Among the vast and vital interests which we are met in Centennial Convention to consider, there is none more essential or more urgent than this one of benevolence.

      Two thousand years of Christian conquest have left us some mighty monuments. There is that wondrously fascinating literature and art which caught both impulse and color from the cross. There are those triumphs of splendid architecture such as St. Peter's at [295] Rome. There are the venerable and unique volumes of the church Fathers; the historic creeds, the stately liturgies, the never-to-be-forgotten hymns of the faith, and there is the story of the martyrs, meltingly tender and heroic. These are some of the monuments along the way, but they are not the greatest that twenty Christian centuries have builded. Greater than these, and more after the mind of the Master, are the hospitals and orphanages, the houses of refuge and asylums, the social settlements and model tenements, together with all those other

E. D. JONES.

Christ-inspired agencies that shelter the homeless and the helpless, feed the hungry, care for the dying and minister to the needy everywhere.

      The place of benevolence in revealed religion is so much larger than most people imagine that it is overwhelming.

      For instance, if one were to take the Old Testament and with his fountain pen put a tiny star opposite every sentence bearing on benevolence, he would have to make ten thousand such, and the result would be an inky way stretching from Genesis to Malachi.

      The generous provisions for the poor and unfortunate as embodied in the Mosaic law will never cease to excite admiration from the practical philanthropist, as well as the theoretician sociologist.

      The olive-tree was not to be twice shaken, nor the, vineyard twice gathered. Neither were the sheaves of grain left in the field to be garnered by the owner. These were the portion of the poor and unfortunate.

      Whatever crops grew in the seventh year were for the benefit of the poor. All debts were released in the seventh year, and the poor man was to receive his wage before the sun went down. Compassion for the needy was an oft-praised quality in the character of the godly Jew.

      If the Old Testament is a hand-book of benevolences, the New is that and more. If one were to clip from the four Gospels every philanthropic teaching of Jesus, together with all his benevolent deeds, there would scarcely remain a single page unmutilated.

      Julia Ward Howe once wrote to an eminent Senator of the United States in behalf of a man suffering great injustice. He replied: "I am so much taken up with plans for the benefit of the race that I have no time for individuals." She pasted this into her scrap-book with this discriminating comment: "When last heard from, our Master had not reached this altitude."

      As for the Acts of the Apostles, it would seem that even a superficial reading of that virile narrative would suffice to show wherein lay at least one secret of the first-century church's growth and power. That church boasted no stately edifices, no beautiful music, no vast wealth, no social prestige, but she did possess a benevolent-minded membership. There are many great texts in Holy Writ, but there are few more significant or wonderful than that simple statement of a fact as recorded in Acts 4:34, 35: "For neither was there among them any that lacked; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made unto each, according as any one had need."

      The New Testament is a story of brotherly and philanthropic enterprise. There Jesus is regnant; He who said, "I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister," and grouped about him Peter, who answered, "Silver and gold have I none, but what I have that give I thee," and John, who repeated over and over again, "Little children, love one another," and Paul, who wrote, "Be ye tender-hearted."

      In the presence of these truths, but briefly sketched, face to face with these facts, only a few of which have been marshaled, is it to be wondered at that a religious people whose plea is the restoration of apostolic Christianity should have an organization devoted solely to benevolences?

      The wonder is that we have been so [296] long getting it; the wonder is that it has yet so small a place in our program of activities, and that so many are indifferent to its Christly claims.

      If the plea for the restoration of apostolic Christianity must of necessity be partial and incomplete, then it were better to restore that spirit of love that finds expression in benevolent deeds, than the forms and ceremonies which, however important, but symbolize the new life of service to which the Christian is committed. Happily, there is no such necessity, nor are we so circumscribed. The Campbells and their compeers contemplated nothing short of a complete restoration of New Testament Christianity, "its faith, its doctrine and its fruit." It was therefore to give completeness and symmetry as well as power and passion to the plea and program of the Disciples that the National Benevolent Association came into existence.

      The association has two special objects for its ministry; namely, the orphaned child and the homeless aged. Could two more deserving or appealing be found? What is more potent than this appeal to the affections of a little child? That incident of Michelangelo sitting down on the curbstone to draw a picture for a poor little Italian boy who confronted him with pencil and paper and ever so appealing request does not surprise us. Rather, we should be surprised had the great artist refused. The story of President Roosevelt springing from a car platform and forcing his way to the side of a little, forlorn girl who, thinly clad, stood timidly at the crowd's outer edge, and his giving her a warm clasp of the hand together with a cordial greeting, quickens our heartbeats, but it does not amaze or astound us. Man has never climbed so high nor woman fallen so low as to be wholly indifferent to the appeal of a little child.

      Mrs. Ballington Booth tells of a man who was under sentence of death for murder in a Southern State. He was a foreigner, ignorant, morose, a hardened criminal, the sort of man supposed to be best out of the way. A kind woman went to visit him daily in his cell. To her alone he revealed glimpses of some lingering humanity. The day before his execution she said to him: "The warden tells me you may have anything you want to-day." He did not at first understand, but, when he did, the dull face lighted, the somber eyes shone, the lips quivered: "I should like," he said, "once more to put my baby to sleep."

      So they brought him his motherless baby, by another sunset to be fatherless too. And he tenderly held the little thing in his arms, sung to it, walked to and fro in the cell with it, hushed it to sleep, kissed and gave it back. The law hanged him next morning, and it hanged a man who might have been redeemed, for in his soul there was a father's love.

