available for our help and comfort than any man has dreamed.” If there was one thing which the Society of Friends was called into existence to proclaim, it was this very truth. Are we proclaiming it to-day? And, for the non-Christian world, how great is the danger of substituting one set of ceremonies for another. To those who have been in the habit of trusting to such barren rites as the burning of paper money, the washing in the Ganges and the sacred but often most unholy feasts, how easy it is to allow the burning of incense or the rites of Baptism or the Holy Communion to take the same place in their thoughts and to be trusted for salvation or merit in the same way. In fact, one of our own missionaries in Ceylon was a man who had, for some years, worked in connection with another Society, and who had found that he was in constant difficulty because he was building up with one hand what he had to remove with the other. He came to the conclusion that, if he was to help men into a personal experience of Christ, he must take away entirely all possibility of trusting to outward rites, and preach to them the simple Quaker message. When the Friend missionaries in China met after the West China Conference to consider the way in which we might express in a few words the contribution of Friends towards the doctrine and practice of a Union Church, they drew up a brief statement which contains the following words under the heading of “sacraments.” These words are intended to convey the essence of the Quaker position on this point. 1. “The Pre-eminence of the Spiritual Experience. 2. “The Spiritual Experience may be realized independently of any special occasion, rite, or mediating person, except our Lord. 3. “Membership of the Church of Christ is of such a character that any outward recognition fails adequately to determine it.” If the complete Christian message is to be given, if the Christian Church is to enter fully into an understanding of the mind of the Master, this aspect of truth needs to be emphasized, not only by words but by lives, and not only by the lives of individuals but by that added emphasis which comes through the existence of a corporate Body, whose very existence depends upon the validity of this tremendous fact. Our position as a Society does depend upon this truth, and out of it grow many other of our special contributions, if not all. We are set in the world of to-day to testify to a truth the enunciation of which has never been more urgently or more widely needed. The whole Church of Christ should be sounding forth this message. _She needs, therefore, a body of persons who stand for the principle that God deals directly with every soul of man, ever challenging the spirit of man to rest in nothing short of direct personal intercourse with God._ IV.