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THE KING’ S BUSINESS
sist merely o f a series of committees. Ten Secretaries o f denominational Movements have now been secured, and others are' about to be appointed! As the Movement is “ an inspiration, not an administration,” it has -been chiefly occu pied with the presentation of an adequate missionary policy to influential- groups of men, and also with 1the exploitation of methods qf missionary finance, which have produced the best results. The Movement stands for investigation, agitation and organization; the investiga tion by laymen o f missionary conditions; the agitation by laymen o f an adequate missionary policy, and the organization of laymen to cooperate with the ministers and Missionary Boards in enlisting the ■whole Church in its supreme work of saying the world. It has been found o f ,enormous advan tage to present the missionary operations o f the Church in the large, to men o f all the churches together. Only in this way. is it possible to secure the full inspiration from past success and to plan on a com prehensive basis, for the completion of the work that has been so -splendidly begun. It is noteworthy that wherever the Move ment has been presented, in scores o f cit ies o f the United States and Canada,'it has received the enthusiastic commendation and co-operation o f representative men. A Commission o f six laymen from the United States and Canada presented' the Movement in Great Britain, where it was at once taken up and National Committees organized both in England. and Scotland. It has since spread to Germany and to Australia. W e are rapidly approaching the time when the Christian men o f all nations will be federated for co-operative action in behalf o f mankind. While the Movement has already resulted in enlisting large numbers o f men in the active promotion o f missionary ^ interest and has been one o f the main factors in adding hundreds o f thousands o f dollars to the receipts'of Missionary Boards, it is not xto be expected that the whole church can be aroused suddenly to its missionary
responsibility. If during the next five or ten years the whole Church can be filled with the missionary spirit and fired with enthusiasm for world-evangelization, it will be a marvellous triumph o f grace. What explains the power o f this Move ment in the lives o f men? What is its significance in the life o f the Church? To these questions, at least partial answer is found in the following considerations: 1. The Movement presents to men the greatest possible spiritual challenge. The greatest thing in the world is the world. If the world’s needs are not great enough to arrest a man’s attention and command his help, he - is incapable o f being moved by the mo,st imperative challenge with which God has confronted men. That man had the right conception o f life who said, ‘T would rather save a million, men than save /a million dollars.” Men are awakening to their opportunity to enter as influential constructive factors into the currents of human history and leave the whole world better because they lived. 2. The Movement makes the largest pos sible demands upon men. .It strives simply to voice to them God’s call for a life whose dominant purpose is to establish the reign o f Christ in all human relationships. It reminds men that all life is a sacred trust, involving the stewardship o f oppor tunity, o f influence, o f time, and o f treas ure; that spiritual values are the only permanent values;’ that selfishness is sui cidal, while service o f others brings to the soul the supremest possible satisfac tion. It has been truly said that we must either ask more o f men or less.. They are not satisfied with what they have been doing. The Laymen’s Movement believes that we can ,only be true to the call o f , the world and o f Christ by asking o f men all they have and are, that the Kingdom may come and God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. 3. The effort to evangelize the world presents to every man the largest oppor tunity o f service which can come to him in this life. It includes the man nearest- to
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