      What sadder sight is there than a homeless child, a waif, an outcast fatherless and motherless? No one to bind up stubbed toes, no one to kiss the place to make it well, no one to hear the childish prayer or to tuck the little form beneath the coverlet. No father, no mother! Why, that is almost to say, "No God," for do we not come to our first knowledge of God by climbing in thought over this idea of earthly parents? This is the very teaching of that beautiful verse in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "A Child's Thought of God." It is

      My brethren, let us be truly thankful that while we are only in the beginning of our benevolences, we have come to a time when it is no longer necessary to send the homeless and unfortunate children of our congregation to a State or fraternal society institution.

      Along with this tender ministry to the orphan child, the association cares for the dependent and homeless aged. If babyhood and youth hath its charms, honorable old age hath its glories. "A hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness." Some time ago I saw a picture entitled "In the Gloaming." It was the portrait of a gray-headed, kindly-faced old woman. Her glasses were pushed up over her forehead; she was, or had been, knitting, but the dear old lady was [297] nodding and all but fast asleep. The peace of God rested on her features and a halo of glory was over it all.

      If homeless and forlorn childhood is sad, homeless and friendless old age is pitiable. We have wept at the tragic portrayal of King Lear driven from shelter in his old age to do battle with the elements that awful night of which Cordelia said:

But we have been strangely unmoved by the sad condition of those aged saints who through adversity have come up to that time of "sunset and evening star" homeless and poverty-stricken. Let us rejoice that a better day for our needy veterans is dawning. Meager and inadequate as our equipment is, we are no longer obliged to confess that there is no place for the homeless aged in our congregation other than the county infirmary.

      My brethren, the time for the flowering of our faith has come. There may have been, and doubtless were, reasons for its delay. There is none now. A numerous and wealthy brotherhood of believers such as ours can not continue to flourish unless it gives large place in its activities for this gospel of the helping hand. And yet only a few, a very few, of our thousands of churches give any place to this important work. Churches that never fail to take offerings for half a dozen missionary causes fail to give anything to benevolences. Congregations that are living links in State, Home and Foreign Missions contribute in many instances fifty, twenty-five and even twelve dollars to the association that provides for the very conditions that touched deepest the heart of our Lord Christ.

      Stately edifices, grand and costly pipe-organs, eloquent and scholarly ministers, are all good, and, under certain conditions, not to have them would be sinful. But a community never makes the mistake of estimating the worth of Christianity by any one or all of these incidentals.

      The community's criterion of a successful church is the human needs it supplies and the causes of human ills that it seeks to remove.

      In the eyes of the great common people that church is most orthodox that provides the best for earth's unfortunate children and is more interested in humanity than it is in the Apostles' Creed.

      In this great Centennial year of our history, while we are seeking to realize many worthy ideals and are planning for further victories, this cause of benevolence cries to be heard. And it is the cry of the widow, the orphan and the homeless veteran. It pleads for a fair hearing and for one day out of the year in every one of our eleven thousand churches, when the people may hear the story of the association work and be given opportunity to help in a beautiful and tender ministry. Let it no longer be said that the fraternal organization looks after its needy more tenderly or systematically than the church, or that Jewish charities put Christian benevolences to shame.

      The church can not live solely on ancient history. Glorious as the benevolences of Christ and the early Christians were, the historical facts alone will not suffice; it is only as each generation interprets and expresses his leadership by like deeds of service that his kingdom is advanced.

      It has remained for Dr. Van Dyke to emphasize the ministry of love by giving to an old story a new setting of irresistible charm. It is the story of Artaban, the other wise man, who, in order to take a worthy present to his king, disposed of all his properties and purchased three great jewels--a sapphire blue as the fragment of the night sky, a ruby redder than a ray of sunrise, and a pearl pure as the peak of a snow mountain at twilight. But on his journey Artaban, in order to minister to a dying man, was forced to part with the sapphire, and, to save the life of a little child, he gave up the ruby. Three and thirty years he wandered, still seeking his king, for whom he still kept the priceless pearl. And everywhere he went he ministered to the poor and needy. At last, an old man grey and bent, he found himself in Jerusalem, and learned that one who called himself King of the Jews, a man of wonderful love and works, was to die that day outside the city. The heart of the [298] old man beat wildly, and he thought: "It may be that I will find the king at last in the hands of his enemies, and shall come in time to offer my pearl for a ransom before he dies." But Artaban never reached the place of crucifixion. To save a young girl from that which is worse than death, he parted with his pearl of great price. And just then Jerusalem trembled with the shock of earthquake, the walls of the houses rocked to and fro. A heavy tile shaken from the roof fell and struck the old man on the temple as he crouched by the building by the side of the girl whom he had ransomed. He lay quite still and the blood trickled from the wound. As the girl bent over him, there came a voice through the twilight very small and still. The girl turned to see if some one had spoken from the window above them, but she saw no one. Then the old man's lips began to move as if in answer, and she heard him say, in the Parthian tongue: "Not so, my Lord, for when saw I thee hungry and fed thee? or thirsty and gave thee drink? When saw I thee a stranger and took thee in? or naked and clothed thee? When saw I thee sick or in prison and came unto thee? Three and thirty years have I looked for thee, but I have never seen thy face, nor ministered to thee, my King."

      He ceased, and the sweet voice came again. The maid heard it, and this time she understood the words: "Verily I say unto thee, Inasmuch as thou hast done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, thou hast done it unto me."

      A calm radiance of wonder and joy lighted the pale face of Artaban. One long last breath of relief exhaled gently from his lips. Artaban had seen his king.

      My brethren, if we are ever to see the King in his beauty there, it will be because we saw and ministered to the humblest of his subjects here.

[CCR 295-299]