The Meaning of Service HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK AUTHOR OF "THE MANHOOD OF THE MASTER," "THE MEANING OF PRAYER," "THE MEANING OF FAITH," ETC. ASSOCIATION PRESS NEW YORK: 347 MADISON AVBNUB 1920 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS The Bible Text used in this volume is taken from the American Standard Edition of the Revised Bible, copyright, 1901, by Thomas Nelson & Sons, and is used by permission. To FRANK SHELDOX FOSDICK MY FATHER WHO FOR NEARLY HALF A CENTURY, AS AN EDUCATOR OF YOUTH, HAS ILLUSTRATED IN HIS LIFE THE MEANING OF SERVICE. PREFACE This little book completes a trilogy which it has long been my hope to write. "The Meaning of Prayer" is a study in the Christian's inward experience of fellowship with God; "The Meaning of Faith" is a study in the reasonable ideas on which the Christian life is based ; and now "The Meaning of Service" is a study in the practical overflow of the Chris- tian life in useful ministry. This last book has been written at a time when its theme is most congenial with the crucial need of the world and the dominant mood of thoughtful folk. The overturn of human society in the Great War has inevitably brought to the top those elements of Christian life and thought which center about service. The task to be accomplished on earth is so immense, the cheap optimisms which once contented us are so impossible, the enemies against whom the Christian pro- gram must win its way are so formidable, and the need of un- selfishness, public-mindedness, and sacrificial love is so urgent, that anyone who thinks at all about humanity's condition must think about service, its meaning, motives, and aims. I have not tried to keep these immediate and pressing conditions of our time from showing themselves in this book. One can write more timelessly about prayer and faith than he can about service. Yet I trust that I have not altogether lost the accent of those universal Christian truths and principles which make service, in any age, the indispensable expression of discipleship to the Master. To many books and many friends, beyond the possibility of individual acknowledgment, I am indebted for the inspira- tion of these studies. In particular I am once more under heavy obligation to my friend and colleague, Professor George Albert Coe, Ph. D., for his careful reading of the manuscript, and to my publishers for their unfailing kindness and painstaking care in preparing it for the press. November r, 1920. H. E. F. viii PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special acknowledgment is gladly made to the following : to EL P. Button & Company for permission to use prayers from "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages"; to the Rev. Samuel McComb and the publishers for permission to quote from "Prayers for Today," Copyright, 1918, Harper & Brothers ; to the Pilgrim Press for permission to make selec- tions from "Prayers of the Social Awakening" by Walter Rauschenbusch and "The Original Plymouth Pulpit" by Henry Ward Beecher; to Little, Brown & Company for permission to quote one prayer from "Prayers, Ancient and Modern" by Mary W. Tileston ; to George H. Doran Company for per- mission to use one prayer from "Pulpit Prayers" by Alexander Maclaren; to Jarrolds (London) Ltd. for permission to make quotations from "The Communion of Prayer" by William Boyd Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon ; and to Longmans, Green & Company for permission to quote from "Prayers for the City of God," by Gilbert Clive Binyon. None of the above material should be reprinted without securing permission. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE PREFACE vii I. SERVICE AND CHRISTIANITY i II. THE PERIL OF USELESSNESS 19 III. THE STRONG AND THE WEAK 36 IV. THE ABUNDANT LIFE 55 V. SELF-DENIAL 72 VI. JUSTICE 91 VII. SMALL ENEMIES OF USEFULNESS 108 VIII. COOPERATION 1 26 IX. NEW FORMS OF SERVICE 145 X. THE GREAT OBSTACLE 164 XI. THE MOTIVE OF GRATITUDE 186 XII. VICTORIOUS PERSONALITY 204 SCRIPTURE PASSAGES USED IN THE DAILY READ- INGS 222 SOURCES OF PRAYERS USED IN T THE DAILY READ- INGS 223 CHAPTER I Service and Christianity DAILY READINGS One of the most inveterate and ruinous ideas in the history of human thought is that neither service to man nor any moral rightness whatsoever is essential to religion. In wide areas of religious life, to satisfy God has been one thing, to live in righteous and helpful human relations has been another. As Professor Rauschenbusch put it: "Religion in the past has always spent a large proportion of its force on doings that were apart from the real business of life, on sacrificing, on endless prayers, on traveling to Mecca, Jerusalem, or Rome, on kissing sacred stones, bathing in sacred rivers, climbing sacred stairs, and a thousand things that had at best only an indirect bearing on the practical social relations between men and their fellows." The conviction that a man who is not living in just and helpful relations with his fellows by no means whatever can be on right terms with God, is one of man's greatest spiritual illuminations, the understanding of which cost long centuries of slow and painful progress out of darkness into light. Note in the daily readings some old, pre-Christian attitudes toward this matter. They are still in evidence, for even yet we have on the one side appalling human need, and on the other an immense amount of religious motive power and zeal, which are not harnessed to the problems of human welfare. Even yet one of mankind's most insistent needs is the interpretation of religion in terms of service and the attachment of religion's enormous driving power to the tasks of service. First Week, First Day How much of the latent moral energy of religious faith is wasted because many people, even yet, have only a partially righteous God! We still need to go back for instruction to a Hebrew prophet like Micah. [1-2] THE MEANING OF SERVICE Wherewith shall I come before Jehovah, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt- offerings, with calves a year old? will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God? Micah 6: 6-8. Translate that into modern terms : Wherewith shall I come before the Father of Jesus, and bow myself before the God who is love? Shall I come before him with gorgeous cere- monies, with elaborate rituals? Will the Father of all mercies be pleased with thousands of repeated credos or with ten thou- sands of eloquent