mm riiK church 
 
 KEEDY 
 
 
 
DEO ?? 1920 
 
 BV 4501 .K4 19lT 
 Keedy, Edward K. 1869-1931 
 The_ exceeding worth of 
 joining the church 
 
THE EXCEEDING WORTH 
 OF JOINING THE CHURCH 
 
 BY 
 
 . DEC 29 1920 
 EDWARD E. KEEDY 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE NATURALNESS OF CHRISTIAN LIFE' 
 "moral LEADERSHIP AND THE MINISTRY" 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 HORACE WORTH COMPANY 
 
 1918 
 
Copyright igi8 
 By Edward E. Keedy 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I This Little Book is Introduced to the 
 Reader 5 
 
 II Human Need Brings the Church Into 
 
 Being 12 
 
 III Public Confession is Required in Other 
 Relations < 14 
 
 IV Joining the Church Exalts a Deliber- 
 ate Conclusion as Over Against Mere 
 Circumstance or Caprice 24 
 
 V Joining the Church Does not Create 
 Obligations ; it Recognized the Obliga- 
 tions that Already Exist 31 
 
 VI To Confess Christ is Perhaps the 
 
 Greatest Service One Can Render . . 39 
 
 VII Who are Fit for Church Membership 43 
 
 VIII Saints Outside of the Church ... 50 
 
 IX Public Confession of Christ is the Best 
 Test of That Loyalty Which Makes 
 THE Christian 56 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 X At Some More Convenient Season . . 60 
 
 XI The Terrible Consequence of Insincer- 
 ity IN Settling a Question .... 82 
 
 XII Fear of Others May Take the Place of 
 
 Our Own Honest Conviction ... 86 
 
 XIII Once the Start is Made, Church-Mem- 
 bership IS Full of Delights .... 88 
 
The Book Introduced to the Reader 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THIS LITTLE BOOK IS INTRODUCED TO 
 THE READER 
 
 This little book is put into the reader's hands 
 through the interest of several men, acting as 
 they believe upon a prompting of God. For 
 God still lives, and still works. So true is it 
 that God's part in our lives is one of the most 
 significant things about them, that our good 
 intentions, and good feelings, and good 
 deeds, coming to being in us — like some 
 great teacher's knowledge coming to being 
 in his pupils — are of his prompting. If 
 then, for example, men in common life con- 
 vey a message to other men by means of let- 
 ters and booklets, it is not likely that God be 
 so stupid a manager as not to use the chance 
 there is in some little book He has caused to 
 be written and put into the hands of one 
 whose heart He has opened. If in business 
 affairs, men are moved to action by even an 
 advertisement — great businesses being built 
 up through the use of print — it would seem 
 as if God could not be so stupid as not to 
 
 [ 5 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 know what business men know so well, nor 
 knowing it, that He would be so careless as 
 not to use it. No, reader, doubt not that God 
 working his purpose through men, has put 
 this book into your hands. 
 
 If there came into your hands a booklet 
 claiming to be from some great business cor- 
 poration with a message of financial gain, 
 you would give it attention and time, weigh 
 its claim and its message. There is asked for 
 this little book the same candid considera- 
 tion. You ma}^ be inclined to put it aside 
 unread and unconsidered. But you would 
 stand condemned if you had to acknowledge 
 to yourself that you who give sincere and 
 eager attention to a proposition concerning 
 making money, had given short unheeding 
 shrift to the message of those claiming to 
 speak for God. More likely however, is it, that 
 the same Mind that has brought this message 
 into your hands will prompt you to consider 
 the message and weigh the claims of those 
 bearing it, and there be given by that decision 
 to deal candidly with the matter, proof both 
 that God is speaking to you, and that you are 
 giving an honest answer. 
 
 The matter brought to you with this high 
 
 [ 6 ] 
 
The Book Introduced to the Reader 
 
 claim has to do with your becoming a mem- 
 ber of the Church. For consider that God, 
 
 He would deserve utmost contempt, who, giving all needed 
 time and serious attention to proposals for making money, had 
 given short unheeding shrift to the proposals of those claim- 
 ing to speak for God. 
 
 should He speak to you, would be likely to 
 concern Himself with something like this. 
 The character of the message brought, there- 
 fore, favors the claim with which the book is 
 introduced to you, and bespeaks from you a 
 serious welcome. 
 
 It may perchance be that you do not care 
 to know what God desires to speak to you 
 
 [ 7 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 about this. You may have no interest in 
 the matter, nor care to be reminded of duty. 
 But surely if there be a God at all, the great 
 thing is not so much what you want to hear, 
 as what He wants to speak. He speaks to 
 many a man who would rather not hear Him, 
 as responsibility holds fast many a man who 
 has tried to escape it. To do what one 
 would like to do and not what one ought to 
 do, would be as if in a great business, the of- 
 fice boy should boss the manager. No; to 
 order life rightly is greater business than to 
 have what is pleasant, and no man, without 
 disaster, can turn the management of his 
 life over to the mere liking in him. For 
 somehow this sense of ought in us fits in 
 with all the things of life and of the world, 
 just as that other sense which we know as 
 sanity fits in without confusion with all 
 things. What God has to say always an- 
 swers to something that is deep in us. It 
 never violates our reason or our conscience. 
 If this little book speaks to your conscience 
 and to your intelligence, that too, is proof 
 that it is from God. 
 
 You may of course now close the book and 
 deliberately avoid the consideration of the 
 
 [ 8 J 
 
The Book Introduced to the Reader 
 
 whole matter. That, however, does not 
 change anything. It is only as if one closed 
 
 "To do what one would like to do, and not what one ought to 
 
 do, would he as if in a great business, the office boy should 
 
 boss the manager." 
 
 his eyes to things. The things would not 
 change. We can avoid the consideration of 
 the advice of the doctors, and the laws of the 
 State, and the laws of health, and the word 
 of the Bible, and the claims of the Church, 
 
 [ 9 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 and that we are in debt, and the judgment of 
 God. But to live in disregard of these things 
 
 That we keep ourselves from knowing the facts is no escape 
 from them. By tying our eyes shut we can keep things from be- 
 ing seen, but it does not change them, nor blot them out. Bet- 
 ter a thousand times, a square look at things as they are, than 
 any ignoring them. 
 
 does not blot them out of existence; it is only 
 to keep them out of sight. That the adul- 
 terer does not look within does not make him 
 less an adulterer — it only keeps him from 
 seeing himself. The mariner by ignoring 
 the compass and chart, removes no rocks 
 from the sea. To avoid thinking about death 
 
 [ lo ] 
 
The Book Introduced to the Reader 
 
 does not prevent its approach. Not to con- 
 sider the claims of the Church is to prove 
 none of them untrue — it is only to keep one 
 from seeing things as they are. For things 
 are as they are and not what anyone in his 
 unthinking v^ants them to be. Thus, the 
 only safety lies in squarely facing them and 
 honestly considering them. 
 
 [ II ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HUMAN NEED BRINGS THE CHURCH 
 INTO BEING 
 
 The Church is simply a group of Christian 
 persons organized for work. God has a pur- 
 pose that He wants fulfilled in the world. He 
 is not a stupid manager who cannot see what 
 effort will do — organized effort; can see it 
 quite as well as our captains of industry see 
 it. The Church is here by the same necessi- 
 ty for those careful adjustments of each per- 
 son to the whole, that exists in the army, in 
 business, in the family, and in the State. 
 Whether it be building a railroad, or found- 
 ing a State, or overcoming an invader, the 
 prime necessity is that men merge individual 
 effort, get together, and give each other loy- 
 alty. The more intensely men feel the pas- 
 sion to get something done, the more do they 
 feel the necessity of getting together. Men 
 do not go their separate, unrelated ways in 
 an industry, nor in an army, nor in a family, 
 nor in" a State. The manager of a mill mar- 
 shals every man, gives him his place, and his 
 
 [ 12 ] 
 
Need Brings the Church into Being 
 
 responsibility, relates his effort to the whole 
 purpose, and sees that he is productive. In 
 time of war, the State is all the closer or- 
 ganized for effectiveness, every man being 
 given his station and his work. On the 
 farm, the "hands" do not carry on each a 
 separate and unrelated enterprise, but order 
 their labor to the common end. So amply 
 vindicated on every hand, it would seem that 
 this same necessity for organization would 
 be likely to be insisted upon all the more 
 positively in the Church of God. God asks 
 not only that we serve Him, but that in our 
 loyalty we serve Him in the manner in 
 which we may accomplish the most. 
 
 [ 13 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PUBLIC CONFESSION IS REQUIRED IN 
 OTHER RELATIONS 
 
 It is likely that you, reader, are already try- 
 ing to serve God. It may be however, that 
 you are trying to serve Him secretly and in- 
 dividually. You attend church services, 
 you associate with God's people, you have a 
 purpose to do good works, you contribute to 
 the support of the Church, you maintain, it 
 may be, the habit of prayer, and you are try- 
 ing to be loyal to Christ. But the Church 
 has never countenanced secret discipleship. 
 It has always insisted upon public confes- 
 sion. Christ himself insisted upon it, and 
 for the best reasons. If one really desires 
 to work for Christ — and without this de- 
 sire one cannot be a Christian — he will be 
 impelled to join the Church with the same in- 
 evitableness with which men with a common 
 purpose come together in a partnership, 
 lovers in marriage, pupils in a school, and 
 soldiers in an army. And if in a community 
 without a Church, there were a number of 
 
 [ 14 ] 
 
Public Confession Elsewhere 
 
 persons with a common purpose to serve 
 Christ, a Church would inevitably come to be. 
 The Church is here with the same inevitable- 
 ness with which the State is here; it is here 
 with the same inevitableness with which the 
 family is here; it is here with the same in- 
 evitableness with which organized business 
 is here; it is here with the same inevitable- 
 ness with which the school is here. A Church 
 is the partnership of those in a community 
 who are in earnest in doing something for 
 Christ. 
 
 First the Christian and then the Church. 
 Just as first the love and then the marriage. 
 Marriage does not make two persons love. 
 No; their loving makes them be married. 
 Marriage is the expression of their love, not 
 its cause. Marriage is an expression of love, 
 but why does the State insist upon a public 
 expression of it? Why may it not be a pri- 
 vate and secret matter between the two per- 
 sons chiefly concerned ? Because secret mar- 
 riages do not hold. The fidelity that is only 
 secretly promised, to begin with, is not 
 hearty — else it would not ask concealment — 
 slips into weakness, and then ceases to be. 
 The mere intention, if not made definite and 
 
 [ 15 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 a matter of deed, grows hazy and vague. We 
 understand this perfectly in business, where 
 in practice, — though a man's intention and 
 word are perfectly honorable — that secret, 
 intangible intention and word are for his own 
 better keeping, made to become formal and 
 concrete. Better that the agreement be put 
 into writing, and become as we say, "a bond," 
 that is, something that binds; or a ''deed," 
 that is, something done. Suppose for a mo- 
 ment, two persons loving each other, only 
 secretly took the vows of marriage, and se- 
 cretly became man and wife. Now that se- 
 crecy means, to begin with, that rather than 
 brave some obstacle, they will give up their 
 love. There is thus no real faithfulness to 
 begin with. And when this love grows cold, 
 and disagreements strain this secret bond, 
 this love does not hold. The purpose of two 
 such persons, even though clear and strong 
 at first, under the desire for freedom, grows 
 shadowy and vague. Yows thus made, even 
 with elect persons, become much as none at 
 all. 
 
