The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-15

fastly does he run the straight lines of
 world-purpose across the little circles of
 Jewish thought and sympathy, out into
 mat Wide and neglected world where pub
 lieans and harlot and Samaritan lived
 Even to the band of disciples before
 whom He had held the vision of His
 Worid=plan for three years the announce
 ment of the advent of the kingdom meant
 no more than a local coup q etat to be
 executed at Jerusalem. At last came
 Paul, a man capable of visualizing the
 Jull-orbed interpretation of Christianity
 as a scheme of world-renewal But dark
 days were to follow his apostolic vis-
 ion: days wherein the Chrlst-programme
 would be lost sight of in the midst of
 attempts to interpret Christianity in terms
 of Greek philosophy and of Roman im
 perialism. Creed and polity substituted
 the missionary impulse and the result
 all men know. The kingdom of our Lord
 languished in the stifling atmosphere of
 seholasticism and eeclesiasticism until
 men, sick at heart with disappointment,
 took up again the long-deferred world
 plan of Jesus. Luther, breaking away
 from traditionallsm to leel at first hand
 the heart beat of His Lord; Wesley.
 coming out from a face-to-face vision
 of a Christ world-reated, to lay out the
 world as his parish; Carey, hearing the
 call of. India from his lowly shoemaker's
 bench in England-these men were proph-
 cts of new day. Glorious souls these.
 recoiling from the provincialism of A
 self-centered church and Interpreting for the world once more it's message and
 meaning In terms of Christ's own breadth
 and intensity of love for all men.
 Chrlstlan history has established one
 Tact with finality-that the church can
 not live and realize itself in anything
 less than the breadth of Christ's thought hn
 World relationship conditions it's very be- ing. The love of Jesus does not operate lhVefseiy as the square of the distance,
 nor can that of His church. It's character
 IS ethical Its mission is ethical. It's
 obligatian Is based firmly and forever on the measure of mems needs, not on the
 fac'ai social and geographical distances
 that separate them.
 Through Heart of Jesus,
 ?, Again, In the second place. in order to
 US seif-realzation, the church that looks
 out nuon the world through the eyes
 Of Jesus must come. too, 10 love the world through the heart of Jesus. That
 mind that was in Him has not its com-
 plete expression through it's cosmopolitan outlook. To the vision, it adds the pas-
 slon For the plan, 1t supplies the power. IT Jesus had done no more than to dis cover to men His dream of the ethical unity of humanity, His would have been tne hrst Of all names; but more than that, He finds the way to make all men one by loving them into the unity of new life. No analysis of that mind that was in Him, which we have taken as the form of the church, can leave out of account its marvellous love element: a love
 that travels unwearied through all dis tances, that endures undiminished through all ages, that stoops with Infinite pity and hope to the least and the lowest fallen in the moral scale Both the vision and the passion are communicable quantities. And both erc notes of the true church. They stand dlvinely con- l joined. Vision may discover to the church
 its heaven-appointed burden cf duty, but
 only love is willing to lift and to bear it. Disinterested, catholic, sacrificial love is the answer that the church must give to the world In justification of it's right to
 be. Men with sorrows shadowing their faces, with burdens bending their backs, with the hurt of unspoken troubles in l Their hearts-men who are fighting for existence itself in the vortex of the great 1 efty-are not asking you so much to cer- 1 tlfy to them your orthodoxy or to min l ister through your stately edifices and ex- | qu1site music to their aesthetic sense or l to stimulate their intelleets by your thought; what they want most and what most involves their salvation, is just to feel the sense of human brotherhood that love begets. Men cannot be argued into salvation nor cultured into salvation nor
 organized into salvation They can only l be lovedA into 1t. The chasms that open 1 their black depths through the heart of l society, setting man over against man in l bitter antagonsns, the rich against the l poor, the employer against the laborer.
 the learned against the ignorant. the great l against the small the dweller in one lati- 1 tude against the dweller in another will l never be bridged by mere schemes of so- 1 cial organization. The situation is too 1 6eep and too desperate to be met by mere machinery. It demands the vitalizing touch of spirit. We want not mere law. I but more love The esta olishment of rectoral standards of justice in itself is 1 not enough. The huge disease of society | is lovelessness. Love is the savour of 1 the salt that makes it to have saving power It is through love that the church becomes the interpreter of the mind that fs in Christ and 1t is by this that it is differentiated from all human organiza- tfnns.
 The church has given interpretation in the past to Christianity in terms of geog- rsphy and phlosopny and polity and the- o.ogy. Christianity awaits now higher Interpretation by a larger church In terms of that great Christ heart that was bur dcned to breaking with the sins and sor- rows of the world.
 Mark of the Mind of Christ. 1 g. All that has been said before has led up to set forth sacrifcfal service as the | mark of the mind os Christ. It is to this l that the vision and the passion have led l God loves, and therefore God gives His | Son for the needs of the world. Christ l loves, and therefore Christ empties Him self of His glory, takes upon Himself humanity, condescen1s to the form of servant, and becomes obedient unto death. 1 Though He was rich, yet for our sake l He became poor, that we through His
 poverty might be made rich. He came
 not to be ministered unto but to minister 1 and to give His life a ransom for many. He was among men "as one that served"
 His chosen criterion of spiritual great 1 ness was that a man should "become the l servant of all."
 l What a vision of Christ this is! Coming 1 down from the glory of the heavens to | the squalor of the earth-surrendering
 wealth for poverty-choosing hardship
 rather than ease-giving up the highest 1 lcroship for the lowlest servitude If that 1 vision has no moral meaning for the 1 church of today, then blind, indeed, are we beyond all nope.
 World of Twentieth Century. | The world of this twentieth century as- l Christian church with righteous demand l tlat Christianity be interpreted for it in 1 terms of that service which it's vision of | the sufferng, sacrincing Christ has taught | 1t is the real Christianity It asks for bread and will not be satisfied with A