Article April 22, 1905 Issue

From our Exchanges

with contributions from Frank H. Decker, E. M. Martinson

All over the land it is reported that every department of church life is being aroused to interest and action, that churches of different denominations are working together, and even the Universalist churches, so long shut out from participation, are being invited and are accepting the invitation, showing that while there yet remain many differences of theological distinction, the forces of Christ are coming together under the banner of that love which inspires all alike to service.

The world, too, is ready for the awakened Church; the reaction from religious indifference has set in. No one can tell just where or why it started, but there is no question but that the living forces of the world, particularly the educational and commercial, are recognizing the part religion must play in the completed life. The great universities are recognizing that a full grasp of the realities must include religion as well as electricity, that history cannot be real history if Christianity is left out. The leading teachers in these institutions are coming at this thing from another point, perhaps, but they are meeting the disciples who have come by the quick paths of intuition and inspiration. Religion is being studied because religion is real; is a part of life.—The Universalist Leader.

Jesus preached repentance and urged on men the immediate necessity for it, because the kingdom of God was at hand. But we find no instance in the Gospels of his attempting to win any one to be his disciple by telling him that he was a sinner. He began to gather men around him by presenting to them some common ground on which they could stand together, and then he invited them to join him in doing what he and they desired to have done. Some who hesitated to accept him as leader he praised without qualification. Nathanael responded to Philip's invitation by expressing doubt as to whether the town of Nazareth could produce a leader whom it would be worth while for him to follow, but when he came to be introduced to Jesus, he was greeted with "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile." The Church has sometimes failed to win men to Christ because it has sought to compel them to a humiliating confession of sin which they did not yet feel, as a condition of coming into fellowship.

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