/q (I Vhe Baptist World Alliance td a UJ J J o u 2 UJ s lU u: (U H ^ Q to z 6C < _C uJ 4) 4J s s etlier that they could not draw llienisclves. We present to you one who draws the hirgost audience i)erhai)s that we liave as far as his building's capacity is concerned, and one who draws a much wider au- dience over the country and over the world with his scholarlj' sayings and with his very useful life in the community. He is one of Philadel- phia's heart-men, he lives near the heart of the people, and when he speaks to you he will express the heart of Philadelphia in his welcome, I am sure. I gladly introduce to you Dr. Geo. H. Ferris, of the First Baptist Church. ADDRESS OF WELCOME. By GEORGE H. FERRIS, D. D., Pastor First Baptist Church, Philadelphia. In this gathering I soe an effort to fuse the various elements of our Baptist brotherhood. Though we glory in our diversity, and boast of our freedom, we recognize the weakness of action that is not united and common. The problem is not an easy one. Hoav can we maintain our traditions of liberty, and yet keep from disintegration'? How can we come together for toil and aspiration, and yet avoid every manifestation of the spirit of ecclesiastical tyranny? How can we express our faith in living terms, and yet not bind it to the transient formulas of some single age? Can the individual state his belief in his own way, and yet not vio- late the sanctities of the organization? These are a few of the questions that arise, when we begin to strive for both unity and freedom. Our Baptist movement was born of too great unity. To this day we live our life in the presence of a compact and powerful hierarchy. The very fact that the Roman Church has lived so many centuries of itself tends to silence criticism. Noble eras and great achievements are to be found in her history. Heroic and saintly characters have added lustre to her traditions. Her venerable rites, her sacred legends, her inspiring cathedrals, all conspire to dazzle the observer and make him look at her through colored lights of romance. Her services are spoken in a language that tells of a dead empire. Before the tongues of our modern nations found themselves, she had formulated her faith in dignified ceremonies that still are heard in her churches. She was ready, when the art of printing Avas discovered, to make it serve her ambitions. When a new continent was oi)ened to the Avorld, she sent her emissaries to plant the Cross on its shores. She saw the Arab hordes cross the Bosphoinis, seize the capital of the Eastern Empire, sweep over Africa, enter the jirovinces of Spain, and at last fall before hosts bearing her banners. To all this she points with pride. She has made it her supreme object to build up a mighty organization that time cannot destroy. She can stand by tlie ruins of the Forum and say, "These I saw in the days of their greatness." She can look on the monuments that crown the Acrop- olis and say, "Here was a religion that once treated me with proud dis- dain, but now, by the judgment of Cod. it has become but a niemory, while I have prospered and endured." This is ever the appeal her de- fenders make. To what can we point? Have we anything of which we can l)e proud? 6 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. Divided, scattered, broken, we are still but a loose and tentative band of brothers. Frightened by the very freedom for which we stand, we have clung to it blindly and desperately. Pledged to the defense of orthodoxy, we have given the world more heretics than any other movement that dared to caJl itself ' ' evangelical. ' ' Dazed over our own destiny, we have yet been the instrument, in the hands of God, of starting Christianity on her great modern missionary enterprise. At times we have seemed to envy Rome her power, and yet we have ever been her direct antithesis in practice. What, then, can we say for ourselves? This we will say. We have not built up a great hierarchy, but we have advanced the cause of a kingdom that ''cometh not with observation." We have failed to achieve the dreams of those among our leaders who would fain make of us a mighty church, but we have brought the blessings of light and lib- erty to every society we have touched. We have not consolidated our- selves at the expense of the lands we have visited, but have striven to uplift and bless and benefit. The turmoil of intellectual discussion that has been heard in our gatherings, has resulted, not in doctrinal system, but in the discovery of truth. We have sought to train men to think for themselves, and have ever taught them to respect the Voice that speaks with authority to their souls. And so, though our efforts have been scattered, though our freedom has been dangerous to ourselves, though our history is but the story of independent bands of volunteers who have gone forth from the farm and the shop, we still stand, scorn- ing the selfish ambitions of Rome, holding ourselves ready to go for- ward to evoke a nobler and diviner spirit in those lands, which belong, not to us, but to "our Lord, and to His Christ." And yet here we are, dreaming dreams of a "Baptist Alliance." We cannot get away from it. We dread the trick which Balak sought to play on Balaam. "Come with me," he said, "to another place, whence thou shalt not see them all, and curse me them from thence." It is always the prophet with a limited vision who is most free with his curses. It is from the point of observation, whence only a portion of the camp of Israel is seen, that the loudest denunciation comes. Great principles pitch their white tents on the vast plains of God's purposes. For a moment we see them. Then self-interest, or ease, or a false loy- alty, or some other Balak of our old life, offers us a bribe to curse them. We hunt out some hillock with a narrow and prejudiced outlook, whence we can denounce and desjjise. Those were wise words of the Apostle, "We know in part." We mis- take a segment of truth for the circled completeness of the infinite wis- dom. We hold our own belief with intensitj^, but fail to relate it to the great totality of God's family, and so are forever rejecting truths that are the complements of our own convictions, the allies of our own re- solves. We explore some little gulf beside the great broad sea of knowl- edge, and become so familiar Avith each wave-washed rock, each sedgy inlet, that we grow bold and confident, and assert that the whole bound- less ocean is enclosed in our narrow bay. We forget the tides that touch on other shores, the surfs that break on other sands. Two great truths are emphasized by this gathering. They involve the two most serious mistakes made by religion, when it takes on organized form. The first is that our individual beliefs should make us exclu- sive. There is a necessary limitation of knowledge. No single soul ever Monday, Jiiiic 1!).J lUA'oUD OF I'JiOCEEDINGS. 7 swept by his experience the entire yamut of Christianity. The man who lives in Cape Town never sees the Great Dipper, and the man who lives in New York never sees tlie Southern Cross, though botli tliese constella- tions shine brightly in the heavens each night. It is a limitation born of the impossibility of a single human being occupying two hemis- pheres at one and the same time. There is nothing wrong involved in the situation. No one would ever think of condemning the inhabitant of Patagonia because he cannot see tlie stars in Cassiopea. They never swim into tiiat ]iart of the sky which is viewed from the region where he lives. Some day we must realize that no man ever sees the whole truth. We differ in moral intensity and spiritual grasp. "We fall naturally into little groups of fervid mystics and cool pragmatists, of mercurial enthu- siasts and phlegmatic moralists by unalterable and ineradicable ten- dencies of our characters. Surround Thomas and John with whatever environment you will, and do you fancy you can ever transform the former into a rapt dreamer, or the latter into a calculating sceptic? Let Augustine and Seneca drink the cup of learning to its dregs, and do you suppose that all the culture in the world will make the former write Stoic maxims, or the latter see visions of "The City of God""? Put John Tauler and Charles Darwin where you will, and do you fancy you can ever turn the one into a tabulating scientist, or the other into an unregulated mystic ? No ! we have here differences that go deeper than matters of opinion — differences that arise, not from accidents of circum- stances, and place, and birth — differences that have a place in the great economj' of truth, and play some important part in the progressive pur- poses of God. Finality is to be found in all, and not in any one. This is not scepticism. It does not deny that in the mind of God there is an all-comprehensive plan of trutli, perfect in its symmetry, and complete in its outline. It does not deny the possibility of each one of us finding some form of thought, or principle of action, that meets the needs of our experience, or expresses the faith of our soul. It merely asks this pointed question: "When I have found such forms, such ideals, such systems, what attitude shall I adopt toward other men, whose methods and thoughts differ from mine?" Shall I claim tliat mine is the final faith, the absolute truth, the way preferred by God, which men re- ject because of their blindness, or miss because of their sin? Shall I set up my way of looking at truth as the great goal of the ages, declaring that all the long labors of investigation and the patient searchings of human knowledge are destined to lead mankind into the narrow en- closure of my creed? Or shall I admit that I only know in part; that I am able to see but a very minute arc on the great circle of absolute truth ; and that many priceless principles yet remain to be learned by me from other men, who see things clearly that now are hid from my grop- ing and limited life? This suggests the second great truth, involving another mistake made by organized religion. It is that we can arrive at a residuum of belief, a definite set of propositions, to which we can point, and say, "That is Christianity." Christianity is not a "least common denominator." Christianity is not like a composite photograph, made up out of that which is common to a group of men, whose individuality has been eliminated, and whose peculiar opinions have been suppressed. My dis- tinctive and personal views may be precisely the contribution which God 8 THE BAPTIHT WORLD ALLIANCE. intended I should make to that vast totality which is to bear the name of Christ. It is out of the many varieties and mysterious forms of our human nature, that seem to be fitted by God to grasp fragments of the universal wisdom, that the One True Church must be formed. All have a right to exist. Not one can claim to have carried his compass and surveying-chain around the whole realm of truth. Not even an Ecumeni- cal Council, or a World's Alliance, sees everything, or has a right to play the despot, and snatch the sovereign power from a divinely ordained democracy. How is it in the social organism? Is not the State still striving to find a solution of the problem of unity and freedom? We find first a great diversity. Did you never wonder where the men all come from to perform the various and peculiar tasks of society? How is it that each year just so many men turn eagerly to painting pictures, or classifying mosses, or exploring unknown lands? Some men are born for the ocean, and their first sniff of salt air fires the soul, like an exiled Jew's first glimpse of the Holy City. Some men seem to be built and baptized of God for the solution of problems in mathematics, and their hearts throb as excitedly over the finish of a labyrinth in Calculus as did the heart of Cortez when he looked down on the Pacific. Who of us has not some musical friend, who seems good for nothing else? or some mechanical friend, who can sit and tinker with his back turned to the Alps? or some surgical friend, who will perform a delicate operation with as much de- light as an epicure manifests over his dinner? This situation jDresents a problem to society. Unity must be realized, not by suppression, but by exjn-ession. We cannot equate men, or shape them in the same mold. We cannot make them all musicians. What a mad bacchanalian festival of piping Pans and flute-playing Apollos so- ciety would become, if she tried that. She would have unity. She would have such complete unity that self-destruction would result. If the wars and struggles of the ages have taught us anything, it is this : Society realizes its ideal just in proportion to the freedom it allows to the individual, to develop his OAvn personality, and follow his own bent. The perfect State is one that is founded on that which each man con- tributes. Its unity is highest when its diversity is greatest. The same principle governs the church. She must learn to glory in her diversity. She must seek her unity, not in similarity of views, not in likeness of character, not in the agreement of her members over a set of abstract propositions; but in that divine ideal that brings likeness out of differences, and finds its common bond in that which each contributes. It is our Baptist brotherhood that first dreamed this dream. Dimly have we seen it. We have blindly sought a unity, not of subtraction, but of addition. We have sought to find our common faith, not in some form of words that expresses the least possible belief of a Christian, but rather in the fulness and largeness of an accumulated experience, gath- ered from the whole family of God. Our creed, if we have one, is not a modicum of truth, that has been whittled down to a generalization; but a great passion for those unfolding principles and indefinable ideals which we find in the person of Jesus Christ. We have dared to believe that God "gave Him to be the Head over all things to the church." Professor Glover, in his great Avork on "The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire." says this: "Two things stand out, when we study the character of early Christianity — its great complexity and va- Monday, Juiu« 10.1 h'KCnUD OF rROCEKDIXCH. 9 riety, aiul its unity in the personality ot Jesus oT Nazareth." We can trace those two things riglit back into the band of cliscii)les that o;atliered about Plini at the beginning. Among thoin ^ve find two men, whose pres- ence there is very suggestive. "We find Simon the Zealot, one of the fiery spirits who rose in insurrection against the taxes imposed on the Jews by the Romans; and we find Matthew the Publican, who was em- l)hiyed by tlie Roman Government in collecting tliose same taxes. Both of these men believed in the coming of a Messianic Kingdom. Imagine them sitting down to fornndate a foreign policy for that kingdom! What a happy time they would have had. What fused them into a common brotherhood Avas simi)ly their love and loyalty to Christ. So we welcome you here with your |)entecostal tongues. Parthians and Medes may not be able to understand Elamites and Mesopotamians. Those who dwell in Judea and Cajipadocia may have a different way of doing things than is customary in Pontus and Asia. Phrygians and Pamphilians may be tempted to think there is something especially sa- cred about the phraseology in which they express their faith. But back of it all there will be a common conviction and a common love. The con- viction is simply the Baptist belief that the church that would represent the religion of Christ in all its fulness will be one that allows most free- dom to the various types and tendencies of Christian character to ex- press their love, and realize their aims. So we welcome your various views. We Avant vieivs. The man who looks up at the Matterhorn from Valtournanche sees the same proud peak as the man who looks up from Zermatt, but how difTerent is the vision. They view the same mountain, but they do not have the same view of the mountain. We rejoice in the majesty and sublimity of our Master. Not yet has the mind of man exhausted him. That we may look away toward the lofty heights of his purity and his righteousness, and tell each other what we see, is the purpose, I take it, of this gather- ing. Our common faith is to be found in the Avords of the Apostle, "that in all things he might have the preeminence." Dr. Conwell: Brethren, I esteem it an honor indeed to-day to stand thus between the people of Philadelphia and this great company from all parts of the world, and T esteem it a special privilege to introduce a friend, to introduce a man of the people, to introduce one of the great benefactors of our city, to introduce a man, back upon whose adminis- tration the future centuries will look Avith pride as they see the great enterprises he has started going, the boulevards and parks and wharA-es and great commercial extensions which are sure to come from the plans that the present Mayor of our city has laid before our people. We esteem it a great great kindness on his part in such a very busy life to come from his administration of the public affairs of the city to giA-e greetings to the friends we Avish to Avelcome to-day. I therefore retreat before the thought that I should be an introducer of one Avho around the Avorld is knoAvn among the cities as one Avho is laying not only the foundation of a beautiful and great city for Philadelphia, but by doing that is laying the foundations for greatness for all the cities of the civilized Avorld. I gladly introduce — if such a word is proper — to this company the present ^layor of our city, the Honorable Mr. Reyburn. 10 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. Mayor John E. Reyburn was enthusiastically received and said : Dr. Conwell, and those that are here representing all parts of the world, I can only say that we extend to you a greeting that brings with it the hope that your coming together here may not only result in the great good of the church you represent but that your coming here may result in great good of all men no matter where they may come from nor what their conditions may be. We believe that this assemblage coming here as it does will not only see our city but that our city may have the great advantage of seeing you and taking part not only in addressing you but in that mysterious almost indefinable feeling that comes to men when they come together and have a common purpose — the benefit, the uplift- ing and the strengthening of the great moral and religious and with them the great civil movements that are taking place in the world to-day, that we believe must come from the deliberations of such a body as this here in a city that really gave to man the right to worship, the right of civil and religious liberty without restraint. Because after all the founder of this city and the founder of this commonwealth first proclaimed those principles, and the men that came here came here with that belief and with those ideas; and when those who preceded us in the formation of our system of government met here it was be- cause they felt that they could talk, could reason, they could meet each other upon a common ground and in that way advance the great liberties of man. So we to-day, and when I say we I mean our people, because I know how they feel — we greet you with this feeling believing that it must and will redound to the good of all people from all sections of the world. To my mind this convention really means much more, and as I stand here to-day the head of a government of a million and three- quarters of people, realizing as I have had to do for the past four years the great multiplicity, the great differences in men, and believing as I do that they must be met and that they are growing and pressing upon us, and that in the right government of cities, to see the right and to do the right is the great question, that is to come not only to Philadelphia but to all the world. These great processions of men and of women and all peoples coming together in cities are creating a problem that not only the public offi- cers but all the religious and moral bodies in the world will have to face and study with a broadness of view", with a humanity looking to hu- manity, looking to the hearts of men and to their souls and making them stronger and building them up and teaching them and showing them the way that they shall go for good. I can say to you frankly that it sometimes makes me stagger to know what to do. For examjjle, on a Sunday go out on our streets and see the children and the young men and the men themselves congregated together; go to one of our streets and stand, aye, right on the corner of this church, and look up and down and see the young men gathered together in groups. What do they do? They come out there sometimes innocently, always I think innocently, but full of animal spirits, and they do some little thing, they guy some man that goes along because of some peculiaritj" in his apiDearance or in Monday, June 19.] RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS. 11 bis dress, and irom that little thing will start some outrage that the police have to take in hand. What are we to do? We cannot shut them all up, but such bodies as this can study and they can see and they can suggest and they can help by their experience and their wisdom. Com- ing from all quarters of the world they can study out the problems and they can give some thought and some idea by which the authorities may better know how to govern. My friends, this question is so great and so pressing that I cannot help seeking to impress it as strongly as I can upon you to think of it, to discuss it, and to give the benefit of your consideration and thought and belief, not only to the city of Philadel- phia but to all the world. You are men who believe and think rightly and you can guide and I beg of you to do this thing with all your hearts and with all your minds and with all your souls because it is, as I have said, the great question of the day. I may exaggerate it, but I do not believe I do, because I see so much of it everywhere, the need of it. It is easy to make a city beautiful, it is easy to make a great commer- cial city, to solve all these great problems of business; but when it comes to solving the great questions of the right government of men, the others sink into insignificance. No one man can think it out; it will come and must come from the work of many minds and many hearts, thinking of the good of the men and the people of the world. We are all one kind alter all; the same heart beats in our breasts, and the same soul God Almighty put into all of us and we must not forget it, we must think of each other, of man, of our fellow-men. With this idea, with the belief that we will come to a solution by the combined thought and wisdom of men of all creeds and conditions, I come here to-day and welcome you because I believe it is one of those steps that will lead to the great betterment and uplift of mankind. (Applause.) Dr. Conwell : The Mayor has expressed the feeling of us all in Phil- adelphia, that the great moral influence of this assembly will be a mighty blessing to our city. The next address of welcome will be by Dr. Strong, of Rochester, representing the General Convention of the Baptists of North America. Dr. Augustus H. Strong was received with applause and said : I count it one of the great honors of my life that I am permitted on behalf of the General Convention of the Baptists of North America to welcome to our shores and to our hearts our brethren from across the seas. Perhaps I ought to explain to those dear brethren from foreign parts who we are that welcome them. On this continent we have four great Baptist bands, the Baptists of Canada, the Baptists of the North and West, the Baptists of the South, the Negro Baptists, and besides all these a growing number of Baptists in the adjacent countries in which the Spanish language is spoken. Each of these groups has of late years shown a remarkable disposition to come together for larger and more effective service, and we all are mustered under tlie one banner of the General Convention of the Baptists of North America in the spirit of 12 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. Christian fraternity and spiritual reciprocity to fulfil the better the two great commandments to love God supremely and our neighbor as our- self. But we reach out to-day beyond our own continent and gladly recog- nize the essential oneness of all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and submit themselves to the government of his law. And this Alliance furnishes us, we think, with a true type of Christian unity. It is not a unity of a government or of external organization, but it is a unity in Christ, a unity of the spirit, a unity which we believe is pro- moted and upheld by the Holy Spirit of God. Our Baptist denomina- tion of late years has been entering into world relations like our coun- try, which only a few decades ago had little part to play in the politics of the world, but now is having a very considerable part to play. Some of our distant possessions have been gained indeed by war, but that war was forced upon us, and our influence I think unquestionably has been for peace. We desire to cultivate all those personal and social and ecclesiastical relations which would make war forever impossible. This World Alliance, my brethren, is in itself a great guarantee that in years to come all causes of dispute shall be settled not by war but by international arbitration. How shameful it would be if after such unions as this, differences between brethren could ever be again settled by ar- bitrament of arms. It is a great pleasure to me to-day to welcome our English brethren who have been conducting the fight against tyranny in matters of religion. I am proud of the record of Lloyd-George — (loud applause and three cheers) — that stalwart Baptist who stands in the forefront of the British Government to-day. And it is my great pleasure and honor to-day to welcome the leader of the great Non-conformist movement in Great Britain, (Applause) who occupies so fitly the place of President of this Alliance. He has suffered in the cause of religious freedom, and we can almost say that like the Apostle Paul he bears in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. All America honors him, honors him not only as a successor in the pulpit of MacLaren and of Spurgeon, but as the captain of the liberal hosts in the great struggle for disestablishment and separation of Church from State. It stirs my heart to-day to w^elcome so many representatives of the great forward movement of evangelical Christianity in Eastern Europe. We have sympathized most deeply with our brethren, our persecuted brethren in Hungary and in Russia. Their bonds have galled us and we have suffered with them, but God in his wise and infinite providence has made the blood of the martyrs the seed of the Church and has made the wrath of man to praise him and the pouring out of his gra- cious spirit and the conversion of thousands to our Baptist faith has provoked our deepest gratitude. We welcome these brethren in the name of our Lord and we pray that what they see in American Christi- anity and liberty may give them new heart and new hope in pushing the conquest of Christ in the countries from which they come. The first Napoleon was defeated only Avhen he ceased to attack. The church that ceases to be evangelistic ceases to be evaneelieal. The Monday, .June I !». J UFA'OUD OF I'NOCEEDINGS. 13 church that ceases to be evangelical very speedily ceases to exist. The bicycle can keep up so long as it keeps on. Revival and ingathering are the breath of our Baptist life. We are created, not for our conversion only, not for our own salvation only, but for the conversion and salva- tion of others. Just so soon as we hide our light in a dark lantern that light begins to go out. The Israel of God under the Old Testament, when it looked upon itself as (iod's special favorite and regarded outly- ing nations with contempt, paid the penalty by being exiled and scat- tered to the ends of the earth; and the seven churches of Asia whose candlestick once was brightly shining, just so soon as they ceased to ])ropagate their faith, became extinct. We can keep only as we impart. As we have freely received so we must freely give. This Baptist World Alliance can justify its existence only as it makes an effort for the con- version of the world, and such effort as this is in direct line with the spirit of our time. We recognize the fact that there is a sense of unity abroad in the earth that did not exist half a century ago. We sympa- thize with the massacred Ai*menians and starving Chinese as our fathers did not. The Hague Tribunal is the answer to the cry of humanity for the rule of right ratlier than the rule of force. India and Japan and Persia and Turkey are waking to a new national consciousness, and in- deed there is a dawning solidarity of the Orient to which we need to pay particular heed. This great movement is too vast to be the product of individual leaders; it is the result of a mighty movement of the Spirit of God on the very heart of humanity, the Spirit of God moAnng on the face of the waters in days of creation bringing order out of confusion and cosmos out of chaos. For mankind is one in spirit and an instinct bears along Round the earth in electric circles the swaft flash of right or wrong. Whether conscious or unconscious, j'et humanity's vast frame Through its ocean-sundei*ed fibres feel the gush of joy or shame. In the gain or loss of each race all the rest have equal claim. So wrote James Russell Lowell in his poem entitled ''The Present Cri- sis," and the title of that poem is a very significant one, for the crisis is a very present one with us to-day. The spirit of evil is striving to capture this mighty movement and to make it subserve its purj^oses. Take China for example; only a few years ago China was a vast mollusc without any nerve connections be- tween its widely separated parts; you could slice off a whole province and yet the rest would not feel the loss. All is changing now; railroads and telegraphs are furnishing the nerves, the newspaper and the post are sending messages, a thrill of patriotic feeling is animating the body politic. Japanese success rouses national pride. China is arming for conflict ; she will become one of the mightiest nations of the earth when her four hundred millions are ready for the fray. She can inun- date Europe, aye, as the Huns in the fifth century, and as the Saracens in the eighth century, she can threaten the very existence of Western 14 TEE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. chilizations. Are the Christian nations ready to face the solidarity of the Orient? I do not know what the battle of Armageddon in the Book of Eevelation means, but I do know that this growing solidarity of the East must be met by a growing solidarity of the Western powers, not a solidarity of arms and battleships, but a solidarity of friendship and of peaceful pacts, a solidarity that has behind it the spirit of Christ, the Prince of Peace. No more exploitation of the weaker nations for the benefit of the strong, but a helping of the weaker nations to take their place among the strong; no more war, but arbitration the open door in trade in place of isolation; good-will in place of jealousy; love in place of hate. These are the Christian weapons with which we must meet and overcome the solidarity of evil. My brethren, this new self-consciousness of nations must be matched and met by a new self-consciousness of denominations. Our Baptist host, now seven million strong, has a sense of denominational v;nity such as it never had before. Let it supplement this sense of denominational unity with a sense of its spiritual unity with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sinceritj^ and submit themselves to the government of his law. Let this World Alliance take into its heart the whole world for which Christ died as it only can by effort and prayer for the world's conversion. The General Convention of the Baptists of North America welcomes very heartily to-day these brethren from all the ends of the earth in hope and in confidence that their meetings will inspire us all with new faith and new courage and new zeal and new liberality and new prayer for the world-wide triumph of Christ and his throne. (Applause.) Dr. Conwell: I thank you on behalf of the world that is seeking lib- erty for your tribute to Lloyd-George. I think it would be better for England if they celebrated the coronation by putting a majority in the JBouse of Lords of men like Lloyd-George, and I know it would be a great deal better for us if we could fill up our Senate or purchase seats for men like him there to do away with the obstructions to arbitration. We are happy this afternoon to have been represented by these ad- dresses; we are exceedingly fortunate and ought to be thankful to God for the kind providence which has preserved the life and brought to us the representative of the inner heart of the Baptist movement, the gen- tleman, the brother, the scholar, the pastor, the Baptist, to whom such eulogy has been given this afternoon. Dr. Clifford, of London. Dr. John Clifford was received with cheers and said : My dear friends : You make me feel at home by that sort of welcome. I had an anticipation of it during the meetings of the Convention last week when I was brought up to this platform and introduced to the gathering and received not only a Chautauqua salute, but also some good bold round English ''Hurrahs." I felt at once there were some of my own country- men here, and I felt at home. I have had no difficulty during the last month in attaining to that condition. Yours is a great country, great in extent of territory, great in its population, great in its commerce, great in Monday, June 1!). J RECOItb OF I'ROt'EHDiyCii. 15 its ideals, but I have found that you are greatest in your generosity and your liospitality. It has been my privilege to be in New York and re- ceive manil'estations of kindness (here that crowded a week. I went afterward to Lake Mohonk, to the Conierence there, a Peace Con- ference (he like of which 1 have never heard of before, and certainly never had the opportunity of taking part in. Afterward 1 went to Chi- cago. I am rapidly acquiring your language; I find I have had to com- pile a new dictionary, an American-English dictionary, which I am get- ting ready, and possibly may ask the Baptist Publication Society to put it out, so that when my benighted fellow-countrymen arrive here they may not be lost when they hear such words as ''grouchy." I have had to make inquiries in all directions concerning the improvements you have effected in the good old Anglo-Saxon speech, and when I get home I shall have a dialect that I think will probably bewilder my hearers, and if I use some of your language I shall certainly find a considerable number of inquirers waiting with questions after I have delivered my say. It has been my privilege this afternoon to listen to utterances which have filled me with the greatest gratitude, and have set before me a task the like of which I have never had to face. Again and again it has been my opportunity to respond to welcomes which have been uttered in the Old Country and also in Berlin, but never have I listened to a series of statements like those which have been given to us to-day, nor have I found myself so embarrassed in the task of expressing fully and ade- quately the gratitude of the visitors on this occasion to those who have given us this heart}-, this enthusiastic, this most cordial welcome. To Dr. Conwell I should like to say, ''Thank you" with all my heart. It is a joy to meet him again; we had him in London and we shall never for- get, certainly I shall never forget, some of the stories he told us. I am a man without stories; I have none, but when Dr. Conwell came to us he told us some that I actually remembered. I have the good fortune to forget stories, and when they are told to me they still have a wonderful perennial mirth. Dr. Conwell 's stories stick. They have in them a merit which it is impossible for me to forget. I am sorry to find he has been suffering recently and I am sure I am uttering what is the fervent wish not simply of the English, Scotch, and other folk who had the privilege of making his acquaintance on the other side of the seas, but the wish pf all the visitors on this occasion, that his health may be speedily re- established so that he may go forward w-ith the great work God has helped him to do and for which he carries so great a burden of respon- sibility. And what a Mayor you have got in Philadelphia! We grow mayors in England ; some of them are good ; some of them are otherwise, much otherwise; but I must honestly say this that I have never listened to the speech of the Chief Magistrate of a great city with so much religious passion in it, so much insight, so much clear perception of the difficul- ties that have to be mastered in the development of civic life, and such manifest sincerity and consecration as I have found in listening to the 16 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. speech of the Mayor to-day. It is a civic welcome which you have given to us. As I passed along your streets and observed your devotion to the past in the building of monuments to your great men, in the commemora- tion of their heroic deeds, I discovered one day something which ap- pealed to me instantly. In front of me there actually stood on your cen- tral City Hall, clear in the daylight — I discovered it again illuminated at night — ''Welcome to the Baptist Convention." They have never done such thing's in Glasgow; they have never done such things in Edinburgh; they have never done such things in Old England. If the day were to dawn when at the Mansion House, the great central edifice in our city, there were the words ''Welcome to the Baptists of the World," I should think the millennium would come by the next post. It is a great achieve- ment that you have scored; yes, it indicates this, that the statement of your Dr. Benedict of some time ago that Philadelphia was the emporium of Baptist influence is not gas, but that it describes a reality, that it de- scribes the fact that you have here more than a hundred organized churches and I think more than fifty thousand church-members; at any rate you have gained such recognition in the public thought and in the public life of this city that you can have on the central city edifice, crowned as it is by the statue of William Penn, the second founder of Quakerism, one of the greatest men God ever grew — on that particular edifice you have a welcome to the Baptist Convention. I hope it is al- tered to-day to "Welcome to the Baptist World Alliance"; if it is not try to get that done; I have no doubt you might do it. But it not only indicates the fact that you Baptists in Philadelphia have gained this high position but it also shows this that the Mayor of this city, and as he spoke for the people behind him, I may say the people of this city, recog- nize that the churches of this country of the United States as a whole, have undertaken not merely the building up of their own inner life but that they have branched out over the walls of their churches and have sought to make justice around about men as a common air, that they have striven to express their sympathy with the laboring people, and to get rid of the slums of their cities, to advance education, and in every way possible to secure those wider issues of mankind in which humanity rejoices and which our Master described as the coming of the Kingdom of God. I rejoice, therefore, and I would express to the Mayor were he present, on behalf of this great assembly our most sincere and hearty thanks for the welcome that has been given us by the representative, chief and supreme, of the civic life of this great municipality. But we are come to Philadelphia brethren. Baptists are at home in Holland to a slight degree because there are associations with the found- ers of what may be described as modern Baptist life; Baptists are at home in Bedford as they link themselves up with John Bunyan; Baptists are at home in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in which Mr. Spurgeon preached so long — and let me remind you at this juncture that this is Mr. Spurgeon 's birthday; had he lived till now h^' would have been sev- enty-seven years of age, just two years in front of me. Let us give thanks to God from the bottom of our hearts and with all our hearts :M(m(lay, June lit.l REVORD OF PROCEEDINGS. 17 for the gilt of that t-reat man not only to our Loudon but to the world, whose influence is still streaming out in many, many directions for the uplifting of the churches and for the salvation of men. (Audience stands in recognition of this sentiment.) I say we are at home in these various places but it seems to me we ought to be, and for myself I am prepared to assert that we ought to be more at home in Philadelphia than in any other city upon this earth. I do not mean that I am going to stay in Philadelphia! not at all. I have a deacon with me who is under solemn covenant to take me back to the Old Country. My church has had nearly fifty-three years of me; what a long-suffering generation they must be! Nevertheless they were very anxious that somebody should come over witli me lest you should take hold of this young man and try to keep him in these freer climes; it was imagined he would be vei-y much more at home. But I mean to go back to the Old Country. London and then Heaven has been my motto for many, many years. In Philadelphia I feel more at home than I have in any city that I have yet visited — not even Chicago, and certainly not New York would be able to detain me. If there were a chance of keeping me here it would be Philadelphia. Was it not here that the great Declaration of Inde- pendence was framed? Was it not here that that great charter of free- dom was issued which not only created the thirteen new States with the Stars and with the Stripes, but also sent pulsing throughout the whole of humanity's life a new feeling, a fresh emotion, an anticipation of the arrival of a great democratic era in which the people should rule themselves for themselves and for the good of their brothers and the glory of God ? Now, if a Baptist is anything he is independent. He be- lieves in that charter, he had it even before it was made in your Inde- pendence Hall, had it for his churches. In fact his independence has been during these later years our principal difficulty Avith him. He is so violent- ly, so intensely, and with so much exaggeration independent that we have been obliged to think over again the old problems of personal liberty and independence, and ask whether we have yet given to them their right, their true setting. Well, if there is a spot where it is possible for inde- pendence to get its true setting, to breathe its most healthful and quick- ening atmosphere, it must be in the City of Brotherly Love, is that not so? (Voices: Yes.) What we need, to establish our independence along right lines, is brotherly love, what we need to limit our independence by the action of the individual possessing it, is brotherly love, and here we are in the city that, recognizing Baptist independence, gathers around us an air that is so saturated with genuine affection for one another and for the Christ who has saved us as that we shall be sure to go forward in the future shaping our church life, — and that is one of the great deeds that the Baptist World Alliance has to accomplish — shaping our church life so that the weakest church will get help from the strongest and the weakest brother will get help from the strongest, and the wealth of all will be for the enriching of each and the wealth of each for the enriching of all. It is to Philadeli)hia we come, and we come here as a Baptist World Alliance. 