The
year 2012 marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the death of J
Gresham Machen, who died on January 1, 1937, at the age of 55.
Machen
was born, the middle brother of three, in Baltimore, Maryland on July
28, 1881, 16 years after the American Civil War or what he would
probably have known as The war between the States as although
Maryland is a border state, his mother was from Macon, Georgia.
Through
inheritances, he became wealthy as a young man. At one time and
another, his grandfather on his mother's side and his own father each
left him $50,000 and this in a day when a family could live well on
$3,000 a year. His financial circumstances freed him to study in
Europe and later to support Christian publications and Christian
work.
But
his family left him more than money. They gave him an inheritance of
Southern views, social connections and solid achievement. His
cultured mother wrote a book on The
Bible in Browning.
His father was a successful Baltimore lawyer and also wrote detective
novels. US President Woodrow Wilson was a family friend.
The
family were Presbyterians and Gresham was taught the Bible and the
Westminster standards from a young age. He would later say that at
twelve he had a better understanding of the Bible than many students
entering seminary. In 1896 he became a communicant member of the
church.
His
higher academic career began locally at Johns Hopkins in 1898, where
he studied for three years before doing post-graduate work in the
classics department. After a brief period studying banking and
international law in Chicago he enrolled at Princeton Seminary to
study theology, graduating in the Spring of 1905. He then spent an
important year in Germany, in Marburg and Gottingen, studying under
some of the leading liberal teachers of the day. On his return to
America he spent a year assisting in the New Testament department at
Princeton.
He
was eventually ordained as a minister in 1914, after discovering that
Christ “keeps a firmer hold on us than we keep on him.” He became
assistant professor of New Testament at Princeton that same year and
full professor in 1915. He spent 1918 and the early part of 1919 in
Europe serving with the YMCA in the Great War.
Machen
is best remembered for the battle he waged with others against
modernism, chiefly at Princeton and then Westminster Seminary. He
insisted that Modernist Christianity and Bible Christianity were two
different religions. Modernism doubted the truth of Christ's
resurrection and virgin birth, miracles and the Bible's accuracy, all
of which Machen defended.
His
most famous book appeared in 1930, his doctoral thesis on The
Virgin Birth of Christ which
answers objection after
objection. He began by showing that the doctrine was very old and
that differences in Matthew and Luke can be reconciled. He argues
that the virgin birth was a crucial element of the whole story of
Jesus: “Remove the part and the whole becomes harder not easier to
accept; the New Testament account of Jesus is most convincing when it
is taken as a whole.”
Eventually,
in 1929, Machen felt it necessary to leave Princeton and with others
to found Westminster
Theological Seminary
in (founded “to
carry on and perpetuate policies and traditions of Princeton
Theological Seminary, as it existed prior to the reorganisation
thereof in 1929, in respect to scholarship and militant defence of
the Reformed Faith.”) In
1933 he formed the Independent
Board for Presbyterian Missions.
He was suspended from the ministry for this, which led to the
founding in June 1936 of what he called the Presbyterian
Church of America,
known today as the Orthodox
Presbyterian Church.
It was less than six months later that Machen unexpectedly died in a
Roman Catholic hospital in Bismarck, North Dakota and so was with the
Lord, which is far better.
Here
I want to concentrate on three things
1. Machen's wars – serving
hot chocolate for the YMCA
2. Machen's wars – the battle with
modernism
3. Machen's wars – consolations in the midst of battle
Machen's wars – Serving hot chocolate for the YMCA
America
did not enter the 1914-1918 war until April 6, 1917, although events
were followed closely on that side of the water.
Machen's
attitude to the war can be gauged from his complaint that Princeton
was a hot-bed of patriotic enthusiasm and military ardour, which made
him feel like a man without a country. (see Stonehouse, 247). Like
other men of God it was Machen's lot often to feel out of step with
his times. It happened with regard to the war and with regard to
liberalism. (Another obvious example of this was his failure
to support Prohibition in the election of 1928 and took the view that
this is not even the sort of question the church should advise
government on - for which he was unfairly castigated as a drunk).
Machen
was
at odds with Woodrow Wilson's use of war for idealist aims - to make
the world safe for democracy. In a letter to his mother, he declared
that,
“An
alleged war in the interest of democracy … does not appeal to me
.... This talk about British democracy arouses my ire as much as
anything.” After the war, he concluded that, “The war for
humanity, so far as its result is concerned, looks distressingly like
an old-fashioned land-grab.” (Stonehouse, 244, 299).
