The significance of our Lord's death, in the Christian system, is evident not alone in the emphasis given to it by the Holy Spirit in the New Testament Scriptures, but also by the fact that all the great Christian memorials are grouped around it.

      There are three such memorials: the Lord's Supper, baptism and the Lord's

CAREY E. MORGAN.

Day. The Lord's Supper is a memorial of his death, baptism is a symbol of his burial, and the Lord's Day celebrates his resurrection. Those who study them ought to do so in the atmosphere of the cross, having before their eyes, as did the Marys and John and Joanna, the vision of the suffering Saviour. Then there might still be differences of opinion, but there surely could be no bitterness or schism, for who could be unbrotherly with the cross in sight?

      The men who led in the movement, whose Centennial this occasion celebrates, had a great purpose before them. This was to restore the lost unity of the ancient church. To do this they determined to try to restore the ancient church itself, in its doctrines, its ordinances and its fruits. They said: "We will go back to the old name and the old creed and the old baptism and the old fellowship of liberty and unity."

      They were confirmed in this program when they saw that the old name was still the family name for all believers, and that the old creed was still the essential creed of all evangelical Christians, and that the old baptism was still held to be valid by all the great bodies of believers, both Catholic and Protestant. This surely looked like the right road to unity; for, if Christians ever unite again, it will be on the name and the creed and the baptism that all accept. Our fathers rejoiced when they found what they believed to be common ground.

      Now, it was this effort to restore the ancient church that led them to advocate the observance of the Lord's Supper every Lord's Day. While they did not claim to find an express command for this every Lord's Day observance of the Lord's Supper, they did claim that they had an approved precedent in the practice of the apostolic church, as it; was revealed to them in the New Testament Scriptures and in the writings of the apostolic Fathers.

      But, if I were asked to give the supreme proof that they were right in their advocacy of an every Lord's Day communion, while I would cite the precedents they cited, and while I would give great weight to such Scriptures as "Do this in remembrance of me," [464] and "As oft as ye do this, ye do show forth the Lord's death until he come again," and "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is"--while all these would have weight with me and would be cited as having a definite bearing on the question and as having a claim on the conscience and conduct of others, I would offer, as the final and conclusive proof that they were right in their advocacy of an every Lord's Day communion, the vast benefits that have accrued to the churches when they have accepted and faithfully adhered to this plan. The practice has justified itself a thousand times over. Beyond question, it has helped to write the history of the brotherhood whose Centennial we are now celebrating.

      This practice has been vitally related to the organization of nearly all our churches. In our history, groups of brethren, who were unorganized, have usually been called together first to "break the loaf." This furnished them with an objective and a worthy motive for coming together. In this way, they became acquainted and renewed memories of old fellowships and emphasized a desire for a church of their own.

      Again, this practice has kept many weak churches from dying. The Lord's Supper does not depend on numbers. It is too purely a personal matter to require a crowd. A half-dozen brethren could meet in this way and have holy fellowship with Jesus as well as a half thousand.

      The elders held their ground and humbly tried to discharge the functions of their holy office. Many of them, who, perhaps, would not have been able to conduct a preaching service, could conduct this service and could preside with real helpfulness at the Lord's table. Thus, the few disciples were held together until their weakness was made strength. Then the history of our movement is fully written, the unknown elder, who stood faithfully at his post, doing his best to gather the congregation on the Lord's Day, that he might feed the flock of God, will have a more conspicuous relation to our growth than some of us may now think. It was the Lord's Supper every Lord's Day that made it possible for him to keep the flock together, and at last to bring the church through its years of weakness into strength.

      This practice has kept the heart of the Lord's Day service spiritual. The preacher might be combative, pugnacious, unsympathetic, as unhappily he sometimes is. But there stands the table, with its holy emblems, and before he can send the people away he must lead them into the presence of the crucified Saviour. The message of the pulpit might be so scholastic and difficult as to be equal to an unknown tongue to those who try to listen, but the loaf and the wine speak a language that everybody can understand. The undershepherd might turn theologian

G. T. OLIVER.

or philosopher and forget the flock, and especially the lambs, but before he can pronounce the benediction, he must lead all into the presence of the good Shepherd, who carries the lambs in his bosom and knows his sheep by name. The sermon might wander far afield, and the preacher might run off after strange gods, but, finally, the table is uncovered and the people are in the presence of Jesus, the chief among ten thousand and the One altogether lovely.