 Publicity in marriage, on the other hand, 
 is proof of utmost fidelity to begin with, tends 
 to keep marriage sacred and to make the 
 
 [ i6 J 
 
Public Confession Elsewhere 
 
 bond secure. The State knows this, and 
 compels publicity in marriage. Secret mar- 
 riage would mean not marriage, but free love. 
 A man's own wavering purpose is in fact es- 
 tablished by the expectation of the public. 
 His own dulled conscience is sharpened by 
 the conscience of the public. Even our 
 laws with their penalties, add their whole- 
 some restraint. Many a man sorely tempted 
 to break his marriage vows, has thus been 
 steadied in the day of temptation, who but 
 for the restraint inseparable from a pub- 
 lic conscience, would have done what would 
 have been to his everlasting shame. Save for 
 something broader than individual whim, 
 something realer than secret intention, soci- 
 ety would not hold together. In publicity 
 we put behind us the stronger and realer con- 
 sciousness of the community. The strong 
 bear the burdens of the weak. 
 
 Even our rationality, or sanity, is a com- 
 mon standard, and is not a thing isolated 
 and individual. It is something public, com- 
 munal, and conjoint. Cutting loose from 
 this, in that extreme individuality which is 
 more than queerness, one comes to the in- 
 sane asylum. Conscience too, according to 
 
 [ 17 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 its name (con — together; science — knowl- 
 edge) is the standard of a group. It is not 
 individual, but joint knowledge. "No man 
 liveth unto himself, and no man dieth un- 
 to himself." Together we stand, apart each 
 falls. Many a man in the Church has re- 
 covered himself after the evil day, who had he 
 been living as a secret disciple, would have 
 permanently fallen away. In the Church, 
 the expectation and the faith of others make 
 the wheels of purpose and love go round, 
 when the power within us for the time has 
 failed. We recover ourselves, and live in 
 future time, to give, like Peter of old, good 
 proof of our fidelity. 
 
 Alone, a man's own purpose as a matter of 
 fact, becomes vagrant and feeble. The ne- 
 cessity of making public one's purpose to fol- 
 low Christ, lies in the fact that alone and in 
 secret a man cannot hold fast his faith. 
 
 Belonging to an army, many a soldier has 
 endured every travail, ^even weakness been 
 glorified by high loyalty, who had he been 
 fighting alone would have forsaken the cause. 
 In some evil day, his heart and his flesh would 
 have failed. In actual experience even veteran 
 soldiers are enrolled and are not left to the 
 
Public Confession Elsewhere 
 
 perils of their own timorous caprice. Great is 
 the soldier who is caught up in the established 
 
 "Great is the soldier who is caught up in the established and 
 
 common loyalty of his corps — a bigger and an intenser thing 
 
 than his own vacillating weakness." 
 
 and common loyalty of his corps, a bigger and 
 an intenser thing than his own vacillating 
 weakness. Save for this, few soldiers would 
 stand. If a nation should engage in war on 
 the basis of secret and individual soldiering, it 
 by this course would doom its most right- 
 eous cause and all its agony of sacrifice to 
 
 [ 19 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 failure, while by united action it might bring 
 even a base purpose to triumph. The Church, 
 in insisting upon open and definite identifi- 
 cation with it, does just what the army does. 
 It has the the same serious earnestness, it 
 knows the same secret, has shared the same 
 experience, and has for insistence upon pub- 
 licity the same reasons. 
 
 This is the secret of all glorified life. In 
 the family we put behind the individual, the 
 loyalty and love of the group, and rest back 
 upon a common strength. Children are 
 guided by a wisdom and will greater than 
 their own, and but for these they would fall 
 into the ways of folly. Blessed is the hus- 
 band to whose strength is added the faith and 
 expectation of his wife, and blessed is the fa- 
 ther who in his children, has high motive 
 to do valiantly. In turn they hope for him 
 when he cannot hope for himself, and when 
 he of himself would fall, they enable him to 
 stand. In the school no one pupil makes the 
 atmosphere that broods the place and cre- 
 ates in the coldest a desire for knowledge. 
 
 The Church finds its power in this same 
 mutual momentum. Here the pull and the 
 push of a surer body is with us. We get up- 
 
 [ 20 ] 
 
Public Confession Elsewhere 
 
 on the mighty current of that faith and hope 
 and love which is the presence of Christ in 
 the Church. We require in the Church for 
 its success just what we require elsewhere, 
 and for the same reasons. ''Where the 
 Church is, there is the Spirit of God," and by 
 the same inevitableness where the Spirit of 
 God is, there the Church will come into be- 
 ing. It comes into being with the same cer- 
 tainty withwhich love brings the family into 
 being, and a common loyalty the army. We 
 tie ourselves up to a purpose and strength 
 greater than our own. We close ourselves 
 in by the seal of a will that is not wholly our 
 own; a will as mighty as God's. 
 
 It is much as shepherds do with their sheep. 
 Sheep are weak and silly creatures, quite un- 
 able to choose for and to protect themselves. 
 So shepherds put them into the fold. There 
 they are safe. In like manner do we give 
 ourselves over under the will that is not 
 wholly at the mercy of our foolish and va- 
 grant caprice. In a day of vision and re- 
 solve, we make the future secure by delib- 
 erately putting up bars against our short- 
 sighted and foolish desires. We choose for 
 ourselves what the shepherd in his wisdom 
 
 [ 21 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 chooses for his sheep. A sheep with the 
 shepherd is greater than the sheep without 
 
 He who is seriously in earnest, in a day of wise discerning, 
 
 puts up harriers against any desire to go back to the way he 
 
 has condemned. 
 
 him. And a man in the Church is greater 
 than the man outside of it. Just as a soldier 
 in the army is greater than the soldier out- 
 side of it. Just as a boy in a school is greater 
 than the boy outside of it. 
 
 Serious minded and earnest persons will 
 not refuse to put their safety above their self- 
 will and pride, nor hesitate to take the great 
 
 [ 22 ] 
 
Public Confession Elsewhere 
 
 step that will put them upon a current, 
 which, mighty where their own good motives 
 are but weak, will carry them to God. This 
 is just what becoming a member of the 
 Church secures one in, just as becoming a 
 soldier in an army lifts one into a man great- 
 er than otherwise he could be. 
 
 [ 23 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 JOINING THE CHURCH EXALTS A DELIBER- 
 ATE CONCLUSION AS OVER AGAINST 
 MERE CIRCUMSTANCE OR CAPRICE 
 
 The restraint involved in this absorption 
 into a firmer w^ill is good, and is no greater in 
 the Church than it is elsew^here. Restraint 
 is the necessary good thing in every relation. 
 By it we shift from the basis of what we want 
 to do, to the basis of what we ought to do, 
 and from the basis of mere caprice to the 
 basis of deliberate and far-sighted purpose. 
 We put ourselves under it in school, and take 
 as the pupil's greatest privilege the restraint 
 the teacher is to us. To do there as we please 
 would annul the value of the school, place 
 us at the mercy of our ignorance and caprice, 
 and set us adrift in lawless ways. When you 
 do not rob a man you have but put restraint 
 upon yourself, and done, not what you might 
 prefer to do, but what you ought to do. 
 Restraint is the bar we put up in marriage 
 against our wayward affections, and by it 
 we are kept in the evil day. In all govern- 
 
 [ 24 ] 
 
Exalts Purpose Over Mere Caprice 
 
 ment we voluntarily put restraint upon our- 
 selves, and hedge ourselves about by con- 
 
 "When you do not rob a man you have but put restraint upon 
 
 yourself, and done, not what you might prefer to do, but 
 
 what you ought to do." 
 
 stitution and law^. Indeed, the v^hole prog- 
 ress of the race is measured by its self-im- 
 posed restrictions. 
 
 Restraint at any rate is laid upon us by 
 the will of God, and whether or not we al- 
 low His will to be ours, His sway is over 
 us. We have no right to a freedom that is 
 larger than the freedom that is ours when we 
 
 [ 25 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 come into fellowship with Christ and enter 
 into the fold of the Church. Anything taken 
 that this disallows is taken in license and is 
 not lawful, and is here the same crazy will 
 that licentiousness is elsewhere. When we 
 are rich in wisdom and faith, on that high 
 day when the glory of God's purpose for us 
 shines within us — a day whose clear bright- 
 ness does not always shine — on that great 
 day, by a public profession of our purpose of 
 loyalty, we bind ourselves under the restraint 
 of the common conscience, and are drawn up 
 by the pull of it to a personal conscious fel- 
 lowship with God. Just as the child takes 
 with gladness the parent's love, and the sol- 
 dier takes the spirit and discipline of the 
 army, and the husband the restraint it is 
 even his delight to feel; and just as even the 
 colt, surrendering its wild will to its master, 
 lives to know higher delights than any of- 
 fered by its untamed nature, — just so every- 
 where the laying restraint upon our affec- 
 tions and wills in accord with the Christian 
 conscience and our own deliberate purpose, 
 is the way to greatness. 
 
 It is a great day when the child is born 
 under that love, and a great day when the 
 
 [ 26] 
 
Exalts Purpose Over Mere Caprice 
 
 pupil enters the school, and a great day when 
 the man vows his faithfulness in marriage, 
 and a great day when the outlaw becomes a 
 citizen, and a great day when whosoever will 
 comes to Christ and into the Church of 
 Christ. He is in real earnest in the great 
 business of life, and will not shrink from the 
 step that binds him under the good purpose 
 that today is begot in him. It will seem to 
 him only real wisdom, if having got across 
 into this good country, he burn, against the 
 danger of disgraceful retreat, all bridges be- 
 hind him. That man can hardly be in ear- 
 nest, who taking up the cross of Christ, will 
 make sure that there be for him a way by 
 which he can back out if such vagrant desire 
 should tempt him, like the man in the Gos- 
 pel, who, putting his hand to the plough, 
 looks back where his heart is. A man who is 
 as divided as that, however he may say his se- 
 cret purpose to himself, is simply not fit for 
 the Kingdom of God. He is not fit, because 
 being divided and not loyal, he is not in ear- 
 nest, is insincere and counterfeit, and 
 will not endure. He who will not let 
 his marriage be known is doubtless thinking 
 he may want the release to which publicity 
 
 [ 27 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 will stand in the way. His love is not en- 
 tire, not genuine, and is not love. He who 
 wants to fight as an independent soldier, is 
 doubtless thinking he may want to desert 
 the cause and go home. He is putting some- 
 thing before love of country. The really 
 earnest disciple will bind himself with a thou- 
 sand bonds if only thereby his wayward, un- 
 certain self can be bound fast. The true 
 lover will pledge his troth "in the sight of 
 God and in the face of this company," if on- 
 ly that will establish his heart against the 
 thought of evil. Just so in business, a really 
 honest man in the day of his calm intention, 
 puts a bond as a barrier in the way of any 
 persuasion to dishonesty in the evil day. 
 When a man openly confesses Christ, and 
 by uniting with the Church, binds himself 
 fast to a stronger purpose and love than his 
 own, we know that he means something. 
 Undivided, and the whole way through loy- 
 al to Christ, he, by the faith that holds when 
 his own fails, will endure through all trial 
 and to the end. 
 
