INTRODUCTION IT is not difficult to believe that all religious and social reformers are actuated by motives of benevolence-love for God and man, and a desire to bring to pass the best conditions for the greatest number of their fellow-creatures. We may believe that humanity progresses, though slowly, towards perfection. In the present, as in the past, there must arise problems in religion and the conditions of life which require to be solved for the spiritual and material welfare of mankind, and in the satisfactory solution of these problems it becomes necessary to discard whatever has served its purpose. Of one thing we may rest assured: mankind, in outgrowing superstition and error, will never outgrow the need of God and true religion. All who love the Church of God on earth long to see her truly the House of God, the very gate of heaven for all mankind. But when we remember that it was said by the Bishop of Thetford at the Church Congress that there were thirty millions of our people who went to no place of worship whatever, it becomes a serious question whether God's message of love to man is being adequately delivered in this Christian land. Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship at His footstool, for He is holy' (Ps. xcix. 5). WHAT IS TRUTH? 'LORD of all life, below, above, Whose Light is Truth, Whose warmth is Love, Before Thy ever-blazing Throne We ask no lustre of our own.' OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 'Think truly, and thy thoughts shall the world's famine feed; Speak truly, and each word of thine shall prove a fruitful seed; Live truly, and thy life shall be a great and noble creed.' 'The grand morality is love of God.' H. BONAR. YOUNG. |