preachers and church-members. The result is that the great mass of the members of the sectarian churches neither know nor care what the creeds of their churches teach. I say that this is a hopeful sign, but there is also a great danger involved in it. Learning that the doctrines of their own and other denominations are not of saving or vital importance, people are likely to jump to the conclusion that no religious doctrines are of vital importance, and so lose their interest in Christianity. No one can deny that thousands have reached this condition, and are either members of no church or merely nominal, indifferent members. Since all sectarian doctrines are of human origin and of no vital, saving importance, we can endorse the statement that, from a sectarian standpoint, one church is just as good as another. We will also grant, for the sake of the argument, that from the standpoint of piety, talent, learning and consecration, one church, on an average, is just as good as another. But does this go to the bottom of the subject? The doctor who, through ignorance of medical science, gives your child medicine that cripples it for life or kills it, may be just as good morally and intellectually as other doctors who know their business. His blunder of ignorance may not destroy his hope of heaven; but is that a reason why you would just as soon have him treat your child as another doctor? So sectaries who teach erroneous doctrines may be just as honest, consecrated and learned as those who teach the gospel truth; but does it make no difference to the cause of Christ and the salvation of souls, whether they teach sectarian vagaries that divide and desolate the church, or exalt the Christ and his Word so as to unite all his followers in the conquest of the world? But, you ask, how can good and learned people differ so in their beliefs? We may not understand how it is, but we know it is and ever has been so. Our minds are so constituted that we must see all truths alike, logically, mathematically and in every other way, if we see them at all. The trouble is that our vision is so warped through prejudice and limited ideas and information that we fail to see the simplest truths, and find in the Bible and elsewhere what we bring with us through heredity and environment. The Bible recognizes this truth. Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). Paul says, "I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief" (1 Tim. 1:13), and again, "The times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30). It may seem paradoxical, but it is nevertheless true, that the greatest hindrance to the spread of the truth of God has come from pious, consecrated and God-fearing souls who were misled by their hereditary prejudices. The majority of those converted under the preaching of the Apostles, as recorded in the New Testament, were devout saints who needed to be