18 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. Now this is the latest i^hase of Baptist life, the latest development of our thought, emotion, association. I suppose most of you know that we are only about six years old. It was in 1905 that this Alliance was born and some of you had the joy of meeting in our city at the Congress over which our beloved and revered friend Dr. Alexander McLaren pre- sided. Since then we have had a gathering in Europe, a gathering at Berlin, the European Congress, when we met our Russian brethren, and we spoke with great wisdom there. Dr. Conwell. The Kaiser was not far- off, the Czar was within hearing also, consequently we spoke with very great wisdom, but with intense sympathy, and we sent messages to our brethren through those present, which have been heart-cheer and solace and quickening for them from that day to this. The solitary souls that had ascended the lofty heights of faith and determined to keep the ram- parts against all comers had found themselves encouraged by the recog- nition of the fact that there are some eight millions holding their faith, standing on their principles, proclaiming the same Evangel, and they are going forward with their work with greater devotion and greater zeal. In addition to that this Alliance has done one remarkable thing; it has got put into "Wiestminster Abbey — now weigh this, because there is a world of meaning in it — a memorial window to the great John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress. It cost seven thousand dollars. It is already there, not completed, but it is there and I can assixre you that it is a thing of beauty, and it will be a gospel forever, a gospel proclaiming the passing away of the ei'as of ii'on persecution, the passing away of the times of great peril for the preachers of the gospel, the passing away of the period in which one church should be absolutely dominant over every other church and there should be no freedom for the expression of human faith according to the sense and feeling of the mind possessing that faith. Yes, it is a great event. The idea came to us from America ; we carried it out in England, and amongst the things you will have to go and see when you pass over to our country' will be the John Bunyan window in Westminster Abbey. Yes, God takes care of his faithful ser- vants. Some day Fetler's name will be thought of in the same Avay. Some day these sufferers by persecution will be thought of with thankful- ness as pioneers who have led forward the army of God toward the prize of the righteousness for which that army is destined. We have done something ; we have come here to do more. This is to be a gathering for business ; we are to shape the future of the Baptist folk as far as we possibly can, to determine along what lines our future de- velopment shall take place, and our outlook, let me say, is bright as the brightest. Never was there a time, surely I may say, when the principles for which we stand and for which we have fought, were so dominant in the life of the world as to-day. You have referred, Dr. Strong, to my friend of twenty years, Lloyd-George. I should be sorrj' to call him Sir Lloyd-George; I prefer him in his native simplicity. I tell him this, he may not know it, but I am perfectly certain that the Budget of 1908 which created such a consternation in our country, and which brought upon him the «»ialedictions of all the high and titled, and the Budget of Monday. .Tun.' l!).l HKCOUD OF PnoCEEDiyafi. 19 liHl, are simply the ;ti)|)lioation of Bai)tist ideas to social life. I am pre- pared to i)rove it beibre any committee you like to appoint — simply the application of the ideas in which that boy was trained. He was trained in a little Baptist conventicle, and though Chancellor of the Exchequer and the foremost statesman, I venture to say, in the British world, when he goes to that little village, he attends that little conventicle and wor- ships with the people. He is Avhat you may call a working Baptist. We have some people in the Old Country who are not working Baptists ; they may be talking Baptists, they may be subscribing Baptists, but Lloyd- Geoi"«;e is a working Baptist, and God has raised him up a prophet statesman to incorporate in the legislation of our country the great principles for which our fathers fought more than three centuries ago. Is not our outlook bright? Ought we not to be full of hope and ready for a complete consecration? I appeal to you friends; we have not reached our best in England yet; we have got the House of Lords on its knees. That is something; it is a good attitude; there is hope in it. They have already confessed and distinctly confessed tliat the principle of hereditary right to legislate is a dead one and never henceforward will it have any chance of resurrection. We shall get out of that diffi- culty I doubt not. Lord Morley when he was over in this country said you have no House of Lords and he ventured to say this also, that he did not think you were worse by its absence; he said you have no State es- tablishment of i"eligion and he ventured to affirm that your principle of neutrality toward all eliurehes was accompanied with as vigorous and genuine and real religious life as that with which he was acquainted in tlie Old Country. We are looking forward in the Old Coun- try. You are looking forward in this land; you have your problems to solve and have your great tasks given you of God and you are ready surely in the spirit of Christ who gave himself for our salva- tion to set yourselves to those tasks, assured that whether your day be long or Avhether it be short you will do your utmost so that the Kingdom of our God may come all over the world and tlie freedom we possess to- day shall be everybody's possession, and the justice which rules in our lands shall rule in all lands, and so the kingdoms of this world become the Kingdoms of our God and of his Christ. (Loud applause.) Dr. Conwell: Brethren, it is the history of this world tliat the great forces are often and perhaps always out of sight, and the tbrce that has made your reception what it is, that has made your coming so conveni- ent and will, we hope, make you so comfortable and happy, is not repre- sented by the speakers on this platform here to-day. There are men be- hind the scenes doing the hard long work of the past month that do not come to the front, that make up a program and leave themselves out of it, and to such men as that we all are under deep obligation. To men like Rev. Mr. Wilbur and Rev. ]\rr. Steward, and more especially per- haps I might mention Rev. Howard Wayne Smith, night and day work- ing to make this a success, wearing himself out in the cause of his brethren. I was going to say this when incidentally someone tells me 20 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. that he has a notice to give and so I know he is here and I want to pre- sent to you Rev. Howard Wayne Smith. Rev. Howard WiAyne Smith: This is the greatest pleasure of my life, the privilege of serving the brethren. (Makes announcement.) Chairman Conwell: What welcome can we give to Brother Fetler? What can we do more than to rise and say "God bless you," and sing "Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love." Brother Fetler, we welcome you with all our souls. Rev. William Fetler, of St. Petersburg: Beloved brothers and sis- ters, I would fain withdraw myself from this platform and from saj'ing anything to you to-day, and give my place to one of the great veterans in the army of Russian brothers, to one of those perhaps who have been in exile or in prison, to our President, Mr. Golayeff, or perhaps Brother Stepanoff, of Moscow Baptist church, or Brother Pavloff who has also suffered so much. All this kindness you have shown to me just now I can luiderstand that I have to pass it over to my brethren who have worn the chains which I am sorry I have not had the pleasure of ex- periencing. Now, after all, here we are in this wonderful city! It seems that we have just crossed the Jordan of Atlantic and passed into your promised land with milk and honey and all manner of good things flowing down there; and I must say that some of us almost feel a little seasick yet after that great journey over the Atlantic and the wonderful sights we have seen already in your Canaan. We saw the Anaks of your skyscrapers; they are high men indeed and we have been wondering at them; but we have been so pleased to find that instead of making ef- forts to kill us you have brought us into a banqueting hall, and the banner over us is your Philadelphian love. And in return as you have been so kind in not thinking of killing us except by love, I do not think that we are going to kill you. As we see the scarlet line all around here (indicating bunting decorations) and that is the sign of peace between all of us, and this is the fact that we have been brought together by nothing less than the Blood of Jesus Christ. This blood of the Lord Jesus Christ has united not only our heads but our hearts, this blood of Jesus Christ which we are trying to preach as faithfully as men can preach in Russia, and you in other countries as well and in this country, this has brought us together, and I am sure if not this then nothing will ever unite us. Now we are so pleased not only to find all this kindness but also to understand that we have come for a great work here. As in those old phrases it is said, Brethren, friends indeed, lend me your ears. We have not come for pastime but for earnestness; Ave have come as we under- stand for great work and this Baptist World Alliance has brought us to- gether for this great work. It was just now mentioned that the Baptist World Alliance was born in the year 1905, and if so many Russians are present here, then I might say perhaps one reason which is a Monday, June l!i. J RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS. 21 special pleasure to us, because we have brought the twin brother of this Woild Alliance. In the year 1905 the religious liberty of Russia was born ami we are so glad to commemorate together tlie sixth birthday of the Baptist World Alliance and of tlie religious liberty in Kussia. When that liberty was proclaimed then many friends came and said, and read in the papers — which are by no means always inspired — I am afraid that that Ukase of the Czar is only on paper and that it will not be car- ried out. I am glad to say that so far as Russia is concerned and that religious libert}^, that though we have not by any means everything that we as Baptists would like to have, we are having a great deal which we wanted. Some people, of the Christian people, said. ''Well if we have not got everything we wanted we are not going to take what we get." My little bit of medicine i'or them was this: At that time we had in Russia all the time only dry ci'usts of bread, and now they have given us a bit of whole fresh baked black bread; let us eat it, and I am not going to be such a fool as to say, "No, I won't take that bread if you won't give me butter and cheese with it." We will have the butter and cheese as well in the time to come, and I believe the Baptist World Alliance is going to help us to get it; but we are enjoying tremendously our black bread after the crusts, and when we get the white bread you have here in Amei'ica, well, we shall be more glad still. But we breathe somewhat freely after all those many years of Pobiedonostseff, Procurator of the Holy Synod, and all the other men who are trying to crush every bit of freedom in that country. We are glad, and I think I can freely say that we expect greater things still. There is another thing for which I have personally to be thankful to the Baptist World Alliance. As I suppose most of you have heard something about it. Just before I had to leave for this country to enjoy the beautitul meetings here, there came a police order from the south of Russia; it was passing a sentence that I must be put under police super- vision not to escape from a trial to be held this autumn in Moscow. I asked the government by all means that they would let me off. At first they would not hear of it; then I got to prayer and began to ask the Lord to soften the heart of those Pharaohs, and so they came to the res- cue and agreed to let me off for five thousand roubles, or $2,500. I had not got the money; Ave are poor folks, so I sent a telegram to my friend, Mr. Shakespeare about it, telling the situation, and the money was com- ing as fast as the telegram could bring it, bail or bonds of $2,500, that I might be able to attend here. I am very thankful, beloved brothers and sisters, for that kindness. A friend tells us in England that cer- tainly the money is never to come back again to England, but I am willing to be honest and bring it back as soon as I get it back from the Russian government. Another thing that we have to be grateful for in the name of the Russian brethren here is that they are also here by the kindness of you American brothers and sisters. They could not have come ; many of them have been in exile, and they have spent their money and they don't get big salaries there; the best of our ministers get from fifty to sixty pounds 22 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. a year, about $300 in your money, and they cannot afford to have a trip over to your country. We are grateful to Mr. Shakespeare who got out of your pockets something for us ; and if he gets some more we shall be more thankful. We can do with a little bit of money in Russia you know, and esiDecially for the Christian work. I think my brethren here, who sit down before me can reciprocate my feelings on behalf of the kindnesses extended to us. Now, I should like very much if I had not only the Russian brothers and the ministers of the gospel but also the ministers of the Russian State with me here to-day. I would like to bring them one by one and show them this strong gathering of the Baptists of this country; and I would like the young members of the Russian Duma to be here to see what Baptists are, and what grand buildings they have, and what grand men they are, and what grand purposes they have in their heart. The word Duma — I do not think you are all so good in Russian vocabulary — means "thought," and if they would come they would be set thinking I am sure until they would devise some liberty in a greater degree than we are enjoying even to this time. Some time ago I was speaking to a high Russian official, one of the highest, to deal with our religious questions in Russia. It was at the time of the corner-stone laying of the First Baptist Church in St. Petersburg last September, and I asked this high representative Russian official if he would be so kind and just come and be present at the stone laying of the First Baptist Church in St. Petersburg. Then he declined on these reasons: He said, "You are such insignificant folk, the Baptists, and we could not go from the gov- ernment and be present there because it will be very little." But I said, ' ' You went to the Mohammedans and the Buddhists at their stone laying also last year in St. Petersburg, of their Buddhist temple," and that same high official went to be present there. I said, "You have been there; why couldn't you come here?" "Oh," he said, "the Buddhists, the Mohammedans — they are five or six million strong in Russia; they have many people in high positions," — and you know people have not yet escaped from looking on the face of men in Russia — "but you Bap- tists are very small yet." Then I wanted to tell him, "Look here. Your Excellency, we are not big but we are going to be big; the rising sun has more admirers, as the old saying says, than the sun that goes down. The Mohammedans were big in Russia because of their quantity, but quantity is not always a quality. Now, we hope to be as Baptists big in quality and in quantity and to prove to the Russian State and the Russian people what we as Baptists are and what we want to do." Why, the Mohammedans there are not missionary people in Russia though they were once. Well, our idea is to spread the gospel as far as it can be done in that great country, and I believe that it is so. I do not know if many of you are aware of the fact of things taking place in Russia. Mr. Byford, the Baptist World Alliance Commissioner, can tell you a great deal of that because he knows the conditions, but this I want to say, that I believe so far as I have seen the development of the Christian work in Russia, that Russia is bound to become, as far as :Mumlay, JuiK' lii.J REUUliD OF I'ROCJnWIXUS. 23 Baptist faith, and Baptist principles are concerned, that Russia is bound to become the first nation in Kurope i'or Baptist work and tor Christian work, not exeludini? even (Jreat Britain — and I think my Enylish breth- ren will excuse that. I believe work will develop on a greater line than even up to this time. Why"? Because there has never been a nation of white people of such a population, of such numbers, in such a wide area, as the Russian nation, and no other nation together with that great bulk of people was apt to receive Christian religion as the Russian people do. Now, some have said to us, of course, as it has been mentioned, some cruel things have been done in Russia, chains and prison, etc. Well, there is only one argument against that, and I believe the most logical argument you can find is that tliey have not known better, they have not been told better, the Cossacks of Russia have not been told better. As soon as they were told to act in a better way, we have in the south of Russia hundreds of Cossack soldiers converted and some of them who now preach the gospel instead of going against the people. Now, my dear friends, that is the power of the gospel there. I have two tele- grams here of this very day in a kind of way of persecution. I got be- fore I left a telegram that I was arrested in the south of Russia; that has not been by the higher government, but the arrests are taking place through the inferior and lower officials Avho still have to go to school in the school of religious liberty. A telegram I got from a friend in south Russia where a sentence of a month's imprisonment was passed on me before I arrived, said, "You have "been arrested for a month." I said, "No, I am not arrested, I am yet free." So I went for my ticket and went as fast as I could to America to escape that, and reserved my holiday, after my hard labor in America, till after I get back to prison in Russia. iVuother telegram from a pastor in the south saying that the police have not been allowing them to have meetings in the new hall. For what reason? They had sold their hall; one hall was too low and one too high; the door was wrong in one hall and the staircase in the other hall. Then they found the proper hall with all the necessary require- ments and then the police told them the hall could not be opened because it was near a drinking saloon. I do not know that they were afraid we were going to have competition with the drinking saloon, but if they were afraid, we want to have them understand that we are having a com- petition with the drinking affair in Russia, and that is one of the things we want to carry out in Russia. Now, brothers and sisters, I don 't want to talk much longer, but I was going to tell you for what reasons we have come here. I want to tell you American friends especially how we do look upon you. You have expressed your opinions; allow us to express our opinions. Now, first of all, we look upon you friends not so much as Baptists but as Christians. We have come to you here to learn more ot Christianity; we know very little; we want to learn more. Our people, the whole Russian nation, is hungry for the gospel. I have opened twelve halls in three and a half years in St. Petersburg, and I have seen those halls crowded again and 24 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. again and again by people. Last year Mr. Byford was tbere at the stone laying at my main hall, holding nearly a thousand people, and I could scarcely get rid of the friends who were there and I had to rush away myself from the platform leaving him with some other interpreters, because the people were breaking up the door and I had to direct them to another place in another part of the city, because they wanted to hear the gospel. "We have come to this country; though most of my countrymen do not understand your language they do understand the language of your heart ; we want to learn better Christianity than we have in Russia; we want to learn more of Christ. We have not been to school enough to learn to understand him well and we trust you will teach US. We have been taught by Count Tolstoy something about Jesus; he has told us about a great philosophical man, of a man who lived and died, sealing his doctrine by his death. He has told us Christ died but not for our sins. Ninety-five per cent of the Russian educated people, of the sixty thousand students of Moscow and the forty thousand of St. Petersburg, ninety-five per cent are under the influence of Tol- stoy. Another thing he has told us of Jesus : he died but not that he rose again for our justification, and the Russian nation is hungry to hear something else. When I was speaking to Count Tolstoy before he died, walking in his garden, and told him I believed in Jesus, that he rose again, because the Apostle Paul believed, he despised the idea and these were his words: He told me, "If anybody would come and tell me that the risen Christ is walking in my garden yonder I would not take care to go and look at him. ' ' That is the thing that the people have been taught by this great thinker. Come and tell us and make us to vinder- stand better things. And then, brothers and sisters, we have come to you not only as to Christians but as to brothers as well. You brothers and delegates from Russia, from Germany, from France, and from the Slavonic lands, from the Balkan Peninsula, where have you come, you little brother of Eu- rope? To a giant American, to a giant American Baptist. You know when you had a big brother in your family and you were quite small how 5^ou looked up to that big brother. Now, American friends, we are look- ing up, and it takes a great size and good wide eyes before we can get everything of you. Big brothers often come and help the little brothers, and I think even if we don't ask much you will see we can be helped a little and we shall be very thankful for that. Then, there is the ques- tion that we look upon you as fathers; you are fathers in Christ, fathers in the things of God, fathers in understanding; you are fathers in wisdom and we want to learn a little from you — so many universities, so many colleges, so many seminaries and we have not got one. Now, fathers are wise and instruct first in their homes, and you have taken us to your homes and are instructing us in these Alliance meetings. Then when the children grow a little they send them to school. You make for us a great European College for the training of our ministers, you help us to have our young brethren go there and understand how better to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And another thing, fathers, you have got Monday, June 10.] RECnJW OF I'ROCKEDiyOS. 25 the money and the boys liave not. Now, some friends have told me — you knoAv I am building the First Baptist Chapel in St. Petersburg — and some have told me in this country, "Don't be too sanguine about it; we have so many appeals." But to whom can the little boy go but to the father? If the father has twelve children, well everyone has to get his share, and just take us among your family; I think you have done that already, so I think we shall have good reason and good hope that you will do that. My last word is this, the power of the gospel is having a great sway in that country. I saw in the winter palace of the Czar the hand of John the Baptist; it was a lifeless hand. I am not sure if it was the hand of John the Baptist, but so it was told, and I looked upon that hand of John the Baptist and I could not get any good out of it. That was the result of my visit to the winter palace. Now we have come to America and we have had the grip of a living hand, though you are not all John the Baptist, but Ave have felt more good out of your hand than out of that hand in the winter palace. Now. I want to say don't let us forget to come in touch. Your grip of hands of some of us friends who have been in exile and prison, don't forget it; let us have that hand of yours, and when we have gone back to Russia to our fields of labor then let this hand of yours, the Christian hand, the Baptist hand, the brother's hand, the father's hand, the friend's hand, let this hand of yours point out to the Russian people that there is a living Saviour, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. (Applause.) The session was closed Avith the benediction by Dr. Clifford. SECOND SESSION. Monday Evening, June 10. The session was opened with a dcA-otional service conducted by Rev. F. W. Paterson, of Edmonton, Canada. The chair Avas taken by President Clifford. Chairman: This is tlie silver Avedding day of the President of the United States and it Avould be a fitting thing for us to send oi;r con- gratulations. By a standing vote the audience concurred in the suggestion, and the following message Avas accordingly sent : *^His Excellency Wm. H. Taft, "President of the United States, "Washington, D. C. "The World's Baptist Alliance in assembly gathered, by a unani- mous and rising vote of all its delegates desires to express to President and Mrs. Taft the congratulations from all the Baptists of the woi'ld upon this the silver anniversary of their wedding, and heartily and ur- gently invite the President to visit our Convention. "World's Baptist Alliance." 26 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. Chairman : One of the most interesting reminiscences that we have of the Congress in our own metropolis, the metropolis of the world, was the roll call of nations, and we have the privilege to-night of repeating that exhilarating and quickening exercise. Responses for the various countries were made as follows, the dele- gates in each case standing while their representative spoke, and at the close of his remarks joining in the singing of their National anthem or the verse of a hymn. ENGLAND.— Rev. J. W. Ewing, President-elect of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland : Mr. President, sisters and brothers, I am very sorry to be the spokesman this evening; I am here because our Pi'esident of this year. Dr. Edwards, of Cardiff, is unable to be present, owing to illness; his doctor would not allow him to cross the Atlantic at this time in view of the heat of the season. I have to present to you in his name the following message from the Council of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland: ''The Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland sends through its President, Dr. Edwards, coi'dial greetings to the second meeting of the Baptist World Alliance in Philadelphia. It rejoices in this representative gathering from the entire Baptist world and prays that God's blessing may rest upon its deliberations." Since I came upon the platform, ten minutes ago, the duty of representing England has been placed upon me and I have therefore had no time to prepare even a three-minute speech. I feel, however, I am bringing to you the cordial greetings of all the Baptists of England. There are very many thousands of our brothers and sisters across the Atlantic who are thinking of us this night, and praying for us that God's blessing may rest on this gathering and those that follow it this week. I believe there is at this moment an impulse of love going out from the Baptists in England towards their brothers in all countries, to the great company of believers in the United States and in other lands, especially to those in lands of darkness and persecution. We may speak also of a new im- pulse of affection towards one another through which we are being drawn into a more compact body, and at the present moment are devis- ing plans by which the stronger shall help the weaker and be drawn into a truer brotherhood. There has been an increasing tendency of late on the part of Baptists to take part in public affairs, some in municipal affairs, others in other lines, and one, Lloyd-George, is a leading member of the British Cabinet. We greet this Congress; we pray God that he may bless all our deliberations and guide us to an issue for the advance- ment of his kingdom. We are longing in England for a new breath of the Divine Spirit, more of the compassion of Jesus Christ for the sin- ners, and we pray that this meeting may result in the quickening of our hearts and the hearts of us all. (Applause.) Delegation sang "God save our King." WALES. — Rev. E. U. Thomas, Carnarvon: Mr. Chairman, it o-ives me great pleasure to speak a word on behalf of the Monday, June 10. J RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS. 27 Baptist Union of Wales. The Baptists of Wales believe in the spirituality of the Kingdom of God, and therefore they are against the State Church. They also believe in the voluntari- ness of religion, and therefore have nothing to do with any kind of compulsion in religion. The Baptists of Wiales have in the past produced men who have studied the Book; the Bible has been their Book, inasmuch as they have been men of one book, they have become strong in their convictions, and that is the reason why they have always been in the front of the battle for religious liberty. They have suffered persecution in the past; they are suffering some persecution to-day. I live in a town where stones were thrown at Baptists simply because they were Baptists; to-day they are highly respected in the community, and when the call for liberty is given forth, the Baptists of Wales are stand- ing to a man to face all the foes of liberty both civil and religious. We have sent Baptists to America; we have contributed to the successes, to the great prosperity of America. We sent you Roger Williams, we sent you John Miles, Ave sent you Morgan John Rhees, the grandson of whom is Dr. Rush Rhees, the President of University of Rochester at this mo- ment. We sent you the father and mother of Milton G. Evans, the President of Crozer Theological Seminary. (Applause.) Delegation sang a AVelsh song. SCOTLAND. — Rev. George Yuille, Stirling: I come Mr. President, from a land of brown heaths and shaggy woods, the land of the mountain and the flood, where the proud Atlantic Ocean on Scotland's firths and bays rocks in perpetual motion his Aveary waves to rest. I bring the greetings of the Scottish Baptist Union of one hundred and twentj^-four churches with twenty thousand members, represented here by twenty- three delegates. We are among the smaller tribe of the great Baptist host, but as the great apostle of the Gentiles was of the least of the tribes of Israel, so God has raised up among us men who have rendered distin- guished service to his cause in Church and State. From the ancient castle of Stirling where I have spent over forty years in the ministry you look out on the Mansion House surrounded by woods and lands and under the shelter of the hills. At the beginning of the last century it belonged to Robert Haldane who sold it and devoted the proceeds to missionary work. He was succeeded by his brother. Both became Bap- tists. The grandson of James Haldane was baptized in one of our Ed- inburgh churches; he is now Viscount Haldane, Minister of War and member of the British Cabinet. Altliough Minister of War, he is a man of peace and tiie Arbitration Treaty which is to unite the flags of empire and democracy in lasting union will receive no warmer support from the British Parliament than from Lord Haldane. About seventeen years ago a youth was baptized in one of our churches and afterward went to Manchester and for fifty years Alexander Maclaren pursued what was a world-wide ministry, and left on record a monumental work which will possibly last as long as the English speech. From the church of my own boyhood in the seaport where James ^Iontgomer>' was born, John and 28 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. Daniel McMillan went out to make their way in life. One of them was a printer who went to London and founded the firm of McMillan and Company. About the same time a working mason Avent to Canada and became a Member of Parliament and became Prime Minister in the Par- liament that he had helped to form. When I was here, twenty-three years ago, I was his guest in Toronto and at that time the name of Alex- ander Mackenzie was known throughout America. (Applause.) Scotch delegation sang. IRELAND. — Rev. J. H. Boyd, of London, Ontario: Mr. President and brethren of the Baptist World Alliance, to me has been deputed the task of repi-esenting the Emerald Isle, the land of grievances. Ireland would not be properly represented to-night without a grievance, so I am here to express a grievance which is, that as far as I can see, Ireland 's repre- sentative is the only one without a distinctive badge; that is my griev- ance. It is not a vei*y serious one, you will make it right to-morrow, I expect. I have three things to say: First of all, I wish to express the deep regret of my brothers on the other side that the deputation from Ireland is so small. At the last moment some of the brethren who hoped to be present at this magnificent gathering were prevented from coming, so I am here alone to-night to lepresent poor Ireland. My second word is that I have been requested by my brethren on the other side to convey to you their fraternal greetings, the greetings of one of the smallest but one of the most compact of the tribes of Israel, a denomination which has for more than two hundred and fifty years kept the Flag of the Cross flying in one of the most difficult countries in Europe; I am here to-night to convey in their name their fraternal greetings to you all. And my third word is this, that I am proud to have the honor to represent Ireland upon this platform, for although she be poor and small and perhaps in some senses despised (Voices, No, No) — all right brethren, I take that back. (Applause.) Ireland has the honor of having sent to this city the first Baptist minister, in the person of Thomas Duncan, who, in 1684, came to Philadelphia and planted the first Baptist church in this splendid city. Around that little church, planted by Thomas Duncan in 1684, there have gathered in this city over a hun- dred splendid Baptist churches with a membership of about 50,000 bap- tized believers. So though I represent to-night a small community, I feel that I represent a very noble people. Sings, ''0 Happy Day," the audience joining in the chorus. HAITI. — Rev. L. Ton Evans: As Brother Boyd said he rep- resented a country with grievances, I represent a land of i-evolution. Four years ago, while traveling through Wales in behalf of Haiti, I remember about half-past twelve at night, while I was sleeping quietly and resting peacefully, I was disturbed out of my sleep by the sound of tom-toms being beaten four thousand miles away on the mountains of Haiti. There is no difficulty whatever in these days of wireless telegraphy for each and all of you to believe that fact. When I heard the tom-toms I saw the people of Haiti in hundreds and Monday, June lit. J RECORD OF I'ROCEEDIMJS. 29 thousands assembling together, as you are assembled here to-night, for worship, but when they came together there Avas no one to give out the hyuni, *'A1I Hail the Power oi" Jesus' Name"; there was no one to pray tor God's blessing upon the audience; but the moment they come to- gether they drink tufi, and then begin to dance, and then in that devil- worship they offer up a fowl or a goat or perchance offer up an innocent infant child upon the altar to satisfy the demon; and all this in an island three hundred miles off the coast of Florida, one thousand miles from the very spot that we are worshiping in to-night, right between Cuba and Porto Kico, eight times the size of Porto Rico, with a million more popu- lation than Cuba and two million more than Jamaica or Porto Rico, — yet without a great Baptist body carrying on Christian work. In less than two years I was on top of one of the mountains in Haiti and there was an old woman seventy-five years of age, Madame Francois, who called on me and said, "I want you to come with me." She hastened to a mud-house and began to hunt for something; the other native with me came and hunted and we found three of those tom-toms I heard years before in Wales. We carried them out and when they were all piled on top of one another, before lighting the matcli I asked, "May I take some of these curios back to America and England f It is so hard to make those people believe that there is fetishism and devil-worship even in Haiti." "Oh," said the old woman, "If you take one of them I will be haunted the rest of my life by the devil-god; no, burn them down to ashes and throw the ashes away." "You are right," I said, and in a moment this match was struck and there Avas a grand bon-fire. It was the happiest moment of my life; I saw Jesus Christ riding triumphant over the mountains of Haiti. The Southern and the Northern Baptists decided just last week to do work there. Sang in Haitien, "Even me." CUBA. — Mrs. Molina: Although I feel very sorry for Mr. McCall, who was to have been here this evening, I am very glad and I feel much honored to stand here in the midst of this great gathering of Baptists of all the world to answer "Present" when the name of Cuba is called. I am not a Cuban; I am Spanish born, but my parents are working there in Cuba for the Master, and my husband, too, and I have been there for two years in the Women's American Home Mission Society. What shall I tell you about that beautiful land? Not much surely because the time is short. In that beautiful land of the sugar-cane, the coffee, and the big Royal Palms, the Saviour has not been known in his loving character until some few years ago. The Catholic practices have led the people away from knowing of the true Saviour, but since a i'ew years ago the gospel has spread all throughout the island, and we are trying to let everyone know that God so loved the world that he gave his only be- gotten Son; and we hope and we earnestly pray that the final triumph will be the Lord's. May your most earnest prayers be W'ith us, so that when the roll is called up yonder and the same nations are called, when Cuba's name is called, she will be there, too. (Applause.) 30 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. Singing by the Cuban delegation in Spanish of "Stand up, Stand up for Jesus.' MEXICO. — Rev. J. G. Chastain: Mr. President and Members of the Baptist World Alliance, I bring happy and fraternal greetings from the National Baptist Convention of Mexico. Our Convention is composed of seventy-four churches and three thousand and seven members ; we had an increase by baptism during the past year of twenty per cent. Oiir Con- vention is composed of all the Baptists in the Republic, those connected with the Northern or New York Board, and also those connected with the Southern or Richmond Board, and among all of our workers, the foreign missionaries and also the native preachers and churches, there is the most perfect harmony. Our native preachers and the members are studying and praying and giving of their money to sustain and ex- tend the gospel more than ever before. Baptists were the first to send a missionary to Mexico— James Ritchie— and the first to do foreign work. We have done missionary work in South America as well as among the native tribes in Mexico. The eyes of the civilized world are to-day on Mexico because of the recent troubles, but I am happy to say that these are coming to a close and there is going to be a reconstruc- tion a changing of the officials from the president down, and two of the prospective governors and other officials are members of evangelical churches. Sings in Spanish, ''What a Friend we have in Jesus." CENTRAL AMERICA.— Rev. James Hayter: Dear friends, a great opportunity I consider this to speak a word for Central America. I believe I am the only representative here from that country, with possi- bly one exception; I see a brother over there standing up. I think that nature itself will show the need of these six republics with six million people, and yet this evening as we are here there are only one or two missions established among English-siDeaking people along the coast, that is, as far as Baptists go. These countries are larger than France and the need there to-night is something more than I can describe to you in these three minutes that I have. I want to plead especially for the two million Indians of those countries who have never had the gospel of Jesus Christ; I want to plead to-night, brethren, that the Baptists of North America may realize their responsibility to evangelize what I be- lieve is the Samaria of the Church of the United States, and yet when God gave his commission to his church in Jerusalem he said also ''Go ye also to Samaria, ' ' and he himself set the example by going to that sinful Samaritan woman and preaching the gospel to her. T believe to-night that God is going to hold the churches of the United States responsible for the evangelization of Central and South America. Don 't be led away with the idea that they are among the Christians; they are not allotted to-day among non-Christians, but I assure you their religion is dead, that the majority of the men in those countries are atheists or agnostics or free-thinkers. But I will tell you too, that where the gospel has been Mondiiy, June I'.i.J lilXORD OF J'h'OCL'EDIXGN. 