sermons? Shall I give the bending of the knee for my transgression, the offering of my purse for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Father require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God? How many of us need such instruction yet in the utterly righteous character of God, and his demands on men ! Raymond Lull, who, after a life of splendid usefulness, was stoned to death by Muhammadans in North Africa in 1315, urging his "sweet and reasonable appeal" for Christ, put a primary truth into worthy words : "He who would find Thee, O Lord, let him go forth to seek Thee in love, loyalty, devotion, faith, hope, jus- tice, mercy, and truth ; for in every place where these are, there art Thou." O Father of Light and God of all Truth, purge the world from all errors, abuses, corruptions, and sins. Beat down the standard of Satan, and set up everywhere the standard of Christ. Abolish the reign of sin, and establish the kingdom of grace in all hearts; let humility triumph over pride and ambi- tion; charity over hatred, envy, and malice; purity and temper- ance over lust and excess; meekness over passion; disinterest- edness and poverty of spirit over covetousness and the love of this perishable world. Let the Gospel of Christ in faith and practice prevail throughout the world. French Coronation Order. First Week, Second Day Another reason why so much of religion's driving power 2 SERl'ICE A.\'D CHRISTIANITY [1-2] is unharnessed to the tasks of service is man's curious ability to keep divine relationships in one compartment of life and human relationships in another. Are we yet beyond the reach of Isaiah's swift and terrible indictment? What unto me is the multitude of your sacrifices? saith Jehovah: I have had enough of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample my courts? Bring no more vain obla- tions; incense is an abomination unto me; new moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with iniquity and the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary of bearing them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the op- ?ressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. sa. i: 11-17. Here are people who are religious, but their piety does not involve goodness, nor their faith justice, nor their worship humaneness. Their life with God has no connection with their daily relationships; it does not make them better home-folk, friends, neighbors, or citizens. Are not plenty of such cases in the Christian churches? How many folk believe in God's good purpose for mankind with the religious side of their minds, but never order their practical ambitions as though there were such a purpose in the world ! Or with the religious part of their nature they believe that God loves all men, while with the practical side they themselves neglect, mistreat, and contemn men. We still need the advice which was given to David Livingstone by an aged Scotchman : "Now, lad, make I religion the everyday business of your life, and not a thing ' of fits and starts." Lord! Our Light and our Salvation, help us, we beseech Thee, to enter into, and abide in, the secret place of the Most High; and may the shadow of the Almighty be our covering defense. Help each of us to set his love upon Thee, to bring thoughts and affections and purposes to Thyself, to think as Thou dost teach us, to love as Thou hast loved us, to do and 3 [1-3] THE MEANING OF SERVICE will as Thou dost command us. So may we live in union with Thyself, and our word-worship in this place be in harmony with our consecration of life in our daily work. Alexander Maclaren. First Week, Third Day Unmoral religion such as we are considering is often caused by a preoccupying interest in the subordinate and trivial corol- laries of religion, its external expressions, its accidental accom- paniments. Still the thunder of Amos is needed to clear our air! I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer me your burnt-offerings and meal-offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs ; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Amos 5: 21-24. How impatiently the prophet contrasts the etiquette of reli- gious ritual with the importance of human justice! Many a man needs so to take his religion out of doors from the suffo- cating narrowness of small rubrics and petty rules, and to see it in terms not of "mint and anise and cummin," but of "jus- tice and mercy and faith." Quentin Hogg poured out his life in Christian service for the poor boys of London. In a letter to one of the reclaimed lads, he wrote: "I do not care a rush what denomination you belong to, I do not very much care what special creed you profess, but I do care beyond all expres- sion that the result of that creed in your daily life should be to make you a power for good amongst your fellowmen. . . . We hear much talk about creeds, professions of faith and the like ; but I want you to remember that when God started to write a creed for us, He did it, not in words that might change their meaning, but He set before us a life, as though to teach us that whereas theology was a science which could be argued about, religion was a life and could only be lived." Guide me, teach me, strengthen me, till I become such a per- son as Thou wouldst have me be; pure and gentle, truthful and high-minded, brave and able, courteous and generous, duti- ful and useful. Charles Kingsley. 4 SERVICE AND CHRISTIANITY [I- 4 ] First Week, Fourth Day Still another familiar source of a religious life divorced from practical goodness and daily usefulness is the segregation of the Church, setting it apart from life, as though God dwelt in a temple instead of living in the struggles of humanity. So, of old time, Hosea cried : O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the dew that goeth early away. Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth. For I desire goodness, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt- offerings. Hos. 6:4-6. When the Master, for service's sake, ate with the cere- monially unclean (Matt. 9:13) and again when for human helpfulness he transgressed the Sabbath rules (Matt. 12:7), and in both cases was denounced as an enemy of God, he fell back upon this passage from Hosea : "Go ye and learn what this meaneth, I desire mercy and not sacrifice." He felt as General Booth did, of whom it was said that, in comparison with the importance of helping men, "every canon of society appeared in his eyes as the trivial and pitiful etiquette of a child's doll's house." The Master could not patiently see his Father treated as old fire-worshipers might have treated their sacred fire, keeping it aloof in their shrine and refusing it to the people to warm their houses, cook their food, and illumine their darkness. For, in Jesus' eyes, God was not primarily in church ; God was in the midst of needy, sinning, aspiring, failing humanity. And religion was not professional piety. As Henry Ward Beecher said: "Religion means work. Religion means work in a dirty world. Religion means peril ; blows given, but blows taken as well. Religion means trans- formation. The world is to be cleaned by somebody and you are not called of God if you are ashamed to scour and scrub." Almighty God, Fountain of Life and Light, who didst raise up prophets in ancient times to warn and instruct, and whose Son Jesus Christ did send abroad into the world apostles, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, we beseech Thee to raise up in these days an increasing jiumber of wise and faithful men, filled with the old prophetic fire and apostolic zeal, by whose 5 [1-5] THE MEANING OF SERVICE labours Thy Church may be greatly blessed, and Thy Kingdom come and Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. John Hunter. First Week, Fifth Day Still another reason for the great quantity of religious motive power not yet belted into human service is defective ideas of what is morally right. Religious zeal does not neces- sarily argue ethical enlightenment. We are shocked to read of an ancient temple in Mexico, surrounded by 136,000 human skulls symmetrically piled ; we wince at the thought of serving God, as some cults do, by murder and prostitution. But one need only read the prophets to see what a struggle it cost to be rid of such abominations in our own religious heritage. Are we yet rid of the heavy incubus of ethical blindness on religious life? Is "zeal without knowledge" a past problem? Rather Jeremiah might still hurl his invective at Christendom : Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, are these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; if ye oppress not the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even for evermore. Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods that ye have not known, and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that ye may do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of rob- bers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, saith Jehovah. Jer. 7:3-11. Here were people who were zealous in their religious life. Feel the ardent intensity with which they cry up "the Temple." But they had not learned that simple lesson which Sir Wilfred Grenfell, from his practical service on the Labrador Coast, has put into wholesome words : "Whether we, our neighbor, 6 SERVICE AND CHRISTIANITY [1-6] or God is the judge, absolutely the only value of our 'reli-i gious' life to ourselves or to anyone is what it fits us for and ! enables us to do." My Father and My God . . . let the fire of Thy love consume the false shozvs wlicrewith my weaker self has deceived me. Make me real as Thou art real. Inspire me with a passion for righteousness and likeness to the Man of Nazareth, that I may\ love as He loved, and find my joy as He found His joy in] being and doing good. Dwell Thou within me to give me His courage, His tenderness, His simplicity, to transform my own poor shadow-self into the likeness of His truth and strength. Amen. Samuel McComb. First Week, Sixth Day And as for thee, son of man, the children of thy people talk of thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from Jehovah. And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but do them not; for with their, mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their gain. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument; for they hear thy words, but they do them not. Ezek. 33:30-32. Ezekiel here has run upon unmoral religion in a common form. See how amiable the spirit of these people was, how ingratiating their manners, how ready their responsiveness ! They loved to hear about God's will, but they did not do it. So aspen leaves, tremulous, sensitive, quivering, sway with agitated responsiveness in every breath of wind. Endlessly stirring, the night finds them just where they were in the morning. They move continuously but they move nowhere. Many a man's religion is emotional responsiveness without practical issue. He substitutes delight in hearing the Gospel for diligence in living it. He does not see that religion is;] "action, not diction." From infirmity of purpose, from want of earnest care and interest, from the sluggishness of indolence, and the slackness of indifference, and from all spiritual deadness of heart, save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord. 7 [1-7] THE MEANING OF SERVICE From dullness of conscience, from feeble sense of duty, from thoughtless disregard of , others, from a low ideal of the obli- gations of our position, and from all half-heartedness in our work, save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord. Bishop Ridding. First Week, Seventh Day Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves. Woe unto you, ye blind guides, that say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor. Ye fools and blind: for which is greater, the gold, or the temple that hath sanctified the gold? And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gift that is upon it, he is a debtor. Ye blind: for which is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? . . . Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone. Ye blind guides, that strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel! Matt. 23: 15-19, 23, 24. The greatest single contribution of the Hebrew prophets to human thought was their vision of the righteous nature of God and of his demands on men. Their supreme abhorrence was unmoral religion. In all our study we shall see the Master sharing their conviction, elevating it to heights they never dreamed, stating it in terms that flash and pierce and burn as theirs could not. The Master, too, hated unmoral religion. He pilloried the Pharisees in everlasting scorn. Their pettiness, their quibbling, their false emphases, their bigotry, their uncharitableness, their lack of forthright hon- esty, aroused his indignation. Their religion made them worse, not better ; one feels that they would have been im- proved without it ; their religion was the most unlovely thing about them. What should have made them large had made them little ; what should have made them generous had made them mean. But to the Master religion meant gracious- ness and magnanimity, self-forgetfulness and self-denial, high 8 SERVICE AND CHRISTIANITY [I-c] purpose and deep joy in ministry, boundless brotherhood and; a love balked by no ingratitude or sin. The heights of his faith in God conspired to send service pouring down to men in inexhaustible good will. He was sure that the good God can be content with nothing less than goodness in his children, and that the crown of goodness is a positive life of outgoing service to all mankind. O Lord, grant to me so to love Thee, with all my heart, with all my mind, and with all my soul, and my neighbor for Thy sake, that the grace of charity and brotherly love may dwell in me, and all envy, harshness, and ill will may die in me; and fill my heart with feelings of love, kindness, and com- passion, so that, by constantly rejoicing in the happiness and good success of others, by sympathising with them in their sorrows, and putting away all harsh judgments and envious thoughts, I may follow Thee, who art Thyself the true and perfect Love. Amen. COMMENT FOR THE WEEK I No one can doubt the central place which service held in the life and teaching of the Master. Consider the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37), or that other more solemn utterance, where the standing of the dead before the throne of God depended on whether they had fed the hungry, clothed the naked, given drink to the thirsty, and visited the impris- oned and sick (Matt. 25:31-46). Consider his sayings, sparks from the anvil where he hammered out the purpose of his life: "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" ( Matt. 20 : 28) ; "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant" (Matt. 23:11); "I am in the midst of you as he that serveth" (Luke 22:27). Consider even more his life itself. In devoted love to individuals, so that, with the whole Kingdom of God upon his heart, he yet poured out his care on a blind Bartimeus, or a discouraged prodigal, or an evilly entreated widow crying for her rights ; in the revealing of great truths that bless and redeem human life; in the starting of a movement that with all its faults has flowed like a river down from Nazareth to revive man's character ; in the pos- [I-c] THE MEANING OF SERVICE session of a radiant spirit that throws out light on every side as naturally as the sun shines, so that his very personality has been man's greatest benediction; in that ultimate test of serv- ice, vicarious sacrifice, that gives up life itself for the sake of others ; everywhere one sees that the characteristic expression of the Master's spirit was ministry. Nor was this ministry expended first upon the amiable and the great. Who can read Rabindranath Tagore's lines and not think of Jesus? "Here is thy footstool and there rest thy feet where live the poorest and lowliest and lost. When I try to bow to thee, my obeisance cannot reach down to the depth where thy feet rest among the poorest and lowliest and lost. Pride can never approach to where thou walkest in the clothes of the humble among the poorest and lowliest and lost. My heart can never find its way to where thou keepest com- pany with the companionless among the poorest, the low- liest, and the lost." Surely there is little use in any man's calling himself the dis- ciple of such a Master if he does not possess the spirit and know the meaning of service. It is evident, however, that plenty of professed Christians have not interpreted their religion in such terms as these. Consider those social evils war, poverty, disease, ignorance, vice the endless tragedy of which is the commonplace of the modern world ! One sees that, with one third of the popula- tion of the globe nominally Christian, there must have been some misunderstanding as to what Christianity is all about to allow so many professed disciples of Jesus to live side by side for so long a time with such dire need. Christianity has been content, in wide areas of its life, with some other interpreta- tion of its own meaning than that which at first kindled the passion for service in the hearts of its disciples and sent them out from the shadow of the Cross, the spirit of the Cross within them. "I promise you," cried Hugh Latimer, preaching in Cambridge in 1529, "if you build one hundred churches, give as much as you can make to gilding of saints and hon- ouring of the Church ; and if thou go on as many pilgrimages as thy body can well suffer and offer as great candles as oaks ; if thou leave the works of mercy and the commandments undone, these works shall nothing avail thee. ... If you list 10 SERl'ICE AND CHRISTIANITY [I-c] to gild and paint Christ in your churches and honour Him in vestments, see that before your eyes the poor people die not for lack of meat, drink, and clothing." One catches there the authentic accent of the Christian spirit. Surely our world would be a far more decent and fraternal place if such an interpretation of the will of Christ in terms of practical serv- ice had been deeply apprehended and faithfully obeyed by the great body of his professed disciples. At the beginning of our study, therefore, we well may exam- ine some of the partial and perverted ways in which we Chris- tians are tempted to misconceive our faith and so to mistake the message of the Master. II For one thing, Christianity to many people who profess it is no more than a formality. It is one of life's decent conventions. They were taught it in youth; they have never doubted its theoretical validity ; they perceive that its profession is a mark of respectability; and they would no more be thought atheists than anarchists. But Christ's love for all sorts and conditions of men has never become the daily motive of their lives, and Christ's sacrificial faith in the possibility of a redeemed earth has never captured their imagination and their purpose. The story of the religious experience of too many folk runs like this : they take the heavy lumber of their lives and build the secular dwelling in which habitually they abide ; there they live and move and have their being in family and social life, in business and politics and sports ; but because religion is a part of every conventionally