Writing
against a book promoting
imperialism, he says (Stonehouse, 246)
“Imperialism, to my mind, is satanic, whether it is German or English … I am opposed to all imperial ambitions, wherever they may be cherished and with whatever veneer of benevolent assimilation they may be disguised … The author glorifies war and ridicules efforts at the production of mutual respect and confidence among equal nations …. [The book] makes me feel anew the need for Christianity … what a need for the gospel!”
Writing
to his mother in September 1914 about the Allies he said (Stonehouse,
244)
The alliance of Great Britain with Russia and Japan seems to me still an unholy thing – an unscrupulous effort to crush the life out of a progressive commercial rival. Gradually a coalition had to be gotten together against Germany, and the purpose of it was only too plain. An alleged war in the interest of democracy the chief result of which will be to place a splendid people at the mercy of Russia does not appeal to me.
Great Britain seems to me the least democratic of all the civilized nations of the world – with a land-system that makes great masses of the people practically serfs, and a miserable social system that is more tyrannical in the really important, emotional side of life than all the political oppression that ever was practised. And then if there is such a thing as British democracy it has no place for any rival on the face of the earth. The British attitude towards Germany’s just effort at a place in ocean trade seems to me one of the great underlying causes of the war.
Shortly
before America entered the war he wrote to his Congressman
complaining about the draft. He was keen to make clear that he was
not a pacifist but was convinced that compulsory
military service brought not a danger of militarism but was
militarism. He wrote (Stonehouse, 247)
“Even temporary conscription goes against the grain with me, unless it is resorted to to repel actual invasion, but my fundamental objection is directed against compulsory service in time of peace.
The country seems to be rushing into two things to which I am more strongly opposed than anything else in the world – a permanent alliance with Great Britain, which will inevitably mean a continuance of the present vassalage, and a permanent policy of compulsory military service with all the brutal interference of the state in individual and family life which that entails, and which has caused the misery of Germany and France.”
“The real indictment against the modern world is that by the modern world human liberty is being destroyed. At that point I know many modern men could only with difficulty repress a smile. The word liberty has today a very archaic sound; it suggests G.A. Henty, flag waving, the boys of ’76, and the like. Twentieth-century intellectuals, it is thought, have long ago outgrown all such childishness as that. So the modern historians are spelling “liberty,” when they are obliged to use the ridiculous word, in quotation marks: no principle, they are telling us, was involved, for example, in the American Revolution; economic causes alone produced that struggle; and Patrick Henry was engaging in cheap melodrama when he said, “Give me liberty or give me death.””
On
returning to the USA after the war Machen, like others, saw that many
of the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles constituted an attack
on international and interracial peace so that war would follow war
“in a wearisome progression.” As he had warned before the war,
his own country faced, “the miserable prospect of the continuance
of the evils of war even into peace times.” As often happens with
“temporary” government agencies, the war bureaucracies continued
to grow and centralise.
Letters
A
book has recently appeared under the P&R imprint containing
letters written from Europe by Machen during the war. There had been
thoughts of publishing them nearer the time but it never happened and
it is only now that Dr Barry Waugh has transcribed and edited the
letters for publication under the title Letters
from the front: J Gresham Machen's Correspondence from World War I.
The
book is about 360 pages in length and contains an introduction and
reflections with the bulk of the book being taken up with the
letters, chiefly to his mother, who the bachelor loved dearly. The
letters were written between January 22, 1918 and March 2, 1919. The
book also contains some translations of letters written to Machen in
French during the period.
When
America declared war Machen was 36 and above the draft age. He wanted
to aid the war effort, however. Darryl Hart (Hart, 44) points out
that Machen's father had died in 1915 and that he was feeling in a
rut at Princeton where students were unresponsive. Hart says that
part of his motivation was to “make a difference outside academia”.
He thought that as a chaplain his rank would keep him from
interacting with ordinary soldiers. He considered driving ambulance
but it became clear that there was an abundance of volunteers for
that work, which could involve transporting munitions and so it as a
YMCA worker that on January 16 of the following year Machen left
America. Machen was quite cool towards the YMCA in many ways (he
feared “desecration
of the Sabbath in the name of Christianity and the like”) but
it offered educational and literacy programmes for soldiers and
sought to give moral and spiritual guidance at the front, which is
where he wanted to be. Their huts in France offered hot chocolate,
cigarettes and other goods to soldiers. Machen was eager to be
involved in the “religious work” (Machen did not like the
expression and always put it in quotation marks when he used it, 239)
and did hold many Bible studies with soldiers eventually but he spent
much of his time making hot chocolate and serving in other menial
ways. He was “a
grocery clerk and nothing else” he once quipped. At
times he was quite close to the front and knew his share of bombings
and other deprivations. The war ended November 11, 1918 but it was
some time before Machen felt able and willing to leave Europe for
home. Stephen J Nichols has commented on the impact of the war that
“the loss of life and the devastation of the landscape” stunned
Machen so that he could no longer be “the same academic scholar
enjoying his detached academic life”. (Nichols, 40).
