it includes the whole of life,—­business, politics, art, education, philanthropy, society in the narrow sense, the family:  when all these shall be pervaded and controlled by the law of love, then the kingdom of heaven will have fully come.  And the business of the church in the world is to bring all these departments of life under Christ’s law of love.  If it seeks to convert men, it is that they may be filled with the spirit of Christ and may govern their conduct among men by Christ’s law.  If it gathers them together for instruction or for inspiration, it is that they may be taught Christ’s way of life and sent out into the world to live as he lived among their fellow men.  Its function is to fill the world with the knowledge of Christ, the love of Christ, the life of Christ.  That is what Christ meant by saving the world.  The world is saved when this is true of it, and it is never saved till then.  The work of the church is successful just to the extent to which it succeeds in Christianizing the social order in the midst of which it stands.

If by means of its ministrations, the community round about the church is steadily becoming more Christian; if kindness, sympathy, purity, justice, good-will, are increasing in their power over the lives of men; if business methods are becoming less rapacious; if employers and employed are more and more inclined to be friends rather than foes; if politicians are growing conscientious and unselfish; if the enemies of society are in retreat before the forces of decency and order; if amusements are becoming purer and more rational; if polite society is getting to be simpler in its tastes and less ostentatious in its manners and less extravagant in its expenditures; if poverty and crime are diminishing; if parents are becoming more wise and firm in the administration of their sacred trust, and children more loyal and affectionate to their parents,—­if such fruits as these are visible on every side, then there is reason to believe that the church knows its business and is prosecuting it with efficiency.  If none of these effects are seen in the life of the community, the evidence is clear that the church is neglecting its business, and that failure must be written across its record.

Even though it be true that large numbers are added to its membership, that its congregations are crowded, its revenues abundant, its missionary contributions liberal, and its social prestige high; yet if the standards of social morality in its neighborhood are sinking rather than rising, and the general social drift and tendency is toward animalism and greed and luxury and strife, the church must be pronounced a failure:  nay, even if it be believed that the church is succeeding in getting a great many people safely to heaven when they die; yet if the social tendencies in the world about it are all downward, its work, on the whole, must be regarded as a failure.  Its main business is not saving people out of the world, it is saving the world.  When it is evident that the world, under its ministration, is growing no better but rather worse, no matter what other good things it may have the credit of doing, the verdict is against it.