thinking, and God a projection of the human mind: as if such a travesty of the facts, such a "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable" jargon, compounded of bad psychology and unintelligent rationalism, could cancel out the witness of the Christian centuries, or be the dynamite to blast and to destroy the Rock of ages! I am thinking rather of the deeper and more serious challenge which accosts our ministry in this age when beliefs which once seemed inviolable are fighting for their very life, and when the faith of multitudes of our fellow-men has gone down defeated before the wild surge and onset of militant doubt. Have you, as Christ's ambassadors, the word of the Lord for such a situation? Can you confront it with the decisive testimony of an irrefragable first-hand experience? "I believe," cried the psalmist, "therefore have I spoken." It is a great thing to be able, like the apostle, to add: "We also believe, and therefore speak."
To be aware, however, of the prevalent mood of scepticism and of the widespread failure of belief is not enough. For beneath the surface there is an acute tension: the thesis and antithesis of doubt and faith, the drive of the spirit of denial, and the urge of the quest for God. Do not allow the drift away from the Church, and the apparent indifference and even hostility to organized religion, to deceive you. Everywhere to-day, even in the least likely places, there are men dimly seeking the Lord, "if haply they might feel after
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