The
letters are very personal and chatty in tone and contain little of a
theological nature and sometimes nothing overtly Christian. However,
they are of great interest as they not only give us a good deal of
biographical background to a man who God greatly used in his time but
also paint for us a picture of a Christian man seeking to serve the
Lord in the midst of trying circumstances. His first biographer Ned
Stonehouse calls it a “singular period” and says that “on the
dark and sombre background of the war some of the facets of Machen's
character light up with exceptional brilliance” (Stonehouse, 240).
A
number of things come out in Waugh's collection.
1.
His desire to be useful and helpful
Throughout
it is clear that Machen's chief desire is to be useful in whatever
way he can. He wanted to bring the gospel to the men and to help
fellow believers, of course, but where that was not possible he was
happy to make hot chocolate or to do whatever was needed.
Towards
the end of the war he gave a large donation to the McCall Mission. He
was not completely satisfied with them but thought they might use the
money better than the Red Cross.
2.
His desire to bring God's Word to people
His
religious efforts were often frustrated. Waugh mentions that Sunday
was often pay day for soldiers and that entertainments were often
organised then and so “Machen's complaints about the difficulty of
serving the soldiers' spiritual needs can easily be understood.”
He
made his impact nevertheless. For example Waugh cites a war memoir by
R W Johnson that refers to Machen when he worked in Pexonne (163). It
reads
In
one of the buildings in
the central part of the village the Y. M. C. A. had established a
canteen, and we wish to say that it was one of the best Y. M. C. A.'s
we ever had with us. Our
hats are off to the "Y" man of Pexonne.
On
December 17, 1918 Machen wrote (239) of feeling encouraged by
meetings he had been able to take speaking on The
spiritual battle.
“Perhaps my trip is going to be worthwhile” he says, betraying
how frustrating ut had been to that point.
3.
His willingness to make do
Cornelius
Van Til once commented on Machen
Machen
was known for being a sharp dresser and having a consistent stylish
look Well, after he died they found 20 or 30 exact copies of the same
suit in his closet!
In
war torn France such snappy dressing had to be forgotten. Waugh
comments
In
France, he spent months in a wet wool uniform, the odour of which was
further enhanced by his own filthy body that had not been washed in
months.
He
became quite expert not only at making hot chocolate in conditions
that would give health and safety experts heart failure but also
became an expert at catching and killing rats.
On
March 2, 1918 he writes (44)
At
times I feel a longing for a land of peace and for home. I feel as
though it would be a relief to the yes to see a window pane once
more, and a relief to the ears not to hear at intervals the noise of
the guns and distant shells. There is one little baby in our village.
In the midst of the military surroundings it is refreshing to see the
little face. I wonder what its first impression of life will be in
the midst of all this ruin.
Spiritually,
he had to make do too – reading his English Bible rather than in
Greek, which brought home some things with a freshness; worshipping
with Roman Catholics. Of one sermon he says
“It
was far, far better than what we got from the Protestant liberals”
(319). In conversation afterwards, he could not agree with the priest
on the mass but responded to a complaint that the phrase “descended
into hell” was missing from versions issued to American soldiers “I
could assure him that I disapproved as much as he did of the
mutilation of the creed” (282).
4.
His very human foibles
Machen
was sometimes frustrated with his fellow workers and by contrary
providences and is often disappointed in decisions made that were
beyond his control. It is common for him to express his frustrations
in one letter only to regret these in another and apologise for being
so negative. At one point he loses his fountain pen and at another,
more significantly, a suitcase of belongings. On another occasion he
is disappointed to hear of a letter and a parcel sent a month before
not having arrived. The letters reveal something of the real man not
some public image.
5.
His intellectual thirst and delight in French culture.
Several
times in this period Machen was in Paris and other important French
cities such as Tours and was able to take in what they had to offer
by way of culture. He made great efforts to acquire the French
language though he often felt frustrated by the lack of opportunity
and his own slow progress. He loved going to the theatre to watching
French plays and later lectures at the Sorbonne, although he
regretted not having done so more when he could. At one point he says
“it is tantalizing to read the Sunday bills” (270) announcing
what was on at the theatre in Paris.
