“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.”

The conditions confronting him, the leader of this church studied.  He turned his eyes backward over the years.  He thought of his own boyhood when church was so distasteful.  He thought of those ten busy years in Boston when he had worked among all classes of humanity, with churches on all sides, yet few reaching down into the lives of the people in any vital way.  He knew of the silent, agonizing cry for help, for comfort, for light, that went up without ceasing day and night from humanity in sorrow, in suffering, in affliction, went up as it were to skies of brass, yet he knew a loving Savior stood ready to pour forth his healing love, a Divine Spirit waited only the means, to lay a healing touch on sore hearts.  What was needed was a simple, practical, real way to make it understandable to men, to bring them into the right environment, to make their hearts and minds receptive, to point the way to peace, joy and eternal life.  He brought to bear on this problem all the practical, trained skill of the lawyer, the keen insight and common sense, the knowledge of the world, of the traveler and writer.  Every experience of his own life he probed for help and light on this great work Nothing was done haphazard.  He studied the wants of men.  He clearly saw the need.  He calmly surveyed the field, then he went to work with practical common sense to fill it, filling his people with the enthusiasm and the faith that led him, doing with a will all there was to do, and then leaving the rest with God.  Never did he think of himself, of how he might lighten his tasks, give himself a little more leisure or rest.  The work needing to be done and how to do it was his study day and night.

[Illustration:  This Picture Shows the Four Speaking Tubes Which Connect by Telephone with the Samaritan Hospital]

A reporter of the “Philadelphia Press” once asked Dr. George A. Peltz, the associate pastor of Grace Church, “if you were called upon to express in three words the secret of the mysterious power that has raised Grace Church from almost nothing to a membership of more than three thousand, that has built this Temple, founded a college, opened a hospital, and set every man, woman and child in the congregation to working, what would be your answer?”

“Sanctified common sense,” was the Doctor’s unhesitating reply.