I was once present at a religious meeting where the preacher narrated, with much gusto, accounts of sudden and unexpected deaths and the ultimate fate of the dead ones, making the ignorant audience feel fearful that their every breath might be their last. Finding that even this did not sufficiently stir the people, he pleaded that God in His mercy ‘would shut the doors of hell--aye, even with a _bang_!’--for a few moments until he had saved the souls before him. After the word ‘bang’ he paused in an attitude of attention as if listening to hear the slamming doors. The excitement was intense; many weak-minded people went into hysterics and others hastened to be converted and ‘made safe’ while the hell-doors were shut. To such means have some religionists reverted to teach the people the Gospel! No, alas! the old channels are no longer available for the water of life; without it the people are dead, live they ever so comfortably. A spiritual life is the true life; as men become spiritualised, as the moral ideal becomes the source of action, the old words and forms may regain meaning. Phrases now to them meaning nothing or only superstition will then express their very being; but without a belief in the ideal they are but empty words, like ‘the sounding brass or tinkling cymbal.’ How can these degraded people be given these priceless gifts? The usual religious means have failed, the unusual must be tried; we must deal with the people as individuals, being content to speak, not to the thousands, but to ones and twos; we must become the friend, the intimate of a few; we must lead them up through the well-known paths of cleanliness, honesty, industry, until we attain the higher ground whence glimpses can be caught of the brighter land, the land of spiritual life. Hitherto the large number of the degraded people have appalled the philanthropist; they have been spoken of as the ‘lapsed masses’; and efforts to reach them have not been considered successful unless the results can be counted by hundreds. But there is the higher authority for the individual teaching; He whom all men now delight to honour, whose life, words, and actions are held up for imitation; He chose twelve only to especially influence; He spent long hours in conversation with single persons; He thought no incident too trivial to inquire into, no petty quarrel beneath His interference. We must know and be known, love and be loved, by our less happy brother until he learn, through the friend whom he has seen, knowledge of God whom he has not seen. All this must be done, and not one stone of practical helpfulness left unturned, and God’s passionless reformers, influences That purify and heal and are not seen,