The prophet Amos, foreseeing in the shattered temples of Israel the loss of vision and inspirational song, lifted this voice of warning: "Thus said the Lord God, . . . the songs of the temple shall be wailings in that day." Sweet are the songs with which a mother soothes her babe, or lover woos his bride, or soldiers march to victory! But sweeter the temple songs which guide the multitude through the night, give rest to weary feet, and cause men to see the face of God.

      By erecting houses of worship, Church Extension has multiplied these choirs invisible. From the day the boy Jesus stood in the midst of the doctors in the temple, God's house has been the patron of art and science, with all the sons of genius clustering about his illustrious face. Eliminate the seed thoughts and great principles sprung from the church since Christ, and a vandalism more terrible than that of ancient Rome would wreck our civilization. Pagan mosque and temple rise toward intellectual night in atmospheres where mental giants are as occasional as comets. But in our land the great themes of the church, God, immortality and the soul have made greatness indigenous and sown the night with stars.

      In housing the homeless, Church Extension becomes chief musician for the brotherhood and attunes the hearts of men to the lost chords of life. The lost chord is not a figment of the imagination, but a fact, real and terrible. Estates are divided, sons and daughters seek new homes. In long waiting for the church of their faith, they fall into sin and lose the desire for its fellowship, and thousands at discord with God and one another have forgotten the marvelous music by which heroes achieve and martyrs die. But with the vision of Christ the lost chord is found. "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." What men see most, they become most like, and as blind Homer lifted up the ideal Achilles in the skies of Athens until he repeated himself in her warlike youth, so Church Extension, in lifting up Christ in the builded sanctuary, has elevated whole communities as the planets the tides of the sea.

      Likewise, it has been left for Church Extension to declare that the ancient [264] and revered ballad, "Sing a song of sixpence," is no part of the hymnology of the church. Glorious were the achievements of the fathers, giants in faith and vision. From the perspective of this Centennial, we behold their heroic proportions. Centuries shall come and go and the intellectual accretions of the ages may entomb the fame of others, but theirs shall increase with the centuries and stand as the desert sphinx, his head alone as tall as the neighboring gods upright on their pedestals.

      But if we are to be taken seriously, we must sound the serious note. When the duty of giving shall take equal rank with faith and baptism, we shall rank in spiritual matters as a world power. It is the serious note that lends immortality to men and movements. It is the serious note in. Millet's "Angelus" that explains its fascination. It is the serious note in "Out to Old Aunt Mary's" and "That Old Sweetheart of Mine" that transforms the rhymester Riley into the world poet. When, in his reply to Hayne, Webster began that passage that contrasts the republic strong and united with a nation broken and dissevered, he sounded the serious note and his eloquence was irresistible and immortal. That type of music called sentimental, which comes and goes with the season, is so evanescent and ephemeral that it can not abide. But when a great master like Schubert writes a love song, every chord of the soul vibrates with the strong emotions of dark despair, tremulous hope and unutterable longing--it is the haunting melody of the speech universal sounding the deeps of the serious note. It is not otherwise with the Disciples of Christ; our all-powerful plea will become infinitely more so when the ringing hammers from hundreds of uncompleted buildings shall have sounded the depths of the serious note.

      We shall strike the serious note when every church and every preacher falls into line for the first Lord's Day in September. Niagara leaps to its grandeur because it feels the push of the five Great Lakes behind it. Who can estimate our future when Church Extension shall feel behind it the power of the entire brotherhood. Any preacher, by adopting the Fabian tactics of masterly inactivity, can, without a word, dishonor his Lord and cheat his people from this fellowship. To apologize for taking the collection is to confess faithlessness in teaching the duty of giving. The circulatory system of anæmics may need all its vital fluid for home consumption, but men with rich red blood in their veins have hearts that beat for every interest of the kingdom. The Beatitudes are the autobiography of Christ. His words

C. A. FINCH.

have power to melt the heart, because his own heart was melted into them. Take the collection. Giving is the poetry of love. Local conditions are no excuse. Be in earnest. Pour out your heart that your people may possess "this grace also."

      Church Extension is prophecy in utterance. Keep pace with the spirit of to-morrow. To be up with the age is progress; but to be behind the age is barbarous.

