go. The
Church has great resources; but these resources are sadly undeveloped.
From an efficiency point of view, from an organization point of view,
from a production point of view, the Church to-day is in the stage-coach
class. It holds within itself the keys of prosperity. It holds within
itself the salvation and solution of our industrial, commercial and
international problems. Yet it is working, or at least the Protestant
branch is open, only three or four hours a week. The Church has the
greatest opportunity to-day of any industry. It is the least developed
industry, the most inefficiently operated, and the most backward in its
methods.

Let us shut our eyes and look ahead at what it will be twenty-five years
from now. Let us imagine five churches within a radius of five miles.
All of them now operating independently. Each one open only a few hours
a week. Twenty-five years from now these five churches will be linked up
together under a general manager who will not be a parson, but who will
be a business man.

To-day the preacher of our churches is a combination of preacher,
business manager, and salesman. He is the service department, the
finance department and everything but the janitor. The Church is being
operated to-day as a college would be operated with one professor, who
would be president, treasurer, general manager, and everything else. The
Church is being operated to-day as a factory with simply a production
man and no one to tend the finances or the sales. Manufacturers reading
this book know how long a factory could be run with only a
superintendent and no one to sell or finance the proposition.

Twenty-five years from to-day, instead of the pastor being at the head
of the church and a few good people doing voluntary work, there will be
four or five churches of the same denomination united under one general
manager. I do not mean by this that four of them will be closed. They
will all be open much more than they are now; but they will all be under
one general manager and will be taking orders from that general manager.
Twenty-five years from to-day the churches will be self-supporting. The
days of begging will be over. Religion has been cheapened by singing
about "salvation's free for you and me." When we have our legal
difficulties, we go to a lawyer and pay him; when we have a pain we go
to a doctor and pay him; if we want our children taught we pay the
price; but if we want our children instructe