in the moral and religious education of its youth. No greater question can concern it than that of the giving to the youth of every community proper training in moral conduct and religious convictions. Religious education of the youth is the supreme prob- lem of to-day, which the state dare not ignore or neglect. This is why the demand for the use of the Bible in the public school is imperative and increasing. The potent influence of the Bible as a religious educator of the young life of the nation is more and more evident. General Grant declared that ''the Bible is the sheet-anchor of our liberties." General Jackson, as he lay on his death-bed, pointing to the family Bible, said, 'That Book, sir, is the rock on which the republic rests." We are not an infidel nation. We recognize the authority of religion and the Bible as the supreme Book of books. No nation can erect a great and abiding civilization without the inculcation of its truths and principles. The only hope of our strength and per- petuity lies in the training of our youth to become Christian patriots, so as to become good citizens. If I had my way, I would not only have the flag float over every school-house in the land, but I would 128 Our Men and Their Task have the Bible used in every school-room by the authority of law, for religion is necessary to good government and the happiness of the people. I appeal to the men of the Congress to see to it, that the patri- otic citizenship of this country shall resist any and all ecclesiastical influence and effort to banish and keep the Bible from our public schools. Let no church or organization place its hostile linger on the Word of God. FOR THE OVERTHROW OF THE MODERN JERICHO Then in the interest of good citizenship and good government, the state must help the Christian church to take the Jericho of to-day — the liquor traffic. The war is on. The war is for extermination. There can be no compromise or mediation for peace. The liquor traffic has no commendable features. It is the chief hurt of the nation. It is in league with all forms of evil. It is the prolific source of corruption and crime. Its fruits are cruelty, debauchery, and murder. It is the deadliest enemy of the American home. It can not be legalized without sin. It has no rightful place in our modern civilization. It stands convicted at the bar of all nations as the enemy of the home, industry, morality, and the church. It causes two-thirds of the crime, one-third of the idiocy, and three-fourths of the poverty in this country. It is the wholesale despoiler of the race, and the conspirator against decency, order, and righteousness. It lays its withering, blighting, ruinous hand upon the manhood and woman- hood, girlhood and boyhood of this nation. It is a poison that has entered into the veins of our body politic, and" is eating out the very life of our commonwealth. This social disease needs constitutional treatment. This poison must be eliminated from the veins of society. This iniquitous traffic is doomed. The handwriting is on the wall. It is trembling like Belteshazzar of old. Nearly fifty million people, covering two-thirds of the territorial area of this country, have outlawed the saloon. The heroic womanhood, with their votes, are putting this enemy to rout in many States, and now Secretary Daniels has issued an order prohibiting all intoxicating liquors from the navy vessels on the sea and from the shore stations. And all the Christian reform forces have joined a united movement to go "on to Washington" to influence our national Congress to provide for the passage of a Constitutional amendment that shall lay the ax at the Our Men and Their Task 129 root of the tree, and prohibit the manufacture, sale, irriportation, exportation, and transportation of intoxicating Hquors in this land. God is marching on, and we expect victory to come by 1920, when the Government shall be put out of the liquor business, and the liquor business shall be put out of the Government, and for the sake of God and home and native land, we shall have a stainless flag, a saloonless nation, and a liberated humanity ! "We are coming from the cities Where teeming millions dwell, From the village, from the hamlet, In the quiet, lovely dell. "We are coming from the rural homes That stretch from sea to sea, And have ever been the guardians Of this land of liberty. "We are coming from the factories, From the furnace and the forge, We are coming from the churches, As the children of the Lord. "We are coming from the halls of science, Where the truest tests declare, That alcohol's a poison, A deception and a snare. "We come from city councils. This faithful truth to tell, That graft and vice are offsprings Of this agency of hell. "We come from courts of justice, Where his brazen lackeys plead, All laws are disregarded That would curb his cruel greed. "We are coming from the judge's bench, And from the governor's chair. We are coming from the statehouse. No longer bound by fear. 130 Our Men and Their Task "From our nation's Senate chamber, From our Federal Congress hall, Where at last they've caught the vision And are answering to the call. "By the orphaned cry of children, By the tears of mothers shed, As they bend in stricken sorrow- Above their murdered dead. "By the prison's cruel dungeon, With its heav}^ iron door. That have shut out hope and manhood, From a million bright-eyed boys, "Who were caught and bound and fettered Ere the day of youth had passed. By this friend that knows no pity, Only mocks them in his wrath. "By the million fair-faced lassies, Who've been sold as slaves to vice, By the agents of the brothels, Where this monster rules in might. "We pledge our time and talents And our lives, if that need be ; To drive this cruel tyrant From the land of liberty. "So we raise aloft our standard. And will keep it floating high, 'Neath the star-emblazoned banner, King Alcohol must die." Oh, men of this Congress, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the North and the South, God help you to go back to your homes and communities with these convictions, as Christian citizens, and tell them that this Congress and this Church, in practice and prin- ciple, stands for total abstinence, for the individual and total prohi- bition for the State, in the interest of an intelligent, virile. Christian citizenship that shall sit as a diadem on the brow of this imperial republic. LEADERSHIP NECESSARY TO ACCOMPLISH OUR TASKS MINISTERIAL LEADERSHIP NECESSARY TO ACCOM- PLISH OUR TASKS BY WALTER G. CLIPPINGER Social progress is made through leadership. Whether im- plicitly or explicitly, nevertheless, there is a recognition that one must lead and the rest must follow in all kinds of social organ- izations. The leader may be appointed or he may be unconsciously or subconsciously recognized on the part of those who are willing to follow. In recent years the question of leadership among psychologists has come to have large place in their thinking. Men are writing books and chapters of very important books upon the great question of leadership, as applied not only to the religious life, but to politi- cal and all other forms of social life. I suppose the simplest illustration of the importance of leader- ship is observed in the lower orders of life, how it is that one bird leads and the flock follows ; that one animal in the herd sets the pace and all the rest follow. And then coming up into the higher orders, how it is that, consciously or unconsciously, there is some one man or woman, some individual from our group, whether it be in reli- gion or some other form of life, whom we recognize as having spe- cial powers, whether native or acquired, that make him or her superior to ourselves and by virtue of which