66666 But, husband, the Lord means you to work, and you can't work if you don't eat.'

"""Have we enough to buy bread?" he asks.

"""Yes, there's enough for bread and maybe butter, and there are some potatoes left from that bushel last week, but that's all there is."

"""All right; this week we'll eat bread and butter and potatoes, but we ain't a-goin' to touch the Lord's money.'

666

And just the next day the postman brought us a letter, and in it was five dollars that we had lent two years before and given up for a bad debt.''

But the best story came from Syracuse, where a manufacturing concern has put the tithe into its articles of incorporation. It is a business for making dish-cloths, and has five directors, four of them brothers; they employ about seventyfive people. There is a clause in their constitution that ten per cent of the profits must go for "Kingdom work" before any dividends are paid. The business prospered, and the directors wanted to expand with new machinery and additional capital. They went to the bank and asked to borrow $25,000. The president of the bank knew the concern, thought it a good proposition, and offered to float their bonds. The bank's lawyer went over the company's books and papers, found the

halt. He pointed out that interest on bonds is always a first lien on a company's income; that here there was some other claim ahead of interest, and he advised that the articles of incorporation be amended to strike out this absurd clause before money could be safely loaned.

When the directors learned of this, they held a prayer-meeting to decide what they should do. After prayer and hymns a secret vote was taken as to whether the offending clause should be cast forth. "Yes" meant that they would yield to the bank. "No" that they would retain the provision. On counting the votes there were five "Noes " in the ballot-box, and the com pany has gone on with its old machinery and its old capitalization, but doing the biggest business of its experience.

As I took the train for New York I found myself believing the unbelievable. I had not met any one who wanted to give up tithing. I could not make any one admit that it was irksome or a hardship. In the past four years, all over the world, sacrifices for patriotism have become commonplaces. But we had grown a long way from the pains and privations of the early Christians. We had forgotten the blood of the martyrs. It might be that their seed was quickening and a new spirit about to appear. Perhaps the indictment of Christianity that many had felt this war to be might yet be quashed and the Church return to its old-time leadership through the hard road of sacrifice and self denial.

A

MINISTER recently told a friend of mine that he had decided in his preaching to pay no attention to the war; to confine himself wholly to the Old Gospel. I wonder if he knows what the Old Gospel is.

The ancient Hebrews called themselves a peculiar people. One of their peculiarities was that they looked forward, not backward, for their Golden Age. They believed that a time was coming when poverty would be abolished, when property would be so equably distributed that every man could sit under his own vine and fig tree, when education would be universal so that no man would need to teach his neighbor, when despotism would cease because the laws of God would be accepted by mankind and just law would need no other enforcement than the sanctions of religion, when wars would end and the implements of war would be converted into instruments of industry, when family dissensions would cease and the hearts of the fathers would be turned to the children and the hearts of the children would be turned to the fathers.

The theme of Jesus' ministry was this kingdom of God. In his first published sermon, delivered in the synagogue at Nazareth, he read one of the ancient prophecies of this Golden Age, and told the congregation he had come to fulfill it. At the end of his life, in the trial before Caiaphas, he was put upon the stand; in violation of the Jewish law the oath was administered to him, and under the solemn sanction of that oath he reaffirmed his mission, and in a different form repeated that affirmation in the subsequent trial before Pilate. In the fulfillment of that mission he never set aside the social teachings of the prophets or substituted for their glad tidings of a Golden Age any other. On the contrary, he emphasized their social teachings. They had denounced injustice and inhumanity and repeatedly declared that no forms or ceremonies could take the place of doing justly and loving mercy. Jesus denounced injustice and inhumanity with even greater vigor, and reaffirmed the truth that righteous ness and mercy are greater than temple services. And he taught his disciples to pray," Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

But in emphasizing the teachings of the prophets he cleared

•

away misapprehensions which had grown up about those-teachings and obscured their real meaning.