      Again, the Lord's table holds the cross before the eyes of all who assemble for worship on the Lord's Day; it keeps the emblems of our Lord's love ever in the foreground; it rears a Calvary at every altar. We do not often lift the cross to our church spires, nor do we often carve it on our pulpits, though we find no fault with those who do, but we set it up in these emblems.

      Now, if we are to plead for unity, [465] and if our plea is to be sincere and eager; if it is to search our hearts and the hearts of those who hear us, and be effective for final victory, what better thing can we do than to worship every Lord's Day with the cross in sight? For it is the cross that must unite us if we are ever united. It is the greatest unifying force in all the world. Jesus said: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." This he said, signifying what death he should die. What a phrase! His crucifixion is only a "lifting up." Into such a phrase he crowds the smiting hammers, and the cruel nails, and the thorn-crown, and the purple robe, and the pain, and the shame, and the darkness, and the breaking heart, and the wounds hardly big enough to let death in or to let life out, the slow six hours of dying--all these are just to be "lifted up." My soul! shall we not in this spirit deny our small self-denials and crucify our crucifixions?

      But it is this "lifting up" on the cross that is to draw all men unto him. As men are drawn to him and so come close to him, they will come close to each other. There is the promise of unity in that the cross is for all. It overlooks the whole world. It gives authority to the command to go everywhere and preach the gospel to everybody. It takes no account of race or age or map or conflicting theory of life or religion. It sends its influence across all gulfs and over all barriers. Its declared purpose is to unite all men in one great family, having the same sacrificial blood in their veins, having God for a Father, and the church for a mother, and Jesus for an Elder Brother, and the whole family, whether on earth or in heaven, is to be named in him. This means unity. The oftener the church meets at the cross, the sooner will we have that peace in Zion and that fellowship which must precede the final victory.

      A woman missionary went, not long ago, to a distant district, to examine some Bible women who had learned to read after they were married and had families. As a part of the examination, one humble, simple village woman was asked to tell a Bible story. The missionary says: "There was that simple village woman sitting on the floor, just able to read a few words, and there was I, the college graduate of the West, examining her, and as we sat there, side by side on the floor, the village woman began to tell the story of the crucifixion. As she told it, it had a pathos and power and beauty that I had never seen in it before, and when the simple woman came to where they drove the nails through Christ's hands, she began to weep, and then she wept aloud, then she threw her arms around my neck, and said: 'I can not go any further--it will break my heart.' The simple village woman and the college graduate sat together upon the floor and wept in each other's arms, the representative of the East and the West weeping and rejoicing at the feet of Christ."

      The story that will unite the kingdom, that will save the nations, is the story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The love that conquered sin and death on the cross will yet conquer our pride and our prejudices and our alienations, and it will yet heal our divisions. Surely our God gives his approval to an order of worship that sets up the cross every Lord's Day and calls the people to unite in worshiping in plain view of the suffering Saviour.

      The Lord's Supper every Lord's Day gives the people a chance to reconfess their faith in Jesus Christ and to declare again to those who sit with them that they are trying humbly to be disciples of the risen Lord. Nothing else in the order of worship distinguishes the disciple from the alien. All sit together in the pews; all may sing; all may bow or kneel or stand in prayer; but only those who hold themselves, however humbly, to be disciples, take the emblems. Jesus said: "Whoso shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father." If confession means so much to him, surely the opportunity to confess him every Lord's Day is fraught with great blessings to the church. And it is. Many a man goes home, saying in his soul, "I have put myself on record again to-day, and I must try my best now to be a true disciple." [466]

      Again, this practice makes for peace in the local congregation. Some men have learned to quarrel in the name of Christ, but it surely is less easy to do so in the presence of the sacred memorials of his bruised body and shed blood. I have no doubt but that many a temper has been quieted and many a tongue silenced by the sight of the Lord's table, with its white linen and its holy associations and its solemn service. It seems to me that these moments wherein we remember his death, must have the effect on the storm of temper and pride and prejudice and passion that his lifted hand and quiet word had on the storm on Galilee.

