WRITINGS (continued 2)

Certain things about Christianity must be taken by faith. Its practical value, however, is demonstrable. It is demonstrated in our civilization. It is seen in the new life of mission lands. It is revealed in the personal experiences of twice-born men.

The testimony of opinion is uncertain. The testimony of experience is final and unanswerable. Arguments on the existence of love do not count with one who loves. The thing experienced demands no proof by logical processes.

A laboratory test of anything demands two things. First, one must enter the laboratory with an open mind. One does not go there to confirm his prejudices, but to discover the truth. He must be willing to accept the truth which he discovers. One cannot alter the truth to suit himself. He must conform himself to the truth.

Second, the honest investigator in the laboratory must put a thing to a complete and honest test. He must do so regardless of his own opinions or desires. The explorer must fulfil all the conditions of discovery before he announces his conclusions. One has no right to deny Christianity until he knows it fully, and has proven it a failure by actual test.

Were this condition fulfilled there would be no unbelievers. The faith has nothing to fear from being tested. Indeed, the more it is tested the better. Whoever tries it honestly will find that it works. It can afford to invite the pragmatic test, for it is supremely a workable religion. The best things never can be adequately appraised at the first glance. They must be tried.

Back to list of writings

The Nearness of Destiny (1921)

In the opening sentence of the Book of Revelation John states that in it are related the things which must shortly come to pass. In that sentence he indicates an attitude toward the events of life which it is worth while for all to hold. He appreciates the fact that the future is not remote. With at least some of its events we are face to face. From none of them are we very far removed. Destiny is no far distant thing. The processes that build it are continually going on.

The events of life are like the landmarks on a highway. Some of them may look to be very far ahead, but they are approaching us very swiftly. We travel the journey of life at great speed. The tomorrows are never long in arriving. We may not know what the future has in store for us, but one thing we do know. Whatever it has in store will not be long in arriving.

To the eyes of childhood the day of maturity seems very far away. To the young the days drag slowly. The time of independence, maturity, and responsibility seems to creep toward one at the pace of a snail.

One by one the days pass, and each seems to pass a little more swiftly than the last. Maturity finally comes, and then it seems that the years that brought it have been altogether too short. Our natures are so constituted that the morning is always calling for the noon. Then the noontime is always regretting that the morning has passed by.

Only to the idle and the aimless do the passing days seem long. To one who possesses a commanding purpose in life they are very brief indeed. There is never time enough to do a great life work. Few great servants of their times pass out of this world feeling that they have completed their task to their own satisfaction.

The worker who has a great deal of ground to cover before he ceases his toiling often learns this fact to his regret. He is called to his task by the sunrise, and he feels that the day is long. He goes about his work in leisurely fashion, feeling that there is no occasion for haste. As the day wears on he begins to measure his task by the vanishing hours. He begins to hasten, but the sun declines in the West all too soon. As the shadows lengthen he grows feverishly hurried, but it is generally too late. The sun goes down upon an unfinished task. The only thing that would have saved the day would have been an early morning sense of the swiftly hurrying hours.

Some years ago a distinguished leader of thought in America remarked in the last public address he made before he died that the longest time is short when it is past. His words were true. The years always look long as they lie ahead of us, but when they have passed we are always saying how short a time it was.

It has been the human habit to think of the Kingdom of God as a distinct thing. We have kept it far from us both in space and time. We have so thought of it in spite of the fact that we were told by Him of Galilee that the Kingdom is at hand. We have waited and waited for the Kingdom, sometimes half doubting that it would ever come, and all the while it was at our very finger-tips. We had only to lay hold upon it, feel it, realize it, and live it, to make it ours.

We have assumed, too, that eternity lies somewhere in the uncertain reaches of the infinitely distant future. In this also we have been mistaken. Eternity has been going on all the while. We have simply taken a little section of eternity and arbitrarily named it time. It is still a part of eternity, just the same. Every day that goes by is just that much of eternity. Therefore, everything that a day holds bears an eternal significance. Its every event is built into the walls of destiny. All the issues with which we ever have to do are eternal.

Such is the process of judgment. Another name for it is the law of cause and effect. Causes and effects swiftly succeed each other in life. The effect is as inevitable as the cause is definite. Moreover, it is not long delayed.

I once knew a teacher who had inscribed in large letters over the door of his classroom these words: “What you are to be you are now becoming.” He understood this principle. The judgment is going on all the while. We can never hope to be in the future anything else than what we are allowing ourselves to become in the present.

The mills of God do not grind so slowly as one might think. From the larger point of view it may be seen that they do some of their work with surprising swiftness. We cannot afford to dream away our days in the ease of thinking that life’s responsibilities and tests lie far in the future. We are very apt to find ourselves mistaken. Often they lie just ahead.

The events of the life of Jesus came and went with a tragic and growing swiftness. During the last few days of His life in Jerusalem they seemed borne upon the current of a swiftly rushing stream. To Him things always shortly came to pass. The Christ of revelation was the same who had walked in Galilee. He had the same habits of thought.

This is the reason why He was able to crowd ages into years. Before He had fairly passed the threshold of maturity, He had already succeeded in living the biggest life of all the centuries. He simply understood the nearness of destiny. He realized that time will not wait.

An old Hebrew prophet called upon men to prepare to meet God. We have assumed that this meeting is to be at an indefinite future date, called the Judgment Day. We greatly need to understand that our meeting with Him is not only a future but also a present event. Each of us is repeatedly face to face with God. All through the years we have been meeting Him every day and hour. He is the Silent Partner in all our upward struggles. He is the Inevitable Factor with which we must reckon in all our considerations. He is the Absolute Quantity to which we must relate ourselves, and to whose standards we must conform. These obligations do not belong to some far future time. They belong to the present. We are not dealing with a static order, but with a progressive one. We are the children of One who takes into consideration but one tense. His word is NOW.

We are not facing the future in blindness to these things. The curtain has been drawn back from their real nature that we might behold it. We know that the events of the future closely impend. The tomorrows are at our finger-tips. No dam can hold back the stream of destiny. It hurries along the years so rapidly that there is never too much time to prepare for the coming of whatever its current may sweep to our feet.

The hand of prophecy never draws back the veil that we may look upon a lie. The Almighty does not trifle with us. The revelation of the Scriptures is of inevitable things. The events which they disclose are more certain than the course of the stars and planets. The sun may falter in its path, but the plans of God never do.

One of the most serious and significant things the Scriptures disclose is the fact that the gates of the future are not far removed. They open directly before us. Even now our hands are upon them. Our feet are upon the threshold of the tomorrows.

Objectively, this earthly existence is merely a rapid succession of events. The holidays to which we look forward with expectation, the meetings for which we can hardly wait, the partings that give us pain, the joys and the woes that make up life’s intermingling of sunshine and shadow, the birthdays that register our years, love, toil, death—all are things that “shortly come to pass.” The years hurry onward. Therefore, whatever one would do he must do quickly.

Back to list of writings

Children and the Church (1922)

The strength and membership of the Christian Church are great, but they are not what they should be. After all, the Church is only a comparatively small fraction of the sum total of human society. The plans of Jesus will not have been realized and the Kingdom of God will not have become an actual fact until the Church and the race are one.

The Church is growing, but one of the evidences why there remains a great deal of ground to be possessed by the Kingdom is to be found in the fact that the race is growing more rapidly than the Church is. It is possible for an institution to be growing and yet losing ground if its problems are growing more rapidly than its power to meet them.

Viewed alone, the reports on Church membership for any single year look somewhat encouraging. When one reflects, however, upon the growth of the race and the encroachments of paganism, the encouragement is diminished. The Church is supposed to represent a leavening force. It is quite proper to consider its mission in that light. A leavening force, however, must not remain such. Its work is to leaven the whole lump.

A degree of failure is involved somewhere in the question. Otherwise, the mission of Christianity would have been achieved before this time. The difficulty is not in the matter of learning, for Christian leaders were never so well trained for their work as now. It does not relate to wealth, for it has been a long while since the Church could truly protest its poverty of silver and gold. It is not even in the matter of service, for there were never so many people working in the Kingdom as now.

