"

The life of faith, that perfect faith which is perfect peace, consists
in this ever-present recognition, and, tested by its results,--tested by
the absolute peace and the larger energy which is liberated by the
cheerful and believing rather than the sad and distrusting state of
mind,--tried by all those tests of actual experience, this attitude of
perfect faith is the attitude most favorable to progress and
achievement.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A Profound Experience.]

Renunciation is a word that stands for a great experience, and it is,
perhaps, too often conceived of as relating to the material rather than
to the spiritual life. The question as to whether one shall give up this
or that article, or practice, during Lent, for instance, is sometimes in
the air,--always with the saving clause that the renunciation is merely
temporal, and if given up for forty days in the year, is to be fully
enjoyed and revelled in on the other three hundred and twenty-five,--a
clause that degrades a religious theory to a purely material plane. If
it is better for one's command of his higher powers not to take coffee,
for instance, during Lent, then it is better not to take it for the
greater proportion of the year aside from Lent. If it is better to be
gentle, tolerant, forgiving, and generous for forty days, it is still
better to be so for three hundred and sixty-five days. There is really
something absolutely absurd as well as repellent in the apparent
acceptation that to live the higher, sweeter, fuller, nobler life is a
penitential affair,--to be endured but not enjoyed, and limited chiefly
to Lenten periods and the special holy days of the Christian Church.
For religion is the life, the continual life of every hour and moment,
and consists in the quality of that constant life. The offices of
religion, the ceremonial forms, are quite another matter. They have
their place, and a most important one. The gathering together at stated
hours and periods for the devotions of religious worship is so great an
aid to the Christian life as well to be ranked indispensable to the
community and the nation; and while it is true that the letter killeth
but the spirit giveth life, yet the letter, rightly interpreted, is
filled with the Spirit, and conveys it to us. The cry of certain
reformers (?) that society has outgrown the Church, has little claim to
consideration, for the Church itself is a progressive institu