every-day life has bewildered and discouraged all of us. Christianity
possesses the noblest words in the language; its literature overflows
with terms expressive of the greatest and happiest moods which can
fill the soul of man. Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith, Love, Light--these
words occur with such persistency in hymns and prayers that an
observer might think they formed the staple of Christian experience.
But on coming to close quarters with the actual life of most of us,
how surely would he be disenchanted. I do not think we ourselves are
aware how much our religious life is

MADE UP OF PHRASES;

how much of what we call Christian Experience is only a dialect of the
Churches, a mere religious phraseology with almost nothing behind it
in what we really feel and know.

To some of us, indeed, the Christian experiences seem further away
than when we took the first steps in the Christian life. That life has
not opened out as we had hoped. We do not regret our religion, but we
are disappointed with it. There are times, perhaps, when wandering
notes from a diviner music stray into our spirits; but these
experiences come at few and fitful moments. We have no sense of
possession in them. When they visit us, it is a surprise. When they
leave us, it is without explanation. When we wish their return, we do
not know how to secure it.

All which means a religion without solid base, and a poor and
flickering life. It means a great bankruptcy in those experiences
which give Christianity its personal solace and make it attractive to
the world, and a great uncertainty as to any remedy. It is as if we