Early in his ministry he called twelve friends about him to be his companions, to learn his principles, imbibe his spirit, and proclaim to others the glad tidings which they had received from him. On the occasion of their consecration to this ministry he preached what may be called a dedication sermon. In this sermon he told the people that happiness cannot be conferred. for the secret of happiness is character; that there can be no kingdom of God in society unless there is a kingdom of God in the individual life; and that obedience in action to the divine law is not enough, there must be unity of the human spirit with the divine spirit. The Sermon on the Mount interprets the dee laration of the psalmist: "I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart." Jesus did not substitute an individual gospel for a social gospel, but he taught that there could be no social gospel without an individual gospel. A brave army cannot be composed of cowardly soldiers, nor a learned school of dunces, nor can a loving and loyal family of the heavenly Father be composed of disloyal and quarreling children.

The Jews believed that this kingdom would be given to them as the favored people of Jehovah. Jesus told his disciples that it would not be given by God to man, but must be wrought by men in a spirit of loyalty to God. In one of his sermons, several times repeated in different forms, he compared God to an absentee landlord and the world to an estate which the landlord has left for his servants to administer. The Jews believed that the kingdom would suddenly and by a miraculous display of divine power be bestowed. Jesus in a series of parables told his disci ples that the kingdom of God was like a seed growing secretly, no one knows how; that its growth was dependent upon the soil in which it was planted-that it would thrive in some communities better than in others and in some communities not at all; that evil would grow as well as good, and that they must never be discouraged because they saw the growth of evil; that the king. dom would grow only by agitation against hostility, inertia, and indifference-like a little yeast in a great lump of dough; that it would be won by his disciples at a great cost, like a treasure hidden in a field or a pearl found in the market-place, to acquire

which the purchaser has to sell all that he has; and again and again he told his disciples that to acquire this kingdom they must be ready to give up houses, lands, reputation, peace, life itself. The contrast between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world he made very clear in a passage which furnishes, I think, both the briefest and the most lucid definition of the difference between Christianity and paganism to be found any where in literature. It is as follows:

Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant; even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Whether a community is pagan or Christian does not depend upon its theological creed, its church organizations, its forms of worship, or even the name it gives to its God. It does not depend upon the question whether the people correctly define the relation of Jesus of Nazareth to God on the one hand and humanity on the other; whether they worship in a temple, meeting-house, or the woods; whether they use an elaborate ritual or none at all; whether they call the object of their worship Buddha, or Allah, or Odin, or Jehovah. It depends on the question whether their ideal of God is an almighty power which they fear, or an inexorable law to which they reluctantly submit, or a serene indifference to the pains and pleasures of life which they admire, or an infinite love which lives for and suffers with the loved one. It depends on whether their religion terrifies or rules or meditates or serves. Any community in which the weak serve the strong, the poor serve the rich, the ignorant serve the wise, the few serve the many, is in so far a pagan community. Any community in which the strong serve the weak, the wise serve the ignorant, the rich serve the poor, the many serve the few, is in so far a Christian community.

What Jesus meant by service he made clear by his teaching. He illustrated it by the story of the heretical Samaritan going to the succor of the wounded traveler in contrast with a priest and a Levite hurrying to the church service; the story of the rich man whom he sent to hell, not for any wrong inflicted upon Lazarus, but for saying to himself, "The sufferings of the beggar at the door do not concern me," and leaving the beggar unrelieved; the picture of the last judgment in which those were welcomed to the mansion of their heavenly Father who had fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, clothed the stranger, and visited the sick. The fact that they did not know that Jesus was the Messiah and that they were rendering service to him did not affect the divine judgment.

Still more clearly Jesus illustrated by his own life what he meant by service. He gave himself unreservedly to making the world he lived in a better and happier world. Were men hungry he fed them, were they ignorant he taught them, were they in sorrow he comforted them, were they in despair he brought hope to them, were they the victims of wrong-doing he denounced their oppressors, and in two instances at the hazard of his life he came to the rescue of the defenseless.

