Chapter IV: Part 4

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Let us stop thoughtfully, and remember that God has carefully thought out a plan for every man, for each one of us. It is a plan for the life, these human years; not simply for getting us to what we may have thought of as a psalm-singing heaven, when we're worn out down here.

It is the best plan. For God is ambitious for us; more ambitious for you and me than we are for ourselves, though few of us really believe that. But He will carry out His plan--aye, He can carry it out only with our hearty consent. He must work through our wills. He honors us in that With greatest reverence be it said that God waits reverently, hat in hand, outside the door of a man's will, until the man inside turns the knob and throws open the door for Him to come in and carry out His plan. We can make God fail by not working with Him. The greatest of all achievements of action is to find and fit into God's plan.

The Church Mission.

Now, God had and has a plan for His Church. That plan is simply this: The Church was to be His messenger to the nations of the earth. There are other matters of vast importance committed to the Church, without doubt: the service of worship and the training and developing of the life of its members. But these, be it said very thoughtfully, are distinctly secondary to the service of taking the Gospel to all men.

These two, the chief and the secondary, are interwoven, each contributing to and dependent upon the other. But there is always a main purpose. And that here, without question, is the carrying of the message of Jesus fully to all the earth. In each generation the chief plan, to which all else was meant to be contributory, was that all men should hear fully and winsomely the great thrilling story of Jesus.

Shall I say that that plan has failed? It hurts too much even to repeat such words. I will not say the Church has failed. But I will ask you to note God's plan for the Church, and then in your inner heart to make your own honest answer.

And in making it remember the practical point is this--the Church is you. I am the Church. Its mission is mine. If I say it has failed I am talking about myself. I can keep it from failing so far as part of it is concerned, the part that I am. My concern is not to be asking abstractly, theoretically, about the Church, but about so much of it as I am.

In annual church reports, and triennial and quadrennial, much space is given to telling of the wealth of the Church. Of course, I suppose its wealth is meant to be an index of all its work. It may seem a bit odd to use the world's index-finger to point out our faithfulness to our Master's will. It is used, of course, to impress the world in the way the world can most quickly and easily understand.

But the Church was not meant by the Master to be a rich institution in money and property; though it has grown immensely so. The Master's thought was that its power and faithfulness should be revealed entirely in the extent to which all men of all nations know about Himself and have been won to Him.

If we think only a little bit into the past history of the Church, and then into present world conditions, we know the answer to that hurting question about the Church being a failure.

I know that many of you are thinking of the triumphs of the Church; of her imperishable and incalculable influence upon the life of the world. And I will join you heartily in that, some other time. Just now we are not talking of that, but of just one particular fact of its history. One truth at a time makes sharper outlines and brings the whole circle of truth out more plainly. I love to sing,

"I love Thy Kingdom, Lord,
The house of Thine abode;
The Church our blest Redeemer saved
With His own precious blood."

We shudder to attempt to think into what these centuries would have been without the influence of the Church.

But at present we are talking about something else. Let me ask you, softly, if God's plan for the Church was that it was to be His messenger to all men, as you think back through nineteen centuries and then think out into the moral world conditions to-day, would you say the plan had succeeded? Or had--?

"Christ also Waits."

There's a bit of light here on that vexed question of the Lord's second coming, about which good, earnest people differ so radically. The Master said, you remember, that we were to be watching for His return. But many ask, how can we be watching when it's been two thousand years since He told us to watch, and the event seems as far off as ever?

I remember one day in a Bible class the lesson was in the twelfth of Luke, about watching for the Lord's return. Some of the class seemed to think that it means that we should be in a constant attitude of expectancy, looking for His return. But one man, an earnest, godly old minister said, "How can you be looking expectantly for a thousand years?"

But will you mark keenly that the teaching of Jesus Himself was that His return depended on His followers' doing a certain thing?[13] When all men had been told fully of Jesus, then He was to return and carry out a further part of His plan. Clearly if the part we were to play has not been done, it delays His part. The telling of all men about Jesus seems to bear a very close connection with what will occur when Jesus returns.

Some of our good friends have been much taken up with figuring out when the Lord would come back. Some of them seem to have great skill in making calendars. They even go so far as to fix exact dates. They seem to forget that word of the Master, "In such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh." If you think He will come at a certain given time, then you can know one thing certainly, that He won't come then.

The only calendar we men have is a calendar of dates, fitted to the movements of the sun and moon. God has a calendar, too, but it is a calendar of events, not of dates. The completion of His plans doesn't depend on so many revolutions of the earth about the sun, but on the faithful revolution of His followers in their movement around the earth telling men of Jesus.

It looks very much as though the Master's coming has been delayed, and His plans delayed, because we have not done the preparatory part assigned us.

"The restless millions wait the light,
Whose coming maketh all things new.
Christ also waits; but men are slow and late.
Have we done what we could? Have I? Have you ?"

"Somebody Forgets."

