remains a chance--and the Church dare not risk
too great a chance--that he is mistaken, impious, presumptuous, or
self-deceived. We dare not rush to a new doctrine or spiritual
conception, merely because one man, who knows more of a certain kind of
learning than we do, has said so. One must be bolstered up by a
generation of convinced and believing men, before he can draw a Church
after him. No other process is intellectually legitimate. In any other
event ecclesiastical anarchy would reign. To maintain the historic
position of the Church is a necessity, until that position is proven
untrue. So to maintain it is not bigotry, it is not lack of charity; it
is merely common-sense.

The question, Where is the line between ecclesiastical integrity and
individual freedom? is therefore one which the common-sense of
Christendom is left to solve--not to-day, not to-morrow, but gradually,
generously, and conscientiously, as the centuries go on.

THIRD: OBSTACLES AND OPPORTUNITY

It is said that a minister is greatly handicapped to-day in all his
efforts for two reasons: First, that the times are spiritually
lethargic, that men are so engrossed by material aims, indifference, or
sin that a pastor can get no hold upon their hearts. Second, that he is
bound hand and foot by conditions existing in the organization and
personnel of his church, and hence is not free to act.

What would we think of an electrician who would complain that a storm
had cast down his network of wires? Of a civil engineer who would lament
that the mountain over which he was asked to project a road was steep?
Of a doctor who would grieve that hosts of people about him were very
ill? Of a statesman who would cry out that horrid folks opposed him? It
is the work of the specialist to meet emergencies, and it is his
professional pride to triumph over difficult conditions. The harder his
task, the more he exults in his power of success.

It is a glorious task that lies before the minister of to-day--to
maintain, develop, and uplift the spiritual life of the most wonderful
epoch of the world's history; to place upon human souls that vital
touch that shall hold their powers subject to eternal influences and
aims. The times are not wholly unfavorable: our era, which spurns many
ecclesiastical forms, is at heart essentially religious. _The World for
Christ!_ How this war-cry of the spirit thrills anew as one realizes how
much more there is to win to-day than ev