department of the common subject denominated "PERSONAL RIGHTEOUSNESS," is designed to portray and illustrate the quality of character and order of life in the individual which are generated and required by the ethical principles and spiritual forces the first essays to disclose, elucidate, and commend. The third, pursuing the same line of thought and carrying the same method of proceedure out to larger issues and to more comprehensive results, endeavors to delineate, under the head of "ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY," the true nature, purpose, and work of the Christian Church, as indicated in the life, teachings, and example of its Founder; its purpose and work being, not simply to formulate, maintain, and promulgate a given system of faith or scheme of doctrine through the agency of carefully devised and appropriate institutions, ordinances, and ceremonial observances, but to make that faith or doctrine conduce to the renovation of personal character, to the extension of the realm of human brotherhood, to the right ordering of the conduct of men in all their relations to each other, to the reconstruction of society and the modeling it after the Christian ideal, and to the building up, in righteousness, love, peace, and joy, of a heavenly kingdom on the earth.

The special object or design of these volumes cannot be easily misunderstood. It is to restore the long-lost simplicity and purity of the religion of Jesus Christ to the thoughts and hearts of men; to lead the lovers of truth and good back from the errors with which ignorance, superstition and barbarism had obscured the person, the teachings, and the mission of Jesus to the real man of Nazareth, as he was when he went about Galilee and Judea doing good; healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom, and turning men from darkness to light, from sin to holiness, and from the power of Satan unto God. It is to portray him, not as he has been represented for fifteen hundred years by theologians, dogmatists, and creed-makers, but as he actually appeared to those who gathered about him when he was upon the earth, listening to his words, and catching the contagion of his pure and disinterested life; to affirm and empha

size the practicability of his principles and spirit in all human concerns, under all possible circumstances; and to urge the duty and importance of applying those principles and that spirit to the thought, feeling, and conduct of men in all the affairs and relations of life. In this regard the author was but anticipating if not helping to put in motion the obvious trend of the religious world in these later days, of all Christian denominations whatsoever name they hear the trend away from the medieval or traditionary conception of Christianity to that which, according to the most trustworthy records, obtained among the primitive disciples and evangelists; away from a scholastic, speculative faith to a practical, living one; one that shall renew, uplift, and perfect the hearts and lives of individual men, establish a divine order of human society upon the earth, and redeem the whole world of human kind.

That this trend actually exists and has become a marked feature of modern church life is most manifest and unquestionable; one of the encouraging signs of the times. It has already wrought a notable change for the better in a multitude of particulars since the Discourses which appear in this work were written. Old-time creeds have been greatly modified or are superseded by more modern and better ones. Belief, as a test of Christian discipleship or basis of fellowship, is giving way to character and Christlikeness. The suspicions and animosities that formerly embittered the relations of different denominations are dying out, and mutual respect, confidence, and co-operation are taking their place. The humanities are rising to prominence in the church at large; to lift the burdens and remove the disabilities that multiply the sorrows of mankind are getting to be therein a prominent interest and concern. The evils of existing industrial and social systems are recognized as never before, and as never before are professing Christians of all faiths casting about for ways and means of remedying them. Earnest and devout men and women on all hands are discussing social problems and seeking methods of bettering the relations of different classes of people to each other, and of

developing a more humane, fraternal, and Christian type of civilization. Many theological schools and other seminaries of learning are establishing Lectureships or Chairs of Sociology, under the growing conviction that there are radical defects and immoralities existing in the present order of human life, in its larger and more comprehensive aspects; and the more high-minded and Christlike of publicists and statesmen are counseling, as in no other period of history, mutual amity between the nations, arbitration instead of an appeal to the sword for the settlement of disagreements and grievances, peace and not war as the standing policy of states and empires throughout the world. The Divine Fatherhood and Human Brotherhood are coming to be regarded not as merely sentimental abstractions, glittering generalities, iridescent dreams, but as practical truths, inspiring and transforming ideals, the watchwords wherewith to stir the hearts and arouse the zeal of men to the sublime task of building up here and now the kingdom of God. True followers of Christ, all lovers of their kind, may well rejoice that these things are so, and give thanks therefor to the Author of all good; and since these things are so, it is more than probable that, had the Discouses contained in the present and two preceding volumes been written by the same hand twenty-five years later than they were, many of the strictures in them upon the nominal church and much of the censure applied to it for its infidelity to the principles and spirit of the primitive Gospel, would have been considerably modified, if not omitted altogether.