 Once taken, such a firm decided stand is 
 of immense value to one in dealing with 
 himself. Save for some such decisive step, 
 
 \ 28 1 
 
Exalts Purpose Over Mere Caprice 
 
 sealing the purpose once for all and setting 
 the momentum of high action going, one 
 raises again and again the question of "which 
 side?", goes again and again in debate over 
 the same ground, fights the same unslain 
 enemies again and again, and in vacillation 
 is at the mercy of whatever caprice can pre- 
 vail. Taking no open decisive stand, we do 
 not stay put in one place, do not belong to 
 either side, vacillate back and forth in inde- 
 cision, put off and put off the taking that 
 first and open step which making an end of 
 wavering, starts one under mighty impulse, 
 at the real beginning of the way to God. We 
 easily fall away from the choice we have not 
 openly expressed and sealed. Made only 
 mentally, a choice is so lightly made as to 
 leave little or no trace of its having been 
 made at all. Our secret vows are lightly 
 kept. Private, secret promises, proclaim their 
 futility in all the unredeemed hidden pledges 
 with which many a past is full. On the con- 
 trary in joining the Church, we have had 
 not a mere emotion for a beautiful deed — 
 we have instead done a deed, and under cir- 
 cumstances of such high moment, that an 
 actual rut, with depth and length, is made on 
 
 [ 29 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 the brain. The purpose is now committed 
 to even a physical basis. It is on the brain 
 as truly as a rut is in a road. A secret, 
 private resolve, on the other hand, having no 
 such advantage, fades quickly out of the 
 memory. It has made no impression, has 
 left no trace of itself — is much as if it had 
 not been at all. 
 
 30 
 
Does Not Create Obligation 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 JOINING THE CHURCH DOES NOT CREATE 
 OBLIGATIONS— IT RECOGNIZES THE OB- 
 LIGATIONS THAT ALREADY EXIST 
 
 It is however the strictness of obligation 
 inseparable from an open identification with 
 the Church, that is to some the objection to 
 membership in it. Many persons feel that 
 outside of the membership of the Church 
 they have a right to do what they could not 
 do if they were members of it. 
 
 It is of course a fallacy. No man's 
 acknowledging a thing to be obligatory is 
 what makes it obligatory. Duty is not made 
 by recognizing it any more than the sun is 
 made by beholding it. The laws of health, for 
 example, are bars put up against us, and 
 much as we desire to have it otherwise, we 
 have here no liberty to claim. The Ten Com- 
 mandments are laws just as much to those 
 who reject them as to those who acknowl- 
 edge them, just as poison acts with the same 
 deadliness upon those who do not know that 
 it will kill, as it does upon those who do. 
 
 [ 31 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 Gravitation is not made operative by our 
 knowing the lav^ of its working. Fire burns 
 whether the child knows it or not; its burn- 
 ing does not depend upon his knowing. 
 Those who do not promise to follow Christ 
 are under obligation to follow Him. Is a 
 citizen free to break law if only he does not 
 promise not to break law? He who has not 
 promised not to steal, is he free to steal? 
 His promising to keep himself pure, is this 
 what obliges a man to be pure? Is a man 
 free to get drunk if only he has not signed 
 the pledge? Ah no. Signing a pledge is a 
 recognition of the obligation of temperance 
 already existing; it is not what creates the 
 obligation. And breaking a pledge is not 
 the only sin. Indeed to break it may be no 
 more wicked than not to take it. 
 
 Let us not be deceived about this. The 
 promises we make when we come into the 
 Church are not what create obligation. 
 These promises are a recognition of and a 
 confession of obligations that already exist. 
 They exist even if they are not recognized. 
 For obligation is made not by promises given, 
 but by benefits, talents, capacities, powers, 
 received. If you can show the court that the 
 
 [ 32 ] 
 
Does Not Create Obligation 
 
 complainant gave you nothing in exchange 
 for the note he claims is your promise to pay, 
 no court will give him judgment against you. 
 If in your absence from your house, another 
 moves in and occupies it, even though he has 
 never agreed to pay you anything, you can 
 collect from him according to reasonable 
 equity, a just and fair rent. Agreeing to pay 
 is not what makes financial obligatioUc It 
 is a fair presumption of one's having received 
 value. But if you lose your debtor's note, 
 and no promise of his to pay can be proved, 
 you can without doubt get judgment, if it 
 can be proved that the claim covers services 
 you rendered. 
 
 Accepting responsibility is not what makes 
 responsibility. Promising to do right is not 
 what puts one under obligation to do right. 
 Men are not free to do as they please, if only 
 they have not named the name of Christ. Do 
 you think that Herod, by setting Christ at 
 naught, freed himself of all responsibility? 
 
 Does God, do you think, have to wait till 
 we acknowledge His law to have authority 
 over us ? Will He judge only those who con- 
 fess Him ? Or will he rather judge the whole 
 world? Will He judge the Church by a dif- 
 
 [ 33 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 ferent standard from that by which he judges 
 the world? If wishing could do so much, it 
 might be expected that it could make the 
 scales weigh as we would. But they weigh 
 according to great gravitation, and not ac- 
 cording to our wishing. Do you think Peter 
 was more guilty for denying Christ after he 
 became a disciple, than Pilate was for deny- 
 ing Him once for all by not becoming a dis- 
 ciple? Is a son who sometimes grieves his 
 father at home, more guilty than a son who 
 once for all, denies his father by running 
 away? Surely the pupil's willingness that 
 the teacher rule is not what invests the teach- 
 er with his authority. Surely in the form- 
 er time it was not the slave's consent 
 that gave the master ownership. Indeed 
 we are so little our own that about many 
 things we have nothing to say; in spite of 
 our protest death comes and takes us. All 
 alike are under the law of Christ, they who do 
 not believe on Him as surely as those who do. 
 Unbelief, — the denial of responsibility — so 
 far from setting us free from obligation, is 
 the sin that includes all other sins. He who 
 by one deliberate denial once for all rejects 
 Christ, is by that unbelief, chief of sinners. 
 
 t 34 ] 
 
Does Not Create Obligation 
 
 So far from its being a freedom from respon- 
 sibility, unbelief is just the thing for which 
 one is responsible. 
 
 One is responsible for his unbelief. This 
 is Christ's teaching. He says of the Spirit, 
 "he, when he is come, will convict the world 
 
 in respect of sin, of sin, because they 
 
 believe not on me." ^ 
 
 The good man who threw himself into the 
 water to save the child, though he failed to 
 save him, is yet greater than he who from his 
 place of safety, would not see his responsi- 
 bility nor attempt a rescue. He who did not 
 try to save the child is guilty with a black- 
 ness no failure of him who tried to do his 
 duty can deserve. It is one thing to do un- 
 worthily in the Church, but it is a grosser sin 
 not to attempt that fellowship at all. Let no 
 one be deceived about that. The responsi- 
 bility of him who believes, is great, but if he 
 has failed, it is only because of the difficulty 
 of the task he honestly tried to do. But the 
 responsibility of the unbeliever is even great- 
 er, because he does not try, does not even 
 consider the matter, nor put forth effort. The 
 one will recover himself, his lapse is only for 
 
 ijohn i6: 8, 9. 
 
 [ 35 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 the time. The other can never succeed, be- 
 cause he does not really begin. 
 
 To try and yet to fail is certainly no such 
 dishonor to the Church as is that he brings 
 to it who never gives it the honor of an 
 effort. He v^ho v^ill not in some way serve 
 his country, is disloyal as he cannot be, who 
 as a soldier, one day against strong forces, 
 yields ground to the enemy. The drunkard 
 who, trying to overcome his fault, yet breaks 
 his pledge, is a greater man than he who be- 
 set by the same weakness, never feels the ob- 
 ligation of temperance, nor seriously tries to 
 overcome at all. For an army to retreat, 
 having once gone forward, is surely better 
 than for another army in sheer disloyalty 
 not to have attempted to go forward at all. 
 Thinking carries with it doing, and so much 
 so that one is responsible for what he thinks, 
 same as the sower is responsible for the seed 
 he sows. 
 
 The influence then, that does the greater 
 injury to the Church and the cause of Christ, 
 is not the seeming failures of those who con- 
 fess faith in Christ; it is rather the influence 
 of those who never believe in Christ so much 
 as to confess faith in Him. Fearing lest 
 
 [ 36 ] 
 
Does Not Create Obligation 
 
 they might dishonor the Church if they 
 should join it and then prove unfaithful, they 
 by standing apart, really exert an influence 
 against the Church, such as they could not in 
 the other way. By one first denial they re- 
 fuse all allegiance and service. By never 
 attempting, the}^ fail as they v^ho honestly 
 try cannot. They who sow not good seed, 
 have already failed by the sowing they have 
 made. For as the sowing carries with it its 
 kind of harvest, so the thinking or believing 
 carries with it its kind of conduct. 
 
 So far from its excusing a man, unbelief 
 is the great sin. It is the great sin of the 
 Bible. It includes all other sins. The great 
 virtue of the Bible, including in it actual 
 righteousness, is faith, belief. He who 
 does not acknowledge Christ at all, de- 
 nies him as one who merely stumbles in fol- 
 lowing him never can. He who does not 
 confess him is guilty with a guilt that never 
 can be his who, confessing him, is not yet 
 made perfect. He who does not begin to 
 follow has failed with a failure that is al- 
 ready complete; he who has begun to follow, 
 given time, will come to the full glory of 
 Christ. The former has denied Christ with 
 
 [ 37 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 full deliberateness and from principle; the 
 latter has onlv stumbled as he has tried to 
 
 "He who does not try to learn, has already dishonored knowl- 
 edge, as he who trying to learn, though he does not excel, never 
 can dishonor it" 
 
 keep step with the Infinite. He who does 
 not try to learn, has already dishonored 
 knowledge, as he who trying to learn, though 
 he does not excel, never can dishonor it. 
 
