We thank God for this relaxing of sectarianism and for the trend toward Christian union. But the movement involves a grave danger. Having lost faith in their distinctive sectarian doctrines, which they considered synonymous with New Testament teaching, many sectarian people are rapidly drifting into indifference, worldliness and unbelief. Forsaking human leaders and their doctrines, they are in danger of also forsaking the Apostles as religious leaders and their doctrines once for all delivered to the saints. Sectarianism is bad, but sectarian life and strife is better than a lifeless, conviction-less, graveyard, sentimental union that is the result of a dying faith. In a union revival in an Eastern city practically all the Protestant churches worked together for a month, and we could not count five definite committals to Christ. Any small sectarian church alone could have accomplished greater definite results. After reducing their doctrines so as to avoid all that would give offense to any, they become so thin that there is but little to contend for.

The indifference to the doctrines of the creeds and the New Testament which is hastening the disintegration of sectarianism, is partly due to infidelity in the churches. Discerning critics cannot fail to see that much of the drift toward denominational union is due to the leadership of preachers who, through rationalism, have lost faith in the inspiration of the Bible and consequently in evangelical Christianity. As I was a student for three years at a Unitarian theological school and have gone through the process myself, I am able to speak on this subject as perhaps few of our brethren can. Misguided by rationalism, I thought it my conscientious duty to accept, step by step, the dictates of destructive criticism until the Bible was only inspired to me in religion as Kant in philosophy, Milton in poetry and Beethoven in music. But when I came to the end of the business I discovered that my conscience, that had urged me along, was gone also. For I was gravely taught that conscience is simply a creation of experience and education and that it is right to lie or do anything else so long as you do it out of love. Doubtless you have all heard of the farmer and his wife at the World's Fair, who went to see the "Exit." There was nothing in it and of course they had to pay to get in again. This was my bitter experience with rationalism. I thought I was following a great light, but I discovered there was nothing in it, that I was following an ignis fatuus. Rationalism has indeed proven the "Exit" to multitudes, from the peace, joy and moral security that accompany faith in evangelical Christianity into the desert of doubt, darkness and despair. To those preachers who, through rationalism, have lost faith in the inspiration of the Bible, doctrines are no longer a hindrance to union, for they have lost faith in all evangelical doctrines and therefore selfishness and utility draw them toward union.

If this is the religious condition to-day, you can see that we are in danger of religious anarchy and spiritual death. We are told that the splendid civilizations of Greece and Rome were made possible through the moral integrity and manhood inspired by their heathen religious systems. When unbelief in these systems originated among the philosophers and through them permeated the mass of the people, morality and sincerity were displaced by policy, distrust and deception, which brought utter ruin to the social and civil fabric. How much greater must the calamity be if the faith, integrity and morality underlying our splendid Christian civilization should be destroyed by the antichristian doctrines already taught in the classroom at some of the leading schools. The only hope lies in a return to "the faith once for all delivered to the saints." I believe we have been raised up for this hour. Our past work and opportunities are but a drop in the bucket compared with our present opportunities for work. As never before, it behooves us to raise the banner of New Testament Christianity as a standard to rally and reorganize the divided, confused and retreating hosts of Christ. It is not a question of staying at Jerusalem until each individual is converted, but the question is whether we will ever go to the Jerusalem of teeming millions in our land who have never even heard the plea for Christian union on the primitive gospel. Just as the Apostles went to saints (pious Jews) and sinners and demanded upon pain of their eternal condemnation that they unite under King Jesus, so we must go to the saints of the sects and sinners of the world and insist that they unite under the non-sectarian banner of Christ, in order that the whole world may believe in him as God's Son. As in the days of the Apostles, so now we need a re-alignment of religious forces in order to conquer the world for Christ.