A little fellow, of a very poor family, in the slum section of one of our large cities, was induced to attend a mission Sunday-school. By and by, as a result of the teacher's faithful work, he became a Christian. He seemed quite bright and settled in his new Christian faith and life.

Some one, surely in a thoughtless mood, tried to test or shake his simple faith in God by a question. He was asked, "If God loves you, why doesn't He take better care of you? Why doesn't He tell some one to send you warm shoes and some coal and better food?"

The little fellow thought a moment, and then with big tears starting in his eyes, said, "I guess He does tell somebody, but somebody forgets."

Without knowing it, the boy touched the sore point in the Church's history. I wonder if it is the sore point with you or me.

The Coming Victory

Failure Swallowed By Victory.
The Revised Missionary Motto.
Ahead, But Behind.
In A Swift Current.
Power Of Leadership.
A Minority Movement.
A Great World-chorus.
The Oratorio Of Victory.

The Coming Victory

Failure Swallowed by Victory.

But God's failures are only for a while. They are real. There is the tragic element in them. There is the deep, sad tinge of disappointment running throughout this old Book of God. Yet the failures are only for a time. Sometimes it seems a very long time, especially if you are living through some of it. But the time reaches eagerly to an end. Victory comes. And God's victory will be so great as to make us completely forget the failures that marred the road.

The Eden plan was more than a plan. It was a prophecy of the final outcome. The Book of God begins with failure, but it ends with a glowing picture of great victory, painted with rose colors. Every feature of beauty and of good in Eden has grown greatly in John's Revelation climax. The garden of Genesis becomes a garden-city. All the simplicity and purity of garden life, and all the development and power represented by city life, are brought together. There is now a river of life, and the tree of life has grown into a grove.

And God isn't through with that nation of Israel yet. The Jew can't be lost. In every nation under heaven he can be found to-day, a walking reminder of God's plan. Every Jew, in whatever ghetto he may be found, is an unconscious prophecy of a coming fulfilment of God's purpose. The strange racial immortality of the Jew is a puzzle from every standpoint, except God's. He can't be killed off; though men have never ceased trying to kill him off. The Jew looms up bigger to-day than for many generations.

The present strange restless Jewish longing for national existence again, that will not down, spells out the coming victory of God's plan after centuries of failure. And even though the present tide may run out toward ebb, it will be to gather force for a new and fuller flood. When God's plan works out the world will have a wholly new idea of national life, and of a world-power without army or navy or any show of force, touching all men, and touching them only to bless.

And though King Saul failed, there was already the ruddy David, out among the sheep, waiting the anointing oil, and carrying about in his person his nation's greatest king.

Jesus' Judas failed to realize the promise of his earlier days. He struck the record note for baseness. But Paul was being prepared by blood inheritance and scholarly training. Under the touch of the Master's own hand he became the Church's greatest leader in its life-mission. If Judas struck the lowest note, Paul rang the changes on the highest note of personal loyalty to Jesus and to His world-wide passion and purpose.

And the Church has waked up. I said, you remember, last evening, that if you look over the whole history of the Church since its birthday on Pentecost, you are pained by the sore fact that the chief mission entrusted to it has been for the most part forgotten. There has been more forgetting of it, and neglecting it, than fulfilling it.

Yet always, be it keenly noted, in every generation of these centuries there have been those whose vision of Olivet never dimmed. There have always been those who have tried faithfully to carry out the Church's great mission. The darkest days have never been without some of the brightest light, made all the brighter by the surrounding night.

The Revised Missionary Motto.

But there's a new chapter of the Church's life being written as we talk together. Its writing began in the closing twilight of the eighteenth century. That chapter isn't finished yet. Some of its best pages are now being written, with more and better clearly coming.

Its first lines were written by a very common pen. Carey's English cobbler-shop became a sounding-board whose insistent, ringing messages began to waken the Church. The Church is waking up, and shaking itself, and tightening on its clothes, for the greatest work yet to be done in fulfilling the life-mission entrusted to it.

A hundred years ago the fire of God found fresh kindling stuff in the hearts and brains of a few young college fellows in an old New England village. The sore need of the world crowded in upon them by night and by day. But they were few, and young, and unknown. And the task was stupendous. The rain-storm of a Sabbath afternoon drove them to the shelter of a hay-stack. And the storm of the world's need drove them to the shelter of prayer, and then to the shelter of a great purpose. With simple faith in God, and strong devotion to the great neglected task, they spoke out to the Church the thrilling words, "We can do it if we will".

And on that same spot a hundred years later the Church gathered. Those intense words had been heard. The Church had waked up. Men of long service in far-away lands stood with those of the home circle. They talked of the past, but far more of the present and future. They revised the century-old motto. No group of scholars in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey ever did finer revision work. They said, "We can do it, and we will". No greater tribute to the memory of the faithful little hay-stack group was ever made than in that changed motto.

