prove that Christ's way of dealing with life is the best way, and so
to create a genuinely Christian spirit, which, when any choice of
conduct is presented to us, will prompt us to ask first of all, HOW
WOULD CHRIST HAVE IT? or, when men and things pass before us, will
decide through him what we have to say about them. M'Kay added that
he hoped his efforts would not be confined to talking. He trusted to
be able, by means of this little meeting, gradually to gain
admittance for himself and his friends into the houses of the poor
and do some practical good. At present he had no organisation and no
plans. He did not believe in organisation and plans preceding a
clear conception of what was to be accomplished. Such, as nearly as
I can now recollect, is an outline of his discourse. It was
thoroughly characteristic of him. He always talked in this fashion.
He was for ever insisting on the aimlessness of modern life, on the
powerlessness of its vague activities to mould men into anything
good, to restrain them from evil or moderate their passions, and he
was possessed by a vision of a new Christianity which was to take the
place of the old and dead theologies. I have reported him in my own
language. He strove as much as he could to make his meaning plain to
everybody. Just before he finished, three or four out of the half-a-
dozen outsiders who were present whistled with all their might and
ran down the stairs shouting to one another. As we went out they had
collected about the door, and amused themselves by pushing one
another against us, and kicking an old kettle behind us and amongst
us all the way up the street, so that we were covered with splashes.
Mrs. M'Kay went with us, and when we reached home, she tried to say
something about what she had heard. The cloud came over her
husband's face at once; he remained silent for a minute, and getting
up and going to the window, observed that it ought to be cleaned, and
that he could hardly see the opposite house. The poor woman looked