 38 
 
Public Confession a Great Service 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 TO CONFESS CHRIST IS PERHAPS THE 
 GREATEST SERVICE ONE CAN RENDER 
 
 By publicly confessing Christ one gives 
 w^itness for Him. It is perhaps the greatest 
 service one can render. For men are per- 
 suaded by the testimony of other men, and 
 upon that testimony Christ relies. When 
 this v^itness becomes at all general, it is very 
 powerful. Few^ things one can do could car- 
 ry the v^eight of persuasion that is carried 
 by the w^itness he gives v^ho openly and pub- 
 licly takes his stand for Christ. In that, 
 heart appeals to heart, conviction to convic- 
 tion, and courage to courage. Enlistments 
 in an army w^ill languish w^here no one is en- 
 listing, but w^here brave men are offering 
 their lives, bravery is begotten. Where 
 young men are going to college, it w^ill be 
 certain that other young men v\^ill go. The 
 earnest faith of those w^ho by martyrdom 
 bare v^ritness to Christ, has been compelling 
 pov^er in every high day in the Church. The 
 influence of man v^ith man, and life upon 
 
 [ 39 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 life, is one of the greatest facts, and is ground 
 for one of the greatest of responsibilities. 
 Christ asks that we confess Him. He laid 
 the very heaviest of dooms upon him who 
 should deny Him. He trusts us by our con- 
 fessing Him to show our loyalty to Him. 
 So important is that witness, that he depends 
 upon it for the increase of his Kingdom. 
 
 By our silence here we are in the same 
 way witnessing against Christ, and by our 
 denial confirming others in their unbelief. 
 We are making indifference and denial popu- 
 lar. Against that flood of witness in any 
 place the Church of Christ can hardly make 
 its way. This is not mere fancy. If you 
 look into your own case, you will doubtless 
 find that one great hindrance to your own 
 belief and to a right decision in the matter 
 of joining the Church, is the attitude of 
 others. They overwhelm your good inten- 
 tions; they give their vote against the Lord 
 you would like to acknowledge. If He were 
 owned as Lord by the many, you too would 
 be persuaded to confess Him. 
 
 And as they thus hold you back by their 
 denial, so you are holding others back by 
 yours. It is the wrong side to be on; it is 
 
 [ 40 ] 
 
Public Confession a Great Service 
 
 indeed as definite and as active a disloyalty 
 as one could be guilty of. If you bravely 
 bore your witness for Christ, this would be 
 the utmost you could do — a thing at which 
 the very angels and not a few men would re- 
 joice. You would without doubt be draw- 
 ing after you the others whom until now, you 
 have been confirming in their unbelief, and 
 thus there be set through this act of yours, 
 a tide of faith which would bear on it many 
 and many into the fellowship of Christ. To 
 confess Him is a thing so great that Christ 
 could promise the greatest reward for its 
 faithful doing; failure here is a thing so great 
 that He could do no other than declare upon 
 it the greatest doom. 
 
 This is about the only way one can offset 
 his useless or his evil past, and secure his 
 redemption. ''He who converteth a sinner 
 from the error of his ways, shall save a soul 
 from death, and shall cover a multitude of 
 sins." 
 
 But while he who does not believe is re- 
 sponsible for his imbelief, he who does not 
 act out his belief nor do what he approves, 
 needs to think what it is he is doing. For 
 he, who in not confessing Christ pretends to 
 
 [ 41 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 an unbelief that is not really his, is exactly 
 the same kind of a hypocrite as is he who in 
 confessing Christ, pretends to a belief that is 
 not his. For the believer to hide his faith 
 in a closet because he is afraid of the dis- 
 pleasure of unbelieving men, is just as bad 
 as for one who does not believe to pretend to 
 a loyalty he does not have — praying make- 
 believe prayers on the street — because he is 
 afraid of the displeasure of believing men. 
 The one is as real a hypocrite as the other. 
 
 42 
 
Who Are Fit for Church-Membership 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 WHO ARE FIT FOR CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP 
 
 The Church makes no claim to be only for 
 perfect persons. Just as a school does not 
 claim to be for fully educated persons, and 
 an army only for victors. The school is for 
 learners; and the army is for soldiers. One 
 who will confess Christ as Lord — that is, 
 as one who shall command the life — has just 
 the necessary fitness for the Church. He 
 needs no other preparation. It is the glory 
 of the Church that even the weak in the faith 
 are received. The Church supplies not en- 
 joyment for a select group of perfect per- 
 sons — there would be small need of the 
 Church by such — the Church is a fellowship 
 of imperfect persons, who with faith in Christ 
 in their hearts, are, under the headship of 
 Christ, helping each other to keep that faith, 
 and are trying to spread it into the great 
 world where they live. The strong bear the 
 infirmities of the weak. The whole main- 
 tains a common faith and a common charac- 
 ter, and in consequence, each becomes more 
 
 I 43 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 than himself and partakes of the character of 
 the whole. That faith and that character 
 keep true in spite of the lapse of any one. 
 And that is why membership in the Church 
 has always been said to carry salvation with 
 it. Membership in the Church does carry 
 salvation with it. That is just the great- 
 ness of it. Its head being Christ, the very 
 spirit of Christ is in it. Christ is not all in 
 each one; but He is all in the all which is 
 the Church. 
 
 There would be no need of a Church if a 
 person could alone overcome and triumph. 
 Nor, then, would there be any needy per- 
 sons. On the other hand, nothing could 
 better meet the needs of men as we find them, 
 than the Church, which taking the feeble 
 faith most men have, plants it in the climate 
 and soil of that fellowship which St. Paul 
 calls "the body of Christ." For the Church 
 to insist upon perfection as a condition for 
 membership would be as if the school re- 
 ceived as pupils only those who had learned 
 already and alone the very things pupils can- 
 not learn alone, but for the teaching of which 
 the school exists. 
 
 One need not hesitate, therefore, to risk 
 
 [ 44 ] 
 
Who Are Fit for Church-Membership 
 
 his weakness and instability with the Church 
 out of fear lest some lapse of his, bring re- 
 proach upon the cause of Christ. God is not 
 so jealous of His majesty that to keep it 
 from danger He will let go His whole pur- 
 pose to save men. His Church is not so 
 falsely holy that He cannot use it for the sav- 
 ing of souls. He is not like one, who because 
 his house is so fine, and in order to avoid risk 
 of dirt, keeps his children in the barn. No 
 indeed. What must invite one, is the little 
 preparation Christ required of those he ad- 
 mitted into his fellowship, and the little He 
 is satisfied with as the fitness for member- 
 ship in the Church. One would be sure to 
 be wider of the mark in requiring much, than 
 in requiring little, and all the fear lest one be 
 not fitted, is likely but the setting up of a 
 barrier for which Christ gives no warrant. 
 
 The fitness for Church membership is not 
 goodness. The feeling "I am not good 
 enough," in so far as it proves a person to 
 have a lowly thought of himself, is evidence 
 of choice fitness. On the other hand, he 
 who should come with positive confidence 
 that now he had got ready and was fit for 
 the Church, would bring evidence of a very 
 
 [ 45 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 doubtful fitness. Whom Christ would re- 
 ceive, Christ's Church would hardly be war- 
 ranted in turning away, and in Christ's para- 
 ble the publican's ''God be merciful to me a 
 sinner," is made ample justification. Touch- 
 ing our coming to Christ, we need no elabo- 
 rate get-ready; all the fitness we require is 
 to feel the need of Him. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, the sense of de- 
 fect is a sign of moral health. For compared 
 with the holiness of God, there is in ever)^ 
 one of us, sure to be defect. Whether we 
 have a sense of it or not, the fact is, we are all 
 sinners. The great saints, seeing things in 
 the light of Christ and as they are, have al- 
 ways had a sense of defect. Not to have it is 
 rather a bad sign. For it shows a blindness 
 to one's real moral condition. This is a se- 
 rious thing. For he who sees nothing wrong 
 with himself, when that wrong exists, can 
 never get right, and can grow no more. 
 
 After all, what commends us to God is not 
 an achieved righteousness, but that faith in 
 Christ, which makes one feel his unworthi- 
 ness. That faith, like a good tree bearing 
 fruit, in due time produces righteousness. 
 The sense of defect in us, driving us to de- 
 
 [ 46 ] 
 
Who Are Fit for Church-Membership 
 
 pend upon Another, is well-pleasing to God. 
 Being promise of both our correction and our 
 growth, it makes us acceptable to Him. 
 
 If on the other hand, one by his "I am not 
 good enough," means that his heart and dis- 
 position are not right, that he cherishes and 
 prefers some evil, that he holds out in some 
 thing against doing what he approves, or 
 allows himself to do what he condemns, or 
 that he dodges where he ought to stand up- 
 right, then deliberately to hold fast to that, 
 is proof of a most dangerous state of will. 
 Of course such a person is not fit for the 
 Church. But that does not do away with the 
 responsibility; it simply shifts the first step 
 elsewhere. To die of one disease is poor 
 safety from not dying of another. To argue 
 that because one does not believe on Christ, 
 one has no responsibility for confessing Him, 
 is as if one should plead he could not have 
 robbed the bank because at that time he was 
 elsewhere committing murder. Not to be 
 fit for the Church is no excuse for not be- 
 coming fit; it simply shifts responsibility to 
 the becoming fit. 
 
 Not to have taken the first step one ought 
 to take, does not excuse one from all qther 
 
 [ 47 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 steps. Not to have taken the first step in 
 the way of Christ, makes one guilty for all 
 the other steps which in consequence of that 
 neglect have not been taken. "I never 
 learned to read" is no discharge of all the re- 
 sponsibilities of intelligence. One is pre- 
 sumed in law to intend all the natural con- 
 sequences of his acts. Not to believe on 
 Christ is a sowing that bears a whole harvest 
 of iniquities, just as intemperance carries 
 with it responsibility for all that enormity of 
 evil fruitage which intemperance bears. 
 
 Fitness for church-membership, it need 
 hardly be said, is not agreement with all 
 others in doctrine. The Church is rather a 
 brotherhood in service. It has one Lord, it 
 has one faith in Him, it has one baptism or 
 door of entrance into His body. Its bond is 
 love — that partnership in work which is the 
 doing good to all men. He who wants to 
 work for Christ and His Kingdom, is by that 
 purpose qualified for admission into the 
 Church. That presupposes loyalty, the best 
 kind of faith. It is better than a knowledge 
 that is without passion for service and feels 
 no sense of the world's need. For one's 
 faith is in what he works for and puts his 
 
 [ 48 ] 
 
Who Are Fit for Church-Membership 
 
 money into. There may be, reader, some 
 things you do not believe. Here is some- 
 
 The drunkard in getting drunk, became guilty of the murder 
 
 he committed when drunk. In the failure to begin rightly 
 
 was already the failure of his end. 
 
 thing you want to help to do. And that is 
 better than a passionless agreement with 
 others on points of doctrine. In the Church 
 you work with others under the leadership 
 of Christ. 
 
 [ 49 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SAINTS OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 
 
 In considering the claims of the Church, one 
 may find himself reflecting that he outside 
 of it, is as good as many another within it. 
 And that may be true. And it may seem to 
 him to be reason for continuance in his pres- 
 ent way. 
 