How can any man to-day preach the Old Gospel and ignore the present war?

The Master has made his mission very clear. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," he said, " because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised." Dying, he transmitted to his disciples this mission. "As the Father hath sent me, even so send Î you," were almost his last words to them.

A band of robbers has invaded Belgium and France and stolen coal and iron from the mines, crops from the fields, money from the banks, pictures, statuary, and jewels from the homes, and what it could not steal it has wantonly destroyed. We have power to drive the robbers off. How can we preach glad tidings to the poor if we play the part of Dives and the woes of Lazarus do not concern us? This band of robbers has enslaved men and women by the thousand and set them to work raising food to feed their enemies and making munitions to enable their enemies to continue the work of devastation. How can we

preach deliverance to these captives and remain at home complacent in our own prosperity? This band has used its scientific knowledge in the manufacture of poisonous gases to destroy the eyes of thousands of its fellow-men. How can we allow that process to go on and pretend to fulfill our divine mission to give sight to the blind? The imperial leader of this band has avowed his purpose to establish a Roman Empire in Europe, and the intellectual leaders of this band have poisoned the minds of the people with the doctrine that "Might makes Right," that the strong owe no duty to the weak-the sooner they die, the better —and some of them have declared that Odin, the god of force, is greater than Jehovah, the God of love. How can we pretend to set at liberty them that are sorely bruised by these oppressors if we are deaf to the cries of the Armenians, the Serbians, the Poles, and the Belgians? The minister who is indifferent to this war is either ignorant of or indifferent to the call of his Master. He does not preach the Old Gospel-the Gospel which Paul summed up in the sentence, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself "-the world, not some men from the world. He came not to rescue a few favored ones from a sinking ship, not to graduate a few choice scholars from a mass left in ignorance, not to save a few saints from a lost world: but to show the mariners how to bring the ship and all its passengers safe into the harbor, the teachers how to instruct all the pupils in the laws of God, and to reconcile the world to God by making it a world inspired by God with the spirit of love, service, and sacrifice.

I cannot understand those who think that Christianity has failed. It seems to me never to have been so triumphant as it is to-day. They can see that pitiless German horde raping, robbing, murdering, but they cannot see the followers of Christ carrying, at the cost of their own lives, his message of succor to the poor, the captives, the blinded, and those that are bruised by oppression. They can see the priests confessing their travesty of faith in the sentence, "He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him ;" but they cannot see the crucified Christ conquering the world by self-sacrifice.

A nation is made Christian not by maintaining an established church, or building cathedrals, or writing a confession of its faith into its constitution. It is made Christian by the spirit of love, service, and sacrifice. When did a nation ever show so much of this spirit of love, service, and sacrifice as the American Nation does to-day? The Government has called upon the people for eight thousand millions of dollars to carry on the war for the freedom of the world, and the people have offered more than they were asked to contribute. The Red Cross has asked for other millions to minister to the wounded on the fields, the sick and suffering in the hospitals, and the impoverished civilians in the devastated countries, and the people have offered more than they were asked to give. The Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A. have asked other millions to aid them in social and spiritual services, and the people have given them more than was called for. They are denying themselves food they prefer that they may send food to others who are in greater need. The young men and women are offering themselves, and their fathers and mothers are offering their sons and their daughters, in life-giving service-laying down their lives for peoples across the sea whom most of us have never seen, whose very language most of us cannot understand. The cross which a few years ago was seen only on the breasts of a few ecclesiastics or on the spires of some of our churches is now accepted as a symbol of their faith by twenty-three million members of the Red Cross who have the right to this symbol, and most of whom are wearing it on their person or displaying it in their window. Every man who wears this cross is a priest; every home adorned by it is a church. The spirit of love, service, and sacrifice has burst through all barriers of creed and church, and is found to-day in the hearts and lives of Catholics and Protestants, Christians and Jews, believers and agnostics.

Never in the history of the world had a people a better reason than the American people have to-day for singing :

"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transiigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on."

The Knoll, Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York.