July 1928
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
409
do not need more government, we need more, power. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen.” A third is that the primary agency for achieving this end is the church. The public press is a source of power, but it too often caters to' sensational and depraved tastes rather than tries to reform them. The public school has tremendous potentialities but, due to the separation of church and state, is impotent of religion—^the very foun tain head of morals. The state can do much through légis lation, but it is more in the realm of prohibiting the bad than of prescribing the good. The one institution that stands among men for the purpose of cultivating religion and morals is the church. Mr. Bryan was right when he said, “I am convinced that the League of Nations is not worth the paper it is written on unless it is’backed by the power of Christ and the power of the church.” , The fourth conviction is that the most strategic time is in childhood and youth. As previously indicated, much of our emphasis in the past has been on adults. ' In fact if a visitor from Mars should come to earth and look into the great majority of church buildings he would not be able to tell from the equipment ithat a child was ever expected in them. Yet it is true, as we have been told, that “civili zation marches forward on the feet of little children.” Whoever captures childhood holds the future in his hands, for this is the time of trustfulness, confidence, plastic ideals and habit formation. The Catholics have long since recognized this and, as James would say, “they strike while the iron is hot.” In the language of Benjamin Kidd near the close of his book on the Science of Power, “Give us the young and we will create a new mind and a new earth in a single generation.” The last one is that the most effective method is the educational. In saying this there is no thought of dis counting the inspirational type of activity. It has its -value. Nor is there any disposition to minimize the cam- plaign and its intensive series of meetings. They, too, have accomplished much and have their places. All such give enthusiasm and new resolves, but as Maltbie D. Bab cock has stated, “Good habits are not made on birthdaysft nor Christian character at the new'year.” Rather it is through the day-by-day, line-upon-line, method of activity that ideals are fixed, habits crystallized, the sfibconscious built up, and character and destiny determined. What wè would have in our civilization tomorrow we must put into our education today, for, as Robert Wells Veach déclares, “In the last analysis, social-progress is a battle between schoolmasters.” T h e T asks I nvolved For one thing there must be instilled the foundation truths of Christian character. No citizenship can rise above its ideals. • As a nation or a denomination thinketh, so does it come to be. People can not live much better than they know how. First of all there must be given those things that lie at the entrance to the Christian life and character. This has not been done as it should be when examinations of high-school students show the most colossal ignorance of the books, characters, and events of the Bible, and the chaplains and Y. M. C. À. workers agree as they did during the recent war that there is “the most- widespread ignorance of the meaning of Christianity and the Bible” and that “the most serious failure of the church is as a teacher.”- ' Since knowledge is the means of approach to the kingdom, and 95 per cent of the people must get it through the churches- if at all, we must do
more than we have thus far done to give them those ele mental truths essential to entrance into the Christian life. For another thing, we must provide the ideals and convictions essential for a Christian life today. The devel opments in the fields of science and philosophy have brought a strain in the faith of youth, as is evidenced in the widespread wave o f . suicide. The widened range of knowledge and understanding of the mysteries of life, have brought a strain on the power of self-control, as the enormous amount Of immorality shows. The increase in luxuries and conveniences has brought what Henry C. King characterizes as “the peril of the lower attainment.” To meet these temptations and those that come from the. world of commercialized amusements, the young Chris tian must be fortified with the truths of God and under girded with fairly: fixed convictions and habits. “The strength of our' nation,” says President Coolidge, “is the strength of its religious convictions.” Furthermore, there must be given training for Chris tian service. The most of our young women will go into .the hortle to fashion the domestic life of the future and they should go there so trained as to its sacredness and tasks as to make it a citadel for Christianity. Many of our young men will go into the ranks of common citizens and they should be trained to use their vote and citizenship t” the glory of God. Others will become business men, law yers, teachers and physicians and should have such a view of the stewardship of life as to make their talent and money count for the kingdom of God; others still will be pastors, religious-educational directors, and foreign mis sionaries and should be fired with a vision of the glory and greatness of their tasks. Somehow religious education must provide the Christian conception of and motive for life and train for all phases of endeavor. So, then, whether it be. accomplished through the Christian home, the religious educational activity of the local church, the Christian training of the denominational college or the program of religious activity in relation to the .state, or independent' school, there must be brought about that ideal voiced in the desire of Woodrow Wilson when he said, “I should be afraid to go forward if I did not believe that at the very foundation of all our think ing and all of our planning is the incomparable and unim peachable Word of God.” Religious education must not be looked upon as a side issue, an incidental matter, something tacked on, as was revealed in the statement of a biographer of Roosevelt which said, “Think of Theodore Roosevelt teaching a Sun day-school class!” or as is often seen in the present-day pastor who comes to church after Sunday school is over or leaves it entirely to volunteer, busy, and untrained help. Deacons and church members must regard the educational program not.as something merely for women and children, but as the very heart of Kingdom activity, and conse quently give it the best of their thought, time, money and energy. It is a major and not a minor task.
CONVENTION DELEGATES A re E ntitled to S pecial I ntroductory R ates on T h e K ing ’ s B u sin e ss .
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