tle guidance, enough to make one's heart ache at the thought of so
much doubt and desolation looming cloud-like over the troubled minds of
many who would otherwise lead not only happy but noble and useful
lives. When will the preachers learn to preach Christ simply--Christ
without human dogmas or differences? When shall we be able to enter a
building set apart for sacred worship--a building of finest
architectural beauty, "glorious without and within," like the "King's
Daughter" of David's psalm--glorious with, light, music, flowers, and
art of the noblest kind (for Art is God's own inspiration to men, and
through it He should be served), there to hear the pure, unselfish
doctrine of Christ as He Himself preached it? For such a temple, the
time has surely come--a nook sacred to God, and untainted by the breath
of Mammon, where we could adore our Creator "in spirit and in truth."
The evils of nineteenth-century cynicism and general flippancy of
thought--great evils as they are and sure prognostications of worse
evils to come--cannot altogether crush out the Divine flame burning in
the "few" that are "chosen," though these few are counted as fools and
dreamers. Yet they shall be proved wise and watchful ere long. The
signs of the times are those that indicate an approaching great
upheaval and change in human destinies. This planet we call ours is in
some respects like ourselves: it was born; it has had its infancy, its
youth, its full prime; and now its age has set in, and with age the
first beginnings of decay. Absorbed once more into the Creative Circle
IT MUST BE; and when again thrown forth among its companion-stars, our
race will no more inhabit it. We shall have had our day--our little
chance--we shall have lost or won. Christ said, "This generation shall
not pass away till all My words be fulfilled," the word "generation"
thus used meaning simply the human race. We put a very narrow limit to
the significance of the Saviour's utterance when we imagine that the
generation He alluded to implied merely the people living in His own
day. In the depths of His Divine wisdom He was acquainted with all the
secrets of the Past and Future; He had no doubt seen this very world
peopled by widely different beings to ourselves, and knew that what we
call the human race is only a passing tribe permitted for a time to
sojourn here. What a strangely presumptuous idea is that which pervades
the minds of the majority of persons--namely,