well-furnished life they build as well, with what lumber may remain, an appended shrine, and there at times they slip away and pay their respects to the Almighty. Their religion is an isolated and uninfluential afterthought. Especially on Sundays when the banks are shut, the shops are closed, the rush of life is still, and finer forces stir within them, they go in company with their fellows to the church for formal worship. And when it is over they close the door on that experience and go back to their ordi- nary life again. So Bliss Carman sings : "They're praising God on Sunday. They'll be all right on Monday. It's just a little habit they've acquired." [I-c] THE MEANING OF SERVICE When, in the midst of their customary lives, this isolated reli- gious experience rises in their memory, it seems vague, unreal, like a sonata of Beethoven hea'rd long ago or a poem once listened to and half remembered. They recall it as one thinks of his summer home beside the sea, when in the galloping tur- moil of the city a chance recollection strays to it. It is a long way off in another kind of world. So flying fish live in the sea ; that is their native and habitual realm, but once in a while they make a brief excursion into the upper air and glisten for an instant in the sun only to fall back into the sea again. To how many people is religion such a brief, occasional experience! And yet they call themselves disciples of him whose heart beat with an unintermittent pas- sion to help people, whose God was love, whose worship was daily service, whose hope was the Kingdom, whose instrument was the Cross. They are not really Christians. They are fly- ing fish. For true discipleship to Jesus is the opposite of spas- modic conventionality. We are even wrong when we call our public worship on Sunday "church service." Church service really begins on Monday morning at seven o'clock and lasts iall the week. Church service is helpfulness to people; public 'worship is preparation for it. For the church service which the Master illustrated and approved is a life of ministry amid the dust and din of daily business in a sacrificial conflict for a Christian world. Ill The obscuring of practical service as the indispensable ex- pression of the Christian Gospel is effected in many folk, not by thus making religion a listless and spasmodic formality but by stressing, often with heated earnestness, all sorts of trivial accompaniments of religion that do not really matter. So an English lord complained that the severest blow religion ever had received was the loss of the bishops' wigs ! Historic Christianity is like a river that carries with it not only its own pure water but all manner of debris as well, silt from its own bottom, logs from its banks, flotsam from its tributaries. At last these accumulations that came from the river block the river ; the rising water frets against the impedi- ments that once expressed its life; and the river has to burst a new course through them and toss them impatiently aside. Such was the work of the Hebrew prophets amid the religious 12 SERVICE AND CHRISTIANITY [I-c] trivialities of their day and such the conflict of the Master with quibbling minds that tithed "mint and anise and cummin," and neglected "the weightier matters of the law." Even yet when men say "Christianity" they often mean not so much the pure spirit at the heart of it as all the clutter col- lected on its way. But the World War through which we have lived has made multitudes discriminate. It is clear that some things in so-called Christianity matter very much and some things do not count at all. Too often Christianity becomes like a city's streets where all forms of traffic, big and little, jostle each other upon equal terms. The gutter-snipe and the merchant, the pushcart and the limousine, all have their rights, and in the fusion of them discrimination lapses and the streets are cluttered and confused. Then fire breaks out, and the whole street from end to end is cleared to let the engines by.. When disaster comes the main business must be giveni gangway. Such an effect the Great War has had on men's thoughts of Christianity. They see that some things once deemed impor- tant are of small account. Denominational distinctions in Protestantism, for the most part, do not matter. A man whtf becomes excited about them in such a day as this is an anach- ronism. Old questions of biblical criticism that were once dis- cussed as though men's very lives depended upon them, do not crucially matter. A man who becomes vexed and quarrelsome about such questions today is hopelessly belated. He has an ante-bellum mind. Many questions in theology that have vexed human hearts and have furnished basis for heresy trials do not matter. They may have a place upon the side streets of Christian thinking, but they ought to be kept from littering up the avenues. For there is one thing that 'does matter. There is nothing on earth that begins to matter so much. Can Jesus Christ, his faith and principles, be made regnant on this earth? Can we get men to believe vitally in him and in the truths he represents and to join the great crusade to make over this shattered world upon the basis of his ideals? Can lives now battered and broken by misfortune and by sin be reclaimed, and can our social life, its business, its statecraft, its interna- tional relationships be transformed by the renewing of men's minds until they shall be truly Christian ? In comparison with that, nothing else matters. In the presence of such a cause, for a man to have a sec- 13 [I-c] THE MEANING OF SERVICE tarian mind, to ride theological hobbies, to be obsessed with favorite fashions in religious phylacteries, is to miss the main issue of the Gospel. One who, like General Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, knows thoroughly and feels deeply the physical, moral, and spiritual desolation of millions who live under the very shadow of our church spires, feels also with impatience the frivolous futility of much popular religion. "It is no better than a ghastly mockery," he says, "to call by the name of One, who came to seek and to save that which was lost, those churches which, in the midst of lost multitudes, either sleep in apathy or display a fitful interest in a chasuble. Why all this apparatus of temples, of meeting houses, to save men from perdition in a world which is to come, while never a helping hand is stretched out to save them from the inferno of their