THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT Compiled Jby PAUL LITTLE GIFT OF lUjrfjfo &<*tjtA^e<*$ ^<3~~ ^^T . Paul flt THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT COMPILED BY PAUL LITTLE FOREWORD BY CHARLES MACAULAY STUART President of Garrett Biblical Institute THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN NEW YORK CINCINNATI Copyright, 1915, by PAUL LITTLE TO THE HEROES AND HEROINES KNOWN AND UNKNOWN WHO IN BROAD-MINDED AND PRACTICAL MAN- NER, WITH EARNEST AND COURAGEOUS EFFORT, ARE SOLVING THE PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST FOR THE CHRIST THIS BOOK OF SERMONS IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED CONTENTS PART I. INTRODUCTORY PAGE FOREWORD 9 President Charles M. Stuart, Garrett Biblical Institute. INTRODUCTION > 13 Paul Little. THE MOST DANGEROUS CLASS IN AMERICA (Rom. 9. 3) . 18 Bishop Richard Joseph Cooke, Resident Bishop, Portland, Oregon. PART II. PACIFIC NORTHWEST CONFERENCES I. OREGON 1. FISHERMAN OR SHEPHERD (John 21. 17) 44 President Carl G. Doney, Salem, Oregon. 2. THE MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE IN BUILDING HUMAN CHARACTER (Matt. 27. 4) . 58 Frank La Fayette Loveland, First Church, Port- land, Oregon. 3. THE GOSPEL FOR AN AGE OF DOUBT (John 1. 46). . 76 Herbert Swann Wilkinson, First Church, Eugene, Oregon. 4. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SIN (1 John 3. 4; 5. 17). 88 Clarence True Wilson, General Secretary, Method- ist Temperance Society, Topeka, Kansas. II. PUGET SOUND 1. LIKE UNTO His BRETHREN (Heb. 2. 17) 102 A. W. Leonard, First Church, Seattle, Washington. 2. CHRISTIAN CERTITUDE (1 John 2. 3) 114 Joseph P. Marlatt, First Church, Everett, Wash- ington. 3. PERFECTED CULTURE (John 12. 21) 128 President Edward H. Todd, Tacoma, Washington. III. COLUMBIA RIVER 1. THE FAITH WHICH SATISFIES (John 6. 35) 138 Robert Brumblay, Superintendent, Wenatchee Dis- trict, Spokane, Washington. 5 6 CONTENTS 2. THE UNSEEN FORCES OF GOD (2 Kings 6. 17) 164 Harold O. Perry, Superintendent The Dalles Dis- trict, Kennewick, Washington. 3. BROTHER ENOCH (Gen. 5. 24) 166 Francis Burgette Short, First Church, Spokane, Washington. 4. THE PROGRAM OF LIFE (Eccles. 3.1; James 4. 13-15) 180 Gabriel Sykes, Waterville, Washington. IV. IDAHO 1. BEHOLD THE MAN! (John 19. 5) 192 James David Gillilan, Superintendent Boise Dis- trict, Boise, Idaho. 2. THE GIFT-BRINGER (Isa. 9. 6) 202 Wilsie Manning Martin, First Church, Boise, Idaho. V. MONTANA 1. THE SIN OF STUPIDITY (Acts 7. 25) 220 President Charles Lincoln Bovard, Helena, Mon- tana. 2. THE SIN OF THE STRONG (Gen. 49. 14, 15; 2 Thess. 3. 13) 232 Edward Smith, Superintendent Butte District, Helena, Montana. VI. NORTH MONTANA CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP (1 Sam. 2. 30) 242 John A. Martin, Superintendent Great Falls Dis- trict, Great Falls, Montana. PART III. SYMPOSIUM THE PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: How BEST SHALL WE SOLVE THEM?. . 255 PART I INTRODUCTORY FOREWORD THE discerning editor of this work interprets his commission with an altogether satisfactory comprehensiveness. In his own introduction he sets forth with eloquence the wonders of the Pacific Northwest; then in the symposium with which the work concludes he discloses the prob- lems involved in the proper development of the Empire whose wonders he celebrates and whose prosperity is his chief joy. Midway he places prophetic messages illustrative at once of the temper of the people, their need and their hope, the whole constituting a commentary on the land and its inhabitants not only informing but inti- mate. It is a commonplace of historical criticism that the real life of a people is to be studied best in the poetry or the preaching of the period. Always the true poet and the prophet has deeper and truer things to say of an epoch than the chronicler or reporter. The sermons of John Chrysostom tell us more of social life at Constantinople dur- ing the fourth century than do the records of the state ; and if one would see the very heart of Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it is not to official activities one would go but to the 9 10 FOREWORD poetry of Dante and the preaching of Savonarola. The subtle and complex spirit of the nineteenth century has been reflected with greater fulness and with keener discrimination in the poetry of Tennyson and Browning, in the preaching of Maurice and Newman than in the records and memoirs of contemporary historians. It is a true instinct, therefore, that leads the editor to give the pulpit of his Pacific Northwest a central place in the record. The true prophet is first of all a seer; it is his to penetrate beneath the surface of things and read the inner life of a people. Only thus could he minister to his age. The things that lie on the surface are not the main concern of life, though from the attention they receive and the notice they compel one might be tempted to think other- wise. Sometimes it would seem as if such things were not even symptoms. People seem to have a passion for show and pleasure and dissipation and the acquisition of great wealth ; while all the time the real hunger of the heart is for purity, power, and peace, if only some one were able to interpret them to themselves. Our own age is often de- scribed as irreligious. Nothing could be more misleading. The immense number of religions and quasi-religious cults is indicative not of an irreligious, but of a religious age, bewildered and vagrant if you will, but seriously and positively religious. The sermons in the present volume witness to FOREWORD 11 this temper on the part of the people of this new and growing Empire. One finds reflected in them the restlessness, the capriciousness, the wanton- ness of a vital and vigorous and even self-willed people; and finds also that beneath the disquiet- ing surface is a soundness of heart, a capacity for sober afterthought, a loyalty to the things that are true, worthy, and of good report, an exuberant unselfishness, a genuine if unconven- tional spirit of reverence, a pronounced and en- viable spirit of brotherly kindness, a readiness of response to spiritual appeal, and a sensitiveness to ethical demands ample proof, if proof were needed, of a manhood and womanhood healthy, robust, and vigorous, the material out of which alone a great and noble State can come. Moreover the sermons are in evidence as to the nature of this people's faith. Differing widely in the manner of presentation they are one in this: the informing spirit throughout is that of the New Testament evangel. There is neither doubt nor uncertainty, neither logical nor rhetorical quibbling; the note is clear and steady, convinc- ing, and compelling the hope of the world is Christ, the living Christ, the exalted Christ, who having been lifted up draws all men unto himself. There is much plain speaking, as there ought to be; the sins of society are diagnosed with un- sparing frankness ; the way of the cross is neither obscured nor belittled; contrition, repentance, belief, obedience, the clean life, the life in the 12 FOREWORD Spirit these are the central and recurring themes stated with apostolic simplicity, candor, and brotherly kindness. The book reveals the life of our people in this region, while it is also a tribute to their worth. The editor has rendered lasting service to the whole church by putting in such accessible form a transcript of life at once so illuminating and so intimate. CHARLES M. STUART. President Garrett Biblical Institute. Evanston, Illinois, April 10, 1915. INTRODUCTION PAUL LITTLE A FEW words will suffice to account for THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT. For the past twelve years the writer has been a zealous student of the workings of Methodism its legis- lative proceedings, its polity, its doctrine, and its growth. A careful study of scores of Annual Conference Journals and of many church publi- cations has convinced him that this great and grand Pacific Northwest is but very little heard from. The church in general has a rather vague conception of her real problems and the men who are heroically working them out. We venture to say that even the church boards have but a meager idea of the needs in this vast territory. And why? Are they not appropriating tens of thou- sands of dollars annually ? Do they not visit each Annual Conference and thus get in touch with our problems ? Does not the Board of Home Mis- 'sions and Church Extension receive the sanction of the local Conference boards ere it sends any money for any church? Does not the Board of Sunday Schools receive frequent reports from the Conference Sunday school superintendents as to their work? We say, "Yes" to all these. But O, 13 14 INTRODUCTION how little all these convey of our real tasks and problems ! In the territory covered by this book we have four States Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. These States contain 396,711 square miles, which is larger by 4,156 square miles than the sixteen Eastern States reaching from Maine to Florida. According to the census of 1910, the population in this region was only 2,516,402, whereas in the Eastern group they had 35,121,478, or 32,605,076 more people than we had. Now a word relative to the religious census. According to our Con- ference Journals of 1914, in this immense section we had only 6 Conferences (Oregon, Puget Sound, Columbia Kiver, Idaho, Montana, and North Montana), 22 districts, 836 churches (an average of 38 to a district), 3,617 probationers, 7,545 non- resident and 81,081 resident members, or a total of 92,243 members. Will you be surprised when you are told that there is one Conference in Meth- odism which has more churches and church mem- bers than this vast empire which is larger than sixteen Eastern States combined? The North-East Ohio Conference has 862 churches, 10 districts (average of 86 to the dis- trict), 2,968 probationers, 6,895 nonresident, and 145,889 resident members, or a total of 155,742. Thus you see it has 27 more churches and 63,499 more members. What meaneth all this? Simply this, that if Methodism is to be a dominant factor INTRODUCTION 15 in the life and activity of this great empire within the next twenty-five years, she must begin to build wisely now by having proper supervision in every department of church work. We now have only three struggling colleges and three hospitals, but who knows how many schools and hospitals we shall have in the next quarter of a century if Methodism is awake to her opportunities! We now have just about two and a half million inhabitants in this section, but who knows when the European war ceases and the teeming millions shall migrate to the land of peace and plenty and seek homesteads in the rich hills and valleys of this Pacific Northwest but that we shall have twenty million population in the next thirty years ! Thus the solution of our varied problems thirty years hence will depend largely upon the solution of our problems now. And as our task is vast and comprehensive, we need in our ranks broad-minded ministers and laymen; men with large views and broad sympathies; Methodism needs men whose minds half an idea cannot satisfy, in whose souls half a world would leave a vacuum; whose philanthropy reaches more than one caste or color; who will find in every person a child of the same Great Father. This being pre- eminently a practical age, what we need to-day is not so much those good men who mourn over our State or national degeneracy and fast over our national sins, as those better men who will rise up from their fasts and prayers and go forth 16 INTRODUCTION and work for the reformation of our morals and the securing through practical righteousness of our national well-being. As this immense Pacific Northwest is now only in the making and building, it requires men of true and tried courage, men who dare to do right and stand by the right ; men who neither fear to explode an old dogma though adored for centuries if it be erroneous, nor to stand by an old custom against a world, if it be honorable and truthful. Men who are not afraid to tear the religious visor from the face of a false reform, nor to turn their backs on the old Sphinx of conservatism in the direction of a true progress ; men who, under- standing what is best for man's welfare and God's glory, will do their duty earnestly, boldly, and manfully, leaving God Almighty to take care of their reputations. True, Methodism has had a glorious past, but we are not to be satisfied with what the ages have done, we are to make our age do also. It is not enough that we read famous histories, we must make our histories famous. We must seize the bright torch which is offered us by the generation passing and bear it forward newly kindled for the benefit and blessing of the future. Now, the men who have contributed articles for this volume are the manly, practical, progressive, aggressive, and heroic type herein described- men who are building the foundation of what the future Methodism shall be. But, thank God, they INTRODUCTION 17 are not the only heroic men who are the spiritual builders of this wonderful Pacific Northwest em- pire. There are many others unnamed and un- heralded, who are equally strong and heroic. If the reading of this volume shall create in its readers a greater interest in this Pacific North- west, the editor will feel more than repaid for having undertaken this responsible task of com- pilation. BISHOP RICHARD JOSEPH COOKE RESIDENT BISHOP, PORTLAND, OREGON Bishop Richard Joseph Cooke was born in New York, June 31, 1853, graduated from East Ten- nessee University in 1880, and afterward studied in the University of Berlin. He has served the church in many important positions, namely, as a professor in and acting president of Grant Uni- versity, editor of the Methodist Advocate Jour- nal and Book Editor. In 1912 he was elected bishop, and his episcopal residence was fixed at Portland. Bishop Cooke has been a prolific writer, contributing much to the literature of the church. As a scholar he has always been a keen student, and as a preacher and orator he has few equals in the church. 18 THE MOST DANGEROUS CLASS IN AMERICA BISHOP RICHARD JOSEPH COOKE "For I could"" wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake." Rom. 9. 3 (R. V.). AT a critical moment in the history of Israel Moses made a similar wish. The patriots are willing to die that their people may live. Paul is a patriot. The messenger of Christ to all na- tions, he still carries Israel in his heart; a traveler in many lands, he never forgets the home- land. The riches of grace in Christ Jesus sepa- rating him from his old life and lifting him above all earthly desires have not weaned him from his country nor quenched in him the sacred flame of patriotism. Nothing, neither exoneration by his countrymen at home nor persecution by them abroad can dampen his ardor for the land of his fathers. When the Council of Constance con- demned the martyr John Huss to the flames with the declaration, (C We expel thee from the church militant," Huss cried out, "But not from the church triumphant!" So the apostle Paul, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, will not be an outcast 19 20 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT from Israel, "to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises ; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." For Breathes there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself -has said, This is my own, my native land! This impulse of patriotism seen in the test is no new experience in the life of Saint Paul. The record of his early life in the book of Acts shows that he was always intensely patriotic. But Paul, the apostle of Jesus, whom he persecuted, is not less patriotic than Saul, the fiery inquisitor of the Jewish faith. He is a better patriot. His vision is broader, his understanding clearer, and his judgment saner. He sees clear relations be- tween righteousness and national integrity, be- tween perpetuity of a people and their appre- hension of the eternal truths of God, than he ever did before. Hence his patriotism is more self- sacrificing, deeper, and more personal. "I could wish that I myself were separated from Christ, for my brethren's sake." Let us not forget when he is uttering this out- burst of feelings. He is writing at a time when all the results of sin in the history of his people are coming to a focus. Soon the thunders of THE MOST DANGEROUS CLASS 21 heaven, long delayed, will roll out the requiem of a nation. The awful curses ever before them in the book of Deuteronomy are now broadening over them ready to fall. Jerusalem is drunk with iniquity. The rulers of the nation have crucified their own Messiah, the Son of God. As a world- traveler Paul knows that in every nation under heaven the Jew is hated, and there is no help coming. Conversant with the conditions of Palestine, he knows that the iron hand of Rome that has crushed the liberties of mankind is tightening its grip on the Jewish state. He knows that grinding taxation is eating out the heart of the peasantry; that religious fanaticism and po- litical hatred are inflaming the masses; that the high priests and rulers of the people are divided among themselves; war parties, peace parties, parties of despair, the shadow of coming doom is creeping over the land. That terrible cry, "His blood be upon us and our children," will soon be answered, and the horrors of Jerusalem besieged shall wring a cry of anguish even from the stony heart of Titus the Roman commander. Paul sees it all. He recalls the history of his race; their intended mission, the wonderful interpositions of God in their behalf; their periods of glory and power; their prophets and priests; the Taber- nacle, Sinai, the temple; he sees it all, sees it as Jesus saw it when he wept over the city, but he sees it all coming down at last in blood and fire and vapor of smoke and everlasting ruin; the 22 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT Day of the Lord has come; there is none to de- liver! Swift as the winds come the "Vultures that smell decaying empires from afar." Paul sees it all, and in anguish of soul cries out, "I could wish myself accursed instead for Israel's sake." It is from the standpoint of Christian patriot- ism that I would appeal to patriotic Americans, especially to the educated, the well-to-do classes, concerning their obligations as good citizens, whether Christians or not, to the Church of God in the United States. It is the commonest among the most common- place assertions that no other nation is more highly favored than our own. But common as it is, we cannot reflect too seriously upon that common but tremendous platitude. Here is a vast territory stretching from arctic circles to tropical seas, enjoying all seasons, all climates; diversified by hills and mountains and plains and lakes and rivers, and, poured round all, the illimit- able oceans which have become the highways for travel and commerce with all shores of Europe and Asia. The geographical situation of Pales- tine, lying in the path of commerce between the east and the west, the north and the south, was no accident. It was the physical base for spir- itual mission to all nations. Is the- United States an accident? Situated in the midst of the oceans between two continents, and stored with all re- sources for the building of the mightiest empire THE MOST DANGEROUS CLASS 23 history ever gazed upon, is this land a mere geo- logical upheaval and nothing more ? And who can comprehend the astounding development of this country in agriculture, railroads, mines, towns, villages, cities, its growth in population, in wealth, in imports and exports? In ten years our popu- lation has increased twenty per cent. There are more than four billions of dollars in the savings banks. Nearly a billion and a half is the value of our manufactured exports, while the harvests of our fields amount in value to nearly ten million dollars. Now, endowed by heaven with such richness of climate and soil, one would think that a rational, intelligent people inhabiting such a country, and with histories of other nations for thousands of years behind them to guide, warn, and inspire them, would be .above all other people a God- honoring people. One would think that, because of their growth in imperial greatness, their only object of worship would be the great God, the Creator of all things ; that his laws would be their laws, and his church which he has estab- lished in the earth for righteousness would be reverenced above all institutions. Such I think would be the conclusion of reason. But what are the facts ? Now, we are not radir cally a bad people. We are not a nation utterly lawless, corrupt in morals, godless in thought and life. The initial impulse- of the colonial period is not yet wholly exhausted. The influence of the 24 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT Spartan-like character of our people before the Civil War is not yet a spent force. "I TREMBLE FOR MY COUNTRY" Nevertheless, no intelligent patriot can con- sider the signs of the times with complacency. It does not follow that, as the poet Browning says, God's in his heaven [therefore] All's right with the world. God has always, been in his heaven, and it has not always been "right with the world." Thomas Jefferson once exclaimed, as he surveyed the in- stitution of slavery, "I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just." What would he exclaim now? Look back over the history of America, as Paul scanned the history of Israel. Think what it cost to realize on this continent the dream of the ages "a government of the peo- ple, by the people, for the people"; to establish civil and religious liberty; to bring out of the abstract disquisitions of theorists and philoso- phers the principles of justice, equality and fra- ternity, and make them the foundation stones of our social and political life. Think of all this, and when the orator, the philosopher, and the poet have glorified our country, then let us look steadily at the appalling fact that God and the institutions of God are becoming practically divorced from the life and the ideals of the na- THE MOST DANGEROUS CLASS 25 tion. In spite of all our supposed culture, our literature, our arts and sciences; in spite of all our colleges and universities, and the millions ex- pended for education in the public schools, we, the American people, lead the whole world in crime! Our annual cost of crime is about one billion three hundred and seventy-three million dollars. There are four and a half times as many murders as there were twenty years ago. It was said by high authority a short while since that ten thousand murders are committed in this civilized country of ours every year. Chicago is credited with one hundred and eighteen murders a year. Paris has only fifteen; London, four times the size of Chicago, has only twenty. One State had recently more murders than the whole of the British empire. We are a great people. We have more homicides every year than Italy, France, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Hungary, Hol- land, Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales all put together. Is this not enough to give us pause? And if we consider the frightful ravages of the saloon, that ceaseless promoter of crime, that enemy of God and man, shall we not have ground for more than alarm? And, furthermore, if to this accus- ing catalogue of national iniquities we add di- vorce, shall we not, like Saint Paul, cry out for our country? One of the most startling bulletins ever issued by the United States government showed that in a recent period of ten years there 26 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT were one million divorces in the United States; that is, that one marriage in every twelve ends in the divorce court. But it is of no value to enumerate further our national sins. The important matter is, what does all this mean for the future of the American people? Shall we get better or worse? Does it mean the breakdown of popular government, the failure of law? Does it mean social chaos, the radical corruption of society, the supremacy of carnal vices which dried up the life blood of once morally healthy peoples? I would not go that far. But I do think that the terrible meaning of it all is a vanishing sense of the reality of God. The Eternal God, so real, so neighborly, to men of yesterday, is becoming an external x, an alge- braic sign, an unknowable abstraction, or an in- comprehensible mystery unrelated to human life, lost in infinity. Some time ago an English poet gave us in a learned Keview "The Funeral of God." He is no longer the God of law, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon their children unto the third and fourth generation of those that hate him, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love him and keep his commandments. He is an absentee God if there is any real, per- sonal God at all. This seems to be the real, but as yet unspoken, meaning of it all. And now as to the church. Everywhere there geems to be a breakdown of authority. We see THE MOST DANGEROUS CLASS 27 it in the home, in the church, in the State. If you would hold your position, have no convic- tions, do nothing, settle nothing, be all things to all men. Creep, crawl, play Uriah Heep, but hold your "job." Seek popularity, though you line up in the betrayal of your duty with Judas Iscariot. John the Baptist lost his head for keeping his conscience. You need yours. The authority of God in the soul is set aside for public opinion, and public opinion becomes a manufactured article as necessity requires and money is forth- coming. Is not success often considered the cri- terion of conduct in modern life? Is it not so that what succeeds is right, that what fails is wrong? Where are the distinctions clear and gulf-wide in the public mind and sounding forth like the voice of God on Sinai, between virtue and vice, right and wrong? What error is there that some ministerial or lay reprobate "will not adorn it with a text hiding its grossness with fair orna- ment"? Men criticize and wonder at the feebleness of the church. They dwell with pathetic unction on its loss of prestige, its lack of authority and saving power. But, in all fairness, how in the face of such conditions can religion, though the mightiest force in human history, make conquering head- way? Why, religion itself has become among many a mere matter of opinion. We invent some religious conceit, pray over it, and then hand it out as the opinion of the Almighty. Was there 28 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT ever yet a fraud in religion that God's name was not forged to it? Is it any wonder that indiffer- ence to the church has become in heart-breaking degree the base preeminence of more than one half of the American people? Visit the churches in cities and towns of over five thousand popula- N tion and behold the lonesome void. Where are the people? Compare the inside with the outside. Look at the few worshipers there, and the num- bers elsewhere who, to their everlasting shame, never enter the door of a church! Then behold the humiliating conditions on which many churches are permitted to exist. Think of the pitiable devices sometimes resorted to in order to dragoon a handful of hearers. What claptrap announcements! What futile efforts to rival opera or cheap vaudeville! What efforts to entertain, to turn the house of God, "mine house that shall be called a house of prayer," into a competitive picture show, a baseball club, or re- duce it to the level of a concert hall! Think of the societies that must be organized to eke out support for such shadows of reality, the increase of machinery as the power of God decreases, the ingenious arguments that must be manufactured to explain and defend such outlandish methods ! THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE KEPUBLIC What, in the long run, will be the effect of all this on the American people? Do you think, fellow citizens, that Christian people alone will THE MOST DANGEROUS CLASS 29 suffer, that the American people outside the churches will be in no wise affected ? Nay ! Nay ! Nationally "we are all members one of another." The result, certain as the law of gravity, will be and can only be moral degeneracy, social disinte- gration, national weakness. No nation ever ex- isted that was not based on religion. As religion died the nation died. No nation can ever endure that eliminates God from its corporate life. The sands of Egypt, the lonely mounds of Babylonia, the ruins of Baalbec and Palmyra, of Forum and Areopagus yea, the voices of thousands of years, sound out like fire bells at midnight the warning that the nation that forgets God shall perish. The Jewish state of Paul's day was a long time ripening to its fall. Judgment comes as the twilight comes, as the slowly gathering night comes, ~but it comes! Do we believe this? Will a traveler from the interior of Tibet ever sit on the shores of the Pacific and write the decline and fall of the American republic? Imagine a fashionable Ro- man in the splendid days of Augustus ever dream- ing that in days to come a barbarian from savage Britain would sit amid the ruins of the Capitol and sketch the departed glories of "the grandeur that was Rome" ! We laugh incredulously, as godless people have always laughed, at such preaching when we think of our self-sufficiency, our resources, our inven- tions, our science, our guns and battleships, our 30 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT wealth, our crops and national credit; or we boast of our intellectual grade, our ethical and political reserve power resident in the people and independent of the church. But are we the only people that ever boasted of power? Are we blind to the fact that all power comes from God? While we put our trust in physical forces have we any real sense of our weakness? Let us not forget that the moral forces of the universe may in turn laugh at us! Let us not forget that as there is stored up physical force, inconceivable energy, in the material elements about us tftat can make them explode and melt with fervent heat, so there are stored up in human society it- self in the people themselves the dynamic agencies for their own destruction. Out of them- selves, out of their infidelity, out of their vices and falsehoods and chicaneries, out of their so- cial hungers and political needs out of them- selves can come social and political conflagra- tions that will make the world turn pale. There are passions latent but terrible in the people; passions as fierce as ever blazed in the days of the French Revolution, or in the Homestead riots and frenzied mobs in our own country; hatred of class, antagonism to law, envy of wealth, discon- tent with industrial conditions forces which if once turned loose may sweep as with the blasting breath of a furnace our present social order and industrial system from the face of the earth and "leave not a rock behind." THE MOST DANGEROUS CLASS 31 For, if there is no God, if the people are taught by word and example to ignore him, if there is no divine sanction for human laws, but all are the product of physical evolution ; if right and wrong are synonymous with success or failure, why should not might be right? Why should men obey laws that restrain them? For the sake of the greater happiness, as godless economists teach? But whose happiness, the many or the few ? Why should not every man, by every primi- tive law of nature, burn, slay, plunder, and de- stroy with tooth and claw to obtain for himself the good things of this life? Who will restrain him and by what right? God? There is no God. Law ? Who made it ? Society ? What is society, and what is it for, and by what authority will it restrain? Must the toiler forever toil? the poor forever remain poor? the hungry be forever hun- gry? Must the few forever banquet on the high places of the earth, and clothe themselves in soft raiment, while the millions forever struggle even to live? Ah! If the petty troubles of to-day, if unionism, industrialism, strikes, Sherman acts, weary the nation, "What will ye do in the swell- ing of Jordan?" WHO Is TO BLAME? But who will be responsible for such condi- tions? Who is responsible now for this moral apathy, this indifference to the church in the United States? Is it the church itself? No. 32 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT Never was the church less blameless, never was the church more faithful to God and to man, than at this present time. Never did it more clearly see the needs of the world, and more gloriously abandon itself to the ministry of these needs. Is it the wage-earners who seldom go to church ? Is it the sullen, intractable crowd, strangers to all spiritualizing influence, but ever ready for so- cial upheaval? Is it the coarse illiterate, the utterly godless, who snarl at religion and de- cency? No. These are not the dangerous classes in America. Not just yet. Their brutal antago- nism is too crude to be most dangerous to existing institutions. The most dangerous enemy to the existing order is not the foe that is physical at all. The enemy -that is visible, the antagonism that can be seen and provided against by physical force, may be overcome. But who can provide against the intangible? Who can provide against the terror of the night and the pestilence that walketh at noonday? No! The most dangerous class in America is that class of people who, hav- ing acquired wealth, great or small, turn their backs upon the Church of God, and, renouncing all obligations to God and his church, deliberately abandon themselves to carnal enjoyments of luxury and ease. What is it to them that the civilization they enjoy, the social order, the se- curity of life and property, of which they are the beneficiaries, the very atmosphere of their social and civil life, are all in their origin the product of THE MOST DANGEROUS CLASS 33 Christian centuries? They are willing to bask in the light and warmth of the sun, but they ig- nore the sun ; to such there is practically no God, no church, no country. They have no sense of obligation to either God, or church, or country, for the pleasures and benefits they enjoy. Their sole interest is selfish surrender to the refine- ments of social life or the glittering allurements of the passing show. But what a dangerous life such a life is to those who live it and to the social order of which they are members! Such people forget that even for them practical atheism is the most colossal blunder. Dethrone God and you enthrone anarchy. They forget that it is better to have God without luxury than to have luxury without God, for in due time they will have neither. And as for the state, they forget that while despotism supported by guns and bayonets, and even the rule of mobocracy, may exist for a while without God, political liberty and social order never did and never can. WHAT EVIL EXAMPLE MAY Do But what makes this class of people so dangerous? Wherein is their power for evil? Their evil power is their evil example. Example is the mightiest power in the universe. There is no teaching so subtle, none so penetrating, so suggestive, so simple, so effective, as example. One example is better than a thousand precepts. 34 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT Example teaches, enforces, illustrates, suggests, demonstrates, fires the imagination, quickens emulation, and overcomes all arguments and all fears by the sheer force of its irresistible appeal. It was the example of Christ that created new ideals and founded a new world for humanity. It was the example of saints and martyrs and heroes of the faith that established the church on the ruins of empire. And what shall we say of the heroes and heroines of our own country, the founders of our political freedom, the sublime ex- ample of the defenders and founders of liberty in all lands! Example is the mightiest force in the universe. It is the evil power, then, of the example of those who ignore the church that makes them so dangerous to our social order and political in- stitutions. They are the fashion-makers. They are among the exponents of American ideas, of respectability, of education and culture. They create intellectual climates, social climates, anti- Christian atmospheres. They create opinion. They set the pace and suggest the mental atti- tude of the imitative masses who look up to them and try to imitate them. They present a false but practical illustration of how men may ignore God and still prosper. They ignore the church, and by example teach others to do likewise. They forget that God is the strength of the American republic, that in ignoring him and his church, the pillar of the nation, they betray their THE MOST DANGEROUS CLASS 35 country. They never think of consequences. But their example is their treason. In the continental United States there are ninety-one million people. In all denominations of Christians there are thirty-five million. Where are the other fifty-six million? With exceptions, where in the churches in proportion to their number are the leaders of industry, leaders in finance, manufacturers, merchants, leaders of commerce, statesmen, scientists, men of letters, artists, men of affairs prominent in every walk of life? Do they throng the churches? Where are the so-called society people? Do they throng the churches? Do they Create by their example a church-going habit? These influential people do not throng the churches. They do not represent nor do they align themselves with the church as they do with interests commercial, social, politi- cal. Do they throw their powerful influence on the side of the church against drink, divorce, heathenish Sabbath, industrial wrong, and social vice in every form, against the slum, against the practical atheism of the millions who look up to them and consciously or unconsciously imitate their example, their follies, and their crimes, but ignore their virtues? Thousands, let it be said, of the most cultured, the most intellectual, the most successful men, merchants, leaders in finance world-builders workers and thinkers in every field of human activity do go to church, and they do stand out in forceful way for all that the 36 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT church stands for, but thousands multiplied never do they never go to church. THE REIGN OF MIGHT These are the people who are responsible for much of the breakdown in the moral life of America the people who never go to church. They are the apostles of materialism. They de- spiritualize life, they destroy the noblest ideals. They surrender all to the flesh, to the material, to the life that is earthy, and by their example teach men so. By their example they teach the unnumbered thousands of men in their employ that the church is not a necessity. Is it any wonder, then, that millions of workingmen never go to church? It is no wonder. Nor is it any wonder that in times of industrial warfare, strikes, and lockouts, the brutal and lawless in- stincts of unspiritualized man should spring into life with the ferocity of the beast. Striking mobs are lawless. Who made them lawless ? They are terrible and destructive, brutal and vindictive. Who made them so? Who set the example of contempt for law, human and divine? Who led them away by example from spiritulizing forces, from refining influences, from habits of reverence, from the influence of religion upon the human spirit? Who showed them how to forget God? Who taught them that not God but gold is might, and might is right? Well, you taught well. They have learned their lesson. For the songs of the THE MOST DANGEROUS CLASS 37 church they are singing the songs of the coming revolution. In conventions and chapels and lodges they are singing "Might was, is, and e'er will be The one and only Right, And so, O hosts of Toil awaken! O workingmen unite! Unite! Unite! For Might is Right, 'Tis Freedom's only way, 'Tis the logic of the Ancient World And the Gospel of to-day." You set at naught the gospel of the Son of God, and you get instead the gospel of the brute. These millions taught by your example will in due time also ignore the religion you now ignore. And what then? In due time they too will smile at the rewards of heaven and the fear of hell. In due time this people who have by your example lost their God and flung away their heaven will claim the earth and all there is in it. And why not? THE Loss TO THE CHURCH But look for a moment on another side of this subject. Consider in all its magnitude, if you can, the loss to the church and to the moral char- acter and energy of the nation that is represented by the loss of those who never go to church. What a loss is here to society to every good cause, to every high and holy purpose of the best citizens, to the lofty patriotism of the best men and women 38 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT of America! What rivers of rejuvenating energy would pour through all channels of our social, political, and religious life if this element stood with the church and for the church! Keen- forced by the intellectual power, the spiritualized moral sense, and the personal influence of the educated but non-churchgoing masses of America, the church could destroy the slum, the breeding place of crime; it could annihilate the drink traffic, purify the theater, art, and the literature of pornocracy, elevate the whole moral tone of society, and ennoble human life to a degree that would gladden the heart of God. My appeal, then, is to this element in American life. From the standpoint of patriotism alone, if it must be, the appeal is to these men to do their duty. Every good citizen owes something to his country. You owe something to the moral wel- fare of the state, since without morals there would be no state. You owe it to yourselves. You owe it to the hundreds of thousands of working- men in your employ. You owe it to yourselves to line up with the best for the best to recognize the Sabbath of God and go to church ! That you are not Christians or believers in Christianity does not cancel your obligations. The church has made you what you are a civilized being. You owe something to the state, and you have no right to weaken by your example the pillars of the state. You are not called upon to believe against conviction, or to indorse the opinions of the pul- THE MOST DANGEROUS CLASS 39 pit. You are not compelled or invited to unite with the church without the experience of the church because you go to church; but you are called upon to honor the majesty of God, to re- spect his institutions and his laws. You are called upon to contribute by your example to the moral health of society, to the preservation of law and order, to the growth of reverence for the sanctities of life. This is your duty. And who knows but that by the unexpected opening of some window in your soul you may see, as a far away mountain peak lifting his snowy crown of glory into the infinite blue, the eternal truth of God, and "rise upon the stepping stones of your dead selves to higher things" than the gross materialism of a godless life. It is quite possible that you may see the real church through the earthly building. You may see the multitudes which no man can number of all the ages, the highest and holiest of all the centuries, and, like Bunyan, looking wistfully at the holy ones enter- ing the celestial city, wish yourself among them. As a recent dramatist makes one of his characters say : "Some people never see it at all. [That is, the spiritual church.] You must understand, this is no dead pile of stones and unmeaning timber. It is a living tMng. When you enter it you hear a sound a sound as of some mighty poem chanted. Listen long enough, and you will learn that it is made up of the beating of human hearts, of the nameless music of men's souls 40 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT that is, if you have ears. If you have eyes, you will presently see the church itself a looming mystery of many shapes and shadows leaping sheer from floor to dome. The work of no ordi- nary builder! The pillars of it go up like the brawny trunks of heroes; the sweet human flesh of men and women is molded about its bulwarks, strong, impregnable; the faces of little children laugh out from every corner stone; the terrible spans and arches of it are the joined hands of comrades ; and up in the heights and spaces there are inscribed the numberless musings of all the dreamers of the world. It is yet building build- ing and built upon. Sometimes the work goes forward in deep darkness; sometimes in blinding light; now beneath the burden of unutterable an- guish, now to the tune of great laughter and heroic shoutings like thie cry of thunder. Some- times, in the silence of the nighttime, one may hear the tiny hammerings of the comrades at work up in the dome the comrades that have climbed ahead." Would you join these comrades in building the kingdom of God, join hands with the noblest workers and thinkers who are building the king- dom of God? COURAGE, O CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD And now to you who honor your Lord and seek him in his holy temple, and who therefore love your country with more intelligent devotion, THE MOST DANGEROUS CLASS 41 never despair of religion or of the church. Never despair of religion. It will never die. "Hast thou not known," says the prophet Isaiah, "hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall : But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run and not be weary ; and they shall walk, and not faint." Never despair of religion. Never despair of the church. The eternal years of God are hers. "Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." It is now the church militant, subject to the fluctua- tions of the battlefield. To-morrow it will be the church triumphant. With all its drawback it is ever advancing. Where the vanguard camps to- day, the rear guard camps to-morrow. The sun will never go down on the Church of God! As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, Tho' round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head. Hear the cry of the apostle for Ms country. Lift a prayer for your own. PART II PACIFIC NORTHWEST CONFERENCES I. OREGON CARL GREGG DONEY PRESIDENT WILLAMETTE UNIVERSITY, SALEM, OREGON Carl G. Doney was born near Columbus, Ohio, June 24, 1867, and received his education in the following schools: Ohio State University (B.Sc., 1891; LL.B., 1893; Ph.D., 1902) ; Ohio Wesleyan University (M.A., 1899). Harvard University (Postgraduate in Philosophy, 1891-92). He trav- eled in Europe and the Orient in 1913-1914. Dr. Doney entered the ministry in October, 1893, and has held the following pastorates: Bainbridge, Ohio, 1893-95; Centenary Church, Granville, Ohio, 1895-98; Saint Paul's, Delaware, Ohio, 1898- 1900; King Avenue, Columbus, Ohio, 1900-1905; Hamline, Washington, D. C., 1905-1907. He ,ras president of West Virginia Wesleyan College from 1907 to 1915. During his presidency a debt of over |80,000 was raised, the endowment almost doubled, and the enrollment of college students increased to five times the number it was when he became president. He is the author of The Throne Room of the Soul and The Efficient Church. He is a frequent contributor to the Methodist Review, The American Magazine, and other periodicals. At the spring meeting of the Board of Trustees he was elected to the presi- dency of Willamette University. 