statements are metaphors and have undercut, transposed, and inverted the most vital points of the vulgarly accepted beliefs.  One may find within the Anglican communion, Arians, Unitarians, Atheists, disbelievers in immortality, attenuators of miracles; there is scarcely a doubt or a cavil that has not found a lodgment within the ample charity of the English Establishment.  I have been interested to hear one distinguished Canon deplore that “they” did not identify the Logos with the third instead of the second Person of the Trinity, and another distinguished Catholic apologist declare his indifference to the “historical Jesus.”  Within most of the Christian communions one may believe anything or nothing, provided only that one does not call too public an attention to one’s eccentricity.  The late Rev. Charles Voysey, for example, preached plainly in his church at Healaugh against the divinity of Christ, unhindered.  It was only when he published his sermons under the provocative title of “The Sling and the Stone,” and caused an outcry beyond the limits of his congregation, that he was indicted and deprived.

Now the reasons why these men do not leave the ministry or priesthood in which they find themselves are often very plausible.  It is probable that in very few cases is the retention of stipend or incumbency a conscious dishonesty.  At the worst it is mitigated by thought for wife or child.  It has only been during very exceptional phases of religious development and controversy that beliefs have been really sharp.  A creed, like a coin, it may be argued, loses little in practical value because it is worn, or bears the image of a vanished king.  The religious life is a reality that has clothed itself in many garments, and the concern of the priest or minister is with the religious life and not with the poor symbols that may indeed pretend to express, but do as a matter of fact no more than indicate, its direction.  It is quite possible to maintain that the church and not the creed is the real and valuable instrument of religion, that the religious life is sustained not by its propositions but by its routines.  Anyone who seeks the intimate discussion of spiritual things with professional divines, will find this is the substance of the case for the ecclesiastical sceptic.  His church, he will admit, mumbles its statement of truth, but where else is truth?  What better formulae are to be found for ineffable things?  And meanwhile—­he does good.

That may be a valid defence before a man finds God.  But we who profess the worship and fellowship of the living God deny that religion is a matter of ineffable things.  The way of God is plain and simple and easy to understand.