Life and Conduct

by J. Cameron Lees

I. It represents Christian worship.—(a) Public worship seems essential to the very existence of religion. At least, every religion the world has seen has had its meetings for public rites and ceremonies. Faith unsupported by sympathy, as a rule, languishes and dies out in a community. Were our churches to be shut Sunday after Sunday, and men never to meet together as religious beings, it would be as though the reservoir that supplies a great city with water suddenly ran dry. Here and there a few might draw water from their own wells, but the general result would be appalling. (b) Public worship also strengthens and deepens religious feeling. A man can pray alone and praise God alone; but he is, beyond all doubt, helped when he does so in the company of others. He is helped by the conditions of time and place; and the presence and sympathy of his fellow-worshippers have upon him a mighty uplifting influence. (c) Above all, public worship is the channel through which we receive special blessings from God. There is communion in the sanctuary between us and Him. "The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him." God desires our worship, and blesses it to us. That He does so has been the experience of Christians in all ages. They have found in the house and worship of God a strength and power that supported and blessed their life. They have realized that the promise of Christ is still fulfilled, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matt. xviii. 20.)

II. The Church represents Christian teaching.—In the congregation the Word of God is read and preached. (a) Preaching has always formed part of the service of the Christian Church from the very earliest times. In the second century Justin Martyr says: "On the day called Sunday, all who live in the cities or in the country gather into one place, and the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read as time permits; then when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things." This description of an early Christian service is applicable still. Wherever the Church meets there is religious teaching. (b) And it is the only such teaching that multitudes receive. Without it they would be left to grope their way alone. (c) Whenever, therefore, there has been a revival of life in the Church, great stress has been laid upon the preaching of the Word of God, and God has specially blessed it to the conversion of sinners and the edification of His people.

III. The Church represents Christian fellowship.—(a) It keeps up the idea of brotherhood in the world. It brings people of different ranks and classes together, and that under most favorable circumstances. Whatever a man is in the world, in the Church he is made to feel that in the eye of God he is a member of one family, having the same weaknesses, the same sorrows, the same needs, the same destiny before him as those around him. In the Church "the rich and poor meet together" in equality before the same God, who is the Maker of them all. (b) But especially in its worship is the Church a common bond between believers. On one day of the week men of all nations, kindreds, peoples and tongues, a multitude whom no man can number, unite in spirit together. Their prayers and praises ascend in unison to the Throne of Grace. They enter into the "communion of saints." They belong to one holy fellowship. (c) At the table of the Lord they take their places as partakers of one life—as one in Christ. "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are all partakers of that one bread." (1 Cor. x. 16, 17.)

IV. The Church represents Christian Work.—It is not merely a society for instruction or for the cultivation of devout feelings. It is an aggressive society. Every congregation of believers is a branch of the great army which is warring against the kingdom of darkness. Every individual is called upon to be a "fellow-laborer with Christ," and not merely to work out his own salvation, but to work for the salvation of others. The motto of every true Christian Church should be, "Work for everybody, and everybody at work." Those who may be able to do little as isolated individuals may do much by combining their efforts with those of others. The Church gives them the power and the opportunity.

We may now glance at some of the special duties incumbent upon those who are connected with the Church, and particularly upon young men.

1. We should be regular in availing ourselves of the means of grace which the Church affords. If it be the home of worship, of teaching, of fellowship, and of work, it is a home from which we should not make ourselves strangers. There is a blessing to be found there, and we are remiss if we do not seek it. Every young man should be a regular attendant on the ministrations of religion. He should be so (a) for his own sake, and (b) for the sake of others. He may perhaps have at times the feeling, I can get my worship in the fields and my teaching from my books; I can get along without the Church. But surely he undervalues the promised blessing to those who "forsake not the assembling of (themselves) together." Surely he undervalues the power, and strength, and comfort, that come from association with believers. But even if he could get on without the Church, is he not bound to consider others? Has any man in a world like ours, where all are bound together and are dependent on one another, any right to consider as to whether he can get on alone? Is he not bound to consider those around him? We must all feel that it would be a great calamity to a nation were public worship given up, churches closed, and Sunday made a day of recreation. But those who absent themselves from public worship are undoubtedly using their influence in that direction. If it be right for them to absent themselves, it must be right also for others to imitate them, and it is easy to see how disastrous generally such imitation would be.

Especially should every young man become a communicant at the table of the Lord. Besides the many spiritual benefits of which the sacrament is the channel to every devout believer, it is an ordinance which is particularly helpful to the young. It leads them to make a decision, and decision gives strength. From the moment they deliberately and solemnly make their choice, there is a power imparted to their life that it had not before. In the life of the well-known Scotsman, Adam Black, it is said that shortly after he went up to London he became a communicant in the Church to which he belonged. "I found," he says, "this step gave a stability to my character, and proved a defence from follies and vices, especially as a young man in London, entirely my own master, with no one to guide or check me."

2. We should take each of us our full share in the work of our Church. It is a poor sign of a church when all the work done is by the minister, or by the office-bearers alone, and it is a still poorer sign of those who belong to it. It is a sign that they have not felt the power of that grace which ever leads the soul to put the question, "What wilt thou have me to do?" There are none who cannot do something. The writer read lately of a church in England, the grounds of which were regularly tended and made beautiful by the young men belonging to it. That may seem a small service, but it was something. It showed a good spirit. If we are to get the most out of the Church, we must help it to do its work—charitable, missionary, Sunday School, Young Men's Guild. If the best heart and talent of young men were put into these and other agencies, the power of the Church for good would be increased immeasurably, and not the least of the advantage would come to the workers themselves. Let each do his own part. There is one way, we need scarcely say, in which we can all help the Church's work: by giving to it "as the Lord hath prospered us." Under the Old Testament dispensation every one was under strict obligation to give a fixed proportion of his substance for religious purposes. Surely we should not be less liberal when the proportion is left to our own sense of duty. Freely we have received. Let us also freely give.

3. While loyal to our own Church, we should cherish towards all Christians feelings of charity and good-will. Many of us, probably most of us, belong to the Church to which our parents belonged; and so long as we feel it ministers to our spiritual benefit we should keep by it and work with it. There is little good obtained by running from church to church, and those who sever themselves from their early religious associations are often anything but gainers. But while we are loyal to our own regiment in the Christian army, and proud, so far as a Christian may be so, of its traditions and achievements, let us ever feel that the army itself is greater than our own regiment, and not only cherish good-will and brotherly love towards those who fight in that army, but be ready at all times to co-operate with them, and to fight with them against the common enemy. It is well to be a good churchman, it is infinitely better to be a good Christian. It is best when one is both; for indeed he is the best Christian who is the best churchman, and he is the best churchman who is the best Christian.

[1] The subject of "The Church, Ministry and Sacraments" is to be fully dealt with in a Guild text-book by the Rev. Norman Macleod, D. D. We only refer in this chapter to those phases of Church life that are more immediately connected with Life and Conduct.