cational uplift as an opportunity for the cultivation of delightful social life, the forming of proper standards in certain æsthetic departments, church music, effective scriptural teaching-all these are immensely valuable. I have not anything to say in criticism of them. But I think it is tremendously important for us, and I believe the Men and Religion Forward Movement has helped us achieve this, to remind ourselves of the mission of the church, the fundamental business for which the Church of the living God has been organized under the superintendency of the Holy Spirit and perpetuated through the Christian centuries. I want to give some consideration to the basic mission of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is my first proposition: That the church is not an end within itself; it is a means toward an end. Now, it would not be strange if some one should say, "Here is a representative of a branch of the Church of God, who does not at all appreciate the dignity and standing of the church." My answer is this: "It will be conceded by every one that Jesus Christ discovered the individual, discovered him to the world, discovered him to himself. What did our Lord say about the life of man? That it was an end within itself? No, but rather, that it was the means toward the end. This is what He said: "He that would save his life must lose it, and he that would lose his life for My sake shall find it."

If that be true of the individual it must be true

of the collection of men and women in the form of an organization, the Church, and as the individual must lose his life in order that he may find it, so also must the Church lose its life in order that it may find its divine possibility as God shall charge it with the power of His own great energy. The Church, like its Lord, must go about doing good. That church, that organization or that wide-world movement, that records itself as existing in and for itself, is in a bad way; for Almighty God, in the development of His Kingdom, has placed His disapproval forever on that church that shall record itself as existing in and for itself. If, then, the church is a means toward an end, what are the ends that the Church of Jesus Christ is to serve?

A present-day leader, in defending the essential characteristics of the institutional church has done so in this language: "The institutional church is simply a church of organized kindnesses to the individual." That seems to me a very happy phrasing of the mission of the Church of God towards individual man. Robert Louis Stevenson has defined it a little differently. He says, "The church is the union of all who live in the ministry of all who suffer." So that the mission of the church toward the individual is that of the institution of organized kindnesses. Certainly you will agree with me in profound gratitude that the time has come in our interpretation of the significance of the gospel

of our Lord, when we make the mission of the church to include the whole of the life of men. We no longer divide the life of men into departments and conceive that it is the mission of the church simply to administer the religious departments. With psychology, thank God, has come a new interpretation of the gospel of our Lord, and we have come to see that the mission of the church is a mission to the whole man; that where the physical condition is not right, it is perfectly proper for the church to enter that field and see that the physical condition is what it ought to be; that where the social condition is pagan rather than Christian, the commission of the gospel to the church is to deal with that condition; that where the industrial or inspirational life is lacking, the mission of the church is to include the whole of the individual.

Now, let us see what the Word of God says on this point: He (Jesus) set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, and he sent some messengers before Him. When the messengers entered into the city of Samaria instead of into Jerusalem, the Samaritans refused to receive them. When they came back James and John were indignant, and they said, "Shall we call down fire from Heaven?" And with characteristic divine charity and gentleness, Jesus turned and said: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of."

And I like immensely our Lord's word, "To save the lives of men." I like it very much bet

ter than to talk about saving the souls of men. There is something so ghastly about that. Fifty years ago they talked about it in this way, and it did not make any difference about a man's life. We have all heard testimony in meetings that smelled musty and men were talking about things of the dim, distant past. I like better our Lord's putting it in this way, that this is a world for saving lives of men. It is very much more natural and it brings this business of salvation right down to the present moment, and raises questions as to what the man's life is here and now, right up to date.

Now, of course, the Church of Jesus Christ is builded upon that fundamental proposition, and the Men and Religion Forward Movement takes its stand upon the same proposition, that the best thing we can do in the saving of the lives of men is to bring Jesus Christ to men, and so bring the men to Jesus Christ. This is an all-inclusive work, not simply touching the outside of a man's condition, but entering into the deep resources of the spiritual nature, building up his spiritual realities and senses, giving steadiness to his will, fortifying his thought, characterizing his methods, directing the purposes of his life to high and holy ends.

A very remarkable thing happened to me as I entered one of the Men and Religion Congress sessions at Carnegie Hall. A man introduced his companion to me, saying, "Do you know this man?" I said, "I do not." Then he reminded

me that about two years ago, in one of the cities of West Virginia where I had gone for the purpose of dedicating a church, he and some others came and asked me to baptize a young man who had just gotten out of prison, and who had come to the city for the purpose of selling liquor illegally. He said to me, "This is the young man you baptized on that occasion." As I looked into his face, the man added, "Now, sir, he is a successful pastor of a Christian church." He was a Christian gentleman in appearance. That is what Jesus Christ can do for a man when he opens his life and his heart.

But if the mission of the church is to the individual, we must never forget that the individual man is simply a unit of organized society, and this great historic, tremendous fact of salvation must be conserved. The individual man and woman, as they feel the touch of the Holy Spirit of God, must be builded into a great worldwide organization, and the scriptural term for that organization is "the Kingdom of God," "the Kingdom of Heaven." Our Lord was not talking about the kingdom of the new Jerusalem, nor yet about a kingdom in midair, for disembodied spirits; He was talking about the building of His Kingdom in every place where man has a local habitation, the building of His Kingdom in righteousness and purity, and brotherhood, and universal love.

I have occasion to thank God a great many times that a good many years ago, when I was a