The Business Man and the Churches

Mr. President and Gentlemen,--

I think it is a fact that the business men of this country are getting more interested in the work of the churches. In Toronto one of the significant movements of the year has been the Laymen's Movement. I speak on politics a little and on education a little, but there is no theme that I have been so much asked to talk of as some subject that is of interest to some church or denomination. It is the same on the other side of the line. I came against this a year and a half ago, when I met several thousand men-all laymen, except a few men with short coats and red neckties, who had got in. These men represented the largest industries of the continent, and they were met for two or three days to discuss the problem of the churches. I met this point at Indianapolis, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Jackson, Cleveland, Rochester, Boston, New York, East Orange, Philadelphia, Washington, and two or three other places in the United States. The same thing is true of Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Peterborough, Port Hope, Hamilton, Brantford, London, Woodstock, and one or two other places in Canada, where the same sort of men, business men of affairs, met to discuss seriously some problem of the Church. It is a fact, and your President asks me to explain the why and the wherefore of this interesting thing.

Thinking over it this morning, that business men like you and me should be showing more interest in getting closer to the work of the churches, I concluded, for one thing, from the point of view of the business men, that there is a growing sense on their part that the life of a man is too big, too vital, too abundant, to be confined within the narrow lines that lead merely to the making of money. That is one thing. That the average thoughtful man feels that there is that in him which cannot be expressed in the mere routine of the office, or store, or factory, or shop. The life of a man is far more than what is seen. Back of it there is the indomitable fire that burns within, but lives by the unseen flame within; and every man among us has that something which is the distinction of that man, that separates him from everyone else; and his business in the world and his success in the world is marked by the expression that he gives to that something, that Idea, that makes him a distinct individuality. No man among us can express himself, all that is in him, in the doing of the particular job that he may be at, in the office, or the store, or the factory.

More--I think this, also--that to many men in affairs who reflect a bit, they see no tragedy so great, none on the stage so great, so appalling, as that which they see in the circle in which they move, of men of large life, great vitality, hopes, and ideals, who because they set themselves simply to business and the making of money, come to the atrophy of what is greatest in them. You and I know men, and if we look soberly and clearly, with wide-open eyes, into our own hearts we may find that these men are not far from us, who suffer atrophy of the best instincts just because they give themselves so absolutely to the things of life. There is no epitaph so appalling as that written over the man who was ° born a man and died a grocer." That epitaph would still have use if tombstones told the truth. Many a man is born with the instincts and hopes and aspirations of a man; he dies a grocer, or a lawyer, or a manufacturer, or an official. He loses the manhood that is in him in the mere office that he holds, or the job he does, and that sense grows upon men who move about and meet with men who had it in them to be, great as men, who are only great as officials or as instruments in the doing of things.

And, more than this, I think there is a growing sense with the man of the world today-a sense of the background of life, the unseen in life. No man is great whose background is not great and deep as in a picture you see through among the trees, to the dark, mysterious some-place beyond-the work of the artist and yet to his art the best that is in it is in that thing that you do, not see-deep, far in the dark beyond. The life of a man is too often the shallow surface of the photograph that has no perspective, that has no deepness. And the sense grows upon men that the strength of a man is not in the things he does, in the words he says, or in those external manifestations, but in the deep background of his loves and hates and hopes and fears that cannot be catalogued or measured. So it grows upon those who must of necessity deal with the things of life, its business, its trade, its affairs, that if he is to be strong and to be truly great, that background must be maintained, must be preserved-the unseen background of life.

These things struck me this morning when I faced the problem of why it is that the business man is getting nearer the churches, into more sympathy with those, things that seem to him to be effective. From another side the business man, with this sense of the largeness of the unseen life, too vital, too abundant, too big, to be expressed merely in the routine of the office or shop, and who fears the tragedy of the atrophy of the best that is in himself, and who has a sense of something unseen round about him, the dreams he has, the hopes and the fears, finds in the Church an aid and an educator to that, part of life that he calls the religious life. I know religion and religions are words often used in a wrong sense, though to me that word means this-the something in the life of a man that binds him to the unseen, and this is as truly religion .in darkest Africa or in the pagan islands of the sea as it is in you and me-whatever it may be; the sense of the Indian that kept him in touch with the happy hunting grounds beyond the setting sun, which was as essentially religious as anything that binds the most saintly man to what he calls his God. It is that something in man himself, because man is made as he is, so as to have the instincts that keep him in touch with the unseen. That is religion.