present life? Is it not time that, forgetting for a moment their wrangling about the infinitely little and the infi- nitely obscure, they should concentrate all their energies on a united effort to break this terrible perpetuity of perdition and to rescue some at 'least of those for whom they profess to .believe their Founder came to die?" IV Of all the reasons why Christian people miss the indis- pensable fruit of real Christianity in service none is commoner than this : religion can itself become one of the most selfish influences in life. Men can accept religion, love it, cleave to it, not from any unselfish motives whatsoever but solely because of the inward peace, the quieted conscience, and the radiant hope which they themselves get' from it. Religion becomes not a stimulus but a sedative; it is used not as an inspiration to service but as a substitute for it. Mystical experiences of spiritual delight ; a peaceful sense of being pardoned by God and reconciled with him ; an emotional share, sometimes sooth- ing, sometimes ecstatic, in the fellowship of public praise; hope of a future heaven these blessings and others like them men get from religion. And sometimes these are all that they get. Religion reaches them only on their receptive side. It is life's supreme appeal to their selfishness. Indeed the very nature, of the Christian message lays us open to this special form of failure. For Christianity has two sides. On one side Christianity is the best news to which 14 SERVICE A\'D CHRISTIANITY [I-c] human ears ever listened. The fatherhood of God, the savior- hood of Christ, the friendship of the Spirit, the victory of righteousness, the life eternal no other message half so exhil- arating and comfortable has ever stirred the hearts of men. It is good to hear and the New Testament bears abundant witness that from the beginning of the Gospel's proclamation a peril arose from this very fact. The Good News was so good to hear that even in the first century folk began the pleasant but hopeless endeavor to absorb it by hearing only, and the New Testament keeps ringing out a warning. Says Jesus : "Everyone that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand" (Matt. 7:26). Says Paul: "Not the hearers of the law are just before God but the doers of the law" (Rom. 2: 13). Says James: "Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves" (James i : 22). This insistence of the New Testament on the peril of a facile and passive response to the Gospel is no accident. It springs warm and urgent frotn the New Testament's thought of what the Gospel is. It is good news to be heard, but it is something more ; it presents a task to be achieved. It calls for devoted, sacrificial service. It has launched a movement which for breadth and depth of present influence and for latent power cannot be matched in history. It has meant a crusade to turn the world upside down. Christianity is not simply a message to be heard ; it is a deed to be done. All the profoundest experiences in human life are thus two-,i sided, and are complete only as reception and action are bal- anced. The love which makes a home has two aspects. On one side it is romance. The poets sing about it endlessly the "tender and extravagant delight, The first and secret kiss by twilight hedge, The insane farewell repeated o'er and o'er." But on the other side a complete love involves unselfishness, willing sacrifice, mutual forbearance, absolute fidelity, bound- less devotion. In one aspect love is all lure and witchery and enchantment; in the other it is loyalty and self-denial and fidelity "till death us do part." On one side it is responsive- ness; on the other it is responsibility. Miserable bargain IS [I-c] THE MEANING OF SERVICE hunters in the realm of spirit are those who try to get one side without the other! Christian history bears painful testimony to the absorbing preference of multitudes of so-called Christians for the com- fortable aspects of the Gospel. There never has been any lack of folk to listen with ready receptiveness to the consolations of the faith. Religion made impressive in architecture, beau- tiful in music, glorious in art, vocal in preaching, vivid in sac- rament, has brought hope, cheer, and comfort to multitudes. But too often this elemental fact has been forgotten, that every Christian truth, gracious and comfortable, has a corre- sponding obligation, searching and sacrificial. Every doctrine has its associated duty, every truth its task. On a Sunday morning, for example, a congregation listens to a sermon on the central message of the Christian faith, God's love for every son of man. None is so small and so obscure, so lost to general observation and to private care, the preacher cries, that God does not think on him. He loves us every one as though he had no other sons to love. It is a glorious Gospel. And if the preacher be a master of gripping phrase and luscious paragraph, how surely with such a theme he will cast a witching spell over any audience ! But such a spell, however delectable, may be an unwholesome experience. That Gospel, when the Master first proclaimed it, was not intended pri- marily for preaching; it was intended for action. Do we not see, as he did, the appalling sin, the haggard want, the- infuri- ating oppression, which are befalling these folk, every one of whom God loves? If personality is as sacred as that teaching says, then there is urgent business afoot upon this earth to challenge the service of all who believe the teaching. For on every side ruin is befalling these countless men and women for whom Christ died because he thought that they were worth dying for. One of the most remarkable sights in the high Rockies is "timber line." One mounts from the valleys where the forests are immense and bountiful and ever as he rises the trees grow dwarfed. At last he comes to "timber line." It is the final frontier of the trees, the last stand where they have been able to maintain themselves against the furious tempests of the upper heights. Far above stretch the snow- clad summits, and here are such twisted, stunted, whipped, and beaten trees as one could not imagine without seeing them. 16 SERVICE AND CHRISTIANITY ' [I-c] Twenty-eight rings were counted in one courageous struggler there, two inches high. Twenty-eight years of bitterest fight- ing against impossible odds had brought two inches of mis- shapen growth ! What is this, however, in comparison with the human