And so ever at the cry of the strong for help the gospel has had just these three great prime factors to present for the solution of the problems of every age:  first, the home, with its priesthood of the father and mother, the sanctuary of the house and the ministrations of family life; secondly, the school; and thirdly, between the home and the school, the church.  When our Lord himself, from all possible sources, made selection of the first among the many means he has chosen for the redemption of this world, he chose a trained personality.  As the medium for the transmission of truth, no improvement, no change has been found in all the progress of the gospel.  By this trained personality—­the heart that has been led to live with Christ awhile, and then go forth in his name and filled with his love to the hearts that have place for that love and rootage for that life—­this wonderful product of our Christian civilization has everywhere been produced.

And I take it that in no one of the Christian agencies known to us are these three methods so wonderfully unified, so inseparably united, as the home and the church and the school are in the work of the American Missionary Association.  They are one and the same.  They are indissoluble.  The long experience of this Association through this half century of specialized work does fit it, as the report has said, to give an almost commanding opinion in regard to the method of the work to be pursued among these very distinct classes.  From the field as well as from the office, and from the experience of those longest at work, we learn that the school finds its ultimate aim only in the church; that, as a Christian agency, we are to work with the school only as a means to the end of building up that body of Christ on the face of the earth which is known by the name of his church.  I do not see how the separation to any extent of school and church work can fail to break the unity of administration and hinder the progress of this gloriously on-going work.

I have just one word to add in regard to the reflex influence of this church work upon the home churches.  My brethren, there has been a great dearth in candidates for the ministry until very recently.  It strikes me that there is no such object-lesson in all our land, inviting men to consecrate themselves to the noblest of purposes, as the heroic ministry of this Association.  It needs the heroic element to attract young men.  It needs something which is very plainly worth their while to live for and to work for and to consecrate their energies toward, in order to attract them from the allurements of business and material progress to-day.  The Indian service of the British Government, and even the service of the great commercial companies, have that element of heroism in it them which has attracted the very best brain and brawn of the English race to India.  So it seems to me we will have to hold up these great organizations, which reach down to the hard places of the land, which