“And crown Him! Crown Him!! CROWN HIM!!!  Yes, Crown Him Lord of all.”

It is the rehearsal of the great Oratorio of Victory that we are all to join in singing.

The Church

  Forces that Win. 
  The Divine Law of Leadership. 
  God’s Messenger. 
  Reaching Out for a World. 
  “Keep Step.” 
  “Find My World, And Win It Back.”

The Church

Forces That Win.

God’s world is full of winning forces.  The great ball of fire around which our earth revolves is the greatest winning force in the life of the earth.  It is constantly winning the earth to itself with a power unseen but tremendous, beyond anybody’s power to calculate.  The swing of the earth away from the sun is being continually overcome.  By an immense drawing power it steadily holds the earth where it can pour down its wealth of warmth and light and life into it.

It woos the moisture up from river and lake and sea, until its gravity partner in the centre of the earth woos it back again in refreshing rain and sheltering snow.  It wins out of the earth’s warm heart bounteous harvests of grains and fruits, the wealth of forests which affects the earth’s life so radically, the flowers with their beauty and fragrance, and the soft carpeting of green to ease the journey for our feet.  All the life and beauty of the earth is due to the winning power of the sun.

God Himself is the greatest winning force in all our world.  Everywhere men feel the upward drawing toward Him.  They may protest against church organizations and creeds, against teachings and long-settled practices and habits of thought, as they do so much, but there is always everywhere a longing in the human heart for God.  It is the answer to the longing of His heart for us.

And man is a great winning force.  Everywhere men are attracted to each other.  There is a winning power within each of us that draws certain others irresistibly to us.  And there are winning forces in life that each one of us is powerfully affected by.  The old home of earlier days has a marvellous power of attraction for most men.  The old fireside, the familiar rooms, the subtle aroma that seems inseparable from the very bricks and boards—­who has not felt the tremendous drawing power of these?

What a strange power of attraction a man’s mother-tongue has for him.  How the heart will give a quick leap, in a foreign land, when, amid a confusing jargon of strange sounds, all unexpectedly some one speaks the dear old familiar words.  The person speaking may not be specially congenial or attractive to us, but that sound his tongue gives draws us to him.

The Divine Law of Leadership.

Now I want to talk with you a bit about the forces at hand for winning our old world back to our Father’s heart and home.  God means us to use all the attractive powers we have in this great world-wooing and world-winning task.  The world is to be won back, not driven.  Men drive men, when they can.  But God woos and wins.  Man’s coming back must be by his own glad, sweet consent.  God won’t have it any other way.