God’s Means of Grace by Charles F Yoder published by Classics Publications.
Written in 1908 by Brethren Church scholar and, later, missionary Charles F. Yoder, “God’s Means of Grace” is a study of all the important practices of the church with special attention given to the Brethren ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper. The book summarizes traditional arguments for the ordinances, emphasizes their spiritual meaning, and expands the concept of means of grace to such practices as worship, ordination, marriage, and the tithe.
A leading professor of theology of Yoder’s time said that Christianity is passing through the most serious crisis of its history, a crisis in which men are questioning the very foundations, and asking whether indeed Christianity be final. This crisis, he says, is not felt so much by the masses of believers as by the serious thinkers and investigators. He himself has been endeavouring to put the Christian faith in the terms of logic and find a rational basis for all its various phenomena, but in keeping clear of the pit of credulity he has fallen into the pit of doubt.
Christianity may indeed be passing through a crisis in the minds of many scholars, while the masses are unmoved. It has always been so. The little children enter into the kingdom while the wise and the learned argue about it.
