dishonesty or insincerity is brought or need be brought against the institutions. They are acting in perfect good faith, and this notwithstanding the Christian feeling of our time has decided to subject them all to a re-examination. The cry of the age is, "Back to Jesus.” Last week the man died who in our time first raised this cry. The author of "Ecce Homo" set out upon the enterprise of going straight through the existing Christian beliefs and institutions to find the man Jesus Christ. No book has to the same extent colored the religious thought of the modern world. It has been followed at quite a late day by others springing from the same motive. "The Programme of Jesus," "Christianity According to Christ," "Christ and His Interpreters," "The Gospel and Its Interpreters," "The Great Discourse," and a hundred other volumes might be named, all addressed to the same end. They spring out of the diffused feeling that Christ has been lost in Christianity and must be sought for anew.

Now, not a few hotly deny the premises. They regard the whole movement as an abandonment of "the faith once for all delivered to the saints." They look upon it as a modern craze which has in it much of irreverence, if not of blasphemy. The monk Ignatius rails at Dr. Gore and his associates in "Lux Mundi." Bishop McLaren advocates "Dogma as the Antidote of Doubt."

It does not much matter whether the reason assigned for the movement be valid or not; the movement itself is a fact to be taken account of.

Now, it is true that the Church has throughout its whole history been at least nominally organized around the person of Jesus. There never has been a time when it would have hesitated to assert that its purpose was to present Christ to humanity. But it is quite true, as a matter of history, that it has at certain times and places put something else before Him. For instance, the more enthusiastic Athanasians of the fourth century laid emphasis upon the doctrine of Christ, rather than on the person of Christ. A thousand years later the Knights of the Temple placed military glory before their real Master. The Society of Jesus did the like with the Papacy. Lutherans did the same thing with the doctrine of "justification by faith." The Calvinists did the same thing with a system. The Church of England did the same with its polity and liturgy. Modern times have added to all these a thousand other things, originally meant to be presentations of the Master, but which have accumulated to such an extent that the personality of Christ is thought to be concealed behind them. The current conception of the place and function of the Holy Scripture has tended to the same end. Instead of thinking of the Bible as being inspired by Christ, it has come to be generally thought of

as a book inspired from outside, whose purpose is to describe or present Him.

All these together have set the earnest-minded Christian people of our own day to the task of recovering Christ from the superincumbent mass of doctrine, poetry, polity, romance, and dogma which they believe to hide Him. It is this feeling which lies at the root of all historical criticism, all Biblical criticism, all Palestinian exploration, all the Lives of Christ.

Two questions then arise: First, is this attempt a legitimate one? Second, does it promise to be a successful one? Its legitimacy can only be established by experiment. There is no question of the fact that thousands of earnestminded followers of Christ do not find themselves at home either in the Church or the dogmas of Christ. Of course, it is open to anyone to say that this is their fault or their misfortune. It may be so; but the fact remains the same. It is probably true, also, that this search for Christ may be simply a mistaken intellectual curiosity, which would not find any great value in Christ, even if it should discover Him by this method. But no one can question that a considerable number of men and women, to whom the name Christian cannot and ought not to be denied, are waiting with more or less hopefulness for the outcome of the investigation which is now proceeding. I think their attitude is not a right one, nor, indeed, an honorable one. It would be

better for them to join the Church and assist it in its search for truth; this would be better than to stand outside waiting to take and appropriate truth which has cost them nothing.

But things are as they are. I believe myself that this cry "Back to Jesus" is legitimate. I believe, also, that it will ultimately accrue to the untold benefit of the organized Church. It is not altogether an unprecedented thing. From time to time during the Christian centuries a similar mood has seized the Christian world, and the outcome of it has always been good. I think also that the outcome of this will be good. I think it has been good already. It will issue, as it seems to me, in a truer and more vivid conception of the personality of the Master. It will give truer and more wholesome notions about God. It will result, practically, in a better feeling toward all men, and especially toward them of the household of faith. It is true that the quest of the Holy Grail has not always found. the precise thing it sought. But those who pricked forth with pure heart in such discovery have always been rewarded by finding some precious treasure.

IV.

THE USE OF PAIN.

"For we know that the whole creation groaneth, and travailetb in pain together until now: And not only tbey, but ourselves also, which bave the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”— ROMANS Viii. 22, 23.

THE Christian minister is constantly called upon to witness suffering. He has to see people in sickness, in pain, in distress. He has not the satisfaction which the physician possesses of being able to cure pain, or even to give an anodyne. The most that is within his power is to call upon certain resources within the person suffering as well as without; to recommend patience, stimulate hope, and strengthen the power of endurance. After he has done all this he usually leaves the house with a feeling of profound dissatisfaction. As he walks home he is apt to ask himself the meaning, use, and purpose of pain. He does not find the answer as readily forthcoming as is to be desired. He is not concerned with the problem of "the origin of evil." He is willing to leave that to the philosophers. But what presses upon him is that