He
also later developed quite and interest in French history and says in
one place (230)
A
perverse desire has come over me to steep myself in the history of
the renaissance or of the grand
siecle
instead of preparing my Sprunt lectures.
In
1915 he had been invited to give the Sprunt lectures at Union
Seminary for 1921. These formed the basis of his book The
origin of Paul's religion.
6.
His thankfulness to God
At
the close of the war itself Machen wrote a long letter to his mother.
He says (213)
Perhaps,
one might regret not having been at Paris when the stupendous news
came in. But I do not think I regret it. We heard indeed no clamour
of joyful bells, no joyful shouts, no singing of the Marseillaise.
But we heard something greater by far – in contrast with the
familiar roar of war –
namely
the silence of that misty morning. I think I can venture upon the
paradox. That was a silence that could really be heard. I suppose
that it was the most eloquent, the most significant in the history of
the world. … But joy should not be careless or exuberant, the dead
were being brought in just as I passed … It seemed almost
impossible. On that exuberant joyful morning when the whole world was
shouting, what possible place was there for death and sorrow? God
knows and he alone. Meanwhile I felt more humble but not less
thankful.
Towards
the end he writes (218)
Meanwhile
I am thankful to God for the preservation of my own life. Or rather,
that does not just express what I mean, and I am not quite sure
whether I can express it. I mean rather that I am thankful that God
has not put upon me more than I could bear. It is obvious that other
men are far braver and cooler than I am. I lose sleep when they seem
to think nothing at all of the dangers that hover in the air. But out
in the dressing-station, when the shells were falling close around, I
somehow gained the conviction that I was in God's care and that He
would not try me beyond my strength & that courage would keep
pace with danger, or rather that danger (for I confess it turns out
rather that way) would keep within the limits of courage! If for
example a shell had hit within five feet of my head & I had been
blown six or eight feet by the blast I am a little afraid that my
nerves would have given way & I should not have been able to
continue my service as coolly as one of my YMCA colleagues did under
those circumstances. Nothing terrific like that happened to me, &
I got through the trying days, though not at all with distinction, at
least without distinct disgrace.
Machen's wars – The battle with modernism
Even
as far back as 1918 there were concerns with modernism in the
Presbyterian church and other Protestant churches. The 90 essays that
make up the 12 volume work The
Fundamentals (from
which the word fundamentalist is said to be drawn) had been published
in the period 1910-1915 as a clarion call in defence of orthodox
Protestant beliefs, attacking higher criticism, liberal theology and
geological evolution, among other things.
In
his letter of December 28 1918 Machen says to his mother (243)
“If
my conscience were quite at rest on the matter of principle, upon
which Dr Stevenson and I differ so widely, I should be happy now.”
Dr
J Ross Stevenson was principal of Princeton and the reference is to
curriculum changes that were to put less emphasis on the biblical
languages and apparently on the Calvinism in which the seminary had
been steeped. The problems at Princeton can in many ways be dated
from this curriculum change.
Some
of what Machen had to say about Stevenson was removed from the
letters but he wrongly assumed that in his YMCA role Stevenson had
prevented or delayed his involvement in the religious work in France,
In fact it was Dr Henry King who had him moved to Paris as some had
complained that Machen's sermons were “too long and too deep”.
Waugh
comments that at this time Machen was able to come to peace of mind
with regard to Stevenson but “his assessment of the situation with
Dr Stevenson would change over the course of the next decade”.
(317).
What
happened, as we have intimated, was that there was a series of
battles between so called modernists and fundamentalists with the
moderates between them also having quite an important impact. Machen
was the focus of much of the controversy.
In
1922 Liberal Baptist Henry Emerson Fosdick, supplying First
Presbyterian Church, New York preached a notorious sermon called
Shall
the Fundamentalists Win? The
sermon has been cited as “the signal for a new and public outbreak
of the conflict between the forces of historic Christianity and
modern liberalism within the Presbyterian Church in the USA.”
(Rian, Presbyterian
Conflict,
17). Long before, before Machen
had returned from France, Fosdick had published a strongly
unbelieving article entitled The
Trenches and the Church at Home
in the Atlantic
Monthly for
January 1919. Attacking biblical Christianity he declared that the
church had lost the soldiers because it proclaimed a negative
religion of outmoded doctrines that failed to measure up to their
self-sacrifice at the front. “The only use of the church is to
gather up humanity's best,” he declared, to unite people in common
cause of progressive social aims.
