[British Congregationalist.]

There is not much building to be done with the thing a man does not believe. His only substance is his positive faith. Believing never so little, he must hold his faith firmly and his doubt tentatively. If he believes in God, though his doubts be many, he must begin to shape his life on a faith in God. If he believes in the persistence of life, though through mists of questionings, he believes too much to be a practical materialist. His faith is positive, as far as it goes, and he must give it authority up to its limits. On the smallest nucleus of positive faith, if he is wise and brave, he must begin to shape his character. It is all he has for the making of moral and spiritual manhood. He must stand on that, crying ever to the great Lord of all, "I believe; help thou my unbelief."

And as he is an honest thinker he must grapple with his doubts in the light of his faith. There are areas of unbelief in many lives that exist because they have not the courage of their convictions, because they have not dared or cared to follow out the logical road of their beliefs. They are in the position of one accepting both the premises of an argument, and yet hesitating to draw the conclusion. Having so much faith, their very reason ought to carry them further. And he who has rested his life on his faith, however small, and lived out that, will find that in that very fact he has commenced an assault upon the regions of his doubts, and that he must and will reclaim fresh areas of his mind and heart from unbelief.

[Rev. T. Rhonda Williams in Christian Commonwealth.]

It is always true that a nation's religion is involved in the disgrace of any injustice that nation does or permits. The Christianity of England today is bound to suffer through the fact that England allows so many of her people to live and work under unjust conditions. We have had some warnings lately that our tolerance of such conditions may bring upon us not a little inconvenience and suffering. To my mind it is quite certain that unless we set ourselves very seriously to right the wrongs under which so millions are laboring today, grave troubles are in store for us. When men are long indifferent to the claims of justice, the settlement of such claims may be demanded in a very rough way. When I think of the inequality of conditions in human life, I am not surprised that we have strikes, I am only surprised that we do not have a revolution. In the old time when rich people were very few, the multitudes looked upon the old nobility almost as demigods. But now, when a considerable number of quite common persons have acquired wealth, and when they flaunt it in the public gaze in so many ways, the multitudes who are disinherited do not feel that there is any difference between these people and themselves in point of character or of merit to warrant this disparity of circumstances. The masses are poor, but they are not so ignorant as they were.

[Charles Reynolds Brown, D.D., in Christian Work and Evangelist.]

When you repeat the Ten Commandments the second one has a certain far-away sound. It is the longest of the ten and seems to have no particular application to modern life. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." Not a soul here ever felt the slightest impulse to make a graven image. When the commandment was originally uttered idolatry was a live issue; now it is dead. Image-making for purposes of idolatry is a lost art among us and in almost all the civilized world. Men are still engaged in all sorts of mischief, but making images has small part in these performances.

If you apply the commandment simply to the making of images in wood and stone, this is true. The real sin of idolatry, however, lies in setting up something in the place of God which is not God. You can shape your idol out of thoughts as well as out of clay. You can set up in your mind that which is not God and say to it in the depths of your own soul, "This is the final, ultimate, and infinite force in the world—this is God."

[Rev. Roger S. Forbes in Christian Register.]

Have a lovable spirit, and you may then count yourself among the powers of goodness in a universe which is not godless. The good shepherds of mankind are they who can find and reach the view-point of others, they whose perception is sharpened by fellow feeling. Believe that life is more like a psalm than angry strife. Look through its temptations to its indelible purposes and its sublime implications. Possess the peace which you would bestow,—the peace that comes of self-control and trust,—and your word will never fail to win its way. You will inevitably speak as one having authority. The harmony of a life that derives strength from the appeal of others needs, and that deems itself blessed amid the daily vicissitudes, being ruled from within and giving what it would receive, is more tuneful than the music of the spheres, and just as heavenly.

[Congregationalist and Christian World.]

If we are stead fast in the simple, the patient, the faithful, we shall find the heroic meeting us when we did not dream it existed. We shall find enemies enough to fight within and without. We shall find that the call for such a sacrifice as lifted the cross upon the hill is not wanting even in serene and quiet fellowships. We shall find that goodness is never easy, fidelity never cheap. We shall find ourselves good soldiers of Jesus Christ in unnoted battles and we shall become increasingly adequate to the exceptional and dramatic. We shall find that the charge which wins the day was made in the drill-hall, that the courage of the commonplace is the courage of the crisis, and that the chief wage of overcoming is kept for those who were faithful in a few things.

[Rev. W. H. Fitchett, LL.D., in Public Opinion.]

The certainties of the future, in the judgement of the present writer are (1) a revolt of the world's common sense against the present system of international politics, with their intolerable burden of fleets and armies; (2) an immense advance in the social condition of the working classes, due to the new political force these classes will derive from cohesion betwixt themselves; and due, in an even higher degree, to the new authority of Christian ideals among all classes; and (3) a new authority which Christian faith will take, largely as the result of science, which, like Kepler, will learn "to think God's thoughts after Him." But this new authority of religion may express itself in terms which at first the churches may not recognize.

[Watchman.]

What is needed is the realization of the fact that men are receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which is meet. There is a judgement which is present and is in operation all the time with perfect exactness. For every idle word men not only shall give account but do make up an account. There is a conservation of nature in human experience. The brain is a bundle of impressions and the body is a story of experience. In moral and spiritual experience the same universal law prevails, and the pen of iron and point of diamond are at work.