Part 23

"They are all marching together with eager expectation on their upturned faces and the morning light shines on them."

Yes, America offers hope, a future, the upward path, to the crowding millions, but only as the light of God illumines and makes clear the way and His voice stills the hate of race and class, saying "Come unto Me," and "Bear ye one another's burdens."

SOURCES OF POWER

Lover of souls, indeed, But Lover of bodies too, Seeing in human flesh The God shine through; Hallowed be Thy name, And, for the sake of Thee, Hallowed be all men, For Thine they be.

Doer of deeds divine, Thou, the Father's Son, In all Thy children may Thy will be done, Till each works miracles On poor and sick and blind, Learning from Thee the art Of being kind.

For Thine is the glory of love, And Thine the tender power, Touching the barren heart To leaf and flower, Till not the lilies alone, Beneath thy gentle feet, But human lives for Thee Grow white and sweet.

And Thine shall the Kingdom be, Thou Lord of Love and Pain, Conqueror over death By being slain. And we, with lives like Thine, Shall cry in the great day when Thou comest to claim Thine own, "All hail! Amen."

--W.J. Dawson.

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"Thy kingdom come--Thy will be done on earth."

Fundamental in all projects for the upbuilding of a worldly or a spiritual kingdom, or an individual character, lies the ideal. Action, growth, conduct, spring from the creating ideal and in the process of development they advance and enlarge together.

"The ideal is the primary moving power in the human spirit," Professor Gidding says; "into his ideal enter man's estimate of the past and his forecast of the future--his scientific analysis and his poetic feeling, his soberest judgment and his religious aspiration."

Our ideal then for our country, for the work and place of Home Missions in it, for ourselves as Christian patriots and believers in Home Missions, is essentially a basic source of power. Into the ideal for our country must enter the inspiring conception of the nation which will include the background of its yesterday.

America means not only the cultural institutions, the multiplied industries, the vast wealth of farms (four crops in the year 1915 were valued at $4,770,000,000), mines and forests, but the genius of an Edison, a Burbank, a Goethals, a McDowell, the devotion of a John R. Mott, a Frank Higgins, a Jane Addams and the long honor roll of men and women made great through their service. America also embodies all that was wrought by those early comers who endured hunger, disease, suffering, that they might conquer a wilderness and make it a land of opportunity. It holds the fruits of service and sacrifice purchased by those later ones who willingly faced death "that government for the people and by the people" might replace tyranny and oppression, and the imperishable glory of those others who counted not their lives dear but laid them down that sweet freedom might be the right of every man, of whatever race or color. Beside all these stood the strong, true women who suffered, endured and triumphed with them.

The rich heritage bestowed by a Washington, a Lincoln, a Lee, a John Eliot, a Charles Sumner, a Marcus Whitman, a Sheldon Jackson, a Harriet Beecher Stowe, a Frances Willard, and a host of others, constitutes the infinitely precious treasury of our national life.

Bayard Taylor expresses the peculiar genius of America in his national ode:

From the homes of all, where her being began She took what she gave to man. Justice, that knew no station, Belief as soul decreed, Free air for aspiration, Free force for independent deed.

She takes but to give again As the sea returns the rivers in rain And gathers the chosen of her seed From the hunted of every crown and creed.

In one strong race all races here unite. Tongues meet in hers, hereditary foemen Forget their sword and slogan, kith and clan. 'Twas glory, once, to be a Roman: She makes it glory, now, to be a man!

Our ideal for America is summed up in this--that it may increasingly become the kingdom of God. What do we mean by "kingdom"? St Paul says "the kingdom is righteousness and peace and joy" which being interpreted might read, the kingdom--Christ's rule on earth--will bring to all the Father's children the opportunity of knowing Him and His saving love expressed through Jesus Christ; it will mean the transforming of human society so that ignorance, greed, disease and injustice shall be overthrown; so that "the bitter cry of the children" shall no longer be drowned by the whir of the wheels of industry; so that the sisterhood of women shall be established and that through the dominance of righteousness men shall cease to invoke war and strife, and, released from crushing burdens, into life and labor shall come joy and an increasing sense of spiritual values.

Another source of power is to know the factors that enter into our problem and the facts of our undertaking. That we may intelligently synthesize the influences that bear powerfully upon the church as it seeks to meet its present day task, apprehend the effect of these influences upon the religious ideals and thought of our young people, and realize the atmosphere which Home Missions must permeate with its saving faith, we must take account of the moulding thought-life of our day.

It is always difficult to separate the apparent from the underlying and more subtle causes and influences. Within the outer and more obvious is usually hidden an inner current of thought and movement that must be sought and realized in order that the whole content may be obtained. Until quite recently--and we are still feeling its effects--the tendency of our time strongly emphasized material accomplishments. The world has been "intently and almost exclusively occupied with subduing natural forces and material matter to humanity's growing physical and mental needs." Thus have been given us the wonders of scientific triumph which make possible the civilization of our day.

In America, especially, material development has appeared to receive an exalted value and place. We have become familiar with the charge made against us by Europe of being a nation of materialists.

The transforming of a continent from a wilderness to a land of homes and highly organized industry in the brief space of three centuries; the marvelous and rapid development of the vast material resources of our land; the hastening here of eager recruits from other lands, passionately seeking and needing material betterment, have magnified in this country the feverish acquisition of material wealth and accentuated the hard, calculating business spirit; and has seemed to place undue value upon the worth of material success and the things of which it is made.

John Burroughs from his quiet vantage point of observation says--"The present civilization arms us with the forces of earth, air and water, while it weakens our hold upon the sources of personal power.

"It gives us great intellectual riches but it deadens our finer spiritual faculties, our clear conception of the higher values of life. Where there is no vision, no intuitive perception of the great fundamental truths of the inner spiritual life, the best and the highest must perish."

Before seeking to discover the hidden ethical motives and forces that animate and elevate our national life, let us consider the very real effect of the apparent predominance of the materialistic upon our college students.

Our young people are exposed not only to the pressure of the materialistic atmosphere which throbs and beats about us all, but they must also meet the same force from a different and very direct contact in their classrooms at college, and in the universities.