It is for us, in whom the Christian Church is at this moment partially
embodied, to declare that Christianity, that the Christian faith, the
Christian manhood, can do that for the world which the world needs. You
say, "What can I do?" You can furnish one Christian life. You can
furnish a life so faithful to every duty, so ready for every service, so
determined not to commit every sin, that the great Christian Church
shall be the stronger for your living in it, and the problem of the
world be answered, and a certain great peace come into this poor,
perplexed phase of our humanity as it sees that new revelation of what
Christianity is. Yes, Christ can give the world the thing it needs in
unknown ways and methods that we have not yet begun to suspect.
Christianity has not yet been tried. My friends, no man dares to condemn
the Christian faith to-day, because the Christian faith has not been
tried. Not until men get rid of the thought that it is a poor machine,
an expedient for saving them from suffering and pain, not until they get
the grand idea of it as the great power of God present in and through
the lives of men, not until then does Christianity enter upon its true
trial and become ready to show what it can do. Therefore we struggle
against our sin in order that men may be saved around us, and not simply
that our own souls may be saved.
Tell me you have a sin that you mean to commit this evening that is
going to make this night black.
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