44 FISHERMAN OE SHEPHERD PRESIDENT CARL GREGG DONEY "Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep." John 21. 17. Two events in the life of Peter throw light upon this text. The one took place as he began his fellowship with Jesus, and the other at its earthly termination ; the one was the call to vocation, the other was the consecration of a life. The expected but unrecognized Messiah had ap- peared. His birth was attended by angelic wel- come, by the visit and gifts of the wise men, by the fear and strategy of a wicked king. Three decades passed by before the strange Child, now a baptized man, began his work. There on the seashore he stands in the midst of fishermen. They are laboring men, busy in seeking a hard livelihood, valuing their boats and nets and fish. Peter is one of them, and to him Jesus says, "Come ye after me," and the fisherman leaves his material wealth to become the companion of a wandering Stranger. For three years Peter was the follower of Jesus; now close to his heart, now afar off; a brave man and a coward; a defender and a denier; sweeping the gamut of hope and fear, of 45 46 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT loyalty and desertion, of sacrifice and ambition. He had seen Jesus transfigured and witnesses his humiliation. He had bravely said, "Thou art the Christ," while others denounced him; later he had seen him on the cross and had beheld his resurrection. And after all this Peter is back there on the seashore with his boats and nets and fishing. He had grown tired of waiting; something was lack- ing: his faith may have weakened or hope may have died out. At any rate, he tarried with up- turned, expectant face no longer; and instead he went back to drudgery and the old task. Once more he is on the shore facing the strange Man who now tenderly asks, "Peter, do you love me ? love me? love me?" "Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep," and Peter turns a second time and forever from his boats and nets. There Peter is a fisherman, here he is a shepherd; there he is making a living, here he is using a life; there he is a wavering lover, here he is the unshaken rock. Where did this happen? It took place last week in the room of a student. It was a long interview. The boats and nets and fish were there, and there was that strange Man saying, "Fisherman for yourself or shepherd for me?" I do not know what the answer was. When did this happen ? It took place yesterday in an office down town. The business man hesitated and fought, he saw the visions of the world spread before him and his face paled. The question was, FISHERMAN OR SHEPHERD 47 "Fisherman for yourself or shepherd for me?" I do not know what answer he made to Jesus. When did this happen ? It took place this morn- ing in the soul of a young woman as she prayed. Life was not kind and she was tired; she won- dered if the struggle were worth while and if an easy way were not the better. She had to reply to the question, "Fisherman for yourself or shepherd for me?" I do not know what answer she made to Jesus. The scene will take place to-morrow and on all to-morrows. It is Jesus Christ offering to every soul the choice of service. He has identified him- self with a certain divine purpose; he has called for men who love him enough to believe in his purpose more than they do in anything else. He has seen the little handful of men who were his first disciples growing, growing through agony and strife; seen the old wilderness world giving place to peace and joy, seen the inevitableness of his plan and been absolutely sure that men could trust their lives to the certainty of God's care, absolutely sure that in the working out of God's will men wrought the perfect fulfillment of their own lives. The one supremely great task for a man is to be true to the inner life and make it dominant. There is an outer life, and it is important, but it must not be the only or the principal life. The outer life is the life of boats and nets and fishes, the life that asks about money and clothes and 48 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT power and honor. These questions are not to be treated lightly. It is upon the material things that we build the intellectual and the spiritual. The college would not be were it not for bricks and books and men who made money to provide them. The church roots itself in tangible things and without them there would be no sound of hymn or prayer. But there must be a distinction, and the highest wisdom of humankind lies in making that distinction properly. That distinc- tion consists in determining what is primary, in giving to the seen and to the unseen the rank that is their due. In a sense there is no outer life until it becomes inner. There is no sound until we hear it, no light until we see it ; there is no joy or hope until we feel it ; there are no philosophers or poets, no historians or reformers until their thoughts and dreams enter our thought. There is nothing in all the world except it touch our inner life. The human mind is the great artificer. It builds up and it destroys, it analyzes phenomena and con- structs laws, it discovers forces and defines prin- ciples, it reveals worlds within the world and with the shock of its denial shatters them into nothingness. In so far as the outer world is mastered, its king is the human mind. Power, law, systems, a coordinated universe represent the conquest of the inner over the outer. The ascent of mind has meant the subjugation of matter. When the mind FISHERMAN OR SHEPHERD 49 of a Columbus conceived a New World a new world emerged. When the intellect of Watts and Stephenson, of Morse and Marconi, of Edison and Dolbear dreamed dreams of steam and electricity, incalculable power entered into bondage to man- kind. The mind first ; and then the hands of Ful- ton, Goodyear, Bessemer, Roebling, and McAdoo. The skill and daring of the modern engineer, the audacity and persistence of the inventor, the courage and endurance of the explorer, the magic and faith of the farmer aye, the superhumanness of humankind only suggest the sovereignty of the inner over the outer life. The throne from which man himself is ruled is found within. The world of matter is held fast by laws of nature, laws which it can neither abro- gate nor change. The rock, the tree, the rushing avalanche, the storm all are ruled from with- out. But man directs. Influenced and motived by a thousand forces, he still is a center of au- thority. He experiences, analyzes, and corre- lates ; he inquires, thinks, and reasons ; and then he decrees. He may decree the impossible or the foolish or the wise thing ; nevertheless, he decrees and power is released to execute his will. The inner life is the seat of obligation. There is nothing of duty or oughtness in matter; but from the inner sanctuary of the soul there issue those sublime impulsions which have given the race its galaxy of moral heroes. Hunger and cold men do not fear, contumely and scorn they will 50 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT endure, isolation and sorrow they can bear, pain and death they may even welcome in order to keep inviolate the sacred summons which issue from the throne room of the inner life. This must come first. There are no final values outside the inner life : there are found the funda- mentals, the constants and the exponents which give worth and meaning to what man is and what he does. Every transformation making the world a fitter place to live in than it was six thousand years ago slept in the soul of Adam. Every vision needing to be realized before the Eden lost shall be restored again is slumbering in the secret places of the human mind. That is the treasure house from which every good has been extracted; there lie the unfathomable riches which are still to make the earth a sweet and holy place of peace and joy. We need not wonder then that Jesus Christ should call men from nets and boats, from a life where the outer rules to a life where the inner has first place. He knew what kind of a man God had created, knew the infinite powers that had been packed away; he knew that man ought to value them more than anything else, knew that as man unfolded himself the old world would lay its hidden riches at his feet, knew that in no other way could man be himself and claim his own. And I am sure that Jesus knew how hard it is for men to give up being fishermen. A vision cannot clothe and feed the hungry, a vision can- FISHERMAN OR SHEPHERD 51 not give us a home for wife and children. The visible so much appeals to us : it is there that we are nourished and find comfort and power. I cannot sell my vision for bread; bread comes from the field and I must sow and gather there. The unseen has no rating in the places of ex- change; merchandise has worth to give me friends and keep my body strong. Therefore I seek for things that can be seen and sold. It was not easy for Peter to leave his nets and boats. He could sail the boat and handle the nets, but he had never been a shepherd. The new work always makes one hesitate. Who knows the difficulties and defeats which lie in the untried paths? The known is not flippantly to be cast off for the unknown. Men do not master a voca- tion without time and effort, and when once a degree of success is attained they are slow to leave it. Experience breeds conservatism and knowledge is the mother of caution. Peter loved the old life too. The boats and nets were his, not by fiat, but by virtue of his thought and labor, his ambition and economy. Had he not wrought his life into them poor, mean things perhaps, but his very own? How could he ever love another work as he loved this ? There lay his years floating on the sea, and to leave them was to leave himself. Ah, yes ; but from the moment the strange Man appeared Peter was undone. When he knew only his boats and fishing he could be content. But 52 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT there are visions which disturb contentment, calls which break sleep forever. The eagle stirs up her nest, compelling the brood to learn to fly, and God always touches the soul with a summons to grow. When the youth met Socrates he had to be Plato ; when the monk climbing the steps at Rome heard the words, "The just shall live by faith," he was sealed to become Luther, the re- former; when John Wesley felt his heart strangely warmed he was bound by everlasting fealty to a new task; when Wendell Phillips heard the prison doors close upon Garrison in all the world there was but one thing for him to do ! In all the world there was but one thing for Plato and Luther and Wesley to do. They must obey the vision and bring it as a reality into the lives of other men. It requires a struggle to leave self and serve others, to forget the nets and become a shepherd. Men are sad when they first meet Jesus Christ: he asks so much of them. He breaks into the calm of their lives, destroys their purposes and loves and gives them a new order. But if they obey ah, if they but obey! winter is summer and storm is sunshine. In all the reaches of hu- man happiness there is no joy to be compared with that which comes when a man discovers that he has bound himself to the infinite and grown more fully into the likeness of the Divine. After long periods of selfishness and easy contentment, suddenly to find that he has clarified his soul, is FISHERMAN OR SHEPHERD 53 doing a bigger work, a man's work, God's work, a man rejoices with a joy unutterable. Peter never returned to his boats. It is the testimony of his brave and steadfast after life that he never wanted them again. All that he suffered of poverty and contumely, of hate and imprisonment are mute but splendid evidences that it is better to be a shepherd than a fisher- man. When Assisi turned from plenty and ease to follow the inner gleam which made him the wonderful lover of the loveless, I am sure that there was some mighty compensation which made wealth and honor seem cheap and tawdry. When David Livingstone hid himself in the Dark Con- tinent, though stricken with fever and tortured by a daily death, he must have had an inner glory that made him count all as nothing in order that he might feel the throb of truth pulsing through his life to the meager life of others. Such souls have bartered the lower values and their inevitable life impoverishment for the splendor of the unseen. "Something divine," to use the words of Aristides, is surely mingled with a humanity that has made such ventures of faith, such offerings of the visible for the invisible as are on record. And men unaided do not conceive these things. It is Jesus Christ who flashes the vision before them and bids them exchange the lower for the higher. Nay, more than that: he himself is that vision and that call. Everything which he is represents the permanent and in- 54 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT creased spiritual idealism of mankind. It is the spirit of Jesus Christ perennially present which gives to the race and to the individual that maj- esty and might which rolls the world from age to age into a whiter and stronger light. The spirit of Jesus Christ has been great enough to include in its own nature all the questions of society and politics and art and commerce, all questions practical and speculative, through all the reaches of the years. In every age he has been coming again and again; rather, he has never left man- kind alone. Since the dawn of creation Jesus Christ has been making his appeal in every great and vital question of justice. There has never been a time when he has not stood at the heart of every struggle between right and wrong. There has never been a reform which he did not sanc- tion, never a sin which he did not condemn. Em- pires and civilizations have risen and decayed, but through all the years of history, there has been one thing as lasting as eternity. It is the spirit of the ideal, the presence of truth, the ap- peal of right all of which have found themselves alive and mighty in the incarnation and omnipo- tence of the personality of Jesus Christ. I know nothing that gives men greater hope than this. If there is a philosophy of history, that which gives outstanding unity to the series of events is the continual presence of what Jesus Christ stands for. Age after age he has appeared asking men to accept an enlargement of service FISHERMAN OR SHEPHERD 55 and an added strength for the task. In one age he came to the world as the universal Brother and wrote in the hearts of men the divine decrees of human fellowship. Another time he appeared with messages concerning the home and made the race seal it with purity and righteousness. You will find him speaking to philosophers and scientists, invigorating them with a strong love of truth. He stands there, this imperial Figure among the cabinets of kings, the congresses of republics, imposing new trusts, exhorting to large faith, unfolding visions of the glory that should be. There he stands, the High Priest of human souls, girding and regirding them to battle, to sacrifice, to martyrdom, to death. I want you to see this. I want you to look into your histories to see just how Christ has been coming to the earth again and again in the decay of every evil, in the uprise of every good. Every reform has been his, every impulse which has driven man from contented littleness to undertake heroic greatness was first in his heart. He is the "quickening spirit." There is one thing for us to do. We are to be men and women of the open soul. The appeal of Christ comes to us. The work of our fathers is done; nevertheless, an eternal imperative is laid upon us. I do not know its particular character, but I do know that we are not left out, that every one of the open soul will be called again and again to leave boats and nets to become shepherds. The 56 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT open soul will cause us to long for Christ's com- ing, will give us confidence in him and make us willing to labor with him. As I look at men who are doing things, I have come to believe that the attitude of a man is the great thing after all. He usually gets what he wants ; certainly he does not get anything good unless he wants it. If a man wants integrity and purity and righteous- ness, they wait upon him. Visions come to him with the upturned face; and he who opens his soul to Jesus Christ will surely find Christ com- ing in. It is the most natural thing in the world to expect it. The seed with an open soul to the earth and sunshine becomes more than a seed. The dynamo with the open soul to electricity turns night into day. Iron and steel with an open soul to steam creates the commerce of nations. A handful of wires with an open soul to the ether hurls a message for a thousand miles across space. A mind with the open soul to truth be- comes endowed with a power that crashes through bigotry and error. And a human spirit open to Jesus Christ binds to itself the omnipotence of Almighty God. Peter, the poor fisherman among his boats and nets; Peter rich with the soul that opened to every higher call never was so ennobled as when Christ bade him become a shepherd and he obeyed. In one of Miss Murfree's novels the old moun- taineer directs the stranger by telling him "al- ways to take the upper turn of the road." It is FISHERMAN OR SHEPHERD 57 the whole philosophy of life. Always to be open to higher calls, always to take the upper turn in the road is for a man step by step to realize his kinship with the Divine. In all the expe- riences of time there is no greater tragedy and loss than for a man to accept the other alternative. Day after day to close one's soul to the recurrent Christ, to choose always the things of the outer life, to enter further and further into the ma- terial this is to die the living death. Frankenstein, the young medical student de- scribed by Mrs. Shelley, created an automaton that looked and acted like a man. It lacked noth- ing but a soul to make it completely human, but this the young student could not give; and the awful creature, knowing its deformity, besought him day and night for a soul. Throughout the nations he fled, always pursued by the monster crying, "Give me a soul! Give me a soul!" Heine remarks that "These two figures can now be met with in every country" men who stifle the inner life by the corrosiveness of excessive attention to the material. Christ never went deeper into the core of experience than when he stretched himself upon the cross and died for an idea. Patriotism never goes deeper than when a man fights and dies for an idea. Life never is holier than when it swears fealty to a vision, say- ing: "I cannot do other, God help me. Here I stand." FKANK LA FAYETTE LOVELAND FIRST CHURCH, PORTLAND, OREGON Frank L. Loveland is American in birth and ideals. Born during the Civil War, he was rocked in a sturdy cradle, carried in heroic arms. In his boyhood his life shared in the "short and simple annals of the poor." By dint of unyielding will, sturdy decision of character, and tireless effort, supplemented by unusual natural endowments, he has won for himself a name and place among the ablest in his chosen profession. He has been honored by the leading educational institutions of Methodism. He is a careful student not only of books, but men; of theology, and of sociology. He believes in the "Life that now is," as well as the "Life to come." He deals not in musty plati- tudes, but with vital living problems. He is a man beloved by men, a citizen honored in his own city; a minister whose sermons are heard by im- mense throngs and a lecturer whose Lyceum and Chautauqua messages call forth the most un- stinted praise. THE MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE IN BUILDING HUMAN CHARACTER FRANK LAFAYETTE LOVELAND "What is that to us? see thou to that" Matt. 27. 4. AMONG the incidents connected with the closing hours in the career of the Penniless Prince of Palestine none are more tragic than that from which this text is taken. The Christ has been delivered to his executioners. The tragedy of the cross was about to be enacted on Calvary's Hill. Judas Iscariot had betrayed him at the instiga- tion of the Sanhedrin, and this was the result of a conspiracy that grew out of the social, political, and religious life of Palestine. Judas Iscariot, being panic-stricken at his downfall and guilt, and seeking to undo his wrong, conies to the con- spirators and begs them to take back the silver and prevent the final act in that awful tragedy. With a heartlessness and scorn unequaled in the annals of selfishness, the conspirators refused to take back their blood-stained silver. They mercilessly piled the whole guilt of that shameful transaction upon the shoulders of Judas Iscariot. Unmind- ful of the consequences to the shivering culprit before them, unmindful of their own part in this 60 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT transaction, unmindful of their responsibility, they say to him in reply to his agonized appeal to avert the awful consequences of his deed: "What is that to us? see thou to that!" THE CRIME OF SOCIETY Although Pilate sought to wash his hands of the fearful affair of Calvary ; although the scribes and Pharisees heartlessly refused to accept any responsibility in the matter of the deed done by Judas Iscariot, the unalterable conclusion must be reached, however, that the crime was charge- able not alone to Judas, who has carried the con- tumely of the deed through the centuries, but to the social, political, and religious life of that day. In the light of modern sociological and theological science, these are unitedly pilloried as the arch criminals in this direful transaction. A SEARCH FOR THE ROOT OF RESPONSIBILITY We are seeking to-day for the fundamental causes of human sorrow, poverty, disease, and crime; and a search for these causes compels us to travel backward, past the sorrowing face, the sick body, the gaunt frames, and the prison stripes into the very centers of our society, homes, altars of churches, courts, and legislative halls. We are compelled to face the fact that we are our "brother's keeper" ; that there are mutual obliga- tions that cannot be abrogated by any social caste, political theory, or religious creed. The MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS 61 church, the school, and the state, as never before, are compelled to study the problem of mutual re- lationships and mutual obligations. The old union of church and state was a millstone that threatened to sink both the church and the state ; the new union of church and state that is being wrought out in our modern civilization is neither theological nor political alone, but humanitarian in its highest and best sense, and this union must some day be realized as a reality if the church and state are to endure. MAN'S INESTIMABLE VALUE Humboldt tells us that "religion, law, property, and books are nothing but the scaffoldings to build a man that nature holds up to her Creator no product but a perfect man." Jesus Christ taught the world no greater lesson than that of the value of humanity. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, seventy per cent of the popu- lation was in slavery and serfdom; human flesh was cheaper than beef. Pollio could feed his Lampreys upon child's flesh it was cheaper than mutton. Christ discussed the question with man of that day as to whether a man was any better than a sheep. The religious and political leaders took the negative of the question; Christ alone took the affirmative. The most momentous truth taught by Jesus of Nazareth was that man was the son of God, that he had an abiding and eternal value. He set the slave upon his feet and put 62 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT upon his brow the crown of a deathless destiny. He taught the world that humanity was of such value that it was worth the life of the Son of God to restore it to its pristine dignity. He died to redeem humanity because humanity was worth it. The old doctrine of man's worthlessness, as evidenced by both church and state for over fifteen hundred years since the death of Christ, has been one of the greatest wrongs perpetuated upon humanity. "The preaching of the doctrine of the total and unalleviated depravity of the hu- man race has been, not only a theological and so- ciological blunder, but has been a crime against society and an outrage on public morals/' says a prominent Presbyterian preacher; and it is a significant truth, even though sadly belated. THE ERA OP MUTUALITY Another of the fundamental truths taught by Jesus of Nazareth was the intimate relation that every man bears to every other man. He taught that the race is a unit and every specification of church and state should be for the preservation of this unit ; he taught the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man; but for hundreds of years these great truths have had the doors of both church and state slammed in their faces, and its only within your lifetime and mine that hu- man brotherhood has come back to both church and state, and we are now trying to atone for the tardiness of our reception of it by the splendid MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS 63 promises which we hold out for its future triumphs. The church has passed through great eras in the bygone centuries. In the early ages of the church's history its battles were fought around the personality and divinity of Jesus Christ. This was followed by the great era of organiza- tion and the propaganda of ecclesiastical systems. The Keformation the egg of which was laid by Erasmus and hatched by Martin Luther pro- duced an era of mental and spiritual enfranchise- ment of the individual. This was followed by the rise and growth of sectarianism ; but the days of dogmatism and ecclesiasticism are passing and the church of to-day is swinging with tremendous strides into the era of social redemption. To- day the term "salvation" has a larger meaning than ever before. It means not only the salvation of the soul but the salvation of the body, the mind, the home, the city, the state, and society. Health is recognized as a necessary part of our religion. We are now believing that the culture of the human intellect is as necessary as the cul- ture of the human conscience, that "the brain is as divinely a part of man as is his heart." We now believe that the church has no right to talk about "full salvation" unless it is intended to in- clude the human body and all the environments and appliances in the city and state that relate thereto. "Full salvation to-day means the school, the training of head and hand and heart, the 64 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT proper culture with books and tools classical, moral, manual, industrial, vocational. It means the redemption of the entire human being, the opening of every prison door whether physical, intellectual, or spiritual." The gospel of to-day includes soap, clean water, pure food, fresh air, and healthful environment, as well as the mourners' bench and the baptismal font. He who preaches a narrower gospel than this preaches a travesty upon the spirit and teachings of Jesus Christ. A modern preacher says : "The full gospel of Jesus Christ means a new social order. Our modern evangelistic cant about 'saving souls' is but a poor caricature of the thought of the Master. Jesus came not to save souls merely, but to save humanity. The program of the Naza- rene is more than the rescue of individuals from a future hell it is the salvation of society that he proposes. He sends his disciples forth not alone with a message of personal regeneration, but with a message of civic reform a preaching of environ- ment, a prophetic call to social and national righteousness and without this the full gospel is not preached. It is easier and cheaper to get our own souls saved, and realize a narrow stand- ard of personal virtue, than it is to sacrifice our selfish personal interests to Christ's ideal of social righteousness. It is easier to consecrate a graveyard than it is a market place. It is easier to make sacred the sanctuary than the shop, the store, the home; but who doubts that the latter MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS 65 is as necessary as the former? A religion that cannot save society from hell here will, I fear, fail to save souls from hell hereafter. THE CIRCLE OP ^RESPONSIBILITY We are now becoming intensely conscious of the fact that society is responsible for its prod- ucts; that poverty, disease, and crime root themselves back in society itself. They reach into the home, the church, the school, the courts, and legislative halls; and the real preacher of Jesus Christ and the real reformer and sociologist must take their stand at the doors of our reformatories and penal institutions, our police courts and asylums, our poorhouses and our hospitals, and with courage unfaltering and in no uncertain tones, demand that society itself must enter the dock with the prisoner, must stand in the slum with the degraded, must sit in the hovel with the poor, and in the hospital ward with the diseased, and there be placed on trial with the pitiful sub- jects that have been sentenced by law, or other- wise, to a place therein. Caesar, the president; Pilate, the governor; Herod, the mayor; Annas, the teacher ; and Caiaphas, the preacher, must be placed on trial alongside with Judas Iscariot. Victor Hugo in the greatest novel of the ages, Les Miserables, says that, "the representatives of so- ciety called legislators, judges, bishops, and police- men are simply lesser planets moving around a giant soul called Jean Valjean who is the incar- 66 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT nation of all the. social misery of his time. In the mouth of the good bishop he puts these words, "Sin is a darkness of the mind. The state that permitted the ignorance and darkness of Jean Valjean, should be sent to jail with the thief." He further portrays in merciless speech the ac- tions of the corrupt and brutal police officers and the state's attorney as they applied "third degree methods" for the extortion of evidence which they had not brains enough to secure in a legitimate manner; and when the victims are finally sentenced to be hung, the old bishop said, when the people applauded the state's attorney's scheme, "This man and woman will go to the scaffold, but who will hang the state's attorney?" In answering the question, "Who is the greatest criminal," we are often compelled to hesitate as to whether we shall answer, "The man in the prisoner's dock, the state, the court, the church, society, or the parents." While I am ready to admit that neither the church nor state can afford to deny, excuse, or palliate individual responsi- bility and its consequent results, yet I do not hesitate to say that the mental acumen evidenced by the ordinary police officer or ecclesiastically bound preacher are not of such a type as to make them competent judges as to the real line of cleavage between social and individual respon- sibility, nor clothe them with the necessary ability to pass judgment and execute sentence in most cases that come before them. If anyone doubts MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS 67 this, let him examine with care the criminal court dockets of this country or listen to the ordinary dogmatical sermon on the salvation of the soul. THE VITAL LAW OF HEREDITY The conditions that surround modern humanity demand that the church, the state, and the school shall join hands in the promulgation of the truth of the fundamental commandment, given on Sinai, that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, even to the third and fourth genera- tion. This is a law as inexorable as fate; its truth is as impregnable as Gibraltar. It is the flaming protest of high heaven, a solemn warning from the throne of the Eternal that must not go unheeded. Scientists to-day demonstrate beyond a doubt that heredity is vital in the production of a perfect life. It is a fearful thing to start a life defectively. Luther Burbank says that it is a vegetable crime to breed defective plants. The farmer to-day has decreed that the nubbin, the runt, and scrub must go and that every product of the farm must be of the highest type. In the realm of man the same law holds true. Look about you and see the diseased, the defective, the criminal which are as much the result of bad breeding as is the nubbin, the runt, and scrub of the farm. It is time for parents to learn that the sins of one generation lame the next generation. "That blood transmits physical weakness, mental decay, moral degeneracy." It should be widely 68 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT understood that one may damn his own offspring before it is born, that a father may predispose his child or grandchild to kleptomania and alcohol- ism, that "a mother's dishonesty may decree her daughter's profligacy, that parental wickedness may predestinate filial crime." "Heredity often strikes a blow that makes a misshapen skull and produces a moral pervert." While I do not for one moment believe that God ever created a criminal or foreordained a crime, yet Almighty God has established certain laws physical, men- tal, and moral in this universe, and by a viola- tion of those laws parents and society and the state may predispose humanity toward the con- ditions which all would wish to avoid. KACE SUICIDE In recent years we have heard much about the perils of race suicide, but let it be known that this land of ours is in no danger from race sui- cide, but it is in danger from race degeneracy. History has no record of any nation having gone down for lack of numbers, but the banks of the stream of time are strewn with the wreck of na- tions that have gone down because of the lack of physical and moral worth. Not race suicide but race degeneracy is the curse of our day. DISEASE, A PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL DEPRAVITY We were once taught to believe that blindness, deafness, tuberculosis, and many other kinds of MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS 69 suffering were necessary and unpreventable ; that we had to accept blind eyes and deaf ears and diseased lungs as we accept the havoc of tornadoes and cyclones. But we now know that these things are not to be laid at the door of Divine Providence but at the door of mankind, and that they are due in a large measure to igno- rance, stupidity, and to the sins of the parents, city, and state. We know that more than seventy- five per cent of the blindness in the world is caused by a form of ophthalmia for which society and the parents are responsible. Science is veri- fying what the Old Testament taught three thou- sand years ago, and the time has come when there is no excuse for ignorance upon this matter. To- day the religious, the social, the physiological, the scientific, and the patriotic demand is that we shall adjust our religious and civic machinery to the proper dealing with these great questions. I was once possessed of the opinion that the mourners' bench could cure all these personal and political ills of humanity. While I believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ will do all for hu- manity it was ever intended or expected to do, yet it cannot become operative and effective un- less intelligently applied to the source and seat of the difficulty. The application of the mourn- ers' bench, the baptismal font, and the confirma- tion ceremony are too often from one to one hundred years too late to accomplish the end sought. 70 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT AN IMPIOUS AND HEARTLESS QUESTION The mutual obligations therefore of both church and state are pressing with a tremendous force upon the question of moral and intellectual progress. "Have I not a right to do what I will with my own?" is a more impious, selfish, and cruel question to-day than it was in the time of the Galilean. No man has a right to do what he will with his own unless it ministers to the well-being of humanity as well as himself. The failure to recognize this is a fundamental failure in the church as well as the state. Money, ability, honors, official position, are but trust funds placed in our hands for the benefit of the wounded, weak, and mentally or morally belated children of God, rather than to be greedily hoarded for per- sonal and selfish satisfaction. PHILANTHROPY THAT is FOLLY Another fundamental obligation resting to-day upon the church and state is to articulate by proper method our charitable and philanthropic work to the prevention rather than the allevia- tion of the immoral and degrading conditions of society. The parable of the good Samaritan car- ries a divine principle and a timeless spirit. The method employed by the good Samaritan, how- ever, is not remedial nor applicable to twentieth century conditions. Fundamental principles are never outgrown, but the methods used by one MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS 71 generation in the application of the principles may not be applicable to the next generation. Giving local assistance to a wounded traveler is a noble and necessary thing to do, but it does not go far enough. It does not reach the root of the matter. It in no wise removes the cause. A new victim will be found by the roadside every day, and, like Tennyson's brook, this will go on for- ever unless some method shall be used to destroy the robbers that infest the road leading from Jerusalem to Jericho. As some one has said, "The best Samaritan is he who paves, lights, and polices the Jericho road." Personally, I am shed- ding fewer tears over the drunkard and spending more time to find out why the saloon upon the corner or the bootlegger in the alley is allowed to remain. It is beautiful to carry flowers to the typhoid patient, but it is better to find out why there is a polluted water supply. It is excellent to help buy coffins for dead babies, but it is in- finitely more excellent to destroy the greed and graft that permits social conditions that out- Herods Herod in slaughtering the innocents. It is a beautiful emotion that exhibits itself in the hand-out at the back door, but it is a more beau- tiful emotion that shall make the eye to glitter with the holy passion as you strike at the infa- mous child labor that is allowed to go on in this country in the interest of greed and selfishness, not only on the part of the manufacturer but on the part of the consumer ; a condition that breeds 72 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT dwarfed, anemic, weak, rickety, defective, puny, stunted millions from whose ranks are annually recruited a quarter of a million tramps ; an army moving through the country like the deadly army worms, spreading disease and committing crimes over which ill-guided philanthropy expends it- self. It is a religious duty to care for the poor drab, the scarlet girl, but it is a more profoundly religious duty for the church to rise up and de- mand that social conditions of which the scarlet woman is the natural product shall be abolished from our civilization. Social conditions that drive womanhood into the realm of industry, where she becomes the prey to selfishness, as is shown in the pitifully low wages paid her in fac- tories, stores, etc. ; conditions of the servant girls in our Christian homes, where they are not allowed to have the rights or privileges of a parlor for the entertainment of their friends and are thus driven to the public parks, are the conditions which are more important and pressing in their demands upon the mind, heart, and conscience of the church than the shedding of a tear over some delinquent girl. There used to be a time when the best doctor was rated as the one who could most successfully cure disease; to-day the best doctor is the one who most successfully prevents disease. Yesterday the best lawyer was supposed to be he who could most successfully litigate a case before judge or jury ; to-day the best lawyer is he who can most successfully prevent litigation. MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS 73 For all too long we have supposed that the best philanthropist, the best Samaritan, was he who poured oil and wine into the wounds of some poor bruised traveler; but, rather, he is the best phil- anthropist who assists with his money, his brains, and his influence to destroy the conditions that as surely breed crime, poverty, and disease as stagnant water breeds mosquitoes. THE DEMAND OF PATRIOTISM In conclusion, let me say that Christian patriot- ism is demanding a recognition of the mutual obligations that rest upon us as a people. I de- light to trace in the rise and fall of nations the finger of God, and I strive to read the Almighty's plan on the historic page. In the Far East ap- peared the first faint light of civilization's dawn, and since then, "Westward the star of empire" has taken its way, while each succeeding nation that rose in its luminous path, like flowers in the footsteps of our dear Lord, has reached a higher plane and wrought out a grander destiny. But the cycle is now complete. The Star now blazes in the world's uttermost West, and by the law of progress which has persevered through the cen- turies past, here if anywhere must we look for that dawn of which prophets have fondly dreamed and for which philanthropists have prayed. The awful responsibility of leadership among the na- tions is upon us as a people. We have torn the diadem from kingly brows and have placed the 74 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT scepter of authority in the hands of the people. We have undertaken to lead the human race from the Slough of Despond to the Delectable Moun- tains where justice reigns supreme and every son of man may find life worth living. We must make good our glorious promises. The eyes of the world are upon us in hope or fear, in prayer or protest. We must not fail. AMERICA IN DANGER Thoughtful men tell us that America is in danger, that it may yet be lost, that the star- spangled banner may yet be torn to tatters by the fierce winds that blow from the deep caverns of human hatred, greed, and selfishness. DeTocque- ville, the great French economist, tells us that American democracy is only an experiment that has not yet demonstrated its power to solve the problem which itself creates. Tolstoy, the Rus- sian philosopher, before his death, argued that America was drifting toward a cataclysm in civilization, that it would make the descent into the valley of the dark ages unless both church and state awakened to the speedy realization of their obligations to the great zones of humanity which are liable to breed the cyclones that shall sweep our civilization from the face of the earth. Our American patriotism demands that we shall heed these warnings. "Shall this 'government of the people, by the people, and for the people' perish from the earth," is a more vital query to- MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS 75 day than when Lincoln delivered his immortal address by the bloody billows of Gettysburg. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" means more to-day than it did when Washington prayed at the snowy altars of Valley Forge. The ideas of human liberty, human perfection, human happiness are permeating our civilization as never before. Before God, I do believe that this age of selfishness, greed, and heartlessness will pass as passed the age of ignorance and the age of tyranny. I believe the day will come O blessed dawn! when both church and state will be in spirit and in truth a band of brothers, and the wrongs of one will be the concern of all. We must go forward, we must press on to grander heights and greater glories or see the laurels al- ready won, turn to ashes on our brows. We may sometimes slip, shadows may obscure the path, bowlders may bruise our feet, there may be days of agony and months of mourning, but I say unto you, brothers and sisters mine, that the church of the living God and the state that we dearly love, must and will unite their hands, their heads, their hearts in one grand effort for the uplift and salvation of the race, and shall determine that this civilization of ours, born of our fathers' blood and sanctified by our mothers' tears, shall never pass away ; and that the church of the living God shall place a redeemed humanity in the palm- pierced hands of the Prince of Peace. HERBERT SWANN WILKINSON FIRST CHURCH, EUGENE, OREGON Herbert Swann Wilkinson is a native of Michi- gan and a son of the parsonage, his father being the Rev. Thomas Wilkinson, of the Detroit and later of the Dakota Conferences. He is a gradu- ate of Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa, and of the Boston University School of Theology. In 1907 he was honored with the degree of Doctor of Divinity by his Alma Mater. He joined the Upper Iowa Conference in 1893 and has since occupied leading pulpits in the Dakota, Califor- nia, and Oregon Conferences. While pastor at Mitchell, South Dakota, the great church there was built under his leadership and the church membership trebled. He was transferred to the California Conference and served the Howard Street Church in San Francisco. In 1910 he was transferred to the Oregon Conference and sta- tioned at Eugene, Oregon, where during his pastorate one of the finest churches on the Coast has been built to house the great congregation of over thirteen hundred members. Eugene is the seat of the State University and the church here occupies one of the strategic places of influence. 76 THE GOSPEL FOE AN AGE OF DOUBT HERBERT SWANN WILKINSON "And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see." John 1. 46. THE saying is familiar, "God made the coun- try and man made the town"; and a friend of mine adds, "But the devil made the little country town." Nazareth seems to have been such a little country town. Its reputation was bad. Its peo- ple were held in the grip of an unbelief which made Jesus marvel at them, and made it impos- sible for him to do many mighty works there. It was Nazareth which attempted his life, so that it seemed best to remove his headquarters to Caper- naum. Nathanael was from the same province and knew its character well, and he asks, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Philip does not attempt to argue the question but throws out the challenge, "Come and see." It is now some years since Henry van Dyke wrote his book The Gospel for an Age of Doubt. The age is, however, still accurately characterized by that title. Doubt, however, may be used in two senses. 77 78 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT 1. DOUBT AS SCRUTINY This is the sense in which Dr. Van Dyke used it. Not unbelief, but scrutiny. It signifies an attitude of mind which seeks information, which probes for the foundations of belief and au- thority. The symbol of the age is a question mark; its motto is "Query." The question mark, however, does not signify a desire to prove things untrue, but to establish them in their true char- acter as either true or false. Perhaps below such a spirit is a high quality of faith the faith that life's highest interests are served only by those things which are true; a faith that the soul can never be nourished at the breast of falsehood; that no fires of holy aspiration can be kindled at the altar of a lie; a faith that the God of truth can only be approached through the avenues of sincere intellectual processes, and that reason and experience, thought and life will ultimately dis- cover him. As far as this is true of our age, or of an in- dividual, it should be an occasion for gratification rather than alarm. Could soil be more propitious for producing a vital religion? Does anyone be- lieve that the pursuit of truth, fearlessly, sin- cerely, passionately, would move us farther away from God, who is its source and goal? Would it not be folly, would it not be false, would it not be treasonable to ourselves and to God to think and say that the age of highest intellectual ac- tivity necessarily was moving away from belief GOSPEL FOR AN AGE OF DOUBT 79 in God and desire for a life of harmony with his will? 2. DOUBT AS UNCERTAINTY. PERPLEXITY This is also prevalent in our time to a greater degree. It would be remarkable if it were not. We have been and are living in an age of transi- tion. The intellectual turmoil of the past fifty years has never been equaled in the history of thought. It is no wonder that men are still gasp- ing for breath amid the swirling currents that have come upon us during the past few decades. Science, with its evolutionary view of the uni- verse, pushed out the sides and ends of the world. Archceology found such masses of material that we have constructed great civilizations back yonder in what we had regarded as the unpeopled past. The critical method rose up like a young giant whose wine had gone to his head, and we feared he was running amuck through the deli- cate gardens of faith. Psychology probed rather remorselessly into the sacred experiences of the soul, and we wondered if the holy places of the inner life were not being touched by profane hands. Some day we shall realize as we do not now the turmoil of these tremendous years and shall see how vital was the faith which lived through them and gathered from them the nutri- ment and the exercise which made faith mightier than ever. Any one of these great movements would have given exhilaration to the generation 80 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT which must encounter it. Together they formed a menace to the footing of any faith that was not held steady by a personal vision of Christ. Dr. H. G. Mitchell used to say to his students as they plunged into the vexing Old Testament problems, "Young men, if you have personal knowledge of Jesus Christ, and such experiences with him day by day, that he is the most real of all realities to you, you are ready for these perplexing problems ; if you are not sure of your relationship to him, you are not ready for this study, or for the Christian ministry." Nor, friends, are you ready for life. Christ alone is the resolver of doubt. He alone is the irrefutable argument, the invincible champion, the impregnable fortress of faith. Philip gave the answer which an honest investi- gator would covet. It is a challenge to the scien- tific spirit. Is this the age of science? Then here is its challenge. Christianity invokes the age to investigate its claims. Two great maxims rule in the scientific world. The first is, "Be sure of your facts." So Paul says, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." Nothing can be more vital to Christian living than a clear and vivid understanding of the facts upon which the Christian faith is based. It would be gratifying to think the age is disposed to examine carefully, searchingly, exhaustively, into the facts and phenomena of Christianity. We do not fear the disposition to investigate so GOSPEL FOR AN AGE OF DOUBT 81 much as the disposition to ignore. The facts are here. Facts of its history, of its achievements, its teachings, its moral reconstructions, its moral inspirations. Its effects upon personal and social life. We say, "Study the facts." Divest your- self in true scientific spirit of preconceived no- tions, of inherited prejudices, and study the facts, for by these methods we attain success. The second great maxim of science is, "Adopt that theory of explanation which presents fewest difficulties while best explaining all the facts." Accept that theory as true and order your work by it until you get a better one. That is the scien- tific method. That is what science is doing with the theory of gravitation. It is but a theory. But it works fairly well. That is what science is doing with the theory of light, of sound, of heat ; with its theories of atoms and of evolution. They are merely speculative all of them. But they will govern the activities of the scientific world until they are superseded by better ones. Apply this maxim to Christianity. There is no such theory of explanation of the universe as that which begins the Hebrew Scriptures "In the be- ginning God." There is no scientific theory of which I know which does not, unless we are to do violence to logic, require a God to make it work. There is no scheme of morality which finds either consistency or authority without the implication of God as revealed in the Book of God. There is no working explanation of human 82 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT life which compares in helpfulness and inspira- tion with that found in the New Testament. There is no adequate satisfaction of, or explana- tion of, spiritual desires outside of that which is provided here. Men want help. Christ gives it. Men want the sense of harmony and union with the Infinite Christ supplies it. Men want some explanation of trouble and sorrow Christ affords it. Men want the feeling that at the heart of the world is some one that cares, that life is not without some tender significance Christ as- sures it. Men want a second chance when they have failed Christ offers it. Men want the knowledge of an Infinite Companion when they go down into valley and shadow Christ reveals One. Men want answers to the three great ques- tions which Kant says no man can avoid asking, "What can I know, What may I hope, What must I do?" Christ answers them to the heart rest of increasing millions. Only a man incurably unwise would turn away from the life begetting affirmations of Jesus to the barren denials of willful doubt. The scientific spirit of this modern time ought to save him from such superlative folly. The answer of Philip implied that Nathanael had power to see. The court to which Christ ap- peals is in every man's soul. Every human born into the world has that in him which responds to the truth. Paul said, "Commending ourselves to every man's conscience." The gospel is adjusted GOSPEL FOR AN AGE OF DOUBT 83 to the fundamental nature of man. When Christ commanded his disciples to disciple all nations he knew his gospel would work. "He knew what was in man." When preached to Greek it took hold of the heart. When preached at Rome it found followers. When men took it into the savage tribes of Germany it found lodgment in their wild bosoms and subdued their wildness. The dweller amid the eternal snows finds it speaks to his heart. William Taylor went to India with the flaming message, and the sons of Brahma laid hold of it. He took it to the Kaffirs of South Africa savage, naked, untouched by tradition of Christianity and they laid hold of it. Han- nington suffered martyrdom in Uganda to tell the story, and Uganda is becoming, is, a Christian state. Bishop Joyce, of blessed memory, used to tell with burning eloquence how he visited mis- sion after mission in his trip of supervision around the world, and how as he presided at the Japanese Conferences his heart was thrilled as men told with shining faces of the joy of their souls at the salvation of Jesus ; in China the chil- dren of Confucius stood in quiet dignity and told how the story of Jesus had made their lives new ; how in India the children of the Vedas who had become the children of the Gospels told how Jesus had given them the "stillness of the heart"; how in western Africa the emancipated slaves of a worse than physical slavery shouted with ecstatic joy the praises of a saving Christ, and how from 84 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT his own land all around the world he had heard in every tongue the testimony of the gospel's power to satisfy the soul of man. Sometimes men fear that religion will cease to hold the heart of man. Sometimes they fear that the altars of faith will be deserted, that the sacred books need defense, that the gospel will lose its power. Fear not, my fellow man. The gospel is given to satisfy the fundamental needs of men. The music of redemption will never cease to set the chords of life vibrating. The thunder of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come will never cease to make men tremble. The thoughts of the life to come will never cease to woo. The birdling born in the chill Northland, just after the snows of winter are running away as laughing brooklets, play about the sunny meadows all through the long summer without much care, but grow restless as the leaves begin to fade and fall and days grow dull and chill and the sting of the wind grows sharper. Soon the old haunts no longer look like home and no longer satisfy. Then the call of the Southland, never seen, grows louder and louder in the trembling heart of the bird until one day its timidity be- comes daring, and it flies away and away to the land of perennial summer. Just so the heart of man will always hear the call of the fadeless summertime of the soul. God, and duty, and eternal life correspond to ineradicable native con- stituents of the soul of man. I do not fear that GOSPEL FOR AN AGE OP DOUBT 85 you will not be able to see if you come to Christ ; 1 only fear that you may not come. WHAT IT MEANT TO SEE Philip asked Nathanael to see the Christ, not the disciples; to see the model rather than the copies. The followers of Christ are often like children in school attempting to reproduce in their awkward unskillful lines the picture which the skillful teacher draws in lines of perfect grace. I do not mean to minimize the value of those whom the apostle declared were "living epistles" (thank God! there are myriads of saints who do show forth the likeness of their Lord) but to emphasize the truth that no man can be more than an imperfect copy of his Christ. No man should look at inconsistent Christians who can look at an incomparable Christ. The invitation to come meant to hear Ms words. They are not many. You could read them all in thirty minutes. You can put the entire record of his life as given by Mark, on the front page of the Sunday newspaper. His words hear them. You will discover why they said "Never man spake like this man." He dropped his thought upon the transient air, and as men breathed it they became transformed and transfigured. These words are like cubes of incandescent moral illu- mination. They are dynamic with moral energy. He drops them so quietly we almost wonder at the commotions they arouse. We marvel at the 86 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT transformations they effect. He himself called them leaven to stir up ferment. He called them seeds to bring forth harvests. He called them imperishable. Heaven and earth should pass but not they. He called them keys of privilege "if any man keep my words, he shall ask what he will." They are the ground of our faith, the in- spiration of our morality, the stars of our hope, and the pledge of our immortality. The invitation was to feel his personality. The sunshine needs no argument. It is its own dem- onstration. Christ is his own demonstration. In his presence the confession comes tumultuously from the lips of Nathanael "Rabbi, thou art the the Son of God." Henry Drummond says, "No man can spend five minutes a day in the com- pany of Jesus without the transformation of his life.' The invitation meant a call to an experience with him. This will hold you steady. Do you know why Christians have kept their joy, their faith, their hope, their song, while the scholars have excitedly debated whether Genesis was his- tory, myth, folk lore, poetry? Do you know why it has not seemed to matter whether the Penta- teuch was written in the time of Moses or in the time of Josiah? Do you know why Christians have not been worried greatly over the author- ship of Isaiah or the historicity of the book of Daniel? Because they have made acquaintance with GOSPEL FOR AN AGE OF DOUBT 87 Jesus Christ; because nothing can ever erase from memory what he did for them in the hour when they gave themselves to his guidance and his care; because the most real things and the most satisfying experiences of their lives have flowed from their association with him; because by daily fellowship they had knowledge of him utterly independent of written word, and debates of authorship, and problems of science, and philosophy, and the methods by which worlds were made. What compare all evidences besides the evidence of a spiritual fact which has become the supreme significance of life! They have been steadied in the moment of calamity, they have been comforted in the hour of sorrow, they have been made brave in the hour of danger, they have been exalted in spirit at the expectation of death by the gracious ministry of the spirit of Christ which has come to be their spirit, and the con- sciousness of this spiritual possession has been a perpetual victory and a continual joy. They know that life has been vastly different since the day they came with full purpose of heart to follow Christ. Sorrow, toil, pleasure, ideal, hope, moral character, all have had a glow and warmth and beauty. CLARENCE TRUE WILSON GENERAL SECRETARY, METHODIST TEMPERANCE SOCIETY, TOPEKA, KANSAS Clarence True Wilson was born in Milton, Delaware, on April 12, 1872, and received his education in Washington Academy, Princess Anne, Maryland, and Wilmington Conference Academy of Dover, Delaware. At the age of six- teen, during all his spare time, he was in a law- yer's office and studied Blackstone and Kent's commentaries. Soon after this he was converted and felt himself called to the ministry. A few nights after his conversion he was invited to speak in his church before a crowded audience. A revival started, which resulted in the conver- sion of many. Being called upon for a similar service elsewhere, he was soon in the midst of a marked career as a boy preacher. At the age of seventeen he entered Saint John's College, Annap- olis, Maryland, and served a student charge. At eighteen was ordained deacon and at twenty as elder. From his eighteenth to his twentieth year he served as pastor in the Wilmington and New York East Conferences, where he had an emi- nently successful career. Since 1009 he has been General Secretary of the Methodist Temperance Society. He received his B.A. from the University of Southern California; Ph.B. from San Joaquin Valley College; B.D. from McClay College of Theology, and D.D. from Saint John's College, Maryland. 88 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SIN CLARENCE TRUE WILSON "Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness." 1 John 3. 4 (R. V.). "All unrighteousness is sin." 1 John 5. 17 (R. V.). WHAT would life have been without sin? what the present state of the earth, if Adam and his posterity had remained true to God? What the duration of human existence in this world ? What the nature of our employments here? What our prospective destiny there? Who can tell the essential conditions of our probation or describe the means of our conveyance to glory, had not Satan tempted and had no man sinned? Who can fancy what even our poor world might have been without sin's defilement and death's destruc- tion? None can think of death with any degree of terror if you remove its sting; and all know that the sting of death is sin. What is sin? How did it get here? Why does it remain? Are there serious consequences to follow its commission? This is not the time to discuss the absolute origin of sin. That must re- main a sealed mystery. The keenest intellects have wrestled with the problem and found no end in wandering mazes lost. There are many the- 90 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT ories metaphysical, dualistic, materialistic; but upon these we have not time to dwell. The origin of sin in the human race comes within the limits of our knowledge, for it is accounted for in the Bible. The historical character of the earlier chapters of Genesis is denied by some ; yet the truth of its principles and facts is vouched for by the New Testament and by all experience. Man in the image of God, a personal being, and placed under the law of probation, that he may rise from simple innocence to free obedience and positive righteousness, sins and falls under condemnation and penalty. Thus the poisoned fountain of moral evil is opened in the world, and its streams are universal in the human race. That sin is here no one doubts. As to how it came I would rather take the statement of the God who knows than the guess of any man. The Bible records the facts and gives us the prin- ciples. Its first chapters show us man as a copy of his Creator. This has relation to his nature and in a sense to his character. Take the great doctrine of the Trinity, why deny that as impos- sible to God, while conscious of the threefold nature of man? How clear the Scriptures make this matter! They teach that man has a body (Greek, soma) ; and a mind (Greek, psyche), from which we get our word "psychology" the science which treats of the soul ; but he is a Spirit ( Greek, pneuma) . How many blunders in biblical CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SIN 91 interpretation are made by failing to recognize this threefold nature? Certainly, our resemblance to Deity goes this far: as God is a Spirit, man is a spirit possessed of intellect, sensibility, and will. With such a personality God destined us to be free. He gave us the power of volition and the law of choice. And the clearest idea of sin is found in defining it to be the abuse of moral freedom. The Christian idea of sin is a theistic concep- tion. It includes the idea of God and our re- lation to him. It differs in this from all other religions. Without the idea of God there can be no such thing as sin in the Christian sense. There may be the conception of evil, vice, and crime; and these enter into the thought of sin, but are apart from the idea of God; they do not consti- tute it. "Evil" is a generic term expressive of conditions which wrong the sentiments of man- kind. Vice is the ethical idea of a violation of right, and is treated by those who consider public morals. Crime is a civil term for an offense against the government. But sin is the transgres- sion of the known will of God. It may consist of a commission, where, by an overt act, a divine law is violated, or an omission where a rule of duty is neglected. There are sins against one's self (Num. 16. 38; Acts 16. 28) and against one's fellow creature (Gen. 42. 22; Matt. 18. 21), but all sin is primarily an offense against God (Deut. 20. 18). 92 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT How vividly did Joseph realize this truth ! Who does not recall with admiration his reply to his tempter "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" It was the sense of God's presence and relation which over- whelmed David with conscious guilt. He had committed an awful crime. One wrong Jed to another. Falling into deep vice, he realized his situation and in deep contrition confessed, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight." He saw that he was separated from God, the soul's Sun, around which we were made to revolve in orderly pro- cession. No wonder he recognized his unfitness to approach the Deity, and cried : "Hide thy face from my sin, and blot out my transgression. Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me." While it is true that God made us free, it is no less true that he had a noble purpose for each life. The psalmist in the same confession said, "Behold thou desirest truth in the inner parts, and in the hidden parts thou wilt make me to know wisdom," and declared that when cleansed and restored, "Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee." Here he shows that the divine purpose for each life is first true character and then noble service. Every man's life is a plan of God with a high aim, but sin is a missing of the mark. Sin is the act of the intelligent, moral creature. CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SIN 93 Its center and source is the will. As such it is an act of selfishness. Ceasing to acknowledge God as the central source of love and authority, who ought to be obeyed, the sinner becomes him- self a center and source of conduct and life. Thus the divine order for man's life is broken, and man, the sinner, shapes his own ends according to his own will. The prodigal son gathered his portion together and took his journey into a far coun- try, and there wasted his substance with riotous living pure selfishness. Sin is lawlessness, for the selfish life means riot, vice, crime, and op- position to law. But when the prodigal came to himself he returned with correct views of sin and, therefore, of repentance: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." This relation of sin to God is illustrated by the familiar story of the father who took his child, a Sunday school boy, on an expedition of theft. When they came to their neighbor's fruit tree and were about to fill the bag, the thief carefully looked round to every point of the compass and put forth his hand to pluck the ripened fruit, when the child's voice startled him with, "Father, you forgot to look up." And it is just this leaving God aut of the account which constitutes sin. There are men with scholastic tendencies, who, always getting out of practical problems by ask- ing theoretic questions, inquire, "Is sin a reality?" I reply that reality is not limited to entities. All 94 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT reality may be distributed under three categories, namely, substance, attributes, and relations. Sin is not a substance; it takes nothing from and adds nothing to the material of the universe ; nor is it an attribute, being rather an act than a characteristic of humanity ; yet it is a reality and not a mere negative. It sets up a false and wrong relation toward God, fellow creature, and self. It is a reality, an evil reality of being in a wrong attitude toward God, toward nature, and toward goodness. The Bible always treats of sin as a serious mat- ter. It names it, "an offense to God," "trespass," an "iniquity," "a transgression," a "want of con- formity," "lawlessness," "unrighteousness." As to its properties, we are told it is wrong, vile, foolish, dangerous, ruinous, exceeding sinful. It is illustrated by comparing it to an unfruitful vine, an unfaithful steward, ungrateful children, harlotry, a "sow wallowing in the mire," a "dog returning to his vomit." God gives his warning of its end in clear revelations, marvelous retri- butions, the mutterings of conscience, the course of Providence, some death-bed scenes, and the divine character. It is such a real experience that God and man must reckon with it. Sin is the act of rebellion against the law and love of God. In God love and law are one, and our relation to him and abhorrence of lawlessness should be such that we could not think of despising either his government or his heart. CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SIN 95 The true aim of our being is communion with God as Father and obedience to God as Sovereign. He is the center to which in love and obedience we were made to gravitate, and around whom as the true orbit of the moral universe we should revolve. Saint Augustine said: "O, God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are rest- less until they rest in thee." And the poet asserts, "Our wills are ours to make them thine." But our Father thus complains, "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me" (Isa. 1. 2). "My people have com- mitted two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water" (Jer. 2. 13). Sin is selfish because it ignores God; lawless because it rebels against him. All unrighteousness is sin, because it sepa- rates from God, and ruinous because by it we miss the true end for which we were created. Such a life is self -destructive. Were you ever stung by a bee? It hurt for a moment, possibly for an hour; but the bee was ruined. It lost its sting and went off to die as the result of stinging you. God has so ordered it that we can sting him to the very heart, "But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul," "They that regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy." The consequences of sin against God are four: First, guilt, desert of punishment, exposure to 96 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT penalty. Law is a necessity of things, and pen- alty is a necessity of law. Here conscience as- serts its functions and power, taking peace from the soul and at' times slumber from the eyes. There is the sense of separation from God, of loss and pain. Guilt at its height wrings from the soul the cry, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ?" It was the confession of Joseph's brethren. "We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he be- sought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us." It was this that made Felix tremble before Paul's reasoning, and suggested to Herod that Jesus might be John the Baptist risen from the dead. Second, depravity. The entail of sin is a de- praved condition of the whole man, that vitiates the entire life. It is this that gives such terrible effect to what we call habit in the case of those who go aside from the path of obedience. I will not enter into the difficult doctrine of depravity, but whatever it is, sin is the cause. There is a special theory of the theologians re- specting native depravity called original sin, a term first used by Tertullian, one of the Latin Fathers in the early years of the third century. This theory is of several types. The Augustinian says that all men sinned in Adam; the Federal declares that Adam stood for the race, and so the guilt of his sin was imputed to the race. The CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SIN 97 Pelagian, ancient and modern, denies both these, and asserts that Adam rendered himself alone guilty, and that all men are born pure as Adam was before the fall. The truth lies midway be- tween these extremes. The theories based on the laws of heredity and race solidarity are less stern than the first and less loose than the last. No one, of course, was guilty of Adam's sin but him- self, for guilt cannot be transferred or trans- mitted, but all suffer because he sinned. And the principles of heredity and solidarity of humanity, with which science is now at work, explain and bear out such Scriptures as 1 Cor. 15. 22; Rom. 5. 12. Paul, in treating of sin and its consequences, certainly accepted the doctrine of race heredity and solidarity; yet he never hints at the mon- strous teaching that any soul goes to perdition through Adam's sin. While it is true that sin reigned in death from Adam until Moses, yet sin is not imputed where there is no law. Left to it- self, the human will tends to sin, and without the aid of the Holy Spirit falls into condemnation. But there is a great contrast between Adam's offense and God's gift of mercy. For if, owing to the offense of one man, the whole race died, it is still more certain that God's mercy and the gift given in his mercy, which found expression in the true man, Jesus Christ, were lavished upon the whole race (Rom. 5. 15). The real depravity to be feared is the kind that is brought on our- 98 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT selves. Our own sins have poisoned our moral nature. Every sin adds to the force of a bad habit. Heredity has weakened but practice has ruined us. Third, slavery. Paul's personification of sin as a tyrant, whose chains no man can break without God's help, is clearly expressed in Romans, first to eighth chapters. This gives further and most impressive illustration of the power of habit. The bondage of sin must be recognized before it can be broken. The mission of the spirit is to awaken to a consciousness of sin. All forms of religion or philanthropy that ignore or touch lightly the evil of sin are weak in their power to reach and help a needy world. This is the weakness of Buddhism, Confucianism, Mohammedanism, and the merely ethical cults of our Christianity. Sor- row, fate, and natural consequences are all they see, but sin is the bitter root whence all this evil fruit springs. Guilt, depravity, bondage, death this is the crop of sin's own planting. Read the seventh chapter of Romans and see the picture of an earnest and honest Pharisee trying to dis- entangle himself from these consequences. In Brazil there is a common plant which forest dwellers call the Metador, or Murderer. Its slender stem creeps at first along the ground, but no sooner does it meet a vigorous tree than with clinging grasp it cleaves to it and climbs it, and as it climbs keeps at short intervals sending out short arm-like tendrils that embrace the tree. CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SIN 99 As it ascends, these ligatures grow larger and clasp tighter. Up it climbs, a hundred feet, or two hundred feet if need be, until the last, the loftiest, spire is gained and fettered. Then, as if in triumph, the parasite shoots a huge flowery head above the strangled summit and thence from the dead tree's crown scatters its seed to do again its work of death. So does sin grow and grip, fasten and fetter its hapless victims. It sprung up into the garden of delight and has spread through the ages since. DEATH is A RESULT OF SIN Man was made for immortality. This is im- plied in his constitution as personal, in the image of God. The purpose of redemption in Christ is a complete confirmation of this; soul and body shall bear the image of Christ (Phil. 3. 20, 21; 1 Cor. 15. 42). Looking at the universality of sin and its ap- palling power, Huxley, the great scientist, said, "If some friendly comet would fall upon our earth, and wipe off man, it would be a blessing." But I am old-fashioned enough to believe that man was meant for life, and not for death ; that had not sin come in, the tree of life meant special immunity from death. If man was created for all he is capable of being, he was intended for im- mortality. That the human body is of the animal kingdom and subject to the same law of deterioration, 100 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT death and dissolution as other animals cannot be denied, but man as man does not belong to the animal kingdom (Gen. 2. 7). On visiting a school the German emperor asked a child, "How many kingdoms are there?" "Three: the mineral, the vegetable and the animal." "Which one do I belong to?" Said the little girl, "The kingdom of heaven, sire." And in the case of man's body there was special immunity from death guaranteed in the tree of life. His probation ended, there would have been a painless transition to a higher state. But sin canceled that special immunity in the case of all men, and only in Christ is there re- covery of the high distinction to which man was destined from the first. II. PUGET SOUND A. W. LEONARD FIRST CHURCH, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON A. W. Leonard is the son of Dr. Adna B. Leonard who for twenty-four years so efficiently served the church as corresponding secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions. The subject of this sketch received his education in the follow- ing institutions : New York University ( B. A. ) ; Drew Theological Seminary (B.D.) ; and Ohio Northern University (D.D.). Within a few weeks after the signing of the Protocol in Porto Rico, he entered the mission work of our church under the direction of Dr. Frease, of South America, and organized the First Methodist Episcopal Church of San Juan (English). He also started a church among the English-speaking colored people in Puerta de Terra just outside San Juan. In 1901 he became the pastor of the English-speaking church in Rome, Italy, and taught in the Theological School of the same place. He has served the following appointments: Green Village, New Jersey; First Church, San Juan, Porto Rico; First Church, Rome, Italy; Grace. Church, Pique, Ohio; Central Church, Springfield, Ohio; Walnut Hills Church, Cincin- nati, Ohio; and is now serving his fifth year as pastor of the First Church, Seattle, Washington. 102 LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN A. W. LEONARD "Wherefore it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren." Heb. 2. 17. once said that "as Jesus shows God to man, so he exhibits man to God." In Jesus Christ God is revealed to man and man is revealed in Christ. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews says, "In all things . . . like unto his brethren." John states the same truth (only) in a different way when he says, "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us"; or, better still, "The Word be- came flesh and tabernacled among us." "Like unto his brethren made flesh." Wondrous state- ment, more wondrous truth. "Like unto his brethren." He had a human mother. A mother's oldest son was killed in the Civil War. The younger children heard stories from her lips of his greatness and of his devotion to his country. She loved to tell her neighbors and her friends of this noble son. More than that, it was her custom frequently to gather the younger children about her and tell them of the noble life their soldier brother had lived. It was 103 104 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT but natural, it was human. In the same way we may think of Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was the friend of our Lord's original apostles and disciples, and after his crucifixion made her home with the apostle John. It is only natural to think of her as telling her relatives and friends the things which for years she kept secret, "pon- dering, them in her heart." From her they would learn with freshness of meaning how the angel came to her at Nazareth and told her that she was to have a Son who was to be "great" and that he would "be called the Son of the Most High," and that he would become the inheritor of the throne of his father, David. She would tell how upon her the Holy Ghost descended and the "power of the Most High overshadowed her," and that her Child would be "called Holy, the Son of God." And then, there was the story of the shepherds who were keeping watch over their flocks by night, when they saw the glory of God and heard a heavenly messenger tell them that there had been born that day "in the city of David, a Saviour which is Christ the Lord." A little later they heard "a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men/ >! She would tell them of the wise men, a story already very familiar to them, but undoubtedly she re- peated it again and again. She would tell how they came from the East guided by the light of a star, and that when they found her Child wor- LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN 105 shiped him as the King of the Jews and offered him gifts, "gold, frankincense, and myrrh." Nor did she forget to tell them how he might have perished with other children under two years of age in Bethlehem and its neighborhood, but for the warning which Joseph had received from God "Take the young child and his mother and flee to Egypt." She would tell how he grew from infancy to childhood, and from childhood to youth, and also how he grew in favor both with God and man. There were also his relatives and his two brothers, James and Jude, who became his disciples after his resurrection ; and the people would remember that he was one of themselves, for when he began to teach in the synagogue in which he worshiped as a child, they said, "Is not this Jesus, and was not his father Joseph?" "Like unto his brethren." That is, none of the characteristics of "his brethren" were lacking. In other words, in Christ Jesus there were present all the characteristics of humanity. The apostles were convinced that he had flesh and blood like their own. He was sensitive to life's pleasures and pains. When he was returning with his dis- ciples from Bethany, the day after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the record states that "he was hungry." Wearied with his journey, he sat on the side of Jacob's Well. In crossing the sea of Galilee with his disciples, he slept so soundly that the waves of the sftorm-tossed sea did not wake him. At the grave of Lazarus he wept. A 106 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT woman, a sinner, washed his feet with her tears, and another woman, Mary of Bethany, poured precious ointment upon his head and upon his feet. The traitor kissed him, nails pierced his hands and his feet, the sword pierced his side, and after his crucifixion his body was laid in a tomb, and Nicodemus and others of his friends brought spices to do honor to the body of Jesus, according to the custom of the times. "He was made like unto his brethren." Furthermore, he also had a mind subject to the limitations which he himself imposed. Many find difficulty at this point. Let it never be forgotten that our Lord did not cease to be the Eternal Son when he became flesh and dwelt among us. He knew the Father as no one else knew him. Al- though he possessed extraordinary power, this did not obliterate the limitations of his intellectual life. Many references to his own words and to circumstances in his life stand as proof of this statement. For example, "He hungered," and "seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came if haply he might find anything thereon." He did not know that the fig tree was without fruit until he came near to it. Concerning his return to this world, he himself said, "Of that day and hour, knowerth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only." "He was made like unto his brethren." In no other way could God have revealed himself to man. In be- coming flesh, in becoming "like unto his brethren," LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN 107 he did not lay aside the essential facts of his deity. He simply changed the form of manifesta- tion. The Son was always the manifestation of the Father. What that manifestation was in the past it is impossible to say, for it has not been revealed to the finite mind. Of this we are cer- tain, however, that he was the Word the method of communication with the Eternal God. What- ever the form was, he laid it aside for the purpose of redemption and took on a new form of mani- festation. It was a form upon which man might, look and by which they might come to a clearer knowledge of the Eternal God. Could we penetrate the mysteries of the Godhead, we should see that the Son was the perpetual medium of divine expression. In becoming flesh he took on a form possible of comprehension by man. He passed from the heavenly to the earthly, from the infinite to the finite. He passed from government to obedience, from independent cooperation with the Deity to dependent submission to the will of God. It has been well said: "Never before the Eternal Word became man did God stand among his creatures as one of themselves, walk along the planes by which they travel, and bear the necessary limita- tions of created nature." "It behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren." Being "made like unto his brethren," he was the sympathetic Man. The world craves sympathy. One of the most lonely beings in the world is the 108 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT person for whom no one has any sympathy. We all crave it. We want those who will sympathize with us in our sorrows. We want the touch of human sympathy when the experiences of life weigh us down and our souls are overwhelmed by some unexpected crucial test. In the lonely night of sorrow when God takes from us a loved one, or a friend proves untrue, or a son or a daughter yields to the tinsel attractions of sin, or when a fortune is suddenly lost, when sickness comes, or other things take place that depress and dis- courage us, we reach out for and respond to sym- pathy. This is only human, this is but natural. He who craves no one's sympathy in the hard and trying experiences of life is abnormal. If, how- ever, sympathy is to do us the greatest good, it must be real. Not only must it be genuine sym- pathy, but if it would count for most, it is neces- sary that sympathy shall be expressed by one who has himself passed through the same experience that we are passing through. A friend of mine once told me of an experience he had as a pastor. He was calling on a grief- stricken mother, whose wayward daughter was brought back to the old home dead. The mother's heart was not only broken, but the terrific sorrow had crushed it, and the woman seemed to be as one in a dream. It was a sorrow too deep for tears, it was a wound for which there was apparently no balm of healing. Friends and pastor had come to express their sympathy. Their kind words were LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN 109 greatly appreciated. Their tears of sympathy did not fall -unobserved. From that woman, how- ever, there came no sigh, and no tear dimmed her eye. There was no convulsion of grief, she sat beside her sinful daughter's dead body like a statue. While my friend was in the room en- deavoring to comfort her, a lady, modest and re- fined in appearance and bearing, entered the door and was immediately recognized by the grief- stricken mother. She at once drew up a chair beside her, but said not a word. Neither one spoke. In a moment the arm of the new comer was affectionately placed around the waist of the other. She did not say a word, but she did put her face close to the face of the woman whose daughter lay dead, and wept. Soon the entire bearing of the mother had noticeably changed. Gracious tears came and she found almost imme- diate relief. The secret of it was that this other woman had passed through an identical sorrow, and when she entered the room she did not have to speak in order to express her sympathy because she had passed through the same sad experience. She knew, and therefore could sympathize in a way which was impossible to others. "We have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet with- out sin." In these words, the sacred writer tells us that sympathy lies at the root of Christ's effi- ciency as our Saviour, his ability to succor the 110 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT tempted springs out of his own experience of temptation and the conquest of it. Sympathy is sometimes the best aid we can receive. To be understood and considered, to have appreciation and hope spent upon us is more than one half the battle. Carlyle was at one time strongly tempted to give up striving for success in literature. He wrote to a friend, "No periodical editor wants me; no man will give me money for my work; despicablest fears of coming to absolute beggary besiege me." His "Sartor" was pronounced by one "clotted nonsense," but at this critical junc- ture he received a letter from some friend recog- nizing its merit and this one voice renewed Car- lyle's strength. After receiving the letter Carlyle wrote, "One mortal, then, says I am not utterly wrong; blessings on him for it." But for this concrete expression of sympathy and belief in Carlyle, the world might have lost the rich con- tributions of this man of genius. This is one part of the aid which Christ's sym- pathy brings to us. He believes in us. When others shake their heads and tell us it is no use to try, he speaks to us in our night of despondency and discouragement and tells us we may succeed. Jesus could not become our Saviour if he did not know from personal experience what is involved in turning from sin, in restraining the flesh, and in forswearing the world. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews assures us that the sym- LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN 111 pathy of Christ is due to the fact that he was "tempted in all points like as we are,' 7 and that he was "made like unto his brethren." Before leaving the subject of temptation, let us not forget that it is not a sin to be tempted, but that sin begins when temptation is cherished, in- dulged in, and consented to. Because he was made like unto his brethren, our Lord's resistance to temptation was a human resistance. He achieved his victory by the means which are open to all. This makes him a brother to everyone. It is a mistake to suppose that the most violent temptations are those which appeal to evil pas- sions. The strength of temptation depends upon the strength of the feelings appealed to. The finer the nature, the finer the temptation. There- fore, Christ with his sinless human nature suf- fered the whole round of temptation exquisitely. And he suffered for us. "He was made like unto his brethren." Jesus is the Race-Man because he has passed through all the experiences of life ; because he was tempted in all points like as we are; because he was made like unto his brethren." The depth and fullness of his sympathy leaps all barriers. Jowett has observed that we confine our sympathy within severe conventional limits. He says: "It is often like a lake in a private park, and not like the stream which weds together the private park and the village green. It is often the dialect of the hamlet rather than the speech of the people." 112 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT This is true, and if we stop to think seriously, we shall see that most human sympathy is narrow and circumscribed. It goes out to relatives, friends of a restricted circle, or to the community, the commonwealth, or possibly the nation. But where is one who carries in his heart the sorrow for the world? Where is there one whose sym- pathy is big enough to be world inclusive? Thank God, there is one. It is he who "was made like unto his brethren," whose sympathy is always at flood tide, for the sympathy of Christ knows no racial boundaries or limitations. Caste and class are carried away in the boundlessness of Christ's overflowing sympathy. Frederick W. Robertson in one of his most en- during and soul-gripping sermons entitled "The Human Race Typified by the Man of Sorrows," said, in referring to the world-sympathy of Christ, that it is implied in his self-chosen title, namely, "The Son of man." He calls attention to the two aspects in which we may consider the Redeemer of the world. We may think of him as Christ or we may think of him as the "Son of man." When we think of him as the Christ he stands before us as God claiming our admiration; but he says: "When we think of him in that character in which he so loved to describe himself, as the Son of man, he stands before us as a type or specimen of the whole human race. As if the blood of the whole race were in his veins, he calls himself the Son of man. There is a universality in the character LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN 113 of Christ which you find in the character of no other man. Translate the words of Christ into what country's language you will, he might have been the offspring of that country. Date them by what century of the world you will, they be- long to that century as much as to any other. There is nothing of nationality about Christ; there is nothing of that personal peculiarity which we call idiosyncrasy ; there is nothing peculiar to any particular age of the world. He was not the Asiatic. He was not the European. He was not the Jew. He was not the mechanic. He was not the aristocrat. He was the Son of man. He is the child of every age and every nation. His was a life world-wide. His was a heart pulsating with the blood of the human race. He claimed for his ancestry the collective myriads of mankind. Emphatically he was the Son of man." Such an one is our human yet divine Lord. Let your mind and intellect conceive of the highest natural potentialities of the human race and you will be compelled to conclude that it could never have produced a Jesus Christ. Such as he is from above. Long before the ascension there was a condescension. He "became flesh" and "dwelt among us." He was "made like unto his brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make pro- pitiation for the sins of the people." JOSEPH P. MAKLATT FIRST CHURCH, EVERETT, WASHINGTON The subject of this sketch was born May 23, 1857, near Sewickley, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Darlington Academy, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Afterward he graduated from Allegheny College at Meadville, Pennsylvania, in 1882, and later pursued a postgraduate course in history and philosophy, receiving the degree of Ph.D. in 1893. Carleton College bestowed upon him the hon- orary degree of Doctor of Divinity. He entered the Saint Louis Conference in March, 1883, and retained his membership therein for eleven years. In September, 1894, Bishop Joyce transferred him to the Puget Sound Con- ference and stationed him at First Church, Ta- coma, Washington. After five years' pastorate he was transferred to Pittsburgh Conference, where he served five years and then returned to Puget Sound Conference. In September, 1908, he was appointed superintendent of Seattle Dis- trict, and after having served it the full legal term, was assigned to the pastorate of the First Church, Everett, Washington, in September, 1914. He was elected as delegate to the General Conference of 1912 and is a member of the Freed- men's Aid, and Home and Foreign Missionary Boards. 114 CHRISTIAN CERTITUDE JOSEPH P. MARLATT "Hereby we do know that we know him." 1 John 2. 3. THE First Epistle of John was written with one purpose, that they who "believe on the name of the Son of God may know that they have eternal life." In it the apostle becomes, by preeminence, the preacher of certainty in religious experience; of a reasonable confidence in Christian life, faith, and knowledge. It is not infallibility in judg- ment and opinion he preaches, but that the facts of Christian experience and consciousness are re- liable, sure, and satisfactory to the person passing through them. He proclaims the high privilege of a life upon earth to be delivered from doubts and fears as to being in a condition of acceptability with God, of a mind satisfied by its own con- sciousness of a work of grace preparing it for the society and enjoyment of God and the redeemed. It is to this theme of Christian experience we now direct our attention. Webster thus defines experience: "Practical acquaintance with any matter by personal observation or trial of it, or the like." While it may thus have a use in rela- tion to external objects, in religious life, it is a 115 116 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT word applied to the states of the soul, the inner works of divine grace, and our consciousness of these facts. Here it has reference to every feeling of need, temptation, danger, and weakness in re- gard to sin, and a knowledge of all our acts of will, and of divine help by which these evil con- ditions are remedied and a new life of faith and purity is made to ensue, grow, and continue. In regard to things outside of ourselves experience results from experiment, but in regard to internal facts experience results from consciousness. Re- ligious experience is nearly always of the latter sort. There is such a thing as religious experience. Christianity is experimental as well as practical ; its effects are a matter of consciousness more than they are of observation ; it begins its work within before it is seen by men, and therefore in its be- ginning it is almost wholly a matter of experience. The Bible emphasizes the experimental character of Christianity. "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Rom. 8. 16). "Our rejoicing is this, the testi- mony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world" (2 Cor. 1. 12). "Hereby we know that we dwell in him, . . . because he hath given us of his Spirit" ( 1 John 4. 13 ) . "Hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us" (1 John 3. 24). Thus, in addition to CHRISTIAN CERTITUDE 117 their reasonableness and the possibility of their scientific demonstration, our Christian hopes may be fortified by Christian experience. Millions of honest, reliable, and intelligent men and women assert they have spiritual experiences of definite works of grace in their souls which are like inner fountains to their lives and conduct. They understand what an experience means, they are capable of judging of their own states of mind and soul, and their testimony is in .harmony with their uniform character of truthfulness. In ad- dition to this the results from these professed ex- periences are just such as we might reasonably expect to see if they were real, and their lives have just such effect upon us as we might expect from men having such experiences. If the ex- periences were not real, or were not Christian and saving, some person or persons passing through them could suggest a reasonable or probable ex- planation of their character ; but the testimony is universal as to their reality and genuineness, as well as to their Christian, moral, and helpful char- acter. Such testimony so thoroughly agreeing with the Bible, must be infallibly true; Chris- tianity must be experimental, it must be a matter of consciousness as well as of belief and observa- tion. Spiritual experiences cannot be explained to those outside the circle of those experiences. They are only perfectly intelligible to those who pass through them. Indeed, this is true of all experi- 118 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT ence. Pain is not learned by definition, but by feeling it. If there were a heart never thrilled by love it would be as incapable of understanding the principle as a savage raised in equatorial Africa would be incapable of understanding what we mean by an iceberg. Experience is its own in- terpreter, and life is the only medium of com- munication. In his lectures on "Christian Ex- perience" Bishop Foster uses these words : "I was never so impressed with this fact and its im- portance as during the preparation of these lec- tures. Certain passages of Scripture have come to have an emphasis of meaning which I had not before discovered in them. The natural man re- ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned.' 'It is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them [that are with- out] it is not given.' 'Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.' The import of which is, spiritual experiences cannot be appre- hended by unspiritualized minds. To speak of them to such is to speak in a practically unknown tongue. The spiritual man lives in a world of spiritual things which to him is perfectly plain, but which is wholly foreign to the unspiritualized mind." As in all other lines of life, there are varieties and degrees of experience, so is it in Christian experience. There is almost infinite difference be- CHRISTIAN CERTITUDE 119 tween the experiences of conviction and of recon- ciliation to God. Equally true is the difference between faith and love, forgiveness and sanctifi- cation; each experience has its own distinct, un- varying character. There is also difference in degree. We realize that our faith is mightier at some times than others; our zeal varies in ar- dency; perfect love may put God absolutely on the throne, and lay everything at his feet, and yet it is more productive of joy and delight at some times than others. Even perfect, or trium- phant, faith will have more glory in it at some times than others, will have more extensive and luminous views of God, of his power, mercy, and glory, and of the beauty and holiness of his king- dom. There will be a consciousness of variation in the naturalness of humility, of an interest in the salvation of men, of delight in the word of God and the means of grace, of tenderness of feeling and sympathy, of power in prayer; yet none of the graces are ever absent from the devoted Chris- tian. It is only a variation of intensity. It is like the light at dawn or eventime or on a cloudy day ; it is not so clear, yet there is light with the assurance that we will have full light after awhile. These variations need bring no fear or anxiety, for we are to "walk by faith and not by sight." Usually they are the result of physical and earthly conditions, and will occur without any moral or religious failing upon our part, and without any lack of divine blessing. 120 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT One experience may beget another; indeed, there may be a succession of numerous experi- ences, one growing out of another. In this sense there are primary and secondary experiences. For instance, the experience of pardon is primary, the resulting emotion of joy is secondary. Both are real experiences, but the joy and emotion could not come without the experience of pardon. As the floodgate must be opened before the mill race can be filled, and the mill race must be filled before the water wheel can turn, and the water wheel must turn before the machinery can be put in motion, so conviction must precede repentance, repentance must precede conversion, and conver- sion must precede a useful religious life. Each of these experiences is in a sense secondary to its predecessor, for after repentance the other ex- periences follow as religious necessities, yet each may produce resulting emotions and effects which are in the best sense secondary. The primary are complete in themselves, the secondary are not necessary to them, yet the primary are necessary to the secondary. So then conviction, repentance, conversion, and the Christian life resulting are primary, they are the necessary transforming facts of experience. The great question now comes up, What is matter of experience in Christian life? It must suffice here to simply enumerate the facts. There are seven facts of experience necessary to the be- ginning of a Christian life : 1. Divine illumination, CHRISTIAN CERTITUDE 121 or a knowledge of sin and holiness which God im- presses upon the conscience of man. 2. Convic- tion, or the personal knowledge of being a sinner and under condemnation. 3. Invitation, a desire for and a consciousness that we ought to take up a holy life and that God calls us to such a life. 4. Repentance, or a godly sorrow for sin and a forsaking of the same. 5. Faith. 6. Regeneration. 1. Adoption, or a consciousness that God accepts us to be his children. Of course these are not all the facts of experience, for many will follow these; every divine blessing, every act of faith, love, or consecration and sacrifice, growth and sanctification, will be matter of experience, and they all belong to the Christian life, which is a conscious life a life which we are conscious of as being Christian, however much it may be modi- fied by our varying faithfulness. These seven enumerated facts are preliminary and necessary to all that may succeed ; there is no Christian life, no growth, no sanctification, without them. The succeeding blessings may be more or less numer- ous, and more or less satisfactory, but they can- not exist or come unless these precede. These make the approach, and the golden gate that ad- mit us to the temple; these are the beginning of life. Is experience reliable as a basis of Christian hope? In other words, are the experiences of the human soul facts, and is our consciousness a suffi- cient witness? Is this the highest type of knowl- 122 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT edge? Dare we rest content with it? Is it cer- tain, unfailing, sure? First. All consider experience the most reliable knowledge. Even in the sense of experiment, ex- perience has been the best source of science and civilization ; but in the sense of consciousness men have seldom been inclined to call their experiences into question. They are the bases of human ac- tion. On the one hand, love builds homes, creates friendships, founds nations, makes philanthropists, inspires heroes, and brightens the roughest human characters as the rainbow does the storm-cloud. On the other hand, hate begets misery, war, cruelty, murder, and withers the life of the hater. Both are real, both are mighty, both are experi- ences in the souls of those under their influence. No person denies their reality. While other ex- periences may not be so decisive and clear to all, I apprehend there would be no dispute as to their being facts; the only question liable to be raised would be as to their interpretation. If we deny consciousness, then we deny all reality; and few would dare go so far in their assertions, and none in their practical conduct. Second. What we acquire by consciousness and experience we know we are certain about. In the language of our text, "We know that we know it." It is knowledge about which we do not raise questions. The element of probability is sup- planted by absolute certainty. The facts of ex- perience are the only absolute certainties in our CHRISTIAN CERTITUDE 123 lives. If a man may not trust these, then he dare not believe he is alive; everything is an illusion. Who dare take the responsibility of such a con- clusion against the universal judgment of man- kind? Yet we may very properly disagree as to the conclusions or deductions drawn from our ex- periences. They are real, yet we may be mistaken as to their character or meaning. Knowledge is necessary to interpret their meaning. For in- stance, if we want to determine when our experi- ences are Christian, we must understand what end it works before we can come to a proper con- clusion we must understand what is matter of Christian experience. We are still men, and are sure to have experiences common or possible to men who are not Christians. It often happens that some consider dreams, trances, faints, ecstasies, and emotions to be Christian, whereas they are quite common to men of all nations, times, and characters, and have been excited by every sort of cause, delusions as well as realities. They may be a secondary experience connected with a real Christian experience, but they are not necessarily Christian, and may be dangerous and lead us astray. Third. In the third place, a fact is the same in the experience of all men passing through it, and it is the same with every repetition to an in- dividual. That is, they all know it to be the same fact, to possess the same characteristics. Repeti- 124 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT tion may increase our faith but it does not change the fact. Anything that appears different at dif- ferent times and to different individuals cannot be an object of complete experience. It is only partially known, it lies partly beyond the range of consciousness, it belongs to the world of mystery, which touches us so often in a faint man- ner at many points and from which we re- ceive so many dim glints of light, yet without satisfaction. A real fact must be essentially the same with every repetition, and must be essen- tially the same to all men having the experience. What there may be outside the world of our con- sciousness we do not know; we wonder at the faint light we get, but we must depend upon and live by what we do know and what we can know. Now, in order to determine when an experience is Christian we have certain tests which we can apply. Such tests do not prove that the experi- ence is not true; they only settle the question whether it is a Christian experience, whether it is a result of the operation of some law of the Chris- tian religion, whether it accomplishes the aim of Christianity. 1. The experience must produce a moral effect. All Christianity has an ethical aim, and complete holiness is its goal. This tendency is so natural that the Bible calls it the "fruit of the Spirit" (Gal. 5. 22, 23). It informs us emphatically that the opposite, unrighteousness, shall not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6. 9, 10). This is CHRISTIAN CERTITUDE 125 generally observed, in that those who profess a Christian experience are morally affected in their motives and conduct. 2. The experience must be biblical. That is, it must be in harmony with the teachings of the Scriptures, and the result of some act therein de- scribed or commanded as a Christian act, and produce a result of like character. Not all that is called Christian is so, and this is as true in con- sciousness as it is in conduct. 3. It must have power to abide, to become a permanent force in character. I do not mean that we must always feel the same way, but the con- sciousness of a certain fact abiding in our char- acter, molding, directing, and inspiring it must be present with us. When a sense of forgiveness is gone it is time to do over the works of repent- ance. While it is true we can lose the experience, yet it is also true that it is not a Christian ex- perience unless it can abide as long as we meet the conditions that brought it. This brings us back again to the idea of a primary, or essential, experience, and a secondary or nonessential ex- perience. Of the last sort are all emotions, ner- vousness, trances, visions, fainting, jerks, and other phenomena, that are always ephemeral, and produce no permanent effect in character unless it be fanaticism. These depend much on external and physical conditions, which are not essentials in spiritual experiences. 4. Such an experience produces a Christliness 126 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT of character. This effect will become constantly more prominent; "He is the way, the truth, the life" in the whole matter. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." In other words, to feel his saving power and be trans- formed into his likeness, "being changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 5. All such experiences are a result of the will, acting with the divine agencies. This is a never-failing test. There is no Christian trans- formation of character, no divine blessing of any sort, given to man unless it is preceded by some act of volition on the part of the recipient. Others may be accidental, but Christian experiences never are. Conviction, repentance, faith, forgiveness, regeneration, consecration, growth, sanctification, all are preceded by a definite act of will ; they are deliberately and intentionally sought. The will does not create them; it only assists the divine agencies; it opens the door for the experience to enter. God always respects man's freedom of choice ; to violate the will means to destroy man's character as a moral agent, and Christian experi- ence and character would no longer be a possi- bility. So these experiences are free and volun- tary ; we may admit or exclude them at will. Now let us summarize. Christianity is a mat- ter of experience as well as practice; millions attest the fact; they find joy and comfort in it CHRISTIAN CERTITUDE 127 and are transformed by it. While we need to be guarded against supposing an ordinary physical or emotional excitement to be a Christian experi- ence, yet we can rely upon the facts of spiritual consciousness ; we know that they are true, abso- lutely so. We have sufficient light to interpret the facts of Christian consciousness and not con- found them with anything merely sensational or physical. They become thus not only an evidence of Christianity, but a high privilege of every Christian, an element which gives to life certainty and joy, the glory of which can make luminous the darkest days and sweeten the bitterest sor- rows of life. This is the distinctive privilege of Christian life "We know that we know." Yes, thank God, we "know in whom we have believed." We are "persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus the Lord." "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dis- solved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." EDWARD H. TODD PRESIDENT, COLLEGE OF PUGET SOUND, TACOMA, WASHINGTON Edward H. Todd is the product of a Methodist parsonage and a native of Iowa. His father was a member of the Des Moines Conference for twenty-two years and died when Edward was sixteen years of age. Graduated from Simpson College, receiving therefrom the degrees of B.S., M.S., and D.D., and the degree of S.T.B. from Boston University School of Theology. After graduation from Boston, he served pas- torates at Oaksdale and Colfax, Washington. He was then transferred to the Puget Sound Confer- ence and stationed at Montesano and at the same time was the financial agent of Goucher Academy. After four years of pastorate at Vancouver, Washington, and two years at the Epworth Church, Tacoma, Washington, he was made the corresponding secretary of the University of Puget Sound, in which capacity he labored four years, rendering a distinct service, the influence of which is still felt. He was then called to the vice-presidency of Willamette University, and his labor there since June, 1910, again proved his peculiar fitness in educational work. He rendered invaluable assistance in the rais- ing of five hundred thousand dollars for the En- dowment Fund. After this was accomplished in September, 1913, he received and accepted the unanimous call to the presidency he now fills with conspicuous ability. 128 PERFECTED CULTURE 1 PRESIDENT EDWARD H. TODD "Sir, we would see Jesus." John 12. 21. THE words of our text were spoken by devout men who had come to Jerusalem to worship. They were intelligent men and from a race which was then renowned for its intellectual ambitions and accomplishments. Paul stood on Mars' Hill later and gave an account of the Christ and his doctrines to that people which convinced them and did much to spread his gospel. These men were convinced that worship was necessary, and that Jerusalem was the proper place to worship. With all this they were still alert to increase their own religious knowledge and worthiness. Upon hearing of the marvelous words and works of Jesus they were filled with a desire to see him for themselves. They would seek the source of still further excellence and culture. It is proper that this company of students and teachers should turn aside from their ordinary duties and seek to see the person whom these cul- tured men ought to see. We are in the midst of a iUsed on Day of Prayer for Colleges, February 11, 1915, at College of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington. 129 130 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT great company of students to-day who are observ- ing this Day of Prayer. Besides this, ours is a Christian foundation by Christian men. It would be proper had we not any further reason than to respect our founders' ideals. But these are not the real reason we give for this cause in our studies. This day is observed, and our founders have established this school, because there is a deep and abiding religious demand that must be met in the soul of every man. There is a hunger and thirst in every soul which must be satisfied if that soul is to reach its highest development. The religious nature must be cultured as well as the intellectual. Perfected culture of the soul requires that the affections be directed upward and outward by religious instruction and train- ing. Symmetry and beauty of character are to be gained by a development of all the powers of the soul to function easily and supplementarily. Every man is by nature religious and ought to seek in developing this part of his soul's power. We are not saying that a man is naturally saved from his sins, nor that, he is naturally Christian. Both of these are attainments through the power of the soul to function religiously laying hold of the Saviour through faith. Instinctively men pray, and they ought to strive to cultivate that in- stinct. In my youth I was tempted to think that it was an admission of weakness to confess that I was a Christian. I trust that the youth of to- day are above that temptation. There is another PERFECTED CULTURE 131 temptation which comes later and which is just as subtle. Men to-day seem to take religion as a thing apart from everyday life. It is something professional, and preachers are professional men in the sense that they have a profession to prac- tice even as a lawyer or a doctor. This is not so. Religion is a universal attribute of man. With- out religious culture one fails to attain to perfect culture. The last words are strong and perhaps may be taken as those of a special pleader. Hear what one who is not connected with Christian education has to say about this matter: "No per- son is educated whose religious nature is not de- veloped. The religious impulses require instruc- tion and training." "No human life is effective up to the limits of its possibilities that is not in- spired and directed by religious motives." These are the words of Professor C. E. Rugh, of the University of California, one who is regarded highly by educators of the Pacific Coast. It was for this attainment and by this impulse these Greeks were moved to say, "We would see Jesus." Religious development is not the knowledge of certain religious formulas, or the knowledge of certain religious facts or the practice of certain religious acts as such. These may be and prob- ably are quite essential in training and express- ing religious instincts, but the soul must take color and character; it must acquire a certain fiber to really be religiously cultivated. Re- ligious training must therefore reach and culti- 132 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT vate the affections, giving them strength and direc- tion. Religion must appeal to these affections be- cause they are the soil from which the nature receives its richest nourishment. There are some who think of any appeal to the affections as an appeal to the exercise of the most evanescent of all men's powers. "Now abideth . . . love" is not a figure of speech. When men want to inspire their fellows to deeds of physical valor it is usu- ally by an appeal to the love of truth, or home, or country. A proud, yet strong youth, does not make his plea before a court of one declaring his strength of body and of intellect but his affec- tions to win a favorable decision. The other qualities are but accessories in the case in point. All the higher attainments depend upon this power. When love controls worldly rulers, be they princes or peoples, wars will cease and not before. It was my privilege to ride on the "boot" with the driver of an old-fashioned stage over a moun- tain road in early spring, if riding thus could be called a privilege. The privilege was in meeting the man. He entertained me with stories of his exploits in which he had quelled riots in saloons and at other times had started them. At last he told me of an encounter with his sixteen-year-old daughter who had defied the authority of her mother. With tears streaming down his face he told me of his love and pleadings with her and his conquest of his child. All at once he turned PERFECTED CULTURE 133 and said, "Excuse me, sir, for my weakness." But in that story of love he revealed his power over men. He had a big heart of love and sympathy through which he swayed men. One definition of God given by John is, "God is love." Is it not noteworthy that he did not say, "He is intellect,'' or "He is will," or "He is beautiful"? These are all left to be inferred. The conquering Christ, who was God incarnate, has given the world the rule of love by which to live and conquer. Certainly, the one who made the world and expects to hold himself accountable for its outcome, will reveal his greatest power to be used by his emissaries in accomplishing his pur- pose. Instruction and training lead one outside of himself to find the material for that instruc- tion. The great truths of science lead one to con- template the works of his hands. The attainment of knowledge of them makes for culture. The effort to discover new truths makes for skill in functionings of the soul. Then let us follow the guidance of scientific method and search outside of self, for that which will furnish instruction and training for this religious nature. An object as great as the physical truths yes, greater is necessary for religious development. Listen to Christ. He says, "Love." This has been what I have been trying to say, "Love the Lord thy God with all thy being." God must be the object of man's affection if he attains to anything like culture of the religious nature. Science takes 134 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT nothing less than his works for the food or the intellect, and we must certainly take nothing less than him for the food of our affections and re- ligious nature. He has loved us and invited us to love in return. Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all. Perfect culture does not only secure proper subjective states but also true subjective rela- tions. The Christian religion does not stop with getting a man right, for that would be out of harmony with the fundamental conditions sur- rounding him. Eeligious development as secured by a sight of Jesus must bring perfection of social conditions an avenue for God to reveal himself to the world. The soul in its power to perform its functional possibilities must have something worthy of its effort. Just to function property is not enough. There must be an objective life as well as an objective source for the training and the culture of that life. Man to receive must give forth. John again defines God in these words: "God is light." I do not think that the apostle could take an examination in light in these days. But he knew enough about the nature of light to know that it was a proper symbol of God's na- ture. It expressed the attitude of God toward his universe and the intelligences which he had produced. He is sending out from himself and constantly love, thought, power, strength. He PERFECTED CULTURE 135 does not ask what the profit or immediate return will be. His gift may be absorbed and hidden away until remote ages have come, but he does not cease. His effort is but to send another ray of light following the one which has been seized and entombed. His gift may be transformed into an- other life., but he ceases not from giving. Perfect culture will likewise send forth all that it pos- sesses toward its fellow intelligences. All the functioning powers are to be used to send forth a stream of helpfulness all the time, to every one, who comes within their radius. And that radius is not bounded by any narrow limits of space or time. It is measured only by the strength of one's personality. This same Jesus whom these Greeks sought to see has given instruction at this point. He gave, "Love thy neighbor as thyself" as the second great commandment. It may be said it is the second great foundation stone in the character of God, and the second foundation stone for the human race. When love dominates the functioning of the soul it provides the fluxing medium which will make it possible for one to obey this great command for the proper ethical relations among men. Is there darkness in the nation or the individual? It is the Christian's duty and should be his pleasure to send forth that which will dispel the darkness, destroy the shadow, replacing them with light, peace, joy, and beauty. Not to minister to the mind alone, but to the heart as well, alleviating every condition 136 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT that brings sorrow and sadness, lifting up the fallen, cheering the faint, and leading those who grope in blindness. In the quietness of this hour search your own soul and you will find there earnest longings after God. In the presence of that need look outward and upward seeking the source of satisfaction, instruction, and develop- ment. There is such a source. God has provided for every need, and he has not slighted this the deepest need of a man's soul. He has revealed himself in Christ that men might find him easily. Are you dead? There is reaction. Are you weak and unable to rise? His hand is extended. The same Jesus which had filled all Jerusalem with wonder with his words and his works has been doing greater things in these latter times. Come, let us seek him together. It will bring the profoundest joy to me if we may approach him together that I may assist you to become ac- quainted with him. His life and his works were based upon the two great commandments. In his presence and on those same great commandments each one of you students will find that which will supplement the culture which you have sought within these walls. III. COLUMBIA EIVER EGBERT BRUMBLAY SUPERINTENDENT WENATCHEE DISTRICT, SPOKANE, WASHINGTON Robert Brumblay was born at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, July 9, 1876. He is a lineal descendant of Robert Cushman, a commissioner of the Ply- mouth colony, and the man who preached the first Thanksgiving sermon in the New World. He re- ceived his education in Moores Hill College and Cincinnati College of Law. In 1899 he was ad- mitted to the Indiana Conference and has been uninterruptedly engaged in the active ministry since that date. In 1907 he was transferred to the Columbia River Conference and stationed at Waitsburg, Washington, where two pleasant years were spent, after which he was sent to Pullman, Washington, the seat of Washington State Col- lege; and, after having served it successfully for four years, he was appointed superintendent of the Wenatchee District in 1913. Mr. Brumblay has been a frequent contributor to the denomina- tional press. He has been active in the Epworth League Institutes of the Northwest, having been a member of the faculty of the Liberty Lake and Redondo Beach Institutes and in the summer of 1914 was appointed dean of the faculty of the J^ake Chelan Institute. THE FAITH WHICH SATISFIES ROBERT BRUMBLAY "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." John 6. 