31 preached those people have accepted it, and to-niglit tliere are from seventy-tive to one lumdred congreiiations in those countries of Central America wlio are waiting for the Baptist people to come in and take tiiem up. It would he an easy matter for me to talk for three-quarters of an hour or an hour on these countries and their needs, but I beg of you in these three minutes I have that you will pray for Central America. I am glad that our Northern brethren have decided recently to take up Bap- tist work in San Salvador, and I believe if God leads them on, inside of five or ten years it will be almost impossible for us to tell what will be the result. I cannot sing alone, but I ask you to join me in one verse of ''Jesus shall Reign where'er the Sun," because 1 believe he is going to reign in Central America too. Audience joins in singing. CHILI. — Rev. S. M. Sowell: Baptist work in Chili began, as it has begun in so many countries, under the impulse of the study of the word of God, and without any impulse from any foreign society, and it has grown almost Avholly Avithout help of outsiders to seven hundred Bap- tists. There are thirteen Baptist churches, three in and around Timuque, in the southern part of Chili. A great many of these seven hundred are either full-blooded Indians or have a strong mixture of Indian blood; they are country Baptists, strong, robust fellows, active, and who love to sing the songs of Zion. They are working and largely supporting themselves; at present they receive a little support from Argentina and Mexico and Brazil. Last year sixty-eight were baptized. They have four native preachers and one Scotchman who has become a pretty good native. They have several students, one of special j^rominence who is studying at the Seminary at Rio Janeiro, and who is there preparing the way for greater things. Chili is prepared for the gospel; it is perhaps the best prepared of all the South American Republics, with the excep- tion possibly of Brazil. Chili is an economical country, the people are not too much engrossed in material things, as some other countries of South America. It is progressive; they are brave people, they are good fighters, and the Baptists have put on the war-paint in Chili. I am very happy indeed, therefore, to stand before you to-night as a representa- tive of the Chilian Baptist Union which was organized about three years ago. With your permission I will risk singing, **A little talk with Jesus." (Applause.) Sings in Spanish, the audience joining in the chorus in English. ARGENTINA. — Rev. Paul Besson was introduced by tiie Chairman as the man who had changed the Constitution of Argentina three times and each time for the better. He spoke through an interpreter as fol- lows: I am not a singer, I am a soldier of Jesus Christ. I am a messen- ger from the Baptist Churches of South America and of Argentina and I bring my banner to the great feast of Baptist unity. After ten years of hard struggle and battle against Romanism I have sustained the principles of William Penn, Roger Williams, Madison, Jefferson, and the 32 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. Baptists of the whole world. I have secured the separation of Church and State, between Christianity and Nationality. After ten years of struggle and of petition through the use of the public papers and of every means possible, we have secured the secularization of civil mar- riage and the registry of births independent of priestly sacrament. The second victory in Argentina since the missionaries have come from the Board at Richmond, Virginia, has been the official recognition by the government of the rights of the Baptists. But the worst struggle we have is against the patronage which the president of the republic gives to Romanism — things that he has been taught by the popes of Rome. You know Romanism, clothed in white, seated in Baltimore; we know her, clothed in black, represented by the Jesuit priesthood, and also clothed in red like the woman of the Apocalypse ; and thus it is that our war is the sword to the hilt until w-e obtain our rights. Our faith is se- cure in the sovereignty of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has now received the public crowning by the Heavenly Father, and in his Name we will succeed. (Applause.) Dr. Prestridge: We call Brother Besson the Martin Luther of Ar- gentina. Audience joins in singing, "Onward, Christian Soldiers." CANADA. — Charles J. Holman : We bring you from the youngest of all the nations fraternal greetings. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Northern Baptists, because years ago they sent across the border mis- sionaries to raise the Baptist Banner in Ontario, and they indoctrinated us so thoroughly with regard for apostolic practice that we have re- mained ''Regular Baptists" ever since. We are glad to join hands with the Baptists of the Mother Land. We like the ring of the Welshmen, and we rejoice to meet the Baptists of the Southland; we know some- what of their unswerving fidelity to Baptist principles, linked with great prosperity. We give a special greeting to those who come from amid great tribulation, — to those from Russia and Roumania and the East, — and we say to those who come from across the sea, "Don't miss Canada, we welcome you to the Queen City of Toronto, we welcome you to the great inland seas of the Northland, to the waving wheat fields of the West, and to the mountains farther on with their untold treasure and we ask you to go — tell the nations of Europe Avith their bristling bayonets, that out in this land two nations dwell side by side without a bayonet to mark the dividing line; and tell them that in this land Baptists have found their deepest root and their richest harvest." We in Canada have not been much enamored with the blandishments of Christian union; we believe this twentieth century to be the Baptist century, we believe it to be our day of opportunity, and we do not think that ills public or that ills religious will ever be cured until there is a flourishing Baptist cause in every hamlet in the land. When our principles are fully understood then will the time be ripe for union— union not founded upon weak com- promise with error but upon loyalty to truth and obedience to the Master. Believing as we do in Canada in the scripturalness of our views Moiuiiiy, JiiiH- 1!».| UKCOh'D OF l'lx'(>Ci:i:iH MIS. 33 we think we have a Divine mandate laid upon us to proclaim our views Ihroujih every land and beside all waters till he come. (Ai)plause.) Sinsiini;- by (^anadian delesxalion, 'Mesus, Wondrous Saviour," also, ''Cod Save the Kinsi." followed by "-My Country, 'Tis of Thee." GRANDE LIGNE MISSION.— Rev. G. U. Gatks: 1 brin- to this magnificent meeting the greetings of the Grande Ligne Mission in its seventy-tifth year, the first mission for French evangelization in America. I only wish I had the time to give you its history. In the beautiful city of Lausanne, Switzerland, a woman beautiful and comely in appearance and nu^nner and with a refined and educated intellect and soul, found herself a widow, and dressed in black in her own home she might have been heard saying, "0 Father, I cannot understand why thou hast taken from me my husband and my only child. What does it mean? Give me light and I will follow thee!" Letters came to her from Rev. Mr. Oliver and wife in Montreal, who had been her pastor, asking her to come out there. They had come with the intent of giving the gospel to the Indians of the Western States, but arriving in Montreal in the au- tumn they remained tliere until spring, and during the winter learned that there was one people above all others that seemed to need the gos- pel, and that was the French of Quebec. Permit me to say to you that the French of Quebec are nine-sixteenths of our population, that the French of Canada are two-fifths of the entire population, and then in Quebec we have one of the largest provinces of the Dominion, one and a half times the size of Ontario, a province greater in its extent of area than the States of New York and Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois all placed together. We have a po})ulation here of nearly two million of French Canadian subjects under the dominion of the pope of Rome. To this land in 1835 came Henrietta Feller. Slie landed at New York and sailed up the Hudson and up Lake Ciuimplain. Sailing up the lake she asked the captain, "When you cross the boundary between the United States and Canada tell me," and he told her when they crossed the line, and on the wet deck of that steamer she kneeled and reconse- crated herself. On October 31, 1835, she landed at Quebec and thence by coach — for there was no railroad — she went to Montreal, only to find that under priestly domination the homes were closed against her. She came back to St. John, but it was the same there, and it seemed she must go back to Europe without accomplishing the i>urpose of her heart. (At this point the speaker was stopped owing to the expiration of his time.) INDIA. — Rev. Herbert Anderson: I wish to say in three words my messa'ze : first a word of in formation, then a word of encouragement, and finally a word of hope. The word of information is this: On March tenth last was taken tiie decennial census of the great Indian Empire; we have only got the totals for that great census but we find that during the last decade the population of India has increased by 10,000,000. The same sort of thing is going on in China. In India alone it takes only 34 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. eighty years to make one of your little United States, and I want just to drive that fact home, because it means this, that in the life of this great human race the emphasis is gradually passing from the West to the East. The political iDroblems of the future lie in the East; the social problems, the economic problems, and the religious problems that are to be faced by the great Christian Church lie in the East. That is the word of information. Seeondl}^, the word of encouragement : I feel it an honor to stand here to represent the body of Baptist missionaries who, starting from Carey and Judson, have striven to bring India, Burmah and Ceylon to Christ. How has God blessed this work ! I have to report that we have there to-day as the result of the work of your missionaries a church of at least 100,000 members, a community of nearly 300,- 000 members, and a church that is growing in numbers, growing in influ- ence, and growing in spiritual life; and I say that is a word of encour- agement. The third and last thing I wish to say is a word of hope. When I look down the list of this roll-call, and when I go carefully through the program of this great World Alliance I see that the emphasis is on Christian nations. Now I rejoice in that because I believe that the Christianization of Christian nations means the Christianization of the world. But surely the time has come — shall it not be at our next meet- ing, wherever it may be, that rejiresentatives of the hosts that have been won for Christ, representatives from China and from India and from Burmah shall be here to swell our numbers. (Applause.) Singing by the Indian delegates, ''Nothing but the Blood of Jesus." SOUTH AFRICA.— Rev. Hugo Gutsche : Mr. Chairman and brethren of the same household of faith, I am delegated by the Soiith African Baptist Union, as well as by our South African Baptist Missionary So- ciety, to convey to this august assemblage our cordial greetings and our hearty well-wishes for this Congress. I am grateful to God that I am favored to participate in the blessings that are in store for us during this convention. Our South African Baptist Union was formed thirty-three years ago with a number of about seven hundred members, consisting of English as well as German Baptist churches. We have worked all these years in harmony and peace. We never wanted even a court of arbitra- tion. We are thankful to God for the increase as small as it seems to be. Our proportion of the white population of the Union of South Af- rica is about three members and about eight adherents to every one thousand. I am sorry to say that the spiritual giowth does not keep l^ace with the material and numerical development of our country. There is a spirit of hurry entering into the generation of this day which will not allow men to listen to the Voice of God within them. Besides there is this craving desire for gain and money, which drives people from one place to another, and puts upon our churches the mark of our pioneer- ing and migrating. Our missionary society shows that the field is wide, the men are few, and our means are slender. We report seven hundred and ninety-seven members. Every year, according to the last report of the Native Labor Commission, about forty per cent of all aborigines Monday. JuiK- l!l. I ttKCOlU) OF I'ROt'lUWl^Gti. 35 south of the Zambezi come down to tlie mines for six months and return home to their remote parts, a few, only a few, of them having in their hearts a new light and on their lips a new message, to return as messen- gers and bring home new things. (Applause.) VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA.— Kev. A. Gordon : Mr. President, we repre- sent the land of sunshine and of promise. I believe we have come the farthest of any of the delegates to be present at this Alliance. We have come under the spell of the great Name that is above every name and under the spell of seeing our brethren in the face according to the flesh. One great result of the last Alliance meetings held in London was that we in Australasia felt that we could copy these meetings with advantage and just before I left we held our second Australasian Baptist Congress. And this is the resolution which we were requested to submit to you : "That this second Australasian Baptist Congress consisting of repre- sentatives of all the States of the Commonwealth and the Dominion of New Zealand sends its heartiest greetings to the World's Baptist Con- gress assembling in Philadelphia, and we gladly forAvard these greetings by the hand of our President. May the blessing of the Congress flood the whole Avorld." Mr. President, we have memorable names in Victoria, names that perhaps are not widely known but are deeply cherished by us, and names that charm Victoria. We need simply to recall the name of Rev. Samuel Chapman, and a few in that great mother church who laid the foundations of the Baptist Convention in Victoria, strong and deep. Some of them are here with me to-night to express our brotherly greetings to the great Alliance. We have our own difficulties and our own great hopes in Victoria. It is a new countx-y practically. We have great experiments in legislation. We have heard ranch about religious freedom. Thank God we have it absolutely, and because the Baptist de- nomination appeals specially to the democratic spirit we Baptists in Victoria feel that we have a special message for our people there, and it has been expressed in all our assemblies for years. We feel that we ought to interpret the teaching of Jesus in national life and that has been our great ambition. (Applause.) SOUTH AUSTRALIA.— Hev. A. N. Marshall: Mr. President, I am the only representative from South Australia and there never was a hymn so built that I could sing it, so I am glad the whole Australian delegation is to sing in harmony. I have come eighteen thousand miles to make a three-minute speech, but I would have belted the globe twice for the privilege of being here this evening. In South Australia's representa- tive one-one thousandth of the Baptist world presents greetings to the nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths here. When we are at home it is surely like the voice crying in the wilderness, but without presump- tion I think the South Australians would fain to-night become a mur- mur very faint of the sound of many waters which we know to be in this great gathering to-night. Australia is a land of oddities and sanities. It is said it was founded by criminals who left their countrv for their 36 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. country 's good, but it is the most crime-free country in the world to-day. We have not until recent years had a single chair in political science in our universities and yet Australia leads to-day at least some countries outside the United States in social and political science, and she is the only country of her dimensions that has a Labor Government. I don't say I am a Labor man, but I Avork as hard as most of them. Our big- gest animal too is unable to walk ; its hind legs are too long and its front legs too short. But it can jump, and touch the grandmothers of the other animals of the world, for it belongs to an older tribe. Our birds they say, don't sing, but we have one that can laugh and that repre- sents the merriment and joy of that beauteous Southern land. I am re- minded by the fact that my three minutes are passing of the three en- tries the boy made in his diary. The first day he said, ''Hired out"; the second day he Avrote, "Tired out"; the third day, "Fired out." South Australia does not speak of her statesmen or of her schools or of her great men. She doesn't say, "Bring me men to match my moun- tains," for she has none, but she does say, and this is my mission to- night, "Bring me men to match my plains, men with empires in their purpose and new eras in their brains." (Applause.) WESTERN AUSTRALIA.— Geo. H. Cargeeg: Mr. President and Christian friends, I am not a "Reverend'; (referring to his introduc- tion as The Rev. Geo. H. Cargeeg) I am a layman and the president of the Baptist Society this year as also for four years before. I come from a country one-third the size of yours I believe. Mr. Gordon states he came from the farthest point of any delegate. I think I came five hun- dred miles farther. Western Australia, I believe, is the farthest point by any conveyance to this city. I would like to say that our people are but few in number but they have big plans for work. We have a mil- lion square miles of territory, very nearly six hundred million acres any- how, and we only have for that about three hundred thousand people. We have one thousand and fifty members in the Baptist churches. When I went there sixteen years ago there was no Baptist Union. Soon after- wards it was formed and now we have sixty-four preaching stations. For that we have only ten ministers, ten home missionaries and about sixty lay preachers. Our work is very hard indeed but we try all we can to hold up the Baptist banner in our country. I would like to say that our friends send greetings to you. They indeed pray that you may have the blessing of Almighty God and that his kingdom may be ex- tended and Jesus Christ may be glorified. I waflt to say one little thing that may be of interest to you with regard to the Baptists of Western Australia. Somebody has said that the criminals came there some years ago; Avell, that is so, it was a convict settlement, so I suppose no Baptists were sent there. For fifty years we had no Union so it is pos- sible we may hope for good things with the little number we have. There is one other thing I would like to remark so that you maj^ know our difficulties and we may have your prayers, and that is this, that all the other denominations in Western Australia have had State aid in MoiKiiiv. .Inn. r.i.l UIAOIIU OF I'lUH'lll'J)! SCH. 37 larm' propoilioii, because tliey were tliere earlier tlian we, with one ex- cepliou — (lie Cliurch of Christ — they were uiven larye pieces of land out of which ui'eat reveiiucs are now beinn' made. Our thousand people have to compete with all that. We are raising at the rate of three pounds per head. There is just the possibility, if no help comes to us, that we will have to abandon some of our properties, because we require help. (Applause.) NEW ZEALAND.— Kkv. K. S. Gray: Mr. President. I am commis- sioned by the most southerly Baptist Union in the world to con.J h'KCOh'l) OF I'I<'<)CJ:KD1 .\<1H. 39 started the Reformation, which was the first and purest Protestant country in the whole world one hundred years before the German Re- formation. Two of the irreatest sons of our nation have laid down their lives for the freedom of conscience. They were the first men who preaclied the authority of the Bible, John Hus and Jerome of Prague. Bohemia has the honor to have the first printed Bible in the whole world, and to have the first printed hymn-book in the living tongue; but there is especially one epoch in our history which is very interesting and shows us the strong tie between the Anglo-Saxon race and the Bohe- mians. When the Anglo-Saxons were Roman Catholics and the Bohe- mians already Protestants they sent to Scotland a missionary and he was burned there after three years. Bohemia was made Roman Catholic with sword and fire by the German-Austrian army. Everybody who would not be a Roman Catholic was obliged to die or leave the coun- try. But it is one of the wonders of the world that this nation starts to live again. It is a real resurrection and in four years on the five hun- dredth anniversary of the death of John Hus (in 1915) there will be a final settlement of the question of Bohemia. I hope I will see you all in Prague in 1915. We use on the Continent very often the sentence, ''It is impossible." I am only a few hours in America, but I see the Americans don't know the sentence. I thought many things were im- possible; I see in America it is possible. Well, it seems to me perliaps and it seems to you it is impossible to enlarge your heart any more and to find a little corner for your Bohemian brother; but big men have big hearts and the big American brother has a big heart I think, and it is not difficult to find a little corner for your Bohemian brother in j'our big heart. I am a young man and I have very little experience, but I trust in my God and I have confidence in your help, and I dare say with all my young passion and enthusiasm — "Bohemia for Christ." (Applause.) Messrs. Novotny and Capek sang a duet. MORAVIA. — Rev. Norbert F. Capek : Mr. President and dear friends, I was quite surprised to see my name on the roll-call and I speak not prepared. Moravia was the first Slavonic land which accepted Christi- anity, the key to the other Slavonic lands. It was also the cradle and the refuge of the old so-called Anabaptists, and then it was the land of the great Comenius. But this land was struck, it was beaten, it was wounded, its old heroes shed their blood for the religious freedom of Europe, and this blood of these old heroes of Moravia begins to circu- late again in our veins. Moravia is awaking again. It is only three years ago that a society was formed of Roman Catholics, which has to- day sixty thousand members, people who are tired of the tyrannical and superstitious system of the Roman Catholic Church, and are looking for a new credible religion; and I may add of the Baptists in Moravia that twelve years ago there were no Baptists in tlie country, but to-day the little flag of Baptists is leading among the sixty thousand Roman Cath- olics, and I myself am a member of the Executive Committee. You see that there is a great opportunity for the great Baptist family. This 40 THE BAPTLST WORLD ALLIANCE. movement, as it began, will remain a Baptist movement and Moravia will become a Baptist country, if the Baptists will. (Applause.) BULGARIA. — Rev. P. Doycheff: Dear brothers and sisters, it gives me great privilege to stand before you this evening and address you for three minutes. I have not come from Bulgaria to address you just for three minutes but for a little longer time, and to do that I have brought here a book entitled ' ' Bulgaria of To-day, ' ' and I wish to present it to my dear beloved friend, Dr. Prestridge, with whom I have been acquainted with correspondence. I will give it to him and he will let you know what is in that book through the press. (Hands large volume to Dr. Prest- ridge.) Such a book I have left in London, England, for Brother Shakespeare also, so that he will be kind enough to let our English friends know what is going on in Bulgaria. I wish to tell you what I have been doing for the last nine years. I went in a town called Tchirpan just nine years ago as a missionary, the place being new, the people opposed to my preaching a great deal. They have beaten me two or three times in the market-place for attempting to sell the Scriptures and to preach in the open air, and also they have broken the windows of my house several times. But after all they began to love me because they understood that I am harmless and have come there to i^reach Christ and him crucified, and during that time I have baptized over sixty persons, secured a house for worship, built a parsonage for living, and have it all paid for. Among the members of my church there are three of them well educated and they are ministers of the gospel of Christ preaching the glad tidings in various places in Bulgaria. One of them I have sent in the beginning of this year to preach in a city twice as large as Tchirpan and he has been successful over there, several per- sons are converted, and the Bishop of the Greek Church hearing of them wrote twice to the governor of that place to drive him out of the place, but he was not able to do it because we have the perfect liberty of Bul- garia, and he was not able to take advantage. (Applause.) Mr. and Mrs. Doyehet¥ sang a duet. DENMARK. — Rev, T. Olsen : I bring greetings from the Danish Bap- tists to this gTeat assembly. You all know Denmark, I sui^pose ; it is one of the three Scandinavian lands, the smallest of them in extension. It has no mountains, it is a land of plains, something like your prairies out West, but its population is like that of Norway in number and half or one-third that of Sweden. You Americans know our people; many of them live over here, I think between three and four hundred thousand, and there are as many Danisii Baptists in America, I think, as there are in Denmark, that is about four thousand. Now, you know Denmark is one of those Lutheran lands where Baptist work is quite difficult. The bitter words of the great reformer against the Wiederteufel, the Ana- baptists, have sunk so deep into the hearts of his followers that they never can forget them; and the Baptists in Denmark, as Baptists every- where, believe in the Bible and do not want anything of the catechism. Monday, Juiu' 1!).] lU.CiUiD OF I'liOCKEDiyClfi. 41 Thej- want the Bible and tliey believe in the blood of Christ as the only means of salvation, and they believe in believers' baptism, and to these truths they have borne witness. Years ago the Baptists of Denmark were persecuted; it is not so now but there are many barriers yet to be broken down. Some of them have fallen and they are fallinij one after another and giving away for more evangelical Christianity, and we Baptists of Denmark feel it as our great privilege to bear witness to evangelical truth among our countrymen. As I said there are now a lit- tle over tour thousand Baptists in Denmark, and from these Baptists and from these churches I send greetings to this assembly and to tlie Baptists of America. (Applause.) ESTHONIA.— Kev. A. K. Podin: Mr. President and dear Christian friends, I represent this evening the Baptist church of Esthonia, one of the Provinces over which the flag of our Czar is flying. I cannot say that 1 am bringing a very tall man before you but just a little Baptist to reckon with. Our Baptist church is only twenty-seven years old, and our Baptist church has suffered the same from our countrymen as the .Vpnslle Paul said to the Thessalonians that the Jews liad suffered from their countrymen. Our churches that at i^resent exist are twenty-two, with a membership of nearly two thousand five hundred. It is a very small number but you must remember that this nationality is of a mil- lion of people and they speak their own language, they have their own nationality and they are fighting there hard. I have no time to tell you how earnestly these first Baptists sought the truth until they found it. In our land there are persons who have been baptized twice. They never sto]i; even if they have been baptized twice they ask for right baptism, baptism as they find in this book. The first Baptists have gone through fearful persecution as you have heard here and as others will tell, so I better leave this for the rest that will follow me of our brethren in Rus- sia. They have at present, praise God, twenty-two organized churches, two thousand five hundred members and several out-stations, but at the same time they have diflTiculties. Pray for us. (Applause.) FINLAND (Finnish Conference). — Kev. E. Janxsen: To express my heart reeling this evening i would just say that we all regard this as a great privilege to be here at this large gathering in the Lord, who has broken down the middle wall of partition and made all tribes and na- tions one in himself, and he has taught us through the gospel to believe in one Lord, having one faith and one baptism, one God Almighty and Father of all. For all this we thank him and praise him. I can hardly express my heart feelings this evening to look at all these brethi'en and sisters iu the Lord Jesus; I have thought of the great meeting that will soon ap- pear for us. Owing to the generosity of our American Baptists our small community in Finland are able to send three delegates to this Congress, and this I am glad to say is more than even the Americans are able to produce here to-day in proportion to membership. We are greatly indebted to our American friends who have sent for us to come 42 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. over here. As you may know we have two official languages in Finland, and the third one, Russian, is trying to work its way in too, but we fear that Mr. Stolypin Avill not leave us the only language, and that I do not think will make the Finns any better. (Applause,) FINLAND (Swedish Conference). — Mr Ingar: The Baptists of Fin- land are divided into two Conferences, one Finnish and one Swedish; this is necessary because of the two languages. The Swedish conference has twenty-nine churches and one thousand nine hundred and ninety-tAvo members. The preachers who give all their time to the work are twenty-one, the others are about forty. And the Sunday-schools are one thousand seven hundred and ninety-six children and one hundred and fifty teachers. A lively young people's work is carried on. The yearly contributions of the churches to their own and the Conference's work amounts to Finnish marks 44,621. Much is still to do; there are large disti'iets where the Baptist principles are quite unknown; doc- trines that undermine Christianity are propagated more and more, un- disguised, and find favor with the people. The nation that has begun to awake from its slumber affected by the system or the established church, is threatened to fall a victim to the disorganizing darkness which denies the Christianity of value and importance. The people are in need of the gospel, and our aim is to give it to them, but that we may be able to do so, Avorkers and money are necessary. (Applause.) RUSSIA (National Union). — Key. E. Golayefp: (Translated by Madam Yasnovsky, a lady of high rank who is one of our own number) : It is twenty-one years already since I believed in our Lord Jesus Christ. Twenty years I preached the gospel in my community in ValashofP, but such a meeting as this one I have never seen; never have I spoken to such a large audience. Therefore, you will certainly understand my em- barrassment in speaking to so large an audience, but I hope you will excuse me. First of all I would like to tell you how grateful Ave are to you; first we thank our Lord Jesus Christ and then we thank you our dear brothers and sisters here beyond the ocean. Thanks to you it is that we have the privilege in the number of twenty- four delegates from Russia to be present at this World Alliance Con- gress. I bring you a hearty greeting from our brothers in Russia. In Russia the Baptists appeared since 1870; in 1884 was foi-med the first Baptist Union in Russia, and by noAV, 1911, we have already in Russia more than five hundred communities Avith fifty thousand members. Then I would like to tell you in a few words the impressions receiA-ed by me now. This voyage across the ocean seemed to frighten us at first but when Ave arrived here in Philadelphia we forgot all our trouble. From great joy we even forget ourselves here and we do not know CA-en how to express our feelings to you. Our last petition to you is that in the name of Jesus perhaps the American brothers will help us to do the same in Russia what we haA'e here, in the name of Jesus, in the name of his pre- cious blood shed on Calvary, in the poAver of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Russian delegation sings. Monday, . I uiK' III. J Ji'IJt'Oh'D OF rh'OCEEDINGS. 43 RUSSO-GERMAN UNION.— F. Brauer (Translated) : Mr. President and dt'iir Jriciids. 1 and the brethren wlio are witli me represent a second part ol the Bai)tists in liussia, the Union of the Russian Baptists who are German speaking. Tliis Union consists of tliose Baptists who are not na- tional Russians and includes all kinds of nationalities, but the great ma- jority are Germans. The Union numbers at present about twenty-seven thousand members. We have the same motto as the Russian Baptists, One Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism; and we are entirely at one with them. Nevertheless, we find it necessary to march in separate regiments;' there are many considerations that compel this, customs, traditions, cliar- acter, compel it. Baptists who are not of native Russian descent pre- serve their own customs, seek for loyalty to the Lord .Tesus Christ, seek to extend his kingdom in the world and to bring glory to his name and blessing to Russia. These Baptists through us bring to this great Bap- tist World Congress their sincere congratulations and their desire for blessing upon you. May Jesus Christ be exalted in Russia, in England and America and in the whole world until in the eternal triumph v\e all praise him together. (Applause.) POLAND. — Prksidext E. Mehr, of the College for the Training of Men for tlie Polish Ministry. (Translated by Rev. J. H. Rushbrooke, of London) : I rejoice to have an opportunity of speaking a few words to the representatives of the Baptist world. This assembly is a new proof of the power of the blood of Christ; that blood has bound us all to- gether. I have five thousand greetings from the German Baptists in Po- land. In Poland, first of all Russia, Baptist work began; it is fifty-:;hree years old. There is a reason for the fact that there are at present only five thousand members. Our members have departed into many other lands; we have contributed to the fact that there are so many Baptists here in America; I have met many of our members here in Philadelphia. I have also to bring greetings from a small group of Polish Baptists. We have twelve million Poles in our land, but few of them are converted. They send greetings and beg that they may not be forgotten. (Appiause.) HUNGARY.— (Translated by tlie pastot of the Hungarian Church, Philadelphia) : Mr. President, I would like if you all could speak Hungarian or I could speak English. I come from Hun- gar>-, the country of Kossuth, the greatest liberty-loving man of Hun- gary. Hungary has twenty million population; of these twenty millions seventeen thousand have been born again to Baptist fold. After forty years of service in the mission field of Hungary we notice that only the Baptist principles could win the Hungarian people to Christianity. We notice that the Hungarians are inclining to the Baptist principles. Hun- gary is equal to a small bit of America; there are all kinds of nation- alities found in Hungary; for that reason Hungary stands in a very good position for all the countries to be reached from there. Hungary is a place where all nationalities could be combined in the south of Europe. 44 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. We wish from our hearts that the Baptist Congress will consiclei the conditions and think of Hungary. Pray for Hungary. Singing by Hungarian delegation. GERMANY. — Rev. J. G. Lehmann: Mr. President and dear Christian friends : In the name of the Union of two hundred and four Baptist churches in Germany with about forty-two thousand members I have ihe honor of thanking you for the very liberal and obliging invitation, the cordial welcome and the delightful reception the Baptists of the United States of America and especially of Philadelphia have given to us. In 1834 the first six Baptists were baptized in Hamburg. J. G. Oneken was the man who had prayed for a man who would baptize him for some years, and this man was sent from America, and so there was from the beginning a connection between the American Baptists and the German Baptists. I wish this man Oiicken could see this splendid gathering to- night; I wish he could be present. Perhaps he is, perhaps he can see, perhaps he can hear the report not only from Germany but also from Bohemia and Bulgaria and Denmark and Esthonia and Finland and Hol- land and Lithuania and Moravia and Poland and Russia and Roumania. For this pioneer has been the means of spreading the gospel and the principles for which Baptists stand, with his helpers, my father, G. W. Lehmann, and the third in Julius Koebner, through all these countries; and it is a marvel in my eyes and of those of my German brethren here to find what God has done through his mighty power and blessing. From those little cities the blessings have flowed all over Europe. (Applause.) German delegation sings, "Hold the Fort." FRANCE.— Rev. P. Vincent: The Baptists of France bring their greetings to the representatives of the Baptist churches of the world. It is strange how we feel at home in these United States, we French- men. We feel at home as republicans; we are proud we come to the country of Washington from the country of Lafayette, and we are proud that we come from the first country of the Old Continent which has adopted in its Constitution the great American principles of a free Church in a free State. Do you know that I believe that the Baptist day is dawning in France"? I take it not from the numbers nor sta- tistics but from the influence that our Baptist denomination is exert- ing there. Where do you think the Protestant people look for an evan- gelistic leader? They look to the Baptists. And when they Avant a scholar to translate anew their Bible into French they look to the Bap- tists. Oh, my dear brethren, I do not believe that all the work is done. I believe that the work is just beginning. When I think that there is now in France a very mvich more disastrous flood than the flood which threatened our capital city a few months ago — that flood away from Ca- tholicism and from any kind of religion into indifference, into atheism and into a renunciation of God. But we stand there, we are only few but we stand, and we will let our principles be known, and our princi- ple-5 will triumph because they are the principles of truth and because Moiiiiiiy. .lull.' i!t.| h'Ecoun or ri:(>(i:i:ni\(is. 45 we are luit jjuiiiii' in our own name, but in tlie name of a Captain who is not only leading- us to battle but leailing us to victory and who has given us as our motto, "In the world ye shall have tribulations, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." (Applause.) Singing by French delegation. ITALY.— Kkv. Domixico Scalp:ka (Translated by Rev. Mr. WalUer, of New York): Mr. President and dear brethren: In this moment and before such an imposing audience, two oi)posing sentiments are at work in my breast, one of inexpressible joy as 1 see before me the allirniation of Baptist principles in the world; the other of allliction and grief as [ see that Italy, the mother of Baptist principles, is so poorly repre- sented. It is sad for me to find this because in our country we have the great enemy of the principle of the liberty of conscience and of all lib- erty. If the pope, or if jiopery is opposed to Christianity in general it is opposed to the Baptist jirineiples in particular. But the war that popery wages against us is altogether in vain, because if we get silenced the catacondjs are there to raise their voices in our behalf. (Applause.) Dr. Scalera and j\Ir. AValker sing in Italian, "Safe in the Arms of Jesus." LETTONIA.— Rev. J. Inke: Honored brethren: Under the broad spreading wings of the Russian Eagle dwell more than sixty nationali- ties, small and large, calling upon the name of their God, many of them also devoted to idols, every one in his own language. Amidst this crash of languages may be heard also the Lettonian or Letts language, which is spoken by about two million people. The neighboring nations con- sider the Letts able farmers and courageous sailors. Seven hundred years ago the German Knights brought Christianity and with fire and sword forced the people to adore the Blessed Virgin. The German Reformation gave our people Martin Luther's catechism. Just fifty years ago the Letts received by (Jerman Baptists the pure teaching of Jesus Christ; many believed and were baptized, and this notwithstand- ing the prisons, bonds, and cruel penalties which they had to suffer for their faith. Now the Baptist World Alliance has in the Lettish nation eight thousand five hundred brothers and sisters in Christ, and they are represented here by four delegates who have crossed the Atlantic to bring their heartiest greetings to the second Baptist "World Congress from eighty-five churches of the Lettish Baptist Union. We are con- vinced that through the power of the atoning ami cleansing blood of Christ and the generous help of our stronger and wealthier brethren, our Russia will rapidly jiossess one of the largest Bai)tist communities in the world. Most other European States have sent their representa- tion, but the spiritual reformation of Russia is only in its infancy an OF l'l!()('i:i:i)l \(1^. 