1.  They will make it, what it has always been, a place of worship; the shrine of the spirit; the home of Christian nurture; a school of instruction; a fount of inspiration; a seminary of religion; the meeting-place of man and God.

Attempts have been made in recent years to organize churches—­or, at least, associations which should take the place of churches—­in which religion should be dispensed with; in which there should be more or less of ethical instruction and of charitable cooeperation, but no recognition of any connection between this world and any other.  That is simply a reform against nature, and it will never prosper.  For, as Professor William James has taught us, in a great inductive study, the sum of all that is known about religion warrants us in saying:—­

“(a) That the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe, from which it draws its chief significance;

“(b) That union or harmonious relation with that higher universe is our true end;

“(c) That prayer or inner communion with the spirit thereof ... is a process wherein work is really done, and spiritual energy flows in and produces effects, psychological or material, within the phenomenal world."[29]

These are the indubitable conclusions of modern science; and the proposition to ignore the deepest fact of human experience will not be entertained by the young men and women of the present day.  The church, under their leadership, will be a worshiping church, a praying church.  It will keep itself in close relations with that unseen universe from which its help must come.  It will be a channel through which the divine grace will flow into the lives of men.  And it will also be, what it has always been, a school as well as a shrine, a place where the teacher searches out and unfolds the truth and the prophet proclaims the message that has been given him.

2.  Under its new leadership the church will continue to be a minister to human want and suffering.  The charitable work which has always been emphasized in its administration will not be neglected, but it will take on a new character.  There will be less almsgiving, and more of the kind of help which saves manhood and womanhood.  The young men and women who are called to this leadership will understand the worth of souls—­that is, of men and women; and they will be careful lest, in their relief of want, they undermine the character.  Above all, they will feel that while it is the business of the church to care for the poor, its first business is to cure the conditions which breed poverty.