35. MAN is a being of many needs. In reality the demands which he makes upon the world and life about him are multitudinous. First, there is his physical life. This calls imperatively for food, drink, raiment, and shelter. Not only does he require the things necessary for the maintenance of his physical life, but countless luxuries and comforts as well. But man is not merely an animal. He is taller than his bodily stature. Man is a thinker. He has been endowed with mind, and so there is the intellectual appetite demanding food for its satis- faction. The Divine Economist has provided the storehouse of truth, and these man may unlock and obtain from them that for which his mind hungers. Closely allied with his thought-life, yet higher and deeper, is something in man which we have called the soul-life. Made in the image of God, man is a living soul. While this soul-life is al- most too deep for words to describe, yet it too has 139 140 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT its needs. These needs are as real and as impera- tive as those of the body. Undeniably, the human soul has its hunger, its thirst, its longings, and its aspirations. These demand satisfaction. Any system of religious faith which is adequate must be able to respond to the fundamental needs of the universal life. It must have adaptation to the needs of the individual, and, to the needs of hu- man society; in short, before any of its claims to supremacy can be recognized it must show that it possesses the power to satisfy the heart-hunger and quench the soul-thirst of the race. There have been, and to-day there are many religions. The founder of each one of these has maintained that his religion is superior to all others, and that finally it will triumph and be ac- corded the recognition which it merits deserve. When we sweep our gaze over the field of com- parative religion, and then for a moment let it rest on each of the warring faiths ; when we con- sider the fact that of the total population of the globe, estimated at about one billion five hundred million, more than one half, or one billion and forty million, are marshaled under the stand- ards of non-Christian religion, and only four hundred and sixty million march under the cross ; when we reflect that if it were to be decided to- day by the choice of the world, who is entitled to primacy as a teacher of religion and what system of religious faith is the really inspired and su- preme revelation, that three hundred and forty THE FAITH WHICH SATISFIES 141 million would say Buddha, that one hundred and fifty million would clamor for Brahma, that one hundred and sixty million would declare for Mo- hammed and the Koran, while over two hundred million swear their superstitious allegiance to some form or other of fetishism or paganism I repeat that when the human mind reflects upon these facts, it is not so inexplicable, after all, that in some quarters the finality of the Christian religion is questioned. Is Christianity merely one among a group of religions, each claiming superiority for itself, or is it really, as its followers affirm, the only true and final religion? Is Christ actually "the Light of the world," the Supreme Teacher and Divine Saviour, or is he simply one of a company of illustrious founders of religions, among whom are Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, and Moham- med? Will Christianity have its day, gain its triumphs, mold its civilization, then become de- cadent, and finally be eclipsed by a rival faith, even as it has itself overshadowed many others? These are the questions, among many like them, which are frequently being propounded. Often they are asked by a weak and trembling faith ; sometimes by an honest mind on the road to truth; but more often have they been hurled by the enemies of the cross as a challenge into the faces of the adherents of Christianity. To discuss a subject involving questions of this nature with any degree of clearness means that 142 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT some propositions must be denned. At the outset let it be understood that not all of the non- Christian religions are wholly bad. On the con- trary, there is in most of them much that is noble, good, and elevating. It is far better for a China- man to be a Confucianist than nothing. The morals of a devout Brahman are infinitely su- perior to those of a Hindu who becomes a slave to his baser passions. Unquestionably, Moham- medanism has exercised a restraint over the fierce tribes of the desert, imperfect though that re- straint has been. The outstanding weakness, which the strongest of the heathen religions betray, is that they are only partly adapted to meet the needs of the in- dividual soul and the needs of organized life. They touch some sides of life, but they do not touch all. They are local, provincial, or national, not universal. The cause of this is that every one of the non-Christian religions is man-made. Some of them were invented by men of lofty minds and noble character, but being men, the religions which they founded partake of the limitations of men. Unlike these religions, Christianity was born in the heart of God. In it we find law of mutual adjustment in perfect operation. Christianity was made for man, and man for Christianity. No religion has been invented which can com- pare with it in its capacity to respond to the deep and universal needs of the human soul. What THE FAITH WHICH SATISFIES 143 one of the profoundest thinkers in the American pulpit has said is true "Christianity is the key which fits the lock of the human soul." One was made for the other, and the creator of both is the Infinite God. What are some of those distinctive qualities of the Christian revelation which give it this incom- parable adaptability to the primary needs of the universal mind and heart? Casting the question into a different form, let us ask: "What is the power of this faith founded and promulgated by the Christ of Nazareth to meet every demand upon it by an earnest, seeking soul ?" First. Christianity gives man the clearest and best conception of God. Among all the world's religions none can compare with it in this re- spect. Not that Christianity stands alone in affirming the existence of the Divine Being. Mo- hammedanism does that. From their very child- hood the devotees of Islam are taught, "There is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet." But how vastly different is the God of the Koran and the God revealed by the Christ of Galilee! To the most pious Moslem God is little more than an impersonal Being, at best, no more than an awful Sovereign, harsh and forbidding in his attributes, and a Being only to be worshiped and feared. For ages the human soul groped in darkness in its quest for God. It cannot be doubted that in no age has God left himself without a witness. Yet how long the human soul sought him in the 144 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT dim gray of the early morning of revelation ! In every period of the world's history there have lived the Enochs, the Samuels, the Ezekiels, and the Isaiahs the lofty souls, seers and dreamers, who caught and held their vision of God; but untold millions, like Job of old in his agony of desperation, have cried, "O, that I knew where I might find him !" When you review the theological thought of the world, outside of the teachings of some of the great Hebrew prophets, prior to the advent of Jesus, you find yourself inside a theological museum, which strongly suggests an anthropo- logical museum. Along the sides of the wall are rows of mummies. Expose them to the living air for an instant, and they would crumble into dust. Here and there in this strange collection are stone implements axes, arrow-heads, war-clubs, and odd charms of the astrologer and the medicine man. As crude and imperfect as these have been some of the conceptions of God born in the minds of men in the centuries past and gone. Many associated their idea of God with the elemental forces of nature. God was in the storm, the earth- quake, or in great calamities, such as plagues, or terrible wars. To others God was nothing more than a Great Architect, who having planned and constructed the world, had retired from it. Still others, no doubt, conceived God to be a Great Mechanic, who with his hammer and forge had wrought the universe, winding the springs in its THE FAITH WHICH SATISFIES 145 mechanism, and having wound them, flung the key away, leaving the vast machine to run itself. To many minds God was nothing but an abstraction an impersonal force, the God of pantheism. But when Christ lived upon the earth how all of that was changed ! In the life and teaching of Jesus the world found that perfect and satisfying revelation of God for which it had yearned so long. To the heart of man was disclosed the beautiful truth that God was not only Kuler but Father. Other religionists had applied the term "father" to their deities, but it was reserved for Jesus to teach the world to say: "Our Father which art in heaven." Not only did he teach the world to say it, but also to feel it. To Philip the Master uttered a profound truth, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." As Dr. George Jackson has written: "There is nothing that he said or did that does not declare Him whom no man hath seen at any time. To read that 'old sweet story' is to put our hand on the heart of God; it is to know the Father." Many souls have been entranced by the life of tenderness, purity, love, and power lived by the strong, immortal Son of God. From that life they have grasped the truth that what Jesus was for thirty and three years God was through all the ages. Jesus not only made God understand- able by bringing him within the range of the hu- man mind, but he also brought the Infinite within the realm of the human affections. 146 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT Second. Of all the religions of the world, Chris- tianity gives to man the most inspiring valuation of self -hood. No religious teacher has ever given us such a fine appraisal of the worth of a man as has Jesus of Nazareth. He shot human life through and through with dignity and sacred- ness. The enthusiasm of Jesus for humanity was tremendous. Its influence upon the progress of mankind cannot be overestimated. Any religion that expects to grip the mind and heart of the race must furnish room enough for both man and God. By this we do not mean that man is to be considered the equal of God. But for his highest effort and noblest achievements man must feel the impact of the inspiring incen- tive that he is a fellow laborer with God a co- worker with the Divine. All of the heathen religions paralyze the energies and ambitions of men because they lack this stimulating quality of Christianity. Mohammedanism throws the blight of fatalism on human life. By it man is taught that he is being hurried on irresistibly by fate. He is merely a creature handled by blind forces. Struggle though he may, he cannot alter his destiny. In the light of the teaching of the other great non-Christian systems, the individual, relatively, counts for little. He is the sport of tyrants. He is little more than a worm to be crushed under the iron heel of despotism. Chris- tianity, on the contrary, puts the emphasis on the worth of the individual. It is not too much to THE FAITH WHICH SATISFIES 147 say that Christ put his finger on manhood and capitalized it. Heredity and environment are agencies that are not scoffed at in the teachings of Christianity, instead they are reckoned as powerful; but, notwithstanding, these influences are considered subordinate to the sovereignty of the inner life. This teaching of Christ of the worth of the common man has done more to pro- mote the growth of pure democracy than any other given to the world. Jesus waved the golden rule over slave market and palace alike. He posted an angel sentry beside the crib of every sleeping babe, whether born of a peasant woman or an em- press. The vassal and his bride took the same vows at the marriage altar as the lord and the lady of gentle birth, while over the graves of monarchs and subjects alike were pronounced the assuring words, "I am the resurrection and the life." A short time ago while traveling one night be- tween Seattle and Spokane on a Great Northern Railway train, I was reading a book on a re- ligious subject. By accident the volume slipped from my fingers and fell into the center of the aisle of the car. A young man of rather intelli- gent appearance, who was sitting just opposite to me, stooped and picked up the book. Before re- turning it to me he hastily glanced at the title and the opening page. As he handed the book to me he asked with a tone of cynicism in his voice : "What is the use, sir, for you to waste your time 148 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT reading a book on the Christian religion. Isn't it plain to you that Christianity is a failure? What a fine sight the world has to-day of the two strongest so-called Christian nations of Europe leading in a bloody war against each other! As for me, I don't want any better proof, that Chris- tianity has played out." After a few moments of silence he asked, "What do you think about it?" Having thus been asked for my opinion I replied to him that it was very deplorable that England and Germany were locked in a desperate and bloody struggle, supposed Christian nations as they have been, but that instead of Christianity being chargeable with the war, the thing respon- sible was an utter absence of Christianity. And that, I am ready now to submit, is true. Not the standards of Christianity but the brutalizing standards of materialism must be held responsible for the European war of 1914. If the rulers and subjects of these warring na- tions had marched up to the heights where the Son of God planted the flag of the sacredness of human life; if they had only caught a vision of the sublime doctrine of "The Fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man" as proclaimed by Him whose feet once touched the far-off hills of Galilee; if instead of nursing race hatred, and fostering a narrow nationalism, under the guise of "patriotism" ; if, instead of this, they had been thinking and acting in the terms of brotherhood and international unity, as did Jesus, this curse THE FAITH WHICH SATISFIES 149 and scourge of slaughter would never have fallen upon them. The world will yet yearn as never before for the dawn of the golden age of peace, and at last it will discover that in the hand of Christianity is the golden key that will unlock the gates of the better day. Third. Christianity satisfies the needs of the human heart, as does no other religion, because it provides a remedy for sin. The sense of con- demnation is universal. Men everywhere have sought release from the burdens of an accusing conscience. Every altar that has been erected, every sacrifice that has been offered, every prayer of confession that has been made, bear witness to this fact. When the guilty soul sees itself it cries for peace. What can still this tempest in the soul? What medicine can allay this fever raging in the breast? There is little or nothing in the non-Christian religions affording relief to the soul oppressed with this consciousness of sin. The best Buddhism can do for it is extinction. To be absorbed by Nirvana is the only escape from the sufferings of this world. None of the great heathen religions recognizes the fact of sin. Christianity recognizes it as a tragic, lurid, uni- versal fact. At the great Convention of Methodist Men, held in Indianapolis in October, 1913, Mr. Fred B. Smith related a telling incident. He told how he rode north of Calcutta with Professor Boesch, who in 1893 was a representative of Hinduism at 150 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT the World's Parliament of Religions at Chicago. They discussed Hinduism for two days. Mr. Smith said he was ashamed to find that the Hindu pro- fessor was vastly more familiar with the Bible than he. Said Mr. Smith in relating the occur- rence : "He got me again and again by references to our Bible, and he insisted that I should read those great passages from the hymns of the Vedas, and he would say, 'Have you anything more beau- tiful in your Bible?' I read to him the Sermon on the Mount, and when I went through the Beati- tudes he did confess that he did think they had nothing in their literature that could surpass them; but he believed that somehow they must have been dug up in ancient Hindu- ism, and I was at my wits' end. I finally said to him, 'Suppose some man in Hinduism is taken in sin and goes- down in awful passion to the bottom what has Hinduism for him?' He said with an expression of surprise, 'O, Mr. Smith, Hinduism does not pretend to cure sin.' I then said to him, 'Professor, you have not any religion at all ; Christianity proposes to cure sin.' r Yes, Christianity not only proposes to cure sin, but it does cure sin. God's program of forgiveness and reconciliation through the atoning ministry of Jesus Christ comes to the rescue of the soul. There is no name so sweet on earth, No name so sweet in heaven, The name before his wondrous birth To Christ the Saviour given. THE FAITH WHICH SATISFIES 151 The greatest gift of Christianity to the world is a Kedeemer. The Toice of Jesus can be heard across the stretches of human life, and when he speaks his voice breathes a music as sweet as the notes of a lute, yet clear and strong as a silver trumpet: "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." In this scheme of individual regeneration, offered alone by the unique and supernatural Christ, is also found the world's hope of social reconstruc- tion. Here, again, is shown the adequacy of Christianity, and its power to satisfy the deepest needs of the individual and of society. Fourth. The human soul in its normal state asks for an assurance of personal immortality. This the faith of Christianity gives to men. It cannot be said fairly that the best of the heathen religions deny immortality. They may deny it, but they do not affirm it. Materialism says, "Death ends all." Agnosticism declares "that it does not know." Confucianism says, "We are not concerned about the future." The noblest of the heathen religions venture, "I hope for a destiny." These are the verdicts of the non-Christian world. But what has Christ to say. Listen. Like the tones of a great, glorious, golden bell, his sub- lime declaration sweeps across the ages "Be- cause I live, ye shall live also." The most mo- mentous question of the ages is that which the human soul has asked itself: "Shall I live again?" Christ has answered it. The good and noble of all 152 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT centuries have felt the stirrings, the instincts of immortality. Christ confirms these hopes of the human heart It is difficult to persuade the hu- man race to dig its own grave with the spade of materialism. Science says force is indestructible, and the greatest force in the universe is the hu- man soul. Then there is what some poet-soul has called "the pathos of incompleteness." How often the loom of earthly life, on which we are weaving the web, is broken, and the pattern remains un- finished ! Shall we not in a glad and radiant for- ever be permitted to gather up the broken threads and finish the task? Are all the loves, and dreams, and unfinished achievements of the hu- man mind and soul to be blotted out forever by the hand of death? At the thought there rises in the soul a bitter cry of protest. The human heart longs, after life's brief fitful day, for the eternal companionships, the reunited, never- ending loves. Christianity gives this hope. In the voice of positive authority, Christ banishes Death from the dominions of Life. The keynote of the Christian faith is life life here and life yonder. It tells us we are not to live here to pre- pare to die, but we are to live here to prepare to live forever. They have not perished no! Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet, Smiles, radiant long ago, And features, the great soul's apparent seat; THE FAITH WHICH SATISFIES 153 All shall come back, each tie Of pure affection shall be knit again; Alone shall Evil die, And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign. Standing one day on the shores of that inland sea, whose waters go out to meet the great Pacific, I turned my face toward the east, that I might catch a view of that mighty mountain, Rainier. Clouds of vapor were drifting across the range that morning, and at first my gaze was not re- warded. But, little by little the clouds lifted, disclosing one by one the lower mountains. Then the higher peaks began to show themselves. The climax came when the last fold of the curtain was drawn aside, and there standing in its indescriba- ble grandeur, the kingliest of them all was great Rainier. And so it will be with the Christian religion. It is the loftiest and noblest of the religions of earth. It is the supreme, the final religion. After while, when God's truth has cleared the world's atmosphere, Christianity will tower above all human systems. It will endure forever. Let not fearful souls think it will be supplanted. It will outlive all other religions of the world be- cause it most fully satisfies the deepest needs of the soul of man. HAROLD O. PERRY SUPERINTENDENT THE DALLES DISTRICT, KENNE- WICK, WASHINGTON Harold O. Perry was born in Iowa in 1878, but was reared in the State of Nebraska. He attended the Nebraska Wesleyan University for three years, lacking only few credits for graduation when for health reasons he was forced to seek a new cli- mate, and went to Montana, immediately joining the Montana Conference. In 1904 was trans- ferred to the Columbia River Conference, serving pastorates at Waterville, Washington, 1904-1907; Sunnyside, Washington, 1907-1911, when he was appointed to the superintendency of The Dalles District by Bishop Smith. The district under his able leadership has had a substantial growth. In 1913 the College of Puget Sound conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. 154 THE UNSEEN FORCES OF GOD HAROLD O. PERRY "And Elisha prayed, and said, Jehovah, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And Jehovah opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." 2 Kings 6. 17. THE king of Syria was warring against the king of Israel. At different times the heathen king had thought that his opponent was trapped, but always the king of Israel discovered the plan, until Syria's king was very much annoyed and decided that there was a spy in the camp. To his advisers he said, "Will ye not show me which of us is for the king of Israel ?" Their reply was, "There is no spy in Syria but there is a prophet in Israel, called Elisha, who telleth the king of Israel the words which thou speakest in thy bed chamber." Then said the king of Syria, "Find out where he is, that we may send and fetch him." It was found that Elisha and his servant were in Dothan, in the hills of Samaria, and the king sent "thither horses, and chariots, and a great host; and they came by night and compassed the city about." 155 156 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT When Elisha and his servant awoke in the morning, and found this great host gathered around the city for the express purpose of taking them, the servant was greatly frightened, and thus addressed Elisha: "Alas, my master! how shall we do?" And then comes the text "And Elisha prayed, and said, Jehovah, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And Jehovah opened the eyes of the young man ; and he saw : and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." One of the encouraging signs of to-day is that bald materialism has no longer a strong influence. Thinking people have discovered that the materi- alist has a task so gigantic that almost in the very beginning he must abandon his foundation and begin over. People in general recognize that the spiritual must be taken into account, or our problem will be hopeless. It makes little differ- ence what question is to be considered, spiritual forces must be reckoned with. The man who undertakes a business ejiterprise may figure out that all the material resources and advantages are such that he is bound to succeed: yet how often has there been complete failure under these very circumstances! The same may be said of any undertaking. The way a matter looks as a man ordinarily reasons may not determine how it really is at all. The man who goes forth to act upon the world's stage must remember that there is an unseen world of spiritual forces with which THE UNSEEN FORCES OF GOD 157 he must be allied if he makes his life a success. This principle has been recognized and observed through the centuries by all great men of God. A few pertinent illustrations will help to make clear the point. In Midian there was a man by the name of Moses, a foreigner whom God had kept in this strange land for forty years for no other pur- pose than to teach him humility. He learned his lesson and the lesson that God lives ; and one day, as he walked by the roadside, there appeared a burning bush, which burned and yet was not con- sumed. He said to himself, "I will turn aside and see what this is." There is many a man so material in his conceptions that he would fail to see this burning bush. In fact, there are to-day burning bushes everywhere. The spiritually- minded have discovered them and profited greatly thereby, while the materialist goes heedlessly on in his sensuality. When God saw that Moses turned aside he spoke to him thus: "Moses, Moses, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt." 158 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT Moses was spiritual enough to see the burning bush but did not yet realize that God's power could be his. His answer follows : "Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?" And God said, "Certainly I will be with you." "But," said Moses, "When I shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you ; and they shall say unto me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?" Tell them "I AM hath sent you." "But," insisted Moses, "behold they will not believe me nor hearken unto my voice." Then God demonstrated to him that he would give him power to show signs of the unseen world and convince them. Moses said, "I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue." But this diffident man, who thought himself unable to do anything worth while, was finally persuaded to link his life with God's and he be- came not only Moses the deliverer, but Moses the general, Moses the judge, and the greatest law- giver of Old Testament history. Had he only used the forces which are all prevailing with the world, he would have been always a shepherd in the hills of Midian. Again the point is well illustrated by the con- duct of the three Hebrew children, Shadrach, Me- shach, and Abednego. THE UNSEEN FORCES OF GOD 159 Said Nebuchadnezzar, the heathen king, "Every one must fall down and worship the golden image." Said the three Hebrew captives, "As the world knows about things, you have the power to de- stroy us in the burning fiery furnace, but if it be so, our God is able to deliver us : anyway, we will not worship your golden image." The king's wrath was aroused; the furnace heated seven times as hot as common, or per- fectly hot, and these three men cast in, is the ghastly scene which we face. But as the king looks, he is astonished and ex- claims: "Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire and they have no hurt ; and the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods." And has it not been true in all ages that men and women have walked through the burning fiery furnace of affliction, without a hair of their heads being singed. And always there was an Unseen One with them. We would not be com- pelled to go far to find many such cases to-day. Let the materialist account for the results of the Revolutionary War. As the materialists see things, everything was against the colonists. They had no navy. They were few in numbers. In winter quarters at Valley Forge they left the blood stains upon the snow because they were in- adequately shod. They were without money or 160 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT influence, ragged and half-starved. One of the greatest nations with superb equipment, was pitted against them. How was it done? Because the forces of the unseen world assisted them ; be- cause eternal right was on their side. Abraham Lincoln saw the end of the Civil War; and why ? Because he was a true prophet linked with God's unseen forces, and this being true, he knew that the war could end in only one way, even though that way might not be apparent at the time. The scene of Jesus feeding the five thousand is a scene for modern times. After Jesus asked the blessing he began to break the loaves and pass them out, and lo! they multiplied until all were fed. We should not forget to have God's blessing upon the undertaking, and then we need not worry even if our material resources are not all that we could have desired, or that might seem necessary. I have had members of official boards figure out to me that certain things were not practical and actually prove their contention. And yet some of those very things were undertaken because they seemed to be a necessity, and the figures did not hold good at all. When we want to do anything in the church we are apt to say, "Mr. A. will do so much, and Mr. B. will do so much," and when we have it all counted up and we find that it lacks the needed amount, we declare, "It's no use; we cannot get enough. In God's figuring whatever THE UNSEEN FORCES OF GOD 161 ought to be done can be done. Many an achieve- ment can never be explained in any other way than by the assumption that the unseen Host as- sisted. The Bible is full of this kind of thing, hence the materialist cannot understand the Bible, nor appreciate it. "Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness unto him ; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged." Often church members are, practically, materi- alists. They trust in forms and ceremonies. To them the initiative rite of baptism saves, the sacrament snatches them from the burning. But no church member is a power in his church or community until he has learned that salvation is not mechanical and that the source of all power is the unseen God. How deeply conscious was the apostle Paul of this ! Reared in an atmosphere of formalism, his great nature could not be satisfied with just the shell. He first met the unseen world as a real and vital force on the way to Damascus. He never forgot that day. And from that day noth- ing could deter him from his duty, even though discouragement was everywhere. From the world's standpoint, there could be no more hopeless task than winning Asia Minor and Greece for Christ. Raw heathenism and base depravity were everywhere. There came but little response at first, and tremendous opposition. 162 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT Left outside the gates of one of the towns for dead, after the people had stoned him, deserted by John Mark, Paul had reason to be discouraged and say that it was not worth while; but he was linked with the unseen world, and that made a difference. He aimed to go to Ephesus, the com- mercial metropolis, but he was not permitted to do so, and so he preached in the smaller towns. Cyprus, Perga, Antioch, Lystra, Iconium, Thes- salonica, Corinth, and Athens he visited them all and literally beat back the tides of heathenism. Paul alone could never have done this ; but linked with Christ, he tells us that he could do "all things." Let us think of the text for a time. The servant of Elisha was greatly frightened, but Elisha ap- pears to have been perfectly calm. His prayer is a model of brevity and force. Why did this vision come to the young man? for it was un- doubtedly not for Elisha, and we are not sure that Elisha evensaw it. It could not have been that the horses and chariots of fire were for com- bat, as will be seen by reading on. They were not for Elisha, as he needed nothing of this kind to make him fearless. They were to show the young man that God and one man are a majority. Elisha knew it before. It has always been true that all the soul needs is to be on God's side. "Some trust in horses, and some in chariots, but we will trust in the Lord God." Strange as it may seem, the unseen forces of God please the THE UNSEEN FORCES OF GOD 163 man of strong faith more than those forces which are all prevailing with the world. This man be- lieves the right will prevail and has no fear of consequences when contending and standing for the right. Early in my ministry I learned something along these lines which has been with me through the years. I was appointed to a mission church with only a few members. It was the only Protestant church in a town of six hundred population. Railroad construction was on, and there were fourteen saloons in the town. One of my men in the church was a leader, holding several im- portant offices, and I had often thought that we would be helpless without him. One day he in- form ed x me that he would soon leave. My first impulse was that I might just as .well leave; but there came the assurance that God was with us, and that his work could not be stopped or even hindered by one man. As I learned to look at it, it was a good thing for the church that he left. A one-man church is a poor affair anyway. The church was stimulated, the preacher came to rely more upon God, and the work of the Kingdom moved forward better than before. The resources of God are never wanting for the accomplishing of God's work; there never has been a time that God has failed to provide for the needs of the world even in a material sense. Man's extremity is God's opportunity, and the need is greater faith in God and less in man. 164 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT Our forefathers hovered over fires of wood on the Atlantic coast, little dreaming that under- neath them were hidden stores of coal which would be taken out of the bowels of the earth as needed for the increasing population. Westward the population moved and increased and always new stores of coal were discovered. Though we have ninety millions of people, there is coal in abundance, with thousands of acres more in Alaska to be developed, when the politicians are through quarreling over it. And if the coal should all be exhausted, there are the oil wells; and if they should cease, then I remember that God is constantly lifting the moisture from ocean and lake, congealing it and dropping it upon the mountain sides, then kissing it with his sunshine till it melts and develops power moving toward the valley; and if all the water power of the Northwest were captured, there would be enough to heat and illuminate every house and turn all the wheels of commerce. They tell us that after a while all the hills will be denuded and there will be no lumber; but Edison says "then we will build concrete houses more cheaply than frame houses, and better." God's resources are sufficient even in a material sense. The same is doubly true in the spiritual sense. No moral or spiritual emergency is so great that God's resources are not abundant for all needs. The statesman need not fear to do right. The THE UNSEEN FORCES OF GOD 165 business man is safe in being true to himself, his neighbor, and his God. And it may be safely said to any man when he is in trouble or in fear-, "The mountains are full of horses and chariots of fire." FRANCIS BURGETTE SHORT FIRST CHURCH, SPOKANE, WASHINGTON Francis Burgette Short was born in the State of Delaware December 20, 1868. His parents, Isaac Burton and Julia Ann Short, were leaders in the religious thought and activity of their com- munity. Their home was the stopping place for the "presiding elder" and the "circuit preacher." The subject of this sketch graduated from the Wilmington Conference Academy in 1889 and from Delaware College in 1891. The honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by the College of Puget Sound in 1913. He has served conspicuous pastorates in the Wil- mington Conference at Harrison Street and Ep- worth Churches, Wilmington, Delaware. He has also had successful pastorates at First Church, Portland, Oregon ; First Church, Salt Lake City, Utah, and he is now pastor of the First Church, Spokane, Washington, where his influence is felt in the politic, civic, business, and religious move- ments of the city. 166 BROTHER ENOCH FRANCIS BURGETTE SHORT "And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him." Gen. 5. 24. THE biography of good folks is always inter- esting and inspiring; it stimulates the mind, quickens the moral sensibilities, and pushes farther back the horizon of life, that keener eyes may glimpse the far-away but oncoming events. Every epoch of history has had its moral heroes, who have made glorious the times in which they have lived and conspicuous the things for which they have stood those moral Gibraltars out there in the seas of human passion and storm. The Bible is the book of unbiased biographies, and as such it gives itself entirely over to the task of character revealment, presenting to us its varied characters who are seen in their proper moral gar- ments, and in the activities in which they were both interested and engaged. I want with as much clearness as possible, to present one of these characters to you this morning. The compendium of facts of Enoch's life are few: He was born. He lived. He went back to God. Great facts these. Wonderful is the fact 167 168 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT of having a life to live right here on the earth among folks, with burdens to carry and oppor- tunities for serving. Glorious is the fact that one may so faithfully carry life's burdens and re- spond to its opportunities that the way back to God and heaven may be found. "Enoch walked with God" blessed privilege ! "and he was not" ; his earthly sojourn was ended, "for God took him" glorious consummation ! Head that text slowly. It is as heartful and tender as ever fell from a pure mother's lips as she looked into the laugh- ing eyes of her own sweet child. "And Enoch walked with God : and he was not ; for God took him." The whole world loves the short story of Brother Enoch's life because the whole world has seen his life duplicated in its every community. We have all seen and know Brother Enoch; and we love him too. Character is assertive ; it cannot be suppressed ; it must speak in the voice, flash in the eye, throb in the hand-grasp, and pour itself out upon the generation in which it lives. Some characters, like some plants, are ever and always poisonous and destructive, while other characters, like other plants, are ever and always life-giving. Brother Enoch belonged to the latter class; he was of heroic mold and a choice spirit; he faced the issues of life, as they came to him, bravely, and won for himself the brilliant place which he ever holds in the sky of God's moral universe because "he walked with God." BROTHER ENOCH 169 Life demands and seeks companionship. The very fundamental of soul growth and human hap- piness was expressed, when God said, "It is not good for man to be alone." God wanted his ideal creation to develop, to grow, to be happy. Com- panionship is a necessity for growth and for hap- piness. God never intended that good folks should withdraw themselves from the crowded thoroughfares. Here is where they should be. The hermit may become a cold storage of facts and philosophies, but he will never be the center of life-giving impulses and inspirations, so long as he remains a hermit. Facts are good and neces- sary, but the soul cannot live and grow upon mere facts any more than a hard-working man can get fat eating dry shredded-wheat biscuits. The soul must have facts that have in them the warmth and the inspiration which holy companionship assures; and the busy world, out there, requires just the tonic which really good folks bring to it. And the greatest asset of this community and every community is its possession of some Brother Enoch to warm and cheer and lead on its hosts along the highway to God and heaven. The importance of companionship becomes more and more evident. The lack of the proper com- panionship is the large factor in the establish- ment of our juvenile courts and penal institu- tions. The general thought of the prison is that it is a place for the punishment of wrongdoers. This seems to be a necessity both for the criminal 170 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT and society, and the average criminal, after serv- ing his term, is released and returned to society with the same character, possibly worse than when he entered the prison. There is a sense in which his imprisonment has been a failure. The State owes it to society to punish the criminal and it also owes it to society to return the once criminal back to society a much better man than when it placed him in its institution. The State should make some effort to so befriend its crimi- nal class while serving sentence that they may be inspired with better motives and higher ideals of life and this idea has taken root and is being practiced in some of our penal institutions with marked success. But why this youth before the kindly disposed juvenile court? Somewhere behind all somebody has failed to furnish the proper companionship. Who was it? I cannot answer that perplexing question. It might have been an unsolicitous or unwise parent; it might have been some un- guarded preacher; it might have been some indis- creet teacher; it might have been some so-called friend. But O the tragedy of these improp- erly companioned lives! What shadows they throw across their homes ! What grave responsi- bilities they throw upon society ! O, holy task of the church to inspire communities to bring to bear upon these young lives the influences they need, the influences of men and women who walk with God ! BKOTHEK ENOCH 171 Brother Enoch walked with God he pursued the religious life ; he gave himself seriously to the work in hand ; he rose superior to the forces that dominated in his community; he contended for the faith of Israel, and just how well he suc- ceeded the text makes known. We must not fail to recognize that environment affects character. Enoch was sixty-five years old before he began to walk with God. Nor must we forget that God working through the will and the soul enables one to rise above his environment. We all have knowledge of saintly souls who defied their he- redity, environment, early associates, and limita- tion of opportunities ; we have seen some of them rise to places of honor, power, and Christian in- fluence simply and solely because they compa- nied with those who walked with God until they too learned to recognize and to love his com- panionship. Brother Enoch and God had a common interest and objective in life. These bound them together, and they walked along the highway in the same direction until God took Enoch unto himself. This common interest is necessary to hold men to- gether. Political interests bind them into parties. Patriotic interests establish nations. A common interest is expressed in our church life and de- nominational endeavors. A common interest sometimes brings together spirits that seem far removed from each other and unites them in the deepest experiences and holiest joys. A common. 