we are willing to fol- low. There must be a captain to the ship ; there must be a general to the army ; there must be a president of a society ; there must be a chairman of a committee. NATIVE ELEMENTS OF LEADERSHIP I want to confine myself strictly to the subject of ministerial leadership. I propose to define for ourselves some of the marks of ministerial leadership, those which are native and particularly 131 132 Our Men and Their Task those which are acquired. Those which are native, which are in- born, are not so much for our serious consideration, because we have them whether we have wished for them or not. No one gave them to us; no one can take them away from us. But I want to emphasize those acquired marks of leadership, which we can get and which we can lose ; which we may cultivate and which we may neglect. There are certain native marks of leadership which are recog- nized in animals of all kinds — a certain kind of physical and mental strength. It goes without saying that a man who is endowed with a fine physical presence has something which some of the rest lack. There is a kind of mental attitude which makes some men leaders. A very interesting mark of leadership is noticed in a man who says less than he does ; one who has a certain amount of mental reserve, a peculiar kind of silence, and at the same time is a wise and prudent man. That is one of the quiet marks of leadership. They say that even among bad boys, the strong leader is the quiet one who doesn't say very much; and I suppose that among good men it is equally true. It is a mark of leadership when a man does more than he says, when he speaks little about what he does, but gets a great many things done. It is an inborn trait; I don't think that it could very well be acquired. Another quality is personal enthusiasm, that inner glow which I can scarcely describe. You don't quite understand it and I don't understand it. It is that something within the individual which is catching — a contagious personality, you might say, a friendliness, an interest in people. Some of us have it and some of us do not have it. Those who have it ought to be grateful for it. There are still other marks which might be mentioned as native marks of leadership. But I don't care to emphasize the native qual- ities. If we do not have them, we shall never be able to acquire them. On the other hand, the thing to which I want to call atten- tion is the acquired characteristics which I am sure all of us as ministers can develop more or less. ACQUIRED ELEMENTS OF LEADERSHIP I turn very quickly, then, to the first mark of leadership which I would name, a pure and spotless life. I have been reading lately a book touching upon the great, broad question of leadership, in Our Men and Their Task 133 which there is one remarkable chapter entitled "The Power of a Blameless Life," which is saying pretty nearly the same thing as the power of a clean and spotless life. Of all things which a man may possess, whether native or acquired, there is no one thing which is so invincible, so impregnable, and so powerful in its influ- ence upon people, whether a man be put in official positions or whether in positions of private life and leadership, as that of a faultless Hfe. Let us be frank with one another and admit that in many churches there are lying around, here and there, skeletons of a thoughtless and indiscreet life of some form or other, which some of us have to face and which stand in the way of the pastor who left and the pastor who follows. More and more we are empha- sizing the importance of the educational aspect of our life and Church, but we should never lose sight of the importance of this personal influence and enthusiasm which is so contagious. The little boys and girls do not understand it, but nevertheless they recognize it. My mind runs back this morning to a certain min- ister who in my early boyhood days came into our home. He was with us only once in a while, every three or four weeks, but there came to be a strong attachment between us. As I try to analyze his character, the one thing that stands out is, not his preaching power, for he was not a great preacher; not his scholarship, for he was not a great scholar; and not a lot of other things that could be mentioned ; but this one thing : that I cannot recall a single thing that was ever said against that man's character. He was noble, true, and clean ; gallant in his relations toward women ; fine in his spirit; gentle in his touch. He had a personal refinement, the like of which, as a boy at least, I had never seen in another man. What a benediction that man is to me to-day — the memory of that good man! And that, after all, is the thing, the power and influence of a pure and spotless body and life. Another mark of leadership is knowledge. Knowledge of what ? Knowledge of one's subject. I suppose if we were to ask. Who Is the great leader in the scientific thought of to-day? we would al- most instinctively turn to Mr. Edison. Why ? Not because he goes out into the world, not because he has ever been placed in a posi- tion of trust and importance, but simply by virtue of the fact that he knows. Because he knows his subject, he is the leader, 134 Our Men and Their Task Leadership among ministers implies a knowledge of their sub- ject. What is their subject? First of all, I should say, God. God is a great part of the theme of a minister's life and his ministry to people. Knowledge of God and knowledge of self and knowledge of people — I suppose when we have stated those three things, that if a man knows God well, and if he understands himself well, and then if he understands folks with whom he has to deal and for whom he ministers, he has a vast fund of knowledge. I think the trouble with most of us is, we don't understand ourselves, and we haven't got close enough to God to understand his will and his plan concerning us and the world, and by virtue of that we fail as leaders. The leader must be a man of authority, and by virtue of the knowledge that he has of his subject, he becomes a man of authority. And I suppose we only need to consult our own experience and observation to admit that we bow with respect and submission to the man of authority in any one subject. This is a day of special- ization. In medical science we have split up all the forms of med- icine into various kinds of specialties, and when we have trouble of a certain kind, we call the specialist. If our eyes are sick, we go to the oculist; if we are sick at heart, we go to the heart specialist, and if we have nervous trouble, we go to the nerve specialist. Why? Because they know those subjects. And the time is here, it seems to me, when the minister of Jesus Christ must stand out as the man who knows God and God's Word. He must understand himself and his people thoroughly, and when people become conscious of a fund of knowledge in the minister, they will bow with respect to his authority; they will respond to his leadership. He must be a man of vision. Much has been said of vision dur- ing these days, and I am very glad for the emphasis that has been placed on that. But when I say vision, I do not mean those fanci- ful notions which men stir up within their souls, but I mean a rational vision of things as they are and ought to be — the great world as it now exists and as it ought to be if we take our place in the world of activity as we should. The great movements of the world to-day, in the church and other social organizations, have a tendency to give us a vision of the large opportunities which are ours. That suggests that the moment a minister gets the vision, he receives a new inspiration Our Men and Their Task 135 for service; a new vision for goodness within himself, a new