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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
A STUDY FOR THE TIMES 
 
 CLELAND BOYD McAFEE 
 
 FORTY-FIRST STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CHICAGO 
 
 S> 
 
 1903 
 
 THE WINONA PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS WINONA LAKE, INDIANA 
 
- 
 
 7cf*¥ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1903, 
 
 BY 
 
 THE WINONA PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 
N^» 
 
 
 I WOULD DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK TO 
 MY WIFE, DID I NOT REALIZE THAT IT IS HERS 
 ALREADY BY NO WORD OF MINE, IF THE CHIEF 
 INSPIRATION AND THE MOST HELPFUL SUG- 
 GESTIONS CAN CONSTITUTE A CLAIM, 
 
TEbe adapters 
 
 I. — A Typical Growing Church. 
 II. — The Divine Element in Church Growth. 
 III. — The Preaching of the Growing Church. 
 IV. — The Separation of the Church. 
 V. — The Discomfiture of Hypocrites. 
 VI. — The Changed Lives of the Converts 
 VII.— Some Hints of Method. 
 VIII. — The Perils and Safeguards. 
 
Zhe <5rowino Cbutcb 
 
 I. A TYPICAL GROWING CHURCH. 
 
 NOT long ago I found myself in the city of 
 Philadelphia, with an hour to spare before 
 my train was due. I wandered again into old 
 Independence Hall, and presently found myself 
 in the upstairs room where was framed the first 
 constitution of the United States. There I 
 noticed the high backed chair with its quaint 
 carving, of which John Fiske tells in one of his 
 volumes. This is the incident: After the critical Per- 
 momentous act of signing the new constitution od * Ch ' v 
 which was to be presented to the country for 
 adoption, the room grew very still. The men 
 who had spent months in thought and debate, 
 knew that their task was done and were 
 weighted with the meaning of it. Washington 
 sat with bowed head, his face buried in his 
 hands. On the back of his chair, in which he 
 had presided over the many sessions of the con- 
 vention, was emblazoned a half sun, brilliant 
 with gilded rays. Benjamin Franklin, then 
 eighty-one years of age, pointed to the emblem 
 and said, "As I have been sitting here all these 
 weeks, I have often wondered whether yonder 
 
 1 
 
XEbe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 sun was rising or setting. Now I know that it 
 is a rising sun." 
 church ain- Franklin's question conies into the mind of 
 ingornot? many men who are thoughtfully observing the 
 signs of our own times. The sun is not in the 
 zenith. It is yonder just above the horizon. 
 But are we facing the east and a rising sun, or 
 the west and a setting sun ? Is the church of 
 God making real headway, is it winning, is it 
 facing better daylight ? Or is it still slumber- 
 ing, is it losing ground in the contest, is it 
 going into deeper night before it comes to the 
 noon day ? Is it in the dusk or in the dawn ? 
 Two eminent religious leaders and observers 
 have recently taken opposite ground on the 
 question. One sees an advancing kingdom; the 
 other sees a kingdom making no large headway. 
 One believes we are coming to the noonday; 
 the other expects the noonday as well, but 
 believes we are now passing into a shadow 
 which will deepen before we come into the 
 light. One sees a church aroused and at work; 
 the other sees a church slumbering still and 
 indifferent in its work. 
 
 When such men differ, the rest of us have a 
 right to ask questions. It is well for us to ask 
 
 2 
 
H Uspfcal Growing Cburcb 
 
 at least this much: If the kingdom of God is 
 growing, if the sun is rising, by what means on 
 our part is it being brought about? If the 
 kingdom is not growing, if the sun is setting, 
 where is the fault ? The Chinese have a prov- 
 erb: "What will you have? says God; pay for 
 it and take it." It is not too much to say that 
 if the church of this day wants a rising sun and 
 will pay for it, it may have it. If, on the other 
 hand the church pays the price of a setting sun, 
 it will have that. 
 
 There are some of us who feel that we are 
 not entirely ignorant of the indifference of the 
 church, but who cannot see the sun as a setting 
 one, to whom the kingdom of God is growing, 
 to whom the Word of God is prevailing as it has 
 not done for years before. And yet there are 
 sins of indifference which ought to trouble our 
 hearts. If we mean to see the kingdom grow, 
 how shall we bring it about? How does the 
 kingdom grow on its human side? I am not 
 forgetting, we may never wisely forget for an 
 instant, that the power of the kingdom of God 
 lies in God, and yet it is true that for us the 
 most important element in its growth is that 
 with which we are charged. Time was when 
 
 3 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 men thought the sun rose over a fixed earth. 
 We have learned in astronomy, what we need to 
 learn in religion, that the rising or the setting 
 of the sun is determined by the turning of the 
 earth toward the sun or away from it. Under 
 what conditions does the church turn toward 
 the sun? When may we frankly put the re- 
 sponsibility for the growth of the church on 
 God, feeling that we have done our share ? 
 a typical Whatever our theories of such matters may 
 
 case of ° 
 
 growth. be, and we ought to have them, we need to test 
 them by the cases which appear in history. 
 Probably no church of New Testament times is 
 more fully described than that at Ephesus, and 
 it repays study as a typical instance of a church 
 growing. Whatever principles may be found 
 ruling in this case will be worth applying to 
 present conditions. There are some reasons 
 why the church at Ephesus is of special perti- 
 nence to our own time. The odds were heavily 
 against its growth. Opposition was intense, 
 and the young church quietly gathered up that 
 opposition into its own life and used it to ad- 
 vance its own interests. If the church of the 
 present day thinks the spirit of commercialism 
 is its most serious foe, that was the foe of the 
 
 4 
 
a Epical ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 early Ephesian church, a foe intrenched in the 
 whole life of the people. If the church to-day 
 feels that its position is misunderstood, that it 
 is charged with indifference to the real needs Acts 19. 
 of the people and with being out of harmony 
 with the spirit of the times, so was the 
 Ephesian church. If the church of the present Rev. 2:1-7. 
 finds its grave peril in the readiness of its mem- 
 bers and of those about it to become indifferent 
 to its best interests and to adopt fads and 
 fancies, so did the Ephesian church. Most of 
 all, if the present church finds but few men who 
 are ready to open their lives to the sovereign 
 Spirit of God and to yield to His mastery, so 
 did the church at Ephesus. The accounts in 
 the Acts, in the Epistle of Paul, and in the 
 little letter to the "angel of the church" in the 
 second chapter of the Eevelation, suggest 
 singular likeness between that church and the 
 church of our own day. 
 
 The case is a pertinent one, also, because it is 
 one wherein the miracles and unusual powers 
 attributed to the leaders were in use and yet 
 had no large effect and were not magnified. We 
 are told of them with the unique expression, 
 nowhere else used, I believe, that they were 
 
 5 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 Acts 19:11. 
 
 Acts 2:17. 
 
 Ctr 
 
 Acts §8. 
 
 'special miracles." No prominence is given 
 them in the account, and in his address to the 
 elders of the church sometime after, Paul 
 makes no reference to them whatever, though 
 it would have been most natural to have done 
 so. In the epistle he makes no mention of 
 them, and they are not used in the letter of the 
 Spirit to the church in the Eevelation. They 
 were wrought, but they served a purely tem- 
 porary purpose. The need and the service of 
 the wonderworking power were rapidly dis- 
 appearing, and after this we have record of any 
 such power only twice, and then under most 
 peculiar circumstances, though the record con- 
 tinues for nearly thirty years. You no sooner 
 begin to talk of such things in the present day 
 than some one bemoans the weakness of the 
 church in that it has lost this miraculous 
 power. It is not to the point here to discuss 
 that question. Enough to say just now that 
 it is far from proved that the church would be 
 one whit the stronger if it were thought of as 
 *, m agency for the cure of men's bodies or the 
 liealing of physical diseases. And at any rate, 
 the Ephesian church did not grow by means of 
 
H Topical ©rowing Gburcb 
 
 miracles, and if we have not the power of 
 wonderworking, we have the same chance as it 
 had for continuous and wide-reaching growth. 
 At one or two points, indeed, the church of 
 the present day has distinct advantage over the 
 early church. It is striking that immediately Acts 6:7. 
 after the increase in the organization of the 
 church, which made all its work more orderly, 
 we are told that it made a marked advance. 
 That hints at the value of organization and 
 equipment. A certain measure of this the 
 Ephesian church had. But it could boast no 
 such machinery for good service as that of the 
 present church. It has become the fashion to 
 say that we have too much organization, or as 
 one of my brethren loves to say, that we have 
 "run to wheels." That is matter for personal 
 opinion. On this we shall agree, at any rate: 
 a well organized church, with marshalled forces, 
 is far better able to undertake the work of 
 conquest than one in chaos and running at 
 loose ends. It is better to have an over- 
 organized army, than a shapeless mob. And 
 it is largely our own fault if our churches ever 
 seem over-organized. Every feeble society 
 
TTbe Crowtng Cburcb 
 
 means that some one saw a need which he 
 tried to supply, and when he had his 
 machinery ready for the work strength or zeal 
 failed, and he went not to his task. Meanwhile 
 are we sure he did not see a need and that the 
 machinery was superfluous? The Ephesian 
 church was not, at least, over-organized. There 
 are hints that the organization had become 
 Acts 20:28. rather definite, but it could hardly have been 
 so highly developed as in any well regulated 
 church of the present day. 
 
 Nor had the Ephesian church the example 
 and inspiration of other churches in such de- 
 gree as has our church. There are instances 
 which could be held up to it as noble and 
 worthy of emulation, but there lay before it no 
 such far-reaching record of great work as lies 
 before any open-eyed church to-day. It re- 
 quires an immense amount of forgetting for 
 a man to lose his faith in God. It requires 
 an unspeakable ignorance to say that the 
 church may not hope to master the prob- 
 lems that are set before it. What then, shall 
 we do with history? The Ephesian church 
 had no history worth the hearing. Here were 
 
H Epical ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 principles of life and of church control which 
 were presented with authority: "They are 
 good; try them." Yes, but suppose these prin- 
 ciples have been put to the long test of the 
 centuries and have been found good, does not 
 the argument in their behalf gain weight? 
 Every year of the life of the church gives its 
 people an added advantage over the early 
 church. And the Ephesian church had not 
 the advantage generally supposed, that it had 
 a sense of the personal presence and life of 
 our Lord. It was remote from the scene of 
 His earthly life, and its word of Him came 
 from those who have told us the same story of 
 their knowledge of Him. Their chief leader 
 had probably never seen Him in the flesh, but 
 had become passionately assured of Him on 
 the Damascus road, when he saw Him with 
 blinded eyes. Such assurance, that will not 
 be gainsaid, comes to men of our own day 
 without the outward signs of the presence of 
 Christ, and they become mighty as Paul was, 
 by reason of that assurance. 
 
 However close the parallel may seem, here 
 is an early chureh, under apostolic leadership, 
 
XTbe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 which had such marked growth that it is fre- 
 quently mentioned. The church of our own 
 day, seeking to know how it may grow and 
 approach the fulfillment of its purpose, may 
 well take it into careful thought. 
 
 10 
 
2>ivine Element in Cburcb ©rowtb 
 
 II. THE DIVINE ELEMENT IN CHUECH 
 GEOWTH. 
 
 HUMAN activity in the growth of the 
 church, is, after all, only co-operation 
 with God. Back of all our energy lies the divine 
 power. That is the uppermost fact in all our 
 theorizing about the matter. We hear very lit- 
 tle lately about getting up a revival, and that 
 little we do not like. The preposition gives a 
 wrong angle to our thought. Eevivals come 
 down. The water of refreshing is poured down 
 on the church; it is not pumped up. In a cer- 
 tain sense, therefore, the church must wait the 
 gracious purpose of God for its time of marked 
 growth. Whatever its people may do, the more 
 real the reviving, the more certain they are 
 at the end of it that it came as the gift of 
 God. 
 
 This seems particularly true in the church 
 in Ephesus. The theme of the Epistle, which 
 certainly went to it, whether it was meant 
 solely for that church or not, is the right 
 of Christ as Head over His church. It is 
 
 11 
 
Zbc Growing Cbutcb 
 
 like one prolonged love-letter telling the 
 virtues of the Lord of the new-wedded church. 
 If we believe the account of Eusebius and 
 think that John the Beloved passed his last 
 days there, and if we see in the Gospel which 
 he wrote his closing message, there is further 
 suggestion of the sovereign right of Christ 
 over His church. The fourth Gospel is the 
 account of His life and work which most 
 magnifies Himself and His mastery, not over 
 winds and trees and things, but over minds 
 and hearts. It is here the deep philosophy of 
 the Christian theology is disclosed or hinted. 
 It is here that Christ reveals the dependence 
 of His church on Himself. If the Gospel was 
 written in Ephesus, be sure the messages were 
 many times spoken to the Ephesians. 
 
 There is one incident in connection with the 
 account in the Acts, which makes the divine 
 element in the growth of the church specially 
 Acts 19:1-7. clear. There were twelve men, who were 
 honest with the little they knew, who knew 
 only a little. Twelve men — a new apostolate 
 for that one church. Their words indicate 
 that they knew there must be something more 
 
 12 
 
Divine Element in Cburcb (Browtb 
 
 than they yet had, but they had not received 
 that better something, did not even know 
 whether they might receive it. They were 
 men who were willing to be led on into fuller 
 knowledge and more explicit consecration. 
 They called for no labored argument. They 
 were open-hearted toward God. Their faces 
 turned toward the sun. Thus they became a 
 nucleus for the growing church. The activity 
 of the church was in part an exudation from 
 their Spirit-filled lives. So soon as they were 
 ready for the gift of the Spirit, the gift came 
 and they received Him into their lives. 
 
 It will be remembered that the first forward Acts2:4i. 
 step of the church came after the Pentecost 
 blessing, when three thousand were brought 
 into the fellowship of the church. That gift 
 was accompanied with the power to speak with 
 tongues, about which so much discussion has 
 been had. Once afterwards and here we are Actsio:46. 
 told that the power of tongues came with the 
 gift of the Spirit. In the other cases no men- 
 tion is made of any special or apparent accom- 
 paniments, save that there is new vigor and 
 new ability for the work of the church. The 
 
 13 
 
Zbc Growing Cburcb 
 
 gift of the Spirit was then and is now the 
 pledge of God's power for the growth of His 
 church. 
 The baptism There is abundant literature in the current 
 
 of the spirit. 
 
 catalogues on the baptism of the Spirit. Per- 
 haps there cannot be too much. The purpose 
 of this study is not advanced by analysis of 
 the cases of the gift of the Spirit, since we 
 are examining the human elements in the 
 growth of the church. It is, however, much 
 to the point to urge that in every case the 
 Spirit came upon those who were willing in 
 their own hearts to come under His control. 
 There was a certain preparedness which made 
 them fit. There was an honest obedience to 
 the truth which they had received, which ap- 
 pears in all cases. 
 
 This much of the gift of the Spirit is in our 
 own power. This past year I heard a bur- 
 dened pastor say that the most disheartening 
 feature of his church was the fact that he had 
 none among his members who seemed dis- 
 satisfied with poor conditions that prevailed, 
 or were ready to open their hearts to some new 
 and better influence of the Spirit of God. I 
 remember how sadly another pastor declared 
 
 14 
 
Bfvine Element in Cburcb Orowtb 
 
 that he had no one in his church who was 
 eager and restless for the winning of others. 
 On the other hand a pastor of a packed church 
 warned his brethren in my hearing that a 
 well-equipped, largely attended church is in 
 grave danger of becoming a powerless church, 
 because it becomes content with things as they 
 are, and has none of that dissatisfaction which 
 is the foregleam of the coming of the Spirit. 
 Some of the advice whereby we are urged 
 to wait quietly for the gift of the Spirit loses 
 its point in this fact: that He came upon His 
 people sometimes in New Testament days 
 when they were in the thick of their work, 
 doing each day the thing which their teaching 
 until then had given them power to do. The 
 man who is faithful to the baptism of John 
 and is open minded to something better is a 
 fit subject for the coming of the Spirit in 
 power. We need the quiet and calm of life 
 that we may know some of the truths of God. 
 But there are truths which we learn only as 
 we follow on to know the Lord, out in the 
 blaze of the busiest life. What He seeks in 
 us is an honest open mindedness to the new 
 and better things which He would reveal to 
 
 15 
 
TObe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 us. That will lead us sometimes to the upper 
 room, and its crowd of one hundred and 
 twenty, or it may lead us to the small Ephesian 
 group of a dozen, or to the Cornelian group of 
 close friends. No matter, we shall receive the 
 gift of the Spirit. 
 
 There is no record of the marked coming 
 of the Spirit upon the whole Ephesian church. 
 Doubtless He did come, but it was through the 
 little nucleus first, through the little company 
 who were ready. Upon the others He came 
 in the power which was needed for their work. 
 Every church of the present day waits and 
 must wait for such a nucleus around which it 
 may grow, through which the power of .God 
 may come upon it. The Spirit cannot come 
 upon a few for all, but His power may come 
 through a few for all. Can you who are read- 
 ing this line, point out any reason why you 
 should not be part in that nucleus in your 
 own church? Are you certainly honest with 
 all the truth you have received? Cannot you 
 open your heart to any further and better 
 thing which He may be ready to give you? 
 Does it seem to you that there is something 
 better than you yet know, some higher bap- 
 
 16 
 
SMvfne Element in Cburcb (Browtb 
 
 tism which you have not received? Or are 
 you benumbing your dissatisfaction with your- 
 self and your spiritual attainments ? 
 