172 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT interest may prove a blessing or a curse, and you need to exercise the greatest care in trying to dis- cover the character of the interests which bind you and your companions together. Does the common interest benefit you? Does it bless your companion? Enoch and God were a blessing to each other. Young friend, listen ! You need the companion- ship of God. The pathway of life is so uncertain and rough, its experiences are so changeable and its burdens are so heavy. To-day is fair and the sea is calm, but you may run into a terrible storm ere the next sun rises. You need God to cling to, and you need God to cling to you. Disappoint- ment may one day sweep down upon your life and sink its claws into your vitals. You need to be able to hear the "Fear not" of God. Sorrow will some day empty its bottles into your heart and you will cry, "What shall I do ?" You need to be able to hear, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." You need God's companionship, and God wants your companionship, and I very much doubt if he will ever be fully satisfied until you and he are walking together toward the same ob- jective, urged on by the same common interest. The things God liked Brother Enoch also liked. The things God wanted Brother Enoch wanted too; they were bound together by a common in- terest. What made the Mayflower sail? The common interests of its occupants. What compacted the BROTHER ENOCH 173 thirteen original colonies? Their common in- terest. What builds our churches? What deter- mines our denominations? What overleaps de- nominational walls? The common interest which we have and hold and cherish for the cause for which Christ died. And by this interest express- ing itself as Christ would have it there shall be perfected a brotherhood precious beyond descrip- tion and priceless beyond gold. The very phrasing of the text is suggestive. Read it again. Note how Enoch was with God on that walk. God suggested it and planned it, and Enoch went with him. They were going some- where. There is no such a place as "Nowhere." God and Enoch went somewhere. You are going somewhere too. Life means progress, advance- ment, growth. Toward some destination we move, and most of us are moving with somebody. Where are you leading your companions? Toward what somewhere are your companions leading you? These questions involve the welfare of both your friends and you ; hence they are serious questions. But you must answer them. They cannot be es- caped, though they are heavy with personal re- sponsibility. You must answer them both now and at the bar of God's judgment. You must answer this question just as fairly as did Enoch. With whom will you walk? "Choose you this day whom you will serve." What will you do with Jesus, the Christ? Enoch decided and walked with God three hundred years. Nothing 174 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT fickle about Enoch ; nothing spasmodic. Religion was the dominant issue in Enoch's life. "He walked with God." In this he never hesitated, faltered, or failed. "And he was not" ; that is, he was missed from the community; he was sought but could not be found; he had arisen from sight; he was lost to both friend and foe. There is nothing strange or unnatural about this Scripture, "He was not." God's ways are frequently mysterious to us. Of course the community missed Brother Enoch. Every community misses its good men and good women when God takes them home. Enoch's life had been luminous and life-giving to the age in which he lived for three hundred years; he had been the one bright star of its moral firmament; he had been the one man about whose life had grown in clusters the virtues of the children of God. Men looked upon him as the embodiment of justice and mercy, the incarnation of righteous- ness and truth. His home, yonder, was pointed to as the dwelling place of the companion of God, and those who drew near his abode felt the in- fluence of his holy life environing them. Every community knows where its Brother Enochs live, and misses them when they are gone, though it may be slow to acknowledge their influence. Have we not all at some time known and seen Brother Enoch? Back to the days of your childhood and youth, let memory return to recall those whose lives BEOTHER ENOCH 175 stood out like blessed beacons along the border years of your lives. As their names pass through your mind, a thrill of holy joy possesses you. How circumspect their activities! How reverential their walk and conversation ! With what careful deliberation they expressed an opinion! They bulked large on the side of right living. Their light shone with unmistakable directness and luster. Their influence was ever helpful and wholesome. They had associated lovingly and long with the Companion of Enoch. They had caught the luster of the eye of Him who sleepeth not. They had learned to put their feet in the steps wherein was left the print of the nails. They had satisfied their heart's quest and thirst with the water that maketh glad the city of our God. Sometimes their neighbors thought they were narrow and queer, but they never questioned their sincerity nor integrity of soul. Have you not seen just such Brother Enochs in your com- munity? What a blessing they were! When some poor family was hungry, Brother Enoch carried them food. When somebody was sick, Brother Enoch visited him. When some poor soul was about to leave the earth, it was Brother Enoch's voice, poured out in prayer, that helped the dying man to seize the rope of faith and swing over into God's side of eternity. "He was not; for God took him." The com- munity wondered, and neighbors inquired of each other, "Have you seen Brother Enoch?" Every- 176 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT body missed him. No one could find him. He was the subject of conversation in the village, the chief topic of the city. Men wondered how they ever would get along without him. "He was not" seen around any more. But "he was not" per- mitted to see death. Death is not a necessity to reach heaven, though "we shall all be changed" to meet the new conditions into which we shall be taken. However, the thing that should con- cern us now is not what about the "change" but what about the "walk" with God. Not about the end but the way that leads to the end. "God took him" back to himself. That cheers the toiler along the upward way. "God took him." That confirms the soul's declaration of itself, "I shall never die." That witnesses to the universal belief in immortality. That confirms the soul's faith in a place of future habitation. "God took him" somewhere. God has a place to take those who walk with him. There is a place where the weary shall rest, where the victor shall be crowned, and where the sun shall not go down. I have no theory about heaven, but I most firmly believe that God has a "place" that is glorious as well as a "condition" that is immortal for those that love him. Did not Christ declare, "I go to prepare a place for you"? "I will receive you unto myself." Certainly, God took Enoch, and God delighted to take him because of Enoch's fidelity. They were friends and companions, and had walked together so long that God would have BROTHER ENOCH 177 been lonely without Brother Enoch. Heaven was more gloriously heaven with him. I have seen some of these modern Enochs whose lives have made glorious the communities in which they lived. There was Brother Atkins, who was ignorant of the literature and the activi- ties of the world, but he knew God and walked with him so winsomely that multitudes of others were constrained to join their company. Hickory Hill Methodist Episcopal Church, Sussex County, Delaware, is to-day largely what it is because this modern Brother Enoch lived and walked with God in that community. Then there was my own dear father, whose walk and conversation in his community made him one of the most conspicuous of modern Enochs in his own State. For fifty years this lay prophet of God gave himself un- sparingly to the one supreme task of blazing away in the moral firmament, and men saw his light and glorified his Father in heaven. Won- derful was he in prayer, and powerful in exhorta- tion. Many the camp meeting service that was brought back to life under his exhortation after some of us theologians had tried and failed. Isaac B. Short walked with God just as truly and willingly as Enoch ever did, and when he died the community asked: "Who will now con- duct the revival meetings? Who will pray the dying sinner up to God's holy hill?" We have all known these modern Enochs, these choice spirits of the earth, these souls that will make 178 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT heaven glorious. But they are not. God has taken them. The loss of earth proves the gain of heaven. Brother Enoch is not among us any more. God has taken him. What have we learned from the study of Enoch's life? That religion, one's right relation to God and man, should be the chief and serious concern of life: That the religious life requires companionship for its development; that companionship decides character. That companionship is the result of the com- mon interest, which is expressed wherever men are associated. That God plans and points the way, and men will ever do well to give his plans a large place in their calculations. That death is not a physical necessity, though a change is required. That God is morally bound and also pleased to reward those who walk with him in the midst of an unholy generation. That Christ is the proof of our companionship with God. That immortality is assured in our Lord Jesus Christ. That there is a place prepared for those who have and enjoy the holy companionships of earth. That fidelity shall receive its reward. These are some of the lessons that I have learned from the study of Brother Enoch's life. BROTHER ENOCH 179 I've tried to impress these lessons upon your minds and hearts, this morning, with the hope and the prayer that we may all so walk with God here that we shall have his companionship here- after. GABKIEL SYKES WATERVILLE, WASHINGTON Gabriel Sykes was born in Blackley, England, a little Yorkshire village, on October 20, 1863. He began school and work at the same time when eight years of age, working in the factory half of each day and attending school under the auspices of the National Church of England for the other half. At thirteen attendance in day school ceased. In 1889 he came to the United States and after one year as a supply was admitted on trial in the Oregon Conference. In 1901, after years of hard study, preaching, and teaching he received his B.A. degree from Willamette University. He was transferred to the Columbia River Conference in 1903 and was stationed at Pullman, Washington, and after two years' pastorate was appointed su- perintendent of Walla Walla District, where he served with efficiency for the full term of six years. At the conclusion of his term he requested an appointment on circuit and his wish was granted. 180 THE PROGRAM OF LIFE GABRIEL SYKES "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven." Eccles. 3. 1. "Come now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. . . . For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that" James 4. 13-15. A FRIEND in my congregation has requested me to invite attention to the question of some reason- able division of our time whereby we might insure an attempt to do each life duty. First. The writer of Ecclesiastes takes the po- sition, whatever seems necessary to be done in this life will find its opportunity : there is a suit- able occasion for each transaction. The writer of our second text is insisting that life is very uncertain, and its length lies not in our keeping or knowledge. So he believes that the very im- portant thing is to recognize in every plan we make the supervision of the Divine, and hence a deference to his direction that will show our reverence for and our confidence in him. In other words, one of these men says, "Life is not 181 182 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT an aimless affair, although it is made up of a multitude of events." The other says, "Life affords no place for a haughty independence, nor yet for despair!" Second. I remember when a schoolboy the teacher taught me to define a verb as the word in a sentence which expressed being, doing, and suffering. This most expressive word in any language is the word which comes nearest to de- fining the contents of one's life. Put in a few qualifications after recognizing each word in this definition as a verbal noun and we should not go far wrong in trying to tell one another what con- stitutes life as we must live it. Perhaps we should prefer the word "experience" to the word "suffering." Of course the gram- marians used it in its large sense of "undergoing any sort of experience" whatever spent itself in or upon the person indicated as the subject of the sentence. Adopting such a suggestion, it becomes quite clear that the being is the founda- tion. What I am is going to determine to a great extent my activities and my experiences. Yet it is quite true that when I get through, the activities and experiences will have some- what modified what / am. I may remain a white man, an American, a man with a tendency to put on flesh; phlegmatic in temperament; one, slow to perceive, defective in powers of observation, and so forth, but in all directions some modifications will have arisen out of the passive and active ex- THE PROGRAM OF LIFE 183 periences through which I have passed. No gen- eration is exactly like the one that has preceded it. So while being has the start, doing and ex- periencing put on the finishing touches, and we come back again to being. Third. Then I think we shall readily agree that the real object of living this life is, the perma- nent improvement of ourselves. It may turn out finally that life is simply the unfolding of what is wrapped up within us. However that may be, is it not true that we are here to make the most of ourselves? We call ourselves personalities; then the one great business in life is to enrich these personalities. We know how prone we are to endeavor to make life easier for this person- ality, to indulge it, to enrich it in circumstances, to substitute its environment for itself. But when we deeply consider it we must acknowledge to ourselves that life has not succeeded unless the being has improved. And I think the old theo- logian who told our fathers that the whole duty of man was to "glorify God and enjoy him for- ever" would admit that to seek the full develop- ment of God's plan for our lives is to accomplish such "glory" and will lead to such "enjoyment." Whatever one may think of the length of man's existence, one cannot avoid the conclusion that everything places emphasis upon its quality. No doubt it is fair to say that such insistence upon quality is suggestive of something permanent in the individual; and, standing where he does in 184 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT the processes of nature, it is not difficult to draw the inference that the ultimate reason may be found in man's eternal destiny. Fourth. When we turn from the individual and his make-up to his relationships we are imme- diately struck with the immense number of things which one must do for others if there is to be calm upon life's sea, and, indeed, the large service the mature individual must render to the imma- ture if the human species shall be simply pre- served. So the helplessness of his infancy seems to be the foundation of his altruism, as Professor Drummond has so eloquently argued in his Ascent of Man. He is made for these relationships, and they in turn are the school in which he receives his education. But this very relation of parent and child has also put a keen edge to his selfish- ness on occasion. True, he has been anxious to care for his children, but in case nature has failed to respond to his hunting or industry so as to assure enough for both his and the neighbor's children, this very care for them has led to bitter competition and rivalry between one set of par- ents and another. Only gradually has he grouped himself into larger circles. Perhaps England and Eussia afford examples of the largest economic groups under one government. Our patriotisms seem to be extending. When Christianity has really been adopted by the various races of men we shall see that nothing but a world-patriotism adequately expresses our relationships. THE PROGRAM OF LIFE 185 Fifth. How, then, shall we give appropriate attention to the program of life which such a con- ception seems to thrust upon us? As a race we have developed institutionalism because of the complex nature of this life. Institutionalism rep- resents, in a sense, a division of labor. The home has proven its fundamental necessity; the more devoted its members have become to each other's interests the more reciprocal its duties and privileges have been conceived to be the finer the influence the home has had upon its members. The church has been thrust out of the home be- cause of the increasing complications of life. Government is another necessary division of life's work, whereby man is saved much anxiety. Education is seen to be so vast a thing that the school has become a branch of the home. Social life with its amenities and inspirations has grown up and developed its conventionalities, and its various methods of indicating sympathy and co- operation. Business and industry have grown from simple barter into all sorts of organized forms. Art and science are the natural expres- sion of man opening himself to the vast universe in which any branch of industry has gone too far when it makes of a man a mere machine; and if it shall continue, then we must reduce to a mini- mum the hours he shall spend at such a task. We cannot afford to rob Darwin, the great human soul, of his taste for music and poetry, say, in order to produce Darwin the scientist, much as 186 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT we may appreciate him in the latter capacity. We often remind ourselves that it is not wealth we need so much as well-being. Then none of these divisions, not even the home, must be per- mitted to consume the person. It is the whole being that must finally furnish the expression of all that has gone into it, and all that he has been able to unfold. A man should seek not merely ability to express himself in music, industry, poe- try, politics, and so forth, but his possession of a nature which serves human ends in all possible ways. But while I believe the ends life has in view preclude over-specialization, they neverthe- less do call for an order of decreasing importance on the part of these divisions which a long race experience has brought about. As I have already suggested, all the divisions spring from the home. Hence the home must al- ways have the first place. Even one's work or occupation, as we call it, should be made as nearly as possible to accommodate itself to the needs of home. It is one of the sad things of our modern industries that they encroach upon our home life. I can remember the contrast between the coziness and homelikeness of grandfather's handloom up- stairs, and the noisy ten hours in the factory with only time for one family meal during the day. Where men and women may largely control the workday, the spiritual demands of the home must not be subordinate to economic well-being. If then, even the earning of daily bread should THE PROGRAM OF LIFE 187 not be allowed to interfere with the higher ends of the home, it is evident that no institution can have claims which will spoil this sacred spot. School and church call for a large place in our lives, and will repay what most of us give to them, but their plans and methods should always be subordinated to the home. On the other hand, a genuine and reasonable interest in enterprises and institutions outside the home is demanded by the home itself, because of the breezes which will blow from them through the home to freshen and invigorate. No home is complete that does not open cheerfully and sympathetically toward the great world without. The Old Testament writer has observed aptly that there is a time for every legitimate duty; "duties never clash." Next to the spiritual interests of the home, I should place the bread-winning. The other affairs of life must arrange themselves about one's call- ing. Meetings, conventions of school or church or club, or participation in government, must find a time and place which will not clash with one's endeavor to earn a living for self and family. Next ought to come the church as an institution which seeks to further our religious education, and afford an opportunity for our generosity and altruistic service. Not, mark you, as the only ex- pression of the religious spirit, any more than other institutions exhaust the department of life which they emphasize. After the home and the work have received attention, then there should 188 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT be a place for this definitely unselfish task for which the church stands. This brings us to the school. Neither parent nor child should allow himself to arrange a pro- gram for the day or the year which will not leave room for the legitimate demands of the school. On the other hand, those who run these institu- tions should remember that they have no right, and there ought to be no need, to make them cover the whole horizon take up all the evenings for instance. Much more work might be done in some of our schools during the day and less de- pendence placed upon the home to see that the lessons are ready for next day. The home ought not to be asked to do a large share of the school's work. The school exists purposely to relieve the home at this point, as well as to furnish more skillful training and teaching. Next in importance, perhaps, we ought to place politics, or general public questions. A certain degree of familiarity with public policy and prin- ciples of government is imperative where the sovereign power lies in the citizen. No life can be complete that has not room and leisure for pure sociability. This will continue to seek its expression through multitudes of or- ganizations, as well as in informal neighborliness. But an undue emphasis upon it is the surest way to shallowness and inanity. It should be pure relaxation, and no one is entitled to that who has not put himself under some degree of strain. THE PROGRAM OF LIFE 189 As to what may come to us through, books, music, and pictures, or what we may say through them, one may regard them as definite attempts at intellectual and sesthetic culture. Happy the individual who deliberately cultivates some taste in such viands. Certainly much may be enjoyed and genuine service given to our fellows without completing this circle, but he who seeks to make the most of himself will find it necessary to throw open his entire nature to the influences in the midst of which he has been planted. Sixth. But, after all, it is with this as with all that concerns us: there is something more vital than a program, something deeper, more fundamental, than a method ; and that something is what we call spirit. And there are certain things much more vital than the institutions by means of which they find some sort of expression. Love is more than home, a willing mind is more valu- able than a school, honesty and thrift are more precious than any form of organized industry, re- ligion is greater than the church, and sympathy is deeper than any expression of it. Do not sus- pect for a moment that in suggesting the church shall be subordinated to the home, and asked to accommodate its meetings and activities to those of this more ancient institution, that I am giving second place to religion. Religion is an atmos- phere; religion is a flavor; religion is leaven; re- ligion is like the ether of the scientist; religion 190 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT is like the sun "there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." The church is specifically its agency, but the home and every department which has grown out of it should be equally pervaded with religion. Come now, ye that would arrange life at any point without acknowledging the Cause, the Con- trol, of life ! Take him into all your counsels, and know assuredly he will crowd nothing ! Well did the greatest Religious Interpreter say, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." Put on the har- ness of religion with which to pull the whole load of life. That was a fine reminder for Martha when Jesus made known to her Mary's wisdom in placing the emphasis upon the "manner of spirit you are of" ; truly, she has something that no one can take away. So we may learn to put "first things first," and above all to catch the Master's spirit, "Learn of me" that subtle, indefinable something about Christianity which cannot be put into the theol- ogies, but which abides in any life it succeeds in entering; the savory grace that makes us con- siderate of each other, that overlooks many blunders of method, but that somehow leads men to love righteousness more than life. Given such a spirit, a passion for knowledge, and a keen sense of honor, and all things are ours; the doors of the universe stand open to such, and the program of such a life will have no place for worry, for in- dolent wishing, or empty regrets. IV. IDAHO JAMES DAVID GILLILAN SUPERINTENDENT BOISE DISTRICT, BOISE, IDAHO James David Gillilan was born May 19, 1858, in Jackson, Ohio. He had the advantages of the public schools and academy, but did not com- plete his college course. In 1883 he became a member of the Utah Mission under appointment of Bishop Wiley, and in 1898 he began work in Idaho. In 1892 Bishop Hurst appointed him pre- siding elder in Utah. In 1904 Bishop Spellmeyer appointed him presiding elder of La Grande District, Idaho Conference, and in 1912 Bishop Luccock appointed him to the superintendency of the Boise District, which position he holds at present. He was a delegate to the General Con- ference at Los Angeles in 1904 and again in 1912 at Minneapolis. In 1910 the Willamette University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. His book, Trail Tales, will be issued by the Methodist Book Concern this fall. 192 BEHOLD THE MAN! JAMES DAVID GILLILAN "Behold the man!" John 19. 5. THOSE words which contain the advice calcu- lated to do the most good are great words. Those pointing to life are the best and the greatest. The universal world has been looking for life, and it has been asking for it in all the ages. Too often when the world's children have asked for bread they have been given the hard stone of traditional dogma; they have had to take or re- fuse the old serpent when they desired meat. The only bread is Jesus: the only fish, Ichthus, Jesus Christ, Saviour of Men. (lesous Christos, Theou Uios, Soter.) Dogmatism may have been good theology once, yet it may be out of date ; for theology is a progressive science. If the advice tending to give one life and safety is the greatest, then the three greatest expressions known to mankind are the utterance of three men: Isaiah, when he said, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth" (Isa. 45. 22) ; John the Baptist, "Behold the Lamb of God!" (John 1. 36) ; and Pilate, most unchristian, 193 194 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT in the text quoted. The seeker for the tragic need not go to Euripides or Shakespeare for in- human acts and scenes of human suffering. For meaningful truth the Bible cannot be surpassed. To mention them would for the student of the Word be waste of time. But this scene herein depicted is the most stupid and at once the most stupendous ever painted on the canvas scroll of the history of man ; the Creator of the race being judged by his creatures as a criminal. Climax and anti-climax are shown in one act. Some years ago, accompanied by my wife, I stepped into the courtroom in a small town in southern Utah. It was the judgment day of that term. After a number of cases had been disposed of, the judge, turning to the high-booted sheriff, said in a very calm tone of voice, "Bring in the next prisoner." We heard his heavy footfall on the steel steps as he descended to the cage where lay the accused. We could hear the jingle of the keys, the clack of the thrown bolt, the creak of the iron door on its rusty hinges, and the sound of two ascending the stairs. The man, pale from excitement and long im- prisonment, was seated in the presence of the judge. "Mr. C , you have been found guilty of murder in the first degree and the jury has made no recommendation for mercy. That jury was made up of your peers, and has carefully brought in this verdict. Have you anything to say as to BEHOLD THE MAN! 195 why the judgment of the court should not now be pronounced upon you?" said the judge. "No, sir," replied the prisoner. "By the laws of this Territory, you are per- mitted to choose the manner by which you be brought to your death, either hanging by the neck or by shooting. Which do you prefer?" "I prefer to be shot, sir." The judgment of the court is that you be con- fined in this jail in the custody of the sheriff of this county until August , at which time you will be taken to some convenient place and there shot until you are dead. And may God Almighty have mercy on your soul !" "Thank you, sir," said the culprit. When we saw the condemned stand before that mild-mannered little man from West Virginia our attention was fixed on him ; but when we heard a speech so short and so terrible in its extension, we naturally looked on the speaker. He seemed to have the power of life or death in his posses- sion. We then beheld the men. I would call your attention to the men in this case Jesus and Pilate. Here are two who are in some respects similar. The bloody Koman and the bleeding Jew are facing each other. Pi- late is said to have been compelled hastily to leave sunny Italy because of his desire to escape the avenger of blood, he having committed the crime of murder there. His hands were imbrued with the blood of vengeance blood not his own. 196 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT Jesus has his hands covered with blood, but it is his own; blood that is flowing for the sins of others, and not for revenge. As in the case of his burial and the fixing of the guard, church and state, never a very holy alliance, are perfectly united as to purpose: that of destroying Jesus. In this instance the elements of mercy are on the side of the state and Pilate. In all historical times it has been required of the accused that he stand for sentence, so that the people could see the one on whom their own law was about to wreak punishment. So Jesus stood. The judge was hesitating. Should he, or should he not? Would he, or would he not? Now the balances swing downward, the one carry- ing Jesus in the mind of his judge. "I will loose him and let him go," mentally spoke he. "If you release him you are no friend of Caesar, and we shall inform on you," yelled the mob. While thus hesitating a servant thrust a wax- tablet note into the hand of Pilate, who reading it, threw it from him and said sotto voce, "Curse the woman ! why does she not attend to her own affairs and let me alone?" It was a kindly and womanly warning from his wife saying, "Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him." Pilate is not the last man who rejected the timely and wise advice of a careful wife and went to oblivion because of it. It were mere speculation to say that possibly BEHOLD THE MAN! 197 Pilate may have had a feeling that at some future place the positions of himself and his Lord would be reversed. But behold the spectacle! Pilate represented the Koman empire that arrogated to itself all power on earth. He was about to exercise that power. Jesus had all power in heaven and on earth. He knew it but permitted Rome to have her day. But Pilate had some rights. Was he not sent to care for the interests of the Roman empire? Had not the Jews been troublesome? Was it not his oath to rule righteously and give special attention to the zealous machinations of the Hebrews and to keep them in check? There had already risen many who called themselves Christ. He was not a theologian or a worshiper of Jehovah, but a student of history, possibly. Pilate was representative of universal Rome, yet by his own recorded utterances he was a coward. We do not condemn him; he does it unaided by us. He sentenced to death the man he proclaimed innocent. Good-by, Pilate; we shall see you no more till we all appear before this same majestic Culprit who now stands unabashed before your tribunal. You shall look on him whom you pierced, and yet he would have had mercy on you had you but asked it. But you find, Pilate, it is always harder to forgive those whom you wrong than those who wrong you. He is the final Judge and "the judge of all the earth will do right." 198 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT We will now take the advice of the self-con- victed Koman, Pilate. We will "behold the man." We see "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." What a complete man ! Has his like ever been seen outside the arena where athletes con- tended? His is the perfect physique, tanned by outdoor living, and the fully developed body and limbs show one accustomed to steady toil. It is no wonder the money-changers fled before him armed with but a twist of ropes. He was able to tie them in knots and throw them out bodily. His is no emaciated, anemic face and effemi- nized form such as is often displayed on the walls of our homes. His is the majesty of perfection in all things becoming a man. He has never sinned against nature. That mighty young giant stood there with hands tied; fingers stiffened and swollen were covered with the blood that had spattered down upon them from the crown of thorns, and the blackened clots in some places still clung to his beard and clothing. Those hands that had been used always to spread abroad in welcome to the children and the helpless feeble folk were soon to be spread again but wider apart on the cross. We see that eye that gazed on Pilate, till the man haunted by it was driven to suicide, now the calmest in that turbid multitude. He is really and truly Lord of all. When we "behold the man" we see the Maker of the universe. "By him were all things made; BEHOLD THE MAN! 199 and without him was not anything made that was made." If Maker of all, he is not a product. It is said by some that he can be accounted for as being the product of the times. Mirabile dictu! Why have the times produced no others like him ? By the story of evolution, there ought to have been many more as good and even better by this time. But one prominent writer and churchman says, "We need not to be afraid to say that Jesus Christ is the supreme product of evolution in human history" (see Theology of an Evolutionist, p. 74, Lyman Abbott). Saint John was not so wise; Saint Paul was limited as to that knowl- edge, for both affirmed him Creator of all! Yes, he is the Maker of all ; he is God, for Saint Paul's shortest description of him is in these words: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" (2 Cor. 5. 19). "God manifest in the flesh" is what Jesus was when on earth. In him we see the "friend of sinners" the epithet the rabble thought the strongest when they reported his conduct to the disciples, for whom they were acting as self-appointed spies. That was the finest speech the would-be malignera of his character ever made. He is the only Friend sinners ever had. When he sat at the table and ate with the people, sharing their bread, he was their committed Friend ever afterward; and "if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." When fc$ went through the streets the children, 200 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT fresh from their mud pies and dirt, common or uncommon, were taken gladly into his arms and blest. Though scolded doubtless by the stern dis- ciples, yet he hesitated never a whit but chided them and counseled them to become themselves childlike. Ever since then he has been going up and down the vile ways and the wild ways, where unclean men and women are to be found, calling all to him; he receives all just as they are, em- bracing and holding them till all uncleanness is gone and until the wayward heart beats in har- mony with his own, and until their sins are trans- ferred to him. Then he says "Go, and sin no more." Thus it was he was called the friend of sinners, and as a blasphemer was put to death "bearing our sins in his own body on the tree." "He was made sin who knew no sin." "By his stripes we are healed." Behold him, your Saviour! Behold the Man of Sorrows! him who knows how to sympathize with any heartbroken soul ! Behold the Maker of the universe with its all! Behold the Judge of all the earth, and see for the nonce the mildness and at once the just- ness of the Son of man and Son of God ! Behold him, the Friend of sinners wistfully looking for them and looking out for them, ready to defend, forgive and save! Look on him enthroned in glory, the King of all the earth, before whom all nations shall be gathered, and to whom the highest angels must make obeisance, and yet who shall choose us as a jury to sit on the case of the BEHOLD THE MAN! 201 angels who once rebelled. Thus shall we share his glory. Behold him, your Saviour! Behold the Man! Majestic beauty sits enthroned Upon the Saviour's brow; His head with radiant glories crowned, His lips with grace o'erflow. He saw me plunged in deep despair; He flew to my relief; For me he bore the painful cross And carried all my grief. To him I owe my lite and breath And all the joys I have; He makes me triumph over death, He saves me from the grave. Since from his bounty I receive Such proofs of love divine, Had I a thousand hearts to give, Lord, they should all be thine. WILSIE MANNING MAETIN FIRST CHURCH, BOISE, IDAHO Wilsie M. Martin was born in Johnsville, Canada, November 12, 1876, and moved with hjs parents to Santa Ana, California. He graduated from the University of California in 1900 with the degree of B.A., having been senior class president and member of four university debating teams. In September, 1900, he entered the California Conference and was stationed at Oak Park, Sacra- mento in 1900-1901; was assistant pastor First Church, Oakland, 1901-1902; he attended Drew Theological Seminary 1902-1903, and while here served as assistant pastor of Madison Avenue Church, New York City, and in the summer sup- plied Hanson Place Church, Brooklyn. He served First Church, Chico, California, 1903-1905; First Church, Alameda, 1905-1912, and now is serving his third year as pastor of the First Church, Boise, Idaho, it being the largest in the Idaho Conference. He is also the chaplain of the Second Infantry Idaho National Guard. 2Q2 THE GIFT-BKINGER WILSIE MANNING MARTIN "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Isa. 9. 