mental approach to God. As this tendency has played so large a part in the conversion of denominationalists so it may have a part in the reunion of Christendom.

We have already touched upon the Historic Episcopate and have noted its weight in turning men to the Church. The practical working out of that policy did not receive so much favorable mention. One spoke of it as a deterrent to religious Bolshevism. Another was surprised to discover that the Church is more democratic than the denomination from which he came. It is safe to make the assertion that many elements in the practical workings of the Church are not widely or strongly attractive to those without but might be so were Episcopal polity carried out consistently.

Three other minor considerations emerged in the study of this subject. While these are not of first importance still they operate strongly in individual cases.

Trifling Moral Distinctions. In sectarian meetings one hears much of dancing, card playing, theatre attendance, and the use of tobacco. Especially at revival time there is much declaiming on these subjects. One denomination requires its ministers to sign two obligations before ordination. One of these is that he will not use tobacco. Still some of these same ministers do not scruple to disregard the plain words of our Saviour in regard to marriage of divorced persons. It is easy and perhaps proper to become disgusted with these petty regulations and look with longing to a Church which places the emphasis upon the weightier matters of the law. It does not lessen the disgust to discover that these rules do not serve any good purpose. One priest writes, "I got tired of the continual tirade against smoking, card playing, dancing and theatre going, as if Christian citizenship and achievement consisted simply of

not doing these things." These rules can be accounted for by the fact that denominationalism is strongly influenced by Gnostic Dualism.

Early Training. About one in four of those interviewed had had some experience in the Church or in the Church of England in earlier years. We have been thinking of our gains. This emphasizes the fact that we are also having serious losses. While early training operates to reclaim many we should not delude ourselves by thinking that it always does so.

Natural-born Churchmen. Some extracts from a note written by a priest covers this point completely. "I was born in the M. E. Church but early in life I found I was a child of the M. E. Church in name only. I went through my academic and theological training not knowing I had a real spiritual home. Through a clergyman of the Church when I had been a Methodist minister for two years I became interested in the teachings of the Eipscopal Church. There were no doubts, no questions. Some Church people are born, not made. I have found since becoming a clergyman of the Church that like myself there are a great many born Church people in the denominations."

These are some of the ways the Church attracts. And it is certain that if the Church were presented properly many more would come in. A short time ago while preparing a Roman Catholic for reception into the Church, he exclaimed, "Why, I never knew that there was such a Church that could give me Catholicism without the Romanism." He was asked, "What would Roman Catholics in general do if they understood the matter?" He answered, "They would come in droves." Our presentation of the truth must be consistent and positive. Either this is true or it is false.

Either the system is dependable for the salvation of souls or it is not dependable. If it appears to us in any wise false or not dependable let us be manly enough to renounce our ministry and quit. If it be true and dependable let us present it positively, unreservedly, and confidently.

The Perennial Heresy of Opportunism

TH

BY MARLINSPIKE.

HERE seem to be extraordinarily few people who do not concur in the modern idea that the world has made great "progress" since what is vaguely and darkly referred to as the Middle Ages. Such a theory, in all its fullness, can be held by a materialist only, for while there are unquestioned and unquestionable advances in many ways, the greatest advance is in the direction of strikingly material things,-matters of comfort and convenience and (like the telephone) of ultimate annoyance. The spirit is hemmed in by the complexity of the world in which it lives, a world so completely and engrossingly pleased with itself (in spite of grumblers) that escape from its insidious materialism is almost impossible. It is a phase of parlor-car civilization,-upholstered, expensive, intolerably stuffy. The largeness of spirit which made men great sinners and great saints is gone; true, there are compensations, but they are compensations toward the meaner side of man's nature, the side which will compromise or even sacrifice principle for the sake of peace and quiet; the side which measures effort by material success. Now all this is a truism and has been stated with infinite skill by Mr. Ches

terton ("Heretics," Chapter I, "The Negative Spirit.") and many others. But a slight comprehension of the theory that progress, so called, is a succession of phases,-some good, some bad,-is essential to an understanding of the fact that the world, and the Church, seem in a state of perpetual crisis. I believe that if one questioned the average person of one's acquaintance, one would elicit a general conception that the eighteenth century was better than the fourteenth, simply because the world had "progressed" four hundred years. As well say that one should prefer a pimply young blackguard of seventeen to a healthy effervescent young animal of thirteen simply because seventeen was older than thirteen, and in four years the lad had learned to smoke, to swear, or to lie in bed of a Sunday! As well say that the eighteenth amendment to the constitution is better than the fourteenth because it is newer, or because fourteen from eighteen leaves four, or for any other inconsequent reason. Each phase of history should be considered, not by its position on the world's calendar, but by its effort to secure the coming of the kingdom of God on earth. Surely the most elementary conception of God as an infinite Being removes any idea of the importance of the time when an event occurs. If one imagines God as the center of a circle the circumference of which is time, the matter is perfectly clear. Every point on that circumference is equally near the center (which is God), so what possible difference can it make if we label this sector the twentieth century and another the twelfth century? But it does make a difference if we think that merely because we are number twenty, we are superior to number twelve. There may be reasons why we are superior to this or that age, but they are not reasons of mere mathematics.

All this brings us back to the assertion that we have lost a certain largeness of spirit in this day and generation. Our Lord's parable of the house ("swept and garnished") has always made a vivid appeal to the imagination. If one pictures the soul as a room, what kind of a room would one prefer to have? A vast, noble Gothic hall, with space for the assemblies of knights and knightly ideas, where high revels or solemn rites may be held? Even filled with robber barons, such a hall commands respect and reluctant admiration. But isn't the modern room rather more like the back parlor of a delicatessen shop,-full of easy chairs and stuffed furniture and bric-a-brac and what-nots? When a really robust idea, like a healthy child, gets loose in such a room, he smashes some cherished (if valueless) heirloom and we thrust him out into the yard, and go back to frowst in our cosy little study.

Granted that the age is not entirely ignoble; that there have been petty, mean-spirited men in all ages; that smallness of view in matters of the spirit and keenness of eye in matters of the pocketbook have appeared before in the history of the world and of the Church: does not even a superficial view of the last nineteen centuries support the claim that no one century is superior to another merely because of its advanced position on the calendar? If we accept this premise, we can understand that this state of perpetual crisis is the effort of each phase to justify itself. Where crises are composed of the clash of human wills, the cowardly and the reckless, the procrastinating and the fearless, the guileful and the wise, evolve in some sort of mixture the resulting facts. Nowadays there is a tendency to consider the broadly tolerant, the weakly easy-going, and the ignorantly kind, as models of wisdom and discretion. The zealous, the