 Sometimes a young man comes to me with The need for 
 
 _ dissatisfac- 
 
 a story of his spiritual life and its deadness, tion. 
 saying that he fears he is morbid, but he 
 wants something that he sees others have. So 
 deceitful are our hearts that it is almost 
 dangerous to tell such an inquirer that his 
 very dissatisfaction is part of his readiness for 
 the better thing. The peril is that he may 
 then turn his mind toward his own state of 
 unrest instead of toward the better thing 
 which he wants. But the thing which it may 
 not be wise to say too clearly is the very true 
 thing, for all that. We are in no condition to 
 receive the larger gift of the Spirit until we 
 know ourselves to lack something. We may 
 not know whether the thing we lack is avail- 
 able, but we may know well that it is needed. 
 Not many worse things can come to the life 
 of a man than to stand in the presence of 
 something that is confessedly better than his 
 life has yet attained, and then settle down con- 
 tentedly in the poorer life. Whatever the rea- 
 sons he may give, it is always bad for a man 
 b 17 
 
Zbc Growing Cburcb 
 
 to turn away from the highest ideals and con- 
 tent himself with the lower. It is that willing- 
 ness to be something less than the best that 
 makes it difficult for the conferment of the 
 Spirit to come to us. We see other men mani- 
 festing a spirit of consecration which is far be- 
 yond our own. We know we ought to attain 
 that level ourselves. For a time it makes us 
 restless and dissatisfied. If then we begin to 
 find excuses for ourselves, if we conjure up con- 
 ditions in our case that are different from those 
 in their cases, we are entering on the first act of 
 the tragedy of the soul. Presently we will settle 
 down to an ideal-less life, and then may God 
 pity us! I often hear men say that God can- 
 not use a discouraged man. I have reason 
 to be glad that it is not quite true. Is it not 
 true to say that He cannot magnify Himself 
 in a satisfied man? Is it not the man who 
 knows there is an unfulfilled promise in his 
 life who receives the gift of the Spirit ? 
 The spirit is At the same time, it must be noted that 
 present. we nee( j ^ wa ^ ^ ^ a t enduement. Since 
 
 Pentecost, the Spirit's power is a present fact 
 in the church, and the need is that we shall 
 be about the work for which already we are 
 
 18 
 
SHvine Element in Cburcb ©rowtb 
 
 enabled of God, in full assurance that it is in 
 the line of that service that further power 
 comes. It is faithfulness to the baptism of 
 John that brings us to the baptism of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 The other day one of my friends spoke of a 
 community near my own home as "finished and 
 roofed over." There are souls who count them- 
 selves so, and there are such churches. They 
 have no sense of the larger thing that is pos- 
 sible. They have no sense of their smallness 
 and incompleteness. They have said what the 
 older version incorrectly makes the Ephesian 
 apostolate say: "We have not heard whether 
 there be any Holy Ghost." Is there anything 
 better than we have? We have not heard of 
 it. Our preacher, our choir, our growth, our 
 prospects — can there be any better? If so, 
 we do not know of them. Let no word be said 
 against the happy life which many a church 
 lives, but let it be urged that life that feels 
 itself a fulfillment instead of a prophecy has 
 somehow missed the point of its being. If we 
 have not yet received the gift of the Holy 
 Spirit, then there is something larger and 
 better for us. 
 
 19 
 
Zbc ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 Such a nucleus of open minded, Spirit-re- 
 ceiving men every church must have. At its 
 very center, surely, ought to be the pastor. If 
 any man may be expected to let the power of 
 God fully and unreservedly into his life, it is 
 he. His temptations to keep Him out are 
 graver than any of his people know. How 
 wretchedly ambition of the wrong sort lures 
 him on! How almost impossible it is for him 
 to keep sweet-spirited and humble before God 
 when he is forever before people who watch 
 ''Thecihame- him! One of the younger writers has just 
 given us a book whose story turns on the 
 career of a man who is unable to get away 
 from his sense of the presence of other people. 
 He is always asking what they will prob- 
 ably think of what he is doing. He magni- 
 fies little incidents in his life so that he may 
 be more admired and more thought about by 
 those who hear them. Alongside him is an- 
 other man, a minister, who seems almost 
 brutally indifferent to the opinions of others, 
 is counted so very superior to applause that it 
 seems cheap in his presence, but he also con- 
 fesses before the story is written out that he is 
 fighting the same subtle enemy in all his harsh- 
 
 20 
 
SHvine Element in Cburcb <5rowtb 
 
 I I «■■■ II I U ■ I I I W ill II III! ■ ——MM— I lli 
 
 ness. Down in his heart it is his constant ques- 
 tion whether people have seen and have ap- 
 proved what he has done. He even comes to 
 make his very indifference to them part of his 
 eagerness to have them note him. Many a 
 man knows what that struggle is. Or else 
 there comes a kind of hardening toward other 
 opinions than one's own, a satisfaction with 
 the baptism one has received, which is peril- 
 ous. There have been so many vagaries 
 preached and taught, such fanciful things 
 have been said and written about this very 
 matter of the baptism of the Spirit that some 
 of us are in danger of turning away from the 
 whole of it, feeling that it is largely imagina- 
 tion, while down in our hearts we know there 
 is something we have not that would make us 
 more efficient in the service of the church. Or 
 we become engrossed with the equipment of 
 our churches and lose sight of what we know 
 is their only hope of power. We get out of 
 connection with the true source of strength. 
 The hinges of our knees rust with disuse. 
 Our Bibles open only to our texts. And yet 
 it is we first of all who should go to form the 
 Spirit-filled nucleus of the growing church. 
 
 21 
 
XTbe ©rowfng Cburcb 
 
 The people But if the pastor should not so yield him- 
 thep^storf self, there are his people who may take the 
 place. There are people with burdened hearts 
 who are waiting for the moving of their 
 pastors. Many a time at the end of a meeting 
 where some strong man has voiced the call of 
 God to something higher and finer than the 
 life we are now living, I have heard devout 
 men and women say with a sigh, "0, if only 
 my pastor had been here." Let part of it be 
 affectation, let part of it be goody-goody, it is 
 still true that the people are at times in ad- 
 vance of their pastors in the knowledge of the 
 Spirit's power. I have heard workers say, "We 
 can do nothing; our pastor is not really a 
 spiritual man." Have they a right to say such 
 a thing ? Is there but one way to be spiritual ? 
 May there not be ways wherein a man may be 
 in true connection with the source of all power 
 and yet not appear to hold such fellowship 
 with Him as others may? In a western city 
 a priest of the Catholic church, who was ac- 
 cused of a grave fault and against whom the 
 evidence was conclusive, had seemed so hard- 
 ened and had shown so little sense of sin that 
 even his friends who exonerated him from the 
 
 22 
 
2>it>ine Element in Cburcb ©rowtb 
 
 crime were amazed. As he sat in a great 
 church waiting the judgment of his superior, 
 he swooned away and presently died. When 
 they disrobed him for his burial, they found 
 wrapped around his loins a small chain, so 
 bound that every step brought him pain, found 
 it bedded in the flesh where he had worn it 
 for years. Was he in no wise penitent though 
 his penitence took not the forms of the peni- 
 tence of most men? Are there not pastors 
 who seem strangely indifferent to spiritual life 
 whose currents of spiritual life run deeper 
 than our own? One year I was assigned dur- 
 ing the meeting of a church court to be enter- 
 tained with a man whom I had always thought 
 cold and unspiritual. His stateliness was 
 nothing short of stiffness, and to hear his 
 pulpit prayers you would have thought him 
 stilted and distant. But as I watched him 
 day by day, and heard him pray in his room, 
 or heard his intimate conversation and marked 
 its deep spiritual fervor, my heart condemned 
 me. Here was a man who knew God as most 
 men do not, who held everything in spiritual 
 balances; yet to this day most men look at 
 me incredulously when I say it of him. 
 
 23 
 
Ube (Stowing Cburcb 
 
 But even if a pastor is not in the inner circle 
 may not there be such a circle? Are there 
 not faithful, earnest men and women who are 
 dissatisfied with what they now have and long 
 for something better? Is there any reason 
 why you, my brother, should not be one in 
 your own church? It will not demand many 
 to make the new apostolate for any church. 
 From them the power spread in Ephesus. 
 Through them the whole church was inspired. 
 The power was from God, as it must always be, 
 at the beginning and at the end, but it came 
 upon them because they were ready for some- 
 thing better than their lives had and were 
 willing to receive it. 
 
 24 
 
preacbina of tbe ©rowing Gburcb 
 
 III. THE PEEACHING OF THE GEOW- 
 TNQ CHUECH. 
 
 AT THE very forefront of the account of 
 the church at Ephesus stands this fact: 
 that it grew by reason of faithful and persistent 
 preaching and teaching. Several times we are 
 told of this element in the history of the 
 church. One quality of the preaching is too 
 plain to be overlooked — what we may call the 
 frankness of it, its completeness. There was 
 no seeking to offend people, and no joy in 
 having done so, but there was no effort to 
 avoid it. At the very time when it was of 
 importance to win the favor of men, Paul so 
 preached that there was considerable offence 
 taken. His preaching was not brutal, you may 
 be sure of that; but it was utterly and ex- 
 plicitly frank. At the end of his ministry with Acts 20:20. 
 the church he prided himself on the fact that 
 he had dared to tell his hearers the whole coun- 
 sel of God. Therein he felt himself pure from 
 the blood of all men. Three suggestions are Actsi9:8. 
 made as to the method of his preaching: he 
 
 25 
 
Uhc (Browing Cburcb 
 
 Acts 19:13. 
 
 Acts 19:10. 
 
 The preach- 
 ing for to- 
 day. 
 
 "reasoned," appealed to men's intellects; he 
 "persuaded," appealed to their wills; it is evi- 
 dent from the context that he did not fail to 
 arouse their feelings. His appeal was to the 
 whole man. This appeal was in behalf of the 
 kingdom of God, and was so plainly based on 
 the life and teaching of Jesus that He became 
 the main thought of the hearers. Few preach- 
 ers of the present day would ask any finer 
 testimonial to their preaching than the words 
 of the sons of Sceva, "I adjure you by Jesus 
 whom Paul preacheth." Through all his 
 reasoning and moving, Paul managed to keep 
 it before even his most careless hearers that 
 he was preaching Jesus. Finally, it is evident 
 from the result that Paul did not do all the 
 preaching. Enough was done so that all the 
 people of the province heard the word within 
 about two years. That means that the people 
 who accepted Jesus became preachers, each in 
 his own place and way. 
 
 All this suggests the need of the preaching 
 of the present day. What is the sort of preach- 
 ing that will make the church grow ? We min- 
 isters do not pretend to know it all. We have 
 much to learn from any man who will come to 
 
 26 
 
IPreacbfna of tbe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 us with candid and kindly criticism. Certainly 
 there can be no resentment of an adverse judg- 
 ment. All that can be claimed in fairness is 
 that we want to learn better. Surely, however, 
 certain traits ought to mark the preaching of 
 the present pulpit. 
 
 For one thing it ought to be frank and un- 
 reserved. It ought to deal with the actual 
 conditions of men. It ought not to deal with 
 sinning men as though there were no sin. It 
 ought not to smooth matters over so that 
 hearers know the man is preaching a half 
 truth for the sake of favor. Better young 
 Joseph Parker standing on the beam of the 
 saw pit, out of an honest heart preaching hell 
 and damnation, than a smooth-voiced softness 
 that cannot bear to say an unpleasant truth. 
 A wise old elder once offered the petition in 
 my prayer meeting that I might never be 
 afraid of the people when I sat in my study 
 preparing to preach. I thought it an odd 
 prayer. I now know it to be a very impor- 
 tant one. There is nothing that can create a 
 barrier between a preacher and his hearers 
 more surely than their feeling that he is hedg- 
 ing on his own beliefs because he fears a frank 
 
 27 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 statement would not be satisfactory to them. 
 I went with a great crowd into a large hall in 
 New York City one afternoon. A man just 
 before me expressed with a half laugh the hope 
 that a certain young man would not speak dur- 
 ing the meeting. His friend asked him the 
 reason. "0," he said, "that man always makes 
 me uncomfortable when he speaks." Well, 
 that is what preaching ought to do for us much 
 of the time. It ought to make us uncomfort- 
 able if we have become satisfied with low ideals, 
 if we have begun to yield to the lower life, if 
 we are getting into the ways of sin. As the 
 meeting went on, and the young man did 
 speak, I saw quickly why he made men un- 
 comfortable. There was such a persistent and 
 explicit presentment of the claims of Christ 
 upon life that no man who claimed allegiance 
 to Him could bear the presence of sin in his 
 life. If a man is in rebellion against Christ, 
 or is leaving Him out of life, then surely our 
 preaching ought to unsettle his self-satisfac- 
 tion. And having done this, it ought to point 
 quickly to the Lamb of God that taketh away 
 the sins of the world. It is little to make a 
 
 28 
 
IPreacbfng of tbe Growing Cburcb 
 
 man uncomfortable, unless he is made also to 
 see the place where he may find comfort. 
 
 Every minister needs occasionally to go back 
 over his sermons to see if the man who has 
 followed him through a fair course of time has 
 had a sight of all the great truths of God. 
 Have I declared the whole counsel of God ? I 
 have laid stress on the need for conversion; 
 have I also built up my people in the con- 
 structive truths? I have told them the story 
 of the love of God; have I shunned to say any 
 frank word of the holiness of God? I be- 
 lieve and preach that God is love; does it seem 
 impossible to preach also that our God is a 
 consuming fire? Have I dealt with my peo- 
 ple's souls as I would have my own soul dealt 
 with? Have I preached in sight of the 
 judgment ? 
 
 I do not find any one who does not say that The sense 
 there is lack of a keen sense of sin among men 
 in these days. Some are glad that it is so, feel- 
 ing that the sense of the perfect life is better 
 than the sense of imperfection. But most 
 of us do not see that the sense of the per- 
 fected life has come with the loss of the sense of 
 
 29 
 
Zhe Growing Gburcfo 
 
 sin. It would doubtless be better for our 
 hearers to be won to the life of holiness rather 
 than be driven from the life of sin. But the 
 loss of the sense of sin must have some reason. 
 So far as it is traceable to causes in life outside 
 of the control of the church we are not now 
 concerned with it. It is fair to ask, however, 
 whether it is not to be traced in part to our 
 own failure to be frank with our people in 
 matters of holiness and law. It is not to be 
 supposed that mere harping on the law of God 
 and the fact of sin is the cure. There is a good 
 deal said about sin, after all. The law of God 
 is not omitted from many sermons that I have 
 a chance to hear. But there is nothing which 
 so arouses our sense of sin and evil as the 
 thought of the steps God has taken to be rid of 
 it. The preaching of the cross as the means 
 of God's atonement — is not that a theme too 
 little used ? We read a great many rhapsodies 
 on Christ. Ehapsodies do not save. We do not 
 read so much about an atoning Christ. And 
 until we come ourselves and bring our people 
 into sight of the death of Christ as the means 
 of salvation, we and they will have a weak sense 
 of sin. 
 
 30 
 
preacbing of tbe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 Some of us may be at no fault in this regard. 
 Is it still possible that our people have become 
 calloused with our repeated denunciation of sin, 
 and have come to expect it from us, so that it 
 means less ? Constant dropping wears away the 
 stone but have you not noticed how the plastic 
 clay grows hard and stony under the perpetual 
 dropping of the water under your eaves ? May 
 it not be that we have denounced sin without 
 the tender word of salvation and pardon ? An 
 old minister said to a younger brother one day, 
 "Ah, laddie, you left us bruised and bleeding, 
 but you said no word of the good Physician 
 who was near by." One of my brethren asked 
 once if it were not possible to preach the love 
 of God so fully that men would take encourage- 
 ment in sin from it. Not so fully, no, but in 
 such manner perhaps. Might we not take our The circuit 
 people quite around the cross, letting them 
 stand with us at the back of it where is only 
 rough wood, rigid and hard like the law which 
 it fulfils, letting them stand on the left side 
 where the thrust of the spear has brought out 
 the cleansing blood, letting them stand on the 
 right side with its outreaching hand of help for 
 our needs, letting them stand last in front 
 
 31 
 
TCbe ©rowfna Cburcb 
 
 where they may see the face of one like our- 
 selves, thorn-crowned and worn in our behalf, a 
 Son of God and Brother to us all? Does not 
 the whole counsel of God involve all that ? May 
 we not make the whole circuit ? 
 
 Present day preaching ought to make its ap- 
 peal to the whole man. I do not know that any 
 one sermon can do it, but in the long run of 
 the sermons, the whole man ought to be 
 The appeal touched. The sermon ought to make appeal to 
 
 to reason. G rr 
 
 the reason of man, ought to have its severe 
 logic, its strong reasoning, which brings us into 
 such relation to truth that we cannot be honest 
 with ourselves without accepting it. If the 
 truth cannot be so presented, then it is not the 
 truth. No man gives up his intellect when he 
 accepts Christ. He never finds it until then. 
 "It is in presence of The Word that we learn 
 the use of words ." I fear there may be men 
 turned away from the truth of Christ because 
 they find individual cases of such bad reasoning 
 that they doubt the whole teaching. A Uni- 
 versity professor said a while ago that he did 
 not go to church because he found himself in 
 constant rebellion against the logical processes 
 that were employed. I know one minister who 
 
 32 
 
preacbfna of tbe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 has failed in an important place in large part 
 because he could not hold his own as a thinker 
 with the men of his church. They had not 
 thought largely in his own line, and he had 
 every chance, but they had thought in their 
 own line, and thinking is the same whatever 
 your line, and they could see through his 
 closest mesh of argument. A teacher once said 
 of a pupil in my hearing: "Yes, he is going 
 to be a preacher. He is no thinker, so he will 
 never have anything to say, but he will say it 
 uncommonly well." But sermons that have 
 nothing in them, even if that be uncommonly 
 well said, will not make a strong and growing 
 church. 
 