The young collegians' bold cry had sounded out throughout the Church. And the Church heard and roused up. The modern missionary movement of the Church is the most marked development of the past century of church history. It can be said that the Church of our day in its missionary activity far exceeds the early Church. That is to say, in certain particulars we have exceeded.

It is common to refer to the missionary zeal of the first centuries. Fresh from the Master's touch, the early Church was chiefly a missionary church. One great purpose gripped it, and that was to take the news of Jesus everywhere. And they went everywhere. We know most about Paul's journeys in the Grecian and Roman worlds. But there is good evidence that there is another "Acts of Apostles" beside the one bound up in this Bible. Out to the farthest reaches of the earth they seemed to have gone in those early days, preaching and winning men and establishing church societies.

The bulk of the modern movement is without doubt greatly in excess of the early movement. The number of men out in various fields, the amount of money being given annually by the Church in America and Great Britain and the Continental countries is so much greater as to leave comparison practically out.

In the thoroughness of organization, the elements of permanency, the great variety of means used such as hospitals, schools, literature, and industrial helps, the present probably exceeds by far the early movement. The statesmanlike study by church leaders of the whole world-field, the steadiness of movement year after year, in spite of difficulties and discouragements, the careful systematic effort to inform and arouse the home church--these are marked features of the present foreign-mission campaign. They are such as to awaken the deepest admiration of any thoughtful onlooker. In all of this the modern Church is making a wholly new record.

Ahead, But Behind.

Yet, while all this is true, it can be said just as truly that the Church, as a whole, is so far behind the primitive Church as, again, practically to leave comparison out of the question. They were so far ahead in the mass of their movement that we are scarcely in the lists at all. Then the whole Church was an active missionary society. Every one went and preached. The nearest approach to it in modern times probably is the movement of the native Church of Korea. This foreign people seems to have caught the early spirit. Our heathen brothers are taking their place as pace-setters for the Church.

By contrast with that, the modern activity has been by a minority, really a small minority, though a steadily growing one. The leaders have struggled heroically against enormous odds in the backward pull of the majority.

Then they went everywhere. That is, they went everywhere that they could, so far as open doors, or doors that could be pried open, let them. We have gone actually farther, and to more places probably, but we haven't begun to go everywhere that we could.

Our ability to go, and the urgent requests for us to come, would carry us to thousands of places not yet touched. If we began to do things as the early Church people did, it would stand out as one of the greatest movements in the history of the race. If a small minority of us have made such enormous strides what could the whole of us do if we would!

In a Swift Current.

The momentum of the present missionary movement has been startling. It suggests that we are on the eve of an advance undreamed of by the most enthusiastic. The last twenty-odd years have seen progress clear outstripping that of the previous hundred, though all built upon the foundations so well laid by the earlier leaders of the century.

In answer to the earnest persistent prayer of a few, the Spirit of God found new stuff ready for His kindling fires among the colleges. The story of the prayer of a few that preceded the forming of the Student Volunteer Movement is thrilling. That great movement was literally conceived and brought forth in the travail of prayer. Its wide-spread influence upon the colleges, and then upon the churches; its early campaigning, its remarkable leaders, its great conventions, the steadiness of its growing influence through more than twenty years, and the distinct mark it has made upon the whole mission propaganda abroad, make up one of the most thrilling chapters of church history, ancient or modern. To-day its influence encircles the earth. Its volunteers are found everywhere.

Its reflex influence upon that other movement, the Young Men's Christian Association, has been no small part of its work. The two have been interwoven from the beginning, each contributing immeasurably to the other. The practical power of the Young Men's Christian Association on foreign soil is recognized by the Church, and by foreign governments, as of a value clear beyond calculation or statement.

It has come to be one of the great expressions of the unifying spirit of the Church on foreign-mission soil. Our churches at home may go their separate ways, largely. But the pressure of the sore need of the foreign world has been welding the churches there together remarkably. The Christian Associations, both of young men and young women, belonging to all the Church and representing all, have held a strategic position in action, and been of inestimable service to the Church in its missionary propaganda.

The Young People's Missionary Movement, whose long, warm fingers are reaching throughout the whole Church, and the newer Laymen's Missionary Movement with its aggressive campaigning, are both remarkable expressions of the new uprising.

The women of the Church were forehanded in their earnest working and praying. They were up at dawn of day. Their influence is mighty, clear beyond any words to express. And now at last the men are waking up, and the new life is showing itself anew within organic church lines. Men's missionary conventions, with great attendances, are swinging into line, and revealing the awakeness of the Church.

Power of Leadership.

The enormous power of personal influence and of devoted leadership has been most marked. In the throng of strong men that lead in all this activity there are two men that by common consent stand out big in the group. Young men they are, both of them, not yet in the full prime of their powers. One has a genius for organization probably never surpassed, if equalled, by military general, or Jesuit chief, or modern captain of industry. The other has mental grasp, keenness of thought, and power of persuasive speech not surpassed by any, if equalled. Both are marked by a singularly deep, tender spirituality, a rare gift of leadership, a poise of judgment, and a devotion to the Church's great mission as true and steady as the polar star.

