nothing, and to hang self-balanced on its own centre; after much
puffing, however, the world which they produce is apt to turn out
but a well-sized bubble. Men of another order labor but to provide
for some practical need; and their work, humble, perhaps
occasional, in its design, is found to contain the elements that
make human toils indestructible."

It was fortunate for all who were to come after them that those
men of whom I speak were no dreamers or _doctrinaires_, and
rode no "half-saddled hobbies" of their own construction. They did
not undertake to formulate a creed adapted to the wants of the
American mind and the demands of the eighteenth century; they had
that which was for every mind and all time, in the One "Faith once
delivered to the Saints." They did not attempt to compose a
Liturgy or Forms for Sacred Rites and Services; these they also
had, capable (doubtless) of adaptation and change "according to
the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners," but still
complete for all purposes of worship or ministration, being,
indeed, the growth of all the Christian ages. They did not set
themselves to create a new Church, or even to reason out just what
might possibly be dispensed with here or omitted there because of
"the present distress"; all they had to do, in that little
secluded room where they were assembled, was to provide what was
lacking in that organization which they had received; even as in
that secluded "upper room" in Jerusalem where the eleven were
assembled with the disciples, the vacant place in the Apostolate
was filled up in anticipation of the mighty Pentecostal gift. And
because they were humble enough, and therefore wise enough, to do
just what they did, they "builded better than they knew"; builded
on that only foundation that can be laid, even Jesus Christ;