We cannot part them. Man could never do it, even in the simpler Middle Age. Far less can he do it now in an age full of such strange, such complex influences; at once so progressive and conservative; an age in which the same man is often craving after some new prospect of the future, and craving at the same moment after the seemingly obsolete past; longing for fresh truth, and yet dreading to lose the old; with hope struggling against fear, courage against modesty, scorn of imbecility against reverence for authority in the same man’s heart, while the mystery of the new world around him strives with the mystery of the old world which lies behind him; while the belief that man is the same being now as he was five thousand years ago strives with the plain fact that he is assuming round us utterly novel habits, opinions, politics; while the belief that Christ is the same now as he was in Judæa of old—yea, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever—strives with the plain fact that his field, the world, is in a state in which it never has been since the making of the world; while it is often most difficult, though (as I believe) certainly possible, to see those divine laws at work with which God governed the nations in old time. May God forgive us all, both laity and clergy, every cruel word, every uncharitable thought, every hasty judgment. Have we not need, in such a time as this, of that divine humility which is the elder sister of divine charity? Have we not need of some of that God-inspired modesty of St. Paul’s: ‘I think as a child, I speak as a child. I see through a glass darkly’? Have we not need to listen to his warning: ‘he that regardeth the day, to the Lord he regardeth it; and he that regardeth it not, to the Lord he regardeth it not. Who art thou that judgest another? To his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, and he shall stand; for God is able to make him stand’? Have we not need to hear our Lord’s solemn rebuke, when St. John boasted how he saw one casting out devils in Christ’s name, and he forbade him, because he followed not them—‘Forbid him not’? Have we not need to believe St. James, when he tells us that every good gift and every perfect gift cometh from above, from the Father of lights, and not (as we have too often fancied) sometimes from below, from darkness and the pit? Have we not need to keep in mind the canon of the wise Gamaliel?—‘If this counsel or this work be of man, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, we cannot overthrow it, lest haply we too be found fighting even against God.’ Have we not need to keep in mind that ‘every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God;’ and ‘no man saith that Jesus is the Christ, save by the Spirit of God;’ lest haply we, too, be found more fastidious than Almighty God himself? Have we not need to beware lest we, like the Scribes and Pharisees, should be found keeping the key of knowledge, and yet not entering in ourselves, and