[Congregationalist and Christian World.]

Here, also, is our encouragement. Much of the complaint against the church arises from blind overlooking of accomplishment. There are many good men in the earth whose goodness never comes to recognition. "The healing of the world," said Bayard Taylor, "is in its nameless saints." There is not one church, we hope, in the whole land where a Christian challenged to produce a witness would not turn instinctively to some man or woman rich in love to God and man and trusted by all men in emergencies. We are wealthier than we know in such Christlike lives. They are the salt that keeps the age from corruption and the light that sheds the rays of the divine love and goodness through the darkness of the time.

Let the church, then, that laments the apparent decadence of its influence ask itself this question first: Are we attending to our own special business of producing Christlike characters? Is the fact of church-membership a guarantee, or even a presumption, of justice, charity, brotherly kindness, long-suffering patience and broad-mindedness? Would a man in distress of body, mind, or estate turn first to a neighbor for aid and counsel because he is a Christian? Are we so free from quarrels, jealousies, and complainings that we represent in any degree the character of Jesus? In facing these questions we shall be facing our own peculiar and special work.

[Christian World.]

The wrongness of our world lies in our lack of perception, in our gross blunders in interpretation. The life-material by which we are surrounded is good, is of the best. What we have been doing with it is the question. When society has purged its vision, and can see straight, we shall have some new arrangements of that material, quite new ways of handling it. If, as we have urged, wealth is no passport to life's best things, this does not mean that poverty is a passport. The extreme form of it which modern civilization has produced is a hindrance, which has to be removed. To have allowed it at all is the sign of our failure to deal properly with the world's resources. Here, on this earth, if we had sense to see it, is room for us all—aye, for a well-dowered all, where every man and woman of us may partake plentifully of the feast nature has provided, and know the full joy and splendor of living. We are as yet a long way from that consummation, from doing with our world as God means we should. We have today any number of sciences, some in an advanced stage. The one science we need, and which is yet in its first infancy, is the science of sane living.

[William Jennings Bryan in Continent.]

The Ten Commandments permeate all statute law—the eighth commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," being the most comprehensive of those which deal with man's duty to his fellow-men. One is more and more amazed as he grows older to find how far-reaching larceny is and in how many different forms it manifests itself. Direct stealing in violation of statute law is small and infrequent compared with the stealing that is indirect. The quickened conscience which is today stirring investigation and inciting reform is simply trying to give to that commandment a larger interpretation. Nearly every abuse of government is, in its last analysis, a violation of that commandment. Unnecessary taxation, injustice in the tax laws, inequity in the assessment and collection of taxes, tax-dodging—all these, in effect, take from the man overburdened and give to the man who evades or is excused from his just share. And if the laws are thus framed or administered at the instigation of those who reap the advantage, the beneficiaries cannot claim innocence.

[Christian Commonwealth.]

Much is being said just now about the decline in church going. Is it possible that through this decline God is seeking to call the churches to some new forms of service, telling them that it is not right to demand two or three sermons a week from a minister to a people whose religious resources are very much the same as his own, and who know where to turn in time of trouble; while the minister and his people have, by reason of their church activities, little time to help a huge, despairing population with either the material or the spiritual aid which the churches could give them if organized for that purpose? Public worship is of immense importance, but it must issue in practical service.

[Rev. Addison Moore, D.D., in Watchman.]

To see the vision and to follow it is to walk with God. Do not doubt that both vision and task are essential to complete man's life. If one is allowed to be content with his vision and another is allowed to remain at a visionless task, antagonism will abide. This then has come to be the business of religion: To teach the visionary how to realize his vision in his daily task, and to inspire the workers with the vision of the life that abides. If the churches are anywhere deserted it must be because when men have stopped to look and to listen they have not heard this message nor seen the uplifted Christ whose message it is.

[Universalist Leader.]

We have yet to learn how great was the heart and how vast were the hopes which animated all the mean details of Israel's history. On the surface it was commonplace, and mean in spots. But at its heart there always stirred the mighty thoughts and divine ideals which make the ignoble holy when we discover them. The Book was born in this inner chamber of Israel's soul. There were treasured all the thoughts of God. And from there, ever and anon, when prophet, seer, or singer came, burst forth those divine utterances which have never lost their meaning to those who are seeking God.

[E. Umbach in Standard.]

The church has not always realized the power and depth of its own message. It has often been surprised by the spirits it has unfettered by its own teaching. The great social awakening in our country is so manifestly the result of a general adoption and application of Christian principles that it would be useless to say anything in proof of it. But the church has not always been willing to acknowledge its share in it and to take the responsibility involved in that. It has shrunk back from the consequences of its own teachings and only slowly and hesitatingly assumed its part in the great social work of our times.

[Christian Register.]

The dream of the prophet is always a dream of final victory and peace. That dream is now becoming the sober prophecy of the men of knowledge. He who in the future is anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows will have for his great task the leading of a nobler race to such achievements of knowledge and virtue and happiness as now are the good fortune of the few, the selected, who represent the men and women that are to come and show us the pattern of human life.

[Prin. W. B. Selbie, M.A., in British Congregationalist.]

The very central position of Christianity is being assailed in these days, but we have nothing to fear. Christianity is not theology, it is not doctrine, it is not creed, it is not organization. It is the living experience of a living power, and it will live forever. "God may have other words for other worlds, but for this world the Word of God is Christ."