 And the preaching ought to make its strong The appeal 
 appeal to the will. It ought to call men to 
 decision. The church is not a school where 
 people are taught. It is not a club-house 
 where people get together for their own pleas- 
 ure. The church is a place where men are 
 brought to decision and action. It is a place 
 where men are inspired to say, "I will" to 
 God at some point in their lives where they 
 have been silent before this. Preaching which 
 does not appeal to a man's will may be very 
 
 C 33 
 
Ubc ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 entertaining and may be very eloquent but 
 it will not make a growing church. That 
 is one marked difference between an essay 
 and a sermon. An essay may be profitably 
 read from a pulpit perhaps, but it is not 
 a sermon. From my Seminary days I have 
 carried Dr. Hastings' story of Lyman Beecher 
 and the sermon on repentance. Driven from 
 his work by physician's orders, the senior 
 Beecher had gone to the seashore, where he 
 was fishing and roughing it. One Sunday 
 morning he went to a little church whose young 
 pastor recognized him and insisted that he 
 preach. "Not at all," was the answer, "I am 
 in fishing clothes, I have no sermon and I am 
 here to rest." So the young fellow went into 
 the pulpit and, as Beecher told it, "read a very 
 good essay on repentance," defined it, showed 
 how necessary it is and — sat down. "Then," 
 said the sturdy theologian, "I went up into the 
 pulpit, fishy as I was, and put the cracker on 
 that sermon, told the people it meant that 
 they must repent or they would be lost, every 
 one of them, and dismissed the congregation." 
 Turning to the preacher, he said, "Sir, you 
 ought to be hung! It is a capital crime to 
 
 34 
 
IPreacbfng of tbe (Browing Gburcb 
 
 bring people into presence of such a truth and 
 never ma,ke them feel it as their personal busi- 
 ness." We do not need people who know what 
 repentance is, but people who know how to 
 repent and have done it. The sermon must 
 shut a man up to some sort of decision, a de- 
 cision of mind or of act. It must make appeal 
 to his will. A man once said to me about Dr. 
 John Hall, that he could preach the doctrine 
 of the sovereign election of God so that you 
 felt like going out at once and getting to work. 
 
 Certainly the preaching of the present day The appeal 
 has its appeal to make to the feelings of men. ings. 
 We are very much afraid of that. We do not 
 like emotional preachers. It is so possible to 
 make a cheap appeal to the emotions. 
 Our tears all lie near the surface and 
 a pathetic incident or a touching poem may 
 often jostle them over. In one sermon of a 
 popular preacher, who has singular power with 
 men, I witnessed the touching death of six 
 persons and the people wept at each bedside. 
 I asked a brother minister once what he thought 
 of a certain evangelist. "I do not like him at 
 all," he replied, "he is always boring for 
 water." You have not made a man a Christian 
 
 35 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 because yon have made him weep. Nor have 
 you converted him because you have made him 
 laugh at a funny story. You may make only 
 a cheap appeal to his tears. 
 
 But we would err sadly if we allowed that 
 fact to hide from us the appeal which the 
 gospel of Christ makes to the emotions. Belief 
 is an act of the intellect; acceptance of Christ 
 is an act of the will; but love is an act of the 
 emotions. And it is love that is set out in 
 fullest relief in the Scriptures. It is one of 
 our saddest defects that we are so unmoved 
 by that which ought to thrill us. We can 
 speak of the loss of men, with no quiver in our 
 voices. We can speak of the glory that awaits 
 the believer, with no thrill of our hearts. It 
 is a sane remark of a sane man that we are 
 suffering from dry-eyed conversions and a dry- 
 eyed church. Mothers will weep great tears 
 over the failing health of sons, but will dis- 
 cuss with steady voices their animosity to 
 eternal things. Friends will speak sadly of 
 the tendency of a young man to be frivolous 
 so that he cannot succeed in business, but will 
 treat as a matter of course his indifference 
 
 36 
 
preacliing. 
 
 preacbina of tbe ©rowing Gburcb 
 
 to his spiritual life. We need to be roused 
 from our calmness. 
 
 If such appeal is to be made it must come passion in 
 from the heart of the preacher. Much of our 
 preaching is too placid, too unmoved. If we 
 would put more passion of our hearts into the 
 sermons we preach, we would have a better 
 church growth. I know a teacher of young 
 men of whom I have said many times, what I 
 now repeat, that the most eloquent thing about 
 him is the tears that come to his eyes when 
 he is pleading with men in behalf of Christ. 
 In a house of mourning, a friend said to me 
 concerning the daughter of the house, "I fear 
 for her reason; she cannot weep." When the 
 ministry cannot weep, it is time to fear for 
 its power. Any thoughtful man knows what 
 is meant. The breaking out of the tears of a 
 weak man has no power. Habitual pulpit 
 weeping is contemptible. But when a strong 
 man comes in sight of the abyss and sees men 
 going toward it, or in sight of the glory and 
 finds men going toward that, and sees it all so 
 clearly that it overcomes him, there never fails 
 to be power in the preaching. 
 
 37 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 The theme Meanwhile, what shall the pulpit of the day 
 
 °* preach ~ present to the people as a message? What 
 shall be our theme as ministers? If we ask 
 the people, we shall have a varied answer. 
 Some will tell us that they have no use for 
 logic or for doctrine. Don't give us essays, 
 they say, give us the gospel. They cannot see 
 that the gospel makes its best appeal to the 
 intellect of some men. Others say, Don't harp 
 on action; educate people; teach the truth; 
 above all, don't make people commit them- 
 selves in church by having them stand up or 
 sign papers of all sorts. Others would have 
 the sermons devoted to the things of the day, 
 to the effort to point out the connection be- 
 tween the gospel of Christ and the events which 
 transpire around us. We are reminded that 
 Dr. Alexander of Princeton used to read the 
 newspapers to see how the kingdom of God 
 is going. Some men abuse the church if it 
 does concern itself with current events, and 
 call its minister sensational; other men abuse 
 the church if it does not concern itself with 
 current events and count its minister a spinner 
 of cobwebs, weaving fantastic notions about 
 the future life instead of dealing with the hard 
 
 38 
 
preacbing of tbe ©rowing Gburcb 
 
 realities of the present. In one of our cities 
 recently a prominent club woman explained the 
 supposed defection of women of her own sort 
 from the church by the fact that ministers are 
 preaching so much about the future life about 
 which they know no more than the women do, 
 and are not saying enough about the present 
 life with which they are more concerned. 
 Have we not somewhere heard men say that 
 they think if a man does about as near right 
 as he knows and treats his neighbor right in 
 this life, he need have no fear about the 
 future ? The argument is that a minister must 
 tell him how to do about as near right as possi- 
 ble here and let the next world take care of 
 itself. 
 
 All this might be very confusing, if the solu- Paul's 
 tion of the difficulty did not lie so plainly in 
 the habit of Paul's own preaching : "I deter- i cor. 2:3. 
 mined not to know anything among you save 
 Jesus Christ and Him crucified." The preach- 
 ing is to be no harping on one string, no itera- 
 tion and reiteration of one theme, but a com- 
 prehensive, all-embracing estimate of life and 
 its needs in terms of the crucified Lord of life. 
 It leaves room for philosophy and science and 
 
 39 
 
Zhe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 history and current events. But it furnishes the 
 standard by which everything is to be gauged. 
 The preaching is to be in the interest of the 
 kingdom, at whose head is the crucified Christ. 
 Several years ago I had the good fortune to 
 drop in one day into Dr. Wm. M. Taylor's 
 church when he was delivering a sermon com- 
 memorative of some anniversary in his minis- 
 try. It was then I first heard the illustra- 
 tion of that word of Paul which Dr. Taylor 
 The pivotal made famous. He said that Jesus became a 
 truth. pivot for the preaching of Paul, a center from 
 
 which he could sweep the entire circle of hu- 
 man knowledge and learning, as the hands on 
 the face of your clock sweep the circle of all 
 the hours of the day, and yet are pivoted at 
 the center and never move from it. At any 
 moment of the day, you may start from the 
 end of the clock hands and trace back an un- 
 broken connection with the pivot whence comes 
 the power of motion. And at any point in the 
 preaching of Paul, however remote it might 
 seem to be, you might trace back an unbroken 
 connection with the crucified Christ. It was 
 in this sense that he preached Christ only. He 
 took his point of view at the cross, and viewed 
 
 40 
 
preacbfna of tbe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 everything in its light and from its angle. Dr. 
 William J. Chichester, beloved of all who knew 
 him, under whose ministry nearly five thousand 
 persons were received into the church, of whom 
 more than two thousand professed their faith 
 in response to his preaching, told a revealing 
 fact in my hearing once. It was that he sought 
 to saturate his preparation for the pulpit with 
 prayer. In selecting the text, in outlining the 
 sermon, in the detail of preparation and in the 
 preaching, he had one great petition always in 
 his mind: that he might be loyal to the one 
 message of his life, that he might never lose 
 the sight or the sympathy of the cross of 
 Christ. I asked him privately after the little 
 meeting where he had said it, what he counted 
 the great ambition of his ministry. Instantly 
 he replied, "Oh, to make men know Jesus 
 Christ!" At a dinner in Philadelphia one 
 evening I asked an elder of Dr. Maltbie D. Bab- 
 cock's New York church what was the secret 
 of the unusual place which he took in that city 
 during his short stay there. He replied by 
 saying that Dr. Babcock doubtless had a 
 peculiarly attractive personality, but that he 
 gave you the impression from the very first that 
 
 41 
 
Ube ©rowing Gburcfo 
 
 Preaching 
 
 the law. 
 
 Sinai or 
 Calvary? 
 
 he counted it such a splendid thing to be a 
 Christian that he wanted everybody else to be 
 one. His preaching and his personal conversa- 
 tion, his whole manner of life, made you feel 
 that he had the one passion to make men know 
 Him. 
 
 The chief of police of one of our largest 
 cities has recently taken the ministry to task 
 for not bringing the sanctions of the moral law 
 to bear more heavily on the minds of men. He 
 explains in part the difficulty in enforcing civil 
 law by the tendency of ministers to smooth 
 over the proper demands of the law of God. 
 He points out that the civil officers can do 
 nothing but restrain men's outward acts, warn- 
 ing them not to do this or that on penalty 
 of detection and punishment. On the other 
 hand, the church ought to be able to root out 
 of men's hearts any desire to do the wrong 
 thing. There is much truth in the plea. Each 
 one must decide for himself whether the minis- 
 try is doing its part. The opportunity and 
 need are exactly what the officer suggests. 
 
 And yet there is another word to be said. 
 Men are not brought to obedience at Sinai so 
 readily as at Calvary. The example of Mis- 
 
 42 
 
preacbing of tbe (Browing Gburcb 
 
 sionary Kichards in the Congo Valley is worth 
 much. He seemed unable to bring his hearers 
 to any sense of sin or any wish for pardon by 
 even his most faithful preaching of the ten 
 commandments and the law written in every 
 man's heart. It was only when the natives 
 came in sight of the cross of Christ and saw 
 what sin means to God that they learned what 
 it ought to mean to themselves. 
 
 None of us realizes what it means for a man 
 to be lost, but we can guess something of its 
 meaning when we think what God did about 
 it. A little while ago, a famous surgeon was 
 brought from Austria to the city of Chicago 
 to perform an operation on the little daughter 
 of a wealthy man. The papers reported that 
 his fee was $20,000. It was a long journey, 
 and involved immense cost. I do not know 
 what was the matter with the little one. I 
 know it was no scratched finger, no bruised 
 forehead from her play. Whatever it was, I 
 know it must have been something serious 
 because of what the father did about it. The 
 best measure we shall ever find for the depths 
 into which men have fallen will be the length 
 
 43 
 
XTbe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 of the arm with which God reached help to 
 them. 
 Theabso- It is this which demands our preaching 
 
 lute neces- x ° 
 
 sity. Christ. We must preach Him as the atoning 
 
 Savior who claims headship over the church 
 and over every man. We must preach Him 
 winsomely, strongly, completely, the full-orbed 
 Christ. But we must preach Him, Him — 
 constantly. One Sunday afternoon I came out 
 of the Brick Church in New York with a 
 great throng who had been listening to Dr. 
 Babcock. There were evidently a great many 
 strangers, some of whom were there from 
 curiosity. Just before me were two men, un- 
 accustomed to the place. I heard one say to 
 the other, "Well, what did you think of him ?" 
 The second roused himself from his medita- 
 tion, and said earnestly, "What did I think of 
 him ? I do not know what I thought of him. 
 But I know I think more of God for what he 
 said." The next day I told Dr. Babcock what 
 [ had heard and he was glad. His ministry had 
 accomplished its end. 
 
 44 
 
Zbe Separation of tbe Cburcb 
 
 IV. THE SEPARATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 A 
 
 LL this is not a matter for the preacher The part of 
 alone. The task is manifestly too great 
 
 for him. Be sure "the whole of Asia" did not 
 hear the word from the mouth of Paul. The 
 message is one for all the people who believe. 
 No church prospers in its minister alone. Let 
 him be never so eloquent, never so devout, if it 
 remains with him, and his people do not be- 
 come eloquent for Christ in their lives and de- 
 vout in their spirit, the church is not ready to 
 grow. That suggests another element in the 
 growth of the Ephesian church. 
 
 Until this time, the Christians had been a 
 branch of the Jewish synagogue. They had no 
 separate name, and had met in any synagogue 
 that was available. For the most part, they 
 were simply tolerated as large minded people 
 of the present day tolerate others who are un- 
 usual but not harmful. It was some time after 
 this that the break between Christianity and 
 Judaism became open and acknowledged in 
 Jerusalem. There had been, however, a grow- 
 
 45 
 
Zfte ©rowing Gfourcb 
 
 ing breach of life and manner between the 
 Christians and the current life. At Ephesus, 
 Acts 19:9. at last, they separated from those who were not 
 followers of Christ, and became a clear-cut 
 body by themselves. Casting in their lot with 
 an un-Jewish company for their place of meet- 
 ing, they were cut off from the synagogue and 
 from any other religious group. They con- 
 tinued to mingle with the others in business 
 and social life, but they became in the sight of 
 all men different from those who were not 
 Christians. The difference was one of prin- 
 ciple, of course, and not of appearance, but 
 there appeared a wide enough line between 
 Christians and non-Christians so that the 
 difference could be noted. During the Boxer 
 troubles in China, one of the marauders asked 
 his chief how he should know a Christian when 
 he saw one. The chief replied, "Look closely 
 at the forehead of any of them, under his cap, 
 and you will find a cross." While you cannot 
 find any such mark, the distinction is deep 
 enough to be of utmost importance. Here for 
 the first time the Christians became other than 
 Jews. 
 
 46 
 
Ube Separation of tbe Gburcb 
 
 Now, that was the only way in which there The argu- 
 could be any emphasis given to the claim of difference. 
 Christians to have a law of life superior to that 
 about them. You must have a certain amount 
 of perspective before you can judge a life, or 
 even a theory of life. You never know the 
 life you live with every moment. You need 
 to hold it off from you a little sometimes and 
 compare it with other lives if you are to judge 
 its value. And if the church and the world 
 are to be the same, then how is the Church 
 to argue for its own betterness ? 
 
 There are just two ways whereby the world 
 and the church can become the same. Either 
 the church must become worldly, or the world 
 must become Christian. It is the ambition of 
 Christ that this latter should happen. It is 
 the fault of Christians that the former happens. 
 Some one gave me a tract the other day which 
 told of the effort of the world to gain the 
 fellowship of the church. 
 
 The Church and the World walked far apart, 
 
 On the changing shore of time; 
 The World was singing a giddy song, 
 
 And the Church a hymn sublime. 
 
 47 
 
Zbc Growing Cburcb 
 
 11 Come give me your hand," said the merry World, 
 " And then walk with me this way." 
 But the good Church hid her snowy hand, 
 And solemnly answered, " Nay." 
 
 But the World continued to seek the fellow- 
 ship of the Church and at last won its way, 
 scorning the modesty of the Church and the 
 poverty of its garments and the roughness of 
 its way. Presently they were walking side by 
 side — but in the World's path, not in the 
 Church's path. And only the eye of God could 
 see which was His Church and which was the 
 ungodly World. 
 
 " Then the angel drew near the mercy-seat, 
 And whispered in sighs her name, 
 And the saints their anthems of rapture hushed, 
 And covered their heads with shame." 
 
 It is a long poem, worth the reading, but it 
 
 ness o?3ke- ^ S a S£t( ^ an( ^ ^ rUe ^ e * ^ * S ^ e wea k ness of 
 
 ness. the Church that its members are not to be dis- 
 
 tinguished in life and conduct from those who 
 are not its members. They must mingle with 
 others, even the veriest haters of Christ, in 
 business and in travel and in society — they 
 must and they should. But they are bound in 
 
 48 
 
Zhe Separation ot tbe Cburcb 
 
 honor to be different from them, to live a 
 separated life among them. There are count- 
 less opportunities whereby they may declare 
 their unlikeness to others. Their new motive 
 makes them radically and deeply different from 
 those with whom they mingle. They are not 
 their own, they are bought with a price. They 
 have yielded themselves unto God, and what- 
 ever they do in word or deed, they are pledged 
 to do as unto the Lord and not unto men. 
 
 It is in this way only that they can show The joy of 
 
 the set) a- 
 
 the joy of the Christian life. There are many rated life. 
 who count the Christian life a dismal one, in 
 which self-denial means bitter hardship. 
 Young people are constantly saying that they 
 cannot come to Christ because they are not 
 yet ready to give up this thing or that and 
 so lose their pleasure in life. A mother told 
 me in the very week in which this is written 
 that she did not believe in child Christians 
 because she felt children ought to have a jolly 
 time, and "of course they would have to settle 
 down from all that once they went into the 
 Church and declared themselves Christians." 
 I read the other day of an old colored man 
 in the south who had been brought up in the 
 
 D 49 
 
XEbe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 family of a staunch Presbyterian. One night 
 he attended a Methodist revival service and 
 was so impressed with the fervor of the 
 preacher and the zeal of the converts, that he 
 joined the church himself. The next day his 
 old master met him, and said, "What is this 
 I hear? You have joined the Methodists? 
 Didn't I bring you up a good Presbyterian?" 
 "0 yes, massa, yessa, de Presbyterians is 
 mighty nice folks and de Presbyterian chu'ch 
 is a mighty fine church ; but hones', now, massa, 
 doan you think it's a powerful dismal chu'ch 
 for a niggah ?" There are young people, there 
 are older people, who think Christians are nice 
 folks, and the church is all right, and the 
 Christian life is doubtless the right life for 
 anybody who can stand it, but it is all dismal 
 and unattractive. The fault is partly their own, 
 I know. I am now concerned with the fact 
 that it is partly the fault of the Christians 
 themselves. 
 
