Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-11-27

! there should be as many mlnls-
ters as there are Christian men and women.
There must be pastors, priests and preach
ers; there must be men who shall be the
leaders Of the people, There must be gen.
erals and captains in the militant army OF
the Church, as there are in any other army,
to decide, to represent, to direct, to lead.
That which is everybody's work is in danger
Of being done by nobody, unless the respon-
| sibility is set upon individual shoulders.
Yet no work goes on as it ought unless
every worker shares the consciousness OF
responsibility. No regiment ever won a
battle in which the captain did all the fight
ing. The finest army that ever fought, the
army that never lost field, was made up OF
men who were as interested in the purposes
of the fighting, every man Of them, as oliver
Cromwell was who led them.
Peter is not enough, nor even John and
Peter. The Church needs Peter and John
and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas,
Bartholomew and Matthew, James, the son
of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and
Judas, the brother of James.
There is no more hopeful feature OF the
life of the Church to-day than the emphasis
which is being, put upon the work OF the
| laity. Men and women are recognizing on
all sides that they are called to service.
Membership in the Christian Church is now
understood to carry with it an obligation to
do something for Christ. There are still,
no doubt, good many Christians
Christians in name-who need to be labored
with as if they were pagans. The militant
| Church Is still delayed in its march by these
laggard soldiers, who must be coaxed and
urged and pushed to keep up. with the ad-
vancing ranks. But I believe that the
number to-day is smaller than it used to be.
| The Test of Christianity.
Nobody is good Christian who is not in
some way helping forward the cause of
Jesus Christ. There is no standing still in
| the warfare. Whoever is not for Christ is
against Him. We are coming to realize that
that is true. And here is the Salvation
Army, great aggressive company of lay
| men, making the light shine in Darkest
England, setting the unemployed at work,
feeding the hungry, providing homes for
| the homeless, giving a new heart to the dis
heartened, leading the poorest of the poor
and the lowest of the low by easy steps
toward respectability and Christian living;
and writing beside the great names OF St.
Francis, of Assist, and ST. John, of Ep-
worth, another name worthy of their COM
| pany, the name of st. William, of London.
| Here is the Young Mems Christian Asso-
cla!ion, the center of unmeasured spiritual
influences; here are the st. Andrews
Brotherhood and the Society of Christian
| Endeavor, whose great conventions during
the past few months have been the amaze
ment of two of our greatest cities. In the
midst of the poorest neighborhoods of New
York and London, of Chicago and
Boston, good men and good women,
whom no church has ever
authorized by an formal ordination, but
whom the Lord Jesus Christ has called by
| His Spirit as he called Peter and John and
James and Andrew, are studying the prob
lem 'of poverty, and bringing their culture
to the aid OF ignorance. Yes, and in every
parish there are organizations of laywork-
| ers, societies which the fathers never
| dreamed of, all kinds of endeavors being
| made to reach all kinds of people in all
| kinds of ways
This is a day when the builders of
| church build also parish house beside it,
| as the headquarters of all these parochial
| industries which the laity are carrying on.
| The parish house is the symbol of this n ew
| idea OF parish llie-which is yet as old as
Pentecost The Church exists not only for
worship but for work. And the Church de-
sires that the people shall be not only wor-
shippers but workers.
Allegiance the First Thing
The first thing is allegiance. The Chris
tian lavman must be true to Christ. He
must work not for the works sake and not
for his own sake, but for Christ's sake.
The sole purpose of all his efforts must be
to set forward the kingdom of-Christ. He
is to win the wills of men for Christ. That
may be accomplished by Christian speech,
by the direct appeal of man to his BROTH
er. 1t may be accomplished also in thou
sand other ways, by every plan which COM
mends the Church of Christ to the approval
of good people. L he Christian layman will
help to the best of his strength in every en-
deavor in the Church and out OF it which
looks toward the betterment of men. He
will evince the genuineness of his Christi
anity by the warmth of his sympathy for
all good causes. He will be interested in
politics, in the promotion of good govern
ment, in the right ruling of the city, in
sanitation in the reform Of tenements. in
the question of the evils of drink, in the
problem ofpoverty, in the bringing in of
better brotherhood, in the securing OF the
efficient missions of art, of music and of
books. He will realize that it is his duty
as a disciple OF Jesus Christie do something
to make this world place nearer to Christ's
ideal of Christian world.
The next thing is opportunity. The
Christian layman will discover his own op-
portunities. He will not wait in idleness
till somebody else invents an opportunity
Surely it does not need long look nor even
a particularly keen look into the world We
live in to see that it is not On ideal world.
The Kingdom OF God for which we pray,
and whose citizens we are already, has not
as yet gained universal allegiance. Nobody
who reads the newspapers, or even walks
along the streets, will fancy that we are
living in the millennium. There is no lack
of the need OF betlerment But the need of
betterment is only another name for oppor-
tuuity. Here are all these .vils in the So
ciety about us. And here are we pledged
to resist evil, to be the enemy of it, to hate
it with all the zeal and fervor OF hatred
which is voiced in the old Psalms. Plainly
there is enough to do
AQuestion for individuals.
And as for the way to do it the Christian
layman must largely determine for himself
what way is best for him. Peter and John
and James and Andrew and the rest of
ent purposes, different ideas. They were
Christ. 1t would have been FOLLY for them
to have waited till Peter should have set
them each at work. Peter knew what he
coull do best and he proceeded to do it.
But he could hardly know what was the
ideal service of Simon the Zealot, or of
Judas the brother OF James. Simon and
Judas must use their own minds and their
own hands. They must enter in their own
way into their own opportunity.
The Christian layman has consecrated all
that is good in him to the service OF Jesus
Christ. And he looks about to see what he
can do for the uplifting of those who are
worse off than he is. What can he do with
his money for the good of men? Or if he