Around these two young men has grouped up in no small measure this later missionary activity. And it is probably quite within the mark to say that no stronger, abler men can be found in any of the great activities of life to-day in either of these two great English-speaking peoples. It is surely significant that the modern missionary movement rallies around such giants.

It is worthy of special note, too, that the body of men to whom is entrusted the administration of this vast network of foreign service, the foreign-board members and secretaries of the Church, have developed such remarkable power and skill. No body of men has problems more intricate and exacting and difficult. And no body of men in any sphere of activity has shown greater diplomacy and astuteness, hard sound sense, and untiring devotion.

Some good friends are sometimes disposed to be critical of methods and management. They think the affair could be conducted better in some details which they think important. Well, it would be surprising if it were not so. The same criticisms are made of every governmental and great industrial enterprise. Everything human seems to make progress by correcting and improving. But the thing for you and me to keep a critically keen eye upon is this: that no such detail be allowed to affect by so much as a hair's weight the steadfast ardor of our support.

No strong man in the thick of the great driving purpose of his life is turned aside or stopped by the biting or buzzing of a few insects. If even they can't be brushed aside, let them buzz and bite, but don't let the great passion of a life be affected by them. Indeed, they will be clean forgot, even while they are remembered, by the man who has been caught and swept by the fire of his Master's passion for a world.

A Minority Movement.

Yet, be it keenly marked, these great strides have been made by a minority, who have followed the strong leaders. The whole Church is not yet awake. Many protest strenuously against being waked up. The alarm-clocks bother them. Sometimes one is inclined to think that the foreign boards are peculiarly placed between a refrigerator and a furnace.

Missionaries come back home fresh from the front fairly aflame with the fervor of their enthusiasm. Their convictions of what could be done, and should be done, are apt to be spoken out with great positiveness. They seem to some to suggest in an uncomfortable way the thought of a glowing furnace. And many in the home churches seem able to listen with such indifference as to suggest to these returned men and women the chilling air of an ice-box. In between the two sits the Church board engaging in the difficult task of trying to equalize the temperature. But that's merely a detail in passing.

The great fact to mark is that never has the missionary movement bulked so large. And never have such broad statesmanlike plans, such aggressiveness of spirit, coupled with deep devotion, marked the Church in its great life-mission.

One morning at a popular summer resort on the Long Island Sound coast thousands of bathers were enjoying the surf-bathing. The life-saving crew were stationed for duty, on the lookout for any accident. A gentleman standing by one of the crew asked him how he could tell if help were needed. There were thousands of bathers, and a perfect babel of noises. The weather-beaten man, bronzed and toughened and trained to keenness in his work by years of service, said, "I can always hear a cry of distress, no matter how great the noise and confusion. There never yet has been a cry of need I haven't heard."

For a long time the confusion of noises bothered the Church ears. But now the cry of distress from over the wide seas is being heard again distinctly, and is being responded to splendidly. The very earnestness of response and effort is a forerunner of sure victory.

A Great World-chorus.

I recall vividly a scene in Albert Hall in London nearly fifteen years ago. A remarkable gathering from all parts of the world had come together to celebrate the jubilee of the Young Men's Christian Association. About two thousand men had come from the ends of the earth. It was a world-gathering. There were sturdy Englishmen, cosmopolitan Americans, canny Scots, quick-witted Irishmen, sweet-voiced, fervid-spirited Welshmen, and courtly, suave Frenchmen.

Fair-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavians mingled with olive-skinned, black-eyed sons of Italy. The steady-going Hollander and the intense German mingled their deep gutturals with the songs of praise and the discussions. A few turbaned heads, inscrutably quiet almond-eyes, and others of energetic step and speech brought to mind the Great Orient, India and China and Japan. Men won up out of the savagery of Africa sat with Islanders from the Pacific.

They came from many communions and represented many creeds, and spoke as many tongues as the Jerusalem crowds on the day of Pentecost. But they were drawn together not by their attractive diversity, but because of their oneness. The drawing-power of Jesus was the magnet that drew them. It was the music of His Name that made all their tongues and languages blend and chord in sweet harmony.

This night I speak of they had gathered in the great oval-shaped Albert Hall opposite Hyde Park. With the Londoners, probably, fully ten thousand persons were present. And I think I shall never forget the vast volume of sound, as, led by a chorus of Scandinavian students, they all united in singing, "All hail the power of Jesus' Name."

They didn't sing it to our American tune of "Coronation," but to the old English "Miles Lane." That tune, you remember, repeats over four times the words, "Crown Him," in the last line, gradually increasing in volume, and the fourth time touched with a bit of quieting awe.

I can close my eyes now, and see that great world-gathering and hear again the sweet rhythmic thunder of their singing:

"And crown Him,
Crown Him,
CROWN HIM,
Crown Him, Lord of all."

