A change of similar character, but even more rapid in its operation, is taking place in our thoughts of religion. It is coming about rather by the opening of the eyes than by any special process of reasoning or by any definite challenging of old methods. We are becoming not a little wearied of the tyranny of organization. We are afflicted by "drives" of all sorts; by vast conceptions of "the world for Christ in this generation," while the streams of Christian thought are all the while running shallower and more shallow, with less and less power to drive anything. In the States, as in Canada, there have been great campaigns for funds which also tried to be campaigns for spiritual results. It has been discovered to be an easier thing to raise money than to quicken the spirit. Life remains as materialistic and as worldly as before, and the temperature is dropping as with the coming of an east wind on the Maine coast. Theologically in both countries we are still inclined to fight for a former condition of things which, as a matter of fact, has ceased to have power. It is our burden, as it is our glory, to stand in difficult days. We shall all the sooner come to grips with the real issue if we understand that it is our business to set forth the undying Christ as we know him, and not to resuscitate, if that were possible, the forms and phrases and intellectualisms of an age that is gone. Back to Christ is the necessity--not the Christ of the Creeds compounded with the technical terms of Greek philosophy or the juristic outlook of Roman law, but the Christ of the Gospels. Any religious awakening which is going to move the common weal will begin in a revival of personal religion. Public morals are what personal religion makes them. The power-house is more vital than the transmission-plant. Wherever one looks it is to find that great public movements have had their origin in the hearts of consecrated men and women. Religion does not suffer by changing its form; it will founder if it be not ever related afresh to Jesus.
It may be taken for granted that an inquiring age like this will never submit itself to an intellectual position which presents itself merely on the ground of authority. The Reformation won the right to think, and in this we shall not be less than our fathers. Whatever we believe must be in harmony with our reason and our experience. This does not mean that those who exercise this right to think are become rationalists. We know ourselves everywhere to be surrounded by the evidences of a divine purpose: for us the things which are not seen are eternal. We find in the history of to-day--in the history of those past seven tangled and tragic years--clear manifestations of the hand of God. But we believe that in the interpretation of Jesus personal experience must always have a major part. Our faith must be something not merely personal to ourselves but of which we can give some sort of account to others. Christ spoke no more incisive word than this: "Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?"