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 points to 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 knew
everything about health--except the way to get it.

I am quite sure that the difficulty does not lie in the fact that
men are not in earnest. This is simply not the fact. All around us
Christians are wearing themselves out in trying to be better. The amount
of spiritual longing in the world--in the hearts of unnumbered thousands
of men and women in whom we should never suspect it; among the wise and
thoughtful; among the young and gay, who seldom assuage and never betray
their thirst--this is one of the most wonderful and touching facts of
life. It is not more heat that is needed, but more light; not more
force, but a wiser direction to be given to very real energies already
there.

The Address which follows is offered as a humble contribution to this