with a real driving power towards good. There is all the difference in the world between sentimental visions and operative ideals. A sentimental vision is blind to reality, and seeks to live in an unreal realm from which all evil and misery have been excluded. But an operative ideal is firmly founded in the bedrock of things as they are. Yet it recognises that this is not the best of all possible worlds, and it is convinced that all moral progress consists in the attempt to attain an ideal goal. The ideal is itself the force which demands loyalty to its claims, and which directs the whole process of the moral life. It supplies motives for conduct, it is an incentive to action, and, though it is never completely realised, it is the source of all man's moral endeavour. Such an ideal, loyalty to which is suffused with a passionate enthusiasm for the good and the true, is rarely found in one who has not been influenced by the church. Religious ideals are not only more intense and dynamic than others, they are also more comprehensive. A noble enthusiasm for humanity organises a man's life as a whole, and inspires his every thought and deed to be serviceable to its comprehensive ends. His interests become unified, and his purposes systematic, for all are regarded as having worth only in relation to his governing ideal.
(2) In particular, the vital church inspires its members by precept and by example with the spirit of loyal service. Whenever the church fails to inculcate the duty of loyal service, it ceases to deserve the name. The church consists of those who believe that they possess "good news" of incalculable value; and it is not a real church unless it
