Editorial August 14, 1909 Issue

BOTH GOSPEL AND WORKS NEEDED

Archibald McLellan

The Duluth News Tribune, in discussing the appeal which the church necessarily must make to mankind in order to maintain, or rather regain, its place in their affections and fulfil its mission in the satisfaction of their spiritual hunger, says editorially:—

Damnation as once interpreted, and salvation as once promised, have lost their power of appeal, and authority has gone with them. This does not mean that men are less emotional, less swayed by sentiment, but that they are less superstitious, more intelligent and more rational. It means that the appeal must be by other methods, with greater subtlety and with a more human motive. The moving force must be primarily subjective rather than objective; it must be personal, but, above all else, it must still be spiritual, for, scoff as they may, every man admits in the end the hunger of the spirit and the dominance of that side of him which he might deliberately starve to death if he could.

How to reach, to feed, to nourish and make predominant this spiritual part of man is now, as ever, the church's problem. It can no longer be done by command; we doubt if it can be by over prominence of the material needs, as is the tendency of the institutional church where it is most fully developed. ... How to get men to come to a church is one problem, and there mainly lies the changed condition. Once come, to hold them, to make them come again, holds no other secret nor mystery than that which is as old as religion. It must be from what they hear, from the appeal through the ear, the mind, the sentiment.

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BOTH GOSPEL AND WORKS NEEDED

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