pas- sion for work. It suggests singleness of aim. When a man gets a proper conception of his own place as a ministerial leader in the world of God, just that moment he centralizes his effort on the very work to which he is called, and he will emphasize to himself, "This one thing I do." And I should like to suggest this : The min- ister's task is so large, the opportunities so great, so inspiring the field and so wide the work, that he has neither time nor strength, nor should he have any purpose for the carrying of side lines. I have no patience with a man who is espoused to the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ and then carries one, two, three, or half a dozen different lines at the same time. Another mark is, a capacity for hard work. Some of us think we are working hard when we are not. Some of us work so en- thusiastically that we do not think we are working hard when we are. Perhaps there is no other man in any profession who has so little restriction and restraint as the minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The man in the factory must check in on the time clock, the man in the school must teach a certain number of hours, but there is no master to the minister. He has no foreman or superin- tendent, he has no time clock for registration. He can work as many hours as he pleases, or he can loaf as much as he pleases. I should like to say this kindly and sympathetically, and you will agree with me it is true, if there were a time clock where ministers should register the hours of work they do, some of us would be paid half the salaries that we get and lose our job at the end of the year. And then there are others who would become conscious that they are working over time every day and every year. The min- ister has the greatest opportunity to soldier, but he also has the greatest opportunity to expend himself to the fullest endurance of his body. Another mark of leadership is willingness to be forgotten, to make of one's self a living sacrifice, forgetful of his selfish interests — forgetting the largeness or smallness of one's salary; forgetting the element of time ; forgetting his own personal interest and look- ing only to the glory of his profession and the bringing of men in close relation with God. A minister is a prophet to bring God down to men. He is a priest to bring men up to God. He is a pastor whose business is 136 Our Men and Their Task to shepherd God's sheep. He is an executive and administrator to manage the affairs of his kingdom. He is an evangehst to win the souls of men and turn them to God. He is a missionary to extend the borders and boundaries of God's kingdom. He is an educator to cultivate the minds and souls of men in the Christian graces. To combine all these qualities is considered the finest kind of leader- ship known to men, and make one to be a prince of God among men. LAY LEADERSHIP NECESSARY TO ACCOMPLISH OUR TASK BY G. D. BATDORF A man is worth only as much as he is worth to his fellow-men. The permanent value of this great gathering will be measured by our ability and willingness to transmute its impassioned purposes and translate its radiant glories into actual experience and definite action among our people in the home churches^ to which we belong. The judgment of history has always divided the race of men into two classes, and thus honored or dishonored them. Religion classifies men into the good and the bad ; education into the learned and the ignorant; money into the rich and the poor; hygiene and medicine into the well and the sick ; and automobiles into the quick and the dead. In the work of the church it is also true that there are two classes ; those who lead and those who follow. Great multitudes in all our churches are willing to follow when the voice of authority calls them. The frequent failures in our work and the slow progress in the kingdom's advance are due not to the failure and indifference of the many, but to the failure of the few. It is here that the church hesitates and falters. The task of securing the right kind of leadership is one of our greatest problems. Its value and inevitableness must be recognized by those who are directly responsible for the development of the church's marvelous resources and the relating of her hidden powers to the unfinished tasks of the kingdom of God. THE MARKS OF THE LEADER A leader is a person who knows the way, and who bears in his character the marks of a divine passion and an intense human sym- Our Men and Their Task 137 pathy. He knows the deeper meaning of suffering, self-denial, self- sacrifice, and loneliness. While he goes before and always keeps in advance, his life is one with his brethren. He has the power of enabling other people to see what he sees, to feel what he feels, and to desire what he desires. The tug that pulls at his heart, the im- pulses and passions and purposes that move and sway him, are trans- mitted to others until the whole multitude feels the thrill of his lofty purposes and catches the gleam of his vision. The leader walks in the higher altitudes wdth God, and shares in the secrets of the Lord. His heart is daily burdened that all the rest may share in all these greater glories. ''Who best can drink his cup of woe. Triumphant over pain, Who patient bears his cross below. He follows in his train." The leader is the one whom others gladly follow in the enlarg- ing work of the church. For such a type of leadership the churches are calling. The program and policy of this Congress, as it will come before our denomination in all of its world-wide sweep, makes the need all the more urgent. Unless men shall be found to lead, the glowing vision remains untranslated and will fade away, and the passions and purposes will die without conquest. The crises in the history of nations in these marvelous days make this time significant above all times. Some one must discover from among the ranks of our membership, men and women who have the God- touched soul and relate them vitally to the conquering movements of the kingdom. EVERY LAYMAN A LEADER Work for men and by men has now come to have the first place. Too long the biggest end of the task was left to the women. They have faithfully fulfilled their devotion, and in the years of the cross's history and conquest, have fully atoned for that first place in the transgression which brought to the race our sin and all our woe. It is important that men take their rightful and responsible place in the kingdom of God. Dr. O. P. Gifford's witty paraphrase of Longfellow's familiar stanza is only too true. "In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of life, 138 Our Men and Their Task It is found that the average layman, Is represented by his wife." Men can and do lead. They lead their fellow-men into wrong, and they will lead them back to Christ and his service also. There is no greater winning force anywhere than men, men controlled in every fact and purpose of their being by the Spirit of the living God. There is need for a strong and an efficient lay leadership in personal evangelism ; in praying and giving ; in the introduction and application of sound and aggressive business methods in all the work of the church; in cultivating and deepening the spiritual life until it blooms and abounds ; in relating all our local congregations to world movements and world tasks. The historian Gibbon gives as his explanation for the rapid spread of Christianity in the early centuries, the fact that the individual Christian held himself respon- sible to spread the blessings which he had received, within the sphere of his daily calling. The laymen in the church of this cen- tury must make Christianity mean to this age what it meant in that age. Some of the strongest