 But may be he ought to be better than 
 these others are. They have come up out of 
 an evil past, or it may be that they, after all, 
 are earnest persons who beginning at a low 
 point, are, in spite of their stumbling, going 
 in the right direction. God does not judge 
 us one by another, which one can see would 
 be no more fair in the matter of achievement 
 than it would be in the matter of stature. 
 God judges each man by the man's own self. 
 Some men who drink whiskey may yet do 
 more work than some other man who ab- 
 stains. But this does not prove that drink 
 is better than abstinence for any man. Some- 
 one apart from the schools may get a better 
 education than someone else gets through 
 
 [ 50 ] 
 
Saints Outside the Church 
 
 the schools. But this does not prove that 
 the self-made man would not have done even 
 better with the opportunities of the schools. 
 The question for one to consider, is not 
 whether he out of the Church, is as good as 
 some other in it, but whether he, out of it, is 
 as good as he himself would be in it. The 
 commendation Christ gave to Mary for a 
 deed so perfect as to be the type and memo- 
 rial of all loyalty, was not that she had done 
 as well as someone else, but that she had done 
 what she could. If a man does so well out- 
 side of the Church, it is fair to believe that in 
 it he would serve with a faithfulness that 
 would endow him with new greatness and 
 rival the glory of those in the Church, who 
 are above reproach. He, joining hands with 
 others in the open acknowledgement of 
 Christ and in the partnership of a loyal ser- 
 vice, is certainly a different kind of a man 
 than he who can be satisfied if only he is as 
 good as the weakest in the Church. He who 
 is so little in earnest as to try to get off with 
 a service whose faultiness can be compared 
 only to that of the most faulty in the Church, 
 is unworthy to be compared even to him who 
 is least in the Church. 
 
 [ 51 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 For in spite of the implication, the weak 
 brother in the Church has not failed. The 
 heart of the Gospel is, that it is a man's faith 
 in Christ that saves him and not his deeds — 
 just as the good tree is already guarantee of 
 good fruit. As the greatest thing about the 
 good harvest is the choice of good seed, so 
 the greatest thing about a good life is the 
 choice of good principles. If one has the 
 love of God in his heart, he is more than his 
 deeds now indicate. The stumbling disciple 
 has something that makes him more than the 
 faithless one he seems. He is faced in the 
 right way, and though it seems to men he is in 
 exactly the place where the unbeliever is, 
 they are going in opposite directions, and are, 
 after all, as different as good and bad. They 
 seem alike now, but one is going one way and 
 the other is going the other way, and in time 
 to come they will reveal in wide contrast 
 their present hidden difference. For they 
 are different. The Gospel never obscures the 
 fact that they are different. The one has in 
 him some badness and the other has in him 
 some goodness, but they are not the same. 
 Black on white is not the same as white on 
 black. Tares and wheat when they begin to 
 
 [ 52 ] 
 
Saints Outside the Church 
 
 grow, look so much alike that servants set to 
 pull up the tares, may easily from the resem- 
 blance, pull up the wheat. But in the harvest, 
 by no carelessness could one be taken for the 
 other. For all their looking so much alike 
 when young, their natures are different. It is 
 in the heart that a man is good. It is in the 
 heart that a man is bad. This does not mean 
 that what one does counts for nothing. It 
 says that the motive is more than the act. 
 It says that the direction in which one is go- 
 ing is more than the actual place one is in, on 
 the way. It says that the man who is grow- 
 ing a little better, though he have grave 
 faults, is greater than he, who though he be 
 wholly respectable, is yet falling away from 
 his ideals, and is growing, it may be only a 
 little worse. The one giving over his will in 
 obedience is better by far than the other who 
 in his all-inclusive choice refuses to obey. 
 
 For the heart may be defiant and disloyal, 
 though there be much good that a man does; 
 and with the heart wrong, to God all is 
 wrong. The heart may be right, though 
 there be much wrong that a man does; and 
 with the heart right, to God all is right. The 
 one, in spite of his good deeds, because of his 
 
 [ 53 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 evil heart, is already lost; the other, in spite 
 of his evil deeds, because of his good heart, is 
 already saved. 
 
 He v^ho has given himself to God in the 
 determination to do God's will, and has sealed 
 that purpose by an open confession of Christ, 
 is a different kind of a person. He is dif- 
 ferent, in that the center of his life is in God; 
 and he is different in that the center of his 
 life is in the Church. The righteousness of 
 Christ is his because of the one, and the right- 
 eousness of the Church — its ideals, its pur- 
 poses, its Lord — is his because of the other. 
 Nev^ springs of conviction, steadfastness, and 
 power, flow for him. He is more than him- 
 self because of his alliance with them. He 
 is on a tide that he does not make. What he 
 could not do alone, he can do because of them. 
 As the sheep is more than itself because of 
 the shepherd, and the pupil is more than him- 
 self because of the teacher, and the child is 
 more than himself because of the parent, and 
 the soldier is more than himself because of 
 the army, so the believer is more than him- 
 self because of the fellowship of the saints. 
 The confidence, that if a person is baptized, 
 he is thereby saved, has it validity here. For 
 
 [ 54 ] 
 
Saints Outside the Church 
 
 baptism is the rite of initiation into the 
 Church. And the Church does have the sal- 
 vation of its members in its keeping. The 
 presence of Christ is in it. Consequently, it 
 is actually true that he who believes and is 
 baptized is saved. What he cannot do alone, 
 he can do because of the push and pull of the 
 Church. 
 
 The Church does not fear to be judged 
 by the character it makes. With but forty 
 per cent of our population in the Churches, 
 eighty per cent, of all the social v^orkers in 
 America are members of our Churches. More 
 than seventy-five per cent, of the private gifts 
 to public charity in the city of Boston, are 
 from church members. Judge Fawcett of 
 Brooklyn has stated that of the twenty-seven 
 hundred or more persons brought before his 
 court in five years, not one was associated 
 with the Church. Apparently the law- 
 breakers and the great sinners are outside, 
 the fruit of that unbelief which is the essence 
 of sin. On the other hand, the worth of the 
 Church is proved by the fact that of all the 
 men whose names appear in "Who's Who," 
 as many as one out of twelve is the son of a 
 minister. 
 
 [ 55 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PUBLIC CONFESSION OF CHRIST IS THE 
 
 TEST OF THAT LOYALTY WHICH 
 
 MAKES THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 The reader may here find himself asking 
 whether he is a Christian. He may be say- 
 ing ''I cannot join the Church, because I do 
 not know that I am a Christian/' No; the 
 Church is the family of Christians. 
 
 It is submission to the will of God that 
 makes the Christian. The Christian is 
 Christ's man. He takes Christ as his mas- 
 ter. He takes Christ's yoke, just as the 
 humble ox takes the yoke of its master. Paul 
 calls himself "Christ's slave." The Chris- 
 tian is not his own — he is owned. He who 
 faces this issue and gives way to Christ is 
 a Christian. 
 
 It is all something like this: Two men 
 have borne for years the feeling of enmity 
 toward each other. They have been ruled 
 by their pride. And then one humbles him- 
 self and bows down for the sake of Christ. 
 He becomes Christ's servant, and Christ be- 
 
 [ 56 ] 
 
The Loyalty That Makes the Christain 
 
 comes in fact, his Lord. He ceases to please 
 himself and now pleases Christ. His pur- 
 pose is not to do what is pleasant, nor what 
 is expedient, but only what is right. 
 
 It is just this test of "Who rules?" that is 
 afforded by a public confession of Christ. It 
 brings to a point and makes definite the loy- 
 alty or the disloyalty of a person. It is a 
 real test of who is master. To confess Christ, 
 runs across the grain of our proud, wilful 
 nature. We want to please ourselves, to 
 set ourselves up in independence of Him and 
 in opposition to Him. Here in the matter 
 of a public confession is the very same nar- 
 row gate he goes through who becomes a 
 Christian. He then, who can here now go 
 through this narrow gate, need have no doubt 
 whether he is Christ's. He has surrendered 
 himself. That is why the public confession 
 of Christ stands at the entrance into Christ's 
 Church. It is a test whether one is loyal. 
 And loyalty and nothing else is the soul of 
 religion. 
 
 Persons who some years ago publicly con- 
 fessed Christ, will find in their now con- 
 fessing their faith in Him by the transfer of 
 their membership to the Church in the place 
 
 [ 57 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 where they now live, the only real proof of 
 their now having a faith that is alive. For 
 the same issue of ''Who rules?" is by this 
 matter now once again forced upon them. 
 
 The public confession of Christ is the 
 needed test of loyalty. For let it be under- 
 stood that the seriousness of discipleship in- 
 volves the giving up of our wills. To do 
 what we do not want to do is what it means. 
 For to obey only in what one pleases to 
 obey in, is hardly obedience. That puts self 
 and not Christ on the throne. Here then, in 
 the confession one is resolved not to make, 
 is exactly the thing Christ is resolved shall 
 prove our loyalty. And until one in this 
 thing, can humble one's self, one is rebellious. 
 Some such test therefore is necessary at the 
 door of the Church. Less than this absolute 
 surrender Christ could not ask, and less than 
 this, the Church could not ask. 
 
 It is vain to think one is loyal while there 
 is a stiff and deliberate refusal at even one 
 point of issue. One does not need to deny in 
 everything in order to deny Christ, any more 
 than one needs to die of every disease in 
 order to be dead. And somewhere this issue 
 of "Who rules?" must come up. It may be 
 
 [ 58 ] 
 
The Loyalty That Makes the Christain 
 
 here, or it may be there, but it must come 
 up. And just this test of who is master, is 
 afforded by the command that we confess 
 Christ before men. That one is resolved not 
 to do this, is just the reason why it becomes 
 the thing that one shall do. Here is af- 
 forded just the situation that is needed — a 
 definite decision of loyalty, an act and a deed, 
 time and place. For it matters little how 
 long one thinks a thing over, and how deep- 
 ly he feels about it, and how he admires the 
 doing it, and how much he intends to do and 
 resolves to do, and how many promises he 
 makes — these all wait in a futility worse 
 than useless — wait in a sapping of the pow- 
 er of the will and of the power of decision — 
 wait in a paralyzing weakness — for the act 
 that alone makes purpose into other than 
 dreams. 
 
 59 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 AT SOME MORE CONVENIENT SEASON 
 
 The reader, without doubt, once he gives his 
 approval to this matter, will be tempted to 
 put off the taking the first step. 
 