6. WELL might they call the Babe in the manger wonderful. Wonderful because of what he was and what he was to do. We are surprised at the deeds when we know the life, and we demand such a life to explain the deeds. He not only marks the difference; he is the difference. There are plenty of men in the world who know that things are different who have never acknowledged the cause of it. He is the watershed that feeds the rivers that change the deserts into gardens. He is the Gulf Stream that has touched the arctic shores of time and is wooing them into beauty. He is the sun at whose coming the darkness flees, the mists melt, the chill and frost disappear. He has become the Counselor of man, the shaper of government, and his kingdom is a kingdom with- out frontiers. What has Christ brought that is new? 203 204 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT First. The thought that we are all related. In a world seamed with race, class, and religious distinction this was a tremendous gift. Elec- tricity had been always in the world, man had felt its power, described some of its features, but the man who really discovered electricity was the man who harnessed it, made it work. It may l>e that some nebulous ideas similar to those of Jesus may be found or read into the sayings of ancient men. The point is that Jesus made them work. The practical thing for us to realize is that the world was cut up into little provinces, cities, and counties, each distrustful, suspicious, hostile toward the others ; the fact is that life was cut up into great social distinctions that could not be bridged. The fact is when Jesus came there was some race solidarity, but there was nowhere any sense of real brotherhood. Now Jesus made this truth that we are related to work. He made it operate in his own first group of disciples. Rich and poor, pharisees and publicans, found in him the center of their life, and through him they became friends and brothers to each other. He made it work when they opened the doors of fellowship to the Gentiles. He made it work when Philemon and Onesimus, owner and slave, could both be members of the same spiritual brotherhood. "In Jesus Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek." It is this truth made vital through Jesus that is breaking down the antago- nisms between men and sections. In widening THE GIFT-BRINGER 205 circles the force of it becomes apparent. In many lines we have to realize that we are members one of another. More and more the brotherhood idea and the brotherhood spirit grows upon the world ; increasing numbers of men are espousing the idea and assuming the obligations. Trade already knows no color line and no race prejudice. We sell in every market. We have come to see that chemistry, expressing God's law, is no respecter of persons, that there is not one truth for China and another for Canada. We have come far under the drive of the truth of Jesus Christ in recognizing the essential solidarity of the human race. The basis of brotherhood is spiritual. Material- ism has no ground for brotherhood. For a thou- sand years by the short sword and the javelin Rome kept the peace of the world, but it was not brotherhood. It was the domination of brute force. Self-interest may induce us for a time to play fair, but only for a time. The basis of in- tegrity must lie deeper than the dollar. A real gentleman is not the product of calculation, but of the outflowing of a knightly, chivalrous, gentle spirit. Materialism never has and never can bring the race together into a unity. We come from different climes, we are of different races, with different customs and products; we differ in habits. The Korean shakes his own hand, and makes his display in the backyard, and reads up and down and from right to left. We differ in 206 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT color and language; we differ in talent and ability ; we face different opportunities. The only realm where we can get together is in the realm of spirit. Courage is of no particular soil, honor appears in every clime, love glows in every breast. We differ and shall differ in the perishables, in the non-essentials ; it is only in the imperishables, in the essentials of faith, heroism, patience, love, that we are alike. Likeness indicates relationship, but it does not establish brotherhood. How comes it that we are alike in those fundamentals? How do you know you are brothers? By reason of a common origin. The Hindu was right when he proposed fo open the Parliament of Religions with the Lord's Prayer. "Our Father who art in heaven" there we are one. There we find ground for our brother- hood. We are related through our divine quali- ties, not through our animal appetencies. A multitude of blessings flow from this conscious- ness that we are related, but we find that rela- tionship in God. The greatest gift that Jesus made to the world was the unveiling of God, the Holy Father. In Jesus Christ the manifestation of the Father, men are brothers; in him East and West come together ; in him the estranged classes find a com- mon fellowship. A son of poverty, a son of the down-trodden, a son of heavy labor, he marks the common road to God. He did the will of his Father. The road to God, the royal road, the THE GIFT-BRINGER 207 common road, a road so plain a fool need not err therein, is doing the will of God. The will of the Father is the law of home. The law of the world is the will of God. The law of successful life is the will of the eternal One. Life consists in being in harmony with God. My highest well-being consists in my life moving ac- cording to the divine plan. The awful thing about sin is that it is unfilial treachery and rea- son. It is a revolt against the divine will. What is the great common task of all the mark of brotherhood? Why, doing the will of God. That is the noblest thing we can do and it is the one common thing we can do. If any man will do the will of God, the same, said Jesus, is my brother, my sister, my mother. When will wars cease ? When men do the will of God. When will the vices that curse humanity end? When men do the will of God. When will wrong come down from the throne and mount the scaffold? When men do the will of God. When will there be no more poverty, no more destitution, no more child labor? When the will of God is done by men. When will the blessed song of the angels come true? When men everywhere do the will of God. I heartily agree with President Nicholas Murray Butler that we need to emphasize our oneness with the race. The way to do it is through a common spiritual consciousness and a united effort to do the holy will of God. Second. A new attitude toward work. In a 208 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT general way work had been regarded as a curse, as a mark of inferiority, a badge of slavery. It was a conception held generally that slaves were for work. Now Jesus taught that work is a bless- ing and not a curse; that to be able to do and to do are the marks of superiority. He revealed in work the divine possibility. He said, "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day." And on another occasion he said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." When he thus identified work with the divine thought and the divine process and the divine life, it could no longer be menial and slavish; it became an in- strument of self-expression and enfranchisement. Further, the world now says, "Blessed is he who labors long; blessed is he who does much both as regards amount and quality." But Jesus says : "Blessed is he that is faithful." That places the emphasis over on the spiritual side of labor. That gives every man a fair chance. Human life is full of inequalities. Keats dies at the age of twenty-six; Oliver Wendell Holmes at eighty- three. Alexander Hamilton dies in the full tide of a great career. Gladstone when he is over ninety. Whitefield dies in middle life; Wesley an octogenarian. There is a great deal in having an opportunity. Some men never have a full chance. All they have is an eleventh-hour oppor- tunity. As great men as the world has ever seen have died unsung because they never had a big opening. But for the French War and the Revolu- THE GIFT-BRINGER 209 tion, Washington would have lived and died a genial, successful country squire. I am reading Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, written by a painter who left this manuscript and died. The man has the vividness of a Zola and the feeling of a Hugo. What might he have done had he but had a fair chance? What might Robert Burns have done if he had had an inspiring environ- ment. Then there are others who seemingly have as good openings as their fellows, but they are duller and slower. They are forever trying and never quite reaching the goal. They are always on the second elevens. They are good enough to be privates but nothing more. Professor Smith points out that there are three parables of Jesus which illustrate how God regards men. First, the parable where men receive five, two, and one talent. He gave precisely the same commendation "Thou hast been faithful over a few things." Here we have equality of reward where there is inequality of ability. Second, the parable of the men who were hired at the eleventh hour. The eleventh- hour men had been standing waiting for an op- portunity to work. They seized it when it came, and they received equal pay justifying equal re- ward where the opportunity is unequal. Third, there is the parable of the talents which gathers up the ideas of the other two. Each man was given one talent same ability, same opportunity. These are rewarded according to their devotion. 210 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT The divine rewards are to be according to fidelity. What a new face that puts on life! Perhaps as men see it you have never done much, but as God sees it your little may be as precious in fidelity as another man's great success. Perhaps oppor- tunity has given you a niggardly chance, but you have been as true as though you had a king's em- pire. Here I labor in a little corner, and it is stony and bare and bleak, but then I am to be measured only by the spirit I put into it. The seer of Patmos was expressing the idea of Jesus when he said the faithful have a right to the city eternal. Third. Among the gifts that Jesus brought was a continual sense of freshness. One of the sad things in the world in the time of Jesus was its sense of weariness, its spirit of ennui ; and out of these had grown a lack of fidelity, a decrease in buoyancy, a retrogression, and decadence. After men had filled every place of power and had grown wise with knowledge, they exclaimed, "Both knowledge and power are vanity." But Jesus brought to the world, by the widening of horizons, by the lifting up of the spirit, by the propulsion of new impulses, a sense of freshness and of buoyancy. With goals unreached and with lights gleaming ahead, there could be no sense of having arrived. And so life under the power of Jesus became full of striving; it was possessed of the spirit of going on; it was animated with the thought that the best was yet to come. He THE GIFT-BRIHGEH led man to find every morning new beauty and new significance in all the common incidents of the way. O fly away on silent wing, ye boding owls of night. O welcome little birds that sing the coming in of light. For new and new and ever new, The golden bud within the blue, And every morning seems to say, "There's something happy on the way, And God sends love to you." Fourth. The emphasizing and lifting up of per- sonality. In the first place Jesus was not an idea, a sentiment, an influence. He was a person. He was born in Bethlehem. He grew, he toiled, he ministered, he agonized on the cross. He was, he is, and he is evermore to be Jesus the Christ. The record indicates that he was a most original and marvelous personality. As a boy, he amazes the wise men in the temple. The great desert preacher, when he sees him sitting by the Jordan, says, "Behold the Lamb of God." He says again and Jesus had not yet begun his ministry "He must increase; I must decrease." Single-handed, Jesus nonplussed and overawed the Pharisees. His sight and voice struck hardened soldiers with consternation, his presence attracted mighty crowds. Standing alone, buffeted, accused, he puts the proconsul on trial. At his word men left all to walk the way of persecution. A won- 212 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT derful personality gleams through the record. The measure of a man's personality is the impress he leaves on the world. The character of Christ grows more attractive. His teachings are more followed, his star of power rises constantly. Of all the mighty personalities who have left their impress on time his is the mightiest. He was a personality. He was a Person. In the second place he emphasized personality. He said he knew his sheep by name. He did not speak to audiences, he spoke to living men. He valued institutions, but he valued men more. He reverenced the Sabbath, but it was not too holy to prevent doing good. It was made for men, he said. Sometimes as he spoke to groups he spoke straight home to single men. Many might throng about him, but let one hand of faith be stretched forth ever so quietly, he knew. What respect he manifested always for personality is shown in the story of the woman who was a sinner. Jesus never blurred any man's life, but after contact with him that life stood out naked and clear. According to the teaching of Jesus, every man is an eternal somewhat. None are common or un- clean. Each one is to be reckoned by himself. What was the curse of Jesus's day? Impersonal- ism. God was an abstraction. Man was reckoned by the herd. The mass of the people were only pawns and tools, instruments to be used and cast aside. Religion was cold, mechanical, and im- personal. THE GIFT-BRINGER 213 What a change Jesus has wrought! We are lacking here yet, as I shall point out, but the whole worth-while drift of life is to personalize relationships. That is the meaning of democracy, of the feminist movement, of the crusade against child labor. The striking off the chains of slaves, the amelioration of prisons have come because of a new regard for the person. Jesus saw in every man the image of the divine. He saw in every man an immortal spirit. He saw in every sin-cursed life something of infinite sweetness. In the third place, if he personalized man, he likewise personalized God. It was not the divine nor the unknown, nor the eternal force, nor the divine something, nor the power that makes for righteousness. It was God, the Father my Father. The danger of our day is that we shall not emphasize this truth of Jesus. The danger in religion is impersonalism. God is but a misty power, an unknowable force for righteousness. He is but a generalization, whose chief virtue is that it is capitalized The Good, The Truth, The All. In reform we are eager for mass movements, forgetting that lasting reforms are ever personal. Impersonal charity is as unsatisfactory as it is icy. The menace in all relationships is that they are impersonal. The minister who preaches to audiences and not to living folks needs a new baptism. The curer of souls must be gifted with the power of dealing in a personal way with every 214 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT soul. The doctor who sees only cases may be very skillful, but he is not the kind of man you want when your child is ill. Is not impersonalism one of the main causes of the friction between labor and capital? Men work for employers that they do not know, and other men draw dividends from the toil of workers they have never seen, let alone known. Do not the evils of the world arise very largely from impersonalism? Do you think that a man who had a vivid sense of the personal worth of a life could debauch that life with drink? It is because we value the person as of less worth than revenue or delight in satisfaction that we can make him the victim of our greed or our pas- sions. Too often women and men who call them- selves by the name of Christ treat those who serve them as if we were automatons. The only remedy for this is the vital thought of Jesus the emphasis of personality. The highest truth is personal, the Omnipotent must be a personality ; God is not a shadow nor a mist, he is our Father. In all our dealings we need to remember that each individual is a living life. Fifth. Christ made another new contribution to the world when he enthroned character. Men had said wealth is the great thing, therefore get wealth. Other men had said power is the essen- tial thing, therefore get power. Others had made fame the goal of striving. Plato had said that culture was the chief good. But Jesus exalted character as the one supreme thing. The only THE GIFT-BRINGER 215 thing that abides is character. It outlasts the bronze of power and the marble of fame. He created a passion for personal righteousness. He made religion the symbol of purity, the exponent of moral clearness. He saw what man might be; then he said, "That best man you are to be." He furnished a life of sinlessness as an ideal for men. He refused to accept ethical shortcomings. He recognized no moral limitations. He stretched before men's minds a divine goal of perfection and then bade them climb toward that. Hitherto the chief figures on the stage of time had been the soldier, the scholar, the statesman, the successful. Jesus introduced a new figure. He made sainthood the noblest object of human striving. Sixth. He came enabling men to be good and to grow better. He so empowers that lad there that he comes to manhood with a heart of purity, with the vital forces at the floodtide. He so sus- tains and reenforces that lad that all the while his life grows in beauty and power and worth. That is the great miracle, the bringing forth the divine within us, the causing the real man to emerge. Further, he lays those pierced hands of suffering and of service on the wasted life, that driftwood piece of humanity, and lo! a trans- formation is effected. The bleared and hardened face is softened with the beauty, of holy striving. The foul speech is replaced with hymns of praise. The crooked methods are made fair and open. 216 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT The besotted habits are swept away and in their stead there is purity and moral earnestness. No other power in the world is able to change the leopard's spots. That is the gift of Jesus "power to become the sons of God." Seventh. For ages men had dreamed of the life to be. In the light of that hope they had lain down to rest and had gone forth to toil. It had been a glorious dream. But many times they had yearned to know if the dream were true. Some- times this hope took the form of gross resurrec- tion, sometimes of race or memory immortality. "God had hidden eternity in men's hearts." It was a hope, an aspiration, but nothing more. It is a truth too deep for Plato's logic or Job's un- folding. Only God could do that. Jesus lifts the life-to-be up from aspiration to certainty. He makes it real. Once men hoped it might be so. He makes us sure of it. Through him we see the shore lines of that immortal continent and know "that if this earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." This gift of certainty has broken the bars of darkness, lifted the clouds of grief, solaced the mourning, and comforted the dying. It has planted immortal blooms on the graves of our dead, it has given life, meaning, and glory, it has crowned the lips with laughter and filled the heart with singing. Finally. Christ taught a new law of happiness. THE GIFT-BRINGER 217 The way to be happy, some had said, is to be idle. Some said the way to be happy is to have much ; the key to joy is possession. Others said he alone is happy who is crowned with the laurel of suc- cess, he alone is happy who wears the chaplet of fame and honor. Some said pleasure is the god- dess of happiness ; she guards the garden of bliss woo her. But the seekers of happiness found her not in idleness, nor in possession, neither in the fading laurel, nor in the drooping flowers of pleasure. "If ye would be happy," said Jesus, "serve." Every cup of water given in love gives back a blessing to the giver. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." The way of the cross is the way of joy. The rose of happiness grows only in the garden of service ; the fragrant flowers of peace are found only in the way of kindness; heart's ease is granted to those alone who lift up and help. The men whose days are sun-kissed, joy-filled, the men of the glad heart are the men who follow their Lord in service. From these truths, that Christ has made to grip the lives and consciences of men, have flowed incalculable blessings. The mind has been en- franchised and from the enfranchised mind has come every form of industrial and commercial progress, every comfort and modern convenience. The ills that curse have been lifted or are in progress of being lifted; manhood has been liberated, woman set free, childhood recognized. 218 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT Freedom, education, opportunity, a sense of obli- gation, a passion for righteousneess, a person- alizing of human relationships, the power for clean living, a spirit of service these are some of the precious gifts that Christ has brought. V. MONTANA CHAELES LINCOLN BOVAED PRESIDENT MONTANA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY, HELENA, MONTANA Charles L. Bovard was born in Scott County, Indiana, October 10, 1860, and received his edu- cation in the Normal Collegiate Institute and Hanover College. He received the degrees Ph.B. from the Illinois Wesleyan University and D.D. from the Moores' Hill College in 1909. He was licensed to preach at the age of twenty-two, re- ceived on trial in the Southwest Indiana Confer- ence in 1883, and filled various appointments in that Conference for seven years. After a few months as missionary at Tuscon, Arizona, Bishop Mallalieu appointed him to the superintendency of the New Mexico English Mission, where he served six years. His subsquent pastorates have been : Laporte, Indiana, two years ; Helena, Mon- tana, four years; Mount View, Butte, Montana, three years ; Oxford, Ohio, four years, and a short pastorate in Minot, North Dakota, from which he was called to the superintendency of the Butte District. After one year in that capacity, he was appointed to the position he now occupies as president of Montana Wesleyan University. 220 THE SIN OF STUPIDITY CHARLES LINCOLN BOVARD "For he supposed his brethren would have under- stood, . . . but they understood not" Acts 7. 25. DEAR preacher-brother Stephen! How our hearts are drawn to thee as we feel the deep and impelling love of Jesus Christ distilling through thy lofty speech! "Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken." This was tender, like unto Christ from the cross. This address of Stephen has been mistakenly called a "defense." He knew as he looked into the set faces before him that his doom was sealed ; he could not be true and save his life ; true he must be. He pleads, but not for life nor honor. He speaks as one facing his last oppor- tunity for pleading a life-engrossing cause. His words fairly leap forth from a heart ready to burst with love. He felt as Paul did when he wrote, "I could wish myself accursed for my brethren and kinsmen's sake." Nothing weighed with him but to get the truth into the minds and heart of his people. And how he does this thing ! How wise, how logical, how artful and cumulative his arguments! Whence the poise in the midst of such a sweep and rush of thought? The Holy 221 222 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT Spirit spake in and through him upheld and strengthened him. True, like his Master, "him- self he could not save"; but the early and latter rains fell upon his words and death with rich re- sults. Saul was a witness and never got away from what he heard and saw. "No Stephen, no Paul," say the Fathers. First of the bloody train that has marched across the pages of Christian history first and goodliest we thank thee, Stephen. When we are at our best, when we feel like mounting up on wings of eagles, we still gaze aloft to thy martyr throne hard by the mount of God. Stephen struck at the deepest weakness not only in the life of his own nation or his own time, but of all peoples and all times spiritual stu- pidity. "There are none so blind as those who will not see." It was the cry of the prophets. The people had dull ears, blind eyes, torpid and unresponding hearts. Isaiah said they would not "consider." He called to them to awake and arise. The ass and the ox were showing more alertness. The fowler saw that it was vain to spread the net in the sight of any bird; but men walked into the open net in broad daylight. They stoned their prophets men who could have helped them. At last they seemed to have lost entirely their moral perspective, shouting defiantly, "Evil, be thou my good!" This same penchant for blundering was carried over into the times of Christ and his apostles. THE SIN OF STUPIDITY 223 To Paul it was a dark veil over the people's eyes, "untaken away." (John said Christ had come to his own and his own had refused him "re- ceived him not.") They could not understand the plain meanings of their own writings. Even the loving and persistent explanations of the Great Teacher helped them nothing. They made puzzles out of his plain words. They construed his acts of beneficence into either acts of diabol- ism or disloyalty to his country and religion. They hung upon his speech not for the purposes of profit but that they might find some grounds for accusation. At last they succeeded, and in all of its meaning, Peter boldly declares: "Ye have denied the Holy One and Just . . . and have killed the Prince of Life" the colossal blunder of the ages. But this sermon is not to exhaust itself upon ancient history, although that history is rich with the wisdom of God. I should be only too glad to report that this human stupidness had largely passed away. But, alas! the blind spot on the soul still remains. Light there is in- creased light the Sun of Righteousness shining brilliantly for those who have eyes. God is re- vealed more clearly with each conquest of science, each added page of interpreted history, and yet how very many stupidly lie in their dark caves of selfish unbelief! Nor is this stupidity merely incidental a veneer, a tinge; it is fundamental the most 224 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT marked characteristic of fallen human nature. Deity may not dispel it. Jesus, conversing with the woman of Samaria in compassionate helpless- ness, said, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink," etc., thereby acknowledging his own limitations in the presence of blind stupidity. On a later occasion, with almost breaking heart, Jesus gazed upon Jerusalem, where he had done so many of his marvelous works, and uttered the wail of dis- appointed love and service: "O Jerusalem, Jeru- salem, ... how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not." Revelation is thwarted at this point. What is as clear as the noonday to the awakened soul is only confusion to the dead soul. "They have Moses and the prophets" what avails further miracu- lous works? "Though one should rise from the dead, they will not believe." What a striking and sad thing is this limita- tion we all share in matters so vital as the eternal welfare of those we love! Did you never as father, mother, or brother stand and plead with a loved one to see and walk in the right way assured, perhaps, at first, that that one so near to you by the ties of nature must get your mean- ing? But, alas! have you not soon felt the dark gulf between you and the one you loved swallow- ing up your words as fast as uttered emphasiz- ing your helplessness? You thought they would THE SIN OF STUPIDITY 225 have understood, but they understood not. The defect is fundamental, an inheritance from that spiritual cataclysm of the soul, theologically designated "the fall." But here we must be care- ful. We must not lose sight of our mighty potencies. Because we cannot do a certain thing out of hand, is no sufficient reason for believing that we can do nothing. The soul of the deadest has something that can be appealed to. Calvin and Edwards were far too literal in assigning to death and sleep meanings that placed the hu- man worker in the attitude of indifference until sovereign grace should speak and act by creative power upon the natural man. This brings us to the very watershed of vital theology. We must be careful in denying to Cal- vinism the extreme implications of her doctrines of decrees, that we do not withdraw ourselves from that full dependence upon God for the regenerating act necessary to make new the stony hearts of men. "Paul may plant and Apollos water, but God must give the increase." Ac- knowledge this, and we are thrown instantly upon God must implore his help and depend upon his grace for the regeneration of mankind; deny it, and we go on trying to add a cubit here and there to our moral stature. On the one hand, we have our great and ever-developing doc- trines of evangelicalism; on the other, the thou- sand and one diluted forms of socinianism and modern Unitarianism. The difficulties that were 226 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT in the way of our fathers have largely disap- peared. We can see that the effective operations of God's grace do not at all interfere with the absolute freedom of the will. John's gracious words, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," etc., and "no man can come to me except the Father . . . draw him," are in perfect har- mony with our sure intuition of responsibility. This doctrine of the soul's deadness and the need of the combined power of man and Omnipotence in the task of bringing him to life, leads us to the very heart of evangelism. I might safely challenge the citation of a single spirit-propagat- ing revival that has not recognized this spiritual deadness of the natural man. It is equally true that the highest and most lasting results in spir- itual endeavor have fully recognized man's joint indispensableness in the work of awakening and regenerating mankind. "For we are laborers to- gether with God." But let us come a little closer home with our theme. Without an attempt at detailed specification, let us glance at a few of the more general attitudes of life that illustrate this inborn stupidity. That man is stupid certainly who neglects or refuses adequate consideration of the deeper things of life. The time-honored doctrines of im- mortality doctrines in no wise affected (except in confirmation) by the scientific learning of our day are certainly worthy of serious thought. To-day we live here in this world with our ma- THE SIN OF STUPIDITY 227 terial goods, our friends, and our employments; to-morrow we may have nothing to do with all these things : death has rendered them useless so far as we are concerned. Granted that an undue reflection upon a future life may be injurious, yet can a human intelligence, not diabolically blinded, go on from year to year without so much as a serious thought for the soul's relation- ship to eternity? Do the analogies of your earthly life show such neglect? Future situa- tions in this life give you much concern. You contemplate a change of residence, a trip abroad, and the contingencies are all carefully weighed; provisions against the remotest possible discom- fort are minutely made. You would justly blame yourself if you did otherwise. But why so in- different to matters of so much deeper import? Is it not because of imperfect understanding of a fatal stupidity in spiritual things ? You are more stupid than the bird who sights the net that would ensnare him. Shake yourself free from that numbness which means eternal death! The arctic explorer knows the meaning of that pleas- ant bodily stupor that settles upon him when ex- posed to the rigors of wind and frost. It means death, although it appears to be a dreamless sleep. He must arouse himself at every cost. Yours is a similar situation. Our times are full of seda- tives, lulling the unsuspecting into reposeful slumber, a thousandfold more dangerous than the most puissant, open foe. 228 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT Then, again, we must class that one stupid who refuses evidence, flouts testimony. It is not- my purpose to review even in outline the many varied evidences of the truth of the Christian re- ligion. Although whole libraries have been written upon the theme, what do they avail when men refuse to listen. What more direct route is there to conviction than that suggested by the psalmist, "O taste and see that the Lord is good" ? Our Lord also proposed that the truthfulness of the doctrines should be tested by experiment: "He who willeth to do ... shall know of the doctrine." The worst of it is that this refusal of evidence is against our best interests. There might be some difficulty in getting a man to be- lieve to his hurt, but the gospel proposition aims only at our highest good. Why, here is a per- version so deep and ineradicable that we stand in awe before it, questioning if we are not facing the works of some occult diabolism. We have in books like Harold Begbie's Twice-Born Men as clean-cut evidence as was ever admitted to any court that the gospel saves the sinner from his sins. Nor in this country do we need books with long-distance examples; we have them under our very eyes. All is as definite and incontrover- tible as the testimony of the blind man, "Whereas I was blind, now I see." My friend, if you can- not believe everything, lay hold upon some great religious truth that does appeal to you. Horace Bushnell, in his college days suffered THE SIN OF STUPIDITY 229 much from his doubts of the truth of the gospel. But he was a sincere inquirer and God led him into the full light of truth. First he fixed his mind upon the simplest religious truth he could find. He said, "I do believe in right and wrong." This was the entering wedge. If we but shake ourselves free from our deadly stupor and get in deadly earnest in our quest for the truth, God will bring us out into a clear light a real and satisfactory experience. Once more, and in a matter that brings us back to our starting point the matter at issue be- tween Stephen and his people how stupid of man to refuse the help and fellowship of Jesus Christ! And first we must clear the way some- what from some modern misapprehensions as to the present-day claims of Christ upon mankind. That he might have expected much from those who dwelt with him, heard, and saw him in the flesh, is readily conceded. But now, what can we have to do with him? I will leave aside the transcendental features of Christ's person and claims for the moment (although to me these are valid and intensely real) and ask you to simply read and analyze the account we have in the Gospels of Christ. Does not this personality grasp you in a sense that no other historical character does? While in the case of other great moralists a Socrates or Seneca you get hold of them; but in the case of Christ, does he not get hold of you? Does he not lift up into our 230 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT consciousness a burning shame for our sins? In spite of our resistance, we feel that we must do something with Jesus. He has thrown himself into our lives. Even among the less enlightened peoples of the earth this effect has followed the story of Jesus and his work among men. And here comes the basis of a fellowship as real as any we may know, and a fellowship not at all de- pendent upon the actual bodily presence of Christ. It does rest back upon historical reality grows out of it as the tree grows out of the soil, but is different from the soil. I do not believe there could be a true fellowship based upon an imaginary or legendary Christ. Here the most important element in any true fellowship reality would be wanting. Enough, perhaps, has been said to bridge over the difficulty that some honest minds have felt in the claims of a Christ long since withdrawn from this world of reality. But I do make appeal to our deeper consciousness, and insist that if our examination is sincere, we will find the Christ of to-day not less but much more real than he possibly could have been here in the flesh. If this is true, then how stupid of men to neglect or deny him! This reality is not less than that of the sun or light. I need not appeal to literature, where he shines through every page that is worth while presently and retrospectively; nor do I need to recapitulate history in order to show traces of him on its every page; and in art, all THE SIN OF STUPIDITY 231 must acknowledge that he is supreme and com- pelling. No; while these may confirm our faith, we have a more direct and convincing source of evidence. Let us look within, and compare the record in the Gospels with the image in our heart. I need not fear the test. It seemed to our Lord a puzzle that men should have so much difficulty in defining his character and person. "Have I been so long time with you, Philip, and yet hast thou not known me?" It is said that the American Indian never points out the beauties of landscape or sky to his com- panions. He believes that if beauty does not appeal to those who behold it, it is a waste of time to say anything about it. Jacob at Bethel awoke from his dream to exclaim, "Surely the Lord is in this place ; and I knew it not. 7 ' O, my fellow men, let us free ourselves from this benumbing lethargy! Slumber invites, but is by no means compelling. The living, present Christ is at the door at all the doors of our soul knocking, knocking, knocking. Shall we let him in? EDWARD SMITH SUPERINTENDENT BUTTE DISTRICT, HELENA, MONTANA Edward Smith is Ohio-born (1865) and farm- reared, of English-Scotch extraction. He is one of twelve children seven sons and five daughters. Ten children grew to maturity, and all are active Christians. Three sons of his parents are Meth- odist ministers. One daughter is in the Inter- national Young Women's Christian Association work. The subject of this sketch had the benefit of country schools in boyhood, a few months of high school, and a year at the Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio. After a career of teach- ing he entered the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio, but soon suffered an acute at- tack of rheumatism and struggled many months for life. In a convalescent state he came to Washington and entered the Columbia River Con- ference in 1893 and after five years of service was transferred to the Montana Conference, in which body he has served the church to the present time as pastor and superintendent, first in Helena, afterward the Butte District, then on the Yellow- stone District and again on Butte, or the old Helena District. He has had a keen interest in the educational work of the church in Montana and has gained a wide frontier experience. 232 THE SIN OF THE STRONG EDWARD SMITH "Issachar is a strong ass crouching down between two burdens: and he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute." Gen. 49. 14, 15. "Be not weary in well-doing." 2 Thess. 3. 13. A FOND diversion of many people is to trace ancestry and establish, remote lineage. The patriarch Jacob wisely reversed this practice and gathered his sons for a look at the future. He constructed a pedigree in advance and gave to his children the "Family Tree" full grown. "Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days" (Gen. 49. 1). The standard under which a people or a person sets forth determines largely their ultimate goal or destiny. Low ideals do not beget high results, nor will noble ideals produce base consequences. A common failing point is the lack of building future programs, making them large, strong, and true, including essential principles ; among others a religious purpose is vital. Lack of high-fixed purpose often explains defeat. 233 234 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT What an ensign is to a nation, a coat-of-arms to a family, or a trade-mark to a firm, so should a good name, unsullied character, and high pur- pose be to the individual his pride, his joy, his strength. If individual integrity from genera- tion to generation be the undeviating rule, the nation's standard will never trail in the dust. The family escutcheon will have no blotch. The firm name will need no sponsor and the individual can dispense with bond companies. The stand- ards under which we set forth have everything to do with the goal or destiny reached. This is ex- actly what Jacob, the father of the tribes, saw. A solemn hour it was for this assembly of father and sons in a foreign land. As the father is about to die *he sees in a prophetic hour the unveiled future of his posterity, and, true to the vision, reveals his destiny according to the traits in each son. Many a father's heart would grow sick to see a few generations ahead. Many also, let us trust, would rejoice in the sure reward of righteous- ness. In any case, the vision should be very sobering to sire and to sons, for all depends upon the governing principles of those who are to make the future. To be reassuring these principles must be more serious than vulgar getting of secu- lar wealth, ease-taking, or sensual pleasure. All this was clear to Jacob, fie saw that Issachar shrank from full duty, while strong and capable. This same practice is apt to be the sin. THE SIN OF THE STRONG 235 of the strong, and is too much a modern tendency in the Northwest with reference to religious duties. This dodging or shrinking from duty and toil, in a moral or in any other form, to the fullness of strength is known in forceful English as shirking. Jajcob may have been moving his tent and desert camp. The manner of loading the asses requires them to carry together or mutually bear the load. One young and strong animal learns to crouch, or shrink, and let the burden come upon the willing beasts. This is Issachar. This is the ease-loving church. This is the undutiful Christian. This is the sin of the strong. Very homely incidents often convey serious truth. Anyone who has worked three horses abreast knows how a strong center horse will often learn the trick of letting the end of his double tree rest against the triple tree and the other two horses, less strong possibly than the shirker, will do the work. This is the figure of the text. This is the sin of the strong. The moral burden of our region is not shared or distributed in right or equal proportions. Many fail to use their splendid strength, and evade moral duties. This practice will reduce posterity to tribute payers, to sensu- ality and greed. We can willingly excuse weakness and have charity for the feeble and faint. But shirking is inexcusable and intolerable. Issachar is strong but quick to see a resting place and cunning to 236 PACIFIC NOKTHWEST PULPIT enjoy it. A strong tendency to imitate this dangerous practice seizes upon many who come to our borders from other regions. The land is pleasant and, religiously, rest is good. The penalty for this sin is exacting and severe. With Issachar the feebleness which he feigns becomes a reality, and his tribe degenerates to servile tribute-payers to surrounding tribes. This shirking tribe has left a progeny originally strong and well endowed with capability and possible efficiency, but quick to improve a chance to rest. Issachar's inheritance was the broad west plain of the Jordan, rich, level, and remu- nerative; yet he becomes a tribute-payer, lacking in self-esteem and shorn of self-respect and in- dependence. The warning lesson need not be misapplied. The most destructive evils of this day result from love of ease by those whose right and duty it was to be strong and bear burdens. This sin of the strong has crept into Christian activities with menacing results. The tribute this sin will exact will be nothing less than our Sabbath, our family altar, our deepening life, and our moral influence. It is too much to pay to the godless tribes requiring it. The naturalist tells us that certain tribes of ants practice an ancient sin of the human race. They make slaves of their fellows and take their ease, but lose their own strength and so 1 degen- erate by this practice that when separated from THE SIN OF THE STRONG 237 their slaves they are incapable of self-support and die of starvation. They pay over in dependence to the tyranny of sloth. I heard a governor of Ohio confess before a college class, that as a student he was pampered with money and luxuries, while a classmate whom he called Charlie was absolutely self-reliant. A number of years after quitting college they met. Charlie's record was more splendid than that of the rich classmate. The governor's uncouth ex- pression was: "Confound the luck! Charlie al- ways did have the advantage of me. He had to struggle, and it gained his self-reliance, while ease and luxury rendered me impotent." In re- ality the governor's wealth should have been his strength, but abuse of strength this sin of the strong had a penalty as it invariably does. It makes of a tribe "a servant unto tribes" as truly as it renders impotent the small creatures of the ant world. Many young people are lounging in ease and bordering on dissipation who could be better lawyers, better doctors, better teachers, better farmers, better merchants, better mechanics, and better preachers than any we have to-day. This is said with no reflection on the excellent pro- fessional and industrial people of to-day. It is a reflection on the strong, well-endowed, talented persons who flinch at duty and toil. Each gen- eration's advantages are superior to those of the preceding one, and requirements correspondingly 238 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT greater. None should wince at this fact. All should hail it with a glad response. The struggle with disadvantages so often men- tioned is in reality a struggle with advantages. Hardships are the wealth of the poor, while affluence often proves to be the poverty of the rich, who evade duty and toil, choosing luxury and ease instead. A recent tabulation of birth rate in New York city is as follows: Jews, fifty- five to one thousand annually; Italians, fifty; Negroes, twenty-nine; and the rich homes of the pure Americans but seven to the one thousand annually. Nature, in this instance God, is not mocked: extinction is a severe penalty physi- cally; it is alarmingly so spiritually. This sin of the strong attacks church people and church activities. Many a small, weak band outdoes the strong, rich, ease-loving organization. There are pleasing exceptions, but many churches rich in members and material resources have lamentably few conversions. If their efforts were in ratio to those of smaller and poorer churches mighty results would follow. I have witnessed the coming of multitudes into the great Northwest. Many of them are the salt of the earth and our righteous strength in this land. Others crouch between the burdens and see that rest is good, but astonishingly soon be- come tribute-payers to carnal tribes. Many who have enjoyed the strength of godly atmosphere as the church and family altar in the homeland THE SIN OF THE STRONG 239 grow weary in well-doing in the new land, join Issachar's tribe, and submit to a tribute the church would never exact. A man of combative nature tackled a stony New England farm, and made it the best in the county. When asked if he would not like to farm in the free deep soil of the West, his reply was, "I'd grow lazy if I put my spade into the ground where it did not strike a rock." Woe to them that are at ease in Zion! Every man shall bear his own burden, or what time he should be a teacher of others he will have need that he be taught again the first principles. Some people never halt, others never let slip a chance to sit down. Those who march keep the throng moving. Many of us feel ourselves but a part of the throng. Some have a habit of pushing difficulties aside or mastering them; others hunt a way round and become stranded in by-paths. The strong who use their strength get above mists and clouds of despair. Those who sin against their strength suffocate in ease-taking. We tire most when doing least. Idlers grow weary. Those who keep going keep growing, while lazy people complain and fail. Diligence in prayer and in God's word is proof against weariness in God's work. Nature is action! Tides, winds, clouds, streams, all work hard. God assigns great tasks to people. To redeem the race is no small thing. It is worthy of strength. To shrink burdens proves us unworthy of the 240 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT work of the Master. He was no idler. He did the work of his Father who sent him. He en- joins us to work while it is day. To each one his work was his parable in Mark 13. 