a sort of amused curiosity, some of us, from
what we regard as our superior point of view, at a man like Mr. Moody;
and yet Mr. Moody is one man out of a million for his consistency and
consecration to the thought which underlies all the Protestant churches
of the modern world, with the exception of a few here and there. Mr.
Moody believes that this life is a probation ended by death. There are
thousands on thousand on thousands of men who say they believe it, who
still cast in all their influence with churches that are based on it,
and who yet devote their energies mainly to making money, to attaining
social success, to pleasures of one kind or another, to political
ambitions, who live as though this great fate were not overhanging the
world, who meet their neighbors for pleasure or business, believing, if
they are sincere, that this neighbor is heedlessly walking on to the
brink of a gulf, and yet never speaking to him about it, never saying a
word to imply that they really believe it; and yet this fear hangs over
them, haunts their consciousness waking or sleeping; and, if you ask
them if they believe it, they will say they suppose they do. In hours
of danger, when disease threatens them or they are looking death in the
face, they are affrighted, and try to flee to the traditional refuge as
a place of safety.

The whole great Catholic Church teaches that nobody has the slightest
chance of being saved except by becoming a member of her great body of
believers and partaking of her sacramental means of grace.

This, I say then, is the great underlying belief of Christendom; and,
if it is true, the world ought to consecrate itself, head and brain and
soul, time, money, power, prayer, enthusiasm, everything, to delivering
men from the imminent danger. If it is not true, then it ought to be
brushed completely one side, put out of consciousness, of thought, of
fear. The world ought to be dispossessed of its haunting presence. Why?
So that we may fix our attention on the true end and aim of life, and
find out what it means to live, how we ought to live, and why and what
for, what ought to be the goal of our human endeavor.

So long, then, as this belief does lie at the foundation of all the
great churches of Christendom, so long as it is employed in all the
criticisms of us who do not any longer accept it, it seems to me that
it is worth our while to reconsider the question for a little while, so
that we may clear our min