 But he who thus dallies with duty is al- 
 ready lost. To put off the doing, is by that 
 very putting off already to have decided 
 against. For ought not the glory of Christ 
 at once persuade one? And if in the face of 
 that glory, one puts off and delays allegiance, 
 must not that action show that preference 
 for something else that amounts to a denial 
 of Christ? One who does not follow 
 "straightway" does not at all value the glory 
 of the Master, whom he says he will follow 
 by and by. When in the parable, the mer- 
 chantman finds one pearl of a great price, ev- 
 ery other is as nothing to his desire — he goes 
 straightway, sells all that he has and buys 
 it. How long may one put off beginning 
 to tell the truth, beginning to be pure? 
 "Why" we say, "these things never become 
 more right than they are this moment." And 
 
 [ 60 ] 
 
At Some More Convenient Season 
 
 just as he who puts off beginning to be pure, 
 does not believe in purity, and just as he who 
 puts off the ceasing to steal does not believe 
 in honesty, so he who puts off confessing 
 Christ does not believe in Christ. He be- 
 lieves in something else more. And so by 
 putting off, he has actually decided against 
 Christ. He who puts off confessing Christ, 
 has by that deliberate choice annulled that 
 other deliberate choice by which in secret 
 intention and by all his deep admiration, he 
 gave himself to Him. Just as the debtor who 
 always intends to pay, yet never gets around 
 to begin, annuls by his deliberately spending 
 his money for something else, all the promises 
 he has made. Just as in the tragedy, Hamlet's 
 hesitation and delay enthrone acts that swal- 
 low up his intention, till, caught in the grip 
 of this paralysis, his life, by the momentum of 
 its indecision, runs on to its tragic close. 
 
 To put off to another time, the taking the 
 first step is already to lose. It is to lose the 
 conviction in which the determination to act 
 at all, even at some other time, is born. We 
 catch this vision today, but we do not have it 
 tomorrow. The light by which this is seen as 
 duty does not always shine. But the convic- 
 
 [ 6i 1 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 tion we have is only because bright light has 
 shone. What we have now is all we can ever 
 have. The prodigal is saved, because in that 
 far country, having a feeling of shame and 
 regret, he at once suits action to feeling. He 
 said, "1 will arise and go." And he arose and 
 went. He was up and away before he slept. 
 That decision and that promptness saved 
 him. If he had waited a day — even the wait- 
 ing would have been proof that he was not 
 in earnest. And denying his conviction for 
 the time, he surely would not have felt it so 
 strongly, if he had felt it at all, the next day. 
 Ah no. It is not waiting that makes the con- 
 viction grow stronger, but the going ahead in 
 the strength of what conviction there is, just 
 as in the case of those automobiles which, by 
 their very going make light for their way. 
 
 Like other living things, the soul has its 
 seasons. There are times when we feel 
 strongly that we ought to do some good 
 thing. At these times we are not far from 
 the .Kingdom of God. 
 
 "There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
 Which, taken at its flood, leads on to fortune ; 
 Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
 Is bound in shallows and in miseries." 
 
 I 62 1 
 
At Some More Convenient Season 
 
 No one knows just where this dividing 
 line is, and when one is about to cross it. 
 The beginning of all things is in darkness, 
 both in time and in space. We can tell that 
 the tide is coming in, and later we can tell 
 that it is going out ; but just when that tide, 
 now resistless, turned, we did not know. We 
 are certain that a while ago it was full day, 
 and now we are sure that it is night, but just 
 when the darkness began to settle down, we 
 did not know. A man knows that some time 
 ago he was well ; he knows now^ that he can- 
 not live, but when he crossed that fatal line, 
 he could not know. It may be said that in 
 any man's life up to some point, there was 
 the probability that he would respond in a 
 definite decision to the influences of good 
 that press upon him; that beyond a certain 
 point, it was unlikely that he make any re- 
 sponse. But where that point was and when 
 he passed by it, he could not tell. 
 
 We do not know. Therefore, lest it be 
 the point of turning, we must seize the op- 
 portunity at hand. "No man knoweth the 
 day nor the hour when the Son of man com- 
 eth." Therefore, as the porter at the gate, 
 faithful to every moment, lest this neglected 
 
 [ 63 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 moment be the very one when his Master 
 shall come, we must watch. For any mo- 
 ment may have in it our very destiny. This 
 present conviction of ought with which one 
 is tempted to trifle, may actually be the turn 
 of the tide. For every good inclination of 
 feeling is fully sacred. It is the very voice 
 of God. Without any question it is the most 
 serious matter conceivable, this stirring with- 
 in the soul of a true desire which exalts this 
 moment. And the difference between men 
 touching their eternal welfare, is just the dif- 
 ference with which they give response to 
 that word. The real dividing line is "I will.'' 
 
 The soul has its seasons. Boys who put 
 off the learning to read to some more con- 
 venient time than youth — put off either be- 
 cause they feel it will be easier to learn at 
 some other time than now, or from simply 
 drawing back from doing the thing at hand 
 because it requires some nerve — miss their 
 chance. They miss it so completely that it 
 is the rarest of things that a man once grown 
 up, learns to read. Once pass a few years of 
 early life and the opportunity is gone. 
 
 You can readily see, reader, that to put off 
 deciding, or to put off acting on a decision 
 
 [ 64 ] 
 
At Some More Convenient Season 
 
 one has made, does not settle anything. The 
 same issue still presents, the same obligation 
 
 You would not counsel boys to make this the way to knowl- 
 edge, nor argue that there will he for them a better time to 
 
 learn. 
 
 still holds, the very same steps must some- 
 time be taken. Waiting can do no more than 
 let the chance go by. To settle a thing, one 
 must decide it, and do it. To put off doing 
 a thing is not to do it any more than putting 
 off sowing is to sow^ the seed. To settle an 
 account one must pay it. To put off paying 
 does not make the amount less; it adds 
 
 [ 65 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 interest and makes the debt more, and there- 
 fore harder to pay. Nor will God be more 
 gracious tomorrow, nor make easier terms. 
 Nor by putting off, does one gain power to 
 act, nor is the performance of duty thereby 
 made easier. On the other hand, the present 
 denial, making the rut of denial on the brain, 
 makes other denials easier, till in time, one 
 lacks the power to execute anything disa- 
 greeable. He who does not heed the call to- 
 day, will be less likely both to hear it and to 
 heed it tomorrow. The statistics of a group 
 of Churches show that ninety per cent, of 
 their members joined the Church before they 
 were nineteen years of age. Since at least 
 one-half of the people do not join the Church 
 at any age, if of those who join the Church, 
 nine of out of ten join it before they are nine- 
 teen years of age, then at that age, out of 
 twenty persons, nineteen already have closed 
 the Church against themselves. And cer- 
 tainly at this age they have closed it not by 
 once for all and deliberately refusing to join 
 the Church, but by the self-deceit of putting 
 off. 
 
 The same statistics show that one-half 
 the members of these Churches joined the 
 
 [ 66 ] 
 
Joined 
 the Church 
 before they 
 were nine- 
 teen years 
 of age - 9/10 
 
 Joined 
 the Church 
 after they 
 were nine- 
 teen years 
 of age - Vio 
 
 The folly of those 
 who put off 
 
 Church before they 
 were sixteen years of 
 age. They acted when 
 others promised. They 
 acted and the thing 
 was done. Youth, 
 life's springtime, is the 
 season of beginnings. 
 In the springtime of 
 life the future is sealed, 
 as the kind of seed 
 chosen and sown in 
 nature's springtime 
 seals once for all, the 
 harvest. The choices 
 of youth carry in them 
 more than the day in 
 which they are made; 
 they carry in them the 
 future years. For 
 what we think and 
 what we do, make 
 actual ruts on the 
 brain. If one could see 
 in on the surface of the 
 brain one could see the 
 ruts of our thinking 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 and of our doing there. They have length 
 and depth like other ruts. They give one's 
 character a genuine physical basis, and prove 
 how surely it becomes fixed. Once made, 
 these ruts keep us in them, whether we will 
 or not. That is what makes each choice a 
 serious thing — it makes a groove we can- 
 not easily get out of. We cannot turn out 
 of the rut made by doing, at the mere desire. 
 And we cannot make new ruts because we 
 are so deeply in the old. To have first to 
 break off drinking — ah ! what a handicap 
 that is to temperance! 
 
 The completeness of this bondage is 
 proved by the fact that we are apt even to 
 think in accord with what we do. Conse- 
 quently, after a while, in case we do other 
 than we approve, we cannot see things as 
 they are. We see them only as our doing 
 has made them appear. The drunkard does 
 not see drunkenness with the same horror 
 as at first. He is biased in his thinking: by 
 what he does. Doing shapes thinking, just 
 as thinking shapes doing. Thus the very 
 standard of right — that sense which is the 
 birth-right and the health of the soul — is 
 debased. The way we shall regard things 
 
 [ 68 ] 
 
At Some More Convenient Season 
 
 comes to be already determined by the way 
 we have acted toward them. The longer 
 one puts off considering going to school, and 
 the longer he puts off going to school once 
 the matter has his praise, the surer is it by 
 the crowding in of what he has crowned in 
 its stead, to be forced from its throne. For 
 one cannot long even admire what he will 
 not do. That undermining of the very foun- 
 dation of moral sense makes the folly of 
 putting off. Since our mere admiration of 
 a thing makes no such groove on the brain 
 as is made by what we do, what we do now 
 instead of the good thing we promise to do 
 sometime, overtakes and destroys what we 
 admire and think and promise to do. 
 
 The very foundation of judgment — the 
 sense by which right and wrong is reported 
 in true character — is undermined by delay. 
 And just as touching the mind this cor- 
 ruption of the standard of sanity is a terrible 
 thing, so touching the spirit, this corrupting 
 of the moral sense is terrible. For in insan- 
 ity, the standard of reason being shattered, 
 all hope is gone since there is now no sane- 
 ness by which reason may be tested and its 
 faultiness made to appear. If the compass 
 
 [ 69 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 is crazy, who using it, can tell which is north? 
 Exactly so when in a man the moral standard 
 
 In insanity the standard of reason is shattered, and there is 
 
 now no saneness by which reason may be tested and its faulti- 
 
 ness appear. 
 
 itself is overthrown, there is nothing by 
 which his purposes and his conduct can be 
 tested, and his error be shown. We speak 
 both of losing the mind and of losing the soul, 
 and what we know of the one makes plain 
 the reality and the horror of the other. 
 
 Delay, if one be honest in it, can be only 
 that one may have time for serious effort to 
 reach a settled conviction. Not all the evi- 
 
 [ 70 ] 
 
At Some More Convenient Season 
 
 dence is yet in, and in consequence one can- 
 not make up one's mind. But it is clear that if 
 one is honest in the matter of delay, one will 
 not allow it to be mere dalliance, but will 
 promptly get all the evidence in and decide. 
 He who asks that he may wait till he gets all 
 evidence in — if he is honest in his asking, and 
 his asking delay be other than an excuse — 
 cannot spend the time doing everything but 
 getting in evidence. He who makes un- 
 readiness the reason for not going to school, 
 must — if there be truth in his word — be busy 
 with nothing else till he is ready. For, he 
 does not prefer, what he does not at once pre- 
 fer to make ready for; he prefers what he 
 puts first and makes ready for. 
 