No one can tell to another the thrill and thrall of such a sight and sound. It was all unconsciously a bit of prophecy acted out, faint but distinct, of the great day of victory that is coming.

The Oratorio of Victory.

Have you ever noticed the Oratorio of Revelation? Lovers of music should study the book of the Revelation of Saint John, for its mighty choruses. It is striking just now to notice the double key-note of that closing climactic book of this old Bible. It is this: Satan chained, and Christ crowned. But note for a moment the oratorio sounding its music through these pages.

It opens with a solo in the first chapter.[14] John begins writing with steady pen until he seems to get a glimpse of Jesus. Then his pen drops the story, and he begins singing:

"Unto Him that loveth us,
And loosed us from our sin by His own blood;
And hath made us a kingdom,
Priests unto His God and Father;
To Him the glory and the dominion
Forever and ever."

In chapter four[15] comes a quartette. The four living creatures round about the throne take up the refrain of John's solo. And, as they sing, their song is caught up by a sextuple quartette, twenty-four white-robed, crowned men before the throne.[16]

In chapter five the Angel Chorus swings in.[17] They are grouped round about the quartette, and the twenty-four elders. John begins to count them. Then his figures give out. His knowledge of mathematics is too limited. There were ten thousand times ten thousand, and unnumbered thousands of thousands. As far as his eye could reach, to left and right, before and behind, was one vast sea of angel faces.

And John listened enraptured and awed, as their wondrous volume of rhythm rang and thundered out. Sweet sopranos and mellow contraltos; ringing tenors and deep basses; first one, then the other, back and forth responding to each other, then all together; marvellous music it must have been.

Then the refrain of their song is caught up by the Creation Chorus.[1] Every living creature in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, as though unable to resist the contagious sweep, catch up the music and add their own to it. We don't commonly associate music with the animal creation, nor with nature. It has been said that all the sounds of nature are keyed in the minor, as though some suffering had affected them. We talk of the sighing of the wind, the moaning of the sea-waves, and the mourning of the doves. Though the singing-birds must be excepted. They seem to have caught and kept some of the upper strains.

But evidently something has occurred to strike a new key-note. For now they take up the refrain of the joyous song of the others, and increase the mighty song by their own.

In chapter seven the music has ceased or softened down and is taken up afresh by the Martyr Chorus.[18] Again John's figures give out. He declares that nobody could count the multitudes that make up this chorus. It is a polyglot chorus. They sing in many different languages, but all blend into full rhythm. It's a scarred chorus, too. These have been through great tribulation. Their scars tell the mute story of the fierceness of the fight, and the steadiness of their faith.

Through their singing runs a distinct strain of the minor. Its strangely sweet cadence, learned in many an hour of pain, runs as an under-chording through the song of triumph that now fills their hearts and mouths. And as they sing, the angel chorus and the quartette drop to their knees, and swell the wondrous refrain.

In chapter fourteen comes the music of the Chorus of Pure Ones.[19] They are gathered close about the person of Jesus. They sing to the accompaniment of a great company of harpers. They sing with a peculiar clearness in their tones. Theirs is a new song. Purity always makes a music of its own, unapproachable for sweetness and clearness.

The Victors' Chorus rings out its song in chapter fifteen.[20] These have been in the thickest of the fighting. The smoke of the battle has tanned their faces. They have struggled with the enemy at close range, hip and thigh, nip and tuck, close parry and hard thrust. And they have come off victors. The ring of triumph resounds in their voices, as to the sound of their own harps, harps of God, they add their tribute of song to all the others.

And at the last comes the great Hallelujah Chorus, in chapter nineteen.[21] In response to the precentor's call, they all join their voices in one vast melody. The Quartette, the Sextuples, the Angels, the Creation, the Martyrs, the Pure-Ones, the Victors--all sing their song together.

John tries to tell what it was like. His mind went quickly back to earlier days in his home city, Jerusalem, when thousands of pilgrims crowded the temple areas and narrow streets, and spread out over the hills. The unceasing sound of their voices in speech and in their pilgrim songs of praise comes back to him. He says it was like that.

But that isn't satisfactory. It is so much more. He thinks of how the ocean-waves keep pounding, with cannon-roar, on the rocky beach of his Patmos prison isle. So he said it was like that. But still more is needed to give an idea of the vast volume of sound. And he remembers how sometimes the thunders crashed and boomed and roared above him as he lay in his solitude on that lonely bit of sea-girt land. It was like that. It was like all of these together.

And what is it they are singing? Well, there's a variety in the wording of their song, as well as in their voices. But through all runs a refrain that brings back to me the great London chorus. It is this--

"And crown Him!
Crown Him!!
CROWN HIM!!!
Yes, Crown Him
Lord of all."

It is the rehearsal of the great Oratorio of Victory that we are all to join in singing.

The Church

Forces that Win.
The Divine Law of Leadership.
God's Messenger.
Reaching Out for a World.
"Keep Step."
"Find My World, And Win It Back."

