secret lies behind it, some occult experience which only the
initiated know. Thousands of persons go to church every Sunday
hoping to solve this mystery. At meeting, at conferences, many
a time they have reached what they thought was the very brink of
it, but somehow no further revelation came. Poring over religious
books, how often were they not within a paragraph of it; the next
page, the next sentence, would discover all, and they would be
borne on a flowing tide forever. But nothing happened. The next
sentence and the next page were read, and still it eluded them;
and though the promise of its coming kept faithfully up to the end,
the last chapter found them still pursuing.

Why did nothing happen? Because there was nothing to happen--nothing
of the kind they were looking for. Why did it elude them? Because
there was no "it." When shall we learn that the pursuit of holiness
is simply

The pursuit of Christ?

When shall we substitute for the "it" of a fictitious aspiration,
the approach to a Living Friend? Sanctity is in character and not
in moods; Divinity in our own plain calm humanity, and in no mystic
rapture of the soul.

And yet there are others who, for exactly a contrary reason,
will find scant satisfaction here. Their complaint is not that a
religion expressed in terms of Friendship is too homely, but that
it is still too mystical. To "abide" in Christ, to "make Christ
our most constant companion," is to them the purest mysticism. They
want something absolutely tangible and absolutely direct. These