elf may be dragged into this circle of dissipation. It is
possible to go to church with substantially the same object with which
one goes to a place of amusement--in the hope of being excited, of
having the feelings stirred and the aesthetic sense gratified or, at
the least, consuming an hour which might otherwise lie heavy on the
hands. With shame be it said, there are churches enough and preachers
enough ready to meet this state of mind half-way. With the fireworks
of rhetoric or the witchery of music or the pomp of ritual the
performance is seasoned up to the due pitch; and the audience depart
with precisely the same kind of feeling with which they might leave a
concert or a theatre. Very likely it is accounted a great success; but
Christ has not spoken: He is resolutely mute to those who follow
religion in this spirit.

Sometimes the same spirit takes another direction; it becomes
speculative and sceptical and, like Herod, "questions in many words."
When I have heard some people propounding religious difficulties, the
answer which has risen to my lips has been, Why should you be able to
believe in Christ? what have you ever done to render yourselves worthy
of such a privilege? you are thinking of faith as a compliment to be
paid to Christ; in reality the power to believe in Him and His words is
a great privilege and honour, that requires to be purchased with
thought, humility and self-denial.

We do not owe an answer to the religious objections of everyone.
Religion is, indeed, a subject on which everyone takes the liberty of
speaking; the most unholy and evil-living talk and write of it nothing
doubting; but in reality it is a subject on which very few are entitled
to be heard. We may know beforehand, from their lives, what the
opinions of many must be about it; and we know what their opinions are
worth.

It may be thought that Jesus ought to have spoken to Herod--that He
missed an opportunity. Ought He not to have appealed to his conscience
and attempted to rouse him to a sense of his sin? To this I answer
that His silence was itself this appeal. Had there been a spark of
conscience left in Herod, those Eyes looking him through and through,
and that divine dignity measuring and weighing him, would have caused
his sins to rise up out of the grave and overwhelm him. Jesus was
silent, that the voice of the dead Baptist might be heard.

If we understood it, the silence of Christ is the most eloquent of al