Article April 4, 1914 Issue

From Our Exchanges

with contributions from Henry Utterwich

[The Congregationalist and Christian World]

We are constantly hearing complaints that men in the churches are not given work to do. The fact is, that in all this talk attention is turned in the wrong direction. The principal work, the all-important work for the men of the churches to do, is not within the organization of the churches, but in the world of which they are an essential part. The principal thing for the men of the churches to do for Christ and to promote his kingdom, is not what they can do under the roof of the church or by some delegated authority of the church, but it is what they can do in their places of business and in their social relation to men, in the wages they pay, in the goods they sell, in the votes they cast, in the men they elect to office. When will men learn that the kingdom of God on earth is a society on earth in which the will of God is being done by men in all their social relations!

There is no bigger task, no more important task, for the Christian business man to do than to try to Christianize his business. The man who superintends a Sunday school and is inhuman to his employees, is not serving God. If he thinks he is, it is because he is ignorant. The man who is diligent in promoting missions and at the same time is building up a fortune at the expense of his fellow men, is trying to serve God and mammon. It cannot be done. We will not harshly call him a hypocrite. His mistaken action may be partly due to misguided religious training, but his course of conduct is of the very same nature as that which called forth the condemnation of Christ on scribes and Pharisees. The great work for the Christian men in the churches to do, is to endeavor in every way in their power to make the life of the world which they create, a Christian life.

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