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THE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
gains adherents only through discounting plain teachings of Scripture. Any book on th is theme th a t has had brains enough behind it to force it far from th e press where it was printed; ignores or repudiates to a g reater or less de gree the inspired Word of God. This alone is sufficient to condemn it as a system. This condition no doubt arises from a failu re to p u t first things first. But,—how about reform movements? To my mind here lies the most subtle snare for the tru e child of God, wh.ose only weapons are the Gospel and prayer. V ictory must have th e cross in the fore ground. Success w ithout the blood can be only temporary success, which ulti mately turns to defeat. Our weapons as Christians are not Saul’s armour, but the sling of faith and stones of the gos pel in the hands of Spirit-filled men; be fore such as these no foe can stand. This, truly, is ground where each sou) must find his own way under the leader ship of the Spirit and the Word, and not from any earthly guide. These are days when God is surely leading H is people more and more to a life of distinct sep aration. No work th a t will help a hu man soul can be omitted w ith impunity; but here God must show us what help really is. A better home, or city, or state, or nation, or world, is truly de sirable if God prompts the service that leads thereto, but “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” The quickest way, and in fact th e only way, to attain this glorious result, is to follow the Lamb who takes away sin—the only thing th a t impedes man’s way Godward and' Heavenward. It will not be attained through politics nor will any political party afford a channel through which men directed by the Spirit of God- can operate conjointly w ith men possessed by the spirit of the world to carry forward the plan and purpose of God by methods devised by men of th e world. Here, thes church has lost much of her power by going down to th e “plains of
Ono” to confer with Sanballat and To biah. God give us Nehemiahs who re fuse to go down regardless of the de mands or short cuts to power which the world offers, for these seeming short cuts to power are rath er short cuts to defeat. “It is better tq tru st the Lord than to put confidence in man: it is bet te r to tru st the Lord than to put confi dence in princes” or Presidents or Con gressmen. But Social Service would crowd us forward to a place of temporal authority and make our churches merely schools for moral and social uplift, through education, amusement and poli tics. The queen who was more in dread of the powers of John Knox than of the opposing army, points us to the field of our operations as well as to the re sources at our command. Petitioning God means a thousand times more than petitioning Governors or Congressmen. When we, through the Anti-Saloon League, have forced a legislator to act our will by holding over him a th reat of the loss of his position, we have gone below th e prayer-line and bargained away our power with God for power with men. Probably the most serious menace along this Tine is the rapidly spreading program of Social- Service on the foreign mission field, until it looks as if the coming great task of the foreign m is sionary will be to teach the heathen agriculture, cooking, mechanics, etc.; and we may expect The American H ar vester Co. and The Standard Oil Co., and such like concerns to become the great evangelizing agencies since they will be .receiving the most direct benefit from this program because the so-called m issionaries have introduced the new order of evangelism which opens up a wide field and creates a demand for the products of these companies. The sad spiritual condition of the Y. M. C. A. is another case in point. The u ltra evangelical spirit which possessed
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