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Church, and it is reported that from beginning to end of the conference there was not a single petition offered for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Is it any wonder that we are in a pa thetic muddle regarding many of these Biblical and theological ques tions ? We are making the same unspeak ably sad blunder in the work of the Church. We are calling our great conventions and mapping out our great programs and having our great banquets, but the job that God has given us is still undone. We have talked a great deal about it-, but the work is not yet done. Our experts tell us that only certain things are necessary—so much money and so many men—in order to cover the ground and do the work. Why does not the great Church of God give this money and these men? It has both the money and the men at its com mand but still they are not at God’s disposal for His great work, and why ? The Moravians for years have been giving men and money in a greater proportion than the Church is asked to give them at this crisis. How did it come to pass? They got right with God and recognized the place of the Holy Spirit in this work and the story of that work reads like a chapter from the Acts of the Apostles. The story from Count Zinzendorf down has been the story of a spirit-filled life. This again you see brings us to the very heart of the practical questions with which men are face to face to day. And everywhere men are begin ning to realize that man of himself cannot meet the needs of the hour. With Prof. Eucken they are saying we must have a new infusion of life from above if society is going to be saved. God has pointed out the way in which we can have this new infu sion of life. “Ye shall receive power •when the Holy Spirit is come upon
living—giving value received for what he gets. About clean and edifying conversation. About being kind one to another, tenderhearted and forgiv ing. About living a clean life, that can stand the light of God's righteous ness. He writes about wives being in subjection to their own husbands and husbands loving their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, and about children obeying their parents and fathers fulfilling their du ties to their children. He writes about the relation between employers and employees and their duties one to an other. The labor question and the di- -vorce question and thousands of other social and individual questions that are threatening the very foundations of society today can never be settled apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. The tragedy of the Christian life is that we have been trying to do in our own power what can only be done in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Church that ought to have been the leader and teacher of the people has been the great sinner in this mat ter. We have been trying to do the work that has been given to us in our own wisdom and in our own feeble strength. That is the great reason of the embarrassment of the Church at this very moment. In the great intellectual controversies that are threatening the very life of the Church men are seeking to solve great ques tions in the light of the candle of hu man reason. We have practically for gotten that Christ said that when the Spirit was come He would guide us into the truth. He has come but men in the name of Christianity have for gotten His presence and have been burning incense at the altars of Ger man rationalism. A company of Bible scholars met in conference in the city of Washington not long since for the purpose of discussing Bible questions that have to do with the life of the
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