And when I see how little there is to impede
and bewilder us, I cannot but accept,--should it be for many
years,--the forlornness, the want of fit expression, the
darkness as to what is to be expressed, even that characterize
our time.

'But I do not, therefore, as some of our friends do, believe
that it will always be so, and that the church is tottering to
its grave, never to rise again. The church was the growth of
human nature, and it is so still. It is but one result of the
impulse which makes two friends clasp one another's hands,
look into one another's eyes at sight of beauty, or the
utterance of a feeling of piety. So soon as the Spirit has
mourned and sought, and waited long enough to open new depths,
and has found something to express, there will again be
a Cultus, a Church. The very people, who say that none is
needed, make one at once. They talk with, they write to one
another. They listen to music, they sustain themselves with
the poets; they like that one voice should tell the thoughts
of several minds, one gesture proclaim that the same life is
at the same moment in many breasts.

'I am myself most happy in my lonely Sundays, and do not feel
the need of any social worship, as I have not for several
years, which I have passed in the same way. Sunday is to me
priceless as a day of peace and solitary reflection. To all
who will, it may be true, that, as Herbert says:--

"Sundays the pillars are
On which Heaven's palace arched lies;
The other days fill up the space
And hollow room with vanities;"

and yet in no wise "vanities," when filtered by the Sunday
crucible. After much troubling of the waters of my life, a
radiant thought of the meaning and beauty of earthly existence
will descend like a healing angel. The stillness permits me
to hear a pure tone from the One in All. But often I am not
alone. The many now, whose hearts, panting for truth and
love, have been made known to me, whose lives flow in the same
direction as mine, and are enlightened by the same star, are
with me. I am in church, the church invisible, undefiled by
inadequate expression. Our communion is perfect; it is that
of a common aspiration; and where two or three are gathered
together in one region, whether in the flesh or the spirit,
He will grant their reques