timber line? Consider the terribly handicapped and beaten masses of mankind, whipped by poverty, sickness, ignorance, sin. The most beautiful religious poem of recent years, "The Hound of Heaven," was written by Francis Thompson. But Thomp- son, a few .years before he wrote it, was a tatterdemalion figure on the streets of London, holding the heads of strangers' horses to make a few pence for opium to drug himself. The tragedy there was pitiful : Francis Thompson so outwardly circumscribed and inwardly cowed that he could not be Fran- cis Thompson at all. In ways dramatic or obscure how com- mon that story is ! Personality with rich possibilities in it is everywhere nipped and stunted, its flowers unopened, its fruit unborne. Only recently a young man sailed from New York City for Liberia. See what amazing contrasts that young man's ex- perience presents ! When first he comes upon our view, he is a naked savage nine years old, discovered by a missionary in the jungle of Africa. His father is a worshiper of demons, obsessed by witchcraft; his mother is a native of the forest; his tribe is sunk in the depths of barbarism. He borrows a bit of calico from his mother for a loin cloth and leaves -his home for a Wesleyan school. Yet only yesterday that young man, now in his twenty-ninth year, a graduate of Harvard University with high honors, a Christian of beautiful spirit, whose presentation of the cause of Liberia in Washington, so competent authorities report, was worthy of the finest tra- ditions of British and American statesmanship, sailed back to Liberia to help his people. One rejoices in that single experi- ence of personality released from crippling handicaps. But what a woeful waste in multitudes of other lives, also capable of fine expansion, who still are dwarfs of their real selves! A sheer question of sincerity is raised, therefore, if one professes to believe that all these folk, battered and undone, are infinitely valuable in the sight of God. That is not chiefly a message to be enjoyed. That is chiefly a challenge to be answered with self-denying toil. The sacredness of person- ality is the most disturbing faith a man can hold. We are 17 [I-c] THE MEANING OF SERVICE wretched bargain hunters in religion if we try to keep the comforts of the Gospel and to avoid its sacrifices. "No mystic voices from the heavens above Now satisfy the souls which Christ confess; Their heavenly vision is in works of love, A new age summons to new saintliness. Before th' uncloistered shrine of human needs And all unconscious of the worth or price, . They lay their fragrant gifts of gracious deeds Upon the altar of self-sacrifice." 1 V This, then, is the conclusion of the matter : the inevitable expression of real Christianity is a life of sacrificial service. If by making religion a spasmodic formality, or by centering our thought upon its trivial corollaries, or by choosing its com- fortable aspects and avoiding its self-denials, we refuse this characteristic expression of the Master's spirit, we cannot really have the Master's spirit at all. One law of the spiritual life from the operation of which no man can escape is that nothing can come into us unless it can get out of us. We commonly suppose that study is the road to learning. Upon the contrary, long-continued acquisitive study, absorbing infor- mation without expressing it, is the surest way to paralyze the mind.. He who would be a scholar must not only study but teach, write, lecture, apply his knowledge to practical uses. Somehow he must give what he gets or soon he will get no more. As with a swamp, so with a mind, an inlet is useless without an outlet, since he who gets to keep can in the end get nothing good. So a man who tries to assimilate Christianity by impression without expression can receive no real Christianity at all. If one stands perfectly insulated on a glass foundation he may handle live wires with impunity. Electricity may not come in where it cannot flow through. So the Christian Gospel demands outlet before it can find inlet. The failure of many Christians lies at the point of intake ; they are estopped from real faith and prayer ; they have no vital contact with divine realities. But the disaster of multitudes comes from a clut- tered outlet. They do not know the meaning of service. 1 Professor Francis G. Peabody. 18 CHAPTER II The Peril of Uselessness DAILY READINGS Lord Melbourne is reported to have said : "If we are to have a religion, let us have one that is cool and indifferent ; and such a one as we have got." Here is a candid desire for a faith which does not involve devoted service, but which makes possible a life insipidly neutral. Such a man is not outra- geouslycruel and inhuman, but he frankly accepts the ideal of negative harmlessness. Let us consider this week certain familiar attitudes which cause plenty of decent, not unamiable people, even though they may be religious, to accept for them- selves such a colorless, useless life. Second Week, First Day And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are bruised, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attend- ant, and sat downi^and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears. Luke 4: 16-21. When Jesus went to church he thought about service. Serv- ice was the crux of his whole spiritual experience ; it was the great matter with which, in his eyes, public worship and all 19 [II-2] THE MEANING OF SERVICE that it represents were concerned. When he worshiped his Father, he worshiped One, who was not willing "that one of these little ones should perish" (Matt. 18:14); when he prayed in solitude, he remembered friends like Peter, sorely tempted and needing help (Luke 22:31, 32) ; when he thought of immortality, he rejoiced that some, cruelly handicapped in this life, would have another chance (Luke 16: 19-31) ; when he was transfigured he straightway harnessed his refreshed power to practical ministry (Matt. 17:9-18). His public wor- ship, his faith in God, his private prayer, his eternal hope, and his transfigured hours all centered round and issued in a de- voted life of helpfulness to people. The first reason why many folk are content with a "cool and indifferent religion" is that they have missed utterly the meaning of the Master's life. Whatever their religion may mean to them correctness of formal belief, historic continuity of church establishments, exactness of ritual, respectable conventionality it is not of that