nts of the God of heaven and earth, and
build the house that was builded these many years ago."--Ezra v.11.

This was the reply of the rebuilders of Jerusalem to certain
critical lookers-on who would fain be informed by what authority
a picturesque ruin was disturbed. It is a serviceable answer still.
There are always those to whom the activity of the Christian Church
is a standing puzzle. Religion, or at any rate revealed religion,
having, as they think, received its death-blow, the unmistakable
signs of life which, from time to time, it manifests take on almost
the character of a personal affront. They resent them. What right
have these Christians to be showing such a lively interest in their
vanquished faith? they ask. What business have they to be holding
councils, and laying plans, and acting as if they had some high and
splendid effort in hand? Are they such fools as to imagine that
they can reconstruct what has so evidently tumbled into ruin?

But the wonderful thing about this great building enterprise known
as the kingdom of God is that, from the day when the corner-stone
was laid to this day, the workmen on the walls have never seemed to
know what it meant to be discouraged. In the face of taunt and
rebuff and disappointment, they have kept on saying to their
critics: "We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and
build the house that was builded these many years ago." This is
just what the Church Council which has been holding its sessions
in Baltimore during the last three weeks has to say for itself.
Its task has been an architectural task. According to its lights,
it has been at work upon the walls of the city of God. Let me give
you, as my habit has been under similar circumstances in the past,
some account of its doings.

The General Convention of 1892 will be memorable in our ecclesiastical
annals for having closed one question of grave moment only to open
a kindred one of still larger reach. The question closed was the
question of liturgical revision; the question opened is the question
of constitutional revision. I should like to speak to you this
morning retrospectively of the one, and prospectively of the other.

It is now about twenty years since the question of modifying, to
some extent, the methods of our public worship began to be mooted.

While it was acknowledged that the need was greater in the mother
country than here, many of the repetitions and superfluities of the
English