and Calvary are being thrust upon our attention by the upward
strugglings of the people. They, at any rate, have not forgotten the
forsaken Man in the night of awful silence in the garden, nor His
exceeding bitter agony, nor the perfect ending that made His death His
victory. The wastes of eccentricity, whether orthodox or heterodox,
and the over curious speculations of theologies remote from the
habitations of men, have had little influence upon the multitudes
we seek to serve. And if I had to choose a sphere where one could
rediscover the central forces of Christian life and of Christian
practise, I would lean toward the enlightened democracies which to-day
are vibrant with the plea that the shepherdless multitudes shall have
social ameliorations and new incentives and selfless leaders.

We are all very jealous for the honor and success of the propagandism
we sustain at home and abroad, and I hold that its honor and success
alike depend upon the priesthood and redemptive efficacies of Jesus.
These sovereign forces are correlated with His victories for the
twenty past centuries, and they constitute the distinctive genius of
the faith.

We shall gain nothing for the rule or for the ethics of Jesus by
derogating that peculiar office of the divine Victim which is, to
me, at any rate, the most sublime reason for the Incarnation and the
ineffable height and depth and mystery of all love and all strength
blessedly operative in every ruined condition by means of sacrifice.
The missionary fields confessedly can not be conquered by the unaided
teacher; he must have more than a system of truth, more than a
program, more than a reasoned discourse. Their vast inert mass demands
vitalization; and the life which is given for the life of men, the
divinest gift of all, is alone sufficient for this regeneration.