Having learned the New Testament principles that should guide us in our missionary operations, and through these discovered our chief sphere of work in view of the present situation, let us turn to special missionary problems that constantly suggest themselves to us and consider our duty towards them and their relationship to the great mission that rests upon us as a distinctive people. I refer to the Indians, Mormons, Jews, immigrants, the lower and slum districts of our cities, the mountaineers of the Appalachian system, the millions of unevangelized negroes in the South, etc.

Concerning these problems I wish to call your attention to the following considerations:

First, these problems are largely educational, legal, social and philanthropic, and as such should be solved by the united effort of all the good citizens of the land. Keeping in mind the New Testament principles that are to guide us, we can readily see that Christians should do many things that the church was not ordained to do. The church, as a church, should not go into politics and business. On the other hand, the church, through its spiritual ministries, should inspire its members to enter business, politics, philanthropic associations, etc., in order, as far as possible, to incarnate Christian principles in their life in the world. We may differ as to the finer distinctions, but none of us would advocate a union of church and state or of church and business. As this is a nation in which Christians can control the laws, they can do much through good citizenship to solve these questions and bring these classes within the reach of the spiritual gospel. One of the great duties of the church in behalf of these people is, through their spiritual ministries, to constrain their members to make and enforce proper laws for their education, protection and improvement. Christianity is the religion of a book, and the first thing needful to bring these classes to an intelligent Christian faith is at least a common-school English education. Those of us who have lived in cities that are largely foreign know that the public schools are doing more to bring these classes within gospel reach than all other agencies combined.

Second, I wish to throw out a warning against engendering or encouraging the class spirit which we find so severely condemned in the New Testament. In the New Testament we read nothing about churches for different classes or about different classes as separate missionary problems, but the effort is to reach all classes through the local churches along the line of least resistance. The best thing on earth for these various classes is that they might be brought into vital touch with the best Christian people in our local churches. Some have even gone so far as to claim that we cannot reach the slum element, but must leave that to the Salvation Army, etc. If that is true, so much the worse for our Christianity. A truly New Testament church is the incarnation of the wisdom and love of God for reaching any and all classes of people. The class spirit is the outgrowth of ignorance, prejudice and selfishness and is always sinful among Christians. Our experience with tuberculosis and with the modern complicated industrial and political systems, is thrusting upon us anew Christ's teaching about the brotherhood of man or the solidarity of the race. On the whole, it is true that the race suffers or rejoices, rises or falls, together. We condemn the segregation of foreign races in different sections of our large cities. But the segregation of the better, or at least more fortunate, classes, is just as bad and more disastrous to the welfare of the city. Social settlements and institutional churches are manifestations of the Christ spirit, but they are only proxies and excuses for the mass of Christians and but samples and crumbs in place of the square meal that a square deal would supply. What these institutions are doing in a comparatively unnatural and artificial way is simply a hint of what could and would be done if all church-members would practise the Christ spirit in all their daily walk and conversation. To give a few dollars to help pay a few mission workers to live Christ in the slum districts is all right, but is no adequate substitute for all Christians giving all their life to uplift and save their country and the whole world. The best institutional church is the one that through its spiritual ministries inspires its members to live Christ in politics, in business, in society, in the home and everywhere else. So far as possible, let us minimize and discourage the class spirit in every way, shape and form. It is marvelous what the true Christ spirit will do along this line. A church of Christ was recently organized at Romney, W. Va., with two-thirds of the members foreign born. With a few days' effort nineteen Italians recently joined the Christian Church at Uhrichsville, O. Similar results have followed faithful efforts in New York City and at many other places. If in love and faith we would make a serious effort to reach these classes through the local churches, we would do ten times more to reach and help them than by seeking to reach them as classes.