The Church, by its constitution, its purpose, its genius, is the best educator and aid that we know as yet for the average man for keeping alive that inward hope, the flame of life. It is the best. More than that, the Church is, after all, notwithstanding its mistakes, the best agent we have for the service of those around. It is a church, and not a club. I admit that many a church I know is not a church at all. They are clubs. The distinction is quite obvious. A man pays his fees and the club serves him-administers to his wants. When it has done that it has done its full. A church that ministers to its members only is not a church at all; it is a club, with an oratory platform at one end and a concert hall at the other. The church that exists for its own sake, or for the service of its members, is not a church as it was conceived by Him who is the hope and the founder of the Church. It exists, if it is a church at all, for the service of the world, for the service of those who need its service. He put it Himself when He said: " If any would be great among you, let him be your servant, and he that would be the very first, let him be the bond slave of all." That the ideal and genius, the purpose and, ultimate aim of the Church is serving men, regardless of who or what they are, giving itself whatever of truth, whatever of power, whatever of help it has for the service of man. That is the purpose of the Church. And men come to see that, in spite of its limitations, and of its mistakes, the Church is today a great instrument in the community for the unselfish service of those who need.

You and I know that the very easiest thing to do is to pay money. We raised something of a fund for the need of those who are just outside the city here, in two or three weeks, of $18,000. It was easily raised, and far more than that value of goods was sent in by manufacturers and wholesale men for the relief of that need. But I say it was not a club, it was not the leaders of a club; it was not the men, like ourselves here, who put up the money and sent out the goods who did the great service, the essential service; but those who did the real service, who really served those poor, were those persons who, day after day, unreported, unheralded, unpraised, were going about, and will go for weeks from shack to shack, ministering to those who need. And the very same thing is true in this city. The institutions of relief and of service-the hospitals and the homes, and the House of Industry; those who patiently, unselfishly, and for the sake of doing some good, work, day in and day out, year in and year out-they are the ones who, after all, are doing the great service. Analyze the list and you will find that nearly every man and woman of them draws something of the inspiration for that extended and unfailing service from the background of the Church.

Then, too, this: The Church's ideal today is not the saving of the individual. It is only of late that the Church has begun to realize this, because two or three centuries ago the emphasis used to be on the individual man-what he thought and what was to become of him. The Church has begun to see that a far larger thing, a higher ideal, is involved. The social organizations of man, the social needs of man, the social hopes of man--all that is involved in what He meant when He put His Church into the world to do some good. And the Church's social object and ideal is now coming to be realized as it never was before. The purpose is not simply that of getting men into a heaven somewhere in the great hereafter, but getting something of heaven--its peace, its happiness, its right relation, its life-on earth. That, now, to all the interests and all the organizations of the world is a part of the business of the Church. More than that, the Church appeals to every man of us who knows things as they are-makes its appeal to what men ought to be. The great word ought -" it ought to be "is the great word of the Church. It ought to be in your life and in mine; it ought to be in your city, in your land; and what ought to be is the great distinctive word of the Church. It makes a distinction as no other agency does, as the school does not do, as the press does not do, as no other institution does; it makes a distinction between right and wrong, and puts the emphasis on what is right, that it ought to be; and what is wrong, that it ought not to be; and the doing of the right, whether for the individual, for the home, for the community, or for the nation, the doing or the right does not end in the same way as the wrong.

