living interest in certain church services
is caused by a sort of subconscious knowledge of the people, that the
minister himself is speaking from the head rather than from the heart;
that what he says comes from his intellect and not as the "spirit
gives him utterance"; and, to put it bluntly, that he himself "no more
than half believes what he says."

"The man spoke as if he were bored with endless repetition of
sermons," said a close observer of a weary parson.

Certain it is that even in political speaking the man who believes
what he says has power over his audience out of all comparison with a
far more eloquent man whom his hearers know to be speaking
perfunctorily.

No matter how much the latter kind of speaker polishes his periods, no
matter how fruitful in thought his address, no matter how perfect the
art of his delivery, he fails in the ultimate effect wrought by a much
inferior speaker whose words are charged with conviction.

He is like the chemist's grain of wheat, perfect in all its
constituent elements except the mysterious spark of life, without
which the wheat grain will not grow.

If then you do not believe what you say and believe it with all your
soul, believe it in your heart of hearts, do not try to get other men
to believe it. You will not be honest if you do. The world expects you
to be sure of yourself. How do you expect to make other people sure of
themselves if you are not sure of yourself?

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye,
but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

"Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote
out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye;
and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of
thy brother's eye."

The world is hungry for faith. Do not doubt this for a moment. More
men and women to-day would rather believe in the few fundamentals of
the Christian religion than have any other gift that lavish fortune
could bestow upon them.

But these millions want to _believe_; they do not want to argue or be
argued at.

They want to believe so utterly that their faith amounts to knowledge.
Doubtings are disquieting; pros and cons are monotonous. We want
certainty, we laymen.

For years I have made it a point to get the opinion of the ablest and
most widely experienced men and women I met on th