The mission of anything is indicated by God's purpose in it. To discover that purpose and fulfill it is the end and triumph of being. Every organization that has a right to live has a mission, clearly perceives its mission, and strives to fulfill its mission. Every other is worse than useless, and the decree has gone forth from heaven in olden days, to be carried out sooner or later, "Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?"

      That the Disciples of Christ have a mission, they avow, and they are asking the world to believe. That they have clearly perceived their mission from the beginning, is proven by the fact that the "Declaration and Address" of Thomas Campbell, published a century ago, is considered the dateline of the movement from which they are celebrating their Centennial, and at it has not been revised nor outgrown with the passing years. That they have striven to fulfill their mission is evidenced by this marvelous convention, which is perhaps the greatest religious assemblage of a single communion in all the ages; by a million and a quarter of communicants; by a ministry the peer of any; by a superb literature; by its splendid colleges and universities; by its missionary endeavors both in the home land and upon foreign fields.

      Let us consider some things that are not our mission.

      1. Reformation is not our mission. Reformation was not, and is not, peculiar to us. The history of churches and creeds is the history of reformation. It is older than we. Mr. Campbell pronounced it an historic failure as a remedy, and promptly corrected the rumor that reformation was his aim. We could have advocated it in any of the churches, then or since. If it were our plea, we should have no right to separate existence.

      2. Christian union is not our mission. Christian union, per se, there is little peculiar to us. Its advocacy is older than we. All of the historic churches preached a sort of union, and protected what they had of it, in every way that harmonized with their credo-centric notions. "But," says some one, "they were preaching it on the wrong basis." That is right, and it confesses that right basis of union, and not union itself, is the thing

H. E. VAN HORN.

which distinguishes us from them. Union, per se, always fails to correct what is wrong and to restore what is wanting in the church. It is too often the strong citadel of sinful compromises and shameful liberties. Union on any wrong basis is to be regretted and avoided. We could have preached union by confederation acceptably in any of the churches.

      3. The organization of another denomination is not our mission. The fathers believed that denominationalism was sinful. We disclaim being a denomination in the sectarian sense. We do not claim to be one among equals. We do not offer as our justification that we are one of the branches of the true vine. We are not credo-centric, being organized around certain doctrines.

      4. Nor is proselytism our mission. To proselyte from one denomination to another is sinful. We deprecate "sheep-stealing" as a mere program of gaining members. This is the place and this the time to denounce all such unjust accusations.

      First: The Disciples of Christ have a mission to divided Christendom. Its authority is Christ's will, "That they all may be one." Its logic, his prayer, "That the world may believe." Its program, the restoration of primitive [201] Christianity. Its hope, the evangelization of the world. Its prayer, that all may be accepted of him.

      In the analysis and statement of our mission to a divided Christendom:

      I. We utter a protest against divisions among the people of God.

      1. Because they are unscriptural and antiscriptural. No uncertain note is sounded here. With an open Book, we shame denominationalism with heaven's rebuke. Jesus uttered the truth that "a house divided against itself cannot stand," and offered the prayer, "That they may all be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us."

      2. Because they are sinful. Divisions weaken and imperil the forces of God by dividing the army of righteousness in the presence of the enemy. Divisions are disloyal to Christ as Head of the body. Sectarianism is secession. It is flying the flag of denominationalism at the masthead of the church. They are sinful in that they cause a vital leakage of God's rightful resources. They pauperize the church by a waste of means in sectarian rivalries. They bring the holy cause of religion into disrepute. The eternal shame of Christendom is its wars and persecutions.

      II. We propose a Scriptural, rational and catholic basis for the people of God.

      In this we are a unique people. We simply offer to divided Christendom the feasible and divinely published program of Christian union. It consists of a restoration of those elements which constituted the unity of the church of the New Testament. It is a return to primitive Christianity. It is a call for the abandonment of the theological and ecclesiastical accretions of the years. It is a plea for the rejection of humanisms for the doctrine of Christ. It aims to displace churchianity with the church of Christ.

      1. We propose the accomplishment of this end by a restoration of the Scriptures to their original place and rightful authority. We teach that every man may and should read the Bible for himself, and that no council has a right to put a construction upon it and compel men to accept such construction. We believe that such an attitude toward the Oracles of God will do much to unite Christendom. We challenge the religious world to restore the Bible to its place of authority in matters of faith, and to give liberty in matters of opinion, thus coming to a common basis of union.

