Any one who observes closely the words and phrases in current use for teaching religious truth is impressed by the fact that a new phraseology is establishing itself wherever earnest men with a real message try by tongue or pen to gain the attention and the assent of their fellow-men....

We believe that this disposition is for the betterment and enrichment of religion. Some persons, it is true, affirm that the new phraseology means a casting aside of the old truths, and that the men who employ it have ceased to hold the beliefs which their fathers did about God, Christ, sin, and the moral struggle; but it by no means follows that, because a man strives to make himself understood by the people to whom he speaks, he has completely modified his theological standard. To be sure, fresh visions of truth can hardly help giving rise to new forms of statement; but perhaps, after all, it is not so much a question of conservatism versus liberalism, as of a preacher's profound yearning to voice his message most effectively. As The London Examiner says, people are not nearly so interested in the average pulpit themes as the average minister is apt to think. We would go farther and declare that a good deal of the language used in the pulpit and on the religious platforms fails to carry any distinct meaning to the modern man. He has heard from childhood the familiar phrases so constantly that their bloom and beauty have entirely disappeared, or, lacking such a background for his life he hears, when he occasionally does go to Church, phrases so totally unlike anything he hears in the shop, the market-place, and on the street, that he is bewildered and mystified.

The Congregationalist and Christian World.

Those who keep in sympathy with the religious sentiment of the day—its changes and its evolution—will be convinced that we are at the threshold of a new era. Old divisions begin to appear irrational; and there is a drawing together not only of affiliated sects, but the question arises, Why shall not those which have been antagonistic recognize the fact that the questions over which they have fought have thinned out into invisible air?...

In the Biblical World Rev. Dr. Merrill of Chicago shows that the problem is no longer one of mere good will and fellowship, or a restoration of harmony between scattered parts of a common faith. He declares that the whole Church, in all its parts, has come to a pass where it demands and must have a new statement of Christianity. He thinks that the very vital and common questions that have been supposed to make up Christianity must be reconstructed in form and in answer....

Mr. Merrill is quite as emphatic and frank in a further statement. He says that we trying to turn from the formalities of Christianity to the vital and the spiritual, and yet we are compelied to ask for a new definition of the spiritual life. There is a new definition necessary, also, for the Holy Spirit and for fellowship with God....

We believe that Mr. Merrill has largely solved all his problems in his statement of a third problem. He says that it is necessary in the first place to make clear that the Church has a function in society, a part of supreme importance to play in human progress and well-being. But just here he finds the difficulty, that the Church does not really know what it wants to be or what it needs to do.

The Christian Register.

It is so much easier to try to have a right life by conforming to some rule of conduct or outward regulation of living than it is to get the heart in such a condition that it will be easy to do right. This practice has always been the fault of humanity. All races and ages of mankind have had some Idea of what they ought to do and be, and it has usually found expression in some kind of outward conduct. All forms of idolatry and penances, and even higher orders of religious ceremonies and regulations, have grown out of this mental process. In our own day and in the best expressions of our religious life there is the same danger of falling unconsciously into the idea that the outward acts of worship, such as Church attendance, and religious exercises and giving, have in them the power of keeping our lives right.

The moralist and reformer say we should live right. Jesus says we must be right. The only genuine righteousness is heart righteousness. We must admit that Jesus is the only safe teacher upon this subject, for "he knew what was in man." See how he analyzes and illustrates and defines true righteousness! We are all agreed that anything that will produce this righteousness must affect the man himself. The effect of such righteousness must make us right in the sight of God and not simply appear to be so. This then will necessitate our being right in our dispositions, desires, and affections. To the man who would be right, the law by which he is to become so is removed from the sphere of action to the sphere of right motives.—The Standard.

The Rev. D. Baines-Griffiths says in The Congregationalist and Christian World:—

"Is it not entirely Christian to believe that a man may have vital religion and be well-pleasing to our Lord, though he follow not with us? The disciple of Jesus can adopt no role of superior person toward them that are without the law. The truth is, we are all more human than theological unless we happen to be striking an attitude.

"No one in these days is protesting more stoutly than Professor James of Harvard against a naturalism that knows no evangel of moral recovery. He keeps step with the gospel in preaching that men are not so completely the victims of all that has gone before that they may be labelled and classified once and for all. There is an incalculable element in human nature, because choice remains. Our lives may open toward a Power under whose influence the tides of conduct may be reversed."

Since man is God's child the law of God is also man's law, written in his mind, and heart, and conscience. The real interpreter, therefore, of God's law, is he who lives in God, and in whom God lives. And it follows that the highest son of God is the truest interpreter and revealer of God. Is not this the place of Jesus in the universe? He is the witness of God to men. He is the finished and perfect representation and representative of God, not so much by formal teaching as by his nature, and distinct moral and spiritual personality. His life and character interpret, that is, give a new meaning and power to, all human life. He lived the life of truth, of law, of love in this world, and so illustrated and established a filial dispensation in which and under which every child of God can become a son of God, as Christ was the Son of God. The law of life is God as source and consummation.

The Universalist Leader.

Jesus was heavenly minded. His thoughts were fixed on the Father and the invisible world. No one ever was so completely taken up with the realities of the invisible. Yet no one was ever so useful among men. His heavenly mindedness was his chief fitness for earthly ministries. The more one fixes his mind on heavenly things the more free and strong he is to grapple with earthly difficulties and subdue earthly evils. The men who have done most for this world were men who were in this world but not of it. They never would have accomplished anything for this world if heaven had not come into their hearts and lives.

The Christian Advocate.

The countries far north are cold and frozen, because they are distant from the sun. What makes such frozen, uncomfortable Christians, but their living so far from heaven? And what makes others so warm in comforts but their living higher and having nearer access to God?

Richard Baxter.

The impression of God is kept up by experience: not by logic. And hence when the experimental religion of a man, of a community, or of a nation, wanes, religion wanes—their idea of God grows indistinct, and that man, community, or nation becomes infidel.—Henry Drummond.

If men would cease reading into the New Testament what is not there they would much more frequently see eye to eye than they do now. It is not what is drawn out of the Sacred Oracles, but what is injected into them that gives rise to isms and schisms.

The Examiner.

There is perhaps no truer sign that a man is really advancing than that he is learning to forget himself, that he is losing the natural thought about self in the thought of one higher than himself, to whose guidance he can commit himself and all men.

J. C. Shairp.

The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs.—Cicero.