mulative redemptive effort of the Christian _ecclesia_, the Church of
Jesus. On the other side of the ledger we have to set many things that
ecclesiasticism has done,--cruel persecutions, infamous tortures,
burnings and massacres, devastating wars, and fierce religious hatreds.
But these things have never belonged to Jesus; they are the very
negation of His spirit. The true church of Christ in any and every age
consists of those and those only who are trying like their Master to
make the world better and gladder and worthier of God. The word
"church" has become so hateful to many because of the admixture of
other ideals with this that I sometimes wish something could be done
either to get rid of it or to change it for another which shall fully
and clearly express what Jesus really came to do. I maintain that the
church has nothing whatever to do with preparing men for a world to
come; the best way to prepare a man for the world beyond is to get him
to live well and truly in this one. The church exists to make the
world a kingdom of God, and to fill it with His love. No greater
mistake could be made than to estimate the church of Jesus by
ecclesiastical squabbles and divisions, or even by Psalm-singing and
go-to-meeting talk. Look for the spirit of Jesus at work, and you have
found the church too.

+Modern industrialism and the church.+--Judged by this standard where
are the churches to-day? We have seen that the only gospel which Jesus
had to preach was the gospel of the kingdom of God; everything He ever
said can be included under that head. His Church, or Christian
society, or whatever else we like to call it, has no meaning unless it
exists for the realisation of the kingdom of God. We cannot state this
too strongly. The whole of the other-worldism of the churches, the
elaborate paraphernalia of doctrine and observance, is utterly useless
and worse than useless unless it ministers to this end. Unless it can
be shown that I am wrong in this supposition--and I think that will be
pretty hard to do--a fairly good case could be made out for burning
down most of the theological colleges in the land and sending the
bright young fellows in them to do some serious work for the common
good. For it must be confessed, as I said at the beginning, that the
churches are to a large extent a failure. We cannot but recognise, for
one thing, that our modern civilisation, with all its boasted advance
on the past, is still