Perhaps the only one of the first group of disciples who possessed powers of organisation was Judas Iscariot; and some critics may say that he at least has had an apostolic succession of followers throughout the history of the Church. One remembers the terrible saying of Renan [2] <#_edn2>: L'histoire de l'Eglise sera le plus souvent désormais l'histoire des trahisons que subira l'idée de Jesus; and though no churches have been dedicated to SS. Ananias and Sapphira, they have become in practice the patrons of too many Christian lives. But if we cannot wish for an external unity such as that for which many good men plead, we have, nevertheless, constantly to strive after a deeper union of spirit in the service of our fellows, in the search after truth, in love to our Lord. First let us take our need of sincerity. Perhaps nothing so holds many men of to-day from Christ as the sense of the insincerity of those who call themselves Christians. Our worship, our hymns and prayers, are full of unreality; we persuade ourselves, perhaps, that we still believe in dogmas which have ceased to have any influence upon our lives. We shut our eyes to new truths because we are really afraid to be free, and what was the chalice of a new truth to our fathers becomes a poison-cup to us and our children. If the Church is to regain and to retain the respect of honest thinkers we must welcome fair-minded inquiry wherever it be directed, and not fear to open our eyes to the sun. [p.27] And it is not only intellectual sincerity in accepting new truths that is needed; if the old truths are to be made real to our day, we must be prepared to translate them into language which people can understand. It is worse than useless often to attempt to hand them on in the garments of old words by which they were clothed in former days, for as truth is a living thing, and words fade and lose their meaning, the form in which it is rightly expressed must change from age to age. It is not enough, then, to repeat some passage of Scripture, some familiar verse of religious poetry, or some words of a man of God of former days, to bring help to men to-day, even though the words are full of meaning to us because we have entered into the inward experience which they represent. Some have heard the words so often that they are now almost meaningless; others cannot be touched by a mode of thought which was the outcome of another time. They need the truths that lie behind the old words and the outworn methods of thinking, but they must be re-expressed if they are to reach them.