Machen
probably knew of Fosdick's article when he addressed the Princeton
alumni on May 6, 1919, on The
Church in the War.
He declared that the church had failed in the war because it had
abandoned the reality of sin, the gospel of personal salvation and
the sanctified life. He wrote, “One
drop of the precious blood of Jesus is worth more, as a ground for
the hope of the world, than all the rivers of blood which have flowed
upon the battlefields of France”. It was not merely a matter of
learning more about Jesus but of believing in his divine holiness as
distinct from our sinfulness. The
self-satisfaction argument declared that the soldiers' sacrifice kept
God happy, since the Germans were the real sinners in the war and the
Allies had won a great victory by their stupendous efforts.
For
Machen
The roots of modern self-satisfaction lie far deeper than the war. During the past century a profound spiritual change has been produced in the whole thought and life of the world - no less a change than the substitution of paganism for Christianity as the dominant principle of life.
He
defined paganism as “a healthy and harmonious and joyous
development of existing human faculties” which is the opposite of
Christianity, the “religion of the broken heart”. For the
Christian, it is only after repentance that joy comes in being the
Lord's steward in all of life.
Some
time later in 1924 he wrote similarly
At this point we find the most fundamental divergence between modernism and the Christian faith; the modernist assertion that doctrine springs from life, and may be translated back into the life from which it came, really involves the relinquishment of all objective truth in the sphere of religion. If a thing is merely useful it may cease to be useful in another generation; but if it is true, it remains true to the end of time. ... It makes little difference how much or how little of Christian doctrine the modernist affirms since whatever he affirms, he affirms as a mere expression of an inner experience, and does not affirm any of it as fact.
Machen's
great ability was to see liberalism not as a variant form of the
gospel but as another religion altogether. This he brought out in his
book Christianity
and liberalism.
The book began as an article in 1921 and was published in 1923. “The
author is convinced” wrote Machen “that liberalism on the one
hand and the religion of the historic church on the other are not two
varieties of the same religion, but two distinct religions proceeding
from altogether separate roots.”
Machen's
last address to the Princeton students was on fighting the good
fight. He said
You will have a battle ... when you go forth as ministers into the church. The church is now in a period of deadly conflict. The redemptive religion known as Christianity is contending, in our own Presbyterian Church and in all the larger churches in the world, against a totally alien type of religion. As always, the enemy conceals his most dangerous assaults under pious phrases and half truths. The shibboleths of the adversary have sometimes a very deceptive sound. "Let us propagate Christianity," the adversary says, "but let us not always be engaged in arguing in defence of it; let us make our preaching positive, and not negative; let us avoid controversy; let us hold to a Person and not to dogma; let us sink small doctrinal differences and seek the unity of the church of Christ; let us drop doctrinal accretions and interpret Christ for ourselves; let us look for our knowledge of Christ in our hearts; let us not impose Western creeds on the Eastern mind; let us be tolerant of opposing views." Such are some of the shibboleths of that agnostic Modernism which is the deadliest enemy of the Christian religion today. They deceive some of God's people some of the time; they are heard sometimes from the lips of good Christian people, who have not the slightest inkling of what they mean. But their true meaning, to thinking men, is becoming increasingly clear. Increasingly it is becoming necessary for a man to decide whether he is going to stand or not … If you decide to stand for Christ, you will not have an easy life in the ministry.
He
also says
I do not think that we shall obtain courage by any mere lust of conflict. In some battles that means may perhaps suffice. Soldiers in bayonet practice were sometimes, and for all I know still are, taught to give a shout when they thrust their bayonets at imaginary enemies; I heard them doing it even long after the armistice in France. That serves, I suppose, to overcome the natural inhibition of civilized man against sticking a knife into human bodies. It is thought to develop the proper spirit of conflict. Perhaps it may be necessary in some kinds of war. But it will hardly serve in this Christian conflict. In this conflict I do not think we can be good fighters simply by being resolved to fight. For this battle is a battle of love; and nothing ruins a man’s service in it so much as a spirit of hate. No, if we want to learn the secret of this warfare, we shall have to look deeper; and we can hardly do better than turn again to that great fighter, the Apostle Paul. ...