 When I was on my way to the ministry, a 
 young woman asked me if I enjoyed preach- 
 ing. Her older sister rebuked her for such a 
 question, saying that young men were not going 
 into the ministry because they enjoyed it, but 
 
 50 
 
TTbe Separation of tbe Gburcb 
 
 from a serious sense of their duty. Well, until 
 
 that time I had thought the same thing, and of 
 
 course there is truth in what she meant. But 
 
 the question was a fair one. Granted that a 
 
 man preaches out of a serious sense of his duty, 
 
 cannot he enjoy his preaching? And granted 
 
 that Christians have seen the evil of their sin, 
 
 and have turned to Christ for salvation, is there 
 
 nothing in that to make them bright faced 
 
 enough to be noticeable ? We ought to reveal The happiest 
 
 in our very separateness that the Christian life 
 
 is the kind men ought to live if they want to be 
 
 manliest and happiest. A woman reporter was 
 
 at my church the other day and in her account 
 
 of the sermon she made me say that Christians 
 
 ought to go and make other people miserable 
 
 until they came to Christ. What I did say 
 
 was not half so good as that, but that is a 
 
 striking way of saying this same thing. If 
 
 Christians are to win men by the joy of their 
 
 lives, it must be by a real separation from the 
 
 world in that very particular. If a grief utterly 
 
 breaks a Christian down, and he weeps and 
 
 wails and refuses to be comforted, where is the 
 
 value of his faith? If reverses distract and 
 
 unsettle a Christian, where is he different from 
 
 51 
 
Ube 6rowfng Cburcb 
 
 The church 
 as a protest. 
 
 Luke 13:21. 
 
 men around? If hardships unman and un- 
 nerve a Christian so that he is unfitted for life, 
 how shall the non-Christian be made to feel 
 the power of faith ? Unless he is different from 
 others, what is his argument ? 
 
 The Church of Christ in a community ought 
 to be a perpetual protest. It is separated not 
 for its own sake, but for the sake of the people 
 around. It seeks to win them, not by isola- 
 tion, but by separation. The figure of Jesus 
 is always best. He uses leaven for illustration. 
 He reminds us that He wants His followers to 
 be like leaven in the meal. Leaven and meal 
 are intermingled, but they are not the same. 
 It is the hope of the leaven that the meal shall 
 become like it, but it will be the despair of 
 the meal if the leaven should instead become 
 meal. The leaven is itself and is not meal, in 
 hope that the meal may be transformed into the 
 likeness which it brings to it. Christians are 
 in the world and must be separate from the 
 world, for the world's sake. It is pathetic 
 beyond words, both for the world and for 
 the church when the church becomes worldly, 
 when it cannot be distinguished in principle 
 and life and conduct from the world about it. 
 
 52 
 
Zbc Separation of tbe Cburcb 
 
 An English medical officer said awhile ago that 
 a single cleanly family raises the standard of 
 cleanliness in a whole tenement, and that he 
 has seen the removal of one such a family 
 effect a deterioration all around. It ought to 
 be so with a Christian life wherever it is lived. 
 When, however, you can go into a circle of 
 people, watching them day by day and find no 
 difference among them, though there are some 
 in the church and some not, it is because all 
 are unconsciously Christians, or because the 
 Christians have become worldly. The church 
 does not grow as the kingdom of God while it is 
 a secular, worldly institution. 
 
 As a matter of common experience, the An instance 
 
 of the argu- 
 
 church does grow by its separated members, ment. 
 Last week I heard a man tell the story of his 
 conversion. It came about through his hear- 
 ing the claim of two of his friends who had 
 been with him in sin that they had turned 
 from their sin and had become Christians. 
 He did not believe it, and for one week he took 
 a furlough from his office and watched them. 
 Wherever he could observe what they were 
 doing, he did it. They did not know it, but 
 he dogged their steps as a seeking soul, to see 
 
 53 
 
XLbc ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 if they had found something which he had not. 
 As he told it, I wondered what might have 
 come if they had become careless or indifferent. 
 Suppose their lives had been the lives of men 
 of the world, suppose they had defended them- 
 selves in things that are common, but not 
 right, what would have been the outcome in 
 the watcher's life ? Is any man among us sure 
 that he is not under watch ? Is any man in the 
 church ready to prove that some other man, dis- 
 satisfied with himself and his ways, is not watch- 
 ing him day by day whenever his life comes into 
 view, in order to see whether there is anything 
 in this Christian claim? There are such 
 earnest souls. Let no man's impatience with 
 quibblers, who use the faults of Christians as 
 mere excuse, blind him to the fact that there 
 are honest men who are watching the church 
 in dead earnest to see if the claim of Christ 
 is true. 
 The best In a little group of men, leaders in the 
 
 argument ox ? 
 
 for and church, I heard the question asked, "What is 
 
 against x 7 
 
 Christ. the weightiest argument in behalf of Christ 
 
 today?" One of the wisest in the group re- 
 plied after a moment's silence, "The weightiest 
 argument for Christ, and the weightiest argu- 
 
 54 
 
Ube Separation ot tbe Gburcb 
 
 ment against Christ today, is the same argu- 
 ment — Christians." That is true. It is what 
 Peter means in bidding us to walk carefully in 1 Peter 2:15. 
 daily life that we may put to silence the ignor- 
 ance of men. It is what Jesus means when He 
 calls us the lights of the world. 
 
 And not alone in daily life; there are ex- 
 plicit things which the Christian profession 
 demands in behalf of the world. It is part of 
 the separation of the church that it declares its 
 law of life to be the best there is, and there-* 
 fore that it feels an interest in men with a 
 poorer law of life. If it goes on living its own 
 life, indifferent to the non-Christian lives all 
 about it, it is evident that it has no passion 
 for its own life. It cannot be too often em- The church 
 
 exists for 
 
 phasized that the church is an organization the sake of 
 
 r G men outside. 
 
 which does not exist for the sake of its own 
 members, but for the sake of those who are on 
 the outside. Other organizations, labor unions, 
 employers 5 unions, lodges, fraternities, exist 
 for the sake of their members. So does the 
 church in a very secondary way. It is for the 
 sake of its members, only that they may in it 
 learn how to be effective in the service of men 
 who are outside. Primarily it exists for those 
 
 55 
 
Z\)C Crowing Cburcb 
 
 who are not its members. They come into it 
 in their turn to reach out for others. Do you 
 not recall your childhood game of "black- 
 man?" One boy was on the catcher's side at 
 first, and all the others tried to "run right 
 through." He singled out his prey, and when 
 he caught him, counted on him at once to 
 help catch the others. There was no sitting on 
 the base as though there were some peculiar 
 merit just in being on that side. Instead, just 
 as soon as he was caught, every boy became a 
 catcher. That would be a capital church game. 
 Every man caught, at once becoming a catcher 
 — what a tremendous church force it would 
 make! But that is the simplest ideal of the 
 church of Christ. If, now, a member of a 
 church settles down comfortably in it and 
 lets the outside world get on as best it may 
 without his influence or interest, he has mani- 
 festly missed the point of his membership. A 
 growing church must be one whose members 
 have and manifest a genuine care for their 
 friends who are not of the church. When, in- 
 stead, people can come to a church day after 
 day, and the members are so concerned with 
 each other and with their own affairs that the 
 
 56 
 
Zbc Separation of tbe Cburcb 
 
 visiting people are neglected, there is sheer 
 failure. That is not the way in which a church 
 grows. I was much humiliated once when a Tneargu- 
 
 i -I* i<»i-it ment of 
 
 gentleman said of a church of which 1 was friendliness, 
 pastor that it seemed a very cordial church — 
 all the people who belonged there were so glad 
 to see each other that they had no time to 
 notice people who did not belong there. On 
 the other hand, when the people of a church 
 manifest an interest in their neighbors, see- 
 ing to it that they have such a welcome as a 
 church of Christ should give, there is present 
 one of the assurances of growth. It is a sur- 
 prising fact that so many people have to be 
 sought out by the church. It would seem the 
 natural thing for men to flock to the church 
 for their eternal interests. When, however, 
 some of them do so, and find in the church only 
 a partial or qualified welcome, you can see how 
 easily they drift away from it. Our cities have, 
 in them thousands who give that as their excuse 
 for neglect of the church. In their early days 
 in the city, they turned to the church for 
 fellowship and kindliness, and could not break 
 through the crust, so they have left it out of 
 their calculations entirely. I am not excusing 
 
 57 
 
TTbe (Browing Cburcb 
 
 them, such an excuse will not stand them in 
 good hand in the presence of God whom they 
 came to church to worship, but neither will it 
 stand us in good hand that they should have 
 expected nothing better. 
 
 The church has, thus, two perils, which seem 
 opposites : it may so mingle with the world that 
 it is no longer separate from the world; it may 
 become so self -centered that it no longer seeks 
 out the world for its salvation. They are twin 
 perils and they must be avoided by constant 
 watchfulness. 
 
 58 
 
Zbc HHscomffture of Hypocrites 
 
 V. THE DISCOMFITUKE OF THE HYPO- 
 CKITES. 
 
 AN INTEKESTING incident in the Ephe- 
 sian Church brings to sight another 
 element of its strength. It is that wherein the Actsi9:i3-ie. 
 sons of Sceva the Jew sought to trade on the 
 religion of Christ for their own gain, getting 
 its form without its substance. Commanding 
 the evil spirit to come forth, their hypocrisy 
 was revealed and they were over mastered. We 
 are told that the news of their discomfiture 
 led many to magnify the name of the Lord 
 Jesus. In the Eevelation letter the Spirit Rev. 2:1-7. 
 underscores the spirit of the Ephesian church 
 in this regard in three counts. He praises them 
 that they cannot bear evil men. In one of 
 his recent sermons Dr. Watkinson notes how 
 God safeguards nature and human souls as 
 well by an instinctive repugnance to hurtful 
 things. The Ephesian church knew the nausea 
 of wicked men, could not digest them, spewed 
 them out. Secondly, he praises them that they 
 sat in calm judgment on pretended apostles, 
 
 59 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 tried them, discovered their falseness and 
 would have none of them. They refused to be 
 blind followers of the blind. Then, thirdly, he 
 notes their hatred of the works of the Meolai- 
 tans and counts them wise in it. They had 
 caught the hatred of God and copied it. As a 
 woodland lake catches the blue of the sky and 
 is blue and beautiful, and again reflects the 
 black overhanging cloud and is dark and for- 
 bidding, so the Ephesian church knew both the 
 love and the hatred of God. Nicolaitans were 
 pretenders, false friends of the truth. Here 
 are four items in the account of the church 
 which we may sum up in the one phrase of 
 the discomfiture of hypocrites. 
 
 There must be a great many people in the 
 present church who are hypocrites. One learns 
 it from the people outside who do not join the 
 church because of them. Personally, I do not 
 know these hypocrites in any worthy numbers, 
 but that may be my good fortune. Indeed, I 
 eeem to know as many hypocrites outside who 
 plead the inside hypocrites as a pretence to 
 cover their real reason for not coming out 
 plainly for Christ. It is a lame excuse at best. 
 It reminds one of that striking charge of 
 
 60 
 
Zbc Discomfiture of Ibspocrttes 
 
 Elijah against the people of Israel that they 1 Kings 18:21. 
 were "limping between two sides." If a man 
 honestly cares for Christ, what difference does 
 it make to him that another man dishonestly 
 pretends to care for Him ? Let him come out, 
 one side or the other, with no more limping. 
 So long, however, as there are hypocrites, many 
 or few, in the church, they are a peril and a 
 weakness to it. 
 
 A hypocrite, wherever you find him, is a des- 
 picable character and much to be condemned. 
 It is specially so in religion. Dean Farrar tells 
 that when the ancients wanted to offer a white 
 ox on the altar of Jupiter, they would make a 
 spotted ox pass for a white one by chalking 
 over all the black marks. That is the dry rot 
 of religion. It is hypocrisy run into folly, 
 when the hypocrite goes beyond deceiving his 
 fellows and plays on the credulity of God. Yet 
 all hypocrisy in the church tends to the same 
 folly. 
 
 It would not be at all surprising if there were Hypocrisy a 
 a good many who pretended to be Christians Christ 6 
 for the sake of the gain they may receive. 
 That is an unconscious but very pleasant testi- 
 monial to the Christian faith. Hypocrites are 
 
 61 
 
Gbc Growing Cburcb 
 
 the devil's tribute to Christ. They mean that 
 there are some distinct advantages about the 
 gospel, advantages which men want and which 
 they will gain without the cost of real faith if 
 they can. They would sit on the right and 
 left hand without being baptized with the bap- 
 tism of Christ; then the places must be worth 
 the having. Let us admit that there are hypo- 
 crites in the church of to-day — what shall the 
 church do about them ? 
 Difficult to In the church or out of it hypocrisy is one 
 
 of the hardest vices to detect. Going below 
 the surface is always difficult. For one thing, 
 we are ourselves creatures of moods. In a 
 moment of wrath David once said, "All men 
 are liars," but he did not mean it as a stand- 
 ing fact of all moods. There are times when 
 our souls are so vexed with wrongs we have 
 suffered that we are ready to suspect all men, 
 but they are doubtful times, and they do not 
 leave us in good mood to deal with honest 
 men who surround us. It is difficult to deal 
 with hypocrisy calmly or judicially. Specially 
 is it of importance that we be clear-minded 
 when we deal with religious hypocrisy, for an 
 error may do untold damage. You must have 
 
 62 
 
Zbc Discomfiture of Hypocrites 
 
 had profound pity for the mother of Samuel, 
 Hannah, where Eli so mistook her devotion as 
 to charge her with drunkenness. Only a very l Sam. 1:14. 
 real devotion could have endured it. I know 
 a young man whose life was slowly coming out 
 into value in Christian service who seemed 
 driven back into religious reticence and in- 
 efficiency by a rash charge of insincerity made 
 against him by one of those insinuating people 
 who know all hearts but their own. We must 
 needs see to it that it is not our own mood 
 which leads us to find others hypocritical. 
 
 It is difficult to detect because of the chame- its many 
 leon forms it takes. No two cases of hypocrisy 
 are alike. What would be hypocrisy in one 
 man might be honesty in another. I have a 
 friend who always smiles when he is deeply 
 moved; that is, his face contorts with what 
 would be a smile for others. You would count 
 him amused at sufferings if you did not know 
 his peculiarity. True religion shows itself 
 very differently in different people. It would 
 be sheer hypocrisy for me to use the language 
 which to some other man would be an accurate 
 statement of his condition. In some of the 
 later devotional books I find experiences de- 
 
 63 
 
TLbc Growing Cburcb 
 
 scribed which seem to me so impossible as to 
 be sheer affectations, and sometimes I find 
 young people much distressed because they 
 have no experiences to match the phrases. The 
 first inclination is to judge these experiences by 
 my own and call them extreme and manu- 
 factured, which means that the narrators are 
 hypocrites. But they are honest as are we 
 who have no such realistic experiences. They 
 are simply different, that is all. The religious 
 life is so individual, so peculiar to each person, 
 that it is easy to mistake hypocrisy. 
 
 It is difficult to detect because of the depth 
 of the religious life. It lies in strata. You 
 may count the surface layer falsified by what 
 you find next below it, but are you sure there 
 is not another layer farther down ? The King 
 of Israel wore his robes outwardly and seemed 
 almost indifferent to the suffering of his people, 
 but when he rent his clothes they saw he 
 was wearing sackcloth next his flesh. James 
 IV. of Scotland took up arms against his father 
 when only a lad, but he made his whole life 
 an unseen penance, for under his robes he wore 
 an iron belt, each year adding a link, that his 
 repentance might be heavier each year. Have 
 
 64 
 
Zbc discomfiture of Hypocrites 
 
 you seen the deeper life of the man whom you 
 count a hypocrite ? May he not be a weak man 
 struggling in his better self against the very 
 sin you see in him ? 
 
 Wherever you hear the opinion that the Howshaii 
 
 ^ x hypocrites' 
 
 church ought to cast out hypocrites, you will be punished? 
 find it fair to ask how it shall be done. You 
 may be morally certain that a member is a 
 hypocrite, but have you ever tried to get evi- 
 dence of it? It is told of one of our early Heroic 
 American evangelists that in the course of an 
 address he made the broad statement that all 
 infidels are fools and that he could prove it in 
 any given case in ten minutes. A man in the 
 audience asked if he might interrupt, and re- 
 marked that he must take exception to the 
 statement, since he was himself an infidel and 
 thought he was no fool. The preacher looked 
 him over rather curiously and said, "So you 
 are an infidel? Will you tell me just how 
 much of an infidel?" "Certainly, sir; I deny 
 that there is anything at all in religion." 
 "Nothing at all in religion? Are you willing 
 to go record as saying that ?" "Go on record ?" 
 the infidel replied, "Why, I have been writing 
 and lecturing against religion for these twenty 
 
 E 65 
 
Ube Growing Cburcb 
 
 years." The evangelist glanced at his watch 
 and said, "Well, I said I could prove an infidel 
 a fool in ten minutes, and I have seven minutes 
 left. Fll leave it to the audience if a man 
 isn't a fool to write and lecture for twenty 
 years against a thing that has nothing what- 
 ever in it !" Now, that is heroic treatment of 
 hypocrisy that is proud of itself, that says 
 what it does not mean because what it does 
 mean would not sound so well. But I need 
 hardly ask if it is convincing treatment and 
 if it might not leave a bitterness in the heart 
 of a man who was honest in spite of his 
 peculiar notions. At any rate, you cannot trap 
 a hypocrite so easily in common life, 
 shauthey Some, mostly outsiders, would have the 
 
 piined? church proceed to discipline all hypocrites, 
 
 exscinding them from its membership. It is 
 easy to say — the very nature of hypocrisy 
 makes it virtually impossible to do. A promi- 
 nent Presbyterian leader has recently declared 
 that the church is done with heresy trials. 
 Doubtless the wish is father to the thought, 
 and the wish is the prayer of many of us. 
 Heresy trials tear men's hearts and leave scars 
 whose pain is long in dying away. Their gains 
 
 G6 
 
Zbe discomfiture of *>spocrftes 
 
 are so hard to discover that we will all wel- 
 come the day of the last trial. If they should 
 ever become a sad necessity, God make His 
 church brave and wise and always loving, find- 
 ing the greatest heresy not in a wrong head 
 but in a wrong heart ! 
 
