We are living in a new age since August, 1914, and a new spirit possesses the people. With this terrific war raging new standards of values in religion, as in politics, have come into operation, shattering old ideals evermore. To encourage and strengthen them in this era of strain and conflict men need the larger, cleaner, diviner truth which fell from the lips of the living Christ. We want these truths to win through--the spoken words of Christ, with the free airs of heaven blowing across them, bringing healthiness of life, sanity of faith, and manifold charities, to all men who dwell on earth. The lure of the Living Word alone can hold men firm in this age of upheaval, when the old world has caved in and the plans of the new world are not yet manifest. There is finer, simpler, fuller spiritual teaching in the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, touching our present need than in all books of theology ever written and all Sunday sermons weekly preached. It is these half-forgotten things that matter on which new emphasis must be thrown. Theology is the great imposture planted on mankind as a substitute for the teachings of Jesus Christ. When one leaves the words of Christ and strays amongst the words of men, it is like a traveller switching off the main line whereon his destination lies and losing himself on a side-track. It is disaster to side-track on the journey of life. Keep to the words of Christ and you keep on the main line. The gospel as revealed in the teachings of Jesus is entirely free from the sacerdotal imperative which nowadays imposes priest and ritual in the path of spiritual worship and blocks the fair-way to God. Priests and rituals and creeds are non-essentials; they are only wrappings: they are not religion, nor the best part of it. We must distinguish between living, breathing Christianity and the man-made ecclesiastical garments which clothe it fashionably, because the difference between them is vital and far-reaching. True religion, however, is seldom found stripped of all temporary wrappings, but its spiritual vigour survives in spite of Church-made millinery which encumbers it and impedes its healthy growth. Strip the religion of Jesus Christ of its grave-clothes and put the pure gospel in her mouth, and never tidings could be told to weary, heavy-laden men to-day which would be hailed as half so welcome. The one thing needful to make this world an earthly paradise, delightful to dwell in, is for men to live face to face with God, without a screen of ritual or image or priestcraft obstructing the view of our Heavenly Father; it is the light of God’s countenance that cheers the heart of man, and strengthens him to live a good life in all sincerity of purpose.