      The great waste in our evangelism is a reproach to any people. The world will not consider us seriously until we "gather up the fragments that nothing be lost." Our sin in this particular reminds us of that scene in the classic Inferno where a man is twisting one end of a rope of hay by which he hopes to escape and is utterly oblivious of a herd of long-eared quadrupeds complacently chewing the other end. The growth of religion, like the growth of a city, may be measured by new corner-stones. If in the East Mohammedanism is dying, and if in Europe Romanism is dying (for neither is laying new corner-stones), we, too, shall pass away if we refuse to provide for our seven hundred homeless congregations.

      Church Extension is seen in its achievements. In its musical effects, it [265] harmonizes and completes the orchestration of the brotherhood and crowns our one hundred years of history with a burst of music like the sound of the great amen. Notice the common sense of the annuity plan. It will receive amounts from one hundred dollars up. According to the age of the donor, it pays four, five and six per cent. on bequests in semi-annual payments. The annuity bond is as good as gold; behind it is the Permanent Fund, now close to one million dollars. It is loaned only on first mortgages, with flawless titles. There are no taxes and no attorney fees and no anxiety concerning your income nor expense for reinvestment. You have the satisfaction of administering on your own estate while you live and beholding your money building churches and preaching the gospel before you die. Two hundred and sixty donors to this fund are receiving five hundred and twenty interest drafts per year from a total fund of $256,363, which alone has built one hundred and fifty churches.

      Notice the common sense of the Permanent Fund. The Board carefully investigates the condition of the church asking for aid; the loan granted completes the building and pays every debt except the one to Church Extension. As long as a church is alive there is no fear of foreclosure; the low rate of four per cent. interest saves the congregation from the money shark, and every dollar invested by the Board enlists from two to three dollars from the community.

      And the common sense of the Named Fund is seen at a glance. This fund is $5,000. It is named after the donor, to whom a yearly account is rendered. The interest is returned to the fund and practically compounds itself in semi-annual payments. A church receives this honor by giving $300 annually until the $5,000 is paid. The fund is named for an individual giving $500 annually or the whole amount at once or within a few years. The General Drake Fund, established Feb. 1, 1889, has built seventy-one churches and earned $4,263.05 of interest and accomplished the work of $31,596.15 in repeated loans to complete unfinished buildings.

      The record of Church Extension shows that since 1888 over $922,324.49 has been returned on loans and gone forth to build again. The original fund of over $757,621.39 has been loaned, making $1,679,945.88 that the Board has handled. It has built 1,261 churches, and in its twenty-one years of service in handling these immense sums has lost but $563. Where is a like record from any business house on earth? And where is there a nobler alchemy to transmute sordid gold into temple songs and immortal life?

      As the master conductor brings all the instruments to concert pitch, and with one wave of the baton blends the great orchestra into unity of theme and rhythm, so Church Extension swings every congregation into the full organ-toned harmony of world-wide service. It is the key to the situation.

      Hope long deferred maketh the heart sick. The money given by Church Extension comes at the psychological moment. Just when the brethren have exhausted their resources, the aid extended enables them to have a part in all the work of the brotherhood--missions, benevolence, evangelization and education. Endowed Church Extension is therefore inspiration banked, energy stored, music in notes. Without this fund, building enterprises become the prey of vagrant impulse and enthusiasm. Enthusiasms are evanescent; they are the offsprings of brass bands and torchlight parades, and not infrequently die before the election returns are in. Jingoism may precipitate a nation into war, but victory is with the battalions of the longest purse. Missions may organize congregations, but Church Extension establishes them.

      I am told that the secret of the wonderful gunnery of our navy lies in an instrument called a "range-finder." Near the bow of a high-class battleship is a small telescope, electrically connected with another at the stern, and both connected with the chief gunner's station, the distance between the two being accurately measured. Through each, observers watch the approach of the enemy, and when the hostile battleship appears at the cross-hairs of both [266] telescopes, the directing mind has the base and two angles of a right-angle triangle from which an instantaneous automatic calculation gives the range and the great guns boom. As Disciples of Christ, it is ours to securely establish the church of the first century on this continent. If, therefore, our ministry shall go forward to the telescope of the Word, and our rich laity shall place themselves at the telescope of generosity, and at the moment that the half-completed church building appears at the cross-hairs of both, bear down upon them with the prevailing power of gospel truth and Pentecostal giving--Church Extension will enlarge herself and primitive Christianity shall run through the earth and be glorified. Lord, hasten the coming of that day.

[CCR 264-267]