 But you can find heresy; it gets out, there 
 it is in black and white; once you understand 
 it you know what to say of it. Not so with 
 hypocrisy. Always there are other words to 
 say than you have yet heard; you are moving in 
 the dark; you are judging; you are trusting 
 your opinions. No, you cannot discipline hypoc- 
 risy even if you ought to. 
 
 Indeed, the only safe way to bring hypo- Theseif- 
 crites to discomfiture is to let them betray o?hypo- ent 
 themselves. No espionage is endurable. There 
 is but one way to bring it about — the church 
 can be made so honest and so deeply spiritual 
 that a hypocrite cannot endure it. There are 
 few more pitiable things than a man who has 
 caught the forms of godliness, who knows the 
 phrases of religion, who can talk religious talk, 
 but who ends there — such an one in the midst 
 of a company of earnest, eager, deep-souled 
 Christian men as they go down into the truth 
 
 67 
 
 crites. 
 
Ube ©rowing Cbutcb 
 
 of the Gospel. Bring such a man into the 
 atmosphere of real devotion, and he must be- 
 tray himself. Sometimes, thank God, he is 
 nobly dissatisfied with himself and becomes 
 honestly a Christian. In any case, he is 
 revealed. Such a man needs to be set to 
 some of the work of the kingdom of God, 
 needs to be sent to cast out some of the 
 devils of the present day, to find how little 
 such devils recognize sham godliness. One 
 reason hypocrisy is so possible in the church of 
 to-day is that its enterprises do not put heavy 
 and long strain on the godliness of its mem- 
 bers, revealing falsity. Emerson thinks there 
 is no cave in all the world to hide a rogue. 
 But a lifeless, inactive, undemanding church is 
 a great refuge for sham Christians. Whenever 
 the church or any of its members finds that 
 the evils which it combats do not disappear, 
 that the devils whom it calls out do not come 
 forth, the question at once arises whether the 
 church has not more of the form of godliness 
 than of godliness itself. When the experts are 
 testing opium for commerce, they pour a cer- 
 tain liquid into the specimen, a liquid against 
 which the drug will at once set to work. If 
 
 68 
 
TLbc discomfiture of tfnjpocrltes 
 
 it is pure, it will win against it; if it is adulter- 
 ated, it will disintegrate and go to pieces in 
 presence of it. Let the church get down to 
 solid, straining, spiritual effort, let it test its 
 members on some thoroughly Christian work, 
 and its hypocrites will be revealed and their 
 revelation will be their correction. I remember 
 a striking paragraph in Professor Seth's Ethi- 
 cal Principles in which he declares that the 
 lesson of the book of Ecclesiastes is the lesson 
 of work, the lesson that in activity, in deeds, 
 lies man's real hope. He calls it Carlyle's 
 lesson and illustrates it with the cases of Esau, 
 of Tito in George Eliot's Eomola, of Steven- 
 son's Markheim, of Calibar in The Tempest. 
 But is it not the lesson of the whole book 
 of God and the whole book of life ? Surely it 
 is the deeper meaning of the word of Jesus: 
 "If any man willeth to do His will, he shall John 7:7. 
 know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." 
 Let us watch any man set to do the work 
 which calls for spiritual power, not for mere 
 shrewdness and energy and ingenuity, but for 
 real spiritual power, and we shall know him 
 for honest or hypocrite. 
 
 The discomfiture of hypocrites will come 
 
 69 
 
Zbc ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 about through no process of discipline, the 
 condition is too subtle for that; it will come 
 about through the creation of an atmosphere 
 in the church which will make the dishonest 
 man wretched and will lead him to expose him- 
 self. It will come about through the under- 
 taking of tasks worthy of the strength which 
 the church claims. It is in presence of the 
 tasks of the church that hypocrisy reveals its 
 feebleness. If all the people of the church 
 undertook its work, and tried to cast out the 
 demons that are in the world, it would soon be 
 known who have the power of religion and who 
 have only its form. An aggressive, spiritual 
 church, busy with souls, is no refuge for 
 hypocrites. 
 
 70 
 
Zbc Cbangeb Xives of tbe Converts 
 
 VI. THE CHANGED LIVES OF THE 
 CONVERTS. 
 
 WE HAVE already noted the fact of the 
 separation of the church from the 
 world as an essential in its growth. Beside it 
 we must now place another fact of the Ephe- 
 sian church which helps to explain its growth, 
 namely, the effect which the gospel had on the 
 converts. They became different not only 
 from the world, but also from their former 
 selves. The account says they came in large Actsi9:i8. 
 numbers and confessed and showed their deeds. 
 Some who had practiced sorcery and witch- 
 craft came and told the charms which they 
 had used and in presence of the people burned 
 their books and their charms. When the gospel 
 took hold on them, it made a difference with 
 them. You knew they were different by two 
 facts: they were ready to come out publicly 
 for the new faith, and they were willing to 
 give up a great deal in its behalf. There is 
 always reason to question the entire loyalty of 
 a believer when you find him wanting to re- 
 
 71 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 A cheap 
 loyalty. 
 
 A man made 
 new. 
 
 ceive his salvation at as little cost as possible. 
 A few months ago a young woman talked to 
 me about coming into my church, saying, "I 
 wouldn't join such-and-such a church; it's too 
 strict; but your church lets people dance, 
 doesn't it ?" I doubt if I made it clear to her 
 that the great question is not what the Chris- 
 tian can still do for the world, but what he 
 can do for his cross-bearing Master. Her heart 
 was set on a following which should cost her 
 nothing. There is room, also, to question the 
 heartiness of the faith of a believer who talks 
 very much about the possibility of being a 
 Christian outside the church. Of course it is 
 possible, but is it fair ? Was the Master secret- 
 ly crucified? Did He slip through life with 
 no public bearing of the sin load? If the 
 saved soul had a passion for its Savior, it would 
 cry out for chance to declare its allegiance. 
 
 Three generations ago a young Jew named 
 Mendel was living in Germany. He became a 
 Christian, and the truth of Christ came to 
 him with such transforming effect that he took 
 a new name at his baptism and called him- 
 self Neander, which means, "a new man," and 
 by this name he is known as the great churcE 
 
 73 
 
Zbc Cbange& Xiv>es ot tbe Converts 
 
 historian. Such an effect the gospel is meant 
 to have on all who accept it; it claims the 
 power to make new men of them. If it does 
 not do so, then it loses its best argument, and 
 the church loses its best evidence. A church 
 not separated from the world is weak argu- 
 ment; a Christian not changed from his old 
 self is poor testimony to Christ. 
 
 This effect of the gospel on its believers is Theexpiana- 
 
 ° r tion of 
 
 the great explanation of its growth in all the growth, 
 centuries. You have doubtless seen Charles 
 Loring Brace's book, "Gesta Christi," the 
 Triumphs of Christ, in which he has made a 
 study of the contacts of the gospel with early 
 paganism, or Uhlhorn's heavier work on "The 
 Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism." Or 
 you will recall the fuller and more interesting 
 work of Dr. Storrs, "The Divine Origin of 
 Christianity as Indicated by Its Historical 
 Effects." Its eight strong chapters almost 
 cover the field. He points out these eight 
 effects of Christianity: It brought first, a 
 new conception of God; second, a new con- 
 ception of man; third, a new principle of the 
 duty of man to God; fourth, a new principle 
 of the duty of man to man, with fifth, a new 
 
 73 
 
Ube Growing Cburcb 
 
 teaching of the duty of nations to each other; 
 it has had a constantly inspiring effect, sixth, 
 on the mental culture of mankind; seventh, 
 on the moral culture of mankind and eighth, 
 on the world's hope of progress. It is a safe 
 and strong argument; there is no answer to it. 
 The very men who tend to minimize the power 
 of Christ are products of the influences which 
 He has inspired. 
 
 There are grave defects yet in the result; 
 it is the weakness of the present argument 
 that we are so far from a completed civiliza- 
 tion. But it is fairer to compare the world 
 that was with the world that is than to com- 
 pare the world that is with the world that 
 ought to be. By that fairer standard, the gospel 
 will stand the test. Ask how far the race has 
 been brought on, rather than how far it has 
 yet to go. 
 The first The incident at Ephesus suggests three great 
 
 change. changes that have been made in the broad do- 
 
 main of human thought. First, As with those 
 sooth-sayers, so with men since, the faith of 
 Christ has given men a sense of mastery of the 
 world, rather than of truculence to it. There 
 are no powers in the world about us that need 
 
 74 
 
tlbe Cbanaeo %ix>ee of tbe Converts 
 
 ■ ■ ■ i i i ii — — — i ■ 
 
 to be placated, there are no influences which 
 we must fend off with some charm. The super- 
 stitions of the day are our shame and we know 
 it; none of us who feels their influence who 
 is not ashamed of it. From all that bondage 
 to fear the gospel of Christ has come to free 
 us. We realize that not all people know that. 
 The mediums and witches and soothsayers of 
 the present day live and thrive. Otherwise in- 
 telligent people speak with hushed tone of 
 some strange foretelling and declare they do 
 not know what to make of it. Frequently a 
 new medium appears and our superstitious men 
 and women run to sit at her feet and wait her 
 word. It is large sport for the medium and 
 it is amusing to others. Thus we reveal that 
 we have not yet outgrown our heathenism, that 
 we have not yet come to trust the presence of 
 a Father with whom the future is safe without 
 our seeing it. But all that is against the spirit 
 of Christ. It is His hope that we will out- 
 grow all of it and come into the life of courage 
 and freedom. 
 
 Secondly, The story suggests that the gospel The second 
 magnifies the open life rather than the secretive ° ange 
 one. There are no inner secrets of life which 
 
 75 
 
XEbe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 Matt. 10:27. 
 
 a few may know but which most may not know. 
 The truth of God lies open to us all. There 
 were times when Jesus took His disciples aside 
 and told them great truths of the Kingdom, 
 but He said to them, "What ye hear in the 
 ear, proclaim upon the housetops." He had 
 it in mind that His disciples should know the 
 secret place that they might lead all men to it. 
 There is one scene in George Ebers' Uarda 
 which comes to mind when one speaks of this. 
 It is that wherein the young priest is taken 
 severely to task for having told to a common, 
 uninitiated audience some of the things that 
 belonged only to the inner circle of priests. 
 It is a typical scene of the times. There 
 were some large truths which the mass of 
 people might hope to know. There were other 
 truths which the new and untrained priest 
 might learn, but the inner secrets of religion 
 and of life were left for the initiated and could 
 not be revealed to the mass of men. Over 
 against such teaching Jesus sets His hope that 
 men everywhere should seek to know the 
 deepest secrets of His truth. There is no 
 aristocracy in religion, save the aristocracy of 
 humility. Every man may know and be all 
 
 76 
 
Ufoe Gbange& %ivcs of tbe Converts 
 
 that any other man may know or be. God 
 has no favorite friends except those who make 
 Him their favorite friend. I may not look 
 upon my brother and say, "It is granted to 
 him to enter into the holies and commune with 
 God, but it is not for me." The truth of 
 Christ is not hid, to be learned from a chosen 
 few. Claims of power to read the future in 
 any way that is not open to every Christian 
 are not only untrue, they are un-Christian. We 
 are in no case reduced to the necessity of ex- 
 plaining them on any such grounds as superior 
 revelations and occult powers. It is one of 
 the marvels of the day that when we are so 
 proud of our science, we should still be in the 
 heyday of superstition and the reign of the 
 occult. The teaching of Christ builds a fire 
 for all dream books and secret symbols. It 
 sets a premium on the open life, the life that is 
 for all. 
 
 Thirdly, The story suggests a more familiar f^£fj™ 
 change in thought, magnifying the life of serv- change. 
 ice over the life of gain. It has brought us 
 to feel that our fellows do not exist for our 
 sakes, but that we exist for their sakes. That 
 is a revolution not yet completed. The con- 
 
 77 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 verts at Ephesus learned that if they did know 
 something that others did not know, they had 
 been taught it for the sake of those others. 
 David Harum was right in saying that it is a 
 principle of much present life to find out what 
 the other fellow means to do to you and to 
 do it to him first. The change wrought by 
 the teaching of Jesus is that we become serv- 
 ants of the need of others. We have no 
 powers that we may treasure and use for our 
 own benefit, exploiting others. In the case of 
 Service vs. Self-seeking, Jesus appears for the 
 plaintiff, 
 such It is such changes as these that the gospel 
 
 necessary. of Christ accomplishes in the large way. They 
 are changes which it seeks to accomplish in 
 personal life. A growing church will be one 
 whose members are thus changed. They will 
 be turned from dishonest practices, from 
 frauds however piously perpetrated, from 
 practices which bring the cause of religion into 
 disrepute. If Christ cannot change the lives 
 of His followers, if He cannot give them new 
 and better principles of living, then His church 
 cannot hope to grow. A little while ago I 
 heard Dr. Chapman tell of a visit to St. Mark's 
 
 78 
 
Zbc Gbanae& Xfves of tbe Converts 
 
 in Venice, where he noticed the alabaster 
 pillars beside the great altar. They were dull 
 and lifeless — strange they should be there. 
 The guide took a lighted taper and held it 
 before one of the pillars. Then its beauty ap- 
 peared, color radiated from it and filled a 
 great circle with light. All that happened was 
 that light had fallen on its dullness and it had 
 answered with light. No less thing than that 
 is planned by Jesus Christ for His followers. 
 No less thing, a vastly greater thing. The 
 change He works is not upon them, but within 
 them. He would make the King's daughters Psaim 45-13. 
 and sons all glorious within. He would not 
 shine on us as the taper ray falls on alabaster; 
 He would be a blaze of glory in our lives that 
 shall transform them throughout. Some one 
 tells of a countryman going into the capital at 
 Albany and hearing it said that certain columns 
 were Scotch granite. He tapped them thought- 
 fully. "Scotch granite/' he said, "is it polished 
 that way clean through?" A Christian ought 
 to be changed clean through ; in the secret life, 
 in the open life, in the whole life. 
 
 It is common to find the name of Jesus Christ's 
 linked with those of great reformers as though changing 
 
 men. 
 
 79 
 
Ube Growing Cburcb 
 
 He were one among them. Emerson names 
 Him so sometimes. But He claims and has 
 gained a higher place. He does not lead men 
 from without. He makes them new from 
 within. This He seeks to do with all the people 
 who profess His name. He would make a 
 strong church out of them by using their 
 changed lives. There is an old legend that an 
 innocent life must be walled up in the founda- 
 tion of any building that is meant to endure. 
 Professor Paulsen thinks the innocent life of 
 Christ in the very foundation of the church is 
 its hope for permanence. Well, it is the lives 
 of its members changed toward holiness that 
 are the mark of its growth to-day. Let the 
 preaching be eloquence and earnestness itself,, 
 let the church be separated from the world, 
 let the hypocrites all be disclosed, if there be 
 not constantly more men and women coming 
 into it, changed by the power of God, then 
 the church cannot grow. If men come into 
 the church, and are not changed from what they 
 would be without the power of Christ, then 
 the church cannot prove its right to be. The 
 changes are not reserved for the ministry or 
 for peculiarly constituted people. There is 
 
 80 
 
Zbc Cbange& %ivcs of tbe Converts 
 
 no -unworthy habit to which a man must yield. 
 There is no sin which is so inwrought into 
 his fibre that it cannot be taken out. There 
 is no man who cannot become godly, utterly 
 made over from the old life into the new. 
 
 Moreover, we are not yet the power in the The contra- 
 growing church which we may be until we are the un- 
 so changed. A dishonest Christian, a Chris- life. 
 tian impure or rough in speech, a frivolous, 
 unreliable Christian, a selfish Christian, a hard- 
 handed Christian — read the phrases and see 
 how they jar on the ear. The adjective and the 
 noun will not connect. In so far as the adjec- 
 tive fits us, so far we do not fit the noun. 
 But the change of our lives is not simply in 
 such details. The whole life gets transformed. 
 It was the right spirit that made a man speak 
 of himself as one whose business was the serv- 
 ing of the Kingdom of God, and who sold 
 groceries to pay the bills. That is the changed 
 attitude toward life. It makes it honorable 
 to make money, for thus the purpose of God 
 is served and His Kingdom advanced. It 
 makes it noble to teach, to work, to think, to do 
 anything, because everything can be fitted into 
 the place of service. 
 
 f 81 
 
XCbe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 The four 
 rules of life. 
 
 Gen. 4:9. 
 Matt. 27:4. 
 
 Matt. 26:14. 
 
 Luke 6:31. 
 
 Luke 22:27. 
 
