burns
at certain times and places with a fierce and demonic glow. When I saw
in Calcutta, so recently the capital of India, a priestess of the temple
of Kali, cutting into bits the flesh and entrails of sheep in order that
the poorest worshiper might have for his farthing some bloody fragment
to offer at the shrine of that hideous and lustful and cruel goddess, I
felt sure that, though the candle is burning, it is not always because
it has been touched by a divine flame. There are other powers than God's
at work in this universe. Doctor Parkhurst's explanation of the
Scripture text is not sufficient. He acknowledges only a part of the
truth. The candle is giving already a dim and lurid light. Man is
blindly worshiping, groping in the dark, bowing to imaginary deities,
the products of his own imagination, the work of his own hands.

We must go even farther than this, and concede that here and there among
these crowds of worshipers there may be one who is a sincere seeker
after God and, according to the light that he has, is trying honestly to
serve him. I do not mean a selfish service of ignorant and earthly
passion, but a service prompted by some elementary knowledge of the true
God, gained by contemplation of his works in nature or from the needs of
his own soul revealed in conscience. Surely there was truth and
sincerity in the worship of Socrates, of Epictetus, of Marcus Aurelius.
The patriarchs had knowledge of God and walked with God, long before
Christ came. And Scripture itself declares that in every nation he that
fears God and works righteousness is accepted by him. David Brainerd
found among the American Indians a man who for years had separated
himself from the wickedness of his people, and had devoted himself to
doing them good. Now and then our missionaries find a heathen whose
strivings after God have been prompted by a sense of sin, and whose
worship must have been accepted by the God of love. Though there is
"none other name given among men whereby we may be saved," we cannot
doubt that every man who feels himself to be a sinner, and casts himself
upon God's mercy for salvation, does really though unconsciously cast
himself upon Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world, and so joins himself to Christ by the teaching and power of
Christ's Spirit, as to be saved in some measure from the dominion of sin
here and from the penalty of sin hereafter.

I am a believer in the unity, the suffi