irit of self-sacrifice, also. You will find a stimulating and precious
comradeship on the part of many. You will find that you will get great
good, even as you are able to give great good.

The Church, as everything else, needs to keep its machinery in continual
repair. Help take out the worn-out parts--but not too suddenly. The
Church is not a depository, but an instrument and engine of truth and
righteousness. Some of the older men do not realise this; but they will
die off. Respect their beliefs. Honest men have honest respect for
differences of opinion, for honest differences in thought. Sympathy is a
great harmoniser. "Differences of opinion, intellectual distinctions,
these must ever be--separation of mind, but unity of heart."

I like these words of Lyman Abbott. You will like them. They are spoken
out of a full life of rich experience and splendid service. They have,
moreover, a sort of unifying effect. They are more than a tonic: "Of
all characters in history none so gathers into himself and reflects from
himself all the varied virtues of a complete manhood as does Jesus of
Nazareth. And the world is recognising it.... If you go back to the
olden time and the old conflicts, the question was, 'What is the
relation of Jesus Christ to the Eternal?' Wars have been fought over the
question, 'Was he of one substance with the Father?' I do not know; I do
not know of what substance the Father is; I do not know of what
substance Jesus Christ is. What I do know is this--that when I look into
the actual life that I know about, the men and women that are about me,
the men and women in all the history of the past, of all the living
beings that ever lived and walked the earth, there is no one that so
fills my heart with reverence, with affection, with loyal love, with
sincere desire to follow, as doth Jesus Christ....

"I do not need to decide whether he was born of a virgin. I do not need
to decide whether he rose from the dead. I do not need to decide whether
he made water into wine, or fed five thousand with two loaves and five
small fishes. Take all that away, and still he stands the one
transcendent figure toward whom the world has been steadily growing, and
whom the world has not yet overtaken even in his teachings.... I do not
need to know what is his metaphysical relation to the Infinite. I say it
reverently--I do not care. I know for me he is the great Teacher; I know
for me he is the great Leader whose work I want