e same
monotonous task on the morrow: his family has to be fed and clothed and
he cannot permit himself to say, "I am tired and will stay away from
work to-day." The business or professional man comes back from his
office with a wearied brain that makes any thought an effort, but he
must take up the routine to-morrow; the pressure of competitive business
does not permit him to work when and as much as he chooses. But the
Christian who is engaged in the most important work that is carried on
in this world, the work of preparing an immortal soul for an unending
future, is constantly under the temptation "to take a day off"--to let
down the standard of accomplishment till it ceases to interfere with the
business or the pleasure of life; is constantly too tired or too busy to
do this or that. In short, religion is apt to be treated in a manner
that would ensure the bankruptcy of any material occupation in life. Why
then should it not ensure spiritual bankruptcy?

Surely, to retain Jesus with us, to live in the intimacy of God, is the
most pressingly important of our duties; it is worth any sort of
expenditure of energy to accomplish it. And it cannot be accomplished
without expenditure of energy. The view of religion which conceives it
as a facile assent to certain propositions, the occasional and formal
participation in certain actions, the more or less strict observance of
certain rules of conduct, is so far from the fact that it is not worth
discussing. Religion is the realised friendship of God; it is a personal
relation of the deepest and purest sort; and, like all personal
relations, is kept alive by the mutual activities of those concerned.
The action of one party will not suffice to keep the relation in healthy
state. The love of God itself will not suffice to maintain a being in
holiness and carry him on to happiness who is himself quite indifferent
to the entire spiritual transaction--whose attitude is that of one
willing to be saved if he be not asked to take much trouble about it.
That lackadaisical attitude can never produce any result in the
spiritual order; it can only ensure the spiritual decline and death of
one who has not thought it worth while to make an effort to live.

Jesus can be found; but the finding depends upon the method of the
seeking. There are many men who claim, and quite honestly, to be in
pursuit of truth: to find the truth is the end of all their efforts. Yet
they do not succeed in findi