“What is the test of Christian discipleship?  Is it not the same as in Christ’s own time?  Have our surroundings modified or changed the test?  If Jesus were here today would He not call some of the members of this very church to do just what He commanded the young man, and ask them to give up their wealth and literally follow Him?  I believe He would do that if He felt certain that any church member thought more of his possessions than of the Savior.  The test would be the same today as then.  I believe Jesus would demand He does demand now—­as close a following, as much suffering, as great self-denial as when He lived in person on the earth and said, ’Except a man renounce all that he hath he cannot be my disciple.’  That is, unless he is willing to do it for my sake, he cannot be my disciple.

“What would be the result if in this city every church member should begin to do as Jesus would do?  It is not easy to go into details of the result.  But we all know that certain things would be impossible that are now practiced by church members.

“What would Jesus do in the matter of wealth?  How would He spend it?  What principle would regulate His use of money?  Would He be likely to live in great luxury and spend ten times as much on personal adornment and entertainment as He spent to relieve the needs of suffering humanity?  How would Jesus be governed in the making of money?  Would He take rentals from saloons and other disreputable property, or even from tenement property that was so constructed that the inmates had no such things as a home and no such possibility as privacy or cleanliness?

“What would Jesus do about the great army of unemployed and desperate who tramp the streets and curse the church, or are indifferent to it, lost in the bitter struggle for the bread that tastes bitter when it is earned on account of the desperate conflict to get it?  Would Jesus care nothing for them?  Would He go His way in comparative ease and comfort?  Would He say that it was none of His business?  Would He excuse Himself from all responsibility to remove the causes of such a condition?

“What would Jesus do in the center of a civilization that hurries so fast after money that the very girls employed in great business houses are not paid enough to keep soul and body together without fearful temptations so great that scores of them fall and are swept over the great boiling abyss; where the demands of trade sacrifice hundreds of lads in a business that ignores all Christian duties toward them in the way of education and moral training and personal affection?  Would Jesus, if He were here today as a part of our age and commercial industry, feel nothing, do nothing, say nothing, in the face of these facts which every business man knows?