Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/87

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eliminate them as though they were not indispensable to God. There can be no schism between a man's public and his private life. His hands and what he does with them, his imaginings and where they go when he is alone by himself without any coercing, these are just as much indispensable to God as a man's public worship or any of his activities in the open ministry of Christ's kingdom. It is every bit of the man—body, soul, and spirit—that is indispensable to God.

And if we are indispensable to God, we may be very sure that we are indispensable to the world also. If God needs us, the world needs us even more. It is waiting for the rising up of men who know that God needs them, and who hand themselves over completely to His uses. "The mightiest of civilizing agencies are persons," said Dr. Fairbairn, "and the mightiest civilizing persons are Christian men." Those men are doing most for the world who are doing most to make men aware of how necessary they are to God, and who are going up and down the lands allying men's lives to the eternal life and power of God. This is the greatest of all works—getting God His men. I heard Dr. J. Campbell Gibson tell the Chamber of Commerce in Glasgow of a visit which he made to a temple which had been turned into a modern school in inland China. Over the gate of the school were