men in every church are practically doing nothing in the broader work of the kingdom. They attend church once a week, it may be, and make their contribution, but there it all ends. Is it any wonder that there is no enthusiasm and little joy in the Christian life? A man's life is his greatest asset, and this brings his greatest opportunity for service. Until his life flows out in service, he has withheld his best from God and the church. A JOB BIG ENOUGH FOR MEN God sets before men a great ideal of conquest. It is an inspir- ing thing to recall that our Lord is to become the crowned King of all the earth, and he calls to every man for a consecration of life and gifts commensurate with such an heroic objective. The best of life is attained, and sanctified human leadership rises to its greatest strength in the attempt to do what is difficult and in planning to achieve that which to all human reason and capacity is impossible. God calls men to gigantic enterprises and impels his children to ''will the immortal things," that the divine strength may crown the human answer so that greater works will be accomplished that the world may marvel. Our Men and Their Task 139 It is no easy task to which the Christian men of this generation are summoned. Our Lord never invited his disciples to an easy life. There v^as no hiding of the sharp, flinty rock, no softening of the deep shadov^, no gilding of the cross. He called them to a career of hardship, patient endurance, self-sacrifice, and the conquest of a world. Did they halt and hesitate? Did they ask to be released from their commission ? Nay ! Rather, that challenge aroused them and kindled their spirits into a burning passion and an inextinguish- able enthusiasm. History bears testimony that this appeal was not in vain. The program remains unchanged. The challenge is still the same. No other incentive is offered except that the task is big and difficult. God has given all of us hearts big enough to love and cherish the world. He has endowed us with intellects and capacities enough to plan successfully for the conquest of this whole planet for him. The world needs to be conquered, and men need a world to conquer. Big men must be attracted and their strength enlisted by big enter- prises. Our strongest men are enlisted only when a great challenge summons them. It takes a big thing to shock such men into atten- tion, arouse them into action, and bring them to the conquest. We must approach our men on the plane of the imperial magnitude of the work. Get them to "study larger maps," and bring them to speak and think in terms of world proportions. When men once see the sweep of these possibilities and feel the thrill and grip of their meaning, no man will be satisfied with less than God has planned. DEFINITE TASKS AND A VISION One of the essential things to do in the way of awakening an efficient leadership is to place definitely before men and the churches the statement of the whole church's program and responsibility. Our men are not perverse and stubborn. Most of them are sincerely seeking to make their life count for the most possible. When they are brought face to face with the church's responsibility, so that they see clearly, and the passion of it all consumes them, their co-oper- ation will have been secured and inevitably their lives will flow into the proper place of service and leadership. No better thing could possibly be done for many of our men than to bring them into direct touch with a conference such as this. 140 Our Men and Their Task The convictions and purposes, the visions and passion and objec- tives of this Congress will infinitely enrich every life that abides under its flow. It was in a gathering somewhat similar that one of God's great noblemen — a modest layman — found his true life and was made the enriching fountain of one of the mightiest religious movements of these times. In the Student Volunteer Convention at Nashville this young man sat and listened. His heart was thrilled and moved by the inspiration of that gathering. One night he saw one hundred young men and women give themselves to the work of foreign missions. Then he said to himself, *Tf the business men of America could see what I see and hear what I am hearing to-night, they would rise up at once and furnish the money and the life to evangelize the world." That night in that great convention, without any one else knowing it, an ordinary layman of large business abil- ity was changed into an extraordinary leader for God and the Lay- men's Missionary Movement was born. Every man can go home from this conference, and put the statement of our policy and re- sponsibility before his church in such a way as to kindle their hearts with the fire that burns in his own soul. With a vision of the ur- gency and opportunity and blessing which attend the divine plan, our laymen will no longer be satisfied with the littleness of their former life. THE LOCAL CHURCH AND THE PRESS Every local church, with its associated organizations, is an im- portant factor in discovering proper leadership. The church must create such an atmosphere as to secure proper direction and growth. Men are not full grown when they begin. One of the greatest tasks of the church is to grow men, fine in grain, large in faith and strength, and skilled in action. I know a young man, strong in his work for God, whose returning visits to his home church bear re- peated testimony that the vision of the world and its enlarging work, the growing responsibility and privilege of his own life, came to him through the local church in which he grew up. The denominational literature may exert a tremendous influ- ence in this direction. The recognized denominational organ, the official publications of every department of the Church must needs throb with the kingdom movements. With the large end of the Telescope toward the world, our responsibility will be seen in its Our Men and Their Task 141 true perspective, and all its readers will be gripped with the con- stant conviction that it is a world-wide work to which the increasing membership of our great denomination is called and commissioned. THE COLLEGES AND TRAINED LAYMEN To our colleges and other educational institutions, we must naturally look for trained leaders. It is the trained men and wo- men that must be counted on to become the leaders in their respec- tive churches and communities. These will co-operate with their pastors in lifting the church into the place of her true ministry. The Christian teacher is responsible for vastly more than the studies in which he instructs his pupils. The effectiveness of a student's life in after years, depends much upon the kind of touch that col- lege life brings to his character and inclination of service. Not only is this important, with reference to those who are applicants for holy orders, but it is just as vital for those who enter the other professions and business. Their conception of life must be as broad and unselfish as that of the minister. It is undoubtedly true that a large per cent, of college students relate themselves to life's tasks and accept their ideals permanently during school days ; hence the holy demand for the right kind of touch in these crucial days of a life. That is the time and place above all others, to impress young men and women with the seriousness of their discipleship, the impor- tance and responsibility of life as a divinely entrusted stewardship, and create the purpose to become co-workers with Christ for life in the enlarging scope of his kingly dominion. THE PASTOR AS A DEVELOPER OF MEN The place of the pastor in this task is unquestioned. In this, as in every other relationship of the church's activity, he is the piv- otal man. Such a standard of