the leadership of the church will feel that their main business is the
work of church extension. But they will give to this phrase a little
different meaning from that which it has generally carried. The church
extension to which the boards and societies in the church have been
devoted is the work of building new churches in promising fields. It is
properly denominational extension. Something of this kind will remain to
be done in the new day now before us, and our new leaders will doubtless
have some part in it. But the church extension which is most loudly
called for just now is the extension of the life of the church into
every department of human life. It is more analogous to what we call
university extension work. The business of university extension is not
the planting of new universities; it is the projection of the university
into the community; it is the attempt to carry the light and the
knowledge and the truth and the beauty for which the university stands
down among the people; to popularize the higher culture and the finer
art. That is a most praiseworthy enterprise, a most Christian
undertaking. And something very much like this will be the church
extension for which the new leadership will stand. Its aim will be to
make a vital connection between the Christian church and every
institution or agency by which the work of the world is done, so that
the influence of the church shall be directly felt in every part of our
social life. It will consider the church as the nursery or conservatory,
whose growths are to be planted out all over the field of the world. It
will make the church the central dynamo of the community, connected by a
live wire with every home, school, factory, bank, shop, store, office,
legislative chamber, employers' association, labor federation,--with
every organ of the whole social organism, so that the light and power
which are in Jesus Christ shall be the guiding influence and the motive
force of our civilization.
This is the work which remains to be done, and for which this present
world is loudly calling. It is the work that Jesus Christ came into this
world to do, and he will not see of the travail of his soul and be
satisfied until it is done. The opportunity of realizing the social aims
of Jesus, of organizing society upon the principles which he laid down,
is offered to the young men and women of this generation. It will be
open to them so to order the life of the church that in its democracy
and its simplicity it shall represent Jesus Christ, and then to extend
this life into industry and commerce and politics and art and social
diversion, thus bringing all the kingdoms of this world into the kingdom
of the Christ. It will be their principal task to translate the sermons
and the prayers and the songs of Sunday into the life of the shop and
the factory and the office on Monday and the other days of the week.
That would mean, of course, a tremendous overturning in the business of
the world; a radical revision of the ideals and standards of the great
majority; a new point of view and a new aim in life for the most of us.
But such a peaceful revolution in our ways of life would be far less
painful and disastrous than the revolution which our present habits are
sure to bring, and it is the only thing which will prevent it. And if
the young men and women of to-day will but discern this truth, they may
have the honor of leading in the new Saturnian reign.
We hear in these days from earnest men many anxious questions why the
message of the gospel fails to reach and convince the outside multitude.
"Why is it," good preachers say, "that there are so many people in all
our communities--some of them very good people--who are not at all
touched by our appeal? They do not seem to be interested in what we have
to offer them. They do not appear to feel their need of it."
To this question more than one answer could be given, but there is one
answer which needs to be well considered. One reason is that these men
and women fail to discern, in the life round about them, the reality of
the thing which we offer them. For Christianity is, as we have seen in
these studies, not only an individual experience, but a social fact. And
while we might not be qualified to judge whether the individual
experience, in any given case, is genuine, we could see the social fact,
if it were in sight. That social fact would be profoundly interesting to
us, and it would be convincing. Nothing else is likely to convince us.
In truth, we cannot understand Christianity at all until we see it in
operation in society. One man alone cannot give any idea of what it is.
As some one has said, one man and God will give us all that is essential
in any other religion, but Christianity requires for Its operation at
least two men and God. In fact, it takes a good many men and women and
children, living together in all sorts of relations, to give any
adequate exhibition of it. What we need, then, first of all, to convince
men of its reality, is a good sample of it, in active operation--a great
variety of good samples, indeed. When we have these to show, we can get
people interested.