And yet it is by no means certain that those strictures and the accompanying censure are not even now in order, and to a considerable extent needful as a testimony to "the truth as it is in Jesus," and to the life, individual and social, which his religion delineates and requires. For notwithstanding all that has been done in the direction indicated - notwithstanding the progress that has been made along the lines which this volume pursues, the church is still in important respects far from the ideal herein set forth, far from that state of moral and spiritual pre-eminence which qualifies it to be a

trustworthy guide to the highest and best things - a sure leader of the race forward by the way of a transformed and reorganized humanity to the promised millennium of universal righteousness, brotherhood, and peace. Instead of standing firmly and uncompromisingly for the eternal realities, and for the application of divine moral principles to all the relations and concerns of men, testifying unhesitatingly against prevailing selfishness, greed of gain, lust of power, militarism, and kindred immoralities and abominations, it is often a caterer to them, an excuser of them, a suppliant for favor at their hands; a bond-servant of existing civilization, a retainer of worldly government, a subaltern of the state, to do its bidding and to sanction and sanctify its undertakings, however unjustifiable they may be, regardless of the spirit and requirement of Christ or of any divine authority or right of governance in heaven or on the earth. This pusillanimous subserviency to the powers that be, this treachery to the Master it professes to serve, on the part of the church at large was strikingly illustrated in its action respecting the late war between the United States and Spain, and its deplorable and inglorious sequel, the invasion of the Philippines. While the war-spirit was kindling into life throughout the country by the clamor of the worst elements in the political arena and the frenzied utterances of a depraved portion of the public press; and when the portents of open hostilities, involving incalculable cruelty, bloodshed, and death, with the sorrow and distress attendant thereon, were filling the national sky, the church, in its various branches and through its representatives, protested most vigorously against the threatening conflict as a most appalling calamity, opposed to the humanitarian spirit of the age, repugnant to the better sentiments of the human heart, and hostile to the beneficent and peaceful genius of the Gospel of Christ. But no sooner was war declared then these protests were hushed to silence, and the voice of the churchman chimed in with those of the politician, the purveyor of a debased press, and the lover of strife and carnage, justifying, encouraging, and urging on the bloody, fratricidal strife. And with a few praiseworthy

exceptions the church through its varied instrumentalities has joined heartily with the world in prosecuting the work of human slaughter, either by active participation therein or by giving it willing support, or it has crowned that work with the laurel of its approbation and sanctified it with commendatory prayer and pious song. As if an act of Congress or the proclamation of a President could convert an awful calamity into a blessing, make a great wrong right, or render the angelic song of "Peace on earth good will to men," and the holiest teachings of the Savior of the world, of no more practical account, and no more worthy of regard in the intercourse and conduct of nations, than the mutterings of a senseless enthusiast or the chattering of foxes in the forest wilds. As a matter of fact, there have been in the closing years of the nineteenth century, no more supple, obsequious, enthusiastic worshipers of the sanguinary war-god than many who dwell in the bosom of the church, than some who stand before the world as its champions and functionaries.

Such being the case the publication of the present volume at the present time seems opportune and needful; and its demand for a regenerate church, fashioned after the pattern given us in the New Testament and embodying in some large measure the spirit of love to God and man, to be amply illustrated in character and life, is as reasonable and fitting as it is Christian. As there is an infinitely Perfect One who doeth His will among the inhabitants of earth as well as amid the armies of heaven, who maketh the wrath of man to praise Him, and the folly of man to serve His cause and kingdom, and who will raise up laborers to work in His vineyard and carry His purpose in the creation of the world and of those dwelling in it to a complete fulfillment, so shall He, in His all-wise Providence and by the operation of His Holy Spirit, some day cause a radical transformation to take place in the church that now is, or create a new one characterized by higher principles, having a more excellent ministry, established upon better promises; a church that will exalt to supremacy the standard of righteousness, brotherhood, peace, and love, and under that standard go forth con