devotion and unselfishness must be upheld from the pulpit that the membership of the church will readily find their strong ideals of life centering in the career of Christian service as the natural outgrowth of their own devotion. Ruskin once said that the true purpose of civilization is the increas- ing realization of the value of men. The same is true in the church. Every plan, whether of God or of men, must include within its scope the fuller development of man. God cares more for a man than a plan. It is personalities that count for most. The pastor 142 Our Men and Their Task who finds and properly adjusts a man, or more, and leads his whole membership to take an adequate share in God's program for the world, has done infinitely more for the kingdom in its widest sweep than merely reporting his annual budget in full or building costly churches. LAYMAN AND THE RESURRECTION POWER With our enlarged conception of the greatness and imperial magnitude of our responsibility, must also go the glowing vision of the radiant and all powerful Lord. Without this, our service will degrade into a hopeless drudgery and the wheels of the church drag heavily in our hands. Through His cross and his risen life, he will make effective and thoroughly Christian every fact and relation- ship of our civilization, and bring under his kingly dominion all the nations of earth. His resurrection power transformed the peoples of Europe from pagans to Christians. That same power is conquer- ing North and South America for Christ. It has moved across ten thousand miles of Pacific waters and is knocking at the gates on the eastern shores of the last continent on this planet. Aye! The gates are already wide open, and the nations of Asia, two-thirds of the people of this earth, are welcoming this power as the sure answer to their deepest cry and the only guarantee of their true greatness and permanency. "Wider and wider yet The gates of the nations swing; Clearer and clearer still The wonderful prophecies ring; Go forth, ye hosts of the living God, And conquer the earth for your king!" AGENCIES NEEDED TO CALL OUT AND TRAIN LEADERS THE COLLEGE AS A FACTOR NEEDED TO CALL OUT AND TRAIN LEADERS BY W. E. SCHELL The success and perpetuity of the church depend upon the soki- tion of the problem of leadership. The future of civilization is also wrapped up in it, for the church not only is, and always has been, the main agency for the promotion of morality and religion, but it must also be relied upon to furnish the springs of Hfe and power for all other helpful institutions and movements. While the population of our country has increased about twenty per cent, within twelve years, and the membership of the Church has increased at about the same ratio, candidates for the ministry have decreased twenty-five per cent. This withering decrease in the ranks of the ministry is found in every Christian land, with the possible exceptions of Scotland and Scandinavia. The demand in quality is also far from being met. There is a distinctive and emphatic call for men of ability and gifts of leader- ship, men of strong physical constitution, men of mental power and studious habits, men of genuine religious experience, who are joined to Jesus Christ by a vital faith and an undying consecration ; men of heroism and filled with the passion of the cross. "The min- istry is the only profession which consists in being something," is the statement of President Wilson. Another has said, "If our reli- gion is to be great and do great things, it must be in the care of great souls." These shortages to which I have briefly referred, are not chargeable to God. "He is the rock ; his work is perfect, a God of truth and without iniquity; just and right is he." As he has put the oak in the acorn, the fruit in the blossom, so he has placed 143 144 Our Men and Their Task latent elements of leadership in men. The calling out and develop- ment of these elements must ever wait on human agencies. Among these agencies, indeed the most prominent and power- ful of them all, is the Christian college. Its ponderous influence is operative both in calling out and in training Christian leaders. Things follow their tendencies. Cause and effect will never be outlawed. Good seed in good soil, well tilled and accompanied with rain and sunshine and summer breeze in due proportion, in- sure a good crop. The good seed, the good soil, the good tillage, the favoring season, are all efficient causes operating toward the desirable end. In proportion as the efficiency of one or more of the causes may be reduced, in the same proportion are the results pared down. In the truly Christian college there is a genuine Christian at- mosphere, with showers of grace which are always the concomitants of God's presence among his people. The Word of God, which is the good seed of the kingdom, is magnified. It has a place in the curriculum and in the devotional Bible-study classes. It is read at the opening of the literary programs and has an honored place in the daily chapel service. Its truths are embodied in Zion's sweet songs and sung into the hearts of the students. The voice of prayer is as common almost as the voice of instruction. More potent still, I doubt not, is the influence of Christian teachers. A Christian college cannot be thought of apart from Christian teachers, men and women who love God and love the church, who are deeply impressed with the sacredness and suprem- acy of the Christian religion, who exalt the Christian life both in profession and practice, and who by precept and example set the ministerial office in its true light as the loftiest work to which human thought and effort can be given. In nearly all cases the head of the Christian college is himself a minister, and generally about half of the professors are ministers. It ought to be so, for by their very lives and example they com- mend the ministry to those who sit under their instruction. The minister who feels the glory of his calling and believes like Austin Phelps that to be a minister of the gospel is **a loftier honor than to be a prince of the royal blood," such a minister will influence others to follow in his footsteps. Our Men and Their Task 145 Now, add the influence of Christian students upon one another as they mingle in the classroom, the social and literary circle, and in the Christian organizations and associations. Many a young man in his early years has experienced the wooings of the Spirit toward the ministry. But it is kept a profound secret between him and his God. He withholds his surrender to the impression. But the years go by, he enters the Christian college and comes into close association with other young men who have had the same impres- sions and who have answered the call. What an immeasurable in- fluence is thus thrust into his Ufe to lead him out to a definite pur- pose to follow the divine promptings. The opportunities for Christian work in the Christian college constitute another strong trend toward leadership. These oppor- tunities are many. The various Christian organizations are manned by students. The offices and committees engage many. They have definite, Christian work to do. They are blessed in doing it and rewarded for it with that indescribable joy and peace with which God compensates unselfish service. Having a taste of it, they long for more. Thus many are inducted into active Christian work and helped forward to leadership in the ministry and in the laity. By no means the least among the forces operating in the Christian college to call out men for Christian leadership, is the reziral Christian colleges in all the ages have been centers of re- vival power. There are scores of men before me now who were converted in the Christian