Article August 11, 1906 Issue

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The Rt. Rev. Charles Gore, D.D., D.C.L., Lord Bishop of Birmingham, in a sermon preached at the University of Oxford, said: "I speak now only of the Church's spiritual life. But here, again, we appear to be failing equally as much, that is, as we appear to be failing in the definition of negative law. The perilous tendency among us is to appeal always to averages or majorities; to ask ourselves what sort of religion we can induce men in general, rich or poor, to accept and welcome; to make religion easy; to abstain from asking too much; to accommodate the requirements of religion to what we suppose men in general will be ready to accept. Nothing could be so directly contrary to the method of Christ. He never will suffer the best to be sacrificed to what may be supposed to be the average requirement. He moves on his way relentlessly, presenting the high and complete claim, though it become more and more evident that his people as a whole may reject it. He never turns aside to remodel his religion, and to accommodate it to what would be found generally to commend itself to each class; to Sadducee or to Pharisee; to accommodate it to what would be found compatible with the politics of the one and the prejudices of the other, or to what the mass of the people might be prepared to accept without too much effort. Our Lord chose and sanctified exactly the opposite method. He appealed with the whole truth, for the whole of the man's heart."

The Churchman.

The stirring of the great heart of the under-world waits for clear and abundant evidence that Christians are really Christian, and that evidence is found only in life. When business men and professional men, when the wives and daughters of those who live in comfort, when all who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ look out upon life through his eyes, share in his love and longing, maintain his attitude in all of life's varied relations, then will the Christian Church discover the only dynamic sufficient for her task. The spirit of brotherhood and kindliness and sympathy which made Jesus the "friend of sinners" must be in our hearts and glowing forth in every relation of every day if we would hope to reach the great, restless, wretched multitudes who are "as sheep without a shepherd."

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