The Young People in the Church

From "The Young People in the Church," September 20, 1902

What is our idea of a church? Are we simply a mutual admiration society, meeting from Sunday to Sunday to congratulate ourselves that we are not so bigoted as other people, and sigh because they are not emancipated? Or are we a mere group of sentimentalists, who meet to go into ecstasies over our beautiful faith? The grandest doctrine must have a practical side. Angels may ascend and descend upon the ladder, but the foot of that ladder must be planted in the earth. If our ideas are worth holding, they are worth spreading; they are worth building into institutions…The world will value only that which we prize ourselves.