college revival, and scores of others who remember with deepest joy such seasons of grace. If I only had time to tell of these gracious occasions of refreshing from the pres- ence of the Lord which have been realized at Otterbein and Leander Clark and York and Westfield and Philomath and elsewhere in our own schools! These revivals that have won men and women to an acceptance of Jesus Christ have invariably called out souls for definite. Christian 'work. All down the pathway of the ages, re- vivals have been attended by an unbroken line of men entering the ministry and the mission field. College revivals have been especially fruitful in this respect. It is estimated that students led to Christ in one revival at Yale College, in the old days under President Dwight, in subsequent life won over fifty thousand others to enter the lists for Jesus Christ. I need only mention Williams College and Mark Hopkins, Oberlin and Finney, for the mere mention of 146 Our Men and Their Task these names calls up an array of facts which constitute indisputable arguments in support of the Christian college as a mighty factor in calling out Christian leaders. Statistics accentuate every word I have spoken and under-gird every argument I have produced. Statistics, wrought out at the expense of much time and careful study of the facts, show that nineteen out of twenty of our ministers, and practically all our missionaries, arrive by way of the Christian institution of learning. Certainly we must hare leaders in the laity as well as in the ministry, and I count it logical and safe to conclude that the Chris- tian college which exercises such an invading and far-reaching in- fluence in calling out ministerial leadership must also be potent in calling out lay leadership. The facts prove such a conclusion true. Marching at the front in the regiments of our King, there are thousands and tens of thousands of men and women whose bent and ability for leadership were discovered and called into action by the influences of the Christian college. It would be unreasonable to concede to such influences the mystic, transforming powers suf- ficient to silence the voices of the world, appeals of pleasure and wealth, and displace all the ambitions and expectations upon which youth are accustomed to feed with a decision once and for all to surrender the whole life to the Christian ministry, and not concede to the same influences sufficient power to lead to a lesser consecra- tion and the surrender of at least a part of life's time and energy to Christian work. Such argument would be based on the false promise that the whole is not as great as one of its parts. As an agency for training leaders, there can be no question about the Christian college. It is argued by the primary meaning of the word "college" — a place where a number of individuals unite in mature, systematic study. It is supported by the very concept of education — the drawing out, the development of the powers. By means of consecutive, systematic study in a favorable environ- ment and guided by good teachers, the soul powers are exercised and developed and tested and disciplined and trained and drawn out to full strength. Thus the soul is brought into possession of itself, into dominion over its own powers and capacities. By its own activity the slumbering majesty within is aroused and it as- cends to its own royal throne of power. The toys of childhood are thrown aside for the tools of a full-grown man. The real man. Our Men and Their Task 147 the soul, rises from dream and play to gird for the march of earn- est, serious life, and pushes from height to height, with each suc- ceeding day coming into more perfect harmony with the Divine, reflecting more fully his glory and comprehending better his works and his will, ever increasing in power for passive enjoyment and aggressive achievement. There is only one conclusion : That the Christian college is absolutely essential to the perpetuity of good government and the spread of the gospel throughout the world. Within its grasp are the issues of free institutions and the fate of our holy religion. It is our task to make our colleges thoroughly Christian and keep them so, to strengthen the Bible courses and add training courses for Christian work, the business of our King. It is our duty to send up to God from the secret place, from the family altar and from the sacred precincts of the temple, three hundred thousand petitions for our colleges every day of the world. Not without much prayer, much more than we have been offering, shall we be able to save the age for the Christian college and for our God. And it is our duty and our privilege to give our money to these institutions. We have scarcely touched the rim of our obligation in this particular. Only a few of us have attacked the problem. When will the whole army come out of their tents and take the field to give for Christian education, all give, give every year just as we do to other interests, and give largely our thousands and tens of thousands? I have heard it said that our people are a poor people. I deny it. We are not poor. But I tell you, a lot of us are going to be poor in the next world if we do not quit robbing God. We ought to be putting money into our educational institutions at the rate of two millions a quadrennium. That would only be an average of $1.65 a year for each member; less than half a cent a day. It is a shame that we United Brethren let Otterbein, our oldest school, labor and struggle and suffer for sixty-seven long years be- fore we squeezed out money enough to make her a standard insti- tition. Thank God, we did not let Leander Clark struggle and suffer quite so long in the process of reaching standard grade. Shall we have five standard institutions before the gavel falls at the next General Conference? Why not? We can do it, and live longer, and die happier, and go to a larger heaven. 148 Our Men and Their Task HOW TRAIN ALL THE STUDENTS IN OUR COLLEGES IN THE PRACTICAL WORK OF THE CHURCH IN WHICH THEY WILL BE EXPECTED TO BE LEADERS BY M. R. DRURY This topic is exceedingly fruitful in its suggestiveness. It tells us of students, young men and young women. It tells us of col- leges, centers of potent influence in character building and life mak- ing. It tells us that these young people are gathered into these institutions for a definite purpose, training. It tells us also that this training has a vital relation to the work of the church, an insti- tution with unequaled world relations and program. Furthermore the topic tells us that this training of young student life is for a certain, definite purpose, that of developing leaders possessed with skill and vision in forwarding the kingdom of God on the earth. It is the church's special prerogative to look out for young men and young women for the ministry and other fomis of Christian service, young people with physical health and intellectual and social gifts, and persuade them to enter its schools and courses of preparation for the largest possible service to the world. It is the church's business to persuade promising young men to consider the ministry as an inviting life-calling. They need to be warned against the growing commercialism in America. They need to be shown that God has use for all their splendid gifts in life-saving work. They need the vision which came so distinctly to Paul and to which he was not disobedient. The church has no more urgent duty, in the providence of God, and in view of the spirit of the age, than to look well to the sufficient supply and the adequate training of those who are to be the future leaders in the kingdom's advance. This it can do in no better way than by insisting on a thorough course of preparation, a preparation