Another hope of the ages that has failed us in the hour of need is the Church. If all other saviours of society failed there remained the Church as by law established to rely upon as the great regenerating power in the land. Alas! the Church in our midst cannot cast out evil spirits. It has lost the gift of healing through respectability. It worships an ancient creed instead of the living Christ. Jesus of Nazareth is the great International Democrat of history. He was a tradesman’s son and a working carpenter Himself. This fact shocks respectability. How many more people would be Christians if Christ had been born in a palace and not in a stable! This is the unsavoury feature of religion, and the exclusive dignitaries of the Church hover round it dubiously. They admit the historic fact with candour, but slither away silently from its indelicate associations as far as decency permits. We have been told that bishops in gaiters and aprons harmonize daintily with the quiet cathedral close, shadowed by immemorial elms and the other minor glories of the Establishment; but bishops in gaiters do seem badly placed in a carpenter’s shop, where their Lord and Master served His ’prentice years. The apron is an ancient figment of clothing bishops now wear in common with the working carpenter at his bench. It is a kind of retaining badge, signalling their humble origin and ancient descent. Bishops, in general, are cultured and amiable men, more renowned for their learning than their piety. They are appointed by the State, and form the executive of the ecclesiastical machine to run the traditional piety of the land. They sometimes quarrel amongst themselves as to who is orthodox and who is not on the episcopal bench--quarrelling amongst bishops is only a human diversion--but touching the righteousness which is in the law they are all blameless men. There is something faulty in the religion they inculcate, for it does not grip the people. It is dreamy; it is not real. It is the vague pursuit of an unknown god ranging through a maze of decorative ritual and symbol, and there remain great arid spaces in our nature which it never fills up. It has been said that the visible Church stands in the way of spiritual enlightenment of the people, just as stone idols of the heathen stand in the way of apprehension of God. What the eye sees before it the mind settles down upon, and roams no farther searching for a fuller vision of spiritual truth. The savage sees his stone idol, and never thinks beyond it religiously. It was his father’s god, and it is god enough for him.