The Church

Forces That Win.

God's world is full of winning forces. The great ball of fire around which our earth revolves is the greatest winning force in the life of the earth. It is constantly winning the earth to itself with a power unseen but tremendous, beyond anybody's power to calculate. The swing of the earth away from the sun is being continually overcome. By an immense drawing power it steadily holds the earth where it can pour down its wealth of warmth and light and life into it.

It woos the moisture up from river and lake and sea, until its gravity partner in the centre of the earth woos it back again in refreshing rain and sheltering snow. It wins out of the earth's warm heart bounteous harvests of grains and fruits, the wealth of forests which affects the earth's life so radically, the flowers with their beauty and fragrance, and the soft carpeting of green to ease the journey for our feet. All the life and beauty of the earth is due to the winning power of the sun.

God Himself is the greatest winning force in all our world. Everywhere men feel the upward drawing toward Him. They may protest against church organizations and creeds, against teachings and long-settled practices and habits of thought, as they do so much, but there is always everywhere a longing in the human heart for God. It is the answer to the longing of His heart for us.

And man is a great winning force. Everywhere men are attracted to each other. There is a winning power within each of us that draws certain others irresistibly to us. And there are winning forces in life that each one of us is powerfully affected by. The old home of earlier days has a marvellous power of attraction for most men. The old fireside, the familiar rooms, the subtle aroma that seems inseparable from the very bricks and boards--who has not felt the tremendous drawing power of these?

What a strange power of attraction a man's mother-tongue has for him. How the heart will give a quick leap, in a foreign land, when, amid a confusing jargon of strange sounds, all unexpectedly some one speaks the dear old familiar words. The person speaking may not be specially congenial or attractive to us, but that sound his tongue gives draws us to him.

The Divine Law of Leadership.

Now I want to talk with you a bit about the forces at hand for winning our old world back to our Father's heart and home. God means us to use all the attractive powers we have in this great world-wooing and world-winning task. The world is to be won back, not driven. Men drive men, when they can. But God woos and wins. Man's coming back must be by his own glad, sweet consent. God won't have it any other way.

There are certain strangely winsome forces at our command for winning man. They are mighty in their drawing power. But there are counter-currents that divert and hinder their influence. We need to be familiar with these winning forces, and with the counter-currents, too.

There are seven great forces at our command for this blessed service of soul-winning and world-winning. They are not peculiar to foreign-mission service, for the foreign service itself is not essentially different from other service, except in the greatness of its need. They are the forces for use in all our winning work.

Two of these are distinctly human forces. The first is an organization, the Church. And then that of which the Church is made up, men and women; I mean the power of personality, developed and consecrated personality.

There are two divine forces that work through the human--Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I have put these second in order, because they work through the human. The leadership is in human hands. The initiative of all action is with us. Of course, if you go a bit deeper in, the initiative is with God who moves upon our hearts to make us act. But on the distinctly human level the beginning of service rests in human hands, and these two mighty, almighty, divine forces work through us.

The divine law of leadership and of cooperation in leadership has not always been clearly understood. And there has been bad delay often because of the lack of understanding. Our Lord Jesus in the days of His humanity surrendered Himself to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in His great mission to men. The Spirit worked through Jesus. After Jesus' Ascension the order was reversed. The Spirit yielded Himself to the control of the glorified Son of God. Jesus worked through the Spirit. It was Jesus who sent down the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost for the special mission begun that day.

And now, with the greatest awe coming into our hearts at the thought, be it said that these two work through our human leadership. The leadership in service among men is human leadership. The wondrous Spirit of God works through our leadership to reveal Jesus to men in all His winsomeness and power.

There can be no power at all in our human action and leadership except as the Spirit leads and controls us, and is allowed to. And, on the other side, we must not forget, though it has sometimes been forgotten, that God's working waits upon human action and leadership. Memory quickly brings up the fact, so often repeated in the history of the Church, that when men have failed to respond to God's call His work has fallen behind. Whenever a new chapter of earnest service has been begun it has always been through a new leadership. Some man has listened to God, and let Him have the free use of himself in reaching out to other men.

God needs men. He needs you and me. We are the wire for the transmission of His current of power. The wire is useless without the current. And the current must have the wire along which to travel to its place of service. The divine power is through human action and human leadership. The power is all divine. And the means through which it works is all human. Jesus and the Holy Spirit work through the Church and through each one of us who is willing.

Then there are three spirit forces, or influences, of mighty power in human hands; namely, prayer, and money, and sacrifice.

God's Messenger.

To-night we want to talk about the first of the two human forces--the Church.

We ought to remind ourselves of just what that word "Church" means in this connection. It has many meanings. There are at least two that we should note here in thinking of it as a great winning force. In its broadest meaning, the word is commonly used for the whole group of church organizations taken together, the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox, the Protestant, and the few primitive societies that still retain their old original organization. In the deeper, less used meaning, it stands for the body of those men and women everywhere who are trusting Jesus Christ, and are allied with Him in the purpose of their hearts.

