Next to the danger of materialism or practical agnosticism in the Church of Christ comes perhaps the danger of opportunism. I suppose to the end of time there will be difference of opinion on the question of compromise. That a certain element of compromise must come into human life, as it is now arranged, seems to me inevitable. Much as we chafe against it, we are bound to accept it, owing to the limitations of our existence here. To take one of many examples: I suppose there is no one of us who does not year by year contribute, through the payment of taxes either direct or indirect, to the maintenance of the Army and the Navy, and perhaps to other actions on the part of the State with which he equally disapproves. There is, however, a whole range of problems upon which opinions differ very greatly. The question to which I have made allusion—the question of Peace—illustrates my meaning perhaps as well as any. At what point are we going to make our Peace principles felt? 90There are certain fundamental propositions to which every member of the Church of Christ can be found to assent. That we should love our enemies: that we should do good to those that hate us: that we should show kindness to all men: and so forth. But at what point are you going to apply these principles? We are living in a world where some kind of physical force seems to be absolutely necessary. I doubt if there are any of us who would go as far as Tolstoi in our rejection of it.  
But does this mean that we must therefore accept war as a necessity of this present evil time, and therefore be prepared ourselves to take up arms, as many of our fellow-Christians think? The “practical commonsense man” sees no other course, even if his conscience do cry out at times.
 
To take another of the great problems which press upon us in these days, viz: the relation of Christianity to business. “Business is business” too often means that Christian principles cannot be applied to it. There are so many things a man “must do” if he is to get along at all. 91“It is better to leave religion out altogether in some of these practical affairs.” In non-Christian countries we constantly see the divorce of ethics from religion; and I am afraid the evil is not confined to distant lands. We all know something of the pulpit that dare not denounce the sins practiced by the wealthiest of the congregation: the minister whose tongue is tied upon sweating and overcrowding: the church-member who is zealous in the observance of religion, but lacking in his business obligations.
 
What a need for the thoroughgoing Christian who has ideals and maintains them in everyday life, who will not lower them to suit the exigencies of life, or the pressure of social custom, to whom expediency is a forbidden word even though its exclusion may mean the Cross!
 
Or turn to the great non-Christian world with which we are daily brought into contact. Here is one of the greatest problems, if not the greatest, which confronts our civilization to-day. How are we going to meet our fellow-men of other races? The 92politician has his solution: the commercial man has his. What is to be the solution of the citizen of the Kingdom of God? There can only be one answer: we must go to these men as to those who are our brethren; we must see them not as wholly bad or depraved, but as those who have in them infinite potentialities, who are called into the same citizenship and the same sonship which we enjoy. We must reaffirm to-day our belief in that Light which lighteth every man, but we dare not be content at t............