THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH.
By George T. Lemmon
[Rev. Geo. T. Lemmon, in the New Voice.] THE supreme mission of the church is to save the world. The race is sick; the church is to continue the labor of the great Physician, and give it health. Humanity is lost; Christ has found it, and He would lead the church to the lost, that it might enjoy the glorious privilege of leading the wanderer to the home eternal. Man is a sinner, a rebel; the church is set to subdue him, and fashion him into a saint, fit for the never-ending service of God. As Dr. Jenkyn said: "The world had forfeited its life; its reprieve has been procured by the atonement of Christ, and the church intrusted with the delivery of the reprieve into the hands of a world under condemnation—a commission which would have conferred distinction on angelic intelligences." But to men—to us—and not to angels, God has committed the glorious work; and we should count it all joy to run with eager feet and, carry this reprieve to all for whom Christ died. Heed this word of the sainted Simpson: "The church must go down into the pit with the miner, into the forecastle with the sailor, into the tent with the soldier, into the shop with the mechanic, into the factory with the operative, into the field with the farmer, into the counting-room with the merchant. Like the air, the church must press equally on all the surfaces of society; like the sea, flow into every nook of the shore-line of humanity; like the sun, shine on things foul and low as well as fair and high; for she was organized, commissioned, and equipped for the moral renovation of the whole world."