CHAPTER XV.

EFFECTUAL CHURCH MINISTRY.

IMPERFECT as the review of social issues has been, it has shown that, in the circumstances and conditions of modern life, there is an imperative call to Christian Churches to consider their ways. We have seen that many of the most energetic and influential developments of that life are not inspired by Christian motives, that sometimes a positive hostility to organised religious societies is expressed in them. The action of the Church can be traced only on parts of the surface; and the tendency undoubtedly is to withdraw wide areas of interest from any spiritual reference and, apart from this reference, to work out the problem of social salvation. In view of this and also of the everincreasing importance of the social question, it seems fitting that, before the task undertaken in this volume closes, we should ask, What in

the existing state of Christian institutions-in their action, in their methods, in all that is visible and evidential-is detrimental to their usefulness? What is hindering the success of their mission? What is imperilling the calamity to which Christ alluded when He spoke of the salt losing its savour?

The Church may be held to represent three things—a faith, a society, a social propaganda. Each of these constituents implies the others; but, for the purpose now contemplated, they may be regarded separately though in harmony. In respect of each, the inquiry proposed is, How can the ministry of the Church be made more fully effectual in the varied conditions of the world which it is called to serve ?

I.

Christianity is the embodiment of a faith "once for all delivered to the saints." The communion of saints-the Church in its entirety -holds this faith in trust for the good of mankind. If it has not a message that claims to be received on account of its transcendent importance, and of its ability to interpret and fulfil the human life, it has, and can have, no right to be heard amidst the many voices of the age.

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If it cannot proclaim its message with a force that the soul must recognise-"in the demonstration of the Spirit"-it will not be heard. "The spread of socialism," it has been affirmed, "is the token of the decline of religion." We may not admit the decline of religion. Men need, and more than ever in the present time are hungering for, a word which they can feel to be a gospel, the revelation to them of the kingdom in which their highest aspirations are satisfied, and in the possession of which they have the righteousness that binds man to man. Of what Matthew Arnold calls religiosity they are impatient, of controversies over creeds they make little account; but they crave something more than political economies; there are wants which an abundance of material happiness cannot satisfy. The spread of socialism may indicate a decline of Church authority, and a growing dissatisfaction with conventional symbols of religion, but it does not show that religion itself is less necessary or is less desired. Nevertheless, if the fellowship that the Church offers and the ministry of this fellowship are thus set aside; if there is a widespread scepticism as to the ability of this fellowship and ministry to express the deepest thought, and to purify the most active life of the day; the situation is one

of gravity for the household of faith. The power of its Gospel is challenged; even the claims of the Christ it declares are questioned. How can this scepticism be disarmed? It is, as yet, rather a tone of mind than a body of articulated opinion: how can a new confidence banish the distrust?

The answer to this inquiry takes us over the entire field of spiritual, intellectual, and practical activity; but the part of the answer which is relevant to the matter specially in view is, that the victory over all sorts of doubt and misgiving will be found in the might with which the faith is proclaimed, and in the signs which follow its proclamation. The confidence of the Christian is that the Spirit of God who dwells with the Church is the witness to the Christ of God, and that, according to His power working in minds, He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that can be asked or thought. But this confidence implies a human condition. The signs "follow them that believe." There must be a subjective faith in the witnessing Church which receives and assimilates the objective faith committed to it. The message is quick and powerful when the appeal is straight to the conscience, when it rightly apprehends the human nature appealed to, when it is directed

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by the wisdom and the sympathy which unlock the fastenings of the soul; and if the power of God unto salvation is not manifest in the dispensation of the Gospel of the kingdom, we are bound to inquire where the failure lies? what are the reasons for this limitation of the Spirit of God?

One of such reasons may be an uncertainty in the Church itself. For, the confused groping towards new landing - places which we have observed in social movements has its counterpart in the Church. The more progressive intellects in several Churches are uneasy in the habitudes of thought to which, by their most venerated traditions and by their confessions, they are related, and are searching for ampler spaces into which they can bear the sums and substances of their old beliefs, incorporating them with larger apprehensions of God and of His world. Now, a time in which earnest men are voyaging through troubled waters in quest of new havens, in which ancient orders of belief are giving place to new, but these new not clearly defined, is almost sure to be a time of weakened enthusiasm, of utterance lacking in the concentrated energy which lays effectual siege to the heart. Inevitably, dubieties in thought are reflected in hesitancies of voice. And three results follow. Sympathy