There is no greater theme connected with our Christian life to-day than that which is now before us, the leadership of Christ. It is the theme about which all evangelical Christendom can rally; it is the theme which brightens and gives enthusiasm to every Christian heart. Then sing and move to it heart to heart and hand to hand and step to step in the great forward movement of the kingdom of God towards its glorious consummation. When Jesus said to his disciples, "Who say ye that I am?" he was asking not only of them the great crucial question that was to determine where they stood in relation to him, but he was asking the question that shall forever everywhere define the relationship of the disciples to him. And wherever we go, wherever there is a devoted and loyal heart, they are seeking to come to that expression and faith that shall reveal Christ the living Son of God. It is because of that feeling of personal loyalty to Jesus Christ that we are here together to-night. Mr. Chairman, I should not know from the addresses that I have heard to-day whether you are Baptist or Disciple, or whether I am a Baptist or a Disciple. And if I could say the word to-night that would forever break down every barrier between these two great Christian bodies, and that should in this moment make these two great armies absolutely one, my tongue would be swift to say that word. [Great applause.]

      Concerning this great theme, two things only I want to say at this time. The first of these is the aspects of life that must forever be under the dominance of Jesus Christ. And the other is the foundation reason why this should be true.

      The aspects of our life that are under the domination of Jesus Christ are the recognition of his lordship. I should say that his lordship presses upon our human personality at every point as the atmosphere presses upon any part of our body. and when we are his, bought by his blood, at a price that we can not estimate or understand, everything that throbs in this beating heart [476] of mine is his and his forever and evermore. Everything that is in my heart as the center of my life, must be true to him and must be forever swayed by him who is the motor of my life. Everything in my brain, for I care nothing for culture that has not been forever touched and sublimated by the power of Jesus Christ. Whatever you call it--science, literature, history, philosophy--unless these be in Jesus by personal contact with him who is at the center and is the source of everything in this universe of his, our culture is not culture. We may boast ourselves of much learning, but we have failed to realize that the supreme learning after all is that which recognizes him without whom not anything was made that was made.

      We ought to give our money to Jesus Christ. More than that; I do not believe any one of us ever earned a dollar that did not belong to him first, and upon which he did not have first a prior lien. I do not believe when we give our lives to his service that we can for a moment ever claim that what we have belongs to us. I believe that every dollar you earn by your brain or by your brawn is earned by the power that he gave you, and he has a right and is entitled to the increment or the use of that which is produced through the ability with which he has endowed you. We have no right to spend a dollar for a thing or for a suit of clothes or for the rent of the house in which we live, save as we realize that in spending that money it is being spent for the larger aspect of life where we are the better fitted to do his service. I believe that no Christian has a right to stand on lower ground.

      In relation to the significance and the power of the gospel, the written Word comes to us as a call. I care not for a single man's interpretation of his point of view, but I do care immensely that that living Word shall take its stand in the living soul of man and work itself out through his daily contact with his human fellows and through his daily contact with his God; that that word which is right, which ever will be God's own truth, shall reach to the very heart and life of every believer that comes to recognize the power of God as revealed in his written Word. So if you accept, if I accept, the lordship of Jesus Christ, we must accept the significance and power of this vital, throbbing, pulsing, living Word.

      If we recognize the lordship of Jesus Christ, every man and woman of us will want to do more than we have ever done to bring the world to him. We will want to lay our lives where he can use them. We will want to make our minds and our hearts in every way fit for the uses and purposes of our Master.

      The business of our lives ought to be a passion for men, a passion that will know no stay, that will not be hindered, which is the supreme honor that God confers on us as his children and as the disciples of our risen Lord.

      There ought to be a broader recognition of this lordship of Jesus Christ, an increase in confidence in the good providence of God; "For the Father loveth the Son."

      After a railroad freight handler had become a Christian, I asked, "Do you

C. H. MOSS.

know who this man is that has led you to Christ?" He said, "No, I do not." I said to him, "That is William J. Tate." I never saw a man more profoundly surprised in my life. His heart almost stopped, he gasped for breath, and he said, "What that man who led me to Christ, the vice-president of our road, the road I work for?" The great church of which I have the honor to be pastor, with fifteen hundred members, and the largest Sunday-school in New England, is great, not because of any greatness of its minister, but because of the greatness of the spirit of such men as those who stand by my side with this common purpose and with this common spirit of devoting their lives and talents, the best they have, to him whom they have crowned as the Lord of their lives. With men of that kind in all our Christian churches, what may not the harvest of souls be? When the men and the [477] women of privilege, talent and position shall dedicate all they have and all they are to him, what shall not the progress of the church of the living God be in that day?

      The lordship of Jesus Christ means passion for men. More than that, it means confidence in the good providence of God and belief in our immortality.

      So I bring to you this word, my brethren in our common Lord, it is a great thing to serve him. Have you served him well? How much owest thou our Lord? Have you paid him what you owe? I beg of you, go back from this mountain of consecration to your valleys of service, and live, live, live the great inspiration of the vision that is come to you. God forbid that any one of us should go back again and be what we were when we came. We can not be. You will either have been transfigured in Jesus Christ within or you will forever have turned your back upon the Christ and be less than you were before you came. Not one of us can live through days like this and be not moved by that profound spirit of the other world and all our lives changed from glory to glory, "even as from the Lord the Spirit." To-night, as we think of that, as we think of all that Jesus Christ has been to us and is to us, may there not be as there comes to us from the angelic choir the great song of redemption, an antiphonal response in our hearts as we catch up the melody and fling back the great, glad tidings of salvation? "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name, be the glory and the majesty, now and forever, amen."

[CCR 476-378]