In the third place, we must avoid the materializing tendency of the age in our gospel work. The constant tendency is to lose sight of the spiritual, invisible and eternal, to be blinded by the things of this world and to be conformed to them. In reading popular books on Home Missions we cannot but be grieved at the flings and thrusts at the old evangelism and the laudations of the new evangelism. For the context shows that the teaching is away from the spiritual and eternal salvation of the individual, which the New Testament makes the chief and ultimate thing, to the material and temporal things of this earth, which the New Testament makes a means to a higher end. To prove that the old evangelism is defunct, attention is called to the fact that seven thousand sectarian congregations did not have a single convert in an entire year. But can that be said of true New Testament evangelism? How prone we are to forget that only a comparatively few can attain unto worldly success according to the standard of public opinion and none so as to be satisfied with the effort. For the more we get the more we want in wealth and fame and pleasure, and none of these things in themselves bring happiness or well-being, which is the real thing the soul hungers for. Who can estimate the eternal good B. F. Mills did while he pointed individuals to the Lamb of God and thus filled their souls with new life, hope and courage to do and to dare for self and others because "of the joy that was set before them"? But in an evil day he became spiritually near-sighted and spoke about saving society rather than the individual, and now he is reputed to be a hotel-keeper, ministering to the material comforts of his fellow-men. Oh, what a fall was there! But only an example of multitudes who have become near-sighted and unfruitful through a so-called new evangelism that is not new. While giving good works their proper and important place, let us never forget that to save the individual soul for eternity through the gospel is the chief work of the church, and that it must ever subordinate the temporal and material to the spiritual and eternal.

Furthermore, it is well to remember that our sectarian neighbors, having largely lost faith in what they once considered their distinctive mission, are naturally turning much of their energy to general educational, philanthropic and civilizing work. Under the circumstances it is natural and proper that they should give relatively more of their energies to this kind of work than we, as we have a distinctive mission that demands our chief effort.

The classes enumerated above present indeed great missionary problems. We should keep in mind the entire field and never plan for anything short of reaching, as soon as possible, every creature with the gospel. But accepting the guidance of the Holy Spirit, revealed in the New Testament, we must go to the ends of the earth as a body united in Christ and his truth, along the line of least resistance, ever keeping in mind the spiritual and eternal salvation of the individual as the ultimate aim.

These things being true, I still believe, as we have always taught, that the reunion of God's people on the primitive gospel is at present the overshadowing issue before us and that in working for its accomplishment we are doing the utmost in our power to solve all missionary problems. Christ can never conquer with a hopelessly divided army. Sectarianism ties up three-fourths of the men and money and kills three-fourths of the spiritual power that could otherwise be used to solve all missionary problems. Unite all saints in Christ and set free these forces, and within this generation the world will believe and know that Jesus is the Christ whom God sent into the world (John 17:20, 21, 23). I believe that God has providentially prepared both us and the field, and unless we perform the mission set before us he will raise up another people through whom to bring about Christian union on the primitive gospel, to our eternal shame, but to their eternal glory. Thus it seems that, pre-eminently, our neglected fields lie among the teeming millions of America, ripe unto the harvest for our plea, but who, through our negligence, have not even heard that there is such a plea.

Grapes of Eshcol have been gathered from every corner of our land, proving that it is a land flowing with milk and honey for primitive Christianity. Look at the wonders done in Oklahoma. Go to Southern California and see the recent record. Go to the great Northwest, both in Canada and the United States, and see the ripeness of the field. If we turn to the southeast we gather just as large clusters of grapes in Florida and along the coast. See the marvels accomplished in Washington, our capital. Two churches offered to us because we are non-sectarian. Turn to Baltimore and see the marvelous growth. Two fields offered to us because we stand for Christian union. Look at the recent and abundant fruit in conservative Pennsylvania, or pass on to New York and see the wonders at East Orange and in Brooklyn among the Russians. Wherever we turn, the field is riper than ever and we must haste to garner it in or the abundant crop will perish. The heart of the country is already largely ours. Let us go forward with enlarged numbers and renewed vigor, knowing that the God of the harvest is with us and we are well able to possess the land. While greatly increasing all our other activities, let us push the Home Society to the front where it belongs according to every principle of Scripture, mercy, economy, efficiency and common sense. If we will renew among us the zeal and self-denial of the pioneers of this movement, we will soon gloriously triumph to His honor and praise.

THE END