the doorway; he goes in, and is at home and at peace.

If we reject the doctrine of the Trinity, and do not accept God as a mysterious triad, let us not, therefore, stand hesitating in the doorway of thought concerning God, but endeavor to enter in and learn more of him. We may see more of God in the faith of reason and in the light of advancing science than our fathers did; more and not less. We may know God as the ever-present power, pervading all time and space, filling the vast regions which astronomy has disclosed, the enormous periods of time which geology reveals. Yet we may find him no less present as a father, as a guiding providence, as protector and friend. We may still say, “Our Father who art in heaven." We may say, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." Let us not stand in the doorway of this majestic temple where God abides, but go in and live in that Divine Presence, and be blest.

Nor let us stand in the doorway of Christianity, hesitating whether to go in, because perhaps we have not made up our mind about miracles, or about the supernatural, or about inspiration. Do we gain peace and comfort in the words of Jesus? Is he the best teacher we can find; that the world has found? When we go to him in trouble do our souls find rest? When we are conscious of sin does he reveal to us the pardoning love of God? Has he put that spirit in our heart by which we say “Our

Father"? Christians are not what they ought to be. Granted. But has Christianity helped to break the chains of the slave? Has it brought light to the ignorant? Has it been on the side of education and progress? Has it built hospitals for the blind, the insane, the deaf and dumb? If we wish to do any good to our fellow-men, do we not appeal to Christ's teachings and promises? Then Christianity is what we need; and let us not hesitate, but go in and find. food and rest and comfort.

We do not believe all that our fathers did concerning Jesus Christ. He may no longer be to us the mysterious God-man, infinite and finite at once, second person in the Trinity, eternally born from the Father. These statements are passing away; they live no longer in the faith of reason. Jesus is now the Son of God because he had the spirit of a son, and because to him God was always father. He is our dear human brother, our best teacher, our noblest friend, who lifts our thoughts from earth to heaven, from time to eternity. We have more faith in him, not less, when we thus believe, for we see more clearly all that he was and is. Only let us not stand hesitating in regard to this faith, but believe fully and earnestly all we can. Let us not stand half way in and half way out of Christianity, but gladly enter into whatever peace and strength the gospel can give to us.

And so in regard to immortality and the future life our belief has changed from that of former

days. We do not now suppose the future world to consist of a heaven of perfect bliss on one side and a hell of infinite torture on the other. We believe in progress hereafter as here; many mansions there as here, many heavens and many hells, and an infinite variety of circumstances and conditions. Therefore, we need not believe less in a future life, but more, because it is now seen to be rational and natural, a continuation of the present, with the same divine laws in both. Believing thus in immortality, let us not believe hesitatingly, but with all our mind and strength. Let us dwell in heavenly places; let immortality begin now; let us have eternal life abiding in us.

Instead of hesitating to believe any truth because we cannot believe everything, let us believe all we can; see all we can; pass through the door into the temple of knowledge and dwell therein.

Standing in the doorway of action without going in is also a disease and danger. To be practically undecided weakens the character. In fact, strength of character consists largely in the power of decision. "Be sure you are right, and then go ahead," was the saying of the backwoodsman of Texas; and in this he agreed with the Apostle James, who said, "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." "He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the winds and tossed." To be able to decide, and then put forth all one's powers without further hesitation, --this makes the man of

action. We had several generals in our war who could never make up their minds, and this indecision cost the lives of many brave men.

Indecision in morals is dangerous. To stand in the doorway of a good action and refuse to go in injures the moral character. When we have made up our mind that we ought to do anything, to hesitate about doing it makes us worse. Indecision here

is immorality.

Many people do not like to commit themselves. But to commit one's self to what is right is to take a great step forward. Then right doing becomes. easy, which before was difficult. These are the steps upward in life. Many people refuse to join a church, or to join a temperance society, because they do not like to promise what they may not be able to perform. But to commit themselves will often help them to perform what they undertake to do. When we unite with those who are wishing to do good things, we find ourselves in a current which carries us forward in the right direction.

I know very well that we may be sometimes entrapped unwisely by such pledges. People may be persuaded to join churches where they do not feel at home, where they have no common convictions, no real sympathy, and from which it may take them a long time to become free. So political conventions sometimes let themselves be entrapped into a pledge to vote for the nominee, whoever he may be. This they have no right to do. He may

be a man unfit for the office. They have no right to promise beforehand to vote for him. They thus renounce their own right of private judgment and freedom of conscience. No one has any right to abdicate his conscience or give up his freedom of opinion. When we join a church or a society for any moral purpose, it should be distinctly understood that we have a right to leave it again if our convictions of duty change.

But, with these restrictions, it is a great help to commit one's self to what one considers good and right. Suppose Paul had hesitated about becoming a Christian after he had seen the celestial vision, how much would have been lost! He would have remained a Pharisee, but a doubting Pharisee, having lost his old faith and not having found a new one. But he committed himself. He went forward through the doorway into the Church. He became a disciple, then an apostle of Christianity. He became, as he says, "A new creature; old things are passed away, all things are become new." Paul might have said, "I will go back to Jerusalem, I will think about it a while longer. The time has not come for Christianity to succeed. Let us temporize; let us wait for a few years, and the Sanhedrim will come round." But he did not stand hesitating in the doorway. He went in, and committed himself absolutely to the new faith, and so became a new creature, the great apostle of a worldwide and universal religion, the prophet of another