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to speak a foreign language before he could tell the natives about Christ. All he needed was a heart full of the love of Christ, for love speaks a universal language. So even in far distant countries these young people can go as parts of one great army, drawing $30.00 a month and expenses and enlisting for one or two years and then returning with their service stripes.

2. The second step necessary in order to marshall men and women back of a world task is to put a unified Church back of a single program. We have already indicated the outlines of such a program. It can be nothing less than the complete Christianizing of the social order including the formation of a League of Nations and a world-wide missionary program. Back of this the Church must put the momentum of a single, compact organization. Once more we want to state our conviction that Church union can come only by a vital interpretation of the religious experience through which all mankind is passing and by gearing the entire machinery of the Church to a common task commensurate with the need of the world. We venture to quote some strong words of Bishop Charles Williams, of the Protestant Episcopal Church. says: "The various denominations have been jealously watching each other and persistently nagging the war departments to secure for each its proportionate quota of army and navy chaplains and to see to it that no one should get ahead of another. We have set up about the camps and cantonments

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dozens of discordant altars, a Babel with its confusion of tongues instead of a Zion, a haven of refuge and peace. There must be a conventicle of some sort for every group of organized religion, for the 'Two-Seed in the Spirit Baptists,' for the 'Amish' who allow buttons, and for the 'Mennish' who stand stoutly for hooks and eyes, for the ‘onefoot-washing' Dunkards, and the 'two-feet-washing' Dunkards. Would it have been a thing to be wondered at if the executives, who had large affairs to administer, should have grown utterly impatient and thrown us all out of court? And is it any wonder that the common soldier often turns away in despair or contempt from this Babel of shibboleths and abandons organized religion altogether? And what has become patent under the searching test of war conditions is latent always and everywhere? There is the common attitude of mind in the average man toward our chaotic Christendom. A divided Church is sure to break down under the searching test of any great crisis. A divided Church can not speak with any authority in, or give any adequate interpretation of, any great tragedy of history such as this world war. A divided Church, rankling with sectarian jealousies, could not concentrate on the stupendous task of ministry to the spiritual needs evoked by the war-nor can it efficiently meet the demands of the new age that comes after the war. The Church during the war practically handed over her whole ministry to the Red Cross and Y. M. C. A., which at least largely

represents the spirit and mind of Christ and essential religion. They alone have stood for a united Christianity. It looks as if this lesson of the war were beginning to penetrate the mind of the Church. "The leadership in the movement toward organic unity has long been in the hands of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Those of other communions who have been interested in that movement have long been sitting with amazing humility on the steps of the Episcopal House of Bishops, awaiting such crumbs of comfort and hope as might fall from the master's table. But when, last year, this House of Bishops rejected with arrogant insult and contumely the dignified and reasonable suggestion of the Congregationalist body for a practical coöperation during war time by a coördination of army chaplains, this leadership was wantonly thrown away by the Episcopal Church. The Presbyterian General Assembly picked up that abandoned leadership. On their initiative the representatives of 35,000,000 American Christians met recently at Philadelphia, appointed committees of preparation and summoned a great meeting in the near future, not later than 1920, to take action for such a practical organic unity of American Protestantism as shall be consistent with individual liberty. Perhaps the Christian Church is taking this great purpose of the Spirit to which she has been exposed. Perhaps we shall come up out of the test of this crisis at least welded into a closer fellowship, each presenting fewer bristling points of antagonism,

but searching more diligently for our common grounds of agreement and service, exercising 'the ministry of reconciliation' and 'seeking the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.' Perhaps, even, there may result some measure of efficient organic unity. If so, the war will have been worth while, even if it has accomplished nothing more than this. "If there is to be any international league, there must be behind it an international mind. If there were an international Church, one and indivisible, unsplit by divisions national and denominational, it would be the chief exponent of the international mind. For that emphatically was and is the mind of the Church's Founder and Head. His great apostle declared: "There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.””

The Argonne is America's greatest battle, not only because of the superhuman nature of the task, the number of men involved and of the continuous sacrifice of life; but because of the spiritual nature of the victory. Here the forces of democracy delivered the final crushing blow which beat autocracy to the earth never to rise again. The would-be brutal masters of mankind were vanquished by the real world conquerors. But the nature of the victory is even more significant than this: the finest Prussian troops, veterans of many wars, intoxicated by the conviction that brute strength is the final arbitrament of universal right and dominion, the would-be German Superman grappled in the last

life-and-death struggle with wholly inexperienced boys hurriedly massed for a great frontal attack, conscious only that they were the embodiment of the soul of American honor and idealism, the chosen champions of world democracy and world peace. It is impossible to rightly value the victory won; only time can do this. It is idle folly to think that these men and the men in the armies of Great Britain, France, and Italy are willing to allow the world to settle back into the old selfish competitive manner of life, the prey of petty politicians, of blind partisan leaders and of reactionary vested interests. They mean that it shall be a better world in which to live, a world where human exploitation and war shall be no more, where little children shall live unafraid, look up and see God and laugh and play and grow good. Not many of these brave lads were brutalized by war; not many of them will of their own initiative identify themselves enthusiastically with organized religion, but this truth should stand out above everything else written in letters of fire and blood: What these men were at their best on the Somme, the Marne, the Piave and along the Argonne-Meuse sector offers to the Church its hope for five hundred years to come. They are the vanguard of a Crusade which, if rightly marshalled and led, will conquer the world for Christ.

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