What the Church Means to Me | Page 3

wouldn't hurt the Church. The world
wants a Church Militant, not a backboneless intellectualism. Only the
"great Church victorious" can be the "Church at rest."
Nowhere is this fact more unanswerably demonstrated than in the
missionary field. Faithlessness in this respect and fearfulness of
expenditure, both of men and money in missionary work, have always
stood in any church for choked channels of spiritual power, and
subsequently spelled anæmia, atrophy, and death. Constant metabolism
is as essential for spiritual life as physical. A church must die that
doesn't use up and give out energy as surely as a physical body. The
period of latent physical life is not long. God in his mercy has seemed
to prolong latent spiritual life almost unduly in the case of some
churches. Those who love the Church are breathing a little more freely
because of the Laymen's Missionary Movement.
LACK OF CLEARNESS
To me personally it is hard to know exactly what the Church has meant;
it is hard to "know one's self." The attitude of practically all men's
minds is to excuse their own shortcomings by attributing the cause
elsewhere. Thus Paddy blames the Government for the hole in his
trousers, just as he does for the typhoid resulting from the dump heap in
front of his own door. When I first essayed to write on this subject, I
several times tore up the manuscript, feeling that I had written that
which was calculated to rend her at whose breast my own spirit had

first found life-giving sustenance and afterwards wisdom,
encouragement, and aid.
Yet history seems plainly to show that there have been times when the
world would have been more Christian if the organizations to which
men often limit the name of church had ceased to exist. I presume the
experience we have all had with organizations calling themselves "the
Church" has driven us, at times at least, to the same conclusions in our
own day about those particular branches. But this bears no reference to
the body of men who love Christ better than their own lives. They are
really the Church, and mean everything to me, to the world outside, and
to all aspirants to the dignity of the name of Christian.
ORGANIZATIONS ESSENTIAL
The visible Church stands to me above all else as appointed of God for
all that organization means in the attainment of any other object.
Atmospheric religion is desirable, but to progress, to permanence,
organization is essential. Moreover, being conscious of the
idiosyncrasy of the human mind, I have every use for the various
communions if no man is to be excluded.
But I look on one and all simply as a means to an end, and as agencies,
not entities. Theoretically there is no reason why they should not love
one another. Alas! they haven't always done so. A large membership of
ineffective persons may be only an incubus. Like sailors on my vessel,
if they are incompetent they are a hindrance, and in every way
expensive and undesirable. I never care to emphasize the large number
that the crew of my hospital ship consists of. As long as I can do the
work I take pride in the small number I can handle it with. It is far
better for the individuals themselves to have more responsibility and
see clearly the result of their own handiwork. They feel also, then, that
it is more important to be ready at all calls, and when at it they will
work far more keenly. History proves that when Constantine filled the
Eastern Church with nominal Christians he led directly to its downfall.
Yet one of the most difficult things I have had to learn is that religious
people find it impossible to believe that others do not care one iota
whether a man is labeled a Methodist or an Episcopalian. I certainly do

not, and I do not believe God does.
CHRIST COUNTS, NOT CREEDS
I sat in a small, mean little cabin on our coast some time ago while a
trained nurse from New York washed a sick baby and taught the
mother how to save the poor little mite's life. It was that gentlewoman's
ministry for Jesus Christ. For the privilege she was paying her own
expenses and receiving no salary. If ever I realized the Master standing
by in my life it was then and there in the semi-darkness of that hut.
That kind of ministry never fails to grip the laboring man. An hour later,
as I spoke to a preacher about this angel of mercy, he said, "Yes, but it
is a pity she is a Roman Catholic." Yes, it is hard, this faith in Jesus
Christ. It will bring her no praise of men. Yet it was such sermons as
this nurse's