Here, again, there is a danger close at hand. Our tolerance may pass into doubt, or, what is worse, indifference. We may catch the secular tone, the flippancy and irreverence that pervades much of our lighter literature, and runs into our social life. We may be content to leave all questions open, not only as giving freedom to the conscience of others, but as content with uncertainty ourselves. While others exaggerate the demand for definiteness and precision, we may lose our standing-ground altogether, and see all things through a mist. The Church's teaching, Biblical interpretation, the truths that are the ground-work of all religious life, all this may come to seem to us as fraught only with bewildering controversies. In tracing the history of past campaigns, in the excitement of present skirmishes, we lose sight of the fact that a vantage-ground has been conquered, and that we are disloyal and unfaithful if we abandon it.

And in our consciousness of this danger we may rush blindly, very blindly, into another. We may recognise the spirit of the age in which we live only to thwart it and defy it. We may exult in the loudness, the intensity, the notoriety of our protests. In act and in word we may go back to the dogmas and the practices of a past age. And if so, the issue will be what it has already been in

a thousand cases. As there is no solitude comparable to the loneliness which one may feel in a great city, so there is no narrowness so narrow, no bitterness so bitter, as that which is fostered by this self-chosen isolation, where everything invites to fellowship.

(4.) A far truer remedy is to be found in that for which your position gives you special advantages, and on which I will venture to say yet a few words. You, and those elsewhere whose work is like yours, are better able than others to take a right estimate of the relative magnitude of the questions that from time to time are at issue, of their bearing on the work, which is greater and wider than them all. Ritual is good; order, comeliness in worship, is a duty; psalms and hymns and spiritual songs are a source of joy when they attract, not hearers, but worshippers; when they sustain, animate, edify. When they cease to do this, when they become simply a source of suspicion and distrust, when the charm of the ritual is that it defies custom or authority, when it leads to a simply æsthetic worship and a supercilious criticism of other forms of it, the limit is passed, and it is time to retrace our steps. Questions of ecclesiastical organization, ultimate tribunals for causes involving doctrine, the constitution and functions of our synods, the grievances

which to many minds seem so formidable in the relation of the State to education and the Church, all these have doubtless an interest of their own, and as we picture to ourselves the ideal of a perfect Church, appear of immense importance; but what are they as compared with that great work which lies before us here, as we look out on this vast multitude of human souls, and try to catch something of His thoughts who saw the thousands thronging round Him, and had compassion on them because they were as sheep that had no shepherd? Or take another instance: how much strength is wasted, how much good left undone, by our failing to distinguish the relative magnitude of the evils against which we have to fight? In a great city we see much on every side that offends us, as inconsistent with Christian holiness. Many forms of amusement, not among the poor only; Sunday trading and excursions; infidel literature and lectures, these come across us, and we cannot ignore that they are evil, and the cause of evil. We would fain strive, if we had the power, by some new and more rigorous legislation, to crush them altogether. And yet in proportion to the width of our experience, we shall come to see that some of these things are as the least of two evils; that greater and more lasting harm would probably grow out of a forcible repression of them; that

they are symptoms even more than they are causes of the great disease; and that we can better advance what we have at heart, the work of Christianizing the heathenism which still exists around, by other agencies. Other and worse evils are close at hand. Selfishness, hypocrisy, indifference, godlessness, these are on every side. Ignorance, sensuality, impurity, in all their hideous foulness, meet us as they met prophet and apostle of old. Against these let us concentrate our attack, and fight with all our strength. For such a contest we need the old weapons-the helmet of salvation, the girdle of truth, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God, our feet shod with the readiness of those who know that they have a gospel of peace to proclaim to those that are near, and to those that are far off. And then, as of old, we shall find that the weapons are mighty, and that we have unexpected allies. They that be with us are more than they that be against us. Christ 'has much people in this city.' And you, brethren, who are here to-day, as among those whom that Lord has in very deed claimed and called as His,—to you, also, that which you witness to-day is much more than a spectacle, however solemn, much more than the inauguration of a professional career, however sacred. the priesthood of the sons of Aaron, though it had

B

As

6

a distinctive reality of its own, bore witness of the priesthood of every Israelite, so also does that of the Christian Church. Our office, separate and distinctive as it is, speaks to you of that great society in which, as the body of Christ, every member has a vocation and ministry of his own. Your prayer that we may be clothed with righteousness' for that work, is one which you may well offer also for yourselves. And the prayer should pass into act more willing service, more hearty co-operation, time, money, gifts of wisdom or of speech, employed in fighting against evil, and building up the Church. This is what our work needs for its completeness and its success. will be well if we can reckon among the blessings which belong to the ministry of great cities, that it recognises and employs the multifarious activity and the diverse gifts of that people which Christ claims as His.

It