RELIGIOUS WORK 375 



substance, certainly reveals it, and the substance of the faith is 

 breathing only when it is thrown against human life and made 

 to thrill in the conflict between right and wrong. And (3) since 

 truth ever has to do with the relation of things or of men, if it is 

 not allowed to exercise itself in such relation, it is practically non- 

 existent. Orthodox teaching is only known through right living. 

 The individual, therefore, whose religion is active finds first of 

 all that his faith is greatly strengthened. It needs no bulwarks 

 of text or authority from the ancients. He knows because he has 

 demonstrated. And his life, rich in service and glorious in testi- 

 mony, is as a light to show the way and a sword to cut off error. 

 We have had too much of the selfish in the personal religious life. 

 Now that a better day is dawning let us enter the ranks and be 

 soldiers. And so with the Church, or, if you please, with Chris- 

 tianity in the abstract. It is just finding itself. Its shut-up 

 powers are breaking the shell and leaping into action, and it is the 

 resurrection day for the Church! Instead of weakening herself 

 by work, she is advancing to more glorious strength. Her good- 

 ness is daring to assert itself. She is breaking the bonds and going 

 out to meet the world which has been crying for centuries for a 

 help which did not come. Her new grasp of truth is already com- 

 forting thousands who thought themselves alone. What if the old 

 conventional dignity is thrown somewhat rudely aside! What if 

 the rough world drops titles, and forgets to bow to official rank, and 

 tears the gorgeous garments away that the real form of goodness 

 may be seen! What are the trappings and the ancestral degrees 

 in comparison with a world redeemed, shame ground underfoot, 

 and righteousness exalted? The days of kingly magnificence and 

 feudal power and blind adulation have flown. Democracy rules, 

 and the Church has nothing to lose and everything to gain in the 

 new era, for her work will glorify her better than any retinue of 

 obsequious followers or any mighty testimony of stones and altars. 

 Throw down the barriers and let the multitudes throng her as they 

 thronged the Christ, that some may be healed. Let her suffer 

 crucifixion if need be, that in risen power she may claim the world. 

 But never let it be thought that service, constant, hard, wearying, 

 can lessen the truth of her mission and blind human eyes to the 

 good she preaches. Nay, come out, religion, and work for men! 

 Drop the scepter and the miter and the canon and the orderly 

 confession of faith; leave the throne to care for itself. Come out 

 and save men from degradation, and so gain a right to scepter and 

 miter, to crown and glory. For the only church which the world 

 will recognize to-day, and which God will recognize, is the church 

 that works. 



