prayer life. Some may use a prayer calendar, and I wish such custom might widely prevail. Some will fashion their own ritual, fitted to the twisted growth of their personal experience. Some may revive the household altar in forms adapted to our breathless age. Some may gather groups at special times for special petitions. It does not matter. The law of life is the law of variety. But it does greatly matter that we believe, from our heart of hearts, steadily, surely, unbrokenly, that God is and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Thus believing, we shall find the way to bring God into our lives. There are strange things said of that Divine Man whose name we bear but none more strange than these, "And in the morning a great while before day he rose up and went out and departed into a desert place and there prayed." "And it came to pass in those days that he went out into the mountain to pray and he continued all night in prayer to God." One may not find in his example a call to a like vigil. I personally do not. But he cannot fail to find in that example a revelation of the secret of power. The redemption which began in the long wrestle of the Redeemer's prevailing prayer will continue to its appointed consummation only through like wrestling of those who are called to be ambassadors for him. In this sacred hour, as we meet unitedly to give account of our stewardship, how heavy is our penitent consciousness that we have wrought too much in the strength of the flesh, too little in dependence upon God. Shall we not here and now register our resolve that whatever else we do or do not do in the years ahead, we will join in an unflinching endeavor to fill our fellowship of churches with a new spirit of prayer. For ourselves, for one another, for our work, for our plans, for our fellow Christians, for our nation, for the nations, for all the vast interests of that Kingdom of God which slowly rises from the wreck of earthly Kingdoms, let us be ceaselessly in prayer. Last of all, if our Gospel of breadth is to prove itself a Gospel indeed, it must issue in broad plans of service, prosecuted by broad methods of effort. It is of course quite true that such plans and methods can be formulated and go no further. That opens another subject. My present point is that unless a Gospel of breadth expresses itself in broad plans, it fails to take the first step toward becoming a Gospel of power. If the first step be missing, all subsequent steps must be missing. The first step taken, the door is open to take the rest. I have no need to labor the point. It only remains to indicate its bearings on the duty of the hour. There will be placed before you this afternoon, by the Commission on Missions, an ideal and scope of service unknown in all our past. The Commission will plead that old standards are abrogated by the imperious urgency of the hour. It will propose that we count our 300 years of history as the period of youth and growth and that we now enter into manhood with manhood's broad vision and grave courage. It will remind us of the new spirit which is stirring in other communions and will summon us to share in the audacious dream of the Protestant Churches united in plans for the conquest of the world. What answer will you give? What message will you send to our waiting churches? I am confident that I speak for the Commission when I say that with unruffled spirit it could see its plan tossed aside and another, totally different in scope and method, adopted-provided only that the substitute names a higher goal, breathes a more resolute spirit of endeavor and outlines more adequate modes of action. For the Commission holds, as you hold, that our broad Gospel, tempered by three centuries of experience, interwoven with all that is best in the world democracy which is forming, touched with the passion of brotherhood and rooted deep in the all embracing life of God, must become here and now and henceforth a Gospel of power, not only in its own native strength, but as mediated to the world by our imperfect hands. |