34. Energy thrives in no country as in the North- west. It has built our mountain chains and has plowed out our canons. Our swift, limpid rivers and streams are mighty power lines of energy from source to mouth. Our breezes are constant. Our almost constant sunshine scintillates with life. Day unto day uttereth strength and night unto night showeth keenness. Issachar's tribe would have been discordant with environment here. Industrially, commercially, and educa- tionally our people catch the spirit of Montana's rivers, mountains, and sky. In these surround- ings, with the tendency they gender, why make an exception in things spiritual, that is, the affairs of Christ's kingdom. Nowhere does nature repay toil as in the Northwest. But lavish as she is, there are no dividends for those who take their ease. All we say of nature, we can say of grace. Arise, shine, put on thy strength, O Zion. Not slothful in business, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. VI. NORTH MONTANA JOHN A. MARTIN SUPERINTENDENT GREAT FALLS DISTRICT, GREAT FALLS, MONTANA John A. Martin was born at Teewater, Ontario, Canada, April 29, 1869, of Scotch-Irish parent- age. The greater part of his boyhood days were spent on the farm. In his seventeenth year he was given a license to preach, but owing to ill health he had to discontinue for a time. In Oc- tober, 1887, he moved to Livingston, Montana, and assumed work at the railroad shops. In 1892 the Kev. Jacob Mills placed him in charge of Livingston Circuit, Montana Conference. The following year he was appointed to the Bozeman Circuit and from there was sent to Glasgow, Mon- tana, in the North Montana Mission. After two years of service there and one at Fort Benton he went to Garrett Biblical Institute, but owing to ill health he returned before graduation to Mon- tana and was stationed at Hamilton for four years; Philipsburg, one year; Chinook, three years; Lewistown, two years; First Church, Great Falls, five years ; and in 1913 was appointed superintendent of the Great Falls District, North Montana Conference, in which capacity he is now serving the church. 242 CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP JOHN A. MARTIN "Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, . . . Them that honor me I will honor." 1 Sam. 2. 30. WE believe that "Christian Stewardship" is one of the greatest questions before us to-day as a church of the living God. And, further, we do not hesitate to say that the success of God's work, great as we know it is, hinges very largely upon the fact of our honoring God or our dis- honoring him. There is no possible doubt but that the church has been brought into derision on account of the methods that have been em- ployed for the raising of finances in order to carry on the work. That an organization which has only the wel- fare of men at heart should be questioned, as the church is to-day, about its usefulness is rather humiliating to those who are giving it the strength and devotion of their lives. Yet the question is being asked, "What is the matter with the churches?" Many are the solutions offered, but none, so far, of the inventions of man's mind has given a satisfactory answer; nor yet will they ever be able to do so, for God himself has 243 244 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT the only solution that of honoring him. When the church honors God, he always honors the church. That is a biblical statement and has been proven time and time again in the Christian experiences of those who have "proved him." When a church or an individual feels no respon- sibility as to privileges and duties in this great work of the salvation of the lost, of a necessity something must suffer, because God's plans have not been put into operation. When we begin to put biblical methods into practice you will see a different world; not that God will change, but the change will be in us. There is no doubt whatsoever that the work of God is suffering every day, and I believe very largely so, from a lack of knowledge of what God has to say to us in his own blessed Book. "Where there is no vision, the people perish : but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." There lies our difficulty; we have failed to grasp the vision as given to us in the Word of God. Multitudes of folks have been endeavoring to consecrate them- selves to the work of God without consecrating their possessions. We must bear in mind that the church can never come to its fullness of power until it accepts and practices a financial system that will pour into the Lord's treasury a due pro- portion of the resources of his people everywhere ; for victory in the local church means victory abroad as well, while defeat of the church at home means defeat everywhere. CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP 245 At the big International Epworth League Con- vention held in Buffalo, New York, in July, 1914, Dr. Badley, who is the general secretary of the Epworth League of India, made the statement that there have been thousands of natives turned away who came seeking baptism because they did not have enough Christian workers to teach the natives the true significance of Christian baptism. Contrast that statement with this fact : in this country there are several thousand Stu- dent Volunteers who are willing to go to foreign mission fields, but there is not the means at hand to send them. There must be something woefully wrong with the church when such conditions exist, especially when the church has long prayed for open doors, and God has heard the earnest supplications of his people ; the doors have opened, but the purse strings have tightened, the tithe has been withheld. It is just as necessary in liv- ing a Christian life to have a system in our finan- cial obligations to the church as it is to pray, or read the Bible. In fact, I doubt the sincerity of a life that can say prayers, and read the Scrip- tures and then close the ear and heart to the ever- pleading Macedonian cry, "Come over and help us." When the church either at home or abroad turns away seeking souls from its altars, because of lack of funds with which to support native workers or pay the running expenses, it is a sad commentary on twentieth-century Christianity. 246 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT It would seem unreasonable to think that the good God has made provision for everything else in the world except a financial plan for the main- tenance of his own work. But I want to say to you that God has given to us a plan, that of "Christian stewardship/' with the tithe as his standard of giving. The tithe was a part of the law and life of God's people under the Old Testa- ment dispensation, and there is no place where we are told that it has been changed in the New Testament. The tithe is an Anglo-Saxon word meaning the "tenth." It has special reference to our honoring God in worship, in the giving of one tenth of our income for religious purposes. Giving is a part of worship, as well as singing. As we prosper, God prospers also, for we are coworkers together with him. Paul in his letter to the church at Corinth gives them this idea, "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." You will notice that there were no exceptions "every one of you." Then there must have been some standard to gauge their giving. Paul knew of the tithing system, because no one was better versed in the law than he. From all classes of folks comes the question, "How can I tithe?" The farmer asks the question. Personally I know farmers who keep books, and they can tell you what it costs to raise a crop of grain, from the time CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP 247 the first furrow is turned in the soil until the grain is in the elevator and they have the check in their pocket. After the expenses are all paid he can give you his net profit, and from this, if he fol- lows the law of God, he will give one tenth. If there is no profit to him, why, God loses as well as does the farmer. The professional man can tell you what his income and what his expendi- tures have been ; such persons tithe after deduct- ing the expense of the business. The merchant can tell you what his income is for the year, after all expenses for conducting the business have been deducted. The salaried man has no business expenses to deduct, so from his salary each month the first item taken out is the "tithe." If the salary be one hundred dollars per month, then the sum of ten dollars is put into the "Lord's Box." We have heard of people who are supporting poor relatives from this fund, and no part of it ever goes into the church treasury. Read Malachi 3. 7-12. History tells us that at least thirteen centuries before Christ tithing was practiced among the Greeks. Clement of Alexandria tells us that be- fore the invention of making images, the tithe was offered. Demosthenes calls it sacrilege to retain the tenth and use it for other purposes save that of the deities. The fact is that this custom was practiced among all people known to history thirteen hundred years before the Christian era. The Babylonians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and 248 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT Romans, all dedicated a tenth of their income and spoils to their gods, as well as did the people of Israel, from their settlement in Canaan to the end of the period covered by Old Testament Scrip- tures. Jesus comes to us in the New Testament. What does he teach? He says, "Whosoever will do, and teach the law shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." You will recall how a cer- tain lawyer tempted Jesus by asking, "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answers, "What is written in the law ?" The man knew what was written, but he refused to comply, just as multitudes of folks continue to do. There can be no doubt but that the law of the tithe still holds good, and where it is ignored the blessings of God cannot be fully realized. There is a no- table thing in connection with God's divine plan in that it records no failures on the part of the churches or individuals where it has been con- scientiously practiced. Let me give you just one concrete illustration that has come under my own ministry. I quote from a paper prepared on tithing for a District Conference in 1914: "To me and mine tithing is no longer an experi- ment. To our absolute satisfaction we have witnessed the result of taking God at his word. For a time, out here in a Montana town, I was out of work and that through no fault of my own. It was then that I heard a sermon on tith- ing. To this day I believe it was the logic of the sermon rather than my own extremity that made CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP 249 me say, not, 'Lord, if you will send me a job/ but, 'Lord, I know you are going to send me a job, and then we will begin tithing/ My wife had favored the idea before I had reached the point myself. Was it by chance that in a week's time I received a letter asking me to report for work where I had not thought of asking for it ? I took the position. The salary was small just enough to live on but we carefully set aside the tithe and the rest met our needs. Was it by chance that soon after I received another letter which resulted in a different position with an increase of thirty-three per cent in salary? We kept on tithing. Was it by chance that a few months afterward, the pastor at Whitefish, Montana, who had been my pastor back in Iowa, started a movement which resulted in my present position in Whitefish, where every day is a delight because of its op- portunity for Christian service, yet where every condition seems to help us toward greater pros- perity? Things don't come by chance. We have only met the conditions, and he whose word has never failed has done the rest. 'There hath not failed one word of all his good promises. 7 Matters have passed the experimental stage with us, for we have been at both ends of this question and have seen God's promises work out. The tithe is larger now, though of course it is easier to pay it than when wages were smaller, and if it pleases God to increase still further our prosperity, we shall not stop with a tenth, but will increase the 250 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT percentage." In passing let me say this: where a person begins tithing and gives it a fair trial, it is very seldom that you ever hear of his giving it up unless he loses his Christian experience. I know of only one such case, and that was the reason. Draw on your imagination and picture in your mind the disciples of old doing as some of our modern churches are doing. Think of Paul and Peter running raffles in their churches, or Mary and Martha holding a rummage sale of old cast- off clothing, and going around the community gathering up eatables for church suppers, and charging thirty-five cents for a seventy-five-cent meal, and leading many people to believe that they are helping the church by paying half what a thing is worth. Listen to Paul: "Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables" (Acts 6. 2). I am sure that you could not picture in your mind David tuning up his harp and John the beloved disciple of our Lord running a modern dance to pay tem- ple expenses. There has just been brought to my notice a certain church whose minister does not believe in tithing. .His church was hard struck by certain public works closing down, his salary was back six hundred dollars, and the grocery- man was urging that his bills be paid. The min- ister called his church officers together and they CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP 251 decided on a big dance. Do you wonder that that church had to dispense with their paid organist and choir leader, and are now wondering how they are going to pay the janitor. The minister has resigned, and has sought other and greener fields. With all the faults of the church of the past, thank God, they never resorted to some of the humiliating and questionable methods of these days, such as selling the shadows of women and girls to the highest bidder, and conducting dances to keep the temples of God open even for one day a week. The accusation is made, and in many cases justly, that the churches are always begging. The reason for this is that the church is not honoring God by the tithe and systematic giving. It is for us to give it its rightful place and thus lift the church above the selfishness and covetousness that now holds it to the mammon of this world. A few years ago when serving a church of three hundred and fifty members, and knowing them very well as to their income, I averaged seventy-five of them as receiving one hundred dollars per month, and forty of them as receiving fifty dollars per month ; leaving two hundred and thirty-five to give nothing, it would still make a total tithe of eleven thousand four hundred dol- lars a year. Twenty-five per cent to the benevo- lences of the church would be two thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars. Twenty-five per cent to the running expenses of the church would be 252 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT two thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars, leav- ing a balance of five thousand seven hundred dol- lars for building, repairing, and charity purposes. What an influence for good such a church would be in a community if all paid the tithe! To-day when an individual or a family meets with adversity in a community, the first thing is the humiliating experience of taking up a sub- scription for them. How much better it would be for the church to have funds on hand, gov- erned by a board of directors as a bank is, able to minister to suffering bodies as well as to suffer- ing souls! We cannot see why this work should be left to lodges and boards of charity. The Church of God ought to be able to minister to both body and soul; and if the tithes were paid, the church would stand foremost in every com- munity. Then there is another thing that must be con- sidered the time that is taken in the average pulpit for special collections and subscriptions. Under the tithe system every worthy object would receive just consideration and publicity, but no extra collections would need to be taken or sub- scriptions asked for. The pastor's mind would be relieved of all anxiety as to finances, and he would be left free to devote all of his time to the spiritual interests of the church and community. Under the present system it appears on the sur- face at least that most pastors lose more sleep worrying over finances than they do over lost CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP 253 souls. For they feel that they must bring up a good financial report to the Annual Conference in order to hold their standing and advance if pos- sible. Brethren, we ought at least to conduct the churches on a scriptural basis. Do you wonder that so many folks look upon the church in de- rision? Do you wonder why it is so hard to in- terest many folks in the church? I don't wonder at all ; in fact, I wonder that the church is doing as well as it is, when you consider the question- able methods that are employed to raise finances, keeping the man who is to deliver the message of God from behind the sacred desk. O brethren, let us in the name of God come back to the Bible and follow the method that God gave to his people in the beginning, and thus raise the standard of the church to where it belongs, and thus honor God with the tithe. And when the great day of God shall come with Paul we can shout out triumphantly, "I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." PART III SYMPOSIUM THE PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC NORTH WEST: HOW BEST SHALL WE SOLVE THEM? ROBERT H. HUGHES EDITOR, PACIFIC CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE,, PORTLAND, OREGON OUR problems are many, but to discuss them in a compass of several hundred words is unthink- able; therefore, I will name only three, which, to my mind, are paramount, and should have the closest attention of Christianity. First. The Immigrant Problem. We have heretofore had very little to do with the newly arrived foreigner. He has generally landed in New York, and a very large percentage has stayed east of the Mississippi. Only the more desirable, the thrifty, adventuresome have ventured across the plains. Now, with the opening of the Panama Canal he will be brought to our very door. How are we prepared to deal with him ? If we neglect him, he will become a menace and a burden upon society; if we Christianize him and direct his energies, he will be an asset and a colaborer. This is the task of Protestantism, yea, of Christianity. Second. Enforcement of the Prohibition Laws. Kansas had a prohibition law for a quarter of a century before it was effective. Unless we can do much better, the cause of temperance will be 257 258 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT retarded many years. It was a great moral vic- tory to have two adjoining States vote overwhelm- ingly dry. Idaho will join by act of Legislature. Oregon and Washington are seaport States and law enforcement will be more difficult than in Kansas, and to make the law ineffective will be proportionately unadvantageous. Here again is a task for Protestantism. Are we equal to it? Third. Our Inherited Gains. It is safe to say that hundreds of active workers in the Methodist Church of the East and Middle West are lost to our denomination and to the Christian Church by our lax methods of transfer. This seems like an insignificant thing to many pastors; other pastors are very reticent about releasing a family after they once become members of his church, and these delays are disastrous. The letter of transfer should, if possible, precede its owner to the field, and the receiving pastor exert himself to make these people welcome. PROFESSOR E. J. KLEMME STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, ELLENSBURG, WASHINGTON THE Pacific Northwest is an empire within it- self. It has sprung full grown out of the yester- days. It has come to complete recognition among the States by leaps and bounds. What the East- ern States required for a hundred years to com- plete has been done here in a brief quarter of a century. The people that builded this empire were com- pelled to push ahead or be pushed aside. They accepted the challenge and began crowding those in front with the same energy that they were be- ing crowded by those behind. They knew no limit and recognized no master. Science was their handmaiden, and to succeed was the goal of their ambition. This condition forced them to leave the Golden Rule beyond the Rockies, and they proceeded to do others before others could do them. In the East they were faithful church members; now they are not even church tenders. The ascent of the Great Divide seemed too steep for church let- ters. The air of the Northwest seemed too rare for prayer. 259 260 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT The game was rapid and fascinating. We hurried forth to conquer the wilderness, but we have been conquered by it. We are charmed by the hills, but fail to read the divine charm in their origin. We see the great mountains and admire their beauty and grandeur, but never turn to the mount from which One said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." We have been turning intellectual handsprings in our mad search for the secrets of nature, but we have not searched the Scripture for the secret of a useful life. If such is the condition, where shall we look for the remedy? The statement of the problem is easier than the solution. Possibly we should first turn to the church to see if it is making the progress in harmony with the spirit of the West. Perhaps the pulpit could assist in the solution by a stronger and more modern presentation of the truth. Perchance the pew, indifferent to the call of a righteous life, has been drifting danger- ously near to the rocks of materialism. From whatever source we may expect to find the solu- tion, we may do well to think on these things. FLOYD L. DAGGETT PRESIDENT, LAYMEN'S ASSOCIATION, COLUMBIA RIVER CONFERENCE. STATE INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE COMMISSIONER, OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON THE great problem, to my mind, in the Pacific Northwest is lack of religious life. Many causes contribute to this. The newness of the country, its people coming here from all parts of the world, strangers to each other, without the family and home connections; the population is cosmo- politan, with nearly every nationality repre- sented, with a large proportion of Southern Euro- peans and Orientals, who have no religious life nor Sunday observance. The church is not meeting the needs of the peo- ple. The solution is an awakening of the ministers and laity to our needs, and by consecrated, per- sistent effort reach out and bring the people to a realization of their religious condition. The simple gospel of Christ preached and lived by ministers and people, particularly church mem- bers, with the militant spirit carrying this gospel to all, will solve the problems and it cannot be solved otherwise. Also discourage the "isms" and "religious fads," and keep well grounded in the fundamental Christian principles. 261 PRINCIPAL N. D. SHOW ALTER STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, CHENEY, WASHINGTON THE citizenship of the Pacific Northwest is made up of a cosmopolitan people, coming from almost every quarter of the United States. These people are fraught with the strong virile spirit which is only found in the pioneer type. The en- vironment of the country is such that it ener- gizes the inhabitants to a great degree, and, all in all, we find them to be a people moved only by the strongest influences. Nevertheless, they are a people of great heart and this living, throb- bing, forceful spirit needs only to be well or- ganized and properly directed in order for it to become a mighty force for good. The problem of the church, therefore, is to secure the strongest types of manhood and womanhood for its leaders, and to hold out to the world the strongest proof of its real virtue. The goodness of God should be preached rather than the awfulness that may possibly come through disobedience. Love, right, justice, and truth should be the pillars on which our doctrines must rest, and these principles must be carried into the business world during the six days of the week as well as taken to the 262 SYMPOSIUM 263 sacred shrine on the Sabbath day. We must have more of the Christ spirit and less of denomina- tionalism. We must have less churches in "name" and more in "purpose." We ought to have stronger cooperation between the denominations working in a single community. We really need to mini- mize the number of churches in our smaller neighborhoods in order to make possible the sup- port for carrying on the work in a creditable manner. Christian spirit must be secured first, and church spirit will take care of itself. Since it is evident that only a small portion of our people really attend church, we must there- fore find some other way of reaching them than through the Sunday service. Christ called them wherever he found them and at once began his lessons of truth and love. The apostles followed this same plan, though it seems to be obsolete dur- ing our modern times. If the world is to be won for Christ, it must be done to a great extent out- side of church walls and at other times than during the regular services. Our problem is to find the way, to discover the point of contact, to make our lives a symbol of service for the accom- plishment of the best things. Petty difficulties must be ignored, minor differences must be pushed aside, the bigger and the more vital things must become dominant in this great work. Brotherly kindness must take the place of unworthy bicker- ings, and the great love which Christ holds for mankind must be declared through his servants. E. L. ELAINE MEMBER OF 1912 GENERAL CONFERENCE, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON THE problems of the Pacific Northwest can be much more easily stated than solved. I presume they do not differ materially from the church problems of any other section of the country, yet there are some conditions connected with life in this section not met with elsewhere. One of these, the increasing population, makes it neces- sary for church authorities to be somewhat more active in reaching the newcomers than might be required in other sections. Then, too, many of these newcomers have either become so cold or so cloyed in their old church home that they fre- quently do not identify themselves with the church in their newly chosen home. This means work for both pastor and people. Sabbath desecration is one of the problems of any comparatively new section of the country, and we have it here as in other such sections. Commercialism in all its various forms presents one of the barriers to the onward march of the church. Briefly stated, these are some of the tasks confronting the church in this section. How shall they be overcome? One possible solu- 264 SYMPOSIUM 265 tion is the presentation of the gospel as a living reality, stripped of the mysticism that has too frequently characterized much of the preaching of this land. If the religion of Jesus Christ is to be of any help to mankind, it must be livable reality, and unless preachers preach this and church members live such a religion, none of these problems will be solved. There is much of tenderness and sentiment in the service of our Master, but the preaching of his truth must not be on the basis of emotionalism or sentimentalism, but, rather, the stern manliness and integrity so necessary in discharging the civic and business duties of this life. B. F. KUMLER SUPERINTENDENT OP THE LARGEST SUNDAY SCHOOL IN COLUMBIA RIVER CONFERENCE NORTH YAKIMA, WASHINGTON THE very vastness of the resources of the North- west, the preponderance of mountains, rivers, and forests tend to increase the problems. Nowhere in the United States in a like area are found such a variety of industry and natural resources of every conceivable type. This fact brings men of every kind and social condition men tired of the humdrum existence in settled countries, the young man full of life and ambition to better his fortunes, and the idle see new fields well adapted to their needs. The ever-present problem of the unemployed will be tested to the limit because of better op- portunities, of untold thousands of foreigners coming to our country who must find their place, socially, commercially, and religiously, among us. To assimilate and Christianize our present and ever-increasing population and maintain the purity of our American ideals is a task that will require great wisdom and consecration. The great freedom of the West, with its hustle 266 SYMPOSIUM 267 and bustle work in a hurry, live in a hurry has a great tendency to make us forget our former religious connections and causes us to drift with the tide. No time like the present has ever given such great opportunity for trying out the teachings of Jesus Christ as to their practical value in the daily affairs of men and women amid times that are turbulent and trying and under conditions which demand the very best of everyone, while the inducements for less than the best are con- stantly seeking to lure one from the attainment of his ideal. Let me suggest that if this great Pacific North- west is ever captured for Christ, it will be be- cause the Sunday school and young people's so- cieties are equipping and training an army of boys and girls to battle for him, with weapons that never fail "The open Bible and the uplifted Cross." Allow me to further suggest that there should be less of creeds and nonessentials and more leaders with newer and better conception and real vision of the mission of Jesus Christ among men. T. S. McDANIEL PRESIDENT, TRUSTEES BOARD, WILLAMETTE UNIVERSITY, PORTLAND, WASHINGTON ONE problem of Methodism is that of really vitalizing our membership with a definite per- sonal experience, so that each member will be able to testify, as Paul did, that it is not he that liveth, but Christ that liveth in him, and that every manifestation of his life henceforth shall be regarded as a revelation of the Master to the world. Such an experience would lead promptly to the reestablishment of the family altar in the great multitude of homes where it has long been neglected. If the family altar can be kindled anew with personal devotion, sacrifice, and a divine enthusiasm for the deepest and highest ex- periences in the spiritual life, it shall speedily come to pass that the flame upon the altar in the sanctuary will have a fervency and illuminating and the attractive power that will begin to draw unto it the multitudes of young people who have not the benefit or blessing of religious training in their homes, and this in its turn will act in ways of surprising helpfulness upon the many other perplexing problems which now confront us from day to day. 268 PRESIDENT M. M. HIGLEY NORTHWESTERN BUSINESS COLLEGE, SPOKANE, WASHINGTON IT is not a difficult task to enumerate some of the religious problems confronting every com- munity, but how to solve them is quite another thing. I should like to mention some of the most noticeable of the religious problems as they ap- pear to me. 1. Sabbath desecration, such as Sunday base- ball, theaters, moving-picture houses open all Sabbath day and evening. These things take the minds of the people, especially the young, from the houses of worship. The young people are the hope of the nation, the hope of the church, and if they are not brought up to love and respect the house of God, there is little hope for the onward march of the church and her influences. Too often parents are people of society and have no regard for church and religion, in which case the children care nothing about the Sabbath or the Christian religion. 2. Another stumbling-block to a great many is the multiplicity of churches and creeds. I may be wrong, but I sometimes think that the churches are trying too much of the spectacular; in other 269 270 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT words, they are running in opposition to the pic- ture shows. Sensationalism is not religion any more than loud shouting is preaching. What the people want is a preacher just a little different from the average man; a church different from a vaudeville or moving-picture show; a religion that will reach down to the inner recesses of a man's heart and lift him up to God; a religion that will make him better and not prouder; a re- ligion that sees a man's heart and not his clothes. A gospel that Christ preached and not the kind that excuses the rich man and condemns the poor ; a religion that looks upon all men as brothers and does not first consult a man's financial or social standing before passing judgment. Social caste should in my opinion have no special place in church society. The ideal church, if there be such, is the one where all of its members are on the job, a church that not only expects its preacher to have a little religion, but a church that expects and has in the pews and on the official board men and women who are also Christians, not only in name but in practice men and women who put religion into business. Cut out some of the machinery of our churches and add a little more plain common- sense Christianity. Do not make the poor feel that they are not welcome just because they can- not pay quite as much to the overhead expenses. They may get to heaven, even though they do not contribute as liberally as others. THE KEV. G. A. LANDEN TWICE MEMBER OF GENERAL CONFERENCES. Now SUPERINTENDENT OF SEATTLE DISTRICT, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON ONE of the problems confronting the church in the Northwest is counter attractions the theater, moving-picture show, the poolroom and other forms of worldly amusement. Solution: First. By making the church intensely spirit- ual. I use the word "intensely" advisedly and after serious thought on this subject. The at- tempt to meet the world half way, or lower our standards with the object of drawing people to Christ and the church, has always failed and will always fail. The average worldly man or woman is, after all, looking to the church for leadership in spiritual things, and they have no use for shams or half-heartedness in the religious life. They are looking for the genuine article. The higher the standard and the more intense the spiritual life of the church the more likely it is to overcome counter attractions. Second. By making the church the center of the social life of the people. I do not mean by this that we are to make a playhouse of the 271 272 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT church building but we can cultivate the musical and literary tastes of the people. An orchestra, a musical club, a debating society, a free lecture course or lyceum bureau can be organized and conducted in the church. These things with a wholesome social atmosphere will create a desire for the best things of life and draw folks to the church of God. THE REV. EGBERT WARNER MEMBER GENERAL CONFERENCES OF 1908 AND 1912; Moscow, IDAHO How shall we win the masses of the Pacific Northwest for Christ? The greatest problem be- fore Methodism of the great Northwest is the one above suggested. The magnitude of the problem is seen by two facts : First. We have room for the masses. It is stated on good authority that if we divide the United States into two equal parts by running a line from north to south, the Eastern half con- tains at the present time ninety per cent of the population, or, ninety million people, while the Western half has but ten per cent, or ten million. The Western half is capable of supporting more people than is the Eastern. This means that ulti- mately we shall have in this section nine or ten times as many people as now. Second. The masses are headed this way. From the East they are crossing this line west- ward, and from Canada they are returning here. From the war-stricken nations of half the world they are at this time looking to this land as the one haven of peace, security, and prosperity. 273 274 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT Millions of people in the war zone, it is reported, have already decided to come to the United States as soon as the war is over. How shall we solve the problem? Space prevents a detailed plan be- ing given here, but it means at least, (1) more missionary money for this field, (2) more pastors and missionaries, (3) more evangelistic fervor and zeal, (4) more lay evangelism, (5) more at- tention to rural communities where a large per- centage of the immigrants will find homes. THE KEV. JOHN MARTIN CANSE SUPERINTENDENT BELLINGHAM DISTRICT, BELLING- HAM, WASHINGTON AMONG our problems are: 1. Warped thinking, where such surface gods as gold and healing and future fire-extinction are dazzling the vision of some clever and many stupid people. 2. Infidelity among the struggling masses that robs them of the trust that insures a supply of daily food for all about the table and leaves gnawing hunger and biting despair clutching at the heart. 3. A worldliness among church members that is rendering many insensible to the highest mission of life. Supine unconcern has drawn holy fires and chilled the necessary passion for souls. Plain old-fashion apathy has benumbed many newfangled Christians. The sufficiency of God in all their affairs is overlooked by all such classes. While he is able they lack spiritual vision to see him awaiting their call. It is the mission of the church to so disclose the Almighty One that they will accept their burden-bearing Saviour. 275 276 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT An efficiency movement is suggested to study our religious conditions in order to eliminate the waste and utilize all our energies. We need a scientific survey of the wild pastures that are attracting so many silly sheep. Why are the men of our mines and mills and lumber camps so reckless of their highest interests? Why do not our youth, "go forth to nature's teachings" and inquire of the Great Teacher and not the "movies"? Accurate measure of nearby gospel forces should supplement this survey. Adequate lay and clerical forces are close at hand that can solve the problems in the radiance of the cross. Vision and enduement never come short of the upper room. The old-time Pentecost can reap- pear in modern houses. It is returning with power. The servants did all the work at Cana, but it was Jesus who gave them success. So shall we solve our problems; when we do all the work and let him have his way with us. Efficient Christians are the complement of the sufficient God. Each may have his mind, enjoy ample daily bread, and be drawn into the kingdom of peace and plenty. J. W. McDOUGALL SUPERINTENDENT, PORTLAND DISTRICT, PORTLAND, OREGON KNOWING but little of the other States in the Pacific Northwest, I will confine what I have to say to the State of Oregon. Oregon is yet in its infancy. When admitted into the Union in 1859 she had a population of fifty-three thousand and an area of sixty-one million four hundred and fifty-nine thousand two hundred acres. The pres- ent population is seven hundred and fifty thou- sand, and fully thirty-five per cent is in the city of Portland, which will give an idea of the amount of territory unoccupied. The population of the State is cosmopolitan in its make-up. In short, we have the city problem and also the country problem ; the problem of wealth and poverty ; the strong influential church is here and the very poor as well. The great problem that we have to solve, after all, is the problem of sin; that is at the root of all our woes and the one great prob- lem that we have to solve either in city or coun- try, and the salvation by Jesus is the only solu- tion. What is needed most, however, is leader- ship adapted to the real needs of Western life. 277 278 PACIFIC NORTHWEST PULPIT There is a great lack of vision. "Where there is no vision the people perish." Lack of vision of responsibility means inefficient leadership. The heroic in many instances is taken out of our re- ligious life and service, so that not many are willing to make the sacrifice needful to the ac- complishment of the work that should be done. Give us men intellectually and spiritually strong, who can see their opportunities and are willing to give themselves to a hard task, for it is the hard and difficult things that try us and make us. Next to men the greatest need is money. Could the church at large get a vision of the opportuni- ties in this Western country, and the great needs both in the congested centers and in the sparsely settled districts, I am sure they would respond with great liberality. Men of the right sort, with sufficient money back of them, would make even "the desert to blossom as a rose." One great diffi- culty we have to contend with is the mad rush for gold on the part of many church members who come to us from the East and who leave their membership behind, and so, instead of lining up with the forces of God, become a source of weak- ness. 493353 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY