lasting life." To hear the truth attentively and
understandingly is to drink it in, as we drink water when we are
thirsty.

What I have said, however important it may be to know, does not cover
the entire ground comprehended in the text. I must show you another
element which must exist in the _manner_ of all right hearing. That
element is _discrimination_. Without this, how is the hearer to know
whether the truth or its opposite is being preached? The comparison
may lack adaptability in some of its points, but I have heard it said
that some hearers are like young birds in their nest, ready to swallow
down anything put into their mouths. Such as hear in this way lack
_discrimination_; that is, they do not discern the difference between
what is true and what is false. This is particularly the case with
such as have been trained to regard what their own denominational
ministers preach as being the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth. I am aware that some may just now be saying in their minds:
"You Dunkard people are the very ones to whom your words most justly
apply; for I know of no people who take so great pains to instil this
very belief into the minds of the young as you do." I can truthfully
say that such charges are not strange to me. But with all due respect
for such as differ from us in religious faith and practice, I do say
that we, as a denomination of Christian brethren, acknowledging no
teacher but Christ, no authority but his Word, have no will, wish or
desire to lead the truth and thus pervert, ignore or misapply any part
of it; but our will, wish and desire is to be led by the truth. And I
do not in my heart believe there is one member of our Brotherhood who
would desire to instill into the mind of his or her child any belief
or practice not sustained by a plain "_thus saith the Lord_." In this
very way the power of _discrimination_ is developed in the minds of
our young people, so that when they hear or read they do not question
whether this or that that they hear or read has for its authority the
Methodist Discipline, the Episcopal Prayer Book, or Lutheran
Catechism; but they at once perceive that it either has or has not the
sanction of God's Word. We are taught that in a spiritual sense no one
is to be called rabbi. "Be not ye called rabbi; for One is your
teacher, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father on the
earth; for one is your Father in heaven." How the mind might expati