Norwich bulletin., 1920-03-29
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The Church We Need

MT, Editor: These are very strenu- ous days and men and events are moving at rate of speed hitherto ufi- known. Men are running to and fro in the earth and knowledge is being increased and the end is not yet.
 One hears a great deal these days about the kind of church the soldier thinks we need the kind of church the mechanic thinks we need; the kind of church the farmer thinks we need; the kind of church the socialist thinks we need, and indeed about the kind of church the capitalist, the labofer, the society of the 400 the smoker. drinker, gambler, the libertine and harlot thinks we need, until one won ders if there be any among us who knows anything about the kind of church Jesus Christ knows we need and is building, and when completed he will present himself, church without spot or blenish.
 have been long time in the min | istry and have heard hundreds of men make their excuses for not joining the church, and the great ma ajority of them | have said the church was not what they thought it ought to he. Now to have unsodly men tell you what the church ought to be in character and conduct is about as sensible AS to ask an anarchist to draw up a peace pact for the world or to ask a wolf for an architectural design for a sheep fold | Many of the excuses given me stated that the church is selfish, clannish and no better than a club. That the rich men of the church are hard
 hearted, stingy hypocrites; that just
 so long as such rascals were allowed 1 to run the church they would have nothing to do with 1t. One fact they l overlooked was that the men they were condemning were the men who I made it possible to have churches and Pschools and libraries and literature. ] must not be understood saving tha, only the rich sustain churches. for ]
 am not, for I well know that they dt not; but when a man starts out to tel you the kind of church the world needs, he is going to blame someon, for the kind 1t has, and then, too. the,
 overlook the fact that after all tn, question of helping ir any eommunit,
 Is not so much question of money a, the giving of ones self to service. Tn, men who enjoy the fruits of Christian
 ity without accepting Christ and wht
 would rob the world of the ehurcl
 that they might hold on to their sins
 are wholly inadequate to the task 0 l leiHng what klnQ or church tn
 world needs. A great opportunity fo
 service faces the church in the recon
 struction of society.
 The war was the result of sin. an,
 it will be worse than useless to bull,
 q new organization out of the sin
 stained and routed material of the hu man heart The real evil was not tn war but that which produced 1t. Far
 ther back than the war itself was tn greed and seIhshness which sin pro ] duces in human hearts and unles that is removed any social structure i doomed to fall.
 The supreme need of the world i Jesus Christ. He alone can recon struct the material out of which tn
 new social order is to be built. Ma
 terial put into it unredeemed by Inf
 presence and unsanctified by his spirt Il will in time rot the whole fabric. Tn politician will not, cannot do it. nd ] can the money lover. nor trusts. nc trades unions, nor any other huma . agency. so that the responsibility an the obligation to prepare the materI, s for the reconstruction of society fal :. | to the church. and if she negiects h,