Is there not also great value in the insistence upon the fact that the ministry of the Church is not dependent upon the laying on of hands, or any other outward ceremony? I should like to quote again from the West China document to which I have already referred, under the heading of “Ministry.” “1. The supreme and only indispensable qualification for the Christian ministry is the Divine call, habitually responded to. Any man or woman so used of God is thereby constituted a Christian minister. “2. The part of the Church is to recognize such ministers.” It is not only the mere fact of his salary which makes the workingman shun the parson. It is the thought of a class set apart, different from the ordinary man in the street. Are we making full use of the advantage we possess through having our business men engaged in the active ministry of the Church? If we have broken down the barrier between lay and cleric, have we not at the same time done something to remove the barrier between labor and the Church? _The Church, then, needs to be reminded perpetually that the ministry is not the work of a class but of all, and that the service of Christ is not a profession but a free-will offering._ IX. There is one other direction in which my own experience leads me to believe that Friends have a position of peculiar advantage and responsibility, and I cannot close this address without making some reference thereto. We are all well aware of the great difficulties which have been faced and are still being faced by the Church of Christ to-day through the advent of the historical criticism of the Bible. On the one hand there are those who believe that the Bible should be treated exactly as any other book; that the various documents which have been embodied in it should be critically examined and that every statement should be checked and challenged. This treatment of the Bible has led to results which many regard as serious, if not disastrous. So much is this the case that many of the most earnest followers of Christ believe on the other hand that the whole movement, generally spoken of as the “higher criticism,” is altogether evil and to be resisted with the whole strength of the Church. This school, with which are associated some of the most saintly and earnest Christian workers, believes that we should maintain the entire literal inspiration of the whole of Holy Scripture. From the results which they have seen in the case of many who have been grievously upset, and whose faith seems to have been shipwrecked through following the higher critics, they have come to the conclusion that it is wrong to allow any question to be asked which might lead to the shaking of our faith in the literal accuracy of the whole book. To some it seems as though these two schools of thought could not possibly be reconciled. They regard their opponents as hopelessly narrow-minded and bigoted or as giving away the very essence of Christian faith.