The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-03-07

mons, or told a number of funny
stories in his discourses, or put weap-
ons in the children's hands to train
them in the art of bloodshed, in or
der to attract crowd so that he
could get hearing, yet "great null
titudes followed him." and when he
received new worker he did it with
out modifying his message or aba
ting one jot of the demand ''Love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind, and thy neighbor as thyself."
We are set to do the same work in
the world that he began and we have
as yet no reason to suppose that his
method of doing it can be essentially
improved upon.
If we would have a strong and
prosperous church, church able to
do the work of regenerating society,
our first effort must be, not to induce
"the masses" to come in but to pro-
vide something that they may come
in for. And the spiritual food, the
"bread of life" which, spite of all the
ories, humanity hungers for, must be
prepared with prayer and struggle,
the denial of ease and the passion for
purity, from the very body and blood
of the servant of all who comes in the
name of Christ.
The first essential of a living church
is not the good will of the wealthy
few nor yet the crowding in of the
multitude-the temple at Jerusalem
had both OF these-but preacher of
stalwart personality, one who forgets
self in the greatness OF his message,
and is strong because behind his
weakness is the power of Almighty
God. Given man with prophets
soul for a leader and a church will
have the other essential of success, a
strong policy.
A church bearing the name Chris
tian has no right to lower its standard
to accommodate the host of listless,
thoughtless people who want to come
into membership, enjoy all the ben
efits of social and intellectual con-
tact, live such lives as they find con-
venient and have no questions asked.
1t is not, as many among us seem to
think, the duty of the church to go
out and bring into its membership
the doubling and Indifferent, the ag-
nostic and the materialist, but its
mission is to arouse them, to inspire
them, to give them faith and love and
passionate desire for the higher
life, and then bring them in, enlist
them as members and send them out
again to the fields which are white
for the harvest" The business of
the church is not to bring in a mass
of people and give them fellowship,
but to offer the gospel to all and con
stantly seek out those who will strive
to build up the Kingdom of God
along the lines laid down by Jesus
Christ, to organize them into strong,
well-trained body, for the promotion
of the work they are called to do.
Reading rooms, bathrooms, bill
lard rooms, and bowling alleys may
or may not be useful additions to a
church, but if church is to do the
work in community that Jesus be-
gan in Galilee it must depend for its
drawing power upon the manifesto
tion of that prophetic spirit of loyalty
to God and man which filled the
house where Jesus preached so full
that the last man to arrive had to be
let down with cords through the roof /;
the spirit that enabled a dozen peas
ants in an uneducated community to
hold up light in the darkness, the
beams of which still light the wan
dering souls of men back to their
home in God.
LINEsvILLE, PA.