63 stagnation and not life. As to the unity of Rome, the unity of an eccle- siastical empire rigidly ordered under one priest as emperor, history has judged it, and condemned it, out and out. We distinctly disavow any lianUoring after a world-wide unity of organization on the idatforra of that ol tiie Seven Hills, on the one hand, or that of Moscow on the other, conlident that it would suffocate originality of thought, block boldness of initiative, quench enthusiasm and letter souls in what ought to be the very citadel, and best defence, of freedom. Unity of life, of love, and of governing ideas and ideals, let us have by all means, but unity of "or- der," of ''machinery" or of ''creed," is not in keeping with the "unity in diversity" either of Nature or of Grace. Besides it avails nothing to make light of the fact that we do not think as Christendom thinks on the vital elements of Christianity. The great historic churches are against us: the Roman Catholic, the Eastern, the Anglican, and some other communions; and against us on subjects that go to the uttermost depths of the soul of the gospel of Christ; and therefore "Separation" is one of the inevitable conditions of faithful- ness to our experience of tne grace of God, to our interpretation of the claims of Jesus Christ, and to the principles He has given as the ground and spliere of our collective life. It cannot be helped. We accept the isolation, and all the penalties it involves. For it is most unthankful work. It means sacrifice; it shuts us out of alliances we would gladly join, and excludes us from circles of rare ex- hilaration and charm, but it is useful as w^ell as necessary. Christianity owes its continuance amongst men to the insuppressible race of protes- ters. It would liave remained in the swaddling bands of Judaism, and been cradled as a Jewish sect, if the Spirit of God had not pushed Peter into the protesting line. Nor would it have become in the first century a universal religion, had not that matchless statesman, the Apostle Paul, vigorously resisted all the traditional and conventional defenders of the racial and sectarian religion. "In Tertullian's century there seemed some prospect that every characteristic feature of the gospel would be so 're-stated' as to leave the gospel entirely indistinguishable from any other eclectic system of the moment." But Tertullian would have none of it. His protest was strong and clear. "Let them look to it," he said, "who have produced a Stoic and Platonic and dialectic Christianity. We need no curiosity who have Jesus Christ; no inquiry Avho have the gospel."* The Lollards were protestants. John Huss, and John Wyc- lifFe, could only save the gospel by^ exposing the falsehoods under which it was buried. Luther burning the Pope's bull, which was the chief ex- pression of the current Christianity, is a dramatic demonstration of the way he made room for the saving truths of the Reformation. Robert Browne left the church, and "without tarrying for any" gave an impact to the reforming movement which it never lost. Bishop Hall wrote to Robinson, the Pilgrim Father: "There is no remedy. You must go for- ward to Anabaptism, or come back to ns He (and the Bishop is speaking of our John Smith), tells you true; your station is unsafe." It was unsafe, and so they left it in order to give security to the truth of the gospel of God. Hitherto it has been the only way of keeping the soul of Christianity alive. There is no other effective method. Puritanism endeavored to dispense with it. Separation seemed harsh and hard. It wore the garb of self-assertion. It exposed to censure. It looked like ♦ "The Conflict of Religions In the Early Roman Empire." by T. R. Glover, p. 338. 64 TEE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. schism; but it was the only way to escape a creeping paralysis followed by death. The Evangelicals in the Anglican Church tried it. Hating Rome and battling against it, they remained in the Protestant Church under the terms of the compromise effected between Eome and Geneva in the days of Queen Elizabeth. They were Protestants, and wished the church to be Protestant in reality as well as in name. They saw the truth of Bagehot 's declaration that * ' the articles of the Church of England were less a compromise than an equivocation A formula on which two parties could unite and go their separate ways under an ap- pearance of unity"; but they believed they could purify the Church of England by staying in it; but the result after 300 years is that the Ro- man elements are more definitely paramount than at any time since the reign of Queen Mary. The Separatists felt they could do little or noth- ing from within, and therefore they came out, and followed the churches of the New Testament as the model of the new society they created. Wakeman, in his "History of Religion in England," uses this significant expression as to the origin of the Free Churches: ''When men became really instead of decorously religious, they broke away from the estab- lished order and sought the realization of their deeper faith in the or- ganization of a more primitive type." It was separation for the sake of life and usefulness. Hence, for generations to come, eager as we are for the unity of all believers in Christ, and resolved to remove wherever we can the grounds and causes of division, yet necessity is laid upon us, "to go forward to Anabaptism" as Bishop Hall said, and not to go back to any other church. We have to lift up our voice against that capital error of Chris- tendom, that source of immeasurable damage to the gospel and to souls, the magical interpretation of baptism and the Lord's Supper, the treat- ment of the baptism of the babe as obedience to the will of the Lord Jesus, as expressed in the New Testament and as a way of salvation. We must stand aloof from it. We can have no part or lot in it. In a word, we must be in a position to give a full, clear, unconfused witness to the cardinal principles of our faith and life. (4) Again, we have not only to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered lo the saints, and forming the old gospel and for the pure gospel, stripped free of the accretions of the ages; but if we are to be true to the earliest Christianity of all, and to the spirit and work of the creators of our Modern Baptist denomination, we must also advocate and work for the Social Gospel. The Acts of the Apostles give evidence of the arrival of a new social ideal and impulse in the Christianity of Christ. That is admitted. Nor is it to be questioned that as early as 1527, the Anabaptists were promulgating their revolutionary ideas, demanding lib- erty for all men in matters of religion, applying the law of Christ to every relation of life, and specially to the ordering of the affairs of States. Strong as they were as individualists, they were by the force of the same principles, collectivists or socialists, and socialists in a hurry being nearly three centuries before their time ; and therefore they had to suffer accordingly. It was natural, if premature and unexpected, for Baptist ideas carry us with tremendous momentum to the side of the "common man," as a son of God, as our brother, of value in himself incomputable and of possibilities measureless; with rights that must be defended for the sake of duties that must be done; possessed of claims Tuesday, June 20.1 liECORD OF PROCEEDIXGS. 66 on the collective resources and activities of society that must be con- ceded for the sake ol' the brotlierhood of man and the Kingdom of God. ''Liberty, equality, and fraternity" were in the heart of the Baptist faith. The deliverance of the poor out of the hand of tlie evil-doers be- comes a primary duty when you once really accept Christ's estimate of the worth of man. Poverty must be dealt with in its causes. Charity must not be accepted as a substitute for Justice. Justice must limit the range of charity, and leave no room for it that justice ought to fill. So- cial misery must be extinguished ; unjust laws must be repealed. The men who have been "flattened out" by the long tramp of misery, must be rescued, healed, strengthened and set on tlicir own feet. Whoever touches these social problems with a timorous hand, we assuredly must grip them firmly and courageously and persistently, and attempt their solution or be traitors to that word of the Lord by which we live. We are held by the most sacred bonds to seek the fullest realization of universal brotherhood. To us war is a crime, and the promotion of inter- national peace one of our foremost duties. The duel of nations must disappear in this century as the duel of individuals in the English-speak- ing countries, disappeared in the nineteenth. No doubt there are dis- couraging and reactionary appearances, but we must feed the deep and hidden currents of the Avorld's life so steadily setting towards peace. In the increasing complexity of modern life we have to fight against all the encroachments of might on the rights of the weak, against commercial and social, military and ecclesiastical systems linked together for the defence of wrong. We must break them up, and prepare them for the fire in which all that injures man, God's child, and stands in the way of his redemption and total regeneration, shall be consumed. Man must be free to work out his own salvation, to realize himself, and to enthrone God in Christ, in the whole life of mankind. VI. And now standing upon this eminence, let us ask what is the outlook for the Baptist people all over the earth? What is the position likely to be assigned to us in leading and shaping the religious life of mankind? To answer that question we need ask first, towards what sea are the deeper currents of thought and action in modern civilization setting? What is the "stream of tendency" amongst the progressive peoples? Is it with our principles or against them? The reply is unequivocal and complete. (1) Protestantism is to the fore. The races leading the life of the world are either distinctively Protestant, as in Britain and the United States or they are effectively using Protestant ideas as weapons against Roman Catholicism as in France and Spain. "The Dissidence of Dis- sent" holds the field, if not in form, in fact. Modernism is sapping Rome in its strongholds, as in Italy and Austria. Those who know Romanism most intimately are ashamed of its morals, rebel against its tyranny of the intellect, are indignant with its interdict upon united social service, and resent its treatment of leaders in science, philosophy, and religion. In Germany and in England and in some of our colonies, gigantic ef- forts are being made to caj^ture the Teuton and the Saxon, but the suc- cesses they have secured are, neither in character nor number, such as to invalidate the conclusion that Protestantism is one of the chief factors moulding the coming generations of men. 66 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIA^'CE. (2) The leaven of teaching concerning the intervention of the magis- trate in religious affairs cast by John Smith and Roger Williams into the three measures of human meal in Holland and England and America, has been doing its work. The United States has established forever the doctrine of the neutrality of the State towards all Christian societies. France has cut the concordat in twain, and State and Church are free of each other. Portugal is doing the same this year. Welsh Disestablish- ment is at the doors. And though England, as usual, lags behind, yet both within and without the Anglican Church the conviction that separa- tion is just, gains strength, and all that is wanted is the opportunity to translate the conviction into legislative deed. (3) In like manner the reflective forces of the age make against an exclusive and aggressive priestism. Indeed, it has received its sentence of death, and is only waiting for the executioner. It has to go. A pro- fessor trained in the higher ranges of the Anglican Church says : * * A re- vival of any form of sacerdotal Christianity would be an appalling ca- lamity to the human race. " * In the nature of things that revival cannot come. Never was the proportion of thinking men so large as now. Per- sonality becomes more and more every day, and officialism less and less. Material and sensuous as the age is in many of its aspects, yet character was never more highly appreciated or told for more than it does at the present time. (4) Nor can prelacy stand against the divine right of the democracy. Although the cry of "Increase the Episcopate" is heard, yet the Bishops themselves admit that they must give the laity some share in the admin- istration of the affairs of prelatical churches. The people cannot be ex- cluded from churches or from nations. Their day has dawned ; and it will go on to its full noon. Not churches, nor parties, not nations merely, but the people are the legatees of the future; the inheritance is theirs. Long have they been kept out of it ; but every year witnesses their grow- ing consciousness of power and their increased determination to use it. Washington and Jefferson, Hamilton and Knox, Franklin and Madison, and the men who framed your Constitution in this city uttered with something of lyric i^assion this great message, and fixed it forever in the Charter of Independence. France thrilled the world with its deeds in the people's name, and sealed with the blood of many of her sons and daughters the people's cause. Walt Whitman, rapt into ecstacy with the vision of the advancing people, sings: ''I will make Divine magnetic land, With the love of comrades. With the life-long love of comrades." And then again he asks : ''What whispers are these, 0 lands, running ahead of you, passing under the seas? Are all nations communing? Is there going to be but one heart to the globe?" Yonder in Russia, Tolstoy is seized by the spirit of universal eomrade- *Lectures and Essays, by Professor W. K. Clifford, Vol. I, p. 251. Tuesday, , June 20. 1 RlAiHil) OF I'ROCKEDIMIH. 67 ship in the cause of peace and purity, of righteousness and charity, and tells men in many a volume of quickening thought, expressed in stx-ong and lucid speech that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto them. Nay, can you believe it; even the British House of Lords has discovered that it is an irritating anachronism, a gilded stumbling-stone in the way of progress, and the sooner it moves out of the way the better. This is the reign of the people. The issue is inevitable. They are one. They know it: and they will act as one. Instead of fighting one another, they will make common cause with each other, and rule the Avorld in righteousness and peace. (5) But the most outstanding characteristics of our time is the amaz- ing dominance of the idea of social service. The age is permeated with the obligation of brotherhood, the duty of self-sacrificing ministry, to the more needy members of the Commonwealth. "We cannot escape it. So- cial problems are supreme. **The condition of the people" question is everywhere surging to the front. Housing and health, temperance and purity, drill for the body, education for the mind; these and kindred phases of life are never out of sight. The churches have broadened out so as to embrace them. Institutions, clubs, spring up in towns and villages to deal with them. Govex-nments have done with laissez faire, and are taking them up. The British Legislature points the way with its old age pensions, and its charter for the industrial classes. As a doctor it is fighting disease. As a nurse it is watching over the invalid. As an in- surance agent it is arranging help for those who are out of work; and doing it all, we cannot forget, through a political leader of splendid genius and captivating simplicity, Avho has been trained from childhood in Baptist ideas, who is now an active member of a Baptist church, and whether he knows it or not, is absorbed in applying the doctrines of the Anabaptist of the sixteenth century to the needs of the men of our own day. From him has come this Great Charter of the Industrial Classes; a charter conferring untold good at once, and also foretelling the arrival of a new era in the commercial, industrial, and social condition and ac- tivities of the whole woi'ld. (6) And all this movement is intensely moral. The illuminated and energized conscience is in it. It is ennobled by a high ethic. The Spirit has "convinced the ivorld of sin and righteousness and judgment"; and in the strength of that conviction, a concerted and compi'ehensive attack is being made by churches and States, by individuals and societies on the strongliolds of injustice and misery, and a long stride is taken to that one far-off divine event towards which the whole creation moves. VII. Need I trace the parallel between those manifest tendencies of this New Century and the principles which our fathers set forth and which we maintain? Is it not obvious that the ideas and aims are ours, and that whatever becomes of us as churches, this, at least, is certain, that those ideas of ours are Avorking mightily as the formative factors of the future? "The sum of all progress," says Hegel, "is freedom." On freedom we are built, for freedom we fight; and towards freedom the race is everywhere moving. Man is able to enunciate his own law, and to follow it. He is made to govern himself. In a world of increasing complexity and marvelous 68 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. inter-play of vital and social forces, he is slowly acquiring self-govern- ment. Our churches are autonomous, and have proved themselves useful schools in the mastery of the art of self-rule. The individual enters society, and is made by it ; social responsibility educates him; social service purifies and expands him. The more com- plete his free and equal participation in the social organism, the richer his life, and the more valuable his gifts to the world. Our fellowships offer such aids. Monopolies are excluded. Caste is forbidden. Work for others is obligatory and inspired. But though the parallel in those and other respects is so significant, we cannot forget that there are immense ecclesiastical organizations oc- cupying vast fields enrolling multitudes of members, repudiating us and claiming an exclusive right to preach the way of salvation, and to direct the religious life of men. Islam, for example, has a brilliant history ; controls wide regions, at- tracts millions of adherents, and is once more fired with missionary zeal. Its activity is ceaseless, and its hope of conquest bright; but it must be affected by the rise of the Young Turks with their antagonism to clerical- ism, hatred of intolerance, symjaathy with justice and equality, and bold avowal that women have souls as well as men. One of two things must follow; either the leavening of Mohammedanism with Christian ideas or its gradual dissolution under the powerful solvent of the current prin- ciples of modern life. It is the same with Roman Catholicism. It asserts the right to an exclusive dominion over the minds and wills of men, boasts of its uni- versality, and has the allegiance of hundreds of millions of be- lievers. But Dr. Cobb says: ''It is quite impossible to think of the Roman Catholic Church possessing any determining voice in the religion of the future — unless she herself is first reconstructed so as to bring her on to the line of modern progress; and then she would be no longer the Roman Catholic Church, but something entirely different."* The same thing, with even more reason, may be said concerning the Holy Orthodox Church of Russia. Then we are left to the Protestant churches in their several denomina- tions. Of the Anglican Church, Dr. Cobb, who is himself a member of that Church, affirms: ''It is the living voice we ask to be allowed to hear. It is the dead hand which we feel oppressive The Free Churches have a living voice The Church of England alone among the churches of the West has none. ' ' § Without endorsing that verdict, we may say it is perfectly true that all Christian churches have some truth, and live and serve by the truth they hold, and the truth that really holds them ; and by the quality and quantity of the service they are rendering to humanity: but it is clear (1) that it is the genuine Chris- tianity that is in all the churches that will give the determining word and influence, (2) that Protestantism, specially in the Free Churches, admittedlj'^ contains and embodies more of the primitive gospel than the Roman and Greek churches, and (3) that our Baptist churches are by the principles they avow and the ideas they hold charged with a respon- sibility second to none for inspiring, directing and shaping the religion of the future. For in addition to our ruling ideas we have a freedom as to verbal ♦Hibbert Journal, 1911, p. 585. §Ibid, p. 597. 'luesilay, June 20. J UKVOUU Of I'UOVEEDlSUii. 69 forms of belief and of org:anized collective life, though we are so im- movably fixed as to principles, that leaves us wholly at liberty to adapt ourselves to the teaching; of experience, and the changing needs of socie- ties as continuously living organisms can and must. Biblical criticism do"s not disturb us, for we do not rest on it, but on personal experience of the grace of Christ. Modes of political government do not affect us ; we can accept any, but we fare best under the most democratic; and as a matter of conviction we can only be kept out of politics by the absence of injustice, of interference with conscience, of lavoritism, and of neg- lect of the weak and the poor. Collisions with the people cannot occur, for we are of the people, and one with them in their popular ideals and democratic aims. I do not say that Baptists are necessary for the full development and final triumph of these principles. We are not. ''There is no man, nor any body of men necessary for anything, not even the Prince of Denmark to Hamlet." But I do declare with my whole soul that these principles are necessary to the strength and purity, the ful- ness and harmony of the religious life of men; and I am sure that the church that can give the most living, fresh, and powerful embodiment of them will find itself summoned of God to guide the races of men through the jungle of this life into the blissful Canaan God has prepared for those that love Him. It needs the best men and the best churches to carry the best cause to victory; the men and the churches of the finest manhood, of the tenderest sympathy, and most self-forgetting love; men and churches who will have no purpose but such as can be entirely sub- ordinated to the glory of God our Redeemer; churches that come nearer to that divine ideal of which we have so many brilliant glimpses in the Xew Testament ; churches with a full spiritual life, a large ministi'y — a brotherly spirit, and a broad sweep of service; churches meeting the needs of the whole life of man with a whole gospel; churches that hold that the soul to be saved is the self, all the self, and in all its relations; that we are ourselves "social settlements," communities of brothers and sisters of Jesus, willing to go into an uninteresting obscurity for the sake of men lost in the dark regions of Slumdom, or to ascend into the high- est realms of culture for the sake of spiritualizing the entire life through the intellect. Two duties then are before us, one is to keep the stock of human thought enriched by the ideas and principles of the gospel ot Christ, and the other is to add to the stock of human energy engaged in the saving of men, Paul 's incredible labor was as necessary to his missionary suc- cesses as the revelation which came to him, not by man nor from man, but from God. "Send them an enthusiast," said Dr. Price when the first Lord Lansdowne asked what he should do to reform the profligates of Calne. "Send them an enthusiast." Men with sloppy ignorance and sleepless energy often achieve more than individuals crammed with li- braries of knowledge but void of fire and passion. The best constructed engine stands still until the steam is up. The apprehension of our capital ideas will avail nothing unless we are ready to hazard our strength, our money, our efforts for the salvation of men. The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. It is work that is needed. "Come over and help us" is (he cry sounding in our ears Irom all parts of the world and specially from Southeastern Europe. Churches of our faith and order have sprung into existence in Hungary and Austria, Moravia and Bulgaria, Bohemia and Bosnia, and the Russian Empire. Thousands 70 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. upon thousands have been added to the Lord, They are persecuted, but they take joyfully the spoiling of their goods, and with dauntless cour- age spread the fire of their evangelism far and near. They need our help. They call upon us for sympathy and guidance in the training of their eager pastors and evangelists, colporteurs and missionaries. They wait our response. It must be prompt, practical, and sufficient. It must be made now. Let us then humbly accept our responsibility for leadership of the re- ligion of the future and go forward to our place. Pioneers never get the best pay, but they do the best work; the work that lasts and comes out of the fire because it is not inflammable wood but gold that melted in the flames is coined afresh, and sent out again into the currency of the ages. Do not wait for others ! Do that which costs. Wait for others, and you will never start. Tarry till Baptists are socially popular, and ostracism ceases, and the persecutor disappears and you will do nothing. Keep out of the firing line with your principles, and nobody will know that you have them. The bewitched forest heard the lies told by the evil spirit that the first tree that broke into blossom in the spring would be withered and destroyed, and each tree, fearing the threatened doom waited for the other to begin, and so the Avhole forest remained dark and dead for a thousand years. Away with fear. Be ready to endure the cross and despise shame. Rise to the courage of your best moments. Push your convictions into deeds. Scorn bribes. Stand true. Be faith- ful to Christ and His holy gospel, and so help to lead the whole world into the light and glory of His redeeming love. At the close of the address the audience broke into prolonged ap- plause and cheers. Some one started the singing of ''Blest be the Tie that Binds," which was taken up enthusiastically and followed by three cheers for Dr. Clifford. Hymn, ''Faith of Our Fathers." Dr. Prestkidge : I have not mistaken the spirit of this body nor of American Baptists and of other Baptists. Some of us know — all of us know — that Dr. Clifford is growing old in years. This is the first time we have had an opportunity to crown him. God only knows whether we will have another time. We must have an expression of what we feel for him and for this great deliverance, and we have asked Hon. Joshua Levering — no man is better known in the North or South — to ex- press our feelings for us. Hon. Joshua Levering: No man could stand here and speak after such an address except out of a full heart, and he could hardly find words to express himself. We have all stood on mountain tops, we have heard great addresses, we have been stirred at times by great emo- tion, but I appeal to you brethren, as those who love the Lord Christ and love his word and believe that we hold it in sincerity and in truth, has there ever been a time when we were on such a mountain top as we have been on here to-day? (Applause.) We sometimes try to foretell the future and look into the acts of Providence, but we quite well un- Tuesday, Juno 20. J h'h'VOh'l) OF PROCEEDINGS. 71 (lerstaiul now why (Jud uur Father has spared the life ol' our brother, why he has given him this fire of energy and of intellect and has en- abled him to come across the waters to give a message of truth which will last while time lasts I believe. My honored and beloved brother, I thank God for your presence, and I believe I express the sentiment of every one of us, and not only of every one of us but of the millions of Baptists over our great land as tliey shall hear of this meeting and as they shall read of your utterance and shall say Amen to every word that you said, when I say, God bless you and spare your life for many years, and may you be a beacon light to your own land and lead them out of whatever darkness still environs them into tlie light and liberty of the gospel of Christ. Dear brethren, what are you going to do with it ? Are you going home to say we had a wonderl'ul time? Now there are these copies printed; they are not for circulation only; that is one thing, but it is easy for us to put them into our pockets and throw them into the drawers of our desks. They are for use. Oh, you preachers, forget your own sermons and go to your people and read it. Take Dr. Strong's address also, and make those two your thought, and your teaching to your people, until they shall become saturated with some of these great, these uplifting truths, fundamentals, which it has been our privilege to listen to. Say together once more, We rise and pay honor and re- spect and lay a crown upon our beloved brother's head. Audience rises and sings, ^' Blest be the Tie that Binds." Dr. Clifford : My Dear Friends : I am deeply indebted for the way in which you have responded to the words just now uttered from this plat- form, concerning my address and concerning myself. I thank God it is my Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ who has brought me to this day. He saved me as a lad, for it is sixty years ago last Friday since I was baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and through all these sixty years he has been not only my Saviour but my leader, and my one supreme desire has been to subor- dinate everything in me and through me to his honor and to his glory, and therefore all the words you have said about me I give to him. C'Amen.") I do not think I am going to die yet; (laughter and ap- plause) ; I often take encouragement from the fact that my grandmother lived to ninety-nine and a half, and she was as stout as I am, (laughter) and I don't see what is the good of coming after your grandmother, as I said to a friend, if you don't do better than your grandmother! So I shall still hope to come to these States again. Six years ago I thought that was impossible but when I was elected to this position I had to put it into my program, and though I dreaded the great and wide sea where- in are things creeping innumerable and whereon there are exploits phy- sical, exploits accomplished by individuals like myself, that fill them with terror and alarm, thouuli I dreaded it I have come across it, and I have found in this opportunity lor service of the Christ whom I love 72 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. an exceeding great reward. God bless you, my dear friends, and return into your own souls abundantly all the good you have striven to do to me. The audience joined in singing, ''There is a Land that is Fairer than Day." On motion of Dr. Prestridge the following were appointed a commit- tee to draw up a resolution of congratulation to the King and Queen of England on the occasion of their Coronation. (See page xvi.) Rev. Clans Peters, of Germany, then delivered the following address: THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL FOR THE SALVATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL. By Rev. CLAUS PETERS, Hamburg, Germany. Our subject is a genuine biblical one. It covers the word of Paul in the Epistle to the Romans (1: 16): The gospel *'is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew and also to the ^Greek. ' ' Paul was a man of the gospel, the principles of which he ex- plains with marvelous force of thinking in his epistles. With the gospel in his hand he conquered the world, and he saw its effects not only in the popular preaching but also in pastoral care. He proclaimed as the sum of his experience that the gospel is a divine power to save men from moral corruption. It is the power of a sublime person, therefore it does not work in a magical manner as the sacraments of some great churches are supposed to do. In the first place we ask : I. What is the gospel which Jesus and his disciples preached with great power and simplicity? The gospel is not a dogmatical book, Avritten by learned men contain- ing ideas of the New Testament and philosophical views of the Greeks, which we have to believe as the priests must believe in the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. The gospel is much simpler. What is the gospel? Liberal theolo- gians tell us it consists of the thoughts which Jesus and His disciples preached with great force and success. To these belong especially the fatherhood of God and the advent of the kingdom of God. They assert that the gospel has been chiefly a message to the poor and the wretched, to whom Jesus announced a glorious deliverance from all religious and social evils. To proclaim the gosjDel to-day it is only necessary to repeat these thoughts. And yet the gospel is much more than that. This Paul and his con- temporaries understood, as Ave know by their mission-preaching and the Epistles of the New Testament. They believed the gospel to be tidings of deliverance from the last judgment. It was to them the final redemp- tion from the terrors of sin and the removing of the believers to the heavenly kingdom (2 Peter 1: 11). Therefore, Paul calls the gospel "logos soterias, " ''word of deliverance." In other passages of the New Testament it is simply called "word of God" (2 Cor. 2: 17; 1 Thess. Tuesdiiy, .luiic lid. I liFA'OliU OF mOL'KKDI SCH. 73 2: 13; 2 Thess. 3:1) i. e., a statement by God in reference to the salva- tion of lost humanity. The renowned Professor Adolf Harnack in Berlin is known to have asserted that Jesus Himself does not beloiij; to the gospel. This asser- tion is not correct in relation to the New Testament. It proves for this reason, how necessary it is to be spiritually independent of the most celebrated theologians. An independent tiiinker who is a Christian with all his heart will certainly come to the conviction that Jesus Christ stands in the center of the gospel. Without Him there is no gospel and no redemption. In reference to this fact we can understand the saying of St. Paul: ''For I determined not to know anything among j'ou, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2: 2). This our conviction is very valuable in the theological struggles of our time. It may become, when we express it in words, a kind of con- fession of faith, which defines our position in respect to the liberal the- ology. Some people thought that men of gTeater scientific endorsement might easily be borne away by the waves of theological liberalism. But this fear is unnecessan' as long as their position in regard to Christ is the right one. And it may very well be the right one, even if they take a critical position in reference to many dogmas of the church, which are partly known to have developed under the influence of the Greek phil- osophy and the scholastical theology of the Middle Ages. This is a good Baptistic view, for it agrees with our opposition to some teachings of the church, Jor example, the doctrine respecting the sacraments. If our rela- tion to Christ is correct, then there are sharp boundary lines between liberal and orthodox theology. Liberal theologians will follow Harnack, but orthodox ones follow Paul and testify that Christ remains in the center of the gospel. The experience of the living Lord and the knowl- edge of great historical facts in the life of Christ hold them in this posi- tion, even if they are sun-ounded by the waves of theological doubt. The NeAv Testament agrees with them. For Jesus preached the gospel not without his person. Because He broke the power of the devil, He con- cluded the kingdom of God had come (Matt. 12: 28). Thus there is no kingdom of God and no gospel without His person. He expresses the same truth b}' His claim to be the Messiah, who was destined to bring the kingdom of God. Also the apostles confess in their writings and in their mission-preaching Jesus to be the contents of the gospel. All their thoughts concentrate about the person of Jesus Christ, whom they all recognize as ''the Lord from heaven." In such a degree Jesus is to them the center of the gospel that the faithful witnesses of truth in Antioch are said to have preached "the gospel of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 11: 20). Thus we can conclude : the gospel is the glad tidings of a living Sa- viour, who delivers sinners from guilt and corruption. In this way Paul understood the gospel, for he confessed when the shadows of night fell upon the lonesome man: "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, ot whom I am chief" (I Tim. 1: 15). But if the gospel is the message of a living Saviour, who is Lord of all worlds and who cleared by His atoning blood the way for communion with God, then we can also say: the gospel is the message regarding facts about salvation, connected indissolubly with the person of Jesus Christ. 74 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. Kespecting these expositions Avhich agree with the Scriptures I shall now mention some truths, which are without doubt part of our creed : 1. There is no gospel without Jesus Christ. This principle too is a sharp boundary-line between liberal and ortho- dox theology. People who reckon the deity of Christ to the gospel can- not be liberal. Moreover, it is very remarkable that the most radical theologians of our time confirm the belief of the apostolical Christians in the godhead of our Saviour. The late Professor Paul Wrede in Breslau came to the candid confession that ''our Mark does not give the so-called historical Christ, that it (the gospel of Mark) too is infected by the phantom-like Godman, whom the Paulinian mission-preaching announces." The pro- fessor concedes thus that our Gospels and Paul speak of the Godman Jesus Christ. As we consider the Gospels trustworthy historical docu- ments, therefore we believe in the deity of Christ. It belongs to the rock of salvation on which we stand. With this creed our denomination has gained the most glorious victories ; therefore we must not surrender it, if we are not inclined to renounce our existence. 2. The gospel is eternal (Rev. 14: 6), and therefore unchangeable. In a limited sense there may be a kind of evolution of religion but there will never be a development of the gospel. For the gospel deals with the great facts of salvation, which once for all God sunk as historical events into the soil of humanity. But these facts are as unchangeable as the rocks in the mountains. That Baptists must never forget in a time which strongly influences ourselves by its strong theological life. Back to the simple gospel of Jesus and His disciples ! That must be the watchword in the theological struggles of the present time. This gos- pel of Jesus will be to us a solid wall against the scepticism which leads even to the denial of the historical Christ. The gospel is the glad message about the facts of salvation, which are connected indissolubly with the historical person of Jesus Christ. II. This glorious gospel is sufficient for the salvation of the indi- vidual. That is the assertion of our subject, this also the Scriptures teach. Why is this the case? Paul says, because it comes from God (''gospel of God" 1 Thess 2: 2) and thence it is a "power of God" to save men. The gospel is the mightiest' spiritual power which ever worked amongst the nations. Paul saw this in a limited way, but we see much more of its effects from the watch-tower of the twentieth century. For this rea- son we need not fear that the gospel grows old in a world rich in the wonders of modern culture. That will never happen. So long_ as there are people religiously disposed, the gospel will maintain its influence. This fact cannot be changed by the power of modern unbelief, which denies every religion. The gospel is sufficient for the salvation of sinners. Why? 1. Because it is a power of God, which works strongly on the soul- life of the individual. This takes place in accordance with the psycho- logical laws. By this influence the ethical forces are set free, which lie dormant in fallen men. The Acts tells us of the effects of the gos- pel upon our hearts. When, for example, Peter preached in the house of Cornelius the heathen present were so deeply moved that they praised God with new tongues for the salvation in Christ (Acts 10: 46). Even the most modest Baptist preacher is able to tell of similar effects of the Tuesday, June 20.] RECORD OF I'ROVL'EDLWii. 75 gospel. In the demeanoi- of the auditors we recognized its spiritual power, whicli conquered their hearts. The gospel strongly influences the soul-lile of men. This influence ex- tends to the most different conditions of mind. It influences with the same power a man like Paul, who was totally ruled by Pharisaical self- righteousness, and also Luther, who — a poor scared lad — suffered deeply by the claims of the divine law and the Roman Catholic Church. Bun- yan was a man in whom the world and religion wrestled for dominion. The gospel at last secured the victory of religious feeling over worldly sentiment. What these men became for their contemporaries and what blessings they received for themselves, they are indebted for to the gos- pel. Oh, that the modern world were opened to the influences of the gospel ! If that were the case, I believe, we should soon live in the cir- cumstances of the millennium. Through this influence upon the hearts of men the gospel brings sinners to the reception of salvation. Already our Lord and His disciples experienced that the simple preaching of the gospel effectuated ''repentance" (change of mind). In the Acts we read (11: IS) that through the gospel 'Ho the Gentiles, was granted re- pentance unto life." Also the faith is. the fruit of the gospel. When in Antioch simple children of God proclaimed the divine word, "the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed and turned to the Lord" (Acts 11: 21). The gospel wakens belief by creating a disposition to believe, by which man is able to receive Christ and His salvation. Therefore, Paul writes : "So tlien faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10: 17). The simple preaching disposes men to belief, and induces them to be willing to receive salvation. For this rea- son Paul by many experiences can say : the gospel saves. 2. The gospel is sufficient to save humanity, since it creates new men. This is the meaning of the following words: "Born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever," and "of his own will he bee:at us with the word of truth" (1 Peter 1: 23; James 1: 18). This result, the creation of a new man, is caused by the influence of the gospel upon the human heart, which clears the way for the influence of the Almighty upon the hearts of men. The gospel creates new men, who are in the right position towards God. On the basis ol' the facts of salvation it leads to the holy com- munion with God. From that time we live in the blessed fulfilment of our duties to God. Besides this the glad tidings bring us into correct relationship to our fellow-men. While we Avere in earlier times gov- erned by great selfishness, we now being children of God perform the works of merciful love to our neighbors. We sympathize with every movement for common welfare. We are happy when absolutism is over- thrown and righteousness is enthroned and nations live in peace. Who- ever is touched by tlie spirit of the gospel must be a friend of peace, and he will abhor a warlike spirit. By the gospel we gain also the right position toward'^ the temporal goods to which we also reckon our spiritual endowment. We do not over- estimate them, for the genuine success of human life is not dependent on the circumstances which surj-ound us in our daily life and which lose their value in death. But neither do we under-rate them, because we 76 ' THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. use them as faithful stewards of our Lord for the building up of the kingdom. Therefore we assert : the gospel creates new men, for it changes our position to God, to our fellow-men and to earthly things. It grants us freedom in ethical matters, so that we can live as happy children of our Father in heaven. By these effects it surpasses all other non-Christian religions, which cannot deliver from the pernicious ban of this Avorld and whicli for this reason do not satisfy the longing of the human heart. Tn spite of its spiritual power Buddhism, for example, has not brought about the new birth of the Indian people, for which now the gospel works with great success. 