the time it judges all success by outward and obvious standards. As things are, it is regarded almost as a crime not to have made money, and the doom of the "unsuccessful" is not pity but reprobation. How is it that, in a universe in which we believe that the fundamental factors are spiritual, such a conception should have come to rule! Simply because we have forgotten the rock from which we have been hewn, and have made a God after our own image. "He granted their request but sent leanness into their souls" (Ps. 106:15). We have had our reward. Is it any wonder that church life is stagnant? Why should it be otherwise if such conceptions virtually rule? Faith is become a comfortable dogma instead of a living conviction. The popular conception of faith implies no sacrifice. The faithful do not live in any way which marks them off from the faithless. Generally speaking, they pursue the same interests, follow out the same policy of insuring against most of the inevitable risks of life. Godly and ungodly alike, they meet the demand of charity, and are not wholly unmindful of their duty to their neighbors. But that the Christian Church should be composed of people who truly are casting their burden upon the Lord is an unknown conception. Nor can they ever think of themselves launching off like Gordon on a quest that was inspired simply by belief in a command of God, as the realization of a need, by faith in an ideal. If the church of to-day is uninteresting and without appeal to youth, the reason may very well be found in the lack of any thought of a living faith. Our Lord depended absolutely upon the Father. The Father's will was his will, and as the result quiet dwelt with Christ. But his was no prudential service. Peace had its willing price. "Peace be unto you ... and when he had thus spoken he showed them his hands and his side" (John 20:19, 20). Public life will rise no higher than its source in personal religion. A quick sense of the brotherhood of man led to the antislavery movement. The removal of the merely penal idea in punishment has led to the new treatment of criminals. Every religious revival may be traced by changes in public administration. A new grasp of the meaning of faith, as the leading by God out into the wilderness, will draw out of their pessimism and social ineptitude men and women who loathe the publicity and mud-slinging of public life and have hitherto stood apart from it. If, however, they come to it out of an awakened conscience, they will step forth, not as unwilling recruits, obeying the uninspiring call of mere duty, but as crusaders to strive for the kingdom of God upon earth. * * * * *