Article December 28, 1912 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from Frederick Hastings, Malcolm James MacLeod

[Rev. Frederick Hastings in British Congregationalist.]

The man in the street wants to see the meaning of Christ's truth and the plan of life made plain. He is not so far from the kingdom as some imagine. We have to establish the kingdom of God among the men in the street. We have to show them the need of faith in the Lord Christ and in goodness. We have to set forth the gospel not as the means only of gaining cowardly cover from wrath, but of spiritual freedom and eternal life. We have to appeal not to selfishness, but to the fact that each man is needed to help in the uplift of humanity. We have to arouse men from the spirit of indifference. We have to denounce injustice, oppression, greed, the love of pleasure. We have to show the sin of neglect of the divine love which was so definitely made known in the incarnate Christ. We have to show how that divine love had been acting all through the ages to lead up to the incarnate Christ, and how all ages since have helped us to understand the depth of the mystery and grace manifest in the victim on the summit of Calvary. We have to present not an abstract system or mere ritual observance, but a life. We, indeed, have to find our true reinforcement of power by ever getting back to Christ. We want less professionalism and less thought about wealthy churches. We must think less of salaries and more of opportunities. We must throw off the cloth of gold from the pulpit.

[Christian Register.]

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