      2. We seek a common basis of union by the restoration of Christ to his kingly prerogative as Head over all things to the church of his love. In the church, as he founded it, and as the Holy Spirit revealed it, Jesus was "the Head of the church," and had "all authority in heaven and on earth." To him every knee was to bow, and every tongue confess his Lordship. The dethronement and practical banishment of Jesus from his realm are matters of plain history. Judaizing Christians gave authority to Moses and the law; Rome diverted it from Christ and vested it in the Pope; heathen thought made men greater masters over the heritage of Christ than was Jesus himself, and presumptuous Christian legislation enthroned the creeds "in the room instead" of Jesus, and so put voices and visions and the opinions of men above all that was called Christ. This shameful apostasy laid upon our fathers the necessity of crying "Back to Christ."

      3. We would promote the union of Christendom by the restoration of the primitive church, in name, ordinance and organization. With a restored Book and a restored Christ, the church may be restored. In these restorations we have a common basis for the union of all denominations, for all Christians believe and teach these, but plus something. That something is in every case their own party tenets, which promote denominationalism, and are not vital to religion.

      Second: The Disciples of Christ have a mission to an unevangelized world. We are, and always have been, a distinctively evangelistic people.

      1. As such we accept it as our mission to fulfill Christ's commission to "Go, disciple the nations," in letter and spirit. To us this is the word of the King, therefore imperative. Loyalty to Jesus lays us under tribute to his cause; gratitude for our own salvation moves us mightily to do his will; the mandatory need of the unsaved cries [202] winningly to our hearts. The saving of the unsaved in this generation is the evangelistic problem of the church to-day. We cheerfully accept the obligation Christ-given, and pledge ourselves to the sacred task, God helping us.

      2. Our mission commits us to a crusader's zeal for Christ's method of world-reach to the unsaved. Christ's program of evangelization has been strangely abandoned by his followers. The churches have committed the task to ministers and evangelists. Friends, Jesus intended all to be soul-winners. The church, not alone the ministry, was given the Great Commission. Is it too much for our Lord to expect that his method of personal evangelism should be accepted as our program? Our Centennial motto, "Each one win one this year," should be made a permanent resolve for all the years; and, Mr. Chairman, I would so challenge this Convention. There is hope in this method; we dare not cravenly pledge less.

      3. Our mission commits us to Christ's passion for souls. We may accept his commission and his program, but we will fail unless thrilled by his passion. It has been said that men make either a play, a business, a profession, or a passion of whatever they undertake. To play at saving souls is criminal; to make of it merely a business is mercenary; to make it a profession is menial; we must make it a passion to succeed. Moved by a divine passion, Paul said: "I am become all things to all men that I might win some." Jesus said of his mission: "The Son of man is come to seek and save the lost." Once make this passion ours, and we can not rest until all have heard the evangel of heaven.

      4. Our mission commits us to a tither's consecration of our time and talent and means to carry forward the banner of God. A people with a holy cause must be mightily moved in its propagation. God calls a great people through a great task. He never commits a supreme work to an unworthy people. Men are gripped by big enterprises; nothing less can engage their splendid talents and enlist their means. Friends of God, is there a more titanic task under heaven than the evangelization of this world? God wants you and me to bend low till he rolls this task on our shoulders; then, as we strain to lift it, he will gird us with might from on high. Men of the kingdom, we have not felt Jehovah's power in days agone as we might, because we have been playing, and have not harnessed ourselves to his work. God does not want your dollars alone; he wants you, and you--your time, your brain and heart and life. Princes of finance are you? finance the kingdom of God; kingly of life are you? touch with your scepter of manhood this cause of the King; mighty of intellect are you? give your heaven-gift to this age-old problem; bitten of doubt are you? take God at his word, and try him. Our missionary societies, Home and Foreign, want money, but they will never get it, except in pitiful pittance, until we give God our lives. It is the given life that gives its gold. Are we friends of Jesus? let us stoop, stoop, until our shoulders feel his burden, our hearts his care; until our eyes have seen his vision of dying men, and then let us come emptying our all upon the altar of his service, and he will turn his great, loving eyes upon us, and say, "Go, find my sheep," and going we will find them.

[CCR 201-203]