RELIGIOUS WORK 373 



can forbid. What a blessing college settlements have become in 

 many places, and yet has not the church held aloof? What a power 

 rescue missions are in districts where the saloon reigns, and yet has 

 the church favored them? This era of new living cries " Awake! ' 

 It is a sifting that is coming, nay, which is now in progress, and 

 only the fittest will survive. 



(3) In general or national work there is a still stronger call and 

 a still deeper hesitation. Churches are afraid to have anything 

 to do with politics. Indeed, some conservatives forbid the banns 

 which might at least unite them in a common service, namely, the 

 welfare of the race. Political partisanship doubtless is as faulty 

 in religious circles as in the personal life. But has Christianity 

 nothing to say regarding the wrongs of false government, regard- 

 ing bribery, regarding great issues like that of Mormonism, re- 

 garding labor problems and trusts, and a host of things which touch 

 the life of men as closely as the atmosphere? Religious work in 

 this era, as vehemently as in earlier eras the church arose to the 

 issues touching doctrine, arises to cleanse the earth! Shame on 

 us that with a church eighteen hundred years old, vice and wrong 

 and abuse and ignorance stand and defy God's goodness and 

 God's truth! Men have no faith (and they are right) in a reli- 

 gion which is so busy singing hymns and mumbling prayers that 

 it has no time or power to rescue those perishing with hunger 

 and vice, no fancy for telling men their duty, no force to right 

 wrongs. And the only way we can hope for a larger knowledge 

 of God is the way of universal service in the issues of humanity. 

 Nations will become pure when the church does her duty, not 

 earlier. 



(4) And like a great atmosphere outside of personal and com- 

 munal and national life rises the world's life. The great world 

 so largely untouched by civilization is waiting for religion to do 

 something. She has waited a long while. Religion has been de- 

 corating her garments and framing her pedigree and garnishing 

 her vessels while the heathen died! That a new impulse is gain- 

 ing ground but proves at last a realization of divine truth and 

 divine duty. Henceforth that church only will live in the eyes 

 of God and man alike that takes the nations as her care and 

 does her part in telling of God to his waiting children. Hence- 

 forth religious work will seize people more vigorously than reli- 

 gious belief, important though belief is; for our eyes are open- 

 ing and seeing sights before which the subtleties of theology 

 shrink and become as dross. With the one great truth on her 

 banner, "God is, and God loves," the Church is now going out 

 to make men good and establish righteousness in the earth. Who 

 follows? 



