Article June 3, 1905 Issue

From our Exchanges

with contributions from Jenkin Lloyd Jones

All these modern substitutes for the church exploited by men and women, separately or unitedly, seek congeniality and efficiency by selection. "Nice" people hope to enrich their lives in one another's presence freed from the distractions of the other kind. All these exclusive compacts fail of the fundamental democracy that belongs to religion and after all is better embodied in the church than anywhere else. Certain "nice" people have elected you into their membership. This nicety you will help guard with your black balls only to find that eventually it grows tiresome and stupid to you. There comes inevitably the time of disillusion to the devotees of fraternities, sororities, clubs, and societies, when they discover that they hold no monopoly on excellence; that many interesting people are outside their boundaries, and that their own hearts overreach the limitations they have so championed. There is a growing life in all these that yearns for an organization big enough to hold men and women, genial enough to include rich and poor, wise enough to reach the old and the young, and loving enough to like those who are unlike themselves; and this is what the church assumes to be, nay, comes nearer being than anything else known to man.

Jenkin Lloyd Jones.
The Outlook.

The Christian life is a life of endeavor. It can never truly be anything else. There may be and there must be accomplishment along the way, but there can never be anythink like full and final achievement either in service or in character. For satisfaction, what the Christian needs is not work which can be ended, not spiritual attainments beyond which there is nothing more to be striven for or expected; but the Christian does need for the satisfaction and rest of his soul a feeling of certainty that he is in the right way, that he is engaged in the right work, and that he is steadily approximating to his ideal, Jesus Christ. This is what we long for. This satisfaction cannot be found in any contemplation of his own character and achievements, nor in reliance upon his own knowledge and judgment, but in an ever conscious sense of the unfailing and perfect leadership of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus said, "Will guide you into all truth."—The Watchman.

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