known twenty-five years ago what I learned half a year ago." sive Law of Love Summing up the entire argument of this chap- Comprehenter upon the relation of the home to the foreign work, we find that while Jesus makes the individual so far an end in himself as to be subject only to God, and makes "beginning from Jerusalem" the divine order of the kingdom, he clearly teaches that the Law of Love is universal, and that the training of our children and the building up of our home churches must constantly aim at equal blessings for God's other children. Christ furnishes the solution of the problem which confronts the modern church and modern civilization by recognizing God, neighbor, and self as the three everlasting factors in the moral and spiritual kingdom and in placing the three in their divine order. He did not deny God, which is atheism; nor, with Confucius, confess ignorance of him, which is agnosticism; nor, with Haeckel, lose God in the physical universe, which is materialism. He did not sacrifice the individual to the community, which is socialism; or make the public the victim of personal greed, which is individualism; or sink both man and society in God, which is pantheism. Rather he put each man on an equality with his neighbor and both in perfect obedience to God, thus providing for a Christian commonwealth or world Selfishness Sure of Defeat family, based on the fundamental truth of the Bible, the Fatherhood of God. Is it not a striking fact that as parents have centered their affections and bestowed all their wealth upon their children, these children have lost their spiritual fiber. Wealth, bestowed on families, has ruined so many boys as to give rise to the adage, "Where the father began, the son leaves off." More than half our rich men's sons would be better off had they been born poor. What is this but a demonstration that family selfishness is a violation of the law of the universe? The same law holds in regard to ecclesiastical and national selfishness. Can you point to any church or nation on earth which has morally or financially impoverished itself by helping the weaker peoples of the earth? On the contrary, whenever a nation or a church becomes wealthy and then self-centered and labors for self-aggrandizement, or yields to self-indulgence, its sudden destruction or slow decline is one of the most impressive lessons of human history. "There is that scattereth, and increaseth yet more; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth only to want." Jesus states the law for nations and churches as well as for individuals in its positive form: "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall they Divine Duties give into your bosom. For with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again." There is indeed a divine election of individuals Election to and of nations; but it is an election to the performance of divine duties, not to the enjoyment of divine prerogatives. There is indeed a divine call of individuals and of nations running through the Bible. It is a call of the individual to serve the family, and of the family to serve the nation, and of the nation to serve the race, and of the race to glorify God. Only as both the individual and the community center in God can our finite resources be reinforced by the infinite riches of heaven. It is only as man ceases to be self-centered and becomes God-centered that he is able to do all things. This is the secret of faith. Here is the key to the whole problem which confronts us. If God is the means and I am the end for which the universe exists, then egotism is religion. If God is the means and my family or my clan is the end, then aristocracy is religion. If God is the means and America or Germany or Great Britain or China is the end, then patriotism is religion. Here was the error of the Jews. Will the United States repeat the Jewish sin? If God is the means and the Methodist Episcopal Church or the Roman Catholic Church is the end for which the universe exists, then ecclesiasticism is religion. But if God is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end of creation, then the individual and the family, and the nations, and the churches all find their true end and stand together in right relation only in him. And so Paul sums up the life of the universe in the profoundest text in the Bible: "In him all things consist." CHAPTER III THE OLD TESTAMENT AND MISSIONS Goal of Revelation THE end of revelation is nothing else than the Missions the salvation of all the earth. "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Beginning at Jerusalem is indeed the method prescribed by Christ. But discipling all nations is the goal he sets before us. The divine warrant for missions is found in the reply to the question whether the divine method of beginning at Jerusalem is inconsistent with and invalidates the divine command to disciple all the nations, or whether it is not rather the providential preparation for carrying out that command? Putting the question in another form: Shall we make our personal salvation or the salvation of our families or of our native land, an end in itself or an end in God? If, indeed, all things consist in him, if Christ is right in giving us the first command and God is indeed supreme in the universe and love of him. is our first duty, then the end of all Christian activity is not myself or my nation or my church, but God; and all our striving, wherever it begin, can end only in bringing back to God that which is his own by creation and by redemption. Another method of settling this question is to |