These two meanings, of course, should be the same. All who trust Jesus should be in the church organizations. And all who are in the organizations should be there because of their relation to Jesus. Whatever the facts regarding that may be, the mission of each is the same. And it is with that mission that we are concerned just now.

Jesus planned that His Church should be a great man-winning and world-winning organization. The mission of the Church is to take Jesus to all men. It is God's messenger of His truth to all. In that it is the direct lineal descendant and heir of the Hebrew nation.

That nation was chosen to be a messenger or missionary nation. That was the one purpose of its special creation as a nation. It was not to be as the other nations, in the characteristics that commonly mark strong nations. It was to be a teacher-nation, receiving its message of truth direct from God, embodying that message in its own life, personally and nationally, and giving it out clearly and fully and winsomely to all the nations of the earth. And, in spite of its failures and breaks, that mission was accomplished to a remarkable extent.

The Church is its heir. It was born in the Jewish nation. It became the heir to its world-wide messenger mission. The great commission given by Jesus as He was leaving is the Church's commission for its great life-work. It was spoken to the group of Jewish men who were the nucleus of that body called the Church, that came into being on the day of Pentecost. That ringing, "Go ye into all the world and preach my gospel to the whole creation," is the Master's command to the Church which He brought into being. That is the Church's marching order by which its life is to be controlled and its faithfulness judged.

The scene of the Church's birth gives a vivid picture of its world-mission. It was born in a world-gathering. It was a world-church in its make-up at its birth. Men from all parts of the world became united in one body by the Spirit's touch that great Church birthday. Its birth-gift, the power of speaking many tongues, reveals at once the wide sweep of its service.

It was the Master's plan that His Church should speak all the languages of the earth then and now and always, as well as the language of heaven, the language of love. So every man would learn of Jesus in his native speech. The language of the cradle and of love-making and of the fireside, the language that most quickly kindles the fires in a man's heart, that was the language to be used in carrying Jesus to every man. That was Jesus' plan. The Church was rarely equipped with winning power for a world-service on its birthday in the gift of tongues.

Of course, this is not the only mission of the Church. That is to say, there are other purposes necessarily included in this. Taking the Gospel of Jesus to all men means more than merely taking it and telling it. The teaching and training and developing of those won to Jesus is an inseparable part of the Church mission. The great service of worship has always been recognized as a vital part of the Church life. Sometimes indeed these have been thought of, and still are thought of, as its only mission. But they grow distinctly out of the chief mission and are distinctly contributory and secondary to it. Indeed, they come into being only through the faithful doing of the chief task. Men were won. Then they met for worship and for training.

Reaching Out For a World.

The Church of those first years thoroughly understood what its great mission was to be. The first chapters of the Book of Acts vividly describe the ideal Church as planned by the Master, and as understood by those who felt His own personal touch upon themselves. Everybody went. They went to everybody. They went everywhere. There is pretty clear evidence that they actually went everywhere that men could go. They held their lives, and even their property, subject to the one great gripping purpose.

The greatest leader of the first century of the Church, Paul, who contributed most to its literature and exerted the greatest influence upon its life, was above all else a missionary leader. He went practically everywhere. He didn't go hastily, but by carefully thought-out plans. He won men to Christ, organized them into church societies, taught them, and sent them out to win others.

He worked in and out of the world's great city centres of his time. Ephesus, the Asiatic centre, Corinth, the centre of Greek influence, and, Rome, the centre of the world's governing power, were the scenes of his longest and most thorough campaigns. His choice of the centres was a master's strategic choice. For these centres sent their influence out to the ends of the earth. Paul's body might be in Ephesus or Corinth or Rome, but his thought and heart were on the world these cities reached by constant streams of influence.

And to these churches which he had won out of the raw stuff of heathenism he taught the same world-wide message. They became filled with this same world-wide spirit. The Thessalonian and Corinth Churches made their winning power felt throughout Greece and wherever Greek culture had gone, that is to say, everywhere.[22] The Church in Rome sent out the message of Jesus from its golden centre of all Roman roads, out to the farthest reaches of those far-reaching roads.[23]

It is striking, though not surprising, that the days of the Church's missionary activity have been the days of its greatest purity and vigor. When the vision of the Master's face on Olivet, and the ringing sound of His "Go ye" have been lost, the Church has written pages that would gladly be blotted out.

The Church has been a winning force beyond any power of calculation or words of description. All that has been done has been done through its activity and leadership. It is to-day a tremendous winning force, reaching its warm hands out to the very ends of the earth, and drawing men to Jesus. With our earnest prayer it will exert a yet mightier influence in taking Jesus to all men and in winning men everywhere to Jesus.

"Keep Step."

