All through the Gospel we mark how men cling to the Letter, and how Christ, with tender hand extricates the Spirit from it and tells His hearers, that it is this which gives the Letter its worth. A law such as that of Moses has its place in the Schooling of a race at a certain epoch of national life; but a code or a creed that cannot be expanded must at last be outgrown. If however a Divine and living Spirit be enshrined in a Church, it may direct its development, and transform the outward tenement as inward need requires. Christ came to set men spiritually free; but, strange to say, men are slow to take this freedom up. Among some African races, a man set free from a master at once goes and sells himself to another, he cannot be troubled with managing for himself. This is like the way in which men liberated from one absolute and infallible authority have so often handed themselves over to another. They must have something or somebody to take their beliefs and consciences in charge. Fancying that they are to be saved by holding proper opinions—for by belief they often mean no more than taking up and maintaining opinion—they come, asking, “What are we to believe?” just as the Scribe asked, “What am I to do?” Christ’s answer to him practically was, that he possessed already grounds enough to frame for himself a rule of conduct such as he required. Might He not answer the others nearly in the same strain? Belief, in Christ’s sense of the word, is not the acceptance of a theory, it is something that will actuate the man’s whole being, and which requires the concurrence of an emancipated will. Now this emancipation brings with it a responsibility—a call to mental effort—which a large proportion of mankind steadfastly abhor.