s were
controlling the spiritual practice, and not the practice dominating the
circumstances. The ruling ideal was that of comfort, and under the new
circumstances the spiritual ideal is lowered until it fits in with a new
possibility of comfort in the altered circumstances. It is well to
examine ourselves on these matters and to find what is the actual
ruling motive in our religious practice.

We may have assumed that we have Jesus, when all the assumption meant
was that we thought that He was somewhere about. After all, it will not
aid us very much if He is "in the company," if we go on our day's
journey without Him. It is a poor assumption to build life upon, that
Jesus exists, or that He is in the Church, or that He is the Saviour. It
is nothing to us unless He is _our_ Saviour, unless He is personally
present in us and with us. And it is not wise or safe to let this be a
matter of assumption, even though the assumption rest on a perfectly
valid experience in the past; we cannot live on history, not even on our
own history. That Jesus is with us must be verified day by day, and we
ought to go no day's journey without the certainty of His presence. We
can best do that, when the circumstances of life permit, by a daily
communion. There at the altar we meet Jesus and know that He is with us.
When the circumstances of life do not permit, (and often they do, when
we lazily think they do not) there are other modes of arriving at
spiritual certainty.

It is quite easy to lose Jesus. He does not force His companionship upon
us, but rather when we meet Him. "He makes as though he would go
farther." He offers Himself to us; He never compels us to receive Him as
a guest. And when we have in fact received Him, and asked Him to abide
with us, He does not stay any longer than we want Him. We have to
constrain Him. In other words, we lose Jesus, we lose the vitality of
our spiritual life (though we may retain the routine practice of our
religion), if we are not from day to day making it the most vital issue
of our lives. That does not necessarily mean that we are spending more
time on it than on anything else, but that we are putting it first in
the order of importance in our lives and are sacrificing, if occasion
arise, other things to it, rather than it to them. That a man loves his
wife and child does not necessarily mean that he actually spends more
time on them than he does on his business, but it does mean that they
are mo