 There are but four great rules of life, found 
 everywhere and marking grades of men. There 
 is, first, the Wooden Rule — the rule of Cain: 
 "Am I my brother's keeper ?" — the rule of the 
 priests: "What is that to us? See thou to 
 that;" — the rule of indifference to others, 
 under which life centers on self, and self cares 
 no more for others than the floor cares for the 
 agony of the man who has fallen on it. There 
 is, secondly, the Brazen Eule — the rule of 
 Judas: "What will you give me, and I will 
 betray Him unto you," — the rule under which 
 others are exploited for self's sake, which re- 
 gards others only so far as they may serve self. 
 Then, immeasurably above them, is, thirdly, 
 the Golden Rule: "As ye would that men 
 should do to you, do ye also to them likewise," 
 — a rule given by the Master Himself, not as a 
 final rule for life, more than many others He 
 gave, and not the rule of His own life, a rule 
 wherein the self and its desires are still the 
 standard, but so far beyond the common law 
 of life that the world will be a glad place when 
 we all obey it. Finally there is the Diamond 
 Rule, — the rule of the life of Christ: "I am 
 among you as He that serveth," — the rule of 
 
 82 
 
Ube Gbangefc Xives ot tbe Converts 
 
 service, under which the self is no longer stand- 
 ard, under which others are thought of as the 
 field for the outlay of strength, under which 
 the soul looks up to God to find His will and 
 delights to do it. We are here not to be minis- 
 tered unto but to minister. The gospel of 
 Christ would change our lives from the lowest 
 to the highest rule, would bring us out of wood 
 and brass and even gold and set us in the 
 treasury of God as very diamonds. Every life 
 so changed provides strength for the growing 
 church. Tertullian explains the peculiar 
 spread of the Christian faith in his day by 
 saying of the Christians: "They alone live 
 blameless lives." Such lives will make the 
 church irresistible in our own day. 
 
 Is it not the change into the likeness of The result 
 Christ that we mean? You remember Queen changed life. 
 Bellicent's account of the crowning of Arthur, 
 how the knights of the Eound Table knelt 
 before him and were bound by such strait vows 
 to himself that they rose, some pale, some 
 flushed, some dazed as though they had seen a 
 ghost, but when Arthur spoke to them in large, 
 divine and comfortable words, how she beheld 
 
 83 
 
Ube Growing Cburcb 
 
 "From eye to eye through all their Order flash 
 A momentary likeness of the King." 
 
 But it was not momentary. It became fixed 
 in the faces of all those who were worthy their 
 place at the Bound Table. When Knight 
 Percivale went in quest of the Holy Grail and 
 came upon the monk Ambrosius who had 
 never known the world, nor strayed without 
 the pale of the great yew tree beside his home, 
 the monk knew him, saying: 
 
 " But thee 
 When first thou earnest — such a courtesy 
 Spake through the limbs and in the voice — 
 
 I knew 
 For one of those who eat in Arthur's hall: 
 For good ye are and bad, and like to coins, 
 Some true, some light, but every one of you 
 Stamped with the image of the King." 
 
 All the followers of our Christ have momentary 
 likeness to Him, let us believe it of ourselves, 
 but sometimes it seems to fade away. Shall 
 we not lay ourselves open to Him to be stamped 
 with His image, changed by fellowship with 
 Him from our former selves, that we may carry 
 Epn.5:i. His likeness in a new self? So we shall be 
 imitators of God, as dear children. 
 
 84 
 
Some Ibfnts of /iBetbofc 
 
 VII. SOME HINTS OF METHOD. 
 
 CEETAIN incidental expressions in the ac- 
 count of the Ephesian Church come il- 
 luminatingly to our minds, throwing light on 
 the method of the successful work. 
 
 I. 
 
 The content of the preaching by w T hich the The method 
 church grew has already been noted. It is in- preaching, 
 teresting to note the method of it. Paul re- 
 minded the elders that he had preached pub- Acts20:20-25. 
 licly and from house to house. He says he 
 went about among them all preaching the 
 Kingdom. That means a great deal. The pub- 
 lic part of the preaching is familiar and quite 
 common, until you join with it the phrase : went 
 about among you all. There is more in it than 
 personal work, about which something needs 
 be said. There is the going with the message 
 into public places where people were. There 
 are men who come to hear the gospel. There 
 are other men who hear the gospel only when it 
 comes to them. 
 
 85 
 
TLbc ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 Preaching 
 in public 
 places. 
 
 Three ob- 
 jections. 
 
 In recent years there has been a revival of 
 the public preaching by going to men. In the 
 great cities, almost any summer night, you will 
 find pastors, with groups of people from their 
 churches, preaching on street corners or in 
 parks. The services are different from those 
 of the Salvation Army in that they are frankly 
 held in the name of the church, and bring 
 assurance to men on the street that the 
 churches are concerned about them. They ac- 
 cent the fact that the churches do not exist for 
 the sake of their members, but for the sake 
 of those who are outside. 
 
 Some do not like the method. They fear it 
 is imperiling the dignity and value of the gos- 
 pel. One of my friends said to me : "The Lord 
 save me from a bass-drum religion !" Well, the 
 Lord save me from that and also from a band- 
 box religion. There is a religion somewhere 
 between the bass-drum and the band-box which 
 will be about right. It is a religion which makes 
 us welcome all those who come to the gospel 
 message, but sends us out with the gospel 
 message to those who will not come. 
 
 Some of the brethren object to street-corner 
 preaching, because they feel they are not 
 
 86 
 
Some IMnts of flfcetbofc 
 
 adapted to it. They shrink from it. What do 
 they ordinarily say to a man who shrinks from 
 uniting with the church because he dreads the 
 publicity, the standing before people? What 
 do they say to the man who does not feel 
 adapted to teaching a Sunday School class, or 
 doing any distinctive work for Christ ? Doubt- 
 less in some cases they find the reasons good. 
 In most cases, I am sure, they point out that 
 if it is needed work, grace will be given for 
 it, and that with the attempt at service will 
 come fitness and pleasure. My friend, Dr. Mer- 
 rill, of the Sixth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, 
 and a group of young people from that church 
 and my own, will remember the evening a few 
 years ago when we sat singing and waiting the 
 signal for going out for our first street meet- 
 ing. Dr. Merrill was to speak, and I was fairly 
 ashamed of being so glad that I was not to 
 speak. We owned up, he did and I did verbally, 
 and the young people did in their faces, that 
 we were not quite sure how we would come out. 
 But after that first meeting I think we were 
 all done with that feeling. A great crowd, at- 
 tentive, respectful, even sympathetic, always 
 greeted us, and we learned to love the service. 
 
 87 
 
Ubc ©rowing Gburcb 
 
 That is a common testimony. But suppose it 
 were not? May it not be a duty still? Sup- 
 pose in one summer campaign a man only 
 learned to say the simple gospel in a way to 
 hold a street company, that would be worth 
 the work. His winter preaching would be 
 better for it. 
 
 Some object to street meetings that they do 
 not bring results. What results ? Conversions ? 
 But they do bring such results in many cases. 
 One reason we do not know more of such re- 
 sults is that we do not follow them up. We 
 hold our meeting and go home with no per- 
 sonal endeavor, and no clinching the matter 
 with men. But there are results which repay 
 the work without conversions. It is a great 
 thing to remind a church that the gospel is 
 portable and is meant to be taken to people. 
 The inner effect of outdoor meetings is tre- 
 mendous. And it is a good thing to remind the 
 outside man that the churches are after him, 
 not simply glad to have him come. Often he 
 pretends to think the churches are exclusive, 
 and that he would have no welcome if he came 
 to them. Such meetings must make him realize 
 that the churches are more than waiting for 
 
 88 
 
Some Dints of /n>etbo& 
 
 him; they are seeking him. All this, even if he 
 does not accept Christ, nor even come to 
 church. In many cases he will do both. And 
 after all, are we right sure that "results" are 
 the main thing ? 
 
 House to house preaching corresponded in House to 
 
 x ° x house work. 
 
 part, at least, to our personal work. Dr. Trum- 
 bulPs little book on Individual Work for Indi- 
 viduals has said most that need be said on that 
 subject for those who have read it. It meets 
 all the common objections of lack of time and 
 adaptation and success and propriety and 
 brings the matter squarely down to each man. 
 I asked a young man once to read the book. He 
 declined, saying: "I understand it makes every- 
 one feel that he can and ought to do personal 
 work, and I do not want to do it." He is not 
 the only one whose "cannot" means "will not." 
 For many church members the present mean- 
 ing of "from house to house" is "from store 
 to store," "from customer to customer," "from 
 friend to friend." It means a portable religion 
 which is aggressive beyond the public domain. 
 
 The pastor's part of this personal work is Pastoral 
 much more difficult than most laymen suppose. 
 So-called "pastoral calling" has much degener- 
 
 89 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 ated in our day. One of my brethren calls it 
 "gadding." Every pastor knows how easy it is 
 to leave a house after a call, feeling that no 
 spiritual impression has been left; one has 
 made a social call, that is the whole of it. But, 
 of course, that is not pastoral calling. The 
 story is told of a Brooklyn pastor that when he 
 went to his present church he announced his 
 purpose with reference to pastoral calling. He 
 said: "My idea of a pastoral call is that the 
 pastor shall take an elder with him to a home, 
 and there assemble all the family, the father 
 remaining at home, of course, interrogate them 
 on their spiritual condition, counsel them as to 
 their conduct and lead them in worship. If 
 now, any of you desire such a call, kindly let 
 me know, and I will come." He has not been 
 called upon to go. Of course, that is extreme. 
 On the other hand, another brother is much 
 elated with the fact that he can make twenty 
 or twenty-five calls in a half day. I doubt if 
 Paul's house to house work was done in either 
 fashion. It was rather the carrying of the gos- 
 pel into homes, it was the bringing of a spir- 
 itual influence into the houses. A minister is 
 in poor business when he becomes a mere social 
 
 90 
 
Some f)fnts of /iDetbofc 
 
 visitor. He may read the Bible and pray in a 
 house or he may not, but he must speak and 
 live and visit in that home for the sake of the 
 spiritual life or he has not made a pastoral call. 
 It may be a call to make acquaintance, but the 
 acquaintance is sought frankly for the sake of 
 the man's soul. After a discussion with a fel- 
 low-minister on the respective values of pulpit 
 and parish work, I met a well-known elder on 
 the street and asked him whether he would 
 prefer a pastor who was a good preacher at the 
 cost of the parish calling, or one who called 
 generously even at the cost of his preaching. 
 He said, "Neither; I want my pastor to be a 
 constant spiritual influence in my life. I want 
 to feel when I have touched him that power 
 has come to me, and I have been charged anew 
 to meet the materializing influences under 
 which I live all the week." "A constant spir- 
 itual influence," that is the value of pastoral 
 calling. 
 
 And there ought to be a vast amount more 
 of it for the sake of explicit soul-winning. In 
 a conference, a few months ago, a pastor con- 
 fessed that his weeks often passed with no sucH 
 hand-to-hand effort. He wanted men saved 
 
 91 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 "Learning 
 how by do- 
 ing the work. 
 
 John 1:41, 45. 
 
 Luke 2:38. 
 
 and preached for it, but he did not go out to 
 grapple with men one by one in hope of win- 
 ning them to Christ. Many of us might make 
 a similar confession. We are interested in sin- 
 ners, but not in a sinner. Partly it is because 
 we already have so much to do, and we do not 
 realize how the personal work would inspire 
 the mass work. Partly we do not know to 
 whom to speak, and we neglect the ones nearest 
 to us. Partly we do not feel adapted to it, 
 and we fail to learn how from doing the work. 
 Whatever hinders our doing house-to-house 
 Boul-winning, we are denying the church one of 
 its best means of growth. 
 
 Here again, be sure that the house-to-house 
 work was not left to Paul. Surprising how the 
 first knowledge of Jesus led men to tell each 
 other. I asked a man once to go and speak 
 bo another in behalf of Christ. "Oh, I can't," 
 he said, "I have just become a Christian my- 
 self." But it was on the very day after he 
 found Jesus for himself that Andrew found 
 Simon for Jesus and Philip found Nathaniel. 
 As soon as Anna heard that the Savior had 
 come, she went about to tell all whom she 
 knew. If personal work meant philosophical 
 
 92 
 
Some Dints of ZlDetbofc 
 
 argument or logical discussion, it might call 
 for a course of study before it is undertaken. 
 No one can be too well trained, be clear on 
 that. Courses in personal work are admirable. 
 Only, let it be very clear that the best course 
 in personal work is personal work. A young 
 Christian will learn more about how to ap- 
 proach men in behalf of Christ by approaching 
 a few ignorantly than from a course of lectures. 
 But he is afraid he "will make mistakes." 
 Likely he will. But he will do no eternal 
 damage if his heart is right. Trust the leading 
 and overruling of the Master for that. 
 
 One of our secular papers, one of the cheap- 
 est of them, recently contained an excellent 
 editorial on the element of personal work in 
 church growth. It was good, because it was 
 based on incidents in the life and work of 
 Jesus. It reminded us how He went after men 
 in their places of abode, going from town to 
 town. The closing paragraph said: "And so, 
 while the churches are barely holding their 
 own, what body of Christians is leaping for- 
 ward, commanding the attention of all men? 
 The Salvation Army. Say what you will of 
 its method, it has at least this merit — it goes 
 
 93 
 
Zbc (Browtng Cburcb 
 
 after the man, instead of waiting for the man 
 to come." Let us not contend about the 
 churches barely holding their own, but let 
 us agree with this, that the church of to-day 
 needs to go about among men with the gospel 
 both publicly and from house to house, to gain 
 full growth. 
 
 II. 
 
 The problem There is an almost pathetic touch in the ac- 
 
 of leader- r 
 
 skip. count of the struggle of the Ephesian church 
 
 to secure better workers and its brave use of 
 such as it had. Of course, it wanted Paul. 
 
 Acts 18:30. He founded the church and though the peo- 
 ple sought him to stay, he soon felt that he 
 
 Acts 19:10. must go on. Later he spent two years with 
 
 Acts 20:17. them. On his final journey to Jerusalem, he 
 avoided coming purposely. Meanwhile they 
 
 Acts 18:24-28. had Aquila and Priscilla and the brilliant 
 Apollos. As for the latter, he came to them 
 poorly trained, only half informed of the truth 
 of the gospel, with the merit of readiness to 
 learn. But every one knows the peril of half 
 truths in the mouth of a popular leader. 
 Everyone knows the damage to a church under 
 
 94 
 
Some ftfnts of flDetbofc 
 
 the teaching of a man who does not know the 
 greatest verities. Many a church explains its 
 poor work by the poor leader it has. The pas- 
 tor is not a spiritual man, or he is not a popu- 
 lar man, or he is sensational, or he is dry — 
 this or that, he is not the leader the church 
 wants. Half -trained leaders disgust other men. 
 Ungrammatical Moodys are bid to sit down in 
 meetings. Young people are told not to air 
 their notions in public. They are assured that 
 more harm than good comes from half-baked 
 opinions. There is good history to sustain the 
 fear. Heresies are one-sided truths. Fail of 
 the vision of the full-orbed truth and you have 
 a fad or a new sect. God save us from more! 
 The growing church to-day has the same 
 problem of leadership that confronted the 
 Ephesian church. There are a few Pauls — 
 men whom everybody wants, men in demand. 
 If each church could have one, it would be 
 much better off and the kingdom would hasten. 
 There are occasional Aquilas and Priscillas, 
 God be thanked, never conspicuous, but 
 thoroughly reliable, informed, patient with the 
 half-trained and able to sustain a steady pace 
 of work. But are there not more of the Apol- 
 
 95 
 
TTbe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 los type, possibly without his eloquence, but 
 with his half -vision ? It is much if they have 
 his zeal, much if they magnify the half-truth 
 which they know. Still, Carlyle was right in 
 saying, "To teach religion, the first thing need- 
 ful and also the last and only thing, is to find 
 a man who has religion." You will never draw 
 water out of an empty well. You will never 
 learn from a man's teaching what the man does 
 not know. Half-vision is always half-blind- 
 ness. The half that the modern Apollos does 
 not see may not be the same to which 
 the Ephesian church was blind. It is generally 
 the richer, better part of the truth, be sure of 
 that. He may see the need of man, but not 
 the hope for them. He may see their sin with- 
 out their struggle. He may realize his own 
 strength, but not his weakness. He may be 
 efficient in the pulpit and a failure outside it. 
 He may be a pastor par excellence, but a stick 
 of a preached. He may be a good man, he may 
 without any sense. Or, worst of all, he may 
 be carried away with eloquence, or society, or 
 intellectuality, and cold to the Spirit of God. 
 Well, suppose a church has such a leader. 
 The first thought of some is to get rid of him. 
 
 96 
 
Some Dints of /B>etbo& 
 
 They think he might fit somewhere else, and 
 they would like to pass him on. Or suppose 
 such a leader, half educated, half trained, ap- 
 pears among the young people or anywhere in 
 the church. Some would silence him, put him 
 down, "teach him his place." It would all be 
 done most kindly if possible, but firmly and 
 in the interest of the church. That might have 
 been done with Apollos. Error plus eloquence 
 is very dangerous. Silence Apollos, then. 
 
 Aquila shows us a more excellent way. Why Making a 
 
 new leader 
 
 not save Apollos for the church and make him out of the 
 
 old one. 
 
 efficient? If he is a young fellow, leading 
 awkwardly and bunglingly, but earnest and 
 eager, the church needs him sorely, not half- 
 baked, but gradually and carefully trained. If 
 he is a half-blind pastor, he also is needed. 
 The popular notion is that a minister comes 
 to a church already trained. It is a large mis- 
 take. The prophetic word is commonly Hosea4:9. 
 quoted : "Like priest, like people," when the 
 prophet said, "Like people, like priest." The 
 influence of a minister on a church is unmis- 
 takable, but the church makes the minister 
 in even larger sense. I heard one minister 
 say: "Let me know a church well and I will 
 
 g 97 
 
Zbc ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 tell you what kind of pastors it has had." An- 
 other replied, "Let me know a minister well, 
 and I will tell you what kind of churches he 
 has had." I could not tell either, but the 
 latter said as large a thing as the former. I 
 wish it were wise to give the name of a much 
 loved and well known pastor whose long ser- 
 vice in his present church began with failure 
 and distrust. The wisest of his people came 
 together after the first year, and faced their 
 mistake in calling him. Manifestly he was not 
 the man for the place, for their church was 
 "peculiar," as all churches are; the only thing 
 now was to secure a call for him elsewhere as 
 quietly and gracefully as possible. But some 
 one said, "Are we so sure he will fail? Have 
 we done our part? Let us rally to him. Let 
 us pray for him, let us see his good qualities 
 first and most; let us talk him up, but let us 
 pray him up." To that they agreed, and 
 twenty-five years of happy pastorate have fol- 
 lowed. His friends say the change is greatest 
 in himself. The judgment of the church was 
 correct, but they changed the man. 
 
