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<jats:p> Eugene Carson Blake has in recent years been actively associated with the Christian citizens' movement, Bread for the World. Before retiring as Secretary of the World Council of Churches in 1972, he served both church and society in many leading capacities, as a distinguished pastor, the chief executive officer of his denomination (the United Presbyterian Church), university and seminary trustee, and president of the National Council of Churches. In 1960, he preached a sermon in the Episcopal Cathedral of San Francisco, where the late James A. Pike was Bishop. This sermon, welcomed by the Bishop, led to the establishment of the Consultation on Church Union. In the forefront of the civil rights movement, Blake was jailed, vilified, and denounced as a communist. In 1978, he was made the subject of a biography, Eugene Carson Blake: Prophet With Portfolio, by R. Douglas Brackenridge (Seabury Press). This present essay is a revised version of an address delivered at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, as “The Willson Lecture.” </jats:p>