be that they don't need the transferring to heathen soil of our
Western church systems, nor our schemes of organizations. It is not our
Western creeds and theology that they stand in need of.

Of course, there need to be both churches and organizations. Only so will
the work be done, and what is gotten held together. But these are in
themselves temporary. They are immensely important and indispensable, but
not the chief thing. The great need is of <i>the story of Jesus</i>. That is,
plain teaching about sin--the hardest task of all for the missionary,
whether in Asia or America--and the damnable results locked up in sin.
Then the winsome telling, the tirelessly patient and persistently gentle
telling of the story of love, God's love as revealed in Jesus. The telling
them that Jesus will put a new moral power inside a man that will make him
over new.

But they need even more than this, aye, far more. They need <i>men</i>--human
beings like themselves, living among them in closest touch--whose clean,
strong, sweet lives spell out the Jesus-story as no human lips can ever
tell it.

To live side by side with men who like themselves are tempted sorely, but
who show plainly in their lives a power that downs the temptation--this is
their great need. The good seed, after all, is not the message of truth
merely, but the "sons of the kingdom,"[9] men living the message of Jesus,
and more, the power of Jesus, daily.

A kindergarten teacher opened a mission among the slum children of a very
poor section of Chicago. She began her work by gathering a number of
dirty, unkempt children of the street into the neat mission room. Then,
instead of preaching or praying or something of the conventional sort at
the first, she brought in and set on a table a large beautiful calla lily,
bewitching in its simple white beauty.

The effect of the flower on one child, a little girl, was striking. No
sooner had she looked at it than she looked down at her own dirty hands
and clothes, with a flush creeping into her face. Then she quickly went
out into the street. In a little while she was back again, but with her
face washed, her hair combed, her dress tidied up, and a bit of colored
ribbon added. She walked straight up to the lily again, and looked long,
with deep wondering admiration in her eyes, at the beautiful white flower.

The flower's purity was a mirror in which she saw her own dirtiness. It
was a magnet drawing her gently but strongly