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When the Church begins actually to throw the Golden Rule onto its banner, not in theory but in actual practice, actually forgetting self in the Master's service, careless even of her own interests, her membership, she thereby calls into her ranks vast numbers of the best of the race, especially among the young, so that the actual result is a membership not only larger than she could ever hope to have otherwise, but a membership that commands such respect and that exercises such power, that[Pg 128] she is astounded at her former stupidity in being shackled so long by the traditions of the past. A new life is engendered. There is the joy of real accomplishment.

We are in an age of great changes. Advancing knowledge necessitates changes. And may I say a word here to our Christian ministry, that splendid body of men for whom I have such supreme admiration? One of the most significant facts of our time is this widespread inclination and determination on the part of such great numbers of thinking men and women to go directly to Jesus for their information of, and their inspiration from him. The beliefs and the voice of the laymen, those in our churches and those out of our churches, must be taken into account and reckoned with. Jesus is too large and too universal a character to be longer the sole possession, the property of any organisation.

There is a splendid body of young men and young women numbering into untold thousands, who are being captured by the personality and the simple direct message of Jesus. Many of these have caught his spirit and are going off into other lines of the Master's service. They are doing effective and telling work there. Remember that when the spirit of the Christ seizes a man, it is through the channel of present-day forms and present-day[Pg 129] terms, not in those of fifteen hundred, or sixteen hundred, or even three hundred years ago.

There is a spirit of intellectual honesty that prevents many men and women from subscribing to anything to which they cannot give their intellectual assent, as well as their moral and spiritual assent. They do not object to creeds. They know that a creed is but a statement, a statement of a man's or a woman's belief, whether it be in connection with religion, or in connection with anything else. But what they do object to is dogma, that unholy thing that lives on credulity, that is therefore destructive of the intellectual and the moral life of every man and every woman who allows it to lay its paralysing hand upon them, that can be held to if one is at all honest and given to thought, only through intellectual chicanery.

We must not forget also that God is still at work, revealing Himself more fully to mankind through modern prophets, through modern agencies. His revelation is not closed. It is still going on. The silly presumption in the statement therefore—"the truth once delivered."

It is well occasionally to call to mind these words by Robert Burns, singing free and with an untrammelled mind and soul from his heather-covered hills:[Pg 130]

It is essential to remember that we are in possession of knowledge, that we are face to face with conditions that are different from any in the previous history of Christendom. The Christian church must be sure that it moves fast enough so as not to alienate, but to draw into it that great body of intellectually alive, intellectually honest young men and women who have the Christ spirit of service and who are mastered by a great purpose of accomplishment. Remember that these young men and women are now merely standing where the entire church will stand in a few years. Remember that any man or woman who has the true spirit of service has the spirit of Christ—and more, has the religion of the Christ.

Remember that Jesus formulated no organisation. His message of the Kingdom was so far-reaching that no organisation could ever possibly encompass it, though an organisation may be, and has been, a great aid in actualising it here on earth. He never made any conditions as to through whom, or what, his[Pg 131] truth should be spread, and he would condemn today any instrumentality that would abrogate to itself any monopoly of his truth, just as he condemned those ecclesiastical authorities of his day who presumed to do the same in connection with the truth of God's earlier prophets.

And so I would say to the Church—beware and be wise. Make your conditions so that you can gain the allegiance and gain the help of this splendid body of young men and young women. Many of them are made of the stock that Jesus would choose as his own apostles. Among the young men will be our greatest teachers, our great financiers, our best legislators, our most valuable workers and organisers in various fields of social service, our most widely read authors, eminent and influential editorial and magazine writers as well as managers.

Many of these young women will have high and responsible positions as educators. Some will be heads and others will be active workers in our widely extended and valuable women's clubs. Some will have a hand in political action, in lifting politics out of its many-times low condition into its rightful state in being an agent for the accomplishment of the people's best purposes and their highest good. Some will be editors of widely circulating and[Pg 132] influential women's magazines. Some will be mothers, true mothers of the children of others, denied their rights and their privileges. Make it possible for them, nay, make it incumbent upon them to come in, to work within the great Church organisation.

It cannot afford that they stay out. It is suicidal to keep them out. Any other type of organisation that did not look constantly to commanding the services of the most capable and expert in its line would fall in a very few months into the ranks of the ineffectives. A business or a financial organisation that did not do the same would go into financial bankruptcy in even a shorter length of time. By attracting this class of men and women into its ranks it need fear neither moral nor financial bankruptcy.

But remember, many men and women of large calibre are so busy doing God's work in the world that they have no time and no inclination to be attracted by anything that does not claim their intellectual as well as their moral assent. The Church must speak fully and unequivocally in terms of present-day thought and present-day knowledge, to win the allegiance or even to attract the attention of this type of men and women.

And may I say here this word to those outside, and especially to this class of young men[Pg 133] and young women outside of our churches? Changes, and therefore advances in matters of this kind come slowly. This is true from the very nature of human nature. Inherited beliefs, especially when it comes to matters of religion, take the deepest hold and are the slowest to change. Not in all cases, but this is the general rule.

Those who hold on to the old are earnest, honest. They believe that these things are too sacred to be meddled with, or even sometimes, to be questioned. The ordinary mind is slow to distinguish between tradition and truth—especially where the two have been so fully and so adroitly mixed. Many are not in possession of the newer, the more advanced knowledge in various fields that you are in possession of. But remember this—in even a dozen years a mighty change has taken place—except in a church whose very foundation and whose sole purpose is dogma.