 To put off considering a matter and to do 
 no more, is folly. It is the unbalance of a 
 fool. It is the court all organized for delib- 
 eration and judgment, that puts off and puts 
 off, and busy with trifles, never takes up the 
 case nor tries to reach a verdict. It is the 
 senate where no one puts a motion, where no 
 business is introduced and considered, while 
 month after month is frittered away, with the 
 excuse for inaction, that it does not know the 
 facts. It is the weaver whose spindle and 
 
 [ 71 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 wool are ready, but who puts off and puts off 
 beginning, and the first threads of the gar- 
 
 _-^JI 
 
 
 
 The fool senate does all sorts of things except consider its real 
 business. 
 
 ment he declares he wants to make are not 
 spun. Into such dishonesty the inaction and 
 indecision of putting off involve one. It 
 looks very much like an excuse hiding the 
 real determination not to consider the mat- 
 ter at all. 
 
 To put off acting along the line of one's 
 conviction and approval is like separating 
 judgment and its execution. The jury has 
 brought in its verdict, and sentence is pro- 
 nounced. But execution is stayed. The 
 
 [ 72 ] 
 
At Some More Convenient Season 
 
 discussion has gone on, the evidence is all in, 
 the right is clear as day, and a verdict is 
 reached. But there all ends. No step is 
 taken to carry the verdict into effect. The 
 yarn is spun and the cloth is woven, but it 
 never becomes a garment. 
 
 Putting off action to some future time is of 
 course a trick of deception one practices upon 
 one's self. It grants the obligation, admits 
 the rightness of the claim, and therefore does 
 it honor. But then by present actual 
 neglect, the whole intention is dethroned and 
 supplanted. The mere approval, or the 
 promise to do the thing sometime, deceives 
 one into the feeling that one's duty is done, 
 sets one at ease, while the actual denial steals 
 in and rules, in the contrary deed at hand. 
 One promises one's self "sometime" to take 
 this step, and the mere promise soothes to 
 sleep the sense of duty, and under this con- 
 tentment, opposing things near at hand, 
 rush in and strangle the very promise, one 
 by inaction, has let go to sleep. Putting off 
 like other lies, deceives with a promise, the 
 soul's present desire to do duty.' 
 
 Putting off, whatever the guise it takes, is 
 a form of indecision. It is a deadly defect 
 
 [ 73 1 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 of character, for after all it is a real denial. 
 Thus McClellan seems to have fooled him- 
 
 He who puts off paying for the clothes he zvears, and the meals 
 he eats, and the rent of his rooms, — refusing to do now all he 
 can to meet his expenses — comes soon to find that by such 
 borrozving from the future, tomorrow, instead of being before 
 him, is behind him, and in all the claims unsatisfied, is now 
 an enemy stealing up to stab him to death. 
 
 self by supposing that in his inaction he was 
 getting ready for striking the great blow, we 
 now know, he was incompetent to strike. 
 Amiel, a brilliant young professor in Geneva, 
 with talents that promised a noteworthy ca- 
 reer, slowly disappointed his admirers and 
 passed into obscurity. From his journal it 
 
 [ 74 1 
 
At Some More Convenient Season 
 
 appears that he was always waiting to 
 be a little better prepared before attempting 
 anything. See how it works in one of the 
 commonest situations of life. A debtor ad- 
 mits the claim against him, can never consent 
 to the deliberately defrauding his creditor, 
 and yet by the subtile deceit of putting off, 
 spite of his intention, his neglect to pay now 
 by admitting other things to rule, makes that 
 defrauding actual. And thus our great con- 
 victions and our great resolutions, not at 
 once acted out, come, by a thing as seemingly 
 innocent as neglect, to their death, buried 
 with the generations of bright hopes and 
 dreams of good and lofty promises with 
 which the past is full. 
 
 ''Don't talk about things you are going to do, 
 Don't say that you mean to be noble and true, 
 Don't wait till tomorrow to make up your mind 
 That you'll make others happy, and always be kind ; 
 For tomorrow you'll talk as you're talking today, 
 And your good resolutions will vanish away. 
 Do it now — let the world see you mean to be true ! 
 Oh ! don't talk of the things you are going to do !" 
 
 For the story of many, many lives would 
 surely be different if the promises men make 
 in putting off were redeemed. It cannot be 
 
 [ 75 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 that the persons who we see are now so in- 
 different and insensible, have never felt the 
 claims of service, and have never given any 
 admiration to love. No. They once felt the 
 wooing of the Spirit of God as we all have. 
 They felt the wooing of the Spirit of God, but 
 they dared to put off the taking the step that 
 is the hearty and prompt response. They 
 put off upon some other time the doing the 
 thing they were then too faithless to do. 
 That trick set them at ease and gave their 
 weakness its way. But that very step may 
 bankrupt the soul that a right first step 
 would have enriched, and the promise could 
 not be redeemed. 
 
 Up therefore reader, and once for all de- 
 cide this matter. Get in the reasons for and 
 against, give your verdict, and act. Take by 
 action the first real step. Be sure, what you 
 do counts for more than what you promise 
 and intend. Do not let yourself be persuaded 
 that you will have the courage to do next 
 month or next year the thing you are afraid 
 to do now. It is determination, decision, 
 that adds the needed factor; mere waiting 
 never supplies it. Unnourished by some 
 fitting action, and unsupported by some 
 
 [ 76 ] 
 
At Some More Convenient Season 
 
 fitting deed, our good intentions die; slain 
 by rival evil, which masked as harmless 
 neglect, steals in and chokes any intention we 
 allow to sleep. 
 
 Act; act. And do not wait with the idea 
 that everything must favor. That support 
 never comes to anything. Some objection 
 besets every enterprise, wind the sower, cloud 
 the reaper. The sower asks only that there 
 be a fair chance for sowing; the reaper asks 
 only that there be a fair chance for reaping. 
 You do not wait till everything favors buy- 
 ing, or selling, or journeying, or marrying, or 
 playing, or resting, or eating. You expect 
 to find in these two sides, to weigh for and 
 against, and choose. Some objection can be 
 found to every undertaking. One who waits 
 till everything favors will wait and wait and 
 attempt nothing. 
 
 And remember too, that what is needed 
 in most cases is not more arguments and 
 reasons to persuade, but simply that deter- 
 mination without which any force of argu- 
 ment will be in vain. He who does not want 
 to sow will find excuse enough in the wind; 
 he who does not want to reap will find excuse 
 enough in the cloud. 
 
 [77] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 Religion, or loyalty, like every other ac- 
 complishment is based on will and not on 
 feeling; it springs out of principle and not 
 out of emotion. It seizes the chance of what- 
 ever sort it is, by determination supplies the 
 lacking thing, and does not wait for great 
 overpowering emotion. Emotion is only a 
 balmy climate, a matter of mood, but no real 
 enterprise is allowed to depend upon the 
 weather. If the weather be fair, blessed be 
 the day; but if it be not fair, still we go forth 
 to our labor. We cast forth the seed in the 
 face of the wind ; we reap under threatening 
 skies. That is the valid proof that we are 
 sincere and in earnest. 
 
 This determination — keeping one's self gen- 
 uine in the face of plausible excuses — offers 
 the only chance for beginning, the only 
 ground for enduring. It seizes the day of 
 whatever sort it is, and works as it can, in the 
 assurance that just this day is one's chance. 
 Soldiers who should report on the basis of 
 their feeling, would be an army in which no 
 dependence could be put, up or down accord- 
 ing to the weather, their own or any other's. 
 But an army, such from principle, like 
 Cromwell's Ironsides, would be a perfect 
 
 [ 78 ] 
 
At Some More Convenient Season 
 
 fighting machine and establish any kingdom. 
 Workmen who would work on the basis of 
 inclination and not on the basis of determi- 
 nation, would by that inconstancy shatter 
 any industry; be just like the men who 
 would be kept from work by cold or heat, 
 or wind or cloud. For inclination is just the 
 heart's weather, real, but not to be allowed 
 to command. 
 
 One must take himself strictly in hand in 
 beginning any good work. That first step, 
 without which all other steps wait for their 
 direction, will not take itself. It simply must 
 be taken. The will must be girded up for 
 this thing — the determination that makes 
 things come to pass. Starting on the way 
 only when we shall have been overpowered 
 by some mighty emotion, we wait for that 
 perfect day when we shall be swept out of 
 ourselves, carried over every obstacle and 
 overwhelmed by a great conjunction of fa- 
 voring things. In our imagination, under 
 some such spell, we make all kinds of sacri- 
 fices, dare the Lord's enemies, bear convinc- 
 ing witness, and annex whole provinces to 
 the Kingdom of God. But waiting for that 
 perfect day that never comes, seedtime and 
 
 [ 79 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 harvest come and go, and all the opportuni- 
 ties by which we make the first beginnings of 
 love. 
 
 The gospels warn us against trusting to 
 circumstances to overwhelm us. We imagine 
 we will do tomorrow what we are too 
 cowardly to do today, and comfort ourselves 
 in our neglect with the thought that we 
 would be more faithful in some chance we do 
 not have than we are to the one we do. But 
 he who misses the present chance surely has 
 poor preparation for laying hold of any in the 
 future — that preparation lying more in us 
 than in any outward circumstance, and Jesus 
 exposed the hypocrisy of the excuse. It was 
 to this mind exactly that Jesus, replying to 
 Dives' excuse for his brothers — "if one went 
 to them from the dead they will repent'' — 
 makes Abraham say of them, "If they hear 
 not Moses and the prophets, neither will they 
 be persuaded if one rose from the dead." In 
 the practical business of life we do not reason 
 that he who has refused the opportunities of 
 a humble sort, will be faithful in some great 
 place now open. We do not promote to 
 place of power him who, scorning the low- 
 ly task has waited for the coming of some 
 
 [ 80 ] 
 
At Some More Convenient Season 
 
 greater day. No. It is not more reasons 
 why we should be faithful that we need, 
 and not more evidence to persuade us, nor 
 greater and greater light. What we need is 
 just plain honesty, plain genuineness in deal- 
 ing with the present duty and the present 
 chance. He who does not give two mites 
 out of penury, however much he dream he 
 would do if only he had riches, will with 
 great superfluity be loveless stilL "What 
 would you do if you had fifty thousand dol- 
 lars" was once asked a poor man. "What 
 I am doing with one thousand dollars," he 
 replied. And that is true. More money 
 does not change our hearts any more than 
 more clothes change them. Real sacrifice 
 is as often found among the poor as among 
 the rich. Many opportunities is no assur- 
 ance that one will make right use of them. 
 And the only ground for confidence that one 
 will rightly use tomorrow when it comes, is 
 that one is rightly using today. 
 
