[Continent.]

What sort of message, then, is the most appropriate Christmas message from the pulpit or from the lips of the Christian who would, man to man, repeat the good news to his neighbor? Manifestly there is nothing else so supremely befitting for Christmas day as that word which is most important to men in every day—that God has through His Son Jesus Christ made a way of escape out of sin and wrong into a life of fellowship with Him. The very best Christmas celebration, therefore, would be what the church has come to call an evangelistic service. Christmas should be "Merry Christmas" indeed, but the merriment which most becomes its hours would be, in any place and in any year, such merriment as prevailed in that home of the Lord's parable, where the patriarchal father stood at the head of the festal board and said: "Let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found." Atonement, redemption, forgiveness, salvation—these are somehow judged to be words that belong to solemn Good Friday. But they are equally or even more Christmas words. Redemption comes as much from Bethlehem as from Golgotha.

[Christian Register.]

The moment any one thinks about the beliefs hitherto taken as a matter of course, received, as something handed to him, unopened, he begins to be a liberal. It is astonishing what convictions blurt themselves out when people speak unawares what they really think. From the depths of conservatism and ruined opinions there spring these witnesses of independence and progress that refresh us greatly. Just when we despair at the mass of crude and obstinate ignorance which takes the name of faith, comes some such stream of fresh assertion to cheer us with confidence in the victory of truth. Those who maintain the old standards, supported by loyal followers, would be dismayed if they realized how ready many adherents are for revolution, how many opinions are already formed, though in the shell, and at the slightest touch would become alive. Find the church strongest in dogma and put many of its members to the test of unconscious affirmation, and the wonder is why mutiny should not ensue. Only the power of discipline, the deep root of habit, keeps such churches from religious democracy. [Zion's Herald.]

What shall be done with the modern pulpit? Frankly let it be admitted that it is passing through a most critical period. On the one hand are its enemies, who are saying that the day of its power has gone by, that its influence is practically a thing of the past. On the other hand are those of its own household, who, catching this spirit, are trying to "popularize" the pulpit in order, as they think, to make it fit into the life of today. And between the two there is a great mass of Christian believers who know that something is wrong,—though they do not know exactly what,—and they sigh for the glory of other days. Meanwhile in many places the spiritually hungry are starving, while the world goes on its way, beating as a surging mass upon the outside of the church buildings, but entering not. Now these remarks are not mere fancies of the imagination. Any one who has thought at all seriously upon religion and life at the present time, has reached conclusions somewhat similar to these.

[British Congregationalist.]

Unquestionably one of the profoundest needs of today is a definite faith. But there is a real solution to the problem, and it is this: Let every Christian exercise such a clear, definite, specific faith in the power of our Lord to impart eternal life to men here and now; to fill them with joy that triumphs over all sorrows; to speak forgiveness and peace to sinful, troubled souls; to bring hope to the despairing and strength to the burden-wearied; to unveil the richness and vitality of another world as far superior to this as the mind of God is to the mind of man; to hold every soul responsible in eternity for its life in time; and such a faith will work like a contagion,—a contagion of Christian health, and hope, and joy, and victory. One man with a definite faith in Christ can successfully contend with a thousand who only guess.

[Universalist Leader.]

There are two ways in which a cause or nation grows. One is measured by the extension of territory or the increase of population, or by both. So many states are added to the Union. So many immigrants have come to our ports. So many islands have our flag floating over them. So many millions live under our government. That is one form of growth, but there is another form. There is the expansion of ideas and ideals and influence. There is the widening and deepening of convictions. There is the enrichment of life. There are the tottering thrones of ancient wrong which have felt the thrill of expanding life as the voice of a people adumbrates around the world. The statistician can number our population and our acres. He can tabulate our material wealth. But he cannot draw metes and bounds, diagrams or tables to show whether the vitality of the nation has increased or decreased. This kind of measurement is not by yardstick or multiplication table. It requires something more than mathematical genius to circumscribe it.

[Rev. R. R. Meredith, D.D., in Riverside (Cal.) Press.]

You are building a Christian church, and building it in a day when the church of Jesus Christ is exposed to a very great deal of adverse criticism. All about us there are large numbers of people who are saying something like this: "I believe in Jesus Christ—believe in following his precepts and example, but I do not believe in the church." There is a vast deal of that talk that has no bottom to it. It is used as a sort of refuge to which a man may fly from his own conscience. There is, however, some ground for the criticism. The church has not adhered to the simplicity of organization and spirituality of purpose that characterized it at the beginning. If all this unrest shall lead the church to go back and study its history once more, and aim at the subserviency to practical ends that characterized the primitive church, it will be a greater gain to Christianity.

[Christian World.]

There are teachers today who would persuade us that humanity is a sort of closed circle, with nothing in it that relates to a beyond-human. All our emotions, our reverence, our instinct of worship, our sense of ideal perfection, are in ourselves and ourselves only. The infinite goodness, the infinite holiness, are purely human conceptions, and touch nothing higher than our own minds. However, that may be the verdict of the intellect,—of some intellects; it is assuredly not the verdict of the heart. The heart's instinct revolts at limitations; it leaps beyond the bounds of its own frailties, weaknesses, and sins, and demands a union with what is greater than itself. That has been ever the affirmation of the great religious natures. The divine within calls for the divine without. The spiritual life will be satisfied with nothing less than the highest for its goal.

[Rev. Malcolm James MacLeod in Christian Intelligencer.]

Christ's appeal was to the solid and permanent in man. Art and science and economics are fluid things. Spiritual force is at the bottom of all true and lasting reform. Change the hearts of the people and you will change their laws. The best way to reach the lower is to aim at the higher.