The Vital Point

The trouble does not lie in our failure to work, though it does lie in our failure to work to the best advantage. We have toiled with the problems, but we have not yet unitedly attacked it at the vital point. That point is childhood.

This word of warning does not seem to be needed by the Roman Catholic branch of Christendom, for that church grows rapidly. The reason for the following it has does not lie in the quality of its preaching, for it does not emphasize the sermon. It is not to be found in its form of worship, for that is in a strange tongue and according to antiquated formulae. The secret most largely lies in the persistent nurture of children in the faith of their fathers.

In this regard Protestantism is lacking. We have cultivated too little conviction on the question of a child’s relation to the Church and the Christian faith. We have kept our minds free and easy on the question, until a situation has arisen to remind us that the real fruit which we desire for the Kingdom comes not as the result of indifference but of intense effort.

Even a democratic conception may be carried to such an extreme that it counts for nothing. While Bolshevism and Anarchy have been tolerated under the protection of the State, they have also been fostered about the very firesides of many homes. We have tried to place Protestantism upon a democratic basis, but we must not forget that the principle of democracy does not diminish the necessity for conviction and fidelity. The disregard of obligation is not freedom.

The mistaken notion that there is no place for religion in the child mind is already bringing forth its pitiful harvest. Its fruit is a generation of younger people dwelling largely apart from the Church, more vitally concerned with other than religious questions, and living for ideals which are chiefly moulded by the standards of the present world.

Whatever the Church has meant in the progress of the race, and many thoughtful people believe that has been much, it will not be able to permanently maintain itself and its work unless this situation is reversed. It will not normally be able to realize upon the product of any home in which no definite emphasis has been laid upon the things for which it stands. We can hardly expect sustained support for the one institution dedicated to the saving of men in both this world and the world to come, unless each generation accepts the responsibility of teaching the next a wholesome love for and a genuine devotion to its teaching and its activity.

One cannot say that the parents of today are not concerned about their children. In most ways children were never so well cared for. In this particular thing, however, there is a distressing neglect. This is not true because parents mean to neglect any vital thing, nor is it true because they are antagonistic to this necessity. It is true because many fail to see that it is a necessity for childhood. People simply blind themselves to the fact that spiritual growth requires food as imperatively as does physical development.

In some cases, perhaps, it is the result of simple neglect. People are busy about so many things in these days that it does not always seem easy to give their children training in all the points requiring it. Some assume that the matter of religious training may properly be left to the church and the Sunday School.

The Necessity for Religious Nurture in the Home

Religious nurture is, however, a matter which requires the cooperation of the home. Some phases of it cannot be so successfully promoted anywhere else as there. Pastors and Sunday School teachers have a part to play in the religious education of the young, but certain great life lessons can never issue from any other source quite so appropriately as from the loved lips of fathers or mothers.

Nothing can be more groundless than the notion that a child should not be influenced religiously until he is old enough to settle such questions for himself. Ultimately he will settle them, but his decision will be largely the result of early training. Home teaching and influence affect every decision one makes through life.

One might as well refuse to feed a child until he could declare his own choice of food as to starve his religious nature until he could choose its satisfaction in his own way. Certain fundamental necessities are too constant and imperative to justify waiting. A life must be fed or it must perish, and this principle holds as true with childhood as it does with age. Indeed the necessities of a growing life are only the more acute.

Occasionally parents will insist that their failure to bring their children up in the ways of the Church is the result of their own rearing. They declare that it is a reaction against the strictness with which they were sent to Church in their own childhood. First, this is a calumny against good parents who tried to lay in the lives of their children the foundations of happiness and success. Second, it looks to the spiritual starvation of the younger generation, the decadence of a fundamental instinct, and the strangling of a necessary social institution. They probably owe much of their success to the thing for which they unjustly blame their parents. Whoever is not physically equal to an hour or two in the sanctuary is hardly a fit candidate for the world’s responsibilities.

We should assume a universal Church. By this I mean that we should assume that every child is born into the church, to be reared in its ways and teachings, and to be included among its numbers until he wilfully forsakes it. In other words, we should throw the chances on the right side instead of the wrong one as we have been doing. It is well enough to save lost sheep, but it is better to keep them from being lost. The religious experience will take care of itself if the religious life is properly nurtured.

Children are born for the kingdom of better things. Their Maker meant us to keep them true to it. He will care for their regeneration, if we will keep them in line for it by protecting them from blighting influences.

Back to list of writings

The Church’s Fourfold Program (1922)

To-day the Church has her face toward the future. She has a great purpose throbbing in her soul. She is directed by leaders of wisdom and vision. She has a program as broad as life itself. That program is fourfold.

It is, first, a program of evangelism. The Church is everywhere reminding herself that the winning of souls is her prime duty. This is true for many reasons, among which two are outstanding. This is the thing she has been set to do as the one means of ever really establishing the kingdom of God. Moreover, it is the one hope she herself has of surviving to continue her work.

It is, second, a program of education. One of the first commands God gave to nature was, “Let there be light.” That command has been ringing through the creative process all the ages. As the sun of warmth and light brought new strength to created things, so the sum of knowledge brings a new blessing to the inner life of man. The Church’s program of Christian education in the home, the Church, the school, and the college, is already bearing fruit. It will do so more and more as time passes.

It is, third, a program of social welfare. The Church is striving in this day to make itself known and felt for better things in the community. The organized life of the world as well as the individual life of men must be bettered by it. The apostolic Church was not a temple but a community. It must be the same with the modern Church.

It is, fourth, a program of finance. It is a great thing to-day to walk about Zion, tell her towers, and consider her bulwarks. Back of all of it is the money given by faithful servants of the kingdom. What many people need for blessing of their own lives as well as for the growth of the kingdom is an adequate financial standard and program.

Back to list of writings

Newer Conceptions of Religion (1922)

We can never have a new set of principles of truth, but we can have new discoveries of old ones and new attitudes toward them. We can never change the constitution of life and nature, but we can learn more about it and better adapt ourselves to it. We cannot alter the divine plan of life and redemption, but we can make progress in our understanding and use of it. Not to do so would be an inexpressible pity. We do not have a new religion, but we do have newer and more adequate conceptions of the old faith.

The older type of religious thinking was largely derived from the speculations of the cloister. That of the present is taken directly from the facts of life. The Bible was the basis of the old, and is the basis of the new; but in the one case it was viewed from the quiet shadows of the cell, while in the other it is seen from the viewpoint of the dusty road, the busy market place, and the domestic hearthstone.

In so far as the older religious thinking did take its conclusions from life, it tended to place the stamp of divinity only on the unusual phases and outstanding experiences. It saw God in the violence of the thunder and lightning, but it did not always sense him in the gentle sunshine of the ordinary day. It recognized him in the ecstasy of the mountaintop, but it did not always find him in the duty of the valley. It connected him with the exceptional moments, but not with quiet hours, prosaic tasks, and drab days.

The older religious thinking tended to glorify every tense except the present. It had its good old days on which it looked back with loving tenderness, and its Golden Age, toward which it looked forward with longing hope. The newer thinking recognizes the value of the past and the importance of the future, but lays its supreme emphasis upon the present. It glorifies only one tense, and that is the Golden Now.

Back to list of writings

The International Religion (1923)

The Book of Revelation is full of significant pictures, but none is more so than that presented in the Ninth Chapter. It is drawn in climaxes. The first part might seem disturbing if considered alone. As to whether God proposes to save the many or the few, it would seem to favor the first answer. John says that he heard the number of them that were sealed, and there were only twelve thousand from each of the tribes of Israel.

But let us not form our conclusions too hastily. John has more to say. He follows the above assertion with this: “And after these things I saw, and behold a great multitude which no man could number, out of every nation and of all tribes, and peoples, and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb arrayed in white robes; and palms in their hands.” This second part of the vision is the answer as to whether God proposes to save the many or the few.

From this point one might move out along any one of many lines of thought. He might think of Christianity as the religion of the masses. He might think of it as the religion of the long ago with their changes and their progress. He might see it as the religion of the nations. This leads to the outstanding significance of the passage under discussion. Christianity is the international religion. It is potentially so today. It will be actually so tomorrow.

