That is the wise, efficient church that recognizes the fundamental work and seizes the opportunity and meets the obligation of the hour courageously and effectively.

      To do the right thing at the right time is the soul of wisdom and the secret of success.

      I. The Fundamental Work of Every Christian Man.

      The great commission of our Lord is the center movement from which all Christian activity must spring. It is the focal point at which the converging lines of divine purpose, providence and preparation meet, and from which the diverging lines of human aim, effort and achievement must proceed in order to the fullest realization of the divine plan in the creation and redemption of man. Here the individual Christian, the local congregation, the church at large must stand in order to look out upon the world with clear vision and see all human activities in their proper perspective and true relation. The carrying out of this commission is the real business of the Christian man.

      II. An Ever-changing Emphasis Necessitated by Ever-changing Conditions.

      To accomplish the fundamental work committed to our hands emphasis must needs be laid at different times on different things. One hundred years ago Thomas Campbell saw that in order to accomplish this all-important work emphasis must be laid on Christian union. Subsidiary and tributary to this Alexander Campbell exalted the divinity and lordship of Jesus, clearly recognizing that in this way alone could all rival authority, whether of persons or councils or creeds, be set aside and the consequent divisions healed. Walter Scott magnified the Scriptural law of pardon in order that the bewildering mysticism

E. V. ZOLLARS.

and conflicting practices that had invaded the church by way of Rome might be displaced by the simple, logical, psychological and Biblical process of conversion that obtained in the apostolic day, thus bringing harmony out of discord and peace out of strife. Barton W. Stone held up the sacred Scriptures as the supreme rule of faith and practice as opposed to all authoritative codes of discipline, human creeds and confessions of faith, whatsoever.

      III. But the time has come for a new emphasis, unless I misunderstand the conditions that have arisen and misread the signs that seem to point to a crisis moment immediately at hand. We must now place the emphasis on education if we would meet our great responsibilities and have a worthy part in carrying out the commission of our Lord. I argue this because education must be dominated by Christian principles and saturated by Christian sentiment, in order to meet the varied needs of its complex subject, and consequently accomplish the highest and best results for the human race. The Christian college is the institution that must now [115] arrest and hold our attention as it never has before in order to save our education from becoming completely secularized and provide a ministry adequate to meet the imperative needs of the church in sustaining and building up its multitudinous local organizations, and in the accomplishment of the world-wide task laid upon it by its divine Head. That Christianity is the true foster mother of Christian education many considerations show.

      1. It was the founder of Christianity that gave us the dominant thought that makes popular education possible.

      Christianity is the parent of modern education. Under the fostering care of Christianity the education known to the world before the advent of Christ has been so modified, supplemented and enlarged as to its purpose as to be a new thing. Christ is the author of the free school; Christianity is the foster mother of education. She is the founder of colleges and universities of every rank and degree. One basal, fundamental thought underlies the whole superstructure of popular education, the thought given to the world by the great Teacher whose cradle song the angels sang; namely, the infinite value of the human soul.

      2. The founder of Christianity has also given us the true method of education and the secret of successful work. Christ recognized the fact that human character is formed not by means of abstract, ethical or religious teachings, or the inculcation of philosophical principles, but through the concrete presentation of the highest ethical, philosophical and religious truth. With divine insight into the nature of man he saw that he was essentially an imitator, and that what was needed was not abstract dogma, no matter how true or important, but incarnate truth, for man can not imitate an abstraction; hence he said, "I am the light of the world."

      A great personality is necessary to a great school. What the teacher is is of more importance than what the teacher knows. The personality of the teacher does more educating than the subject he teaches. The thing taught is largely an excuse for bringing the student into contact with the personality of the teacher. I care not how much the teacher may know; if he is not an incarnation of the highest principles of religion and morality, he can not be a true teacher.

      3. The founder of Christianity has incidentally revealed to us the true purpose of education in teaching us in what the true greatness of man consists. All must admit that the true aim of life is to fulfill the divine purpose in giving us a being in the world. We are not mere creatures of chance. We are not here by accident. Each man is a calculated part of God's great plan. To glorify God is to accomplish his purpose in our creation. This is the summum bonum about which the philosophers talk. When his disciples contended as to who should be greatest, the Master said, "He that would be greatest among you let him be the servant of all;" and, to emphasize the dignity of service, he girded himself with a towel and washed his disciples' feet. Service was not reproach, but the mark of highest dignity, in the eyes of the Master. Service is the end of being. Education is for the sake of power, and the end of power is service. The aim of Christian education is to make efficient servants of men.