3. Further, the gospel is sufficient for the salvation of mankind, because it breaks the power of sin. Paul, the great missionary, has ex- perienced this. Therefore, Christianity is the great religion of redemp- tion, which cannot be compared with any pagan religion of which none save from the ban of sin. Therefore it is henceforth our duty to send missionai'ies to heathen countries, to preach the gospel. We Baptists believe in the dreadfulness of sin. Sin is not only a devi- ation from the right way, but also rebellion against God, for, it is ac- cording to the Scriptures ''anomia" — lawlessness, transgression of the divine law. We shall Aveaken our si^iritual strength, if we do not, like our ancestors, emphasize the destroying power of sin and the responsibility for our own guilt. The danger to neglect this is very near in our time. But to-day we will resolve to preach with greater force the dear old gospel, because it saves from the bondage of sin. Paul, the man with a strong moral feeling, who in spite of this was fettered by the chains of sin, describes to us not only the hopeless battle of men against sin, but also their deliverance from the power of sin by the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. He himself attests how he came from the dark depths of sin and guilt to the liberty of the children of God. The power of sin is broken in the life of men in such a degree that the apostle exhorts the Romans not to allow sin to reign in their mortal bodies. This is sanctification, which consists in separation from sin. Paul believes in a sanctification through the gospel or through the liv- ing Christ who stands in the center of the gospel. For this reason he announces to the Corinthians, amongst whom much unholy conduct ex- isted: ''Jesus Christ is made unto us righteousness and sanctification" (1 Cor. 1: 30). Thus we may say: the gospel awakens and strengthens in believers the ethical forces, leads to victory over sin and to the estab- lishment of a holy character, by which they will resemble Jesus Christ. That is the life of the Christians in holiness whicli we will gladly preach a glorious redemption by Christ. 4. Finally the gospel suffices for the salvation of men, because it delivers from the eternal consequences of sin. So Jesus has taught. He directs Nicodemus to his own person, whom he describes as a gift of the love of God. Then he adds : ' ' That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 16). Jesus believes in the possibility that sinners may perish. How earnestly He pronounces this with the words: "But he that believeth not, shall be damned" (Mark 16: 16). He points to the verdict of judgment from His own mouth, by which impenitent sinners are to be delivered to the judgment of hell. Thus Jesus believes in a hell and in a salvation from it. We are Tuesday, Juno 20. 1 h'KCORD OF I'ROCEEDl'NOS. 77 one witli Him in this belief, therefore we will gladly proclaim, this gos- pel which saves inlallibly from eternal death and hell. Jesus confesses: "For the sou of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19: 10). Jesus saves, the gospel saves Irom eternal destruction. Millions of Christians have experienced this in a blessed, victorious death. That is a divine fact, that is the gospel! The gospel is suflicient for the salvation of the individual. The New Testament teaches this elevating truth and a thousand-fold experience confirms it most brilliantly. Every Christian who saw with Paul a day of Damascus, has made this experience. Great revivals of the last cen- tury confirm the saving power of the gospel. Also in our days we experi- ence the same fact in the new birth of pagan peoples by the simple preaching of the gospel. Therefore we can apply to the gospel the word of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is originally said in reference to our Lord: "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him" (Hebrews 7: 25). The gospel saves "to the ut- termost," under all circumstances, it never fails. Even the i^rodigal son who a thousand times trampled the love of God under foot is able to enter by the saving power of the gospel the lofty halls of the fatherly home and to enjoy without care its love and peace. Paul saw this very often during a long missionary life. He confesses that the gospel proves to be in the pagan and Jewish world a power of God. The victories of the gospel he has seen, though Jesus Avith the appearance of piety, lived in the bondage of sin, and the Gentiles perished by the most dreadful vices. The gospel proved to be much stronger than corruption by sin. "But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Rora. 5: 20). Before we conclude our considerations about the saving power of the gospel, let us emphasize that the gospel is the only means for the sal- vation of mankind. This the disciples experienced, for they preached: "Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, wherebj^ we must be saved" (Acts 4: 12). We know that Christians formerly met with fierce opposition to this claim, and they meet the same opposition to-daj', when people assert with great pathos the equal value of all religions and endeavor to limit the propagation of the Christian religion. On the contrary, we are convinced of the lesser value of the pagan religions compared with Christianity. We believe : only the gospel saves, not a shining worship, not a religious service in pious works, but only the gospel is a power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. We therefore gladly place ourselves on the Paulinian creed: "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 3: 11). Since the living Christ is identical with tlie gospel, as we have seen, thus the gospel of the New Testament is the foundation of our eternal salvation and therefore the best confession of faith for our denomination. It en- joys one great advantage in respect to other philos()]ihical creeds, it is very simple and devised by Christ Himself. We believe, therefore, it is qualified to be a strong tie for our denomination which protects us from division in a time, when the spiritual life of the whole world influences the individual in a force not before thought of. Our glorious history has proved the simple gospel to be such a strong tie which united our denomination as a body which defied the storms of time. Therefore we will remain on the ground of the gospel of Jesus until we are transferred from the fighting into the triumphing church. 78 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIAl^'CE. The gospel saves lost humanity. In its preaching Paul recognized the calling of his life. He performed this task with great faithfulness as we know by the word 1 Cor. 9 : 16 : ''For though I preach the gospel I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel." The Lord has also chosen us to preach the gospel. How are we to do that? This question leads us to the con- clusion of our considerations. III. How are we to preach the gospel? 1. We must preach with great clearness and force the fundamental truths of the gospel. This Paul did with marvelous exclusiveness and great success. Certainly circumstances have much changed in the course of time. The education of the people is much increased. A re- markable spiritual development has carried the nations to the height of modern culture. Therefore, people of to-day distinguish themselves in many things from the Greeks and Romans to whom Paul preached ''his" gospel, which included the salvation all of grace and excluded salvation by works. In spite of all this the religious needs have remained the same during the centuries. The human heart cries as before for atone- ment of guilt and redemption fi'om the power of sin and communion with God. All these goods the Son of God and Son of man has brought, therefore it is chiefly our duty to preach Him and His great redemption. This w^e can do by mission-preaching, which Jesus and His disciples began. The Roman Catholic Church has neglected gospel-preaching; the priests proclaimed its dogmas and trained the people for an imposing worship. Hence its spiritual deadness. The reformers, on the con- trary, made Christ again the center of their preaching, especially the deep-minded Luther. By this preaching they turned the world upside down. To-day the missionaries do the same in heathen countries. Hun- dreds of thousands of converts are gained for Christianity by their work, surely an evidence that the gospel answers the needs of the peoples living in a state of nature. But such preaching should not be perform- ed in a spiritless manner in our spiritually awakened time. Alas ! this is very often the case. We have heard many so-called evangelical ser- mons, which consisted in an accumulation of religious phrases about Christ and His work. With Paul it was another thing. In a youthful manner and with great freshness he used to place evangelical truths be- fore his hearers. Why was he able to do so? Because he was a great student and because he himself experienced the gospel anew. By deep thinking he laid hold upon its truths, as we recognize by his writings, which show mighty work of thought. But it is remarkable that the thoughts of Paul always center in Christ and his redemption. This is the wonderful feature in all his writings. Paul lived in and thought about the gospel. Therefore he — a man who was probably not a great orator — was able to preach the gospel ever again with great force and freshness. The greatest and deepest thinker like Paul may for this reason confidently preach the simple gospel. This even is his duty, and if he performs it, he will work with good success. With this we do not exclude dogmatical preaching. Likewise it is sometimes allowed to preach about truths which lie on the periphery of Christian life. But evangelical preaching is never to be compensated by any other, even not by the eschatological. From these statements it follows that the gospel, deep thinking and scientific investigation do by no means exclude each other; on the con- Tuesday, . I line JO. J RKCOIiD OF PROCEEDiyGH. 79 trary, they demand each other. We build liii^h .schools, universities and seminaries; we work with great zeal in our studies; we will continue to do so, to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ all the better. 2. • Moreover, we must not forget to bring the gospel to tiie indi- vidual. Our subject is: the sulliciency of the gospel for the salvation of the individual. This the church has forgotten very often, because she aimed at the conversion of whole nations. The inhabitants of Kiew (about 1000 years after the birth of Christ) once received the order to assemble on tiie banks of the Kivor Dniei)er for the reception of baptism. WhileVladimir, the sovereign of Kussia, was lying in prayer on the bank of the river his divines baptized the people in the river. Notwithstanding we know that still to this day Russia lies in the slumber of a spiritual death. We Baptists will always remember that we obtain the Christian- izing of a people only by the conversion of single persons. In the fii'st line only individuals are the objects of grace. Surely I wish that many Baptist preachers may become like Berthold of Regensburg in the Mid- dle Ages. He is said to have preached sometimes to one hundred thou- sand people. Yet the personal work on men remains the most effectual method to bring the world to Christ. Jesus and Paul employed it in their work. Also the great missionary, Adoniram Judson. Of him it is said : His preaching "at first was to the individual. It was a process of spir- itual button-holing. A single person would enter into discussion with the missionary, while a few others would draw near to witness the en- counter. It was in these hand-to-hand frays that Mr. Judson often extorted exclamations of admiration from by-standers, as with his keen logic he hewed his opponent to pieces as Samuel did Agag. " Such in- dividual work we also need in our days, because it is crowned much more with success than mass-meetings which fascinate preacher and hearers. Of course, for the performance of this method participation of all our members is necessary. But just this is a great advantage, be- cause work on the souls of men contributes much to the upbuilding of a true Christian character. 3. Still one thing more is to be observed. It is our duty in preaching the gospel always to aim at the belief in the great facts of salvation, for the gospel is a power of God unto salvation to every one that belie veth. To awaken belief is the high mark at which the apostolical Christians aimed. The Acts tells us, what success they had in this endeavor. May we become like the apostles ! How do we bring the world to believe? Every belief depends on the spiritual power which a person exerts. If we really experience it. we "believe" in this person, we trust him and we submit to his authority. In this manner we came to believe in Jesus Christ. We feel the spiritual power of His personage in His words and deeds and character which the influence of the noblest men far surpasses, who have ever influenced us. We experience His authority like the disciples and Paul. There- fore we are obliged to believe in Him and to be obedient to Him. To bring men to this conquering influence of Christ we must describe Christ and His work with such a clearness and enthusiasm that we may "paint" Him before the eyes of our hearer (Gal. 3:1). We are able to do this, if we preach the historical Christ of the four Gospels and show by the Epistles what the living Christ once was to the Christians of the apostolical times. And this Christ will surely find faith on earth to-day. The development of our denomination demonstrates this fact. 80 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. 4. Finally, we must preach the gospel in the right disposition of mind. In this the apostles are also a fine example. Their preaching was charac- terized by an amazing enthusiasm and conviction, and thus it inflamed human hearts. How do we succeed in preaching Christ with the 'same originality, force of conviction, and enthusiasm? We must, like the apostles, experience Christ our living Saviour. Our modern Christian world is right in choosing this for their watchword. Damascus must be also our experience, before we are able to be engaged with Paul in a similar work. But this event may happen in a less dramatical manner. We see the glorified picture of Christ as it is shown in the New Testa- ment, by our spiritual eyes, we hear His loving words which we apply to our own life, finally we are thrown upon our knees to adore Him our heavenly Lord, and with Paul we ask: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Thus we feel like the great apostle the presence of our Sa- viour, who forthwith influences us. So Christ becomes the greatest re- ality in our life, He is found in us (Gal. 4: 19) and lives in us (Gal. 2: 20). We enter with Him a real mystical union, which once the Greeks sought in vain with their gods and which only can satisfy the deep craving of the human heart for God. If we experience all this with reality and clearness as Paul did then we are able to preach the gospel with the authority of this apostle. This concerns not only the great men in our denomination, but also the less endowed Christians whose life is Jesus Christ (Phil. 1: 21). We know that there is in our times no want of such spiritually minded children of God, whose life is hid in Christ with God. Paul would call them "phasteres"— light-bearers (Phil. 2: 15), Avho send their bright beams into the darkness of this world. This fact fills us with joyful hope, thinking about the issues of the spiritual conflicts of the present time. God leads His people to victory. Many great men of all times belong to these people, who preach the gospel with apostolic faith and impressiveness. We remind you of Lu- ther, Calvin, Spurgeon, Moody, and others, who have seen the most glorious victories of the gospel, which we do not attribute exclusively to their great spiritual ability. They conquered only, because they brought the unadulterated gospel to the people. When Roman Catholicism was on a fast triumphal march, simple monks, the so-called Kuldees, came from Ireland and England to Germany. They were filled by the spirit of the gospel. Men like the holy Columbanus, who in 589 left the fa- mous monastery of Bangor, Ireland, Gallus, Trudpert, Wilfrid and Wil- librord proclaimed in many districts of my country to our pagan an- cestors the simple gospel, not yet corrupted by the Roman Catholic the- ology. These messengers of God saw many glorious victories of the gos- pel, and perhaps it was their evangelical preaching which prepared the German people for the great period of reformation. In the spirit of these men we will — this shall be our vow in this hour — preach the old gospel, the contents of which is the living Christ and His atoning blood. We are entitled to perform this work according to somewhat changed methods and with other applications to the life of men. Notwithstand- ing we must remain on the rock of the gospel which is offered to us in original form by the Holy Scriptures. It is fully sufficient for the sal- vation of men. To be sure we live under very difficult conditions of time. Our world is not as much disposed for religion as the Greeks and Romans were, amongst whom Paul worked. He preached in a time when religion was in PROF. SHAILER MATHEWS. Tuesday, June 20.1 RECOh'D OF PROCKKDlSCii. 81 full dissolution and the common people at least cried for a new relig- ious hold. Conditions are totally changed to-day. Not only the people of rank but also the common people of the European Continent are given up to infidelity. In spite of this we will not despair, i'or bygone cen- turies make known that the gospel is a medicine to cure the sore wounds in the life of the people; it saves even from the most barren unbelief. Therefore let us resolve to proclaim the glorious old gospel with apos- tolical faithfulness and simplicity of heart. This we will do in the joy- ful certainty in hoc signo vmccs, in this sign we shall conquer, even a dis- believing world, which hates Christ and is disposed towards materialism of the present time. We believe in a glorious victory of the old gospel, because Christ lives and reigns forever and ever. "Jesus shall reign Where'er the sun Doth his successive journeys run." After singing ''Jesus Shall Reign Where'er the Sun," Professor Shailer Mathews, of the University of Chicago, delivered the following address : THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL FOR THE SALVATION OF SOCIETY. By SHAILER MATHEWS, Dean of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. The sufficiency of the gospel for the salvation of society may seem to some a presupposition rather than a question, a matter for congratula- tion rather than for discussion. Yet there are thousands of earnest Christians who believe that the social order in which we live is so hope- lessly corrupt and Satanic that it is idle to imagine its ever being saved. In their view the work of the church consists in the rescue of individuals from a ruined world and the patient endurance of evil until Christ re- turns to establish a supernatural kingdom. There is, further, an in- creasing number of men and women wlio believe that the social order must be saved by being transformed, but who believe that the gospel is altogether incapable of working the transformation. They look to the development of class hatred as the means of finally bringing about a fraternal democracy. There is still a third class who believes neither in the second coming of Christ nor in socialism, but who do believe in the finality of success. To them the gospel is a synonym for weakness or a clever device which the strong have evolved for the purpose of keeping the weak submissive. The distrust of the social sufficiency of the gospel represented by these three classes is not to be answered by complacent rhetoric. Particularly is it incumbent upon Baptists to face the question frankly. For the Baptist churches stand and fall with the gospel. Other religious organi- zations conceivably might sunive Christianity itself as organi- zations devoted to other than religious aims, but the Baptist denomina- 82 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. tion will stand and fall with the gospel. If that is ever seen to be un- workable the Baptist denomination will disappear. It is not necessary to remind a Baptist audience that the gospel is not identical with an orthodox theology. Orthodoxy is the result of an ef- fort to formulate philosophically and authoritatively what an age be- lieved the gospel to be. How far such results have been from the sim- plicity of the New Testament any student of church history knows only too well. Orthodoxy as we find it in many a creed comes to us wet with the blood of our spiritual forefathers and rank with the smoke of the stake. True Evangelicalism is a message not of doctrinal precision, but of life. The teaching and life and resurrection of Jesus reveal that God is Love, and that the supreme good of life is to be loving, like God. That is the essence of the gospel. It is not a call to duty or an exposition of phil- osophy, but the simple announcement that God can be trusted as a Father, and that consequently love is the final law of life. In a word, that the highest good of the individual life is sonship of God and of society, fraternity. The social teaching of Jesus is the extension of this principle. His life of service and His death upon the cross are the exposition of the gospel in His own individual life, and His words regarding marriage and wealth are its application to the social order in the midst of which He lived. Strictly speaking, the gospel as the gospel has no specific social philosophy or program. Each ag'e must apply to its own conditions and problems, the formal principle contained in the supreme message that God is Love, that sinners can be forgiven, that men can trust a loving Father for their daily needs, and that just because God is Love it is bet- ter to serve and sacrifice than to fight and win. It is here we meet the three most profound difficulties in the applica- tion of the gospel to social life, (1) the enmity between the gospel and the economic order, (2) the emphasis of the gospel on brotherhood rather than on justice, and, (3) the perplexing commentary on the power of the gospel given by the history of the church itself. 1. The enmity between the gospel and economic order is by no means a modern discovery. All through the Christian centuries men have ap- peared either urging povertj' as the indispensable prerequisite for holy lives or, as in the case of some of the Anabaptists, urging communism. And long before them Jesus Himself had pointed out the sharp distinc- tion between the service of God and the service of mammon, and had distinctly warned his followers against anxiety as to material goods. But the antithesis between an economic order which makes the creation of wealth superior to human well being and a call to trust in God as loving and to the love of men in the spirit of true fraternity, was never so manifest as to-day. In fact, to many earnest souls it has become un- endurable. The crisis of civilization lies in the struggle to determine who shall control the surplus of the economic jDroeess. The real evan- gelization of the world is something more than the preaching of an es- cape from punishment to come; it is rather such a transfusion of the forces of civilization with the ideals of the gospel as to bring justice into the economic order. And that can never be accomplished in a single gen- eration. Each new advance in civilization in heathen lands will bring Tiu'sday. .hull' JO. I UECDliD OF I'HOVKEDJ .\(1S. 83 Cliristianity there, as in Europe and America, face to face with the vastly more diflicuit problem of the socialization of the ideals of Jesus in an industrial order. And the conquests of the Christ will not be com- plete until he has conquered the control of the economic surplus. Within the last few- years w-e have passed from the belief that unre- stricted competition is a good and have entered into the semi-socialistic stage in which the community undertakes to regulate not only the finan- cial but also the social powers of great corporations. Yet the complete triumpli of the ideals of the gospel seems distant. While the Christian must welcome every act of restraint which embodies even an approach to the ideals of the gospel, yet the fundamental difference between su- preme goods of life continue. On the one side are those who make wealth supreme, and on the other is the gospel, making the good of humanity supreme. And the conflict between these two ideals must be fought to a finish. 2. The second objection to the social sufficiency of the gospel lies in the fact that, recognizing the legitimacy of this conflict, men are seek- ing victory in an appeal to justice, rather than to love or fraternity. If by this is meant they are seeking to give justice, their position would be identical with that of the gospel. But the struggle between the classes and the masses to-day does not consist in one group's effort to give justice; it is one in which one group is struggling to get justice. The motive of individuals in such a struggle may be thoroughly altruistic, but the conflict has long since passed the individualistic stage and has be- come a struggle between groups. Now the appeal to get justice is an old appeal, but at the bottom it is not absolutely evangelical. Jesus made this exceedingly clear in His teaching as to non-resistance. According to Him loyalty to the gospel was not an insistence upon one's own rights, but a willingness to sur- render such individual rights for the common good. The appeal to jus- tice at first sight seems far more powerful than this call to surrender, for it can utilize an anger born of the consciousness of injustice and the violation of one's own rights. But such a feeling leads ultimately to appeal to force. Every revolution is a confession that love has failed to impress men w-ith its absolute supremacy. Where men have to fight to get a just share of privilege, it is evident that other men are fighting not to give such privileges. It is thus apparent that the modern struggle between the classes is not in itself necessarily controlled by the gospel. In the same degree as it may seem unavoidable is it an evidence of the insufTicieney or the in- ability of the gospel to transform men's motives into those of love. Many of the leaders of the present social movement have altogether abandoned any confidence in appeals to altruism and are deliberately fomenting class hatred in the expectation of a final struggle in which justice shall be gained. It is time that the Christian church face this situation. It is not enough to say that the gospel is at work when individuals filled with the love of their kind endeavor to incite class warfare. Such war- fare may be the court of last resort, and such individuals may be Chris- tians. But war, like charity, argues the incomplete evangelization of the world and the very effort to stir up hatred is an expression of distrust in the power of love. 3. The third ground of distrust of the social sutliciency of (he gospel 16 the imperfect evangelization of that very body that stands for the 84 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. gospel, the church. The history of the church is a sad commentary on the unwillingness of men to submit themselves to the ideals of the very Christ whom they have declared to be the second person of the Trinity. Nor need one think only of the persecutions of the past. There are too many modern churches in which are found bickerings, pettiness and quarrelsomeness worthy of the Corinthians themselves. How comes it to pass that the organization which looks forward so confidently to a share in the triumph of the ideals of Jesus which it claims to embody, can indulge in church quarrels and magnify the ideas of rights of majorities and minorities over the spirit of mutual surrender which is the real test of the regenerate life. The churches of many a modern city deserve the rebuke given by Paul to the Corinthians: ''Are ye not carnal if ye bite and devour one another?" Unless I mistake, the gospel is being put to the severest test in the house of its friends. To churches belong the large proportion of the capitalistic class, that is those who have particularly enjoyed the bless- ings given by the economic surplus. Rightly or wrongly it has become judged as supporting those who have privileges in the social struggle. I believe that there has been a remarkable change in this particular during the last few years, and it is not too late to rectify the misinterpretations from which the church has suffered. But he would be an evil counsellor who did not warn the churches that the spectacle of their quarrels over doctrinal and practical details on the one side, and their unwillingness to urge more distinctly upon their members the need of democratizing privilege, will serve to decrease confidence that the gospel they profess to embody is sufficient for social regeneration. ''If the salt has lost its savor wherewith is it to be salted?" If the church, the body of the Christ cannot exemplify love, God will entrust this gospel to some other agency as He once transferred it from the Pharisees to the Gentiles. II. Potent as these objections to the sufficiency of the gospel to salvation are, I am convinced that they are, after all, based upon a superficial view of the significance of the gospel itself and a confusion of ortho- doxy with genuine evangelicalism. Another fundamental difficulty with them all is an impatience with human nature. If the conditions which have been mentioned are to be faced frankly as liabilities, there are assets which are just as frankly to be counted. 1. In the first place there is the capacity of the gospel to stir in hu- man hearts a hatred of all injustice and to nerve them to combat every institution that countenances injustice. Wliatever else the eschatological message of Christianity may involve, it never blinks the issue of the conflict between forces of oppression and forces of righteousness. The coming of the kingdom of God and the triumph of Christ are never set forth in the gospel as a simple and peaceful evolution. The forces of Gog and Magog must be conquered by the forces of the Christ who came to send into the world not peace, but a sword. The non-resistance which Jesus teaches is not passive submission in the presence of injustice done others. The very Christ that taught men not to struggle for their in- dividual rights fought the good fight of faith against the Pharisees who were seeking to belittle the people's rights. There may be those who with all sort of complacent optimism believe that both individual and Tuesday, June 20. J REL'OIW OF I'ROCEEDISUH. 85 social evolution may be unconsciously transformed into the likeness of tlie kingdom of (iod. The gospel never contemplates any such academic victory. It teaches men to practice no auto-suggestion that men or in- stitutions are belter than they really are. It knows only too well that there ai*e those who will oppress the weak until they tear to oppress them; that there are institutions in society that must be destroyed, rather than transformed; that there are men who prefer to exploit, rather than to love their fellows; but it teaches also in its wonderful messianic program that God Himself will, through His people, i)ut an end to such oppression. But the hatred inculcated by the gospel is not the hatred inculcated by revolutionary socialism. It is a righteous hatred of unrighteousness and the conflict which it expects is only the last resort by which those ruen who cannot be induced to be loving are deprixed of the control of social forces. A gospel without this blood and iron in its message would be a message of flaccid optimism which would have made impossible every hero of the faitli who subdued kingdoms in the interest of larger equal- ity and fraternity. 2. In the second place the gospel, just because it is a much wider term than ecclesiasticism, can find its followers in many an institution which is not strictly religious. Indeed, it is fair to say that in the same proportion as the church comes under the sway of the gospel does it in- spire its members to larger co-operation with other institutions which are seeking, in the evangelical spirit, to bring the ideals of Christ into social life. So clearly are we coming to see this great truth that those who are putting the principles of Jesus in operation are not His ene- mies, whatever are their ecclesiastical relation, that men are sometimes inclined to be impatient in their criticism of the church. Sometimes they would even say that the labor union and fraternal organizations are really more Christian than is the church itself. But such criticism is, after all, unfair to the new spirit which is finding expresfeion in our church activities. Just as churches are themselves learning larger co-operation in service to humanity', both spiritual and material, are they also finding that the evangelical impulse is a bond of co-operation between thi?ir members and non-ecclesiastical movements. It is this impulse to co- operation that so sharply distinguishes the evangelical from the ecclesi- astical spirit, and in it lies one of the most cogent reasons for believing that the gospel of love which can promote the work of friendly co-opera- tion is to maintain itself throughout the entire social order. 3. But even more significant is the power of the gospel actually to jiroduce loving lives whose aim is to give rather than to get justice. If one looks back over the Christian centuries he will find plenty of im{)er- fections in the history of the church but he will also find that the ideals of the church have alwa3-s been higher than the ideals of the times to which it belonged. And this superiority has been due, not to the fact that necessarily the church was more learned or bet- ter organized, but to the far more striking fact that it has sought, through the spirit of sacrifice, to minister to the needs of tiie day. True, the most outstanding expressions of this really evangelical spirit have been ameliorative, but he would be a most doctrinaire critic who would say that as long as tliere is sin and misery in the world amelioration is not necessary and blessed. When one thinks of the sacrifices Christians have made to found hospitals aiul schools, to give alms and many another 86 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. form of helpfulness, and then compares such activities with those of non-Christian people, he sees clearly enough that the gospel of a loving Christ and a loving God has had the power to evoke love for men ; and if it be tnie that nowadays we see the true spirit of Jesus is not exhausted in efforts to ameliorate but must move over to the abolition of conditions from which misery springs, it is only what we should expect of a Chris- tian spirit that is growing more intelligent. To doubt that the gospel which has evoked self-sacrificing love in the past is to succeed in evok- ing the same love under our modern conditions, is to throw history out the window. 4. And this conviction is deepened as one sees the general tendency of social evolution to move towards the ideal of fraternity which Jesus says is to mark the kingdom of God. Recall the wonderful social effects of Christian missions. True, the gospel has been aided by other forces born of Western civilization, but it has also been hindered by them. If Occidental commerce were thoroughly Christian, Oriental nations would have been far more completely evangelized (in the deepest sense of the word) than they are to-day. For the gospel itself as it appears in the printed page of the Bible and in the simplest message of the missionary has amazing power to release social forces and correct social injustice. Nor need we look at the elemental triumphs of the gospel. We can follow the advice of the writer to the Hebrews and pass on to the more complicated evidence of social evolution. If one will study the history of class conflicts where men have fought to gain justice and privileges which should have been freely granted them, a remarkable conclusion seems inevitable : Out of the bitter comes the sweet ; out of the conflict has come larger fraternity as well as equality; out of class hatreds have come an appreciable approach towards the democratizing of privilege which is the social expression of the principles of Jesus. It is not merely that men have found that honesty is the best policy. Often to their surprise they have found that the extension of privilege is advantageous to all parties combined. In every struggle which has re- sulted in the extension of privilege the classes who have surrendered privileges have reaped such advantages as to be forced to approve their own defeat. If, as the early fathers so finely said, the soul is naturally Christian, it is just as true that social evolution is teleologieally Chris- tian. Individuals, it is true, may lament the lack of privileges which their forefathers may have possessed, but the enriched social life, which has come from the struggle in which their interests were apparently de- feated, has brought so many more opportunities that if the choice were possible they would not be ready to exchange the one for the other. What man of South Carolina would re-establish negro slavery? What man of Massachusetts would re-establish the New England theocracy? One increasing purpose does run through the ages, and that purpose leads, not toward the development of the power of the few over the many, but although not steadily and always with the possibilities of further strug- gle, towards that democracy of privilege which is the social equivalent of the kingdom of God. There is no reply to this argument from the general tendency of history except that drawn from the over-emphasis of the evil born of the process. And in history, as in tracing the course of a river, a man must not mistake the eddies which the river causes for the general direction of the mighty current itself. If there can be de- tected any purpose in history, it is toward a fraternal democracy. And Tuesday, Jiiiu"2().| UIAORI) OF ritOCEEDl'SGS. 87 is not this precisely what the srospel sets forth in its eschatology, namely, the inevitableness of that social order in which the Heavenly Father is to be supreme and which is to be composed of those who are ready to treat one another as brothers'? 5. Another consideration of great moment is one which every Chris- tian must reckon as final. The ijospel must be sufTicient for social salva- tion because it inculcates life in accordance with the character of God who is Love. If we hold, as hold we must, that God is immanent in our world, and that His will in some mysterious way gets expression in the course of human events, our faith in Him as Father will not permit us to believe that He will permit His world to escape that great process which is the expression of His will. The pessimism which sees escape for the world only in a cataclysm is really a denial of God's presence in His world. We dare attempt to bring the institutions of the world under the control of the principles of love, because we believe that we are working with Him. If the gospel is really a power of God unto salvation, it is something more than a power unto the rescue of individuals from a so- cial order. It is the salvation of the processes of social evolution themselves. And while this places upon the modern-mind- ed Christian a heavier burden of faith than was borne by his prede- cessors, who looked for rescue rather than for salvation, it is not as heavy a burden as that which would seek to isolate God from His world and deny that His will which rules in the process of the universe has ab- dicated in human history. Here Ave face the true Christian philosophy of society : the impossibility of the exclusion of individuals from the influence of their social environments leads to the deepened conviction that God must express Himself in the life of society, as well as in the individual lives which are involved in society. 