Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-07-24
Chr1st's Conquest of the World
Is By Means Of Conversion

many of it's predecessors of inventions
and proposed social arrangements, by
which we may sit still and be made
avn The trust and boast of our pc
riod is not in it's individual energy and
virtue, not i'm its great and good minds.
)ut in it's external civilization. In
schemes of social political improve
ments, in things to be done for us
rather than by us; in what we are TO
get. more than in what we are to be.
Methods of this sort appeal strongly
to an unspiritual and ease-loving type
of christianity. The work of bringing
individual souls to Christ and leading
them to repentance. faith and the new
birth is not easy; it calls for a deep and
personal experience of saving grace
and demands painful. prayerful and pa
tient efforts of earnest appeal to indi-
viduals This is too much for churches
and preachers who love their ease and
dislike strenuous, spiritual endeavors To
win souls to Christ. Hence, they resort
to "labor-saving machinery" in the
spiritual world.
But in the spiritual world there is nc
place for "labor-saving machinery" Life
in even it's lowest forms, cannot be pro-
duced, or nourished. by machine meth
DDS 1t is born, not made Spiritual
life, above all other forms of life, can
not be manufactured; and when an ease
loving christianity seeks to turn out
such life by mechanical processes. it de-
ceives itself and spends it's effort fol
nought. Its pretentious and snowy
schemes for Conquering the world by
machine methods instead of converting
forces of redeeming love, can end in
nothing better than confusion of tongues
and social contention.
Akin to these machine methods, and
breathing the same worldly spirit of
conquering rather than converting man.
kind, are those proposals for saving the
world by imposing and overwhelming
ecclesiastical combinations. These
schemes may be described as plans for
the world through the regenerating sal
walton by syndicate They partake of
the spirit and methods of big bust
ness in the commercial world. and
thus. they "savor of the things which
be of men and not of the things which
be of God" They spring from mum
dane megalomania. bawling for bigness
in order to overpower the heather world
by bulkinesS of organization rather
than convert the heather world to
Christ by the saving processes of the
gospel.
If the heather world could be dazzled
by the spectacular exhibition of huge
agglutinated ecclesiastical organiZa-
ton, and so dismayed by it as to sur
render to it. the heather world could
not be saved thereby. A subjugated
world would not be a saved world. An
affrighted and subdued heathenism
would not be christianized body al
all; servile submission to mere bulki-
ness of organization would not be sal
walton for the pagan nations.
But the heather world cannot be con-
quered. Campaigns for it's conquest
will arouse national antagonisms and
ethnic hostilities which will delay, II
they may not defeat, the conversion OF
the heather world. Christ has not
called his church TO conquering cam
paigns, but to converting ministrations
The method of Jesus for the propaga-
tion of Christianity is set forth In the
parable of the leaven in the meal. THE
Kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven
which woman took and hid i'm three
measures of meal, till the whole was
leavened."
Leaven acts upon the meal, not by
it's larger bulk. but by it's pervasive
power and by its capacity to convert
the meal into a substance like itself. In
what sharp contrast is the method of
Jesus, as set forth in this parable
with the faithless programmes of those
who would have us believe that the
vast bulk of the heather world can
never be leavened with the saving pow
er of christianity unless a somewhat
corresponding bulk of ecclesiastical or
ganization and machinery be brought
to bear upon it! They trust the leaven
little, and fear the meal much. They
cannot believe that the leaven can be
effective. if il be so small that it can