264 RELIGION 



religion, looking about him for some technical expression of ec- 

 clesiastical loyalty, remarked: "This is very touching, but I wish 

 there were more of Christ in it." How could there be more of Christ, 

 one asked himself, than in such a work, just as it was, without tech- 

 nical confession or provincial limitation. Would not the Master, 

 were he to walk those streets, pass with indifference many a great 

 temple built in his name, and laying his hands of blessing on these 

 ministering women, say, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto these 

 least, ye have done it unto me" ? Is modern charity, in other words, 

 an enterprise into which persons being already religious may venture 

 as into a foreign land where one meets new customs and new lan- 

 guages, or does it lie within the natural boundaries of religion, a 

 home-country whose language is the language of faith, and which 

 needs no apology, or symbol, or flag, to bring it within the kingdom 

 of God? 



These steps in the expansion of religion are, however, in large 

 degree already taken, though not always recognized. It is otherwise 

 with the further circles of modern life, the industrial and political 

 problems of the new century. Here is the most stormy and least 

 explored sea of the modern world, and the Christian Church still 

 stands and looks out to the tumultuous waves and conflicting currents 

 of this sea as though it stood on the shore of its little island and 

 watched a vessel driving toward the rocks. Something, the Church 

 knows, ought to be done by religion which may save, not single lives 

 alone, but the ship itself; yet how shall faith and love venture into 

 so dangerous a sea? What means of help, what skill in salvage have 

 they, what training to take command of so large a venture? 



Precisely at this point, however, the new opportunity is offered to 

 religion to justify its claim to leadership, sacrifice, wisdom, and saving 

 power. Here is precisely what religion in the modern world is meant 

 to do, - - not to sit securely on the shore of the time, but to learn 

 the currents and perils of the surrounding sea, to rescue from its dis- 

 asters, to pilot to its ports. The industrial life of the present age 

 does not lie beyond the province of the Church. It is the Church 

 which is provincial when it permits industry to regard itself as 

 Godless, irredeemable, remote. When Jesus stood one day with 

 his little company of friends by the Lake of Galilee the meager use 

 of their great opportunity seems to have impressed his mind, and he 

 used the language of their vocation as a parable of the work they 

 had to do. "Launch forth," he bade them, "into the deep, and let 

 down your nets for a draught." They had been fishing along the 

 shores of their opportunity, and he called them to do business in 

 great waters. They had been as those who caught minnows, and he 

 meant them to be fishers of men. It is the call which comes again 

 from the present age to a timid Church Launch forth into the deep. 