6. And finally it must be said that the gospel as a mere message is impotent, except as it moves men and women to action in accordance with its ideals. Here it finds its supreme test, for love means sacrifice. A gospel without the cross is a gospel without truth and without power. Only the cross must not be simply the cross of Jesus but that which ev- eryone of His disciples takes as he attempts to follow Him. And this vicarious spirit which was revealed eo triumphantly- on Calvary and in the tomb in the Garden must not only be expi"essed in individual, but in social groups as well. The chief business of the church is not to make social programs, but to prepare men's hearts to organize social advance. Xo other institution is attempting to democratize privilege by insisting upon surrender of privilege on the part of those who possess it. Other organizations seek to gain justice. The gospel seeks to give justice. Christianity alone insists that it is more blessed to give than to receive. It contains a call to a heroism that is incomparably larger than the call of war. True evangelicalism may or may not be theological orthodoxy, but no man or group of men can be said to be actually devoted to the cause of Christ who will not practice the Golden Rule in the spirit of sacrifice born of the mind which is of Christ. It is an audacious proposal which the gospel thus makes. The lion of the tribe of justice-seekers becomes the lamb of the God of Love. But as we recall the years which have passed since Jesus first taught and em- bodied this message of Love which, in its impulse to realize itself in ser- vice, stops at no sacrifice we are filled with a self-condemning optimism. The blood of the martvrs has been the seed of the church, and the 88 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. church which has so imperfectly, but steadily, embodied the principles of Jesus, has in turn taught men how to applj' those principles with ever- increasing extension to the social difficulties of the day. In this spirit it must continue to live. It is no spectacular service which it thus is called to render to the changing order. It is the service of love that has hatred and opposition only for that which is not born of love. It must carry to the world the ever-deepening conviction that love is the will of God, no matter what its embodiment must cost, and it must educate men into a sensitiveness as to the rights of others, until instinctively they no longer look upon their own things but upon the things of others. And if such Christlike spirit shall lead them to some Calvary of economic renunciation or Christlike sharing of their goods with the multitudes, the gospel will be only fulfilling its divine mission. For the gospel stakes itself upon the supremacy of love. The church will fulfill its mission as it trains the regenerate life of its members to see the social implication of that regenerate life which is begotten of a Heavenly Father. And as it grasps this su^Dreme mission it will increasingly ex- hibit the sufficiency of the gospel for social salvation, not by metaphysi- cal creeds but by the test of the apostle himself: Men will be known to love God whom they have not seen when they love their brothers whom they have seen. After the singing of the Doxology the session adjourned. YOUNG PEOPLE'S SESSION. Tuesday Afternoon, June 20, 1911. After the song service the session was opened with Rev. George T. Webb in the chair. Mr. Webb : This meeting is not a regular session of the Baptist World Alliance; it has not been called together by any organization but by a few people who are intensely interested in the great question of Christian education and training for our young people, the world over. In view of these conditions we find ourselves now without any presiding officer; it is the first business of this meeting to select one to preside over the meeting. A. H. Vautier: I move that Dr. 0. C. S. Wallace, Pastor of the First Baptist Church at Baltimore, be elected Chairman of this meeting. The motion was seconded by Rev. Mr. McConnell and carried. Rev. 0. C. S. Wallace on taking the chair said: I am very glad to serve as the chairman of a gathering of young people. I like to be recog- nized as a young man. An odd thing has happened to my hair, and for that reason some people think I am not young, but I have been young for the last thirty years and intend so to continue. I thank you for choosing me to serve here to-day in this capacity; it reassures me. Rev. F. C. McConnell, of Texas, led in prayer. Mr. Webb : I move that Mr. Elven Bengough, of Toronto, be secretary of this meeting. Carried. Mr. Webb : I have a statement I would like to make. I regard this meeting this afternoon as a very significant one, a meeting that prom- ises large things, not only for the present hour but for future years. Tuesday, -luiif JO. I KlJ-OHIt OF I'L'OCF.Iini SCS. 89 We have known a •;reat deal ul' the Youn<; People's movement in all of our churches tor a number of years, but this is the first time that there has been a meetinu- called of Hantists from all parts of the world to con- sider our res|)onsibiIity towards the younii' i)cople of our denomination. It is with this thouiilil in mind and witli a view to continuing- the good influence of such a nieetinu' as this that I have desired to present a series of resolutions. [ am very sure that the resolutions I present will pro- voke no discussion. They will be moved by Dr. Gilmour and seconded by Dr. Truett in their addresses. They merely call for a committee to consider something' of which your presence to-day indicates your ap- proval. The resolutions are as follows : At this, the first meetiuu' ever hold in the interest of Baptist young people throuiihout the world assembled at Philadelphia. June 20, 1011, we, delegates and visitors to the second session of the Baptist World Alliance wish to record our views regarding the work for our young people in the following statement and resolutions: Whereas, Our denomination has always recognized the necessity for training our young people in our history and doctrines, and in methods of Christian work, and, Whereas, We appreciate the good work already done by existing organizations in vai-ious sections of our World Field, yet we believe tlie time has come when there should be a closer atTiliation of Baptist Young People everywhere. Therefore, Be it Resolved, — 1. That we do now appoint a committee of twenty-five (25) persons whose duty it shall be to devise plans by wdiicli a world-w-ide movement for combining all our young people may be consummated. 2. That this committee be and is hereby instructed to determine its own officers and organization and to decide as to how these instructions can best be carried out. 3. That this committee be authorized to present the results of its labor to the denomination at such time as may seem to it desirable, but in any event not later than three years from this date. 4. That those present who may wish to contribute toward the ex- pense of this committee, may hand their offering at the close of this meeting to the person designated by the chairman, and that the commit- tee make such further arrangement as may be necessary for its ex- penses but is not to make any public appeal to the denomination. 5. That the chairman appoint the above conunittee of twenty-five. Chairman: These resolutions will be moved by Professor Gilraour, of McMaster University. Some of you don't know Professor Gilmour be- cause you are not quite all Canadians or ex-Canadians. Professor Gil- mour is said by some to be the best loved Baptist in Canada, I don't know whether that is so or not because I have not been there for five years, but Professor Gilmour. will win your love as he speaks to you to-day. 90 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. Professor J. L. Gilmour: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: It is my duty this afternoon to move the adoption of the resolutions read by Mr. Webb and to speak for twenty-five minutes in support of those reso- lutions. Two weeks ago it became quite apparent that Mr. McNeill would not be able to be present at this meeting and to speak on the subject that had been given to him to discuss. He very greatly regrets that, and I know all regTet it, but I am here without any apology be- cause this is a great subject and this is a great audience. As more fully defined by the program committee our subject is "The Worth of Youth for the Life of a Church," and by ''church" we mean a Baptist church, the local organization that we love to call a New Tes- tament church. One of the many reasons why I regret Mr. McNeill's absence this afternoon is that he himself is a striking proof of the truth of the subject that is now to be discussed. Those of you who were present six years ago in London and heard his very eloquent speech in Albert Hall must have felt at that time, as you continue to feel to-day, that God has raised up a young man of great power, and you must have felt, as we all feel, that youth is a thing of great value. Ten days ago I was in Mr. McNeill's native county, the county of Bruce, and was told that in the little church in which he was brought up, when he made his first public speech he made it in a little young people's meeting and could hardly be heard four seats from where he stood. But that youth grew until to-day he is one of our most eloquent speakers in the Baptist denomination in Canada. There are four words that define the limits of our subject and within which we are expected to feed our thought this afternoon. The first is ''youth." I shall not attempt psychologically to define youth, but will say in general that it is that period of life between childhood on the one hand and maturity on the other. There are some that linger longer in this period than do others, but for general purposes that definition will serve to-day. I am to speak of the worth of youth. That, of course, does not mean that we do not recognize the value of maturity. We do that, but what is to be discussed to-day is that time of life which lies be- tween childhood and maturity and we are to consider its religious value for the life of a church. We are to look at the worth of youth. We might take a great deal of time in discussing the limitations of youth. These are very many, and one might grow very eloquent on that sub- ject. We might speak of the weaknesses of youth and the wayward- ness of youth and the short-sightedness of youth ; but I am to speak on a more generous subject to-day and that is the worth, the downright value of youth, that highly prized period of time that lies between child- hood on the one hand and maturity on the other. The next word that defines our subject is "church," that is a local church built on what we regard as the New Testament model. Now, that after all is the fighting unit in the great conflict in which we are engaged. The individual church is the fighting unit in our great strat- egy ; that is the Baptist position which seems more and more to be called Tuesday, June 20.] KlJCOliD OF I'liOCEEDl^SGS. 91 for to-day. We stoutly aiul with determination decline to accept that \-iew of the church that is held by the Roman Catholics. I have no word to say about Roman Catholics to-day that is harsh; and yet Irankly and openly we say that their conception of a church is not our concep- tion of a church, that however that conception may appeal to the im- agination, how'ever picturesque it may be made, the church is after all the little local organization of people, and that is the fighting unit in the work of the Kingdom of God. Whether this church meet, in a white clap-board church in the hills of Vermont or in a log hut in the back- ward parts of my own country, or whether it overlook the fjords of Nor- way, or whether it be in one of those village buildings in England where the Baptists seem to have such wonderful facility to get into out of the way places, or whether it be in Russia or whether it be in China or whether it be in India — for Baptists the fighting unit is the local church. If we can put life into that we have won our battle. I should like to say more. To di'op the military metaphor — the organizing unit for the Christian statesman is the local church, and it is a harder thing to direct a band of people in constructive statesmanship than it is to carry a point in the thrill of battle and then be done. General Wolfe, the man who, in my country, took the city of Quebec in the year 1759, was a great man because he won his point in the teeth of great difficulties. But it re- quired gi'eater men to come after him and to construct out of these two nationalities a people such as we have to-day. And it seems to me the time has come when our Baptist people shall have to accept the responsibilities that come from constructive church statesmanship as well as the responsibilities that come for fighting against those things that we believe to be wrong. It takes a certain kind of ability to be a leader of the opposition; it takes a broader kind of ability to be the constructive leader of the government, and too many of our Baptist people look upon themselves too much as leaders of the opposition and not quite enough as those that have had laid upon them the duty of constructive statesmanship in the great work of the kingdom of God. Now in this task that is before us when I speak of statesmanship, I do not think of the great statesman as one who occu- pies the position of the pope in the Roman Catholic Church. Wlien I speak of the Statesman that is organizing these units I speak of Jesus, who walks amid the candlesticks. But the organizing unit in our statesmanship is the local church of which I have spoken already, and we must never speak slightingly of these little groups of people that are banded together in the name of Jesus Christ and for the glory of God and to carry out his plans. A little while ago I was in the northern part of my own province and a farmer took me out to show me where he was growing raspberries. He said, ''You see that great pile yonder at the end of those bushes? I have cut all those out from these bushes, because the philosophy of 92 THE BAPTIST M'ORLD ALLIANCE. growing berries is to let the sun gather all around so tliat it will touch every branch and every side." Now, I know that there is a strong appeal to the imagination in an organization like that of the Roman Catholic Church. Last September I was present in Montreal and saw the Eucharistic Congress that was held there, and it seemed that it could appear impressive to see the long line of people, and then the long line of bishops with their golden mitres glittering in the September sun, and then to see the representative of the pope carrying under a canopy the monstrance in which was held what they believed to be the body of Christ. And now at the high altar at Fletcher's Field, with the September moon looking down in the twi- light while they chanted their Latin chants, it was all very impressive. But our meeting last night was to me more impressive still. Instead of having the wafer as the center we have the Bible, the word of God, as the center. Instead of having those bishops with their gorgeous robes as the chief thing in that spectacular march, we had these men from Norway and Sweden, we had these men from Russia and from Esthonia, and I am bound to say that I have seldom seen anything in my life more impressive than what we saw last night, as those men stood up proclaim- ing the essential catholicity, as Dr. Clifford said this morning, of the Baptist position. To me it is one of the most wonderful things that spontanepusly these people should in so many places have arrived at these positions, and it goes to show that if we have not constructive statesmanship at the pres- ent time, we as Baptist people shall be recreant to the trust that has been committed to us; we shall be flinging away a heritage of liberty that has been given at a great price to us. So I come back to remind our- selves of this, that in spite of all these disadvantages, in spite of all these apparent weaknesses, we still hold to the church as the unit. We recognize its difficulties, but we believe that it is the model of God, and we believe that this is the polity for the future, which will let in the light and the sun on all sides. There is one other word that defines our subject and that is the word "life"; we are to speak of the worth of youth for the life of a church. That little church out on the country cross-roads, that little church with its difficulties — I am thinking of these as well as of those churches that meet in stately buildings in some great metropolis — but the thing that we are thinking of to-day is the life of that church, for Baptist people have everything to suffer when they have not life in their church. Mr. Alexander Grant, a pastor in Winnipeg, came and spoke at a meeting which has in Ontario and Quebec become since then historic. Mr. Grant had gone out into the West and had caught sight of the prairies that fade far away until the sky touches the earth, with their purple flowers and their great expanse, and he came to us and said, "What the Baptist people of these provinces need is horizon." That was true then and it is true to-day and in a deeper sense; what we still need to-day is indeed horizon. Tuesday, J uiK' 120.1 RKCniil) OF Ph'OClJl-JDJXafil. 93 But I believe there is another thing we need as well as horizon and that is intensity of life. There is nothing that will keep our Baptist churches together unless we have life. There is nothing that will enable us to do our work unless we have life. We have no polity tiiat will auto- matically draw us and lead us over these apparently diflicult places; but if we have life, then our problems are solved. When we were boys we used to spin tops — and now that our boys are growing up we see tiie philosophy of the top again; if a top does not go it falls; if it has not got life it drops. To be sure the mox-e life it has the less noise it makes. Life doesn't mean noisiness; life means that which responds to the re- ality that is around us and to the reality that is above us. But as a top will never spin except it has life, so a Baptist church will never continue to exist unless it has spiritual life and we risk everything on that under the providence of (Jod. I am often amazed in reading the Scriptures, as well as in reading history, to discover how much God has risked on simple things. I think of the fact that Jesus who spoke his matchless words of grace never wrote a book but trusted to others to transmit these words to posterity. I think of the time when Moses, that great leader, was placed on the river in a little basket and left there. What if some great denizen of the Nile had come and swallowed the little arkf What would have happened to history? But God took the risk — I speak reverently. I think of the Apostle Paul being let down by a basket from a window on the wall of Damascus. What if the rope had broken and if Paul had met his death? We should never have had the Epistle to the Romans or any of those other marvelous epistles of Paul. But God took the risk. Brethren, it seems to me one of the most impressive things when you come to turn it over, that for the extension of the kingdom, the Lord is willing to trust these little local churches with the carrying of the great- est message that this world has ever heard. Then, too, w'e must have life if we are to shelter ourselves from the scorn of the world. W^e say that we believe in a regenerate church membership, but if our people are not living regenerate lives we are a scorn in the face of the world because we profess what we do not have. Now, I know I have made the mistake of a man who has not had a long time to prepare and have spent the largest part of my speech on the introduction. And yet I do not know that I would change that even if I had had a little longer time, because it seems to me to be absolutely imperative that we should get before our minds clearly the problem of strategy that we have to solve in order that we may be able to see the place of young people or of any other part of our forces in this work that we have to do under the guidance of God's Spirit. Youth has worth because it is a time to rescue priceless lives. Oh, oiie might grow eloquent when ho thinks of the possibilities of turning lives — lives that may, if they go this way, be plunged into the mire and the slime of sin, or that may be led into the dignity of being sons of God. I have in mv 94 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. notes a considerable amplification of that but must pass on to the rest. Youth has worth because it is a force to harness. Over in my province we have been harnessing the Niagara Falls, and the city of Toronto and a number of other places are now lighted by the force that comes over eighty miles from that great cataract. That cataract is harnessed. Now in our churches we have the worth of youth before us, because youth is not only a field to win but it is a force to harness. I was very glad that the leader of the singing this afternoon classiiied this audience and made it evident that there are so many pastors here. 0 brethren in the ministry, we need the minister, he must always be the leader of his people; we need the laymen; we need the ladies; we need the Sunday-school worker; but we need that which youth can supply, and if this is left out we shall be that much weaker for our great task. Youth provides the workers for the future. I wish I had time to speak about the need, the dire, the absolute need that there is that we should get the brightest boys and young men to-day for the gospel ministry. That is the time to get them and if we don't get them then, perhaps we won't get them at all. But think of the positive contribution that these young people make and can make now in the way of thought, for example. We always have transitions in thought. The pastor is making a great mistake who does not know what the young peoi^le are thinking about, because things in thought that present great difficulty to the older men may present no dif- ficulty to the younger men, and the younger men and women may be right because they breathe what the GeiTuan people call the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the times — and we shall make a mistake in the advance of thought if we do not listen to what the younger people have to say as well as weigh what the older people have to say. Young people also are able to make a contribution in energy, in work. As we grow older there are certain details that we do not want to be burdened with, but here are these young people willing and anxious to do that hard work and there is force running to waste if we do not harness it for this active work. Then youth presents a dash of chivalry. As we get older perhaps we get less chivalrous, but one of the traditions of youth is chivalry. I wish 1 had time to speak of a company of some sixteen young Frenchmen who went from the city of Montreal in the early days of the settlement of my country, and who by their chivalrous courage held back a horde of eight hundred or a thousand Indians and saved Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec. They threw away their lives to save the country. Our young people have chivalry yet; I believe it is in their hearts and if it were needful our young people would respond as did Blandina, of whom we read in the fifth Book of Eusebius, who laid down her life for her faith, in the southern part of Gaul. We need the dash of chivahy which the young people are ready and willing to give ; and we need also the dash of spirituality. I believe as we grow older we see some things of the spiritual life more clearly, but I believe also that there are some Tuesday, June 20.] h'KCOh'l) OF I'ROCEEDiyUH. 95 things that the people see in youth more clearly on tlie religious side than at any other time. Says Tom Hood : "I remember, I remember The fir-trees dai"k and high ; I used to think their slender spires Were close against the sky; It was a childish ignorance But now 'tis little joy- To know I'm farther off from heaven Than when I was a boy." (Applause.) Chairman: We have heard from a teacher; Ave shall now hear from a pastor. I have no hesitancy in saying the best-loved Baptist minister in all the South is Pastor Geoi'ge "W. Truett. Somebody behind me lias said, "Or the North either." I am willing to agree in that statement for Dr. Truett has been preaching in the North from time to time and wherever he goes he wins the hearts of the people. Rev. George W. Truett, of Dallas, Texas: Certainly I shall not at- tempt any extended address. I have two reasons for that, one that I don't know any one in all this country that could quite faithfully fill the place of our absent President, Dr. Williamson. Those of you who have heard that great-hearted and wonderfully successful pastor I am persuaded are ready to agree with me that of all the men in these United States, he, coming from the central section, is perhaps best fitted to speak for these States. Then I shall not make any extended address for the reason that we all want to hear our honored brother from beyond the seas. The noble teacher who has spoken for us has pointed some exceedingly vital lessons. Disraeli said that the most glo- rious sight in all this country is a sight of its country saved by its youth. Certainly the supreme and crowning work of the pulpit and of a church is the work of enlisting and training and leading forth into the noblest expression of activity the young people of the land. But how shall that be done? I would answer that that is to be done, I think, best of all by striking the militant note for theses young people. A distinguished scholar and teacher in one of our oldest universities in America said not long since that what our modern world needs is a moral equivalent to war. Let him open the New Testament, and from beginning to end he will find that equivalent in the moral world, as under imagery that glows and bums, the great problem of Christian work is set forth even under military figures. How that first preacher in all the tides of time, the Apostle Paul, set lorth in glowing imagery under the militarj- figure the end and the purpose of the Christian life among men. how he made plain that following Jesus Christ means to be on a battlefield attended by more stress and contingencies and difliculty and danger and toil and courage than any other battlefield that earth ever saw! 9(5 TEE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. The whole appeal of the New Testament is a challenge to the heroic in human nature and such a challenge coming to youth finds a wonder- ful field to call out the best that there is in youth. T have long been persuaded that we have made a great mistake in not emphasizing an- other side in our appeal to people young and old touching the Christian life. We have called them to the happiness that there is in Christian life, to its blessedness, to its safety, and in doing that we have done well to be sure; and yet there is another side grander far than that. We have need to call them to the heroic; we have need to call them to the sacrificial ; we have need to remind them that there are battles to be fought in the name of Christ and for his cause calling for more courage than the men had at Bunker Hill, calling for fiercer conflicts than the men knew at Gettysburg, calling for more intrepid daring than the men at Santiago, or who went up San Juan Hill. We need to make that ap- peal to call out the noblest that is in youth and in middle age and in old age as well. That appeal Moses made at Horeb. How strikingly sug- gestive is that appeal, ''Come thou with us and we will do thee good, for the Lord hath spoken good, concerning Israel." It was the most alluring thing that was ever offered a man, but the appeal did not win him. Then Moses said, ''I have another appeal; come thou with us and thou wilt do us good ; thou knowest the road ; thou knowest the wilder- ness; thou art acquainted with the country; Hobab we need thee," and Hobab said, "If I am necessary then I Avill come." I am persuaded that one of the things that has been sadly lacking in our ministry is that second note in the message made to Hobab. 0 lawj^er ccme thou with us, we need thee; come, teacher and physician and financier, mighty leader, come thou with us and thou wilt do us good. In that great ap- peal the New Testament stands forth as a vast mirror emphasizing that truth every time you look at the pages of that wonderful book. The whole New Testament spirit is a challenge to the heroic, and certainly if we are going to arouse the fire and passion and power and activity of the youth of this land, then the youth must hear the call to the heroic. Youth does not care for the soft and prosaic and the easy. You can- not interest the youth in any mollycoddling business. There must be ac- tivity and stir and heroism if you are ever to reach the youth. When Stanley came to make that last visit back to Africa he sent out word that if there Avere a few young men who would like to go back with him, who would be willing to go back with him to that dark land and help to heal that open sore of the world, if there were a few that would be willing to go he would be very glad, but it meant hardship, it meant pri- vations, it meant difficulties, it meant dangers, it meant pestilence, it meant sickness, it meant separation from home, it probablj^ meant death. Maybe in the face of that a few would go; and yet in a few days attev Stanley sounded that great appeal, one thousand two hundred of the picked youth of Britain said they were ready to go. 0 my brothers in God, we are to go not with the soft, roseate, easy appeal, but we are to go with insistence which is certainly sanctioned Tuesday, June 20.] RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS. 97 on every page of the New Testament, that the sublimest business of the world is to be the right kind of a Christian, and the biggest business of the world — bigger than politics, bigger than commerce, bigger than all phases of human activity, is to be a Christian of the i-ight sort. The standard of the Christian religion at this hour is that we serve God with little driblets and little scraps of time and money and life. When- ever the great forces of America and Britain and the rest of the world shall literally re-live Christ, the Kingdom of God will come in with a speed and a glow that will dazzle the highest optimist in all our ranks. All this means that we are to give our young people a vision of this supreme business of all the world, and relate this same young people in active relation with such vision. Such a meeting as this, no man nor an- gel I think can measure its meaning to the young people whose lives have been touched by this Alliance. There have been visions unfolded before these young people which, please God, shall find translation in every nation under heaven, and in the far-off lands these visions here unfolded before these young people shall find response and practical in- carnation in the lives of men and women that shall bring in new eras in every nation and under every sky in all the world. There has been put before them something worth while, the biggest business that man or angel ever dreamed of, the mightiest program that earth ever heard of, the most daring task that humanity ever confronted. They have met that here, and life shall never be the same again. This means that here we are to give our young people the vision and then relate them to the great problems, educational and social and missionary and all the rest, for only in this way can great lives be grown. God's way of growing a great life is to harness such a life in some great task. Lives shall be dilettante and feminine, and the masculine nature shall have died the death if lives shall not be harnessed to some great and worthy and un- selfish task. That is the call to us, 0 my brothers, I am truly per- suaded, touching this great young people's movement. I am thinking this moment far back in the country place where it was my joy to hear the gospel in the days when I was a lad. I am thinking of the white-haired old country preacher who stood before a crowd of us lads and sobbing his great heart out, as with stooped shoulders and wrinkled cheeks and hair white as the snow, he said, "Wlio will take the places of us old men who are so soon to drop in the grave?" Oh. it was a new appeal and the night wore to morning before one lad could get away from that great appeal. He had held before me Christ's vision of a lost world and had likewise in that hour set before me the truth that the sublimest thing under the whole heaven is to preach Christ's gospel, to lift up lost ones. Here is the test and measure of our power to be a blessing to this world. God's plan is the giving of life for life. Let us be done in every appeal with young people ; let us be done with every appeal to the easy and to the soft-going, and to that which is enervating and luxurious. Let us summon them to difficulty and to tasks enough to trj- the stoutest heart and to privations and to sufferings and to separation from home, to the highest and the most strenuous and the 98 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. most self-forgetting in the whole world. That is the appeal that shall link their lives with this matchless task; just that. 0 my friends, when we pay the price for power in the Kingdom of God we shall cer- tainly have it — when we pay the price. I am thinking at this moment of a scene I spoke of to my own South- ern people in their own meeting a few weeks ago and I speak of it here. I was summoned from my own pastorate to a little church in the eastern part of my State to preach a dedicatory sermon for that church. I got there Saturday evening and met the officers and said to them, ''What do you wish of me; what am I expected to do here?" And they set be- fore me in very clever terms the task before me on the following mor- row. That task was the raising of $6,500 in cash, which would be due on Monday in order to meet the pressing obligations against that build- ing, and that was to be raised before the dedicatory prayer should be offered. I said, ''Where is the $6,500 to come from, brethren?" And they looked at one another and then looked modestly at me and said, "By a very great effort we think we can get $500 of it, but you must get out of the town the other $6,000. We have done our best." Clever men these trustees and deacons are sometimes, wonderfully clever men — mar- velously clever men. They said, "We have done our best." "Well," I said, "brethren, I have been in this dedicatory business a good bit since I was a lad. It doesn 't come as you said. If we get the $6,500, it means that this church will have to put up $6,000 of it and maybe by great effort we can get $500 out of the rest of the town." And with long faces all of us went into the services after an experience like that. I preached and came to the practical matter of calling for that $6,500, and after thirty minutes we had only $3,000 of it provided and then there was a dreadful pause. I looked and said, "Brethren, I am your guest, what do you expect me to do? I wish I had the other $3,500; what are Ave to do?" A little woman back there with her big bonnet hiding her face for the most part, put her face in her hands and after a minute's pause — it seemed an hour — she rose up and said, "May I speak?" and I said, "Certainly, my sister," and looking past me to the young man sitting by the desk who had taken down the subscrip- tions, she said, "Charlie, you and I were offered $3,500 in cash yester- day for our little cottage for which we have striven so hard and which we love so much and the man said as he went on we might draw on him any time within the next few days. Charlie, this is Christ 's house and I have wondered if you would be willing for us to finish up the debt," and he answered back with a sob, "Mary, I was thinking of the same thing; w^e will finish it." But it didn't stop there. There occurred a scene that beggared all description. Over there a man who gave $50 rose up with a sob and said, ' ' I trifled a bit ago ; I said $50 ; I will add $450 more. ' ' Over there a w(5man who gave $10, laughing while she gave it, rose now with face covered with tears saying, "I will add $90 to mine." Over there was a lad that gave $2.50. He smoked that much from Monday till Saturday; Tufsilay, .Tun." 20.1 UFAitin* OF I'HOCEKIH MIH. W he rose with a sob in his voice and said, "I\Iake mine $97.50 more." And faster than two men could take it down that $3,500 and more was provided ; nor was that all. Down those aisles came men who had shot out their lips in scorn against the church; when they saw that scene, down each aisle they came saying, "Where is the Saviour and where may we find him?" ''And heaven came down our souls to greet. And glory crowned the Mercy Seat." 0 my brothers, as preachers and teachers in every relation of our lives, let us go from this iUliance with this note, the call of God's people young and old to give Christ their best. (Applause.) Hymn, "My Jesus, I love thee." Chairman : The statement read by Mr. Webb was in the form of a resolution to appoint a committee. That resolution has been moved and seconded; I take it that you are prepared to vote upon this resolution. Resolution put to a vote of the audience and carried. Chairman: The chair appoints the following committee: (See page xvi.) Mr. McConnell: I move that the committee be asked to supply any vacancies that may occur, on their own initiative, up to the number of twenty-five, seeing that there shall be some regard as to locality in the selection. The motion was seconded by George T. Webb and carried. Chairman : I appoint H. G. Baldwin to receive money on the part of the committee. Chairman : We have heard from a teacher and a preacher from Canada and the United States. We are to hear from one who is a great preacher and a great teacher, whose writings are read wherever English is read. We will not speak of him as of any country in particular. He represents England sometimes; to-day he represents the whole world. F. B. Meyer, of the world, and of the hearts of all of us, will now speak. Rev. F. B. Meyer was received with enthusiasm and said: Mr. Chair- man, it is extremely embarrassing to be received in this way, and to liavo those words said. I always tliouglit Americans were exceedingly businesslike and brisk; I find that they are gifted witli great imagina- tion. They tell me you are a Canadian, my friend (to the chairman). There is a great reciprocity between these two great countries. It seems to me Canada is catching the inspiration of the idealism of America. I am also embarrassed because nobody has appointed me a subject. I hardly knew whether I was to speak about young people or to them. Finally, I was told this morning T might catcli up anything the other speakers said and add to it; and I came to the conclusion that things 100 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. that my old friend Dr. Truett had said would enable me to get a start anyway. There are many kingdoms in the world, the kingdom of athletics, of mind, of money and of science, and each of these kingdoms has its own special honors and rewards and consciousness of power, and it is a great thing for the soul to be accepted as a citizen of any great kingdom in Avhich it may use the power and enjoy and employ the rewards. For instance, it is a great thing for a young man to become a king in the kingdom of athletics; that kingdom has its honors and its rewards and its sense of power. And what is true of that kingdom is true of all the kingdoms I have named; but those were remarkable words that Dr. Truett uttered when he said we must be prepared to pay the price of power. Take the kingdom of athletics; a man may well desire to enter it and be a citizen and a king, but before he can he must do violence to his love of ease, to his selection of special foods, and to a great many delights that might tempt his youth. Only so can he enter the kingdom and hold its power and presently use its keys to open it to others. So is it with the millionaire; he must be prepared to do violence to a great many things that other men live for, his love of ease, his love of home; he must live laborious days and spend sleepless nights, or he cannot enter the great kingdom of wealth with its reward and honor and sense of power. So is it with the mighty kingdom of the intellect; any young man or woman who would enter that kingdom will have to pay the price by doing violence to the love of ease, even the love of athletics, and to a great many other of the luxuries, and of the winsomenesses of life. You always must pay the price of that kingdom to which you aspire. You must go through its narrow and strait gate; you must be prepared to do violence to yourself, so much so that people may come around you and say ''Spare yourself, this is too gTeat a price for you to pay; spare yourself, this shall not be unto thee." But topping all these kingdoms which I have named there is another and a mightier far, the Kingdom of Heaven. That kingdom also has its rewards and honors to offer you and me, this afternoon; the one thing that that Kingdom of Heaven offers to us is the prerogative, the unique prerogative, of spiritual power. There is power for the athlete, there is power for the millionaire, there is power for the intellectual athlete, the man of mind, but the supreme power is beyond all these and includes all these, the power of the spiritual realm, the power of Jesus and his apos- tles, the power of St. Bernard and St. Francis, the power of Luther and George Watts, the power of the Wesleys, and Whitefield, the power of Finney and Spurgeon the mighty power of the spiritual rule which is within the reach of every man and woman within the audience of my voice to-day; and indeed I shall have spoken amiss if I fail to show before you what life may become which has allied itself with that power which is throbbing through the universe and which is within the reach of everj^ wing of faith that is expanded to win, to extract the power of the unseen and eternal world. Tuesday, June 20.] RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS. 101 You may wonder why just now I used that word ''wing"; I will tell you. I learned a parable during my voyage just now across the Atlantic, one lovely summer's day. The sea was an emerald purple, the sky was cerulean blue, the air was soft and beautiful, and the ship must have been making quite twenty miles an liour. As I walked to and fro upon the deck my attention was attracted by those magnificent seagulls — many of them I should think would have measured from five to six feet from wing tip to wing tip — as majestically they accompanied the ship, pro- ceeding at that great speed. The thing that struck me with most wonder was that they never moved a wing, that there was no apparent effort, but calmly and majestically they made their glorious flight parallel to the progress of our boat without heave or motion of the wing. As I stood to contemplate I realized that there was pulling at them, as the string pulls at a boy's kite, the great and mighty force of gravitation, which, had they yielded to it, must have dragged their body at once deep down into the wave. But that downward force was counteracted by another force which their wings had extracted from the invisible atmosphere, and the force of the wing was transforming the downward power into a forward power, and I realized that they were advancing by using the power which otherwise would have hurled them into the abyss. And as I stood there realizing that parable of the bird's sensitive wing gather- ing from the impalpable air, the air in which floated the power to trans- form, I learned one of the lessons of my life, and I saw that every human life is exposed to the downward pull of some temptation, of some sus- ceptibility, by something by which they might suppose would have spoilt and injured their influence, but as the wing of faith brings into operation other unknown forces it translates into advance what other- wise would be a force to destroy. If only I may so speak to you, my thoughts will lie along the help of youth, will lie along the help of parentage. I hope before I close, if I do not unduly transgress, to show how it lies along the line of the life of my brother ministers. It seems to me if I could only take that as my text to-day and join it with my friend's words about the price you pay for power, I may show that by faith you may take the power which is against you and transform it into a power which is for you, so that in- stead of saying with Jacob, "All these things are against me," you may cry with the apostle, "In all these things we are more than conquer- ors through him that loved us." Now, see how this applies to young manhood, and ringing through my mind to-day is that wonderful word of Christ's, "The kingdom of heaven suflfereth violence and the violent take it by force." The young manhood wlin are here to-day must use violence against themselves if they would win the spirit power of which we speak. And you remember in the same chapter, the eleventh of Matthew, our Lord gave three indi- cations of what he meant: There w-as first the reed shaken with the wind, and then the soft clothing of Herod's court, and then the contrast be- tween the effeminate priest and heroic prophet, and he said in each of 102 TEE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. those particulai's a man must learn to transform the forces that militate against him and make them carrying forces by which he will win the kingdom. Take first the young men — and I suppose young men include young girls, because in our country the girls are beginning to learn that they must no longer be the darlings and dolls of men but their com- rades in the great fight of life, therefore what I say to one I say to both — the young manhood and the young womanhood of our churches must do violence to their compliance with opinion, that worldly opinion. You know exactly how the reeds appear upon the lea or marsh when the autumn wind is breathing across them and how they all fall in the same direction. So it is in human life that we all are compliant with fashion and human opinion and take the way of the crowd. But if a man takes the way of the crowd and goes with the crowd he will cease to influence the crowd. If John the Baptist had gone with the crowd, the crowd would never have come to him. It is the man who does not go with the crowd to whom the crowd has got to come presently. It was so with Luther when he stood before the legate, "I can do no otherwise, God help me"; and there began to gather around him that phalanx of reformers that made the Reformation a fact, an enduring fact in European history. And you remember how Bunyan when he was offered freedom if he would only cease to preach, said that he would rather the moss should grow upon his eyelids than that he should purchase liberty at so con- temptible a price as that. And to Bunyan has come as you heard yes- terday the undisputed love and homage of all Christendom. So I say to every young man here to-day, there would have to be made up in your mind a resolute stand against all compliance with mere worldly custom and habit; and that is why I am so proud of our sacred rite of believers' baptism. It is an individual act, it is the great act of an individual soul that dares to stand with Jesus Christ. Jesus was sent without the camp, the world cast him out, and the man or woman who comes step by step down into the baptistery is becoming weak with Christ, is lying in the grave with Christ, is forfeiting the love and homage of mankind for Christ's sake. It is the baptized church, the buried church, the church that dares to stand with Christ outside society, which is going to com- mand and rule society to-morrow. Oh, be baptized young people ! I have often thought if I were thirty or forty years younger r\vould go through the world baptizing everybody who would be baptized on pro- fession of faith, in the name of the Holy Trinity. The longer I live the more I thank God that he has committed to my custodianship in some small way, this sacred rite. They went from Europe to Palestine to fight for the grave of Christ, and I will stand as a crusader to fight for the burial, the grave, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. Then there is the softness of the royal court. No, brothers and sis- ters, see to it that you do not place your trust in any human power. They that are clad in soft raiment are in king's courts. You and I do not want a soft job ; let us therefore stand out from the circumference of human power and let us dare to believe that power comes not to the Tuesday, JuiK" id. I liFA'Olih OF I'ROCEEDINOS. 