      But it is also true that this practice promotes reverence in the assembly for worship on the Lord's Day. We have yet much to learn at this point. Our congregations can do much better than they do. I could wish that they would assemble more promptly and more quietly; that they might come with a prayer in their hearts and with praying purpose, and that all visiting might be left out of the hour of worship. But no disciple is ever ill behaved or irreverent in the presence of the holy Supper.

      I am sure that these considerations, and others that might be urged, justify our practice. If no express command can be found, none is needed. Love does not wait for an imperative. "Must" and "may," "duty" and "privilege" have equal weight and authority with love. The precedent of the apostolic church, and the assured results of the practice, are a sufficient justification of it.

      We take no part in the historic controversy between the open and close communionists. We are neither the one nor the other. With us, it is the Lord's table, and his people are to be his guests. We neither invite nor debar. Having given thanks, we offer the emblems, saying: "Let each examine himself and so let him eat and drink." We do not sit in judgment on others, but each, in that solemn moment, searches his own heart, if haply he may find there the faith and love and loyalty that ought to characterize a disciple of the "Man of Galilee."

      It has been charged that we are inconsistent in that we will not admit the unimmersed into membership in our churches and yet do not debar them from the communion table.

      As to that, let me say, first, that we have felt that the Lord's table is not the place to emphasize divisions. God forbid! When I stand thus before the cross, I can only remember that all men for whom he died are my brothers.

      But again, it needs to be remembered that we do not unchristianize the unimmersed. We do not say that these brethren may not be Christians. Else our plea for Christian unity would mean far less than it does now. We do not deny discipleship to the unimmersed. We only say that with our understanding of the Scriptures we can not make disciples by their plan, and that those who are taught by us can not be made disciples by that plan; for baptism must be the "answer of a good conscience," and those who are taught by us, understanding the Scriptures as we do, can not have a good conscience and submit to baptism other than by immersion. We are not forced to deny discipleship on account of a baptism that we do not practice.

      Again, while we do not debar the unimmersed from the communion table, we will not admit them to membership, because, while we do not deny that they may be made disciples by another plan, we do affirm that they are made disciples by a divisive plan; that sprinkling and pouring are in question, and that immersion is not. Our plan for unity requires that we shall oppose all divisive practices, and hence we stand for the baptism that is not only Scriptural, but is also catholic, or universal. These statements explain our attitude.

      We do not deny that the individual may be a disciple, and so we do not debar him from the Lord's table, leaving the matter entirely to his own conscience. But we hold that the world can never be won to Christ by a divisive name or creed or baptism, and so, in the matter of making disciples, looking to the unity of the church and the [467] redemption of the whole world, we stand for the baptism that is accepted by all, and that admits the penitent believer to a universal fellowship.

      Brethren, let us faithfully lead the people every Lord's Day to the cross and to this memorial of love, where we and they can thinly and rest and pray, and where the very air breathes the influences of a heavenly fellowship, and where we are continually reminded that the Son of God became the Son of man, that the sons of men might become sons of God, and where, in the presence of the dying Saviour, we feel the mighty pulse of his undying friendship.

      You have heard of the Taj Mahal, perhaps the most beautiful tomb in all the world. The Indian prince loved his beautiful wife, Mumtaz Mahal, as few women are ever loved. In the eagerness of his affection, and as a token of it, he planned a palace for her. But the princess went down into the mysterious land of motherhood, and the babe came back alone. Sitting by her body he cried: "Oh, my beautiful Mahal, you shall have your palace, though it be a tomb!" After twenty years, the wonderful marble Taj was finished and received its precious dead. A traveler, standing in the recesses alone, read aloud the inscription on the headstone: "Sacred to the memory of an undying love." A wonderful echo caught up the words and bore them towards the dome, where, like a baffled bird, it fell to the pavement, again to rise, only to flutter down again, but ever repeating the chiseled words, "Sacred to the memory of an undying love."

      Are not these the words that fill the sanctuary and struggle to rise to fill the air of the world when we stand at the Lord's table? Yes, indeed. This is a memorial of faithful friendship, of One who laid down his life for his friends and his enemies. It is sacred to the memory of an undying love. "Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end."

[CCR 464-468]