you more to the church, the thought of your personal salvation or the opportunity to render a large service to others in the name of Christ?' There was no hesitation in the answer: 'It was the call to service. I am sure there are many men in our town who will become interested in the church when they are put to work as I was put to work by Mr. B. and as I am now put to work.'" It is the call to do good that awakens men. It has occurred to me that one of the surest signs of a highly intelligent and ethical humanity is manifested in its reluctance to respond to the selfish and fearful appeals of eternal punishment and the bold profit and loss arguments of some evangelists and preachers. When these are the sole basis of the message of truth to mankind and men sit before them irresponsive and dumb, does it not reveal a condition which is essentially noble? And if while man repudiates these, he at the same time responds to appeals to give the life in love and service to others, does it not show marks of the true Christian motive? There is a certain majesty about the character of a humanity that sits unmoved before the hell fire and personal gain appeal to be a follower of Jesus. It shows its purity and greatness in its silence. On the other hand what a stigma rests upon humanity, how painful are its relations of innate meanness and self interest in life only, when the higher appeal to follow Christ is made, when it is asked to forsake evil and take up goodness and enter into service for others, it still pursues its profligate, pleasure loving, careless and indifferent way, apparently totally dead to any of the Master's motives. While on the one hand, some manifest their nobility of character by refusing to answer the call to come and follow Jesus for what they can secure, on the other, others reveal their ex ceeding sinfulness as they, in their cold respectability, live their lives of ease and care not for Christ and needy humanity. We are led to conclude that our evangelistic appeal should seek to arouse higher motives for becoming Christians. There is a serious question as to whether any man truly preaches the Gospel or approaches humanity at all as Jesus would have him, if he makes the summum bonum of salvation to imply the experience of individual escape from sin and its penalty, or if he appeals to men in such a way that to enter the Christian life with the motive of gain to themselves is the primary one. Sermons which continually depict the danger of hell to the individual appealed to and which constantly seek to arouse him to the consciousness of personal loss which sin will cause him to experience both temporarily and eternally, do not stimulate these motives which are necessary to have, if one is to be a true follower of the Master. It is the preacher's duty so to appeal to humanity that the higher motives will be understood, possessed and acted from. Conscious that the genius of the Christian spirit and life is bound up in these motives, and that the success of the Kingdom advancement depends upon them, and that humanity under the influence of the spirit of God gives abundant evidence of capability and inclination to respond to them, every Christian worker in pulpit and pew should give time to the study of their significance, and should daily appeal to mankind so that humanity shall be taught to respond to them. There is no question but what the responsibility is ours. The Master is to hold us accountable in this matter. We should recognize that dealing with motives is our most important task. It makes all the difference in the world what we ask men to respond to when we call upon them to follow Christ. First results are not the greatest. Better have fewer answer the call of our ministry than to have large numbers respond from wrong or totally inadequate motives. Remember motives prove the man and make the world. WE CHAPTER NINE THE LARGER REPENTANCE E read in the Gospel record (Matt. 3: 1) that John the Baptizer began to declare in the desert of Judea, "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Reign of Heaven is at hand." During one of his preaching tours, Jesus, to whom John was calling the attention of the crowd as the One who was to come after him, hearing his message of repentance in view of that righteousness which was needed to establish the Reign of God on earth, came to him and requested baptism at his hands, thereby confessing his faith in the idealism of John and his willingness publicly to identify himself with the message and hope of his forerunner. In the very next chapter of Matthew's record, we read that Jesus, after his temptation to relinquish his ideal and purpose of the Kingdom, began to proclaim, "Repent for the Reign of Heaven is near." It is evident that repentance (a change of mind and a moral right about face) was an integral part of the message of John and Jesus. That it was so vital to Jesus' ideal, is what concerns us principally. Through the centuries, the Christian church has considered the message of repentance an important one and exceedingly fundamental in personal religion. It has always had to do primarily with that which the church has conceived to be sin. Repentance is an attitude toward, and an action regarding that which has been understood to be evil. It is not a mystical experience so much as a practical moral one. It is something that can be seen for it has to do with our ethical obligations and duties. This calls to the front the whole question of sin. On the one hand we hear some saying that the great trouble with the world today is that people are losing their sense of and are therefore careless about sin, while on the other hand there are those who would philosophize it out of the world order entirely declaring with emphasis that the only salvation of humanity is in the hope that the world shall consider that it does not exist and shall become senseless to it. Ultra conservatives in theology are deeply concerned about the evident growing tendency among liberals to minimize the genius and awfulness of sin. They state that preachers as a whole today do not preach about it as others once did. They do not boldly tell people that they are sinners as did Charles Finney and Jonathan Edwards and there is a tendency to gloss over sins, excusing man in unwarranted pity rather than condemning him outspokenly. But this contention can hardly be substantiated. It is true that most preachers today of both the conservative and liberal schools may define sin somewhat differently from what men of one hundred years ago did, but the intimation that the Christian pulpit of this hour is careless about the significance of evil and man's responsibility for it, is wide from the mark of truth. There is no tendency today any more than ever among the preachers of Christ to make evil good, but on the contrary never was the pulpit so true to Jesus' message regarding it and never so |