The awful moral or immoral conditions prevalent throughout the heathen world are the most graphic comment on the influence of these religions. It can be said thoughtfully that, instead of ever helping up to God and the light, they drag down to the devil and to black darkness. There is not only an utter lack of any moral uplift in them, but a deadly downward pull. The very things called religions point out piteously the terrible need of these peoples. <u>Living Messages of Jesus.</u> Now, what is it that these people need, and that we can give to them? May I first remind you what they don't need? Well, let it be said as plainly as it can be that they don't need the transferring to heathen soil of our Western church systems, nor our schemes of organizations. It is not our Western creeds and theology that they stand in need of. Of course, there need to be both churches and organizations. Only so will the work be done, and what is gotten held together. But these are in themselves temporary. They are immensely important and indispensable, but not the chief thing. The great need is of <i>the story of Jesus</i>. That is, plain teaching about sin--the hardest task of all for the missionary, whether in Asia or America--and the damnable results locked up in sin. Then the winsome telling, the tirelessly patient and persistently gentle telling of the story of love, God's love as revealed in Jesus. The telling them that Jesus will put a new moral power inside a man that will make him over new. But they need even more than this, aye, far more. They need <i>men</i>--human beings like themselves, living among them in closest touch--whose clean, strong, sweet lives spell out the Jesus-story as no human lips can ever tell it. To live side by side with men who like themselves are tempted sorely, but who show plainly in their lives a power that downs the temptation--this is their great need. The good seed, after all, is not the message of truth merely, but the "sons of the kingdom,"[9] men living the message of Jesus, and more, the power of Jesus, daily. A kindergarten teacher opened a mission among the slum children of a very poor section of Chicago. She began her work by gathering a number of dirty, unkempt children of the street into the neat mission room. Then, instead of preaching or praying or something of the conventional sort at the first, she brought in and set on a table a large beautiful calla lily, bewitching in its simple white beauty. The effect of the flower on one child, a little girl, was striking. No sooner had she looked at it than she looked down at her own dirty hands and clothes, with a flush creeping into her face. Then she quickly went out into the street. In a little while she was back again, but with her face washed, her hair combed, her dress tidied up, and a bit of colored ribbon added. She walked straight up to the lily again, and looked long, with deep wondering admiration in her eyes, at the beautiful white flower.