The Church and the Common People by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 7, 1874

The Church and the Common People.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

[UNDER this heading, Rev. R. Cardley, in the Christian Union, states some important facts which should encourage us as a people in our work. Our converts are almost wholly from the common people. There is a significant fact in this. Read what this man says, and take courage. It is all so good that I give the whole of it. D. M. C.]

In estimating the value of Christian work, we are very apt to judge by a worldly standard. The elements of power in the world are thought to be the elements of power in the kingdom of God. So we come to measure a church as we would measure a business firm or a political party—by its wealth, and influence, and social standing. We are very apt to measure a revival by the standing of the converts. The mere conversion of a score of souls makes but little impression. But the conversion of a judge, or a leading merchant, or a member of Congress, brings the millennium perceptibly nearer. In the popular judgment, a soul converted is only a soul saved; while a fortune converted is a power for Christ. When we measure a man's Christian force we multiply his character by his bank account. A very indifferent sort of a Christian becomes quite effective when multiplied by fifty thousand dollars. Rich men come to think that very faint traces of grace are sufficient for them. They have such a long leverage that it is not necessary for them to lift very hard. In the language of a popular lecturer, “ten thousand dollars covers a multitude of sins, and fifty thousand dollars covers them all.” It is only carrying out this unexpressed popular sentiment when a church at the West is organized on a “joint stock basis,” and its members vote by “shares” instead of by the counting of hands. If money and position are the real Christian forces, by all means let them vote; but if individual Christian character is the power, then let individual Christians rule.

It must have struck every reader of the New Testament as almost singular that this method of estimating Christian force is entirely absent there. Jesus preached mainly to the poor; and he never hinted that it was any disadvantage that his success was mainly among that class. The apostles pursued the same course, and the same results followed. It is mentioned as a fact, but not as a source of regret, that “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.” Neither Christ nor his disciples attempted to gather around them what we call the “elements of power” in society. They did not attempt to secure the influence of wealth or of social standing.

I think the true significance of this fact has been entirely misunderstood. It is usually supposed that God intended thus to manifest his power, “that the glory might be of God, and not of men.” It is supposed that God determined to establish the gospel in the world, and save men, without the aid of the recognized social forces, reaching the world through its weakest and poorest people.

But it is a question whether this process did not display the wisdom more than the power of God. Was not this, after all, the true way to reach the world? Did it not show a deeper knowledge of social forces than men ever exhibited? Was it not a wisdom which set at naught what men deem sources of influence, but which took hold of the real elements of social power after all? Men pursue the opposite order, and begin by securing the support of influential names. But is not this also a part of that “wisdom of this world which is foolishness with God?” Is not God's plan, of beginning with the common people, the true way of molding society? For immediate results, no doubt the human plan, of beginning with the influential, is the best. But for a movement that has “ages for its own,” the divine plan is undoubtedly the wisest.

Society is in constant motion. The elements at the bottom are continually coming to the top. The rising men are the men of power. Even in so conservative a republic as ancient Rome the “new men” were a recognized force. The English aristocracy maintains its supremacy through the “new blood” it is continually receiving. Whence come all the great revolutions that transform society? Do they not all begin with the common people and are at first sneered at as plebeian and low, and do they not work themselves upward until they reach the sceptre? If we look over the men of power in our generation, in business or professional life, in politics or learning, we shall find the larger proportion of them have come from “poor but honest parentage.” The men who control affairs to-day are from families who had never been heard of fifty years ago. And of the names that were prominent fifty years ago, scarcely one now remains on the surface. Any one can verify this for himself who will take the trouble to look over the names of those who figured in public life half a century ago. And if he will look over the leading men of to-day—either the leading men of his own town or the leading men of the country—he will be equally astonished to notice how large a proportion of them are “new men” in the old Roman sense. In older and more established communities the process is slower. Fixed customs and laws of entailment and inheritance impede the operation of the principle. But the process goes on none the less, taking generations instead of years to complete the circuit.

What is the plain inference? What has been, will be. The sentiments of the common people of to-day will be the ruling faith of fifty years to come. The faith that is lodged in the hearts of the poor of this generation will rise and seize the sceptre of the next generation. This was the wisdom of God when he sent the gospel to the poor. He knew the laws of social life and the constitution of human society. He worked in accordance with those laws, and not in defiance of them. When it was said of Jesus that “the common people heard him gladly,” it was prophetic of his success. It was not long before the whole social structure felt his power. He knew the nearest way to the heart of the world.

We have all, no doubt, been surprised at the power of the Methodist church in our great cities. We had been accustomed to regard the Methodists as the church of the backwoods and the frontier. All at once we find them with large cultured congregations and magnificent churches in the very centers of wealth and refinement. Whence comes this change? The answer is simple and natural. The poor bare-footed boys who were converted in the mountains and backwoods twenty-five years ago are now the merchant princes, and money kings of the metropolis, building grand churches and endowing colleges and seminaries.

When it is said, therefore, that the English churches have lost their hold on the laboring classes, it means a still darker and sadder picture half a century hence. The church of to-day that holds the hearts of the common people is the legitimate heir to the crown of the future, while the church that stands aloof from the poor has consented to its own death.