ich is made up of the thought of
individuals, shall proceed in this way, whether we will or not, but it
must always help progress when we can make our wills at one with God's
in this matter; we go faster and safer so. Now to say that to submit
willingly to God's law of growth is to produce chaos must certainly be a
fallacy. It must then be a fallacy to argue that to keep a mind open to
all influences is antagonistic to the truest religious life; we
cannot--whether we wish or not, we _cannot_--let go any truth that has
been assimilated into our lives; and what truth we have not assimilated
it is no advantage to hold without agitation. We know better where we
are when we are forced to sift it. It is the very great apparent
advantage of recognised order that deceives us! When we lose that
_apparent_ advantage, when we lose, too, the familiar names and
symbols, and think, like children, that we have lost the reality they
have expressed to us, a very low state of things _appears_ to result.
The strain and stress of life become much greater. Ah! but, my friend,
it is that strain and stress that shape us into the image of God."

"You hinted, I think, that to your mind there was a more real obstacle,
one peculiar to our age."

Ever since I first met him I have been puzzled to know how it was that I
often knew so nearly what Toyner meant when he only partially expressed
his thought; he had this power over my understanding. He was my master
from the first.

He laid his hand now slightly upon my arm, as though to emphasise what
he said.

"It is a little hard to explain it reverently," he said, "and still
harder to understand why the difficulty should have come about, but in
our day it would seem that the nights of prayer and the fresh intuition
into the laws of God's working, which we see united in the life of our
great Example, have become divorced. It is their union again that we
must have--that we shall have; but at present there is the difficulty
for every man of us--the men who lead us in either path are different
men and lead different ways. Our law-givers are not the men who meet God
upon the mount. Our scientists are not the teachers who are pre-eminent
for fasting and prayer. We who to be true to ourselves must follow in
both paths find our souls perplexed."

In front of us, as we turned a curve in the drive, a bed of scarlet
lilies stood stately in the sun, and a pair of bickering sparrows rose
from the fountain ne