This means something finer than that Christ will become the temporal or political ruler of nations. It means more than that he will become the king or lord of any land. It means he will become King of kings and Lord of lords. He will become the spiritual ruler of the hearts of men. No power can go beyond that. He will be enthroned in the hearts of peoples everywhere. The New Jerusalem will be world-wide in its scope.

Back to list of writings

The Great Teacher (1925)

One day long ago a young man stepped out from the throng, took a place on a hillside, and began to teach the people. He did it in such a way that they were amazed. They said he taught as one having authority, and not as their scribes. Consequently, the common people heard him gladly.

From that day he has been known as a teacher. The years have taught us to call him the Great Teacher, for they have shown us how well that title is deserved.

I. Jesus is a great teacher because he teaches vital things. The shallow and inconsequential have no place in his curriculum. Some spend years learning what is hardly worth the trouble, but not in the school of Christ. Whatever is presented there must really count. His test of subject-matter is, “Is it worth-while?”

II. He is a great teacher because he teaches in ways so simple and plain that none can mistake his meaning. Sometimes he speaks in the plainest expository form with nothing of embellishment and utterly void of the tricks of the rhetorician. Sometimes he makes it a story. The narrative is always one with familiar settings and characters, and it always makes a vital point before it is through. Jesus introduces a man and a truth to each other and sees that they become friends. The person who can do this well is a master instructor.

III. He is a great teacher because he always makes his own position clear and lets the force of his own influence fall on the right side. In these days, there are teachers who consider it a mark of scholarship to present various sides of a question and then leave the helpless student to make his own choice—and often a wrong one. Whether or not this is a scholarly procedure, it certainly is not a helpful one. Jesus never followed it. He went after the one vitally true viewpoint, committed himself to it without reserve, and sought to influence his hearers to do the same. It is such a teacher who builds history.

Back to list of writings

What Can We Believe? (1928)

One is made or unmade by his beliefs. They determine his doings and shape his destiny. Therefore, what we believe is a matter of vital importance. The demands upon our credulity are confusing. We wish to be receptive to truth, but on our guard against error. What may we believe with a reasonable degree of assurance and conviction? What may safely enter into the making of one’s personal faith?

A considerable number of claims upon our credulity may be put aside and disposed of once and for all. Among them are the claims which violate the evident laws of truth, the merely controversial claims of the various Christian groups, the superficial formalities of observance and organization, the vagaries of popular thought and personal opinion, and the mental effects of the shifting tides of emotion. Certain things we are driven to accept by the very facts of life.

One of them is that back of all the wonder of the universe and of life is a great Source, a First Cause, a Divine Something that we have named God. This Architect of the universe has not always dwelt among clouds and thick darkness. He has given us one revelation of Himself in human terms. It is the sweet spirit, the rugged strength, and the simple life of the Peasant of Galilee. It is not difficult to believe in God when one has contemplated the story of Jesus.

Another is that life has its consequences, that the results of right and wrong action are cumulative and reactive, and that each person now and forever reaps the reward of his doings. Some call it the law of cause and effect. Others call it judgment. Whatever it be called, it is not a penalty imposed, but a result arrived at. The goal one reaches depends upon the road he chooses and the direction in which he goes. The day one arrives at his destination is his judgment day.

Another is the everlastingness of spiritual values, the chief of which is the human soul. If nature treasures each atom of matter, and across long ages does not permit one of them to be destroyed, shall not that which transcends matter be even more jealously guarded and preserved? Nothing else in the universe can be destroyed. How, then, can life be done away?

Back to list of writings

The Christ of the Sea (1929)

It is an old and well-known story, recounted anew each Christmas time, that the Wise Men from the East were led to the cradle of the infant Jesus by a star. That fact has taken a large place in Christian imagery and symbolism. But of what is a star a symbol? It is suggestive of an ideal. How appropriate that a star should have shown the world to the cradle of one who set it thinking about ideals?

Jesus was a dreamer. His spiritual lineage ran far back into the life of the Jewish race. The nature of Esau was such that wherever he went, he was haunted by his physical desires. The nature of Jacob was such that wherever he lay down at night, even though his head were pillowed upon a stone, he dreamed of heaven and of angels. Jesus was of the line of Jacob. He lived with His head among the stars.

He wasted no time in getting the current of idealism under way. He began at once promoting the kind of thing the practical world calls impossible because it is right. The night He was born angels sang of glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will among men. It was a warring and hating world to which they sang, but their song was a note in the new harmony He had come to establish.

This man who walked with His head among the stars did and said all kinds of impractical things. He said a kingdom of happiness was at hand, but that a man had to be born again in order to see it. He said the best way to save one’s life was to lose it. He said one should treat others as he wished them to treat him. He said one should love his neighbor as well as he loved himself. He told a rich, young man to give away everything he had and consecrate his life to service. The world is slowly catching the idea. You cannot conquer an ideal. Some time it will win.

What was this ethereal, star-like dream that so commanded His life? It was a race redeemed from its sin, ignorance, littleness, and woe. He saw how His people were fettered by their own tendencies. He dreamed of a day of freedom to be and achieve their best. And it will come. Some day the world will be a picture of the vision of the Man who lived with His head among the stars. The light of the Bethlehem star falls across the centuries lighting the way to a new heaven and a new earth.

Back to list of writings

The Comrade Perfect: An Appreciation (1929)

In the “Passage to India,” Walt Whitman speaks of the longing of the soul for the “Comrade Perfect,” and asks if somewhere such a comrade does not wait for us. We all know perfectly well that life is not all that it ought to be without the presence of the Personality which completes us.

There is such a comrade, and He does something better than wait for us. He comes to us. The abstraction of the idea of God found concrete realization in Him who was called Immanuel, or God with us. All this was made more intimate still by the coming of the spirit divine, which brought God not only to us but into us.

God does not rule the world from some distant throne but from the dusty road. He does not occupy a height and frown upon His people in patronizing condescension. He seeks a warm place in their hearts, where He may guide their thoughts and actions. The divine plan looks only to the constant narrowing of the chasm between man and God.

The philosophers and theologians dispute whether God is transcendent or immanent, whether He rules from above us or beside us. As is true of many arguments, both viewpoints are right. God transcends us in all power, all knowledge, and all goodness. At the same time, He is immanent in the ministry of Jesus, in the guidance of Providence, and in the presence of the Holy Spirit. The life of Jesus makes that plain, for Jesus is a picture of God going where men go, living where men live, and meeting the struggles that men meet.

And so He is the Comrade Perfect. No one needs to be friendless in this world. No one needs to be lonely. We are always within speaking distance of an unfailing Friend. We need to search neither across the years nor across the miles. We need only to look and listen, and He is there. We need only to open the way, and He enters our hearts in response to our silent welcome. We need only to make a place, and He walks beside us, whatever our way may be. He is the great completing element in our otherwise incomplete lives.

Back to list of writings

Four Addresses to Young People (1929)

(Ages 16 to 22)

1. Heralds of the Name.

In one of his letters John speaks of those who for the sake of the Name went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. He was thinking of the already growing army of heralds of that Name which is above every name. Probably, too, he was remembering that day by the Sea of Tiberius when Jesus came by and he heard and answered the challenge to life’s highest adventure.

No one should offer his life for special Christian service merely because he thinks it would be nice work to do, nor because it has been done by someone he likes or admires, nor because someone he would like to please wishes him to do it, nor because he thinks he can speak well or has an attractive personality for social contacts, nor because he thinks it will serve him as a stepping stone to something else. To begin on any such a basis means to be doomed to failure from the beginning. It also means injustice to the work itself.

Least of all should one enter special Christian service because he thinks it easy. That is one of the greatest possible mistakes. Whoever goes out to serve Christ must prepare his soul to endure hardness as a good soldier. He will discover that it is a real warfare into which he is going. If he likes the thrill of adventure, if he enjoys doing difficult things, if privation appeals to him, if he does not mind standing up to duty in the face of opposition and danger, then he will like soldiering for Christ. Otherwise, he will not.

Only one thing should lead one to dedicate his life to Christian work. It is the great compulsion. One has it when he is conscious that he cannot do anything else and be quite content. That was the feeling that drove Moses to the end of the wanderings of his people, that sent Jeremiah to thunder the warning to a nation drifting to its ruin, and that impelled Jesus to the tears of Gethsemane and the anguish of Calvary.

