A pecuniary method of effecting friendly relations is not without its
merits. In this city of frequent removals there are many families who
have lost all connection with the congregation to which they claim to
belong. An opportunity to contribute to the church of their new
neighborhood might be for them a secondary means of grace. They become
as it were proselytes of the gate. Having taken the first step, many may
again enter into full communion with the church.

A Lutheran church, however, does not forget the warning of the prophet:
"They have healed the hurt of my daughter slightly." The evangelization
of this great army of lapsed Lutherans is not to be accomplished by such
a simple expedient as taking up a collection. What most of them need is
a return to the faith. Somebody must guide them.

For this no societies or new ecclesiastical machinery will be required.
The force to do this work is already enlisted in the communicant
membership of our one hundred and fifty organized congregations. We have
approximately 60,000 communicants. These are our under-shepherds whose
business it is to aid the pastor in searching for "the lost sheep of the
house of Israel." Shall we not have a concerted effort on the part of
all the churches?

We may certainly win back again into our communion many of whom the Good
Shepherd was speaking when He said: "them also I must bring and they
shall hear my voice, and they shall become one flock, one shepherd."

To accomplish such a task, however, an orderly system must be adopted.

When our Lord fed the five thousand, He first commanded them to sit down
by companies. "And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds and by fifties."