right; why men seem to fear nothing but the hell of not making money.
Think of it, and cease to wonder why men's bodies and souls are
sacrificed in what is little better than a murderous struggle to exist;
why one man has so much more than he earns, and others earn so much
more than they have. Think of it and cease to wonder why our age is
distinguished by a bad pre-eminence of restlessness, by feverishness, a
panting for excitement, and a poisonous atmosphere of pessimism.

The Cross of Christ means the life that lives in unselfish service as
against the selfishness that is death and defeat. It means not only
individuals and Churches, but the race, redeemed and lifted from the
dark and narrow life of self, into the life and light of the kingdom of
God. Can we wonder, then, that the rejection of the Cross blasts our
beliefs in everything divine and hopeful, and is accompanied everywhere
by a "melancholy introspection and lack-lustre view of human life?"
Recall then in this connection what I have said about sin, and the
relation of Christ's death to the forgiveness of sin. What I am saying
now does not include all that is implied in that relation; but see in
it what I have just put before you, and you will realize that I am not
talking in mere morbid terms, nor in those of theology except so far as
it is the theology of life. Long as men are willingly in their
sin--which means selfishness in all its deadly forms--can we wonder at
the unbelief portrayed on that canvas? Can we marvel why the Christ is
still despised and rejected?

It may be asked, and justly, what are the professed followers of Christ
doing to convince men of their need of Him as their Saviour; to
convince them by lives that are the evidence of triumph over sin? What
are Christian people, what are the Churches doing to fight down the
wrongs, the hurtful conditions, the curse-centres that degrade men,
keep them ignorant, and as by a satanic ingenuity hide the real Christ
from those who most need to find Him, and are the least able to oppose
the things that make Him so misunderstood and even unknown? How far
are we responsible, not only for the deliberately cultivated wickedness
of men who choose evil as their good, but for the indifference that
passes by only because our lives have never compelled its attention?
The Church is a Church but to the extent that it is the organic
expression of Christ's life, the visible Body of His soul. What, I ask
in