103 State but to the Cburcli. I like what my brother, the first speaker, said just now when he described that little church. I have stood in St. Peter's, I have looked up at that niisihty dome and I have seen around its circle, "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the jjates of hell will not prevail against it." But I have felt it was resting upon Peter and there was very little of the Lord Jesus there; whereas I have gone into some little primitive Methodist chapel in our country, or some tiny Baptist conventicle and the w'alls have been white- washed, there has been no carpet, no linoleum and the benches have been poor, but a few peasant folk dressed in the pictures(iue costume of long ago, a few rustic people come from their little villages to worship God according to their conscience in spite of S(|uire and Parson; and as they have gathered in that little church I have seen around those white- washed walls a lustrous handwriting which I could read, "Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them. ' ' And where Jesus is, there is the Church of Christ. I don 't know that you have those conditions of life, but I have often said to our young people, "Dare to turn your back upon that village Episcopal church and turn your face toward that little church and dare to join yourself in membership to those humble folk with whom Jesus meets." I know that your conditions of life are so different that what I say in England I cannot say to you, but I always say to girls that on that day when they are queens and their will is the behest of all, that they must not take the innocent youth to be married in the Episcopal church, al- though they might have carriages at the door and silks and satins to adorn the wedding, but on a girl 's queenly day she must be proud to stand in a little village chapel where her people worship God and she was brought up as a child. There is one thing more along tluit line; we are to do violence to our love of compliance and our reliance upon the worldly power, and we must see to it that we do violence to our natural clinging to the priest rather than to the prophet. "What went ye out for to see? A pro- phet? Yea, and more than a proi)het. " Young people, there are two types of religion in the world, there is the religion of the priest and there is the religion of the prophet. The priest has been supposed to take the sins of men into the inner shrine of God and dispose of them there in his own prayer and orison and suffering. But too often the priest has been too courteous, too often he has condoned and minimized sin, too often he has taken money for doing what he knew he could not do, and the priesthood has therefore constantly tended to effeminacy. The prophet is a man who comes from God to speak God's truth, and he comes in con- tact with these petticoated priestlings and turns from them and says I have nothing for you but the truth in which I stand. Not tlie religion of form but of power; not a religion of ritual and the priest but of the direct contact with Christ; that, young people, is to be the religion which you are to be true to. Do violence to yourself, do violence to your passions; whatever there is in your life that pulls you down, do violence 104 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. to it and say, ''By the faith of Christ I am going to transform what would depress me into that which will exalt and help me." Turning from young manhood and womanhood for a moment to par- ents, does not that same law follow? I want to see the children reign. I have had so many tussles with the old people and I find that they are so indurated sometimes with habit it takes hours to turn them back to God. The church has got to be recruited not from the world but from her own family life. I notice in England they sometimes depreciate the statistics of those who have joined from the Sunday-school and magnify the result of those who have joined from the world. I say it is a false estimate, and the true estimate would be to lay a greater stress upon the boys and girls that join the church from the school than on those that join from the world. If we are going to join our children to the church, we must, dear brothers and sisters, fathers and moth- ers, if we are going to deal with the children who are of the kingdom, of such is the kingdom, you fathers and mothers will have to be in the kingdom yourselves Jesus said "Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." The worst is that so many people start in the Kingdom of Heaven and go down from it and their children are born into their home in the kingdom and the father and mother have left the kingdom and the children start higher up than their fathers and mothers are, and their fathers and mothers pull them down. The most solemn thing to say to a young man or girl when they are being wedded is to say, "See to it, — in God's Providence you are probably going to deal with little children, who are, so to speak, of the kingdom — though they need of course the new birth, but their temperament and simplicity and purity are the characteristics that come to us through the new birth — and you must be born and you must be in the kingdom in order to deal with these young children." Now, I want to make a point of that; I am absolutely certain that some of you fathers and mothers if you love your children are spoiling them, and that you will have to do violence to a good many things in your own characters if you are going to bring those children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I go back to my dear friend, Mrs. Whittemore. I met her only a week ago here — I do admire that saintly woman who I suppose has done more for fallen girls in New York than anybody living except, maybe, the Salvation Army. She told me again the story which I had heard long ago, she told me that that night ■ she had dressed herself for a fine ball. She was a professing Christian but she had put on her ball dress and when her little boy came down to see her and say his prayers she said, "No, mother cannot hear your prayers to-day, run away, run away," and he turned sorrow- fully and looked at her and said, "Mother, where are you going?" "Oh," she said, "that does not matter, I am going out," and the boy with a look of horror on his little face turned to her and said, "Mother, are you going out when you are not dressed?" She was fully dressed, people say, but in the eye of the pure child she was not dressed, and she Tuesday, June 2U.] RECOIiD OF I'h'OCL'EDING^S. 105 was not in God's sight, I believe. She went to the ball; she danced her last dance that night ; she came back to her room, took off her ball dress and laid it upon the bed and said, ''I will never wear that again, for if that soils the pure mind of my own child must it not be soiling the pure eyes of God's angels and his Son?" She knelt down by its side and yielded her womanhood to Christ and Christ accepted it. She called to- gether her few worldly friends and they were amazed when she said what she intended to do. They thought that she had become crazy but she pursued her wonderful career, and I suppose that the Door of Hope in New York and throughout this country has brought more of God's fallen angels back to the steps of rectitude than any other power in this country. It was because she did violence to herself. Now, listen; I think, probably I know, there has been a debate whether breeding, or heredity, as you call it, or training is the more important; and I dare to say that whilst heredity is greatly important, training is more so, and that the good training of bad blood will make a better subject of the law than the bad training of good blood. But the mother and father who are going to use the power of God for training will have to do violence to themselves. You cannot have spiritual power without doing violence to yourself, and it is because fathers and mothers in the present day want to have a good time of it, as they thought they did when they were courting, and they want to go to all manner of amusements and worldly show, and leave their children to nurse-maids, leave their chil- dren to second-hand training, it is for that reason in our country that so many of the children of godly parents are going wrong. It was not so with my mother. Away back in my boyish days an elegant woman — my father and she had wealth at their command, they could have lived in the social circle and in the front line — but so far as I can recall never from my earliest memory to the time when I was a grown-up boy of twelve did my mother ever go out at night. She said she must be at home, first to hear my prayer as a child, and then to make me happy with her presence until I went to my bed. And it is the doing violence to your love of a social circle, it is doing violence to the love of show and ostentation in your houses, it is a daring to be frugal, daring to be simple, daring to maintain a humble beautiful home without ostenta- tious show, which is the best atmosphere for the creation of Christian child life. I remember how it was with my father and mother. So soon as Saturday night came the mother went all around the house with us putting away the toys and the story books and the pictures, everj-thing except Noah's ark (laughter); just as it was in the case of Mr. Glad- stone, our great statesman, who always removed from his study in Down- ing Street everything that savored of his political life in order that Sun- day morning might break pure and unblemished, so my mother went around that house and put away ever\-thing that would remind us of the week that had gone, and Sunday broke to us children the day of days, the dav we looked forward to and counted on from Mondav morning. But 106 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIAXCE. everything was reverent, everything was beantiful, everything was holy; it was because she took care. Again I say, and I leave this i3oint, you men and women to whom God has given children, almost from the marriage day you begin to think of them, there are months of prayer, unspoken prayer, which the mother is silently praying deep down in her breast. Then the little child is turned towards Jesus as Hannah turned Samuel towards the temple, or Zacharias turned John the Baptist towards his ministry. Then the child receives at every pore the reverence and holiness of a Christian home in which there is no gossip, there is no criticism of other people, especially no criticism of the minister or the choir. Then the father and mother live so that it makes me think of that student at Yale whose study was covered with all manner of pictures of actresses and also of various scenes in low life, and someone either of design or because he had a secret purpose, brought him Hoffman's head of Jesus, and this picture was put up upon those walls and in a week when he came in he found the young student had torn down all the other things because he said it did not seem nice to have those tawdry things alongside of that work of art. He meant more than that though he did not say it. He meant there was something in that ideal face that made other things impossi- ble. And I say that woman who is listening to me with her young family around her, her cheery optimism, her purity, her happiness, her rever- ence to God and that strong holy man's life, these are to be the pictures upon the walls of young character which will make the fallen women of the street, which will make low life, impossible. But you can't have that power without paying for it, as Dr. Truett said. I have spoken of the young man doing violence to himself, I have spoken of the parent doing violence to himself; I want to speak a mo- ment, if this audience will allow me, to my brother minister, that he also will have to do violence to himself. I am perfectly sure, my broth- ers, that you and I have been trying to wield the power of intellect, the power of the essayist, the power of the historian, the power of the de- claimer, the orator, and very often the political orator, and as we have used all those sources of power Satan has laughed at us, and other men who have given up their attempt of the study of these special sources of power have easily beaten us. But when a minister of Jesus Christ says I am willing to accept literary culture to a point, I am quite pre- pared to learn the gifts of speech up to a measure, I am quite willing to be au fait with everything that is going on around, with the civilization of my time, but these are not to be the sovirces of my power in the world, but I am going to grip those spiritual forces which lie latent but ready to be reached in the Kingdom of God — when a man lays hold upon those spiritual forces, the power of hell cannot stand against him. I am ab- solutely sure as I look back upon my life, that before you and I can wield that power we will have to do violence to a good many things. You will have to do violence to that desire you have to be a leader in so- ciety; you may have to do violence to your desire to shine as a great Tuesday, June :2(».J RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS. 107 writer or a great thinker or a great political leader. A man cannot have everything and he has to count in lile the source of the most conspicuous power that he can wield; and I say it will pay you a hundred times over to forego what other men lay such stress on, in order to do violence to yourself to lay hold on the spiritual forces of the Kingdom of God. Mind you, these make no noise. Coming across on the ''Campania," I was asked to sit with the captain at his table and he and I became very friendly and he told me one day of the loss of that boat on the Irish coast a little Avhile ago, the Cunai*der. I asked him how it was, was not there a lightship there f He said, Yes, and he explained that somehow the lightsliii) was not at work that day, and he went further to explain that now under every lightship around our coasts, and I dare say^ around your coasts, deep down in the water there hangs a bell which is made to ring by electricity, and when a storm is raging or when the sky is dark and starless and there is danger, this bell is set tolling deep, deep, deep down in the ocean depths; and the captain told me that fourteen miles away from that lightship you may hear the tolling of that bell by a sort of phonic apparatus which is fitted to the hull this side and that, so that you can tell whether the danger bell is on this side or on that side or in front. And I said I would like to hear that bell ringing. So he took me up to the bridge and I stood there with him and placed the au- ditory nerves, so to speak, against my ear and I listened but I could hear no bell, and he said, "You may be thankful that you hear no bell for you are getting out upon the deep sea." Then I listened more intently and I said, "I think I hear," and he said, ''Yes, you may hear the silence of mid-ocean"; and I listened to the silence of mid-ocean and I said to myself, Yes, when I was a youngster in shore I heard the bells; perhaps now I am getting on mid-ocean I shall hear no bell but the silence of the great deep things of God. And I say to my brothers here, don't hang around the shore where clapping meets every sentence, where the newspapers wait to report every brilliant passage, where on the morrow after you have made a great oration even'body is talking about the brilliance of it, though no one for his life can remember what you said. Don't lis- ten to the bells; don't listen for any applause of men or women or crowd but get out, brothers, get out upon the deep main, the emerald purple ocean, the deep things of God, and there listen for and receive those eternal forces by which Jesus Christ at Pentecost endued the church and which are within the reach of every man and woman who will seek them. I never shall forget one day being in the home of a friend of mine, a wealthy man who was studying science. It was some time ago — thank God I have grown a bit since then — but I was fool enough to say, "How blue the ether is to-day," and I went further and said, "I can- not understand how it is that they send wireless messages through the atmosphere; how they do it I don't know." My friend said, "Ah, I see you understand the difTerence between ether and atmosphere." I said, 108 THE BAPTI8T WORLD ALLIANCE. *'I don't know very much about it." ''Well," he said, ''I thought you did not from the way you talked. If you will come with me to my laboratory I will show you ether. Ether is going to be the driving force of the next century; just as electricity has taken the place of steam, so ether is going to take the place of electricity if only we know how to use the ether of which you spoke so lightly just now ; for ether is not blue." I said, ''What is it?" He said, "Come and see; ether is the ocean that washes the shores of time and washes the foot of the throne of God. Everything soaks in ether as a sponge soaks in water; it is all around us but people don't know it. They don't see it; they don't feel it; they are bathed in it without knowing it; but it is the great force of the future." So he took me into his laboratory; it was in a garden and I climbed steps and sat there and he did two or three things, I don 't know what ; and almost immediately there was an intense light, so intense I could not behold it. I turned my eyes away dazzled. He said, "Yes, that is the intensest light known on earth to-day and when once we rid it of that color and make it pure, nothing will super- sede it and the power we are getting hold of in ether is not only illu- mination but also motive power. You know we have to obey it and we are learning how to obey it so that we can use it." I said, "Thank you, good afternoon, I want to get alone." I felt like Xenophon's soldiers when after passing through Asia Minor they came to a ridge of moun- tains and said "Thalassa, thalassa, the sea, the sea," when they came on the edge of the Black Sea. And I saw the sea. I leave this with you ; just as ether is all around us but you and I do not know how to use it, but we are going to find out, the scientists will find out, so the power of Pen- tecost is all around about vis, but we have got to learn to use it. You may use it if you are humble enough and penitent enough and faithful enough and if you make Jesus first and hide yourself under him; and I tell you men and women, boys and girls, fathers and mothers, you will do the work of your life, not by money, not by physical force, not by in- tellect, not by emotion, but by contact with the eternal forces which are bringing on the new heaven and the new earth. Leads in prayer. Chairman : Jesus has spoken to us by the way and our hearts have burned within us. Hymn, "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name." The session closed with the benediction by Rev. F. B. Meyer. FOURTH SESSION. Tuesday Evening, June 20, 1911. Session opened at 7.45 with a devotional service led by Dr. W. J. McKay, of Toronto, Canada. President E. Y. Mullins was the special chairman for the evening. Chairman : My heai-t is so full of the inspiration of that magnificent Tuesday, June 20.] RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS. 109 Baptist manifesto which we had here this morning from Dr. Clifford that I must pause for a moment to express my appreciation of that. It is worth traveling a long, long way and surmounting a great many diflicul- ties and enduring a great many hardships and toils and sacrifices to come into touch with the electric vitality of this man of seventy-five, who is evidently as young as he was when he was twenty-five and who is obviously the incarnation of the Baptist spirit. I would God that that address might be printed not only in English but in everj^ tongue on earth; I hope it may prove true that somehow it shall be printed in Ja- panese and Chinese and in the Hindu tongue and in all the nationalities of Europe. I trust it may be printed in all the languages of all the peo- ple of the world, because I know that to some, in those in countries where the struggle for civil and religious liberty is Avaxing vigorous, where men are beginning to dream of what it means to be free politically and religiously, that address will come like an echo of the longings of their own heart and they will welcome it as the response to their own deepest longings and desires; and others, too, those who are buried in ignorance as to what these great ideals signify, it will come as the strain of a wondrously sweet music floating down from a heaven of political freedom and civil freedom that is far, far away in the dreamland to them ; but nevertheless it will have the effect upon them of all the visions and all the strains that come from the heavenly world into human hearts that struggle and saci'ifiee and toil for the great things of the Kingdom of God. I trust that address, so full of the spirit that this body stands for, may be circulated to the ends of the world. We were led to the mountain top and all the nations of the world Avere shown unto us to-day, not in the sense in which the tempter tempted the Saviour once to that effect, but rather in the spirit of one who had caught the spirit of the Saviour himself and who looked through his eyes on the nations of the earth and pointed us to our great duty. There are two things that are necessary to a great life in the individual or in the denomination, a vision and a task. A task without a vision makes a drudge; a vision without a task makes a visionary; a vision coupled with a task makes a hero and an apostle, and that which has made him who gave us this mes- sage the hero and the apostle that he is, is the fact that he has had the vision and the task. What is the task of the Baptist denomination? Well, we can define it in terms of the Kingdom of God and those are as small terms as I would select to define it. I believe that no denomination on earth can survive permanently and no form of religious life can survive perman- ently unless it embodies in its ideals and methods those ultimate and fundamental and eternal truths which Jesus proclaimed and which he employed in the founding of the Kingdom of God on earth. What are those principles'? I cannot of course outline them in the few minutes I have left of my ten, but I can speak of the practical task and that is what I meant when I spoke of the vision coupled to tlie task. The chief point in the life and struggle of any religious body may be determined by the 110 THE BAPTIST WOULD ALLIANCE. point of chief assent. There are several types of Christianity in tjie world, which I may refer to in a moment to discriminate them from ov;r type. First, I shall name the devotional type. — I won 't call names of de- nominations; they will occur to you — denominations whose life revolves around certain great Confessions of Faith, and there are many splendid elements of power in these denominations, denominations that confine themselves to certain humanly stated Confessions. We are not of that denomination ; we have never been of that type. The Confession of Faith Avhich is ours is that referred to this morning, the Scripture; we have never revolved around any Confession of Faith that men have formulated. Our life has never been determined chiefly and dominantly by that conception of our mission. Another type I might call the hierarchical; the activity of the body is expended in the task of building up a great system of priestliood, and the whole life of the body is bent on perfecting and making efficient for its own purpose that organization. Another type is the sacramentarian, slightly different from the other though usually associated with it, in which the constant energy and inevitable results are the interpretation of religion into terms of sacrament, reducing the facts to the physical realm, making of the presence of Christ a fact in the realm of matter rather than in the realm of spirit. Another type still is the rationalistic, where the mystical element, the religious element, the element we are going to discuss to-night, that of religious life, is absent and the aim is to build logical systems. That is not ours. What is the task for which we are set ? Not to build creeds or hier- archies or sacramental systems or rationalistic or logical systems, but to build men, and there we bring those forces of the kingdom of God which are necessary to building of character and adapt them to the task, and carry it on as God may give us power and grace and skill to do it. But, of course, we don't build men, God builds them. We are the instru- ments in his hands. He uses us to regenerate men and the vision we have is regenerated manhood for humanity, for the world ; and for this we need all the gifts of all the great builders the world has even seen. We need the imagination of the architect, for we are building a great structure with living men and women for the stones in the walls : we need the passion of the poet because without the divine fire we cannot fuse the elements together; we need the patience of the painter; of the sculi^tor, Avho works his masterpiece, because materials we deal with are refractory and yield slowly to our touch ; we need the inspiration of the great composer, because unless the music of God comes through our hearts we cannot do our work well; we need the sense of proportion of the landscape gardener; we need the constructive statesmanship of the great statesmen because we are a great people and have a great task and have a great territory to cover with our task; we need education, be- cause we can only appeal to the intelligence of men and the spirituality of men. We have but two weapons with which to fight our battles ; one is religion and the other is common sense — nothing else. We cannot Tuesday, .liiiu' liO.J UECOUD OF I'KOCEEIUS GH. Ill appeal by means of authority; we cannot present a spectacle of outward iiraiideur; we cannot woo and win men with any of these forbidden lines of power, wo can only touch the sprin.iis of action; we can only appeal to the truest and hiiiliest in men and brinu' to them that which will an- swer to the needs of their sin and sufferings and lonsiings for redemption. We have none of the outward props and none of the factitious forms and devices and employments for leadinj>' men unto the Kingdom of God. We can only appeal to the eternal thoughts in men, we can only bring the vision of righteousness and love, we can only bring the undying power of religion itself. We are stripped of every other means of bringing saving truth to this world. I am very glad indeed io present the next speaker. We have one of the most interesting and important subjects to-niglit that is to come before this Alliance — ''The Vital Experience of God.''' The first speaker is a man who has the practical every-day task of the pastorate, who has come into the closer relations with the conditions where the vital experience of God is needed. The second speaker of the evening is a teacher of the New Testament in English and Greek, who comes into vital contact with that reservoir of spiritual power continually, and so to-night we are to bear from the pastorate and then we are to hear from the professor's chair. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to jaresent to this audience Rev. J. Moffat Logan, of Aecrington, England, who will now address the Alliance on the subject, "No Authoritative Creed." (Applause.) VITAL EXPERIENCE OF GOD, NO AUTHORITATIVE CREED. By Rev. J. MOFFAT LOGAN. You will believe me when I say that I felt greatly honored when I was asked to take a part in these great gatherings. Since that far-off day when my mother used to tell me all that she had ever heai'd or read about a namesake who was notable, I have had an interest in the coun- try which was almost wise enough to call a "Logan" to her Presidential chair. That interest deepened when, on becoming the pastor of a church beside the Mersey, I discovered that amongst my kindest people there were some who looked across the Atlantic Ocean when they spoke about their Fatherland. And now, that several of my relatives and one of my own sons, have been for years sworn citizens of this great Common- wealth, you will not wonder that I say "Amen," most heartily, to every prayer which asks Almighty God to bless the English-speaking world. Rut. I must acknowledge that my pleasure in being asked to speak to you was changed into dismay as T perused the words which form the background of tills evening's meeting. As I meditated over the phrase "Vital Experience of God," I felt a little of the awe which must have filled the soul of Moses when he stood, unshod, before the Burning Bush. It seemed to me as though each letter in the title of my offered tlieme was all ablaze with eyes which searched and saw how shallow had been any claim of mine to piety. Then, happily for me, my eyes caught sight of the subordinate expres- 112 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. sion, *'No Authoritative Creed" and I felt somewhat comforted. In these three words there is a note of challenge — almost of defiance. They sound together like a call to battle against any who would raise up artifi- cial barriers around the ever-growing human soul. And it relieved me to remember that my business, for this evening, stood related to the minor, rather than the major, phrase. And yet, perhaps, you will permit me, in passing to the lesser through the greater, to remind myself and you of what the words ''Vital Experi- ence of God" imply. They imply suggestive things concerning God. They imply that we define the Being of the Highest in the terms of Per- sonality— in the terms of Personality akin to that which we impute to one another — in the terms of Personality interpreted to mean Self-Con- scious-Spirit. We believe Self-Conscious-Spirit to be that in which we live and move and have our being. They further imply that we define the Character of the Highest in the terms of Christianity. The natural sci- ences may speak to us of the Creator's power and wisdom; the Hebrew records may tell us much of the Creator's skill and beauty, but, to see His holiness and love, our eyes must turn to Mary 's Son. We believe the Christ of the Evangel to be the very Image of the God of the Eternities. And then, they imply that we define the Providence of the Highest in the terms of history. He who inhabiteth Eternity cares much for souls, but more for men; much for men, but more for Man; much for Man, but more for all the Universe. It seems to us that God is demonstrating on this planet, once for all, the cruelty, the blasphemy, and the futility of sin. But words like these, "Vital Experience of God," imply suggestive things concerning God's relations to ourselves. God's relations to His offspring are not to be gathered up in their enjoyment of His gifts. The vision which Jacob had at Bethel was not the noblest possible to Man. Ladders, and angels going up and down thereon with human prayers and earthly blessings, may be necessary to convince us mortals that the gate of Heaven and the house of God are very near. But gifts have been known to keep the givers and receivers miles away. Neither are God 's relations to His offspring to be gathered up in their contemplation of His attri- butes. The vision which Isaiah had on Zion was not the noblest possible to Man. A Temple redolent with incense and smoke and sword-like flames and seraph's chantings may have been desirable when the death of a king made even a prophet pessimistic. But the contemplation of God's attributes has always been a gulf between Jehovah and the contemplating soul. God 's relations to His offspring have their climax in the realization of His presence. As the vision of Isaiah transcended that of Jacob so did the vision of Abraham transcend the vision of Isaiah. Sweeter than the rustle of angelic garments and the whisperings of seraphs was the music of the voice which said : ' ' Fear not Abram : I am thy shield, and thy ex- ceeding great reward." That promise was prophetic of the day when God Himself would come into the consciousness of Man. He who escapes the senses and eludes the intellect may yet be apprehended by the heart. And certainly the words, ''Vital Experience of God" imply suggestive things concerning our relationship with God. They imply that the real- ized presence of God is life-bestowing. The old conception was that for a man to touch the Deity was certain death; whereas the new concep- tion is that a man is surely dead until the Deity is touched. Experience is knowledge. In all knowledge there is contact. And contact with the Tiu'silay, June 20. J REVORD OF RR0VEEDINO8. 113 Living God sends life iuto the huiuaii soul. A man thus born i'rom above becomes, by virtue of that birth, a member of the order lounded by the Christ. The Christ, though one in His eternal personality, is twain in nature; human by His birth from Mary and divine by virtue of the ac- tion of the Holy Ghost. And every human being born of the Holy Ghost becomes a personal partaker of the nature called from all eternity divine. The life-divine is not identical in kind with that which links us to the animate creation. Nor is it similar in essence to the life which links us to the sons of Adam everywhere. It is a life peculiar to the saints and ■which by linking them to God, invests them with the dignity of sons. Not only so but these words of ours imply that the realized presence of God is life-sustaining. Its earliest fruit is faith. The once-born can infer, have moral intuition and assent to oracles, but then the twice-born can perceive what lies beyond the reach of reason, hearts and conscience, and are so delivered from uncertainty. Faith is belief made active by vitality. The second fruit is fellowship. In ordinary times this fellow- ship means peace. In times of need this fellowship is prayer. And when joy visits us this fellowship is known as praise. And then the fruitage of Fidelity is borne. ''If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth." "He that abideth in Him w'ill walk even as He walked." "He that sinneth hath not seen Him neither known Him." The heavenly life produces faith and leads to fellowship and makes fidelitj' inevitable, and these, reacting on the life from Heaven, makes it ever an increasing power. And then our words imply that the realized presence of God is life- transfiguring. We are surely furnished now with our controversies as to the content of the words "Eternal Life." We ought to have remembered from the beginning that our Master had defined them once for all. How small notions of it look beside the word ' ' This is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." Eter- nal life connotes everlasting existence but everlasting existence does not contain eternal life. Eternal life connotes everlasting happiness, but ever- lasting happiness does not contain etei-nal life. Eternal lite has its only sjnonym in everlasting blessedness — unbroken conscious contact with the Father through the grace of Jesus Christ, His Son. That our life will last forever is a little thing, but that it will become more luminous forever is a gospel to be welcomed with a cheer. The symbol therefore of our her- itage is not a ceaselessly extending line but a ceaselessly expanding cir- cle and, as its ever-receding circumference encloses more and more of the experience of God, we know how vital is the great reality which saints call Heaven. To every one, to whom has come a share in the vital ex- perience of God, has also come the fulfilment of the Avords of Christ. "At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father and yc in Jle and I in you." To them Agnosticism is a disappearing quantity. And noAv remembering tliat the great reality covered by the phrase "Vital Experience of God" is, by assumption, co-extensive with the Bap- tist world let us turn to the subordinate expression, "No Authoritative Creed." Naturally, I am anxious to convey exactly what we think on this particular and so, perhaps, you will pardon me if I proceed at a pace which may prove trying to the patience of our younger friends. My ecclesiastical fathers used to "fence the table" in my early days and so I shall attempt — but not in length — to imitate them here. We are not at all afraid of this word "Authoritative," and therefore 8 114 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. I must mention some of the things which we do not mean when we use this phrase. When we say "No Authoritative Creed" we do not mean "No Authoritative Book." Not in the year 1911, at any rate, shall we, as Baptists, apologize for the fact that we have amongst us an authorita- tive book. We are not entirely iguorant of the Sacred Books of the East nor of the masterpieces of the West and yet we say of the Bible that it is not simply the noblest of its kind but that it constitutes a kind of which it is the only specimen. We believe that the Bible is to the theo- logians what nature is to the scientist, and when anybody puts to us the ancient question, "What is truth?" we answer, "That which the Scrip- ture as a wdiole proclaims in the hearing of the world. ' ' Then when we say "No Authoritative Creed" we do not mean "No Au- thoritative King." No one at all acquainted with the teaching of the Bible will affirm that our acceptance of it as the record of Jehovah's rev- elation of Himself to man compels us to accept as final for ourselves whatever lies between its alpha and its omega. All the writers who composed this Book assent adoringly to the Eternal father's cry, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him." He, only, is our Prophet, Priest, and King and only that which appertains to Him is binding on our souls to-day. And when we say "No Authoritative Creed" we do not mean "No Au- thoritative Voice." Just because it is a Book Avritten through the ages and completed centuries ago the Bible stands in need of an interpreter. After the reason has done her best along the line of criticism and after the church has done her best along the line of testimony, Ave must listen for the whispers of His voice Avho is the Spirit of this wondrous library. And whatsoever the Voice, quoting from the Book, edvices from the things belonging to the King, possesses for us Baptists, in the realms of faith and conduct, absolute authority. Nor are we any more afraid of this word ' ' Creed ' ' although once more some reservations must be made. This subordinate expression does not read "No Fiduciary Creed." As those who have had to struggle through to oiir position we have rather a contempt for anybody who through mental indolence or moral cowardice refuses to confront the facts of his religious life and think them out — thus raising in his mind an ordered ed- ifice of truth. A creedless saint is at the mercy of his sentiments. A creedless teacher is a contradiction in so many terms. And to trust a congregation to a creedless pastor were like engaging a poet rather than a pilot to conduct a vessel out to sea. A creedless faith is like a spineless form. Then this subordinate expression does not read "No Proprietary Creed." The dead hand sometimes proves a paralyzing power and yet there is another hand more vital but less clean. It may seem very beau- tiful and pious to launch institutions, as the Pagans used to launch the little ships devoted to the gods, devoid of guarantees, but such properties not seldom fall into the grasp of those whose teaching contradicts the views for which the founders lived and would as willingly have died. The generous dead have rights which the living ought in honor to maintain and those who use property for purposes alien in spirit to the purposes for which that property was given — bring a scandal on the Christian name. Least of all does this subordinate expression read "No Declaratory Creed." A creed is such that it requires the open air. The individual Tufsihiy, Jiim' 20.J UEl'Olil) Of I'li'OCJJlJJUXGS. 