The Temple workers had come to busy days and large opportunities. But they took them humbly with a full sense of their responsibility, with prayer in their hearts that they might meet them worthily. Their leader knew the perils of success and with wise counsel guided them against its insidious dangers.
"Ah, that is a dangerous hour in the history of men and institutions," he said, in a sermon on the "Danger of Success," "when they become too popular; when a good cause becomes too much admired or adored, so that the man, or the institution, or the building, or the organization, receives an idolatrous worship from the community. That is always a dangerous time. Small men always go down, wrecked by such dizzy elevation. Whenever a small man is praised, he immediately loses his balance of mind and ascribes to himself the things which others foolishly express in flattery. He esteems himself more than he is; thinking himself to be something, he is consequently nothing. How dangerous is that point when a man, or a woman, or an enterprise has become accepted and popular! Then, of all times, should the man or the society be humble. Then, of all times, should they beware. Then, of all times, the hosts of Satan are marshaled that by every possible insidious wile and open warfare they may overcome. The weakest hour in the history of great enterprises is apt to be when they seem to be, and their projectors think they are, strongest. Take heed lest ye fall in the hour of your strength. The most powerful mill stream drives the wheel most vigorously at the moment before the flood sweeps the mill to wildest destruction."
Just as plainly and unequivocally did he hold up before them the purpose of their high calling:
"The mission of the church is to save the souls of men. That is its true mission. It is the only mission of the church. That should be its only thought. The moment any church admits a singer that does not sing to save souls; the moment a church calls a pastor who does not preach to save souls; the moment a church elects a deacon who does not work to save souls; the moment a church gives a supper or an entertainment of any kind not for the purpose of saving souls—it ceases in so much to be a church and to fulfil the magnificent mission God gave it. Every concert, every choir service, every preaching service, every Lord's supper, every agency that is used in the church must have the great mission plainly before its eye. We are here to save the souls of dying sinners; we are here for no other purpose; and the mission of the church being so clear, that is the only test of a real church."
The thousands of men and women Grace Church has saved and placed in paths of righteousness and happiness, show that it has nobly stood the test, that it has proved itself a church in the true sense of the word.
CHAPTER XXII
HOW THE CHURCH WORKS
The Ladies' Aid Society. The Young Women's Association. The Young
Men's Association. The Ushers' Association. The Christian Endeavor
Societies. The Many Other Organizations. What They Do, and How They Do
It.
Now that the church was built, now that such power was in its hands, how should it work?
"The church of Christ should be so conducted always as to save the largest number of souls, and in the saving of souls the Institutional church may be of great assistance," said Russell Conwell in an address on "The Institutional Church." "It is of little matter what your theories are or what mine are; God, in His providence, is moving His church onward and moving it upward at the same time, adjusting it to new situations, fitting it to new conditions and to advancing civilization, requiring us to use the new instrumentalities he has placed in our hands for the purpose of saving the greatest number of human souls."