More than that, there is one thing that is coming distinctly into view, that the Church and the State are the two great organizations of democracy. Democracy has a number of organizations-a club like this, a bankers' association, a union--any organization of men is one of the organizations of democracy, just because the people rule, because the opportunity and obligation rests upon all the people. each to do his part in the government of the nation. Just because of that, any association, any club, any school, any organization of men that does anything for clearing the thinking of men, or for the help of life, is an organization of democracy, though the two great organizations are the State and the Church. The State, of course, is the council, the legislature, the parliament. Each is an organization of democracy. But democracy cannot express itself, and never did express itself, fully through the city council, or the legislature, or the parliament. The Church is the other great organ of democracy, and both of these should care for their land; both must do each its own work, or suffering will come to the community and the nation. The Church must back up the State. The State must nave the. way for the Church, each doing its own work in its own way; but both as organizations of the great democracy, both making for the same high ends-the betterment of the life of the community. The State may find it essential to do certain things that, in some directions, are not good for the community. The State may find that it must develop the resources of the land; it must run new railways through; it must bring in people to construct the railways and occupy the land. In all that there is danger. In all these pending developments of our Dominion there is danger to the Dominion; it is inevitable. It is the duty of the press, institutions like these, and the Church, to go into those new communities that are opened, and help the other side of the life of the community, which cannot be well helped through the legislation of the State.

The bringing of thousands upon thousands into our land, pouring in .at a rate, during this year, greater than ever went into the United States when the population was five and a half times more than we now have, makes a problem for the nation and the Church. The business of the latter is to go into every one of these new communities, without expressing its opinion as to whether the Doukhobor, or Galician, or Bulgarian, or any other class, should or should not have been brought here. That is not the Church's affair. But it is up to the Church to go in and make the most of them. Whether any more should or should not be allowed in may be argued; but for those that are here, as a Christianizing and Canadianizing agency, it is the business of the Church to follow every trail, to be with every construction camp, and to be the pioneer over the plains and down through the valleys of the mountains. The democracy gives the Church such an opportunity as it never had in any other age or land.

What is the meaning of this movement among the laymen? It is that they believe that they should give the Gospel to China and Japan. It is because they believe that if they do not do something of that sort there will be the devil to nay in the days to come. We have taught Japan our tricks of peace and war; we have taught China how to build a warship; we have taught China the wealth of her ore and how to estimate aright the strength of her men. Japan needs to learn tricks only once: China, only once, India, not more than one and a half times at least. And China and India and Japan and Corea, if they are not touched by something else than merely our trade, if they know Canada and this world in the West only by our warships and by our trade and by our tariff walls, I say to you there will be the devil to pay before you and I have gone off the scene. If ever the war of the world comes it will not be on the Atlantic, but on the Western sea, with China, India and Japan-millions of men, an unknown strength-and it is our obligation as Canadians, churchmen or not, so to relate ourselves to the large problems of the nation that China and Japan will understand us more than they have done, and that we should understand them more than we do; and in the past, up to date, those who have done most to make for international good relations are the missionary men and women who have gone out to those countries. The people may not understand what we mean by our tariff walls, or by our laws that shut them out, but they understand men and women who go and serve the sick and the poor, and open the eyes of the blind, and minister to the minds of all their people. They can understand that, and they do believe that in the United States and Canada there is something more than merely seeking to make out of the Orient all that can be made without doing something for the Orient in return.

By the work done in the Church our nation should come to a higher ideal as to what it is for; that our nation here in Canada is not simply for the aggrandizement of those belonging to it. We hold this half of the continent, not because we are here, and not because those who came before us drove back the French and killed off the Indians. The only hold we have to this half of the continent is that we hold its resources and its opportunities for the service of the world, and I said with frankness the other day to a large number of men on the other side of the line that Britain had borne too long the burden of the world; that the States had for too long concerned themselves only about their homes and their trade and their interests between the Lakes and the Gulf and the Seas; that now they have been crowded by events over which they had no control, and circumstances that they did not arrange, into the limelight of the world; and I for one do not regret, without discussing Imperialism, that this part of the Empire has beside it a republic that is bound up in the bundle with it, whose burden is the burden of civilization, Anglo-Saxon civilization, and that these two must stand together for the largest freedom, and enlightenment, and civilization of the world; and that this fact is at the bottom and is working through the outlook, the purposes of the Church, as it goes abroad beyond the seas into the large outer world.