The Church is organized Christendom. It stands for the power of organization in God's service. All the vast power of the men and women whose hearts have been renewed by the Holy Spirit can be brought to bear at a given point with tremendous force through the Church. That was and is the Master's plan.

Organization is rhythmic action, a crowd of men working by agreement as one man. Never was the world so impressed with the almost magical power of organization as to-day. Never has organization been brought up to so high a pitch of efficiency. The unparalleled progress of the world in our day is due to the marvellous skill that has been developed in organized action.

Now, this almost omnipotent power of organization was meant to be used in winning the world back home. That is the meaning of the birth of the Church on that great Pentecost day. It is remarkable that the most perfectly matured bit of organization, in this day of matured and perfected organizations, is a church. For by common consent of thoughtful students the most finely adjusted and thoroughly matured bit of human machinery is the Roman Catholic Church.

If such a masterpiece of organization were controlled by the Spirit that controls in these early chapters of Acts, what tremendous and thorough and rapid work would be done in world-winning! And that is the goal toward which we should be driving. The evangelization of the whole world is an easy task for the whole Church. It would be a stupendous, if not an impossible task for the few. It has been a gigantic task for the leaders, who by dint of great planning and persuasion and earnest pleading have done as much as has been done. But if the whole Church or half of it were to go at it as earnestly as men go at other things, it would be an easy task.

I remember one October morning walking across an old smoke-begrimed bridge that spans the Ohio at Cincinnati. My eye was caught by a dingy sign in large plain letters nailed up in a prominent place. It simply, said, "Processions in crossing this bridge must break step." That was all. But it was imperative. It was a law. The processions must break step. The same men might cross the bridge, in as large numbers, at the same time, but they must not keep step.

The authorities knew perfectly well that for a body of men to march in step, every left foot set down at once, the impact of every right foot striking at the same moment, would so--I do not say, add to the force exerted--would so multiply the force exerted upon the bridge as to endanger its safety. The power of concerted action is immense beyond any power of conception. Every bit of power at command can so be brought to bear at one point with a force beyond any words to express.

Our Master reverses for us the old bridge sign. Out from Pentecost rings this word: "Let my followers all form in line, close ranks, and move out to a world conquest, and--keep step." That command of His will make a winning force so great as to shorten up the world's present calendars, and shorten up the world's pain, and lengthen out the new life that will come to untold numbers through Jesus.

"Find My World and Win it Back."

Nearly forty years ago David Livingstone, one of the Church's great world-winning pioneers, was lost in the depths of equatorial Africa. That is to say, he had advanced so far ahead of everybody else that the rest of us lost track of him, and so we called him lost. Perhaps we got the use of the word twisted, and we were the lost ones because we hadn't kept up. He had gone where the Church was told to go, but the rest of us had lingered behind, and so the main column became detached from its leader. Everybody was talking about the lost leader.

James Gordon Bennett, the owner of the New York Herald, sent a telegram to one of its correspondents, Henry M. Stanley. Bennett was in Paris, and Stanley at Gibraltar. The telegram summoned Stanley to come to Paris at once. Stanley went, reached Paris at midnight, knocked at the great newspaper-man's door, and asked what was wanted. "Find Livingstone," was the short, blunt reply. "How much money do you place at my disposal?" asked Stanley. "Fifty thousand dollars, or a larger sum. Never mind about the money; find Livingstone."

Stanley went. It took two years' time to get ready. It required a specially planned campaign and thorough preparation. The planning was done, and the world was thrilled when the bold missionary leader was found.

Our Master has sent a message to His Church. It is written down in a Book, and is being repeated by wireless messages constantly. He says, "Find my world, and bring it back; never mind about the expense of money and lives. Find my world and win it back." And the Church has the winning power to do it.

Each One of Us

Our Drawing Power.
Sowing Ourselves in Life's Soil.
Our Need of a World to Win.
Living Broad Lives in Narrow Alleys.
Giving God Free Use of Ourselves.
Growing Bigger for Service's Sake.
My Mission-field.
Our Spirit-touch.

Each One of Us

Our Drawing Power.

The greatest human winning force is a man swayed in every bit of his being by the Spirit of Jesus. Man himself is the most attractive thing on God's earth. He has the greatest drawing power.

He is attractive to God. He drew out of the creative power of God this world of beauty and splendor. He drew Jesus down from the throne of God to the earth, to poverty and hard labor, to the limitations of human life, to misunderstandings and suffering and pain and death. These were gladly yielded to because it was all for man. How the crowds used to draw Jesus! He would give His strength out to them without stint, until those closest to Him, not understanding, sought to interfere for the sake of his strength.

One man was a sufficient magnet to draw him away from His rest, and to draw out of Him the best of love and strength He had. Nicodemus' earnest presence wooed out of His busy life a whole evening, and drew out the matchless words that the world has been feeding upon ever since. The woman of little half-breed Sychar, though an outcast, drew from Him the touch of power that transformed her life and her village.

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Quiet Talks with World WinnersChapter IV: Part 4

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