 I do not forget that there are incorrigibles. 
 The wise man found men in his own day who 
 
 98 
 
Some trtnts of flDetbob 
 
 would not be separated from their folly, Prov. 27:22. 
 though you pounded them in a mortar with 
 a pestle. There may be such men now. All 
 men are not so. There are men failing in 
 church leadership to-day because their church 
 will not pray them into efficiency. They do 
 not do better because they do not know better. 
 No one expounds to them the more perfect 
 way. That can be badly done, and there are 
 men who receive instruction badly, but the 
 failure on either side is not common. Most 
 men can be trained, and any church can re- 
 form any good man. Part of the restlessness 
 in the ministry is prayerlessness in the people. 
 Wanting better leaders, they think the only 
 way is to get another leader, when they might 
 make a new man out of the one they have. If, 
 therefore, my brother in the pew, you feel that 
 your pastor or your superintendent is unquali- 
 fied for his place, ask very seriously whether 
 you are doing your share to qualify him. In- 
 stead of seeking a new leader, might you not 
 make a new one. In your own quiet way, be 
 Aquila to your Apollos. 
 
 99 
 
XTbe (Browing Cburcb 
 
 in. 
 
 The need of Four times in the Eevelation letter, the 
 
 staying qual- ' 
 
 ity. Spirit commends in the Ephesian Church its 
 
 steadiness and persistence. He speaks of its 
 
 Rev. 2:1-7. toil, twice of its steadfastness, recalls that it 
 was ready to bear for His sake, and that it 
 did not grow weary. Its service was not spas- 
 modic. It had a sanctified doggedness that 
 saved it from the strain of the splurge and the 
 shame of the re-action. Such a quality entered 
 largely into its growth. 
 
 A most needed quality. Have you not be- 
 come suspicious of plans of work exploited in 
 the papers and lauded as accomplishing great 
 events? You read on anxiously to see how 
 long these elaborate schemes have worked. 
 "Inaugurated last February" — ah, you will 
 wait to try it. "Already in operation six 
 months" — well, six months is not long. In an 
 educational meeting in Chicago last winter a 
 revolutionary outline of study was presented 
 by a western educator, who assured the hearers 
 that it was in successful operation in his own 
 university. I learned afterwards that when he 
 
 100 
 
Some Dints ot /iDetbofc 
 
 had spoken, certain difficulties in the long 
 working of the plan were at once pointed out. 
 He assured the critics that they had encoun- 
 tered none of them. "How long has the plan 
 been in use?" was asked. "About three 
 months," was the reply, and everybody laughed 
 outright. The difficulties were not due yet. 
 An old pastor said to me once that he never 
 feet like telling anyone else about a plan of 
 work until he had tried it at least three years. 
 All brethren do not feel so. Some are eager 
 even to announce what they still intend to do. 
 
 Then there are men who wear out in about Men who 
 four years. They are good for a short run, 
 which they make at good speed, going to pieces 
 at the end of it. They are not good for the 
 long pull. A farmer uncle met my youthful 
 commendation of a frisky, enthusiastic horse 
 by bidding me wait until the end of the ten- 
 mile journey. I noted that the other horse did 
 the principal pulling the latter half of the way. 
 It is a rare horse that can pull frolicsomely 
 for ten miles. Less frolic and more pull at 
 the beginning is safe. This same uncle once 
 said of a certain preacher that his "barrel" 
 was just two years deep, and after that you 
 
 101 
 
Xtbe Growing Cburcb 
 
 struck water. Some readers are learning to 
 distrust items to the effect that the congrega- 
 tions have doubled in six months and the 
 prayer meetings are the largest ever had, and 
 so on and so on. They rejoice in six months 
 of good, of course, but they ask about the stay- 
 ing power of the good. Is it a steady light or 
 a flash ? 
 The failure So are there churches and church methods 
 
 churches. 
 
 that wear out. Given a new pastor and they 
 seek to kill him with kindness. They love him 
 to death — but he had better die early. Or there 
 comes a great and gracious outpouring of the 
 Spirit. A whole community is roused and 
 numbers are brought to Christ and into the 
 church. After the meetings close, the people let 
 go, interest dies down and wiseacres shake their 
 heads and say, "We never did believe in these 
 spasmodic revivals anyway!" A great gift of 
 God, meant to enrich the church, is allowed to 
 slip through its fingers for sheer lack of stead- 
 fastness and readiness to endure the grind of 
 toil. After the meetings is the time for patient 
 work, for training, for harvesting of results, 
 for assimilating the new life to the church. At 
 that point lies one weakness of many 
 
 102 
 
Some Ibfnts of /iDetbofc 
 
 a church. It can meet an emergency; it is 
 not ready to settle down to the grind. It 
 wants large results but it will not be long-suf- 
 fering in gaining them nor in using them. 
 Adam Bede liked "to read about Moses 
 because he carried a hard business well 
 through." Thomas Paine published his paper, 
 "The Crisis," during the early years of Ameri- 
 can life, hoping to help his fellow citizens to 
 meet the nation's peril. When the treaty be- 
 tween England and the United States was an- 
 nounced, he ceased the issuing of the paper, 
 saying, "The times that tried men's souls are 
 over." But it is at just that point in the his- 
 tory that John Fiske dates the beginning of 
 the "Critical Period in the History of the 
 United States." The announcement of the 
 treaty was the beginning of the real crisis, not 
 the ending of it Many churches begin their 
 rest when the time for work has just come. It 
 is not the spasmodic heroic efforts that meas- 
 ure churches best, but their power to get their 
 shoulders under the commonplace burden and 
 walk on and on with it. The real strength of a 
 church is seldom anything that people think 
 it worth while to tell about. It may be strong 
 
 103 
 
Ufoe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 in organization and in sociability and in equip- 
 ment. Back of all that must be patience, 
 steadfastness, readiness to bear without grow- 
 ing weary. It has been said many times that 
 Jesus showed His true self most of all in set- 
 tling down cheerily to a hopeless task. You 
 know what is meant by it. The church of 
 Christ has no hopeless task, yet its great task 
 is not to be accomplished with a splurge or a 
 spasm. Its load will not be pulled up the 
 heights by jerks and plunges. Novel methods 
 and new appliances, fresh schemes and attrac- 
 tive plans have their place, but over and above 
 all must be that patient steadfastness which 
 comes of faith in Him who endured the cross 
 not in one supreme hour alone, but through 
 His whole sacrificial life. 
 
 These lines are written in a log cabin in the 
 pine woods. The outlook is on a beautiful lake, 
 fringed with birch and pines. The wind is 
 blowing and the alder bushes and white birch 
 trees are dancing and fluttering, making a con- 
 stant rustle. The water is roughened and 
 darkened in the breeze. But the great Nor- 
 way pines that have overlooked the lake these 
 two hundred years hardly sway in the wind, 
 
 104 
 
Some Ibfnts of ZlDetboD 
 
 and send down no light sound, but only a deep 
 undertone of music which seems to have in it 
 the strength and majesty of their patient 
 watching over these little things of yesterday. 
 At their feet many men, many shrubs have 
 claimed notice, have boasted their might, have 
 lived their lives and passed away. The pines 
 reach on up toward the heavens and strike 
 roots deeper, decade after decade, until they 
 stand double and treble centenarians, doing the 
 will of God. And we, lying at their feet, look 
 up through their evergreen tops and seek to 
 learn their lesson while we pray our God, whose 
 sentinels they are, to make us and our people 
 steadfast, patient, toilsome, ready to bear, 
 never weary until we come home to the corona- 
 tion of the faithful. 
 
 105 
 
TXbe ©towing Gburcb 
 
 VIII. THE PEEILS AND SAFEGUARDS. 
 
 PERIL is part of the reason of the church. 
 It is placed in the world exactly because 
 of the things that endanger it. And yet the 
 gravest perils of the church are not necessary 
 to it, not the explanation of its being. In his 
 
 A.cts 30:29, 30. farewell to the elders of the Ephesian church, 
 Paul warns them of two lines of attack. There 
 will be grievous wolves seeking to tear the 
 flock — danger from without; there will be 
 traitorous, unsubmissive, perverse ones rising 
 among themselves — danger from within. Later 
 
 Rev. 2:4. in its history, the Spirit rebukes the church for 
 loss of its early zeal. It has left its early pas- 
 sion of love. The humdrum of faith has set- 
 tled upon it. From these there issues the 
 
 Rev. 2:5. greatest of all perils, divine retribution, the 
 withdrawal of light-giving power, withdrawal 
 of privilege by act of God Himself. Four lines 
 of peril there are: attacks from without, at- 
 tacks from within, loss of zeal, divine retribu- 
 tion. Their seriousness deepens from the first 
 to the fourth. 
 
 106 
 
Ube perils an& Sateauar&s 
 
 The least thing the church has to dread is Attacks 
 the attacks upon it by its enemies. It was out. 
 from Dr. John Hall that I first heard the old 
 story of the serpent that vented its rage upon 
 a file by gnawing it with its teeth, rejoicing 
 at the little heap of chips which it noticed after 
 each attack, until it saw blood among them 
 and found it was its own blood, the chips the 
 filings of its own teeth. The file was unhurt. 
 In logic, in philosophy, in intellectual combat, 
 the wise men of the church may be safely 
 pitted against the opponents. It is not the 
 romancing of a lover that makes us declare 
 that the intellect of Christendom is with the 
 church — not all of it, but an undue propor- 
 tion. Attacks that have taken the form of vio- 
 lence have brought the church new life. The 
 blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the 
 church. 
 
 All that is true of the church at large and as Their in- 
 a whole. But such attacks often work havoc viduais. 
 with individual church-men. No storm ever 
 wrecks a forest, but almost any storm will lay 
 
 107 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 low a few trees in the forest, weaker, feebler, 
 susceptible trees. The outer foes of the church 
 may not, therefore, be passed without notice by 
 any growing church. The saloon, the brothel, 
 the wrong commercial system, the false theory 
 of the universe, the atheistic scientific system, 
 the specious ethical philosophy — the enemies 
 vary so that it seems almost unfair to list them 
 together. But all are outside enemies which 
 endanger the church. Give any one of them 
 full swing, and the church suffers. They are 
 like grievous wolves that enter in, and they do 
 not spare the flock. Amazing how many of 
 our churches sit idle in presence of these 
 threatening dangers. We fulminate against 
 errors in doctrines of which many of our peo- 
 ple have never heard, while we are either silent 
 or fanatically impractical regarding the life- 
 and-death struggle in which some of them are 
 Danger to engaged. Last winter some one sent me 
 peopfe. anonymously a circular showing how large a 
 
 percentage of the inmates of certain peniten- 
 tiaries claimed to have attended Sunday 
 Schools in their childhood. The conclusion 
 was drawn that the Christian religion tends 
 to make criminals. Bather, such facts indi- 
 
 108 
 
Ube perils an& Safesuar&s 
 
 cate that we have not "watched." As some one 
 puts it, "we have not held our own," those who 
 came to our hand. There came wolves upon 
 them and bore them away while we stood by. 
 Not many pastors who have not seen young 
 men borne away by enemies of their souls, 
 and condemned themselves that they did not 
 see it in time. In a paper which came to me yes- 
 terday I note that one of my friends urges 
 that the attempt to "revive revival methods" 
 has failed and that the real growth of the 
 church will come from care of our children, 
 bringing them into the covenant and training 
 them into the Christian life, so that they be- 
 come church-members in natural order. One 
 need not so coolly dismiss the effort to win 
 present adults in order to stand with the writer 
 in his plea for care of the children. Many 
 Christian parents, engrossed with other con- 
 cerns or strangely timid about their spiritual 
 interests, seem to stand aside while the wolves 
 tear away their children, grieving greatly after- 
 ward. Our cities cry out with such error. We 
 explain it by the many seductions and tempta- 
 tions of the city. That is only half. When I 
 said once that I supposed the floating of dis- 
 
 109 
 
Ube Growing Gburcb 
 
 ease germs in the air explained the prevalence 
 of sickness, a wise physician told me I had left 
 out half the reason — the unfit condition, the 
 carelessness, the precedent weakness of those to 
 whom the germs came. The temptations, the 
 seductions of the city are terrible enough, God 
 knows, but the blame for the failure of a life 
 may not always be shifted to them. There 
 was shameful carelessness, there was temporiz- 
 ing with evil, there was compromising with low 
 morals in the homes, and there was a relaxing 
 of zeal and vigilance of the church at just the 
 critical period. It is easy to sit here half a 
 thousand miles from the great city and write 
 coolly of such matters, easy to adjust the bur- 
 den of blame. It is quite another thing to 
 understand the failure of children of godly 
 parents. Yet all that has been said is true. 
 The blame does lie in larger and lesser degree 
 upon the Christian church and the Christian 
 family for not holding for Christ what has 
 once been given it for Him. The warning 
 word of Paul comes to us still: "therefore 
 watch." 
 
 110 
 
Ube perils an& Safeguar&s 
 
 ii. 
 
 More perilous than attacks from without are Attacks ( 
 
 x from within, 
 
 the disloyalties and self-assertions from within. 
 The Ephesian elders were warned lhat per- 
 verse speaking men should arise from among 
 themselves. The church has always suffered 
 from that peril. I heard a young scientific 
 man say once that to "a truly scientific mind" 
 (his own, of course, being included), it was 
 enough to excite suspicion regarding any opin- 
 ion that it was commonly held. There are 
 people who seem to act on that principle in 
 religion. They love to read or to follow any 
 new proposal. In our own day it must be 
 occult. It must be phrased so that you catch 
 only a glimmer of an idea at first reading. 
 It must involve a little, at least, of the con- 
 tradictory, must depreciate somewhat your com- 
 mon sense. Thus it flatters the vanity of the 
 follower, revealing others fools who cannot 
 understand it. It is amusing to observe the 
 sweet resignation with which one particular 
 company of faddists to-day dismiss all sturdy 
 objections with the saying that of course you 
 
 111 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 cannot understand their beliefs, since they are 
 spiritually discerned! They understand them, 
 to be sure, but as for you — ! But that is only 
 type of all. Most of these faddists come out of 
 the church. They add no strength to it. They 
 do not go into the ranks to make another sec- 
 tion of the one force of the Kingdom of God. 
 They become antagonists. Moreover they are 
 arrant propagandists, rejoicing more over an 
 addition from the church than from the out- 
 side world. The church has thus been the 
 breeding place not only of its mightiest de- 
 fenders, but also of its mightiest opponents. 
 That is tribute to its breadth and freedom, but 
 it involves peril. 
 Dealing with Against these destructive influences a wise 
 fadf. 10US watchfulness must be exercised that disciples 
 be not drawn away after them. If the church 
 prospers by violent attacks, so will such per- 
 verse opinions. Their leaders often desire 
 nothing more than the opportunity to be 
 martyrs for the cause of truth. Some such at- 
 tacks seem to lose sight of the element of 
 truth in the new notion. Some disregard the 
 manifest honesty of many of its adherents. For 
 one reason and another they accomplish little. 
 
 112 
 
XCbe perils an& Safe^uatfts 
 
 A returning wanderer told a gentleman that 
 he was brought back by the word of a friend 
 which showed how all the fibre of the new 
 teaching was taken from the old and what 
 was really new in it was not worth while. Add 
 to it this, that the old faith of the church con- 
 tains great and important truths which the 
 new omits, and the line of argument most effici- 
 ently used seems before us. 
 
 The unsettling of faddists is not so perilous The doubts 
 
 x of scholar- 
 
 with some as the doubts and denials issuing ship, 
 from scholarship. Dr. Van Dyke hits it off 
 in his usual quotable way : "The coat of arms 
 of the present age is an interrogation point 
 rampant, above three bishops dormant, and its 
 motto is Query?" A father told me recently 
 that he would not send his son to college be- 
 cause he would certainly get him back with 
 his religious ardor chilled if he had any faith 
 left at all. A young man came to me once to 
 talk about his life work, saying that he had 
 purposed to preach, but his course in philos- 
 ophy had so unsettled him that he had nothing 
 to preach. In a Christian university a pupil 
 of my own pursued a post-graduate course in 
 studies which touched easily on religious sub- 
 
 h 113 
 
XLbc ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 jects. He told me he had not once heard a 
 sympathetic reference to the religion of Christ 
 nor the church, but had heard many caustic 
 and sarcastic allusions to the church and its 
 old follies. I spent a day, two or three years 
 ago, in the classrooms of a theological semi- 
 nary, attending four lectures by as many pro- 
 fessors. In each one the class was made to 
 smile or laugh at the ideas of their fathers re- 
 garding one or more religious matters, each 
 reference being made in such superiority 
 that the contempt of the speaker shone in it. 
 -The head of one of our Christian colleges 
 praised his principal science man very highly 
 In my hearing, adding that he regretted he 
 was not a Christian, but hoped he was not in- 
 oculating the students with his scepticism. 
 Another explained that it was very reluctantly 
 that he chose for his professor of philosophy a 
 man who denied the deity of Christ and the 
 atonement, adding that he supposed such 
 doubts would not appear in his teaching. 
 Meanwhile a bright young fellow in school told 
 his mother he heard his Sunday teaching 
 laughed at five days a week, and the laugh was 
 getting the better of the teaching. 
 
 114 
 
XTbe Perils atto SafeauarOs 
 
 That is one side of the educational situation. The other 
 
 side. 
 