The person who does not find it in his soul to give his life wholly to Jesus is to be congratulated. He will pluck many thorns, but each thorn will bear a rose. He will travel many hard paths, but he will have the joyous consciousness of being a world builder for God.

2. The Conditions of Communion.

One day in 737 B.C. a young man of high social standing was in the temple at Jerusalem. There he saw a vision of the Lord upon His throne. The experience humbled the young man’s soul, cleansed his lips, and sent him forth to sound a warning to a people swiftly rushing to their doom. The temple atmosphere furnished Isaiah with the conditions of communion.

About 625 B.C., when the storm clouds were still hovering near Judah, a young priest named Jeremiah saw in the presence of the Scythian army on Syrian soil the possibility of invasion by them and their Assyrian allies. He warned his people of coming destruction, at the bidding of Jehovah, who told him that he had been set apart for the task since before his birth. The peril he saw drawing near his people furnished Jeremiah with the conditions of communion.

One day a young man named Jesus, His as custom was, entered the little synagogue at Nazareth. He was one who took part in the meeting. Taking the roll of the prophet Isaiah, He read from it the words of a commission to proclaim the day of God under the compulsion of the divine spirit. As He read, His heart told Him that commission was His own. Jesus heard His great challenge to duty as He stood in the place of worship reading the words of those who in earlier centuries had intimately known God.

One day, still later, John saw the curtains of eternity drawn aside to reveal to him the things that must shortly come to pass. Three things made his vision possible. He was in a quiet and secluded place. It was the Lord’s Day. He was in the spirit. Such a situation is very apt to carry anyone within seeing and hearing distance of God. John met God face to face by the fulfilment of certain fundamental psychological conditions of vision and communion.

On the evening of the twenty-fourth of May 1738, a young man who had believed in God all his life, but had sought vainly for a heart experience of faith, went into a meeting in Nettleton Court, on the East side of Aldersgate Street, in London. At a quarter before nine o’clock he knelt at an altar and felt his heart strangely warmed. The altar of a church furnished John Wesley with the conditions of communion.

3. The Kingdom Partnership.

On the day when Moses enjoyed that high privilege, direct communion with the Great I Am, he heard the call of heaven to high duty and responsibility. He shrank from it, as greatness usually does. True worth is seldom a candidate. In church and state alike, things go better when the office seeks the man.

Among the reasons Moses offered why he should not be chosen to lead Israel from its bondage was one very commonly heard given in reply to calls to religious duty. Moses said he was not eloquent.

God was ready with a counter proposition. After having a man in training for forty years the Almighty was not to be put off so easily. He proposed that Moses should undertake the task of leadership as a man of action, while his brother Aaron should share it with him as a man of speech.

It was the old but ever-new combination of the man of deeds and the man of words—the practical leader and the spiritual one. We see it later in the case of Ezra and Nehemiah, and still later in the necessary partnership between the modern minister and laymen in the work of the kingdom. Neither type of service can be at its best unless it is in cooperation with the other.

In fact, each type of service is so necessary that the kingdom suffers when these two types of Christian workers get their functions confused. It is usually a mistake for a minister to forsake the altar to serve tables, and just as much so for a layman to forsake the things for which he is peculiarly qualified and usurp the place of the minister. In the work of the kingdom, Moses and Aaron each has his own function, and his highest ministry is to perform his own function well.

The work of the minister is with the dynamics of Christianity, while that of the layman is with the mechanics of it. Too often each stands and debates with the other that his part is most important, or else each envies the other his task and neglects his own. The mechanics of the kingdom could not exist if the dynamics were not maintained, and the dynamics would be wasted if the mechanics were not intelligently promoted.

4. The Institutionalization of Religion.

The selection of Aaron as priest was a step toward religious organization. As nearly as such things can be determined among the mixed currents of human history, it was the beginning of the institutionalization of religion. What has been gradually growing up in the form of spiritual vision now began to take the form of a system of rites and ceremonies, housed in an especially designed building, held at fixed times and under specified conditions, and presided over by men especially selected, qualified, and prepared for their task.

Subsequently, this became a stumbling block to many people. A certain type of mind easily becomes confused in its thinking and fails to recognize the difference between an institution and the thing it represents. On the one hand, the priest has sometimes made the mistake of regarding the institution as an end rather than a means. On the other hand, the man on the street has sometimes assumed that the church pretends to be the sum and substance of the faith and has, consequently, failed to use it as a clearing house for the service he should have rendered to God and his fellow men.

Any great idea or interest, however spiritual in its nature, must be incarnated in an institution or it will die. The life of the race could not be nurtured without the family. Commerce would die without the market place and the transportation system. Government could not be maintained without the state. Education could not be effected without the school. Religion would long ago have perished without the temple and the altar. Spiritual ideas do not cling to human custom. An institution must make them visual, real, and effective. Such is the reason for the existence of the church.

The final vision of the Book of Revelation is of a social order without a temple. We are led to think that such a day will come, but that it will come only because the whole world shall have taken on the spirit and viewpoint of the house of worship. The mission of the church is to make itself unnecessary. It will be dispensable when all the world shall at last have conformed to the purposes of God.

Back to list of writings

What Is Happening to Religion? (1929)

A recent book makes the point that the old notion that science had defeated religion has been banished more by what has happened in the field of science during the last twenty-five years than by what has happened in the fields of religion and theology. Certain implications in this statement are worthy of consideration.

With all its vaunted moral ideals, the boasted Victorian age did develop a rather marked and dangerous hostility to religion. It was the age of Darwin, Spencer, and Huxley and, therefore, an age of discovery. The newness of some of the conclusions it reached caused the public mind to be carried away by its own enthusiasm. The pendulum is gradually coming to rest, and the scientist now understands that a new discovery is not a substitute for God.

The greatest sobering influence science has known has been its own constant success in the field of discovery. The theory of development, at first thought to have overturned God’s throne, when studied was found to be full of previously unsuspected implications of the divine. Science discovered that it was not a substitute for God, but only a new theory of divine creation.

The only dogmatism as prejudiced and unreasonable as that of some religionists is that of some scientists. No one is more prone than the scientist to assume the finality of what is as yet only a hypothesis, and to offer himself as a martyr to the cause of some fantastic phase of scientific fundamentalism. The knowledge of science can grow, even as may that of religion.

It appears to be a fact that unless the theologians gird themselves anew, they may find the very gospel they were raised up to champion more zealously and loyally defended by the scientists than by themselves. Eminent scientists announcing their faith in and support of religion are a growing company. The technique of the scientific laboratory forbids compromise. The scientist discovers what is true and stands by it. The theologian must do the same.

Back to list of writings

Has the Day of Great Preachers Passed (1921)

Every little while we hear anew the question, “Has the day of great preachers passed?” Sometimes it is asked in a sincerely interrogatory spirit. In other cases it is meant as an implication that the times of great preaching are no more.

All keen observers of social and spiritual influences know that the prophet is one of the most potent factors in the building of our destiny, both as a nation and as a race. It is, therefore, important that we should occasionally stop and take account of our situation as to ministerial supply. The invoice should, of course, be qualitative as well as quantitative. Especially do we need to do this in a time of crisis and need like the present.

The past has indeed boasted some great preachers. Paul, Savonarola, Wesley, Whitefield, Edwards, Beecher, and Brooks—these are all men whose names stand out upon the scroll of fame with a luster which any soldier or statesman might envy. They will continue to occupy an honored place in the memory of men when the names of many soldiers and statesmen have been obscured by lapse of time.

There is no reason, however, why the average of ability should vary much from one age to another. Changing times mold men into different types and call for new forms of service, yet the force with which they rise to the occasions that confront them is about the same in one period as in another. The preachers and the preaching of one age measure with those of another without much of discredit to either. They differ in type, but not in ability or purpose. This being true, those of the present average creditably with those of any period of the past.

Of course, this is doubted by some good and sincere people. A number of things give seeming basis to their doubts. However, a second look at these conditions is worth while.