long and arduous, which, ac- cording to the ordinary standards involves nineteen years of study — eight years of elementary work, four years of secondary work, four years of college work, and three years of special training for the ministry in the seminary. This is the way and the only way, under the hand of God, for that complete training so essential to that possible leadership which the ministry offers. Our Men and Their Task 149 How are the colleges to furnish leaders in the practical work of the church, both in the ministry and in the ranks of lay service ? I would answer: 1. Our colleges, to train their students for the practical work of the church in which they are expected to be leaders, must be distinctly Christian in teaching and practice. This implies that in these institutions Qiristian ideals and principles shall dominate all activities and relations on the campus, on the athletic field, in the class-room, in the chapel exercises, and that everywhere there shall be a genuine religious attitude toward life. Here the primary ques- tions are those which center about God, prayer, personal responsi- bility, Jesus Christ, and the Bible. These things are elemental and in the atmosphere of their exaltation students find their life train- ing and proper growth so essential to sterling character and worth. There can be no better preparation for the practical work of the church than a liberal education in such institutions. Without an education of this type and under such influences, training must lack the highest aim and the master motive. As to the method of teaching morals and religion in order to secure the best training for life the instinctive basis of moral capabilities and ideas must not be overlooked. There are funda- mental instincts in the teaching of morals that must be reckoned with. Having this instinctive basis to begin with the teaching in our colleges should be with reference to the development of capa- bilities bestowed at birth. For, as Emerson has said, "The date of gifts is closed at birth." Education bestows no new gifts. It simply develops those only that are found in innate capacity. The vital problems of this development are inseparably related to the will. All other training is of little value if will training is neg- lected. Our young people must be so taught and trained that they shall not only be able to see the right, but that they will choose it and love it, not only while in school, but after they leave it. In this way it will be a principle and habit of life with the student to respect and obey the law and to endeavor to have others do like- wise. Without willing obedience to law, to rightful authority, education cannot be other than a farce and a failure. This is the education that results in the freedom of the human mind which is the necessary precursor of all true liberty and progress. Training of this sort is vital to practical results in the work of the church. 150 Our Men and Their Task And it is this training that brings all departments of human activ- ity, business, politics, international relations, social and industrial welfare, under the Christian standard of conduct. 2. The value of this training in our college is largely due to its continuity, to the continued emphasis which is put upon it through four or more years of study under Christian teachers and in an atmosphere conducive to the development of religious convic- tion and the spirit of service to fellow-men. Then, vitally con- nected with this training that is continuous and not spasmodic, is tlie influence and work of the church where the college is located. Much will depend on the character and ministry of the college pas- tor. He should be a prophet with clearness of vision and with dis- criminating wisdom and ability. He should be a preacher with a profound insight into spiritual truth and a teacher of sound judg- ment and poise. While preaching the great facts of Christianity which never change, his interpretations of these facts must be de- termined by the intelligence of the age. So he must be able to give the new interpretations of the unchanging fact that Christ died for our sins, suited to the experiences and life of to-day. He must know how to leave behind the theories that have been outgrown, and adapt the gospel message to the larger and grander times of the present. What a throne of opportunity and power the wakeful pastor of a college community occupies ! The Bishops, superintendents, and other church leaders should recognise the impotence of these student centers and see to it that they are provided with a preaching and pastoral service adequate and trustworthy. To furnish this is the church's supreme obli- gation and opportunity if it would fulfill its high mission as a spir- itual agency for the salvation of men. We must not forget that our young men and young women will not get the most out of Christian instruction and a wholesome and vigorous moral atmos- phere within the college apart from definite church relations and personal religious activities. As Dr. John R. Mott, world states- man and leader among college men, says, "The young man needs the church, not only for what it brings to him in facilitating his discovery of God and holding true communion with him, but also in order to promote symmetrical growth and faith and character. . . . In the church we best find our conscience ; we best quicken Our Men and Their Task 151 it; we keep it most sensitive; we best educate it; and if a man lose his conscience, he loses his best friend." Speaking out of very wide opportunities of observation in visit- ing colleges and universities in many lands, Mr. Mott says that in some of the most favored universities, Christian students are being starved; even the students that may attend compulsory chapel ex- ercises; even those who hear great sermons by leading clergymen of the foremost churches who come to these institutions with burn- ing messages. Why is this? Because these sermons, great and strong as they are, detached from each other, are lacking the con- tinuity and the progression that one finds in the church of his own parish, and, says Mr. Mott, referring to his own personal experi- ence, "I shall never cease to be grateful that in my university days I was enjoined, not only to attend a series of wonderful sermons, which I shall not forget to my dying day, . . . that I should attach myself to the particular parish of my communion in that community, and regularly attend its services. Young men are being kept from symmetrical, progressive growth, the result of not having known the ministries of the church." This is true specially in in- stitutions without church control or positive religious teaching and influences. To be trained in our colleges for the highest forms of Christian service does not necessarily mean training in all the numerous vari- eties and details of Christian activity. It means, however, to learn to think with discriminating wisdom, to act in terms of will, and to apply the principles of righteousness with purpose and courage to every-day life. Training that enables one to do these things, while broad and general, is nevertheless exceedingly practical, be- cause it furnishes the power for service that is easily adaptable to local conditions and particular needs. The training that is general, that insures a broad foundation, will enable one to build a super- structure of great beauty and strength involving every variety of detail and particularity. With this general preparation, vital and effective, there will certainly come to the disposition and ability for specific church activity. That is to say, if the students in our col- leges are given the proper vision, direction, and purpose for their life callings by the church and in the church, so that they prize its fellowships and co-operation in good works, they will surely be active and helpful in promoting the practical work of the church. 