      In this country the student pays in tuition one dollar for every five that his education costs. The four dollars is the gift of benevolence. On what ground can a young man or woman accept as a gift the four dollars out of every five that goes into his or her education? Only on the ground of service. Only when this gift of power is used for the end for which all of God's gifts are bestowed; namely, for service to mankind. The great apostle to the Gentiles said, "I am debtor to all men." He felt that whatever God had put into him was not for his own sake, but for the world's sake. Hence he delighted to call himself "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ;" which means "Paul, a servant of needy men."

      4. Christianity has given us the true analysis of man. Which is the basis of true education.

      All education is based on an analysis of man, either consciously or unconsciously. If the analysis is imperfect or incomplete, the education is necessarily faulty. Savage tribes have an [116] education, but it recognizes only the body. He who develops the best body is the best educated man. I would not, however, be understood as disparaging physical education. The body is a very important factor in man and should be recognized. He is the best man who has the best body, other things being equal. The time has passed for sending young men and women out into the world with highly developed minds and poorly developed bodies.

      True education not only makes its subject think right, but also feel right; and this is necessary in order that he may do right. A man with well-developed body, if his education stops there, is at most but one-third of a man; if he also has a well-developed intellectual nature, he is then two-thirds of a man; and a more dangerous animal does not walk the earth than this vulgar fraction of a man. God save us from such education, which, alas! is the education offered in many of our schools.

      It has been reserved for Christianity to give us the true education. In her analysis of man she has discovered three things--body, intellect and heart, or sensibilities--and she regards the last as of equal importance with the other factors. In her education she seeks to cherish and direct the feelings, or desires. She seeks to cause her subject to love right things, to be in sympathy with the good and the pure. She seeks to develop heart power, than which there is nothing greater, and, above all, she seeks to bring the student into sympathy with men, to create in him "the enthusiasm of humanity," to destroy all class or caste spirit and kindle a deep, consuming love for mankind akin to the love of the infinite Father.

      5. The Christian college is the only source for an adequate, well-prepared ministry of the Word. It is no accident that the church has laid a strong hand upon education. It is a necessity. Her very life demands it. A few exceptional men of striking and peculiar native ability may come into the ministry and do effective work without collegiate training, but the great majority must come from the college. This has been, and ever must be, true. As a people, what do we owe to our weak, struggling colleges? Subtract the influence of Bethany, Hiram, Butler, Transylvania, Drake, Canton, and a few others that I might name, from the forces that have made us, and where would we be? We would have had but little to celebrate in this Centennial year. And yet, what is our appreciation of these colleges as measured by the money we have given to their endowment and support? But now a crisis is upon us. Our growth in numbers has far outrun our ministerial supply. Much as our struggling schools have done, they have fallen far short of giving us an adequate ministry. It is safe to say that we ought to have five times as many men in training for the ministry as are now attending our schools. Look at the change in a quarter of a century. Cities that twenty-five years ago had four or five churches now have from fifteen to twenty; towns that then had no church, or, at most, one or two, now have half a score. Territories that then had no churches are now great States with churches numbered by the hundred. Cities that then had five or six hundred Disciples now have as many thousands. More than twelve thousand churches, about four thousand five hundred preachers. Eight thousand more churches than preachers. Churches dying by hundreds, especially in the country and in the smaller towns, is the result. We are losing at the rear nearly as fast as we are gaining at the front.

      Surely the time has come for a new emphasis. Here is the place to lay the stress just now, if we would save our cause from irreparable loss. To neglect this is not less than a sin before almighty God. To fail here is to crucify our Lord afresh. He who loves the church as the apple of his eye asks us as Christian men, as business men, as loyal sons and daughters of the Lord God almighty, to recognize the crisis and act accordingly. Here is now the point of emphasis, if we would have a worthy part in carrying out the commission of our Lord. [117]

[CCR 115-117]