them far, let it be recognised that they remain at their task of defending the stake, that it may not be pulled up and carried away by the cord lengtheners. The centrifugal force is safe and constant only so long as the power which holds things to the centre is preserved and exercised. We need each other. We need the stake. We need the lengthened cord. The world's need calls for a wide-stretched tabernacle. Keep the central stake strong and fast. Trust the cord lengtheners to exercise the faith that they feel in knowing that things at the centre are guarded and kept so secure that they are not afraid of uprooting the stake by largely lengthening the cords. We should not call by ill-sounding names those who feel called of God to keep guard at the centre, and who labour to keep the stake well grounded in the ancient truth. They surely should not call those disloyal who show such supreme faith in the stake at the centre, that they are willing to tie their cords around the hearts of men far removed, and entwine the outstretched cords about the forces of righteous

ness everywhere, and even venture to cast a life line into the teeth of the tempest, and out upon the darkness of the sea to the ship disabled because they believe that the stake divinely set and guarded by faithful men will hold fast at the centre. What is needed in the Church is the larger confidence which should be felt among men who are brothers and builders together of the tabernacle of God among men.

CHAPTER XXXI

WHAT WE MAY AND WHAT WE CAN

WR

NOT HOLD

E may hold our theories. We may tenaciously hold to exclusive interpretations of our orders and sacraments. We may hold to the determination to magnify the outward, the formal, the material side of the Church. We may hold to our insistence upon the supreme importance of a perfected organisation to be maintained and consummated at any cost. We may hold to our exclusive titles, and to our exclusive claims, and to our exclusive position. But we cannot hold the people if we emphasise these things to the exclusion of the spiritual appeal and the spiritual gifts.

The deep heart of humanity feels, and, at times, clearly sees, the nature and quality and

richness of its birthright. The thirst for God is imperious. The longing for the consciousness of communion with Him, and for the possession of His love and His power and His healing, cleansing life is ever present, though, at times, obscured in the soul.

The appealing power of Moody and of Billy Sunday over multitudes of men, and the growing strength of the distinctly spiritual appeal and spiritual emphasis of Christian Science, are both distinct evidences of the power of the peril which inheres in the tendency to materialise and secularise the Church, and bear witness to the peril of substituting in the minds of our people the form, the order, and the organisation in place of the living, vital witness to the personal saving and healing Christ.

If there should be placed a more insistent and definite emphasis upon the spirit of Christ, and less upon the form of the Church; if in place of magnifying the organisation, we should consecrate ourselves to spiritualise more deeply the individual and the Church as a vital organism;

if we should become less exclusive in our consciousness and more responsive to the opportunities for service, more deeply imbued with the spirit of love and fellowship, and more willing to vindicate our orders and organisation by using them in co-operation with other forces of God's constituted Kingdom, is there not every reason found in the revelation of the mind and purpose of Christ to believe that He will be true to His promise that against His Church the gates of hell shall not prevail?

Having for so long pursued the course of an exclusive claim and of an isolated position, it might be well for this Church to try the experiment of following the Master, with those others whom He is leading, into a more vital and spiritual co-operative effort to inspire the minds of men and the ideals of nations, that they be no longer conformed to the standards of the world, but transformed by the renewing of the spirit of the living God.

In doing this the Church would doubtless win and hold a larger following of spiritually