leaving men's faith unshaken--unless the Divine process of progress is
wrong. In the stress and storm of the tossing sea, Faith may go down in
the waters. It may also die of dry rot by the old wharves. There is danger
in rash utterance, but there is at least equal danger in timid silence.
The time never comes when a reconstruction does not imperil some great
interest. None the less the reconstruction must go on. Delay in pulling
down may make building up of the old structure impossible.

As the story of past civilizations sadly shows, the gulf between the
popular superstitions and the thoughts of scholars may widen until no
bridge can span it, and religion perishes in it. It seems to me that the
time has come when the pulpit must keep no longer silence. Its silence
will not seal the lips of other teachers. Books and papers are everywhere
forcing the issue upon our generation. Men's minds are torn asunder, their
souls are in the strife. It behoves the Churches to remember that great
word of Luther:

"It is never safe to do anything against the truth!"

When the venerable cathedral, in which our forefathers sought God and
found Him, grows dangerously unsound; when its columns have crumbled and
its arches have sprung, and its stout oaken timbers have dried into dust;
the guardians of the sacred pile must plan its restoration as best they
can. They must shore up its treacherous walls, take out its dead
materials, carve new heads for the saints in the niches of the doors,
build up the edifice anew, following faithfully as may be the old lines,
and striving for the old spirit. When the scaffolding comes down, we may
feel a shock of pain at the strange raw look of that which Time had
stained with sacredness. But the minster has been saved for our children;
and, when they shall gather within its historic walls, those walls will