 [ 8i ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF INSIN- 
 CERITY IN SETTLING A QUESTION 
 
 It is clear from the foregoing that a person 
 may easily permit himself to fool himself in 
 this matter. Any reasoning that is not whol- 
 ly genuine but rather excuse, is just a fool's 
 mask for hiding frowning facts. It is lying 
 to one's self. It is giving things a value they 
 do not have. It is counting brass, gold. It 
 is counting heat, cold; cold, heat. This is 
 inviting dangerous confusion. For all such 
 insincerity is throwing distrust upon the fac- 
 ulties of the mind and soul — upon those 
 very faculties which are as compass to keep 
 us in touch with reality and value, and so 
 from being lost. All excuse puts in the 
 place of these values, not what is real, but 
 only what is agreeable. It is as if one over- 
 threw in himself that sanity which keeps him 
 rational. To that abdication of sincerity, 
 light is not light, and darkness is not dark- 
 ness. Right does not pass as right and 
 wrong does not pass as wrong. The gen- 
 
 r 82 1 
 
Dishonesty in Settling the Question 
 
 uine is made to pass as counterfeit, and the 
 counterfeit as genuine. This is the topsy- 
 turvy world exhibited by the insane. When 
 a man will not follow the compass of his 
 soul, but enthrones mere indifference or 
 mere preference where reality and the truth 
 of God ought to be — that quality which 
 makes all things into order and not chaos — 
 he has so cut loose from moral direction and 
 moral value as to be already lost. When 
 good is not good to a man, and evil is not 
 evil, he is lost. Life has become a thing of 
 deceit and make-believe, which he takes as 
 real. Of course, closing our eyes to facts 
 cannot change the facts. It cannot change 
 the facts any more than the pilot's tearing 
 up his chart can remove the rocks from the 
 sea. Practicing the deceit involved in all 
 insincerity, one after awhile comes actually 
 to believe not what is right, nor what is true, 
 but only what he wants to believe, and thus 
 the very standard of judgment be errant and 
 debased, like the mind that overthrown by 
 defying itself, loses sanity. We speak of 
 the one as having lost his mind; of the other 
 as having lost his soul. And in both cases 
 the hopelessness of the estate appears, be- 
 
 [ 83 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 cause the very standard itself — obedience to 
 which keeps one true, — is the thing that is 
 debased. 
 
 It were doubtless agreeable to you, reader, 
 if you could turn away from all considera- 
 tion of this matter; doubtless agreeable if 
 you could put off doing what you feel you 
 ought to do; put off the opening of this mat- 
 ter at all. But as he should do you no kind- 
 ness who counselled this, so you should do 
 yourself no kindness if you took the counsel. 
 Here is a claim upon you. It is yours to 
 consider whether it is valid, whether it is 
 the claim of God. You may consider wheth- 
 er this claim is from God, may consider it 
 sincerely and honestly, in full view of the 
 facts. That will be to take gold as gold, to 
 take counterfeit as counterfeit. Or you may 
 consider this claim in a way that while your 
 consideration of it is really dishonest, will 
 let you think you have done it candidly. 
 You may thus take counterfeit as gold. But 
 if you made east, west, and north, south, you 
 could not get where you wish to go and 
 would be lost. You would not know where 
 you are, nor how to get back to a given place 
 again. And just so with moral values and 
 
 [ 84 ] 
 
Dishonesty in Settling the Question 
 
 directions. The maintenance of insincerity 
 in dealing with right and wrong, puts the 
 one in the place of the other, till one cannot 
 tell the true from the false, nor the right 
 from the wrong. Allowing that to go on 
 in your soul, your very standard by which 
 moral values themselves are measured be- 
 comes corrupt, till you cannot even know^ how 
 at variance with the moral world you are. 
 
 That is the terribleness of sin. And that 
 is the reality of the consequence of sin. We 
 speak in the one case of losing the mind, and 
 in the other case of losing the soul, and what 
 we know of the terribleness of the one makes 
 plain the terribleness of the other. 
 
 [8S ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 FEAR OF OTHERS MAY TAKE THE PLACE 
 OF OUR OWN HONEST CONVICTION 
 
 One could hardly believe that in so serious a 
 business, a man could set up for himself to 
 act by, such a thing as what some others will 
 think. But truly there are persons who put 
 their timidity and fears on the throne where 
 only their honest convictions should be. 
 They put what others will think before loy- 
 alty to Christ. It is nothing to such that 
 they know what they ought to do, nothing 
 that the compass of the soul points its sure 
 direction, nor the scales of judgment show 
 the great values — nothing to them that God 
 has a will and that they have convictions and 
 approvals. They are afraid of men, and 
 give themselves and the direction of life 
 over under the dominion of some few of 
 human kind. They are ashamed of Jesus. 
 So they decide they will deny him before 
 men and confess Him in secret. 
 
 It is as if the mariner ignored the compass, 
 and his chart, and the stars, for the caprice 
 
 [ 86 ] 
 
Fear of Others vs. Honest Conviction 
 
 of some sailor. It is as if an Apostle, 
 ashamed of the Gospel, received his message 
 from some other he is more anxious to please 
 than the Lord, w^ho, as friend and judge, does 
 rule over both the just and the unjust. 
 
 [ 87 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 ONCE THE START IS MADE, CHURCH-MEM- 
 BERSHIP IS FULL OF DELIGHTS 
 
 Like many other things, church-member- 
 ship, once the start is made, is full of delights. 
 Interest, as we understand perfectly in the 
 case of money, follows investment. We 
 are apt to become interested in what we are 
 busy with and invest time in. They who 
 have no interest in the ball games we de- 
 light in, have only to go to the games for a 
 while, to become as interested in them as we. 
 Conscripts dreading service in the army, 
 once they taste the life, enjoy campaigning 
 just as veterans do. Missionaries delight in 
 their work; delight in it as much as other 
 men delight in bridging rivers and painting 
 pictures and running races and making mon- 
 ey. Church people are happy people — are 
 the happiest people you can find. They are 
 not constituted differently from other per- 
 sons, nor is this relationship in itself distaste- 
 ful. They do not live a dull, uninteresting 
 life, nor go forward under the feeling of re- 
 
 [ 88 ] 
 
Church Membership Full of Delights 
 
 gret that this fellowship with Christ is duty. 
 No. They take their cross and find that af- 
 ter the taking, they have rest and delight. 
 After the first taking, the yoke is easy and 
 the burden is light, just as Christ said. These 
 were once just such persons as you, — as you 
 who think you could never be happy in the 
 Church. And here now, they are the most 
 genuinely happy persons in the world. 
 
 Starting is the hard part. Once in the 
 way, one does not find the Christian way 
 harder or less delightful than other ways. 
 After the plunge, swimmers in cool water 
 find the water warm. Pigeons do not find 
 flying difficult, but starting is hard. Once 
 in the air, they can fly for hours, but made to 
 rise from the ground a few times in suc- 
 cession, they are so exhausted that they will 
 not try to rise again. Once started on the 
 Christian way, one finds it as delightful as 
 other ways. And far more rewarding. For 
 the sake of being spared the cost of the first 
 start, it is foolish to let the whole of life be 
 lost. In all after years — your life then made 
 glorious — you can be mighty glad if in the 
 springtime of your years, in spite of your de- 
 sire to spare yourself this effort, you chose 
 
 [ 89 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 and sealed as yours while you could, the 
 good part. It will be small comfort surely, 
 
 "In after years you will be mighty glad, if now in the spring- 
 time of your years, you sealed as yours while you can, the good 
 
 part" 
 
 if all along through life and at its end, all 
 you have for the glory you have missed, is 
 the poor satisfaction you will get out of the 
 thought that you had your own foolish way. 
 To please yourself may seem to you to be 
 worth something now, but you know per- 
 fectly well that because a thing is pleasant, 
 does not justify it. In a little while you will 
 
 [90 ] 
 
Church Membership Full of Delights 
 
 curse the day you let the pride of the mo- 
 ment give direction to all your years. 
 
 Up then reader, and tolerating in yourself 
 no thing you would condemn in another, put 
 yourself on Christ's side. Take now, the 
 step that will seal your choice, past any lapse 
 your future mood or wilful preference may 
 bring to a secret choice. Just such a reso- 
 lute decision marks every beginning. Be- 
 gun is half done. One takes himself in hand 
 when he starts on a journey, goes to the hos- 
 pital, joins the army, confesses a fault, pays 
 a debt, chooses an occupation, breaks a hab- 
 it. We say ''Now, this is the day." And 
 at once the step is taken that seals the re- 
 solve past change. Vacillating, hesitating, in- 
 decision makes cowards of us all, and crowds 
 upon the throne of life by inaction the very 
 thing which in intention, sober choice has dis- 
 crowned. Indecision lets in upon us in some 
 deed at hand, the thing that supplants what 
 our sober reason and conscience have 
 crowned. By taking charge of the first step, 
 our denial really faces us in the wrong direc- 
 tion. That is why it is all-important that the 
 actual thing we do now and at once should 
 express our sober judgment. What we 
 
 [ 91 ] 
 
The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church 
 
 promise sometime to do, cannot hold its own 
 against what we actually do at once. 
 
 It is with the profound hope that some- 
 thing herein written has touched the heart of 
 the reader, that leave is taken of him. Let 
 him be reminded that it is in the sense of 
 ought he finds in him, that God speaks to 
 him. If any such feeling has come to the 
 reader, let him be sure his is a high privilege. 
 That sense within one cannot be out of keep- 
 ing with all the other creation of God, but 
 fits in with it and is supported by it. That 
 sense is in him because the fact to which it 
 answers is the reality outside of him. So all 
 things belong to him who follows it, just as 
 all things work with him who follows great 
 nature. Let the reader take it as a good sign 
 that he can still hear this voice, and see the 
 sin of going in the contrary way. What re- 
 mains for such an one to do — the next step 
 — is openly to ally himself with those in his 
 community who, joined together in a body 
 stronger than any one of them alone, make 
 the spirit and presence of God real in their 
 lives and in the world. 
 
 [ 92 ] 
 
TO THE READER 
 
 Knowing as I do the greatness for weal or woe, of 
 the step you will now take — whatever it is — I beg to 
 add a personal word. If you are sincere in this mat- 
 ter — unwilling to play any trick upon yourself, and 
 resolved to practice no deceit with yourself — you will 
 want to know how you may make the most out of your 
 determination to do what so fully approves itself to 
 you. 
 
 Your safety, be assured, lies in your taking at once 
 a step in the direction in which you want to go. In 
 some way commit yourself at once. Make a covenant 
 with yourself. If you are in earnest, you will not 
 hesitate to make a covenant also with your God. And 
 having made the covenant sincerely, and being resolved 
 to keep it, you will not fail to enlist your pastor on your 
 side. Write him some note like follows. To take 
 this step promptly is to win. Not to do this is to 
 take counsel of your excusing, reluctant, weaker self. 
 It is to take a step in the other direction. Certainly 
 to be defeated now in this first contest, does not prom- 
 ise anything different for the contest tomorrow. No ; 
 be sure the decision you make now, great with weal or 
 woe, is your binding decision, and make it right. 
 
 Edward E. Keedy. 
 
 To 
 
 Pastor of Church. 
 
 Dear Mr 
 
 When it is convenient for you, I should be glad if 
 you will tell me something about what is involved in 
 joining the Church, and what fitness is required. 
 Cordially yours. 
 
\ 
 

 Date Due 
 
 ^' « 
 
 
 
 
 ^*i ^ , . 
 
 
 
 
 'i" 
 
 
 
 
 M^maa^^&^^iiaaML ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 01029 9248