But after all, we can hold a thing for true, and yet find no explanation of it which quite satisfies us. Theories about the heavens have come and gone, but the stars remain. Christ was, before creeds gathered about Him; and it is because He is, that men must formulate doctrine to explain Him. I have long had the conviction that in religion nothing really matters but the Spirit of Christ. This is not to say that if we have, or claim to have, the Spirit of Christ, it makes no difference whether we do, or do not, believe in the "historical Christ." To my thinking such a position is nonsense. We may as well talk about an effect without a cause. Spirit must needs clothe itself with body. The "external may come in at different points of the process, but the internal without the external cannot exist." I am simply saying, that everything we need to know in a general sense about Christian doctrine becomes intelligible and reasonable, not when we approach Christ through our doubts and difficulties about doctrines, but our doubts and difficulties through Christ. In Him is life, and the life is the light of men. I care not for the moment what dogmas about Christ you accept or reject; I ask you to think, and then say, what heaven worth entering, of state or place, could close against us, were we in the Spirit of Christ walking in the footsteps of Christ? Then about feeling: Is there one of us who can say, that he, or she, has never had the impulse that should lead to Christian decision? Long as we make it possible for God to appeal to us, He will find His own way. From Him is the impulse, whichever way it comes, but it is ours to put it in practice. But just as we do not wait for feeling to take us out to earn our bread, and keep a roof over our head, so it is a far nobler thing to turn to God from a sense of duty, and conscience, and spiritual need, than it is to depend upon feeling to make us do, what not to do, with or without feeling, is our loss and our shame. Do not wait for feeling. Begin your part in the work of your own salvation. If feeling carry you into decision, and it sometimes does, well and good. But for one case where feeling leads to decision there are probably a score where feeling must be made by what follows decision. Take care of doing, and feeling will take care of itself; and as we rejoice in its inspiration, we shall realize that, perhaps for the most part, it can come no other way. To have the joy of doing good, we must do good. We cannot have the tonic and bracing sense of vigour by saying we will climb the mountain. It is when we have scaled its heights that we have the experience of a new physical creation.