And
Where are you going to stand in the great battle which now rages in the church? Are you going to curry favor with the world by standing aloof; are you going to be “conservative liberals” or “liberal conservatives” or “Christians who do not believe in controversy,” or anything else so self-contradictory and absurd? Are you going to be Christians, but not Christians overmuch? Are you going to stand coldly aloof when God’s people fight against ecclesiastical tyranny at home and abroad? Are you going to excuse yourselves by pointing out personal defects in those who contend for the faith today? Are you going to be disloyal to Christ in external testimony until you can make all well within your own soul? Be assured, you will never accomplish your purpose if you adopt such a program as that. Witness bravely to the truth that you already understand, and more will be given you; but make common cause with those who deny or ignore the gospel of Christ, and the enemy will forever run riot in your life.
Machen's wars – Consolations in the midst of battle
The final thing I would like to do is to consider a short address that Machen gave to the second batch of outgoing students from Westminster Seminary in 1931. It is of interest to us here because it is headed in published form (see Hart's Selected shorter writings) Consolations in the midst of battle. It is interesting because the battle that Machen has in mind is not World War I and, although he clearly has in mind the battle for the truth that he and others were then involved in that was still raging at the time, what has to say has relevance to every age. It is the same theme as that which he touched on in his last address to the Princeton students. Then he said
God grant that you … may be fighters, too! Probably you have your battles even now; you have to contend against sins gross or sins refined; you have to contend against the sin of slothfulness and inertia; ... against doubt and despair. Do not think it strange if you fall thus into divers temptations. The Christian life is a warfare after all. John Bunyan rightly set it forth under the allegory of a Holy War; and when he set it forth, in his greater book, under the figure of a pilgrimage, the pilgrimage, too, was full of battles.
Early on in the Westminster address he mentions the twin evils of opposition from the world and from a worldly church, enemies we still face today. “The world today” he says “is opposed to the faith that you profess and the visible church, too often, has made common cause with the world.”
He reminds them that this has always been the case and that the Saviour warned us that it would be so. In light of this, Westminster, he says, was looking for men willing to bear the reproach of Christ and to work hard at studying God's Word.
The consolations or comforts he offers are twofold. First, and not to be underestimated, there is “the affections and prayers of the little company of men, unpopular with the world, who you have called your teachers”. He reminds them that these comrades stand with far more than seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.
He reminds them, secondly and more expansively, that his was not the first period when the Christian church was tempted to be discouraged by events. “Again and again” he says “the gospel has seemed to be forever forgotten; yet always it has burst forth with new power and the world has been set aflame.” He wants them to be expectant then and meanwhile not to be unduly impressed “by the pomp and power of this unbelieving age”.
He then describes how a week earlier he had looked down on the city from the 102nd floor of the then newly completed Empire State Building in New York. He states how impressed he was by it all but he says that his mind then went to other buildings he had seen before. He thought particularly of the great cathedrals of England and the continent, living expressions of the human soul and act of worship to Almighty God.
He suggests that while modern builders may be good at lifting the body (1240 feet in record time) they do not compare with the ability of builders in former times to lift the soul. In a flight of fantasy he continues his contrast between the virtual Tower of Babel that he had more recently visited and the ancient cathedrals built over centuries designed to lift ones faith on wings to “the very presence of the infinite God”.
He is eager for his enthusiasm not to be construed as anti-modern or as a call for obscurantism and narrowness. Quite the opposite. No Machen dares to dream of a future time when God will send to the world “something far greater than genius – a humble heart finding in his worship the highest use of al knowledge and all power”. He longs for the rejection of materialism and the embrace of a true view of man.
Meanwhile it is “a drab and empty age” they are in when God's law is forgotten and men are in slavery. Hungry souls are thirsting and hungry for bread, a hunger these men could still by preaching the Word. His desire is not for a novel sect but for a company of men steeped in the Word and in the best scholarly traditions, who labour, mediate and pray in order to faithfully preach.
He wonders aloud
Perhaps you may be the humble instruments, by the use of whatever talents God has given you, of lifting preaching out of the rut into which too often it has fallen, and of making it again, by God's grace, a thing of power.
He closes by saying
Remember this, at least – the things in which the world is now interested are the things that are seen; but the things that are seen are temporal, and the things that are not seen are eternal. You, as ministers of Christ, are called to deal with the unseen things. You are stewards of the mysteries of God. You alone can lead men, by the proclamation of God’s word, out of the crash and jazz and noise and rattle and smoke of this weary age into the green pastures and beside the still waters; you alone, as ministers of reconciliation, can give what the world with all its boasting and pride can never give – the infinite sweetness of the communion of the redeemed soul with the living God.