quality which causes them in the church to be thinking, as Jesus did, about the poor, the captive, the blind, and the bruised. O Thou, who art the Light of the minds that know Thcc, the Life of the souls that love Thee, and the Strength of the thoughts that seek Thee; help us so to know Thee, that we may truly love Thee, so to love Thee that we may fully serve Thee, whose service is perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. Gelasian Sacramentary (A. D. 494). Second Week, Second Day Another reason for that type of decent religion, which nev- ertheless is "cool and indifferent" to human service, is the strange idea that God, like some vain earthly potentate, enjoys being praised, and that, therefore, a due amount of adoration is highly gratifying to him and quite sufficient for us. But consider the clear teaching of the Master: If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Matt. 5 : 23, 24. Religion is like patriotism in this respect: both of them at 20 THE PERIL OF VSELESSNESS [II-3] the beginning are emotions which we enjoy. We praise our country in patriotic oratory and resounding song, and we like it. But the days come when a man's country expects of him something more than praise. Patriotism lays its hands on all the active, outgoing, courageous elements in his life ; it means sacrificial self-denial; it may even lead a man to vicarious death. So, says Jesus, does God ask something far more than worship. He asks self-sacrificing, brotherly rela- tions between men. God is no fool to be pleased by flattery. What does he care for our songs, except as our lives are serv- ing his other children? "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord," cried Jesus, "but he that doeth the will of my Father" (Matt. 7:21). Almighty and most merciful Father, who hast given us a new commandment that we should love one another; give us also grace that we may fulfil it. Make us gentle, courteous, and forbearing. Direct our lives, so that we may look each to the good of the other in word and deed. And hallow all our friendships by the blessing of Thy Spirit; for His sake who loved us, and gave Himself for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Bishop Westcott (1825-1901)., Second Week, Third Day Another reason for a neutral, useless life among amiable and decent people is sheer lack of information about the needs of folk beyond the borders of our social circles. And they came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes. And when he was come, out of the boat, straightway there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling in the tombs: and no man could any more bind him, no, not with a chain; because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been rent asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: and no man had strength to tame him. And always, night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out, and cutting him- self with stones. Mark 5: 1-5. How many of the people in the neighboring village of Gadara knew of this man, or had tried to help him? But Jesus, by an instinctive sympathy, never went into any neigh- borhood without finding at once the sick, the poor, the be- 21 [1 1-4] THE MEANING OF SERVICE deviled. We live in our secluded social circles ; we do not know even the maids in our kitchens, the workmen in our fac- tories, the bootblacks and the newsboys who serve us. We deal with our fellows on a cash basis, not on a basis of human interest. And as for the conditions of life in the slums of our own communities, in the jails and asylums, among the sick, the vicious, the homeless, the unemployed, the mentally defective, how little do many of us know or care! But imagine Jesus in one of our communities ! He would not live in a social cocoon. He would soon know all the worst need of the town. O Lord God, arise, for the spoiling of the poor, for the sighing of the needy; for Thou respectest not the persons of princes nor regardest the rich more than the poor. Give jus- tice to the afflicted and destitute, rescue the weak, and may Thy Kingdom come on earth, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Bishop Vernon Herford. Second Week, Fourth Day Jesus made answer and said, A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among rob- bers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving' him half dead. And by chance a certain priest was going down that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he jour- neyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion, and came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on them oil and wine; and he set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow he took out two shil- lings, and gave them to the host, and said, Take care of him: and whatsoever thou spendest more, I, when I come back again, will repay thee. Which of these three, think- est thou, proved neighbor unto him that fell among the robbers? And he said, He that showed mercy on him. And Jesus said unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. Luke 10:30-37. The Master presents clearly here three familiar types. The robbers are aggressively destructive, cruel, inhuman. The Good Samaritan is aggressively unselfish. The priest and the Levite are neither one nor the other. They did not hurt the man; they did not help him. They refused to mix in the 22 THE PERIL OF USELESSXESS [1 1-5] unpleasant affair at all. They stood aloof alike from robbery and service. Preoccupied about their own affairs, they did not wish to distract their thought, disarrange their schedule, or soil their hands with this sorry business of a wounded man. How like they are to many among us, who, from mere dis- like of having our ordinary, comfortable course of life dis- turbed, miss countless opportunities for usefulness! Consider the intense indignation of the Master, which this parable reveals, against such a listless, apathetic attitude toward human need ! They that are ensnared and entangled in the extreme penury of things needful for the body, cannot set their mind upon Thee, O Lord, as they ought to do; but u'hen they be disap- pointed of the things zt'hich they so mightily desire, their hearts are cast dozvn and quail from excess of grief. Have pity upon them, therefore, O merciful Father, and relieve their misery from Thine incredible riches, that by Thy remov- ing of their urgent necessity, they may rise up to Thee in mind. Thou, O Lord, providest enough for all men u