152 Our Men and Their Task The definite training of its members in character equipment and vision is a sure pledge of the church's activity and efficiency. So that I conclude that what is wanted for our college students is not so much training in the practical work of the church as it is a training for the practical work of the church whenever and wher- ever they may have the opportunity to engage in it. It is the train- ing which imparts the ability to minister in the spirit of the Master to the needs of humanity as conditions and circumstances permit. School training is not church training specifically, but it is training for future church activities. The church that has the right conception of its mission in this generation will be diligent and earnest in training its young people, who are to be its future members and leaders, to do its work ef- fectively and in devout loyalty to their Master, Jesus Christ. BONEBRAKE SEMINARY A NECESSARY AGENCY FOR CALLING OUT AND TRAINING LEADERS BY J. P. LANDIS A moment or two upon the scope and character and significance of our supreme calling of the ministry. The greatest character that this world has ever seen, who has trod this round globe of ours, was Jesus Christ, for he was the Son of man, he was the Son of God. The scroll of honor is a long one. God has been willing to grant us many great men, men strong of mind, strong of heart, strong of purpose, strong of will, and they have wrought mightily for the human race, and we do not willingly let their names die. We cherish their memory and the memory of their deeds. But there towers above all this long scroll a name that is supreme, which rises as far above them as the snow-capped mountains rise above the level of the plain ; or as the morning sun rising from behind the eastern horizon puts out of sight the won- drous stars that deck the night, so this name puts into the back- ground — puts out of sight all that great array of names that have blessed our race. It is, of course, the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of man, the Son of God. Our Men and Their Task 153 THE GREATEST INSTITUTION ON EARTH The greatest institution, the greatest order of which we can think, is the kingdom of God. It is the kingdom of heaven; it originated in heaven. It originated in the thought and heart of God, and the same principles that govern there are to govern here. God has but one kingdom. King George V. may have his capital in England, in London; his palace is there; his scepter is there; but he rules just as surely in AustraHa and in parts of Africa and portions of Asia and in some islands of the sea as he does in England. The capital of God may be beyond the stars, beyond the skies ; the crown may be there ; the seat of Jesus may be there, but he is just as truly here in earth; his kingdom is just as surely here as there. He left heaven to begin his kingdom, and then he committed the work to us and commissioned us with that compre- hensive commission, ''Disciple all the nations of the earth; baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." THE GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD The greatest book on the face of the earth is the Bible. It brings before us the greatest themes, and the most comprehensive, that can enter the human mind. It talks to us of God. The most important information that we can have is not a knowledge of geom- etry, nor a knowledge of grammar, it is not a knowledge of arith- metic or of science or philosophy — it is the knowledge of God. I say this not for buncombe; it is true. It is a knowledge of God, not about God, but a knowledge of God himself. And God is re- vealed to us in the Bible as he isn't anywhere else, and the qualities of God, the attributes of God, such as the love of God, the benev- olence of God — all these are brought before us in a most affecting and effective way through the Word of God. Christ being the greatest character that ever trod the face of the earth, and having instituted the greatest order upon the face of the earth, the most powerful, the most influential, he has also put into our hands as ministers of the gospel this great textbook with these greatest of all themes, to teach them to the people of God — not simply to tell them about God, but to bring the truth home to their intelligence, home to their hearts, home to their wills, and by force of the truth itself, backed up by the Spirit of God, compel men to a knowledge and an obedience of the truth in Jesus Christ. 154 Our Men and Their Task THE GREATEST MISSION ON EARTH That is the vision of ministers in part; the greatest vision of the greatest work that could be given to man. It is great to dis- cover a continent. It is a great thing to invent a locomotive. It is a great thing to write poetry. It is a great thing to be an orator and sway the multitudes. It is a greater thing to be a minister of the gospel. It is the greatest work, the mightiest work, the sweetest work, the divinest work, the most heavenly work that God Almighty himself could give men to do. We ought to appreciate that, men; not to make us haughty and domineering, but to bring us upon our knees and to be grateful, and not to go back on it by anything we do, and not to bring it into disrepute, and not to weaken its power in any way. THE NECESSARY TRAINING FOR THE MINISTRY Now, I believe with those who preceded me, that nobody can do what he ought to do, the work to wliich he is called, effectively, without getting ready for it. He should make preparation. He must prepare and train for it, and know the broad plan and purpose of God. This specific institution which I am simply to mention to you is to help get men ready for this great vision and work. Not everybody goes to college and not everybody goes to the theological seminary, but we all must make preparation. We all must study. We all must consecrate ourselves. We all must have the knowl- edge of the Word. We all must have the power of God in us, and whether we get to college or the seminary or not, we must make this preparation. You believe it, the church believes it. The United Brethren Church has provided the means for preparing for it. All the churches do that. The Catholic Church has done it ; the Meth- odist, the Presbyterian, the Congregationalist, the Baptist, and the rest, have all made provisions of this sort. And moreover, the United Brethren years ago established a quarterly conference read- ing study course, first a two-years' study course, and then a three- years' study course, and now we have a four-years' study course. They founded colleges to help men to get ready for the ministry. Then it entered into the hearts of certain men to build a seminary, and over there it is. But we cannot do all this work, because all the Church must help ; men have to do it on their knees. But this institution, which in the Providence of God has been founded, can Our Men and Their Task 155 give great assistance, great help in getting the men who will come to us ready for this purpose. Send to us men with heads, men who have brains. Send to us men who have hearts, men who mean to do something, men who aspire to accomplish noble things, and then, by the grace of God, we may do something for them. But don't send us men who have no brains ; don't send us men who have no hearts, or men who are simply ambitious. Don't send us men who are too lazy to work, but send us men from whose fingertips there flashes off energy, and if we can't do anything for them we will shut up shop. Now, look here, brethren, I am not one of those who woul