115 believer ouybt always to be ready, i, e., able as well as willing, to give a reason for the faith that is in him. Each great denomination owes it to hersister churches to proclaim Jrom time to time — as we ourselves did in 1!)05 under tlie leadership of one who is surely with us even now — what slie esteems to be tlie fundamentals of the Christian faith. And Christen- dom, as a whole, owes it to the world to set forth most clearly what is of the essence of the faith wliich saves. In the wisdom of God, our con- troversies are concentrating toward that issue and, when it comes to pass, the children of the world will doubtless say, "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of tlie Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob: and He will teach us of His ways and we will walk in His paths." After all this fencing let me frankly state that when we speak of ''No Authoritative Creed" we mean, in the first place, ''No scheme of defini- tions to be placed as a threshold over w'hich a man must pass in order to become a member of a Baptist church." I know that it has been the custom in some quarters to call upon the candidate to state his views upon the i'undamentals of the Faith. I also bear glad witness that a very large proportion of the friends who entered Baptist churches in this fashion have become remarkable for grace and usefulness. But is it not the fact that such were all right anyway; and that what of those who, fearful of tliis ordeal, hung back amongst the dangers of the world? We agree that a Baptist church ought never to open her doors to anyone who does not, obviously, share the vital experience of God : we are certain that she will be wise if she onl}' suffers those to enter who entirely sj'm- patliize with that for which she stands apart from all her fellows; but, tliese things given we most strongly deprecate the application of a special creedal terminology to anyone who wishes to become enrolled be- neath the Baptist flag. Then, in the second place, we frankly state that when we speak of "No Authoritative Creed" we mean "No scheme of definition to be used as a weight against which any person must be tried who would become a stu- dent in a Baptist college." There are colleges in the old countiy — I shall not say Baptist colleges — where such a weighing process is con- ducted, tongue in cheek. The assent vouchsafed to the submitted creed is genei-ally Avarra or cold according to the ignorance or knowledge of the would-be minister. But, as a rule, they atone for the length of the creed with which they enter by the brevity of that with wdiich they say "good- bye." "We grant, of course, that to an ample share in the vital experi- ence of God and to a thorough knowledge of an enthusiastic devotion to the Baptist point of view the would-be student ought to show clear proof of pastoral potentialities; but, given these, Ave should abstain, especially in days like ours, from asking liis assent to detailed creedal formulae. And then, in the third place, we, with special frankness state that when we speak of "No Authoritative Creed" Ave mean "No scheme of definition to be erected as a standard unto which an individual must conform Avho Avould remain a leader of a Baptist commouAvealth." We ahvays expect and we almost ahvays get in our Baptist leaders, whether they be preacliers, professors, or presidents, men of eharactei*, Avho know the Lord and love the things for Avhich the name of Baptist stands; we should deeply mourn the forging of a verbal instrument by wliich they might be harassed in the Avork committed to their care. Such a thing would prove as harmful as it is unnecessary. We are a community of baptized belieA'ers. And latent in that fact our safeguards lie. Come 116 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. now and let us reason together on this point. We admit that it is pos- sible for men to continue in the teaching and the practice of believers' baptism and yet be destitute of any share in the vital experience of God. We also admit that it is possible for men who have a share in the vital experience of God to reach conclusions as to believers' baptism, which would make their continued presence in our midst anomalous. But we deny that it is possible for men, whose vital experience of God is up to date and who continue in the teaching and the practice of believers' bap- tism, to wander permanently from the central verities of Christianity. Should an apparent heretic arise amongst us, he will soon discover either an obvious lack of spirituality or a desire to minimize the ordinance for which we stand. The very worst thing to do with such a brother is to make him famous, with sensation-mongers, by endeavoring to oust him from the Baptist fold. Let him severely alone and he will either come back or get out, before many years are gone. If you should ever find a spiritually-minded and enthusiastic Baptist leader who is anything but orthodox I trust that you will capture him and show him as a freak of grace. Now, if we are asked to give our reasons for this triple negative we have them ready. It is uttered in the name of Bible Truth. Although rejoicing to be called ''the People of the Book" we are very far indeed from thinking that the last amongst the Bible verities has been perceived. That was 1620 and this is 1911, but we are still very confident that the Lord has much more Truth and Light yet to break forth out of His Holy Word. And we would encourage all the students, in our midst, to pre- pare their spirits for the larger vision and would also — a much harder task — prepare ourselves to listen to their words when they come amongst us light arrayed. The liberty that we would give is due entirely to the confidence which we possess. We are confident that fair inquiry will but make more evident the great rock-facts, that the Bible is the centre of God's revelations, that the gospel is the centre of the Bible, and that the centre of the gospel is the Cross of Christ. But we are also confident that the implications of such things are infinite and we desire to see the Bible searched, expounded, and especially, applied. There is little fear that we shall ever treat our home-grown seers as oracles whose words must be received unquestioningly. We shall heckle them, no doubt con- tradict them, when they dare to differ from ourselves, and make them prove whatever they advance, but we shall not seek to drive them from our midst because they have been able to transcend our limits. Men whose experience of God is vital enough to keep them loyal to the least of Christ's commandments can be trusted with the largest liberty. Then our negative is uttered in the name of Mental Honesty. We dis- tinguish, of course, between honesty of act and honesty of speech on the one hand and on the other hand between honesty of speech and honesty of thought. A man dishonest in act is a man who either takes or keeps what he knows to be another's. A man dishonest in speech is a man who either says or implies what he knows to be untrue. And a man dishonest in thought is a man who either comes to or remains within conclusions which he knows to be unwarranted. Now will anyone who knows even a little about the matter say that the creeds of Christendom have never been the enemies of mental honesty? Eun your eye along the statements in the ''Apostles" the "Nicene" the "Athanasian" creed and recollect the writings of the men who solemnly subscribed to these great documents ! luesday, June 20.] RECORD OF PROC'IJEDIXGS. 117 Refresh your knowledge of "The Westminster Confession of Faith," ''Tlie Thirty-nine Articles" and ''The Bases of Methodism" and remind yourselves ol' wliat you know of the general thinking of many of the men who practically signed these stamlards. Refuse to blind yourselves to the moral effect of "mental reservations," "general senses," and "at- tempt to harmonize the contradictory" and then retuni to us an answer to this question, "Will you ever temi)t your children to erect their tents in such a wilderness?" We are not contemptuous, as we have shown, of creeds. We look upon them as the work of intellectual giants who were seeking to erect great walls between the citadel of truth and the sur- rounding floods of error. We admit that every student of theology should know them well and understand the part which they have played in the development of Christian thought, but, when it comes to giving an assent to aged symbols, we declare that such should never be required from living, honest men. And then our negative is uttered in the name of Christian love. There is ample evidence to show that when the Twice-born hear the Truth, proclaimed from the view-point of the speaker's spiritual experience, they lovingly agree together and are richly profited. But there is even more abundant evidence to show that even when the Twice-born hear the Truth expounded from the standpoint of the speaker's intellectual defini- tions, they commence to fall asunder into disputatious groups. In the one case the truth of God was heard most clearly through the voice of man, but in the other case the voice of man was heard too loudly through the truth of God. The attempt to impose the findings of some master-minds upon the intellects of others has divided households, split communities, and led to international hostilities. The authoritative creeds of bygone times have all been instruments of cruelty. As we see the Great Shep- herd standing sorely wounded in the habitation of His friends we are in- deed inclined to cry, "0 Theology, what crimes have been committed in thy name!" The reunion of Christendom will never even grow into a possibility' until the great authoritative creeds have been reduced to the level of provisional hypotheses. The sons of the Eternal, with their unc- tion from the Holy One, must all be set at liberty to roam at will through every province of the Word of God. We, at least, will surely never yield to the temptation, which mistaken earnestness makes urgent now and then, to add another to the creeds on which the Lord Christ has been crucified. And now if I may in closing venture to be personal I shall confess that my experience has not been of a character to make me long for an authoritntivp creed. I am thinking now of one of my own age who was cradled in the old Free Church of Scotland and who spent his earliest conscious moments in and around a certain Glasgow church. At home the first thing that he saw on waking was a portrait of the celebrated Dr. Chalmers, and the heroes of his boyhood were the saints of the Dis- ruption. Ho always knew that he revered the Free Church Ministry- and now he knows that in a sort of solemn way he enjoyed the Free Church services. Of course he knew nothing at all in those days of the Free Church creed and in his folly he imagined that the Free Church had be- come entitled to that name because she was the church above all others where the gospel of the blessed God was preached as an evangel of free grace to everv man. He is never likely to forget the morning when, as a hapi)v, careless 118 THE BAPTIST WOULD ALLIANCE. youth, he passed a group of controversialists and heard one say, "The Free Church of Scotland teaches that, by the decree of God, for the mani- festation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto ever- lasting life and others foreordained to everlasting death. ' ' This awful sentence arrested the passing youth and drawing nearer he said: ''I trust that you will pardon me, but I cannot help saying that I have attended the Free Church all my days and I have never heard that doctrine taught at any time. ' ' This was the initiation of a long appeal to the standard of the Free Church, notably, "The Westminster Confession of Faith" and the young interrupter soon discovered that language can be used in one sense from the pulpit and understood in quite another by the pew. Con- scious of his defeat in this particular, the lad, no longer careless and de- cidedly unhappy, said with boldness, "If the Westminster Confession of Faith attributes partiality to God it contradicts the Scriptures." But, alas, his friend knew more than he, just then, about the letter of the Word and marshalled the reported proofs in such a fashion as to drive his young opponent from this portion, also, of the field. "Then," said the stripling in most deadly earnest now, "if the Bible teaches such a thing as that the Bible is not true," and emerging, consciously worsted and somewhat embittered but intellectually cjuickened from his first theo- logical controversy, he, in the name of self-evident religious truth, went forth into what his sorrowing people called ' ' the wilderness of infidelity. ' ' For many days "Iconoclast" had no more ardent follower and the "National Eeformer" no more ardent reader, although one visit to a Secularistic Hall was as much as he could stand. Then the Lord, who knows the wayward heart, had pity on the youthful rebel and led him by apparent accident into a great tent meeting, organized in connection with Moody and Sankey 's earliest visit to the other side. Then a Free Church minister- — Dr. Andrew Bonar — told the story of a certain green hill far away; then a Free Church soloist — the white-haired Mr. Thomas — sang the liymn called Substitution, and then the Christ of God revealed Him- self convincingly to one at least, who had wandered from the Free Church fold. As the so-called sceptic, with a song in his heart, went home that night beneath a cloudless sky, he realized that doubt concern- ing Jesus Christ at any rate had passed away. It was only natural that he should wish to work for Christ amongst his Free Church friends and that they should welcome him as a brand pluck- ed from the burning. He at once joined a Free Church Evangelistic As- sociation and in the course of time was asked to address a congregation in a Free Church hall. His text on that occasion was, of course, John 3 : 16, and you can easily imagine hoAv he revelled in its atmosphere. But his "doctrine" did not suit the leader of that earnest band. By declar- ing that the Father loved everybody, that Jesus Christ had tasted death for every man and that the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon all flesh he had challenged the veracity of "The Westminster Confession of Faith," and that could not be tolerated upon Free Church premises. In imitation of their betters a meeting of the executive was summoned, and after a long debate protracted until after midnight the young convert from scepticism was excluded by deliberate vote from that community upon the ground that he had set at naught the Free Church creed. There was no song in his heart as he wallced homeward then and few stars looked down upon him from the sky, but as he and his young wife rose Tuesday, Juno liU.J RECORD OF rROCEEDlXGS. 119 together from their knees they were more sure than ever that the love of God was free and universal as the air. It is scarcely necessary to remark that from that time onward he for- swore authoritative creeds. He was exceedingly sure of Jesus Christ. He was profoundly grateful to the teachers who assisted him in mastering more of Christian trutli. But he had quite made up his mind that not even the most infallible amongst his helj)ers should become his oracle. Step by step as, in loyalty to Christ he studied the Bible, under the guid- ance of the Holy Ghost, he was drawn away from his earlier associations. The transition from Presbyterianism to Congregationalism was compara- tively easy, but the wa,y from that to the recognition of the truth that all believers and believers only ought to be immersed in water was compara- tively hard. But that conclusion was reached at last and action had to follow evidence. Within a year of his baptism he crossed the threshold of a Baptist college and in due course his life-work in the Baptist minis- try began. The atmosphere of freedom which has since surrounded him has doubt- less had its perils. There have been times when what he claimed as lib- ert}' began to look like license, times when his genuine friends had ample reason for grave anxiety, time when he, like many more, did well to listen to the notes of the ''recall" which Spurgeou rang out so bravely from his watchtower yonder in the British capital. But there never Avas a time when an autlioritative creed would not have proved his enemy by ciystal- izing a phrase and making the passing permanent. Happily a creed like that has no existence in our midst and he was suffered to beat out his own and make it workable. In fact, his heresies were only hemispheres of truth, and he was able to annex the other hemispheres in time. And now to-day he has a creed, immovable in its centrality, whose circle he would fain expand continualh^ and whose circumference is only pen- cilled in from time to time. To-day he is one of those w^ho look upon sin- cerity as saintship, who hold that Christianity is all inclusive and who maintain that the law of the Lord is binding u^ion earthly empires quite as truly as on human souls. At the same time he is one of those who hold by the absolute Deity of Jesus Christ, the substitutionary character of Christ's atonement and the visibility of Christ's return. And he con- tends that if he had been trammelled by any authoritative human creed, he would probably never have driven the central truths which he has seen so deeply nor flung any of the inferential truths so far. Brethren, it would be too absurd for anyone to generalize from one particular. Yet the experience which I have sketched is typical because it is the life-story of an ordinary, earnest man. And then you see how creedal tyranny may injure and how creedal liberty may bless. I admit that if conversion did not constitute the cornerstone of our community and if the immersion of believers did not form the reason for our separ- ate existence we might have to think of creedal tethering. But we are not speaking on behalf of unconverted, although cultured scholars, nor for such saints as are in our peculiar rite a useful variant of Christian bap- tism. We are thinking only of the comrades who, sharing our vital ex- perience of God and discerning the holy implications of their baptism, desire to follow their beloved Chieftain everywhere, and contend that such may well be trusted to remain with the sphere of evangelic truth. The desire for an authoritative creed is surely a departure from the stand- point of our Baptist sire^. It is an endeavor to escape from spiritual 120 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. risks by artificial aids and so is scarcely honoring to one another nor to Him who is supposed to be our chosen Guide. Let us insist on spiritu- ality and loyalty and having these be well content to pay the price of liberty. A Baptist is a man who, through his baptism, declares, not only that he is, through Christ, in vital connection with the Father but also that the words of Christ historically interpreted are now his laws and such a man is surely worthy to be trusted in the realm of religion, any- where. For three hundred years the Baptists in both hemispheres have stood for loyalty to Christ and liberty amongst each other and the prin- ciple which has sufficed to make us powerful will sufBce to keep us true. Chairman: I am sure after this incisive thinker's magnificent presen- tation of this great theme we are ready to sing a hymn that matches the experience that has been described to us. Hymn, "1 Hear Thy Welcome Voice." Chairman: The next speech is one that will enlist the interest, of course, of every Baptist, a discussion of the ordinance, and an aspect of the consideration of the ordinances that will appeal to us especially in view of the general topic for the evening, ''The Vital Experience of God." "Oh, if we can bring the ordinances with their beautiful sym- bolic significance into the current of divine life and experience of our own souls how it will lift them to a new place of power! The speaker who is to discuss the subject, ''The Spiritual Interpretation of the Ordinances" many of you will recognize from the London Conference, all of you who were there. His qualifications for presenting this theme are many ; I cannot name them all, but chiefly these : He has been a life-long student of the New Testament. He teaches a class of twenty- five to fifty men in New Testament Greek every session and a class of one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty in English New Testament studies. He has been a professor of theology for about twenty-three or twenty-four years; he writes books so fast that the lo- cal pastors say, "It keeps us all poor buying them." I didn't know he had time from his work on his enlarged edition of the Greek Grammar and the New Testament to prepare a paper on this or any other sub- ject, but he has. It gives me a great pleasure to present A. T. Robert- son, D. D., of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. (Applause.) THE SPIRITUAL INTERPRETATION OF THE ORDINANCES. By Prof. A. T. ROBERTSON, M. A., D. D., LL. D., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky. This is one thing that Baptists stand for against the great mass of modem Christians. The Greek Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the High Church Episcopalians, and the Sacramental wing of the Disciples attach a redemptive value to one or both of the ordinances. It is just here that the term "Evangelical Christianity" comes in to emphasize the spiritual side of religion independent of rite Tuesday, June 20.] RECORD OF PROCEEDl\'Gfi. 121 and ceremony. It i.s a curious turn in history tliat the one body of Christians that holds a thorouglily consistent attitude on the subject of regeneration before baptism should be so olten ciiarged with holding that baptism is essential to salvation. As a matter of fact, Baptists lay less emphasis on the necessity of baptism than any other denomination ex- cept the Quakers who go to the extreme of rejecting it entirely. The Quakers are right in stressing the fact tliat one's spiritual fellowship with God is independent of rites, but they impoverish the message of the gospel in refusing to use these ordinances which are charged with rich truth, just because so many misuse them. Those evangelical Christians who practise infant baptism lay more stress upon baptism than the Bap- tists do, since they will not wait till the child is converted. They prac- tise infant baptism in hope that the child will be converted. This puts the cart before, the horse and empties the ordinance of its real signifi- cance. One cannot but Jeel that infant baptism among the evangelical denominations is a relic of the fears tliat infants would perish unless they were baptized, the origin of the practice, in truth. Then they are wholly inconsistent, though preaching salvation by grace, praise God. Now, Baptists stand out against the indifference of the Quakers, the heresy of the Sacramentalists, the nervous over-emphasis of the Psedo- baptists and contend for the spiritual apprehension of the ordinances. Our position is a difilicult one because men are prone to drift into reliance upon rites for salvation. It is the lazy man's religion. It is the way of the literalist. The very use of rites tends, unless resisted, to harden into formalism and sacramentalism, unless one continually strives to see the significance of the symbol. The Pharisees made an ordinance out of washing the hands before meals. A Pharisee who invited Jesus to dine marvelled that Jesus did not take a bath before the meal. Unless you take a bath before meals, you are unclean and cannot be saved. The Judaizers carried this sacramental notion into Christianity. They held that a Gentile could not be saved without circumcision. He had to be- come a Jew, The blood of Christ was not enough. The Holy Spirit could not give one a new heart without the help of this ancient Jewish rite. So the Pharisaic party in the church at Jerusalem had Peter up before the church for fellowship with the house of Cornelius in Caesarea. They reluctantly submitted after his story and held their peace for a while. When Paul and Barnabas returned from the first great missionary campaign, the Judaizers promptly turned up at Antioch with the ultima- tum: "Except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses, ye cannot be saved." Paul accepted the challenge without a moment's hesitation. He took the matter to Jerusalem to show that the apostles and the mother church did not endorse the radical doctrine of the Judaizers. He would not for the sake of peace agree for Titus, a Greek, to be circumcised. He did not yield for one hour to the demands of the false brethren, that the truth of the gospel might abide. The battle of Paul's life was just this. He preserved spiritual Christianity against the demands of the cere- monialists. He met terrific opposition as did Jesus, as did Stephen, and for the same reason. The intolerance of those who mistake the symbol for the reality is always bitter. Paul won his fight with the help of the other apostles and Juda- izers were driven back before the onward march of apostolic Christianity. But the same narrow spirit reappeared in the second century. It dropped circumcision and seized on baptism as the sine qua non of salvation. 122 THE BAPTIST MOULD ALLIANCE. This teaching was in reality Pharisaism redevivus. It was also in har- mony with much pagan theology. It Avas easy to understand and it swept the field in the course of time. Out of the heresy of baptismal regener- ation or remission has sprang a brood of errors that have turned the course of Christian history away from its primitive purity. If baptism was regarded as essential to salvation, then the sick and dying should be baptized before it was too late. Clinic baptism thus arose." But the sick could not always be immersed ; hence sprinkling or pouring could be done in extreme cases. Water for immersion was not always ready to hand, and, since death might come, the ordinance had to be changed to sprink- ling or pouring. This situation appears as early as the middle of the second century in the Teaching nf the Twelve Apostles. The supposed necessity of baptism is the explanation of the gradual use of sprinkling and pouring alongside of, and finally instead of, immersion. Thus also is explained the origin of infant baptism. If baptism is essential to sal- vation, then infants must be baptized. At first, and for long, infants Avere immersed (see the Church of England Articles), but gradually sprinkling and pouring drove out immersion. The modern Baptist voice cried in the wilderness in the seventeenth century in England, only the multitudes did not flock to the wilderness to hear and heed. To the many, after the long centuries of perversion of the ordinances, we seem interlopers and disturbers of the settled order of things. But the Baptist voice has been heard in the world of scholarship. The lexicons, the Bible dictionaries, the critical commen- taries with monotonous unanimity now take for granted as a matter of course that baptism in the New Testament is immersion and immersion alone. To the unlearned Baptists still have to prove this fact so patent to scholars. And yet we do not caiTy all modern evangelical Christians with us in the restoration of the ordinance of baptism. We have won our conten- tion, but we do not carrj' those who are convinced to the point of action. The tables are turned upon us in this wise. They say that we are stick- lers for a mere form. What is the use? Grant all that we claim, and what difference does it make? So it comes about in modern life we are put again on the defensive and pushed over to the edge near the side of the ceremonialists, we who are the champions par excellence of spiritual Christianity, of a regenerated church-membership. We must expound our message yet again. We do not insist on baptism as a condition or a means of salvation. We deny both positions very strenuously. We say "no conversion, no baptism." First the new life in Christ, then the baptism as the picture and pledge of that life. We contend that the form is important just because the ordinance is only a symbol. The point in a symbol lies in the form. It is true of a picture. One wants the picture of his own wife, not just the picture of a bird, a man, or that of another Avoman. Baptism is a preacher. It cannot preach its full message unless the real act is performed. John the Baptist used baptism as the pledge of a new life worthy of the repentance which the people professed. He used it also to manifest the Messiah. Jesus spoke of it as a symbol of His death, the baptism which He was to be baptized with. Peter likened it to the flood in Noah's time. But it is Paul who has given the classic interpretation of the significance of baptism. He has brought out the rich message in his "mold of doctrine" as no one else has. It is a burial and a resurrection, submergence and emergence. Tuesday, June 20.] RJJCOh'D OF PROCEEDINGS. 123 buried witli Christ and raised with Clirist. It is a preacher of Christ's own death and resurrection, of the sinner's death to sin and resurrection to new life, of the Christian's own death and resurrection in the end. The very heart of the gospel message is thus enshrined in this wonder- ful ordinance. Leaving to one side the question of the duty of obedi- ence to the example and command of Clirist and the practice of the apostolic Christians, matters of no small moment, we press our plea on the ground of the great loss sustained by the perversion of the ordi- nance. Its beauty is gone. Its message is lost. It cannot tell the story that was put into it. It becomes a mere rite that may have a meaning to those who perform it, but certainly not that with which it Avas charged. No stretch of imagination can make sprinkling or pouring proclaim death and resurrection. Since it is an ordinance to which Jesus submitted and which He en- joined, since it is so beautiful in itself and so rich in high teaching, we claim that modern Christians should not let mere custom or convenfence, prejudice or inertia rob them of the joy of obedience to Christ and fel- lowship with Ilim in His death and resurrection through this mystic symbol. Thus all can proclaim the heart of the message of Christ's death. We should not rob Ciiristianity of its full rights in this mat- ter. Let baptism preach. Our contention thus finds its full justifica- tion. We do not call men non-Christians who fail to see this great truth. We joyfully greet all true believers in Christ of whatever name and are glad to march with them in the gi-eat army of the Lord Jesus. But Ave cannot approve the substitution of a device of man for the sacred ordi- nance of John and of Jesus and of Paul. Once it is clear that immersion alone is baptism, then we should not hesitate to take the next step, to be baptized. The second ordinance preaches much the same message as that of the first, the death of Christ. It does not, indeed, speak about burial and resurrection. It is only of death that it has a message. But, if the Lord's Supper does not hold so full a message, the celebration is re- peated frequently while baptism comes only once. The bread and the cup symbolize the sacrificial body and blood of Christ. The atonement is thus preached. The blood of Christ was shed for the remission of sins. This ordinance reminds us of the blood covenant of grace. We were bought Avith the blood of Christ. We must never forget that. We keep this ordinance in remembrance of Christ. We proclaim His death till He comes. The ordinance, like baptism, points forAvard as Avell as back- Avard, the one to the Second Coming, the other to the Resurrection. It is a symbol also of the high felloAvship Avhich the saints Avill haA-e with Jesus in the Father's Kingdom on high. It is an ordinance rich Avith .spiritual teaching. We do not admit the doctrine of transubstantiation nor that of consubstantiation, but Ave do see in the Lord's Supper much significance. Thus Ave symbolize our participation (communion) in the body and blood of Christ. Like baptism, the communion is a preacher. It proclaims the death of Jesus for sin, His second coming, and our par- ticipation in the blessing of His death. But there is one thing more. ''We. who are many, are one bread, one body for Ave all partake of one bread." In a mystic sense Ave are one loaf in Christ. This ordinance accents our felloAvship with Christ and Avith one another. Paul uses baptism as a powerful plea against sin. "We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein ? Or are ye ignorant that all 124 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. we who were baptized into Christ, were baptized into His death ? ' ' Rev. F. B. Meyer has made a most effective use of Paul's argument in a dia- gram in which a grave is placed beneath the cross. Our old man was crucified with Christ on the cross. The burial with Christ under the cross advertises our death to sin. We come out on the other side of the cross and His grave to a new life in Christ. Paul uses the Lord's Sup- per in a similar plea for consecration. '^Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. Ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord, and of the table of demons." He alludes to the feasts in the idol tem- ples, but the principle is general. How can the man who partakes of the cup of the Lord resort to the saloon, the gambling den? How can he align himself with the evil forces of this world? Baptism is a true sacr amentum, the Christian soldier's oath of fealty to Christ in his con- flict with the hosts of Satan. The Lord's Supper is the mystic fellow- ship of the saints with Christ and with each other in Christ. The ordinances speak loudly against the misuse into which they have fallen. Between over-emjDhasis and indifference there is the golden mean of truth. The Baptist voice has always spoken in clear tones for the free intercourse of the soul with God. The ordinances preach the same glorious doctrine of soul liberty. They testify to the fact that the soul is in communion with God through Christ. It is a supreme travesty to make these ordinances stand between the soul and Christ as hindrances, not as helps, to the spiritual life. Through centuries of misunderstand- ing we have come thus far. Three hundred years ago the English Ana- baptists then in exile in Holland made a confession of faith in which they protested against infant baptism as the Dutch and German Ana- baptists had done a century before. It was not till 1640-1 that the Eng- lish Anabaptists clearly grasped the Scriptural requirement of immer- sion alone as the true baptism. The Baptists have not cried in vain during these centuries for a return to apostolic purity in the matter of the or- dinances, for the immersion of believers only. In simple truth many men of culture in other denominations wish that they instead of the Baptists had the powerful message which Baptists offer to the world. It is a message of reality and is in harmony with the modern spirit. The life is more than meat, more than ceremony. There is no reason in any ceremony that does not express a glorious reality. If we have died to sin and are living in Christ, the baptism and the Lord's Supper have a blessed significance; else they become a mockery and a misnomer. Never in all the history of the world was the Baptist message on the ordi- nances more needed than it is to-day. Never did it have so good a chance to win a hearing. Session adjourned after the benediction pronounced by Rev. E. D. Stephens, of Missouri. Wednesday, June 21. J RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS. 125 FIFTH SESSION Wednesday Morning, June 21, 1911. The session opened at 9.30 with a devotional service led by Rev. James A. Francis, of Massachusetts. After the singing of ''How Firm a Foundation." Dr. Francis: I will ask your attention to the High-Priestly prayer of the Master in the seventeenth chapter of John. I take it for granted that the words of the praj'er are very familiar to you all. The prayer proceeds in concentric circles. First of all the Master prays for him- self, one single petition; then he prays for the little group of disciples around him, then he Avidens the prayer, then prays for all those who shall believe on him through their word and then he widens it once more to take in the whole round world. Let us look at these petitions for a mo- ment, they are exeeedinglj' precious for one reason. We are told that he ever liveth to make intercession for us, but since the cloud-curtain closed behind the form of our Master no whisper of that great heavenly inter- cession has been heard on earth, and tliis chapter is a kind of sample given us before he went away that gives the clearest hint that we have of the nature of this age-long, all-prevailing intercession. Notice first the Master's prayer for himself, one solitary definite pe- tition, "Father glorify thy Son"; and then he expands it by saying "Glorify thou me, with a glory which I had with thee before the world was." If we dare to paraphrase it in familiar language it would be something like this, "Father, I have done all for the accomplishment of redemption that I can do on earth ; now put me back where I was before I came down from heaven to be the world's Saviour." But in the centre of that petition our Master puts in a mighty parenthesis and in that parenthesis he gives a report of his earthly ministry in a couple of great sentences something like this, "Father, thou hast given to thy Son power over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him, and I have given to them eternal life by making thee known to them, for this is life eternal that they might know thee." And now the Master moves on naturally from the petition for him- self to a petition for the group that stands around him; but before he asks anything for them he makes a report to the Father concerning them. He knows these men, he can tell all about each one of them, every pecu- liarity, every characteristic, every weakness, every element of strength. He passes by all that and under the awful shadow of the cross there is only one thing that the Master cares to tell the Father about this group of men and it is this: He says, "Father, I have given them the words that thou gavest me and they have received them and they have believed that I came forth from thee," and in that word Jesus pointed out the 126 THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE. supreme event or the supreme j^rocess iii the spiritual history of those men. He told the Father the greatest thing that eternal God knew about these men when he told the Father the simple fact, "I gave them the message that thou gavest me and they received the message and they be- lieved that I came forth from thee." And having made this simple and yet profound and wonderful report concerning them, the Master goes on to pray. He asks three things for them: first, "Father, keep them in unity"; secondly, ''Keep them from evil ' ' ; thirdly, ' ' Keep them in holy consecration to the same mission to which I have consecrated myself." Trust Jesus Christ to round the sum of things, to supply the secret of the universe, the very heart of God. In those words he summed up the essentials for the Christian church for all ages, "Keep them in unity." What kind of unity f Why, the same kind of unity that subsists between me and thee, the unity of a divine life. If any one thing has been splendidly emphasized in the addresses we have heard here, it is this, that the unity in which we believe is not the artificial or formal but that it is the vital unity of the divine life. And then he says, "Father, keep them from the evil that is in the world." But how? "Through thy name," and then he adds, "While I was with them I kept them through thy name." It is a very significant expression, that means nothing less than this, "While I have been with these men the only hold I had on them was the spell I cast over them by what I am ; I never asked one of them to promise that he would stay with me a week ; they were always free to go away and when I said to them 'Will ye also go away?' the only thing that held them from going was couched in Peter's answer, now 'Lord to whom shall we go; thou hast the words of eternal life. ' ' ' And so the Master says, ' ' After I go awaj^, it will be just the same way as I held them to myself as with hoops of steel by the spell of my own life and my own personality, 0 Father, keep them that way forever through thy name." Then the third petition. It reads in our version "sanctifj^," but you all know that the word there means "consecrate." "Consecrate them," and if we ask for the explanation we have it two verses further along, where he says, "For their sakes I consecrate myself." This is Christ's mirror of the ideal Christian church throughout the world; unity in the unity of a divine life, kept from the evil that is in the world by the spell of Christ 's power and person, consecrated by the same power to the same work to which the Master consecrated himself. And then in his pro- phetic soul he heard the tramp of coming millions and he widened the circle of his prayer and he said, "Father, not for thes3 alone but for all those who shall believe on me through their word, ' ' and then he repeated for them the prayer that he had made for the little band of disciples al- ready gathered. And then once more he widened his circle, after this fashion, he prayed for the unity of the whole world in order "that the world" — he who died for the world could not make his prayer nar- rower than the world, — "that the world might know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me." \\oaiR's(lay, June 21. J RlX'OlU) OF I'h'