2. To what extent does the possibility of the attainment of Christian character depend upon the attainment of a certain physical and intellectual minimum in life? To what practical steps should this lead us?

3. Have you the concentration which enables you to vision, beyond the actual, the ideal social order? Sketch some of its main features.

4. Is it the quality of need, or the quantity of need, on the mission field that distinguishes the call for service abroad from that at home?

5. If the state of the non-Christian world were such as entirely to obscure its need, would the Church's duty to evangelize the world still stand? Explain.

6. What impulses, other than a sensitive response to need, may keep one active in enterprises of helpfulness? Is the absence of such an impulse creditable?

7. What is the normal Christian reaction to known need? Estimate the function of religion in meeting each kind of world need.

8. What needs in Christian work abroad call for laymen? How would you justify reforestation as a legitimate use of time by a missionary?

9. What additional thing would best enable us to respond to the world need? More knowledge? More love? More dynamic? Greater conviction that we have something to give? What?

10. What in your opinion is the greatest agency thus far in seeing and meeting world need? What has been the inspiration back of this agency?

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CHAPTER IV

Faith in the Pursuant Love of God

Myself, other folks, and God—so far, we have been considering the first two only in this triangular relationship. But as we turn from the needs of the world, so vital, so varied, so overwhelming, we are confronted by the question, who is sufficient for such things? Would it not be madness for any man to dream that his one life could cause a ripple upon so large a surface and so deep an abyss? Many there are who would like to see conditions bettered and needs met, but would not dream of purposing to bring this about. Why should any form a purpose for what seems so impossible of achievement? But is there not some reason why it becomes both natural and inevitable, yes, and impelling to set about this great task-a reason also for confident hope of success? Indeed we shall find all of these when we take into consideration the third great factor with whom we are so indissolubly knit together, and come to understand what is most characteristic in God.

Fourth Week, First Day: The Great Attainment

One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. . . . For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure. . . . Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God.Eph. 4:6; Phil. 2:13; II Cor. 3:5.

Except Jehovah build the house,
They labor in vain that build it:
Except Jehovah keep the city,
The watchman waketh but in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early,
To take rest late,

To eat the bread of toil;

For so he giveth unto his beloved sleep.
Jehovah is my light and my salvation;

Whom shall I fear?

Jehovah is the strength of my life;

...

Of whom shall I be afraid?-Psalm 127:1, 2; 27: I. Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be affrighted at them: for Jehovah thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

And Jehovah, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.. Have not I com.. manded thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not affrighted, neither be thou dismayed: for Jehovah thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. . . . In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he will direct thy paths. -Deut. 31:6, 8; Josh. 1:9; Prov. 3:6.

Homage to personality is of the very essence of democracy. It increases our reverence for God to see how in this sense he may be considered as democratic. For he has carefully avoided dominating our personalities. He does not make himself so patently obvious that we are compelled to believe in him. On the other hand we must, each day, newly affirm our faith in God, and develop strength of spiritual life by triumphing over what often seems like unreality in this realm. Each of us must voluntarily choose, and voluntarily keep the great attainment of a living consciousness of God, such as is found in today's verses.

In our personal experience at its highest we have the conviction that we have seen, known, and experienced God. This conviction is strengthened by the repetition of the experience on our part, and especially by confirmatory testimony from others in whose competence to judge we have most confidence. Gradually our eyes are opened to see God as the great Teacher, progressively educating both ourselves and the race, in an environment partially good and partially bad, but which is moving as we cooperate toward a morally perfect ideal. Furthermore, with Jesus we look on what of goodness is found in man, and make the deduction: "How much more your Father" (cf. Matt. 7:11). Above all, the effect of the personality of Jesus makes it natural to believe in God. He sends the world Christian forth, eager to launch out in the greatest of all life's ventures-the daring to risk everything on the assumption that we are "bound up in the bundle of life with the Lord Jehovah"; the willingness to pray, to plan, to act under the inspiration, friendship, and guarantee of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Fourth Week, Second Day: Love Taking the Initiative

What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? . . . Or what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and seek diligently until she find it? . . . And he arose, and came to his father. But while he was yet afar off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.Luke 15: 4, 8, 20.

But the reality of the fact of God must be filled with content. One day, on the plains of India, a missionary was asked: "If you were compelled to choose but one page from all the Bible to reveal the heart of Christianity, what one would you select?" The unhesitating answer was: "I would unhesitatingly choose that page which tells of the lost sheep,. the lost coin, and the lost boy." Other religions tell about a god who will come to save the righteous and punish the wicked. But in Christianity alone has there been revealed a God who cares enough to seek out and save those that are lost. It used to be easy to believe in a God who would destroy great portions of humanity which were thought to be evil; the hard thing was even to conceive of a Deity that could take trouble over the lost. Since Christ, however, the easy-in fact, to those who have really known him, the inevitable-thing is to believe that God cannot be less than he. Notice in these parables how the shepherd seeks the sheep until he finds it; how the woman seeks the coin until she regains it; how the father loves the boy until he comes back again to the father's house. In this pursuant love of God we find the climax of the revelation of the Father. The aggressive, initiating love of God for man is the very core of the Christian religion and in it resides our hope for an eventually whole and perfect life. Not only will there be joy in heaven over every successful venture of love, but God is hunting and working and loving until the task is done.

Experiencing such love in his God, man must learn to love. In fellowship with such a person man's self-centered nature becomes transformed until he too-like his God-is charac

terized by a loving pursuit which stops not until the need is met.

Fourth Week, Third Day: A Revolution in Values

He was despised, and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as one from whom men hide their face he was despised; and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.-Isa. 53:3-5.

One of the finest products of Israel's religion was the conception that undeserved suffering on the part of the righteous might somehow make toward the saving of the wicked. Other solutions had attributed all suffering to sin. The newer insight perceived that some suffering could be redemptive. Righteous and wicked are so bound together that the undeserved suffering of the one may be the saving of the other. And so it finally dawned on the consciousness of a few leaders that even the longed-for Messiah might not be à worldly king restoring Israel to power, but a suffering servant through whose affliction others would be saved.

This insight was one of the great revolutions in judgments of values. Here man began to see that unmerited suffering in behalf of others could be a characteristic of God, and hence could become the divinest privilege of man. Love's greatest opportunity very often involves taking on a burden that is not merited. In this great passage from Isaiah we find Israel realizing that salvation is in one who was stricken, smitten, and afflicted. How much vaster is the redemptive power and stimulus when we see that it is not man, however exalted, but God himself who becomes a suffering servant for the world! Today let this conception of what God is ready to do and, in fact, is doing, dominate our approach to the world's sin and suffering and need.

Fourth Week, Fourth Day: God's Readiness to Give

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one