The Assembly Herald

IFE is a library of many books. Every year another volume is closed and stored away in the archives of the past. The future is also destined to become a part of the collection. It comes to us a sealed book only to be read page by page. And yet all time is relative. No one is able to define it. The difference between a year and a century belongs to the subjective world. The old and the new are mere terms for something that we do not know. God alone can comprehend it, but its revelation faces the impossible. We often wonder why God has not revealed Himself more fully. The reason lies in our inability to receive. The less cannot include the greater, and the human brain is smaller than the idea. Between a thousand years and a day there is with Omniscience no distinction. We see things in sections, while He beholds them as they are. The past and the future include all there is to time. Our many volumes may all be compressed into two-the past and the future. What we call the present forms no part of the contents. It is the back of the cover that serves to bind the books together. Such was the reasoning of the ancients. This year is only a reissue of what has been. A different number has been stamped upon the cover, and that is all.

No life was ever compressed within the limits of its three score years and ten. The youngest child that ever lived and died runs a race with the greatest philosopher. Somebody loved it, and ever on, some life will be different because it was. We live through others. Love transcends death. It has no past and no future. Love is God. The years drift on and bear the best along. We call them old or new, but it is we, not they, who feel the touch of time. One naturally dreads to grow old. The frost that whitens the hair also chills the brain. There is a perceptible surrender of those forces that gave zest and purpose to life. But some appear to be unconscious of it. They retain their youth until the final sunset. The wine loses not its sparkle, nor does the oil fail in its cruse. The winter comes, and their grey hairs are here and there upon them, but they know it not. It is a sacrament to know such men. We recall an elder

that we once knew, upon whom the lusty winter of age made no impression. He crossed the line of three score and ten like a vaulting school-boy. That man had conquered age. Like Moses at the foot of Nebo, he felt himself strong even in the face of death. Such men are born under the tree of life, and its monthly fruit has become their daily bread.

Others again become reminiscent; they live not in the present, but in the dreamland of the long ago. The comparison is never favorable. Ask not, says the Ecclesiastes, what is the cause that the former times were better than these, but this is the very thing that they delight most to do. They forget the beauties of yesterday and recall the songs and flowers when they were young. Then it was that the world was clothed in splendor and the very stars threw down kisses to the earth. Mistaken men. They forget that in their boyhood old men looked back upon the past as they are doing now and dreamed of an age never to come again. Time never goes backward. To our distorted vision it may seem to, but the footsteps of the ages lead upward. When the Creator had finished His work we are told He looked down and pronounced it very good. It was an age of beginnings. Chaos had sought the recesses of space, and the world had begun its endless journey about the sun. The floods had found their places and the mountains were belching stones and fire. Life was young. Somewhere in a remote corner of the earth man was grappling with the beasts and waging war against the ground. He saw as He ever does what the race fails to see. There were possibilities in the newly born creation visible only to Himself.

The Almighty looks down upon the same world today, and those possibilities in many instances have been fulfilled. The volcano long since burned its fire, and cities are built upon it. The wild beasts have retreated before the face of man, and civilization reaches out her sceptre to the borders of the earth. These under another form belonged to the creation as God saw it. The seed and the sheaf were one. With us nothing is ever completed. The sixth day never comes. The new year is compared with the old, but what we were then and now is forgotten. Such people become strangers to their own. They breathe in one age and live in another. But no man is ever without a mission. Jeremiah was no more essential to the prophets than are they to the present. And yet one should seek to avoid their spirit. We live by hope. The muffled drum leads the recessional, but has no place in the onward procession. There is not a religion upon earth whose tendency is not toward the better. Christianity is nearer the Christ today than it was at Pentecost. Otherwise the Holy Spirit came to no purpose. We know the Christ better than did the prophets. They saw the One of vision, while the Son of Mary was reserved for those of later time. The ancients divided their history into chapters of gold, of silver and of brass. We would reverse the order. The golden age is now, while those of baser metals belong to the beginning. And such is true of our own church. We do not refer to resources or membership, but to those weightier qualities that belong to the kingdom. The best of the past we believe survives in the present, while in the great future God has much yet to fulfil.

J. L. S.

HOME MISSIONS

Facing the Issues of 1913

Leaders on the home mission field in all sections of the country were asked briefly to present the issues of the new year. These pages give the result.

Each correspondent was asked to reply to one of two questions. One asked what is the great home mission need of the year, and the other asked what the money should be used for. The questions are the same in their general scope. The grouping below does not undertake to separate them.

THE VARIED, COMPREHENSIVE

TASK IN PENNSYLVANIA.

The Secretary-Treasurer of the Synodical Home Mission Committee concisely states the issue. Rev. Dr. J. M. McJunkin, Oakdale, Pa.

From the viewpoint of the Synod of Pennsylvania home missions present three problems, the city, the country church, and the immigrant. These are so inter-related that equal emphasis must be laid upon all. The last census classed 48.6 per cent of our 7,665,111 as urban population. Hence some would say, "Save the cities if you would save our state." But nineteen out of sixty-five counties lost in population while nineteen others made very slight gain. Hence the growing need of the country churchesthe main source of supply for college students and ministerial candidates. But eleven coun ties gained from 25 per cent to 50 per cent in Lopulation, and four others gained over 50 per cent., this increase being found in the mining districts, and made up very largely of foreigners. Hence the pressing importance of foreign evangelization. The Home Mission issue for 1913 demands our very best effort along all lines.

HOME BUILDING IN THE EMPIRE STATE.

The Secretary-Treasurer of the Synodical Committee of New York lays emphasis upon evangelization of immigrant population. Rev. Dr. George Fairlee, Troy. Home missions in the larger sense of the term are neither sectional nor sectarian. They are forces of righteousness at work in society

in the name of God for the good of men. The descriptive work is commonly understood to describe the sphere of operation, but may also be taken to define their purpose-to fill our land with homes where the name of God is revered, and obedience to His laws is rendered, where Christ is confessed as head of the house and ruler of the life. There are thousands of homes being established everywhere. It is the business of missions that they are, or speedily become Christian homes. It is in our Christian homes that the altar fires of our social purity and strength as a nation are kindled. Hence prime importance for the immediate future must attach to the work of Christian home building with all the crude materials which are being brought together on Our shores. The issue for 1913 ought to center largely in evangelizing the immigrant populations among us.

MORE INTENSIVE WORK-
SMALLER GROUPS.

The Field Secretary in the South and
Southwest pleads for the men and money
for more thorough work. Rev. Dr. B. P.
Fullerton, St. Louis, Missouri.

The Board of Home Missions requires of its missionaries (1) that they live on their fields. and (2) maintain a living survey of their fields. but in the district of the South and Southwest there are 115 missionaries serving three or more churches. It is next to the impossible to meet the requirements of the Board under such circumstances.

The need, therefore, is that we limit a home mission field to two churches, supply sufficient

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The Assembly Herald, Volume 19