Article January 11, 1913 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

[Continent.]

There is no doubt that churches ought to present a united front to the evils of the day. They ought to federate to accomplish the real work of the church. There is no reason why there should be a host of little temperance societies, when the churches could come together in one mighty agency and make a strong impact upon the evil of intemperance. The work of rescuing the ruined and lifting the fallen certainly is the work of the whole church. Why should not all the churches come together, unite in that sort of thing, and present to the world the spectacle of one host working for one end? That would mean the destroying of various little starveling societies that are trying to do the work. It would mean reduction in the cost of administration. There simply is no theoretical advantage you can speak of that does not appear in this union of all the churches for the legitimate work of the whole. We do not see how any group of Christian men could fail to agree on that principle; nor how any convention could vote anything else; nor how any plan for work could be drawn up which would not include this.

The same thing appears again in the manifest Christian duty of helping the distressed. Who does not know that that is the business of us all? Do we not agree that the door of hope ought not to be shut in the face of an ex-convict; that a fallen woman, who wants to come back to honor and social place, ought to be welcomed in her effort; that a forger, or a thief, when he wants to reform, ought to have his chance? Could any body of Christian men be got together who would not agree heartily on all this? And yet how utterly abstract that ex-convict is, who is thought of in terms of the "ex," and not in terms of flesh-and-blood men, with all the frailties he has brought with him!

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