Bible readings, instead of what it really is,--the coördinating principle of all our activities. To put the matter in a nutshell,--popular Christianity (or rather pulpit and theological college Christianity) does _not_ interpret life. Consequently the great world of thought and action is ceasing to trouble about it. +Theologians and preachers rarely realise the situation.+--One would think that the men whose business it is to teach religious truth would see this and ask themselves the reason why. To an extent they do see it, but they never seem to think of blaming themselves for it except in a perfunctory kind of way. They talk about religious indifference, the need for better and more effective methods, and so on. The professional theologian rarely does even as much as this. He takes himself very seriously; sniffs and sneers at any suggestion of deviation from the accepted standards; mounts some denominational chair or other and thunders forth his view of the urgent necessity for rehabilitating truth in the grave-clothes of long-buried formulas. I mean that the language he habitually uses implies some kind of belief in formulas he no longer holds. He hardly dares to disinter the formulas themselves,--that would not be convenient even for him,--but he goes on flapping the shroud as energetically as ever, and the world does not even take the trouble to laugh. Wherever and whenever religious agencies succeed it is rarely because of the driving power of what is preached, but because the preacher's gospel is glossed over or put in the background. We have popular services by the million in which devices are used to attract the public which ought not to be necessary if their framers had any real message to declare. But they have not. Popular pulpit addresses rarely or never deal with the fundamental problems of life. The last thing one ever expects to hear in such addresses is a real living representation of the beliefs the preacher professes to hold. He makes passing allusions to them, of course, such as appeals to come to the cross, and such like, but they generally sound unreal, and the pill has to be sweetly sugared. The ordinary way of preaching the gospel is to avoid saying much about what the preacher believes the gospel to be. To be sure there are many social activities in connection with Christian churches. If it were not for these the churches would have to be shut up. They are quite admirable in their way, and often produce excellent results, but they imply another gospel than the one supposed to be preached from the pulpits. They ignore dogmatic beliefs, and assume the salvability of the whole race and the possibility of realising the kingdom of God on earth. Wherever the churches are alive to-day, and not merely struggling to keep their heads above water, it is not their doctrine but their non-theological human sympathy that is doing it.