It would be difficult, if a very homely illustration may be permitted,
to enlist the interest of any boy in baseball if you made it with him an
individual matter. You might try to train him for any given position on
the field, but if he undertook to study it out alone it would not be
easy for him to understand it. In fact, it would be impossible. No one
could learn the game all alone. The team work is the whole of it. And it
would be absurd to expect any one to become interested in the game
unless he could see it played.
To take a similar illustration from a somewhat higher form of art, you
would not be likely to succeed in awakening enthusiasm in any one for
orchestral music by giving him his individual part of the score to study
and play over by himself. No matter what his instrument might be, the
solitary performance of the part assigned to it would be the dryest
possible business. You could not convert any man to the love of
orchestral music by any such process. But if he could hear all the
instruments played together, and, better still, if he could play in with
all the rest, that might be inspiring.
So you need not expect to convert any man to Christianity unless you can
show him Christianity at work in human society. In considering only the
individual application of it, its whole meaning and significance would
be hidden from him. The team work is all there is of it. Let him see it
in active operation, and it will awaken his enthusiasm.
This is, in fact, the essence of the new evangelism to which the young
men and women of this day are called. Their business will be to take
Christianity out into the field of the world and set it at work. It is
for this that the leadership is intrusted to them. The church has been a
long time coming to this, but it seems at last to be arriving, and the
young people of this generation will be summoned to the great
undertaking. Surely they may feel that a high honor and a heavy
responsibility are thus put upon them. It is the most heroic enterprise
to which the sons of men have ever been called.
Not all of them will respond to the call. But we may hope that there
will be found among them a goodly minority to whom the appeal will come
with commanding voice, and whom we may hear answering: "Yea and amen!
The work is ours, and we will not shirk it. It is work worth doing, and
it can be done. To make a better world of this is the best thing a man
can think of; and we believe that Christ's way is the right way. It has
never yet had a fair trial, and we are bound that it shall be tried. We
know that we shall not make ourselves rich or famous in this
undertaking; but we shall see the load lifted from many shoulders, and
the light of hope shining in many eyes; we shall hear the din of strife
changing to the songs of cheerful labor; we shall share our simple joys
with those who know that we have always tried to make their lives
happier, and who cannot choose but love us; we shall find life worth
living, and we shall die content."
Footnotes
[1] _Through Nature to God_, p. 189.
[2] _The Victory of the Will_, p. 213.
[3] _First Principles_, p. 14.
[4] _Ibid._ p. 20.
[5] _First Principles_, pp. 99, 100.
[6] Quoted by Walker in _Christian Theism_, p. 47.
[7] _Christian Theism_, pp. 40, 42.
[8] New York _Independent_, September 12, 1907.
[9] Micah iv, 5.
[10] I do not include Confucianism, because it is, primarily, a system
of ethics or sociology rather than a religion; and also because it seems
to have no missionary impulse, and no expectation of universality.
[11] _Permanent Elements in Religion_, p. 143.
[12] _The Unknown God_, p. 228.
[13] Professor D. M. Fisk.
[14] Acts ii, 44, 45.
[15] Matt. vi. 5, 6.
[16] James v, 16.
[17] Rauschenbusch: _Christianity and the Social Crisis_, pp. 93, 94.
[18] Page 182.
[19] _The Social Gospel_, Harnack and Herrmann, pp. 216, 217.
[20] _Essays and Addresses_, p. 194.
[21] _Essays and Addresses_, p. 189.
[22] _A History of the Reformation_, vol. i, pp. 85,86.
[23] _Ibid._ pp. 87, 88.
[24] _Op. cit._ p. 96.
[25] Seebohm, _The Era of the Protestant Revolution_, pp. 57,58.
[26] _Op. cit._ pp. 327, 328.
[27] _The Philosophy of Religious Experience_, by Henry W. Clark, pp.
234-236.
[28] Rauschenbusch, _Christianity and the Social Crisis_, pp. 414-416.
The volume is one that no intelligent student of present-day
Christianity can afford to neglect.
[29] _The Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 485.
[30] Dr. J. H. Jowett.