First of all, we must recognize the common human tendency to glorify the past to the disadvantage of the present. We all have reason to look out for this disposition, but it especially besets older people. Something about human nature makes it prone to live in the past. We are continually hearing it said or suggested that the great statesmen, the great poets, the great scholars, the great preachers, the great virtues, and the good days are all dead and gone. One may read something of this sort in the literature of ancient as well as modern ages. Yet the progress of the world has gone right on.

The fact is that we quickly forget what the past actually was. When to-day becomes yesterday, we forget its troubles and glorify its redeeming features. It is well enough that we do, yet the habit often leads us far afield of the truth. If people were really called upon to live again some of the good old days they talk about so much, they might soon conclude that the change was for the worse.

Next, we must remember that the standard of greatness constantly lifts. It takes more to make a great man to-day than it did in other years. The judgment of those who pass upon the question of a man’s greatness and accord him his place in history was never so exacting. The Harvard of Emerson’s day represented about the grade of scholarship obtainable now in a good high school. What then was exceptional scholarship is now commonplace. It is the same with statesmen. Men who were outstanding in their day would seem altogether mediocre in the face of the demands of this present period. In this time of widely diffused knowledge, it takes more than it ever did before to win the name of greatness in the pulpit.

Next, we must remind ourselves that the minister occupies a very different place in the community from that which he held in other days. He is, therefore, judged by very different standards. Of old he was apt to be the chief educator of the community, and was judged by his learning. That place is now filled by the expert educator with the best equipment money can place at his disposal. He was the chief commentator on current affairs, and was judged by the wideness of his information. That place has been taken over by the editor. He was often the only trained public speaker in the town, and was judged by the polish of his oratory. Now the land overflows with capable public speakers.

The conclusion of it all is that the work of the minister has narrowed down to the one specific thing to which he is called, the specialized service for which society must look to him alone. He is not to be judged by his learning, his familiarity with public affairs, or his ability as a speaker, altho he needs to possess them all. The one standard by which he is measured is the question of his ability as an exponent of the Christian religion.

Again, the greatness of the preacher as a prophet to-day must be in spite of certain influences which militate against it. Strange to say, one of them is the general economic development of the country, together with the prevalence of ease and prosperity. Our ministers, as a rule, have come from the poorer class of homes and from the more poorly developed sections of the country, especially from the hills, plains, and deserts where solitude prevails. One little hill section in the middle west has supplied most of the ministers for its own and the surrounding States. There is a reason. In fact, there are two.

One is the fact that in the poorer home and countryside there is not much to compete against God for a boy’s thought and attention. Young people brought up there do not enjoy many compensations. They have little to make them pleasure-mad. They live in a very narrow world, and they hunger to get out and do something worth while.

The other is the fact that the religious consciousness is best developed in the solitudes. God has often to look to the hills and the desert for men to be his leaders. Abraham learned to be a friend of God partly because he walked so much in the vast silences. Moses met the great I Am on the mountain side. It was in the hill country that Elkanah and Hannah reared the little lad who was to be the successor of Eli. Our religion itself was cultivated in one of the poorest sections of the old world. With fertile river valleys all about it, barren Palestine gave us our richest heritage of religious literature and leadership. The men living in the richer sections might have done so, but they were too preoccupied with wealth-getting. They had no time to listen among the silences for the voice of God.

Unfortunately, the temper of the present age is not so conducive as it might be to great preaching. There is a tendency to discount the value of the prophetic function manifest even on the part of some quite religious people. One may find in almost any current publication a statement or inference that it is not the spoken word but the acted deed that counts. The fact is that both count. It took both Moses, the man of deeds, and Aaron, the man of words, to lead Israel to the realization of its hope. It took both Ezra, the scribe, and Nehemiah, the cupbearer to the king, to rebuild the walls and the temple of Jerusalem. It has always taken the prophet and the toiler together to achieve human progress in the best sense.

We have great preachers to-day. They have terrific competition to meet, but when one closes his ears to the clash of the noises about him he can still hear the voice of the prophet lifted clear and distinct. As of old, there are small prophets and false ones. As of old, at the same time, there are great prophets and true. However, if we are to keep preachers and preaching great they must have every encouragement that can be given them.

Back to list of writings

The Heart Interest in Preaching (1922)

A great deal of otherwise good preaching fails of its purpose. It may be that no flaw can be found in it from the purely homiletic viewpoint, yet it fails to get the verdict for God and righteousness. Often this happens because the sermon has been considered as an end within itself. The preacher has failed to take into account the human values involved in his work. He has prepared his sermon with the one idea of making a perfect product.

His more successful brother has gone at the task in quite another way. He has worked no less earnestly and persistently, but he has seen more than the paper before him. He has looked past his study table and beyond his book shelves out into the busy world where his people live. He has seen them toiling, hoping, struggling, and suffering. He has thought of their heartaches and problems, of their aspirations and difficulties, of the drag that sordid situations and drab years put upon their souls. He has felt their temptations, their discouragements, and their limitations. His heart has gone out and felt the weight of their burden with them.

Then he has searched Scripture, history, science, literature, and life for something that will help them in their fight. In some instances, at least, he has found it. No wonder his work catches on and succeeds. He has sensed the human side, and seen what it is that makes the need for preaching. If there were no human problems along the road that leads to God, then the pulpit might as well be abolished.

To such a man the sermon he has prepared is not a fetish, but a message. He delivers it not merely that it may be admired, but that it may be minted into a blessing for the people before him. He knows what is in the hearts behind the Sunday clothes down in the pews, and he is trying to answer their questions and meet their needs.

Back to list of writings

The Great Compulsion (1928)

What do we mean when we speak of the call to the ministry? Some mean a wonderful dream, some an angel visitation, some a strange ecstasy, and some merely the notion that they can speak well. These things may all have their places, but they are uncertain. The one sure and enduring sign is the great compulsion.

The Book of Exodus relates how Moses as a young man went out one day and looked upon his people’s burdens. That was one of the great determining hours in his life. It was so because when he saw his people’s burdens their weight rolled onto his own heart. That was the last peaceful day he ever saw, for our peace is the price we pay for greatness. Thereafter, his days and nights were troubled with that strange mingling of hope and despair that comes to a leader. He was under the great compulsion.

John tells how an angel brought him a little book and told him to eat it. He did so, and in his mouth it was sweet as honey, but as soon as he had swallowed it, the sweetness changed to bitterness. That is the way with the word of truth. We must absorb it. The study of it is sweet, but the weight of care it lays upon us is bitter. It places us under the great compulsion.

One morning Jesus slipped out in the gray dawn, stood on the slope overlooking the quiet rooftops of Jerusalem, and wept. What so moved Him? It was the difference He saw between the city that was and the city that might have been, the world that was and the world that might have been. He had dreamed of better things and had discovered how difficult was their realization. The great compulsion was upon Him.

Key words are interesting in the vocabulary of such a one as Paul. One of his favorite words was bondslave. Another was must. A heavy sense of obligation was upon him. The feeling that took the vocal form of that word drove him over land and sea, planting the seeds of the kingdom life. A great vision had gripped his soul. A dream had possessed him. He could never rest again, for the great compulsion was upon him.

Back to list of writings

The Minister and His Reading (1928)

What the world and the spirit of the times have done to the reading habits of the public in general, they have also done to the minister. In the case of the public, they have sought to substitute the motion picture, the tabloid newspaper, and the confession magazine for the bookshelf. In the case of the minister, they seek to take the hours once devoted to the enrichment of the mind and dedicate them to the puttering things so fondly called practical duties—organizations, promotion, community activities.

Where the world leaves off, the church begins, for it is not wholly free from infection with the virus of materialism. Often the very disciples of Jesus get the idea that it is more important to make a stir in the world of today than to build life for the eternities.

We hear frequent complaints that there is a dearth of commanding preaching. The wonder is not that there are so few challenging voices in the pulpit, but that there are as many as there are when so many forces are joined in a giant conspiracy to throttle the spirit of prophecy. There is not enough encouragement to men to be great preachers. Yet wherever there is a voice that speaks with authority and not as the Scribes, there are people to hear it, though it be in the slums of a city or the depths of a forest. There will be plenty of such voices when the world and the church allow men to get back to the reflective life, and when ministers themselves once more determine to spend much time with the truth of God.

Why did the world’s crowning religion come out of a poor, barren little country, when there were Egypt, and Babylonia, and Greece? It was because Israel was poor enough and secluded enough to walk with God. The shepherd and the vinedresser caught the “still small voice” that was lost in the rush and roar about the merchant in the marketplace. Egypt was too busy with her civilization. Babylonia was too busy with her pleasure. Greece was too busy with her culture. The spirit of prophecy is found where are the conditions under which men can dream dreams and see visions. Great preaching will never come out of a maze of material interests. Shall we so soon forget that the first great task of Jesus was to win the victory over the tempting power of material things and that one of His last triumphant statements was that He had overcome the world?

They used to say that the ideal plan for a minister is to divide his day equally between the cultivation of his mind and the work of his parish. If one would follow such a plan faithfully through a long pastorate he would have two things—a well-furnished mind and a well-developed church. However, it does not matter so much which plan one chooses. It matters most that he does have a plan that provides a suitable place for reading and study.

It is not the present purpose to exalt the importance of reading beyond its due. Other interests are important, but this happens to be a call back to books, back to the delight of kings’ treasuries and queens’ gardens, back to the refreshing that comes from truth’s ever-flowing well, back to the replenishing of those powers upon which a minister must rely when every other key to success lies broken and useless.

A certain college professor used to advise his students to get and use three books, even if they could have no others. He said it did not matter how cheaply made they were, if they were only genuine and complete. He told them to get an unabridged dictionary, and study it for words; to get a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare, and study it for usage; and to get a copy of the King James Bible, and study it for style. These, together with a standard encyclopaedia and perhaps a good Bible dictionary, form the necessary foundation for any ministerial library.

No minister needs to be convinced of the wonders and beauties of the English Bible. All understand its value, but some find it difficult to invest the time and effort necessary to that unusual understanding of its message which the ministry must have. It is not difficult to show the public the charm of this wonderful book, but the one who reveals that charm must first have seen it himself.

Next to the Bible comes a vast and growing field of professional material dealing with the work of the ministry. This the minister must take into account. If the physician, the lawyer, the teacher, the business man, or the farmer can continue to be a success only by keeping abreast of the newest thought and discovery in his field, certainly the minister is in no position to claim exemption from the rule.

Occasionally we hear a minister boast that he knows nothing about Theology. Some even seem to regard such a claim as a qualification for the most serious and important work on earth. For a minister to make such a boast is exactly as intelligent as it would be for a lawyer to advertise that he is handling cases involving property and human rights without knowing the principles of his work, or for a physician to say that he is taking into his hands the life and happiness of human beings without a knowledge of drugs or surgery. If a minister really knows nothing about Theology, it is wisest to conceal the fact, if possible, until he learns something about it. A community soon spots a man who does not know his business.

A minister must find some way to gain a wide general information and culture. The person who said that he must know everything was not far wrong. This is true not only because he is preaching to an increasingly well-informed people, but also because he must interpret God to all of these people in the terms with which they are familiar. Each of his hearers lives and works in a limited field and can get on with a knowledge of that field alone, but the field with which the minister needs to be familiar is unlimited because it touches all the others.

No minister can afford to neglect good fiction. It often tells more truth than fact does. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle did. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin did. The parables of Jesus did. Aside from its entertainment value, fiction cultivates the imagination, and without that, no man can be a powerful public speaker. If one will speak in pictures, the people will hear and understand. One of the reasons why the common people heard Jesus gladly was the fact that His words always appealed to the imagination.

A minister needs all kinds of books, including those which make one laugh. Let us not be victims of the idea that holiness excludes the sunshine. The man who loses the song and laughter out of his life is unfit for the ministry until he gets them back. Clean and genuine humor should be on the minister’s bookshelf and in his heart.

A minister should read some of the things he dislikes and with which he disagrees. There is little growth in reading or hearing only what one already knows or believes. One owes it to truth also to know the other side. Even if he is certain that the other side is wrong, he should know its claims and how to meet them. The physician must study diseases before he can apply remedies. Many ministers have made too few clinical observations of the error and sin that are ruining the world.

It is sometimes said that this kind of thing means too much religion of the head and too little of the heart. You cannot separate these two things. They are parts of the same. Physics tells us that radiant heat and light are one and the same. All heat makes light. All light gives off heat. Whatever illuminates warms. Whatever warms illuminates.

On the evening of the first Easter, two disciples were on their way to their simple home when a stranger drew near. He took the road with them and talked to them about the meaning of the Scriptures. Entering the house with them, He ate, and departed. Then they knew it had been the risen Lord. They said: “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us in the way?”

The burning heart always goes with the understanding head. One cannot face the fair page of truth, see what God has wrought, and contemplate the goodness and love of the divine heart, with a soul unswept by the tides of spiritual feeling. Perhaps more tarrying at the feet of the Great Teacher of all truth would renew the testimony of the two disciples of Emmaus.

It must be so, for religion does not belong alone to heart or head. It belongs to the whole life. We may find God in the oratory where the soul rises heavenward upon the wings of prayer. We may find Him in the temple where arch and pillar cast dim shades about us, and the altar lends us sanctuary from the world. We may find Him in the hour of unusual spiritual fervor and in the great emotional experience of a lifetime. We may find Him in the hot, white field of service to the troubled, the burdened, and the broken among men. We may find Him in the careful statement of a creed, the formal beauty of a liturgy, or the simple prayer of a moment of contrition. We may also find Him in the field of thought and knowledge where we behold Him and His kingdom of unsearchable riches through the magic gateway of the covers of a book.

Back to list of writings

Preaching to College Students (1928)

Preaching to college students is one of the most exacting of homiletic responsibilities. This is the case not so much because students are critical as because they are the world in the making, and the tomorrows will be just about as religious as they are. By some means the message must be put across to them.

Preaching to such a constituency is no longer the task of the few. Almost every preacher has more or less of it to do because the influence of the college now reaches everywhere. In the university centers we deal with students in large groups, but in the smallest country community one finds at least a few. A sermon must be as worthwhile for the few as for the many. So the problem is one of general interest.

The presence of students in his congregation should be a great blessing to a minister. It is a high challenge to him to do his best work. The mind of the student is alert, and his work, so far as it goes, is with current data. Therefore, the man who interests him must be wide awake and well informed. For such an influence any minister should be deeply grateful.

Great numbers of college students and graduates are in the churches. Still greater numbers are not unwilling to be, and will be when the motive is clear. But the reason must certainly be established. Will the student derive benefit from the sermon? If not, he is not interested and that is the end of it. If so, he is interested and will respond. This is only as it should be.

The average student likes to be preached to and dealt with as a human being. True, the species includes a few mutations who like to think they belong to some other order of creation, but most students know better and the rest will have abundant opportunity to learn better.

The college student is nothing but a boy or girl from the farm dwelling, the village home, or the city mansion, translated into a campus setting. The law of adaptation operates, and certain temporary colorations, habits and appendages develop, all of which will pass with the next change of environment. These youngsters are still flesh and blood however and it may be said of them as it may be said of anybody that their need is for the universal gospel preached in the most honest and interesting possible way.

The student is dealt with as such during the days of the week. His professors may be depended upon not to let him forget that he is a student. When the worship hour comes he is glad of an opportunity to forget it for the time being and to occupy the honorable position of a human being made in the spiritual image of his God.

It is a great mistake to preach to students in the terms and imagery of campus life. The preacher who starts in to show his audience how much he has engaged in athletics, how familiar he is with fraternity and social life, and how finally he has solved the old and largely imaginary problem of the conflict between science and religion, will only succeed in making himself ridiculous. Students do not come to church to hear about things concerning which they know more than the preacher does. They come to hear about things of which he is presumed to know more than they do. Therefore, the safest as well as the most helpful thing he can do is to keep to religion.

It is also a mistake to suppose that the student mind reacts unfavorably against serious things. It may appreciate the witticism which helps to illuminate a serious point in the discussion, and a first class reductio ad absurdum nearly always clinches a proposition, but mere buffoonery will make a small and brief appeal. The person who attempts thus to denature the gospel he preaches will not meet with permanent favor.

This is the case because the student mind is essentially serious. One might not think so after a superficial observance of student actions, but it is so nevertheless. The very laughter and jesting one hears in student circles often mask the most earnest questionings, the deepest longings, and the most serious attitudes.

So long as one keeps himself, as he should do, within the limits of honest conviction, and so long as one speaks, as he should speak, in the spirit of love and good will, no other class of people in the world is so ready to have him be brutally frank as are college students. In fact, they discount him if he shows any evidence of evasion or accommodation. They may be right about some things and wrong about other things, but they are honest in all things, and they expect him to be the same.

Any one of the fields of thought and knowledge is a serious matter with the honest investigator. It is so dealt with in the classroom and the laboratory. To the student religion is just one more field to be explored. If he does not care to explore it, he does not bother. If he does care to explore it, he does not regard it as a joke. The person who thus approaches it with a sincere purpose should receive honest help.

All this leads me to the point where I can say that one of the fine things about the student mind is that it has discarded all traditions and prejudices. It approaches any matter with a disposition to find and face the facts, whatever the consequences may be. It is a real tabula rasa, upon which one may write—provided he has a stylus that is sharp enough.

Surely this is an opportunity to bring delight to the soul of the honest preacher. The most deadening thing in the world, intellectually and spiritually, is the practice of preaching platitudes and maintaining traditions which are proven, outworn, or unimportant—maybe all three. The most uncomfortable position in which any sincere preacher can find himself is one in which such a type of service is demanded.

The preacher to college students finds himself in no such position. He may go anywhere he likes within the limits of the field of truth. He has no traditions to maintain. He is bound by no trammels of creed or dogma. He is not checked by any barriers of prejudice. His way is open. He has but to walk in it in the spirit of reverence and honesty. He is dealing with adventurous minds whose one concern is truth. The mind of Jesus was such a one, and such an audience really challenges a preacher to approach questions in the spirit of the Great Teacher.

This is the process that is going to break down the artificialities and fan out the chaff of unreality from religion. Perpetuating systems is poor business, but adventuring in the field of truth is a high privilege. That is what the preacher to college students must do. Granted that it is in the field of religion, his one test for homiletic material is the question whether it is true.

One of the most common mistakes made in the popular and superficial analysis of the student mind is the assumption that it is essentially a radical mind. This often becomes the basis of a great homiletic error in preaching to students.

A comparative few students are radical, just as are a comparative few taken from any group one might mention. But with the mass it is not so. The great majority of college students are probably more conservative than the majority of people outside the university world. They think carefully, act with deliberation, and go quietly about their way while a few exceptions to the rule take the soap box and loudly demand the immediate reversal of all things.

I should say that about the last place to go to start a revolution of any kind would be the average college campus. Yet the campus mind is alive to the evolution that is going on in everything—including itself.

The student mind would be properly impatient of a static or reactionary viewpoint, but it is little concerned with wildeyed radicalism of any kind. The preacher who is most likely to reach its processes is the one who is honest, fearless, and open-minded, and yet who is conservative in the sense that he abandons a position only when he has found sufficient reason for believing that another one is better. The preacher who shows a conservatism which takes care to be progressive will commend himself and his message to the student hearer.

The presence of students in one’s congregation should save him from the pitiful fate of ceasing to grow, and thereby becoming old. They are an advancing race, and it is his privilege to advance with them. If he does so, the day will come when he can look back across the years and find satisfaction in the thought that he has had a real part in the making of the history of his and succeeding times—that of building the solidness and savour of ancient truth into the life of the new world.

Back to list of writings

Some Problems of the Preacher (1928)

The day one offers himself to God for the work of the Christian ministry he takes upon himself a set of serious personal problems, along with his problems of leadership and service. He proposes to do God’s work, and that means also to be God’s man. He must be that amid difficult conditions, under constant scrutiny, and in the face of frequent misjudgment.

One of his problems is to keep the spirit of reverence in his life. Human nature tends to handle ever more familiarly the things with which it has to do. Nadab and Abihu would have been afraid to offer strange fire if they had not allowed themselves to become too familiar with the things of the sanctuary. God, the church, and human hearts are all things our relationship to which should hush our souls.

Another of his problems, and one of his chief ones, is to keep the stamp of reality upon himself and his ministry. Holy tones, unnatural attire, and affected mannerisms are all banes to the ministry. They have cost many a man his usefulness, and limited that of many others. The church would gain immeasurably if today every one of her army of ministers would undertake in a simple human way to represent normal manhood at its best. Certainly that is what Jesus did.

Another of his problems is that of his social contacts. If he does not appear in public he is branded as a recluse. If he appears too much he becomes known as a loafer. He must find the golden mean. To know how much to appear, how to appear, when to appear, and the secret of mingling and dealing with people of all kinds without compromising one’s self with any is a fine art, and happy is the one who masters it.

Still another of his problems is how to keep growing. Too many ministers become unacceptable in middle life, not because they have aged, but because they have ceased to grow. The most pitiful thing about these men is that none of them seems to know quite what is wrong. Such a time need not come. It does not come to those who read, and think, and keep interested in and sympathetic toward the life of a growing world.

Back to list of writings

The Ambassador (1929)

A minister is an ambassador of the Kingdom of God to the kingdom of this world’s life. If he will remember that, and act accordingly, it will both save him from many mistakes and help him to many successes.

An ambassador has just one business. It is to represent, without wavering, change, or compromise, the interests of his country at a foreign court.

If he allows himself to become more loyal to the people to whom he goes than to the Ruler who sends him, he is worse than a poor ambassador; he is a traitor. The pitiful message of the story of The Golden Calf is that a spiritual leader forgot that his business was to serve God, and surrendered to the idea that it was to please the public.

The ambassador must remember that he is at a foreign court. That means that he cannot engage indiscriminately in what others do, that he must not become too deeply rooted in the alien life. He must keep his affections and loyalties fixed where they belong. At the same time, since he is among strangers, and since he is his own country incarnated in flesh and blood before them, he must be courteous and seek to make his every word and act worthy of their respect.

An ambassador is often called a diplomat. Indeed, a poor diplomat could not be a good ambassador. Frequently he has exacting and sometimes he has strained situations to handle. He must do so in the least offensive way and, at the same time, in the way best calculated to carry the point for his King.

For, above all, an ambassador must be faithful to his own country. He must not involve it, nor compromise it, nor surrender its interests in any way. While he must properly respect the country and people to which he is accredited, his business is to cooperate in establishing and maintaining the supremacy of his own government.

It is a wonderful thing to be a minister, because a minister is an ambassador of the Kingdom of God.

Back to list of writings

Let the Minister Know Life (1929)

The young ministers used to have to learn Hebrew, Greek, and all kinds of ponderous tomes of Theology. Now they must learn, instead, the technique of the various practical enterprises in which the church is engaged.

Probably a young minister needs to know something of both. But he needs to know another thing. He needs to know life.

No man is prepared to engage in the cure of souls until he has seen the world as it is; until he knows what saints and sinners alike are doing, saying, and thinking; and until he has seen, understood, and felt for human life at its best and at its worst.

Unless he has seen and known these things, he is like a man trying to practice medicine without having observed how the body is built and without having looked not only on the beauty of its health but also upon the horror and loathsomeness of its diseases. To look upon these things may not be pleasant, but to be helpless against them is less so.

A minister is not a near-angel to be perfumed and laid away in tissue paper for fear of some contamination. He is a physician to the spiritual lives of men. He has a real battle to fight. He has conditions to face that are ugly, and fierce, and perilous. What can he do with them unless he knows about them? What can he know about them if his experience is limited to leading the devotions for society meetings and wearing correct dress at afternoon teas?

A minister needs to go about, less as a minister and more as a man. He needs to see, and hear, and know enough to understand the mind and heart of the world.

After a young minister graduates from the seminary and before he begins his public work, he may need to go to the solitudes for meditation, but he needs also to do another thing. He needs to go down where men live their lives and, keeping his own heart clean, learn at first hand what are the problems that he must help them to solve.

Back to list of writings

The Yielding of Aaron (1929)

The story of the golden calf is a familiar one. Moses was holding a meeting with God—a habit that began with the burning bush. His absence was prolonged. The people grew restless. They felt that the cure lay in worship, but why not worship with a little novelty in it? Why not get out of the rut?

So they brought their jewelry to Aaron and besought him to make them a golden god. The idea of an unseen God was too difficult for them. Too, a golden god would be much easier to get on with. It would lay down no laws and make no ethical requirements. Too, golden gods were the style among their neighbors. They asked him to make them such a god.

Then Aaron made the mistake of his life. As a spiritual leader, he should have been listening to see what God would say. But he turned his ear toward the congregation instead, and listened to see what the leading members would say. His business was to lead the congregation up to the foot of God’s throne. But he allowed himself to be persuaded to attempt to reduce God to the level of human weakness and ignorance.

One of the supreme temptations of every religious leader is to seek public approval by the adaptation of the principles and standards of religion to public tastes, ideals, and desires. A thousand voices are raised on every side to urge him on in his error.

The path of salvation is still a straight and narrow way. All that we can do or say will not change that fact. When we widen it, plant primroses in it, and take the stones out of it, we no longer have a path of salvation. Then real followers of God no longer care to walk in it. They like the challenge of the harder road.

We cannot adapt God to the world. Whoever tries it fails, just as Aaron did. We cannot change truth, nor make over religion, nor revise the divine law. The God Isaiah saw in the temple was high and lifted up. The fact that Isaiah did not wait for the Lord to come down to his level, but began the long climb up to God’s level, is what made the prophet great.

Back to list of writings

The Necessary Asset—Friends (1917)

You cannot get on in the world without friends. You tread the golden bridge of friendship over many a chasm which could not otherwise be crossed. Friendless people must always languish on the side of hopelessness.

Friendships do not come by chance, and neither do they force themselves upon you. Friendship, like everything else worth while, is the reward of proper effort.

Friends must be made in the spirit of unselfishness. They are an advantage, it is true, but they must not be sought merely for purposes of advantage. Nothing wins friends so well nor keeps them so long as the unselfish disposition to be helpful. The most valuable friend is the friend who is one for friendship’s sake alone.

A strong friendship is seldom effervescent. The cordiality which is always foaming over is apt to have about the consistency and permanence of the foam which it resembles. The best type of friendship is poised, constant, steady, and true to the end. Dependability is worth more in friendship than is mere demonstration. You can expect this quality in others only when it characterizes your own attitude toward others.

When you speak of an absent friend, it would be well to imagine him present and listening to what is being said. Speak as gently of those who do not hear as of those who do. Speak frankly to the friend beside you, for insincerity never yet aided a friendship. Speak kindly of the friend who is away from you, for unkind speech has yet to win its first victory for the speaker.

Speak of your enemies as though they were your friends, and some day they may become your friends. A kindly tongue and a helping hand for all would soon garland the earth with sunshine and happiness.

Back to list of writings

Building a World Brotherhood (1918)

Among the most valuable results of a thing are often those which are classed as bi-products. This is true of a certain inevitable social effect of Christianity. That effect is brotherhood.

The natural tendency of the Christian religion is to make men understand the fact that from the beginning they were created brothers. As far it fails to accomplish this task, it will have failed of its social purpose. As far it succeeds, it will have wrought the foundations of the better day.

Such is the tendency of the Christian faith, because Jesus recognized no artificial and arbitrary barriers. The lines across which nations and social classes scorned to step he threw out of his consideration, and crossed them regardlessly. In his estimation of things, a man was a man. He could be no more and there was no disposition to ever rate him as less.

The world has arrived at this viewpoint slowly, but as surely as it does arrive at this viewpoint, its strifes will cease. Wars and troubles come from clannish exclusiveness and class hatred and distrust.

When those who belong to such classes as capital and labor forget their social differences and emphasize their fraternal relations, they will forget that they were ever pitted against one another. The only way the problem can ever be solved is by the elimination of the caste lines which separate the contending elements. The employer must remember that the workman is a capitalist in time and muscle, and the employe must remember that his employer is also a workingman.

Back to list of writings

The Laughing Man (1919)

Shakespeare was a prophet of many ages beside his own; Dickens was a champion of the lowly and oppressed; Scott was a delicate weaver of the fairy fabric of romance; but Victor Hugo was an analyst of human life and experience. Without adornment or polish, his books are cross-sections of the feelings and doings of men. His knife cuts deep enough to reveal the workings of the inner laws.

In Jean Valjean, the criminal, we have the story of a man who taught the world how low a man can fall and how well a fallen man can rise. In Gwynplaine, the laughing man, we have the story of one who taught the world how close may be the relation between the laughing countenance and the serious spirit.

In the story of Gwynplaine two things stand out supremely. The first is the power and significance of a smile that could not come off. The second is the supreme importance and sacredness of humanity.

The smile that could not come off was written upon his countenance with a knife. Gwynplaine was the son of an English nobleman. Stolen when a baby by a band of wandering showmen, he was trained for exhibition. They operated upon his helpless baby features and shaped them into a perpetual grin. From that day forth, no matter what were the feelings within him or the outlook in the path ahead of him, he carried a laughing face. He had been fashioned into a curiosity, but in some ways a very wholesome kind of curiosity.

Had the story of Gwynplaine never done more than to remind the world of the value of laughter, it would have served its time and purpose well. No generation can well get on without those who make it their business to keep the smiles alive on the faces of the people. The world may laugh at them and pass them by as clowns, but the ages will have to honor them for having kept weary hearts hopeful when everything seemed to be crumbling away beneath them.

The place of the humorist in literature is sometimes placed at a discount, but not properly so. The maker of fun whose humor was clean and genuine is a benefactor of his age, not to say a minister of righteousness. The hand of Justice lays an unfading wreath of honor upon the grave of the man who has helped to keep the world glad. He has planted roses where otherwise there would have been only thorns. He has scattered beauty and light where otherwise the shadows would have been left to reign supreme.

One of the chief points in the story of Gwynplaine, however, was the fact that his smile was permanent and unfading. It was written indelibly upon his features and could be affected by no tempest either of joy or pain. His soul might be weary and his courage dead, but the world could never find it out by looking at his face. However often he may have been a troubled man, through it all he was a laughing man.

It is all well enough to smile when one is gay, but the real hero is the one who keeps on smiling after the world has turned blue before his gaze. Anyone can look happy when he is happy, but only the unusual man can keep a merry countenance when hopes die, ties are sundered, dreams crash in shattered fragments, and the rich promises of life prove to have been empty mirages of vain expectation. The smile “that cannot come off” is the smile worth while.

The happiest-faced woman I ever knew was one whose life story would cast a tremor of dread upon any company. She had faced her floods of sorrow, had shed her tears, and then had come off with the victory of an undying cheerfulness which never inflicted upon another the troubles which had been hers.

One day it was discovered that Gwynplaine, the wandering showman, was a man of noble blood. As such, he was entitled to a seat in the House of Lords. On the night when he went to take his seat among the peers of England, many curious eyes were fastened upon his grinning features. He sat and listened to the speeches. Eloquent things were being said, but they did not bear the note of thoughtfulness of the needs and rights of the lowly. These were men who had never tasted the lot of the poor. He could never forget the need and the neglect which he had seen and known.

Then a dramatic thing happened. Gwynplaine rose in his place as though to speak. A suppressed titter swept over the great chamber. He opened his lips and began to speak. At the sound of his words the wave of merriment subsided. They carried a burden of heartbreak, though they fell from grinning lips. “My lords,” he said, “I bring you news—news of the existence of mankind.”

This was the message the assembly needed to hear. Executive chambers and halls of legislation had been all too slow in welcoming it. When it came, it fell from the lips of a noble showman with a perpetual grin upon his face.

Gwynplaine had a full heart, and it was full of the needs and the burdens of men. One word was ringing back and forth through the chambers of his thought. That word was Humanity. In it was represented the outstanding fact in human thinking—the fact of the existence of humanity. It suggested the highest aim of all government—the good of humanity. It pointed out the path of all proper human endeavor—the advancement of humanity.

Humanity has been the one great concern of the Almighty Himself. He measures the good or the evil of a thing by the question of its helpfulness or its hurtfulness of people. He brooded over the race until it grew to manhood. When it sinned He suffered for it. He has never hesitated to go to any length for the sake of people. Such is also the spirit of those who enter into the secrets of His plans.