A religion of life must devote itself to vital processes and vital relations; chiefly, Loyal discipleship 30 Inspired leadership 31 Warm fellowship 33 Loving service 35 Steady spiritual growth 36
Methods and machinery, organization and Church discipline have only a subordinate value to these prime factors of health 37
The life must be allowed free expression; the form must be kept plastic 38
The physiologist tells us that living matter is always soft and jelly-like, permitting of the free play of molecular interchanges 38
Fit the clothes to the man, not the man to the clothes 40
Expansion that comes where the Spirit of God has been allowed freely to work upon groups of disciples without being limited by organization and tradition, _e. g._ Foreign Missionary Work, Adult School movement, Quakerism in Western States 40
Church-arrangements, important in themselves, should be regarded as machinery through which the life can work,—the life of the individual which we call personal responsibility, of the group, which we call fellowship, and above all the Divine vitality, which we call spiritual power and spiritual guidance 41
Above conclusion illustrated from the way in which these vital forces come into play in the various forms of Friends’ meetings 42
The evangelistic service and its needs 43
The meeting for worship, its great value and its needs 44
Quakerism, at its best, always the product of vital forces and the producer of vital relations 47
Its dependence upon the earnest seeking spirit 48
Craving to-day for reality in religion and life 49
Atmosphere of large-hearted charity and brotherly confidence needed 50
Quakerism, essentially, a religion of sincerity, answered by the incoming of the living Christ 51
Hopes confronting us to-day,—the craving after truth, the meaning and worth of personality, woman’s place in the world, the reign of law in international affairs, the regeneration of social conditions, the hope of Christ for the whole world 52
The Quaker Church called to be in the vanguard of progress with respect to all these 53
Duty of personal witness for truth, based on a living experience of it 53
_THE CONTRIBUTION OF FRIENDS TO THE LIFE AND WORK OF THE CHURCH_
Personal experience of co-operation with other denominations in west China and elsewhere 56