370 RELIGIOUS WORK 



With others the machinery has been its own great satisfaction. 

 It has existed for itself and its own noise has been its glory. Doubt- 

 less we have known such churches and such religious work. Again, 

 some have made the work simply a means of exercise for the 

 Christian folk, a kind of gymnasium for the limbering up of 

 Christian character, activity being counted necessary for the 

 avoidance of decay and death. Doubtless if you went to twenty 

 churches and as many leaders in religious work you would have 

 very varied answers to the question, " Why? " But if we know 

 that there is a God of righteousness whose is the world, and that 

 we are here as his children to make the world fruitful in his good- 

 ness, then the tilling of humanity's soil must be followed, not from 

 necessity, nor yet for some great exhibition of varied products, 

 nor yet for the beauty of its cultivated fields, but to make each 

 part and all parts glorious in the fulfillment of their purpose. 

 That is just what the Church has to do. It is no question of her 

 own glory either present or future. Epaulets and swords and 

 bands and banners may have a purpose in keeping up flagging 

 spirits, but they are only the tinsel of living. The heart beats 

 underneath. The Church has to take everything under her care, 

 not to manage it herself alas, there we have the Tridentine 

 error nor yet to yoke herself thereto there we have the error 

 of Erastianism; but the Church has to take everything under her 

 care to help and guide and bless and purify, that it may be as God 

 would have it, beautiful and good. How finely the whole thing 

 maps itself out in accord with Christ's parable. The field is the 

 world. God's children, whether individually or united, are the 

 laborers seeking to please and serve God, seeking to keep them- 

 selves healthy in morals and spirit, but, half-conscious only of 

 these efforts, striving to make the garden grow as it ought in all 

 beauty and fragrance and richness. Each detail is a part of the 

 whole. The child pulling a weed in some little corner or the man 

 sowing great acres of grain, they are one. The Christian speaking 

 a word of cheer, and the reformer changing bad methods to good, 

 and the teacher urging plans all are one. Or we might change 

 the illustration, and see men seeking to make the ideal real. They 

 have their model, their plan, their copy, and with eye fixed upon 

 it they seek here and there, in this particular or that, to make it 

 the lasting power after which all life is to be formed. Religion 

 thus understood becomes a magnificent thing. It is not merely 

 an intellectual belief in God. It is not only a heart-reliance upon 

 him. But it is a great oneness with him, working as he works, 

 seeking as he seeks, loving as he loves, rebuking as he rebukes, 

 building as he builds. The Church is here to teach and to prac- 

 tice. She need not worry much about her clothes. She has no 