 Many of us know and believe in another side. 
 A favorite college speaker declares that for the 
 average boy the college is a safer place to-day 
 than his own home. Of course, that depends 
 on the boy and the college and the home. But 
 it looks toward this better side. We know the 
 godly, scholarly instructors in science and 
 philosophy. We know the splendid array of 
 leading men in any college on the side of Christ 
 and the church. We know the deepened, en- 
 riched Christian character which many young 
 fellows get in college, and which all could get. 
 There are colleges whose first requirement 
 for any instructor is that he be taught of the 
 Lord. He is a poor instructor who teaches 
 theology in a Latin or a mathematics class- 
 room, but he is quite as poor who does not 
 maintain a Christian attitude in his class- 
 room in any branch. Most pastors can point 
 to young men who have come back from col- 
 lege eager for church work and intelligent 
 about it, Bible-taught, personal workers for 
 souls. Some of us who have been on the in- 
 side are clear that much of the unsettling in 
 
 115 
 
XCbe ©rowina Cburcb 
 
 The safe- 
 guard. 
 
 Loss of faith 
 in the pulpit. 
 
 the faith of students does not begin in the 
 classroom, but in entirely outside conditions. 
 
 But let both phases of the matter be true. 
 The peril to the church is manifest. Most of 
 the men who in the name of scholarship un- 
 settle the faith of other men have come from 
 within itself. Over them and their influence 
 it must keep watch. It dare not narrow itself 
 intellectually, that of course. It dare not seek 
 to limit investigation. Equally it dare not 
 give over its future to men who sneer at the 
 essentials of its life. In so far as it must com- 
 mit its youth to the scepticism of scholarship, 
 it must throw around them the safeguards of 
 faith. 
 
 Still greater is the peril from doubt and un- 
 rest when it appears in the pulpit. The airing 
 of doubt, the eagerness to show that the faith 
 of the church is erroneous when the speaker 
 has gone only so far as that, the pulling up of 
 anchor in order to drift, all of it is inexcusable. 
 Most men pass through a time of fog and mist. 
 Certainties get unsettled. It is not honest then 
 to call them certainties. There are whole years 
 when a minister feels that he dare not preach 
 on this or that doctrine. It has lost verity to 
 
 116 
 
Ube perils an& SafefluarOs 
 
 him. What then? Denounce it? Explode it 
 before his people? Eidicule the fathers for 
 holding it? God forbid! Does the man see 
 that it is false, will he commit himself to its 
 erroneousness, or does he simply not see its 
 truth? Some of us thank God most for the 
 sermons we thought out, but never preached. 
 They were very scholarly, they set the church 
 in error, they called to large liberty, and all 
 that. We thought we felt almost sad at the 
 necessity for preaching them, they would so 
 wound the sensitive, conservative, moss-back 
 brother. But in the good providence of God 
 we did not preach them. We waited to brood 
 over them. Somehow they do not seem so 
 scholarly as they did. Their central ideas even 
 look a little narrow and thin. We might have 
 unsettled the faith of some and settled the 
 faith of none. If a man has new solid ground 
 on which he stands, ground which has the feel 
 of the everlasting hills in it, let him shout out 
 his call to other men wherever they are. Any 
 pulpit is open for that. But if he has lost 
 footing, let him be silent until he strikes rock 
 again. Certainly one cause of the retarded 
 growth of the church in recent years is the 
 
 117 
 
Ube Growing Cburcb 
 
 intellectual and doctrinal unsettling which the 
 blindest can observe. It was a needed and un- 
 avoidable condition. The faith of the church 
 is not so much changed as it has found new 
 affiliation with the whole life of men, has be- 
 come richer and fuller. The error lay in the 
 peculiar notion of some of us that we must 
 trumpet forth our unrest. An old minister 
 said strikingly, "I regret no sermon which has 
 come out with This is so;' I have regretted a 
 good many which have come out with 'Is this 
 so V " Luther's word would have sounded very 
 different if he had said, "Here I drift; I can do 
 The outside no other ." Men outside have not asked for a 
 
 opinion. 
 
 cock-sureness that has forgotten how to ques- 
 tion and investigate. They have not asked for 
 bondage to a form. Not many have echoed the 
 thoughtless cry against creeds. When a man 
 said to me, "I believe that no man ought to 
 have a creed," I doubt if he saw the contradic- 
 tion in his sentence. Probably most men have 
 rejoiced in the relaxing of doctrinal stringency, 
 wisely or not. But how shall men be drawn to 
 a faith which is not sure of itself ? How shall 
 men commit themselves to a vessel whose crew 
 are all wearing life preservers ? Several earnest 
 
 118 
 
TLbc perils atto Safeguard 
 
 men have told me their own clear conviction 
 of the essentials of the gospel of Christ, ex- 
 pressing their personal faith in Him, who were 
 not drawn to the church because of the con- 
 fusion that seemed to have arisen among its 
 leaders as to their faith. Of course, the great 
 thing is gained when a man comes in personal 
 faith to Christ, but the church needs such men. 
 Thus the attacks upon the church from with- 
 in, many of them not meant as attacks, have 
 brought it peril and have retarded its growth. 
 Thank God that we seem now passing out of 
 the stage of unrest. The clouds break away 
 from the mountain top and the unshaken 
 granite appears. The essentials are showing 
 themselves essentials. Battles of heart, which 
 were never paraded, are ending in the victory 
 of a stronger faith. The note of conviction is 
 heard in book and sermon. The church faces 
 outward to its work, not inward upon itself. 
 
 III. 
 
 Like the Ephesian Church, the church of to- The loss of 
 day is in peril of loss of zeal. The damage is 
 greater because the evil must be widespread. 
 
 119 
 
 zeal. 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 In every church are members who seem dull 
 and dead, but they need not give the tone to 
 the church as a whole. If only all were eager 
 and zealous, the church would be irresistible. 
 It might be uniformed zeal, not according to 
 knowledge, yet by it the church would grow as 
 it would not by knowledge unfired by zeal. 
 Some It would be too long a study to trace in 
 
 loss among detail the causes of loss of zeal. I watched a 
 
 individuals. -, n . ,, . A 
 
 young man cool down m this manner: As a 
 clerk he was at both church services, young 
 people's meeting, midweek prayer meeting, and 
 such other services as properly concerned him, 
 efficient in all. As business success came and 
 he rose gradually in his office, he dropped out 
 of one duty after another, until with his admis- 
 sion to partnership he had become an irregular 
 attendant upon morning service only. The 
 process occupied about five years. Other men 
 establish their families, enter a little more into 
 society outside the church, and gradually drift 
 away from it, ceasing any real labor in its be- 
 Matt. 13:22. half. The care of the world, the deceitfulness 
 of riches — they still choke the growing soul. 
 Young women get caught in social toils, they 
 become professionally literary or commercially 
 
 120 
 
Zbc perfls an& Safeguards 
 
 important, and the early zeal dies. No matter 
 how it happens, the follower of Christ loses 
 his first love and the whole church suffers. One 
 of the English preachers visiting us two years 
 ago called attention to a verse which has trou- 
 bled not a few of us before and since. It is johni8:26. 
 that one wherein the servant by the fire asked 
 the denying Peter, "Did not I see thee with 
 Him in the garden?" How could Peter resist 
 that ? Ah, as we resist similar queries. Might 
 not our enemy sometimes come upon us, say- 
 ing, "What! you here? You denying your 
 Lord? Did not I see thee with Him a while 
 ago ? Are not you the man who spoke so con- 
 fidently of your love for Him? Did you not 
 stand up before men a while ago and claim Him 
 for your Master ?" Our lives have sagged, the 
 tension is gone out of them, we have lost our 
 zeal. Within six blocks of my own church I 
 have found six men who were once Sunday 
 School superintendents, who never go to church 
 now. 
 
 The cure for individual cases must be indi- 
 vidual. It must be brought to the heart of 
 these chilled Christians that they do hurt to 
 the whole church. The pain of their Lord from 
 
 121 
 
Zbc Growing Cburcb 
 
 First cause 
 of loss of 
 zeal in the 
 church at 
 large. 
 
 1 Cor. 15:9. 
 
 their denial must be brought to their own 
 hearts in hope that they may go and weep 
 bitterly and come again with the passion of 
 love. 
 
 Is it not clear, however, that the church has 
 had its time of cooled ardor in the large way? 
 Occupied with other things, we have lost our 
 eagerness to win men to Christ. Some have 
 lost their zeal because they have lost their 
 sense of the need of men. Young people ex- 
 press their entire confidence that God would 
 not condemn men anyway. If anything in the 
 Bible seems to conflict with that easy notion, 
 it is discounted or set down to the discredit of 
 the human authors. The old notion of eternal 
 banishment from God is too hard for people 
 so nice as we are. The tone of preaching has 
 changed as well. We are urging our people to 
 be good because it is better for the present life. 
 We declare that if in this life only we have 
 hope, Christians would be of all men most 
 happy. One of the religious papers asks 
 whether we are not too afraid of preaching im- 
 mortality. Would we not be a little ashamed 
 of being Christians for the sake of going to 
 heaven and escaping hell ? 
 
 122 
 
Hbe perils an5 Safeguar&s 
 
 Now, perhaps, this life alone ought to mean 
 as much to us as this life and the next mean 
 together, but to most of us it does not. If we 
 have any doubt about the need of Christ for 
 the eternal life, even if we leave the next life 
 out of account altogether, we lose some of our 
 zest for winning men to Him. Do we run for 
 the physician to relieve our loved one from an 
 hour's pain as hastily as when he is wanted to 
 relieve from a lifetime agony ? Undoubtedly we 
 are clear that the world needs the gospel of 
 Christ to-day if it were to be blotted out of 
 existence to-morrow, but we may not blink the 
 fact that it would be less apt to care for that 
 gospel if to-morrow's event were so assured. A 
 return to our conviction of the eternal need 
 of men and of the necessity of Christ will 
 bring new zeal to many of us. A social gospel 
 is very attractive, but society is not apt to be 
 saved against the wish of the individuals who 
 compose it. Whoever brings one man to fel- 
 lowship with Christ helps effectually in the 
 social renovation. Mr. Stelzle's recent book on 
 the Church and Social Problems tells of a 
 church over whose main door is cut the words : 
 "I am the Door." But on the closed door 
 
 123 
 
trbe ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 Second 
 cause of loss 
 of zeal in 
 the church 
 at large. 
 
 Luke 5:5. 
 
 
 beneath is a tin sign reading, "Go around to 
 the other door/'' If we have the thought that 
 there are many doors into the kingdom of God, 
 we shall not be worried over seeing men wan- 
 dering away from Him who is the Door. Eob- 
 ert Louis Stevenson writes to one of his friends, 
 "There are only three possible attitudes — opti- 
 mism, which has gone to smash; pessimism, 
 which is on the rising hand, and which is very 
 popular with some clergymen who think they 
 are Christians; and this Faith, which is the 
 Gospel." 
 
 The other large cause of loss of zeal is the 
 loss of the spirit of obedience. Eead again the 
 account of the calling of Peter, and see how 
 he did a thing which he counted useless be- 
 cause it was Christ's wish. "At Thy word I 
 will let down the net." Some Christians do 
 not believe in foreign missions — why? Be- 
 cause they do not find it the will of their 
 Master? They do not ask it. Some will not 
 undertake Christian work, will not seek to be- 
 come soul- winners. But what if the Master de- 
 sires it? "0, I cannot," they say. Which is 
 not the spirit which put the Crusades into his- 
 
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XEbe perils an& Safeguar5s 
 
 tory with their cry of "God wills it !" Atten- 
 tion has been called to the three sayings : 
 
 "With men it is impossible;" 
 "With God all things are possible ;" 
 "All things are possible to him that be- 
 iieveth." 
 
 Have yon laid stress in yoirr reading on the 
 second word of the familiar saying of Jesus: John 4:34. 
 "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent 
 me ?" Generally we think of our obedience as 
 the outlaying of our strength. Let us think 
 of it instead as the gaining of our strength. 
 Until we do His will we shall not have the meat 
 of the inner life. With that obedience, dogged 
 if it must be, will come power and energy and 
 hearty zeal. 
 
 A gentleman hurried to small station in a 
 southern state to catch a train. As he came 
 near, the train thundered through at express 
 speed. "Does that train never stop here?" he 
 asked an old negro sitting near. "No, sah, it 
 doan nevah stop, sah; it doan even hesitate, 
 sah," was the answer. But many a Christian 
 
 125 
 
Ube Growing Cburcb 
 
 loses his express speed, even stops in his 
 obedience, rating some other will above His 
 Lord's will. The whole church seems to fall 
 into lethargy and to lose its first love. 
 There-as- Shall I not hasten to save the saying from 
 
 surance of J ° 
 
 faith. seeming gloomy or pessimistic? The church 
 
 has never ceased to be the church of Christ, 
 has never utterly forgotten His word, has never 
 utterly failed Him, and never will. Jacob Eiis 
 says that Hans Christian Anderson was much 
 afraid of being buried alive, and every night 
 for years he pinned to his blanket, before he 
 slept, a card, on which was written, "X guess 
 I am only in a trance." Let no one mistake the 
 lethargy of the church for death, let no one 
 
 1 Kings 18:19. overlook the seventy times seven thousand who 
 have not bowed the knee to Baal or any other 
 god. During the time when the church seemed 
 indifferent there were souls all aflame with zeal. 
 When the church seemed dull, men were burn- 
 ing out for God, putting to shame all our 
 boasted energy. 
 
 Rom. i3:ii. But now it is high time for all of us to 
 
 awake out of sleep. If we have been shorn 
 of power by anything that has been in the 
 past, our vows have been renewed and power 
 
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XTbe perils ant> SafeguarDs 
 
 is returning. We are Samsons, newly vowed 
 to God, not blinded, not grinding at a mill, but 
 free to work marvels for Him. God set us 
 afire with zeal! God make us irresistible by 
 our vision of the need of man and the will of 
 Christ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 So we shall escape the gravest of all perils, — The retribu- 
 the retribution of God. Whatever it may mean 
 in full to remove the candlestick, it means at Rev. 2:5. 
 least this, that light-giving power is gone, that 
 power for service is taken away, that the es- 
 sential purpose of the light-bearing church is 
 defeated. The books tell us that God cannot 
 suffer. What they mean may be true, but 
 something else is true. It is with bitter pain 
 that such retribution will be brought upon any 
 church, be sure of that. Last night I read the 
 words of retribution : "These shall go away into Matt. 25:46. 
 everlasting punishment/' "Shall go away," 
 not be driven away, not be arrested and forcibly 
 banished from God, "shall go away" by the 
 very pressure of their own choice. And He 
 that sits upon the throne of judgment has no 
 
 127 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 Eaek. 33:11. pleasure in the death of the wicked. It is His 
 everlasting pain that there is everlasting sin. 
 But what shall it be if He must remove the 
 candlestick of an unrepentant church! I have 
 two or three times heard Dr. Henry Bullard 
 speak with hushed and almost awed voice of 
 
 Bev.6:i6. the strange Eevelation expression, "The wrath 
 
 of the Lamb." We know the wrath of kings, 
 of men, of mighty beasts, — but the lamb is 
 hard to stir to wrath. It must be something 
 of which we have little conception that He 
 who is the sacrificial Lamb may become the 
 Judge whose wrath is fearful. Let us not de- 
 ceive ourselves with saying that it cannot be. 
 The same Book which bears us glad news of 
 love, bears news equally of the retribution of 
 outraged love. The Jewish nation, once light- 
 bearing candlestick of God — does it bear no 
 argument? Men, once able to serve, sinning 
 until the very heart and life of them is lost — 
 are they not argument? The Hebrews writer 
 brings us all to pause when he swings his argu- 
 
 Heb. 2:3. ment into personal question: "How shall we 
 
 escape if we neglect ?" There is something to 
 gain in life; let us remember there is some- 
 thing to escape as well. Any church may lose 
 
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Zbc perils an& Satefluar&s 
 
 its light-giving power. The peril faced the 
 Ephesian Church. It faces the present church. 
 
 There is a touch of deep sadness in the par- 
 able of the fig-tree that would not bear and Luke 13:6-9. 
 also cumbered the ground. The keeper pleaded 
 for one more year, and joined his master in 
 pronouncing its doom if it should be still bar- 
 ren. Did it bear that critical year ? If it did, 
 the master rejoiced with the keeper. If it did 
 not, the keeper counted the master wise in cut- 
 ting it down. What is sadder than a church 
 that is not a force in the kingdom of God, but 
 only a hindrance? Is anything more grevious 
 than a professed Christian who not only fails 
 to bear fruit but is an actual cumberer of the 
 ground, actually hinders others and lessens 
 their strength ? 
 
 Mr. Steuart makes the doctor in The Samari- 
 tans say the deep truth most vividly: "God is 
 loving and merciful, long suffering and won- 
 drously slow to wrath. Only in the last resort 
 will He smite. But make no mistake, He will 
 not be mocked. The result of mocking is un- 
 speakably terrible." If the deadness and in- 
 difference of the Ephesian Church imperilled 
 its inmost purpose, so that it might be finally 
 
 1 129 
 
Ube ©rowing Cburcb 
 
 and irrevocably defeated, is any man able to 
 prove that the same conditions may not carry 
 with them the same unspeakably terrible peril 
 still? 
 
 We need have no fear that the whole church 
 of Christ will be defeated. It was the particu- 
 lar church and the "angel" of the church that 
 were addressed. Is it your church, my brother, 
 that is so imperilled ? Is it yourself who stands 
 in peril of the retribution of God?' It is not 
 the loss of vour immortal soul that is feared. 
 It is loss of your power to serve, the defeat of 
 your inmost purpose, the removal of the 
 candlestick from its place so that you are dead 
 and lightless. It is the denial to your church 
 of any place or power in the forces of God, 
 retribution for its lack of zeal, for its indiffer- 
 ence to the will and work of its Master. 
 
 In presence of death all men speak softly. 
 Here, also, we are hushed, for here is deepest 
 death. A dead church — it is the acme of sad- 
 ness. 
 
 Ah, but a live church ! It is the embodiment 
 of power. It means reward, not retribution. 
 It means victory for inmost purpose, not de- 
 
 130 
 
Zbz perils anfc Safeguar&s 
 
 feat. It means trimmed candles in golden 
 candlestick, fastened in a secure place by the 
 hand of God. This we may make of our 
 church. This, by His grace, shall, the whole 
 Church of Christ be! 
 
 131 
 
NOV 13 1903 
 
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