The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-11-25
|DR. EDMONDS 0N
 AFTER THE WAR; Officers of the Independent Presbyterian Elected at Morning Session

pr H. M. Edmonds, pastor of the Independent Presbyterian church, ad- dressed large congregation at the Lyric last night, his subject being,
 s"The Church After the War;
 q am not comp1acant cf1tic of the church., said pr. Edmonds. T know
 the difficulties, the labors, the short-
 comings; yes, and the failures of the
 church; I am irI its ministry. part
 of it,
 "We must remember that the church
 runs its business on the basis of volua-
 teer labor, that it's workers are often
 recruited from the highways and
 hedges, and it's chief aim and existence
 is to be a hospital for sick souls, a help both spiritual and material to
 those in need. ~
 Like all other institutions, it has to
 deal with human nature, consequently
 it is far from the perfect thing We wish it to be- still it's progress is sure; with it's variations and defectionsit
 still goes onward and upward. The
 history of the church shows a tendency
 to get away from the people, its iron-
 clad and suited forms speaking a lan-
 guage further and further removed
 from the people, it has required strenu-
 ous jolts to again bring it into rela-
 tionship with the people. for whom it
 really exists.
 "The men who have left the dignity
 and cloth of the pulpit and gone down
 to- the people, speaking language they could understand, as Wesley, for instance, walked the church to the fact that it was endlessly removed and
 must come down near the people. The birth of the Methodist church was an upward step; so was the Salvation Army, meeting the needs of the hour. III n,.t caused an awakening in the life of the church.
 "Now sees a new era for theN church of today. When the boys come back, having faced death, seen the realities,
 know that religion is not a thing of form and ceremony, but that it is from life to life, direct, close; and the preachers who have laid aside the dig nifty of the cloth donned khaki and stood by the boys in the "Y'' and simi- lar places, will come back true men preaching a new gospel, more of Christ and less of form. They forgot they represented the organization while they served, they only Knew they de- sired above all else to serve those boys. Can those preachers ever be the same again? Impossible. They have new vision, new light has broken upon their horizon. There will be less and less of denominational lines, less of doctrine less stress laid upon the unessentials, more condemnation for sin, like boasting, false pride, adultery, child labor, improper wage, hate, jeal- ousy, scandal and others like then, that today we see are greater sins than the awful sins summed up as cards, theatre and dance, which were held Up as the sins in our earlier days. "When the boys come back the church must be primed for big things they will be satisfied with nothing small or narrow. They have learned from sacrifice. dreamed dreams, seen visions. met Christ on the battlefield Their demands for big Christianity, broad lines of thought, is what the church faces when the boys come home | and she must answer to the demand I for less of talk and doctrine and more of love and Christ-1ilSe deeds"
 An attractive feature of the evening l service was a violin and flute duet with piano accompaniment, by Mrs Turner and Dr. Levy.