was an actual quest for the haven of spiritual repose, the church has nothing to offer. Its bankruptcy, long suspected, was tacitly avowed. Those who went empty returned as they came. Healing there was none, foresight there was none, outlook there was none. It is a tragedy that with the vast increase of our spiritual needs, there should be this failure of spiritual solace." The world is aching for a gospel and it is the labor of the church to present a gospel that can reach the world's most awful need, that can get down to its deepest depravity, and bring cordials and balms to its most appalling sorrow. And the old gospel can do it! Yes, the old gospel, in working attire, proclaimed by a church which believes it, is gloriously efficient to meet the most tremendous needs of this most tremendous day. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life." That gospel, preached by a church that believes in it, a church that is redeemed by it, a church that will give its blood for it, is the sure and certain secret of a comforted, purified, unified, regenerated, and transfigured world. In her preaching of an atoning Savior the church must on her part fill up that which is lacking of the sufferings of Christ. So must the church supplement the sufferings of Christ in all the ways I have named by guard ing her own moral and spiritual sensitiveness, by the wrestling ministry of intercession, by a lavish proclamation of the gospel, and by every form of holy and sacrificial service. In everything she does the church must reveal the crimson strand. She must shed her blood for her Savior. And she must do it all with sacred joy. She must rejoice that she is counted worthy to suffer for his name. Some of you may have seen the little book entitled A Young Soldier of France, and I want to quote from one of his letters. "I shall fight," he says, "with a good conscience and without fear, I hope, certainly without hate. I feel myself filled with an illimitable hope. You have no idea of the peace in which I live. On the march I sing inwardly. I listen to the music that is slumbering inside me. The Master's call is always ringing louder in my ears." Such was the spirit of a young soldier of France, and such must be the spirit of the church of Christ. "On the march I sing!" "The music inside me!" "Verily," says Apollodorus in one of Ibsen's plays, "so long as song rises above our sorrows, Satan can never conquer!" And indeed we have something and everything to make us sing. We have our risen and present Lord, and we have the boundless resources of redeeming grace. Were the whole realm of nature mine, Demands my life, my soul, my all. VIII THE MESSAGE TO THE CHURCHES I. Our Spirit and Purpose After long patience, and with a solemn sense of responsibility, the government of the United States has been forced to recognize that a state of war exists between this country and Germany, and the President has called upon all the people for their loyal support and their whole-hearted allegiance. As American citizens, members of Christian churches gathered in Federal Council, we are here to pledge both support and allegiance in unstinted measure. We are Christians as well as citizens. Upon us therefore rests a double responsibility. We owe it to our country to maintain intact and to transmit unimpaired to our descendants our heritage of freedom and democracy. Above and beyond this, we must be loyal to our divine Lord, who gave his life that the world might be redeemed, and whose loving purpose embraces every man and every nation. As citizens of a peace-loving nation, we abhor We have long striven to secure the judicial war. |