The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1910-06-10

itual life Of the man that renders it
as to the needs Of those that receive
it.
2. From the latter standpoint alone,
however, how great in all our church
es is the needs Of those that receive
it
For the lack of efficient leadership
all phases of church work languish.
Enough of the right sort of teachers
would soon make the Sunday school
roll larger than the church roll. More
men throwing themselves into the
leadership Of the prayer meeting
would cause the Wednesday evening
service to take on the proportions Of
Sunday attendance. Enough men and
women going into the byways and
hedges of a community afiame with
zeal and skilled in ministering in
struction, reproof, sympathy, and the
-,ifold forms of help to the care
less and sinful, the suffering and sor-
rowing, the needy and helpless, would
give the p~resent-day church the ir-
resistible power that Christ welded
over the multitudes of His day.
3. Why are the workers in most
churches so few? Is it because the
great masses gathered in our church
es were never converted? No man
can successfully maintain this. Is it
because the spirit of God does not i'm
plant the disposition to service in
the bosoms Of all converted people?
Nothing could be a greater libel on
the Word Of God. Why then are the
workers so few? Plainly because the
skilled Christian worker, like the
skilled mechanic, gardener, or pain
ter, must early be put in training, and
patiently and in%telligently kept at it.
4. For the training of young Chris
tians for service the EpWorth league
is an almost ideal agency.
While it welcomes into its mem
bership older people who will come,
it seeks primarily to lay hold on those
whose faculties and affnities and
speech and power of adjustment gen.
orally are still virile and mobile
enough for effective training, and d.
rect them along lines that will most
certainly bring them to the highest
levels of achievement. Wisely di-
rected, the devotional department cul-
tivates that fellowship with Christ
that enriches the personal, spiritual
life; overcomes the timidity that en-
harnesses the first efforts of young
Christians at public prayer; i'm
parts some degree in teaching the
Scriptures. The literary department
furnishes a fund of information con-
corning church history, doctrine, on
current world movements that not
only ministers to the intellectual life,
but puts the young Christian on a
vantage ground for effective work.
The department of charity and help
through it's ministry to the poor, the
sick, the Borrowing, the neglected.
and all the needy, furnishes oppor-
tunity for making concrete the i'm
pulses and ideas created in the fore
going Observation-Disclosures which
practical expression it were better
not to have the heart stirred. The
fourth department aims to brig the
heart and life en-rapport with the
great, master passion and purpose of
the Christ concerning the evangelical
ton Of the world. 1t may modestly
b., claimed that nothing evec set Oh
feet by man a so broaden thte hori-
zcyl. 7iberalize the thought, and eXalt
hum; n character as this.
). But it is hard 70 run a goo. Ep-
worth league.
And so it is hard to have anything
that is worth while. We grant tina
in many places running an Epwortl
ieay#e racks the preachers brain
and w.li-nlgh breaks his heart. But
no other agency for all-round train
ing has yet been devised. If the young
people attend it, the prayer meeting
may cover part Of the ground i've
ed by the devotional department of
the league. But the prayer meeting
does not attempt the work covered
by the other departments. The Sun
day school can not cover all the
ground. And if the league can lay
hold of this generation of young peo-
pie and give the church the effective
leadership it needs, a result so glor-
ious will be worth all it costs.