Christian Life Requires Personal Effort
President Eliot, of Harvard, told the Methodist ministers the other day in Boston: “We Americans are face to face with the lamentable and extraordinary fact that the influence of the church has visibly declined in our generation.” One of the reasons he gives is this: “It has seemed to me from what I have seen of the Protestant churches, that they are too intellectual and too emotional on the part of the teacher or preacher, and call for too little of personal exertion on the part of the recipient of the inspiration.” And this is true. The church or the church member that receives and never gives, dies. Giving, doing, working, is a law of Christian life and growth. Some men manifest their loyalty to a cause by dying for it, and are called martyrs. Other men manifest their loyalty by living for the cause. If the cause be unpopular, small, cross-bearing, the latter is more likely to be the true. The Christian does both. He gives his very life to be used as the Master wishes. If it is to die, he goes to the sacrificial altar. If it is to serve, he bows in gladness to the yoke. In one respect he dies before he enters service; he dies to sin. He also lives unto God, a new life. He is a double martyr—witness—constantly dying and living for Christ Jesus. We are living in the recrudescence of Roman and Greek life, Roman and Greek worship, mingled with some of the most beautiful ideals of Christianity. It was that which made the apostasy and the Dark Ages. Like causes will produce like results. This commingling of the precious and the vile increases our love and affection for the vile, and takes away our affection and respect for the precious, till sense and conscience lose power to distinguish between the good and bad, and in consequence the soul is lost forever.