Article November 22, 1913 Issue

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[ The Universalist Leader ]

There is one truth which the church as a whole has never yet learned. It has disclaimed autocratic desires; it has lauded the blessings of humility; but it has never yet saturated its own consciousness with the truth that the church, like the individual, is greatest when it serves. Look at these barriers it has always built. Look at these creeds it has set before men. Look at these sacraments which it has insisted are necessary to salvation. Look at these claims of all sorts of infallibility. Study this perpetual insistence that humanity everywhere must come to its terms. This all constitutes a fabric of claims and conceits and demands which have at times been very burdensome.

The time is coming when the church must face a great problem. How earnestly does it wish to win to fellowship with Jesus Christ this great multitude of people out there in the wide world? To the thoughtful it is increasingly clear that the church cannot win that great, free humanity on the terms and by the procedure of traditional ecclesiasticism. When driven to choose between that traditional ecclesiasticism and the freedom of the open world, some of us who are in the church would not hesitate to go forth, and few of those outside will ever come in. How much of its machinery, its formal authority, its claims to infallibility will it give up in order to win the crowd? How far will it pass over to humanity and make terms with the mighty energies at work there? In the hour when God calls, can the church do what it demands of others, make the great sacrifice of its pride? Can it humble itself and remember the words of its Master, that in his kingdom they who serve are greater than those who are served?

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