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March 16. 1910. THE PRESBYTERIAN
The Assembly's ?
3y Keb. Thos. Car
"
{ (Continued from March 9.)
Fifth. Such a Commission would do more to bring
about a balanced, solid, lasting and efficient progress in
the whole work of the Church, than could be expected
reasonably of a number of co-ordinate Executive Committees.
It would do more to give the Church rounded efficiency
in gathering in and in building up the elect, more
to give it efficiency in taking the world for Christ. Certainly
balanced, well-proportioned and orderly working
is in the loner run more efficient. The Moravian
Church might have done more for Christ by larger
Home Mission effort. Having failed in that, that noble
little body has always had an insufficient base of supplies
for its foreign work. The Methodist Church in
this country might have done, and to their own great
profit, a much larger Foreign Mission work than they
have hitherto done. The attempt to do it would have
evoked a nobler spirit of self-sacrifice, would have given
them a larger practical knowledge of the true theory of
missions and given them the advantage of holds on
strategetic points, many of which have now been taken
by other denominations. In like manner, both Methodists
and Baptists made a mistake by putting insufficient
emphasis on Christian Education in their earlier
history. The Presbyterian Churches, and especially
our own, are perhaps making now a mistake in placing
too little emphasis on Denominational Education.
It is now a recognized duty of the Church to do its
mission work, not in the quarter nor in the way in
which the greatest number of units can be won for
Christ today, but in the quarter and in the way in which
the Lord's hosts of soldiers shall receive the greatest
increase of efficiency, so far as we have the light to
determine- Tf rme riiitiomin umn ?' ?
?- V..V, x/iiii.UiUUtl, TTVU tu V_x 111 iO L lUliay ,
would add more to the force of the Christian hosts for
their work of gathering in and building up of the elect
than the winning of ten negroes, then we ought to
endeavor to win the Chinaman, provided he can be won
as easily as the ten negroes. Similarly the emphasis
should be placed on the several lines of the Church
today as to make it the most efficient possible force on
tomorrow. We should pray for, plan for, and work for,
such an ordered and rounded development as will give
us the Church advancing most steadily and rapidly in
efficiency for the whole work of the Church.
Let the Assembly then have one Commission which
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u>mv>i?auu niai >vndL is warned is a v^nurcn at
home and abroad which is growing most rapidly in efficiency
for the work for which the Church is called.
The Commission should be the ablest which the Church
can command, men of adequate intelligence, of character
and executive ability?well furnished cabinet officers
in the government of the King of the Church; men
of far sight and in-sight, of grit, grace, and gumption;
men of competence to know the field which is the world
and the Church at home and abroad, which is to win
the world; know where it is wanting and how to bring
it to its greatest efficiency. There is no possibility of
f OF THE SOUTH. 325
xecutibe Agencies.
y Johnson, D.D.
our getting a half dozen Executive Committees to take
the statesmanlike vipiv r?f + ti? fi.ol.ri .. .-.J *u- 1
~ . .. Wi HIV. nviu auu 111C WU1K. we
ought to regard the unity of the Church as not only a
beautiful ideal, but as a factor of power to be realized in
our denominations and to receive a partial embodiment
in a Commission which shall carry on the work of the
Church in the spirit of the broadest and most sagacious
ecclesiastical statesmanship. The representatives of all
the great causes ought to be in constant consultation;
each ought to feel actively concerned for all the causes
pnH tn Kp prvnfrrvllr.^ ? ? ^ ~ 1 A 1 * "
u in pdiL uy me circumstances ot all
the causes, in all his practical endeavors in behalf of
the cause he specially represents.
Suppose the government at Washington were to determine
that the Secretary of State should henceforth
reside at San Francisco; the Secretary of the Navy, at
St. Louis; the Secretary of War, at Salt Lake City; the
Secretary of Agriculture, at San Antonio, etc., would
not our government become the laughing stock of the
nations for destroying the possibility of quick and easy
concert of action. So our present distribution of representatives
of causes is both unbiblical and ridiculous
?unbiblical as failing to embody the principle of unity
and tending to faction, and ridiculous in a Church
which prides itself upon embodying the principle of
unity and which really does embody this beautiful and
pffpf tiVA nrinmrvla ?^ C 1 ' ' *
v jjnin-ipit in us sci ics ui courts, DUt tenas to
destroy it by its present arrangement for conducting its
causes by riving into half a dozen mild schisms the
Church for the next eleven months and twenty days.
This may be harshly and one-sidedly put, but it is so
put to call attention to a fact.
IV. This Executive Commission should consist of
six members elected as such by the General Assembly,
and of four, or at most, five, ex-officio members.
The Executive Commission should be large enough to
contain a wide diversity of gifts, the devotion of the
saint, the energy of the enthusiast, the executive ability
of captains of industry, and the sagacity, the wisdom of
the wise. But it should not be larire enough to lie tin
wieldy in its executive work. The larger the Commission,
the larger the consumption of time in deliberations.
Once you have enough talent in kind and degree
in the Commission, every additional member is a clog.
He may be more or less of a clog, but he is a clog.
On the other hand, you need a Commission large
enough to serve as a balance wheel on the ex officio
members, of whom there should be four or possibly five.
The number of the Commission elected as such by the
Assembly could not be less than six. They should b?
elected with great care as men of the heartiest sympa
thy with the constitution and the work of the Church,
the widest outlook, and the profoundest desire to forward
God's work in His own way, as that way is revealed
in His Word and interpreted in the standards of
our Church. (If it should be necessary to pay any of
them a per diem, let a reasonable per diem be paid.)
It should be made a special duty of that portion of the