acterized His life,
it was not long, as history counts time, before that worthy function was
entirely lost sight of, that spirit wholly cast aside, and the new
institution entered upon its second period, becoming a mere political
machine which, in its utter disregard of rights and justice, in the
shrewdness and daring of its schemes, and in the blackness of its
methods, almost surpassed even our own most skilful efforts in those
directions. "My kingdom is not of this world," Christ had said, and yet
the church, founded upon His teachings and led by men pretending to be
His true representatives, had become, in very deed, a kingdom of this
world. The possession and use of worldly power by the church had so
blunted its moral sense that Dante, in the early part of the fourteenth
century, felt forced to exclaim, and exclaimed with truth:

"The Church of Rome,
Mixing two governments that ill assort,
Hath missed her footing, fall'n into the mire,
And there herself and burden much defiled."

But Dante's criticism and other forces brought to bear drew back the
erring leaders to some slight conception of their function and to some
slight effort toward the performance of duty, tho neither conception nor
performance took them back to their pristine merit. And the church
entered another historical stage, the third, and one whose dominant
thought and purpose prevails even up to modern times. Indeed, so
recently has it passed that its dark outlines are even yet discoverable
as we glance backward. In this new conception of the church and its work
we find the function of the institution to be not religious development
of the individual and of the race, as it had been at first, but merely
technical salvation. And the institution may be pictured as a great
lifeboat thrust out into the storm to save from destruction those who
can be drawn within--_while all others perish_.

You remember the painting of the picture, foreground and background, how
the emphasis was thrown upon the world to come! This world was not man's
home. He was a sojourner here, a wanderer. His citizenship was in
Heaven. He was a pilgrim passing thru a strange and weary land, and the
only purpose of the pilgrimage was a preparation for the life to come.
The nature of man himself was corrupt. The world around him was evil.
Alone and unaided he was powerless. He was lost both for this world and
the next. The storms of life were about him, the