Christianity, once an aggressive and virile movement, now resorts to apologetics, compromise and concession to prolong her life. She seeks shelter against the spirit of the age. She is cultivating the art of silence. Yes, Christianity is seeking a lower level. It attacks wooden idols seven thousand miles away, but at home,--in the presence of intellectual inquiry, it is paralyzed. Of course it could be said that if we wished to hear the bishop's gospel we could have gone to his church. Yes, we could. But so could he have come to us. Furthermore, the bishop does not say to the Hindoo, or to the Japanese, "If you want my religion, come and get it." He sends it to them, and he even asks for iron-clads to compel the Japanese and the Chinese to hear his gospel. Yet at home he will not step around the corner to deliver his message to us. The invitation to the bishop is a standing one; it will never be withdrawn. The same invitation is extended herewith, this morning, to any clergyman or layman who is willing to come and deliver his message to us and to hear ours--on one condition, however--that the clergyman or the layman who accepts our invitation shall come as the representative of his denomination or church--he must come with his credentials--he must be commissioned by his church to speak for the church. And whenever any denomination in this city or country shall send a delegate to address us, he will be received with the greatest cordiality, and his message shall be listened to in a spirit of fairness. The question: Can there be any morality without a belief in God, is a fundamental one, and the fact that we are willing to study it proves that we take more than a superficial interest in what might be called radical problems. To this question the first answer is that of philosophy, and the second is that of history. This morning we will confine ourselves to the theoretical or philosophical aspect of the question. What is there in a belief in God which should be indispensable to the moral life? Why should the moral life be inseparably associated with a belief in God? The theological position, in which you and I were brought up, is, that morality is impossible without a belief in God. The scientist's position is that morality is independent of a belief in God. The scientist does not deny dogmatically, the existence of a God. The scientist is far from denying even that there is at the heart of the universe a mystery,--an insoluble problem, at least a problem that hitherto has refused to reveal its secret to the human mind,--but he contends that to associate the moral life with this mystery, this insoluble problem, is to envelope it in darkness and uncertainty.