By such obediences a standard of social life is arrived at which provides an education for the growing generation, and tt is net surprising that the Bible always lays strees on obedience as the touchstone of the divine society. In the critical years when the Kingdom of Israel was Doing formed the prophet Samuel uttered the memorable words "to! obey is better than sacrifice," and he broke a dynasty because young Saul with all' hin good qualities failed to meet that searching te It in one of the standing themes of the Old Testament that the secret of national security and prosperity was the observance of the national Jaws, and the reason for the di ruption of the Kingdom was always traced to the failure to obey: Social in any satisfying sense of the word can only be entered by keeping She commandments that belong: to (2) What is true of social life in general is equally true of Church Be. ist_on other terms as an institution, but so far as it, is a life exercising its Christian functions, breathing the" Spirit of God, digesting His word and doing 'His' will by the ce-operation of all its parts, it enters upon it through obedience to those Inws of Christ which belong to its constitution. "Bear ye one another's burdens and 40 full the Inw of Jesus Christ." "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind." "Subject yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ."
"Receive ye one another even as Christ also received you to the glory of God." "Freely ye have received, freely give."
It is when the members of a 'Church keep the commands of the Lord that -His life in them and: theirs in Him become real. Tt is! not enough to repeat the ten commandments Sunday by Sunday, nor' even to keep them, for after all they only provide for the minimum of social life. There is a new series of commandments in the New Testament, all of them requiring the power of divine love. By fulfiling there laws of its membership a Church shows the signs of its proper life in growth and fruit and fragrance. But if a Church ignores the laws of hospitality, insists on class-distinctions, raises. money on un-Christian principles, deserts the opportunities for prayer, it has not life enough to lift a There is a very subtle st average man in Mf. Sinclair Lewis' "Babbitt," of whom he kernel of his religion was was respectable and beneficial to one's business to be seen going to service, that the Church kept the Worst Elements from being worse." No man can enter into Ciszeh life on that level, because doesn't even attempt' the commandments of Christ, because he gives no obedience to the Jaws of love, forgiveness, humility and ser-ce, by Which "things "Christians Long-Winded Existence (3) By these steps we come to consider a fourth type of life, besides that of the body, the society: und the church, namely, Immortality hgo in God.' We are not to suppose that immortality means a long-winded existence, Methuselah without end. For it is not Death that is the enemy of Life but worldliness. Immortality then is that qualifica tion of life that is given by the secret of Christ and the strength of the Spirit, that enables it to triumph over' time and to abide in love. "The Old Testment says little about the life beyond in comparison, let us say, with the sacred books of Egypt, but its few prophetic words focus fellowship with G "In my flesh I shall see God," "I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness," "Thou will show me the path of life." This is the climax of human opportunity, and how is it entered, this highest realm of Tite? by keeping the But something of the puzslement of the young lawyer that questioned Christ settles on us, and we ask "Which commandment?"—They seem innumerable, but we may remember that Jesus reduced them all to two in his teaching, and finally turned the two into one by- his eros: and resurrection. For there is a way to love both God and our fellows which are the highest commandments of all
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.