without the idea flying into your face,
"Christ died for our sins."

How different all this is from the atmosphere of the modern Church.
When you go into the average church to-day, what great idea meets you?
Do you find yourselves face to face with the fact that Christ died
for our sins? I do not think you will often hear that great truth
preached. In all probability you will hear a sermon dealing with the
domestic graces, or with business obligations, or with political
duties and complications. You may hear a sermon on city missions, or
on foreign missions; you may hear a man dealing with some great evil,
or pointing out some alarming danger, or discussing some interesting
social problem, or urging upon men's consciences the performance of
some duty. It is not often in these modern days that you will hear
a sermon dealing with the thought that set the apostles blazing and
turned the world upside down. And right there, I think, lies one of
the causes of the weaknesses of the modern Church. We have been so
busy attending to the things that ought to be done, we have had no
time to feed the springs that keep alive these mighty hopes which make
us Christian men. What is the secret of the strength of the Roman
Catholic Church? How is it that she pursues her conquering way, in
spite of stupidities and blunders that would have killed any other
institution? I know the explanations that are usually offered, but it
seems to me they are far from adequate. Somebody says, But the Roman
Catholic Church does not hold any but the ignorant. That is not true.
It may be true of certain localities in America, but it is not true of
the nations across the sea. In Europe she holds entire nations in the
hollow of her hand; not only the ignorant, but the learned; not only
the low, but the high; not only the rude, but the cultured, the noble,
and the mighty. It will not do to say that the Roman Catholic Church
holds nobody but the ignorant. But even if it were true, it would
still be interesting to ascertain how she exercises such an influence
over the minds and hearts of ignorant people--for ignorant people are
the hardest of all to hold. When you say that the Church can hold
ignorant men, you are giving her the very highest compliment, for
you are acknowledging that she is in the possession of a power which
demands an explanation. The very fact that she is able to bring out
such hosts of wage-earning men and women in the early hours of Sunday